A New York Romance (10 page)

“Goodnight, Juliet,” he whispered to himself as he remained seated and stared out the window at the moon. He tried to think of the man he embarrassed outside of Juliano’s again. He wished that the man find all the happiness he could endure, that he be safe, healthy, and most of all, that he would find true love. But his thoughts kept drifting back to Julie.

Julie also thought of him. But she felt herself drifting away. It wasn’t even right that she was sharing a room with him. She didn’t even know him that well and didn’t plan on getting closer. He didn’t seem to want her anyway. What would her father think? Surely he would like Charlie, despite the fact that he believed he was Cupid, but to stay with him in a hotel? It was just unladylike to say the least.

“Good morning, Charlie,” Julie said, already showered and dressed. Her voice was more somber than most mornings.

“Good morning, Juliet,” he replied as he rose out of bed like a vampire from its tomb.

“What are you doing today?”

Charlie was quite aware that she did not ask ‘What are
we
doing today?’ He remained silent, then stood up. “First I am going to shower.” He noticed all her things were packed. He hoped she was going to be there when he was finished with his shower, but he took a long look at her just in case. He would let her go with the ease at which he let her stay, even though it was not what he wanted.

As he showered, Julie paced the floor. Charlie made it easy on her. Her bags were packed. She could slip out the door and let their relationship drift into memory. But she did not like that when the ‘bad boys’ did it to her. She could not leave without at least saying goodbye…for Charlie’s sake, or was it for her own, even though it was the harder thing to do?

He stepped out of the shower, dressed for the day, and stepped out of the bathroom. He saw the beautiful dress he bought her lying on the bed with the shoes. “I should go, Charlie. I have to get back home. I just wanted to get a feel for the city, to see if I might want to live here. Do you mind if I keep the necklace to remind me of you?”

He simply nodded in silent agreement. She hugged him, kissed him on the cheek, and grabbed her bags.

“You’re a wonderful person, but how long can we keep this going?”

Charlie knew what she meant and he knew it was a question she did not expect an answer to. He said nothing as she walked out of the motel room.

He took his seat at the window and stared out, wishing love for every creature in the world. He thought about the bugs, the chubby man, the young couples drawn together out of passion, and the coffee shop couple who inspired him to travel to New York in the first place. He felt love for them all.

But of all the people he met, he thought mostly of Julie, as if he could not stop thinking of her, even if he didn’t want to. He remembered the way she laid her head upon his shoulder and the way her hair tickled his arm. He remembered her laughter and smiled. He wished her love as he tried to put his human feelings aside.

Suddenly he realized he was very hungry. He slid into his corduroy jacket and put on his shoes. By 10:30 AM he found himself sitting in a small pizza shop, eating a slice of thick crust with mushrooms on top. After devouring one slice his hunger did not seem to budge. He ate another, but still felt hungry. Then he ate another until an entire pizza was nearly gone.

His stomach was bulging but he still felt hungry and ordered another slice.

“Hey Buddy, don’t you think you had enough?” the cook/owner/register attendant said with a curious irritation.

“I’m still hungry,” Charlie said as he held his stomach. Then suddenly he raced to the bathroom where he tossed up at least four of the seven slices he ate. When he emerged he sat down at his table.

“Are you alright?” the waitress asked.

“I’m still hungry,” he said. “I ate till I threw up but I’m still hungry.”

“I think you had enough,” the cook/owner/register attendant shouted across the room. He had filled the bucket full with hot soapy water and grabbed the mop, adding janitor on his list of positions. “You’re shut off. I got a bathroom to clean.”

“What’s wrong, dear?” the waitress asked him.

Charlie began to tell her how he suddenly became hungry after Julie left and no matter how much he ate, the feeling would not go away.

After she listened to his story, the waitress sat back and folded her arms. He seemed clueless about what he was feeling. She leaned forward and placed her hand on his arm, “Those are not hunger pains you’re feeling.”

Charlie looked curiously at her then at his stomach, as if it was a defect in this human body.

“You’re in love,” the waitress declared.

Charlie glanced up at the waitress, as if in shock at her words.

“In LOVE?!” Charlie replied in disbelief. “This is what love feels like?” he glanced back at his stomach. “Why would anybody want it?”

He stood up feeling the empty pain in his stomach. It wasn’t hunger. It was as if the space Julie once occupied in his life was now vacant and the warmth of her presence was replaced by a cold longing and it all manifested into the physical world as an empty feeling in his stomach.

“You should tell this Juliet how you feel,” the waitress said as he walked toward the door. He turned away so fixed on his pain that he neglected to wish her love like he usually did.

He walked the streets of New York City and looked at the sad and lonely faces. Today they all seemed sad and lonely, perhaps because he felt this way also. He could not shake this strange human emotion. He saw the couples in the cafés arguing with each other, the parents scolding their children in the streets, and the husbands and wives rendezvousing with others who were not their spouses. The world was falling apart because true love was vanishing from it.

Charlie felt the great sadness come over him, as if it was taking over every ounce of his being. He thought nothing could disturb his great love for things, but now he felt emptiness, loneliness, and even feelings of frustration and anger.
Where do such feelings come from?
He asked himself.
They cannot come from me. It must be this body,
he answered.

He blamed the body for making him feel things he never felt before. The more he thought of Julie, the more he felt the great pain in the pit of his stomach.

He passed by the shops. It was past Valentine’s Day, but the unsold merchandise hung in the windows of the cheaper shops.
What was Valentine’s Day?
Charlie wondered.
A day for lover’s to reflect on the joys of being in love?
But Charlie saw what ‘Cupid’ was to the humans now. He walked inside the shop and lifted the cards with giant red hearts on them and a naked baby with an arrow in his hand.

“Can I help you find something for your special someone?” the clerk asked him. Charlie turned and stared at her with a glazed look upon his face. “Are you alright, sir?” she asked. He put down the card and left the store without a word.

No one called upon him for help with love anymore. Cupid had been reduced to a character that wore a diaper and carried a bow and arrow around for the sake of a commercialized holiday that did not know true love at all. The world may have needed him, but it did not want him, it did not know him, or believe in his power anymore. He began to feel himself slipping away into the void of purposelessness. The days of true love were over. The days when one would sacrifice his or her life in the name of love were gone.

Charlie remembered the countless people he helped to find true love. But these days true love itself was a dying idea. And now Charlie felt the power of human love in the pit of his own stomach. He thought to himself,
How could I be reduced to such an unworthy feeling, longing for one person over the many, narrowing my love to a desire for one above all the rest. It’s just this body that drags my true love down to passion. This desire I feel for Juliet is distracting me from the love I have for all things. It is placing her on a pedestal and I am neglecting my love for others. For how can I serve others while I long for her above all?

He aimlessly walked down the streets contemplating,
What more can I do here on Earth as a human? I will return to Olympus where I might be of better use. Maybe get a new job or rejoin the choir. But I need to be free of this desire.
And with that careless thought, an ambulance swerved to miss another car and barreled right toward him. He screamed inside as he was thrown onto the hood of another car.

Charlie’s first thought in returning to Olympus required that he leave his body, and so he was to be hit by the next vehicle in order to release him. But little did he know, his desire to be with Julie kept him alive, and so alive he was, in the hospital with two broken legs, a broken arm, and one serious headache after waking from a 3-week coma.

“Good morning, Cupid,” a nurse said to him but he did not know her. The music of Air Supply was playing in the background.

“How do you know my name?” he asked.

“Well you’ve been in and out of consciousness since you got here, telling everyone you are Cupid and you didn’t want to go back to Olympus yet. You didn’t have an I.D. on you, no driver’s license. We couldn’t figure out who you were. We put your picture in the paper. We thought we were going to lose you so we had you fingerprinted to contact your family, but there weren’t any records of you being born. You’re a big star now, TV, newspapers. Everybody wants to know who you are. There was only one person who claimed to know you. I guess she knows you; she’s been here since she heard you were in the hospital, spending the nights on that couch,” she gestured to the couch in the corner of the room, “waiting for you to wake up. She said your name was Charlie Daniels,” the nurse laughed. “Maybe you’ll remember her. I’m not sure where she’s gone.”

“Juliet?” Charlie asked the nurse. He thought she had returned home and he would not see her again.

“I think so. Pretty girl, sandy blonde hair, cute smile. She’ll be back, Loverboy,” the nurse said, raising her eyebrows twice as she headed toward the door. “She never stays away for long.”

Charlie looked at the nurse, still not certain what was going on. He saw her name “Nurse Betty” pinned to her white uniform. She was older and heavy-set with a hair-do right out of the 50’s. “I’ll be back to check on you,” she said as she left the room with a worn-out look of fatigue on her face, yet seemingly happy to be of service to others, as if it was all she had done her entire life.

Charlie stared at the casts around his legs and arm. He felt the bandages wrapped tightly around his head. He looked at the newspapers stacked on the table next to his bed. The headlines read
Cupid Hospitalized
. He lifted the paper up with his one good arm and saw another headline,
Who is Cupid?
There was another and another. Then he remembered the ambulance barreling toward him, down the cold concrete road. He remembered the pain he felt in his stomach as he walked along the street, an empty sickness in the pit of his stomach that no meal could fill—not even an entire thick crust pizza. The last thing he remembered was the brakes of the ambulance screeching as he crossed the street, then nothing.

He looked around his hospital room. It was filled with red and pink hearts, balloons, heart shaped boxes filled with candy and gifts. Julie walked into room. He felt her presence and knew it was her even though he was facing the other direction.

“I read the news in the paper,” her soft voice said as she walked toward the bed, slowly. He turned to look at her. She was as beautiful as he remembered. “You didn’t have to throw yourself in front of an ambulance to find me again, Charlie.” A laughter that made Charlie smile radiated from her voice. She sat on the side of his bed. “At least your face didn’t get damaged.”

“Then no one would have recognized me,” he smiled, thinking of the baby Cupid image.

“Are you feeling alright? Do you need any pain pills?” Nurse Betty asked, popping her head in the doorway.

“No, thank you,” Charlie said with a calm voice as if nothing had happened to him.

“You know you’re lucky to be alive,” she said. A smile colored her weary, exhausted face. Then she turned to Julie and asked, “Did you give him his mail yet?”

“What mail?” Charlie asked.

“Well, Charlie,” she reached down pulled a large duffle-bag from under the bed, filled to the top, “since you’ve been in here, people saw the newspaper articles and have been writing to you. They sent you all these gifts, too.”

“Writing me letters?” he asked confusingly. “For what?”

“They’re asking for help in their love lives. I hope you don’t mind. I opened some of them and read them to you, hoping it would help you to come out of your coma.” She pulled a handful of the letters out of the bag. Charlie smiled and shook his head, letting her know he did not mind.

“They’re not just from couples either Charlie, but mothers writing to you about their daughters and fathers about their sons. They want you to help them. People are even asking you to help them repair their relationships with their sisters and brothers, and even strangers they met and offended on the street,” she explained. She sifted through the letters. “There are even letters wanting you to help with world peace and one lady wants your help in finding her dog. A lot of people need you now, Charlie. Not just…” she paused then finished her sentence, “me.” She wrapped her fingers around his hand and squeezed.

He smiled. He remembered the desire he felt for her, the pain in his stomach. He turned his attention to the letters and looked through the ones she placed at his side. They were from everywhere. Some were from as far away as California and a few began to arrive from overseas, as tourists went home and told their families the news.

“People in New York City even vowed to be less rude to each other in hopes that you wake up from your coma,” Julie said holding up the newspaper article reading,
New Yorkers Vow To Be Pleasant For Cupid.

“If you find the time,” Nurse Betty said as she looked at Charlie sorting through all the letters, “maybe you could send a little magic my way, too.”

“What is your name?” he asked.

She knew what he meant. Her real name. Full name without the title.

“Betty, Betty Tildess,” she answered.

“Betty Tildess,” he repeated with a smile and a nod, as if engraving her name in his memory forever.

“You shouldn’t be able to miss this target,” she said as she turned around, flaunting her large butt while she walked out of the room. She turned and made a gesture as if pulling back an arrow on a bow then closed the door.