Presents
A tall, slender woman holds a long rope. She winds it around her forearm. Her perfectly manicured nails polished an exotic red. Stiletto heels clack across the tile floor of the Honeymoon Suite, afloat in the middle of the Maldives. A spot in the floor provides a window to the glorious, untamed beauty of the ocean below. Her eyes echo the color of the Arabian Sea.
She walk-struts through the bedroom and lets the rope slide over her arm. A circular piece of wood knotted to the rope lowers. It scrapes across the white silk bedspread just enough to disturb a rose-petal heart placed lovingly there. On the wood, a single word hand-painted in green reads––BELIEVE. A few rose petals fall to the floor.
She swipes long, blonde bangs off her forehead, walks into the bathroom and stares into the mirror.
“I knew it was over when I’d opened my one and only Christmas present––a five-thousand-dollar Louis Vuitton bag. After seven years, he didn’t know me at all. It would take me a while to really understand the disconnect. By then, I realized the purse must have worked many other times, with many other women, forgiving so many sins,” she says.
Still staring, she casually places the rope around her neck in the open-air bathroom, taking some time to admire herself.
“See, I’d asked for a new engagement ring. But, he said he just couldn’t get me what I wanted. The silence between us sliced me like a knife.”
She lets go of the rope, her eyes wide. Placing a hand over her heart, she winces. Her chest heaves up and down. Up and down. Slowly, she gains composure.
“I took a deep breath and said that I understood. But, I didn’t. Not under the circumstances. But, reconciling meant accepting each others’ nos,” she said, making air-quotes around the words reconciling and nos.
She twirls part of the the rope around the wood as the other part drags behind her on her walk back to the bed. Two items sit on the bed beside the ruined, rose-petaled heart––a large Louis Vuitton box and a wide, red ribbon.
“We couldn’t have sat farther apart from each other on our leather sofa that night. He fake-cried. I stared at the Christmas tree in front of us. My eyes teared up as I silently began packing ten years of ornaments into his and her’s boxes.”
Her red-tipped fingers play with the red ribbon.
“He asked if I wanted to make dinner with him. I said sure.”
She removes the top of the box and places the rope and wood inside.
“I told him that there was something else I’d always wanted. Maybe he could get me that instead? I asked real nice.”
She closes the box and wraps the red ribbon around it.
“He stopped fake-crying long enough to ask what it was that I wanted.”
She ties the red ribbon into a large bow.
“A tree swing,” I said. “I’d wanted one ever since we moved in. I longed to swing among the oaks in our orchard. To watch the sunset over the Ventana Wilderness. To dream about our future. After Christmas, as I tried to leave, he ended my life and began another.”
She places her hand on the box and lets her fingers brush over the red bow. But, her skin becomes translucent and her hand passes through the box. She begins to change. To age.
“I wish I could feel hot. Or cold. I wish I could feel...anything,” she says as she fades away. Only her eyes remain visible yet hidden among the ocean-blue walls of the Honeymoon Suite.
The happy couple bursts into the room all suntanned. They circle in embraces. She drops her beach bag. He drops their towels. Kissing and touching. Breathless.
Until she spots the Luis Vuitton box.
“No way!” she says breaking out of his embrace. She rips off the bow and flips the lid. Inside sits a weathered tree swing, its rope frayed, full of spider webs and old oak leaves. On the wood, a single word hand-painted in green reads––BELIEVE.
“No!” he screamed.