The Opening

After just a few months

I’ve known Brian for a few months now, met his family, seen his father’s apartment. It’s his birthday today, and, in classic fashion, I’ve bought him the most ridiculous thing I could ever think of.

I’ve bought him an apple tree.

His father’s apartment is not clean, certainly not clean enough for a party. Brian and I get to work, though he gets irritated when I’m not helping enough. I can’t help it. I come from a family who didn’t care about anything but potato chips and Newport Lights.

Still, I try to do what I can to help, even though I don’t really understand what the bother is all about.

As I make a half-hearted attempt at cleaning up the random items on the stairs, I see two women I don’t know enter the apartment, friends of Brian’s father. They have gifts and food, and they put everything onto the dining table below.

They don’t see me watching them.

They pour themselves drinks and pick up the chat. The party is getting noisy now as others arrive, and I’m not so much cleaning as hiding. Their conversation babbles just like everyone else’s, and I look away.

But then, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, silence descends, and I notice that the quiet isn’t quiet, exactly, but the muffled conversation of all the others.

Then, one of the women says to each other, clear as a bell, “You know, you can do anything with your life.”

I stop my meager efforts at cleaning and listen, frowning.

What did she just say?

Sound returns again, and nobody seems to be the wiser about this revelation I’ve just eavesdropped on.

Maybe if she had stopped and looked at me after that comment, if she had singled me out, I would have proof that the message came directly from a God I’m not sure I believe in.

But she doesn’t look at me. Instead, she takes a sip of her drink and moves away.

Later that night, I give Brian the tree, and he is so gracious about it. What did he expect from a strange girl like me, anyway?

A strange girl who now, suddenly, can do anything, anything, with her life.