The Fool's Errand; or, the Sentimental Journey

"It was the third Friday in December.  Christmas was coming.  Winter was coming sooner.  Snow was coming sooner still.  And soonest of all, Vivian was coming.  I could see her red hair and green scarf blowing in the wind as she came down the block, as the first light flakes began to fall.

"It was the Friday before Christmas, and good things were coming my way."

That’s how my short story (or novel, or voice-over narration for my movie) was going to begin. Maybe it will anyway, at least as a short story.  I don’t have a middle or an end for it; and if I ever do, they won’t be what I had hoped when I first wrote those words.

It was the third Friday in December, and good things were coming my way.  We were meeting at a coffee shop, near where she was apartment-sitting and dog-sitting for a friend.  She was cold, and coughing, but happy.  I was cold, and grateful for the good fortune of knowing her.   Coffee for me, tea with honey for her in the hope of easing the cough.

The snow was heavier when we headed to her friend’s apartment.  In the lobby she wanted me to swear that I wasn’t smuggling snowballs in.  I affected innocence.  She asked if she was going to have to search me.  I said "no snowballs while you have that cough" which was good enough to get me in; it wasn’t till later that she found the circle of paper on which I had written "snowball".

I asked if she were going to bake an apple pie for Christmas -- she loved baking pies.  I saw the same look in her green eyes as when she suspected snowballs. "Don’t you know anything  about pie etiquette?  Apple pies are for October, pumpkin pies are for November.  And for December?"  I said I didn’t know.  She said there was no hope for me.

Silliness (but not snowballs) and seriousness and friendship and affection, while the day darkened and the snow got heavier still. I gave her her Christmas present, some European glass ornaments.  She gave me mine, cookies she had baked for me,  and a Christmas stollen from the holiday market at Union Square.  And a present that I still treasure, more stories of her childhood in Europe, of St. Nicholas Day and Christmas.  I told her stories of Christmas trees being brought in out of the cold, with their scent, and snow in their branches, and the sense of the dark mystery of the woods.

And we talked and talked, and sat quietly, and talked more.

Then a hug and a kiss, and I was off into the wind and snow to Grand Central, catching my train with 30 seconds to spare.  I rode home, thinking of her, and St. Nicholas Day, and pie etiquette, and of good things to come.

But we were not to celebrate Christmas again.

Probably again this December I will go on what I think of as the fool’s errand, or the sentimental journey.  I’ll slip the last, undelivered present I ever bought for her in my pocket, and go for coffee in the same coffee shop.

I won’t be stalking her; she’s long since gone from there.  I don’t really know what I’ll be doing, except remembering that third Friday in December, when Christmas and winter and snow, and Vivian with her green scarf, were coming my way.