Elena is weary from waiting.

Her impatient glance returns to the restaurant’s entrance – no Howard.

This tardiness isn’t like him, but it certainly fits the grim thoughts invading her mind. She is heavy with melancholy musings unwelcome at this celebration of their third wedding anniversary.

The ice has melted in her water glass. She stares at the wet ring forming around the glass’s base, marking the surface of their table. It is their table. She has managed every year to commandeer this corner though this is not an establishment interested in reservations. Surely, she reflects, the year will come when they’ll have to sit elsewhere. Actually, it’s difficult for her to imagine returning here at all.

Something has changed, but not the restaurant. Well, there are slight differences. More scratches mar the mahogany bar. The door to the kitchen is quite dented. But the menu is the same. The walls still have prints of seascapes, and netting drapes from here to there. Of course, there are little seashells trapped in the nets. She sells seashells by the seashore...

Where is Howard?

A light reflects on the fork next to her untouched salad. When she moves her left hand just – so – her ring catches the illumination.

Elena’s wedding ring isn’t especially valuable, but the symbol of their joining had been a considerable expenditure for Howard. She once regarded that small gold-plated piece as priceless.

So much had seemed possible then.

So much had seemed true.

And so much joy had run through their days.

Where is he?

Once she would have waited in hell through eternity, she remembers, for him just to – just to look at her.

Where did that go?

Before him, before that amazing first encounter...well, in reality, it wasn’t amazing. They met at a bookstore searching for two very different books. But before she heard his voice, she had a different view of men, of love.

Her mother had taught her well. (They only want one thing.)

And the university had taught her well. (We and all our choices are a product of environment and/or heredity.)

Sunday School had been the most specific, separating love from sex. (Love was acceptable, but if love resulted in sex, then came the gentle warnings: sex is simply an urge to propagate the species, therefore vaguely unclean if indulged in for other reasons.)

And Society, now Society had the most to say. Stick to your own kind. Opposites attract. Opposites can’t live together. Marriage is dead. Marriage is sacred. Society mouthed contradictions, then shook its collective head at the overcrowded divorce courts. Romantic notions were de rigueur as long as you didn’t believe in them.

Being with Howard, however, had made her a believer. That sense, all her life, that there was something almost magical up ahead, a kind of promise...loving him was that promise. Feeling his love for her was that promise.

Howard became her beacon. Her happiness. Her inspiration. He was her catharsis and her challenge. He was her friend.

So she had thought, for the first two years. These last twelve months, though, she struggled, almost weekly, with serious misgivings.

As she expected the worst, even about the little things, her doubts multiplied.

The “hello” that wasn’t wrapped in a smile: didn’t she do the same thing, sometimes? That didn’t mean she didn’t care. At least, it didn’t used to mean that. The time he spent with his baseball cronies: everybody has separate interests. That’s healthy. His not knowing how much some things meant to her: how could he know? She didn’t know everything that mattered to him! His awareness of her, his gladness at the sight of her, his effort to be with her – they weren’t the same. Of course, her awareness of him, her gladness, her effort, weren’t the same either.

But in the beginning, she had felt reborn.

Elena finishes her iced water and searches the room for her waiter.

From the direction of the kitchen, a woman in the restaurant’s colors of blue and white approaches.

This person is not her waiter. Where did he go?

The waitress comes to her table.

She

Looks

Like –

My God...

She

Looks

Like

Elena!

The other woman has the same tall slimness, the honey-colored hair, the deep-set brown eyes. The same high cheekbones flank the delicate shape of her nose.

She is a mirror image of Elena!

Does she know it?!

The waitress, radiating a subdued energy, stands before her with an expression of false interest.

“You doin’ okay?” she asks.

Elena gapes at her. Doesn’t she realize that they look like the same person?! Dear God, doesn’t she know?

Know what? They can’t be the same person.

That expression! Please tell me I don’t have that expression, Elena thinks.

The woman eyes Elena with barely veiled impatience. There is a hardness to her features, a wornness to her movements.

Elena stares.

“If you need anything, let me know,” says the person, walking away.

Elena feels sick.

Who is that?

The front door of the restaurant opens. A young couple step into the foyer, ready to sit anywhere, glad only to be together.

Elena blinks.

They are the image of she and Howard, more than three years ago. The man has the same dark hair curled closely to his scalp, the same shaggy eyebrows over a strong nose and thin lips. Built like a linebacker, he moves like a dancer.

Is that her Howard? Now?

No.

No!

He is unaware of her, his attention centered on that replica of Elena, standing next to him. A younger Elena?

What table did they expect to occupy?

The pair cross the room and take a corner booth.

Ha.

They can’t be Howard and she, three years ago or anytime! Because she is Elena and Howard is –

Late.

The waitress returns with a large pitcher and indifferently fills the water glass.

“Somebody stand you up, honey?”

Elena gazes at her warily.

“Did, huh,” says the woman, knowingly. She glances around, then speaks to Elena confidentially: “Men aren’t reliable, honey. But sometimes they’re good for something, you know?” She laughs. “I got the last shift. See you later, it looks like.”

She strolls away.

Sweat breaks out on Elena’s forehead. Nausea forms in her stomach. She rises, leaving a sweater on the back of her chair. This is their table. He knows that. If she goes to the restroom, he’ll recognize her sweater. She has to get to the restroom.

Glancing across the room, her eyes rest on the couple. She watches them read their menus.

I’ve got to get out of here is all she can think.

Not conscious of seizing her purse, of crossing the restaurant, she finds herself before the entrance marked “Ladies”. Once inside, she pushes the door shut and leans against it.

Shaking with confusion, she makes her way to the sink.

At a counter of chrome and porcelain, she throws cold water on her face, indifferent to the carefully applied makeup.

What is going on?

Elena looks into the mirror, mindful of the hard image of that waitress.

And she sees

It.

Not her own face. Not any face.

In the glass is some sort of – apparition. It isn’t ugly. It isn’t attractive. It isn’t even frightening in appearance. It is just – It, a heavily veiled form shaped – shaped like a phantom. What is probably the head has facial features constructed of shadows.

“Hello, Elena,” It says.

She has no response.

“Where is Howard?”

A rush of answers comes to mind, none of them satisfactory. All of them mean, basically, that he – he doesn’t care anymore. He isn’t her love anymore.

“Interesting,” replies the apparition.

She is speechless.

“The only explanations you have for his absence are bad. Do I understand you?”

Elena cannot accept the situation. This is absurd.

“Who are you to ask?” she exclaims, amazed at her own presence of mind. That is, she thinks she has presence of mind.

“You have seen something tonight that has upset you greatly,” the thing responds, “I am here to insure your understanding.”

“That Howard is late?” asks Elena.

“I was thinking about the waitress,” It states, “but understanding Howard’s belatedness is certainly important.”

“Where is he?” she demands of a mirror.

“That depends in part,” reveals It, “on your understanding.”

Elena closes her eyes. What? She’s had no wine. What is in the mirror?

“Yourself,” proclaims It.

“No!” she protests.

“All right,” It amends, calmly, “I am part of your psyche.”

Who made this – this – what is this? A hologram? A video? Who constructed this thing? How could it have answers that fit her questions?

“Let’s stay with the issues, young lady. Forget the means.”

Enough is enough. Elena throws up.

When she peers into the mirror again, nothing is there.

She is unexpectedly overwhelmed by a sense of loss.

Rinsing her mouth, she buries her face in a paper towel, but she cannot bury an escalating anguish.

What will she say to Howard? What can she say? Yes, she had loved him. That wasn’t imagined, but she doesn’t feel it anymore.

Happy Anniversary.

It reappears in the mirror.

“That’s how you want it to be?” questions the specter.

The thing does know her mind!

Well, why not? It exists. Sort of. No! Yes! It exists. That is amazing enough. Why not read her mind? Why not anything?

“No!” she cries. “That’s not how I want it to be!”

“It can’t be anything else,” observes the thing, “you don’t give it space to be anything else. You are so sure. That is the way you believe, you know.”

Elena is disgusted.

“My believing didn’t make him late! And maybe he feels the same way I do! Maybe he’s tearing his hair out, trying to figure out how to tell me he doesn’t – doesn’t want to be married to me anymore!”

“True,” It agrees.

“True?!” she asks.

“If that’s true,” It continues, “your relationship appears to have ended.”

Elena stares at the mirror, wide-eyed. Amazed.

It doesn’t have a proper mouth that can smile but It does have what it takes to chuckle. The sound is low, friendly, with a kind of melody of laughter running through it.

“Try another scenario,” suggests the presence.

“Scenario?”

“Story line,” It explains.

“...He saw an old friend and had to stop and talk and the friend had to catch a plane or a train or – something – and so Howard couldn’t even call. Or – okay, he’s caught in a major traffic jam! Or – or – oh, no, I don’t want to think like this! No!”

“Say it,” directs It.

“No!” she sobs.

“Say it.”

“But I don’t want to think about him hit by a car or having a heart attack or – “

“But it’s what you’re thinking,” reminds It.

“No!”

“Or that other line of thought, the one about his not wanting to be with you.” It speaks calmly, almost slowly.

“No! No! No!” Elena begins to weep.

The spirit lets her cry.

After a time, It asks her, gently: “Do you understand who you met tonight?”

By her posture, she concedes.

“Do you understand she is what you will be, you will become, very shortly?”

She nods.

“Unless you choose otherwise.”

Elena watches the mirror.

“I will not be a fool,” she asserts. Quietly.

“Then don’t, at every opportunity, assume the worst,” It counters.

Her expression reflects uncertainty, then trembles on the brink of desolation.

In despair, she questions a mirror: “What would you think?”

The being in the mirror begins to glow with an inner light.

“I would think about what I want to be true. There isn’t anything he is, or has said, or done, that shows a loss of love for you – except in how you perceive what he is, and has said, and done. I would appreciate that something might turn out to be true that I would not like, but not knowing that to be true, I would begin by putting my power, my energy, my hopes, in league with my desire. I would make a different story.”

A film forms over the mirror.

Elena watches the cloud cover the glass.

She picks up her purse and walks out of the restroom.

Across the restaurant she notices the waitress at the bar. The woman collects a tray and disappears into the crowd.

Her eyes search out that corner booth. The man and woman are still there, with eyes only for each other.

And she discovers Howard sitting at their table. He jumps up to pull out her chair.

“I’m so sorry, hon,” he exclaims with a flushed face, “I got held up!”

“With guns and everything?” she laughs, hoping there is no hysteria in her voice.

“No guns.” From across the table, he drinks in the vision of her face.

Elena turns her eyes to him, to the man who greets her each morning. She lets time stand still and standing in time, with stillness, sees him.

Howard pulls a watch out of his pocket, hands it to her.

She accepts it.

“I got it fixed, but they were late! They promised it for yesterday! When I got there more than two hours ago, they hadn’t finished!”

Elena examines the watch, the department store special that had broken. This had been his gift to her their first anniversary.

Her eyes turn back to Howard. All around them she feels the doubts. The world’s view raises its ugly, knowing head. The strong beliefs that have hypnotized her since birth surround the beliefs of what she and Howard share. Most of her life wars with a few years of her life. The new point-of-view, just a few years old, wavers. Will it wilt, succumb to twenty-six years of doubt?

She holds onto Howard’ eyes, then to his hands.

As clearly as she perceives his face, she comprehends that all the bad that could happen between them has only happened in her head.

So much good has happened between them. In reality.

Elena’s eyes seek out the waitress. She has something to say to her. The woman, however, is nowhere in sight.

Howard puts his hands over hers. His smile has faded to uncertainty. Now the uncertainty is followed by concern.

“Elena, you look like – like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She gives a rueful smile, gently pulls her hands from his, and holds the timepiece up to the light.

Howard watches her. It appears to him that she treasures the gift. He tries to hide his pride in causing such joy in her expression.

“Let’s forget dinner,” he proposes. “Let’s go home.”

Their eyes reach across the table. All that has been is framed by all that could be.

Yes, she wants to go home, too.

But first she has to say good night to a friend.

“I left something in the ladies’ room,” she answers. “I’ll be right back.”

The apparition is waiting in the mirror when she enters the restroom.

“I hoped you’d still be here,” she says.

“I am always with you,” It claims, “but I will not be in this mirror again.”

Elena puzzled by that information, pauses, but only for a moment. She places her hand on the glass.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

There is a slight movement, up and down, from the head of the being.

A vision crosses Elena’s mind, creating a shadow in her eyes.

“What about – what about – her?”

“Ah,” responds It, “the waitress?”

“Yes!”

“She doesn’t exist now.”

“Where did she go?”

“You gave her life, with your thoughts. When you saw the result of your thoughts, you made a different choice. Now she has not the power to leave that room.”

Elena doesn’t understand. Can’t, but knows someday she may.

“The other two,” she continues, “the couple?”

“What you and Howard would be now, had you not expected pain more often than you expected the happiness.”

“It’s too late for us?” Her heart suddenly feels like lead.

“Oh, no,” counsels the form. “Perhaps they are what you will be the next time you come here. A different future than the one you created with the waitress.”

Before her eyes, Elena observes It; but behind her eyes, she sees much more.

It tilts its head toward the door.

“Be true,” It urges. “not to the sadness, but to the joy. Not to the pain, but to the healing. Not to doubt, but to hope.”

The words fill her with peace until other words from other times begin to worm into her mind.

“But I could believe in a maniac, then!” she argues, “Or I could be living with a serial killer or – ”

The apparition shakes its head.

“Then there would be more sadness than joy between you two. More pain than healing. There is a difference, Elena. You would know it.”

Suddenly, she thinks of another time and another place, some years before. Another bathroom! At a friend’s house taped to a wall opposite the commode above the reading material was an old Winnie the Pooh cartoon: Winnie and another character were walking through the forest. One of them said, “What if the sky should fall?” The other one answered, “What if it doesn’t?”

Elena knows the difference.

Yes, it would get tricky at times: how to recognize wistful thinking, how to identify pointless doubt, how to distinguish between the two. It could be hard to tell, but the good would never happen if it wasn’t first

Thought.

And in the mirror the apparition fades.

At last, the mirror reflects Elena’s face. Not the waitress who fulfilled her doubts. Not the apparition that addressed her. Just herself. Elena.

She is the same.

But for the greater softness of her expression and the brightness of her eyes.

© 2003, Darlene Bridge Lofgren