Sanibel Scribbles (2 page)

“Busted,” said a voice from above. “You know the fine for picking a tulip.”

She jumped, sliding the knife up the stem and accidentally popping the tulip’s head off. It looked full of life as it went flying through the air with its petals flapping in the breeze, but then it crashed onto the ground near the men who were discussing the screenplay, completely limp.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Rebecca Vanderhill as she sat down across from Vicki. “You treat tonight, and I won’t tell anyone what you just did.”

“And hello to you too. You’re late,” said Vicki as she bent down to collect the object of her obsession before anyone noticed.

“Were you your usual early self tonight?” asked Rebecca.

“Of course, and you were late. I’ve been waiting,” answered Vicki, cupping the flower in her hands as if she had caught a butterfly and didn’t want to let it go. “I’m going to the ladies’ room where I can discreetly flatten this between two menus,” she said. “I might as well preserve what’s left of it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Rebecca. “Put it in the dirt and leave it there.”

Vicki hesitated and then laid the tulip to rest in the soil.

“Well, we survived,” said Rebecca, pulling her navy sweater off over her head and hanging it on the back of her chair. “We survived our hectic semester. All I want to do now is breathe. Inhale, exhale, sip my coffee for starters,” she said.

“There’s no time for inhaling and exhaling. I’m leaving for Florida in the morning.”

Rebecca took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “You’re always busy, productive, organized. Don’t you ever want to hang out, relax, do absolutely nothing?”

Vicki rolled her eyes. “I’ve got too many things on my mind,” she said. “Things I want to accomplish in life, things I want from life. There’s so much to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like finish school, launch a career, make money to survive, and hopefully afford my own apartment.” Vicki rubbed her forehead and sighed. “I look around at all these other students, and they’re eager as I am to figure out who they want to be in life and what they can do to make a mark in this world.” She dipped her silver knife into the melting butter ball and painted her roll. “So, Rebecca, who has time to relax?”

“There is a time for everything, Vicki. Remember that.”

“Okay, if you say so, if there truly is a time for everything, then I’ve got an idea. Right now, it’s time for planning our futures.”

“All I know about the future is that you are spending the summer in Florida, and I’m spending it here. So let’s enjoy the moment.”

“I can’t,” Vicki said with a laugh. “I told you, I have too much on my mind. Let’s set some goals, and I mean, really set them, so specifically we can see, taste, and smell them.”

The waiter delivered Rebecca’s drink, and Vicki used her white cloth napkin to push bread crumbs off the table. Then she stacked their tiny plates on top of each other and neatly set everything in the empty breadbasket. “We’re going to scribble something special on our tablecloth tonight.”

“You mean something other than naked male stick figures?” asked Rebecca.

“Yes. Tonight we’re going to write down all our dreams and goals. I heard it’s the only way they come true. Something about writing one’s dreams turns those dreams sacred. It sets them in stone. And I promise you, Rebecca, this is going to change the courses of our lives.”

Vicki picked up a purple crayon that was lying on the center of the table and let the white, yellow, and red crayons remain napping between the crystal salt and pepper shakers. Those colors weren’t noble enough for her purpose.

“It’s a bit odd scribbling our dreams on a tablecloth,” said Rebecca, taking a long silver spoon and searching the bottom of her mocha for the sunken espresso bean, determined to find it before the melted chocolate slid off. “But we may as well celebrate the fact that we’re twenty-first-century
modern American women and we can do anything we want in life.”

“That’s right. Now you’re catching on to the significance of this activity. Everything that goes down in crayon tonight must be accomplished.

Okay?”

“Okay, Madam Type A. You start.”

“I will.” In purple crayon, Vicki neatly wrote the words “Semester in Spain” on the white tablecloth, then clamped her mouth shut as an ambulance roared down College Avenue, reminding the outdoor candlelit diners that life speeds, slows, turns, and detours as it likes, without warning. “I know Spain is coming true. In fact, it’s four months away, you and me, American women studying in the country of romance. You may as well write it down too.”

“Write it for me, over here. Good. Thank you,” said Rebecca.

“There. We’ve both got one goal down. You go now,” Vicki insisted. “Okay. While studying in Spain, I’m going to fall madly in love with a mysterious, intelligent, sophisticated Spaniard.” Rebecca wrote “Spanish hombre” and laughed.

“Do you honestly believe that loving a Spanish man might be any different than loving an American man? I’m sure they both leave their dirty clothes all over the floor and probably chew with their mouths open.”

“But a Spanish man sips red wine and chews olives and calamari while an American man guzzles beer and chews greasy buffalo wings.”

“And what does that have to do with loving him?”

“There’s something to be said about no beer belly. But more importantly, poetry,” said Rebecca. “Picture a man sucking an olive and whispering poetry in your ear. Now picture a guy tearing off a bite of buffalo wing and dipping it in blue cheese dressing, grease rolling down his arm. I don’t think the poetry would sound as romantic.”

“Why do you think a Spanish man is going to recite poetry to you while he eats?” asked Vicki.

“I don’t know, but I’ll find out. I’ve written it down as a goal of mine, so ask me again in six months. I’ll share all the juicy details with you then. Your turn.”

“Five to ten pounds, nothing more. Lose it and maintain it for life.”
Vicki wrote “Lose weight.” She closed her eyes and could see the skinnier her wearing a skimpy red bikini, jumping up from her beach towel and jogging toward the water. “I know I’ll be a slightly happier person once I lose ten pounds. I also want to start lifting weights and tone up.”

“My turn, and no mocking me for this one.” Rebecca scribbled, “Noah.” “It’s odd, but I know I’ll name my first son Noah. I’ve told you that before.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend, let alone a husband, and you’re already naming your firstborn son. What about your career? You better launch that first before thinking about any baby, let alone man in your life.”

“These are my dreams. I can write whatever I want, and I want a baby by age thirty-one. I can hopefully launch my career, save up money, find a man and get married, then sit outside on the porch of my dream home somewhere in the mountains.”

“I was told that when you write down goals, you must also visualize them. Can you see that baby standing up in his crib at two o’clock in the morning? Can you hear him crying for mommy while you’re in the bookstore trying to read?”

All at once, as the waiter tried pouring water and ice through the mouth of a silver pitcher, the rectangular cubes took off like logs over a waterfall tumbling down onto Rebecca’s last goal. “I hope that’s not an omen, Noah getting flooded out of my future,” she said.

Vicki laughed, displaying the tiny space between her two front teeth. “My turn.”

She moved her coffee cup over to make space for her growing list, and then wrote “Grow nails.”

“If I don’t stop biting them, I’m going to see a hypnotist, or maybe, once I start practicing psychology, I’ll just treat myself to self-therapy. It’s really dysfunctional the way I bite them. I’ve tried manicures, lotions, stress balls, prayer. I still bite. You go.”

“Family time,” wrote Rebecca. “This will be easy. I’ve got all summer with my family.”

“Travel the world,” wrote Vicki. Then she closed her eyes and saw herself taking a train through Europe, backpacking past the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, then the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and …

“Climb a mountain,” interrupted Rebecca, scribbling quickly, and then closing her eyes. “I’m on the top of Mount Everest, and savoring the moment, viewing my life from an entirely new perspective,” she mumbled in a hypnotized tone. “Oh, but now I have to survive the descent, which is where most people die, you know.”

“Acquire the world’s largest collection of shoes,” wrote Vicki. “Shoes are what walk us toward our goals. There is nothing as important as wearing the right pair of shoes. They set the mood. When my toes are warm, I’m warm and friendly. If my toes are cold, well, don’t mess with me. If they’re cramped, like when I wear my thin little black pointy pair, I almost always feel socially uncomfortable.”

“That’s absolutely crazy. You’re crazy,” said Rebecca.

“A little insane, maybe. But the shoe thing is a fetish passed on from generation to generation in my family. My grandmother claimed her shoes could talk.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Talking shoes. It’s true. She heard them calling her from the closet.”

“And what did they say?” asked Rebecca.

“Well, she had this pair of red high heels, and they used to whisper out to her in a sexy, raspy voice, ‘Seduce grandpa, take him out for jazz music at the local club and show him a super sexy time.’”

“You’re totally making this up,” laughed Rebecca.

“I’m not. And when she was younger, she had these stocky moon boots that used to yell at her every time it snowed. If she didn’t put them on, look out! They were the meanest moon boots …”

“You know what I think?” asked Rebecca. “I think your brain needs a rest.”

“No, seriously, she had these sturdy black high heels, and when Grandma got mad, they always sided with her. She could take them off and throw them against the wall, and usually they loved it, but one time they landed on the floor quite hard and you know what they said to her?”

“What?”

“These shoes are made for talking, and talking is what they’ll do.”

The women laughed and wiped their tears away and nearby tables
gawked, not at them, but at the two pieces of French silk pie passing by. The waiter apologized for having to set the dessert plates right over the women’s scribbled lists. “No problem,” they assured him, and drew arrows to continue the lists along the round edges of the table.

“Another tall, low-fat this time, decaf caffè mocha, please,” said Rebecca.

“And a short, nonfat, decaf latté for me, please,” said Vicki.

“Vicki, if you could only speak Spanish as well as you speak coffee language, you’ll do fine in Spain.”

“What are you saying? My Spanish isn’t that good?”

Rebecca laughed. “Your Dutch accent gets stronger when you speak Spanish. I’ve never heard anything like it!”

“But I’m not Dutch.” Secretly, Vicki felt thrilled, honored that after all these years she naturally sounded like the majority of the city, the city she had grown to love, the city she made her home.

“I know. I’m one hundred percent Dutch, yet you’ve got a stronger accent than I have. You say things like ‘goooood’ and ‘youuuuu’, and you sound friendly when you’re mad. Then again, you did grow up here. What do you expect?”

“Well, I can’t survive in Spain without you. I’m counting on you to be my personal walking, talking Spanish dictionary.”

“You might not need me. Don’t you own a sexy Spanish speaking pair of shoes?
Hola
, Vicki!” She twirled and gestured with open arms embracing her audience. “I’d like red wine,
por favor. Si!
Why don’t you walk me over there, to that park bench where you could sit down and together, with me, a sexy pair of shoes and you, a sexy blond from America, we could …”

“You’ve lost it. Now let’s get on with our list,” said Vicki. Rebecca wrote next. “Land a job as a Spanish professor.”

“Never allow a man to get in the way of my dreams,” scribbled Vicki.

“What if he’s the man
of
your dreams?”

“No. There are dreams, and there are men. No relation between the two.”

“Are you telling me that, if you fall madly in love before you accomplish your goals, you’ll toss him aside?”

Vicki closed her eyes and saw the blurred heads of ex-boyfriends bobbing up and down in dark waves. “Absolutely,” she said. “I’ll toss him overboard into the Sea of Forgetfulness. I’ve done it a dozen times. No big deal. I’m not going to mention names. They’re forgotten.”

“You’re harsh.”

“No, determined. Your turn.”

“Wake early,” wrote Rebecca. And “do more with each day.” “Practice psychology,” Vicki scribbled.

Rebecca picked up the red crayon and added one more thing. “Enjoy the present.” She pressed so hard and passionately that the crayon broke in half.

“You certainly set that one in stone,” laughed Vicki.

“It’s the best goal of all, and easy to accomplish. All I have to do is sip my wonderful mocha, listen to your beautiful words, my dearest friend, and try not to glance at that decapitated tulip stem behind you. Yes, enjoy the present.” She spoke passionately and her voice sounded nice, easygoing.

Once they had licked every last morsel of chocolate from their plates, they left their scribbles behind, said a few hellos to class acquaintances dining at the other small outdoor tables, and started on the half-mile journey back to their campus apartment.

“Would you slow down?” Rebecca asked. “Why do you always walk fast?”

“It’s my nature,” said Vicki as they passed the park. “I’m always in a hurry.” And it was true. It was as if somehow she had read the word “allegro” on the way out of her mother’s womb, a labor and delivery lasting only two hours.

“Do you ever slow down?”

“No,” said Vicki. “It’s why I get so much done.”

“A person like you,” said Rebecca, out of breath. “I know all of your dreams will come true.”

Rebecca’s encouragement meant a lot. There was a kind of validity in it, maybe because Rebecca listened when people spoke. Like a journal, she was always ready to listen, and she always remained locked. No one could
ever steal a secret from her, yet sometimes, when Vicki would throw an idea at her, Rebecca would listen and then toss it back with a refreshing perspective, just as a journal entry looks foreign yet familiar when a woman reads it over again at a later date. Vicki was about to tell Rebecca that her dreams would come true as well, but the
chang chang
of the city clock in the distance interrupted her. It was midnight.