As promised, friends, every Monday I’m going to present you with a new chapter of my novel-in-progress, tentatively entitled Summer Love. If you haven’t done so already, read the explanation and the prologue, then let’s get down to it.

ONE

Love Song For No One

 

Hanging out at my brother’s coffee house is probably the only trendy thing about me. I dress in whatever wrinkled clothes are the first dangling in my closet, the only cologne I own consists of about 15 bottles given to me by an aunt over the years and never opened, and I’ve had the same haircut since I was 12 years old. I call it “shorter.” In truth, I don’t even really like coffee all that much, but it was free to me and, having very little else to occupy my time, it was worthwhile to spend the time hanging out with Perry instead of at home watching an endless string of Buffy reruns or wasting my life online like most single guys my age.

 

On the day I met her, I was feeling more run-down than usual. If I didn’t know Perry could have gotten in trouble for that sort of thing, I would have asked for my coffee to come “Irish.” In fact, with the portfolio of rejected greeting card pitches tucked firmly under my armpit, I briefly considered skipping my brother’s place entirely and going to a bar.

 

I dropped my portfolio on the table – my table, and the regulars knew it – with a crash, and turned to Perry, who was standing in a cloud of steam hissing from the latte machine. “Frozen French Vanilla Mocha, bro, and put a little octane in it.”

 

“Wow, the hard stuff,” Perry said. “Let me finish here and I’ll get right on it.” He topped off the latte and called out the name written on the side: “Stephanie!” A petite brunette with round cheeks and deep black eyes took the cup from him and began drinking in large gulps as she walked to a table. It’s funny, isn’t it? Most people can tell you cute little stories about how they experienced “love at first sight.” Maybe some people can say that honestly, but I still remember the first thing I ever thought about the girl I was willing to go to Hell for was, “What kind of mutant chugs hot coffee like that when it’s 90 degrees outside?”

 

Perry started scooping ice into the blender for my frozen drink, a far more reasonable choice for a steamy May afternoon, I thought. “So… hard day at the office, brother-man?” he asked.

 

“Harder than a pebble in the arch of your shoes, Per,” I said. I rubbed my bleary eyes while the blender chopped my ice, mixing it with the coffee and milk Perry poured after it, turning the whole concoction into a sort of caffeinated Slushie. Perry handed the cup over to me, along with one of the oversized chocolate chunk cookies from the bakery case.

 

“Ah, sweet nectar,” I said, taking a long pull through the straw. “Perry, you’re the only doctor I know who can hand out the prescription before you even know what the symptoms are.”

 

Amber Jenkins, a barista who had been there almost as long as Perry himself, saw the portfolio on my table and pointed at it. “Did you bring in some drawings, Adam?” she asked. She was smiling, coy, her short blonde hair curving down into a heart-shape with her scalp as the point. Her eyes flashed, then her face fell. “Oh no, that’s why you’re so upset. Another syndicate turned down your comic strip, didn’t they?”

 

I sighed. “No, Amber, no comic strips this time. But thanks, nonetheless, for pointing out an additional way in which I can seem inadequate today.

 

“Oh. Um. Sorry?”

 

“Nah, that’s all right. You know me, Amber, when I’m feeling sorry for myself, I just can’t rest until everyone else feels the same.”

 

“So I guess asking you how the meeting went would be kind of stupid at this point?”

 

“You have a keen, intuitive mind, Perry.” I opened the portfolio and thumbed through the drawings within. “Remember how we were kids, when Aunt Josie always used to pay me a quarter whenever I drew picture for her?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“How is it that’s my best commission rate so far?”

 

“Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad.” Amber opened the portfolio herself and withdrew the cartoons. She flipped through them, reading each caption and looking at me nervously. “So, Aunt Josie… she got high a lot, right?”

 

“Very supportive, Amber, thank you.”

 

“Well it’s just… I mean… what are these things supposed to be?”

 

“Greeting cards!” I shouted. Although I considered myself a freelance cartoonist, I was under contract to (and had most of my bills paid by) a company called Sophomoric Stationary, which specialized in the sort of goofy cards and novelty products that sold more in joke shops than in Hallmark stores. They also provided artwork for the Total Moron’s Guide line of books – you’ve probably seen them in stores. The Total Moron’s Guide to Astronomy, The Total Moron’s Guide to World War II, The Total Moron’s Guide to Animal Husbandry… If you’re a total moron about something, we had a book for you. And since I drew the illustrations, my apartment was full of dozens of these free books I didn’t need and hadn’t ever tried to read. It wasn’t great work, but I was drawing cartoons and getting paid for it, which was what I was really after anyway.

 

“Greeting cards?” Amber repeated. “For what occasion, exactly?” She held up one of the cartoons. The first panel, the front of the card, showed two guys in a bar buying drinks and attempting to bolster the spirits of Guy #3, who had the standard red-laced eyes, ragged clothing and two-day growth of stubble that, in cartoonland, always denoted a fellow who was down on his luck. The caption beneath read, “Cheer up, buddy. Women are like buses. If you miss one, another will come by in five minutes.” Panel two, the inside of the card, showed, the ragged guy from panel one being plowed over by a generic, trademark-free design of bus that just happened to indicate a racing dog. The caption read, “And it’ll hurt like Hell when THAT one runs over you, too!” The driver of the buss, it should be noted, was the blond-haired, blue-eyed woman who, in cartoons, indicated “knockout.” In this case it was a title being taken entirely too literally.

 

“The idea is to make a line of greeting cards just for guys. Women buy greeting cards way more than men. Heck, some women buy more greeting cards in one week than most men buy in a year.”

 

“Aunt Josie again?” Perry asked.

 

“Bingo.”

 

“What about this one?” Amber said. It was a picture of a guy on a tennis court, about to serve, tossing a large ball into the air. The caption read, “Breaking up? I hear you got the club!” Panel two was a woman (the same generic bombshell as on the previous card) driving a U-Haul truck filled to overflowing with canisters of tennis balls. The caption simply read, “Too bad she got your balls!”

 

“Adam, just who are these cards supposed to cheer up?”

 

“The person who buys them, of course,” I said. “Greeting cards aren’t about helping the recipient. They’re there to make the senders feel better about themselves because they’ve demonstrated that they care.”

 

“Warms the cockles of the heart, doesn’t it?” Perry said.

 

“The point is, guys aren’t going to buy sappy ‘Thinking Of You’ cards. Haven’t you ever seen a group of guys when one of them was upset? They pick on each other! They make fun of each other and of whatever fire-breathing harpy from hell is responsible for their condition!”

 

“Ah,” Perry said. “I thought she looked familiar.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Her.” He pointed to the generic blonde, Queen of the Miss Cartoonland USA Pageant 17 years running, then flipped the card and pointed to her again. In fact, I realized, of the dozen card ideas in my portfolio, she was featured on nine of them.

 

“So? She’s a recurring character.”

 

“Bull. She’s Michelle.”

 

“What are you…” I stopped. It hadn’t been my intention, but when pointed out to me, there could be no denying that the She-Bitch who was so ruthlessly attacking the hapless men on almost all of my greeting cards was, in fact, the spitting image of my ex-girlfriend.

 

“It’s… just a coincidence.”

 

“Bull-dooky,” Perry said. Outside of these walls he cursed like a trucker with his foot caught in the wheel well of his own rig. The man prided himself on professionalism. “Once is a coincidence. Nine times indicates you should be talking to someone who can prescribe something a lot stronger than our frozen mocha.”

 

“Frozen espresso?” Amber said.

 

“Closer,” Perry conceded.

 

“Okay, I may still be a little bitter.”

 

“Lorena Bobbit was a little bitter. This is just disturbing.”

 

“Fine! Fine!” I stuffed the cartoons back into my portfolio and snapped the clasp shut. “Is this what I get for trying to commiserate with my friends?”

 

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,” Perry snapped. “You know we’ll be here if you really need us, but giving you a hard time is one of the few perks we get in the arrangement. Eh – darn customers.” As the service bell interrupted him, he walked off to concoct a fruit smoothie. Amber returned her attention to me.

 

“Okay, this isn’t really about Michelle, is it?”

 

“How did you know?”

 

“Because you’ve been using that ‘fire-breathing harpy from hell’ line much longer than she was in the picture. Heck, I think you used it when I dumped you.”

 

“And thank you for bringing that up,” I snapped.

 

“So what is it?”

 

“It’s… it’s…”

 

“Cumulative,” Perry said, handing off the smoothie to “Austin G.,” along with a blueberry muffin.

 

“What do you mean?” Amber asked.

 

“What, do you think you’re the first girl to dump him on his ass? In high school there was Mandy, then Amy, then Stacy. Then there was Shanna, who at least broke the streak of names ending in ‘Y’.”

 

“This is helping?” I said.

 

“Now I didn’t go to the same college as him, so I don’t know exactly how many there were in those years, but I know they got progressively worse. That redhead you brought home for Thanksgiving that time, what was her name?”

 

“Nicole,” I muttered.                                                 

 

“Right, Nicole. And by Christmas, where was Nicole?”

 

“Dating my roommate.” I have an impressive degree of articulation when speaking through gritted teeth.

 

“And as far as bruises to the ego go, that had to be the topper.”

 

“Your roommate?” Amber shouted, stifling a chuckle.

 

“Then after school he started hanging out here and he met you–”

 

“I left him a shattered wreck of a man.”

 

“—and it’s been one continuous downward spiral ever since.”

 

“I’m sitting right here,” I said.

 

“So the point is, each rejection has gotten progressively more painful. Why is that? Let’s use Michelle as our example. How did she break it off again, Adam?”

 

I slumped my shoulders, surrendering to the argument. “She said she liked me, but she didn’t think it was fair to me for us to stay together while things were so unstable in her life.”

 

“Unstable?” Amber said. “She teaches third grade. What’s so unstable about that?”

 

“She didn’t really explain.”

 

“So she was lying?”

 

“Clearly.”

 

“Okay, but we’re getting off the point,” Perry said. “As far as breakups go, that couldn’t possibly have been as humiliating as, say, Katie.”

 

“Wait… K-A-T-I-E, or K-A-T-Y?”

 

“K-A-T-I-E.”

 

“Ah. Well then, no.”

 

“Okay, I have to ask,” Amber said, “How did Katie with an ‘ie’ break up with you?”

 

“Told me she was using to Prague. The next week I found her still working at the same art supply store where I met her.”

 

“That sucks.”

 

“You’re telling me. I had to find a new art store.”

 

“And what about Katy with a ‘y’?”

 

“Got back together with an ex-boyfriend.”

 

She shrugged. “It happens.”

 

“She told me he’d broken up with her when he decided he was gay, but she thought she could ‘fix’ him. He was actually engaged. Yes, to a woman. I’ll give you this, Amber, at least you were honest.”

 

“Oh, right, how did I put it? ‘Like kissing my brother’?”

 

“Precisely, yes.” I banged my forehead on the table. “We are going to get to the point of this psychoanalysis, right? I mean… assuming there is one.”

 

“Of course there is,” Perry said. “I wouldn’t want to upset our fans.”

 

He gestured around the coffee shop, where I realized our rather spirited discussion had begun to draw an audience, mostly comprised of the regulars. This happened sometimes – the three of us would start arguing the merits of some politician or movie or comic book and, before we knew what was happening, everyone was listening. Perry had the business acumen in the family, but he was a funny enough guy to trade jabs with me blow-for-blow, and Amber was plenty sarcastic enough to keep up with us. Most of the conversation in the shop had ground to a halt as people listened. One guy was casually staring while munching on his carrot cake like he was watching a movie. And I did notice, I have to admit, that the pretty girl who drank her coffee too fast was among the people listening.

 

“The point is,” Perry continues, “that even if a more recent breakup wasn’t as bad, the previous ones have never fully healed. You’ve basically been picking at the same scab since Mandy in ninth grade, only now it’s all gangrenous and infected and you’re probably going to have to take off the whole leg before it rots away and poisons your bloodstream.”

 

“Wow. You really know how to work a metaphor.”

 

“So it seems to me, the only way to keep this scab from killing you is to figure out why you keep picking at it.”

 

“Okay, you’ve solved it! The secret to my love life is Neosporin!”

 

He looked at Amber, rolling his eyes. “You see? It’s my fault, really, I took up the allotted capacity for linear thinking for the entire Solomon family. What I’m saying, big bro, is that there has to be a reason that this sort of thing happens over and over again. What’s the connection? What do these girls have in common?” He turned his attention to the assembled customers, most of them utterly transfixed at this point. “What do you say, studio audience? To what can we attribute Adam’s frequent and – let’s be honest – spectacular failures with the fairer sex? Yes, you in the back!”

 

The regulars knew this routine by now, and many of them knew me very well too. Hands were actually raised.

 

“A fear of intimacy?” one shouted.

 

“Lack of emotional maturity!” suggested another.

 

“Oedipal complex!” offered a third with a disturbing amount of confidence.

 

“Oh, all interesting choices, but wrong, wrong, and ‘eew’.” Perry flipped a plastic-sealed biscotti into his hand and brought it to his face, imitating a microphone. “No, your problem, brother-mine, is that you have what imminent psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and myself refer to as ‘the Clark Kent Complex’.”

I bugged. “The ‘Clark Kent Complex’?”

 

“Indeed. I’m still trying to decide if I think it’d be too cute to spell ‘complex’ with a ‘k,’ but that’s not really the issue here. The problem, Adam, is that you always look for the damaged women. The ones who have problems, the ones who have been hurt, the ones who – in your learned opinion – need to be rescued.”

 

“That’s not true.”

 

“Isn’t it, now? Katy-with-a-y left you for an ex-boyfriend. Did you ever meet this guy?”

 

“Once or twice.”

 

“What was he like?”

 

I thought for a moment. “Remember Hannibal Lecter? Kind of like him, but without the charm.”

 

“And did you know him before you and Katy got together?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Perry ceremonially rang the service bell. “Ding-ding-ding! Protecting the damsel from the abusive ex-boyfriend! Clark Kent Complex.”

 

“Okay, what about Prague Girl?”

 

“She worked in an art supply store, right?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Did she paint herself?”

 

“Yeah, some.”

 

“Did she ever sell anything?”

 

“Um… no.”

 

He rang the bell again. “Starving artist, right?”

 

“What about Amy?”

 

“Never got over her father’s death.”

 

“Jessica?”

 

“Still tormented by her weight issues as a child.”

 

“Sarah.”

 

“Latent homosexual urges conflicting with her strong Baptist upbringing! Man, I am on fire.”

 

I stammered. He was definitely winning this round. Pointing at our friendly neighborhood barista, I shouted, “Aha! And what about–”

 

“I’m an emotionally vacant succubus incapable of true emotional connectivity!” Amber shouted. “You aren’t getting off that easily!”

 

I pulled a sketch pad and sharpened pencil out of my portfolio. They had me on the ropes and I knew now I’d need to activate my secret weapon if I was to have any chance of even stalemating this exchange. “So what you’re saying is, deep down, the cartoonist wants to put on tights and a cape and come to the rescue of every woman he meets.”

 

Perry rang the bell a third time. “Exactly!”

 

“And thank you for that mental image,” Amber interjected.

 

“And do you know why that strategy is never going to work?”

 

“I think so,” I said, sketching away, “but why don’t you explain it to our audience?” I looked out over the crowd, finally finding what I needed to complete the sketch.

 

“Well, I’d be happy to, sir,” he said. “The problem is that you can’t rescue someone who doesn’t want to be rescued! It doesn’t matter how disturbed or messed-up the girl is, or how much that turns you on.”

 

“Hey!”

 

“The truth hurts, brother. The point is, if you keep insisting on quote-unquote ‘helping’ someone who doesn’t want any help, all you’re going to do is make her mad, make her resent you, or drive you away.”

 

There were a few cheers and claps from the women in the room on that one, but too-fast-coffee-girl, she of the coal-black hair, pale, flawless skin, and smoldering dark eyes, made no reaction except to laugh at the crowd. I know this because, at this point, I was glancing over at her as ambiguously as possible every few seconds, my pencil racing. I finished the first of two sketches, flipped to the next blank sheet, and kept drawing.

 

“Well then, Perry the Wise, High Chieftan of the Clan of Dr. Phil, what do you think is the solution to the problem?”

 

“The way I see it, it has to be one of two things. Either first, you stop being attracted to damaged girls.”

 

“Which, let’s face it, probably isn’t going to happen. If I wasn’t damaged myself, I probably wouldn’t be interested in them in the first place.”

 

“True enough. Which leaves us with option two: you find a girl who, although she has some baggage, has accepted that fact and now possesses the emotional maturity to seek out someone who will help her, which is your natural inclination already. These girls do exist, my friend! You can find the one who’s had her fill of the bad boys and is actively looking for someone who won’t make a pass at her sister at their wedding reception!”

 

“Isn’t it a little sexist to declare that women want to be rescued?” I asked.

 

“Eh, I’m not saying all women. Just the ones you wind up attracted to. Besides, it’s a two-way street. You need rescuing just as much as they do.”

 

“I need rescuing? From what?”

 

“From your infuriating need to rescue people!” Amber shouted. She really loved this game.

 

“The girl may have a vested interest in the topic,” Perry admitted, “but she speaks true. So, Picasso, what do you think?” He indicated my sketch, which I was finishing up. I know he was dying to see it, but he resisted the urge to peek. that wasn’t how the game worked. We had refined this routine into an art form, and he was far too civil a gentleman than to ruin my big reveal.

 

I finished the last bit of shading on my sketch, made just a few strokes with a gum eraser, and examined the piece. Quick, yes, but not bad at all. I tore the top two sheets from my pad, snatched two pieces of tape from the roll Perry used to wrap sandwiches and affixed them to the top of each of my two sketches. I stood up and started to mosey around the room, planning the reveal. “So let me see if I completely understand your diagnosis. I, in fact, am damaged goods.”

 

“I think that goes without saying.”

 

“And as a symptom of this condition, I seek out damage in my female companionship.”

 

“Right again.”

 

“However, our damage is incompatible unless we are both actively seeking repairs.”

 

“Indeed.” People were leaning forward now, anticipating the climax of this whole routine.

 

“Well then, the answer is simple!”

 

“Lay it on me!”

 

I stopped abruptly, right next to the table with the two-fast-coffee-girl. “All I need to do is find the girl who wants to turn this…” I slapped the first sketch on the wall. It was me, wearing a frumpy, ill-fitting suit, narrow tie, and a giant pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

 

“…into this.” Standing now by the girl with “Stephanie” written on her cup, I slapped the second sketch to the wall. It was all down to her reaction now. If she didn’t laugh when she saw this, the whole crowd would turn on me. I know, it had happened before. The second sketch was me again, but this time in a tight bodysuit (which made no effort to disguise the pudge around my middle) and a flowing, majestic cape. The knee bent, one-arm-extended pose made it clear I was supposed to be flying, despite the lack of a background.

 

In my other arm, I was catching a girl in a tight, attractive business suit. Where I made my own pudge a joke, I made sure to accentuate only the proper curves on my other subject. She was smiling as she fell into my arms, jet-black hair flowing in the wind, darkly shaded eyes lighting up from behind. Although I don’t consider myself a realist in my art by any means, I am at least a good enough caricaturist that there was no doubt from anyone in the shop that my Lois Lane was supposed to be the girl at the table.

 

The girl, Stephanie, looked up at the sketch. The room was dead quiet. I had blown it, they were right to reject my comics, I–

 

After a second, comprehension dawned on her face and blood turned her pale cheeks pink. A joyous, melodic laugh burst from her smiling mouth, and the floodgates opened. Everyone else in the coffee shop, given permission by my guinea pig, laughed as well. Perry and Amber joined in, and the shop ground to a halt until the laughter subsided.

 

As the customers, satisfied that the show was over, returned to their coffee and snacks, I peeled the sketch from the wall and lay it on Stephanie’s table. “A gift, kind lady. Thank you, I’ll be here all week, don’t forget to tip your waitress! Unless it’s Amber!”

 

I returned to my own table, smiling. It may not have actually solved anything, but my little repartee with Perry and Amber was always enough to cheer me up. Maybe I could salvage something from this day after all.

 

“Excuse me,” said a light, lilting voice. It was the girl I’d sketched, and she was holding the drawing out to me. “It’s very nice, but you forgot to sign it. All artists sign their work, you know.”

 

“Of course, how silly of me.” I took the sketch and scrawled my name in the corner. “Can I personalize it for you?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“What’s your name?”

 

“Oh.” She sheepishly glanced down at her coffee cup. “Stephanie.”

 

I wrote in, “To Stephanie,” and almost followed it with a “best wishes,” but stopped myself. After that performance, I had to do a little better. A dozen terrible options ran through my head, from “Up, up and away!” to “From your man of steel,” before I finally settled on, “Thanks for not grounding me on takeoff.” Not great, not even really good, but I could have done worse.

 

“Here you go.”

 

“Oh, thank you.” She looked down at the sketch, beaming. “Um… who are we supposed to be?”

I laughed, then immediately felt like a schmuck when I realized she wasn’t joking. Maybe I was even less of a cartoonist than I thought. “Um… Superman. And Lois Lane.”

 

“Oh, Superman.” She looked down, staring, as if she was assembling a puzzle on the counter. “He was a movie a few years ago, right?”

 

I thought back to the approximately 4,000 bagged, boxed and catalogued Superman comics at my house and said, “Yeah, something like that.”

 

“I don’t watch a lot of movies, I’m afraid.” She looked out the window at a crystal-clear sky. “Look at that sunlight… that sky. Who could stand to spend a day like this in a dark room somewhere?”

 

“What do you do on days when the weather is bad?”

 

She smiled. “It’s not usually a problem. Well, thank you again. I should get going. It was pleasant meeting you.”

 

“You too.” She extended her hand and I shook it, and the clichéd thing to say here would be that the very touch of her skin sent an electric pulse through my body, and that I fell in love with her right then and there. That would be a lie, though. Although there would be electricity, that would come later, and although I liked her right away, I was still allowing my performance with Perry to rattle through my brain, and wisely, was not yet in the mindset to fall in love. I’ll tell you this much, though – her hand was the softest, smoothest I had ever felt, and I most certainly imagined in that moment how that hand might feel running across my skin.

 

She turned to leave, but then stopped and looked back. “Your friends are right, you know.”

 

“Don’t tell them I said it, but they usually are.”

 

“I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

She stepped outside then, walking away and leaving me with that hope that I’d find what I needed, and I don’t think either of us realized yet that I already had.

 

Next Week: Chapter Two-Falling For the First Time

 

Summer Love by Blake M. Petit is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.evertimerealms.com.

 

 

 

 

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