First Movement

“So… you just left him there?”

Merrigold downed the glass in her hands and then gently set in down on the smooth wooden surface of the counter with a soft clack. Silently, she tilted her face to the ceiling where the dim lights somewhat brightened the dark room and shut her eyes as the platinum blonde curls of her hair fell backward over her shoulders.

“Just as the rain began to pour,”

Collin cupped his chin in his palm as he starred at her profile. He was a sort of come what may type of man with modern likes and dislikes. He listened to rock’n’roll music like Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, and Def Leppard and read poetry like William Shakespeare or Percy Bysshe Shelley only when coerced to. He went to the movies every now and then to see movies like Mission Impossible or Blade and read books when he was in the mood to. For a majority of his life, him being 42, he’d lived by the infamous James Dean theory:

“Live fast, die young, and leave behind a good looking corpse.”

But as the years had gone on, he found himself itching for purpose; old age; children; grandchildren; a wife; a lover. And that itch led him away from the night clubs, from the random dark alleys, and from his fast life. But now that he wanted life to slow down, it only seemed to speed up faster until he found Merrigold Valentine to be the center of his attention.

“You’re really something, you know that?” he told her with a lopsided smile. He reached over and tenderly untangled one of the curls laying on her white shoulder. “The poor fellow pours his heart out to you and you leave him a fool in the rain.”

She tipped the bartender who eagerly refilled her glass to the brim. The many rings upon her fingers tapped against the cup as she lifted it into her hands again. She was quite the opposite of him. Harlow gold was her hair and a pair of Bette Davis eyes in her face, though she was the farthest thing from a classic beauty; Collin actually found her features to be rather masculine at times. But classic she was; a good old fashioned girl. She told him about movies like The Red Violin and Amadeus, read poetry like Rimbaud and Donne to him, and listened to Bach and Paganini. And yet, on their first date she burned him a CD with all her favorite White Snake ballads.

“He always told me things at the last minute: always expecting I’d make room for him somehow. But this time he was too late.”

“Is this some kind of lesson you’re trying to teach him?” he inquired, watching her lift the glass again.

“I could not love except where Death
Was mingling his Beauty’s breath—
Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny
Were stalking between her and me.”

Collin waited. Normally, as soon as she’d finished quoting a poem she’d pulled out of the air, she would give him the title and poet for him to look up later that evening. This was no exception.

“Introduction by Edgar Allen Poe. He recited it for me to try to explain himself,” she smiled the smile that caused him to fall in love with her; her lips, petal soft and pale, closed, her lower lip stretched out slightly in the small smile, and her gray eyes shut, the long dark lashes which curled upward at the end without the use of a curler, resting against the snow whiteness of her cheeks.

“…And what did you say,” he asked slowly, distracted by her outer beauty and pausing in his conversation with her for a moment.

“And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!"

“The Raven,” he responded, immediately recognizing the line, much to his own pleasure.

Her elbows were up on the counter and her fingers interlaced together with her chin resting a top them. The smile was still in place but her eyes were open and watching him. He, on the other hand, allowed his eyes to wander along her slender arms and her small boned, smooth, rounded shoulders, as he fought off the urge to take her into his arms and kiss every inch of her exposed flesh, reenacting an Adams Family moment.

“Yes…his… Alex’s least favorite poem, believe it or not,”

Collin waved the bartender away as he tried to approach Merrigold again. She’d had enough. She may not have looked it, but Collin knew her well enough to know when she was drunk and when she was sober.

“I invited him to our wedding,” she spoke up suddenly as Collin was digging through his pockets to pay the impatient bartender. He stopped abruptly, starring at her, bewildered as to why she’d do such a thing. “I…I want him to see what he could have had.”

Collin gave in at that. He reached for her, taking hold of her right shoulder and left upper arm, turning her to face him. Black looked so nice on her. It gave her a sort of elegance that no other girl he’d been with could ever have achieved. “Merri… Merrigold…? Do you love me?”

She snorted, and turned her face away from him, shifting her gaze onto the floor. At that moment, Collin couldn’t have loved her any more. He loved her so much, he hated her. He could’ve beat her then and there: grab her by those blonde curls and rip them from her skull by the roots; strike her and bruise that too white skin until purple and yellow marks in the shapes of his hands appeared. She was simply too cold, so indifferent to him and his feelings, it drove him into a rage every time he was with her. When he’d asked her to marry him, he was almost positive she’d refuse and continue telling him about how Beethoven’s ninth made her feel. But surprises were what she was about. She turned her face to the ceiling again, as she had at the beginning of the conversation and shut her eyes:

“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt…my love.”