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“I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand.”
“Needles. You know, like needling.” Francesca sighs. “It’s one of those phrases. Just one of those phrases that people know. He needles you. Or maybe they don’t say that in Canada?”
But I am still confused. Mightily so. I do know the phrase, but unless I am misremembering, it means that Ray annoys me. And Ray does not annoy me. Not at all.
Well. Not usually.
Either way, surely Francesca wouldn’t have pulled me into the supply closet with such urgency, only to tell me this?
“I’m so sorry, Francesca, but I’m afraid I still—”
“No, wait,” she says, tapping my sleeve. “Wait, wait. It’s one of those word things again. I’ve been working on this, I swear I have.”
“Ah, I see,” I reply, and then fall silent. I know the word thing she’s talking about, and I know she’ll figure it out if I give her the time.
“Think, Frannie, think,” she mutters.
I busy myself taking in the folders on this shelf, the binders on that shelf. They’ll need to restock their toilet paper supply within the week. And one of the lightbulbs has burnt out. I ought to tell someone.
“Needles. Needles?” She closes her eyes, as if visualizing her way back through the thought process that led her to this word in the first place. “Branches, cones, trees—pine! A pine tree!” Her eyes fly open again, and she grips my arm and bounces up and down with victorious glee. “I meant he’s pining for you!”
I freeze. This phrase is definitely one that I know. And if it means what I think it means…
But surely not.
“Pining? For me? Ray? As in Ray Vecchio?”
Francesca rolls her eyes. “Obviously not. I mean Ray, you know, Vecchio.” She uses her fingers to create air-quotes around the name.
“That’s what I said.”
“Oh, I thought you meant my br—”
“I meant Ray Vecchio, Mark Two,” I clarify, lowering my voice considerably. The danger of being overheard is slim, as we are the only two occupants of this closet, but it’s always better to be careful than not.
“Yeah. That one.” She smirks. “Blondie.”
I take a moment to process this. Ray Vecchio, who is really Ray Kowalski and not at all Francesca’s biological brother, is…
“Pining?” Goodness. I hope my voice doesn’t normally squeak like this. “How do you know?”
“Oh, because he won’t shut up about you.” Her tone implies that it ought to be obvious. “Always with the ‘What’s Fraser’s favorite color?’ and ‘What’s Fraser’s favorite food?’ and ‘How come Fraser’s uniform never gets dirty?’ and, you know, everything else.”
I desperately want to know what everything else means. But I can’t bring myself to tell her so.
“Why he’s asking me, I got no idea,” Francesca continues, “but I’ve been answering the best I can.”
“Thank you. I, ah, appreciate that.”
She eyes me. “Your favorite color is red, right?”
It’s green, in fact. But I smile at her conjecture. “Red is certainly one of them.”
“Good. Okay. Now, are you gonna tell him you like him back?”
“Am I—I’m sorry but—you can’t simply assume—”
“Oh, gimme a break,” she says, rolling her eyes again. “I can do all the assuming I want, thank you very much. Come on, look at you. With all the longing looks and the ‘Would you care to join me for dinner, Ray?’ and ‘Your hair is looking ever so perky today, Ray’ and ‘I couldn’t have solved the case without you, Ray’ and—”
“I don’t talk like that.”
She laughs. “You sure do, Frase.”
“You were doing a British accent.”
“Whatever. Point is, you’re pining too.”
Am I pining?
Come to think of it, have I ever heard anyone say that before? Out loud? Francesca and I have our respective word things, and mine is this: Since moving to Chicago, I have become increasingly aware that, thanks to quite a different upbringing than most folk here have experienced, I tend to use language that other people find stilted or antiquated. Phrases that have fallen out of common usage. Words found only in books. This is one of those words.
“So I’m giving you the same deadline I gave Ray,” Francesca is saying. “Tell him yourself, or I do it for you.”
“Francesca, that’s—”
“You have five hours.”
I freeze again. Five hours. Five hours, when only five minutes ago I’d been safe in my plan to spend the rest of my natural life keeping my affection for Ray tucked away in smallest corner of my heart. A secret treasure to be taken out and examined once in a while, but not too often, and then put safely away again.
But then, five minutes ago I couldn’t have imagined he would ever feel the same about me.
Still. I can’t possibly figure out how to tell Ray how I feel in only five hours.
“Aw, come on, Frase,” she says after a minute. “You look like a deer in the taillights.”
“Headlights,” I suggest automatically.
“Taillights, headlights, whatever.” There’s an edge to her voice now, and instantly I feel bad for correcting her. She always comes to the right word herself, if given enough time. But when others correct her, it just irritates her. Of late, I’ve been trying harder to give her that time.
Although, it’s not as though she’s given me enough time, either. Only five hours.
All the same, I say, “Sorry.”
She shrugs. “I’m just saying, it won’t be that bad. You’ll be nervous, and then it’ll be over, and then whoosh! Happily ever after, and I won’t have to watch you two being all bug-eyed at each other anymore. You’ll thank me. Trust me.” And with that, she heads for the closet door.
“May I ask you one question before you leave?”
Hand on the doorknob, she turns back toward me and raises her eyebrows.
“Why the choice of phrase? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone outside of a book described as ‘pining’ for someone else.”
She smiles secretively. “There’s your answer, Frase. Got it from a book.”
As she leaves the supply closet, it comes back to me. I saw her reading at her desk earlier this week. A book whose cover featured a muscular man holding a thin woman with astonishingly large breasts.
Exactly the sort of book whose characters might pine for each other.
I have five hours to figure out how to tell Ray that I feel the same. Perhaps I ought to read one of Francesca’s romances. Perhaps I might find inspiration within.
And then an idea hits me. Not a book. No, what I need isn’t a book at all.
-
The greeting card aisle is massive. Overwhelmingly so. There are so many kinds of cards. Christmas cards take up most of the aisle—unsurprising, perhaps, given that it’s December. A smaller section is devoted to Hannukah cards. There are birthday cards, anniversary cards, get well soon cards, wedding cards, and so many others. They are sometimes divided by gender, sometimes by age, sometimes by whether or not they are religious, sometimes by whether or not they are funny.
I find a section labeled, simply, Love. Then, within it, I find the subsection labeled Humor. This, I think, is a good place to start.
The first cards I find are illustrated with oddly-proportioned robots and dinosaurs and zombies and other such fantastical creatures. Perhaps odd proportions indicate humor? I’m unsure.
But then, I begin finding cards that I like far better.
We make a great pear. Accompanied by a cartoonish image of two pears holding hands.
You are otter-ly wonderful. An image of an otter, frolicking in the waves.
I wheelie like you. An image of a bicycle.
“Can I help you?” comes a voice from beside me. I turn, and there’s a young man in a red CVS vest. He’s looking at me strangely, and I realize I’ve been laughing aloud.
As an explanation, I offer him the card currently in my hand. I’d be lion if I said I didn’t like you, it says. There is, of course, a picture of a lion directly beneath the words.
Apparently unimpressed, the young man hands the card back to me. “Okaaay…”
“I’m trying to find inspiration,” I explain. “I have something very specific that I’d like to express to a dear friend, and… and, you see, I’m not terribly well-versed in the ways that people express such things to one another, and…”
And I’m rambling. I’m nervous. And since the young man is looking at me as though my hat has caught fire, I decide to stop speaking.
He looks at me.
I look at him.
Finally, he says, “I mean, uh. We have a whole section of Star Wars cards over there? People like Star Wars.”
“Do they?” I ask.
“Mmhmm. And there’s gonna be new movies soon, too. Like prequels, you know? I think next year. Maybe the year after. I’m not sure.”
“I see.”
“I could probably check for you.”
“There’s no need.”
“So, yeah. Star Wars cards.” He points. “Right over there.”
I touch the brim of my hat. “Thank you kindly for your help.”
“No prob, Bob,” says the young man, and walks away.
Star Wars. I seem to remember Ray mentioning an affection for the films. Or is it Star Trek that he likes? Goodness. I should know this about him. Suddenly I have a hint of how Francesca must feel—constantly confusing words and phrases that ought to mean the same thing, but absolutely don’t.
Star Wars, Star Trek. Needles and pines.
Pines. Pine trees. Pining.
I look at the card in my hand. I’d be lion…
I have an idea. I tuck the card safely back into its slot, and I try not to feel guilty for leaving the store without purchasing anything.
-
Nearly fifteen minutes have passed since I arrived back at the station. Fifteen minutes during which I’ve tried no less than three times to approach Ray, sealed shoebox tucked neatly under my arm, only to be rebuffed with a terse, “Not now, Fraser, I’m busy.”
This wouldn’t bother me, but for the fact that he is clearly not busy. He is sitting, shoulders hunched, at his desk, pretending to read a file. At first this confuses me, but then I remember what Francesca told me, only a few hours earlier:
I’m giving you the same deadline I gave Ray.
Francesca’s spoken to Ray about the… the pining matter, just as she spoke to me. He isn’t avoiding me because he doesn’t want to speak to me. He’s avoiding me because he’s embarrassed.
And so, it is up to me.
I find Francesca and pull her aside, which seems to delight her. Leaning into one hip, tilting her head slightly to the side, she says, “What can I do you for, Frase?”
“This.” I hold the shoebox out to her. Eyebrows furrowed, she looks at it. It is sealed with Scotch tape. It says Nike on the side. “Would you do me the favor of delivering this to Ray?”
She straightens. Her expression grows sly as she takes the box. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with our”—here, a slight wiggle of her eyebrows—“conversation earlier, would it?”
“It might.”
“Damn,” she says, shaking her head as her eyes glint. “Give the guy five hours, and he takes two. Meanwhile, Ray’s still over there figuring out which way is up. What’s in the box?”
“That, I’m afraid, is between myself and Ray.”
She shakes it. It rattles.
“Francesca…”
“Fine, fine, yeesh.”
She turns on her heel, marching toward Ray’s desk with a confidence that, as always, catches the eye of every officer in the room, even if only for a second or two. I don’t follow her. Instead, I linger near the door. Far enough that Ray won’t suspect, but close enough to see his reaction.
Francesca sets the box down on his desk. He looks up at her and asks a question I can’t hear. Her answer is a shrug. He speaks again, and then she does, and, goodness, won’t they ever stop? Watching them talk as the box sits there, unopened, is causing my stomach to go… askew.
Finally, he starts to open the box. He works one piece of tape off with his finger, then one more, then rips the rest of it free as he pulls the lid off. His face scrunches in confusion as he lifts the item that he finds inside.
Francesca, though, starts laughing. Cackling, in point of fact.
Ray turns the pinecone over and over in his hands, examining it as though it might contain some sort of hidden message. But he’s sharp; it’s only a few seconds before he thinks to look in the box for the note that I tucked beneath the pinecone.
He lifts it. He reads it. He looks up sharply, and his eyes find mine across the room.
I suddenly find it quite difficult to breathe.
Francesca makes a grab for the note, but Ray evades her easily. His eyes never leave mine. He puts the pinecone down and begins moving toward me.
The room is quiet. People are watching. And finally, after half a lifetime, Ray stands before me. An arm’s length away. Maybe less.
“This from you?” he demands, holding up the note like a weapon. Or a shield.
It reads, I pine for you, too. I can see three of the five words now. His thumb covers the others.
I nod.
“Funny, I never took you for a pun guy.”
“You might be surprised,” I tell him.
Ray’s eyes are stormclouds. Full of fear and hope and challenge, all swirling together. Thunder is imminent.
I add, “You might be surprised by a lot of the things that I am.”
His lips twitch, nearly into a smile. Nearly.
“There’s people watching,” he says.
“Indeed there are.” There’s a tremor in my voice. Where in the world did that come from? “I might suggest that this is a conversation best had in private.”
He takes one step closer. The kind of step that, to an outside observer, might read as menacing. To me, it reads as menacing with just a touch of something quite different. Something I’d very much like to see more of.
“Who said anything about conversation?” Ray murmurs.
His voice is rough. My lungs have forgotten how to function. Francesca is watching us. Half the station is watching us. I take a moment to send a prayer of thanks to whoever designed the uniforms of the RCMP, which effectively disguise such a great many things, and then I attempt to speak:
“I…”
“You what?” Ray asks.
My mind flashes back to two hours ago. Francesca, taking my arm and leading me into the supply closet. Locking the door behind us.
I loop my arm through Ray’s and steer him toward the door. “I have an idea.”