Tess
He was used to falling in love. The ten second romance. For him one of the joys of wandering the streets was the endless variety of females, all sizes and shapes. Each one of them different. Each one beautiful in her own way. As he passed a woman he would look at her boldly, unashamedly ravishing her with his eyes, and then blink! she was gone, replaced by another vision in quick succession. The sidewalk was a conveyor belt for beauties. He could imagine himself loving every woman who passed.
When he was alone in his room with a cup of steaming tea on his reading table, he'd sit with a book perched on his knee, sipping idly, his mind afloat, visions of captured faces materializing and dissolving in his imagination --- the day's catch. Eventually the faces would fade and he would forget them, but no matter, he could collect a whole new set the following day.
Later that night as he stood in front of the mirror in his bathroom brushing his teeth, he could still see one face, one in particular out of the hundreds he'd seen that day. She wasn't particularly beautiful. No, she was unusual. The structure of her face was slightly elongated between the nose and the top of the upper lip. Her philtrum. The dimple-like cleft connecting the nose to Cupid's bow. He'd known the word for many years, but had only ever seen it used once, in a children's book. After rinsing his mouth and placing the toothbrush in its holder he said the words aloud, "Philtrum." Then he said, "Cupid's bow." And he touched his own philtrum with the tip of his tongue. When he did that, he saw himself --- really saw himself. He had stopped looking at the reflection in the mirror and suddenly realized that it was his face looking back at him. Not the other, but the same. And he looked old. How did he get to be so old?
He turned out the light.
The next day he walked the streets. He visited his favorite coffee shop and ordered his favorite espresso from his favorite Monday morning barista. She was called Lacy. Her hair was twisted in a disorganized knot on the top of her head. A scatter of freckles dappled her nose. She had peach colored skin. But visions of Lacy couldn't erase the image of the young lady with the sloping philtrum. She had glanced at him, for just a moment. Their eyes met. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught him staring at her. She appeared to be amused. Her lips were parted slightly as if she might be ready to say something, or perhaps it was a prelude to a kiss? No.
His usual haunts were bookstores. Tiny bookshops on quiet corners. He knew the names of the owners and those who worked in each shop. When he browsed, he wouldn't just scan the shelves looking at covers and spines, he would open book and read from it. Just a few pages. He would flip through the book randomly, idly until something caught his eye, a word or a phrase. Then he would read. He was careful not to always start somewhere in the middle. He would read a book's closing sentence and then flip to the beginning to read the opening sentence always thinking of what Pascal said, that the last thing one finds when writing a book must go at the beginning. He could pass an hour or two reading from several dozen books and sometimes the story that began in one book would resume in another, but this time with different characters living in different cities. Everything is connected, he thought.
For several weeks he wandered the streets, but he realized that something was different, different about him. He no longer took as much delight in all the women he saw. He didn't fall in love as easily anymore. That succession of fleeting romances didn't provide as much pleasure as it once did. He realized that he was looking for her. The young woman with the long philtrum, the one who had looked slyly at him, a quick skeptical glance. Perhaps she was astonished that he was being so bold with his gaze.
He'd lost how many weeks had passed since he had seen the woman with the distinctive philtrum, deep and contoured. In those weeks he had studied the image that his mind had captured. He reconstructed the scene, those brief moments, in every detail. She had been wearing a khaki jacket and an olive green blouse. Her sandy blonde hair was pulled back in a twist. From her ears dangled pearl earrings. Around her neck hung a delicate, small golden cross.
Yes, it had been a Sunday evening, just before dusk when he saw her. He had just left St Mark's with a new copy of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles in his hand.
The following Sunday he returned to St Mark's, but he didn't go in. Instead he wandered. Walking up and down the streets. He searched for her, the girl with sloping philtrum.
