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bench in the
rose garden. From this captive position, I considered my situation.
    The cold stone of the bench met the hot
backs of my thighs and did what every cold object does when it encounters a
warmer one—kinetic energy was neatly transferred by elastic collisions between
the frenetic particles to their sedater neighbors. The smell of the flowers,
produced by vaporous bulky molecules colliding with receptors in my nose, made
the air literally heavy on my cool skin. Those smelly molecules were an order
of magnitude heavier than the nitrogen and oxygen in the cool air.
    The light from a lamppost illuminated only half of Eddie’s
face, leaving the other half hidden in black shadows. Though I knew the missing
half of his face wasn’t actually gone, I entertained myself with imagining “ what isn’t seen does not exist, ” a fun mind
game I almost mentioned out loud and would have if only my brain could have
made my lips function. But Eddie’s large hand on my waist had somehow alerted a
colony of my eager neurons to start a chain reaction that made me lightheaded.
And then, by a series of moves not under my control, perhaps only understood by
males of the species, Eddie managed to get his lips close to my paralyzed ones.
    Really close. Closer than any lips had
ever been to the molecules of me. His molecules exerted an inexplicable force
that mine found irresistible.
    For a full minute, I held my breath. For
sixty seconds, maybe more, I existed in an idiotic state of self-denial from
completely free, available, and fresh oxygen. I like oxygen. It’s one of my
favorite elements. Its absence was not helping with my lightheaded situation.
    And then he did it. Eddie Wixim, my teacher , touched his lips to
mine, and for the first time in my life I wasn’t thinking with my brain.
    | | | |
    In June , mere months after our first kiss, he went and did
it: Eddie proposed in the drive-thru line at McDonald’s on a Tuesday in June.
He paid for our Big Macs, and while we waited, he sucked hard on the straw of
his chocolate shake and asked me to get a cassette tape out of the glove box. I
opened the box and saw nothing like a cassette tape. A top layer of papers and
wrappers and newspapers peeled away to reveal a baseball, a wad of napkins, one
red and one green tube sock, a comb, a dozen pencils, and even more entropy
below.
    “Eddie? What the heck? It’s a disaster in
here.”
    “Just dig in there. I know the Doobie
Brothers are in the back somewhere.”
    I dug my hand in because I trusted him,
this competent, sweet, intelligent man who liked me in spite of me, or maybe
because of me. I never understood that part. My hand felt around for the sharp
corners of a cassette case and just came up with more sticky wrappers, which I
tossed in handfuls over my shoulder into his back seat. The McDonald’s chick
handed Eddie a huge greasy, salt-encrusted bag. He dragged out french fries,
two at a time, and shoved them the long way down his throat. I don’t even think
he chewed
    “Hey,” I said, “don’t eat mine.” He always
ate my fries.
    “I won’t,” he lied.
    I was still up to my elbows in male
disorganization. It was making me twitch. “There’s no cassette in here, Eddie.”
    “Anna, come on. This is easy. Just reach
in the back.”
    That’s when my fingers landed on the
square velvet box. I pulled it out and was about to toss it over my shoulder
with the other crap when Eddie’s hand caught my wrist. He said, “Oh, yeah, I
forgot about that. It’s for you. See if you like it.” So nonchalantly, the man
ate a few more of my fries.
    I looked down at the blue box and suddenly
understood that there was a ring inside. Holy shit.
    Unable to breathe, I choked out, “What are
you thinking?”
    “That I want you to come with me,” he
managed to say around a mouthful.
    “Why?” It came out in a whisper. I
couldn’t pull in a full breath.
    “Because I don’t want to go without you. I can’t go without
you.”