Romance, Deconstructed

He was a nice guy. Really super nice, the sort you would show your rock collection to or share a bag of M&M’s with. I would tell you his name, but it really doesn’t matter.  Okay, fine–his name was Martin. But the important thing is, he loved her, passionately, ardently, with his entire being. His love for her knew no bounds. I would tell you her name, but I don’t know it. Doesn’t matter. He loved her. In fact, even he didn’t know her name. Not at first, anyway.

Every day she would walk down to the sea and he would contrive to be on the route she followed. He tried to catch her eye, but to no avail. He always smiled at her as she walked past him, but she never saw. It really made him sad. He was ready to give his heart to her, and gladly, but he couldn’t even get up the nerve to tell her he loved her–what hope did he have?

She was so mysterious and unreachable, and undeniably beautiful–tall and tan and young and lovely–everyone in the neighborhood thought she was quite a catch and would sigh ‘ah!’ as she waltzed by.  Waltzed by? Hardly that–her walk…her walk was more like…like a samba that swung so cool and swayed so gently. The rumor was that she was from Ipanema, apparently, but no one knew for sure. She didn’t talk much. Probably had a ton of boyfriends all throughout the beaches of Rio. It would figure.

Then one day a miracle happened. She looked at Martin as she passed. Unprecedented! This girl from Ipanema never did that! And the next day she smiled again, and the next day he walked with her to the beach. A week later they were sharing M&M’s right out of the bag. Her name was Paola, and she was great! They quickly became an item, and those two had a lot of fun.

And then…things cooled off a bit. Martin couldn’t quite figure it out. She had a few quirky habits, as he had found out, but that wasn’t the problem. They still saw a lot of each other, but the passion was cooling, and then…they stopped seeing each other regularly, and then not at all.

One morning not too long after that,  Martin sat at a cafe staring out at the sea lost in vague, dreamy thoughts when a beautiful young woman approached from down the block. Someone whispered, “She’s from Sao Paulo.”  He smiled up at her from his sidewalk table as she passed, but she just looked straight ahead and kept walking. He let out a low long sigh as her sashaying figure disappeared around a corner. Did she come by here every day? He’d be back tomorrow to find out.