They meet every Tuesday around 3pm at the same green bench in front of the train station. It’s crowded enough where they go unnoticed and loud enough near the tracks with trains coming and going where they go unheard. They could be two strangers just happening upon the same bench instead of two would be lovers arranging to meet exactly there.
They talk about anything and everything. They talk for hours. They sit quiet and look at each other just as long. They count each other’s quickening breaths and heartbeats before they know they must leave, uncertain if they will in fact meet again.
She gets a little fancy before each meeting. She surveys herself in the mirror, wondering if today will be the day, and smooths down the periwinkle blue dress she’s selected for its ease of movement, the way it can be yanked up so he can press close against her and his skin can touch her own. The fabric is loose and flowy enough to then fall back in place and conceal whatever it is they might be doing underneath it. She spins like she did when she was a little girl, delighting in the way the skirt billows and swishes around her hips and legs.
She remembers at the last meeting how he’d inched ever nearer until his hand rested beside her thigh, his fingers gently grazing the soft material of her yellow dress. He’d said nothing at first, just staring straight ahead as she felt his fingers brush more insistently along the cotton barrier between them. She imagined how they’d feel if they were touching her bare thigh. When they stood up to leave, he turned back to look at her the way he always did, like he was taking a photo of her with his mind in case it was the last time, and said, “I like you in dresses. You should wear them more.”
She loves her husband and has every day for the two decades they’ve been together. Even when she hasn’t liked him very much, she’s loved him. But they have fallen into a routine. One in which they take the other for granted and forget to see each other in a hundred little ways that build up over time. They used to write long letters at the very beginning even though they lived in the same city. Across town, which was a hassle during the week, but worth it the deeper in love they fell. Still, they’d write like they were separated by thousands of miles in those early breathless getting to know you days. She remembers riding the subway to work and taking along a notebook so that she’d never forget the things she saved up to tell him, to store away a particular turn of phrase as soon as it entered her mind so she could express it to him just so in the letter she’d write that night. She was able to describe to him a bird stealing someone’s food the moment she saw it or tell him what song the saxophonist was playing on the platform as she waited and what memories it recalled from her past—a past that was exciting to him, that he still knew nothing about, and that he couldn’t wait to learn like it would be on the most important test he’d ever studied for in his life. Now texting her husband, even a brief few words, is like sending her thoughts to an abandoned storage unit. A place for forgotten things. Never to be opened.
She doesn’t think the maybe someday lover is intrinsically better than the husband. Undoubtedly, he’d ignore a text or two if they’d shared a bed and life’s difficulties together for twenty years instead of sharing a bench and the mystery of what all life could be if only they were to be together. Just once.
She and the maybe someday lover had first met at the library. They were browsing in the same section and reached for the same book. They struck up a friendship that blossomed at alarming speed and reached emotional intimacy without intention or design but rather recklessly and carelessly, too, as both had known they felt attraction from the moment their hands touched. After they read the book and danced around the guilt of confessing their growing feelings, but not acting upon them, they joked that maybe they could be together for one day only and then have those memories taken from them so they could return to the husband and the wife, none the wiser.
“No,” he’d said when the laughter stopped and they fell silent. “I’d want to keep the memories.”
“Me, too.”
Today she approaches their bench and he isn’t there. This surprises her because she is never on time and he is always early. She checks her phone. Nothing. Then a strong arm encircles her waist from behind. She sees a vein bulging up under the skin of his forearm, a darker deeper blue than her dress, as he tightens his grip around her. This is the most physical he’s ever been and they haven’t even made eye contact yet. Maybe someday is today. She feels him burying his face in her hair and breathing in the lavender scent.
“You wore a dress. For me?”
She nods as she turns. “Yes.” Her voice sounds foreign to her like it’s someone else saying it.
He gathers her in a tight embrace. She stands on her tiptoes as he lowers his face to hers so she can rest her cheek against his. Their breathing is the only sound they hear. He steps back, takes her hand, and they walk to their bench. They sit and they wait.
