Alone Together

The room was completely dark, silent, a room where one could think of anything with slight chance of disturbance. The only light slipping into the room slithered between the blinds, drawing black and white lines on the face of the man sitting in front of the window at his desk. His eyes were nearly without their entire pervious glimmer—the shine that could make almost any woman swoon when accompanied with his famous smirk. His dark bangs were prickling those eyes, making them water in irritation whilst they traveled over the two items in front of him.

One, a picture of he and a friend long lost, probably forever, due to his own selfish desires and inability to not hurt those he loved. It was worn and crumpled from many glances and angry attempts to shove the memories away.

And the second, a piece of paper with line after line of lyrics, some furiously scribbled out after mumbles of, “No, stupid…” and a gentle voice echoing through his mind the cause of his inspiration, keeping him sane with the subtle Irish accent.

“You know, I always wanted a guy to say something like that to me—something really romantic and heart stopping…I mean, I’d probably laugh in his face if he said it to me in person and said it seriously.” An image of her soft smile flashed through his head, making him wince and grab his head.

“Though I think I’d like it very much if they said it in song. It would make it more special.”

The smile turned into a thoughtful frown, the rest of the face still blurred out. “I guess, some things…you can only say them through song, yeah?”

He sighed and shook his head, ridding himself of the painful memory and turning back to his paper. He read over the words, scowling and crumpling it up. It would never work. It wasn’t what he wanted to say to her—about her—without anyone finding out it was her.

A soft thud made him jump, and he turned his head to the potted plant on his desk. The petals of the flower lay in a puddle around the pot. What used to be a well-cared for abundance of pink roses now was limited to a few stray petals clinging desperately to their stems. He groaned in distress, rubbing his thumb against one of the only remaining beauties, when his eye caught something else.

Nearly falling out of the pot, perfectly healthy and in perfect condition was a single bud. Its leaves were deep green…her eyes…the petals a light pink…her lips…and the bud dutifully opening, even though the outcome didn’t seem to be in its favor…HER.

Suddenly, the words came pouring into his mind, and, frantically grabbing another piece of paper, he let his fingers guide his pen over the masterpiece, humming the tune and picturing her face the entire time, her smile becoming sharper in his memory.

“Don’t be a fool, Pete. You don’t need to write me a song. Everything you say to me is as beautiful as your lyrics anyway—what more could I need?”

“A song,” he muttered, grinning like a mad man as he dotted an ‘i’. “I promised you a song, and I’ll be damned if I don’t give it to you.”

--

Miracles happen in the strangest of places.

They can occur anywhere, be it in a quiet cathedral or in the toilet stall next to the woman splurging her guts out, but no matter where they occur, they’re always…miraculous.

It’s a shame that the story of Taylor Barrie never really led her to a miracle.

Born Katherine Elizabeth Taylor Barrie in 1981, she and her family moved to the States from Dublin, Ireland after her ninth birthday. Her mother was a florist, her father a landscaper, and she herself dreamt of following in her father’s footsteps, literally following him when he walked around the sites he worked on and taking note of every big word or flower he said regarding the job.

When Taylor was eleven, and her mother had to quit her floral business because of an “escapade” with another employee, everyone said it would take a miracle for her and her husband to stay together.

And a year later Taylor and her mother moved out to Cheyenne, the divorce papers finalized and limited phone calls permitted between father and daughter.

When Taylor was twelve her mother came down with a disease, keeping her in bed with hardly any visitors allowed in her room. When the home doctor walked out one day, Taylor’s grandmother gripped his shoulder and asked, “Will she be alright?” The doctor sighed and shook his head. “The tumor’s spread too much. It would take a miracle for her to survive.”

And a week later Mary Elizabeth Hutson was buried in the church cemetery.

With her legal guardian now unable to provide for her, Taylor faced a new dilemma. Her father wanted custody of her, as did her grandmother, and some aunt in Tennessee who’d been “very close” to Mary did as well.

If miracles happened to little Katherine, it would be safe to say that she was put in the care of her loving father, the man she adored beyond all else and who’s career she still wished to follow. But as said before, the word “miracle” never fit in with her life. Nor with her grandmother, who passed away a week before the guardianship could be decided.

And away to Tennessee she went.

The aunt, whose name was Cynthia, split with her fiancée that same year. Not wishing to stay anywhere near the man she suddenly learned to loathe, Cynthia took thirteen year old Katherine with her to her new home in Chicago, finally putting a rest to the young girl’s tour around the country.

Down the street from the apartment she resided in, Katherine, now going by Taylor, found a small floral shop owned by an elderly woman named Clara. The constant trips she made to just admire the flowers led to a friendship with the old woman, and when she became old enough, a job as cashier became available for her.

Who’d have thought that the trust she’d gained from that woman would lead to small jobs around town, taking care of plants and small landscaping gigs for the backyards of apartments?

Miracle? No. Good luck? Most likely.

The years went by, and the elderly lady passed, as most old folks do. The shop went to her son, a middle-aged gentleman who put a great load of trust on Taylor’s shoulders just as his mother had done. He knew nothing of flowers and shrubs, she knew tons; he could care less, she cared about almost nothing else.

The day that a famous singer nervously walked into her shop, timidly asking her to be his official landscaper and gardener was a day that Taylor would never forget. He’d heard of how well she did things, how passionate she was about her work, and he wanted her—for her work. He offered to pay double the salary of her current job, even though he hardly had any plants at all, and merely just a huge backyard he wanted work on.

Yes, the day Patrick Stump offered her a job as a landscaper, just like her father, was a dream come true.

A miracle? Never.

It was fate, about to intervene.