Subject: A Test
From: Unicorn (unicorn@indenial.com)
Date: Sun May 26 2002 - 19:19:30 EDT
"A Test"
John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army
uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way through
Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew,
but whose face he didn't, the girl with the rose. His interest in her had
begun thirteen months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off
the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book,
but with the notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting
reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind.
In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner's name,
Miss Hollis Maynell. With time and effort he located her address.
She lived in New York City. He wrote her a letter introducing himself
and inviting her to correspond. The next day he was shipped overseas
for service in World War II.
During the next year and one-month the two grew to know each other
through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A
romance was budding. Blanchard requested a photograph, but she
refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she
looked like. When the day finally came for him to return from Europe,
they scheduled their first meeting - 7:00 PM at the Grand Central
Station in New York. "You'll recognize me," she wrote, "by the red
rose I'll be wearing on my lapel." So at 7:00 he was in the station
looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he'd never seen.
...A young woman was coming toward him, her figure long and slim.
Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were
blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale
green suit she was like springtime come alive. Mr. Blanchard started
toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose.
As he moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips. "Going my way,
sailor?" she murmured. Almost uncontrollably he made one step closer to
her, and then he saw Hollis Maynell. She was standing almost directly
behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under
a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into
low-heeled shoes.
The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. Lt. Blanchard felt
as though he was split in two, so keen was his desire to follow her, and
yet so deep was his longing for the woman whose spirit had truly
companioned him and upheld his own. And there she stood. Her pale,
plump face was gentle and sensible, her gray eyes had a warm and
kindly twinkle. John Blanchard did not hesitate. His fingers gripped the
small worn blue leather copy of the book that was to identify him to her.
This would not be love, he thought, but it would be something precious,
something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which he had
been and must ever be grateful.
He squared his shoulders, saluted and held out the book to the woman,
even though while he spoke he felt choked by the bitterness of his
disappointment. "I'm Lieutenant John Blanchard, and you must be Miss
Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me. May I take you to dinner?"
The woman's face broadened into a tolerant smile. "I don't know what
this is about, sonny," she answered, "but that young lady in the green
suit had begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said if you
were to ask me out to dinner, I should go and tell you that she is waiting
for you in the big restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind
of test..."
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