Two of a kind

Last night when I was covering for Bill, a good friend of mine turned up shortly before closing time. It had been nearly five months since I had last seen him, as he'd moved out of town on his new job. We thought it would be a good idea to do some catching up over a few drinks. It was only 6.30, so I decided I'd just wait another fifteen minutes before closing the Retreat, and then we could get going.

Half an hour later, we found ourselves talking and drinking at [Bar's Name], one of our favourite haunts. It was then that he dropped the daisycutter: he'd broken up with his girlfriend. I was completely stunned by this piece of news, since the two seemed to have been absolutely made for one another. When I realised that I hadn't asked him a thing about [Girlfriend] the entire time, shock gave way to embarrassment.

"But - but... Why?!" I stammered.

"Aaah... I dunno... Things just weren't working out," he replied.

I could see that he didn't really feel like discussing it. He'd just told me because he felt he should let me know. I didn't want to press for reasons, but I was still quite shocked - I'd never really known [Girlfriend] well, but I knew this guy, and he seemed like the love-for-life sort.

Me: I never imagined! I mean, you guys've been going out for like three years! I thought you'd get married any day now!

Friend: Yeah, well...

A short silence descended on the table as neither of us knew what to say. After a few minutes of desperate searching, I came up with nothing.

Me: When did this happen?

Friend: Three weeks ago.

Me: Are you sure it's -

Friend: - yeah, yeah. Sure.

Me: I'm awfully sorry... I don't know what to say...

Friend: Yeah, well... I guess this whole one-true-love-thing just comes to so much anyway. Whole bunch of two-heart-one-soul-crap.

I didn't want to continue on the subject, especially since [Friend] wasn't excited about discussing it. He changed the subject shortly, to my great relief. But even after we were through with dinner and I headed home, I was still thinking about the same thing. I guess we both were.

As a person who has never quite been able to decide either way on the true nature of love, I was thinking about what [Friend] had said about 'one-soul-crap'. If I've ever known a real romantic, it's [Friend] - at least, he was one. If he couldn't last in a relationship after being in it for three years, there was something disturbing about it. Do those fairy-tale relationships exist in reality, then, I wondered. Are people really meant to be together?

Those thoughts brought back to mind an incident that had occurred around two years ago. Two middle aged people, a man and a woman - probably colleagues or friends - were looking around the store, and it appeared as though they were not sure where to find what they were looking for. I asked them if they were looking for anything in particular, and they said no, so I left them to continue looking around.

They browsed various sections for over half an hour, but I didn't pay them much attention since that isn't very unusual, and I had another customer's billing to attend to. Before they left, however, I noticed that they seemed to be attracted by a glossy coffee-table-sort of book, 'Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia'. I smiled to myself, appreciating their taste, since that volume was one of the two that had been stocked for a year, and nobody had ever bought either one. At $527, that wasn't surprising.

After they left, a cursory inspection revealed that they had replaced each book they had checked out, back in its proper place. I was impressed. The day went on uneventfully, and later in the afternoon at around 4.30, the woman returned to the Retreat, straightaway picked up Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, and placed it on the billing counter. Wow. Now I was really impressed. Smiling widely, I got her the bill and put the book along with a complimentary Bookworm's Retreat fountain pen in a bag and handed it to her.

But as it turned out, that was not to be the only amazing incident to happen on that day. A few hours into the evening, the middle aged man turned up. My mild surprise at seeing two returning visitors on the same day turned to major astonishment when he walked to the aisle with the only other copy of Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, and brought it to the counter. Dazedly, I repeated the actions I'd performed earlier, and was smiling vaguely even after the man had left.

I soon forgot about the whole thing, as we are bound to forget with the goings on of everyday inanities. Until six months later, that is. Six months later, I was processing a bill for a woman who'd just bought a whole bunch of books. Her face seemed very familiar, and I had trouble placing who she was (of course, all the while I was smiling n nodding at her as though she and I were old buddies - standard storekeeper practice).

Suddenly, I realised that she was the woman who'd bought that Encyclopedia.

"Oh!" I exclaimed, "I'm sorry, I had a little trouble placing you. I remember, you're the lady who bought Grzimek's."

"Yes," she smiled.

"The other gentleman you were with came by later. He bought the same thing too."

"I know," she said sheepishly. "We gifted the same thing to each other."

As it turned out, the two were a couple who'd been married for twenty years. They had come to Bookworm's Retreat on the day before their twentieth anniversary. They had both seen the book, and they had both liked it. Not a word had they exchanged about it, but each had decided that that was what they would gift the other.

It has been over two years since that incident. The couple are regular customers of the Retreat, and I've got to know them better. They're still happily married, still blissfully in love with each other.
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