Mike & Ike
She was standing in line at Wal-Mart when she thought of him. Or perhaps she was out of line, in a small town full of nothing flashy wearing snake-skin ballet flats and too many bangles to count. Nonetheless, the little boy, the chubby one with the unibrow standing in front of her grabbed at a pack of Mike & Ikes and begged with hideous puppy eyes and an unpleasant voice.
“Please can I get these?”
“I already said no.” Said his mother
“But this is all I want.”
“Okay.” She caved.
The girl in line could suddenly smell the Mike & Ikes from the time that she bought him some to help with the cravings. It must have been nearly a year since then. They were both 22 with wool over their eyes and sweaty palms. And before that, when they weren’t yet lovers she remembered that he ate them while they sat on opposite couches with strangers and watched Batman Returns. Out of nowhere she was smelling sugary air and feeling the prick on the nose, the sting behind the eye before the tears start to well.
It had been three days. Three whole days since she thought of him. 72 hours give or take a few. It felt like a world record- the kind that gets broken before it gets put on the books- the kind that your uncle’s cousin was always involved in. Like the mom with the boy she could sense herself caving and hoping and feeling and missing everything all at once.
There was no one to buy Mike & Ikes for anymore but there was a full-length mirror in her hands along with hangers and a wreath that her mother would later return on account of it “being too plain”. The girl looked in the mirror and for the small cost of $5.87 and good timing she was reminded that things were getting better. And so the hangers were necessary to hang clean clothes that no longer belonged on the floor. And the mirror needed to be propped against the wall to reflect her face and arms and stomach so she could be happy with what she saw.
In the middle of Wal-Mart, in the middle of any decent elementary aged kids bedtime, she took a deep breath and knew that it would be okay.
It would all be okay.
She knew that one day Mike & Ikes would be nothing more than a sub-par candy that they charge too much for at the movie theatre.
Simultaneously she knew that getting better meant forgetting a lot of things. She had to forget about: Mike & Ike’s and Ryan Adams’ saddest songs and the feeling of praying next to your best friend, the smell of Pall Mall’s and lazy afternoons spent arguing about Sylvia Plath; memory had to be erased. Chalkboard dust to the floor. She wanted to be Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but couldn’t- because life is not a movie and it’s real and sometimes it hurts like hell- because love is difficult and there aren’t any perfect plot lines for us to follow.
And so she knew for the first time in a long time that she’d have to fight.
She knew that getting better meant fighting the lies that danced like tumbleweed across her mind- because even though she had a new mirror and had done laundry for the first time in months she was still swimming in a pool of sharks. And they’d been there for over a year, she just was too busy swimming laps to notice. But the same girl, the swimming in a pool, the standing in line at Wal-Mart girl spotted a cut near her ankle so she quickly got out of the water. She spent her days covering it with the bandage of new outfits and vodka cran’s. She covered it with better perfume and with new habits. And when it felt good and covered she was ready to jump back into the pool; unbeknownst of her fate, she saw a little boy at Wal-Mart who just wanted who candy.
A little boy that reminded her that she’s worth more than the sharks and more than the rubbish bandages that never heal. She was reminded that sometimes life should be one long apology letter, but other times it just feels like being loved when you have nothing.
And sometimes it’s good to remember that love is a worthy cause, no matter what.
That’s right, no matter what.
