The first time they met, he was running late for a meeting with a newly hired professor. He was searching the grounds as thoroughly as he could in his rush, trying to put only a description to a face. Young and female, thoughtful looking, the dean had said. She looks like the model professional. You’ll know her when you see her.
Well, the dean had been wrong.
As he approached a young woman who was looking around calmly, he mentally exhaled in relief, glad to have finally ended his search. He slowed his pace and put on a smile.
“Hey, Professor Falls, sorry I’m late,” he breathed, stretching his hand out, “I’m Professor Elliott Wolfe, the guy who you’re supposed to meet up with. The young woman, who had complied and shook his hand, looked at him with a mix of amusement and confusion.
“Well, hello Professor Wolfe, it’s nice to meet you, but I’m not who you think I am,” she replied slowly. “I’m a junior here? I’m kind of surprised you took me for a professor,” she finished. He stood there, jaw slacked, shocked. What did she mean she wasn’t Victoria Falls?
The young college student was dressed in dark jeans and a purple button down, and her bag was a messenger that was placed almost perfectly on her shoulders. Her dirty blonde hair was up in a messy bun. She looked older than she was, and only in the best way possible.
“Well shit,” he breathed, although he shouldn’t have sworn in front of her. She raised her eyebrows, still with the amused face.
“I think I did see a woman over by a bench, just keep going that way, and she’ll be on your left,” the girl pointed behind her. His shoulders slumped, tired but happy to know exactly where this Victoria woman was.
“Thank you so much Ms…” he trailed off. She smiled sweetly.
“Lennox. Bridget Lennox,” she said. He grinned and shook her hand again.
“Nice to meet you, Bridget Lennox.” After that, he rushed again to meet with the new hire.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpAF35qQdIV
The next time Bridget saw the silly young professor was when he strode into her Pharmacology class. He was wearing a nice white dress shirt and dark blue pants, with a matching tie. He was grinning charismatically at her professor, who rolled his eyes at Wolfe’s arrival.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡexPvCZe4aM
“Here, Elliott, take ‘em. Students, this is Elliott Wolfe, one of our tenured Biology professors here,” Professor Blake introduced. Being an older man of a less… healthy body type, he felt exasperated by the amount of young girls who started whispering just at the “hot teacher’s” presence. He showed this by dramatically rolling his eyes. Bridget thought he was funny.
Professor Wolfe took the papers that were handed to him, and in a second looked up and right at Bridget. He laughed.
“Hey, I remember you!” he exclaimed. She laughed, because of the reason he even knew she existed.
“And I remember you too!” she returned with matching enthusiasm. Her professor and some of her peers stared at her in shock, maybe a few stared in suspicion.
Professor Wolfe murmured something to her own professor with that silly grin and then left the room, waving goodbye to the students whose education he’d briefly interrupted.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxS3IZEQWsn
He met her more casually when he visited her work. He popped into a local music store, hoping to score a CD or two of his favorite old rock stars.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR8ICWf6oLf
He found her chatting to a customer as she was ringing him up. She seemed bubbly and happy. She caught his eye and smiled but refused to interrupt her conversation just yet. When the older man had walked through the doors of the shop she turned to him.
“Well we just keep on meeting don’t we? It’s almost as if we spend all of our time at the same place!” she joked. He chuckled.
“Pretty weird,” he contended. He glanced at the shelves of books lining the entire wall of one side of the shop. There were so many choices, such a sight of music.
He noticed that Bridget herself was wearing a Billy Joel shirt.
“Nice uniform,” he commented. She looked down at what she was wearing and smiled.
“My boss says that any band t-shirt is better than a silly polo shirt- no matter what ridiculous band or genre. I completely agreed- I hate polos.”
“Polos are annoying,” he concurred. He eyed the lines of CDs with calculating caution. Then a question came to mind.
“How are these arranged?” He tried to look for a pattern, but nothing stuck out. He’d only noticed it was different because it wasn’t arranged by artist.
“They’re all actually organized based on my boss’ sub-genre rock’n’roll scale. From left to right it goes from hardcore sounding to pop sounding. If you’re not sure what you’re looking for I can help; he explained the system in pretty immaculate detail, lots of examples,” she explained. He nodded. He kept staring- was he still in awe at the pure amount of music being stuffed on to just one wall? There was a second room with almost all four walls completely covered. There were even a few talls bins in the middle with actual vinyl records in them.
“Whitesnake?”
“Towards the left, first set of shelves.”
“Journey?”
“To the right.”
“Beatles.”
“Right.” Really?
“Really?”
“Yeah. Are you surprised?” Well, actually, of all the Beatles songs he had heard, he could see why they were on the “pop” side.
“...No, not really. So you know your way around this place pretty well. Impressive,” he said quietly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her shrug.
“Well, what can I say. The best thing to do when you get a job is learn as much as you can about the office details.” Well, she wasn’t wrong.
“So if I asked you where Def Leppard is,” he started, and she had already (and with finesse) pointed it out before he finished.
“Thank you,” he said, grabbing the album he had been looking for. He looked at the surrounding CDs of other artists, wondering if he wanted to pick out something else. He took a step back to broaden his view.
He thought of Bridget’s Billy Joel shirt and figured that he wasn’t such a bad idea. He picked up The Essential Billy Joel, and turned around to show the young lady his choices. She nodded in approval.
She picked the album of the artist she clearly liked out of his hand and scanned it first, then Def Leppard. She clicked at the buttons on the cash register with quick precision, like she enjoyed the sounds. With genuine enthusiasm she offered a bag for the CDs, which he declined.
“Come again, stranger,” she joked as he was heading for the door. Then he stopped in his steps and knew he’d made a huge decision in a split second.
“Hey, you wanna go out some time?”519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE9TGP4SIke
Bridget was sitting in the floor of his apartment, painting on a small canvas she’d gotten from the crafts store. A white, cut-up trash bag was spread out. There were dried paint spots where she had squeezed paint onto it before. This time she was using ocean colors, creating a “serenity scene” as she described. It was for a friend of hers.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyr1Ai8cGPu
“Sometimes I’ve gotten paid to paint these things. I’m always busy on Valentine’s Day,” she mentioned, delicately brushing on a sea foam green. “It’s cool getting paid to do a hobby.” He was sitting on his bed, getting ready to go to his classroom for a lecture.
“Are you charging this person?” he asked. She didn’t look up from her project.
“No, she’s my neighbor. We hang out sometimes. She says she isn’t creative in the slightest, but hey, it’s not like any of my paintings could go for more than ten bucks. I am hardly the professional.” She didn’t mean it as a way to undersell herself, she was being honest. None of her paintings were that complicated. Often she printed something out, cut it out, and taped it onto the canvas so she could paint around the shape, and then took the paper off.
Because who can do the other eye, or the other half of the heart, she’d explained.
“So are you typically alone on Valentine’s Day, working on paintings for other couples?” he asked her.
“I kind of wish I was more busy the day before Valentine’s Day. Most of these commissions are guy who completely forgot to get their babes more than a card,” she sighed. She tsked at the stupid forgetfulness of young men.
He finished with his tie. He walked over and kissed Bridget on the head, and then the nose.
“I’ll see you later, Button,” he said as he left the apartment. She said bye as he was leaving. She put the canvas aside and picked up the blank one preserved for a personal project that she would use as a gift.
It would be three months on Saturday.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxw60MqrVeK
Her feet were always cold, and they were almost always clammy. That was just an observation- Elliott found it endearing. He didn’t mind her shoving her cold feet onto his when they were snuggled up in his bed, just calmly lying there, or going to sleep.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzCtrAqWIdV
This time they were listening to a new CD of an artist neither had previously given much attention. They were absorbing the music- but also falling asleep. Her fingers were lightly moving around his chest and abdomen.
“...Are you tracing my organs?”
“...Yeah…”
“You’re going to make a great nurse.” She kissed his cheek and snuggled into him further.
“Nurse anesthetist,” she corrected. “And I know I am. I’ve been training for years.” And she had. She took at least four health-related classes just in high school, including a college-level anatomy and physiology class.
She started tracing his eyebrows and the line down his nose repeatedly after that. She was working a spell of slumber into his eyelids. He let her.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZs3zftnSXg
Elliott had gotten engaged when he was 24 to a woman he met in college. She was killed in a car crash a couple of months before the wedding. After that he didn’t date. Even four years later, he just didn’t. It wasn’t that he was actively avoiding it, he just didn’t feel like putting himself out there again.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsxc42kbsRH
That split decision in the music shop last year was one that came out of nowhere. And thank heaven it did.
He looked at the picture above his bed and smiled. A painted canvas, held up by thumb tacks, was perfectly square and center. It was split diagonally. The upper half had purples, blues, and reds, with some pinks. There was a black profile of a woman. The lower half was darker blues, greens, and a yellow here and there, with the black profile of a man. The diagonal line connecting the two halves were different shades of purple.
Somewhere he’d heard that love was purple. He didn’t remember that until that very moment.
“Why are there different colors like that?” he asked suddenly. He was standing in the very middle of his bedroom. Bridget looked up from her school papers, and looked behind her to look at what he was looking at.
“The colors represent characteristics, emotions. They’re mosaics composed of our… energies, I want to say. We’re all mosaics put together to form whole functioning people,” she said simply.
“People are mosaics of color,” he repeated blankly.
“Absolutely.” There was a pause.
“I love you.”
“...I love you too.”519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfVS53oI5QB
She was sleeping in because she damn well deserved it. She just finished the last exam of the day and she was damn tired. Why would they even have those damn exams in the early damn morning? Just damn it all.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgQaAdCQ4g3
Elliott looked like he was going to keel over as he left to give his last exam. She didn’t blame him. At the last minute he looked back at her, buried deep in his soft bed enjoying the warmth. He had to face winter weather and the boredom of a silent classroom. She pitied how obviously torn he was.
He had to get a TA next time.
She would bake him something- maybe coffee cake muffins. No, apple muffins, he liked those, and they were easier. She’d get started on that the next time she was conscious.
That ended up being a sooner time than she had hoped. The sounds of a person entering the apartment alerted her conscious, which ordered her unconscious to wake her up- or however that worked.
“Elly?” she mumbled, trying to cuddle deeper into the pillows and blankets. She said that it was just better for her to stay at his place because her peers could catch on if he came to her, but she hardly cared. She loved his stupid bed too damn much. She loved it as much as she loved the man it belonged to.
“Dear, are you his girlfriend?” a woman’s voice asked. Bridget’s eyes popped open, and then she blinked quite a bit.
“You mean Elliott’s? Well I believe so,” she said as she rubbed her eyes and sat up. The older lady looked innocent and sweet, hair gone gray and skin wrinkled.
Bridget recognized her as Elliott’s mother.
“Hi Mrs. Wolfe, I’m Bridget. I’m using his bed because it’s better than mine,” she stated bluntly. She held out her hand. Mrs. Wolfe took it kindly.
“Nice to meet you dear. Where is my son, do you know?” the mother asked as Bridget stretched her arms and shoulders. She curled her toes and looked at the clock on her phone.
“I think he’s still supervising his exam. It should be over soon. Can I offer you some food, or point you to a bathroom? My mom always uses the bathroom when she gets somewhere after a long drive,” she said, the last part more to herself than to the guest.
“Oh I can just sit and wait. I would tidy up the place, but I can’t do much of that at all. He was my clean son,” Mrs. Wolfe said fondly. Bridget nodded.
“I was the clean daughter. I’m going to get up and go to the kitchen. Elliott looked like he would rather die than leave the warmth of his bed this morning, so I’m going to make him some muffins. Next semester he ought to get a TA to help him out. I don’t know why, being the youngest tenured professor here, he doesn’t have one by now. So independent that man is, I swear.” Not that she was complaining, not at all.
He was damn near perfect. Tall, short black hair, went to the gym regularly and he wasn’t boring. He had hobbies and interests and knew how to keep himself entertained without relying on someone else. All of the emotional baggage and the emotional internal storms he had, she could take that easy. She wouldn’t have been able to stand him if he were boring.
Boring people get bored. It was a major taboo to be boring, to Bridget.
“Where should I put my bag, dear?” the almost elderly woman asked. Bridget paused in the middle of gathering her ingredients to look at the tan purse the lady was holding. She smiled and politely took the bag.
“He calls this closet the guest and coat closet, so I’m going to say that the purse goes in here. It’s a lovely purse, by the way,” she complimented, putting the bag on a low shelf that was in the closet.
“Thank you, Bridget. Say, what kind of muffins were you going to make?”
Elliott came home to the sound of feminine laughter and the delicious smell of baked goods. It could not have been a better situation to walk into.
He decided not to ruin it for himself by asking what Bridget had managed to get out of his mother in regards of embarrassing stories. She was the type to relish in those revealing conversations.
“Hey mom, Bridge. What’s going on?”
“Your mom came and we made apple muffins together. They’re almost done, I believe. Elliott, you never told me your mother was going to stop by. I wouldn’t have been asleep when she got here if you had.” She fixed him with a playful glare. She didn’t bother using any sort of serious tone or expression, because she didn’t mind and she would have just made a hollow threat anyway. (Again, he had to repress the thought of Bridget being informed of the stupid moments of his youth.)
“Dear, did you forget to say something? Distracted by those tests?”
“Yeah, I guess I got a bit distracted by the exams. Although it seems it doesn’t matter whether I told Bridge here or not. You two seem to be getting along.” The two women smiled at each other.
It didn’t even occur to him that his mom had accepted his girlfriend even though she was still a student- but not after the upcoming spring semester.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMk9PaFJtxk
She moved in with him after she started working as a nurse at a nearby hospital. Her schedule became erratic but she liked it- like she knew she would. She made friends and introduced Elliott to them. She publicly kissed him in the middle of a small watching crowd for the first time, and he felt silly for feeling exhilarated. They could be in love in the public now.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4Eso92tYzn
He was pretty sure that the dean found out, and probably guessed the truth. But they were kind of friends and the dean didn’t care. He had actually tried to set Elliott up on dates a couple of times in the past, so maybe he was just relieved that he was finally happy with someone.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡybLPGjcBkt
The mosaics had blended.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡveHK1zqCoN
That’s what Bridget, the recently certified nurse anesthetist, said after they moved into their Georgia house, right after their honeymoon and right on Valentine’s Day. The painting, done by the new wife, had been put up by his mother while they were away, right above the fireplace mantle. It was square and center. The purple line dividing the two had instead stretched to enclose the entwined colors and profiles in a nice border. The profiles were equal, closer, and the purples that had been on their individual mosaics had blended and were central around the silhouettes. The painting, done by the new wife, had been put up by his mother while they were away, right above the fireplace mantle. It was square and center.
The silhouettes were actually filled in using black glitter this time, and no, that was not silly or childish. It was absolutely perfect.
Love is purple.519Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3J8ek3m6Uy
