bruary 14. St. Valentine's Day.
Jonathan Ames laid the bouquet of red roses on the passenger seat of his car. He took off his suit jacket, checking (for the fourth time in the last ten minutes) the front pocket for the package he'd placed there, folded the jacket in half and hung it over the back of the seat. He spent a long moment convincing himself that the gift wouldn't fall out before closing up and settling into the driver's seat. He looked at himself for a minute in the rearview mirror: a balding, bespectacled, average-looking (at best!) man in his forties. "Fifteen pounds overweight," he added to himself, although the mirror was mostly silent on that matter.
The radio erupted with an inane commercial announcement when he started the car, and he silenced it. He pulled out of the subterranean parking garage of his apartment complex onto the twilit side-street where he lived. A couple of turns, a stoplight, and he was on the entrance ramp to the highway, freed from the cares of suburban driving and able to commune with his thoughts.
He glanced at the roses in the seat next to him, two dozen of them, deep blood red, long-stemmed and beautiful. There was no way to mistake what these roses signified. His thoughts turned to the gift tucked away in his suit pocket: a bracelet of sapphires set in gold. He'd had in his mind weeks ago exactly what he wanted to get Elena, but it had taken several hours on the internet and visits to no fewer than twelve jewelry stores before he found it: sapphires as blue as the roses were red.
And then his thoughts turned to Elena, raven-haired, brown-skinned, exotically beautiful. And the way she moved, as though each step were set to music. And her flashing eyes, and her exquisite face registering every emotion beneath it. And under it all, the most attractive of any quality: kindness.
The last four months seemed a dream to him. He remembered the first time he saw her, directing a pair of salesmen to whatever their appropriate destination was. And then it was his turn to speak to her.
"Yes?" she said, not looking up from the logbook in which she was making an entry. And he stood mute, unable to remember what it was he needed to say to this angel. Finally she looked up, and instantly must have recognized the nature of his stare, given how she smiled and seemed to laugh to herself. Then she gave him the warmest smile, tinged with humor, sharing with him the joke of his obvious attraction. "Can I help you?"
