They are about twenty yards apart when Hayaam’s veil comes off from the exertion of a throw. Seeing her hair, Wes loses concentration and drops the Frisbee. When he retrieves it and looks back, Hayaam has removed the veil entirely. She stands before him, twenty yards away, with dark hair falling past her shoulders.
Carrying the Frisbee, Wes slowly walks toward her. Hayaam walks toward him. When they meet, they stop, standing close. Hayaam’s face is wet with perspiration. Without makeup, she has the face of a woman emerging from a shower.
Wes says, “You have beautiful hair.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know why you cover it up.”
“Because it’s my decision who gets to see it.”
“I’m glad I got to.”
“So am I.”
Perhaps you are too cynical to remember a moment like this: Wes can feel his heart pounding in his chest.
“Can I touch it?” he asks.
“If you like.”
Wes reaches out and gently touches her hair, letting his fingers rest lightly against the side of her head, just above an ear. Her hair is damp. Hayaam closes her eyes.
“I want to kiss you,” he says.
Without opening her eyes, Hayaam turns her head, offering him her cheek. He leans forward and gently kisses it.
No, he did not grab her breast. They did not suddenly collapse in a passionate embrace to make love on the grass. This is not a popular romance novel. This is not The Bridges of Madison County. This is not a Hollywood movie. This is the story of Wes and Hayaam.
Hayaam opens her eyes and looks at him.
“I have never kissed a man before,” she says.
As she bends forward toward him, Wes expects a kiss on the lips but at the last moment she swerves and her lips touch his cheek. Her kiss is as soft as the landing of an insect.
Neither knows what to say. Hayaam breaks the silence.
“I’d better get home.”
“I’ll walk you.”
They hold hands, as they often do now. They are silent, as if the new physical contact between them, however slight, has opened a dimension of communication beyond language, and their contentment in being together needs no explanation, no interpretation, no words to define it. They are learning to communicate through the pores of their skin.
You may have forgotten how this can happen. Trust me, it is happening to them. They are still too young to be cynical about such things.
They continue silently along, hand in hand, like two halves of the same person, leaving the park and rejoining the world.
From Love At Ground Zero by Charles Deemer.
Paperback at Amazon.
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