Valentine's Cards
By Imogen Clark
- 741 reads
There are hundreds of them. Rack upon rack taunting her in their pink and red livery. There seems to be a Valentine’s card for every stage in a relationship. Jokey ones for ‘When Harry met Sally’ friends. Flirty ones for the person whose eye you catch on the train each day. Sexy ones for the first six months. Soppy ones for newly weds. Darker ones for relationships that might not last until next Valentine’s Day.
What about cards for single women relatively recently out of what they thought was the love of their life? Haven’t thought of that one have they? What is she even doing looking at the racks? Is it some modern torture method? Choose the card you would most like to receive but are least likely to get.
She tuts and tries to pull herself away but it’s hard. There is something so appealing about the cards. They look so relentlessly cheerful. Some of them are even quite witty. For the right person. The excitement of finding the totally perfect card. Unbeatable. And receiving one with an unambiguous message. One that could not possibly be misinterpreted no matter how hard you analysed it. Priceless.
What is she thinking? She’s far too old to send Valentine’s cards. She read somewhere that sending one when you're over 30 looks sad and a bit desperate. But how can that be when she still feels like she did when she was 17? Admittedly, she hadn’t written a list of possible recipients in the back of her diary for a while but the ‘pick you up and whizz you around until you feel dizzy and don’t know up from down’ feeling is just the same no matter how old you are.
Rory’s nice. She barely knows him but he doesn’t wear a ring. Well not on that finger. He smiled at her in the lift the other day. Nice teeth. She doesn’t know where he lives.
Stop! There she goes again. Thinking like a teenager who spends hours poring over the telephone directory and then makes several anonymous calls just to make sure she has the right address. This is the 21st century. If she fancies him she could just ring him up and ask him out. Not nearly as exciting as selecting a card and engineering its surreptitious delivery though.
Perhaps it could go with the internal mail? She could put the telltale red envelope in a discreet manila one. Or maybe she could go in early and leave it tantalizingly propped up against his computer screen?
What is she thinking? She should be grieving the death of her last relationship not plotting to create a new one.
What harm would it do though, really? Both single people. Everyone knows that Valentine’s cards are just a bit of fun. She reaches out to pick one from the rack. She puts her hand hastily back in her coat pocket.
Someone is standing close behind her. There is a woody smell of cedar and neroli. He steps forward to reach the cards and she risks a quick sideward glance. Not bad. Quite nice in fact, in a distinguished, older man kind of way. No point sharking by the Valentine cards she smiles to herself. All spoken for there. Sharking? She only came in for some wrapping paper.
Five minutes until she needs to be back at her desk. What to do, what to do? She could always buy a card and not send it. £2.45. Less than a sandwich. Four minutes. Not enough time to queue and now she feels rushed and unable to think straight. Come back tomorrow. And check out Rory’s desk for incriminating evidence of relationship in the meantime.
She leaves the shop and feels better, lighter of heart, springier of step. An embryonic dream newly conceived.
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