“There is no one here by that name. Who gave you this number?” She asked and, for a moment, her hysteria almost drove him to hit end. Almost.
            “Mary? Mary Ellen? It’s me. It’s Tommy. Tommy Parker.” A pregnant pause tingled from the other line. Or perhaps it was just his imagination. He waited for the dialtone in anxious silence.

            “Tommy?” She asked hesitantly and for a moment he could hear the little girl he once knew, could see her anxiously twisting the cord on her desk phone amidst an immaculately kept office, unruly curls bouncing around her head.

            “It’s me, Mary. I shouldn’t have called…its just I’ve been trying to find you for years… I shouldn’t have called you like this, I’m sorry.”

            “No! Don’t hang up!” She demanded frantically. Hearing the absence of the dialtone, she continued softly, “I’ve thought about you a lot Tommy.”

            “That’s good to hear, Mary. I think about you all the time. Sounds like you’ve done very well for yourself, Dr. Mary.” He said with a smile. She giggled furiously into the line, something so childlike that Tommy found himself laughing along with her.

            Their laughter was abruptly halted by a buzzing feminine voice. “Dr. Mayweather, your 3:15 appointment is here.” They both quieted immediately as if the streetlights had come on.

            “Shit, ah - gimme a minute ok?” She whispered conspiratorially into the phone. “Thank you, Andrea. I’ll be right out to collect him.” She answered stiffly.

            Tommy snickered quietly into the receiver, before saying sadly “Dr. Mary, what a busy lady you are.”

            “Oh, Tommy. Quit now.” She answered generically, knowing no other way to respond.

            “I can’t believe it’s really you. I don’t want you to go. Can we meet up sometime? Coffee or something? Hell, we can split a wet bucket of lima beans if it means I can see you.”

            She laughed quietly at his semi-funny little joke, and Tommy could tell she was thinking it over. “I’d really like that Tommy.” He could feel a “but” coming on, but it never came. Instead, where it should have been, was a guilty pause. They exchanged information, though Tommy noticed that she chose to give him her work number, and arranged to meet at a little Chinese restaurant called Dragon Gate.

            The next morning Tommy was frantic. Panicky. An absolute mess. He began to clean the apartment, attempting to arrange the piles of junk into a livable façade. This endeavor was a complete failure. Instead, he determined to at least separate his junk from Annie’s junk, and though this was no easy feat he was able to accomplish it somewhat. He also managed to find himself a presentable looking ensemble, which amidst his grease stained Mac-Ivor jumpsuits was also a near miracle.

As he opened the flaps to the last box, he felt a current of nervous anticipation. This was not, as he first thought, because he was about to be fully unpacked in his new home. It was because he knew that this box had already been unpacked. It was the box that had toppled in his podiatric revenge on Annie. It was the box with the stone. The box that had somehow repacked itself and neatly interlocked its own flaps. As if shocked back to life by an electric current, he frantically refolded the self folding flaps, scooted the box into the closet, slammed the door and stood against it as if would try to escape. 

He smoothed his shirt over his pants twice more before opening the door. He could feel his heartbeat rising in his throat, beating against his adam’s apple and threatening to jump out. He made a fist with his palm, tightening and loosening it in a vein effort to calm himself. At first he only saw a blur, a smeared image of the restaurant as a whole. No faces, only silhouettes. Then he forced himself to focus, still tightening and loosening, on each face.

None of them could have been Mary’s. His shoulders slumped as he dragged his feet to the nearest table. The regrettably loud mantra of “She won’t show, she won’t show” pummeled through his brain.  He took a moment to adjust the collar on his button up shirt, his only button up shirt, and remind himself that he had arrived 2 minutes early. As he glared at his cell phone he decided that he would give her 5 minutes before he left. Well, 10. Ah, hell. It been 20 years. 20 minutes seemed just about perfect.

At 12:23, just as he was starting to lose hope, the little bell tinkled. He looked up too quickly, though he told himself he wouldn’t, and felt his face crack open into a huge grin. It was something refreshing and beautiful that took over him then, something magical and alive. His childhood came back to him in a rush, and though that would have seemed to him on any other occasion like a curse, a desert rose is all that more beautiful because of the desolation that surrounds it.

Her hair was back, somewhat begrudgingly, in a tight pony tail. She was slim, but not skinny. Healthy. There was a warmth to her face and the genuine smile she was wearing that gave her a dynamic glow, paling all other things to background noise. He stood hesitantly, brushing nonexistent crumbs from his lap, and waved awkwardly at chest level. Her smile widened, showing perfect teeth and lighting her blue eyes.