Across the Fence: An Agent of Love

Ouch!

Lena had hit her thumb with the hammer that had been meant to hit the nail in the ceiling of the shop window. Having run out of thumbtacks, she had had to switch to nails in order to hang all these beautiful bunches of mistletoe. Some were bigger, some were smaller, and some had red bows around their base.

Mistletoe. Lena sighed as she was rubbing her hurting thumb and looked outside. The sidewalk was empty, as her business was on a hardly frequented side street. The irony of it all hit her like a fist in the stomach. Here she was decorating items under which people used to kiss – and yet, her last kiss had been when? Twenty years ago? Lena wasn’t thinking of the peck her wilting great-aunt placed on her cheek each and every weekend when she religiously visited her at the nursing home. Or of her nephew’s and niece’s slightly wet affairs when they were dropped off by her sister for a sleep-over. Or of the air kisses she exchanged with her friends – all married, by the way, and some of them through her clever matching.

Twenty years ago … It had been at a Christmas party the Friday before the first Advent Sunday. Somebody had sneaked up on her and the old schoolfriend to whom she had been talking in her host’s kitchen, held a twig of mistletoe over them, and insisted they kiss for tradition’s sake. Lena and Mitch had obliged with a tortured smile. They had touched lips. Hers had been chapped, but his had been soft as velvet. Firm. With a tiny, scratchy tickle from his moustache. Inadvertently, she had closed her eyes. And the kiss had prolonged, turned into a real one, sent butterflies to her stomach until the hooting of some other guests had brutally torn her from this dizzying sensation. Mitch had stared at her as their lips belonged to themselves again. She had found herself in his widened eyes, gasping slightly, feeling her face heating up. They hadn’t talked anymore. Somebody had pulled her away, and when she returned to the kitchen later, Mitch had left. She hadn’t asked where she might find him again. She would have been too embarrassed. She was that kind of girl who had been raised not to run after a guy but to have them court her.

Other men had come and tried to win her over. But Lena had only wanted Mitch and another of his kisses. But the parties came and went, and Mitch never showed up at any of them anymore. At first, Lena had been sure that he hadn’t been impressed by her, after all. Then she discarded the thought of him, pushed the memory into a box of dusty nostalgia of yore as she started her business. A partner agency, of all things. It had been a success in the beginning. And the word had spread. The lonesome and yearning flocked through her door, had her powder their faces and fluff their hair, had them tell their dreams of their ideal partners to a video camera, eyes dreamy, smiles insecure and wobbly or overconfidently wide. She had compared the folders later at her office desk, first using a heavy file cabinet that never seemed to empty, later a computer that matched the data. But of late, her business had started dwindling. Online dating had begun to ruin her business, and she had to catch attention in more obvious ways. Window dressing was one way that had always helped. And this time of year, when nobody wanted to spend the holidays alone …

Mistletoe for sale. Lena smirked as she accidentally trod on a bunch on the window floor. She would also hang pictures of all the couples she had matched over the years. Not only the attractive couples’ pictures but also those of the homely, the flawed, the seemingly incompatible.

This one kiss.

It had started snowing outside. Flakes tumbled through the street lamps’ conical beams, slowly at first, doubtful. In finding others, they created a dance, a whirl, a mesmerizing turbulence. That night back then had been just like this.

Lena grabbed another nail and bent to pick up an especially thick bundle of mistletoe. As she straightened up again, her gaze through the glass was met by that of a man outside. Her mouth fell open, and her hammer dropped with a thud. Her heart jumped into her throat, and her right hand clutched at her blouse collar. She would have known these eyes anywhere, this mouth, this moustache. She heard herself make a tiny noise before she dropped the nail as well. Then she rushed through the opening in the window backdrop, still holding on to the mistletoe.

The snow had melted away by the next morning. The agency stayed closed, its window a mystery to the few people passing by. A few days later, it was empty. Only a “For Sale” sign with a telephone number was taped to the glass. Lena had been smiling widely when she had locked up and handed out the mistletoe to bewildered strangers who happened to pass her on her journey to Christmas.