Louise & Edgar

Louise White was about as ordinary as they come. With clear spectacles and a penchant for intricately knitted, oversized sweaters she thrifted from her local consignment shop in Brooklyn, you may have not noticed her passing you on the subway, or sitting across from you on the bus, but Edgar Valencia, he sure did. Each day the two of them, both bookworms with their noses nestled comfortably into leather bound tales of love and lives lived outside of the New York City shores, dreamed of settling into a place more quiet and serene than the bustling city streets. Louise and Edgar unknowingly had much in common. One of their commonalities, like I said, was a shared dream to move away from the city. They longed to one day purchase a cabin upstate, close enough to New York where they could both keep their jobs in publishing and communications, but far enough that they could lull themselves to sleep with the sweet sounds of owls, rather than the blaring screeching sounds of tires and sirens in the night.

Louise and Edgar both spent more time at the end of the day than they would have liked to admit on housing apps, flipping from house to house, imagining transforming one of these dilapidated old homes into their own little slices of serenity. Louise had her eye on a particular house, a two-bedroom, three bath 1920s cabin with a wood burning fireplace, a wraparound porch, and a vintage stove. It was lingering on the market and in her memory like a cloud hovering only above her head. She wanted to put an offer in but was short about twenty grand for a down payment. She was thinking sadly on this fact as she boarded the train one cool fall morning, a train stop that was located conveniently two stops away from Edgar’s. Convenient I tell you, because this gave Edgar the perfect opportunity to gaze at Louise from time to time, when he would get pulled up out of a sentence by a train stop, Edgar’s hazel eyes would quickly dart to Louise’s big brown eyes, resting beautifully atop her latest literary journey. This week, he noticed, she was reading one of his favorite books, a story about two personified ally cats growing up in 1950s New York, who fall in love and decide to go on a grand quest to a farm upstate, where they find a home on the farm of a widower, and live happily ever after. Edgar also sensed a sadness in Louise that morning and wondered to himself why she might be feeling sad, while also questioning what it was about this person that intrigued him so.

Edgar had been trying to work up the nerve to go talk to Louise for quite some time now, and unbeknownst to him, Louise had been doing the same. You see, Louise also stole many glances at Edgar throughout the year, since she first noticed him traveling with her on her work route. He tripped onto the subway in his boating shoes, wet from the thin layer of spring snow outside. He obviously isn’t from here, Louise thought, amused as she watched him hastily look around to see if anyone had noticed him tripping, before plopping himself down on a bucket seat, and opening up one of her favorite books, a tale of two street cats growing up in New York city in the 1950s. As fate would have it, Louise and Edgar would not be able to keep up this ruse much longer. Before today, the closest they had come to communicating was the day Louise had smiled at Edgar after noticing that they had both noticed the little boy who rode the subway by himself bragging brazenly to a boy younger than himself about the chapter books he was reading at school. Edgar’s ears turned bright red upon Louise smiling at him, and she smirked, looking back down at her book, wondering what Edgar thought of her. Edgar averted his glance, thinking to himself that Louise’s smile was the loveliest thing he had ever seen.

But back to the topic of fate, because it was fate that brought together Louise and Edgar, on a mid-July-New-York-City sweltering afternoon, as they both with dripping brows, entered their subway train. On this particular day, Louise had spent the night at her cousin’s house near the same subway stop as Edgar, so whereas they usually entered at different stops, on this particular day, they found themselves running down the same set of stairs to the same train doors. Edgar thought he caught sight of Louise in his peripherals and shot a glance over to his left, losing his step and coming crashing down the last seven steps of the 7th Avenue station stairs. Louise heard an exclamation come from behind her and glanced over to see Edgar, picking up the papers that had come out of his unlatched briefcase all over the subway station floor. Their train was coming and Louise hesitated. Should she help him, she will be late to work and they were right in the middle of a big project, but this could be her chance to finally connect with this mysterious stranger…the train honked once before screeching away from the station, and Louise’s decision was made for her. She would help Edgar pick up his papers and finally introduce herself.

“Need some help with that?” Louise asked confidently. Edgar looked up, his glasses pushed down his nose and sweat dripping down his cheek, his denim shirt clung to his chest and Louise noticed he was still wearing the same boating shoes she had watched him trip onto the subway in. Edgar cleared his throat, trying to act like she hadn’t been the reason he had just fallen down a set of stairs and missed his train to work on one of their most important work weeks of the year. “Uhhh…” Before he could get a full sentence out, Louise knelt down to help him. “Lot of papers you got here! What’s this?” Louise noticed a little black book sitting about a foot away from the other papers that were strewn about and reached out for it. Edgar noticed the way sweat was trickling down Louise’s collar bone and forgot where he was for a second. He looked toward the book and furrowed his brow, “Oh that, that’s not mine.”

Louise opened the book and inside found a rhyme written in calligraphy across the first page, “Come looking for me where the rocks meet the sea, and you will find a treasure that was not meant to be, because alas, it should have been given to those who need, just enough to get them, what they so yearn to see.” Signed formally at the bottom of the inscription, read: “Signed in hopes that this gold will get to someone who really needs it, as I have riches beyond measure, and love the idea of a great adventure, Atticus Welsley IV.” Louise took a deep breath upon reading the inscription, and Edgar, still latching up his briefcase, trying to nervously think of what to say, mustered up a, “What, what does it say?”

Louise showed him the inscription as they both stood and waited for their next train to come. “Atticus Welsley, why does that name sound familiar?” Edgar mused. “Oh yeah! That’s the guy from Manhattan who just died in that crazy boating accident. He went out sailing in a thunderstorm or something like that…total billionaire lunatic…yeah, wonder how his journal got here?” Louise flipped through the thick cream pages and landed on something stuck into the middle, a paper with another inscription written on it, but this one had been typed out and read: “To whom it may concern, it was my uncle’s wishes in his last will and testament that I leave this little black book he had intended to fill with clues on how to get to a gold bar he wanted placed in Cony Island for unsuspecting strangers to find. Since he did not finish creating clues, I am legally bound to still place this book here but will go ahead and just put the exact location of the gold bar, worth approximately $20,000 U.S. Dollars. My uncle would have wanted this money put towards something that will grant you the personal freedom and enjoyment he experienced throughout his long and illustrious career. Please do not publicize the finding of this little black book, as it would draw unwanted attention to our grieving family. Signed, Cornelius Welsley III.

Louise and Edgar both paused. This felt like one of those moments in life where time slows down and you stop to look around, hoping for a sign that will point you in the right direction. You know those moments, the ones where it’s like you can magically imagine a thousand different scenarios playing out in an instant, and your intuition takes hold to lead you gently into the right direction—you hope. Except this moment, their two souls seemed to be sat beside one another outside of their bodies, Louise’s head resting on Edgar’s shoulder, Edgar’s hand placed delicately on her knee. They were slightly older and sitting on a wood bench on their wraparound porch in their country house upstate. It was quiet, the sun was setting, and their life was everything they had ever dreamt of being possible. Before Louise could get a word out, Edgar blurted out, “Wanna go get that treasure together? I mean…I know it’s yours, you found the book, but I was just thinking…I mean…I was just wondering…” Edgar was getting more nervous by the millisecond. If Louise didn’t respond soon, he thought he might die.

Louise interrupted Edgar’s neuroses with a, “Duh! Who needs work anyways?” She laughed. “It’s too hot, I’ll call in sick and tell them my fish died…or that I found the discarded journal of a crazy dead billionaire who wanted to bestow a 20k gold bar to an unsuspecting stranger…you know, whatever works.” Edgar and Louise laughed in unison this time. Edgar noticed Louise snorts when she laughs, and that she had a birthmark on her collarbone in the shape of Australia. His ears burned red again. Louise noticed how when Edgar laughed, the gravelly tone of his laughter reminded her of her dad who had passed away and it made her feel safe. With the summer heat bearing down on them, and the clouds starting to part in the sky, Louise and Edgar embarked up out of the subway tunnel, into the light of day. Edgar looked up and noticed the clouds beginning to take on the shape of what looked like two cats. Without Edgar saying a word, Louise looked up and noticed it at the same time.