The Wine Stain

“You’re the strongest person I know, Aunt Amelia.” Erica put her arms around me and snuggled up to me on my blue velvet couch.

Everyone else had left. There were casserole dishes all over the kitchen. I hate funerals.

“Your Uncle Eddie was the strongest person I knew.” I hated hearing myself talking about Eddie in the past tense. I felt him all around me in the brownstone we called home for 30 years. “And you my darling niece are a close second.”

I held her face tenderly and looked into her dark eyes. Her hair was like his before we went gray. It was thick, curly and dark brown. She wore it across her face to hide the large wine stain. The bright red birth mark on her ivory-colored skin ran from her forehead down her cheek and ended at the center of her delicate chin like an angry paisley. She was not even half my age and had already given up on ever finding love. After being teased mercilessly for so many years in school she became shy and reclusive. She was beautiful, smart and talented, like my Eddie, and so sure that the world could only see her wine-stained deformed face. Her words, not mine.

“Tell me again how you met Uncle Eddie. That story gives me hope.”

“You’ve heard that story a million times.” I said.

She batted her eyes at me.

“Okay fine, it was because he lost his black moleskin notebook, his writing notebook. That day changed my life in every conceivable way. I am not exaggerating. Our relationship – our meeting – it was written in the stars.” I took a breath. “I know this is going to sound corny, but we completed each other, as if we were cut apart from each other and when we found each other we knew, we were whole together. And I KNOW this is not politically correct and I’m being a bad feminist. I know I write romance novels. But with Eddie and me, it was true. We were one soul, each waiting for the other half. And neither of us were looking for love. We were both busy writing.”

Erica rolled her eyes, at my old-fashioned ideas and smiled at me kindly. She knew my heart hurt. The funeral was only this morning. He died in his sleep after 30 delightful years of marriage. Maybe I was the strong one. Maybe it’s good that he went first.

“C’mon, tell me.”

“Okay. It was way too early in the morning, 31 years ago. I was sitting in a coffee shop writing. I was never out that early, but I couldn’t sleep. I always wrote at the Midnight Diner on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn. I always sat at the second booth on the right to see out the picture window. People-watching helped me focus when I was blocked, and I was badly blocked. Random House had just published my book “Midnight Meetings” I was making good money for the first time, and now I had fans and I had a deadline to deliver the second book. I went through 100 notebooks in a few weeks. Each one was a false start and ended in the trash. I never had writer’s block. I was so distracted.

A large man in a black hooded sweatshirt sat in the first booth on the right, with his back to me. He was drinking coffee and writing in a black notebook. His hood was up. All I could see was a black wing pencil moving furiously across the page. I loved black wings and also wrote with a black wing. I thought that was weird. I watched his arm move as he wrote and wrote. I admit I was a little jealous and curious. He folded the notebook in half with the black wing in the crease and put it in his pocket. Now he was noisily slurping down his coffee. I thought “Yech, how could anyone slurp coffee like that? He’s a noisy piglet.” And I turned my attention back to my page, and my crossed out opening sentences. The next time I looked up, he was gone. I stood up to stretch my legs and on the red leather seat of booth number 1 was his folded black notebook. It must have slipped out of his pocket when he stood up.”

Erica laughed, “This is amazing – you’re a notebook thief!” she added playfully – not even realizing how true that was. “So, you never saw his face?” I knew why she was asking.

“Just wait, I’ll get there.” I said, squeezing her hand lovingly.

“I ran to the window. No sign of Black Hoodie guy. I grabbed the book and brought it up to the cashier.

“Hey, do you know the guy from booth 1?” The first waitress looked at me dully, shook her head no, and returned to her word-search. The other answered me in Spanish. No one knew him.

Maybe his info is in the notebook, I told myself to justify my evil desires. I just wanted to read it so badly. I opened it. There was nothing written on the covers, no name or telephone number. On the front page was a title and a poem:

Only the Heart Knows

That which can be

Truly seen,

Like an inhalation,

Is first felt.

Eyes betray you quietly

With unnoticed prejudice,

But the heart sees

With knowing.

Only the heart knows

The sweetness of it was disarming. Who is this coffee slurping black wing Black Hoodie Poet guy? He’s lovely. He was so egoless; he didn’t even write BY JOHN SMITH under his poem.

I sat back down and read the entire notebook. It was beautiful, riveting, engaging. His handwriting was neat. It was not chaotic like mine. The story was heart wrenching. When I got to the last damn page in the book, and I was crying… it just stopped. It was the beginning of a wonderful love story. And I felt like I had fallen in love with the story, and the writer of the story. The person who wrote this story was obviously a tender loving soul. When I got home, I called the Village Voice and placed an ad on the back page in Missed Connections: Black Hoodie guy from 7am at the Midnight Dinner. I found your black notebook, call me.

I waited a week. He never called. I fell in love with his writing and with him and now he was gone forever.

The black notebook sat on my desk next to the silent telephone. I opened the notebook and I read the story again. It was just the beginning, but it broke me open. The characters were so real I understood them. I felt as if I had known them my whole life. I felt a responsibility to bring the story full circle so they could have their happy ending, the one I would never have. I was not going to see Black Hoodie guy again, but I could finish this for him, for both of us.

The rest of the story poured out of me in one night. I delivered it to my publisher. They loved it. They called it “Only the Heart Knows” from his poem. They published it and gave me an additional $20,000.00 bonus. I opened a new savings account with that money because I honestly believed that someday Black Hoodie guy would read my book and see that he wrote the beginning. And when he did, I could meet him and thank him for breaking my writers block and give him half of the money.”

“But that’s not how it happened.” Erica said

“Nope. I wish! He saw me on a television interview telling the story of the book. It was a best seller. I was getting tons of publicity and lots of money. I told the truth about finding his notebook and falling in love with the story and finishing it. He bought my book and read it. Later he confessed that when he read my book he fell in love with my writing and with me. But he was very angry that I took his story. He hired a lawyer and sued me! I told my lawyers that I wanted to meet him and share the money. They set up mediation, but he wouldn’t come. I was desperate to meet him. I told my lawyers that he and I needed to mediate this face to face. And again, he sent his lawyer to tell us absolutely not. After months of this, the judge said if the two of us didn’t meet face to face and mediate the case- he was going to dismiss it.

The morning of court-ordered mediation I was unusually nervous. I don’t know why. I dressed very carefully in my low-cut black velvet church lady dress with the white lace collar, my mother’s pearls and a tiny bit of red lipstick. I was breathless with excitement. I felt like I was going on a date. The mediating judge and my lawyers were already there, and his lawyer was present. We sat in the mediation room pretending to look over papers on the table, but we were waiting for Eddie. He arrived in a tailored black suit with a black fedora pulled down over his face.

The judge said sternly “Edward Rogers? Please remove your hat Mr. Rodgers.” He was very nervous and sat down across from me. He took off his hat and his long brown curly hair fell across his face, covering a large wine stain on his cheek. Just like yours. I sat looking into his beautiful brown eyes. Before anyone else spoke, he said very loudly and angrily “What you did was wrong.” I answered softly “I know. I tried to find you, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry. I fell in love with your story and had to finish it. You can have anything you want. I saved all the money for you. I hoped that you would read it and find me. But I need you to forgive me.”

The judge and the lawyers looked at each other slack jawed. They didn’t understand what was happening. This was never about money for Eddie and me. This was about honor and creative integrity and most of all, love.

I was crying quietly, and we were looking into each other’s eyes. I reached my hand out to him across the table, and he took it tenderly in both of his hands. When he touched my hand, it was like an electric shock ran straight up to my heart.

“Ok” he said. “I forgive you”

“Thank goodness. And thank goodness I found you.” I added.

“I found you.” He added, smiling.

He so loved being right. I reached up and touched his cheek with my hand, and he let me.

“You know, there’s way more to the story, although I like the way you ended it.”

“I’m hungry” I said.

“Midnight diner?” He asked,

“I’d love to” I said, standing and taking his arm.

We walked out of the mediation and never looked back. We wrote together happily for the next 30 years. He started our stories and I finished them. When you were born with the same lovely birth mark, I realized that it was your magical protection. If Eddie didn’t have that birthmark, someone else would have found him for all the superficial reasons that women fall in love with handsome men and would have taken my love from me.

Someday, you will meet someone who will fall in love with your beautiful mind and soul and your beautiful face. They will know what a gift it is that your birthmark kept you safe from more common experiences.

Eyes betray you quietly

With unnoticed prejudice,

But the heart sees

With knowing.

Only the heart knows