I Believe In You
D. Weber
A story about a man’s love, his work, his family and his happiness, all tied into the fact that someone special believed in him and never stopped believing.
On a particular day when Marty was eighteen, he’d been driving along in his 1967 Barracuda sedan, the flickering of the sunlight poking through the trees and keeping in time with the beat of a tune on the radio by the name of "Fool If You Think It's Over.”
As he got closer to where he was going, he pulled down the visor mirror for a second. The horrible breakout that had ravaged his face in his high school years, had finally cleared. Too bad that the after-effects of feeling like a pariah lingered on, his confidence so fully depleted that even a small surge of hope was usually an anomaly.
Now, driving over sixty miles south to an uncertain destination, he was truly nervous, especially since he expected this meeting to go as poorly as they always did.
He glanced at an address book sitting on the passenger seat of my car, and noted the date, August 23, then found one particular entry he was interested in, that of a Kate Murphy.
“I can help you,” she had said, in a phone call that had been specifically set up for me by a friend. “It’s so easy. You just have to know someone, then even if you are a marginal talent, your editor will lift you up and take you the rest of the way.”
“That would be very nice,” Marty said. "But I’ll believe it when I see it."
“What’s your manuscript called?” she asked.
“I Believe In You,” he said enthusiastically. “It is a story about a man’s love, his work, his family and his happiness, all tied into the fact that someone special believed in him and never stopped believing.”
“Leave it in the front office at EditTech and then let’s meet,” she said, and so suggested The Iron Eagle, a place that she said would be perfect. When he asked why that was, she said "because, early in the evening, we might be the only two there."
“I'm looking forward to it,” he said. "But how will I know it’s you?"
"I think you’ll get a feeling,” she said, gently.
Marty wanted to run his hands through her long silken black hair and to look into her dark green eyes, for she’d only described herself. She said she preferred that they not look at pictures of each other before they met, because she thought they could be a “once in a lifetime,” and looks never mattered when it was that special.
Marty imagined this was it, that his future was at hand, that he would fall hopelessly in love tonight. So he was nervous and started to check his face in the visor mirror, almost rear ending a car in the tail end of a traffic jam that suddenly came up.
He looked ahead. There was no construction but the traffic was stopped for as far as he could see. So why was he deadlocked in traffic? There was no way of telling what was causing the jam, except that the regular lanes of traffic were completely stopped. He was so close to the entrance to The Iron Eagle, that he even considered abandoning my car and walking, if he had to, so that he didn’t miss his appointed meeting time.
Suddenly, he steered abruptly to his right, and pulled out of his lane so he could take the gutter down the side, bypassing the jam so that five minutes later he was pulling into the parking lot of The Iron Eagle, just as the song he'd been listening to was ending.
Catching his breath, he pulled the car to a stop in a parking spot near the building, let out a pent up breath and looked at the outside of the rustic shanty of a nightclub. So this was the place he’d heard all about?
As he sat there, he thought of children: a boy and a girl who'd refer to me as Daddy, coming out of their rooms and rubbing the sleep out of their eyes to look downstairs toward a lit Christmas tree. He thought about birthday cakes and coaching a boy at baseball. Of getting them the lessons they needed to play an musical instrument. He saw piles of brightly wrapped presents, all waiting to be torn open by excited little hands. He saw the kids blowing out the candles on birthday cakes and of me lifting them up high in the air, full of pure joy at the wonder they held in their young eyes. He’d give them everything that he never had, and with that freedom they could decide to do whatever they wanted with their lives.
Suddenly, the flickering sun through his windshield started to become sunspots and then, like a film that had suddenly broken and gotten stuck under the burning hot light, everything went to white. Was he fainting? He could no longer see even a foot in front of him.
“What?” he cried, then blinked. He’d regained his faculties, but something had happened. He wasn’t sure what, but it felt like a piece of him had just been taken away. For a moment, he even thought he was above the clouds and there were angels.
His vision cleared and he could see there were only five cars in the parking lot though, interesting since the traffic on the highway that passed by the club, was completely stopped. He'd have thought that some people would have pulled out of the big traffic jam just like he had.
He took a seat across the bar from a beautiful girl who had already glanced his way. Then he ordered a glass of beer. He never drank much, but this time he needed a little liquid courage. Was it Kate? Did she want him to go over and say hello?
Running through his mind were all the good things he might say and nothing seemed quite good enough. Anything he said to her should have been adequate, for there were all those unlived memories of what their lives and family could be like together, and his confidence was low from past memories of not making a good first impression.
At some point he left the comfort of his beer and headed over, taking a deep breath. When he got to her side, he could see that she had what looked like a cola with ice in front of her.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Marty. Can't I buy you a cola?”
She paused to look him over and seemed amused that he made an effort at all.
“I’m alright,” she said, glancing back at her drink.
"You have lovely hair. I’ll bet you get lots of compliments.”
"I have a boyfriend," she snapped, cutting him off.
"What's your name?"
"Get lost."
What could he do in response, but to leave. But was this Kate? She'd acted like he was an unwanted intrusion. But she was the only one there.
He went to the bathroom and lay his head against the mirror. He wasn't as bad looking as he'd told himself he was. At least his complexion was clear. But with little experience at going to bat for himself, he knew that he had to take her no as final. He just wondered why? Then he looked at himself in the mirror and decided that he’d been rejected because she’d seen what he looked like and didn't like him one bit. So he would never get a chance to hug her or kiss her. He'd just go back to his beer, grateful to at least have that.
Secretly though, he was hoping she probably was just nursing a hurt and would come around in a few minutes. Then he washed his hands, as though that meant something, and headed back to his spot at the bar.
Marty's time there was made easier by the fact that someone about his age had sat down beside him while he’d been gone. He had no problem with a casual hello.
They talked about the weather, which was bound to affect their weekends, then they talked about all kinds of other things that they had in common because they both lived in this area and kept up with current events. Marty felt good. In thirty minutes, he'd forgotten about the girl. She might as well have left.
But she hadn't. The fellow beside him said: "She's beautiful, isn't she?"
Glancing across the bar, Marty said: "The girl? Yes."
He nodded to her, still sitting there sadly by herself.
This fellow and Marty had just talked for the last half hour. He thought they had a lot in common and could be friends.
“Got shot down, eh?” he asked.
“Yes,” he said, surprised by that observance, for he must have come in and have seen Marty's quick and awkward exchange with her.
“She’s a cold one, either that or she’s having a bad day. Either way it isn’t worth it,” Marty said.
“Did you offer to buy her a drink?”
“Yes,” Marty said. “But I can’t afford to buy drinks for someone who's just going to blow me off.”
Marty had pictured this new friend and him, maybe playing a game of pool and then calling it a night. Or maybe they could play some darts.
“Not worth it? Are you certain?” he asked.
Marty did a double take, glancing at him with a new interest.
“Do you want to try? Just for kicks?” Marty asked.
“Sure,” he said, and got off his stool.
But Marty grabbed an arm and stopped him, just before he started over. He needed to say something dramatic and something he'd never forget.
"I believe in you," Marty said. "I’m not sure why, but I really do."
He said it with conviction, as though they might be friends after he returned from being rejected. He pumped his chest up, gave Marty a heroic look and marched right over to her. Then, with just a simple hello, he broke the ice and got her talking.
They were soon deeply engrossed in each other. No one pretended they were someone they weren't. There were no poker-faced: “No thanks, I’m okay.” When he asked for her company, there appeared to be a genuine spark of interest there in her eyes.
Marty watched for a while, trying not to stare but finding it hard not to. How genuinely interesting it was for him, to see how two people who were obviously meant for each other, could find each other!
So Marty quietly left, thinking he’d just seen the beginning of something great.