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The Love Right in Front of Your Nose
The summer that I was 21 and home from college, I went to see the musical comedy She Loves Me at our local community theater. I went with my parents. I was completely unattached, having only been on a handful of awkward dates in my life. My folks liked comedies and I loved theater. I had acted in and painted sets for many shows at this converted barn-playhouse since I was in high school.
You might know She Loves Me even if you don’t recognize its title. It was first a straight play, and then the basis for the 1940 movie The Shop Around the Corner with Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan; the musical stage show was written in the ‘60s, and it was even recycled a few years ago for the movie You’ve Got Mail. The original story was about a young man and woman who met working in a gift shop in Budapest in the 1930s and instantly disliked each other; but they each had a penpal to whom they wrote, not really knowing his and her correspondent’s true identity. The charming twist of course was that they were unwittingly writing to, and becoming very fond of, each other in the course of their letters. But they continued to snipe and snap at each other at work until they came to realize they were really in love.
The show was delightful, full of disarming characters, sweet songs and a plot — like most musical comedies — that could never happen in real life. I remember the shopgirl jumping up on her bed, clasping a letter to her chest, and singing about her romantic secret love, as well as the plodding old shop clerk who warbled philosophically about the huge universe and how he was just one little speck in it. A high school friend of mine played the delivery boy who rode a bicycle helter-skelter onto the stage when you’d least expect it – this was a theater-in-the-round, so the people sitting on the aisles jumped every time he sped up the ramps, ch-ch-chinging his bike bell. There’s a slapdash scene in a restaurant, with a scatterbrained headwaiter trying to maintain a ‘r-r-r-r-romantic’ atmosphere: he trilled his R’s as he crashed from table to table, knocking over vases and almost spilling wine on all the patrons. And there’s the charming moment at the end when the young clerk — who has figured out this shopgirl has been his love all along — reads a ‘secret’ penpal letter to her out loud and she realizes she has been so silly and blind not to see the love right in front of her nose.
After we drove home from the show, my folks enjoyed scouring the playbill, reading the actors’ bios. Since it’s a community theater, the cast members all had a regular job: the shopgirl was a grade school teacher by day, the young clerk actually wrote for the local newspaper, and the old gent sold insurance when he wasn’t treading the boards.
“That good-looking clerk who was so full of himself,” my mom laughed, “he runs an auto body shop in Glenside.”
“Listen to this,” my dad said, and he read out the real name of the headwaiter. “That would make a great stage name! And here he works in the office for a swimming pool company.”
Then, six years later. Six years later.
I was now working in the design department at a religious publishing house, and I’d had some more awkward dates (that’s all I’ll say about that). I took the train daily into Philadelphia along with many other commuters from my little suburban town. When you ride a commuter train day in and day out, you get to recognize certain people and they often sit in the same area on the train. At this time there was always the Thick Romance Novel Lady (the adjective applying to both she and the book), the Dozing Businessman (who regularly drifted over onto any hapless seatmate), the Sweet Blind Lady With Her Dog, and The Guy That Knows—And Talks To—Everybody. I guess, if you’d been on that train, you would have called me The Girl Who Never Speaks because I have always been rather shy (see: ‘awkward dates’).
Well, one day the train was very crowded going home, and I grabbed a seat against the window in the little mid-car compartment, where there were only four tight seats, which faced each other. There was one empty spot next to me. From a distance, I heard a voice greeting various people, a voice that carried through the whole train car: The Guy That Knows Everybody. And he was headed my way! I remember taking an instant dislike to him as I turned to completely face the window. Then he sat down and started talking.
I’m sure I only answered in monosyllables that day as he chatted with the other people in the compartment and tried to chat with Antisocial Me. The train ride took forever since I felt trapped until he got off, as I did, at the very last stop. I hurried up the two-block hill to my apartment.
One morning a week or so later, as I walked through Market East station toward the office, I noticed him walking ahead of me – he had a unique and recognizable gait. I made sure to walk slowly enough that I would not catch up to him. But darned if he didn’t head in the exact direction I was going – out to Market Street, down to Chestnut, over to 9th Street. I had to follow his every step. And doggone if he didn’t turn right into my office building.
I slowly followed him in and obliquely approached the elevator, but of course he turned and saw me and said hello. He didn’t look surprised that I was there, though, which was curious. We got onto the elevator with a crowd of people, who all knew him, and he got off on the fourth floor, an insurance company, while I rode up to the sixth, the publishing house.
Soon after that he sat near me again on the train going home, and of course now he felt he knew me, so he talked a lot more. He was a computer analyst for the insurance company. He told me about his two-year-old daughter and showed me her photo, and he was obviously crazy about her. I started to not dislike him quite so much. I think I actually told him my first name, and I knew his because everyone would say hello to him as he passed. This time, he didn’t stay on until the last train stop because he was picking his daughter up at a daycare near another stop; he was divorced from her mother, but brought his daughter home with him on weekends and some weeknights. Before he got off the train, he mentioned that he’s seen me at the elevator at work before, and wasn’t it funny we both lived in the same town then commuted all the way into Philadelphia to work in the same building.
I think it was the third time we sat together on the way home that we chatted about things we were doing that weekend. I told him I had a small role in a show at that little barn theater and we would be rehearsing over the weekend.
“Really?” he laughed. “I was in some shows there years ago! I was in Threepenny Opera in the chorus, that was a lot of fun.” He looked a little sheepish. “And then I played this crazy role in another show called She Loves Me.”
“Oh, I saw that one!” I exclaimed. “What – what is your name again?”
He told me his full name, and I just blinked for a few seconds. “That would make a great stage name,” I said.
It turned out, as I got to know him better, that he sang tenor in his church choir and had been in choirs all his life; that’s why his voice carried so well on the train. And he had a wonderful sense of humor and a generous heart, which is why everyone on the train and the elevator knew him and liked him. And he’d had serious back surgery as a teen, was confined to bed for a year, and had to relearn how to walk, which is why he has that distinctive gait.
When he met my parents a few months later, my Dad told him he’d been his favorite actor in the whole show.
I realize I am awfully lucky, because without his persistence I never would have noticed the love right in front of my nose. We have two more children now besides his darling daughter. Uncannily, all of them have been on the boards in one form or another — from high school stages to that same little theater — to choral concerts in Philadelphia, to comedy clubs in DC.
And I must admit, they all have great stage names.
Published in General
So beautiful! It could be a great play…. throw in a couple of songs, and you’ve got yourself a show!
I love it!
What a wonderful story! Thanks for making me smile so early this morning.
This is too beautiful to be fiction – yet so beautiful in the telling – that I can hardly believe it.
On a cold, snowy, lonely morning . . . thank you – from my warmed-up heart :)
Awww, Pen-friend! How beautiful…and hopeful. God is good! Enjoy a hug today with Sir Pencil, from me.
This is good time to share this story.
In my early teens, I was a Civil Air Patrol cadet. I was the public information officer for my squadron, and we were having a recruiting drive. So, I managed an interview with the local paper to tout the advantages of joining CAP as a cadet. The interview duly appeared as article in the local newspaper.
The day it appeared, on the other side of town, my future mother-in-law saw the piece, and read it to her son, who was interested in aircraft. She suggested he join, as it might be fun. But he was not really interested, and never did join. Quilter was in the room when her mother read the article. It mentioned my name. At which point Quilter thought “I am going to marry him some day.”
Now we had never met. (I would not meet her brother until high school, and his kid sister a year or so later.) She had never heard of me before. She was 11 (I believe I was 14 at the time), and really not interested in boys or marriage. So she firmly dismissed the thought as the silliest thing she had ever conceived.
Fast forward to my sophomore year in high school. I meet her brother in one of my classes. He shares several of my interests (model-making and wargaming) so we become friends.
A year or so later his sister starts at the same school, and she wants to tag along at the wargaming sessions. He does not mind, but her parents don’t want her bugging her brother’s friends. I finally ask him why his sister stopped coming. He explains her parents thought she would be a nuisance. I (and several others in our group) told him to bring her along because we could always use another gamer.
From there she was in my circle of friends. We did not start dating until she was in also in college, and eventually married. A few years later she told me the story of when she first heard of me.
Seawriter
Opposites apparently do attract, at least when it comes to introverts and extraverts! What a wonderful and wonderfully told story. Thanks for brightening the day for all of us.
Wow! What a lovely love story!
He lucked out.
Wonderful story! Amazing how life works out.
My father and mother actually met when she was engaged to another man with whom my father was sharing an apartment. The fiancee was delayed returning home due to bad weather and had to rely on my future father to pick up my mother at the airport. 6 months later my mother and father were married.
Well told, Pencilvania.
My mom knew my dad’s entire family for years before she finally met my dad. Her best friend was engaged to my uncle. When she finally did meet my dad, she didn’t like him. Then one day she got snookered into being his date at a family celebration, and my dad’s uncle told her, “Look, I don’t care which one of these boys you marry, but you belong in this family.” My dad was the only one not already attached at the time, so I guess he won by default.
They celebrated their 41st anniversary this past week.
Loved it! I hope you realize how blessed you were – and still are. Thanks for sharing. :)
A wonderful story — and well-written to boot!
This made me cry.
Thanks, everybody! I’ve often told the story to friends, of how I saw my husband in a show years before we actually met, and separately recounted how we became acquainted on the train. But I never thought too much about the shopgirl in the show and my own oblivious actions, till I started putting it all together for this post. Sometimes life imitates art!
Pencil,
We know a sweet blind lady with a dog who lives in the Glenside vicinity. Did you ever get to know the lady you wrote about? Our family puppy-trained our friend’s present service dog. Our friend is retired now and I don’t know if she commuted on the train.
Great story Pencil! One of the great unifiers in the world is short love stories- the details are always magic.
Although it is hard for me to imagine any variation of Pencilvania being a great stage name, you hit it out of the park with this post and the title. The love right in front of your nose is the only love that is real.
Joel, her name in Mary, but she lives in Doylestown. The only article I could find about her is this – http://articles.philly.com/1995-04-06/news/25688463_1_transit-workers-septa-market-east-station – but I thought there was another article at some point about how she and her husband, both blind, raised two children together. She’s retired now but was on the train daily when I rode it.
@#19 Pencilvania, that is not the lady we know, but you had me going for a while. Thank you for sharing your story.
A sudden jog of the memory: After my husband and I had been married a few years we found out that we had both attended the same wedding about six months before we (really) met. I’m so glad you had the opportunity to jog your memory too!
Wonderful story. I didn’t sign up for this series but was tempted. Taking the opportunity to tell my story now.
I first met my husband in 1971. I was the new kid and it was our 8th grade year. I was short, wore glasses, and was experiencing my 2nd bad hair decade. My husband was the BMOC and he and his friend Rick made my life a misery. I hated them with the heat of a thousand suns.
Crossed his path a few times in high school and shared a few classes. My hatred dimmed – I was at best indifferent.
He went off to college and I moved to Scotland for a few years, then returned. My bad hair days were far enough behind me that I went to our 5-year high school reunion with some friends.
I refused to wear my glasses; at some point in the evening I literally bumped into him, spilled a drink on him and spent the rest of the night talking.
We both ditched our friends to leave with each other only to be left standing like a couple of idiots in the parking lot with no car.
By that time I knew I was going to marry him – it took him a little longer to get a clue. We didn’t get married for five years.
He was still friends with my other nemesis Rick – he and his wife are dear, dear friends.
The story of how we all met is oft told. When the kids were young they would ask why I would marry someone who was so mean to me. And I always answer that my husband and Rick made me miserable for a year – payback is 34 years and counting.
This is one heck of a happy story. Thanks, Pencil!
KC is right — he is one lucky guy!
I was dying while searching the member feed for your post, because I saw in my alerts it was published. So excited to see you on the main feed.
Great, fabulululous story Pencil! and the drawing…sweet.
what a fantastic post! this makes me want to have dinner with your family even more than I already did. :) your husband is a lucky man, all the more so because you claim to be the lucky one.
p.s. Pat, I made Heather sit down and read this post, which she also enjoyed.
That’s great, Ryan – I sent it to all my kids & while they knew some of it, they all liked the putting-together of the whole story!
Wonderful! Thanks for sharing.