There hadn’t been a need to dress up for some time and the available options were limited. The couple of fancy dresses pulled from the back of the closet now felt tired, faded, and dated. Skirts too tight about the waist; a formal blouse needing a stiff ironing to flatten its deeply-embedded crinkles.

Still, anticipation of dinner with Marcus was great enough that the exercise of assembling a passable ensemble from the spare parts laid out across Solœil’s bedspread was enjoyable with let’s-put-on-a-show optimistic enthusiasm.

One of her nicer business jackets was selected and a jaunty scarf in a translucent floral print tied just-so could cover the sagging neckline of the only top that matched. A silver brooch with a stylized image of the sun, a gift from her father way back on her 21st birthday, accented nicely. The whole thing came together well enough to instill confidence.

Marcus had selected Le Pommier both because for its impressive reputation and on the false assumption that Solœil came from French ancestry. Solœil’s name was something of an in-joke within her family. A portmanteau of “sole” and the French word for “eye,” the invented name (shortened to “Loy” by friends and family) wrapped the newborn in faux-Gallic exoticism. Her parents felt the name would be both personally meaningful and celebrate her guaranteed-unique status.

That Marcus had asked Solœil for a second date–their first was a casual after-work coffee–was something of a surprise. The whole eye thing made dating a nonstarter for most men. The few who approached Solœil were either jerks wanting a laughable story for their beer buddies or complete weirdos looking for a freak show. Solœil had learned to make any first meeting quick, cheap, and easy to escape from.

Marcus was different in the plainest of ways. He was neither good nor bad looking and came off as boringly normal, sensibly logical, and never once questioned Solœil about the single eye centered right above the bridge of her nose. It hadn’t come up even once in their hour-long chat at the coffee shop. That itself was refreshingly freeing and completely unexpected.

It turned out Marcus had a matter-of-fact way about most things in his life. As their bread, wine, and iced tea arrived–Marcus hadn’t had alcohol since his uncle died of liver failure at 58–conversation turned to where each lived in the city. Solœil learned that only a couple years prior, Marcus had extensive remodeling done to his house on the North Side. A drunk driver had jumped the curb and crashed into the front wall of his two-bedroom bungalow. The ’88 LeBaron only came to rest after colliding with the living room couch. Had he not been retrieving dinner from the microwave, Marcus would have died right there, watching Jeopardy. That night, Marcus explained, he’d finished his Salisbury steak and tiny apple pie before calling the insurance agent.

Over steaming bowls of soupe de poisson, Marcus went on to reveal a shocking litany of other near-death experiences. At six years old, a plastic chess piece was jammed into his throat by sadistic older brother Steven, prompting his first Life Flight. To this day, the brothers still play a protracted match each year at Christmas and Steven will menacingly twiddle his rook when he feels like he’s losing. Marcus had almost drowned after stepping on an out-of-its-reach stingray on a family vacation to Ocean City. An absentminded fall through an open elevator shaft happened just weeks into his first IT job downtown. The medics said he would have died if the server room hadn’t been on the second floor. At 42, the wrong IV injected by a sleep-deprived first-year at Presby forced Marcus into a five-day coma.

Marcus turned out to be an excellent listener–engaged without being too personal, curious, and asking thoughtful follow-up questions. He showed real interest in Solœil’s work in graphic design, the deep connection to her parents, her love of gardening and cinema. Like a skilled therapist, Marcus had connected dots between Solœil’s family history, being an only-child, and the importance of helping disadvantaged people in her volunteer work. Some of his theories were a little out-there, but Solœil couldn’t shake the depth of thought that went into them.

By the time Solœil put her dessert spoon to rest–Marcus was still scraping the plate for every last microcurd of creme brulee–she’d decided she legitimately liked this quirky, frugal man. She also found herself realizing Marcus’ veneer or normality hid a much more complex person than the one she met for coffee a week earlier.

As they left the restaurant, Marcus extended his hand and said how much he’d enjoyed the evening. He announced it was past his bedtime and needed to dash off to catch the bus home. Solœil was surprised by the abruptness, but with everything else it was something of a piece. She got out her keys and headed home.

The next morning Solœil received an email from Marcus. It was an invitation for another date–this one to attend a fancy garden party at a private home in tony Sewickley. The pricey admission went to support a charity supplying textbooks and medical supplies to schoolchildren in Ghana. Marcus offered to pay for two tickets if Solœil would drive them.

When she arrived at Marcus’ home the following Saturday, Solœil was immediately struck by the obvious reconstruction of the house. Carpenters had grafted an incongruous modern paneled exterior on one half of the street-facing side of the building to its original wide wood siding everywhere else. The work was well done, but for a designer it was a chalk-and-cheese Frankenstein job. At the restaurant, Marcus had admitted he had no eye for architecture and bought the house purely for its proximity to town and affordable price.

On either side of the front steps were a single row of newly-planted marigolds–each perfectly in bloom and spaced an exact six inches from one another.

“Do you like those?” a voice asked, seemingly from nowhere, “I just planted them on Thursday.” Marcus emerged from behind the screen door. “You said you like gardening, so I figured I should take the cue to finally put in some flowers.”

Marcus was dressed nicely in a casual jacket and tie. The colors didn’t really compliment each other, but Solœil didn’t yet feel comfortable enough in the nascent relationship to offer wardrobe advice.

Solœil had taken the opportunity to purchase a new sun dress for herself. She’d also decided to force the eye discussion by adding a single false eyelash–jet black with lashes perfectly fanned-out like rays of a new rising sun. A thick stroke of eyeliner made the single window to her soul impossible to miss.

“Why don’t you drive?” Solœil asked as they cruised out-of-town, “Is it because of the accident at your house?”

“Oh no,” Marcus replied, “I’ve never been able to drive. I have an impairment that would make it dangerous to do so.”

Marcus went on to describe, in great technical detail, the way dysocunesia had affected his life. The rare condition caused the brain to process visual stimuli in hyper-spectral, multi-dimensional, extra-reality. “Essentially, I can’t trust anything I see with my own two eyes,” Marcus said, “I have an accommodation for screens–television and computer–which is how I’m able to work and do most of the things I need to get by.”

Solœil learned that most of Marcus’ interaction with the real world involved some version of trial-and-error. He would probe his plate with a fork to sense where each item actually rested. Doing his laundry, dishes, or cutting the grass was more by sense of touch, or rote memory. Stairwells, with their hypnotic pattern, were especially troublesome; Marcus would close his eyes entirely and use the handrail rather than trust the swirling angles his brain was delivering. The new flowers at the house had been spaced by using a special ruler with notches set every inch so he could feel distance measurements.

At the party, Solœil now noticed the careful way Marcus navigated the world–especially these new surroundings. He could clearly see well enough to know when to reach for the stone handrail leading down six steps into the sunken garden or how the hors d’oeuvres were arranged across their wide table. But he approached each new challenge with a delicate restraint that belied a lifetime of experience processing confusing incoming stimuli. Solœil sensed an ability to parse reality from kaleidoscope vision and then carefully select the safest route forward.

Solœil found herself assisting Marcus in the gentlest of ways. She took his hand as they walked across the grass and made sure to clearly introduce them in conversation, audibly identifying each new person they met. Marcus seemed completely unaware of the weird stares, jerking double-takes, and whispered innuendo from other attendees on seeing this strange woman with a single eye above her nose.

When they got back to his house, Marcus thanked Solœil for the wonderful day and clumsily expressed a desire to kiss her. Several inches taller than Marcus and the only one who could see straight, Solœil needed to lean in and guide the maneuver before the whole thing got even more awkward than it already was.

“Marcus,” Solœil started, still not sure how she was feeling about any of this, “You never once asked me about my eye. Aren’t you curious?”

“Which one?” Marcus replied. “Sorry–that’s a dysocunesia joke we don’t get to use too often. I thought I’d let you bring it up, in your time.”

“I’ve spent my life trying to adjust to a world I can’t always participate in,” Marcus said, “Trying to join a society that doesn’t always have time for a person who can’t move at their speed is really difficult. From what I can tell, your one eye works a whole lot better than both of mine put together.”

The couple moved to an old steel glider on the front porch. Marcus leaned his head back to rest his exhausted eyes and relaxed into quiet humming–a beautiful and haunting Gaelic melody he’d learned as a kid, he explained. Solœil peeled the single false eyelash from its lid, kicked off her uncomfortable heels, and gently pushed the glider into a slow rocking sway.

Only when the sun had just crested the rooftops was it visible. There, in the backyard, under the Rose of Sharon, seen through the kitchen door. Just put the coffee on, pulled the bathrobe tight, squinted into the early light to make something out. It was staring back at him.

Colder now than it ought to be. Maybe that happened every year at this time. Remembered years past leaving Virginia in shirtsleeves and arriving back to Western Pennsylvania freezing rain. The rest of the seasons always seemed closer in sync, but the quick transition to fall made it feel like a different world.

Still looking out the window. The neighbor hates that tree. Every lovely spring flower produced aggressive new sprouts where it dropped anchor, many of them on her side of the fence. The neighbor has to beat them back when she weed-whacks around her tiny above-ground pool. One more thing to be mad at him about. Felt guilty–but not guilty enough to take out the tree.

The coffee maker gurgled and let out its last great gasp. Felt sorry for those people who couldn’t get up early, or forced to stay up late. Morning light, crisp air, near perfect silence. People rise earlier the older they get, he’d been told. Hoped to one day wake easily at dawn, to have the full sunrise experience every day, without effort.

The windshield of a green Honda held an angry note with neat Catholic school penmanship: I’d like to park in front of my own house. Park where you live! This familiar drama played itself out regularly. Strangers left their vehicles out front when they hit the bars down the hill or stayed over at the apartment building next door.

Retrieving the newspaper on a weekend morning, it was not uncommon to find random jetsam from the previous night’s revelry: a stray beer can, hamburger foil, an unfamiliar automobile. One time he’d found a ceramic coffee mug with the emblem of a rehab clinic in Carlisle. It was never a big deal. The neighbor thought she owned the twenty-four feet of city street in front of her house. She should have put in a parking place instead of that pool.

The first day to see his breath. Streets uninhabited, save for a pair of early-risers sitting on benches in the sun, hands crossed on the top of a walking cane. A near-empty city bus rumbled through, headed out of town. Fast food bags, cigarette butts, and early felled leaves eddying with wind gusts in the inset storefront entranceways.

Trees at the lower gate to the cemetery make a natural tunnel that glows golden orange as the morning sun pours through changing leaves. Here, before the sounds of the city come to life, before families visit loved-ones, and before the joggers and cyclists challenge themselves up and down its steep terrain, was his most sacred place.

Clusters of deer bound up and over the hills, through the weathered graves, pausing in unison to look curiously at the human disturbing their quiet time. Each member of the small group posed in concert like a dramatic point in a modern dance, cautiously allowing him to approach as close as twenty feet before some inaudible signal triggers the group to spring off into the wood.

A dumpster filled with most unusual contents. Piles of fake flowers, wreaths, filthy teddy bears, plastic placards, laminated photographs. Lifting the container’s lid, there was a two-foot concrete angel with one of its wings broken off. Hoisted the statuette from the bin, cradled the heavy piece like a load of firewood, walked the half mile back to the house.

Home again, the sun higher now with the morning fog burned off, under the Rose of Sharon. Pulled weeds, rerouted a set of raspberry tendrils always reaching for more distant soil to colonize. Placed the statue along the fence where the creature had spotted him earlier. Maybe the angel could still keep evil away, even short a wing.

Let me tell you somethin: I seen the whole thing.  I was there.  Not like em other jagoffs trying to say they saw this, they saw that.  Them’s all liars.  I know, cause I was the only one on a street.  Here’s what happened.

I’m takin Debbie to work that mornin and she starts yellin at me pull over, I gotta buy a lottery ticket.  I say Debbie, what’s a big deal?  She says it’s a lucky day, it’s Mario Lemieux’s birfday (she gets this from her phone) so she’s gotta play sixes.  I say Debbie, every week you gotta new lucky day you gotta play the lottery, how come they never hit?  She just tells me quick squawkin and pull over.  So I stop up at Little John’s, that quickie mart right by the bend goin up the hill.  I’m waitin in the car and Debbie gets aht to buy her lottery ticket.  I tell her Debbie, get me Yoohoo while yer in there.  I gotta cut back on the coffee, doctor’s orders.

So I’m waitin in the car, I got the radio on, and like I say I’m lookin rond and ere ain’t nobody aht.  I don’t know if yinz remember that mornin, but it was rainin and it was cold, ain’t nobody wanted to be aht in at mess.  Debbie’s takin a while.  I’m thinkin Debbie, whatchu doin in ere?  You makin it with Apu?

Then all the sudden I seen in my rearview mirror this big ass pickup truck come barrelin up the hill.  Now, I’m not talkin no Silverado, no Ram.  This is gotta be a Ford F-650–that one looks like a semi cab.  You remember Plaxico Burress used to drive one of those?  My buddy Ronny calls me one day and says hey, you want to go check aht Plaxico’s truck.  I say Ronny, how we gonna find Plaxico’s truck?  He says he lives down there on Pig Island–Washington’s Landin they call it now, cause George Washington once took a crap there or somethin.  A bunch of Stillers all got condos there, he says.  This truck is so big, Plaxico can’t park it in his garage so you can go see it right on the street.  I say O.K.

So we head dahn there and we can’t find his truck nowheres.  They only got one road and a couple dozen haases so it’s not like we missed it.  I say Ronny, he’s probably aht havin dinner or somethin.  The man’s gotta eat, keep up his energy.  He’s gotta play Baltimore on Sunday.  You know those bastards are a bunch a criminals.  Ronny says, hey, let’s go get a beer and we’ll see if he comes back.  They got this little bar there called The Troll on acconta it’s under the bridge.  We go in ere and have a couple beers, maybe some nachos, and Ronny’s gettin on pretty good with the barmaid.  Now, I can’t do that stuff no more, Debbie’s got my balls locked away pretty good.  Ronny and I come back from Ricky’s bachelor party aht at Climax’s and Debbie just abaht tore me a new one.  She says you better not be bringin no stripper disease in the haas.  I says Debbie, they’re dancers and ere ain’t no diseases goin rond.  I says what disease do you get from dancin?  I says did Michael Jackson die from dance disease?  I don’t think so.  She says I can smell it on you.  You just better watch what yinz are doin.

Anyway, Ronny’s coochie-cooin with the bartender so I’m lookin aht the window and ere it is.  I say Ronny, we gotta go.  He says what’s a big hurry, me and Becky here are havin a nice conversation.  I say Ronny, Plax’s truck is back.  So we take off (remind me to ask Ronny if ever got that girl’s phone number) and let me tell you, this thing is the biggest meanest pickup truck yinz’re ever gonna see.  The whole thing is jet black and it’s got these big chrome exhaust pipes runnin up like a big Mack.  You ever see that movie where Dennis Weaver’s gettin chased dahn the highway by an evil truck?  It looked like at.  So wouldn’t you know, we’re standin there lookin at the truck and who comes aht the door of his haas but the man himself.  He says whatchu guys lookin for?  We tell him Plax, we heard abaht your truck and we wanted to see it for ourselves.  We tell him this thing is awesome!  Turns aht the guy is real nice.  He comes dahn, he shakes are hands, he even opens up the cab and shows us what it’s like up ere in the captain’s seat.

Now, where was I?  Oh yeah, so this monster truck-drivin sonofabitch thinks he’s Rusty Wallace comin up 18th Street right at me.  First thing I think is if this bastard clips me, I’m screwed.  Insurance company sends you that new card in the mail before you even pay, so you start thinkin that you don’t hafta.  At’s how they gitchu.  It’s like them deals where you got a card and if you buy ten buffets you get the next one free.  I don’t know nobody who ever got that free buffet.  You’re gonna lose yer card or the place’ll go aht a business or somethin.  That happened a me with that CiCi’s Pizza and Old Country Buffet’s too.  It’s goofy.  All I need is Debbie yellin at my dead body because I missed the insurance payment.

At this very moment Debbie manages to pop aht a Little John’s and she’s jumpin up and dahn, she’s wavin her arms, she’s yellin somethin at me.  I can’t hear a damn thing.  Last week she got back in the car all giddy too.  I says Debbie, why you laughin like a schoolgirl?  She says they got this new lottery game with the gronhog.  I says did you win it?  She says no, I didn’t win, I just like this little guy, ain’t he cute?  I says I wasted ten minutes aht here waitin so you could pay money to see a cute gronhog picture?  I gotta be crazy.  I shoulda had my head looked at.  When I tell Ronny this, he’s gonna start tellin me everything we shoulda done with at dollar.  You coulda give it to a dancer, you coulda played four games on Cherry Master’s, you coulda got a burger on a dollar menu.  Instead, you and me are sittin in a car lookin at a tiny picture of a gronhog.  Turns aht this time Debbie really did hit the instant winner–twenty bucks or somethin.  The way she was carryin on you’d’a think we won the Super Bowl.

Like I was sayin, Debbie yellin and screamin musta spooked are friend in the death machine on acconta right at that second he starts losin control of that big truck, goin into a skid and headed right at us.  I start yellin Debbie, look aht!  Get your ass dahn!  I see that Yoohoo bottle drop ahta Debbie’s hand and splatter on the sidewalk and I tell you for one split second all I could think was God dammit now I gotta go back in at store get more Yoohoo.  But I come to my senses and duck, and let me tell you it was just in time.  That big Ford rolled a couple times, made a sond I’ll never forget as long I live.  The side of that truck is scrapin along the road and it sonds like Eddie van Halen on some kinda psycho acid trip freakin aht durin a thunder storm.  Somehow it skips on somethin and flips up in the air and lucky it did too.  It was headed straight at me and it woulda been goodnight Irene for yers truly.  I’m sure Debbie had what you call mixed emotions, like now who’s gonna fix the commode?  But also hey, I think Sidney Crosby’s still single.  Maybe he likes an older lady who can take care of him?  As it turns aht, joke’s on her–she’s stuck with me for a little longer.

Why is that?  I’m glad you asked.  That flyin truck caught just enough air to hit my Buick up high, takin the whole roof clean off just like my nephew Jimmy who eats the icin right off his cake and leaves the rest.  Whatcu gonna do with a piece a cake and no icin on it?  Don’t nobody want at.  I tell my sister Sheila, we should get Jimmy a little bowla icin so we don’t have to waste a cake.  She says yer gonna put nine candles in a bowla icin?  And he’s gonna blow that aht for his birfday?  What’s at gonna look like?  I say Sheila, excuse my French but I don’t give a flyin fig what it looks like.  It looks to me like we ain’t payin Giant Iggle’s to throw aht no uneaten birfday cake.

So I’m croched dahn across a front seat, I got my eyes closed, and suddenly I start feelin all this cold air and rain comin dahn.  It’s all quiet now and I gotta tell you I don’t know if I’m alive or I’m up in Heaven.  I always figured Heaven like in the movies where ere’s clouds and some hot lady angels playin harps and bringin you beers in gold mugs and stuff so I was a little suspicious.  Then I hear Debbie yellin at me and I know I’m not in Heaven.  I say Debbie, I’m OK I think.  I move a little bit and I got broken window glass all over me.  I sit up and I get jabbed in places I didn’t know I had.  If you’d a told me six months ago yinz’re gonna get your pecker caught on yer windshield I’d a told you jump in a lake, but it turned aht that way, didn’t it.

Well, that’s abaht it.  The ambulance come and get me, but I just got some cuts from the glass and the hospital let me aht that night.  They got a nurse named Clarise workin the sixth floor at Presbie that can take my blood pressure any time she likes, if you know what I mean.  I’m tellin Clarise she should consider dancin at Climax’s when don’t you know Debbie comes walkin in the door.  That didn’t go dahn too good, but I told her I was still on the Percosets, I don’t know what I’m sayin.  I had to pretend I was high on drugs a whole ride home.  I’m sayin the sky is purple and lookit that big spider and crap like at.

I gotta say everything worked aht pretty good.  The truck’s insurance bought Debbie and me a new car and Ronny’s got this thing worked aht for the bar where he says hey aren’t you the guy from that goofy accident?  And then I tell the story and somebody’ll buy us a drink.  Oh, you want to know abaht that jagoff truck driver?  He wasn’t so lucky.  He didn’t make it.  He ain’t no Plaxico Burress, neither.