October 2003 Sucks for Somebody

Still re-reading some old journal entries. I wonder what these people are doing right now....

26 October 2003

I think I witnessed a breakup on the Third Street Promenade this evening.

It was dark. I was on my way back to the parking structure after dinner and a movie with David, when I passed the fountain across the street from the entrance to the mall. I heard sobbing, so I glanced over. There was a couple sitting on the edge of the fountain. Her hands covered her face as she wept, and he had his arms around her, awkwardly.

If not a breakup, what makes a person cry out loud like that in the middle of the Promenade, without care or concern for the thoughts of the dozens of people passing by every second? Not a fight, surely. A fight usually involves anger at first, and this was definitely a sorrowful session of tears. And it didn't hold the same timbre as the tears of someone who's just lost a loved one to accident or disease. This was a mournful sound of a different kind.

It was evident in the way he attempted to hold her. He was fully engaged in the effort physically, but I could see his heart wasn't in it. There was no warmth. He looked slightly guilty, as though he knew he no longer really had the right to comfort her, yet he felt it was his duty. And she -- elbows glued to knees, face buried in hands -- was an island of sorrow unto herself. She didn't lean in; she couldn't even look at him.

There was a Pottery Barn bag sitting at her feet. I wondered if he had been considering breaking up with her, and had been waiting for just the right time. And I wondered if, while he was distractedly looking at watches or shirts or athletic shoes, she had ducked into Pottery Barn to purchase the vase that she knew would look great on the dining room table at his place, which was about to become their place. He saw what she had done, and what she was thinking, and he knew he had to do it then and there, in public.

And now Pottery Barn is ruined for her forever. She won't even be able to go in to return the vase, choosing instead to give it to her sister, her neighbor, anyone who will take it just to get it out of her apartment.