Did You Really Mean It?

.................................................

DAN

I was really glad that she let me email her. I actually think it was better that we didn't talk directly, even though I was dying to hear the sound of her voice. Emails gave you time to reflect, to edit your thoughts so they were more understandable. I remember telling Lori that I had read once about two English poets, who fell in love through letters and married by proxy, but never actually met each other. Although it was hard to understand the relationship, it was easy to understand the allure of the letters.

That being said, I was getting very frustrated with this long distance, asexual romance. The urge to touch her, to hear her bubbly little laugh that sometimes ended in a snort, the way she would shake her hair and stamp her foot when she got angry. I gently offered to fly down to Atlanta, and she was just as gentle in rebuffing me.

I was just about to give up when I got an email from an address I didn't recognize, when I saw the caption. "This is about Lori."

"Dear Dan,

You don't know us, but we're friends and coworkers of Lori. She was in pretty sad shape when she got here, and didn't improve much until she started exchanging emails with you. Now she's starting to get sad again, thinking you're going to grow tired of her. The idiot is in love with you, but thinks the baggage of the past is too much to get over. We don't think so, at least not on your end. It's time for you to man up and claim this woman! Convince her the past is the past, and she needs to start looking to the future. We fear it will in badly if you don't. And please, don't tell her we sent this.

Julie, Carol, and Cindy."

I thought about that message a lot over the next few days. I didn't email Lori for a week, and didn't respond to hers.

Finally, I sat down and composed my final email to her.

.................................................

LORI

I was getting frantic. Dan suddenly stopped emailing me or responding to mine. What had I done wrong? Did he finally realize the baggage of the past was just too much to over come.

My friends could tell I was upset and tried to console me. One day three bouquets of roses appeared on the desks of Carol, Cindy, and Julie, and they walked around like the cat that swallowed the canary all morning. At least somebody was enjoying life.

They all appeared at my office , bringing me lunch.

As they spread out the salads on the conference table, Julie casually asked if I had heard from Dan lately. They could hear the sadness in my voice.

"Oh cheer up" said Carol. "Have you checked lately? He night have sent you one and you missed it. Do it now, if he's sent you one, we can all read it while we have lunch. That is unless it's too personal."

They wouldn't let up until I checked. I couldn't believe it, I had a message. I was trembling when I opened it.

"My dearest Lori,

I've been getting pretty good with romantic terms, huh? But now it's time for plain talk.

WE'RE BOTH IDIOTS!

I love you, and you know it. I'd bet my life you still love me. So, it's time to shut up or put up.

I'm tired of looking at a computer screen. I want you here, with me, right now. I want to go to sleep with you spooned up against me, and see your face when I wake up. I want to touch you, to hold our children in my arms, watch your hair turn to gray.

We once told each other in another universe we could be happy together.

It's been over a year since I last saw you. It seems like a lifetime. This is another universe! What we were before, what we've gone through together and apart makes it so. And in my new universe, the color of the sky is colored by your love and the laughter of our children.

I'll do it again when we're in person, but I want you to marry me. I'm not taking no for an answer. I'll give you two days. If you don't come to me by then I'll come to you. I'll sit at your desk everyday until the run me off, and then I'll sit in front of your apartment until they arrest me.

Save us a lot of drama and admit I'm right. One way or another, we'll be together. See you soon.

All my love,

Dan"

Four grown women crying like babies attract a lot of attention. Like I said, seventy per cent women. Word got around, and every woman in the office read his proposal. The boss came back from lunch and thought someone died. When he read the email he was a little misty eyed.

He hugged me, and whispered he was going to miss me. He let everyone go home an hour early, nobody was getting any work done anyway.

.................................................

DAN

I felt better after I sent the email. I was trying to get some contracts together, one of the sad facts of my business is that costs fluctuate regularly, based on oil prices. I was expecting a visit from a new supplier rep, the old one retired, when my secretary buzzed me.

"Someone to see you, Dan. Do you have time?"

"Sure, send him in."

I was looking at the new prices, and wasn't expecting him to come in so fast, when I heard the door open. I didn't look up

"Did you really mean it?"

My head snapped up. It was Lori, thinner, with longer hair, and even more beautiful than I remembered. I literally jumped over the desk, closed the door, and took the woman of my dreams in my arms. I was never going to let her go again.