I have this friend. You may have heard of her. She is extremely talented in many different ways and happens to be fantastic at being a friend as well. I love her so, enjoy.
The Burberry Boots... a short story by Tanya Robinson
I don’t know how we met. Not really, anyway. It was one of those mysteries of the universe when a normal girl meets someone like him. Sweet, and funny, and oh so attractive, I’ve come to know him as a normal guy, but with a name that people shout at us on the streets sometimes. Sometimes they’ll shout out the names of characters he’s played, and that always makes me laugh. I would never have shouted at him. I would have played it much too cool, and probably never met him, until the accident where the universe throws you on someone. Literally, throws you on them. And that’s how I, a regular girl, met him, a regular guy.
On a far too-humid day for my liking, in September, almost a full year ago, I tripped on what I swear must have been a crack in the concrete. He swears whenever we tell the story that it was only my feet and my imagination. I landed, Jennifer-Lopez-movie-style, squarely on top of his impeccably casually dressed self. Me and a giant laundry bag, smothering him. As we’ve come to grow more serious, he’s seen me trip many times on my imagination, so he was probably right, which I’ll never admit. Some things in a relationship are meant to be secrets, like that you watch him sleep sometimes. That is far too creepy to admit. In any case, we’ve been together nearly a year, I’ve met his parents and tried to act normal, he’s met mine, and pretended not to notice their inability to act normal. Thankfully, no one asked for an autograph. Or at least not to his face. My cousin did ask me if I could ask him to post something on her facebook wall though. He laughed when I told him, and posted “can’t wait to see you again,” on her wall. She is now the most popular girl in school.
Tonight is my birthday, so we’re going to a fancy restaurant that we never go to, and dressing up like adults. I’m wearing my most expensive dress, which is way less expensive than the suit he’ll no doubt show up in, and I’ll do my best not to drool. That’s the key to dating someone with far more money than you have, pretend that you don’t notice. It’s not like he’s flashy that way, or that he is overly frugal either. He does, more often than not, pay for our dates, but I like to believe that’s just because he’s a gentleman. Actually, really, the key is, to get to know them and find out if they’re a normal guy, and then a decent guy, and focus on that.
He shows up at my door, and greets me like always, “Hey there,” and a kiss, but this time he is also carrying a big Barneys bag.
“Hey yourself. Look at how sharp you look.” He didn’t just look sharp. Sharp was me trying to play it cool, which I still do sometimes. If I didn’t, I’d always walk around with my jaw on the floor, drool coming from the corners of my mouth, stuttering. That is not good for anyone, so I play it cool when he comes over to my tiny apartment in a perfectly tailored suit looking so dapper I’m almost at a loss for words. I should also mention, that one of the things that I really like about him is that his apartment isn’t much nicer than mine. He has better electronics, but I think that you’d find that in most guys’ apartments. Our homes feel even, which kind of balances out the great disparity in notoriety.
“I know, I had a date before this. I hope you don’t mind, I didn’t have a chance to change first,” this is our joke, because one time I lost my ability to play cool, and had a meltdown about the women ogling him on the street. I’m not usually one of those whimpering women, but I’m still not sure I can really compete with a Victoria Secret model. So I made him promise that if he ever wanted to date someone else, he would tell me. Which, of course, is the most ridiculous agreement ever, but somehow it made me feel better, and so far, there has only been fictitious other women. Occasionally I’ll have fictitious other men in my life too, just to spice things up.
“No problem. Another woman’s hand-me-downs are my good fortune.” Do you ever smile at someone, namely a guy, and hope that your smile isn’t as goofy as it feels on your face. That is what happened here. I froze in my entry way, and by entry way, I mean the space right before my living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. Something about him is like if you put one of those exercise bands around two people, and they can only pull apart three feet or so, when he’s around I can’t seem to move more than a few feet away. Probably hugely unhealthy.
He hugs me and kisses my forehead, “I got you a gift” he says, raising the Barney’s bag in a retail version of a Bicep curl.
“Oooh, really? I thought it was for the other woman.” For the first time tonight I take my doe-y eyes off of him, and notice the bag. Nice sized. Not really sure what it could be though. I haven’t dropped any hints, and quite frankly, am just happy he remembered and arranged this whole evening. Even though we’ve been together almost a year, the first birthday with someone can be a little touch-and-go, ‘will he remember, how will it go, will he think I’m too needy, will he get me something hideous that will prove that we have no business being together and he doesn’t know me at all?’ All of these thoughts had zoomed through my head in the last month.
“No her birthday isn’t until next month,” he teases and half smiles before plopping down on my sofa. He sets the gift next to him on my beat up couch.
“Should we open now, or after dinner? Do we have time?” I look at my wrist, but I haven’t worn a watch in years. Still a habit though. Most of the time he teases me good-naturedly about this habit too, but not tonight, it’s my birthday.
“You know you want it now,” he says as he pats the couch next to him, and I tried not to be nervous. ‘Please don’t let it be something awful. Please give me the strength to say thank you even if I don’t like it, and please let there be a gift receipt.’
“Yes please.” I plopped down on the other side of the Barney’s bag. Why is it that sometimes in relationships little things become so heavily weighted. If this gift is something that I would never in a million years want, then it becomes a symbol of how well he knows me.
“you know what I like about you?”
“What’s that?”
“You didn’t do that pretend, I don’t want anything for my birthday. Don’t even worry about it...” he raised his voice unnaturally high, and did his best jersey girl impression.
“Well, I didn’t want anything, but if you happen to give me a gift, I’m certainly not going to turn it down.”
“uh huh. Sure.”
“How was your day? You had Letterman today, right?” I don’t know why, but I was still not ready to open it. What if it’s awful. It probably won’t be, he has great taste.
“yeah. It was good. Letterman makes me nervous though. I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself. Open it!”
“I’m sure you were great. I have the tivo set.”
“Will you open your gift already? And, I’m not watching that tonight with you. Are you kidding me?” He kicks off his shoes and puts his feet on the coffee table. His socks are striped. Something I find incredibly endearing.
I pulled a box out of the bag, “you wrapped it too?”
“of course I wrapped it,” he smiles at me, and conveys another, are you kidding me.
“I’m impressed.” Now or never.
I tore open the wrapping paper and inside was a big, beautiful Burberry box. I’m not the typical girl who goes ga ga over the Burberry plaid, but I have to say that I do love their classic design aesthetic. Also, it’s fun to open a designer box, it’s like when you see that Tiffany blue, which of course we’re not there quite yet, but it’s fun. “What is it?”
“Open it,” he was full on grinning now. I can tell even though his mouth is hidden by his hand because his smile is the kind that doesn’t just stay on his mouth, it spreads across his whole face and crinkles his eyes in a way that turns me to jello.
When I pulled the box open, there I saw the most gorgeous boots. I’ve been drooling over them for so long, but at nearly a thousand dollars I couldn’t ever buy them. They are black and look like they have been loved for years, with straps and buckles in exactly the right place. I pull them out and clutch them to my chest. When I look up at him to thank him, my eyes fill with water. “These are too much. I love them so much, but too much.”
“Do you like them?”
“I love them, are you kidding me, but-”
He interrupts my protest by pulling me to him again and kisses the top of my head. “Happy Birthday,” he says.
“Thank you so much,” at this point I am crying like he had just given me a kidney or something. I’m not quite sure what my problem is, but I’m sure that this is the most generous birthday present ever. Not just because of the monetary value, but because I have no idea how he knew. “How did you know?” I ask as I try to make myself look like the cute girlfriend he saw when he walked in the door, but I’m sure I’m not. I’m a mess.
He shakes his head, and laughs, and then kisses me, his sobbing mess of a normal girl girlfriend, who is still clutching her Burberry boots. We ended up twenty minutes late for dinner, and I may have had some strange looks because the boots most definitely did not go with my dress. Or maybe it was because I was with the guy they all wished they were with.
***Check out the boots here.
