fiction

“Bless You”

Have you ever said “bless you” to a stranger when they sneezed? I used to do it all the time. The first time I caught myself doing it, I was on the 6 train headed uptown to my younger sister’s wedding shower. It was fairly early on a Sunday morning, and I shared the car with just one other person. He was my age, this tiny sliver of a man. The sneeze flew out of his mouth so violently that his whole body thrust with the effort. I saw the spit sprays land on the grimy floor between the gum spots and the shoe streaks, and couldn’t help but notice him wipe the sneeze residue with his sleeve. He looked at me sheepishly and the sneeze just hung there between us. I offered up a “bless you” and he looked grateful to change the subject. I got off at the next stop and we never saw each other again. Truthfully, I doubt I’d recognize him if I did see him.

After that, I blessed people after their sneezes and rather enjoyed the surprised looks on their faces. I guess no one expects to be blessed by a stranger. The courtesy feels like it belongs in a far away time and a far away place, certainly not the City of Sin, not Gotham, not the Big Apple. No one has the time to bless a stranger after a sneeze, not even after 9/11.

Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I started doing this and it became a habit. Something I didn’t even think about after awhile. I certainly didn’t expect to get a husband out of it.

I was walking up Madison Avenue, past Gucci and Prada and Hermes, all dripping with dewy, luscious, succulent…things – things I couldn’t have but loved staring at on a spring afternoon. I stopped to gaze at the diamonds shimmering in the window at Cartier. Someone pulled to a stop behind me. I didn’t turn around to see who it was, but I heard the sneeze that was unmistakably a man’s. I blessed him. He said thanks and we stood silently, captivated by the things neither of us had any business looking at. After all, I didn’t make a move for the store entrance, and neither did he.

After what seemed like hours, but it was maybe 30 seconds, he asked me the time. I laughed because we were staring at a window of watches and diamond rings. I turned towards him and noticed that he had really beautiful green eyes.

“At Cartier, it’s always 10 to 2,” I said, referencing the watches, which were all displaying the same, incorrect, time. “But, for the rest of us, it’s 4.”

The green eyes got even cuter when they smiled.

I returned the smile and left the window. I knew he was walking a few steps behind me and I felt his gaze. I was sure he was looking at my ass. Men always look at my ass, and I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing. Then, I heard a sneeze near me and I said, “Bless you,” again, trying to locate the sneeze’s owner. It was him. I sensed he was faking that sneeze, and I gave him what I considered the “evil eye” of someone who’s just blessed someone else inappropriately.

“OK, it wasn’t a sneeze,” he confessed immediately. I liked that.

“Then I retract my blessing,” I replied.

“Of course, I wouldn’t expect anything less. I don’t deserve it,” he said.

He took a deep breath and continued. “I’m sure you’re really busy right now, but if you’re not, would you have coffee with me?” he talked really fast and I knew he wasn’t the sort who asked people who blessed him when he sneezed to have coffee with him. I wasn’t the sort who accepted these invitations, but I did anyway.

After our first date, we were inseparable. And blessing him turned into our private joke. It was almost like saying “I love you,” and sometimes he would fake sneezes when he wanted my attention. At our wedding, we gave out little fortune cookies that had “bless you” written on the fortunes inside. It always surprises me that one of life’s little courtesies brought us together. A sneeze and a bless you.

I don’t remember when I stopped blessing him. He still sneezes, I’m pretty sure. Maybe he holds them back, or lets them explode in his nose and drain down the back of his throat because he couldn’t stand to hear me bless him when he knows he doesn’t deserve it. Life’s little courtesies don’t apply to us anymore. And because I don’t bless him, it seems I can’t bless anyone else either. It’s just too painful.

Now that I think about it, he stopped sneezing around the time I found a matchbook with the word “Jennifer,” and a phone number, written on the inside flap. I didn’t tell him I found it. I didn’t say anything. I just waited. I wondered if he sneezed for her. I wondered if she blessed him. I wondered if he thought I noticed he didn’t sneeze for me anymore.

One Saturday afternoon while I cleaning our house, I started crying because I suddenly hated my life. I wished I could take everything back, starting with that first “bless you.” I curled up on the couch clutching the dirty paper towel and the can of Lemon Scent Pledge and berated myself for accepting a coffee date with a fake sneezer. What a phony. What a fraud. Anyone who’d fake a sneeze didn’t deserve me.

I heard him come out of the computer room and sit down on the couch next to me. I kept my head curled into my knees.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I said nothing. For a long time we sat there, silent. To my horror, I felt a sneeze building, inching it’s way down my nasal cavities. I’ll swallow it, I thought, starting to panic. As the sneeze reached its climax, I knew there was no holding back. So, I lifted my head, looked him in the eye and blew my sneeze all over him. Spit sprayed out my nose and my mouth. It gathered in the lenses of his glasses he used when he worked on the computer.

He looked startled and took off his glasses. For a second, he didn’t say anything at all. I thought he was going to get up and leave. Instead, he looked at me and said, “Bless you.”

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