Stinging Nettles - Part I (fiction)

Daniel Bower was one of those guys who was quite good looking, but didn’t really know it. He might have known it if he had carried himself with more self confidence, therefore making himself more visible and attractive to the opposite sex, but for the most part he was unnoticed and was referred to as a “nice guy” or “quiet”.
Daniel was a nice guy. He worked for the Parks Department of Vancouver and in his spare time he was a run leader at a local running clinic (the culmination of training a bunch of newbies for a half marathon and their ecstatic faces afterwards was more than worth having to get up at 7am every Sunday, worth more than the free running shoes and discount on technical gear). Every second Saturday he volunteered as a chauffeur for a retirement home, taking its patrons out of their somewhat shabby and sad environs, even if it was just to the mall or to the park or out for coffee. He was never impatient when they repeated themselves, when they moved slowly or when they asked over and over where exactly it was that they were going. Daniel believed in dignity and respect and he valued humanity and tried harder than most to see the good in people, because he believed that people were, inherently, good.
Daniel was an only child and his mother lived in an apartment in Chilliwack. She tried to live frugally as her ex-husband – David’s father – had racked up incredible gambling debts that cost them the family house before she finally divorced him. Her savings were minimal and she was trying to get by without having to take an advance on her CPP payments (which were offered to her, but with a penalty for early withdrawal). David tried to make it out to see her at least once a week, always bringing some groceries with him to help her out.
Daniel’s father was entirely out of the picture. After the divorce he had not made any attempt to make amends, to repay what he had cost them, or to even drop them a line on birthdays or at Christmas. Daniel didn’t lament the loss of his father because he and his father had not been particularly close, especially during Daniel’s teenage years when he was more fully exposed to the damage that his father was inflicting on his family. What did irritate Daniel (and what he tried vainly to repress and to overcome and to never, ever repeat) was his father’s treatment of his mother. His mother was a kind, generous and forgiving person and she forgave his father out of love, out of the desire to keep the family unit together, out of the belief that when his father had said he would stop, that he would stop. But he didn’t. And he wasted Daniel’s time and his mother’s youth and Daniel had a hard time grappling with that one.
“I fell into a patch of stinging nettles once,” Janine said, yanking one from the earth with gloved hands.
Janine was relatively new to the crew. She had joined a few months ago, in March and Daniel fell in love with her rather rapidly. He had first been struck by her wholesome appearance: long blonde hair that was always pulled back in a haphazard ponytail or bun, with a smattering of pale freckles dotting her nose and cheeks. She looked like she had just stepped out of an Izod or Calvin Klein ad. Contrary to Daniel, however, she knew the allure she held for men, though she never exploited it. At the most she might roll her eyes when recanting some failed attempt by one of their coworkers to date her. Daniel would smile wanly as he wondered, if Brad Johansson with his chiseled, Swedish features and piercing blue eyes couldn’t get a date with Janine, how he ever would.
Daniel loved the way she wore her clothes: her grubby jeans that were too big for her, her soiled and stained t-shirts emblazoned with CBC, Transformers or Green Peace logos. Her slender hands, her pale skin, her wicked smile and her equally wicked sense of humor. She didn’t wear perfume, but she often smelled of grapefruit which he attributed to either her shampoo or her soap. He tried not to think about her in the shower, naked and wet and instead preferred to think of how perhaps, at some point, they might have one of their conversations in a nice coffee shop or restaurant, instead of discussing the ramifications of having two strong Democratic candidates in the upcoming election which might result in a possible split vote which could conceivable see yet another Republican take office in November in the dewy chill of the early morning.
He lived for the days when she would show up for work beaming, having downloaded some new music that she was eager to share with him. He relished being in such close proximity with her as she lent him an earbud before turning on her newest finding and scrutinizing his face as he listened to it. He would listen to the music, give the appropriate smile, all while studying the way one of her eyebrows arched more than the other, the way she crinkled her nose in expectation of his response, her dimples when she smiled, breathing in her clean fragrance and fighting the urge to say something totally stupid.
“Yeah?” he said. “How did that happen?”
“Well… maybe fell isn’t the right word. My brother and I were fighting and he pushed me into them. Anyways, I was wearing shorts and the leg that got it the worst swelled up so much I could hardly get my shorts off about ten minutes later,” she said.
Daniel really didn’t want to think about Janine pulling her shorts off under any circumstances, swollen or not. Nor did he wish to think of how he might gently rub salve on the affected areas and be overcome with joy by her appreciative sighs.
“So when was this?” he asked, clearing his throat. “Like, last week?”
Janine laughed. “Yeah. Last week. When I was ten.”
“You and your brother seemed to get into it quite a bit: he pushes you into some stinging nettles, you pushed him into a pool. How do you guys get along? I’m not sure I’d want to be invited to one of your family dinners,” he replied.
“We did fight quite a bit,” Janine admitted. “We get along much better now. We do must of our bullying via text messages. Less itchy that way,” she concluded.
Daniel looked over at her and she gave him a sardonic smile, replete with arched eyebrow and he felt he loved her a little more right then. He returned to the dandelions he was extracting from the shrubbery that was planted around the community centre they were stationed at.
“Big plans for the weekend?” he asked, hoping she would say no, she was bored out of her mind and did he want to go see the new Wes Anderson movie with her.
“Big? No. I’m going over to my boyfriend’s parents’ place for dinner tomorrow night, which is always a bore. And I’m having brunch with some girlfriends on Sunday morning. You?”
Daniel felt the blood drain out of his face and his heart falter a little bit. “Boyfriend?” he choked out before he could stop himself. He certainly didn’t think that he would able to capture her heart, but he hadn’t been aware that her heart had already been captured.
“Yeah. Boyfriend. What: you think a girl like me could possibly be single?” she smirked at him, clearly joking. But she was right. How in the world would a girl like this be single? She was smart, funny, beautiful. She was perfect. He had seen her repair a weed whacker, pick up dog shit, take a photo of a visiting Japanese couple, argue the necessity of taxation and tolls as a way of curbing individual car use and had once seen a butterfly land on the top of her head. Of course she had a boyfriend.