My Fairy Godfather rides the bus with me to work

I dedicate this story to my friend Marda.

I stepped outside today and discovered it was raining. I thought for a moment about grabbing my umbrella, but I realized I had no idea where it was and I wouldn't have time to look for it without risking missing the bus. So I walked to the bus stop in the unexpected downpour, taking shelter when I could under the trees. I was wearing my new outfit that I purchased last weekend in America and I had styled my hair to a coiffed mess of perfection. It's Thursday, my traditional day of dressing it up. I was going for a wow effect and hoped that the rain wouldn't leave me getting pitied looks instead of awestruck ones. Some days a girl just wants to turn some heads.

Thankfully, Dave was back driving the bus. He had been off for a few days which left us with random substitute drivers who had their own interpretations of the bus stop schedule.

"And where is your umbrella, Jill?" Dave asked me when I got on.

"I don't know," I laughed. "That's why I don't have it with me, I don't know where it is."

I walked to the back and found Gus sitting on one of the sideways benches. I sat down beside him and said good morning.

He told me he got a call from our old bus buddy Lauren last night. She's going through a rough time right now. She just kicked her boyfriend out of her house because she found out he had been cheating on her. I couldn't believe it when Gus told me. I had seen Lauren with her boyfriend a few times and I had been to their place. They seemed happy and good together and had been together for a few years. I guess things aren't always as they seem.

"I'm going for lunch tomorrow with a girl just like you," Gus told me. Gus and I have been riding the bus together for over a year now. Sometimes he says things that I just don't know what to make of. Like on a cold and rainy day he'll greet me by saying, "hello darling, don't worry, I'll have the Jacuzzi turned on and the champagne ready for when we get home tonight." He'll say this with a smile and a way that suggests he is just being funny, but it's kind of a hard joke to take from a man who is the same age as my father.

"Her name's Kathy. I've known her for years," he said. "I'll tell you a little story," he said.

"When we were kids we used to spend the summer up at the lake. Kathy was from Windsor, Ontario and her parents used to bring her every summer. There was a group of us kids who used to hang out all the time. Kathy was a year older than me. She was very quiet and shy, like you," Gus said.

I resisted rolling my eyes. I'm not shy, I'm introverted. There's a difference. It means I listen more than I talk, unlike Gus who talks my ear off some days. I told him he talks too much once. A guy on the bus was telling a story to anyone who would listen about his son in Newfoundland. Gus rolled his eyes at me and nodded in the storyteller's direction.

"What?" I had said. "You talk too much too." I hadn't really meant it to come out so harsh, but it was during the spring time this past year when I was in my "don't take shit from anyone" phase. Gus didn't say anything to me for the rest of the ride and for the next couple of days when I got on I'd find that someone else was sitting with him. It was probably coincidental that he had this new friend to sit with, but I felt really bad for snapping at him like that and I worried that I had really offended him. By the next week though things were back to normal.

Looking out the window as we sped down Portage Avenue I noticed that the rain had stopped, thankfully. My hairdo would be salvageable.

"Not a lot of other people really got Kathy," Gus continued. "She was so shy and quiet that she was hard to get to know. But I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame. I was 13, she was 14. We spent a lot of time together, you know, like boyfriend and girlfriend. We kept in touch by letters, handwritten letters. I have a stack of them. Kept each and every one. That went on every summer for years as we grew up.

After we were finished school she'd come see me play in my band in the bars. I said to her one day, stay in Winnipeg, come live with me. But she said no. Went back and stayed in Windsor. She was seeing a guy, Phil. Got into some bad times with him. They broke up, but when she was in Winnipeg again I was married. We still kept in touch secretly. Nothing ever happened, but we did meet up. Later, when I was divorced, she was back with Phil. She got into problems with drugs and alcohol for a bit. There was nothing I could really do for her though. She said to me once, Gus, the biggest mistake I ever made was not moving in with you. She'd call me sometimes for advice or to talk. Every time we got together or talked it was just like when we were kids, you know? They say you never forget your first love, well, that's what this was."

"I've kept this for years now," Gus said as he reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet. He opened up and searched through the pockets. "Man, I hope I haven't lost it."

He pulled out an old wallet sized photo. The girl it in was in her grad cap and gown. She had long sandy coloured hair and eyes that matched with beautiful long eyelashes. I turned the photo over. Kathy's words to him were mostly faded but I could see at the bottom where she had written, "I hope we stay in touch forever".

"And we have," Gus said when I read the line out loud.

He put the photo away and then said, "So see, that's why I always tell you, your prince will come."

"But it's such a sad story," I said. "It didn't turn out."

"Well no, but like I said, Kathy was a shy girl like you but that didn't matter to me. Other guys passed her by, didn't take the time, but I loved her. Always will."

Gus has an earring in his left ear, a decent head of greying brown hair and a gravely voice from years of smoking and playing guitar in smokey bars. I had never thought about it until today, but in another wolrd, time and place he probably would be like the rough around the edges but soft on the inside kind of guy I fall for. And I guess I might have been like the girl he would have an undeniable attraction to, for whatever it is that I am other than "shy and quiet".

Gus has been divorced for a few years now. I know he's dated a bit but he's been single for most of the time I've known him. He has two daughters he gives the world to with seemingly little thanks in return. I never really understood why he found a friend in me, what made him try so hard to get me to talk to him. Certain people it seems do get it. They see me. They see through my quiet nature and they know there's something there worth getting to know better.

I don't know if I captured the story in the best way here. Listening to Gus tell me his story today really touched me and gave me things to think about. I can't really decide though if it is something that gives me hope or that simply breaks my heart. I guess everyone has a beautiful love story of some kind that doesn't come with the beautiful and happy ending. It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, they say. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about that either.

How does this apply to my thoughts on love? Well I guess it confirms for me that love, romance, passion are all parts of a beautiful relationship, the kind many of us dream about when thinking of our ideal mate. But love, just simple, pure, beautiful love, it doesn't disappear because of lost time, distance or circumstance. Just because you can't be with the person, even if you find yourself with someone else who makes you happy, true love doesn't ever completely die. As humans we can do a pretty good job of fighting it, pushing ourselves away from it and lashing out against it, but I don't think you can really ever break it.

I've loved a few in my life so far. Mostly unrequited. Some I now call friends, some I call memories. Some I've wished I would never have to think about again but they insist on popping up from time to time. I've always said the important ones, the ones that matter, they never really go away. Maybe I won't get to marry them or spend years of bliss with them, may not even get to kiss them, but they will always be there because they are written on my heart. I know they won't ever forget me either. It may not be a fairytale, but it is what it is.

If he doesn't tell me, I'll be sure to ask Gus on Monday how his lunch with Kathy went. The hopeless romantic in me would like to see him find his happy ending after all. Happy ending or not though, he already has something pure, sweet and beautiful.

so close no matter how far
couldn't be much more from the heart
forever trusting who we are
and nothing else matters

--Nothing Else Matters, Metallica

Search your heart - search your soul
And when you find me there you'll search no more

--Everything I Do, I Do it for You, Bryan Adams