Valentine's Day Magic

Two hours past Valentine's day and I remember that I've forgotten the rose the Professor gave me and all the other single women in his office this morning. I take it out of its shiny, overpriced wrappings and put it into the special vase reserved for single, long-stemmed roses. It is nothing like the one Seng gave me last year - a huge bloodred bloom, an Indian rose, I was told by my aunt who came by 2 weeks later and saw it. In fact, this bloom is tiny, charred by sunlight and already crinkled. But I know for a fact that a similar one makes Wei very happy today. This woman of coming thirty tells me as we walk home from the office that it is the first flower she's ever received for Valentine's day. I tell her that I would've bought her one for every year that I've known her. She laughs, but I mean it. Sometimes, women will say that flowers are wasteful and unnecessary, but everybody loves to be given flowers. And I mean everybody. I love my red rose.

For a while, I wonder what it would be like to be a man, and actually wish I could be one - just for a while. It would be nice, I think, to be able to waltz in with roses for the women, laugh and joke with them, and make them feel like women. Perhaps as a woman, I could one day waltz in with whatever-it-is-that-makes-men-feel-manly and make each man in the room feel like men. I don't know what makes men feel like men.

My sister gives me a pink rose that she bought from the budding entrepreneurs in her school. Now my red rose has competition. I place the pink rose in a bottle I've never been able to discard and place it by my red rose. I love my pink rose.

Two lizards run across the hall, one after the other. I've never seen so many house lizards at a time. But I should've expected it; all the lizard sightings in the house couldn't possibly have been of the same lizard. The lizards must know it is Valentine's day too. I tell Yeenseen, who is frantically rushing out her portfolio for art school application, about the lizards. She says that's what they do in the wee hours of the morning - they mate. Now I am sorry I asked.

I am remembering how we used to spend Valentine's day in school - with a flurry of gift exchanges, practical jokes, and late night singles' parties. This year has been different; quieter, but I refuse to let it be any less fulfilling. I think about how my day began with reading Daniel's request to be his valentine. And I look out my window and think of my sweet valentine, probably brushing his teeth, half way across the world. I review our ecard exchange, full of thanks for each other's penpalling throughout the years. Valentine's day is wasted on lovers tonight, I think, when friendship creates wonders like this.