The Morning After

Valentine's Day tries to make love simple.

Walking through Penn Station last night, all the business men were scrambling for roses. The ones without the patience to wait in the rose line, headed to Perfumania. The others grabbed balloons; big, shiny exclamations of "I love you" floating down the subway stairs. Flowers were clutched in all the fists around me, wrapped in the cellophane of relief and obligation.

Love, this holiday tells us, is attainable. It is on sale all around us, $14.99 a dozen.

My Valentine's Day was not so straightforward. It began Saturday with a sort of belated fancy-chocolate apology. And last night, over dinner, there were further reminders of love's complexity. I have learned: nowhere do they sell boxes of Timing. No glass of champagne--no matter how expensive--can make someone grow up before they are due.

"We get along unusually well," you told me. I shake my head sometimes when you say these things. Because I have known them since I met you.

Today is the day after Valentine's Day. For the next 365 days love will be, once again, harder to find.