Scavenge My Heart

Lisa was breathless, whisking through the city sidewalks as a February breeze streamed through her hair. In the old part of town, where the street cafes and antique shops spilled onto patios under soft string lights, loving couples exchanged roses to the mellow melody of flirtatiously jousting cellists. Lisa slowed to a stop outside her favorite place, searching the sunlit street as a little sigh of doubt crossed her heart. Then a finger tapped her shoulder, and she turned with a dazzling smile. "You came!"

Ricky was there, tall and thin beneath his old-fashioned Fedora. He held out a bouquet of wild flowers, wrapped in newspaper. "Hi. Um, can we--"

Lisa threw her arms around him, planting a kiss on his bristly cheek. "Happy Valentine's Day!"

"Oh, uh, yeah." Ricky patted her on the back. "Happy Valentine's Day. Um, I need to tell you--"

"Oh, no!" Lisa's lips fell into a fulsome pout, her doe eyes shining. "You didn't get a reservation?"

"No, I did, which is amazing to me--"

"Okay, let's go!"

Lisa took his hand and bustled into the little cafe. A waiter directed them out to a small table in a romantically cramped corner of the patio, with a vase for the flowers, and a nearby violinist oozing ambience. After ordering a couple coffees, Lisa settled in for a lot of soul gazing and hand holding, while Ricky insisted, "We need to talk."

A stone dropped into the pit of Lisa's stomach. "What do you mean?"

"Well--"

"Are you breaking up with me?" Lisa demanded over a quivering lip. "Is there someone else?"

"No, it's not--can I have my hand back?--it's not you," Ricky said. "Well, it kind of...there's no easy way to say this--"

"Are you secretly a rich prince who's also been in love with me since childhood and prepared to give up on fame so we can get married?" Lisa guessed. "Or do you have cancer?"

"What? Neither! Why are those the options?" Ricky's hand slapped his face, and he said, "Right. Lisa. I hate to do this on Valentine's Day, I never expected things to get this far--"

The waiter arrived with their coffees, elaborate illustrations of Cupid decorating the foam, and lit the romantic candles for a warm glow that was completely invisible in the bracing February sunshine. "What do you have to say?" Lisa asked.

Ricky grinned nervously until the waiter departed, then took a deep breath.

"I'm three raccoons in a trench coat."

With an abrupt stringed squeak, the violinist decided it was time to retreat, leaving behind an awkward silence.

Lisa blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Ricky said. "To be honest, I thought you might have noticed."

"I don't understand."

Ricky sighed, and a tiny, furry hand emerged from his collar and doffed his Fedora. "Okay, so, hi, I'm Ricky, I do the talking. This is Rocky, he does the arms." The sleeves of the coat lifted in demonstrative jazz hands. "And Jeff does the legs."

"I'm Jeff!" a muffled voice contributed from underneath the table.

"Yeah, that's Jeff."

"I do the legs!"

"Okay, I told her, Jeff, shut up!"

One of the sleeves reached under the table, followed by a muffled, "Ow!" The other sleeve gave a little thumbs-up.

Gripping the warm coffee cup between her fingers, Lisa said, "Okay. How long has this been going on?"

Rocky's hands drummed on the table as Ricky winced. "Well, remember when we met outside the charity shop?"

"Yes!" Lisa's face lit up. "It was so romantic! My best friend, who is always kind of pregnant and has excellent dating advice despite being in a terrible relationship, needed my help to drop off some donations. I'm traditionally klutzy and tripped into a pile of clothes, and you were there to ask if I was alright. It was unclear if you were a rich samaritan dropping off clothes or a handsome homeless man benefitting from those clothes, but we had such natural chemistry I took a chance and asked you out anyway."

"Yeah, I was neither of those things," Ricky said. "I was in a dumpster, looking for food, and found this Fedora. I only agreed to go out with you because I thought I'd get a free meal out of it, and got my two friends to help me fill out the look. I mean, you didn't notice my furry little mask?"

"I thought you were hiding a secret identity coinciding with my romantic past." Lisa sat back, crossing her arms. "And you asked me out again after that."

His little hand scratching his furry neck, Ricky said, "Yeah...see, Rocky's taking this improv class, and dating you is great practice."

The hands in the sleeves splayed out in exasperation, then crossed on the tabletop, fingers tapping in cartoonish irritation. "He's very good," Lisa noted.

"Yeah, we're proud of him," Ricky said, as Rocky's fists pumped in triumph. "But I told the guys we had to end it."

Lisa gasped, a hand over her heart. "Because you have genuine feelings for me?"

Sharp teeth wincing, Ricky said, "No. I, um, am only attracted to raccoons. But I'm worried about you. I think there might be something wrong with you."

Her shoulders slumping, Lisa ventured, "I'm not enough?"

"See, that's one of those vague, disheartening questions you ask that doesn't really speak to a specific character flaw, but is meant to resonate with universal insecurities," Ricky said. "Like how you take all those pratfalls to make you seem more relatable, and have this vague job related to baking and or catering that gives you both an incredibly flexible daytime schedule, and stressful deadlines when relevant to the plot." Rocky reached up and smacked Ricky's nose. "Right. Those are things that annoy me; other people may find that charming about you."

"So, then, what's wrong with me?"

Ricky took a deep breath. "I think you're trapped in a cycle of magical thinking highly dependent on stereotypical gender roles and the notion that love is both the thing that will complete you as a person and something over which you have no agency. I think you fetishize the abstract concept of love to such a degree that you delude yourself into the idea that imperfect partners are actually secretly perfect, and you loving them harder will manufacture a fairytale ending. I think you cherry pick any evidence that even tangentially supports this claim while ignoring a parade's worth of red flags, setting yourself up to be exploited and gaslit by liars and manipulators. For multiple dates, you let yourself be taken in by a trio of trash bandits. I think it's a deep-seeded issue, and only a paradigm shift with professional counseling will help you resolve it." Ricky shrugged his furry shoulders. "But what do I know? I'm just a raccoon."

Lisa leaned her elbows on the table, studying the pattern dissolving into foam. From under the table, a muffled voice asked, "Did you tell her? How'd she take it?"

"No." Lisa raised her eyes, shining, determined, and with striking yet subtle makeup. "You might be cynical. And you might have hardened your heart to romance. And you might think me a fool. But I believe in love. I believe in soulmates. And I will never stop searching for that someone who thinks I'm perfect just the way I am!" She stood up from the table, tossing her scarf across her shoulders. "Goodbye, Rick. Happy Valentine's Day."

Music swelled as the cellists down the street settled their petty differences and revealed their true feelings. Her proud march back out into the avenue carried Lisa past the waiter, who slipped quickly toward the table. "Monsieur, about the bill--"

But the only thing left was an empty trench coat as three raccoons scattered down the street.