Hallmark

Disclaimer: I do not own Hallmark or Shoebox greeting card companies or anything therein.

From the moment when we first met / I knew I'd never forget you. / These words I'll never regret / I love you. Happy Valentine's Day!

Fred smirked, shutting the card and gingerly slipping it back into its slot. His eyes continued scanning the rack for a possibility. He knew Kim didn't like greeting card verse. She wrote poetry, so it offended her aesthetic sense. At any rate, he didn't like that poem either. It was something of a lie.

He didn't love Kim from the minute they met. He met her about a week before his friend Justin broke up with her, so that would have been disloyal. He figured out that he loved her a good three or four months later.

Also, it wasn't as if he'd never told her that he loved her. He had done it again just before he went to work this morning. He liked to call her right before he went into the building. There was always some nosy coworker who would see his phone in his hand as he clocked in and ask who he'd been talking to.

"My girlfriend," he prided himself on being able to say.

Fred reached for another card. This one looked promising. It was a big one in the shape of a rose, and there was gold glitter around the edges.

"You make my life complete. I would be so lost without you. I love you."

Fred hastily stuffed the card back into its slot. Way too serious, that one. As much fun as Kim could be, he hardly thought of himself as suicidal when she wasn't around. In fact, he more often felt suicidal when she was around, babbling about her awful boss or the fact that Fred had to work on Friday night again.

With hopeful interest, he reached for a card from the "Valentine - Humor" section. It had a cartoon of a young man dressed in a flea-bitten wife-beater and red boxers with white hearts on them. He had a five o'clock shadow and a cigarette stuffed in the corner of his mouth. In his hand was a red paper Valentine with a heart drawn on it in little cigarette burns. Fred opened the card.

"What? It's the thought that counts."

Fred chuckled. Here was one he himself wouldn't mind getting. It admitted that Valentine's Day was naturally a fiasco waiting to happen. He shook his head slightly as he put it back. Kim had established herself as being a girl who put a lot of stock in what her boyfriend did for her on Valentine's Day. Just because he liked it didn't mean she would.

"Right...okay...got it, Jude. I know. I know! Hallmark. No, they don't even sell Shoebox cards here. Look, I--no...yeah..."

Fred looked up as a coworker he vaguely recognized approached the display, his cell phone pinioned to his ear with one hand. He picked at the cards on the rack with the other, lifting each one up about half an inch, then letting it drop back into its space. He looked up as he saw Fred. Not missing a beat in his conversation, he raised the tip of his index and middle fingers and held them to his left temple, jerking his thumb forward to indicate pulling the trigger. He rolled his eyes at Fred with a devilish grin.

"I love you...fine...`bye," he finished, clapping his phone shut.

"Wife?" Fred chided, turning to face the wall of cards.

"Girlfriend," the man returned amiably. "Do I know you?"

"I work at Mill's," Fred mumbled. "Fred."

"Alex," the man replied, reaching for the rose card. He paused as he read it, then let out an unguarded laugh.

"Did you get a load of this?" he held it out to Fred, who nodded.

"The sad part is, that probably took whoever wrote it hours to come up with that message," Fred replied.

"The sad part is, there are people who believe that card will solve all their problems," Alex said. He bent down, fingering the cards in the "Valentine - Money Holder" section with a look of distinct consideration.

"What do you mean?" Fred raised an eyebrow.

"Well, you know people are going to buy that card, right? Look--," Alex indicated it with his gaze, "there's already only two left. No one means what that card says...no one can anymore, with what relationships have become, right? It's a race to get married for the girls, a race to get laid for the guys."

"Not everyone feels like that," Fred said.

"Sure, but that's what we're supposed to believe, you know? And it's hard to ignore what you're told. It's hard to have a good relationship if you're convinced she's out buying bridal magazines when all she does is complain and hound you. Jude actually dragged me to the jewelry store last night. And she was tapping on the glass all impatient while she was showing me these rings. And the rings, man--I'd need to sell my organs to make the first payment. But did she care? She doesn't even think about the fact that I'm only a clerk at a warehouse and I have to make payments on practically everything I own."

"If it's that bad, why are you still with her?" Fred felt compelled to ask.

"Aw, it's not that bad, really-we've been together so long, I guess it would be weird to be apart. It's just not what it used to be, you know? I figured that out two years ago.in this aisle, actually. I was here buying her a birthday card. I was kind of rushing because, well, I was actually on my way to her surprise party, but I ended up standing here for, like, twenty minutes. Every card I read just didn't fit. It was either a lie, or too honest, or it was for people more devoted than us. I just realized if I really loved her, picking a card would be no big deal. I could give her a card like that," Alex gestured to the rose card, smoldering in its slot, "and even if I didn't believe everything it said, it would still be okay because Jude and I were on the same page. We would both know what was real and what was imaginary."

Alex took a breath like he was going to continue talking, but instead let it out in a slow, wordless sigh.

"Man, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to go off on a speech. I tend to do that, I guess. Jude hates it."

"What do you do?" Fred asked softly. He wasn't looking at Alex or the cards anymore. He was looking at the floor. "Now?"

"Nowadays?" Alex remarked. "Well, nowadays, I just grab the most generic card I can find and sign in 'Love, Alex.' If she can manage to get hurt about that, I'll at least have a good case. Hard to get mad when the language is so simple-ah!"

Alex let out an exclamation of triumph as he pulled a little square, white card with a pink heart on the front out of a slot, opening it.

"Happy Valentine's Day," he read aloud. He smiled as he turned it over, slipping it into its envelope.
"And it's even a Hallmark."

Fred nodded robotically as Alex excused himself to the checkout counter. He turned back to the cards, picking up a replica of the card Alex was buying.

He just needed some time to think, that was all. He didn't even know Alex. He didn't know where he was coming from with all of this. Just because Jude was a problem-and it sounded like she was-didn't mean that Kim was anything to worry about. She just had-preferences. Who didn't? Didn't even he have preferences? Didn't Kim humor him in them? Did she?

Fred gritted his teeth, walking down the aisle and looping over to the candy section. There was a brand new display of bears with heart- shaped boxes of candy sewn to their chests. Fred grabbed one without thinking.

He wasn't going to make a habit of this. He was going to put effort into what he gave Kim, into every word in every card he gave her. But for now, he'd give her this. At least he knew she'd like it.