The Marriage of True Minds

by Katie Fitzgerald

With the students gone for spring break, Spencer resumed jogging on campus. Knowing he wouldn’t run into any undergraduates with questions about their essays meant he could enjoy the trees and flowers lining the paths and let his mind wander. After taking the loop around the dining hall and student center, he headed for the quad, excited to do a few laps without taking a Frisbee to the head.

As he passed Lawrence Hall, home to the English department and his office, he admired the towering sycamore tree whose leaves provided a picturesque view from his window all year round. Gazing up, he took in the bold green of the leaves against the clear azure sky. He was startled when he suddenly heard a woman’s voice reciting poetry. “I'm going out to clean the pasture spring,” she said. “I'll only stop to rake the leaves away. And wait to watch the water clear, I may.”

Robert Frost. Spencer came to a halt and turned to find the source of the words. The blonde woman under the tree wore a long braid and a flowing floral skirt, and she held a thick, battered paperback in her hand. Beside her on a blanket sat a large, scruffy dog. Without even thinking about it, Spencer finished her stanza: “I shan't be gone long. You come too.”

The woman looked up at him with a bright grin and a flush in her cheeks. “I didn’t know anyone was listening.” She patted the dog’s head, beaming into its fluffy face. “Dickinson and I are having a poetry picnic.”

“And let me guess. Your name is Emily.” Whatever her name was, she was beautiful, and she was reciting poems under his favorite tree. Spencer was enthralled.

“Not quite,” said the stranger, laughing softly. “I’m Annabel.”

Spencer gave his name in return, then pulled from his memory another favorite poem: “And neither the angels in Heaven above, nor the demons down under the sea can ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee.”

“Nice!” Spencer felt a jolt of pride when Annabel nodded approvingly. “Though my middle name is McKenzie.”

“That one you don’t hear too often in poetry. Alas.” Spencer nodded toward the dog, who had put his head down on his front paws. “Do you guys do this picnic thing a lot?” Reading poetry to a dog would never have occurred to him. He loved the concept.

“When the campus is empty,” Annabel said. “There’s something so nice about the quiet when no one else is here. Do you live in the neighborhood, too?”

“I teach right there,” he said, pointing at the building behind Annabel and Dickinson. “Normally, I look out my office window and see freshmen making out under this tree.”

Annabel laughed in a surprised tone. “That sounds unpleasant.”

“Let’s just say you and Dickinson make a much more attractive picture.”

“Well, that’s sweet. Do you want to sit with us for a bit? I have cherries and some lemonade and a sandwich to spare. Oh, and chocolate chip cookies.”

“All right,” Spencer said. She’d had him at cherries, but chocolate chip cookies sounded amazing. He approached the corner of the blanket, then criss-crossed his legs and sat down. “Can I look at your poetry book? I forgot to say I teach English.”

Annabel passed the book. “I kind of guessed. You look like an English professor.”

Taking the floppy paperback, Spencer thumbed its soft pages. “Is that a good thing?” he asked, amused.

“It’s not bad.” Annabel opened a container of cookies, pushing the dog’s curious muzzle out of the way before she set it in front of Spencer. “You just look… intelligent. And you pulled Frost and Poe out of your back pocket like nothing.”

Spencer munched a cookie as he finished perusing Annabel’s book. “Read me something,” he said, setting the book down on the blanket. “One of your favorites.”

Annabel selected a sonnet, the one Shakespeare began with “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.” This was a beautiful poem, but more than that, Annabel had a musical, expressive voice that could have made Spencer want to listen to almost anything. When she finished, she smiled at him, and Spencer knew he was staring, but he couldn’t look away. Poe flitted through his mind again. And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee. He thought he had liked being alone on campus, but being with Annabel was even better.

“Your turn,” she said, handing him the book, and Spencer knew he had to choose carefully to avoid freaking out this woman he had just met with a weirdly personal poem. After flipping through a chunk of the book, he decided humor was the key, and he read “The Jabberwocky,” hamming up his performance to the point that Dickinson began to bark.

“Easy, buddy.” Annabel patted the mutt’s fur. “I feel like you showed me up there, Professor. You’re sure you’re not in the drama department?”

“No, no.” Spencer shook his head. “I only perform for intimate–” He cleared his throat. What was he saying? “That is to say, small audiences. And my reading was silly. Yours was…perfect.”

Their eyes met, and Spencer felt like he could churn out a sonnet or two himself about how her gaze made him feel. They were silent for a moment, taking each other in, and then Dickinson pawed his way into Annabel’s lap, breaking the tension.

“I need to get this guy home,” she said, and Spencer felt his stomach drop. Was she dismissing him? Had he made her uncomfortable?

“Of course,” he said and got to his feet. “It was really nice to meet you.” The nicest thing all day. All week. All year.

“Besides stalking the English building when classes start up again,” Annabel said, as she clipped a leash to Dickinson’s collar and also stood up. “How will I find you again?”

Spencer’s heart swelled. “I think you’d better take my phone number,” he said.

When Annabel’s number was safely in his phone, and hers in his, Spencer thought of Robert Frost once more. “I’m going out to the bookstore tomorrow night. I shan’t be gone long.” He grinned sheepishly. “Want to come, too?”

“I’d love to.” Annabel’s amused giggle and eager nod told Spencer to forget about sonnets. This was going to be epic.

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Katie Fitzgerald is the author of Library Lovebirds, an ebook collection of bookish romances, The Bennetts Bloom, a novel in flash, and Green Gloves, a royal romance short story, as well as two short stories published as ebooks by Nicole Frail Books: All Year with Anthony (available now) and Batter Together (coming soon). Her short stories and flash fiction appear online at Spark Flash Fiction and Micromance Magazine, as well as in various anthologies. She is a 2024 Sparkie Award recipient for Best Romantic Suspense and a nominee for the Pushcart Prize and the Cupid Prize. A graduate of Vassar College and a trained librarian, Katie resides in Maryland with her husband and five kids.