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Below is an article Kate wrote and was published in the CSUN Sundial in 1999.
A memoir of Valentine scheming
By Kathryn S. Martin
My boyfriend called me at the newsroom the other day.
It's Josh, and he's radioing in via helicopter," an editor said as he handed me the phone. "He's flying in for lunch."
"He actually built the helicopter by hand," someone else joked.
Josh isn't a pilot. He's never flown in a helicopter. He's quite a brilliant computer tech, actually, but that's beside the point.
Josh is the hero of romance, the master of surprise, and above all, the Valentine king.
Allow me to explain.
Feb. 14, 1999. Valentine's Day fell on a Sunday. He picked me up for our first date that chilly afternoon with a big smile and a fistful of flowers. Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Bogie - he put them all to shame. He flew me - that's right, flew me in a private plane to a sunset dinner on a pier in Santa Barbara.
And bought me an ice cream cone, too, which sealed his sneaky sweeping-off-the-feet tactics. We were best friends, and I was determined not to mess things up with the whole dating scenario. But his was a smooth maneuver; when you're eating cold ice cream on a cold day, how could you refuse a warm hand to hold?
Last year Valentine's Day fell on a Monday. I was working late and realized I'd forgotten a change of clothes, so I raced into a nearby shop, grabbed a dress and dolled myself up in the car on the way to his house. (James Bond has nothing on me. Bungee-jumping is peanuts compared to applying liquid eyeliner while driving down the 118 Freeway.)
When he opened the door in a suit, Italian love songs were wafting out along with the unmistakable smell of garlic mashed potatoes. (Have I mentioned the way to my heart is through my stomach?) Country ribs, candlelight, a year of more-than-best friendship - it was perfect.
And tossing in surprise dates to Van Gogh's Van Goghs, the symphony and countless other thoughtful perks - in a nutshell, Josh is a romantic guy.
So after being thoroughly swept off my feet two years in a row, I decided it was time to do a little sweeping of my own. I had one obstacle from the get-go: Valentine's Day falling on a Wednesday this year doesn't exactly give romance a leg up. The whole concept of the peak of the working week putting on the Cupid and candy masquerade - it's not a real convincing mask. I mean, it's still Wednesday, hump day, weekend-in-sight-but-only-a-tease day. Not that I'm complaining. It's just that Cupid's calendar can be strenuous sometimes.
Which is all to say that, due to the unconscionable scheduling of this year's holiday, I picked the Saturday before as the focus of my plot. Let me insert here that guys have it tough. Potting takes organization and a certain amount of secrecy. And somehow men seem expected to provide all kinds of Valentine's fireworks - an expectation nurtured (and I suspect partially created) by florists, candy-makers and jewelers. Not that fireworks aren't great, but they shouldn't be required like a relationship in mid-term of sorts.
And wouldn't it make more commercial sense for those florist's and candy-makers to include singles in their target audience as well, instead of hyperbolizing V-day that lack of significant-otherness is practically a punishment? But I digress.
So while I was plotting, an activity I always enjoy, I discovered a couple of things.
First, I had an increasing sense of competition, as if I were trying to top some lurking romance-beast. Not that I thought my boyfriend would have minded a low-key affair, but I wanted to dazzle him a bit. I wanted him to be able to brag to his friends about me, rather than my blab to my friends about him.
And I had that over-the-top plane ride as a precedent. My Valentine's task was indeed formidable.
Second, and more strange, none of the players in the rendezvous I hit upon seemed to realize that I (and not he) was the perpetrator of the Valentine plot. The waiter - our own private waiter on our own private balcony, under which I serenaded him (thankfully on-key) - gave him the menu, gave him the low-down, gave him the check.
Did he not see the gleam of Valentine's scheming in my eye? Did he not so much as glance at the reservation in my name? (Just in case you were wondering, I picked up the tab.)
I was pleased I had pulled off a romantic evening without using a single box of over-advertised chocolates or other played-out standby. More so, I was happy I had surprised my love and spent an evening starry-eyed, not thinking of school or work or deadlines. This was the point, I felt, of Valentine's Day.
But what of the waiter? What of the advertised chocolates? What of the plane ride that, two years later, had the entire Sundial staff joking that Josh would call me (or bring me lunch or drop me an e-mail) from his helicopter? (The flying machine had switched species by then, like any good urban legend's polished version of the truth.)
Driving home that night, pleasantly stuffed with scallopini and canoles and cappuccino, I glanced at Josh. He was drowsing off in the passenger seat, his face flickering gold in the lights along the Hollywood Freeway, smiling.
I had been nervous, changed my outfit six times, worried my voice was off pitch, wondered if the balcony was cheesy. But it wasn't the subject of my scheme that made him smile.
I could never top that first Valentine's Day. Fortunately, I don't have to.
See's Candies, De Beer's diamonds - they come boxed as if to ooze intent. But the physical fabrication is no, after all, the essence of intention.
Granted my ripe history of Valentine display gives me more than a few bragging rights. Yet what I have to boast is not a plane ride, a candelight dinner or even romance itself.
I have something far more precious. The grapevine may know Josh as the man who flies helicopters, but I know him as my best friend who just happens to be in love with me.
And that is the best Valentine's gift of all.
Sunday, February 14, 1999
A memoir of Valentine scheming