Doris had never been the most beautiful
woman in the world. She was rather plain and didn’t have anything special going
on for her. Besides, she was already over fifty years old and women her age
simply didn’t have the same opportunities in life that younger ones. She
couldn’t complain about her job, because she had been very lucky to keep it for
so long but she would have loved to get married at least once in her lifetime.
She had always dreamed of wearing a wedding dress and having one of those fun
parties to celebrate her nuptials.
She had her chance when she was around
twenty-four years old. An older man had wanted her in marriage and her father
had agreed to it. Of course, Doris didn’t want to marry him but, in those
times, women did whatever their father told them to and it was very difficult
to do something different than what parents told their children. Doris cried
and stopped eating for a week but that didn’t change his father’s mind.
However, the old man that wanted to marry Doris died only a couple of days
before the actual ceremony so she was saved.
When she looked back to that memory, she found
herself thinking very differently from that young girl she used to be. For
example, she regretted the fact that she was never interested in knowing more
about the man she was going to marry. Of course, they practically didn’t know
each other but she could have asked and maybe, just maybe, that would have
changed everything, even the fact that he had died. Yes, fifty year old Doris
thought it was a good idea to marry a man that was, at least, thirty years
older than her.
Be that as it may, she never got to wear that
wedding dress. Besides, she had to see her two brothers and three sisters
getting married. She had to go to their weddings and pretend to be happy for
them but she never really was. She also had to go to other weddings, where she
was even a bridesmaid. That was even crueler for her because she got too close
to the real thing but it just wasn’t the same. It was all an illusion to keep
her away from the one thing she wanted in life, the one thing you couldn’t
really buy or force to happen.
In her work, however, Doris was successful.
She was the assistant of the principal in the same high school where she and
her brothers and sisters had gone. At first it had been weird to work there but
she adjusted just fine in no time. Now she loved to reminisce about all those
good-looking boys that had walked the hallways back when she was a teenager.
She found herself thinking about them a little bit too often and even took to
the social networks to track some of them down to see if they had changed a lot
or not so much. The results were predictable.
Before turning fifty, Doris had gone over
backwards to get a man. It sounds a little bit too desperate but it was what
she wanted. She opened profiles in most of the matchmaking sites in the
Internet and also downloaded several apps on her phone with the help of one of
her nieces. She even started going to bars on Friday nights to see if she could
attract any man. Doris didn’t even mind if it was only a crazy sex night but
that didn’t happen either, which was frustrating and also hurtful for her. She
felt even older than she really was.
As her birthday grew closer, she decided to go
to all these events that advertised that you would get a couple in no time.
Some of them were events where you met several men in a limited amount of time
and others were holidays for singles in which the goal was to meet all of the
people that were there with you and then just see who you had the best
chemistry with. The thing about all of those was that they were only a waste of
money. She always came back home disappointed on everything and even sadder
than before.
After she turned fifty, it was as if something
inside of her changed. She didn’t want to keep being desperate and accepted the
fact that she was never going to find anyone. Of course, she remembered all of
those family dinners for special holidays when she had to lie to her family or
confess to them that she was still alone. As her family was concerned, Doris
had been in a relationship with several men but it never really worked out for
several reasons. Some didn’t have a job; some others were scoundrel and they
were even a couple that ended up being gay.
Now that her parents were dead, those family
dinners were over. She rarely met her brothers and sisters, only in funerals
and such events, which was great for her because that way she didn’t need to
talk about her private life. Stopping the lies had been really good for her
because for a fragment of her life, she knew too well all the things she need
to say to make a believable lie. She was so good at it that it seemed that she
was beginning to believe everything she said herself. It was a very sad thing
to do and it was for the best that it was all over.
So, after fifty, Doris was not interested in
finding anyone new. She wasn’t interested in anything to be honest. She went
from her home to her job and back home every evening. On the weekends, she
spent several hours tending to her dog Fluffy and her small but well taken care
of garden. It was her pride and joy, as she really loved to spend hours and
hours getting everything to perfection. It was her passion and it helped her
not thinking about thoughts that hurt her.
One day, by the advice of her next-door
neighbor, Doris sent pictures of her garden to a specialized magazine, just for
fun. Her neighbor had said that sometimes they sent people over to take
pictures for their magazines and that was always fun. She thought that Doris
could be one of the proud owners of a famous garden. At first she wasn’t too
sure but one night she decided to do it, just to add a little bit of fun to her
life. Maybe it was the wine she had been drinking, but she was as happy as one
could be while taking the pictures.
Days later, she received an email from the
magazine telling her that they were interested in a visit and asked her about
her availability. Sure enough, they were there the following weekend. Her
neighbor stood close by the whole time, showing Doris her two thumbs up every
time the photographer took a picture or when the interviewer asked Doris about
some of the flowers and she answered in the best way possible. They were only
to people but she felt overwhelmed for a moment and had to take deep breaths
when they weren’t watching.
The interviewer, shortly before leaving, told
her that her pictures would be in the mix for the next issue, which would
portray suburban gardens from the country. She could be in or out, they didn’t
know yet so she had to be very attentive of the issue. For Doris, it was a
torture to wait that long because the magazine was released every two months.
But thinking about it also made her very happy and proud and it was certainly
better than wondering why she was not married or why no man appeared to have
any interest in her.
Sure enough, almost a month and a half later,
the magazine’s new issue had her garden in the front page and in at least four
other pictures inside. There even was an awkward picture the photographer had
taken of her looking at her tulips. She was a bit embarrassed by it but many
people thought it was a very nice picture. She kept the issue by her bed, to
look it every time she felt down. Doris knew not many people knew about that
magazine but that didn’t matter because it made her feel great and that’s what
mattered.
However, the following week every single
person she met greeted her kindly, smiled and congratulated her. At first she
was very confused but then she read a letter she had gotten from the magazine:
she had been awarded a prize for the best suburban garden in the country. The
prize came with a cash prize and an actual medal that would be given to her in
a ceremony in the magazine’s headquarters. For the first time in her life,
Doris was really happy, for real, and did not relate her mood to her relationship
status. No man could make her feel better than that recognition.
