Kissing Frogs

It was romantic, sort of. In the privacy of her room, staring at the neon glow of the computer screen, meeting in the woods had seemed lovely. She imagined them walking hand in hand through the forest, frolicking in the grass, lying in a sunlit meadow. Yes, in fact she had allowed herself to use the word frolick.

The truth was, she had looked forward to meeting him in person. His words were lovely and she knew she loved him, loved the way he spoke and the way he thought, but it would be nice to finally match a face to the poetry he wrote to her.

They had agreed not to exchange photos. He liked imagining her beauty, he told her, and she found the idea romantic, imagining of course, a dark-haired, blue-eyed, square-jawed romantic soul at the other end of the conversation. It didn’t really matter to her what he looked like, or so she told herself. She’d met enough men whose eyes whose eyes were glued to her chest and enough men who only wanted to talk about themselves and enough men who couldn’t put together a sentence with a flashlight and some glue, that a man who wrote her poetry, who spoke to her kindly and with regard for her feelings, felt wonderful.

“Your voice drifts through my head like music,” he told her, during one of their phone conversations. “And it fills my soul like golden wine.”

She had smiled at that. He had a wonderful voice, deep and robust and when, after months of emailing and chatting on the phone, he had suggested that they meet in person, she had leaped at the idea, eager to finally see her love’s face.

Meet me by the old oak tree, in the meadow. She had confessed to him that she’d spent hours wandering in those woods as a child, watching the sunlight play across the leaves. She knew the oak tree well. It was had been her favorite place to sit and read. She loved imagining him in her forest, climbing the trees, exploring the nooks she had loved when she was young. But she hadn’t been there in years. School and work and friends had gotten in the way and somehow she hadn’t found time to return to her beloved oak tree. Now, she parked her car at the edge of the forest preserve and smiled, reimagining the wildwood of her childhood.

The reality, she discovered as she tripped over root after root, was none so romantic, and the cute ballet flats she’d picked especially for their first meeting were pinching her toes. It was a lot farther to the old oak tree than she remembered and by the time she finally sat down on the packed dirt between its roots, she was hot and sweaty. Removing her shoes, she let her toes wriggle in the cool grass as she waited.

She took a deep breath and glanced at her watch. It was a quarter to four. They’d agreed to meet at three-thirty. She frowned. It wasn’t a unique experience, but of all the guys she had met, she didn’t expect him to stand her up. Huffily, she sat still for another five minutes, listening to the sounds of the woods and hoping. The birds chirped softly in the trees and somewhere nearby a frog croaked loudly.

“Why isn’t he here yet?” she shouted at the woods.

“I am right here, my darling,” the familiar deep voice replied, so close to her that she nearly jumped out of her skin.

Spooked, she looked around the meadow, trying to figure out where her mystery man was.

“Where are you?” she called, cupping her hands and squinting at the far-off trees.

Maybe he was hiding behind one of them?

“I am right beside you, my lovely,” he answered sweetly, his voice sounding almost directly in her ear, causing her to shriek and lose her balance.

Grabbing a tree limb, she kept herself from falling, looking wildly around.

“Where are you?” she whispered, beginning to think she was crazy.

“Look up, my sweet,” he said.

Slowly, cautiously, she raised her eyes to look directly into the bulging peepers of a huge frog sitting on the branch directly over her head.

“Eewww!! Ew, ew, ew!”

She ran out of the clearing and only when the first twig jabbed her foot did she realize that she’d forgotten her shoes. Reluctantly, she retraced her steps into theclearing.

“What is wrong, my darling?” he called, seeing her reappear. “Am I not as tall as you imagined your dream man to be?”

She opened and shut her mouth as she came up to the tree, unable to think of any response to this.

“You’re a lot … greener than I expected,” she finally managed.

“Ah, I see,” he said sagely. “You did not expect me to be quite so … amphibian.”

“Exactly,” she answered, calmer now, and less surprised that she was talking to a frog.

“You, on the other hand, are lovelier than I could have imagined,” he told her. “If you could see how beautifully the sunlight falls on your hair, or how green your eyes look, you would understand.”

She couldn’t help but smile at that. Few people can resist a compliment, even if it’s coming from a frog.

“Thank you,” she said. “I mean, you’re not exactly what expected, but you, um, seem nice.”

The silence hung for a moment as they stared at each other.

“You know,” she told him, hesitantly. “You write beautifully. You have a wonderful way with words.”

“it’s easy to write well when you have a muse,” he answered. “I have been searching for such a very long time for someone like you.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Someone like what?”

“Someone smart and understanding and kind,” he said patiently. “I have been searching for my princess.”

“I’m no princess, buddy. Just like you’re no prince.”

She reached past him to pick up her shoes, slipping them on one at a time.

“You’re so sure about that?”

She hesitated, not sure whether or not she wanted to walk away just yet. He knew he had her attention.

“One kiss,” he said. “That’s all it would take to turn me into the prince I once was.”

“You’re joking right?”

“Of course not.”

“I am not kissing a frog,” she told him, crossing her arms over her chest, but she still wasn’t running away.

“I am sure it would be a first for you,” he stated calmly.

“How many men have you kissed in your life?” he asked.

“Enough,” she answered, blushing slightly.

“And how many of them turned out to be toads?”

She thought about it, her mouth twisting as though she’d just swallowed a lemon. She thought about the guy who’d taken her on a weekend trip to Maui only to sleep with one of the maids two hours after they’d arrived at the hotel. And the guy who always conveniently forgot his wallet whenever they went out to dinner. With a twinge she remembered the guy who came over to her apartment for dates and then spent the entire evening talking to her cat.

“Enough,” she answered.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone start out as a frog and turn into a prince for a change?” he asked.

She looked into his froggy eyes and thought about it. When he put it that way, kissing a frog didn’t seem so bad. It couldn’t be any worse than kissing some of the other guys she’d gone out with, particularly considering that some of them had been droolers.

She made up her mind and reached out her hand, allowing him to leap onto her palm.

And he smiled a froggy smile as she lowered her lips to his cold, damp skin.