One evening in Grand Central

The Internet seems to have become the global depository of kinky interests, ranging from the racist joke pages to the very latest on Preside...

The Internet seems to have become the global depository of kinky interests, ranging from the racist joke pages to the very latest on President Clinton’s identifying marks. But recently, for a change, I came across a beautiful Valentine’s Day story out there, a tale of true love. Here’s how it ran:John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Navy uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn’t, the girl with the rose.

His interest in her had begun 13 months earlier in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued not with the words of the book, but with the notes pencilled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and an insightful mind. On the title page of the book he discovered the previous owner’s name, Miss Hollis Maynell. With time and effort he located her address. She now lived in New York City. He wrote her a letter introducinghimself and inviting her to correspond. The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II.

Over the next year the two grew to know each other. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding. Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn’t matter what she looked like.

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When the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled their first meeting — at 7.00 pm at Grand Central Station, New York City. “You’ll recognize me,” she wrote, “by the red rose I’ll be wearing on my lapel.” So at seven o’clock he was in the station looking for a girl whose face he’d never seen.

And now, Blanchard himself will tell us what happened:

`A young woman was coming toward me, her figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive. I started toward her,entirely forgetting that she was not wearing a rose. A small, provocative smile curved her lips. “Going my way, sailor?” she murmured. Almost uncontrollably I moved one step closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell. She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes.

`The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as thought I were split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own. And there sh stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible, her grey eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small, worn, blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her. This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and mustever be grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment. “I’m Lieutenant John Blanchard, and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take you to dinner?”

The woman’s face broadened into a tolerant smile. “I don’t know what this is about, son”, she answered, “but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I should tell you that she’s waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of test!”