Rhymes with Heart

by Polly Rosenwaike

For the first three months, Hollyhock Cards put Cassandra on birthdays. Nothing but birthdays. For children’s cards she drew puppies on roller blades, cats unwrapping video games, boy and girl faces with red freckles and crazy hair. She created birthday cakes in the tradition of Dr. Seuss—slabs of white and yellow cake, towering 20 layers high with tufts of whipped cream and huge cherries. “They indulge a child’s fantasies,” she told her boss. He liked one-line justifications for design concepts.

On birthday cards marked “For my grandmother,” Cassandra was inspired by Picasso and Matisse. Happily, defiantly, she produced bold flower arrangements in pencil-thin vases and elderly Hispanic-looking women reclining on brightly striped couches. “I refuse to go pastel,” she declared to Lenny, who worked in the cubicle next to her. “Yes, grandmothers are old. But do they have to wear salmon-pink sweat suits and play bridge?” She hated those old-lady cards printed on fine, transparent paper like dead skin. On the bulletin board by her desk, Cassandra tacked up a picture of one of the old standbys—created by another company, of course—a pale-yellow card with a dainty, funereal overlay of roses and lilacs. She marked a big X over it in black magic marker. Yes, in this way she would subvert the system from within, assume a sense of individual purpose in a job that encouraged conformity.

Cassandra’s new assignment, Valentine’s Day, was technically a step up (she was branching out beyond birthdays), but her distaste for the holiday did not inspire her in a red and pink, heart-shaped direction. She had long viewed Valentine’s Day as a holiday defined by the evil Cs of capitalism: consumerism, commercialism, candy, cute couples. If she happened to be dating someone when Valentine’s Day came around, she would inform him in advance. “Just so you know, I don’t do V Day. So don’t get me anything. Seriously.” Inevitably, the guy took it as one of those games women play to see if you really care about them. So she had to act touched by boxes of chocolate, lacy underwear, and a little stuffed bunny wearing a T-shirt that said I’m lovable.

“It’s not like I’m going to be there forever,” Cassandra found herself saying when she told old college friends about her most recent job. But the word scared her, the very fact that she had used it. Under no circumstances, Cassandra decided, will any of my Valentine’s Day cards contain the word forever. Forever was for people who ignored statistics, for people who watched too many romantic comedies.

When Cassandra got ready for work on her first day on valentines, her head was filled with fragments, potential jingles infiltrating her morning routine. She was in the habit of waking up two hours early to do what the women’s magazines called “pampering yourself.” It was all part of the plan: investing the effort necessary to live a lovely life, regardless of your career or relationship status. She took a steamy bath with scented bubbles, squeezed herself fresh orange juice, lay on the couch with hot tea bags on her eyelids. She read the newspaper, skipping articles about war, fires, airplane crashes, and national budget battles. Then she got in her car and listened to Christian radio during the 20-minute drive to work. She called it her inspiration, not for praying or feeling spiritual, but for going and living in the world of greeting cards all day long.

Cassandra took six oranges out of the refrigerator and began squeezing them into a tall blue glass. Her mind was running through a list of words that rhymed with heart. The possibilities were extremely limited. Tart wouldn’t do. There was a fine line between suggestiveness and indecency in the greeting card business. “Art...cart...mart...part,” she muttered. To touch your heart would require great art. “Art—that’s too Shakespearean,” she imagined her boss saying. “Can’t you come up with anything a little less, you know, affected?” Cassandra took a long sip of orange juice. When I listen to your heart, I feel you in all my parts. O.K., it conjured up a certain image. She reached for the newspaper and turned past the first page and the second. No acceptable reading material there. This Valentine’s Day, I just wanted to say. Thank you for being mine. For cheering when I’m glad. Listening when I’m sad. Of my love, this card is but a sign.

Cassandra picked up the lifestyle section. There was a new study that revealed how a person’s snack-food preferences could shed light on his personality. Cassandra scanned the article and decided it was time to go to work. At least there she wouldn’t be alone with her ridiculously poetic (poetically ridiculous?) thoughts. At Hollyhock, everyone’s head was ringing with jingles romping around like children at an amusement park.

Cassandra grabbed her coat and bag, hesitated, and then ran into the bedroom for the Victorian novel she had spent the past few nights devouring. She had a boundless appetite for Victorian novels. They were so deliciously dramatic, the characters so unabashedly aching and loving, and in such wonderfully lavish language. It would be dangerous to her concentration to bring her novel to work and read it during lunch. She would want to read all afternoon, eating the elegant words like caramels, one after another. When she was in second grade, her great aunt Mildred had sent a box of “Victorian” valentines as a present. The cards were delicate and ornate, with pictures of primroses and forget-me-nots, the greetings arch and English. Have a jolly holiday, with love and admiration. Would you be mine for a bonnet full of sweets? Cassandra kept them in the drawer in her nightstand and didn’t give away a single one. To bring to the Valentine’s Day party at school, she bought packets of cards with cartoon animals on them and stuck a pastel candy heart in each envelope along with the card. She was careful to match the saying on the heart with the name she wrote on the envelope. You’re Sweet went to classmates she didn’t care for. She was suspicious of the word sweet, when it didn’t apply to something she could eat. Be mine was for kids who had something she wished that she had: cute curly hair or fast legs or the ability to do word problems. The simple Hugs heart went to her friends. To her, it was not some clever saying, but a clear, tangible indication of affection....