To Settle

June 1992. He walked into Lane's during the early evening, when the sun was only a sliver at the bottom of the sky, barely visible. I was working the register when he walked in, giving my neighbor Mrs. Taylor exact change. It wasn't that Mrs. Taylor was such an important figure that everyone around town needed to know her. My town was just small. It was odd to see somebody I didn't know… like Clay.
Clayton bought yellow apples in Lane's every day that June, every time going to my register, even if I had a line and the others didn't. It was almost traditional by the end of the month. But he wasn't Clay yet; I didn't even know his name. He was just the tall guy with the yellow apples- all until the day at the end of June when my stomach growled.
"Miss breakfast?" was what he first said to me. He was so familiar to me that it was almost as if I only knew him to not have a voice. He had never spoken to me before, so sound was never a part of his routine. His voice was deep, a little scratchy.
I nodded pathetically and punched in the practically memorized code for yellow mackintosh apples. "And lunch," I laughed, although I was so completely serious.
It was the same time of night he always came in, with the sun just a sliver at the bottom of the sky as it transitioned from day to night. To not have eaten lunch was kind of unbelievable, I could see it in his eyes. I had just forgotten my wallet at home that morning, after taking the bus and everything. There was no way I could go back during my thirty minute break times.
I put his apples in a plastic bag and handed it to him in one hand, the receipt in the other. He dug into the bag and took out one yellow apple, smiling and holding it out to me generously. "Will an apple hold you over?"
I blinked. The truth was I really wanted to take it. An apple felt like a four-course meal at this point. Almost overly filling. But I couldn't, so I shook my head.
"I really couldn't."
"Good customer service requires that you take my requests, or at least it should. As the costumer, I mean." He said, opening my palm for me and dropping it there, curling up my fingers around the apple. "My simple request is that you take this apple, and eat it. That shouldn't be too hard, right?"
I bit my lip, the temptation of food just so close and daunting.
"…Thank you." I said, raising it to my mouth and taking a deep bite. He laughed. As I chewed, I said messily, "What's your name again?"
"I don't believe we've met," I said, raising an eyebrow. "Clayton."
"Jenna." I introduced less than politely, focusing only on my apple.
"Yeah, I know." Clayton said, gesturing towards the nametag on my red uniform vest. "But nice to meet you."
I too was happy that we had finally met. To have the same guy walk in for a month, buy the same set of three yellow apples, without a ripple or plot twist, was so boring to me. Finally, the empty lines had been filled in.

April 1993. It was that same time of night that I first saw Clay, right between the set of the sun and the rise of the moon. We were sitting on a bench in the park, watching the cars pass by in the slow, quiet streets.
"It's the North Star." He said, pointing upwards into the endless amount of stars, which had just started uncovering themselves in the comfort of darkness. There was one illuminated especially brightly, gleaming stronger than the others.
"The North Star?" I asked, curious, "That's the biggest one?"
He explained it all to me, about the North Star and how wherever you were in the world, you could always see it if you had access to the night sky on a clear evening. It was something I had never heard of before, but found especially fascinating.
"This isn't everyone," I remember him saying as he told the tale of his favorite star, his true constant, "but I would always attach wishes to the North Star. I mean, people do that with shooting stars, right? But I've never seen a shooting star, so I guess it's just easier than always looking," Clay shrugged, "than always searching."
"Well, if you don't search a little you'll never be satisfied." I pointed out.
He tilted his head back and examined the stars again, almost as if he were counting them one by one. But it soon became clear to me that Clay was always looking for a shooting star; no matter how much he masked it with the wishes he put on the North Star. He would always do that: lean his head back during the night and just watch the sky. He was never impressed with what he saw.
"I guess I'm settling for less," he said softly, "but I'm happy with what I have."
I didn't know it then, but this wasn't only how he though about stars. This was what he thought about life. He settled and settled until he realized that settling doesn't equal becoming satisfied, it just means putting subjects to rest momentarily, some longer than others. But no matter what subjects you put away, or how long you set them aside for, everyone has to face them at some point. Clay was never quite good at planning ahead.

December 1999. The chilled air counted down the days to the New Year. I felt so done with the 1900s, even if I had only spent twenty-six years in it. My cheeks were rosy pink and felt numb as I crossed the street in Times Square, where within days a huge crowd would spark to watch the ball drop, which had been a dream of mine since my twelfth birthday. It was one of the most important things for me to complete on my to-do list. I knew I had a lot of time left, but what if I didn't? You never knew.
I remembered how Clay and I had wanted to come to New York City when we were younger, to watch the ball drop together. It had just become a goal for him because it was something I wanted. But all of it was settling. He settled on that goal for lack of a better one. Clay was always settling.
I wondered how Clay would react if he knew I would be living in New York City, just a few blocks from Times Square. I wondered if he recognized my name on the walls of bookstores, if he had a copy of my bestseller book.  I wondered if he still considered the time he spent with me as "settling for less".
Where was he now? It had been three years since he left the note on my kitchen table, pinned under a cactus-shaped paperweight and next to a box of blueberries, already opened, that stated how he was settling for less. How he was done with settling, and how he had found someone he wasn't settling for. She was just perfect. And how… I wasn't.
I couldn't help but wonder, had he finally seen a shooting star? Was I just the constant, the one that remained the same, boring thing that never went away? He was always looking for some rare gem, some unique, amazing person whose personality fit with his the way the last two puzzle pieces in a box go together. I was the one who gave him reason to look up at the sky every night, to try and find something better. Something perfect.
I stopped for a second at the busy crosswalk of the city, hearing the whirs and whizzes of the city in which I lived. It was so different from the plain old small town where I had grown up, where I had fallen in love. It was exaggerated, it was exciting, it was everything I had ever wanted to be within.
I looked up at the sky, over the neon signs and transitioning billboards and gigantic rooftops of skyscrapers, and saw it. The North Star, which rushed back so many memories I had swept aside. It was the brightest thing in the sky, the thing that always remained the same while everything else changed around it.
But then it moved, and blinked red lights, and it became clear to me that I couldn't see the North Star. This was a helicopter, another moving cog in the clock that was New York. This wasn't what I had half hoped, half dreaded for it to be. It was just another part of the world, moving along at its own pace.
There was no North Star to be seen. There was no wish to be made, just the blended colors and busy helicopters shifting through the sky. And I wasn't settling, I was satisfied. There was, and had always been, a difference.