At the Next Table

by Leanne Davis

“Don’t need it. Betty and I have kept this place alive for thirty years from the business of local residents. The couples who have found love here inhabit it with a loyal following.”

  “Like me,” I grumble, more to myself than Harold. Why is he sitting with me this morning? In the many mornings I’ve loyally sat here, he’s never joined me.

  “I suppose that lady-lawyer friend of yours is celebrating.” His tone says he disdains Alicia for it.

  I cross my arms over my chest. “She’s gone. Back to Seattle.”

  “Already? I heard it just cleared last night.”

  “She left before it was done.”

  “Because of you?”

  The grumpy tone has me confused why we are discussing this. “Uh, yeah. I guess.”

  “She didn’t seem so bad, minus working for the spawns of Satan that will be the destruction of everything of value in America.”

  “She… she wasn’t, no.” I almost bite the corner of my cheek at his half-compliment, half-insult. I’m not sure how to answer that.

  He waits a moment and glances around, completely at ease and in no hurry to finish whatever he sat down to say. But I’m totally confused by it. “She seemed to like you. Sitting here with you every day while you do your Harper-thing. Can’t say even Betty would do that for me, sit with me while reliving a tragedy of another woman.”

  “Yeah, she did. But she had to go home.”

  “Sure. Sure. But you ain’t ever been home again. Maybe you should try something else.”

  I’m so puzzled and shocked why Harold brings up anything about me or Harper or Alicia. He never once acted like he knew anything, though everyone in this town knows it all. “Try something else, how?” I ask begrudgingly.

  “Maybe she isn’t Harper, but she seemed to be okay with you grieving and feeling guilty over her, so why couldn’t you do that while being with the lawyer-lady?”

  Shaking my head I lean forward. “Harold, what brings this up? You never do this.”

  He’s very quiet. Background chatter and laughter fills the space. Finally he says, “No one wants you back here all alone again.”

  My heart both dips and fractures. I don’t want to be alone again. It’s hard to go back again. But the blatant statement from Harold jerks me back into the present. “Sorry to take up your space.” I start to slide from my chair to my feet.

  Harold’s hand comes out to rest on my arm. “You misunderstand. It’s not the table or chairs. It’s that everyone in town understands what you’re doing and is staring at you with sadness and regret in their eyes. It’s that we want better for you. I think Harper would want more for you. I think she’d rather you didn’t sit here reliving it, but if that’s what you need, perhaps you should do so with Alicia. Or just… the chance of Alicia. Just consider it. Maybe you don’t have to have one or the other… but some version of both.”

  I slowly sit back down. “I don’t know how to do that.”

  “I think you already were,” Harold points out, his tone even.

  I already was? I stare at the man as if he’s morphed into being the guru of love. I never saw that. I didn’t even realize I was. Without a label it hadn’t seemed strange, weird or scary. But with one…

  I was already doing it. I was sharing myself with Harper and Alicia.

  And in doing so, I felt much better.

  So much better.

  Maybe at this point that’s all it could be for me. Better. Not great. Not healed, but better. And if Alicia understood there was potential… in me… in us, for healing and moving forward, maybe… maybe there is a chance for something new.

  “Thank you, Harold. I…” I’m not sure how to express it. “Just, thank you… and Betty.”

  He smiles at me, nodding. “You’re welcome. Should Betty expect you tomorrow? With the drinks?”

  “No.” I stiffen my spine, glancing out the window at that intersection then back at Harold. “No, you should not.”

  There’s a small smile in return. “I shouldn’t say this as a responsible business owner, but I hope we’ve lost your daily morning business.”

  “I hope so. I really hope so.” He smiles at me and I nod, feeling like something has shifted in me. About Harper. About Alicia. About coming here to Lover’s Landing in the way I have.

  Maybe it is time to come here in the afternoon and try… hot chocolate. Maybe it’s time I do something new and bold and positive. Instead of sad and guilt-ridden, perpetuating what I cannot change.

  Maybe it is time to try not coming here.

  Maybe it is time to visit Harper’s grave.

  To go by our house.

  My house.

  Maybe it is time to visit a new place.

  Maybe it is even time to go visit a city for the first time.

  Chapter 8

  ALICIA

  Home is rain. Lots and lots of rain. It’s June in Seattle, and while it may be sunny and warm and exploding in new life everywhere else, the Puget Sound area is in the throes of one of the wettest seasons on record. It boils and bubbles on the street puddles as I quickly duck from store overhang to store overhang on the sidewalk, trying to avoid the soaking rain. I all but wade through the mini-lakes. At least it’s still light out as twilight lingers now. I go home, glad to enter my third floor, single room apartment that stares out toward Elliot Bay—which costs me an obscene and ungodly monthly rent.

  I curse as I slip my shoes off, my toes wet in my high heels and the edges of my black slacks damp and muddy. Stupid rain. Stupid weather. Stupid summer. Stupid Seattle.

  I shove my waist band down and fling my wet pants away and walk in my underwear, blouse and blazer toward my kitchen. Who am I kidding? I’m not going to cook, and I should have grabbed something before I came home. I don’t even feel the will to care, which has been my experience of late. So what?

  Just as I pull my phone from my blazer’s pocket to call for food, there’s a knock on my front door.

  I glance down, thinking that if I keep my south end to the side, perhaps it’ll be fine to answer it.

  Peeking out the eyehole, I jerk back instantly when my gaze meets the figure standing there.

  Holden? Here? In Seattle? I have to be dreaming, conjuring him up. My bad mood has to be wanting things I can’t have or deliver.

  And I need pants. Crap. Panicked and rushed to answer, yet also get clothes, I finally settle for opening the door enough that the chain catches and a few inches of Holden shows. I tilt to the side, so only my top half shows. My gaze drinks him in. “Holden? What the hell are you doing here?”

  He winces. I realize how harsh I sound. “I don’t mean that. I mean… is everything okay?”

  “Could I come in?”

  “No.”

  His eyebrows burst upward. “No?”

  “I mean, yes… just wait there. I have to put pants on.” I slam the door in too much of a hurry to explain. I run down the hall toward my bedroom and quickly slip on the pair of black pants I worked in yesterday. Then I sprint to the door, stopping dead and wincing when I remember my wet, flattened hair that likely looks wavy and frizzy instead of all fluffed and smooth. Stupid rain.

  All the while, my real concern is what is he doing here?

  I slip the chain from the lock and finally open the door. He stands there, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a dripping wet umbrella, complete confusion in his gaze. His jeans look brand new, blue and pristine, including a perfectly pressed line down the front of them. So not him. His blue button down shirt—also perfectly pressed—is tucked into his jeans. Even more surprising than the shirt and pants, perhaps, is the fact that he’s not wearing cowboy boots. No. Just brown shoes. He’s casual, neat, clean-shaven, and even his dark hair is neat and trimmed. He did that for me? To come here? To Seattle?

  “Pants are on now?” He bites his lip with a small smirk.

  I ignore all the pleasantries. “What are you doing here? In Seattle?”

  He nods and literally gulps. “I don’t
know. Isn’t there like a needle with a rotating floor to see and zoo you got the inside track on and if I want to try authentic Indian food, you’ll know where to go? I thought maybe I’d see all that. You know… expand my horizons or whatever.”

  “You?” My disbelief shows.

  “Me.” He’s staring at me, his gaze darting up and down with avid interest. I don’t trust him. I don’t trust me. I don’t trust that his being here is anything more than a whim. Loneliness from missing Harper now transferred onto me.

  I turn and stomp over to my wet clothes, proceeding to walk into the bathroom to hang them over my shower stall. Finally I appear back out to the living room. He’s watching me, his expression totally perplexed by my lack of interest.

  “Alicia?”

  “I can’t be your tour guide. It’s… I can’t be casual with you.”

  “I can’t be casual about you, either. Or me. Or us in general. Actually, I think I’ve learned I’ve never been a casual person.”

  No, going every day to redo the routine one believes they should have done with their dead wife suggests there is nothing easy-going or casual about him.

  But then he steps closer. Just one step. “I went back to Lover’s Landing. It was worse alone. It was far worse, in fact, to sit there without you anymore. I quit going. For a month now, I haven’t gone.”

  All of me stops cold. That might mean… he’s not as frozen as I believed when I left. Stuck in love with a dead woman. I guess, I expect him to still be grieving her. Caring she’s gone. But reliving a morbid ritual that only harms him, and never once benefits her? That seemed like someone who would never get through his grief. “If not in the morning, then when?”

  “I haven’t been at all.”

  “So now it’s a thing to avoid?”

  He gives me the barest of smiles. “No… I think, now it’s not a thing.”

  I step back, retrieving the space he invaded with his one step. “What are you doing here? You’re not visiting me and sightseeing and then, what? Huh, Holden? Let me get over our little affair in peace. Across the country. I don’t think you understand, even without Lover’s Landing I don’t want to continue to be second to your dead wife.”

  Weariness flashes through his eyes. Then he thrusts his chin up and shoulders back, as if preparing for battle. “I hurt you, and honestly, I hurt myself. What I meant to say, Alicia, is this won’t be easy. You live across the country from me. I work on range land with cattle and you live and work with a thousand people on the amount of land I wander around on alone. There is distance, occupational differences, and I do have issues. But despite all that—”

  I blink. Then again. I stare at him, dumbfounded. I don’t believe him. I can’t imagine what he’s going to say… he’d like to have a long vacation here? I could come visit? What?

  He sticks his hands into his pockets and shuffles his foot forward. It looks bare and strange without his boots. “If you’ll have me… in whatever way you want, I want to be with you. However that looks or works out. I’m not… I have no expectations. Just, if you want me in any way, I feel the same.”

  Things spin around my head. Distance. Miles. Harper. Rancher. Lawyer. How do all those pieces fit into something cohesive? Something lasting and functioning? How do I not end up heartbroken and with my own version of Holden’s heartbreak? How can this possibly be a good idea?

  “You did come to Seattle.”

  He rubs at the back of his neck. “I haven’t been very convincing, have I? I came to Seattle because of you. I will continue to come because of you.”

  “How do you see this working?”

  “I don’t know. Time? Eventually, we can have that conversation where we’ll have to compromise, right? But now? Maybe just do our best.”

  “Compromise how?”

  “I can sell my house. Maybe… there’s land here that’s not quite that.” He waves out the window toward the city skyline.

  My mouth practically hangs open. “You’d be willing?”

  He straightens up fully. “To compromise where I live and work? I would. I came here with the specific intention to tell you, yes, I’d be willing. I believe in us. In you. In what we could have…”

  “Despite Harper?”

  His entire body goes still. I all but drop to the ground in distress. Of course he still stiffens up at the mention of her name. Sure, he wants me to lighten the despair of facing life without Harper, but he can’t even hear her name without this physical freezing up. I stare at my bare feet. I can’t fight a ghost.

  “What if… what if it’s because of Harper?”

  My head whips up. He said because of Harper? Because she died? That doesn’t seem like something Holden would say about her. I mean, technically yes, because she died, it made him single and lonely and provided an opening for me to enter his life. But no way would he consider that a good thing.

  He shrugs and gives me a small smile. “What if somehow Harper found a way to get you to Lover’s Landing? And then there I was. Sitting there without a definable reason of why I kept coming there and doing what I did. I went about doing that ritual only because for some unexplainable reason… it felt completely right. And then one day, the very worst day for me to face since her death, there you were. Right where she should be. Compelled by my odd routine to sit where you sat. How can all that be an accident? Think about it? What if it was Harper?”

  “Like from the dead? As a ghost? Harper coordinating this from an afterlife?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t care to articulate it. I care to just… maybe embrace it. Let it be. Tell you it felt right to sit in Lover’s Landing with you. But then when you were gone, it felt so silly and trite and… and completely wrong to relive that stupid routine. Realizing I didn’t mean to forget Harper and I didn’t kill her.”

  “You know that? Finally?”

  “I think so. I think I know that because of you.”

  My eyes widen in complete and total shock. “You… you believe that?”

  “I believe in us. I don’t care how it has to be looked at.”

  Tears threaten to spill out of my eyes, but I sniff them back in. “Do you really want this?”

  “I really want you.”

  I can’t believe him. Not that he’ll forsake his routine or guilt or… Harper. He can’t forsake Harper. So I have to deflect him before I jump on him and hold him down and beg him to stay or take me with him… or just totally humiliate myself.

  “You realize our park is being built?”

  “Saw the crews out surveying and flagging the site.”

  “You realize I’m done in Love.”

  His mouth tilts up. “You know how I feel about being in Love.”

  I can’t begin to joke, and his grin sobers. “Too soon?”

  “I can’t joke about it.” But then I glance up, then down. Then back up. “But… how do you feel about Love?”

  “I can’t picture living anywhere else. But I could learn.” He then gives me a huge grin. “But what you’re really asking me is, could I be in love with you? Right? I think I could be… I started to be…”

  “Started to be in love with me? Don’t do that. Don’t lie. There’s no reason. There’s been honesty so far, and a lot of it—” Panic ensues in my speeding heart.

  He suddenly swoops in and presses his lips to mine. He kisses me long and deep, and my arms almost spin trying to keep my balance and keep from grabbing him. No! I can’t give in to the phenomenal heat and chemistry between us that has been proven to exist more than a dozen times.

  But so does Harper. And grief and… Love. So much of Love exists between us, but not in a good way.

  Finally I can’t resist, and my hands come to rest on his shoulders. He holds me, kissing me gently on my forehead before pushing back to stare into my eyes. “I didn’t expect you or what I feel for you, and especially not on what feels like the very heels of losing Harper. I can’t promise you where it’s all going, but I can tell you I’ve started to
fall for you. I’d rather have you, however we make it work out, than not at all. You became my friend and companion when I had none. I had love and lost it once, and the thing is, Seattle, I won’t willingly do it again.”

  “Even if it’s too soon? Too far apart? Too hard? Too… me? Don’t you see? It would mean loving someone who isn’t Harper.”

  His smile is so gentle and sweet and amused at my insecurities for once, instead of me protecting his. “I know that. But I’d word it that maybe there is room in my heart for both of you. You and her. Memories of her. Grief over her. But new feelings for you, new memories to be made with you, and I hope, a new life to be forged with you.”

  “Because Harper… led me to you?”

  “Why not? Why can’t that be the reason? There was no good reason for her death. But this would be a good one for my life.”

  “What if it’s still all too soon?”

  “It’s not too soon if I can feel it again. We’re far apart. But that doesn’t mean it’s too hard. Not for me.” He tilts his head. “What about you? How much do you think you feel this?”

  I press my lips to keep from blurting out what I really feel. “I feel it.”

  “In Love and Seattle?”

  I groan as he smiles while kissing my mouth. “You aren’t very good with your Love puns. I do it better.”

  “That’s why I figured out I need you, Seattle.”

  “You even came here.” I finally give in with a just a little smile.

  “I have a bunch of stuff to see, right?”

  “You hate all the stuff that you could see here. Or the food you could eat. Or—”

  “I just never knew better. I was an ass when I said all that. I do want to see it all, but only with you. Because of you. Because of us.”

  Automatically, I shake my head and start to say, “There is no us—”

  He sets his hand over my mouth. “There is an us. If you want there to be. There’s me and you in Love and in Seattle… However you want us.”

  I don’t know this Holden Thatcher. I squint my eyes at him, staring him down. He’s said a lot. A lot, here. I don’t fully believe him, but… oh, I want to. I want to so badly.