“Nothing. You know, it’s rare for a young lady to be calling for me nowadays, right?” I tried to add some levity.
“Ha, ha! Maybe you need some young woman in your life!”
“Thanks, Mom, and stop worrying,” I said hanging up the phone. I avoided asking her about Rob. I didn’t need to deal with his anger.
I stared at the spider finishing the last loop on his silky prison cell. Whoever called my place knew my address and was probably the one who sent me the letters. I rushed out of my apartment quickly, ran down the stairs, and rang the bell of my landlady. She opened the door cautiously. I’d never rung her doorbell before.
“Everything okay?”
“Just a question. Did you see a red-haired girl around here yesterday?” The moment I said it, I laughed somewhere deep inside at the Charlie Brown–esque nature of my question.
“Now, Mr. Wells, don’t play games with me. Of course, I did. She did catch up with you and your friends?”
I played along and nodded my head. “So you spoke to her.”
“Of course, she rang my bell looking for you. I told her you would be at the bistro. She did catch up to you, right?” She had a soft twinkle in her eye.
“Right. Umm . . . she just never told me how she found me.”
“I take it she found you. You were with friends, as you say.” She was now laughing at her humor and slowly closed the door.
My god! It had to be Rachel who called Avery. She’d gone to the extent of stalking me. Why? The realization felt like nuclear fallout to my already fragile state. My heart raced with fear, and horror coursed through my veins. It could only have been Rachel. It was too coincidental. It was too far-fetched otherwise. That night, I awoke curled up into a ball. I had the covers wrapped tightly around me, holding on for dear life. I had left the window open to get some fresh air, and it helped me doze off. Now it sent a chill through me. The spider was gone, leaving behind the web. I carefully closed the window, not wanting to damage the product of its toil.
Filled with nervous energy, I got up and made instant coffee and pulled out the remaining leftovers from the previous evening. I sat at my kitchen table and picked at the now cold lasagna. Damn, it always tasted so good cold. Lasagna and pizza. Best leftover dishes of all time. I tried to talk myself out of what I was planning to do next. No matter what, I always came back to the same conclusion.
Rachel must have waited outside my building when I left for supper. Had she wanted to harm me, she had plenty of opportunities. Even if she was in such dire need to see me, she had still kept her distance. She was observing me. Why? I wondered. She was way too young to own a piece of the puzzle rattling around somewhere in my head. The first letter I understood. It wasn’t hard to get an old newspaper clipping. But the second letter—it was impossible for her to have what she sent me, or so I thought.
My heart told me she was a kind person. No doubt she was almost obsessive about helping me. I finally concluded I had to take the chance. Hell, if she did indeed write me and called me back home, I needed to see her or else I would be spinning my wheels wandering around on this side of town for years.
It was almost exactly twenty years ago. I thought I’d escaped the river long ago and found the illusion of peace by the ocean when I’d left this place. But time was knocking on my door, and its patience was wearing thin.
CHAPTER 3
California, May 2006
Water was too seductive for me to ignore for too long in my life. I’d left the river and gone straight to the ocean. When I first came out west to the Golden State and started my career with an investment banking firm fresh out of school, I sought long and hard to find a place by the beach. Desperate was my attempt to escape the cold from the east where my youth took shape. I searched for a spot close enough to the center of the city where I would work and be at a minimum walking distance to the coast. I settled into an apartment in a purely physical sense. My mind, however, was like fog hovering over a river in the early morning, drifting wherever the wind would take it and often traveling far from where it originated.
Sporadic friendships entered my life while I tried to become a part of the community. In reality, I was part of the community in the same way a statue becomes part of the church within which it stands guard. Within a crowd there always is a token loner, maybe two. It was always a safe bet I was one of them.
I would go to various parties and disappear into the blinds. A professional chameleon was I, doing party tricks for those who cared to observe. Nobody did. I would sit and take everything in while going undetected. I perpetually observed people and their interactions as a way to wind my clock forward.
What kept me sane or insane, however one wants to interpret it, was relative. I stayed away from business books, although my bosses and mentors pushed them on me like cheap narcotics. Reading about the universe and a lot about history kept my mind busy. No networking, no social media, no outside world beyond my necessary existence. I doubt Plato’s cave was as desolate a place. Shadows were my fear, so I kept the sun out.
I worked my way up and took on many challenges, often traveling to remote and distant places. I never put myself up for promotion, as I didn’t want any additional responsibility. A comfortable living is what I earned and, more importantly, I had my fortress of solitude close to the beach. Those who approved my paycheck appreciated the single workaholic who was consistently prepared to run to the next assignment. They thought I was running to something. That was the genius of my game. In the mirror of my existence, what was “running to” was actually “running from.” My “mentors” gave up trying to forge false friendships with me as they, too, worried about how deep into my web they could get caught if they were not careful.
There was one trick I had learned since leaving my hometown. Stay busy. Keep moving. Never let the past catch you standing still. The past was always chasing me and searching for me. What I had been too foolish to understand was that years ago, it embedded itself within me.
The Pacific Ocean was my mistress. It taunted me at night with its stars dancing in the sky. The waves would sing to me with their roar vibrating in my ears. I tried to learn to surf but never quite mastered it. I would often go to the beach late at night when it was quiet and sit and read in the moonlight. The waves and seeming infinity of the ocean seemed to call to me. I would wander out into the darker and deeper waters to see how far I would go or—better yet—dare to go. When I felt the waves daring me to go a little farther, something inside me, besides the frigid waters, would hold me back. Partly fear, partly something much deeper. There was an incompleteness in my heart that would not fill so quickly with saltwater. Time passed between my toes in the form of beige and endless coarse sand.
Girls and pseudo-girlfriends came and went from time to time. Most were fascinated with my title and my position. However, a coat of fresh paint can only hide the fact the house required condemnation for so long. Eventually, the exterior becomes weathered and the rotting wood, visible. Nobody can tolerate a haunted loner for too long.
The term “haunted” came up a lot. The wise ones would see it in my eyes. The dark coals did not sparkle when they searched for their reflection within them, scaring even the bravest. Instead, they saw a barren black corridor where no memories dared roam. I had chosen to stay on this Ferris wheel and ride the coattails of time as it lurched forward.
I felt like a glass far too deep to be filled by anything, though my greatest fear was being perpetually empty. Eventually, I drilled far down enough to the core of my feelings to know the vibrations within me only proved I was hollow.
One summer night, I ventured way out into the ocean, the waves pushing me out even farther. The calling and pull were strong. My loneliness sapped the strength from my feet, and I almost got caught. Garnering enough energy to fight off the waves, I headed back to shore, tired though alive. It was with profound sadness th
at I waded out of the water. I despised my work. Always did. The weight of that burden had grown on me, and it was a matter of time before I surrendered to the charm of the waters. The inevitability of the outcome was never in doubt.
My father never saw the same magic in the waters that I did or maybe it was the hypnotic effect over me that worried him. My parents had long since retired, and their health had degenerated just when they could enjoy life. Around the time of my thirtieth birthday, I had spent countless weekends traveling back and forth to visit them. Within hours of landing and arriving back to my place one night, my father called with the news; my mom had succumbed to cancer.
I offered my home to my dad immediately, since I had plenty of space. He refused to be a martyr so he chose a retirement community in the south. I would visit him every few months. While physically weaker each time, his mind grew finer and sharper. Again, I would ask him if he wanted to stay with me. He would always refuse. The last time he visited, he walked with me along the beach the night before he headed back.
He stopped suddenly and lowered his round black glasses and smiled while placing his hands on my shoulders. My father was not a man of many emotions or words. The seriousness of his tone struck me before the words even came out.
“Your mother and I always tried to do the best thing for you. You know that? Yes?”
“I’ve always known that.”
“We have not always been right. We tried to protect you.”
“Um . . .” I tried to pretend I didn’t know it was forgiveness he sought. So many emotions arose like molten lava awakening within a mountain. “Please, Dad. The past is the past. Things have worked out for the better,” I said sternly yet calmly. This road he was preparing to travel on was treacherous, for me especially. My dad needed to see me strong before he returned home. It was the only forgiveness I could offer him. I needed to lie bravely.
He looked up at the stars and back to me. “Promise me one thing.”
“What? Anything, Dad. You know that.”
“Be happy. Whatever it takes, you must not stop until you find it.”
I didn’t argue because I could see the moment of epiphany flash in his eyes. Not knowing what to say fueled my silence. Pretending again not to know what he was referring to, I didn’t pursue a further explanation.
Observing our footprints in the sand as I looked back, I noticed mine now larger than his, sadly, though, they swayed from side to side, aimless.
We didn’t talk much more that night. It was the last time he came to visit me in California. It must have pained him too much to see me there alone and miserable, however brave a face I sloppily painted on for him to study.
CHAPTER 4
I walked along the beach one night a few weeks later. I remembered in vivid detail the last conversation between my dad and me. Replaying his message over in mind, as if it would somehow change with every playback, I wasn’t paying attention. Clumsily, I stumbled upon someone lying in the sand right where the water met the shore. I landed nose-first into the packed wet grit.
“So sorry,” I said to this poor woman. My face was caked lightly in the sand, and some of it nestled itself in my eyes and hair. As I brushed it out, I heard a gentle voice reply.
“No. Don’t be. I’m okay,” said the youthful stranger. “I must have dozed off.”
A tattered light blue blanket sprawled across her bony shoulders. She wore cut-off jeans and a red T-shirt. Her hair was tied with a pink ribbon at the back. She had bottomless, bright green eyes and wavy hair that seemed oily and appeared almost mustard colored. She had a slightly emaciated frame and looked as though she hadn’t showered in a while. She was just out of her late teens. There she was, alone, lying on the beach well past midnight, but her eyes displayed no signs of fear.
It would have been easy for me to move on. I couldn’t. I told her how I lived nearby and had for years. Never had I met anyone who stared as intently at me as she did. Examining my face and my eyes with her own as if skilled at sizing up people in an instant, I stood before her, entranced.
“My name is Avery,” she stated in a friendly fashion only to quickly shift the tone. “I do carry a knife,” she said, pointing to a small pouch attached at her hip. It was probably the only material thing she owned aside from her clothes. How sad was that? It was a friendly salutation mixed with a sinister threat. She certainly was no stranger to potential danger.
It was an odd beginning to a lasting friendship.
She told me how she ended up on the beach and had been living on it for months. She was from a small midwest town, and she came out west to escape an abusive relationship. Her ex-boyfriend had taken everything. All of this happened when she was seventeen. Her parents were superstars of dysfunction and couldn’t relate to each other, let alone their only daughter. They figured she was old enough that her prospects for a better life would be enhanced the farther away she moved. Despite the wild outward confidence, it was the vulnerability hidden beneath that beckoned me. She was not the first stray to ever wander into my world.
Ages ago, when I was maybe five or six, a kitten drifted into my yard. My parents didn’t want me to keep it. I brought water and crackers for it and left a bowl near our porch each day. It would return and return, and eventually, it became part of my family. I had no brothers and sisters, and each visit was welcome company. One day, it stopped showing up in my yard and for weeks I’d wait each morning before school and until bedtime at night for its return. My mom, one evening, joined me on the steps.
“You know, Kiran, that your little friend probably won’t be coming back.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s just life. People and animals grow up and move on and have to live their lives.”
“Mom, I would have taken care of it. I promise I would have always taken care of it.”
“Everything needs to learn to find its path and take care of itself.”
I looked down at my running shoes, and I slid my tongue along my upper lip. Somehow I did comprehend my mom’s message: Freedom was the greatest gift you can give any living thing.
“Everyone needs to learn to let go at some point.” She smiled, but her lips trembled in doing so. “Yes. One day even I’ll have to.” She patted me on the head. “What you did do was wonderful for your kitten. Giving it love and letting go is never easy. You’ll be rewarded for it one day. I’m sure of that.”
It was as thoughtful and profound as any words my mom would ever have for me. She was a doer, so the phrases she said to me, though scarce, I preserved in my subconscious.
The words simmered up to the surface as I thought about Avery. The irony was that over time, I wondered whether it was I who truly found Avery or whether it was she who found me. The details became murky, which suited my recounting of the meeting.
I would see Avery every night on the beach for the next week and offer her the extra food I bought nearby. We would sit and talk. The nights were getting seasonally cooler, and I had, in that short time, come to care for Avery like the sister I never had. Finally, nights later, I could take no more and convinced her to stay at my place. I slept on the couch, and the company and conversation were most enjoyable. There was something about taking care of her that gave me purpose.
The situation couldn’t last forever. Friends at work wondered who the strange young woman was living with me. Neighbors cast wary glances every time we walked in and out of the apartment. Avery felt very guilty about being dependent on me. I was entirely selfish, as it was nice to have someone to talk to and share meals with. Feeling needed could be selfish, and I basked in it for as long as I could.
Time passed and eventually I found her an internship with one of my clients. Avery saved enough money to move into an apartment down the hall from me. I loaned her the initial deposit. At that point in my life, Avery truly was my sibling, even referring to me as her lon
g-lost brother when speaking to acquaintances.
Introducing Avery to Rob, the handsome, young, up-and-comer who worked on my staff, shaped the relationship further. Within weeks, Rob moved in with Avery.
One evening, months later, Avery and Rob invited me to their apartment to announce their impending nuptials. Avery requested I be part of the wedding party. The day of the ceremony was one part joy and one part melancholy in my universe.
When they returned from their honeymoon, Avery became my guardian. She would bring me extra food, and I would be invited to dinner with them on the odd occasion. The invites were few and far between as time passed. I could sense Rob was unnerved by the unspoken language that Avery and I seemed to share.
Rob switched firms, yet still drew upon me for advice. Avery worked from home now and, not only took care of their apartment, but also checked on me to make sure I took care of my plants. We both knew she came by just to make sure I was alive. Often I would catch her eyes roaming around my minimalist apartment. I could tell she was distressed by my isolation and wished one day she would come by to see signs of life beyond the potted plants.
CHAPTER 5
Rob was forever punctual. He was five years younger than me. He was tall with curly black hair and a lean physique. He could easily play beach volleyball and not look out of place in any photoshoot. He was also frustratingly ambitious. He sought my advice and knowledge about everything and anything. He saw in me a reservoir that he could tap and not worry about leaving anything for me. I didn’t mind. He was kind to Avery, and I could tell he loved her in his way. He believed building his career and providing for her was the way to show love. And I knew that security was important for her. Rob kept me close, as he needed my experience. He also knew if I were in good spirits, Avery would worry less.
One day Rob arrived early at my door to take me to work. He told me he had an early morning meeting, but I could tell he was lying. He was wearing his usual lucky tie—one he wore at his “deal closer” meetings. He was bounding with enthusiasm. “What’s with you, Tigger?” I asked semi-mockingly, as we wheeled out of the parking garage.
The Boys Who Danced With the Moon Page 3