by Claire Raye
“Hey man,” he says as I climb into the passenger’s side.
“Hey. Thanks for picking me up.”
We talk for a bit about his family and what he’s been up to, not that any of it is new information. We text pretty regularly and he was just in Chicago a few weeks ago for work, too.
“So, you have your letter?” Matt asks, a stupid fucking grin on his face. He’s making fun of me. He damn well knows I don’t write a letter.
“There’s no fucking letter, you ass clown. And if you’re going to give me shit, you can drop me off here.”
Matt laughs and shakes his head. “Sorry, you know I’m just fucking with you.”
“This is it though,” I tell him and he quickly turns to look at me, a confused expression on his face.
“What do you mean?”
I let out a long sigh because while I’ve been telling myself this for a while, I haven’t admitted it out loud. Matt would be the only person I would tell anyway, so saying it now makes it more real.
“I’m done. I told myself as soon as Bridgitte and I were engaged, I’d stop looking for Nora. I can’t keep this up. It’s been twelve fucking years of nothing and every year I show up at the beach, leave my name and number at the tower and go home. It’s time to move on.”
Matt doesn’t say anything and I wonder what he’s thinking. I’m sure he’s thinking it’s about fucking time I quit this. He’s voiced his opinion on the situation many times, but more recently, he’s been coming to Bridgitte’s defense, playing devil’s advocate and I see his point. I’d hate to think she harbored feelings for another guy, that I was her second choice. Knowing what I’m about to do right now would crush her.
Matt drops me off at my hotel and we make plans to meet up later that night for dinner. My hotel is only a few blocks from the beach and with my note stuffed in my pocket, I make my way there. I stop off at a flower stand, picking up a bouquet of daisies just like I did on the day Nora left me on the beach.
The whole scenario is cheesy as fuck and the more I think about it, the more I hate myself for even continuing, yet I don’t turn around.
It’s warm even for August and the beach is crowded, so I quickly stick my note under the bent nail on the tower. I’m sure every year it blows away only seconds after I walk away, but it’s become part of all of this. This time, it’s part of letting go.
I’m looking out at the water as each wave crests and the white foam floods the beach, taking with it the sand and garbage that litter the area. I remember the beach being cleaner, more serene and peaceful. Now it’s cluttered with people and screaming kids, food wrappers and plastic bottles. Or maybe it’s just the way my memory likes to perceive it, like it was more than it was.
I’m angry with myself for standing here once again with nothing but a slip of paper and still clinging to the false hope of ever finding her. What if I did? I’m not even sure what I would do. It’s a fairy tale in my mind, running off and living happily ever after. I barely fucking knew her and we were just kids. I tell myself this all the time, but that nagging thought creeps in, reminding me that there was a reason I met Nora the way I did and why our connection was so intense. It’s a constant back and forth battle. I want to marry Bridgitte and forget Nora. I want to be happy and stop living with this secret.
I mutter a few curse words under my breath, still hating myself, but swearing up and down this will be that last time I stand on this beach with thoughts of Nora cluttering my brain. I’m done.
There’s a little girl building a sand castle just a few feet from the water and I stop in front of her. I hand her the flowers, telling her to use them to decorate the castle and she takes them happily.
“Goodbye, Nora,” I mutter as I head back to the hotel and it’s in that moment I know exactly where I need to be.
I need to be with Bridgitte.
I cancel all my meetings, apologizing to my parents for not making it over to see them and then again to Matt for having to pick me up at the airport, but when I tell him what’s going on, all he can say is, “Good.” He’s wanted me to forget it all and start my life with Bridgitte and that’s exactly what I’m doing.
It’s late by the time I arrive home, well after midnight and I know Bridgitte is probably asleep, but I still call her name and tell her it’s me as I enter the bedroom.
“What are you doing home?” she asks as she flips on the light, her eyes opening slowly as they adjust. She’s confused and sleepy and for a moment she looks as if she might be dreaming it all.
“I missed you,” I tell her, sitting down on the bed next to her and running my hand through her hair.
“I always miss you,” she says, the sleepiness still lingering in her voice. “Now come to bed.”
I turn the light off on her nightstand as I whisper, “I love you, Bridgitte,” leaning down to kiss her good night, but her lips are dotted with images of Nora.
Why can’t I forget her?
Chapter Twelve
A few days later I find myself sitting in a boutique bakery on the north side of the city that took us far too long to get to and with cake prices that cost more than some people’s monthly rent. Bridgitte is next to me tasting cakes as she tries to decide whether she wants devils food, chocolate, mocha chocolate, dark chocolate, chocolate fudge or just some white shit the asshole handing us plates calls “pure white.”
It all tastes the same to me and as much as I’m trying to appease her and enjoy this, it’s boring as fuck. The wedding is still over a year away, but Bridgitte went into planning mode the second I slipped the ring on her finger.
“Here, try this one,” she says, smiling sweetly as she holds up a tiny square of what looks like a heavily frosted sponge. It has a bright yellow hue to it and when I put it in my mouth I nearly gag.
“It’s lemon,” I sputter out, looking around for a glass of water, a napkin, anything to get rid of the taste. “I hate lemon.”
“I didn’t know that,” she says, looking down at the leftover piece on the plate. When she looks back at me, her eyes are turned down and I see the beginning of tears form. I’m being a dickhead. This is important to her and I’m ruining the experience. “We don’t want the lemon,” she tells the man helping us, immediately passing him the plate and shaking her head quickly.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize, but I’m not sure what more to say. I can’t tell her why I’m short with her, why I’m always distracted and that the thought of marrying her scares the shit out of me and not for the reasons most people would think. I’m terrified to marry her because what if…
“It’s okay. We can try this another day when you’re not so,” she pauses, trying to find the right words. She’s thoughtful like that. She wouldn’t dare come out and call me an asshole, insensitive or a prick, which is what I deserve. “Distracted,” she adds, plastering on a fake smile to mask the fact that she’s hurt.
I can’t stand that I’ve upset her and the look on her face is killing me. I don’t want to be like this and there are times I wish I could erase Nora from my memory. It would make things so much easier.
“No, no,” I tell Bridgitte, my hand reaching across the small table and lacing my fingers with hers. “Let’s finish this. I’m sorry I wasn’t fully present.”
She gives me a look that says she’s unsure, but eventually she caves and smiles back at me. I wonder how long we can go on like this? Eventually she’ll grow tired of my behavior. I know I would.
But, like the last time something like this happened, we move on quickly, forgetting she puts in far more effort than I do.
We settle on chocolate and to be honest, I can’t taste the difference between any of them, but Bridgitte seems happy.
Walking hand in hand back to the car, the warm August air is humid and electric, with the smell of rain looming. I suggest we stop for a quick lunch before we head back to work, but Bridgitte nixes my suggestion claiming she’s stuffed from all the cake.
I’m not even certain
that’s possible given we each ate only four bite-sized pieces, but I’m not going to argue with her. And anyway, she’s so picky it’s impossible to find a place to her liking on such short notice.
The ride back to Bridgitte’s office is slow and tedious. The traffic is brutal even in the middle of the day, and as we ride in silence, I hear Bridgitte begin to fidget in her seat and let out a few suggestive sighs. She turns on the radio and flips through a few stations, but none are to her satisfaction. She turns it off and lets out a long huff before flipping her hair over her shoulder and focusing her eyes out the side window.
She’s waiting for me to start a conversation, something I hate forcing, but I can tell she isn’t going to give up on this. And after the way our morning went, I should probably just say fuck it and do what she wants.
Bridgitte hates silence and will talk just to fill it. She immediately mistakes my silence for something more. I’m angry at her, annoyed, something is bothering me, I have nothing to say to her, we’re growing apart; the reasons she thinks I don’t speak to her are endless. Funny though because it’s never any of those things.
I like silence. I like the quiet stillness of a room, and if you just listen, silence speaks volumes about people. It can tell you more than words. Silence makes me think of Nora though.
“Are you good with the September wedding?” I ask and she exhales softly as if it’s a relief to her that I’ve finally said something.
September wasn’t Bridgitte’s first choice. It wasn’t even her second. If anything, it was the last choice she would’ve chosen.
Sometimes I think she blames me for her forced September wedding date. I fucked up the engagement, and there have been several times, in her annoyed mutterings, that she’s admitted if I would’ve proposed sooner we wouldn’t be in this miserable situation. She’s the one who claimed it as miserable in the heat of all her drama over selecting a venue for our wedding.
I’d proposed late in June, but it turns out it was a few months too late to book a summer wedding for the following year. Clearly this was something Bridgitte felt was common knowledge. Wedding venues book up more than a year in advance and summer dates were akin to scoring Lollapalooza tickets. You strike while the iron is hot. I let the iron get cold and all that was left were a few dates in late September and December.
“It works now,” she says but I still hear that hint of defiance in her voice. I tried to appease her with visions of fall tress and picturesque landscapes and all kinds of bullshit that I couldn’t give a fuck about. If it were up to me, we’d be married on a beach somewhere, preferably alone. Obviously that isn’t going to fly, because we just tasted cake in the city.
She proceeds to ramble on about photography options and locations, none of which I know, but she never tires of talking about it all. The conversation is in full swing with Bridgitte doing most of the conversing and me adding in a few choice words that make it sound like I’m enthralled. I’m anything but, which might sound rude, but the planning of the wedding is of little interest to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to marry Bridgitte, yet at times it feels like too much. Not marrying Bridgitte, but the planning and the perfection it seems to be morphing into.
She leans over and kisses me quickly before she hops out of the car, wiggling her fingers in a cute wave as she maneuvers through the people and the patches of water that dot the sidewalk outside her building. I watch her buttery blonde hair whip around her and she pulls her trench coat up around her neck, shielding herself from the drizzling rain that has just started. Right before entering the building, she turns back and waves again, a beautiful full smile on her lips, her wide blue eyes shining, and for a second my heart skips. She really is quite stunning.
I’m now sitting at my desk in my quiet home office finishing up a conference call dealing with an acquisition that has been going on for months and I couldn’t give zero fucks right now.
My mind has suddenly been consumed with that constant what if question that plagues me: My stupid obsession with finding Nora. I’ve told myself more times than I can count that I need to give up, move on. It’s over. But I still come back to it.
With the planning of the wedding in full swing and Bridgitte’s need to focus solely on it, my mind seems to wander to thoughts of finding Nora.
I spent the first year after I met her at the party looking for her, but technology wasn’t what it is now. With only a first name and a city to go on and little money, I couldn’t really devote much effort to it. After that first year, I tried to drop the idea, but it was always there, in the back of my fucking mind, nagging and annoying. I opted for what seemed the least crazy, the least obsessive, and I began leaving a note at the lifeguard tower. When I moved to Chicago a year later to start school, I was only able to leave the note at random times, but I still did it every year.
I’ve always known it wasn’t enough, but I figured I’d eventually tire of looking for her and say fuck it. It hasn’t happened and with my marriage to Bridgitte nearing, I’m finding it hard to forget Nora.
After my call ends, I text Matt and his response is exactly as I expect.
Me: I’m going to try to find Nora. Like really try to find her.
Matt: You’re a fucking idiot. It’s a terrible idea.
Me: I know, but I need to and I’m going hire a PI to see if I can find her.
My phone rings a few seconds later and of course it’s Matt. He doesn’t even bother with a greeting, immediately saying, “You’re gonna fuck this up with Bridgitte,” as soon as I answer.
“I feel like I need to find her in order to marry Bridgitte,” I say and he falls silent on the other end.
“This is a terrible fucking idea. You’re making a huge mistake. What are you going to do if you do find her? Leave Bridgitte? What if she’s married and doesn’t even fucking remember you?” Matt’s voice is growing louder with each question, until he’s more pissed off than I expected him to be.
I have played a thousand scenarios over in my head, attempting to foresee every possible outcome, and honestly, I have no idea what I will do if I find her. It’s such an abstract concept. It’s almost impossible to predict what could happen. In saying all that, I’m still compelled to find her.
Matt doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even give me a chance to answer before he’s berating me again. “Are you going to tell Bridgitte? You need to. You can’t just go off on some fucking pilgrimage to find some girl you met when you were nineteen.”
“Settle the fuck down,” I tell him, exhaling hard into the phone. I didn’t expect him to throw his support in wholeheartedly, but I didn’t expect him to lose his shit. “I’m not going on a pilgrimage. I’m going to hire a PI, give him the information I have and see what happens. Bridgitte doesn’t even need to know.”
“I gotta go, dude,” Matt says, utterly pissed off with me. “I don’t want to be a part of this because when Bridgitte finds out, the shit is gonna hit the fan.”
“Bridgitte won’t find out,” I insist as Matt hangs up on me.
Chapter Thirteen
It only takes me a couple of hours to locate a private investigator that’s willing to work quickly and start right away. I did some research, contacted some people I work with and I had compiled a pretty good list. The large corporation I work for tends to use PI’s for investigative work before we decide whether to go through with certain acquisitions and mergers.
No one questioned why I needed a PI and I was prepared to explain should the need be, but it didn’t arise.
A couple of hours later, I had my guy. I gave him what little information I had and he told me he would get to work immediately. Before hanging up I asked him the likelihood of finding Nora and he explained that while I gave him very little to work with, he’s found people when given even less information.
I trusted his judgment and paid the man half, with hopes of finally ending this shit.
By the time Bridgitte arrives home for the night, I feel l
ighter, calmer almost. Just the effort of hiring someone to find Nora seems to have lessened my anxiety and distractibility.
“You made dinner?” she says as she walks through the front door of my condo, the place I purchased long before I met Bridgitte, but that has now become ours. I don’t even remember when it happened. It was slow and gradual and the next thing I knew, we were living together.
She smells the air with a huge grin on her face, her perfect white teeth showing and her eyes gleaming with happiness. It’s not like I don’t cook, I actually like cooking, but Bridgitte loves the restaurant scene in the city, she doesn’t cook, and she’s too particular about what she eats. Most of the time I give up trying to find something she likes.
Today, the fact that I cooked dinner is something she sees as a peace offering and maybe it is. Maybe I’m feeling guilty for being a dick at the cake tasting. Maybe I’m feeling guilty for going behind her back to try and find Nora. Whatever it is, dinner is made and it’s something Bridgitte will eat.
“I did,” I tell her as I stir the spaghetti sauce. It’s not like I made something time consuming and gourmet. Just homemade spaghetti sauce, pasta and garlic bread.
“It smells amazing in here,” she says, stopping to kiss me on the cheek as I step away from the sauce and pour us each a glass of wine.
She stops at the sink and washes her hands before grabbing her glass of wine and slumping down into one of the kitchen chairs.
A few seconds later I join her, but this time she’s the one distracted, with her phone in her hand, she barely notices I’ve set a plate down in front of her. I won’t point it out to her, because in her own passive aggressive way she’s doing this so I know what it feels like to be ignored. At least that’s what it feels like to me. And while she can be amazingly thoughtful, she can also be manipulative. She would never admit to that, but it’s something I’ve learned over the last few months. Basically since we got engaged.