Once Again

by Amy Durham

  And then I saw her face. My breath caught in my chest, and my eyes widened in shock.

  My own face stared back at me, with a smile so huge I wondered why her face didn’t crack. She beamed with elation. I could feel her happiness in every molecule of my body.

  Zooming my dream-lens back out, I saw the man walking through the yard toward her. He, too, looked like a throwback to the 1800s, with his boots and suspenders. Instantly, I knew he was coming home to her. To the woman who had my face.

  I looked back to her. She smiled at him with such abandon. I felt the love that coursed through her for this man. This woman, who was me, but not me. She would sacrifice anything for him.

  He was her life.

  Panning back to the man, I looked to see if the joy I knew she felt was mirrored on his face.

  It was. As I stared into his dark brown eyes, I knew he loved her every bit as much as she loved him.

  It was plain and obvious, on Lucas Ellis’s face.

  CHAPTER 7

  Emerson House of Antiques was open on Sundays, unlike the downtown businesses like String City. So, after lunch and a quick read-through of my chemistry study notes, I headed out, on my way to Old Birch Lane.

  It was an easy sell with my parents. I’d always loved used bookstores, consignment shops and the like, so it wasn’t difficult for them to believe I was interested in antiques. And I was positive I would enjoy browsing through the store, even if seeing the inventory wasn’t my first motivation.

  Last night’s dream ran through my mind again, as it had all day long. I’d never had a dream so vivid and alive. In the bright afternoon light, it was easy to tell myself that my mind had imprinted my face and Lucas’s face on my dream-people simply because of the friendship we’d developed. Well, that and my over-active imagination where he was concerned.

  But that was no explanation for the depth of feeling I’d experienced. I’d woken earlier than usual for a non-school day, and in the dim light of the morning, still warm under the covers of my bed, and before the sun broke over the horizon, I’d been swamped in the emotions of the dream. Love flooded through me, so strong it brought tears to my eyes. Feelings I had no experience with, or frame of reference for, burned bright inside my heart. And there in my bedroom, in the early morning hours, I’d cried softly for the beauty of the love between two people I did not know and who probably didn’t exist.

  It would’ve been humiliating had it not been in the privacy of my own room.

  I wasn’t sure what I thought a trip to Emerson’s Antiques would solve, but it seemed the only thing to do after its appearance in my dream.

  Two vehicles were parked in Emerson’s circular driveway. A silver sedan was near the door, and behind it sat an older, dark green Ford Bronco. I decided the Bronco was probably a sensible choice, from what I’d heard about Maine winters.

  I parked next to the Bronco and stepped out of my car. As usual, the air carried a salty, briny smell. It wasn’t strong or unpleasant, but being so different from Tennessee, I always noticed it. I wondered if others here were aware of it, and figured they probably weren’t. I liked to think that maybe Sky Cove was sharing a few of its secrets with me, to make me feel more at home.

  As I headed to the front door, each step seemed filled with purpose, as if the short journey from my car to the store would somehow change everything.

  Again, crazy, stupid thoughts.

  It was unlike me to make a mountain out of a molehill, but over the past two weeks, I’d become quite proficient at it.

  A bell jingled when I opened the front door, and I thought to myself that the place even smelled old. Not in an icky way, like an attic full of mold and dust, but rather like something cured to perfection by the passage of years.

  To my left were cabinets filled with antique glassware. Fenton and Carnival glass, according to the labels, all of it sparkling and gleaming from the lights in the display cases. Directly in front of me were rows and rows of old stuff, dolls and dishes and books and costume jewelry. Beyond the front room, I could see another room, put together in much the same way... breakables and valuables in cases on the left side and other miscellaneous antiquated things on shelves in the middle section of the room.

  I was just about to wander down the cabinets of pretty glassware when someone came in from the back room.

  “Can I help you?” asked the attractive lady with dark auburn hair. I guessed her age at around thirty.

  “Just looking around,” I replied. “I noticed the place yesterday, and thought I’d come in and look around.”

  “You’re new to Sky Cove?” She walked behind the counter, hopped up on a stool, and leaned across toward me, as if we were old friends having a conversation.

  “I’ve been here about a month.” I walked over and offered my hand. “I’m Layla Bradford. My dad’s the new owner of String City.”

  “Oh, right,” she said, shaking my hand. “I heard the place had changed hands. I’m Ashley Emerson.”

  I’d never put much stock in déjà vu, but if it could be described as a weird sense of impossible recognition, maybe this was it.

  It really sort of wigged me out.

  “I drove through this neighborhood on my way downtown yesterday, and I couldn’t help but notice this house. It looks older than the rest.” Wigged out or not, might as well see what I could learn about this place, and maybe figure out why it showed up in my dream last night.

  “You’re absolutely right,” Ashley said. “It’s been in my husband’s family since the 1800’s. Originally, it was the only house around and the rest of the area was used for crops or grazing animals.”

  My curiosity was definitely in overdrive, but I didn’t want to make a pest of myself with questions about the house. After all, the dream had merely been a product of my subconscious anyway.

  “Nice that it’s still in your family,” I said. “An antique store is a lovely way to showcase the house.”

  “It was my mother-in-law’s idea,” she answered. “She and I run the place together.”

  The ringing phone interrupted our conversation, so I began meandering through the store, stopping occasionally to look closer at some trinket that caught my attention. I tried to find some kind of feeling, some kind of vibe, but the more I focused on trying to feel something like what I’d felt in the dream, the more I felt nothing. I gave up and wandered into the back room.

  And was hit full force with a wave of nostalgia. It was a physical feeling, chills on my skin and a pull in the pit of my stomach. A swell of yearning that took my breath, as if I’d walked into the most important place in all of history. But it was only little room full of old things, with one other customer besides me.

  And that customer was wearing a brown tee shirt, tucked into a pair of nice jeans, with a brown leather belt at his waist, all of which accentuated the dark blond hair on his head.

  And the dark brown eyes that turned and immediately locked on mine.

  Lucas Ellis.

  My brain shut down and simply refused to comprehend what it was seeing. Lucas was here, in this house, the very same one I’d dreamed about last night, the very same one he was coming home to, while I stood at the door and waited anxiously for him.

  That wasn’t me. And it wasn’t him. It was a stupid, stupid dream. I reminded myself that I’d decided the dream was nothing more than a subliminal expression of my attraction to him.

  But why was he here? No matter how I chose to compartmentalize the dream, Lucas being here today was one heck of a coincidence.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, no doubt looking like a complete loser, but at some point I realized he was talking to me.

  And he was standing right in front of me.

  “Layla?” he asked. “You okay?”

  The sound of his voice snapped me out of it.

  “Sorry.” I blinked my eyes, shook my head. “Guess I was in a daze.”

  Good grief, could I be anymore of an idiot? Standing here,
staring at him, acting catatonic in the middle of an antique store.

  “Yeah, you kind of zoned out there for a minute.”

  Thanks so much for pointing that out.

  “What are you doing here?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew they sounded snippy. I backpedaled quickly. “I mean, this is a rather weird place to run in to you.”

  “I could say the same,” he said, smiling.

  Man, his smile did things to me... the way it lit up his eyes. Made me feel all mushy and warm inside. And made me lose my train of thought.

  What had he said? Oh yeah.

  “I’m just killing some time,” I said, scrambling to stay on topic. “I noticed this place on my way to the store yesterday, so I decided to come check it out.”

  “Yeah, I’m killing some time, too.” He picked up a saltshaker that looked like a tiny bottle of Tequila. “What’s the point in this?”

  “Novelty, I suppose.” I shrugged. “How often do you come here?”

  Oh fantastic. That sounded like a corny come-on line. I could picture a poorly dressed man with too much cologne saying, in a smarmy voice, “Hey baby, do you come here often?”

  If Lucas noticed, he didn’t point it out or even grin. He just sat the margarita-esque saltshaker down and looked back up at me.

  “Not a lot.” He folded his arms across his chest, which pulled the brown tee shirt that matched the color of his eyes tight across his muscled upper body.

  I ordered myself not to drool.

  He continued. “I’ve been here a couple of times with my mom. She gets into weird stuff like this. I thought I might find something for her for Christmas.”

  “Wow, you’re really on the ball. Christmas shopping right after Labor Day? And for your mother?”

  “Well, like I said, my mom’s into weird stuff. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to get her.”

  I had a hard time believing that he’d come here, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in September to buy a Christmas gift for his mother, but I decided to give him kudos for even thinking of it.

  I made a mental note to add “appreciates his mother and treats her right” to my list of things to look for in the opposite sex.

  Along with dark blond hair and chocolate brown eyes. And shirts that were always tucked in and looked neat.

  I silently screamed at myself to get a grip. I changed the subject in an effort to get my thoughts under control.

  “I heard you guys won the cross-country meet yesterday. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” he said, moving to the next shelf of merchandise. “We ran well.”

  “I heard you ran exceptionally well. First place.”

  He shrugged. “It was a team effort.”

  Modesty. Another attribute to add to my list.

  “Well, congratulations to you and the team.”

  Lucas just nodded. He picked up a clear glass paperweight, about the size of a baseball. Inside were white and silver moons and stars, some of which looked like they were shooting through the sky.

  “This is an antique?” he asked.

  I took it from him, turning it so I could read the bottom.

  “1969,” I said, handing it back to him. “Same year as the first moon landing.”

  “Ah, I get it.” He held it up to the light. “My mom would like this. It’s very mystical.”

  “Your mom sounds like an interesting lady.”

  “That’s one way of putting it. But she’s a great mom. You’d like her.”

  “Maybe I’ll meet her sometime,” I said.

  I hoped that hadn’t sounded pushy, or like I was trying to finagle more time with him. I’d meant only to continue the polite conversation we were having.

  He looked at me, then glanced around the room as if making a decision, and finally looked back at the paperweight.

  “Why don’t come to my house with me? You can meet her.” He held the paperweight up to my eye level. “You just have to promise not to tell her about the present I bought her.”

  As I looked at him through the swirling clear glass of the paperweight, his image shifted and turned. His face became thinner, his skin stubbly from several days growth of beard. His white shirt and brown suspenders dirtied and sweat-stained from a day’s work outdoors.

  Suspenders? White shirt?

  This was not the Lucas I’d run into at the antique store. This was the Lucas from my dream.

  I closed my eyes, forced them back open.

  And saw him looking at me with a clean-shaven face.

  The brown tee shirt had reappeared as well.

  “How about it? Want to come over?”

  “Um, I don’t know.” I blinked several times, trying to clear my thoughts. “I guess it would be okay. I’d have to run it past my parents first.”

  “No problem,” he said. “I’ll pay for this, then follow you back to your house. You can introduce me to your folks, so they know you’re not headed off with a total stranger, then I’ll drive you to my house and back.”

  Well, I guess he had it all figured out. This sounded strangely like the offer of a tour of Sky Cove he’d made in the school parking lot on Friday afternoon. Again, I didn’t know exactly how to take it.

  Was there more to it than a friendly visit? Were his intentions platonic or...

  Stop it! Stop it!

  I could not afford to have delusions of grandeur about Lucas. I reminded myself once again that girls like me did not attract the attention of boys like him. At least not in a romantic way.

  Friends. We were friends. And there was nothing wrong with two friends hanging out together on a Sunday afternoon.

  “Okay,” I said, following him to the cash register. “I’d like to meet your mom.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Lucas charmed my parents as completely as he charmed me. He followed me to my house and met my parents, and afterward he probably could’ve gotten them to hand over their bank account number and credit card information.

  Mom looked at me with a smile and a gleam in her eyes as Lucas and I walked out the front door. I knew she thought there was more to Luke’s visit. I’d have to set her straight when I got home.

  In the passenger side of his Bronco I ran through that conversation in my mind, planning what I’d say to Mom to convince her that he and I were not a romantic item.

  “You look like you’re in deep thought,” he said, expertly shifting the gears on his manual transmission. I’d never seen a boy drive a stick shift before. There was something really hot about a guy with one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on the gearshift, driving like it was the easiest thing in the world.

  “Just thinking about something I need to tell my mom,” I answered.

  Just past Sky Cove Harbor, he turned off the main highway that bisected the town and onto White Bridge Road. Trees lined the narrow road like canopies, creating shadows on the pavement that looked liked an artist’s brushstrokes.

  “Your parents are really nice,” he said. “I’ll have to come by the guitar store sometime and look around.”

  “You mentioned your mom. Is your dad around?”

  Lucas shook his head. “No, he’s been gone a long time. I don’t think he was much into being a family man.”

  Immediately I wished I hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you that. It was rude.”

  “It’s okay,” he assured me. “It’s not a sore spot or anything, so don’t worry.”

  We turned a corner, and crossed a bridge that was indeed white, and a house came into view. It was a small, yellow, two-story cottage, complete with gingerbread in the corners of the front porch. In the front yard was a little garden. It looked to be thriving, though I had no idea what was growing there. A green thumb I was not.

  Somehow, I did not feel surprise when Lucas turned into the driveway of the yellow cottage. I could tell by looking that whoever lived here knew what it meant to take care of people and things, and it was obvious by his personality someone had
cared a great deal about him.

  He pulled in and set the parking brake, sliding the bag with the paperweight out of sight under his seat. I opened my door and hopped out, just as he came around to my side of the Bronco.

  “I was going to get your door for you.” He folded his arms across his chest and looked at me with a smile.

  “Really?” Did guys still do that these days? I’d only ever seen it on old movies.

  “Really,” he said. “Like I told you before, my mom’s real big on treating girls with respect.”

  I silently wondered if Lucas had any faults. I was starting to think he didn’t.

  “Come on. Let’s go in.” He reached over and took my hand.

  Everything inside me went on alert when he touched me. He didn’t hold my hand with force, but rather with a gentle firmness that was comforting and secure.

  My heart swelled, almost to the point of pain. It was the sweetest feeling I’d ever experienced. And it scared me to death. The perfection of my hand in his overwhelmed me, and I had to stop myself from clutching his fingers in response to the feelings churning inside me.

  We took the steps up to the porch side-by-side, hands still entwined. When we reached the door, he let go of my hand and opened it, gesturing for me to go in first.

  It appeared chivalry was not dead.

  “Hey Mom!” he called, as we stepped inside the house, and the scent of chocolate wafted toward me.

  I assumed this room was the living room, because there was a cushy looking sofa, a recliner, and a flat screen television mounted on the wall. But those were the only things that defined this room as the living area. The rest of the room looked like a cross between a library and a museum.

  Two walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, crammed full of books of every size and color. In front of the books sat knick-knacks of all sorts – vases, blown glass animals, wooden carvings that looked Native American, even sets of pewter cups and pitchers. A third wall was covered with postcards, almost to the point of being wallpapered with them. From where I stood, I couldn’t tell where many of them were from, but I did see the Eiffel Tower and a large waterfall of some sort on a couple of them.