Lightning Strikes Twice

by Erik Schubach

  Candi looked up from her reading as I approached and looked away, started the car, and pretended not to notice I had been crying. But the no looking thing gave her away. I hopped in and shook my head at her, smiling.

  As she got us back on the road toward London again, she absently reached her right hand into her purse and pulled out a tissue. I grinned at the evil woman and took it, I dabbed the corners of my eyes and pulled down the sun visor and looked into the mirror on the back of it. I wiped my eyes carefully and made myself presentable again.

  Once I flipped the visor back up she finally turned to me. “That wasn’t so bad now was it?”

  I chuckled and looked up. “God. It was like saying goodbye to a surrogate grandfather. I feel terrible, like I am abandoning my family all over again.”

  She dismissed that with a wave of her hand, “Oh tish tosh woman. You aren’t abandoning anybody. You still don’t get it do you? You’re going home after so long.” She nodded firmly once. “We’re all so bloody excited for you. And I’m pretty sure you’ll remember all of our phone numbers.”

  I just rested my hand on her arm and gave a thankful squeeze. I knew she would be bawling like a baby same as me after we say our goodbyes. Once we hit London proper, she deftly navigated the streets up to her office. She pulled to the curb and tapped the horn. A minute later, Leighton came walking up to the glass door at the base of the stairs up to their accounting firm and flipped a sign that said, “Gone for Tea” He then locked the door behind him.

  He slipped into the back seat and said in his shy way, “Ladies.”

  I just turned back and grinned at him. Candice angled her rear-view mirror a bit to see him and smiled as she said, “Love.”

  Where Candi had gained confidence and bearing over the years to supplant her shy streak that was so vast it almost swallowed up the galaxy, Leighton was still the same super blush-y guy… like now. His cheeks turned red as we got back on the road heading toward Heathrow. My anxiety was building the closer we got to the airport.

  My mind wandered to the reason I was going home. I was done hiding. It was time to face my fears. To face… her.

  Have you ever grown so close to someone that you just knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that that person completed everything that you were? That you lived for their smile, for their laugh. That you knew every facet of what made up their soul and they knew yours? Every glance into their eyes set your heart fluttering and every, head tilt, every touch set off a tuning fork inside you. A person that you would share everything with, without reservation? Endless hours sitting up late into the night sharing your hopes and dreams, your secrets, your fears and feeling their like they were your own?

  Knowing every detail of their face… how many freckles, how many flecks of color in their eyes. The way their eyes twinkle when they smile, every graceful curve of their neck. Knowing that you would do anything for them just as they would for you?

  Yeah. Like that.

  I made the mistake of letting that happen to me twice… with two women I could never have, because they had each other. So I could never admit my feelings. Then one was torn away from us by a cruel disease. That was the end of all hope for me. Mia was now alone without Vee, the only woman she could love. Her once in a lifetime lightning strike.

  Leaving me feeling guilty that I harbored these feelings for her. It wasn’t right before, and now with Vee gone, it was twice as inappropriate. Then like a coward, I left the last object of my affection alone, in her pain and grief. Having to pick up the fractured pieces of her life on her own without her remaining best friend. I was less than dirt.

  It was time though. I would face her, I… could… face her. I can control my feelings and try to mend a friendship I had so completely betrayed if she will let me. I replayed every news article in my head. Every video clip, every photo with fleeting glances of her in every newspaper, magazine, a news report from the past twenty years that showed her strength of will as she became a driving force in the art world. To attain a place among the masters. God I was so proud.

  Of course, my mother discreetly fed me information about Mia as well, and I still maintained all of Mia’s investments and finances for her, it was the least I could do.

  I still sent birthday and Christmas cards to Mia and my goddaughter Abbey. I would send handwritten letters from time to time when I was feeling nostalgic. She would always respond. Her notes were always so upbeat, so full of love. I could almost feel like I had never betrayed our friendship when I read those. She would always ask when I was going to visit, when I was going to… come home. I would always give vague replies.

  God forgive me. I still love her like I did back then. I shook that thought out of my head and then realized that, my god, Abbey is in her senior year of college now. I had kept tabs on her from afar as well. I’ve never ceased to be amazed at her accomplishments and have never been so proud of someone.

  When I had heard that Abbey was delayed a year for entry into the New York Art Academy because she submitted her portfolio late and they had already filled all the seats for the year. Discreet inquiries revealed that she was the first alternate if anyone deferred. I secretly pulled in a favor from the Dean of Admissions at the Regency Art College in France, who’s financial portfolio I managed, to arranged for the acceptance of a boy from the Academy, freeing a place for Abbey in New York. I’d do anything for my goddaughter.

  I grinned at the thought of who her love interest was. Mom told me that Abbey had met the daughter of Skylar Roth at the art academy in New York, Samantha. I smiled at that. I had met Skylar here in England so many years ago. She was such a talented singer but was ashamed of her burn scars that covered half of her body for some reason. I called dad to see if he could pull some strings with Mandy Fay Harris to get Skylar invited to the first ever Karaoke Queen competition all those years ago.

  She didn’t win, but she came out of her shell and showed everyone her beauty and strength. She wound up becoming the lead for one of the most-popular bands of all time… Satin Thunder, and Samantha was her daughter. I grinned. If she had half of the strength of her mother, then I definitely approved of Abbey’s choice. Damn it, I was crying. 3-2-7-9-5-0-2-8-8-4. Rajid An Allhl, Marion F. Travers, Julie Lindquist. If you lift a kangaroo’s tail off the ground, it can’t hop. My thoughts were slowly drowned out as I added a few dozen more strings.

  “Earth to the Vickster?” Candi was saying. I quickly dried my eyes with a tissue again then I smiled at her. She grinned back with a sad shadow hanging in her eyes, damn the evil woman, she knew what I was thinking about. Then she said, “I was saying we’re here you silly bird.”

  I looked around. We were in the parking structure at the airport. I smiled again in apology and we all hopped out and Leighton took two of the three big suitcases. Candi grabbed the third and I felt useless as I grabbed my little carry-on. We chatted and joked as we entered the bustling airport. Bloody hell there were a lot of people. Umm I mean… holy crap there were a lot of people.

  I chuckled to myself. Duh, it is one of the busiest airports in the world, this was only my fourth time here and it seemed busier each time. We stood in line to get my baggage checked with Candi mothered me. Making sure I had everything.

  Once we got all that sorted they walked me to the security queue… line, and stood with me. I was getting more and more anxious. I was almost up to the metal detectors and we finally did what we were trying so hard to put off and we said goodbye to each other. This had a feel I had felt one other time in my life that a chapter of my life was closing, it was the end of an era.

  I hugged Leighton and kissed him on the cheek and said, “Goodbye you lunk. Take care of Candi for me.” He just nodded and whispered, “Fair winds Vicky.” Then he sort of faded back and away, letting us girl talk as privately as one could while standing in line with strangers.

  My voice was shaky with threatening tears as I said hoarsely, “God I’m going to miss you Candi. I love you so much. You’re my be
st friend and I feel like I’m…”

  She placed a finger on my lips shushing me. “Vickster, slow down. Don’t worry so much. You’re going to be brill. I love you too. Now get going. I’m so proud of you. I do plan on visiting your sorry Yank ass.”

  We hugged for what seemed like forever, then my turn came up to go through security and we released each other, we were both silently bawling and she kissed my cheek and smiled and stepped away.

  After going through security, I looked back as I made my way to the concourse. We kept waving and crying until she was out of sight. God I was so sappy and emotional at times. I was going to miss her counsel so much.

  I took a deep cleansing breath and tightened my grip on the handle of my carry-on bag and nodded once in resolve as I approached the gate.

  I spoke out loud to myself and admitted what everyone had been telling me for weeks, “This is it Vicky, you’re going home!”

  Chapter 4 – The Gallery

  I tried to sleep on the plane ride across the pond. I really did. I tried to drown out my thoughts my apprehension, my fears, with as much white noise as I could generate. But I found that even with that, there was the underlying fear of my first meeting with Mia. The fear that she would never be able to forgive me.

  It seemed like the flight was taking months instead of under ten hours. With the time differences, I would appear to arrive less than two hours after I left since there is an eight hour time difference between London and Seattle.

  I started reciting the Declaration of Independence, backwards, while inserting the Constitution on every other word, and simultaneously recalling the genus and phylum of every cataloged animal and plant, giving each a silly name based upon what they looked like to me. It wasn’t working, I needed something boring to put me to sleep, but everything was exciting to me.

  Then I started replaying my psychology professor’s endless droning lectures that I’m sure he crafted to put even the most astute students to sleep. I have three of them playing along with my white noise. Ahhh… that’s the ticket. I was just starting to get a little drowsy when the ‘fasten seatbelts’ sign lit and the captain’s voice came out over the intercom. Informing us that we had started our decent toward SeatTac Airport. Son of a…

  I smiled at the little girl across the aisle, she seemed genuinely excited to be arriving in Seattle. I spoke with her and her mother a bit on the trip. The mother, Ronnie, and her cute little daughter Sophie were coming to Seattle on their first vacation to the States and were excited to have new experiences. Ronnie’s sister lived in Seattle and was going to show them around.

  I gave her Roberta Valentine’s phone number since they seemed interested in hiking in the mountains. Even in England people have heard of the legend of Silent Bob. I knew her personally, well I’m sure things have changed in twenty years, but she was good people and from what I read, her horrific accident in the mountains hasn’t slowed her down a bit.

  As I made my way off the plane and into the customs queue, my exhaustion finally hit me. Oh, come on, how is that remotely fair? I just suffered through the line, thinking about how I should keep myself awake as long as I could tonight, to stave off jet lag. Start retraining my body to my new timezone.

  The woman at the counter at customs did a double take at the dates stamped on my passport and then blinked. “Welcome home Ms. Davenport.” I smiled a thanks back at her. Then she asked if I had anything else to claim besides what I had put on the customs form. I said, “Nope.” She stamped my passport and slid it back over to me.

  Now I know I was being stupid and irrational. But as I took my carry-on bag and walked past the counter. That painted line on the floor gave me pause. That was the line that indicated I was crossing back over onto U.S. Soil. I hesitated staring down at it. Then I took a deep breath, steeled my nerves and raised my chin in defiance to my own feelings and stepped across that line. Watch out Seattle, Vicky is back! I yawned and giggled internally. And Vicky is tired!

  It was a comedy of errors getting my three huge suitcases from the baggage claim carousel when they all weighed almost as much as I did. A female soldier in uniform stepped up and snagged the last one for me with one hand and put it in front of me like it weighed nothing, shooting me a knee-buckling smile. Good god! Women in uniform make me purr. I mean… yum! Wait I know her! She has been on the news for like the past fifteen years. She’s a frigging hero! McKenzie Meyers! What did they call her? I reviewed all the news reports in my head… Dead Shot.

  I offered my hand and she shook it as I said softly with reverence in my voice, “Thank you Miss Meyers. And thank you for your service.” She gave me a nod. There was something in her eyes behind the boundless strength, like a shadow, something haunted. I’ve seen it before, in soldiers who have had to kill before, and it broke my heart. I just nodded back and she wordlessly snagged a big military duffel bag and slung it over her shoulder effortlessly with one hand and then she just disappeared into the crowd.

  Now I was stuck with the dilemma of somehow getting four suitcases out to the taxis. I hadn’t thought this through enough obviously since I wasn’t meeting anyone here. I should have just had the stuff shipped ahead to the hotel I was going to be staying at until I found a place to live. I glanced around and saw a porter by a column and waved him over.

  The young man was more than happy to grab a cart for me to load my bags onto. I thanked the bloke, ummm guy, and he just blushed shyly. I almost giggled, I mean, good god man, I’m old enough to be your mother. Or your really hawt older sister at least. Oooo I’d so make an awesome MILF!

  I got out to the taxis and the queues were pretty long, it was still mid-afternoon here. I decided to spoil myself, I rarely spent any money on myself if it wasn’t clothes. I moved over to the hired cars instead and looked at the man in a proper driver’s uniform and pointed at my bags and then at the sedan he was standing by.

  He was quick to move. Loading my bags into the trunk and then opening the door for me. He said, “Hello ma’am, my name is Harold.”

  I nodded up at the clean cut man in his late thirties with salt and pepper dark brown hair, he had piercing hazel eyes. He was probably six foot two or three the way I had to crane my neck up to look at him. “Victoria,” I corrected. I hated how snobbish my name sounded, but I hate being called ma’am even more, and I only let friends and family call me Vicky anymore since it made me sound, I don’t know, less mature maybe?

  He shut my door then rushed around and got into the driver’s seat and started pulling away from the curb and another sedan slipped into the spot smoothly. He looked at me in the mirror as he handed a card back to me as he asked, “Where to ma’am?”

  I sighed and said as I exhaled, “Please don’t call me ma’am.” I glanced at the card, it was Harold’s card with the company name, ‘Regency Transport’, and a number and email address for Harold on one side and the rates printed on the other side. All things considered, the rates were below private car prices in London. So just a kidney instead of two kidneys and your first born. Then I looked out the window. “The Empire Suites Hotel please Harold. I’ll be needing you for at least two days, if possible until I get settled and retrieve my own vehicle.”

  He just nodded. “That will be fine… Victoria.” Then he was silent all the way to the Empire, he was a consummate professional. The tiny evil part of me with its pitchfork, horns, and awesome heels thought. “Maybe I can break him of that before I’m done with his services. I’m sure he has some character beneath the stuffiness.”

  After we had parked at the hotel, I passed my Visa card to him and he jotted down the number without a word and passed it back to me then he hopped out and opened the door for me. A bellhop was already getting my bags out of the trunk and putting them on a brass trolley, Robert, his gold nametag read on his maroon uniform. As I stood, I absently said, “Your shoe is untied Harold.”

  I smirked as he looked down to his tied shoes then I nudged him in the ribs lightly with my elbow as I pas
sed by and whispered, “You need to loosen up a bit.”

  I caught the grin that he tried to restrain as he said in a regal tone, “Yes Victoria.”

  Which caused me to snort and grin back at the man. “Much better. I’ll need you in about an hour. I’ll call.”

  He nodded with a small smile on his face then hopped into the sedan and disappeared into traffic. I walked into the hotel with the bellhop shadowing me with the cart. I gave the doorman a smile as he opened the doors for me. Dyson, his name tag read, I filed that away.

  I was curious about the Empire, it had been built the summer after I left Seattle and I have heard nothing but good things about it. I could have stayed anywhere, even a simple motel but again, I was spoiling myself and I felt guilty about it for some reason.

  After checking in and heading up to the room, Robert unloaded the cart and placed my bags in my room. I smiled at him. “Thanks Robert. I appreciate the help.” I shook his hand, cupping it between both of mine, leaving a ten spot in it.

  He smiled and said, “You’re welcome ma’am.” Then he added with a smile. “Oh, you’re British, I almost missed your accent.” Before I could correct him, the boy was gone. Then I smiled at it, wondering how much Brit I had in my speech patterns now. It can’t be much as just about anyone in London can immediately identify me as a Yank.

  I took some time to unpack and get settled into the room a bit. I placed the shadowbox on the nightstand beside the king sized bed. I kissed my fingers then laid them on Vee, then Mia’s pictures. I spoke to them, “I may as well get chapter four of my life started.” I divide my life into distinct sections. There was chapter one, growing up and learning to deal with the curse of my ‘gifts.’ Chapter two was my life in college with Valhalla and Mia. Chapter three was my years in London. Now it is time to reclaim my life in this newest chapter.