by Nancy Adams
Having tired of torturing himself, Paul picked up his mobile phone and called Will.
“Hey, dude,” Will answered. “You okay?”
“Not really,” Paul answered groggily.
“I’m sorry to hear about you and Claire. It’s a real bummer.”
“Thanks, man. Look, I guess that’s why I’m calling. I feel bad for imposing this on you, but I need to ask you a few things.”
“Sure, dude, fire away.”
“Look, Will, I need to know if you’ve heard anything from Beth about where Claire is currently. I don’t know who else to turn to.”
“Ah! Dude. She’ll kill me if I tell you.”
“Please, Will,” Paul said breaking into tears, his voice trembling, “it’s my relationship, man. I don’t know what to do. She won’t answer my calls and if I go into the hospital demanding to speak to her, she’ll turn me away.”
Hearing the sadness in his friend’s voice, Will felt unable to turn down his request.
“Okay, dude,” he whispered down the phone, “she’s at some doctor friend of hers, Anna or something.”
“Annabel Kline?” Paul wanted to know.
“Yeah, something like that. Look, that’s all I know, I swear.”
“Thanks, man. You’re the best.”
“Just don’t go doing anything dumb, alright? Don’t go turning up there and being a pain in the ass.”
“No, I just wanna talk to her. If she tells me to beat it, that’s what I’ll do.”
“Okay, dude. Be safe.”
“Hey, man, thanks. I mean it.”
“Peace.”
Paul put the phone down and grabbed the phone directory from the hallway. He began flicking through it to see if Annabel Kline was listed. She was. Her address too. He immediately tore it out of the book, stuffed it into the pocket of his sweatpants and began putting his shoes on. Once he had, he marched into the bedroom, put the first t-shirt he could find on and grabbed his coat before leaving.
When he stepped onto the damp street outside, the wind felt extra cold and the sun extra bright. They stunned his skin and burned his eyes, making him recoil slightly as he began walking along the sidewalk. It had been so long since he’d stepped out of the darkness of the apartment. As he went along, it began to rain and soon he felt it beat heavily down on his head. He didn’t even know why he was walking; the address was on the other side of Brooklyn. It would take him at least three hours to walk. However, when he imagined getting into a cab, the thought depressed him and he continued to march through the rain with his head down, getting wetter and wetter.
A storm was brewing steadily in his mind and, as he walked along, several people stopped and turned, noticing that he was talking to himself. “Please, just come back to me,” he kept muttering over and over as he splashed along. “I sacrificed myself for you. Does that mean nothing? I held your baby—his baby—in my hands. I picked you up when you were down in pieces and mended you back together. I abandoned people so I could be with you. I abandoned my own thoughts and cares so that yours came first. And all for what? So you could carry on with him the first time you happen to bump into each other? What am I to you?”
On and on went his recriminations and tortures as he bounded along.
Eventually he came to a junction and, glancing around himself, he realized that he had become lost and wandered several blocks in the wrong direction. While he observed his surroundings, his body shivering with cold, a yellow cab came swinging around the corner, as though by providence. With one loud whistle, he hailed it and the driver stopped.
Paul instantly ran up to it and opened the door, throwing his wet body onto the backseat with a splash.
“Hell of a day, kid,” the cabbie said as he got in.
“Sure is,” Paul replied as he closed the door and pulled the scrap of paper from his wet pocket.
The rain had damaged it slightly, but the address was still visible.
“Broderick Avenue,” Paul said.
“Okay, chief.”
They drove on through the curtain of rain, the wipers of the cab beating it away as best they could. Sitting in the back, Paul could see hardly anything through the window, but it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t have noticed anything on the other side anyway. While they drove, he merely sat gazing blankly into space, leaning into the corner of the seat with his head against the door. Every now and then, the driver would spot him in his rearview mirror talking softly to himself, the same recriminations exploding in Paul’s febrile mind and floating from his lips, the tortured guy unable or unwilling to keep them inside of himself for long.
Eventually they got to the destination and the driver let him out, a thankful look on his face when Paul paid and left without a scene. The taxi pulled away and Paul stood in the rain across the street from Annabel’s apartment block. There he remained for a while gazing up at it, unsure whether he should venture further or if he shouldn’t just hail another cab and be on his way.
But then something inside of him prodded him forward and he began marching across the wet street, up the steps of her apartment and buzzing the doorbell.
A few seconds later there was an answer.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Annabel?”
“Yes, it is. And whom am I speaking too?”
“You don’t know me. My name’s Paul Bishop, I’m Claire’s boyfriend. I just wanted—”
“Paul, you shouldn’t have come,” Annabel interrupted. “I’m not sure what problems you’ve got with Claire but you need to wait until she’s ready to talk to you.”
“Please, I just want to speak to her. To see if she’s okay.”
“Well, I’m afraid she’s not here.”
Paul closed his eyes at this news and leaned his head up against the wall, unsure if Annabel was merely hiding Claire.
“I gotta talk to her,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “I just gotta talk.”
“Look, do you want to come up? Get out of the rain for a moment.”
Paul didn’t say anything for a few seconds and simply stayed there with his eyes closed and his head leaned up against the wall.
“Okay,” he eventually mumbled.
The door buzzed open and he went inside. Taking the elevator, he made it to the doctor’s floor. When he exited the lift, she was waiting by the open door of her apartment.
“Hi,” she said as he came to her. “You look like you need a hot cup of coffee.”
“I can’t stay,” was all he said.
He wasn’t even sure why he’d come up. His first instinct had been to refuse and simply go away. But a part of him wanted company in that moment and it had coaxed him into accepting the invitation to come inside. Plus, he was curious to see where Claire was staying and also to meet the great Annabel Kline that he had heard so much about.
When he was inside the hallway of her apartment, he took off his wet coat. Annabel gave him an odd look as she closed the door, seeing that he’d gone out on a day like this wearing sweatpants, which were now soaked through. She also saw that his unshaved face had the appearance of someone that hadn’t slept for several days. While he took his coat off, he stumbled once or twice and Annabel observed the effects of alcohol.
She showed him into the lounge and then, as he sat down, she made them coffee. Soon she was bringing it to him, and when she handed him the coffee, he thanked her and took it.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” he said to her as she sat down on the other end of the couch.
“Isn’t it obvious? you’re getting out of the wet.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Paul hunched forward with his coffee in his hands and Annabel in a more comfortable position, gazing benevolently at the sad guy that sat on her couch.
“You’re a resident at St. Pancras, aren’t you?” she asked, breaking the silence.
“Yes,” he replied without turning to her.
“Do you know
a Dr. Jeffries?”
“Yes. He’s one of my supervising doctors. He’s a good guy.”
“Yes, he is. You know I went to medical school with him?”
“Did you,” Paul answered blankly.
“Yes.”
Paul shuffled his feet a little and felt uncomfortable being there. He didn’t know what to do or what he would do next as he sat there.
Turning to Annabel, he said, “I gotta go. Can you just give Claire a message for me?”
“I can, but wouldn’t you like to stay until your coffee’s finished?”
“I gotta go.”
“Where to in such a hurry?”
“Home, I guess. Or maybe somewhere else. I don’t know.”
“You sure are in a hurry to get to somewhere you don’t even know.”
“Yeah. Anyway,” he said as he stood up and placed his mug on the coffee table, “like I say, I gotta go.”
“Paul, you should just wait for her to speak to you. I’m sure she will. Whatever’s happened won’t last forever.”
“I think it will. Anyway, thank you for the coffee. And can you just tell Claire to call me. Any time. I’ll be by the phone.”
Having said that, he went to the hallway and began putting his rain-soaked shoes and coat on. Annabel stood back as he did, a worried look on her face.
“You know,” she said as he’d finished putting his coat on and had his hand on the door handle, “when I went through my divorce it did me good to be around people, to speak to people. Have you got anyone like that in New York?”
He looked her square in the eyes and said, “No. Claire was all I had in New York and now she’s gone.”
The moment he’d finished saying this, he opened the door, stepped out and shut it behind him, leaving Annabel stunned on the other side.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sam and Claire were sitting in the sand facing the ocean, the brisk breeze blowing in their faces, his arm around her and she cuddled into his side. It was getting toward evening now and the two had been sitting on the beach for what must have been hours, but which felt to them only minutes. Everything had faded around them and all they had was each other and the crashing waves. They hadn't spoken much and hadn’t kissed again. To hold each other was enough for both of them and they allowed themselves to be carried away by the moment, all their fears, guilt, shame and troubles fading along with the world.
It was only them now.
“What else did you have planned for the day?” Sam inquired, half in mirth.
She smiled from his side and replied, “Just this. To walk along the beach on a wet and windy day, and then to sit watching the water rolling in. Why? What did you expect?”
“I don't know. I half expected you to call me to that pier to say nothing else but goodbye forever.”
“Did that scare you? The thought of me sending you away.”
“Of course.”
She grinned at this. Grinned that she had that type of power over him. That his fate appeared welded to hers and she had the ability to pull it this way or that. However, the more she pondered this thought, the more she realized that it worked the other way too; she feared his rejection just as much as he feared hers.
“Half of me wanted to do that,” she said after a moment. “Wanted to send you away.”
“What stopped you?”
“You. The moment I saw you, I knew that it was stupid to think that I could ever turn you away.”
He gently smiled from beside her as his eyes watched the glittering horizon.
“You don’t know how good that makes me feel, to hear you say that,” he said to her.
She pushed herself closer into him and a warmth flowed through them that defied the cold air. Sat there as one, they were suddenly surprised when it began to rain on them.
Glancing around, Sam said, “We should get off the beach and find some shelter.”
But Claire gripped into him and replied, “No, let’s just sit here together in the rain.”
He instantly submitted and held her even tighter.
Steadily the rain got worse and soon it was drenching them. But, as though in protest, they remained like statues in the sand, clinging to one another, the rain soaking them and hammering upon their skulls. It became so hard that they couldn’t open their eyes all the way, the raindrops instantly forcing them closed. Claire turned to him and he instinctively turned back to her. Through the shroud of falling rain, she smiled and he leaned forward once more, kissing her on her warm lips. She took ahold of his head and pulled it toward her as the rain pattered down upon them, pouring down their faces like a gully.
They kissed passionately for several minutes, their hands spreading underneath each other’s coats and all over their bodies, stretching across each other’s skin, almost clawing at one another. Claire pulled her face away from his and smiled, his blue eyes sparkling back at her in the rain.
“We should go,” she said as she grinned at him. “Come on.”
She stood up abruptly and offered her hand down to him. He instantly took it and she hauled him up with all her strength, almost falling over in the process. Hand in hand, they then ran across the beach, carrying their shoes with them.
Once they were on the walkway, they found a little shelter where they sat on a bench, holding their feet out into the rain so that it would wash away the sand. Having washed their feet and put their shoes back on, they sat in the dry, Claire’s head on his shoulder, his arm around her, both watching the water drip rapidly down the front of the shelter, the rain drumming on the roof. The whole sky roared and crackled then and the deluge beat down on the earth with tremendous power.
“I find the rain so beautiful when it’s this strong,” Claire remarked.
“Me too. I often used to find myself gazing out of the glass front of the Cliff Face watching the rain. It’s something I miss with L.A. There’s not much rain.”
“Do you still have the Cliff Face?”
“Sure. I mean to go out there sometime. I have some people that look after the place while I’m gone. You should come?”
“I don't know. It would seem weird after the last time.”
Sam pulled away from her and looked her in the eyes.
“This isn’t ‘last time.’ This is new. I know we haven’t said much, but I feel something happening here, something that I want with all my heart.”
“What about Jenna Blackwell?”
Sam was momentarily stunned. It wasn’t that he’d been caught out in anything, it was more the fact that Jenna’s name was coming from Claire’s lips. The two states of his heart were colliding into each other. One: the guilt of being unable to give Jenna what she wanted and for leading her into something that was always destined to become broken. The other: his eternal devotion to Claire.
“We decided to go on a break,” he replied after a while.
“Was that before or after my call?”
“It was right before, believe it or not. We’ve been having problems lately. Seeing you kinda put it all into perspective. In fact, I feel terrible about it all.” He paused for a moment and gazed blankly ahead of himself. “She really does love me,” he went on.
“Do you love her?”
“I thought I did, but now I think that it was all just a hope.”
“A hope?”
“Yeah. I hoped that I was over you and over Marya. I hoped that I loved her and that I could move on. But as the years have gone by, instead of feeling growth between us, all I’ve felt is something wilting, slowly drying up inside of me. The other night when I spotted your eyes in that crowd, I knew for sure that Jenna and I were over the instant I felt the joy flood my heart. And that’s with or without you. Because if I could feel like that in a second with you, how could I not have felt it in five years with her? Even when you didn’t call and I suspected that you’d thrown the number away the moment you’d left the exhibition, even then I knew that it was doomed to end with her. She’d sworn to try and has even
been getting on really well with Jess, and I can see in her eyes that she wants this to work. But it’s not enough. I need to feel her here.”
Sam pointed to his heart before adding, “Like I do with you.”
She grinned and took him in her arms once more, where they stayed for some time in silence within each other, the sound of the rain echoing in their ears. Eventually they parted and the two once again sat side-by-side cuddled up, watching the rain lay siege to the beach.
“What about your guy, Paul?”
“Well, I guess it’s the same as you. The moment I saw you the other night, a shroud has come over us and now I haven’t spoken to him for the past five days. I’m staying at a friend of mine’s.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Claire sighed and Sam sensed a terrible sadness in it.
“He doesn’t deserve this,” she said after a moment, tears welling in her eyes. “He was really there when I needed him. I guess, like you, I needed someone to wash the thoughts of you away, but in the end it didn't work and now he’s somewhere out there in a terrible state because I’ve broken his heart. Then there’s my mother who loves and adores him. I think she’ll be almost as heartbroken as him. I mean, the other night, he proposed to me at dinner in front of my mom and my brother.”
“He proposed!?”
“Yeah,” Claire said sadly. “I turned him down and left the apartment. My mother was mortified. It was only days after I’d seen you.”
“Would you have said yes if you hadn’t seen me?”