“Mind if I join you?”
She looked up, smiling as if we were old friends and she’d been expecting me. “Oh, no. Please, Sam, have a seat. Curtis and I were just chatting, and I had just ordered myself a sandwich.” She swirled her drink, which looked to be a martini.
“Great! I’ll have one, too. Two of whatever Emily is having, Curtis.”
Curtis smiled a strange conspiratorial smile. “Yessiree, boss,” and he swaggered away to fetch up our orders.
“I think Curtis likes me,” Emily began. “You crushed his groove.”
“Oh? I can’t say as I’ve seen Curtis’ groove before—maybe I should have stood back and watched.” We both laughed and the image of Curtis hitting on her continued to amuse me.
“I’ll agree; you are quite enchanting, so I can see how he might give you a little extra attention. So, what’s a pretty lady like you doing at the bar like this in the middle of the day?”
She laughed lightly again. “Interesting choice of words, Sam. Really, I have nothing else to do. I came out here to relax, maybe have some fun and instead I find myself bored out of my mind. I work all week, sometimes six days a week. I take a few days every spring for myself to unwind, but I usually go to the Bahamas or Cozumel or somewhere touristy like that. This is the first year I just booked something, got in the car and left. I’m usually not alone…” Her voice trailed off, and she seemed to stop herself. “I know I told you it was a few days ago, but to be honest, I just booked the reservation with you the day before, which is probably why it wasn’t in your system.”
“That is possible—it usually takes a couple of days for us to get all the information in our system.” Yeah, go for that small talk. Chicks love technical innkeeper stuff; it’s a real turn-on. I read that in a Playmate’s profile once.
“Oh, but listen to me. You really don’t care what I do. You’re just being the nice owner of the inn and listening to my rambling.” She sighed, and her eyes caught mine again.
“No, really, I saw you in here and came in to see how you were doing.
How did your bubble bath go? I trust you enjoyed the wine and chocolate and had no further lighting issues?” I asked, with a clear image of how the bubbles would sit on her perky breasts and the warm water would caress and outline the valley between them. I stopped smiling quickly, before it got too creepy.
“No… I mean, yes.” She stopped for a minute and continued thoughtfully.
“I mean the bubble bath was wonderful. The oils you have in the rooms are quite exquisite.” Sandy chose all the bath amenities. “And no, I have not yet enjoyed the wine and chocolates. It seems so… I don’t know… desperate to sit around and drink by yourself, don’t you think?”
I wasn’t really thinking of anything so much as imagining her rubbing oil down her firm calves and up the inner half of her supple thighs. Desperate? I somehow doubted this lovely young lady was desperate. I was desperate, but I wouldn’t sit around eating chocolate and drinking wine by myself. I have Jack to keep me company, and he doesn’t like chocolate.
“No, not at all. Having a nice glass of wine to help you relax and unwind, why not? That’s why you’re here.” Curtis came back with two tuna salad sandwiches… I hate tuna. And the smile on his face betrayed that not only did
Curtis knows that, but he enjoyed retaliating for my presumptuousness. I guess I just assumed she had ordered anything but the one thing we had that I did not like.
“Thank you, Curtis,” I said with a small sigh and a smile.
“Yes, thank you very much, Curtis,” Emily offered with a warm smile.
Curtis smiled and retreated with a quiet laugh, only stopping for a moment to give me a look of smug satisfaction. Emily and I ate our sandwiches and chatted a bit more. I learned that she is 27 and a lawyer in Center City with a medium-sized law firm. She got her law degree from University of Pennsylvania and loved the city so much that she decided to stay. She has a condo in Center City in the Benjamin Franklin House and loves being close to the theater and Chinatown. We chatted for a couple of hours, had a few drinks… she stuck with the martinis and I began my Jack ritual, but added some soda to it so I didn’t look like a complete lush.
Around 4, Natalie found me to let me know she was heading home to get ready for her guests. She frowned a bit when she heard Emily and I laughing, seemingly a bit intoxicated from our many cocktails.
“Sam, I’ll see you tonight, right?”
“Oh, yeah… of course. I’ll be there.”
I had completely forgotten that Natalie had invited me to her Bible study group a couple of days ago—her attempt at saving me from myself. Maybe she was leading me down the path of righteousness or something like that. I said I would go; I didn’t want to be rude or hurt her feelings. And heck, if they really had a pitcher of margaritas there, how bad could it be? But now, after my little run-in with Pastor Paul, I was a bit sheepish about going.
“What time was it again, Nat?”
“We start at 7 o’clock sharp.” She stared at me for a good ten seconds, and I smiled and nodded.
“Seven, Sam.”
“I got it, Nat, I got it.”
She left, but didn’t look terribly happy about our exchange.
Emily and I continued our drinking and chatting. We talked more about her career, how much she loved the beach and warm weather. I wondered if she was this open with everyone or if the martinis were prying her open a little bit. No matter—it was fun. And I still couldn’t put my finger on what it was that drew me to her. Besides her killer ass and fantastic rack, of course.
“Sam, don’t you have to go?” Emily pointed to the clock behind the bar. I hadn’t even noticed the other guests come in for dinner at six. It was now almost seven.
“Oh, yeah, crap…” I gathered myself quickly and began to leave. “Hey,
Emily, wanna come?”
“Come? With you? Umm… Where are we going?”
“Bible study—Natalie, my front desk manager, hosts one every Saturday night. I’ve never gone before and would love to have some company. Maybe even give me an excuse to bail, if I need one.”
“I don’t… I don’t think I should. It’s not really my thing.” All of a sudden, like a door, Emily was closed to me. Atheist, perhaps? Damn. I’d overstepped my bounds. Never mix religion and sexy breasts.
“I’m sorry, I was presumptuous, I just… I’m very sorry. I’ll see you later.
Enjoy your evening.” With that, I bolted out of the bar.
I didn’t see Emily’s reaction, but I did grab the bottle of Jack on my way
out of the office. Just what I needed: Some liquid fire for my belly… and head.
The good news was that Natalie’s apartment was only a 10-minute walk from the inn. The bad news was that I spent an hour polishing off that bottle of
Jack, and that 10-minute walk took almost another hour. It was almost 9 when I stumbled up to Natalie’s door and started banging. She opened the door, and her look of relief quickly dissipated into horror, then shock, then anger. She stepped outside and was so upset she could barely speak to me.
“I cannot believe it. You are two hours late, and drunk. I can’t introduce you to the group, it’s… it would be… embarrassing. What is wrong with you?
And why are you hitting on guests? Stay away from her, Sam—she’s bad news.”
I didn’t respond, and she just looked at me with a hard disdain.
“Please, go—just go home.”
With that, she turned around and shut the door without looking at me again.
“Screw you; I didn’t want to come to this stupid thing anyway…” Then I heard the door click… Had it not been shut? Did she hear that? Dammit. I turned back around to knock on the door and apologize but thought better of it. I would just make it worse.
I stumbled back to the inn but took a detour into the bar. Several guests stared as I made my way behind the bar, looking for Jack. He usually didn’t hide from me, but I was
having a hard time finding him. Curtis came out.
“What are you doing?” he whispered. “Go to bed; you’re already loaded.”
Where the hell did he go?!
“Sam, seriously, get your skinny ass out of here before I have to haul it out myself.” Jack! I grabbed the bottle, then looked at Curtis. “Screw you. Leave me alone.”
I stumbled out of the bar into my office with my only buddy. Good ole
Jack. I didn’t even get through half the bottle before I passed out face down on my desk.
What a great day.
March 9th
In the morning, my memory was a little bit fuzzy, so I called Natalie into my office to tell her I was giving her a 10% raise because of how valuable she was to me and how I couldn’t run the inn without her. She just looked at me and quietly said, “Thank you, is that all?”
“Well, I guess so… I guess I was just expecting you to be a little more excited.”
“Excited? Are you kidding? You think that after last night, you giving me a raise could excite me? Sam, you need help. I invited you over last night to reach out to you and show you I was your friend that I care about you and… and that I…”
She stopped here and fiddled with her hands a bit.
“Sam, I am having a really difficult time just watching you drink yourself to death. Sandy, Tyler, and Caitlyn would never have wanted this to happen to you.
And I… I just can’t sit here and watch.”
“Natalie,” I began, “I know that our relationship is a bit deeper than just working together, but that is really none of your business. I appreciate your concern, but I will deal with my life and the loss of my family in any way I see fit.”
I might as well have punched her in the stomach. Her face went white with shock. I thought she was about to cry. She obviously couldn’t believe the words that just came out of my mouth… could I? None of her business? That simply was not true. I wanted her to care. I did.
“I… I don’t know how much longer I can work here like this. I understand your position. I can’t watch this happen to you. I’m sorry for intruding. If you need me, I’ll be at the front desk—for now. I’ll let you know what I decide to do.”
And she was gone before I could do or say anything. What an idiot. She was probably the best person in my life, and I might as well have run her down with my car and said, “Oh gee, sorry.” What an ass.
So I fired up the misery mix and poured myself a drink. And that’s what I did for the rest of the day…
Oh how I wish, how I wish you were here…
March 10th
I awoke suddenly at 3:10 and saw that it was still dark out. My head was pounding over and over, like the surf at high tide pounding on the shore… in and out, over and over. My eyes blurrily fixated on something in front of the window. What, who was that? It was a person… a woman… I rubbed my eyes and could only see the glare of the desk lamp shining on the window, which overlooked the back garden behind the inn. It was eerily quiet—I’d left the Misery Mix playing, but it had stopped. The only sound was a light wind against the window... and there was that feeling again. The one from the cemetery, but it seemed that obvious no one was here. Well, except for that person I just saw when I woke up, that person who is no longer here.
That’s when I saw it. At least, I think I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. There was something on the bookshelf, something that I don’t remember being there before. I looked over at the books on the shelf just below the window, my eyes rested upon a folded piece of paper. Had that been there before? I hadn’t cleaned my office in weeks, but there was never anything except books on that shelf. I picked up my head… slowly. My fixation with the mysterious paper helped to numb the pain in my head, but it was still there.
As I slowly got to my feet, I felt that the paper wasn’t the only thing different in my office, but I couldn’t place what else was wrong. I walked over to the bookshelf and stared at the paper. It seemed to mock me, to dare me to pick it up and open it. It beckoned me to read its contents and discover its mystery.
So I reached for the paper. It was a simple note, written in blue pen with familiar flowery handwriting:
You don’t know what happened.
You don’t understand. They need Help.
Only you can help.
My eyes scanned the entire office. I felt like someone was messing with me—what happened, where? What don’t I understand? What help? What was this note referring to? Who needed help? How did it get here? And why me? I didn’t know, but my head hurt and I didn’t know what to do at that moment.
Seems like I don’t know much. Was this a sign that I should stop drinking or start praying? Maybe turn to God for help? I wasn’t sure, but one shouldn’t make rash decisions under duress. So I reached for Jack and took a nice long gulp from the bottle.
Then I noticed the door to my office was slightly open. I was sure that
Natalie closed it on her way out, but here it was, open. Who came in here? Who wrote me this note, and what did it all mean? I thought I recognized the handwriting. It looked a lot like Sandy’s handwriting, but that was impossible. All of this was making my head hurt even more. Was it time to start praying?
Maybe I should give Pastor Paul a call.
I put the note in my pocket and opened the office door further. I made my way out to the lobby to find Natalie at the front desk. She looked at me; at first it was more of a glare, but she quickly softened when she saw the panicked expression on my face.
“Sam, what’s wrong?”
I stared at her for a long moment, regaining a bit of composure.
“Were you in my office? While I was sleeping, did you come in my office?”
“Sleeping?” I could see the look of disbelief on her face. “No, after our”— she stumbled just a little—“meeting, I went home and then came back in to do my night shift at 10 as usual on Sundays. Why?”
“Did you see anyone come into my office?” I noted that my tone of voice was a little on the harsh side, and I should probably soften it up. I’m not mad at
Natalie—I think.
“No, Sam. What is going on? You’re acting strange, even for you.” Real nice, but true; it’s just great when people know you better than you know yourself.
“Nothing. I… just… someone came in my office and moved something while I was asleep, that’s all. It’s nothing. I guess.”
And what the hell did that mean? Even for you? As I turned to go to bed,
I could feel Natalie’s stare on my back. Her pity, her condescension… At that moment, I hated her for it.
On the way to my cottage, I decided to take a walk around, just to make sure everything was okay around the inn. Okay, so that wasn’t the true reason. I just needed to walk and think. As I made my way around the inn, I began to wonder what I was doing. What was I going to do? How long could I go on this way? Nothing was making sense; I couldn’t even think of anything I wanted anymore. I stopped and looked out a window. My head didn’t hurt quite as much as it had earlier. I rubbed face in my hands and then scratched my head.
“Time for bed, old man,” I murmured to myself.
That’s when I heard it, though I think I felt it as much as I heard it. It was soft, so soft it was barely audible. It was coming from down the hall. Crying… A woman was crying. I followed the muffled sounds of tears to the Jefferson Suite.
Emily was upset, and at 4 in the morning? Before I could think about what I was doing, I was knocking on the door.
“Emily, is everything alright? It’s Sam.”
The crying stopped. And there was only silence for what seemed like the longest time.
“Listen, if you need anything please, just…” and the door opened. Emily stood there, looking absolutely beautiful. She had on a powder-blue cashmere sweater that enhanced her emerald-green eyes and a dark blue skirt with no stockings. I barely even noticed that her eyes were swollen with tears. I just stared into them for
a long moment. They had a hold on me again. She sniffled, and it brought me back.
“Why are you”—sniffle—“here?”—sniffle.
“I… I was just, well… to be honest, I was having a difficult night and decided to take a walk around the place before heading off to catch a couple of hours of sleep.”
Honest? Yeah, that’s what that was.
“And I heard you crying. I was concerned—is everything okay?”
What a stupid question. A pretty woman is crying and I’m asking her if everything is okay. She should just slam the door in my face for asking stupid questions. Instead, she stifled a cry and just shook her head.
“No,” she whimpered and suppressed another cry. I wanted to hold her, to pretend that I could make whatever was wrong right again.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said simply and without any real emotion.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we go downstairs, I’ll open the pub, and we can have a drink?”
“No, I don’t think… I mean, I don’t want to go downstairs. I don’t want… I still have that bottle of wine, maybe… I mean, would you mind coming in and…”
She trailed off and looked down at her cute little toes.
“Sam, can I talk to you? I mean, really talk to you? I need to talk to someone… to you, I think.” Her face was questioning and appealing to me for help, maybe even for answers. She looked away, and I knew that she wanted me to—no, needed me to—come in.
“Of course.” She had already turned to retreat into her room, as if she knew I would say yes and follow. Was my lonely desperation that obvious? Or could she really read my mind? Either way, I followed her into her room quite willingly, trying not to get too close. I wasn’t entirely sure I trusted myself alone in the room with her, considering my condition. I could see that she had already taken the bottle out and put it on the table, perhaps contemplating drinking it alone? I knew how she hated the idea of drinking alone. Maybe she was anticipating someone else’s arrival… mine, even? Dear Lord, I hope I am not that transparent.
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