My attraction to this stranger felt stronger than anything I had ever experienced before. When I took a moment to take my eyes away from him, I saw a beautiful brunette, who was just as stunning, sitting across from him.
Everyone in the restaurant seemed to know him and a few guests stopped to make small talk. The glances between the beautiful couple seemed a little awkward. They were too new to be husband and wife or even boyfriend and girlfriend. Maybe this was a first date?
“Dani. Dani.”
“Oh, sorry. Do you see that guy who just came in?”
“Yeah. So?”
“There’s somethin’ about him.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Shannon. “He looks ten years older than us.”
I was overcome with irrational jealousy. Why was he with her? That should be me. A whispered voice in my head told me our paths had crossed sometime ago, but not just in passing. We had been something once. I knew it, yet quickly dismissed the odd feelings I had towards this stranger.
Shannon and I finished our meals in silence because I couldn’t stop watching him. Watching his knife cut a piece of steak, then following the path of the fork to his mouth. Chewing. Chewing. Drinking the dark beer he ordered and wiping his upper lip with the cloth napkin on his lap. I know those lips. I’ve looked into those eyes. How did I know him? The room stood still for the entire dinner with flashes of black passing by as waiters and waitresses hurried to their assigned tables.
I desperately wanted to go over and say something to him, but I knew I’d appear completely insane with my face the way it looked and the obvious - I really had no idea who he was. What would I say?
“Let’s go,” said Shannon as she signed the check. I got the feeling she had said that more than once and I hadn’t been paying attention. Our entire dinner had come and gone while I sat, having only eaten a small bite of my food.
“Geez, where are you tonight?” she asked.
“I’m here. I’m just - I don’t know. I have to find out who he is.” Shannon was at a loss for words.
As we began to drive away, I stared out the passenger window, trying to get one last glimpse of the mystery man through the candlelit windows.
We got back to cabin #10 without saying one word. After we put our pajamas on, we crawled into our respective beds in silence. It felt like hours before I actually closed my eyes. My mind raced with images of his perfect face while desperately trying to place us together in some previous scene in my life, almost like when detectives on television ran through images of perpetrators on a computer looking for a match to a killer.
* * *
A man in a small wooden boat approached us with the distant fire in the background. Rowing faster and faster to reach us as quickly as he could. With every stroke of the oars, his face became more recognizable. He was the same man I had seen in the restaurant tonight, only oddly dressed. Wait - his attire looked like ours. Some sort of Victorian-era dark suit. And he had a mustache, unlike the man at dinner. But I couldn’t mistake those eyes. Or those lips. Was I dreaming about the man I saw in the restaurant? I was acutely aware of my surroundings and all of my senses were heightened. I couldn’t ever remember being able to smell or touch things in my dreams before, but in this dream I could. Like it was more than just a dream. I ran my fingers along the boat’s edge and felt splinters of wood sticking up in some spots. Taking a deep breath, the smell of the fire in the distance seared the inside of my nostrils. I touched my face, but it didn’t hurt when my fingertips felt my nose.
What was I seeing? What town was I in and what year was it? I must be dreaming. Damn, I hit my head hard. He was yelling something, but it was hard to make out with the commotion at the shore. Soon his calls became clear.
“Caroline!” he yelled. “You’re alive!”
“We’re here, Robert! We’re all fine,” yelled the tiny blonde woman.
So that was Robert.
Chapter 4
The sound of the shower woke me from the dream. It took a moment to realize I was back in the present. I reached over the piles of blankets bunched up next to me and grabbed my glasses from the nightstand between our beds. A bottle of painkillers sat at the edge and I knocked it on the floor as I blindly reached in the dark.
“Hey, girl,” said Shannon as she exited the shower, opening the heavy, patterned curtains on the way. “Glad to see you up and moving. You were mumbling something about a Robert last night. You have some crazy sex dream about that guy from the restaurant?”
“No, I was passed out. And I do not talk in my sleep, thank you very much,” I responded with a hint of insecurity.
“Well, whoever you were talking about last night sure sounded like someone I’d like to meet. Get your shower, then we’ll head down to the breakfast room for some yummy waffles.”
“Not sure if I can keep them down.” It was as if the dream had taken out all of my energy and left me nauseous.
While I soaped up, music from the radio resonated from the room as Shannon dressed. It never took me long to get ready for anything. After a few minutes in the shower, I got dressed and again, threw my hair up in a messy bun.
We walked over to the main house where a complimentary breakfast was served to the guests staying in the cabins. The shower helped a little, but I still couldn’t be sure I would keep any food down. My face still throbbed and I could tell I was more swollen than the day before as I touched my nose.
After pouring a cup of coffee, I attempted to make a waffle with the batter and waffle-maker that sat on a long table. Since I never really woke up until about an hour after I actually got out of bed, I failed to read the instructions on how to make the best waffle and burned it to a charred square. It took one of the hostesses almost fifteen minutes to scrape off the charred bits of batter from the waffle-maker. I quickly sat down at the small table Shannon had claimed for us. The only thing I could stand to eat was a banana.
“That’s all you’re going to have?” Shannon asked.
“Yeah, I know. I usually eat a lot more but I’m not feeling the greatest this morning.”
Shannon finished her meal while I took my last bite and we left the quaint little room.
“Ready to shop?” asked Shannon, while she dropped the keys to her car in a puddle near the driver’s side door.
“Sure,” I replied, hoping we’d see Mr. Mysterious from the night before in some random store.
I took the ten-minute drive into town as an opportunity to fantasize about running into him. I imagined him on the main street in town, an old-fashioned street lined with shops on either side. In my fantasy, he’d notice us as we drove by. I pictured him running after us, desperately trying to catch up. What was I thinking? He didn’t even see me staring at him throughout the entire meal last night.
We pulled over onto a side street, parked, and started our search for something unique to bring home. Tallulah was the perfect town to find just the right thing you didn’t know you were looking for. As we wandered through Anne’s Collectibles, I picked up a glass paperweight that looked like a frog, but quickly put it back, realizing I didn’t want to spend twenty dollars on something I was never going to use. Shannon bought a hand-painted wine glass from this artsy store in town for her mama, but was really on the hunt for something for Brad. It was already starting - she was losing her grip on why we had come here in the first place.
We went from store to store and found our way to a little café where we got afternoon lattes and blueberry scones. The gooey insides and warm breading took away any lingering nauseous feeling I had. I looked across the street and saw a quaint bookstore with the words ‘Something Old’ painted in gold letters above the entrance. Huge glass windows were placed on either side of an oversized, thick, wooden door. The name was ingenious and I wondered who it belonged to. I envisioned the owner as this middle-aged world traveler who had the money to open up the type of store that would only sell one book in a month, as if it was more of a hobby than a busines
s.
“Let’s go into that bookstore over there.” I said as we finished our lattes.
As we started across the street, I stopped in the middle of the road because I saw him. He stood in the window of the bookstore talking to someone holding a very old book. I sensed cars coming from both sides, but couldn’t move. There he stood with his chiseled nose and hair pulled into the same small, low ponytail. He had on a light blue sweater and looked every bit as good as he did the night before.
“Hey! Get out of the road!” yelled a passing driver who swerved to avoid me.
His ranting stunned me back into reality. Shannon was already on the other side standing just outside the entrance. She had her hands on her hips and an annoyed look on her face. She quickly turned her back to me and went inside.
I almost knocked her over as I stumbled into the entrance of Something Old.
“It’s him. Right there. He’s there.” I wasn’t making any sense, but Shannon finally realized who I was frantically pointing to as I ducked behind her.
“Alright, sweetie, calm yourself down a bit. What’s your problem, anyway? Who stops in the middle of the damn street? You’re so embarrassing sometimes.”
“I know. I’m sorry. What if he sees me? Look at my face!” I was hysterical.
“Now relax,” she said as she grabbed my arm and walked me towards him. “You look fine. Just a little puffy and blue is all.”
As we stepped further into the bookstore, we began to peruse piles of ancient books as though we were interested customers. Three very large tables in the middle of the room held novels that were strewn across them as if there were way too many to stack in any kind of organized fashion.
“Can I help you?” The man of my dreams stared directly at me and stood about three feet away.
“Um. Books. There are books here. And they’re really old.” Oh, God. He now thinks I’m some sort of deranged lunatic.
“Yeah, there are definitely old books here. Can I help you find something in particular?”
“No, just lookin’. Thanks,” replied Shannon with a slight turn of her head and a flirty smile.
I was positive that once he saw Shannon, he wouldn’t be interested in me anyway. Everyone was always more infatuated by her.
As I rifled through several books, I caught him glancing over his shoulder in my direction then quickly turning back to continue his conversation with another Tallulah local, thinking I didn’t notice. I didn’t have the courage to talk to him yet, so I pulled on Shannon’s shirt and walked towards the front doors.
We escaped without buying a single thing and I felt bad about that, but I wasn’t sure what books I had looked at or if I had even opened any. Heck, I wasn’t even sure of my name at that moment. Minutes later we were out the door.
“You really need to get a grip, Dani,” Shannon remarked while she searched for her keys in her bright purple purse.
“I’m just really attracted to him, I guess. But it’s more than that - I feel like I know him and I don’t know why.” Shannon was too busy looking at herself in the side mirror of her car to notice that I was trying to have a conversation with her.
We drove back to the cabin talking about Brad again and how Shannon missed him. Dear God - I don’t know why I had expected something different this time. It was always the same with those two.
When we got back inside, we threw on our bathing suits and began the mile walk back to The Falls. This time we hiked a little more and went to our other favorite spot. Not many people were there and we knew of one spot no one would find. We had our hiking shoes on, which looked a little strange with bathing suits and shorts, but we didn’t care. When we reached Sugar Glen, as Shannon had termed it years ago, we settled into the calm water with anticipation for a relaxing afternoon. The canopy of trees overhead kept it cool and fresh on the forest floor. Little glints of sunlight glimmered through the leaves when the wind swayed the branches above.
I hadn’t looked in the mirror since I woke up that morning. It made me wonder just how hideous I appeared to the man in Something Old. I was glad Shannon hadn’t commented on my nose the entire trip. It would have been completely typical of her if she had mentioned my hideousness in the bookstore.
“So what did you mean when you said you feel like you know him?” Shannon asked, when she had finally run out of things to say about Brad.
So she had been paying attention to me earlier. “I don’t know. I just have this strong feeling that I’ve seen him before. It’s strange, but have you ever met someone and you just can’t place how you know each other?”
“Happens to me all the time,” Shannon said, but I knew she didn’t understand and I avoided the explanation for fear of sounding too weird. “There was this time when I was at the mall and I swore I saw Melissa Tinsley in the way back of this one store, but it turned out that it wasn’t her at all.”
This was one of those moments when I realized Shannon just never understood the world around her. It wasn’t worth the effort to explain it either. I simply rolled my eyes and moved on.
“I just really want to find out who he is. What his story is.” I stared at the sunlight as it peeked through from above.
“Well, let’s go on a man hunt.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s find him. We’ll grab something quick for dinner and then drive around ‘til we run into him again.”
“That’s insane. I’m in!”
We hopped out of the pool of water and began the trek back to our cabin to prepare for the night stalking.
Since I hadn’t brought anything I was really proud to show off, I threw on the same outfit I had worn to Tallulah. We stopped at a diner for a quick bite and then began the search for Mr. Perfect.
The bookstore was first on our list, but we didn’t see him. It was Saturday evening around six-thirty and the sign in the window said that the store had closed at six o’clock. Slowly, we drove around town in search of the man I knew was important to me somehow.
We drove through tiny neighborhoods with little ranch houses and small cabins that year-round Tallulah locals lived in. The sun had set and it became hard to see beyond the dark storefronts and dim streetlights of the tiny town. Tallulah truly did have a special place in my young-adult memories. The buildings I had never really paid attention to suddenly became ingrained in my mind.
After hours of searching - perhaps blurring the lines of what could be grounds for a cease and desist letter - we returned to the cabin. I looked forward to at least dreaming about him since I wouldn’t see him before we left in the morning for Sugar Hill.
Every part of me thought I would find him again and that he’d magically ask me to a late dinner and we’d fall in love right there. Little messages of reality flashed into my head and reminded me that I didn’t know this man at all. My face was messed up, and besides, I had never been in love before, so what made me think I would know it when I found it?
A strange sadness came over me. My need for rest trumped my displeasure as I sank into the down pillow on my bed and slowly closed my eyes.
To my disappointment, I woke up early without remembering a single dream I had that night. Okay. So I was nuts.
We drove the hour back home and I couldn’t get him out of my mind. I had to do something to occupy myself and not think about him. Shannon dropped me off and I went upstairs to listen to music on my iPod. Bill and Mama weren’t home and Walter was the only one who greeted me.
I lay on my bed and fell asleep to the sounds of the rustling trees outside.
* * *
Robert pulled his boat alongside ours and carefully stepped in, one foot at a time. The cold sent a chill through my bones as the wind whipped through the town. The ocean breeze made it difficult to put out the fire from the massive Ocean House Hotel. Hysterical people ran around everywhere trying to find loved ones. Others tried to get their horses out of the way of the blaze.
“Darling, where were you?” asked Robert. “I c
alled for you but couldn’t find you,” he said as he took me in his arms and held me. As Danielle, I wanted to fight him off but resisted because I knew, as Caroline, this was a perfectly normal embrace.
“I just ran when I saw the flames,” replied this new version of myself as I slowly pulled away from him and looked at his face, studying every feature. It was as if I was watching someone I knew was me, from a time I’d never known. Maybe this was how it felt to have an out-of-body experience.
“Where is John?” Robert asked me.
The small blonde woman held my hand and began to cry. “I don’t think he made it out,” she said.
“Oh, dear Lord.” He hung his head for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “We should get back to shore and help.” He couldn’t bear the thought of losing whoever this John was and needed an escape.
When we rowed back, I could see that the long line of people passing buckets of ocean water from one person to the next had gotten progressively larger. “I thought I’d lost you,” Robert whispered to me as he helped each of us out of the little boat. I tried to piece together who I was to these strangers. They seemed quite attached to me, but I couldn’t figure out how I fit into their lives.
It was afternoon, but only glimpses of sunlight made it through the thick plumes of smoke. Each of us took our places in line and I squeezed my way in between two very large women who kept bumping their bustled behinds into me as we passed each bucket. I realized I was in the way and quickly moved out of line. One by one, my boat companions came to my side, waiting until the last of our group was ready to move.
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