by John Cariani
And then she got in the truck and waited for Phil to join her so they could go home.
But Phil didn’t join her.
She rolled down her window and leaned out and called, “Phil.”
And waited for an answer.
And didn’t get one.
So she rolled up the window and grabbed a flashlight out of the glove box and made her way back down to the picnic table and shone her light on Phil. Who had been staring out across the lake, past the illuminated makeshift ice rink and out into the darkness.
“Phil. Come on.”
But Phil didn’t come on.
Instead, he took his keys out of his pocket and held them out to Marci without looking at her.
And Marci stared at them.
And she felt a heaviness in her stomach. And it made her feel awful.
But then that strange lightness filled up her insides again. And it made her feel hopeful. And brighter. And unburdened.
And she took the keys from Phil.
And made her way back up to the Sierra.
She stopped and turned to Phil and jangled the keys once to let him know she was going—and maybe to ask him if he really wanted her to go.
Phil didn’t respond.
So Marci got in the Sierra, flicked off the flashlight and tossed it onto the passenger seat.
And then she started the truck.
The sound of the engine roaring to life filled the silent night. And the headlights flooded the ground and illuminated the spruce and hemlock and fir and pine trees. And Echo Lake Road.
Marci gave Phil one last chance to change his mind and join her in the truck.
But Phil was still staring out across the lake.
And not changing his mind.
So Marci revved the engine and drove up Echo Lake Road toward the Road to Somewhere/Nowhere.
And she took a right on the Road to Somewhere.
And headed home.
And the sound of the Sierra melted away into the silence.
And Phil felt the lightness fill his insides again. And it made him feel brighter.
Which was confusing, because he felt so sad.
But the lightness felt good. It made him feel unburdened. And hopeful, somehow.
He looked up at the sky.
And the northern lights were gone.
But he saw a shooting star.
His first instinct was to point it out to Marci.
* * *
But she wasn’t there.
9
As Ginette passed Echo Lake, she wished that she had never taken Pete to the observatory at Skyview Park to see if they might see the northern lights.
Because the only thing there was to do at the observatory was sit. And look at the sky. And she wished she and Pete had gone and done something. Like—gone dancing. Or gone skating at Echo Lake.
They could have seen the northern lights just fine while they were out on the ice. And if they appeared, great. And if not, they would have at least been doing something fun.
And Ginette could have let whatever was happening between them just be what it was—and become what it was, in its own time, instead of trying to name what it was.
She cursed herself for forcing the issue with Pete.
And then she dreamed on how going skating with Pete would have played out.
They probably would have had to shovel a space to skate on, and Pete would have grumbled a little about how much work it would have been. Because he was a little lazy.
And then Ginette would have had to hold Pete’s hand to make sure he didn’t fall. Because he was a lousy skater.
And she would have felt so close to him while she held his hand.
And he would have felt so close to her.
And they probably would have felt exactly like they had felt when they were sitting on the bench at the observatory.
And then she thought that maybe she should go back to the observatory and just sit back down next to Pete on the bench and take his hand in hers and not talk about what had just happened.
And they could just be close again.
And they could start over.
And she almost turned and ran back to him—when she realized that she was home.
And decided that home was actually just what she needed.
And she crossed the Road to Nowhere and made her way into Spruce View Estates on Spruce View Lane.
Hers was the first mobile home on the right.
She headed up her driveway and remembered that her mom was at work, so she’d have the house to herself. So she could have a snack and watch something dumb on TV and fall asleep on the couch.
And maybe she’d see Pete tomorrow and try to pick up where they were before they had gone to Skyview Park—when they were holding hands in front of Pete’s parents—before Ginette had tried to name what they were.
But then that strange lightness filled up her insides again. It was the same lightness she had felt earlier in the evening when she had held Pete’s hand and told him she loved him, and when Pete had told her that he loved her, too.
And that lightness made her feel like something really wonderful was going to happen.
And it made her feel like Pete was a part of the wonderful thing that was going to happen.
And it made her turn around and head back down Spruce View Lane and back to the Road to Nowhere.
She was about to turn left and head east on the Road to Somewhere to go see Pete.
But that strange lightness made her turn right.
And head west.
Toward the edge of Almost and the wilderness of northwestern Maine.
* * *
It was 8:30 when she heard a car approaching slowly from behind her. And she hoped that whoever was driving wouldn’t stop and check on her, like Gayle Pulcifer had. Fortunately, the vehicle passed Ginette by, and when it did, Ginette could see that it was a taxicab—and she had only seen a few taxicabs in her life. In Presque Isle. In Bangor. In Washington, DC, on a school trip.
But she had never seen one in Almost.
Who the heck, she wondered, would have been taking a taxi to Almost, Maine?
And where were they going?
The Road to Nowhere ended in less than a mile. And there were only two more houses on it: the Hardings’ and Rhonda Rideout’s—which was the last house in Almost before the wilderness began.
Ginette watched the taxi’s red taillights shrink as they moved away from her. And then they stopped moving away from her. Because the taxi had stopped—about a quarter of a mile away at the Hardings’ house.
Ginette walked more slowly and watched the taxi sit in front of the Hardings’ for about a minute. And then it turned around and started heading back toward Ginette. And went by her.
Ginette wondered where it was going.
And then she wondered where she was going. And she stopped and almost turned and started making her way back home.
But just as she was about to turn back, she felt that strange lightness fill up her insides. And it made her keep walking.
Even though she had no idea where she was going.
* * *
At 8:35, Ginette reached the Hardings’, which was about half a mile down the road from Echo Lake.
Mr. and Mrs. Harding had two daughters. Allie was a couple of years younger than Ginette and was really good at chess and wore the thickest glasses Ginette had ever seen. And Emma was a couple of years older than Ginette and had been wearing braces her whole life, it seemed, and liked to party.
The post lamp in the Hardings’ front yard was on when Ginette walked by. And, against the light it threw, Ginette could see the silhouette of a very tall, slim woman. Even from her silhouette, Ginette could tell the woman had high heels on. And a short dress or skirt. And a coat with a large, fur-lined hood.
She must have been the passenger in the taxi. Because her silhouette told Ginette that she was definitely from somewhere else. But not from somewhere like Presque Isle or Car
ibou or Fort Kent.
She was from somewhere much farther away—in distance and in sensibility.
Ginette stopped to look at the woman, clicking off her flashlight as she did so she wouldn’t be discovered. There was something so glamorous about her, Ginette could tell, even in silhouette. And she wondered why such a glamorous woman was at the Hardings’—the least glamorous people she knew.
And then she continued on her way, trying to not let her boots crunch too loudly in the snow.
And was surprised by how sad she was to realize that she’d probably never see the woman again.
* * *
Ginette had been right: the tall, slim woman was the passenger in the taxicab.
And she had come from far away—from the opposite corner of the country, actually.
When the taxicab driver dropped her off in front of the Hardings’, he asked her if she wanted him to wait for her.
But the woman said no, that she was fine. And that she wouldn’t be needing a ride back.
Because she was at the right house. And she was sure that the person she was there to see would be there. Because she had heard that he still lived there.
And she could tell that he was home. Because a warm, creamy light shone through the closed curtains in the front picture window.
As the taxicab drove away, the woman really hoped she had heard right.
She crunch-crunch-crunched her way up the recently plowed driveway and pulled her suitcase behind her by its telescoping handle. A thin crust of uneven snowy ice covered the driveway and made the suitcase totter and weave a bit—and the woman almost slipped, because she was wearing heels. And she wondered why in the world she was wearing them. They were useless in northern Maine, especially in the winter.
But she had come in such a rush that she had forgotten to dress properly. Or wear the right shoes.
After a few more steps, she stopped and looked at the house.
It was still green with white trim. And still tidy and well kept.
Suddenly, she felt a strange lightness fill up her insides. It was the same strange lightness she had felt that morning—when she was preparing for an early conference call with clients from the other side of the country—and saw the sunrise through the window of her corner office on the nineteenth floor.
The woman hadn’t watched the sunrise in a while.
And it made her think of him.
And of something very important that she was supposed to have done nearly twenty years ago—at sunrise.
And she hadn’t let herself think about him or what she was supposed to have done—since she had seen him last. Because she couldn’t let herself think about him. Because thinking about him would have derailed the grand plans she had made for herself.
But that morning, as she watched the sunrise, she found herself thinking about him.
And as she looked out over the world from her high perch, she felt a deep, desperate dread that she might never find her place in it.
And she felt like she was going to throw up. Because she thought she had done all she could have done to find her place in this world. She had earned. She had accomplished. She had experienced. She had traveled. She had influenced and hobnobbed.
But she still hadn’t found it.
And then a strange lightness filled up her insides. It overwhelmed her. And relieved her nausea. And made her feel like she had the warmth and light of the very sunrise she was watching inside her. And like she might levitate or something.
And she realized that she didn’t need to find her place in this world.
Because she had already found it.
It was with him.
And she needed to see him.
Right then.
So she skipped out on her early conference call with her clients from the other side of the country.
And went to him.
Right then.
She got on a plane to Boston. And then to Bangor. And then she took a taxi to get to him.
And now, she was about to see him.
And it looked like he was home.
The lightness she had been feeling as she stood in his driveway gave way to another equally alien feeling—one of yearning. And it surprised her. Because yearning was something she had trained herself not to do. The people she associated with didn’t yearn. For anything. If they wanted something, they got it. And if they wanted to accomplish something, they accomplished it. And if they wanted to be something, they became it.
The woman had learned well from them. And she had gotten really good at getting and accomplishing and becoming. She did it better than any of them.
And she didn’t yearn anymore. Or—so she thought.
But there she was. In Almost. At his house. Yearning. Hoping.
But still absolutely certain that she’d get what she deserved.
A surge of anticipation—and maybe the cold, too—made her shiver.
She smiled at how right everything was about to be.
And she continued up the driveway toward the house.
Her shoes made the going rough. And made her feel like she wasn’t from there anymore.
And that made her happy. Because she wasn’t from there anymore. And she had worked hard to seem like she wasn’t from there anymore.
Which may be why she hadn’t been back to Almost since she went away to college. That—and her family had moved away shortly after they dropped her off at a university that no one from Almost, Maine, had ever gotten accepted to. So there was no reason to go back. Because there was nothing in Almost for her. Or so she had always thought.
* * *
The woman started toward the modest ranch-style house again, her heels crunching in the icy driveway. And she must have crossed some magical plane, because a motion sensor turned on the black outdoor post lamp that lit the path from the driveway to the front door.
And she froze, expecting him to answer the door at any moment. Because he must have seen the light go on.
But after a few moments, she realized that maybe he hadn’t seen the light go on. Because he wasn’t coming out to see what—or who—had triggered the sensor.
And she got nervous. Everything felt wrong all of a sudden.
And she decided that there was no way she was going to be able to go through with this, and she turned and started heading toward the road, pulling her wheelie suitcase behind her.
But then that strange lightness she had been feeling grew inside her. And made her relax. And believe. And she turned and faced the house so she could do what she was there to do.
And she made her way to the side door, because she had never used the front door of his house.
As she did, another motion sensor switched on the light by the door. The sudden illumination startled her a little, but she was happy for the light, because it helped her see the little cement set of stairs that led to the small back porch better.
The woman put down her suitcase.
And realized that she was exactly where she had been when she last saw him.
And she couldn’t wait to see him again.
She walked up the three steps to the door.
And smiled at the promise of what was to come. And inhaled deeply. And then put her black-genuine-leather-gloved hands to her mouth and didn’t exhale for a while. And maybe giggled a little as she dropped her hands to her sides. And then she shook off some nerves and rat-tat-tatted on the white aluminum storm door.
The rat-tat-tat on the door pierced the northern Maine quiet.
The woman waited, and the anticipation she was feeling made the quiet seem so loud.
After a moment, she knocked again. And in the middle of the second rat-tat-tat on the door, the kitchen light came on.
The woman suddenly hurried down the cement steps to give herself some space from him when he answered the door.
She heard the weather stripping make a squeaky, popping sound as it unsealed itself from the door frame. She hadn’t heard that sound in a couple
of decades.
As the main door squeaked open, the woman dropped her head into her leather-gloved hands and smiled and tingled all over. And when she heard the aluminum storm door pop open, she turned away from the man who had appeared on the stoop and started babbling: “I know this isn’t going to be very easy, but I was in my office early this morning, and I saw the sunrise, and I just realized that what I did was wrong, and I wanted to make it right, and so I flew and I took a taxi to get to you, I just had to come see you, thank God you’re here—”
The woman had finally looked at the man and suddenly stopped talking and actually gulped, because—the man wasn’t the man she was looking for.
He was … someone she didn’t know. A small man. An old man, maybe. In a bathrobe.
The woman looked like she had seen a ghost.
“Oh—wait—I’m sorry—you’re not— I’m … I’m so sorry,” she said, laughing a strange laugh. “Um … does Daniel Harding live here? I’m looking for Daniel Harding.”
The small man seemed surprised and deliberately asked, “You’re looking—?”
The woman finished his sentence to save time. She was very efficient. “Looking for Daniel Harding, yeah. He lives here. I thought.”
The man stared blankly at the woman. He looked quite confused. Which made sense. He probably hadn’t expected someone to be coming to his door at a little before nine on a Friday night in the middle of winter.
And he certainly wasn’t expecting someone like this woman, in her high heels and fancy coat with its large fur-lined hood.
Then the woman realized that she was so sure that Daniel Harding—the man that she was looking for—was going to be there, that she hadn’t even considered the fact that he might not be there. And she started to sweat. Even though she was cold. Because she was realizing that the man she had come to see no longer lived where he used to live. And she was completely shocked that he wasn’t there. “Oh, no!” she gasped. “He doesn’t live here, does he?”