She laughed. His heart flipped.
He wondered if he could manage this without screwing it up. What were the chances they would keep running into each other?
“I’m glad you’re here… and that you’re-” alive “-okay.”
“Me, too… and you, too.” She gestured to his head. “You’re still-”
“Oh.” He was pretty surprised to hear that. “You, too,” he said apologetically.
“Oh.”
“I wanted to talk to you after.. Well, you know. It seemed like a bad time.”
She sighed, lifting one shoulder. “I wish you had.” She leaned toward him, as she had on the elevator, until their shoulders were touching. “I went to look for you at the restaurant.”
It had never occurred to him she would look for him. He would have left a phone number, or something. How many chances would he miss? As if reading his mind, she turned to face him, and he was leaning towards her. Was it too soon to kiss?
“I could use money for bus fare,” she said. “I think I should just go home.”
What? How could she be talking about leaving?
“I would pay you back, send it in the mail, as soon as I got home-”
A woman interrupted them - another human being on the verge of death. Sometimes you couldn’t get away from it.
“For Christ’s sake, girl, how hard it is to let the boy kiss you?”
Stuart was more than a little stunned as the woman turned to face them. She was older, but not old, with long, silver hair. She wore jeans and a North Face shell coat. “I really thought you were getting better at this.”
Allison sounded as stunned as he felt. “Um, better at.. What?”
The woman opened the pack of cigarettes and offered one to each of them. They both accepted. “I don’t smoke much,” Allison said with the guilt of the sometimes smoker. “Me, neither,” said Stuart, “much.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “This is your problem, both of you. If you’re going live, live. If you’re going to smoke, smoke. Stop apologizing for it.”
“Excuse me,” said Stuart, offended by a stranger chiding them on the street. Except she didn’t feel like a stranger. “Have we met?”
The woman tossed him a lighter. “Catherine, call me Cath. And yes, we’ve met. In dreams.” She pointed at Allison. “You, I’ve met in person.”
“Oh, it was you.” Stuart realized he was talking about the time he had seen her. Death. “In the hospital.” The woman nodded.
“Are you Death?” he breathed. “Or an... angel?” The word felt silly as he said it, and altogether possible, all at once.
She rolled her eyes and gestured to herself, as if to say, in sport wear? “I’ve been a lot of things, but never an angel. And you silly children, it’s not about death. It’s about life. Come with me.”
Stuart and Allison looked at each other, shrugged, and took equally long drags on their cigarettes before following obediently behind, like juvenile delinquent ducklings.
“I don’t have a lot of time, have to be somewhere else soon, but you two have gotten way off track. It’s a shame. You finally make a few good decisions, Stuart becoming a business owner-”
“You did?” Allison smiled. He nodded.
“- and Ally dumping the suit-”
“Good on you, I hated him.” Allison looked at him sideways. Not unpleased, he thought.
“-and you end up together on a door step. That’s how this is supposed to work.”
“How what’s supposed to work?” Allison asked the woman’s back as they negotiated the crowded sidewalk.
“This. Destiny. Following the signs. You’ve been given one of the greatest gifts possible, and hidden from the world.”
They both started to object and she turned and pointed at Stuart and Ally in turn. “You push people away by acting like an overeager puppy. And you just don’t even try. Bus out of town! Pfft. Get in the car.” The car in question was a grey sedan, parked legally - which was a miracle of a sort in the city. Allison took the front seat, and Stuart the back.
“Where are we going?”
“I just need to get closer to my next spot. It gets kind of busy the better you are at following the signs. So you guys get to come along with me. We need to talk. So what do you think is going on here? You think you see Death, like it’s the Grim Reaper or something?’
They were silent.The answer was yes, but it sounded like she was making fun of them.
“No, no, no. Though it is kind of funny that you both think that. You’re the only ones I’ve met who’ve made that mistake. You’ll be good together.”
Stuart had a moment of panic. Moving too fast, it will push her away…
“So what is it, then?” he said, trying to get back to the subject. Whatever the subject was.
“It’s life. We don’t have any truly good words for it in our language. But think, energy, life force, aura, destiny, purpose, meaning, love… mix those all together and you get close.”
“But everyone we see like that dies,” said Allison.
“Not everyone. Not you two. And you can probably think of some others. Like Jill.”
“But Jill wanted to die.”
“That’s not what drew the light to her, love. She was full of life when she met you. She was making decisions every day that brought her closer to the person she was meant to be, whether that was being friends with you or focusing on studies that helped her become. And her hobbies were so varied, remember, theater and music and volunteering. She was on fire as a young adult.”
“How did you know her?”
“Through you, your dreams are very loud.”
“You see people’s dreams?” Stuart felt violated somehow.
“Only sometimes, only of people like us and that I will need to guide someday.”
“Are you guiding us now?” Allison seemed very calm and curious about this… Maybe he was dreaming. This was all very surreal. They were all surrounded by light now. And not going to die? That would take him some time to wrap his head around.
“You’re on your own for a while yet, but I need to get you back on track. You’re almost thirty and you’ve been avoiding your destiny for far too long. It’s a shame… Fortunately, it’s never too late.”
“Too late for what?” Stuart asked.
“Follow the signs, the dreams. You both would have met in college if you had gone to music school, Stuart.”
“I didn’t play an instrument,” Stuart said weakly. He knew what she was going to say before she said it.
“You started dreaming about the violin when you were 11.”
It was true. He still dreamed about the violin, all the time.
“And Ally-”
“Singing. I’d been accepted to the repertory program but changed my mind at the last minute.”
“For Human Resources, ugh.”
“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Allison said wryly.
“That may be some people’s destiny, but not yours.”
“So what?” Stuart felt defensive. “We’re just supposed to become musicians now?”
“You’re supposed to watch for the signs. The more you watch, the more steps you take, the more powerful they become. And good God, Stuart! You had a full-out vision last week, and you let her walk out the door.”
Stuart was in the back seat, so he was glad Allison couldn’t see how mortified he felt. But Allison surprised him by saying softly, “I think I saw that one, too… it’s why I wore the sundress the next day. Not for Jill, but because of that daydream..”
Stuart felt like he had truly fallen down the rabbit hole. “I thought-”
“You thought you were crazy,” said Cath. “I know. And that isn’t so uncommon. We aren’t taught to trust visions in our culture. But you two need to start. I can’t tell you where it will lead, but I do know I’ll see you again. Right now, I need to kick you out of the car.” She stopped at a red light and motioned them out.
“But I don’t under
stand,” said Allison as she opened her door. “What are we supposed to do?”
“I can’t tell you that. You have to learn to watch the signs and take a step toward them however small. You will only learn by doing. But for goodness’ sake, if someone is trying to kiss you, don’t ask for bus fare.”
Chapter 6
Allison and Stuart stood awkwardly on the curb. It was only 10 p.m., but Allison thought it felt a lot later. She didn’t know what to say, and couldn’t quite bring herself to look at Stuart after Catherine’s last comment. Had he really been about to kiss her? Had she really asked him for bus fare?
She rubbed one arm, nervously.
Stuart gave a little cough. “Well, the good news is she dropped us off in front of pizza by the slice.” Allison turned around. It smelled amazing.
“Let’s go,” she said, putting out her cigarette, still trying to get over her shame. If she had anywhere to run away to, she probably would right now, the urge to hide was so strong. But wasn’t that just what Cath was talking about? She had to stop running away.
If she was going to listen to weird prophet ladies on the street, that was.
They stood side by side in line, and something about the ritual of standing in line made meaningless chit-chat feel completely natural.
“What’s your favorite pizza?” Stuart asked. He had his eyes on the chalkboard menu, so she took the moment to admire his profile. He looked sort of Romanesque from this angle. Without the facial hair, he could be a gladiator. (Or did Russell Crowe have facial hair in the movie? That was the extent of her historical knowledge about gladiators.)
“I haven’t had pizza in ages. We’ve - I’ve been in a rut, i guess. It’s either a heartless place like Alabaster, or Chinese takeout.” She realized how that sounded. “Sorry.”
“No offense taken. It is a pretty heartless place. I don’t know why I stayed there so long. I’m a boring pepperoni guy, usually.”
“Nothing boring about pepperoni. I mean, it’s no pineapple, but....” She didn’t really care for pineapple that much, but she was trying to remember how to flirt. She felt a pleasant thrill. She was with someone she wanted to flirt with… and he liked her! It had been so long since she’d felt that small rush of excitement, the almost-adolescent pureness of attraction without expectations.
“We should both be daring, then.”
“Pineapple it is.”
Except there were expectations, weren’t there? Somehow they had walked into an evening where words like “destiny” and “visions” were thrown around casually. Those were not casual words. And she was flirting with someone who she had been part of a vision - a shared vision, at that.
No pressure or anything.
As they sat down at the old-school diner table, she could feel it hanging in the air between them. “This is a pretty weird first date, huh?” she said.
His small, shy grin made her heart flutter. “Date?”
“Mmm... “ The pizza was delicious. She finished her bite before saying, “I hope so. It would be the most normal thing that had happened to me tonight.”
He gazed into her eyes, and she thought definitely a date, but she couldn’t quite read his expression, either. There was something intense there, but not in the way she was used to men being intense.
“You know what she said is true, about me,” he said quietly, breaking the gaze and taking a few swallows of Coke.
She searched back over what Cath had said. Which part?
“‘Overeager puppy,’ I believe were the exact words.” He traced a scratch on the table with the tip of a finger. “It’s true… I’ve always gotten attached fast. I thought, I could lose this person any minute. So I wanted to make it count, every minute. I…” He took another sip and looked to the side. “I have gotten in trouble a few times, wanting too much too soon. Not physical-” he added hurriedly, and she couldn’t help but smile. He was really attractive, and that worry only made him more so. “Just, I’ve thought pretty much every girl was destiny.”
“So having a vision-”
“Doesn’t seem like the best thing to someone like me.”
*nods* “It’s hard to trust yourself.” That was definitely something she could relate to.
“You said you saw it, too. Was it the same night?”
Her heart beat fast. This conversation felt dangerously intimate. Where could you even go from having talks about your mutual destiny? Well, let’s find out. “I dreamed it, that night, later…” After having really good sex with David, she thought guiltily. Had that really only been 8 days ago? Suddenly this seemed like a really bad idea. What was she doing, sitting with a man (crushing hard on a man) minutes after a breakup? Shouldn’t she be at home, crying into ice cream or something cliched like that?
You push people away, Cath chided in her mind’s eye.
“I dreamed it, but didn’t remember until I saw you the next day. It seemed like a normal dream in some ways. Like the fields, they were just like the ones back home, in Idaho… and seeing random people from the days, faces the brain sorts through…”
“Yeah.”
“But it was just so clear. You, the fields, the dog… ”
Stuart smiled broadly. Damn. It’s going to be way too easy to fall for him. “The dog seems pretty great.”
She almost joked, First date, and we’re already talking about getting a dog. But that seemed too. Instead, she nodded, thinking, so does the guy. “Pretty great.”
He coughed a little, perhaps also feeling like this was getting too real, too fast. “So what’s next? What other dreams have you had?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really remember any. I dreamed tonight, on the stairs… so I guess that’s done.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
He raised his plastic cup and she tapped hers against it. “Cheers, nicely done. Guess you can take a break, then.”
She was finishing off the crust of her pizza. “ Sounds like you should be buying a violin.”
He frowned. “It’s too late for that.”
“‘It’s never too late.’”
He wouldn’t look up, and his face seemed shielded somehow, but she was sure she saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes. That excited her more than anything else they’d talked about so far. “Tomorrow morning, we find a music shop.”
He gazed into her eyes again, intense, and completely serious. “And then we go to Idaho,” he added.
***
Mr. Gillespie had run the music store for 30 years. He had been an apprentice at a time when no one was really an apprentice anymore. He was 45, but people frequently mistook him for older. He had gone gray early, and had the pudgy kind of frame that his true age. But more than anything physical, it was the way he carried himself. He was kind and wise, grandfatherly in the way of old fairy tales.
He loved music. He lived alone and liked it that way, because music was all he really needed. He listened to vinyl and maintained his 40-year-old turntable like one might a beloved vintage car. It was getting harder to find replacement parts, but still possible. He played acoustic guitar and electric fiddle, as his favorites, but he could play almost anything, when he decided to take the time to learn. As much as he loved music, he had never developed a joy of performing, so he kept to himself and lived quite happily in his own little world.
People would walk into the shop and feel like they had been transported into an Old World shop, with atmosphere and craftsmanship. They almost seemed surprised that he had no accent, and was a fourth-generation German -American. (So few people cared about such things these days, which he thought a very good thing, but those who did care, cared quite a bit.)
Mr. Gillespie had a first name, but no one ever used it. He was old man Gillespie to the neighborhood kids, and that was just fine with him.
He lived above the shop, and came downstairs at 6:30 a.m. every day, after a breakfast of coffee, eggs and toast. No one ever came into the shop before noon, but he enjoyed being there al
l the same. He chose the albums for the day, and the instruments that would need cleaning and tuning.
A violin called to him today, so he took it off the wall. It was a beautiful instrument. He had hoped for a long time that it would find a good home. He had always hoped a child just starting out would come in looking for a violin, so that he could gift it to posterity.
He laid it gently on the counter, and as he bent to a shelf for the polishing cloths, he felt a little dizzy. It happened more and more these days.
***
Stuart and Allison walked to a corner park, and sat on the swings for a long time, talking about their lives. She told him about her farm life, and how she had always wanted to get away, but once she was away she wanted to be back home. Stuart told her about how his father had died when he was young, and he had never known his mother. He spent his life in foster care, and he had been too desperate to please, so much so that he never learned how to ask for anything he might want. The family he was with would probably have been delighted to buy him a violin, looking back. “They were a musical family. Who knows, maybe they would have kept me if …”
“Oh, Stuart…” Allison’s heart broke for him and all the children who just wanted a family. “I’m so sorry that was your life. It must have been so hard…”
“And maybe my life would have been different, completely. I would have gone to music school, and …”
We would have met, she finished his sentence in her head. We would have fallen in love, and had children, and started fulfilling our destiny. But why assume their destiny was romantic? Maybe their destiny had been to go on tour with Wicked or something.
“I think..” She pushed herself a little higher on the swing, letting the momentum carry her. “I think this is the danger of talking about destiny. I’ve never really believed in it… I guess I don’t have a choice now.” She gave a laugh that could have been called bitter if she hadn’t been so happy about it all. “But I also believe in free will, and I believe that we have the power to make our lives what we want.”
“Me, too.” Stuart traced a circle in the mulch with his toes, looking for all the world like the kid whose memories he’d just been reliving. “Wish I had known sooner, though… seems like knowing this was a gift, being able to see… seems like it would have made life easier.”
With Death in Autumn Page 4