A Shiver of Wonder

by Daniel Kelley

  “And how many times have I been to your house? Or been invited for dinner by your parents?”

  He knew that the answer was ‘once,’ but he also knew that it didn’t matter. Aside from the fact that he’d never wanted to have Aishani over to become better acquainted with his slutty older sisters or his bitter, inhospitable Mom, his intuition was telling him that this was a feint. She had undoubtedly been late in exiting the school because she’d been consulting with her ‘friends’ regarding the most expedient means of dumping him.

  Which meant that nothing he could say or do would change her mind. It was over, no matter how many explanations he could conjure up to thwart her manufactured accusations.

  He’d gazed at her bleary image for as long as he could, soaking in the disdain, and comprehending that the joy he had taken in nearly every aspect of his life for the previous two months had been both temporary and false. What was the point of his happiness, if it could be snuffed out on the most capricious of whims by this superficial girl for whom he had so wholeheartedly fallen?

  Before Aishani could blink, or turn, or leave, David did all three of these himself. He walked staidly home, not looking behind him even once to see if she was following, or watching him, or perhaps even thinking of saying she was sorry.

  And David had learned. For the rest of that school year, he avoided all of the girls in his class – not that after his humiliation with Aishani, any of them would have eagerly sought his company. When he hit high school a few months later, still in Lincoln Heights for part of a record-breaking three year stretch for the Wilcotts in one city, he found himself gravitating toward the dumber girls, the outcasts, the chubbies. They seemed to appreciate his humor and mild attentions, they accepted his help on their homework, they allowed him to fumble and feel his way through that whole sex thing in which he found temporal, if not emotional, satisfaction.

  Only years later, from a solid perch within adulthood, could David recognize some of the truths he had missed.

  For one, Aishani hadn’t been superficial. She’d merely been normal, subject to the same social pressures and laws of the jungle that all creatures desirous of fitting in are required to obey.

  For another, if David hadn’t taken being dumped so hard, not to mention the beating that Jack Foley and a group of his buddies had administered a few days later, he wouldn’t have aimed so low over the next several years. The girls he had dated after Aishani hadn’t exactly been bottom feeders, but they would hardly have been considered the cream of the crop, in any field. David had chosen his own role as a slacker in the love department. It hadn’t been anyone else’s doing.

  As well, his unconscious decision that ‘good’ girls were beyond his reach had led him over and over again to become involved with those who didn’t bring out the best in him, or foster the numerous positive traits in which David had little confidence himself. His family had been bad enough, ignoring him to the point where they’d essentially become housemates who just happened to share a last name. The girls, and later women, with whom David became romantically entangled added little or nothing to his value, or to his sense of values.

  Would he have chosen more wisely during all of the subsequent years if Aishani had remained his girlfriend throughout eighth grade, or perhaps even beyond? Resisting the pull of friends, of parties, of popularity?

  Without a doubt.

  Could he have had a better time of it, or perhaps emerged from the episode more whole if she had cushioned the blow, or at the very least explained to him why she felt she had to end their relationship, and without plying him with falsehoods?

  Possibly, but no guarantees.

  Guarantees, though, were nonexistent in life, as David well knew. If his interactions with Clair had taught him anything, they had certainly underlined the fact that whatever David thought he knew about how things worked on Earth, he was sorely under-informed.

  He stood, collected his trash, and picked up his umbrella. He had over an hour to pass before his meeting, but was done with sitting here, sorting through dusty memories.

  A walk around the deserted public square would do him good. David hopped off the stage, and headed uphill toward the intersection of Willow and Second.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It wasn’t until his second circuit about the public square that David began to actually notice his surroundings. The elegantly symmetrical town hall, the dated pile that was the Moose Lodge, The Restful Nook, its many large windows throwing out broad shafts of light into the dimness of the day.

  It was when his eyes alit on the beautiful Episcopalian Church that David veered off from the public square to cross the street. How long had he lived in Shady Grove? And how many times had he intended to look inside? It had been over eighteen months since he and Genevieve had climbed the steps to try the doors, but not once since had the idea reoccurred to him.

  His grandparents had gotten married in there, fifty-odd years before. And, undoubtedly, countless other events involving elder Wilcott generations had taken place as well in the building.

  David climbed the steps, a melancholy smile creeping onto his countenance as he recalled that magical night early on in his relationship with Genevieve. The impromptu kiss on their way to a casual dinner of soup and sandwiches; the leisurely stroll along Willow Avenue; their arms linking as they sat close to one another on the steps of the Shady Grove town hall.

  Such promise, so many hopes.

  So many of those hopes realized, and then dashed as reality intervened to break the promise.

  The door was unlocked this time, and he pulled it open. He furled his umbrella and stepped into the narthex.

  The natural light filtering in from four highly set windows was muted due to the clouds. The floor was gray marble, the walls a burnished dark wood. David glanced around, but as the door eased closed behind him, shutting out the murmurs of the street, he saw nothing but a nicely appointed foyer.

  He moved toward the doors that led to the nave. And as he caught his first sight of the interior of the church, he almost whistled in admiration. Ornately carved wooden crossbeams floated high above; a circular Rose Window on the west wall glimmered ethereally; the glowing golden cross on the high altar appeared to have been placed there by God Himself. The chancel was only a few inches higher than the floor of the nave, allowing a sense of connectedness between the pews where worshipers sat and the raised platform where holy activities occurred.

  A single congregant was sitting in a pew, about halfway down the center aisle. Glad that he hadn’t emitted any audible demonstrations of his awe, David moved quietly forward, continuing to look in all directions: at the vaulted ceiling, at the detailed scrollwork on individual pews, into the rounded transepts as he drew nearer to them. The church was indeed gorgeous. And in the rich stillness that precluded practically all outdoor sounds, David felt that he could be anywhere in the western world. London, Boston, or one of the thousands of other small towns that held a divinely built edifice such as this one.

  As he closed in on the midpoint of the nave, the man in the pew shifted and began to turn toward him. And even before his face was entirely revealed, even before their eyes met, David had frozen in mid-step as a shiver that had begun in the deepest recesses of his brain thrust its way through every last molecule in his body.

  Impossible!

  But yet he was seeing him, he knew without a doubt who this was.

  This was absolutely insane!

  And yet it made perfect sense, even if it was one hundred percent preposterous.

  The spasm completed its journeys, and David felt faint. The man hadn’t risen, but was studying him with an odd mixture of curiosity, amazement, and relief imprinted on his face.

  “You’ll know when,” Clair had said to him a week ago today. “You’ll want to. Just go in.”

  David hadn’t even thought about her words as he’d approached and then entered the church!

  “You will know yourself, David,” she ha
d told him nine days ago in the courtyard. “One day. Soon.”

  And here he was. Two of him. The other David was older, far older, but yet…

  David had to close his eyes for a few seconds. He was dizzy, discombobulated, and very nearly distraught. Calm, calm. Once he opened his eyes, he might find himself alone in the cavernous church, or perhaps gazing at the ceiling of his bedroom at the Rainbow Arms, the remnants of an especially vivid dream dissipating as swiftly as had his shivers of a few seconds before.

  David opened his eyes. He was still in the church. And so was the other David.

  And then the other David spoke.

  “I know that right now, you’re questioning your grip on reality. But I also know that the second I began to talk, you found that you could actually accept that we are both here, together. And that I do exist.”

  David nodded, slowly. He couldn’t speak. He was correct, in everything.

  The man smiled at him warmly. “It’s been twenty-seven years since I stood in your shoes, quite literally, but I retain quite a memory of this day, as you might imagine.”

  Another lethargic nod. That voice was his! A little more crackle, a touch more definition to the delivery, but this was what he sounded like!

  Or rather, this was what he would sound like, twenty-seven years in the future.

  “Why don’t you sit? Please.” The older David rose, and then made himself comfortable a few feet further down the pew.

  David stepped toward him as though in a fog, his movements sluggish, his mind still reeling. He sat, cautiously, and then folded his hands in his lap as he scrutinized himself.

  The man was wearing dark pants, a white button-down shirt, and an expensive-looking linen coat. He was trim, as was the younger David, and he appeared younger than he should have for his age. His eyes were sparkling, his face was confident. David had to admit that he liked what he saw of his future self so far.

  A grin appeared. “It was easy to select my wardrobe for today,” the man said with a glance down at his garb. “No worries, no fuss. One of the benefits of having been here before.”

  “How did you get here?” David asked. And of all the eerie experiences he’d undergone in the past two weeks, listening to himself ask himself a question in the same voice with which he’d just heard himself comment on his clothing was right up there with the most fantastic of them.

  “How do you think?” was returned immediately, the grin undiminished.

  “Do you… I mean, do I still live in Shady Grove?”

  The man’s hand slapped the top of the pew, and the sound echoed mightily about them. “The weird thing is,” he said, “I already know what we’re going to talk about. I mean, I’ve had this conversation before, obviously. Just not from the same perspective. But I also remember which questions were not answered. And that was one of them.” His hand then performed a brief dance in the air. “But I also recall my frustration at the lack of answers that I thought could easily be given. So I apologize! But you can understand my predicament?”

  David found himself nodding again even as his jaw was still dropping. He knew he couldn’t dwell too long on all of the permutations that could occur in the future because of what was happening right now, but still! This conversation had more than a dash of fun house mirror maze to it. He closed his mouth, and then clamped down on the whirlwind of paradoxical thoughts that were threatening to deluge his sanity. “So… you’re fifty-eight, then?” he asked in the lightest voice he could manage.

  An amused nod. “I am. So at the very least, you know that you make it this far.”

  David had to concede that that was an illuminating point. “And… you most likely live in or near Shady Grove. Which is good, I think?” He met the man’s eyes, but his only reply was a fleeting glimmer. “Okay. So how did… how did you come here today?” he asked. “And how did you know to come here today? Or rather, today in your own today.”

  The older David laughed at that, an honest, unforced reaction that yet again stirred in the younger David the realization that his elder self had matured, had become self-assured in ways that he himself had only begun to apprehend. The older man was relaxed, and comfortable with his confidence. He almost reminded David a bit of his younger self, when his career had been flying high. Except that what was not evident in him were the immature swagger and false bravado that had been among the least admirable of his traits at the time.

  “The easy part of that answer is that I was told to come here at this time,” was the man’s jocular reply. “How I ended up sitting next to you – or rather, me – at this exact moment in time is a somewhat different matter.”

  “Clair,” David uttered simply.

  “Yes. Clair,” the other man agreed.

  And then the two of them gazed at each other for a long minute, neither one in a hurry to explore, both wishing that they could concoct together an explanation of any sort regarding that extraordinary little girl who had once lived in apartment 2B of the Rainbow Arms.

  “I received a communication,” the older David eventually stated. “A date and a time. I already knew where to go, obviously. And I’d known for a long time approximately which year. There was a message as well. Two sentences: ‘Tell him about the four. Tell him what you already know you told him.’ ”

  Another shiver assailed David, briefer than the first, but just as potent. “You knew what she meant,” he said softly, suddenly afraid of what he would hear, not eager in the least to learn what four things that he loved would be lost to him.

  “Yes. I knew,” the other man replied gently.

  “Did you ever see her again?” David asked, aware that he was procrastinating, aware that his other self was aware of this, too.

  “No. Never.” He rapped the top of the pew once more. “I’ve tried many times over the years to find her. Online searches, websites and groups that track strange phenomena, reading account after account about people who can supposedly alter weather or events with their minds. I have no idea if any of what I read was true. I only know that not a single one of them resembled Clair.”

  “What about Mrs. Rushen?”

  “Oh, Patricia?” he asked with a smile. “She doesn’t exist. She never did! There are several Patricia Rushens out there in this country, but so few that I was able to look them all up. Not her, not one of them was even close to her.” His hand waved dismissively. “You’ll see. You’re the idiot who’s going to ignore what I’m saying, and still go ahead with all the searches!”

  David couldn’t help but grin, taking in the eerie mirror image of his expression on the face of the man who was sitting a few feet away from him. He found himself eager, excited by the prospect of becoming this person, of spending the next twenty-seven years refining and improving, mellowing and maturing. “So… why do you think we’re here?” he asked aloud. “I mean, as amazing as this is, why us? Why now?”

  And his older counterpart beamed. “Perhaps I am here just to reassure you,” he said.

  “Reassure?” David replied in confusion.

  But the elder David had begun laughing again.

  “What? What?” But David wasn’t annoyed. He knew that he’d be let in on the joke; he was aware that if he had ever met anyone in his life who was solidly on his side, it was this man.

  “It’s just that… that’s one of the few things that I can – I mean, that you will – remember word for word.” He shook his head in amusement. “It’s not that everything I say is scripted or set in stone, it’s just that… it’s that I can’t really make it come out in any way other than that which I heard all those years ago.” His hands flew up into the air. “Even this! I can remember watching myself do this while listening to me say these words!” He lowered his hands to his lap with a chuckle. “But I did recall that exact phrase. And I honestly couldn’t wait to say it.” His eyes bore in on David’s as he smiled again. “Be reassured, David. Because after all these years, that’s about the only explanation for this that I’ve been a
ble to come up with.”

  The sound of a door opening jarred both men, and a second later, the pastor who had nodded to David from the front of the church nine days before stepped onto the chancel. He closed the door behind him, and then strode briskly toward the nave. A small leap brought him to the level of the pews, and he headed directly down the center aisle.

  “I actually forgot about this,” the older David whispered. “I think he nods to you first, then me. Then, he trips.”

  And within a quarter of a minute, all three of these had occurred.

  “Whoops!” the pastor uttered with an embarrassed grimace as both of the men in the pew nodded back to him.

  “He’ll glance back at us once,” came another whisper. “And then we won’t see him again.”

  And sure enough, the pastor did look back, just before pushing open the door to the narthex. David waved goodbye, perhaps to atone for his lack of response to the invitation to come inside the week before. The pastor nodded once again in return, and then left.

  The older David had a touch of a smirk on his face. “It’s kind of fun being omniscient,” he said.

  “Then tell me who wins the next World Series,” was David’s rejoinder.

  “Ha! That, I’m afraid would be considered bad sport.” He waved his arm to indicate where they were. “Wrong place to ask, anyway. Look where cheating got us before!”

  David groaned. “Tell me about it. Any chance I end up married to Camber?”

  This elicited another laugh. “I don’t think it’s a deal breaker to let you know how fortunate you are not to have ended up stuck with that!” He cocked his head. “Let’s just say that hubbies number one, two and three ended up experiencing some serious buyer’s remorse. And very publicly, too.”

  David would have heaved a sigh of relief, but for the fact that the days when he had found Camber attractive were long gone. “I actually came up with several questions I could have asked Clair at some point,” he said. “And here I am with a second opportunity, and I suspect that you won’t answer any of them!”