by H.T. Night
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Also available:
The Fourth Sunrise
A Love Story
by H.T. Night
(read on for a sample)
I pulled my old, 1982 Ford Courier truck into the coffee shop driveway. My truck’s white paint was in desperate need of a new coat. With the recent recession, I was going to have to just rely on good hand washing to keep it looking slick. I parked next to a big blue minivan. There was a time when my truck used to be the muscle in a parking lot. That was a whole other world ago. Now it just looked kind of pathetic, trying to retain its former relevance. The climate of automobile culture changes so dramatically each year that I wondered if everyone would soon be riding in one of those algae-sucking hybrids.
I looked in my rearview mirror, hoping to see, by a slim chance, if the woman I had come to see had pulled in the parking lot driveway after me. I knew it was wishful thinking, but then again, I was more excited than I had ever been to see her, at least since—well, since the last time I saw her, fourteen years ago. That night had been the last time we had had any contact of any sort, at least until a couple of months ago.
I parked and shut off the ignition. Then I pulled out my black comb from my hip pocket, and combed back my silver-plated hair, leaning into my reflection in my driver’s side mirror. My hair had a natural tint that looked more silver than gray. I was fortunate to still have a full head of hair at the tender age of sixty-four. A full head of gray or silver hair was what eventually happened to most of us—at least, the men who got to keep their hair—but the wrinkles on my face were the sad reality of all the wasted years I had spent apart from this wonderful woman, the woman who I was to meet on this hope-filled night.
Done with my comb, I reached in my pocket and pulled out the only two pictures I had of her. Both pictures captured what I loved about her the most—her innocence. I looked down in my lap and stared at each photo. Just managing to obtain these two pictures was a challenge in itself. She was a paradox—she was the most beautiful woman in the world and yet, she hated to have her photo taken.
Those photos were two of my most prized possessions. I stared down at both pictures and took each in hand, individually, as I had done many times over the years. This time was different. I would be seeing her shortly and that anticipation was enough to put an old man in the hospital with the excitement that was building throughout my body. Luckily, I was in pretty tip-top shape for a man my age. My shoulder and knees were weak from my baseball and military days, but the rest of me was built “Ford tough.” Like my truck, I was still stocky, reliable and functional, but with a couple of minor dents and scratches.
Once more, I looked down at the two pictures that I’d placed neatly in my lap. Very shortly, it would be show time, and I needed one last pick-me-up. Nothing motivated me more than seeing her beautiful face. The first picture to the left was the most beautiful photo I had ever seen of any woman taken at any given time, past or present. The photo looked to be taken around 1968. I could tell it was done at one of those portrait studios and this was just a smaller version of a much larger beautiful picture. In it, Christine was standing on a larger prop, a rusty-brown rock with a blue backdrop. She was wearing a beautiful white summer dress. Her hair was blowing back just enough that the photo seemed elegant, but with just a hint of sexuality. The photo reminded me of what an angel might look like in heaven, if one believed in such things.
The other picture was taken on the night of our third meeting, many years later, but years before the present day. On that night, we managed to find photo booth and forever engrained the moment we shared, just two middle-aged folks smiling without a worry in the world. It was a typical three-set photo strip, each photo a different pose. I was lucky enough to get the photo I wanted. I did the gentlemanly thing and let her keep two out of the three photos. To be honest, I regretted that decision later, as every photo I had of her was sacred to me. But what was I going to do, not give her a picture?
The last time I saw Christine was fourteen years ago when this very picture was taken. We were both newly fifty. Christine looked radiant and beautiful as she always did. I just looked like a guy who was happy. It was one of the few times when I actually was. There we were, sitting tightly together, so we could get both our faces in the snapshot. At the time, I remember thinking that I wished we would have kissed in the picture. But now, I was glad that we didn’t. I liked it that I had another picture with Christine looking into the camera.
Christine Connelly had been her name for the past forty-four years. But that wasn’t how I knew her. In my heart, she would always be Christine Norquist. She still looked more beautiful than I ever remembered. Her long hair, now a little darker, was a tad grayer than the two previous meetings. But she was still the most beautiful woman on that night. Christine was head and shoulders above all women, even at the tender age of fifty, and tonight, even pushing her mid-sixties, she would be the most beautiful woman in the coffee shop.
I had loved this woman longer than I could remember not loving her. I gazed at the picture one last time and placed it in my glove compartment. This was it. Maybe the fourth time would be a charm.
I stepped slowly out of my pickup truck. I looked up into the Colorado sky. It was getting dark, which was very appropriate. All of our meetings had been the same: each meeting had begun when it was dark. It was sort of our thing, only seeing one another at night. We weren’t vampires or anything. It was just the way everything had worked out.
Walking up to the coffee shop, I was very nervous. We had never before met at a coffee shop, but we had been to this very spot a couple of times. Now it was called Coffee for Folks. What it lacked in clever name branding, it apparently made up for with delicious coffee. I should know. I had been here many times over the years. We decided to meet at this particular coffee shop because it was scheduled to stay open all night for the first night of the town’s fair. It was a fair we were both now very familiar with, the city of Delta’s homegrown fair ...Deltarado Days.
I walked up to the front door and I paused. I closed my eyes and held my breath as opened the door. I opened my eyes as I entered the shop, and I scanned the coffee shop’s booths behind my metal-framed glasses. She was nowhere to be found. I guessed that she hadn’t arrived yet.
“Good evening, Joel,” a friendly voice said from behind the counter. Like I said, I had been here a couple of times. I looked over and waved to Marlene, a lovely woman with golden blond hair and no older than twenty.
“Good evening to you, Marcy,” I said with pep in my voice. I told her that I preferred to call her Marcy because it was shorter, and because I am a stubborn old man who did things his own way. I said it as joke and she laughed at the time, but the funny part about it is that the name stuck. She still calls me Joel. I think that calling me by my first name was enough of a nickname for her. Most young folks called me Mr. Murphy.
“What can I get you today?” Marcy asked.
“Actually, dear, I am waiting for a lady friend to show,” I said, trying not to sound too excited because I knew she would rib me about it. When I had come in here, I had always been alone. All of my life, I had done most things alone.
“A lady friend, Joel? Wow, sounds serious. Would you like to have a seat and wait? I can get you some of that special pudding that you like.”
“Special pudding? You make me sound like I’m 95 years old. I’m still in my sixties.” I paused for a bit and contemplated and said, “I’ll have the pudding.”
“You know I love you, Joel. Everyone here loves you,” Marcy said very sincerely and straightforward, as always. Then she teased me, saying, “You don’t look a day over sixty-four.”
“Thanks, dear,” I smiled. “I’ll go sit in my usual spot in the corner booth.”
Marcy turned to another girl in the coffee shop and I overheard her saying to a coworker, “This is going to be so cute when his date gets here.”
That comment gave me a nice gri
n as I walked over to my usual booth and took a seat at my favorite vantage point: the spot just so happened to face the door. At least, I would be the first person she saw when Christine walked in.
I loudly sighed, and a woman from across the coffee shop caught my eye. I nodded and we smiled at one another. She was at least thirty years younger than me. In my old age, I had learned that when a woman that young and beautiful gave me a smile, it meant something different than it did when I was younger. Women found old men amusing, I guessed. At my age, I had learned to discern passing amusement from any woman’s true romantic interest in me.
Staring at the front door, I wondered what could be delaying Christine. This was the first time we had met in an intimate place like a coffee shop. It was usually in the heart of the Deltarado Days fair. I was nervous. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I had ever felt this nervous in my entire life.
I leaned back in my booth and took a long, deep breath, inhaling through my nose and letting it out slowly from my mouth, still not sure if that was even the right breathing trick to calm one’s nerves. I couldn’t believe after all these years of hearing that mumbo jumbo, I still didn’t know if I was supposed to breathe in through my mouth and out through my nose, or breathe in through my nose, and out through my mouth. All I knew was that the latter seemed to calm me at the present moment.
I rested my head in my hands and bounced my head on the table. Once again, the beautiful thirty-something woman from across the coffee shop made eye contact with me when I looked in her direction. This time, she seemed like she wanted to say something. I waited for her to speak, but she just smiled.
Finally, she stood up and walked over to my side of the coffee shop and sat down right next to me. She was holding a fancy leather briefcase, the kind that sophisticated women carried on shows like Sex and the City.
“I’m sorry, is your name Dave?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. No, it’s not. I have been called lots of things in my life but ‘Dave’ isn’t one of them.”
The woman laughed out loud. “Of course you’re not. You wouldn’t be meeting a woman half your age on a blind date. I’m sorry to bother you. I’ve had a rough night.”
“It really isn’t a problem. I’m kind of honored that you would think an old man like me would go on a blind date with someone your age.”
“I’d be lucky to meet a nice guy of any age,” she said.
I looked at her and she had dark brown hair and a very pretty face. Her skin was pale and maybe she wore her disappointment in men on her face. Then she made serious eye contact with me and she gave me a sweet smile.
“I couldn’t imagine you having any trouble finding a good fella,” I said.
“Oh, I find them. They start as good fellas then end up being sponges.” She paused and looked me in the eye and said, “My name is Sharee.” She reached out her hand for mine in what struck me as an old-fashioned gesture for her young age.
I shook her hand. “My name is Joel Murphy. It is very pleasant to meet you, ma’am. Well, my name isn’t Dave, but I am kind of on a blind date myself.”
“How can someone ‘kind of be’ on a blind date?” she asked.
“It’s very complicated,” I said plainly.
“Sounds like it. Well, I’ll let you wait for your date. I’m sorry to bother you.” Sharee grabbed her briefcase and started to walk back to her table.
“Excuse me,” I called out to her. “You are welcome to join me while we wait for our dates.” The diner was nearly empty, so I felt comfortable blurting that out.
Sharee stopped, turned around, and walked over to me. She said, “Are you sure? Your date isn’t going to be jealous?”
“She’s a good woman. She would think it was cute that we sat together and waited for our blind dates.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. She is the best woman I know.”
Sharee looked at me and said, “This is a complicated blind date if you already know she is the best woman you know.”
“I guess you can say it’s our fourth blind date.” As I said that, I could see Sharee holding back a smile. “Why are you trying not to smile?” I asked.
“It just sounds too cute for words. You see, I’m a romance writer. My name is Sharee Shores.”
“Okay,” I said laughing. “Romance writer, huh?”
“It’s not erotica,” she protested.
“I didn’t assume it was,” I said.
“Sorry. That follow-up statement is an automatic reaction. Some people get the wrong idea when I say ‘romance writer.’” Sharee pantomimed hand quotes as she said “romance writer.”
“I get it,” I said. “You seem very classy and I wouldn’t have thought anything other than you write a nice romantic yarn, my lady,” I said in a bad British accent.
“You are very sweet, Joel. May I call you by your first name?”
“Please do. Mr. Murphy never sounds right to me.” I got up and grabbed a newspaper that was sitting by the windowsill.
“I’m not the young man I used to be,” I said, clutching the paper. “There is one way that I’ll always get my news: from a newspaper.” I pantomimed hand quotes around the phrase, as she had, and she grinned at how I picked up on her gestures.
“So, you’re not big on internet news?” Sharee asked.
“As long as it’s from a respected news source,” I said. “I don’t believe anything I read from a blog.”
“You read blogs?” she giggled.
“Why wouldn’t I? How am I supposed to know who Kim Kardashian is going to marry and divorce this month?” I joked.
“You’re funny,” Sharee said,
“I used to be funnier,” I said.
“How does that go away?”
“It doesn’t really go away. After a while, you slowly stop wanting to see the humor in things.”
“What do you see?” Sharee asked.
“The reality. Reality isn’t that funny.”
“That was some gear change. You suddenly went from one of the most delightful men I had ever met to someone very pessimistic.”
“That is what is unique about us humans,” I said. “We have no rule book. Plus, I like to keep things mysterious. It’s all an old man has: his mystique.”
“You are not that old.”
“That old?” I laughed. “Isn’t that the same as telling someone they are not that smelly? At the end of the day, what you are implying is that they smell at all.”
“You are very cute.”
Wow! Cute? Me? I couldn’t help but blush. It had been a long time since a woman half my age had called me cute because of my personality. I didn’t know how to respond without sounding like a perverted old man. So, I replied, “During your entire life, however long that is, so far, men certainly must have told you how pretty you are.”
“Oh, I wish. If you meet anyone like that, please let him know where I have been living for the last 33 years, because he has yet to find me.”
“I’m sorry for being presumptuous,” I said, very apologetic. “It’s a fine line, verifying that a woman is single and also, fishing for her age.”
“No need to be sorry. Trust me. I try to find him every week. I’m on every singles dating site there is, trying to locate the perfect man for me. It doesn’t matter how many romance novels I write, I can never find my own true love story. That is probably why I do write. I can create my own little fantasy world.”
“Sharee Shores?”
“That’s me.”
“What have you written?”
“I have a couple of series, but none is more popular than my Jon Sullivan series.”
“That’s a romance series?” I asked.
“Very much so. The main character is a hopeless romantic. It is very sweet and heartbreaking at the same time.”
“Sounds like the story of my life.”
“I think it’s the story of most of our lives. No matter how much those web sites promise to m
atch me up with someone spectacular—who I’ll have amazing chemistry with—it never fails that I always seem to get the guy who would love to sample the goods first, and then work on the chemistry thing later.”
“You’ve never met this guy you plan on meeting tonight?” I asked.
“No, and apparently, it looks like I never will. Looks like just maybe the two of us are being stood up.”
“I sure hope not. She has never been late before. But then again, nothing ever goes right when we meet anyway.”
“Okay, mystery man. While we wait, why don’t you tell me about this woman you’re meeting—you said for the fourth time?”
“Yes. Only the fourth time. The fourth time in forty-four years.”
“How long?” Sharee asked.
“Forty-four years,” I repeated.
“Forty-four years? And you still haven’t married her?”
“Like I said...it is very complicated. It’s very complicated.” I glanced up at the clock on the wall, and Christine was now thirty minutes late. That was very disconcerting.
She repeated. “We just might have to come to the realization that we are being stood up together.”
I repeated again. “I sure hope not.” Just the thought of Christine standing me up put a lump in my throat.
“You must really be crazy about her after all these years?” Sharee stared across the table at me with a look that was very genuine and honest and I felt like I could open up a tad.
“Yes, that would be a true statement. She has been the woman of my dreams for quite some time.”
“That’s a big proclamation, Joel. How did you two meet?” Sharee’s eyes locked into mine and she was very interested in hearing this story. She was being very sweet with her interest but she really didn’t have to make small talk with me.
“I don’t want to bore you, sweetie.”
“Trust me when I tell you that real-life love stories never bore me. As a matter of fact, I live to hear them. Remember, I’m a writer.”
I sighed and smiled and began to speak. “We met a very long time ago, not very far from here.” I paused and said separately, “You know when she does show up, which I’m certain she will, at some point, I will have to stop telling you the story.”
“I completely understand.”
I paused and gave her one more chance to back out. “Do you really want to hear an old man tell a story about his first love?”
“Your first love? This story gets better and better. Now, you have to tell me. I’m such a romantic at heart. I think I would pay good money to hear a person of your stature tell me about his first love.”
“Stature? I don’t think I have ever been called ‘stature’ before.”
“All I mean is that you have lived. That is exciting to me.”
I breathed out deeply and looked out into the dark parking lot. This coffee shop would be open all night because of Deltarado Days. I knew I could wait all night for her. So, I decided to amuse this young lady and begin my tale. “Would you like another coffee or some water?” I asked.
“I’ll grab another cup of coffee in a little bit.” She looked at me with her brown eyes, eagerly waiting for me to continue.
“Wow, where do I begin?” I said.
“Begin on the first night you met her,” Sharee said. “That must be where the story begins.”
“It is. She was my first love, and to be honest, she has been the only woman I have ever truly loved, at least the way a man should properly love a woman.”
~~~~~
About the Author:
H.T. Night is the author of eight novels, two screenplays and a book of poems. He lives in southern California with his son. Please find him at www.htnight.com.
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