Blink

by Rick R. Reed

  “Are you serious?” She takes a sip of her wine and pushes back her mass of salt-and-pepper curls. “Or are you just trying to punk me by acting all philosophical? That’s so out of character for you.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m serious.” I take a bite of my soup and put down the spoon. I launch into my story about Carlos, about how we met lo these many years ago and how I’ve always thought our brief encounter, had it not been for a phone call from my mom, could have changed the course of both of our lives.

  “Oh, you know, you’re such a smartass that I sometimes forget what a softie you are. That’s such a romantic notion—two lovers separated by circumstance, a fleeting moment that changes everything.” She laughs. “Cue the swelling orchestra; find the soft-focus lens.”

  “You’re making fun of me.”

  “No, honey, I’m not.” She pats my hand. “I think it’s sweet.” She pushes her glasses up on her nose a bit. “I wish I had a story like that to tell. But you know me—one cheating bastard of a husband for twenty years and then date roulette.” Her eyes and smile widen simultaneously. “Did I tell you I’m thinking of getting a cat?”

  “No, and I think that’s a good idea. Want me to come with when you pick one out? I know a great no-kill shelter on the west side.”

  “I’m still toying with the idea. My luck, I’d get one, fall in love with it, and then meet Mr. Right, who would be, predictably, allergic.”

  “Then he wouldn’t be Mr. Right.”

  Jules grinned and nodded. “Good point. But tell me more about your Mr. Right. Or Right Then. What made you bring him up?”

  “I saw him today.” I took a bite of my sandwich, chewed, and then revised. “Well, I didn’t actually see him. I just saw his look-alike. Funny thing was, I saw this guy on the ‘L,’ just like when we first met.”

  “And you never take the ‘L’ downtown anymore.”

  “I know. Right?” We eat in silence for a while. Jules refills our wineglasses. “Seeing that guy, though, got me to thinkin’.”

  “Uh-oh. Never a good thing. Have some more wine.”

  “Oh, shut up. Would you think I was crazy if I said I thought I might do a little online research and see if I could find Carlos?”

  “Sweetie, I already think you’re crazy. I thought you were crazy when we worked together down on Van Buren. It’s what drew me to you.”

  “Okay.” I roll my eyes. “Let me rephrase that. Would you think I was any crazier, then? Basically, do you think it’s a bad idea? Stirring up the past and all that.”

  Jules scratches behind her ear and then shrugs.

  “I don’t know. A selfish part of me wants to tell you to just, as Queen Elsa sang so beautifully, to ‘let it go.’” She snorts. “I mean, what’s the one thing that makes us best friends?”

  “Your love of shoes? Imitation of Life? Our shared passion for words?”

  “Well, yeah, all those. But I was thinking more along the lines of our rotten luck with men. I think we’re both getting to the age where it’s easier and easier to just say ‘screw it; who needs a date?’ on Saturday night and just call the other up. Get together, order in Chinese, binge watch Orange is the New Black on Netflix.” She shrugs. “I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking I could do a lot worse than a very handsome and charming fifty-five-year-old homo.”

  “Well, you might want to withhold judgment on that one until you get the cat.”

  “Oh, you! I guess the selfish part of me wants to keep you all to myself.” She takes a quick gulp of her wine and stares down at her food.

  I’m touched. What Jules says is true—we do have a very comfortable relationship. Last year, we even took Christmas vacation together and rented a condo in Maui. And it was nice. I didn’t feel deprived.

  And I can see by the way she’s refusing to meet my eyes that the idea of me finding this man who was so special to me, even though our time together was, like, a millisecond, is scary. I reach out and cover her hand with mine. “You do know there will always be a place for you in my life, don’t you?” I say softly.

  She knocks my hand off her own and looks up at me, smiling even though I can’t help but notice the tears standing in her eyes. “Oh, shut it, you. You’re gonna make me cry.”

  “Looks like you already are.”

  She laughs and brushes away the tears. “I am not. This food is spicy.” She lifts her paper napkin from her lap and then blows her nose into it to prove her point. She takes a deep breath and, now more composed, continues. “Listen, I know the supportive thing to say is go for it. Who knows? Maybe the rest of the story is out there, waiting to be finished, just as romantic as the beginning.”

  I beam.

  “And—” She holds up a finger. “—maybe it’s not. The mom in me feels compelled to warn you. Carlos could be, I hate to say it, dead, or worse, Republican. He might be married to a guy or even a woman. Who knows? He might be a woman. He may not want to see you. You might have broken his heart back then with your not knowing who you were.”

  I nod, knowing she’s right on each and every point because I’ve considered them all myself. Well, maybe not the transgender thing. “I know, I know. I could be setting myself up for heartache or disappointment or worst of all—not finding out anything.”

  “Hey, don’t let me rain on your parade. Google him. Maybe he’s got a Facebook page or a LinkedIn that’ll pop right up.”

  The possibility, I have to admit, excites me. I have to restrain myself from throwing a twenty on the table and running out of the restaurant so I can get back to my condo—and my computer’s keyboard.

  “So say you find him,” Jules said. She pushed her plate of half-eaten food away from her and took up her wine more seriously. “What are you gonna do then?”

  I finish up with my food, and the waiter, a cute kid with spiky black hair, comes over and clears our plates away. He smiles at us both and asks, “Save room for dessert? The baklava is awesome.”

  He gives me time to think about Jules’s question. “I think we’re both pretty full.” I look at Jules for confirmation, and she nods. “Just the check, please.”

  He wanders away. “I don’t know. I guess I really hadn’t thought things out that far.”

  “It is something you might want to consider before you launch into this.”

  “Ever the pragmatist,” I say. “I’ve just kind of been of two minds about this. One is preparing myself for disappointment—any of those scenarios you so kindly pointed out, putting him at squarely unavailable. Or that I just won’t find anything. I don’t know which is worse. Then the optimist in me just gets all excited at the prospect of seeing him again.”

  “And your romantic mind just starts reeling.” Jules gives me a wry grin. I know she doesn’t really want my dream to come true, and I kind of understand. She’s been Grace to my Will for a long time now, and it’s gotten comfortable.

  I decide I won’t torment her by waxing rhapsodic on possible happy outcomes for finding Carlos. Besides, I want to be by myself, to think more about things and, yes, maybe to hit the computer. I say, “You about ready?”

  She nods. “You’re going home and start looking right now, aren’t you?”

  I shake my head. “You know me too well.”

  We both laugh.

  AT HOME I slip out of the jeans and button-down shirt I wore to dinner and get comfortable—flannel boxers and a T-shirt. I go into the second bedroom, which I have set up as an office. There’s an old porcelain-topped table my grandmother once owned that I use as my desk, a simple wooden chair from IKEA painted orange alongside it. It’s where I had thought I would one day write the great American novel. I’m still waiting for that day to come.

  Ezra, my fat orange tabby, waddles along behind me. I call him my shadow because he follows me wherever I go. He missed the memo about cats being independent. He hops up on the couch, swishes his tail a couple of times, and then curls into a ball. In seconds he’s snoring. I have lived with no other male lo
nger than Ezra. In July, we celebrate eight years together.

  Sitting down at the desk, I pair up my iPhone with my Bose mini speaker and put something soothing on, the Pandora New Age Ambient station. I open my laptop, bring up Google, and pause as the multicolored logo confronts me. The empty search box almost seems like it’s waiting.

  Are you sure you want to do this? I wonder for, like, the thousandth time since seeing the guy who looked like Carlos on the ‘L’ this morning. I honestly can’t think of a single reason not to. I mean, the worst that could happen is I find him and he’s not available.

  Or I don’t find him. So? I’ve gone without Carlos for thirty years now. In fact, he seldom crossed my mind anymore. It was just that thinking I saw him today reawakened desires even I didn’t realize were lying dormant.

  I do want to find him. Maybe this is the way it’s meant to be. I wasn’t ready, and maybe he wasn’t either back then. But look at how much the world has changed. Look at how much I’ve changed.

  I type his name—Carlos Castillo—into the search box and pause once more, knowing that to press Enter could be putting me on the path for a life-transforming change. Just like a single phone call years ago turned everything on its head, a single string of keystrokes tonight could make a huge difference in the course of my life.

  I press Enter. Immediately, millions of results come up. At the top of the page, there’s a heading, “Images for Carlos Castillo,” and I peer eagerly at the five or six pictures, thinking (hoping) that maybe one of them will be my Carlos. Just like that. Just that easy. But they are all of a bearded, professorial type who looks nothing like Carlos, even with my mental aging of him.

  I am tempted to delve into the images first. Don’t they say that we males are more visually stimulated? But somehow I manage to restrain myself and scan the web listings below the images. There are a lot of listings about Carlos Castillo Armas, a Guatemalan military officer who seized power in his country in 1954.

  There’s another listing for the military guy that makes me chuckle, because it’s put together by an organization calling itself the “United Fruit Historical Society.” Seriously?

  What I want is to unite two fruits the years and circumstances have separated. I smirk and continue to scan the listings.

  There’s a Facebook profile that looks promising because of its Chicago listing connection, but when I click on the page, the guy in the profile picture must be about the same age as my son, Tate, a student at Northwestern University.

  I go back to Google, clicking on LinkedIn profiles, perusing sites that give me lists of Carlos Castillos and offer me more information if I would only kick in a few bucks via my credit card. Some of these do look promising, because they reveal age and general location. There’s one with a Chicago address, and the age is right, and I’m tempted to grab my wallet off the entryway secretary and just go ahead and cough up the cash to see if this is my Carlos.

  But I restrain myself. For one, he’s not my Carlos at all. He never was, and, I must sadly concede, most likely never will be. For another, there are other avenues I’ve yet to explore, and those won’t cost me a penny.

  I click over to Facebook and sign in. My home page comes up, and I tarry briefly over pictures of people’s new puppies, their happy and sad news, and a rash of “cards” with clever sayings like, “If I had $100 for every time I read something interesting on Facebook, I’d be poor as shit.”

  I go to the box at the top of the page, where Facebook kindly invites me to “search for people, places, and things.” “People, person,” I whisper to myself and type in Carlos Castillo, mentally crossing my fingers. There are a lot more Carlos Castillos on Facebook than Google realizes. The first that comes up is a hairdresser in San Antonio. Cute and—I’m ashamed of my prejudice—probably gay, but not the Carlos I’m looking for. Although I do peer closely at the picture and wonder if this handsome dark-haired man might do in place of the one I’m searching for.

  Down, boy.

  There’s a musician. A Carlos Castillo who studied at Ohio State University. There’s a veterinarian. There’s one in Cuba and several others in Latin- or Central-American countries. There’s one whose profile picture is of two hands holding a glowing green globe.

  And then I see one that could be him. Probably gay—he’s posed with another man, their arms around each other, and the only information on this results page is that this Carlos is male and in a relationship, presumably with the salt-and-pepper-haired dude he’s embracing.

  I peer more closely at the just-bigger-than-thumbnail picture of the two men. The one on the right could be my Carlos. He has the same dark hair, the same smile, the same dark eyes that leap out of the photo. He’s heavier now, maybe twenty or so extra pounds sitting around his middle. But who among us of a certain age couldn’t say the same? The extra weight is almost, but not quite, concealed by the simple white button-down shirt he’s wearing.

  But how do I even know that Carlos Castillo is the guy on the right? He could be the salt-and-pepper man in the dark shirt on the left. I sigh. I fear this venture, only at its start, will do nothing but frustrate me.

  I consider just shutting down the computer and settling into bed with Ezra and my current bedtime read, Dr. Sleep by Stephen King. I’ve been a fan since I first read Carrie back in junior high. I usually have two books going at once, one for my work commute and the other for bed. Some have found it curious that I like King for bedtime, but the man has been with me through thick and thin, by my side for longer than most. He’s a comfort in his own oddball, horrific way.

  I know the advice is sensible, but I click on the picture to bring up this particular Carlos Castillo, hoping his actual page will tell me more, give me a clue to know for sure if this is the man I had a brief encounter with so many years ago.

  The page is frustrating, doubly so because I feel more strongly than I did this morning when I saw the man on the train that this time I could be right. This could be Carlos. No, I don’t have the certainty I described, but neither am I seeing the Carlos Castillo in the flesh, but only in a black and white photograph. And when I click on the picture to make it larger, Facebook won’t let me. Privacy settings hide any other photos, as well as any “about” information beyond what I already knew, that the guy is male and in a relationship. His timeline is either hidden or blank, beyond a thank-you that appears mysteriously at the bottom of the page, thanking well-wishers for their birthday greetings. He confesses to being bad about Facebooking. “What can I say? I’m old. LOL.”

  Yes. We both are.

  But I can’t even find out this Carlos’s age. My finger hovers above the “add friend” box.

  I decide to send the guy a message. I sit back in my chair and sigh. What to say? I don’t want to come off sounding weird and stalkerish. But maybe I am those things! I mean, who does what I’m doing?

  I try to console myself that part of the reason Facebook exists is that it helps people connect with others they’ve lost track of over the years. And really, that’s all I’m doing. I know nothing may come of this, but I could still get a friend out of it. The thing I remember most about Carlos, besides how gorgeous he was, was the easy connection we had, how we could talk to one another.

  That’s a rare thing for me. I am a 100 percent dyed-in-the-wool introvert, which is what draws me to books and stories. I like them because I can immerse myself in other worlds while still hiding behind language and imagery. Texts and e-mail were big blessings for me, because they meant I would no longer have to use the telephone very much. I have always hated Mr. Alexander Graham Bell’s invention, which has always been, at best, anxiety inducing for me.

  But even with our very brief encounter on the ‘L’ platform and later at my apartment, Carlos and I could talk. There was something easy in his smile that made it possible for me to open up to him. I have rarely found that quality in other men, even the ones with whom I’ve made the mistake of cohabitating.

  But back to the tas
k at hand. What to say? I know I could write something long and drawn out, reminding him of how we met and letting him know that I have never forgotten him throughout the passage of years.

  I could tell him about the connection I feel to him.

  All of that, I think, could be perceived as simply nuts.

  I place my fingers on the keyboard and type:

  Perhaps a weird question, but did you live (and teach) in Chicago in the early 1980s? If so, we may have met on the ‘L’ train heading out west toward the University of Illinois. If not, never mind.

  I sit back, look at the simple message, question once again if I’m doing the right thing, and click Send.

  I wonder if this simple act will change my life. Or if, more likely, it will make absolutely no difference at all.

  I turn to Ezra, who has awakened on the couch and stares at me, as if to ask “Isn’t it time for bed yet?”

  “Yes, Ezra, let’s go to bed.”

  As if the cat understands my words, and I often think he does, he hops from his sleeping place on the couch to strut ahead of me into the bedroom, where he will take up another sleeping place at the foot of my bed.

  I pull off my T-shirt and drop it on the pile of clothes on the recliner situated in a corner of my bedroom and join Ezra in bed. I decide I’m too tired for Dr. Sleep and will opt for plain old sleep tonight. I reach up to turn off the light and then pull the sheet and quilt up to my neck.

  The last thought I have is to wonder if I will dream of Carlos.

  THE NEXT morning, before I fire up the Keurig to make my Pike Place blend of coffee, before I feed Ezra, before I check the weather outside my windows, hell, before I even pee, I hurry into my home office to check my computer to see if there’s been a reply from Carlos.

  I wait for my browser to come up and, of all times, the connection to the Internet is being painfully slow. Or maybe it’s just me. Patience has never been one of my virtues. Ezra is up too and winds himself around my legs in a figure eight beneath my chair.