by David Lewis
I let this settle in. “Is your mom okay?”
She forced a smile. “She’s breathing.”
She’ll be fine, I almost said but decided against it. I also wanted to tell her that her mother deserved a chance at true happiness, but that would be a conversation for another day.
Next Monday, the market roared back without me. By Wednesday, I panicked for a completely different reason. I was missing the entire move. I set a buy stop at the next fractal point, which was way beyond the base and a clear violation of my system, but at least I’d get on board. One little deviation wouldn’t matter, would it?
The next day, I was stopped in—but scared to death. At this elevation, I closed my charts and refused to look down. Unfortunately, more earnings disappointments rang through the halls of Wall Street, followed by a disappointing inflation report. Then, when the Fed chairman made disparaging remarks about the state of the economy, the market went into a freefall.
I’d been suckered in. That evening, I mentally calculated my “paper” losses. Seventy thousand. Operating my brain was like thinking underwater. Pure emotion—fear and impending doom—had taken over. I shut down my computer again, determined to take a long break from the market and let my sell-stop handle the rest.
On Friday, by the time I arrived at Joe’s, Paul had been there for three hours. Considering his inebriated state, making intelligent conversation became such an effort, I quit after five minutes. When I suggested he might slow down a bit, Paul came uncorked. “Mind your own business.”
Our argument took a predictable course until I sputtered, “Fine. It’s your life.”
He caught Jennifer’s eye across the room and gestured for another, but she only shook her head. He began seething again. “If you hadn’t come, she wouldn’t have had the guts.”
At that point, Susan walked in, wearing her usual tight jeans and even tighter blue sweater. She placed her hands on her hips and declared: “Well look-ee here! Is it … no, it can’t be … Stephen?”
I pulled out a chair, but Susan shook her head. “Sorry, hanging with you guys ain’t good for a young lady’s prospects.”
I shrugged, guiding the chair back under the table. Susan patted Paul’s shoulder. He only grunted. She cast me a look—what’s wrong with Cheerful?—and went to sit at her end of the bar and begin flashing her eyelids, smiling at nearly everything in pants, methodically unreeling her net.
Paul remained silent. In spite of his relentless mood descent and Susan’s latest prowl, I was preoccupied with my own graying cloud. I’m still up eighty thousand, I told myself. Nothing but a temporary setback. I glanced over at the counter and noticed that Spider Woman had already snagged a new guy. Minutes later, she was hanging over him as if he were a long-lost friend.
I stared at the man for a moment, wondering why he seemed familiar. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Dismissing this, I turned to Paul and made another attempt. “You okay?” I asked.
He shrugged morosely.
“How’re classes?”
“How would I know?”
I probed further and, despite his surly attitude, Paul threw me enough clues to figure it out. Apparently, he’d been fired, and while he didn’t volunteer the reason, it wasn’t hard to determine. Colleges prefer their teachers to show up sober to their classes.
“I’ll drive you home.”
“When I’m finished,” he replied tersely.
I assured him he was.
His jaw clenched.
I turned to the TV, hoping to avoid another argument. My attention was distracted by Susan getting to her feet. She and her new guy were already blowing the joint. Paul followed my gaze as I watched her slip into the back rest room.
“Leave her alone,” he grouched. “It’s her life.”
“So now you care?”
He expelled an angry breath. “You two are just alike…” And I braced myself for another drunken onslaught.
“She has everything she wants,” Paul said. “She’s got looks and a great personality. But she thinks she’s got nothing.” He practically spit out the last word. “Look at me. At least, I know I’ve got nothing, and I’m tired of you two moping around as if your lives were so miserable.”
Several patrons tossed us curious glances.
“Careful, fella,” I said, lowering my voice. “You’re wearing your dissonance on your sleeve.”
Paul wasn’t finished. “Most guys would give anything to have a woman like Donna. But you … you just throw her away. And then you come in here and tell me I’m messed up.”
My stomach clenched as if he’d slugged me. I lowered my voice. “We’re just trying to help, Paul. You’re addicted—”
“I’m addicted? Moi ? ” Paul scowled. “You’re just as addicted as I am, my friend, only your addiction is socially acceptable.”
My addiction? I refused to get sucked in.
But he stared at me, his eyebrows raised. “Care to play?”
“No,” I muttered.
“Aaaagh!” Paul whined like a game show buzzer. “Wrong answer. Wanna try again?”
“Paul…”
“Aaaagh!” he whined again. “Sorry. Studio audience says … you’re addicted to the past. Wow, there’s a shocker.”
My face flushed angrily. “You finished?”
“What was that chick’s name?”
I frowned. “Who?”
Paul leered crookedly, his eyes scarcely able to focus. “The one you keep dreaming about?”
Years ago, I’d told him about my infrequent but predictable dream of Alice, the one where I’m trying to save her but never reach her in time. He’d replied in typical Paul fashion. “Imagine what might happen if you did?”
“Sorry?”
He’d smiled wryly. “I meant… what if you actually saved her?” He’d leaned forward, his face suddenly pensive, as if poised to dispense a profound metaphysical truth. “Seriously. Maybe by changing the dream past, we can change the present future. In fact, maybe you’d wake up and find yourself married to her.”
I laughed off his comment as silly conjecture, but he’d only shrugged. “Stranger things have happened, Stephen.”
“She wasn’t a ‘chick,’ ” I now said. “Her name was Alice.”
“Ooooh,” he said, his tone mocking. “Of course. Alice. My mistake.”
I looked up at the TV again, hoping he’d drop his little rant. We sat stewing in silence for a few minutes, avoiding each other’s gaze.
Toward the back, beyond the pool tables, the bathroom door opened, and despite my stupid argument with Paul, my emotions switched gears. A shudder of dread gripped me as Susan and her new guy walked by. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. I nodded toward our table. She shook her head no and continued walking toward the door. I turned to watch her go, and she looked my way one last time, narrowing her eyes.
“Leave her alone,” Paul repeated.
Ignoring him, I rose to my feet. Susan was adjusting her coat when I approached her. She turned quickly to the guy. He leaned over. She whispered something in his ear. Looking up, he quickly scrutinized me. Satisfied with my lack of threat, he sauntered out the door.
“Can I talk to you a sec?” I asked, then without waiting for an answer, I grabbed her arm and pulled her over to the wood-paneled wall where we could talk in private.
She jerked her arm away. “What is it now, Stephen?”
“This guy gives me a creepy feeling.”
She smirked. “You don’t even know him.”
“Neither do you.”
“Better’n you do.”
I sighed. “Susan, I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”
“Stop trying to run my life, Stephen.”
“Since when—”
“You can’t even run your own.”
I opened my mouth to speak, then stopped. She crossed her arms, looking over my shoulder toward the darkened exterior of the barroom. I gazed at Susan and for a split second saw the des
perate seventh-grade girl who only wanted her father to love her. And because she grew up blocks from me, and once tried to rescue me from humiliation during a silly junior high dance, I’d felt forever determined to help her. I followed her gaze to where Paul leered at us from his usual table, where he slowly drank himself to death.
Was I so different from Susan and Paul?
When I looked back at Susan, her gaze had intensified, her eyes suddenly desperate and vulnerable. “May I go, please?”
She was right, and so was Paul. I’d made a mess of my own life. Hadn’t I let a wonderful woman walk away?
I searched my memory one last time, trying to place the guy. When nothing came to me, I stepped aside. Without saying goodbye, Susan headed for the door, pushing out into the cold without looking back. I turned to see Paul rambling toward me, adjusting his woolen scarf. He could barely walk. His eyes settled on me disdainfully just before he followed Susan out.
When I arrived home, I found a message on the recorder. It was Alycia. “Call me, okay? Tell me what we’re doing tomorrow.”
It was too late, so I didn’t, but later that night while I made up the couch for bed, I finally placed Susan’s new guy: He was the man from the courthouse who’d pled guilty to stalking. I picked up the phone and dialed her number, but no answer. Next, I dialed the police, and they promised to follow up. But what could they do? I was operating on a hunch—no crime had yet been committed.
The next morning my stomach threatened to convulse everything I’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours. I sat at the edge of the couch and tried to reclaim my bearings. Memories of last night’s argument with Susan and Paul spun around in my brain. I tried calling Susan again, to no avail.
I attempted to stand, and the room shifted. I sat back down, frozen with inexplicable fear. An hour later I called Alycia and canceled our visit. I expected her to protest, but she didn’t skip a beat. “That’s okay,” she said cheerfully. “Next week?”
The rest of the day was spent coming to grips with my trading mistake. I had plenty of money left—much more than I’d started with—but I couldn’t shake the pervasive worry.
Sure enough, the following week, the market continued to sink. I tried soothing myself with the usual rationalizations: I wasn’t the only one who’d lost money. I was already out, thanks to the miracle of automatic stops. At least I’d done that right, although I had yet to access my account to view the damage firsthand. I simply needed time to clear my head, that’s all.
The next Saturday morning, the phone rang. I pried my eyes open and looked up at the digital clock. The numbers were fuzzy. By squinting I could barely make out something elevenish. What day was it anyway?
Saturday?
I answered the phone and my heart was pounding. “Hi, sweetie.”
“Coming, Dad?”
I took a breath, cleared my throat, and put it together. “Sorry, honey, but … I overslept.”
“Are you sick?” she asked, sounding concerned.
“No, I’m fine.”
Her voice was crisper now. “So … you’re not coming?”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said.
“Okay,” she said and hung up.
I dressed, tossed on a baseball cap, and headed out the door. The winter wind stung my eyes, but the rest of my body felt hot and feverish. When I arrived, Alycia greeted me as if nothing had happened.
“I like the hat,” she said, getting in the car. “You’re a grungerabbit today.”
We stopped by a burger joint, and then took a short drive east. She talked nonstop, catching me up on the previous two weeks. Neither of us mentioned the divorce or our last discussion, but despite her chatty nature, I detected some reservation in her manner. Unspoken between us lurked the suspicion that the past was starting all over again.
When I dropped her off, she wrinkled her nose playfully. “Take a shower!”
I laughed, but a serious expression covered her cherubic face, and then her eyes turned triumphant. “I forgot to tell you. I finally figured it out, Dad.”
I frowned. “Figured what out?”
“Why Alice went back to her car.”
I grinned. “You’re kidding. I thought you’d forgotten all about that.”
“I had, but last week it just came to me. Like, out of nowhere. I told Mom, and she didn’t completely fess up, but she came close.”
“So … what was it?” I asked, playing along. If Donna knew, that would mean she’d lied to me.
Alycia’s smile turned mischievous. “It’s my turn to keep a secret.”
“Oh brother.”
“But at least, I give clues,” she said. “It’s in something Mom forgot at the house.”
I was confused. At the house?
“She wants it back too.” Alycia opened the door. “So … will I see you next week?”
I smiled at her determination to pique my curiosity. “Of course.”
She nodded as if it were a done deal, then headed up the sidewalk.
I called her name, and she turned. I gestured for her to come back, and she did. When she reached the car door, I sighed. “I never apologized, Alycia.”
She smiled graciously. “I forgive you, Dad. Okay? I don’t expect you to be perfect.”
“Actually … I was talking about the divorce.”
She shrugged. “So was I.”
When she reached the door, she turned back and waved again. She blew me a kiss, and a shudder passed through me. It reminded me of Alice’s last gesture to me. I blew her a kiss back, then headed home, and gave no further thought to her little clue.
CHAPTER TWENTY - FIVE
I spent nearly the entire Sunday at Joe’s watching ESPN, eating lunch and then dinner without ever budging from my spot. I kept my back to the door, expecting Paul to walk in as if nothing had happened, wondering if he’d been too drunk to remember our last interchange. Any minute, he would poke my shoulder. Dude, you got started without me!
I looked for Susan as well, but she didn’t show. Yesterday, I had called her apartment at least five times. By now I figured she’d simply had enough of my interfering.
About eight o’clock, my cell phone buzzed. I didn’t recognize the number and hesitated before answering.
“Stephen?” An older woman’s voice, ragged and desperate.
“Yes?” I answered, and then placed the voice: Clare Thompson, Paul’s mother.
Her voice broke, and I heard the soft clearing of her throat. “Paul’s been taken to the hospital.”
My eyes darted to the empty seat.
“Just come,” she said. “Please come quickly.”
I arrived at St. Luke’s Hospital ten minutes later, and after a moment of indecision and frantic sign reading, ended up in the pediatric ward. The nurses aimed me in the opposite direction toward the emergency room. There I found Mrs. Thompson standing alone in the waiting room, peering outside through the foggy glass windows. She was shaking. When she turned to me, her face was pale, eyes red.
“He was in an accident,” she said, gesturing toward a closed door. Moments later a nurse came rushing out the door, and in the temporary gap, I saw several blue-green coats leaning over a helpless form.
A shudder of dread passed through me. I grabbed Clare’s shoulder and pulled her to me, and whispered what I hoped was true. “He’s in good hands. He’ll be fine.”
She broke down and wept on my shoulder. “They called me at home,” she cried, her voice hitching. “I guess he hit a parked car.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’d been…”
She couldn’t finish.
I squeezed her tighter, leading her away from the door, back to the waiting room.
“He’ll be fine,” I assured her again.
After further minutes of tortured waiting, the doctor came out with a poorly composed poker face. He stood in front of us, and Clare looked up at him hopefully.
“He’s stable for the moment…”
C
lare nodded, her face suddenly optimistic.
“But he’s showing extremely erratic brain activity…”
Clare put her hand to her mouth.
“We’re going to continue to monitor him, but…”
“Will he… ?” Clare couldn’t finish.
“We don’t know,” the doctor said. He smiled apologetically, then slipped away. Once again, I hugged Clare tightly as she burst into tears.
“You were his only friend, Stephen,” she cried into my shoulder, as if he were already gone.
I didn’t arrive home until early next morning. Clare’s friends had come quickly following the doctor’s urging. Most of them were from her church; others were family members who lived in surrounding rural communities, people I might have met if Paul were a different sort. They scrutinized me carefully, as if suspecting my association with Paul had somehow contributed to this tragedy.
Eventually, we had been allowed to enter the room, where Paul, scratched and bandaged beyond recognition, was attached to an assortment of machines and tubes. The irregular brain wave on the monitor confirmed the doctor’s grim diagnosis. I sat in a chair for hours, surrounded by the usual hospital fare: the obligatory crucifix over the bed. The required pastel scenic painting. The sterile smell of disinfectant, like a thousand Band-Aids. The IV pole. Oxygen tubes. The heart monitor.
Donna called early evening to offer her sympathy. I did my best to explain what happened, but she seemed more concerned with my own personal state.
“You tried to get him to quit, didn’t you?”
I wasn’t up for guilt alleviation. “Not hard enough.”
That evening, I finally reached Susan on her cell phone. She hadn’t heard and became immediately distraught. “Is Paul going to die?”
I wanted to tell her what I believed, that if he didn’t die now, someday we might wish he had. The more we talked, the more dis- tressed she seemed.
“I’ve been trying to reach you,” I said. “You okay?”
She ignored my question. “Which room?”
I told her.
“I’ll meet you there tomorrow,” she said, hanging up.
The next day, Tuesday, I went to the hospital early and found Clare lying on a small couch in the waiting room. I went to peek into Paul’s room, then heard her ragged voice behind me, “No word, Stephen.”