Enemy (54 page)

     She had the most beautiful pale blue eyes. They looked almost gray. They reminded him of the storm outside.

     She shook his hand and the contact was like electricity. Hayes was visibly disturbed. Her eyes. Her hands…

     Have I lived this? Do I know you? Have I loved you before?

     “You’re Simon Hayes, aren’t you? The Deus Ex Machina Simon Hayes. I saw you on the link.”

     “Yes, Ms. Flynn. I am that Simon Hayes. Listen, have we—”

     “Call me Maggie.”

     The name. He knew he had met her before.

     “Maggie.” He mouthed the name and found it felt at home issuing from his voice. “Maggie, do I know you? Have we met before?”

     Her smile weakened, her brow furrowing with concern. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Hayes. I didn’t mean to—”

     “Have we met before?” His voice was forceful, but not harsh. “I could almost swear that I’ve met you before.”

     “No.” She frowned the frown of someone who feels that they are intruding. “No, we haven’t. I was just wondering, could I have your autograph?” She extracted a battered, dog-eared copy of
Deus Ex Machina
, the original, first edition print.

     Simon snapped from his unexplained reverie. “Of course, Maggie. I didn’t mean to scare you, and I apologize. It’s just—Well, you look like someone I think I once knew.”

     “Déjà vu? Yeah, I have that all the time.” She produced an ancient ink pen.

     He opened the book to the front inside cover and scrawled his standard autograph-seeker greeting. “To Maggie: Deep within the blackness, an infinity of possibilities beckons. All the best,  Simon Hayes.”

     “I haven’t seen a first edition print of this in years.” He laughed to himself. He was about to hand the book back, when he opened it up again and wrote something else underneath his passage. He closed the paperback and handed it back.

     Maggie Flynn read his inscription. The statement he had added was simply “Thank you.”

     “Oh, Mr. Hayes, thank you. I’ve read Deus so many times, and never imagined that I’d meet you. I fell in love with it years ago in modern literature class. I used it when I argued my dissertation. I teach it in my own modern lit class. We’re contemporaries, you know. I used to write poetry.” She smiled shyly.

     “I used to write poetry as well, believe it or not.”

     “I believe it.” She looked into his eyes for too long, and they both hastily looked away awkwardly. “Um.. Yeah, I wrote poetry. And you wrote novels. And, well, here we are, Mr. Hayes.”

     “Yes. Here we are. And please call me Simon.”

     She smiled again, that smile that washed away the present and made Simon dream of a future past in which they had lived and loved and died, the world that had haunted him all the days of his life. And here she was before him, the woman whose face he had dreamt of. The woman whose face had replayed in his mind nightly.

     “Well, thank you very much, Simon. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

     She put the world-weary book into her equally-traveled backpack and walked to the door. She pulled up her hood, and readied herself for the rain.

     Don’t let her slip away again.

     But there was nothing he could do. He would never see her again. She would slip into the storm and disappear from his life.

     Don’t let her slip away this time.

     But I can’t—

     She opened the door, and the rain came in, stippling the floor with water.

     He stood.

     “Maggie.” He called after her, and she turned in the doorway.

     “Mr. Hayes?”

     “Please don’t go. Please… Will you join me for some coffee? It’s—Well, it’s not very good, it’s pretty terrible coffee in fact, but I’d love to discuss Demian with you. I’d love to discuss anything with you. I mean… It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone to talk to. Besides, there’s a storm outside, and it doesn’t look like it’ll let up for quite some time.”

     She looked out into the rain and turned back, smiling, face already wet from the ferocity of the storm. She entered the coffeeshop again and let the door swing shut behind her.

     “I’d be honored to, Mr. Hayes.”

     “Please. Call me Simon.”

     “All right. Simon.” She smiled when she said it, and it made him smile for what seemed the first time in his life.

     He was reborn in the light of her eyes, and for once he was happy.

     They spoke into the night, and when the storm had passed and the supply of bad coffee was gone, they explored the city by the ghostly moonlight. Neither had ever felt closer to another person. They had only just met, but they had known each other forever. Under the stars they laughed and cried and found what each had searched a lifetime for in the other. As the sun rose from the black of the east, they began the new day together, each knowing love at last.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul Evan Hughes is the seven-time Independent Publisher Book Award-winning writer and editor of Silverthought Press. His work includes the novels
Enemy
,
An End
, and
Broken: A Plague Journal
and the short fiction collection
Certain Devastations
. He lives in Evans Mills, NY with his wife and sons.