Once Upon Another Time (10 page)

I slid open the
French doors to the patio off the kitchen, and stepped outside onto the deck
facing the lake.  The loud chirping of the cicadas and low croaking of
bullfrogs hiding in the tall beach grass made the night come alive. 

Over the dark
rippling water, a sliver of moon shared the skies with a million twinkling
stars.  The wine glass clinked as I placed it on the glass-top wrought-iron
patio table.  I plugged in the tiny white lights that Nicholas and I had strung
around the handrail of the deck the Christmas before.  I sat down at the table,
not realizing that the humidity had left a film of moisture on the chair cushion,
making my nightgown stick to the back of my thighs. 

I tapped a
cigarette out from the pack and lit it.  Between alternate sips of wine and
long drags of my cigarette, I never took my eyes off the star swept skies.  I
thought about Matt and his belief that souls are comprised of individual energy
pockets of thoughts, feelings, and experiences.  He used to think long and hard
about what happens when people die and whether part of the soul stays on earth
and the other part perhaps goes to heaven, or hell or purgatory.  He’d theorize
the possibility of a dying person taking their last breath and transporting a
portion of their spirit into a living person nearest to them at the time of
their death.  He’d have a remote expression on his face and say, “Guess I’d
have to die to find out if that’s possible.” 

It’d always make
me feel gloomy so he’d try to lighten things up.  “Hey babe, I’m not going
anywhere.  But, you know the old saying about the eyes being the windows of the
soul?  Well, if I die first you’d best be looking for me, or I’d have to come
find you.”

 The red-hot ember
on my cigarette glowed as I took a deep inhale and considered the vastness of
the universe and all that was still a mystery to mankind.  The truth was that
not a single living person knows what happens after death. 

I was exhausted as
I flicked my cigarette butt over the porch rail and retreated into the house. 
I walked through the kitchen and turned off the lights, then stopped left of
the stairway, in the foyer and pushed open the double French doors to the study. 
A melancholy vastness filled the room like an old black and white photograph. 
I paused, hoping to hear something out of the ordinary.  A tingling sensation
began to rise in my body but stopped, as if holding its breath and like a
ghostly apparition, the feeling vanished.

I walked in and
dragged my fingertips over the leather-top antique Georgian desk, a gift Matt
surprised me with after I had passed the Bar.  The wine inside me infused a
dreamy relaxed sensation throughout my body, numbing my senses and turning my
eyes into slits.  Sleepiness finally seized me.  I gave in and went to bed.

* * * *

That night, I fell
asleep dreaming about the trip Matt and I took to Paris to celebrate our fourth
wedding anniversary.  The day was bright and extremely hot.  Hand in hand we
strolled through
LeBois
, a well-known park among the Parisians.  Wanting
relief from the sweltering heat, we walked into a small supermarket and dashed
toward the coolers at the back of the store.  We tried to feign interest in
frozen chickens, while the cool, refreshing mist escaped from the open freezer
and chilled our bodies. 

In my dream, I
turned toward Matt and for the first time, noticed he had a peg-like prosthesis
attached to the stump of his right leg, like Black Beard.  He was wearing a red
jogging suit caked with hunks of dirt.  His body looked broken.  One arm
dangled at his side like a sausage hanging from a string in a butcher shop window.

Somehow, we were transported
back outside into the terrible heat, and we were arguing.  I wanted to go back
in the store and he wanted to leave.  I couldn’t figure out why we’d be arguing
about something so stupid, when I saw a distorted reflection of myself in
Matt’s sunglasses.  My face looked as though I was in a wind tunnel and my ears
were pointy--like an elf’s ears, when all around me, flowers began to fall from
the sky. 

My body twirled
fast like a ballerina on ice skates.  With outstretched arms I caught bunches
of tulips, roses, and large white lilies, when a sense of foreboding ensued. 
The light around me grew dark, and a low-lying fog rose like steam from the
pavement beneath my feet.  I stopped spinning and looked at the flowers I held
in my arms.  They withered up like strings of dried fruit, dark and hard. 

I turned to reach
for Matt, but he was gone.  A thick vapor of fog surrounded me.  I felt as if
the cold clammy hand of some weird creature was going to reach out to grab hold
of my ankle, when I heard Matt call for me.  For some reason I felt as if I
were in the plumbing department at Home Depot when the blare of a foghorn
startled me.  A beacon light flashed just as I heard a thunderous roar of
crashing waves. 
Definitely not Home Depot
.

In the distance, a
curious light mooched toward me through the fog and slowly began to take
shape.  “Thank God, I never thought I’d find you again,” I said as I raced
toward Matt.

The closer I got
the better I could see that he had two good legs, no sausage arm, and he had
that clean just-showered look.  Breathless, I stopped a few feet from him and
gazed at the man standing before me. 

He wasn’t Matt; he
didn’t look anything like him.  Matt was only two inches taller than I was and his
hair was light.  The man who stood before me was very tall with dark hair.  He removed
his sunglasses and stared directly into my eyes.  Although his eyes were blue
and I didn’t recognize him, I somehow knew he was Matt.

The ground began
to vibrate under my feet like the warning rumble of an earthquake.  As the
filmy layer of fog dissipated, my heart exploded with fear when I realized I
was at Block Island standing on Mohegan Bluffs, one hundred and fifty feet
above the crashing surf below. 

Standing on the
edge of the bluff Matt began to lose his balance.  I hollered his name, but he
told me to stay back and not come any closer.  I watched as the earth beneath
his feet began to crumble. 

“No!  Take my
hand,” I screamed, and inched my way toward him when I noticed my hand was
gnarled and twisted like a tiny juniper tree, not able to hold on to anything. 
I felt the weight of the world bear down on me with all its might. 

“Aubrey, promise
you won’t stop looking for me!” he shouted as the earth gave way, and he was
gone.

I awoke and found
myself sitting up in bed with my hands planted firmly on cold, unsympathetic
sheets.  My nightgown was drenched, my heart racing, while in my head I heard
Matt’s voice.  “Remember the eyes are the windows to the soul.” 

I bolted from the
elevator and passed by the front desk, barely giving a thought to the latest
receptionist sent over by the temp agency.  A person with a disembodied voice
that gave me a chipper “Good morning” greeting.

Last night’s dream
left me with the strangest feeling.  I’d had similar dreams, but this dream was
different.

I entered my
office and tossed my briefcase on the desk.  An annoying sound similar to a
dryer buzzer came from the fluorescent light overhead.  I looked up at it and
made a mental note to call Mr. Davis. 

I was running late
to meet up with Fendworth.  As I made my way to his office to talk to him about
a new case, I was hopeful that after all these years I might have some kind of
breakthrough.  Whatever the dream meant it had to be something big.  I just
needed to decipher its meaning.  But I felt good about it, like my subconscious
had taken a big leap that was going to shed light on why I’d always thought
Matt’s death was my fault. 

As I approached
Fendworth’s office, from down the hall I could see him seated in his ice blue
Scandinavian leather chair with his cell phone to his ear.  His corner office
had large, airy windows overlooking Providence City Hall and the Biltmore
Hotel.  His minimalist-designed, glass-walled office, with glass and chrome
desk, and tall crystal sculptures looked a bit like a suite at Jukkasjärvi,
Sweden’s famed Ice Hotel.

He suddenly shot to
his feet, snatched up what looked like a package of Oreo cookies off his desk,
and stuffed them into a drawer in the credenza behind his desk.  His mouth rotated
like a Cuisinart blender.  He kept chewing and swallowing, and more chewing and
swallowing, while pressing the palm of his hand flat against his chest, as if it
would help expand the pathway of his throat.

  Lightheadedness came
over me, while the sound of a woman’s voice faded in and out of my head like a
cell phone with a warbled connection.  I stopped to look behind me, but no one
was there, when I realized I must be picking up someone’s thoughts.  Like a
strong signal picked up from a phone tower I immediately heard, “Water weight
gain, my ass!  I know he’s cheating on his diet.  I could just kill that man!”  

I knew that
voice.  It was Fendworth’s wife. 
Could hearing people’s thoughts classify
me as an accessory to murder?
  If I wasn’t already insane, I thought surely
I would be if the chattering in my head continued.

The hall behind me
was empty, until Mrs. Fendworth bounded from around the corner.  I’d heard that
getting her upset was like uncorking a bottle of
hissy fit
.  She was
dressed in a crystal-studded, flowered micro mini dress and iridescent shoes that
looked as if someone had poured gasoline over them.  Her wardrobe always gave
the impression she was barely out of her teens, which in fact she was.  At twenty-two,
she was nearly half Fendworth’s age.

She kept her eyes
riveted to the floor as her trim little hips sashayed toward me at a fast clip. 
Her flaming red hair pulled into a high, tight, “I Dream of Jeannie” ponytail
bounced like a pogo stick.  In her hand, she carried a gallon size zip-lock bag
filled with carrots and celery sticks.  Hence, the frenzied look on Fendworth’s
face to inhale all incriminating evidence of despicable carbs.

Her eyes shot up
from the floor to look straight at me.  “Hey Cory, how’s it going?” she said
curtly, as she breezed past me.  Before I even had a chance to respond, I
looked over my shoulder to see her storm into Fendworth’s office and close the
door behind her. 

I decided to take
a detour to the break room.  My nickname of
Cory
had surfaced the year
before at our annual Christmas party, at which she became a little too tipsy. 
The entire evening, she kept calling me Cory, mainly because it was the only
part of my name she didn’t slur into oblivion. 

The break room was
empty when I walked in.  Bagels and three different cream cheese spreads in
small plastic tubs sat on the counter, while the robust aroma of freshly brewed
coffee drifted in the air.  I opened the cupboard door and pushed aside various
logo mugs of several shapes and sizes to find my personal “Best Mom” mug from
Nicholas that I’d kept hidden way in the back. 

 I poured a steamy
cup of coffee.  I grabbed the carton of hazelnut creamer off the counter, when a
sudden kink in my neck caused my arm to jerk.  The creamer splashed up and
speckled the front of my suit jacket. 
Great!
 

I quickly seized
the spool of paper towel off the counter and ripped off a square.  Scrubbing
the area where the creamer splashed on my jacket, I noticed the paper towel had
shredded, leaving fine white particles woven into the black fabric. 
Dammit!
 
I scraped my fingernail over the tiny shreds, like a dog scratching an itch,
but the paper wouldn’t come out.  Heat pooled in my head and I gave up. 

As soon as I
walked back into my office, I received a call concerning a case I’d been
working on.  It was for an emergency child custody hearing, which meant I
needed to drop everything and run over to the courthouse ASAP.

 “Oh Aubreeeey,”
Laura sang as she strolled into my office.  I looked up at her, just as Fendworth
sprinted past my office with his wife hot on his heels.

Laura wore the
infamous cat-that-swallowed-the-canary look on her face.  I tossed three file
folders into my briefcase, and snapped it shut.

“Well?” she said,
her eyes practically gleaming. 

I turned an ear
toward her.  “Well, what?”

She rolled her
eyes and huffed.  “I saw Jack last night.  He said he called and left you a
voice-mail.”

A moan rose up
from my throat like acid reflux.  “Oh that,” I said listlessly.

“Did you call him
back?”

I picked up my
briefcase and walked toward Laura.  “Not yet.”

“Hey, you have
something on the front of your jacket.”

I looked down at
the residue of white particles.  “Is it that noticeable?”

“Hmm, afraid so,”
Laura said, biting into her plump lower lip.  “But I have an idea.”  She
slipped off her jacket and handed it to me.  “Put this on, there’s only a very
slight difference in the blacks, but believe me no one will notice.”

I weighed my
options; blatant linty spot verses a different shade of black.  I set my
briefcase down, took my jacket off, draped it over the back of the chair, and
slipped Laura’s jacket on.  

“Oh, and let’s plan
on us doing lunch today,” said Laura.  “Remember, I’m not trying to push Jack
on you, but I asked Katelyn to meet us so she could weigh in on the Jack
thing.  You know, she’s known him for years and her husband and Jack are golf
buddies.” 

“Fine,” I said,
nodding mechanically as she followed me out of my office.

* * * *

The whole time in
court, I had to fight to keep focused.  Adding to all I had on my mind, the
plaintiff’s attorney bore a strong resemblance to a ferret.  It was very
distracting. 

I tried not to
stare at his Pinocchio nose, but I’d never seen anything so long and pointy.  I
wanted to leap up and touch it to see if any small amount of fingering would
snap it off his face. 
Surely, the man must make enough money to be able to
afford a nose job
.