Day Eighteen

"Ouch!" I gasped.

"Careful there. The bowl is hot."

Stupid fucking blonde waitress. Yes, the bowl was hot. This much I knew. She could have warned me before I put both my hands around it.

She stared at me, the pink mess on her face threatening to carry her all the way to Barnums and Baileys. She smacked that gum so loudly I could have thrown my soup on her just to shut her up.

"Anything else I can get for you?" she asked. How about another waitress? A normal one?

"No, that will be all . Thank you."

Thank God she left me to my soup and my tea and my thoughts. My solitary thoughts. I was glad I sat next to the window. It was raining out. The overcast sky hung busily over the pedestrians as they marched through the slick city street in a mad rush to get their food and devour it with the part of the hour they had left. I, too, was in a mad rush. I had 35 minutes before I had to be back at the office, however, I could not will my limbs to move faster, my jaw to swallow quicker, my thoughts to stop slumbering about my lazy head. I ached at the memory of Woody.

As I sat there blowing the soup around in my spoon before putting it to my lips, I wanted to cry because it still made no sense. My life made no sense. All those answers we searched for, that ridiculous curse, the dead people that had always haunted me in my childhood, what the fuck did any of it mean anyway? My grandmother always said I was special, but I'm pretty sure she was the only one to ever think so. Whatever miracle I was supposed to have done, I thought I had done since the ghosts disappeared from my life. But now they were back ... and it terrified me more as an adult than it ever did as a child. But what did it mean?

I didn't want to go back to my cubicle. It reminded me of that cube in Hellraiser. Actually, I think I would have preferred the torture of those demons from Hell to my life as a cubicle employee.

I did not want to dissect my emotions with Rainer either. What would he say when he got home later? What would his audacious eyes accuse me of? How would I put my arms around this man and lie and tell him he's the only man I've ever loved? And why wasn't it true?

I really missed my grandmother. I wished I could retreat back to Mississippi, just for a day. I hadn't been there since her funeral three years ago. A precious few of us were in attendance. I wondered what ghosts still lived in that old house of hers. My house now as it turned out. While I was down there for her funeral, I could not bring myself to go near Woody's house. Those memories were still much too alive for me to visit. I could still smell the stink of his father's whiskey. Woody's father was the reason I didn't drink.

The tea carried a strange comfort as it met my lips. I remembered when my grandmother would make me tea when I was sick. I looked across the room and there was a man staring at me. Mid thirties, maybe early forties. White. Ordinary. Nothing spectacular. Only a year ago it would have only taken a gesture of his hand or nod of his head for me to follow him to the darkest of corners. What other retreat from my empty life did I have? He would have pumped the life back into me, recharging me like a battery. I did not miss it. Rainer changed everything for me, yet there I sat, sewering in my own pitiful despair.

"Can I get you anything else?" Blondie was back.

"No, just my check, please."

"Ok. Let me get that out of the way for you."

"Thank you."

And that was my interaction with most people lately. Brief. Impersonal. I missed the long conversations I would have about absolutely nothing with Woody. I longed for the spontaneous laughter that would seize us in the most extraordinary of instances. Rainer didn't laugh a whole lot. Niether did I anymore. He was always so serious. Life was logical and full of equations and action and consequence. Whatever happened to the brilliance of just letting things happen?

"Here you go," she said as she laid the check on my table. After the tip, I was $15 poorer, all for a fucking cup of soup and tea.

I grabbed my coat and made my way to the exit. As I passed the stranger he smiled at me. I knew that smile. He wanted me. I didn't care. I was ready to leave. As I pushed the glass door open and the cold breeze smacked me in the face, I realized I was ready to leave it all behind.

The rain had stopped, but the wetness clung to the air. Walking back to my hellhole of a job something suddenly struck me. A woman was walking directly ahead of me pushing a baby carriage. There was something about her - maybe the way her dusty blonde hair blew in the breeze behind her, maybe the way her coat drifted in the wind as she walked so freely, or maybe it was the way she seemed to smile at me even though I could not see her face. I walked faster. I had to catch up. I don't know why, but there was something in me insisting that I at least get a good look at her face. Then I had my chance. She had rolled her carriage to a stop in front of a greasy hot dog vendor. There were people walking in front of me, blocking my view. I think I muttered "excuse me" as I politely cut my way through the crowd. I had to see her. She was talking with the vendor. What was she buying? A pretzel? Some gum? No. The vendor handed her a snapple. Pink Lemonade. Then, without warning, she turned and glanced in my direction. Freckles. And absolutely beautiful. She looked so happy, only she didn't realize her carriage was drifting away and getting dangerously close to the curb that met the intersection of the street.