She turned to her friend
sitting next to her and gave her a big smile, nervously biting her
lip.
“Hey Mari,” she began
slowly. Mari looked over at her friend.
“Uh oh, what are you
thinking?” came Mari's tentative reply.
“Can you take yourself to
this church event?” Deborah blurted out quickly.
“What, how?” Mari wanted
to know.
“ I mean, its only a few
blocks away,” Deborah started to suggest.
“Deborah, what are you
saying?” Mari demanded.
“You can walk, can't you?”
Deborah finally blurted out.
“Well, yeah, I suppose I
can,” Mari began and Deborah smiled and quickly said, “Great, so
I'll see you later.”
And, she grabbed the handle
of the door and got out before Mari could interject with “What are
you going to do?” The only thing Mari could do then was get out of
the car door just as her friend clicked the button on her keypad to
lock the doors and watched as Deborah bounced across the street to
her coffee shop, her coffee-boy. Or maybe could it be coffee-boys,
Mari was starting to wonder as she noticed that not Matthew but James
too smiled eagerly at her as she approached. Mari reluctantly turned
shaking her head in wonder at her friend's wild ways and headed
toward the church where she was sorting clothes for the church wide
yard sale.
Deborah swung herself up the
small patio steps and planted herself in Matthew's lap. He encircled
her waist with his arm and pulled her tight against him. She was
warm and he felt glad to have her sitting on his lap, his day was
made if nothing more happened. Now, if only no more customers would
come in that day, no more intrusions to this happy moment he felt,
Deborah on his lap, yummy food that she had brought before him, and
his good friends gathered around. In her mind, Deborah was feeling a
similar thought, nothing mattered more than this moment, in his lap,
the warmth of this arm against her back, the laughing boys around
her, the good coffee, if all time could freeze and leave her here
with him, with all of them, if life could exist merely in this
moment, at this coffee shop....she leaned over and kissed him softly
on the lips and he readily gave into her. She could feel the eyes of
James poring into her and Matthew as they kissed but tried failingly
to ignore it, that insane awareness of his presence drilling itself
into her more and more. Footsteps approached and she pulled away.
It was his friends, Thomas, Ray, and Shaggy who had finally made
their way around to their daily ritual of visiting the coffee shop.
“Ahem,” Ray was
beginning. “Sorry to intrude, but a cup of coffee would be nice.”
Deborah hopped up with a pat
on the back from Matthew and Matthew led Thomas, Ray, and Shaggy into
the interior of the coffee shop. Which left Deborah sitting across
the table from James who looked directly into her eyes and held her
gaze. To his surprise, Deborah didn't blink or look away.
“So, hi,” Deborah
finally said.
“Hello,” James
responded.
“So, how are you?”
Deborah was continuing the conversation.
“Eh, all right, I woke up
with this headache...again,” was all James would give.
“You have them regularly?”
Deborah wanted to know.
“Lately, yeah,” James
continued. “Guess I'm not getting enough sleep or something?”
“Why do you think that
is?” Deborah pressed.
“Yeah, I don't know,”
James began. “Bad dreams, maybe, nobody to keep me warm and
safe...” He broke off and let his eyes study hers. Despite the
mundane exterior of the conversation, she could feel the depth of her
heart beating fiercely in her chest, a pull towards this man she had
never experienced and had tried to hide from since her first
encounter at the bar a few nights ago that went something like:
She was sitting on the table
looking down at her Matthew, overwhelmed with passion, she leaned in
and kissed him. It was there she first felt James eyes boring into
her back side and almost on cue he asked, “Are you guys being
cute?” She turned to him and bluntly asked, “Do you think we are
being cute?” He nodded, blushing and their eyes met. She looked
away then, back at Matthew, but something, some force beyond herself,
drew her head back to face his. Their eyes met again and inside of
them she saw...she saw him for all he was, deep fear and pain,
longing, heartbreak, seeking...seeking something beyond this world,
she saw herself. It scared her yet like a child attracted to a
burning stove, or a dog to his vomit, she could not pull herself
away.
And now, today at the coffee
shop, sitting across from him again, their eyes meeting again, a
question rose to the surface of her heart. A question that every
young girl that has ever read the classics of Austen, Montgomery, the
Bronte Sisters, or even Little Woman:
“Do you believe in
soul-mates, like that there is one person for all of us out there?”
James studied her and was
silent for a long time. Finally, he smiled knowingly at her:
“I believe that there is
more than one soul-mate, just brought to us at different times of our
lives to teach us what we need to for that season of our life.”
Deborah took that in and let
it rattle around in her brain, let it sink in to follow her down
through the ages as she went through her life. Years later, it would
still resound down through time and make more and more sense as she
experienced more that life had to offer.
“I believe in soul-mates,”
was all she said then. He smiled at her knowingly and she willingly
smiled back.
“Hey, what's going on out
here,” Matthew's voice broke the silence as he and his friends came
back out to the patio, to smoke, enjoy their coffee, the sweet and
idle conversation that only good friends shared. Deborah pulled
herself away and looked up at her boyfriend, the happy glowing
red-haired soul that stood before her and although her heart was soft
towards hers, she saw now that something was missing from before, a
happy serene connection between them. But, she kept silent on this,
smiled at him, stood up, and motioned for him to sit back down. Once
done, she sat on his lap again and turned her affections most
pointedly towards him. The others, Thomas, Ray, and Shaggy, leaned
against the wall or the patio stairs railing with their coffee cups
perched in their hands, lit cigarettes dangling from their finger
tips. A calm moment descended upon them, for that moment no one said
anything but a bond was formed. If those passing by had stopped to
notice, they'd see a group of twenty-somethings sitting around a
coffee shop, idling their time away, maybe they would be wistful
remembering their own youthful days, or maybe they would shake their
heads in disbelief at the lazy young people...but no one would truly
know, no one would truly see, that in that moment for those young
kids on the coffee shop patio, a moment was shared that was a time
outside of time, to not be counted against the category of other
times...it was a stolen season of their lives outside of time. A
moment of magic.
Shaggy was talking something
about 9-11 being an inside conspiracy job. Deborah was lost in
thought, falling for James yet dating Matthew, how could this be? She
really liked Matthew, so much passion and they had fun together but
something deeper pushed her towards James. Something akin to her
favorite characters, Catherine and Heathcliff, from Wuthering
Heights, she was starting to realize. Something bigger than herself,
suddenly she was wondering if this was the reason for this moment in
her life, why she was brought to this coffee shop. For this scary,
dark boy that sat across from her, his eyes so deep, full of longing
and pain, searching for...love yet totally and completely lost.
“Cops!” Shaggy
exclaimed. “How fitting with what we are talking about!”
Thomas looked over at the
approaching policemen. He shook his head in reassurance for Shaggy.
“They can't be coming
here, we haven't done anything,” he said. “And even if they
were, its a coffee shop after all.”
“Yeah, other people are
allowed to come here,” Matthew laughed alongside Thomas. But the
cops approached and stopped just shy of the patio. The patio bunch
sat motionless for a moment. Matthew looked over at them and said,
“Um, can I help you,
Officers?” which he realized was the most cliché question of all
things to say to police officers but what else was there to say.
“We are looking for James
Easton,” one of them was saying. Deborah was studying them. The
one that talked had the traditional cop mustache, was white, was
about 6', not too tall, medium built, with dark brown hair cut short.
The other was stockier, black, with eyes that darted back and forth
between each of them. Had they done something wrong? Why did they
want James? Her heart swam over to James, in an attempt to protect,
encourage, or even stand in solidarity with him. If she only knew...
“That's me,” James said,
slowly standing. “What seems to be the problem?”
And, of course, Matthew
thought, that question hit his out as being even more of a cliche
thing to ask a police officer.
“Are you the husband of
Eve Easton?” the stocky black officer addressed James. James
gulped slightly, but only Deborah and Matthew noticed. Was he afraid
of something?
“Ex-husband, but yes,”
James explained. Ah, that was it, Deborah realized, he didn't want
to be reminded of the hardship of divorce. That had to be it. “What
about her?”
Both police officers looked
at each other for a moment. The one with the cop mustache sighed,
adjusted his belt, and then said, “I'm sorry to report but her body
was found inside her apartment this morning--”
“Body? What do you mean?”
James interjected without thinking.
“Your ex-wife was
murdered,” The officer said as calmly and as reassuringly as
possible. James staggered backwards. It was Ray that reached out
his arm and brought him slowly back into the chair he had recently
vacated.
“Who did it?” James was
stammering out. “Who would do such a thing...?”
“That is under
investigation,” the stockier officer continued. “We'd like to
ask you a few questions, if we could.”
“Sure, yeah, whatever,”
James said, absentmindedly, rubbing his temples with his elbows
rested on the table. Deborah's heart melted, she wondered if his
headache was back from this morning, and longed to reach over and
soothe his worried brow. Suddenly, James was glancing up at her,
Matthew was looking at her sideways, as she realized she had done
just that. “Thank you,” James rumbled softly to her as she
pulled her hand back and deposited it into Matthew's hand, giving him
a reassuring smile.
“Do you need me to come
down to the station?” James was addressing the officers. “Anything
you need to bring these bastards to justice? Whoever did this is
going to pay!”
Ray rubbed James shoulders
as James stood up. James took a deep breath with that reassuring
comfort and moved down the steps towards the policemen. They nodded
at him and led the way to their car.
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