A Small Town Dream (25 page)

***

By the third day, she felt completely at ease in the city. She had a full knowledge of the bus and train systems, and she was able to get all over the place without asking for directions or unfolding a cumbersome and touristy map. One tourist couple had actually asked her for directions, and she had been able to tell them, with confidence, where they were headed. Dean still had not called.

Day four found her out in the evening with some people she had met at a museum. After dinner, she strolled by the ocean and breathed the clean salt air. She leaned on the railing, looking out at the sound, thinking to herself that she felt comfortable there, that maybe she could live there.
With or without Dean
, she assured herself.

On day five, she looked over the want ads while she drank her morning coffee in a little shop around the corner from her hotel room. They knew her by then, called her by her name, and knew her order. She liked it, felt welcomed. It felt like... she couldn’t quite yet say
home
.

She had also stopped worrying about Dean. The fourth day she’d stopped by the address on his business card, and a woman, saying she was his neighbor, said she hadn’t seen him in weeks, maybe months. So Annie ripped up his business card and tossed it in the trash by the docks. She walked away from the trash bin and told herself she was done with him. That it was just not meant to be.

She also told herself that he had meant her no harm, that he was just doing his job, making her feel special, making her feel…
normal
. She silently forgave him and then, she let him go.
I’ll forget him. I’ll take this as a lesson and will forget the hurt, the sorrow and the confusion
. Love just wasn’t in the cards for her, not now and, maybe, not ever.

On day five, she strolled through Pike’s Place market and enjoyed being caught up in the swell of people, tourists and locals alike. The flood of people that she was sure would frighten her was now a comforting and welcomed distraction. She sipped her coffee and walked from stall to stall looking at leather goods, soaps and gifts. She watched the men who threw fish across the room to one another and applauded with the rest of the crowd. She shopped for gifts for her mother and father, for Ellen. She gave over to the idea that she was going to go back.

That evening, sitting in a pizza place, eating a slice, drinking a Coke, she watched the news on the TV bolted to the wall about the register. The top story was about Parker. He had won his appeal and had avoided the death penalty. They spoke about his crime of passion, showed a video clip of him leaving the courthouse in his orange jumpsuit, chains running between his ankles, his hands cuffed.

There was a moment when he looked directly into the camera, and the image froze on the screen while the newswoman gave some details about his age, his promising future. Annie heard none of it. She frozen in time herself. Parker seemed to be looking right at her, smirking. The same look he had when she last saw him. The look that had trapped her and sent her swirling down a rabbit hole that, until that moment, she believed she had emerged from. Now, she saw and felt, that was not true.

She couldn’t finish her dinner. She got up and walked quickly out onto the streets. There was a light drizzle that warped and distorted all the street lights and neon signs. The world around her looked fuzzy. The world
inside
her was twisted and sick. She walked to her hotel, head down, feeling out of place for the first time in a city that was
not
, in fact, her new home.

Back in her room she locked the door and put the chain across it, something she had not done yet in her time there. She washed her face, changed into her pajamas and went to bed. The morning would be better. She would go back home. Things were going to be fine.

She listened to the city outside pulse and thrive. She would miss it, of course, and maybe she would come back. But not for Dean. For herself.

I’ll go many places
, she told herself. She would travel and live a life, somewhere outside of Rockland, even.

That sounded good to her.

Annie looked at the reflection of her face in the glass. Her wrinkles were more noticeable now. She didn’t mind. Her mother always said that wrinkles were just a road map of a life.

Annie’s road map wasn’t as exciting as she once had hoped it would be, but, she didn’t care about the wrinkles anymore. She’d long stopped trying to look her best, to seem interesting. She stopped, as they say,
trying to land a man
. She was fine being single. She was fine with her life. Wasn’t she?

She touched her face, the skin loose and sagging. She sighed, heard the door open and forced a smile. Remembering the tip she had gotten all those long years ago,
put on a smile, keep his moral up
. She adjusted herself in her seat, straightened her blouse, worried that she looked like an old librarian, picked the phone up off its cradle and waited. He sat down and smiled at her. Never a smile of joy, never a pleasant smile. She nodded to him, waited for him to pick up the phone which, in his own time, he did.

“You look old and awful,” he said without preamble. “You look older every single time I see you.” Her smile faded slightly, and she looked down at the table in front of her. It was true, she knew it. She looked old, haggard, dried up. He, on the other hand, seemed eternally young. He looked the same way he did back in high school, so many years ago now. He still had all his hair, still thick and blonde. His face was unchanged, no lines around his eyes or his mouth. He was youthful and energetic.

How was this possible? Most people in prison developed a gray pallor, a look of being aged before their time. Except Parker.

“You still look good, Parker,” she said to him and he smiled widely, leaned back in his chair, tipping it off the floor. “You look the same.”

“Thanks to you, just feeding off your misery,
Annie
,” he said, accenting the hateful nickname. She felt sick. “You keep coming to visit, you stay in town, you let your life pass by, and I thrive on it. I feel your guilt, Annie, I feel it all the way out here, behind these walls and bars, I feel your guilt and I get stronger and I stay young. Do what you love, they say, and you’ll live a long, happy life. Well, I love making
your
life miserable. I love that you can’t let go, and my life is great.” He laughed, and she looked around the room, but no one else was there. She was the lone visitor.

“I’m glad I can make you happy, Parker,” she heard herself say, from a distance. She was far removed from herself. Watching herself sit there again, sit across from him, listen to him pick her apart. Watch him smirk and laugh. Watch him take joy in her misery. Why did she still come? Why did she feel compelled to visit him?

“Why didn’t you just die?!” she suddenly shouted through the phone. She heard it in her ears, ringing in her head. “Why didn’t they just execute you?” Then she froze, the phone pressed against her ear. How would he react to that? Would he yell, would he slam the glass, would he...?

“Now,
Annie
,” he said, slowly, gently, “what would your life have been like if I had gone and let them give me the injection? Who would you have to talk to? Who would you have to visit? Who would you be living life
for
if I wasn’t around?” She tried to speak, tried to argue, but the words wouldn’t come. It felt all too familiar, like a never-ending loop of film. Week after week, she would come, sit and listen to him take another tiny piece of her life.
Why couldn’t he have been executed? Then I would be free.

“No, you wouldn’t, Annie,” he said, hearing her thoughts now, hearing the very heart of her. “You’ll never be free because you believe me. You believe that I killed her because of you. You believe that you’re at fault, and you know what? You are, Annie, you are. It’s your fault that I’m here. It’s your fault that Connie is dead. It’s all your fault. You know that. That’s why you come back. That’s why you stay, why you have no life, no husband, no kids, nothing. And, Annie, if they had killed me, I would have taken your chance for absolution to the grave. Be thankful I’m still here, Annie.” Her body shook, and the tears started again. Every time. “Are you thankful, Annie,” he hissed into the phone, “
are
you?” She looked into his eyes, and they glowed. He rose off his chair and floated in front of her.

“Are you
thankful
, Annie? Are you
grateful
that I’m still here for you,
Annie
, are you?” She turned from him and there, behind her in the room was Dean. She dropped the phone and ran to him and threw her arms around him.

“You’re here,” she whispered, pressing her face into his neck. “You’ve finally, finally come for me.” She stepped back and looked up but, she looked into Parker’s face. He was laughing.
He
was holding her. Parker was holding her. He was no longer safely behind the glass but was there, in the room, his arms around her.

“Are you thankful
, Annie?”
he asked and she pulled away.

“Are you…
Annie
?” She heard a knock on the door.

“Huh,
Annie
?” She tried to go to the door, to let the guard in, but Parker had hold of her arm. The knocking continued.

“Annie? Answer me…
Annie
.” She struggled. She tried to call for help, but her voice failed. The knocking continued.

“
Annie?
” The knocking...

“Anne?” A voice finally broke through. She suddenly sat up. She wasn’t in the jail. She was in bed.

“Anne?” The knocking came again. She froze, not sure if she was awake or still in a dream. She looked around. She was in her bedroom at home.

“Anne?” She got out of bed and crept slowly to the door.

“Yes?” she asked, her voice hushed. “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Anne.” She unlocked the door to see who it was. When she saw, she was sure she was still dreaming. How could this possibly be? She stood, swaying on her feet, confused, unsure.

How could he be there? How could he have found her? How did he know?

She stared, speechless. Finally, he spoke.

“Hey there, Anne,” Dean Moore said.

“Happy birthday, Anne.” Dean held out a Christmas-y bouquet complete with fragrant pine branches and peppermint twist roses.

“How did you—?”

“You birthday was in your file.” Annie buried her nose in the flowers, then frowned at him.

“Dean, you never called me back, and you show up here now, and it’s wonderful but—” He held out his hand.

“You mom made some coffee and I stopped at the bakery on my way here. Will you come downstairs and talk with me?” How could she say anything but
yes
?

“Well,” she put on a teasing tone, “you’d better have a good explanation, Mr. Moore.” He laughed and led her down the stairs.

They sat at her parents’ kitchen table, sipping coffee and nibbling on fresh croissants. Dean told her how, right after her graduation ceremony, he’d been called into one nightmare after another. It started with a shooting in a mall. Fifty-five people had been either killed or wounded. He set up a temporary office in the mall, among the business offices and people came and went for days. The killer had shot himself so, there were no answers, nothing really to do to help anyone. After that there was—unbelievably—another rape and murder at another high school, this time during summer break. He had felt useless, stuck, foolish and sick of it. So, he took some time off.

Annie was moved, listening to his story, and sympathized completely. But finally she had to ask. “Is that why you didn’t return my phone calls?”

“When? During the summer? Or just the last couple of weeks?”

“Well, both, I guess.” Annie braced herself for the worst, but then again, he was sitting here, and had brought her the most beautiful flowers she’d ever received so…