Authors: Randy Mixter
“Come Sarah.” Many voices spoke to me as one. “Come with us to a place where you can dance forever, a place where all your wishes will come true.”
I tried to move, but the angels coaxed me still. “Your body must stay Sarah. We desire your spirit.”
I wanted my parents. I was cold and afraid. I tried to call for them but my lips would not move.
One of the voices drew close. “You must rest, my love,” the voice said. “Rest a bit. Help will be here soon.”
It was my mother’s voice, and it calmed me, Alex. Her voice sounded like music.
“Let me sing to you, Sarah,” my mother said. “The song you made up that rainy weekend last year when we went camping. Remember how we sang it, the two of us, all weekend long, Let me sing you that song for a while. One day we will sing it again together, but not this day. Be strong, Sarah. We will always be near you.”
Then all the angels disappeared except for two. My father took my hand as my mother began to sing.
I was content to stay, so close to the earth, so close to my family, and listen to my mother sing. I felt the warmth of God in my mother’s voice and his touch on my hand. For now, everything was right. The world was balanced once again.
I was safe in the mist. Safe from pain. Safe from reason. Here I was loved, forever and ever.
My eyes closed tightly and I let my mother’s voice, as soothing as a prayer, lull me one last time to sleep.
I woke up on a bed in a hospital. A doctor was telling me how lucky I was to be alive. I asked about my parents and a priest came into the room. I remember he was crying. How odd for a priest to cry, I thought.”
Sarah had stopped shaking. Her body molded against his.
“I was a real showoff when I was younger. I loved to dance, loved to sing too. I would often perform for my mother and father on Saturday nights. I would rehearse all week long to be ready for my show. My parents would always applaud and give me a standing ovation when I was finished. I wasn’t the best singer but, I believe I was a pretty good dancer, and for the longest time I put on a show for them.
For two years, I stopped dancing and then, when I came to San Francisco, I started again, on the hill in the park. I feel their presence with me when I dance for them. I can feel them watching and I can hear their applause. And sometimes Alex, sometimes they tell me secrets about the way things will be.
And they always tell me how much they love me. Every night they tell me that. Why do I dance on the hill? To be with my parents again.”
In the darkness, he kissed her lips, still cool from her time in the mist. She was a fighter, a caregiver, and a child who missed her parents.
“Tonight I stayed with you instead,” she said much later.
It was later still when the last words of the night were spoken.
“Goodnight Alex.”
“Good night Sarah.”
Dawn was near and she was still awake. She quietly moved around to face him, careful of her movements. She did not want him to wake. This day would be a busy one for him, and he needed his rest.
She did not tell him everything about her parents. She did not tell him that they foretold his arrival, nor did she tell him that they told her what would happen a few short hours from now.
It begins with one life, her parents said. One life will make a difference in the lives of many.
She looked at him sleeping, the only man she would truly love for as long as she lived, and she remembered her parents’ last secret spoken, as a tear fell from her eye.
THREE FRIENDS
She woke him with a kiss
to the forehead.
“I thought we were past that,” Alex said.
“That’s a wakeup kiss; they’re different than goodnight kisses. You really are new to all of this, aren’t you?”
He was almost certain she made this stuff up as she went along.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Early morning. Now get up so I can spend some time with you before the clinic.”
Alex saw a new candle with a long wax stem lit atop the cabinet and, for the first time, wished he was an owner of a local candle store.
“I don’t suppose you would want to sleep in this morning?”
“I’ve already taken a shower and had some cereal,” she said and yanked down the sheet.
“Hey! A little privacy!” he yelled while pulling the sheet back to waist level.
She tried to grab it again but he was ready for her. Gripping the sheet with one hand, he tickled her side with the other. She started to laugh and dropped the sheet allowing both of his hands access to her waist.
Sarah collapsed on the bed, laughing hysterically, while pleading with him to stop. She pounded his chest with her small hands as he brought her closer. They were both laughing now as she lowered onto him. They continued to laugh until he covered her with the sheet and coaxed her lips to his.
“It’s time for a goodnight kiss,” he said, and soon it was mid-morning.
“Going up to Haight to pick up an Oracle. Want to tag along?” Chick asked Alex, who was sitting against the porch railing, writing.
“I’m waiting on Matt. We’re walking up to Fulton to pick up his things,” Alex said. It turned out Matt not only spent the previous night at the house, but also would soon be a permanent resident.
“Fulton Street.” Chick thought for a minute. “I wonder if the Airplane is in town. Mind some company?”
“Not a bit,” Alex replied.
He had decided to wear his Baltimore clothes that morning. They were laid out neatly at the foot of the bed when he returned from his shower. He did not remember pulling them out of his clothes drawer, but thoughts of the night before may have clouded his mind.
Sarah left for the clinic an hour earlier after swearing revenge for making her late, and he thought it a good day for a short sleeve shirt, old jeans, and tennis shoes. He had come very close to putting on his cut-off jean shorts, but he didn’t want to expose his pale legs in public. Now, with the hot mid-summer San Francisco sun beating down on him, he regretted his decision.
He concentrated on his writing. His articles on the summer of love were more popular than anyone, himself included, expected.
Last week Mr. Bestwick himself got on the phone with him, after assurances his nephew was not in the vicinity. Bestwick told him he had received several compliments from his peers concerning the Sunday feature and, more importantly, the weekend readership had spiked. Bestwick was willing to believe, from the feedback he had received, the summer of love articles were a significant factor in the increase of subscriptions. They were, according to Bestwick, a welcome alternative to the Vietnam War coverage and its depressing daily American casualty reports. Keep up the good work, he told him before he announced he had to go and chew out his local news team.
“You ready, Alex?” Matt asked as he exited the house.
Alex noted he was wearing a different shirt and pants from yesterday but did not press the issue.
“Mind if Chick walks with us?”
Matt looked over at Chick who was lazing on the porch swing, enjoying his first smoke of the day.
“No problem,” Matt replied.
They took a left on Waller Street and then a right onto Stanyan. They walked the sidewalk on the Golden Gate Park side of the busy street as they made their way to Fulton Street.
“I guess I’m going to be staying here full time for the rest of the summer,” Matt said.
“My father will have a fit when I tell him I quit my job, but I was planning to quit the end of next month to start college anyhow.”
Chick, who had been quiet for most of the trek, spoke up.
“It’s Celeste, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Matt responded.
“Women.” Chick shook his head from side to side. “Bella is already talking communes. She showed me a paper last night about a co-op in Oregon where you can grow vegetables of all shapes and sizes. Pick ’em, eat ’em, sell ’em. Sounds too much like work to me.”
“Chick, you surprise me,” Alex said. “I would have never thought you the type to back away from any form of hard labor.”
“Sarcasm noted,” Chick shot back.
“Things appear to be going well for you and the princess,” he added.
“Could not be better.” Alex said. “By the way, she did want me to thank you again for providing our accommodations, small as they might be.”
Matt snickered at the remark, but Chick just mumbled to himself and continued walking.
Not far ahead, a female voice screamed.
“Francine! Francine!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
Alex saw a woman chasing a small child across the park grass. The woman was losing ground as the child ran from her. There was no one close to the two of them and the child was about a block away from a busy Stanyan Street, on a straight path for it.
Alex and Matt both began to run toward the child, but Alex was faster. He had worn tennis shoes that morning.
“Francine! No!” her mother cried.
The child was almost to Stanyan. The cars moved by at a fast clip. None saw her.
Two unoccupied cars lined the curb. Francine ran between them directly into the moving traffic.
Alex was already in the street, running in the narrow space between the parked cars and the moving ones.
She darted out between the cars. A Ford Galaxy convertible, the driver late for an appointment, was coming fast. He did not see the child between the parked automobiles until it was too late. She had run into the street.
Alex grabbed her then, plucked her up while still running. He twisted her away from the oncoming vehicle and braced himself for impact.
The driver swerved at the last second. The side view mirror grazed Alex’s arm as the Ford screeched to a stop. Several other cars broke quickly behind the vehicle. The sound of squealing tires and horns filled the air, as Alex held the girl between his body and a parked car, waiting for something bad to happen.
“Francine!” her mother cried as she ran into the street, her face wild with panic. She held her arms out in hope and need.
Alex handed her the girl. His arm was a little sore from the mirror, and he was seriously out of breath, but otherwise okay.
All thoughts of retribution passed as she took her child from Alex and squeezed her in her arms. Both mother and child were crying now, realizing how near they had been to tragedy.
Car doors opened, and cries of “Is everybody alright?” were heard from the street.
Matt had made it to Alex’s side. “You okay man?” he asked him between panting breaths.
“I’m okay,” Alex replied.
The driver of the Ford, a middle-aged man in a suit and tie, approached them.
“Is everyone alright?” he asked in the frantic voice of a person who knew how a split second could change a life of happiness to one of sorrow.
Everything is cool,” Alex said, rubbing his arm.
“Did I hit you?” The man in the suit was wide eyed and running his hands through his thinning hair.
“I think your side view mirror grazed my arm,” Alex told him.
“I’m okay though,” he said. “I’m really glad you swerved.”
“So am I,” the driver of the car said with the utmost sincerity.
The lack of severe bodily injury or trauma put most of the crowd of spectators back into their cars or onto the sidewalk. The man in the suit was relieved enough to thank Alex for being in the right place at the right time before he too walked to his convertible, thanking God with every step.
They were all on the sidewalk now, Alex, Matt, Chick, Francine and her mother. The mother put her child on the pavement, gripping her hand tightly. She went to Alex and wrapped her free arm around him, hugging him close. Her head was on his shoulder and he knew she was crying freely. He put his arms around her and held her.
“It’s alright,” he whispered. “Your daughter is safe now.”
She lifted her head, her eyes were red and swollen, and tears ran down her cheeks. She studied him, his face, his eyes.
“You saved her life. That car would have killed her. You saved my child’s life.” Then she kissed him on the cheek. It was a just a short kiss, her lips barely touched his skin, but the heat of it reddened his face.
“It was nothing,” he said.
“It was something,” she replied.
She gazed down at her child, the one true love in her young life.
“Look at that man,” she said to her daughter. “Don’t you ever forget his face. In all the many years ahead of you, don’t ever forget his face.”
She picked up Francine and the child wiped the tears from her mother’s cheek. She looked at her daughter and smiled.
“You see what you’ve given me,” she said, still looking at her daughter but speaking to Alex.
“I won’t forget you either. For the remainder of my days I’ll remember you.” She did look at him then, and smiled. A smile that said her daughter would grow up to be a woman and her mother would be there to see it.
“You will always be in my prayers,” Francine’s mother said to Alex as she gripped her daughter in her arms and walked away, in the direction of the park.
Chick approached him. “I must say, that might have been the most amazing thing I’ve seen sober.” He chuckled as he gripped Alex’s shoulder.
“How’s your arm?” Matt asked him as they continued their walk.
“It’s a little sore. It will probably bruise up, but I’ll be fine.”
“I didn’t think you were going to get there on time. I wouldn’t have.” Matt said.
“I wouldn’t have either,” Chick added, ignoring the looks of disbelieve from his companions.
“The only reason I caught her is because I was wearing tennis shoes,” Alex said. “If I would have been wearing my boots or loafers there’s no way I would have gotten there in time.”
“Thank God you decided to wear them today,” Matt added.
Alex stopped dead in his tracks. He remembered now, he remembered clearly. It wasn’t his idea to put on the tennis shoes. Sarah had suggested it.
“Why don’t you wear your sneakers today,” she had said as he was readying for a shower. “You look cute in jeans and sneakers.”
The clothes. Had she put them out too?
“It was Sarah’s idea,” he told Matt and Chick. “She suggested I wear them today.”