Authors: Joanne Schwehm
“You don’t have to get upset about it. I was just
asking. You’ll understand someday, when you have kids, that parents worry about
their children no matter what their age and that all they want is for their
kids to be happy.”
Kids . . . Would I ever have kids? Every day
something else came up that may be out of my reach. “I’m sorry, Mom. I know you’re
concerned. Truth be told so am I. I will let you know, okay? I’m going to go
lie down before dinner. Oh, and I’m meeting a friend at
Parc Monceau
tomorrow for lunch.”
“That’s a lovely park. Who is this friend, and
where did you meet her?”
Here goes. “She’s a he and I met him at the café.
I don’t want you to worry. The waitress vouched for him, Frank saw him, and he
seems like a decent guy. It’s nice to have a friend, and he’s really my only
one here who is close to my age.”
“That sounds wonderful, sweetheart. I’m sure you’ll
have fun. Just be careful.”
I had to admit to myself that I was looking
forward to it. I had spent so much time with Alex before my accident that I
missed the company of a man. I hadn’t realized how much, until I met Chance.
I made my way to my room and pulled out
my tablet. I decided to text Julie. The time difference was six hours, so it
had to be about ten in the morning. I figured she would be at work, and if she
wasn’t at her desk, sitting in front of her computer, she would have her phone
since it was always attached to her like an extra appendage.
4:14 p.m.—Hey stranger, I miss you. How
are things?
My tablet made a ringing sound, indicating an
instant message was coming through. I could talk into the tablet, and I could
hear the other person, and it would type the words that I spoke. I had to
admit, it was pretty cool. However, I decided to call Julie; I missed hearing
her voice.
“Hey, lady! How are you? I am so glad you got a
hold of me. I miss you so much. We all do!”
“I’m good actually. I saw a doctor today, and I’m
having a scan next week. Fingers crossed that my vision will come back. I’m not
going to get my hopes up, but I want to at least pray for a miracle.”
“I agree; you need to have hope, Aubrey.”
“You sound like Chance.”
“Who’s Chance?”
“He is a friend I met here while having coffee
one day. He’s really nice, and from the reaction of our waitress, he’s good-looking
too. Figures, right? And I can’t see him.” I laughed.
“I’m glad you found a friend, but don’t forget
me. I may not be some new, mysterious, hot guy, but I know your deep dark
secrets.” She giggled.
“You’re funny, Julie. I’ll let you go. Kiss Mark
and Brett for me!”
“Okay, we all miss you!”
“I miss you all too. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
I rolled onto my side and held the tablet close
to my heart. It made me feel closer to my friends. I was a little surprised
that Julie didn’t mention Alex. She probably didn’t want me to break our pact
of don’t ask don’t tell.
Who knows what he’s doing?
I missed him so much
that I ached all over. I dreamed about the times we made love, kissed, and
danced. The man definitely had moves. I guess that comes with the territory of
being a club owner. He must have had a lot of practice. Yup, as usual my head went
there. I wish I could just erase all the bad memories and just keep the good
ones. And really, there was only one truly bad memory; it just happened to be
my last one.
I wish I was in a place where I could text him as
I did Julie. He would be happy that I was using the tablet that he gave me. I
wondered if he would be happy about my new friend, Chance; probably not, but
that didn’t matter.
Chance was a nice guy or at least he appeared to
be. I really didn’t know much about him. What was really funny was that
everything he did epitomized romance, exactly what I was looking for. No way
would I start keeping a journal about him; that’s what got me into this
predicament. My dreams of writing a romance novel were over, and I really
didn’t care.
Frank drove me to the park at noon. I was really excited to be
out and about. Frank walked me toward the rotunda and it hit me. This was where
Alex and I had come for our walk. I stopped walking and Frank did as
well. “Miss Aubrey, is everything okay?”
What was I doing? Today was about spending
time with my new friend
. I needed to make new memories. I didn’t want to
replace the old ones; I just wanted to make new ones. “I’m fine, Frank; I just
thought I heard something. That’s all.” Great. Now I was a liar, not only to
myself but to Frank as well.
“We’re here. Would you like me to stay with you
until your friend shows up?”
“No, thank you, Frank. I’ll be fine. I’m sure he’ll
be here soon.” Frank left and told me to text him when I was ready to leave.
I stood still and listened to the sights and
sounds of the park. It was really amazing. Apparently, when people said to take
time and smell the roses, they weren’t kidding. Since losing my sight, I really
started appreciating the beauty of nature without seeing it: the sounds of the
birds, the wind blowing through the leaves, and the trickling water in
fountains. It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard these sounds before, it was just
different now. My brain needed to think about them; before, I just took them
for granted, along with a lot of other things. I never thought I wouldn’t be
able to see people, the sky, or a tree again, but that was my reality today. I
suppose I could have been really depressed and sad about it, but I wasn’t.
“There you are.” I heard Chance. “I hope you
weren’t waiting too long. He kissed me on both cheeks.” I was taken aback, but
didn’t say anything; I just took it as the European way of saying hello. I
remembered when I was in Italy with Alex that everyone kissed hello. I wish he
wasn’t in every one of my thoughts.
“Nope, just a few minutes. I was just listening
to everything.” I could feel myself smiling. He told me that we were going to
head straight and then to the left where he had laid a blanket on the grass for
us to sit on.
I could feel the grass on my toes as my feet flip-flopped
to the blanket. When I felt the warm cotton, I set my never-leave-home-without-it
tote bag next to me and leaned back on my elbows. I was looking toward the sky
and felt the sun on my face, so it must have been a clear sky.
“Chance, can you answer some questions for me?”
“Of course. I will answer them to the best of my
ability.”
“Is it a nice day out? I mean, I can feel the warmth
of the sun on my skin, but are there clouds?”
“The sky is a pale blue. There are a few clouds,
but they are the cotton-ball type.”
I laughed. “When I was little, I used to think I
saw things in the clouds like animals or cartoon characters. Once I swore I saw
Mickey Mouse.”
There was a pause. Was he looking at me as if I
were nuts? Then he said, “Let’s see. There is one cloud that could pass for a
ship, which is pretty cool because the sky looks like water. Then there is
another one that has a skinny little cloud coming out of it like a tail. I
guess it looks like a puppy, and the next one just covered the sun, so that one
I shall call a blanket.”
I turned to him. “Thank you, Chance.”
“You are welcome. I really did not do too much. I
actually never thought about the clouds before. Okay, what is next? What else
would you like to know?”
I could hear voices, young and old, male and
female. “The people who are here, are there a lot of them? What are they
wearing?” I felt myself having to squint. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
“Are you okay? Do you need something?
“Did the sun just come back out from behind the
blanket?”
“Yes, can you see it?” He sounded excited and
scared at the same time.
“Not really, I saw a bright light, as if I’d been
staring into the sun, but it’s gone now.”
“Did it hurt? Are you in pain?”
“No, I’m fine; really, I am. Okay, where were we?
The people . . . What are they wearing?” People-watching was another one of my
favorite hobbies, which I could no longer partake in.
Chance laughed. “Well, this man just walked by,
and he was wearing pants that are not long and not short; I think you women
call them capris. Growing up, we would get picked on for wearing those; kids
would call them ‘floods.’ Now there is a woman—I guess she is in her
mid-fifties—but apparently she did not get that memo. She is wearing a skirt
that if she bends over right now, I am going to wish I was blind.”
I burst into hysterics. I was laughing so hard
that my stomach ached. “That’s hilarious, Chance. That was a total visual that
I could see blind or not. I’ll be laughing about that forever; you’re too
funny!” I tried to catch my breath and wiped the tears that were streaming down
my face due to my irrational laughter. I was taking deep breaths. I hadn’t
laughed like this in what seemed like forever.
I turned my head toward Chance. “How come you
don’t have a girlfriend? I know you said that you recently got out of a
relationship, but you’re a good guy, funny, and apparently good-looking for a
kidnapper anyway.” I winked. “And you keep your word, so you’re trustworthy. Any
woman would be lucky to have you.”
I felt the cotton blanket we were sitting on
shift. Was he leaving? I reached my arm out and my hand landed on his thigh. “Oh
my God, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to touch you. I felt the blanket move and
thought you left me. We don’t have to talk about girlfriends or anything you
don’t want to. I was just curious. That’s all.”
“I would not leave you stranded in a park or
anywhere for that matter. You are not the type of woman a sane man would walk
away from.”
“See that’s what I mean. You say all the right
things, and you have that amazingly sexy accent.” I decided to get off the
girlfriend subject. “Can you teach the French accent to me?”
“You seem to have an accent of your own.”
“Ha-ha, yes, I’m from New York City, but we don’t
have an accent—other people do. Now about this hot French one, teach me some
words I can say in English, but so I sound like you.”
“Hmmm, try this. I like z feesh.”
“Feesh? What is feesh?”
“You know feesh. They swim in the water.”
“Oh, fish!” Laughter consumed me. Okay, this
wasn’t going to work if I didn’t stop laughing.
“How about we have lunch? You are having a hard
enough time keeping it together today. Maybe you need some food in you; you
might be getting delirious on me.”
Chance unpacked the basket, telling me everything
he was doing and where everything was located on the blanket. He did it the
same way Frank did. The wine was at one o’clock, the fruit was at four o’clock,
and so on. I was really enjoying myself.
“Thanks for doing all of this. I haven’t laughed
this hard in a very long time. I had a feeling today would be like this.”
“What do you mean? Today would be like what?”
“Well, sadly my last visual memory was not a
pleasant one. It’s almost as painful to remember it as it is not to be able to
replace it. But today, thanks to you, I have. Unfortunately, now it’s a woman
bending over in a miniskirt.” I started laughing again. “I’m just kidding. My
visuals are now clouds that look like puppies, blankets, and ships that sail on
blue water surrounded by feesh.”
Chance was the one laughing now. “That’s eet!” He
started tickling me, and I fell back onto the blanket.
Through my laughter and gasping for air, I said, “Eet?
Do you mean ‘it’?” He had a great laugh. It sounded a little muffled as if he was
covering his mouth with his hand, but it was genuine. He was genuine. I pushed
his hands away and sat up. My laughter stopped, and I felt tears instead, and
not happy ones.
“I’m sorry, did I do something wrong? I did not
mean to touch you anywhere personal. It was an accident if I did.”
The memory came back as if it were yesterday. I
was with Alex in my apartment, and he was tickling me, and that was such a
great time in my life. I missed him terribly; I really wished I didn’t, but I
did. “It’s okay. I just . . . The tickling reminded me of a time back home. I
really like you, Chance, and you’re my only friend here in France. I don’t want
to lose that. I just freaked out a little. That’s all.” What I really wanted to
say was that I felt as if I were cheating on Alex, on my fairy tale romance,
which was completely stupid because I’d been gone for weeks and there was no
way he was thinking about me and not sleeping with someone else.
“I have an idea. Is it okay if I look at your
tablet?”
“I guess so; it’s in my bag.” I wondered what he
wanted it for. I started to get nervous. I didn’t think he would text or call
anyone.
“Let’s see. What about this one?
Disastrous
by E.L. Montes
.
”
He was going to read to me? I missed my romance
novels and the authors who’d written them. I felt so connected to them when I
read. I tried to picture myself in their situation: what the characters were
going to do and what I would do if I were in their position. Who knew that my
life, which I wanted so badly to be like a romance novel, would turn into a
tragedy?
“I was going to start that series before my
accident, but I never had the time. I heard they were really great books, and I
was really looking forward to the series.”
“Well then, there is no time like the present.”
He leaned me back until I was flat and my head
was on his lap. I felt the warmth from the sky on my face and his warmth
everywhere else. He read the first couple of chapters, and I didn’t want him to
stop. Not only was it a great book but I liked hearing him read it to me. It
was the nicest thing anyone had done for me in a long time. The best part about
it was he didn’t seem as if he were doing it because he felt sorry for me or
out of obligation or because I asked him to. It was just the kind of guy he was,
sweet and genuine.
After about five chapters, Chance said, “To be
continued.”
I pouted. I always tried to read a book from
beginning to end because I couldn’t take the suspense.