“I wouldn’t force it, Gil. The story will come to you as you need it. And you’ve always known Peter’s time here was only temporary. I know you like him and are friends, but you need to realize you are going to have to let him go at some point.”
“I know, I know.” I knew, I just didn’t want to.
We ordered our food. It was overpriced for what it was. We had to ask the waitress twice to bring ketchup for Sophie. I wasn’t as impressed with the restaurant as the restaurant was with itself.
“I wish I knew why he had picked me to begin with,” I said. Trina and Sophie had their food. I waited for my hamburger to return. The first time they served it, it was practically raw. I had requested well done.
“I mean, I am glad to have gotten to know him. And I am sad to think it might be coming to an end, but why me?”
“Are you serious with the ‘why me’ whine?” Trina laughed at me.
“Not quite the ‘why me’ whine, but, yeah. Why me? I mean, I’m not somebody he knew. I wasn’t a fan. I’m not a psychic. Why me?”
“You are incredibly tapped into the Other, Gil, so why not you?”
“What do you mean tapped into the Other?”
“I mean the metaphysical. Other planes of existence. You pay attention to dream messages. That’s what I mean by Other. Look, Gil, you always seem to know when Sophie needs something just before she does. You think she's an incredibly well-behaved toddler.”
“She is,” I agreed.
“No, she isn’t. Not around everyone at least. You seem to know what she’s going to want before she can pitch a fit for it. You know when to hand her paper and pencil for drawing, you know when she needs more ketchup.”
“That’s because I’m around her so much, you do the same,” I offered as an excuse.
“Half the time I haven’t picked up on her signals, and you’re already acting on them. I think it’s because you are more open on a subconscious level than most people are. You’ve told me about the cats and the Thing. So why not a human spirit that’s wandering?”
The waitress delivered my hamburger I made her wait as I cut into it. It appeared to be properly cooked this time. I put a few of my fries onto Sophie’s plate and she began dipping them in ketchup.
“See what I mean?” Trina pointed to Sophie. “I thought she was done eating, but clearly not. You gave her food and she now doesn’t have to whine while she figures out how to ask for more food. You have preemptively taken care of her need.”
I really wasn’t sure what to say. I always knew what to give Sophie, it seemed like the right thing to do, giving her more fries even though she had already eaten.
“I bet you had imaginary friends when you were a kid.”
“Doesn’t everybody?” I asked between bites.
“No.” She shook her head. “Not everybody. I bet you can remember specific details about them too.”
“Trina, stop creeping me out.” She was right. I had had imaginary friends when I was a kid, and I did remember definite details about them. There was more than one. There were three to be exact. The one when I was about seven, she was a nice lady. Then there were two when I was in high school. One was a man who died in World War II. He had flown with the Royal Air Force. He was waiting for his wife to join him. The other one was a young musician. He hadn’t been around much. Gerald, the pilot, had hung around for a bit while he was waiting. Our neighbor at the time had been an old lady who was originally from England. Gerald disappeared right around the time she died. I never made that connection before. My imaginary friends had always been nice, I always figured they were my hyperactive imagination.
“So I’m right?” She asked.
I nodded in confirmation. I needed to think about this some more. I never considered myself to be a conduit of Other energies as Trina called it. Other was a good title for something that couldn’t quite be described. Right along the lines of me calling the grey swimming entity the Thing.
“I kind of wish I had kept Peter imaginary. If the internet didn’t exist he would be, I never would have found confirming information validating his existence.”
I was still confused as to what I was going to do with this relationship if I could call it that. I couldn’t tell Trina. It wasn’t that a lady doesn’t kiss and tell, I’ve kissed and told Trina plenty. There was something in me still denying it, or more likely something in me recognizing it as incredibly stupid, and I was saving myself the cosmic ‘told you so’ when it all collapsed.
We left the restaurant and began our slow stroll back to her van in the parking structure. A flock of crows was hanging out in the street and on the sidewalk.
“Did you know a flock of crows is called a murder?” I asked as we made our way toward the birds. They looked like a gang of thugs strutting around, cocky and challenging.
“That’s not random or anything,” Trina remarked.
I thought it was very timely until I looked around and the crows were gone. Well if that wasn’t some kind of cosmic hint. I guess the crows were reminding me I needed to confess to Trina.
17
I doodled, trying to figure out what needed to happen in this story I wanted to finish and was not actually working. It happened sometimes. I knew I should have been organizing my supplies, or straightening up, but I wasn’t. I felt twitchy and in no mood to work. I didn’t really care, besides, I goofed off so rarely, no one was going to say anything about it.
I wandered over to Holly’s cubicle. “Hey, let's go get some coffee. I need to get out of here.”
“Sure, give me a second.” Holly began shifting papers around on her desk.
“We need to get out here now. Leave it.” I normally would wait, but I needed to get out. I had an odd sense of urgency to leave. We walked past Adam on our way out. I actually looped my arm through his and told him he needed to come with us. Fortunately, he didn’t argue with me, but he looked at me like I was crazy. I’ve been getting used to being thought of as the crazy one at work, so that was nothing new.
I focused on heading to the coffee shop across the quad when the earthquake made my legs feel like jelly. The rocking stopped after mere seconds. It wasn’t a strong earthquake, big enough to shake nerves up and rattle windows. We looked at each other. I know my eyes felt like they completely bugged out. Adam and Holly had the same shocked expression.
“I guess coffees off then?” I laughed nervously.
Holly released a nervous, stress filled laugh.
“I should make sure everyone is okay,” Adam said before he headed back inside.
I quickly texted both Mike and Trina making sure they were okay. I called and left a voice mail for my parents letting them know everything was fine here. Holly did the same. I really wanted that coffee, something hot to calm my nerves was sorely needed now. Holly walked with me over to the campus coffee shop. Fortunately, they had only been rattled a bit and were still serving.
We walked back to our office, anticipating an aftershock. After we stepped into the building my ears popped.
“Did you feel that?” Holly asked.
“Yeah, aftershock.” She nodded.
Back in the department, everyone was chattering nervously. Holly’s cubicle was covered in small bits of glass. The light panel in the ceiling directly over her chair had been shaken loose. I had always thought those panels were made of plastic. Apparently, some really old ones were still glass. A few ceiling tiles had shifted, the only other ones to have fallen out were in Adam’s office, and his entire ceiling had collapsed. No other damage was reported.
We stood looking in shock at Holly’s cubicle. She threw her arms around me and squeezed.
“You saved me, Gillian!”
“I ah, whoa.” I breathed deeply. I had insisted she leave with me. Maybe Trina was right, maybe I was tapped into some Other force.
A few of us started helping Holly pick up glass bits. It appeared, by the way the glass had shattered that it was safety glass, which certainly made clea
ning up easier. Holly told everyone how I had saved her by insisting she leaves immediately. And that I saved Adam too since I had literally dragged him outside with us.
I kept saying it was only a really weird coincidence, but honestly, I wasn’t convinced. I needed to freak out. I took a few deep cleansing breaths and tried to calm myself before I started flapping my hands and crying. I needed Peter. I needed big strong arms surrounding me, and warm hands patting my hair, soothing me.
The next time I saw Trina I complained of just that, no Peter when I needed him. “My imaginary friend is letting me down.” I toyed with the straw in my milkshake. I pulled it out and licked the thick ice creamy goodness from the straw before dunking it back down into the glass. The shake was entirely too thick to drink through a straw. Licking the shaft of the straw only deepened my depression, it was the only shaft I had the opportunity to lick for weeks, and for the foreseeable future.
I missed Peter.
“I don’t know why you keep saying things like that. He’s not something you made up. How else do you explain that Sophie could see him? Hmm?” Trina looked at me with her ‘don’t be a dumb-ass’ expression. “Explain to me how if Peter is your imagination you were able to figure out David was cheating on you with that blonde?”
“You really think he’s real and I’m not going crazy?” I countered.
“You’ve got something special going on with him, but you have got to be careful not to get carried away.”
“Carried away?” I already was.
Sophie was occupied with ketchup, eating it with her fingers. Trina sat dissecting onion rings and giving Sophie the fried batter coating. We were comfortably ensconced in our lunch routine at the Soda Shoppe.
“I know you, Gil, you’re going to get too invested in this guy, and you’re going to get hurt.”
“I set up boundaries early on.” I didn’t lie. I had. I also completely tossed those boundaries out once David was no longer in the picture.
“It’s not going to stop you from developing strong feelings for him. He’s very much real and flawed, and you’re spending a whole lot of time alone with him.”
I brushed off her comment. Trina was right, but right now she didn’t need to know that.
“You should start dating again. And I mean really dating, not that go out with Holly thing you’ve been doing. But really date.”
“I’m not ready for that. David really hurt me. I’m okay not dating for a bit.” Now I was lying. I didn’t want to date. It wasn’t David that had hurt me. It was Peter who was ripping my heart out.
“Okay fine, don’t date. But do something other than hiding in your room with Peter.” She almost pleaded. She was more sensible than me.
“But we’re working on this project,” I whined.
“Have you made progress? You haven’t shown me anything to read for ages.”
“Well,” I paused, “we’ve been having issues with that. I want the story to develop and go one way, and he really insists it take a different direction. He wants to make it too much biographical. I’m not comfortable with that. In order for me to do that properly, I should be interviewing other people and doing research. I mean I get he’s telling me stuff, but how do I make it authentic otherwise?
“Besides, he's really not around as much anymore.” I felt the hurt feelings in my own voice.
“What do you mean?” Trina asked.
“Ever since he found out that guy was making a movie about him, he’s not just around as much. I think he’s finally starting to realize that he had a big fan base out there. He might not have liked the movies he made, but his fans certainly did.” I didn’t tell her Peter and I were arguing whenever he was around. Stupid petty disagreements.
Unfortunately, I recognized that we were on a relationship burn-out trajectory. At first, he visited two to three times a week. Quickly it became every day. Every glorious day of having him in my head during the day, and in my bed at night. Then it began fading, once or twice a week if that much. He stayed away longer and longer each time. It’s been over two weeks since the last time I saw him.
It physically hurt, and it hurt my feelings. I felt like I was being cast aside for something better. I filled a gap and was useful for a time. But something happened, something changed. I was no longer useful to Peter, and he didn’t bother with me anymore.
It hurt because I had trusted him, and he was proving to be an opportunistic jerk. He may have thought he wanted to be different, but his afterlife actions we really showing how he had been alive. In reality, he never would have known what to do with a woman like the Michelle I wrote about—kind, loving, understanding, and supportive. No, he got the Michelle he deserved. Michelle Cruz-Keith—cunning, manipulative, opportunistic.
I wanted to blame all my unhappiness on missing him. I felt used. It wasn’t all merely missing Peter, I felt like a chump.
“It might be easier if he was imaginary. Then all of this would be in my head, and I could seek medical help. Maybe they could give me a little blue pill to make me not hear him, and forget everything?”
“Sounds more like relationship problems, than a misunderstanding between friends.”
I stared out the window as Trina made her painfully keen observation. The day was bright and sunny. And then it wasn’t. The sky darkened as a mass of black birds, the likes that haven’t even appeared in a horror movie, flew past the restaurant window. Crows.
Well, that was one strong reminder of what I needed to do. I didn’t need to look around to see if anyone else had witnessed the mass of birds, they hadn’t. That rush of crows was all for me. I blinked and the sky was clear again.
“It is relationship problems. I got involved with him, and not just working on the project.”
Trina looked at me, her face neutral. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, probably practicing a non-judgmental expression while judging me harshly.
“I know, stupid move.” I began my explanation. “We’ve been together since after David. I wouldn’t touch him at all while I was with David. I didn’t cheat. Peter waited for me to be over David.”
Trina didn’t say anything. I think she wanted to but she only nodded.
“We stopped working on the book a while ago. There didn’t seem to be much point for a while. I’ve tried working on it on my own. But I’m not sure if it’s ever going to happen at this point.” That wasn’t a lie, I had no idea if I was going to be able to get this novel to work.
I stopped talking. I started biting my thumbnail. I needed her to say something.
She tilted her head to the side, scrunched her eyebrows together and asked, “How?”
I laughed. I expected to be chewed out for being so dumb. I didn’t expect her to ask how I managed to have a relationship with Peter.
“I can touch him in dreams, and he can control the dreamscape,” I explained.
“So you two actually?” She was making hand motions, clearly unable to find words she could use around Sophie.
“Yes, we actually.” I know I blushed. “And he’s really freaking good at it.” I had to pause. A profound sadness washed over me. I looked out the window, trying to will my tears away. It didn’t work. I blinked trying to clear my eyes. “And that's why this sucks so much. He’s not just moving on, I’m being cast aside like used goods.”
“Oh honey, I’m so sorry. You really like him, huh?”
I nodded. I wiped my nose. “I like him better than I liked David. I miss him.” My bottom lip quivered. I was a mess. Crying over a boy while drinking milkshakes, it was like I was in high school or something.
“I’m sorry,” I sniffed, “I didn’t tell you earlier. I’ve known it was a no-win situation and that I shouldn’t have gotten involved from the beginning. I know I was setting myself up for a broken heart, but I couldn’t help myself. And now here I am, and my heart is breaking. I’m not even all that mad at him, I miss him. I’m being dumped by a ghost. At least it’s not for another woman.” I laughed.
>
Trina ended up paying for my lunch out of pity. I should cry at lunch more often.
Trina had been right, I need to change things up. Hiding in my room all weekend alone wouldn’t bring Peter around any faster. I needed my muse, clearly, he had other things to do with his time. No Peter to distract me. Mike was off on some wild, sex-filled weekend that I wouldn’t hear about until he got back on Tuesday. Trina was never available on weekends. Holly had plans. I didn’t have a large pool of friends to do things with. I tended to go for quality over quantity. But that meant I was left on my own, and I wanted to tackle this Johnny Urban thing.
Maybe if I worked in a different environment the creative juices would flow. I was a professional artist, I could not afford to wait for inspiration to strike. I had deadlines and drawings needed to be done. Why should writing be any different? What I needed was to establish a schedule, give myself a deadline; demand a certain word count per day or week.
The writers on TV and in the movies always worked at hippy coffee shops. I didn’t exactly have one of those around, but I did have access to the student coffee shop across the quad from my office. There were always students on laptops, I would fit right in. Hell, half the people I met on campus thought I was a student anyway.
With laptop and notebook in hand, I found a table to set up at by the big window. I ordered a Frappuccino and sat down to work. My fingers rested on the keyboard but didn’t move. I watched campus through the big picture window as if it were a TV. I saw a student with a particularly good outfit and thought that would look cute on Michelle. I started to describe what I saw. My words were lame, but I wanted to get that idea down on paper.
I flipped open my notebook that was already filling up with more sketches than words and jotted down a sketch of the outfit. I went back to staring out the window but my fingers kept moving. A single crow flew past.
Dead Sexy: Second Endings 1 Page 15
