“We can stay over at The Del while Jeremy is in town. They have great room service,” he said.
The air around us was still, as if the growing darkness brought with it a weight that settled any breeze.
“Every place has great room service for you… all you have to do is snap your fingers.”
“That’s true. However, the view is better than here on your boat. Plus, there’s a swimming pool, hot tub, bikini’s…”
I smiled with one corner of my mouth, and shook my head.
“There’s only one girl I’m interested in… but, The Del might be a good idea. I’ll go get my things.” I started back towards the Catalina.
“No problem… come as you are. I’ll bring everything, later.”
I turned back around, put my hands into my pockets, too, and together we walked over to the historic hotel across the road.
Chapter 18
The Hotel del Coronado was completed in 1888, and is one of the oldest hotels standing in Southern California. The woodwork in the large dining room is all tongue and groove; no nails or screws hold the beautiful, arched ceiling together. The craftsmanship is phenomenal, and it’s a popular spot for receptions, parties and gatherings.
A steady flow of tourists, both domestic and international, come through the place, which has quite a history. ‘Some Like it Hot’, with Marilyn Monroe, was in large part filmed there, and several presidents and celebrities over the years have frequented its rooms… rooms which have the benefit of overlooking one of the top 10 beaches in the world. These facts and this history, along with the famous San Diego weather, help make ‘The Del’ a popular tourist destination. As luck would have it, Giddeon knew of a set of adjacent rooms that were unoccupied on the third floor, facing the Pacific.
As I suspected, both doors were unlocked. We each entered our units, and then my subconscious came through a door that adjoined the two rooms.
“I stay here a lot. Especially when you’re reading message boards for the penny stocks… I find that rather mind-numbing.”
“I wouldn’t have my boat without those message boards. You’d rather I flip through ‘War and Peace?”
“Definitely ‘War and Peace’, or Sci Fi, like when you were a teenager. By the way… I picked out that penny stock for you. I also showed you how to hack the system so that your wire transfer would be immediately available. You were dead drunk, remember? That’s when you can hear me, sometimes.”
“No kidding? You picked it out? Why don’t you pick more? I haven’t really hit one, since.” I was feeling better being in the new environment of the hotel; not quite as melancholy as before.
He smiled, opened the sliding glass door and walked out onto the balcony. I followed and stood beside him, my hands on the railing.
“You don’t drink that much, normally… I was feeling a bit tipsy, myself. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have done it.”
“Is there some kind of rule against it?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Not that I know of… it just doesn’t seem right to interfere without your permission.”
“Why would you need my permission… you’re me, remember?”
That put a quizzical look on his face.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t really worked that out… I just know what feels right, and I go by that. Of the very few times I’ve stepped in, one of those was Thursday. I practically pushed you out of your chair towards Melody.”
Two beers appeared in his hands. He gave one to me.
“You done good,” I said.
“You’re in a coma.”
“There is that. But, still… you done good.”
He grunted and then said, “That’s not proper English, you know?”
I nodded. “I know… but, it just feels right.”
He laughed. We drank our beers and watched the sky and the sea become one.
Chapter 19
Jeremy stayed for nearly two weeks. Towards the end of that time, it was becoming evident that my condition wasn’t improving. I had been moved to a regular hospital room close to the nurse’s station, and Giddeon had listened in on several of the conversations between my brother and the doctors. Apparently, I had a little brain activity, mostly Alpha waves, which were common in both deep sleep and some comas.
I never heard finances discussed, however, I was sure the bill was going to be enormous. I know that must have worried Jeremy… he was well off, but not what I would have called rich. My brother has always been responsible and hardworking; I really hated knowing that his irresponsible sibling was going to cost him an arm and a leg, if not more. All I ever heard him say to the doctors was in the form of what more could he do… were there any specialists that could be called in… any treatments that could be initiated? Not, ‘How much is all of this going to cost?’
I realized that he was a much better person than me, and I began to feel not only invisible, but, small.
__________
I followed Jeremy to the airport and watched his plane as it rose into the aqua marine sky. I slipped back out of the terminal, unnoticed by TSA agents and all of the other people in the building. Giddeon was waiting beside my car in the parking lot.
“He’ll be back… probably in a week or two,” said my new best friend.
“I know… hopefully, I’ll be awake by then.”
Giddeon shrugged his shoulders, indicating ‘I don’t know’. He took the keys from me. “I’ll drive.”
I got in the passenger side, and Giddeon went around to the driver’s door; he climbed in and started the engine. Of course, the parking bar at the exit gate was up and we drove right through. He didn’t head towards the interstate, however. In a minute or two, it became evident what our destination was.
Seaport Village… where I met Melody.
__________
“I want to show you something,” Giddeon said. Before long, we were there.
He slowed, pulled into a parking spot, and got out. I followed, and we made our way down the waterfront on the little path that borders the bay. After a brief stroll, we approached the restaurant where she and I had met. As we got closer, I saw, to my surprise, that Melody was actually there… seated at the same outside table with a glass of iced tea in front of her.
She looked amazing; if anything, she was even more beautiful than the day I met her.
Yet, there was something different about her. A fragment of sadness in her eyes. I realized that she was there hoping to see me, and the realization was crushing. I hadn’t called. I’m sure that she was thinking that maybe I had lost the number and that I would show up at the restaurant, looking for her.
We walked over close. Giddeon informed me that Melody had been there three days in a row… always at the same time, and at the same table… our table.
The table in the painting.
I had never even told her my last name… or, where I worked. At the time, I was embarrassed to say what I did for a living. Why? I don’t know. I was so stupid. I knew she was more interested in me than what I did, but, for some reason I had been reluctant to say anything more about my situation than that I was taking the summer off from college. I suppose I was trying to play it cool and break it to her, slowly, that I wasn’t exactly a captain of industry or a Rhodes Scholar.
She had no way of knowing that I was in a hospital just a few miles away. That I was an ‘inter-dimensional tourist’ that had just waved goodbye to his brother… a brother doing everything in his power to wake me up. I couldn’t tell her that I wanted nothing more than for her to look up and see me… not to see through me as she was doing at that moment.
I sat down next to her and reached out for her hand. Naturally, mine went right through hers to the table below; still, I kept it there, covered almost completely by what I knew was her soft palm, and warm, elegant fingers. Melody looked down, almost as if she detected something, and then, her gaze returned to the passersby, searching for me.
“Do you think she can feel my presence
… just a little bit?” I asked Giddeon.
He replied, “Doubtful. For the most part, you couldn’t even detect mine.”
Melody removed her hand from my attempted touch and put it around her glass of tea. She stared into her drink, and the lashes of her eyelids momentarily masked the look that I found so painful. The look that was full of questions… ‘Where are you? Why haven’t I heard from you? We had such a nice time…’
It broke my heart to see her like that.
The vision seated beside me finally sighed, dug through her purse and paid her tab. She stood up and waved goodbye to her waiter. I watched her look out over the people on the concrete path one last time, and then join them on the walkway. Her honey-blonde hair shimmered in the breeze, and I sat there as the last of her fragrance dissipated around me into the bright, California sky.
Chapter 20
Giddeon sensed that I needed cheering up, so we went to a movie. ‘Avatar’, at the theater on Orange Avenue. I’m pretty sure ‘Avatar’ wasn’t playing there… as a matter of a fact, I’m fairly certain the theater was closed for renovations. I suppose Giddeon just sampled the field of probabilities of the building until he found the reality that he wanted, and, poof, there we were. I wasn’t really interested in the particulars of how he did it… I was just glad that he did.
The special effects were awesome; I didn’t even mind wearing the clunky 3-D glasses. For over two and a half hours, I forgot I was in a coma… I forgot about my brother’s pain… and, I almost forgot about how much I wanted to be with Melody… except for when the love story woven into the plot of the movie kept reminding me. All in all, though, it was nice to just put my brain on hold and let the scenes of Pandora wash over me.
When it was finished, we stepped out onto Orange Avenue into the afternoon. As always, it seemed strange going into the daylight after a movie… for some reason I always forget I’m at a matinee when I go to one. Giddeon was thirsty and wanted another smoothie.
We crossed the street and made our way over to ‘MooTime’, once again, so that Giddeon could peruse the menu. Sure enough, a new flavor had appeared on the Formica board and he ‘ordered’ it. I stuck with MangoMooMania.
We sat down in the seats outside and took our time savoring the drinks.
Tourists and locals were out in force, and we silently watched the parade of real people file past our position. The colors, textures, sounds and smells all around us were in their own ways more overpowering to me than Pandora; it was easy to forget I was somewhere else, and, that that particular somewhere else was a sterile, aseptic room full of monitors.
__________
Boris was asleep in the captain’s chair when we got back. He had a pretty good life. If there’s a lottery for cats, he must have hit it. Everyone at the marina knew him, food was not a problem and the weather is practically made to order. He showed no inclination to get up from his spot, so Giddeon and I went on inside the Catalina. I had a seat at the table; Giddeon positioned himself on the couch across from me and picked up my Ovation guitar. He strummed a few chords, and then did a perfect rendition of the beginning of ‘Hotel California’. The clarity of the Elixir strings was extraordinary, and his timing mimicked the original so closely that it was like listening to a CD. He went on up to the part where the vocalist comes in, and then, stopped.
“Any requests?”
“That’s really good. Where did you learn to play like that?”
“You’ve been to a lot of concerts and watched a lot of music videos… I pay attention.”
“I pay attention, too, but I don’t play like that.”
He smiled, and did part of a Fleetwood Mac intro… I couldn’t recall the name of the song at the time.
“5.6 percent, remember?”
“If I ever get out of my coma, I’ll work on upping that.”
“You can try… but, you won’t be able to change it, much. Kind of the way humans are wired. Everyone has sort of a firewall keeping them out… don’t really know why.”
“Even with your percentage, you can’t figure it out?”
“Nope. There’re lots of things I can’t figure out.”
“Like how to wake me up?”
He smiled, again, and ripped into a bluesy pentatonic scale.
“Or, what the most beautiful girl in the world sees in you.”
I contemplated for a moment. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
Giddeon showed a fully enameled grin.
“He sure does… he sure does.”
Music filled the inside of my little boat. I’m still not completely sure an angel wasn’t behind it.
Chapter 21
Periodically, Giddeon and I went to check on my inert body in the rehabilitation facility. We would attempt different things to see if we could raise me out of my slumber. I even tried climbing into the bed and occupying the space inside my body to see if I could get something to move, or, my eyes to open, when I was in there.
Of course, it didn’t work. Nothing did. Try as we might, during those early days of my coma, nothing ever seemed to change my condition… not even a little bit.
__________
On one occasion an older man was in my room, looking very uncomfortable on a wooden chair. A hat was in his hands and he just sat there cloaked with silence… looking at me in the bed. His crystal blue eyes seemed on the verge of spilling over with tears, and slowly, very slowly, he kneaded the old Scottish-styled cap that was contained within his grasp. I watched as he silently kept a vigil beside my supine shell. For some reason, I remained quiet in his presence.
After a while, I pulled Giddeon out into the hallway as if our speaking could somehow disturb the gentle fellow seated near my comatose body.
“Who is that?” I whispered.
“Father McCreely,” Giddeon replied. “That’s the guy that hit you with the golf ball.”
I peeked back inside the room. Other than his hands, he hadn’t moved. His haunted eyes were still focused upon me lying in the bed. I turned back to my better 94.4 percent.
“He looks awful,” I said.
“Guilt will do that. It’s a most unforgiving emotion.”
“He’s a priest?”
“Yep.”
“That sucks… it’s hard to be mad at a priest. Especially one that plays golf.”
Giddeon gave me that Kevin Bacon smile and shook his Brad Pitt hair from his eyes. “I know.”
“I wish there was some way to let him know it wasn’t his fault… even if it sort of was,” I said, still using just a bit of a whisper.
“I’ve tried… no luck. He’s been here a lot. He met with your brother the second day you were in the hospital… looked even worse, then. He stays for an hour, and then goes to the chapel-like area down the hall and prays.”
I looked back, once again, into the room.
Father McCreely had quit kneading his cap. It was hard to say at that point which of us was the most inanimate. “Poor guy. I think I’d rather be me than him.”
“That’s something, I guess. Small miracles are better than none at all,” Giddeon responded.
__________
I leaned against the door frame for a bit, feeling badly for the poor man surrounded by such torment. Then, I turned and walked down the hall with Giddeon beside me. We made our way through the quiet building, past rooms filled with pain and suffering, boredom and questions, loneliness and despair. It seemed like we were walking in a heavy dream, the cool, dehumidified air a clear molasses through which we slowly traversed.
Chapter 22
It’s hard to stay depressed under a blue sky and near salt water. I think that’s why so many broken souls are crowded against the coast of California. The air and the sea are bottomless tonics that must constantly be taken in order to stave off a sadness that can emerge from our limbic systems like a dark, heavy Phoenix. The tonics are so successful that many go their whole lives out here and never realize they’re not happy. I suppose that’s close
enough to heaven for some… it used to be good enough for me.
Only when I held Melody’s hand that day did I realize that I, like so many others in this golden state, had been numb. That the sun and the sea and the sand are just a backdrop for living, and that living isn’t so much to do with where, but, with whom. It’s ironic that I found myself truly awake for less than 24 hours before I was asleep, again.
Coronado Dreaming (The Silver Strand Series) Page 6
