Find Me

by Liv Leighton

  But she did her best to play to those clichéd Hollywood stereotypes. Hollywood didn’t want to see a smart and strong woman that looked like Aubrey did. She knew this, but she didn’t care. She loved the fame and attention. And that was why, in the end, I just couldn’t bring myself to date her.

  With Aubrey in my mind, I cleared my little picnic, put the trash in my backpack, and started back down the trails. It was one o’clock and I was well on my way to making it to Catchman’s Overlook by six.

  I continued on, taking in the trees and the wide expanse of sky overhead. I breathed in the crisp Alaskan air, doing everything I could to clear my mind. It was much harder than I expected. In one corner of my head I had the rotary blades of helicopters and the pinging noises of gunfire from a schoolroom walls; in the other corner, there were the flashbulbs and perfectly sculpted bodies of Hollywood.

  Still, there were bright spots during my walk. There was birdsong and babbling brooks. There was the almost overwhelming scent of pine and dirt, wafting through the air. And finally, as the evening wound down and I found myself walking in the four o’ clock shadows of the forest, I was finally able to disconnect from everything.

  There was just me and the forest… and all I did was walk.

  ****

  Catchman’s Overlook was really nothing special—or so I thought at first. I reached it at just before six o’ clock. My legs were tired and my back was getting sore from carrying the backpack, so I was glad to finally see it. A small sign had been posted on a tree, the name of the overlook chiseled into it.

  I set my tent up twenty feet away from the edge, off of the path and in a small grove between a group of firs and alders. There was no need for a fire just yet; the temperature hadn’t yet dropped enough and I had at least another forty-five minutes of daylight. Still, I gathered some scant firewood, liking the simplicity of the task and that I was doing it by myself.

  When the time came to build the fire, I looked at the map one last time, wondering if there was some shorter way back home. The walk today had been great and refreshing, but if I could shave an hour or so off of tomorrow’s hike, I’d be a happy man. I found myself thinking of Mac again as I considered the different trail options. I allowed myself to daydream about the woman. I saw her pretty face in my mind and made the decision that I would visit The Pine Way again as soon as I could. I wasn’t sure if I’d ask her out (hell, I didn’t even know if she was married, dating, or what), but there was only one way to find out if any avenues were available.

  I folded the map back up and when I slid it back into the backpack, I saw for the first time why Catchman’s Overlook had gotten its own little listing on the trail map.

  As the sun set, it looked like it was literally melting into the ocean. There was a perfect gradient of colors, from red to orange, to yellow, that looked like it had been molded specifically for this part of the world. It danced and shimmered over the sea in a way that made it hard to see where that portion of the horizon ended and the sea began. It was like a living painting, and it was hard as hell to look away from it.

  I watched the surreal scene in front of me until the last rays of the sun were overtaken by dusk, the water becoming a murky sort of purple as the night came in. Realizing that I had wasted fifteen minutes by simply staring at the sunset, I put together a small, amateur campfire. Once I had the fire going, I encircled it with stones I found nearby to keep any stray flames from getting away, and then sat down for dinner.

  Dinner was a bit more extravagant than the lunch I’d had. I ate two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I made at the cabin before leaving, as well as a banana and a few grapes. I washed it down with a bottle of water and then pulled out the flask of Jameson.

  The flask, like the clothes and camping gear, had all been purchased after the move to Sitka. The night I left New York, I had taken nothing with me except the clothes on my back. A week after getting into the cabin on Moose Hill, I’d called my apartment manager in LA and told him to have my clothes shipped to a random address (which I had not yet visited to pick up my packages)and to feel free to sell the furniture and put the apartment up for lease.

  I’d dipped pretty heavily into my personal savings to get my life in Sitka started. It didn’t bother me much anymore, though. As I sat under the moonlight in the forests, sipping from my flask, I started to care less and less that someone—be it Adam or Aubrey—might eventually find me here in Alaska. Still, I didn’t want to necessarily invite that sort of headache, either. I was pretty sure I knew how I could get to the money in my primary account… the one with more than eight million dollars in it.

  I was going to take a chance and give it a try. It was enough motivation to help me make the decision to buy the float plane from Mr. Tanner. I thought about that plane and was excited to once again use the pilot’s license I’d acquired during some down time during my basic training. Looking out to the night-shrouded woods, I thought it would be a pretty lucrative business to be able to fly adventurers and weekend warriors out into the Alaskan wilds. After a while, once I became more familiar with the place, maybe I could also act as a tour guide of sorts.

  Suddenly excited about the future, I crawled into my tent shortly after nine o’ clock. I listed to the sounds of the woods—the sighing branches, a hooting owl somewhere in the distance, and a wind that barely brushed the side of my tent.

  I thought about the float plane and making a living out here in Sitka. I thought of Mac, the cute and unsuspecting proprietor of The Pine Way. I thought of the two lives I had already lived to this point and found myself incredibly anxious to truly start the third one.

  7—Mac

  I was having what I liked to call a Crossword kind of day. Those are the days when business at the shop is so slow that I spend most of my time doing crossword puzzles to pass the time. For the last five years or so, over half of our business had consisted of online orders which meant that all I had to do was box the item up, slap a shipping label on it, and send it off.

  The only real reason The Pine Way managed to exist as a physical store at all was for the tourists that came in from time to time. There were a few loyal locals as well, but they only made up about fifteen percent of our business.

  This was why I was so caught up on the idea of buying the float plane. With the plane, I could introduce an entirely new facet to The Pine Way—one that my father had mentioned offhandedly in the several years he had taken me under his wing. I liked to think that if I managed to get the plane and actually make a successful venture of flying tourists out to great fishing spots and off-the-beaten-path hiking locales, I’d be bringing a dream of his to fruition. Dad had been in the grave for almost five years now, but I still saw The Pine Way as his store.

  Of course, there were hold ups at the bank, not letting me purchase the plane as quickly as I could. According to the guy I was working with, the money would be mine within forty-eight hours. My only hope was that the other interested party was having the same sorts of complications. I was tempted to just siphon some of the funds from the shop’s money but it would go against the financial practices that my father had lived by and I wasn’t about to disgrace his memory in such a way.

  So to busy myself, I was trying to complete the crossword in the back of the local paper. I was trying to figure out a nine letter word for love when I heard the little bell over the front door jingle. I looked up and saw the man that had come in two days ago.

  I smiled. “Jack, right?” I asked. I was being coy; I remembered his name.

  “That’s right, Mac,” he said with a smile. He made his way to the counter and looked around passively, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing there.

  “I’m relieved to see you,” she said. “I was afraid our Alaskan wilds might get the better of you.”

  “Oh, I can handle myself in the wilderness,” he said with a confident grin.

  “Did you have fun?” I asked.

  “I did. It was sort of cool to get lost
out in the woods for a day or so. I made it all the way to Catchman’s Overlook and camped. It was beautiful.”

  “Wow, that was quite a hike!”

  “I hope to do it again soon.”

  “So what can I do for you today?” I asked.

  “I wanted to get some more of those GoBars. Those things are delicious—unlike most of those other healthy nature bars that taste like cardboard.”

  “Yeah, they’ve been selling pretty well. I just put a few new boxes out.” I pointed to the aisle behind him and to the left. He turned and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I was pleased to see that he didn’t seem that interested in them. Maybe he hadn’t come here just for the GoBars after all. A girl could only hope…

  Still, I guess he felt obligated at that point. He walked over to the aisle where I kept nutritional supplements, granola, power bars, and the like. He eyed the GoBar selection for a while and then seemed to randomly pick a few. As he did all of this, I finally got a chance to give him a look-over without being too obvious.

  His hair was slightly unkempt, but not in a never-been-washed sort of way. It seemed to have that messy quality that usually showed up on magazine covers, an effortless sort of cute hair that most guys couldn’t pull off. Both his hair and his goatee were in need of a trim, but it wasn’t too bad.

  Through his tee shirt, I could see that his arms were very well built. Most hikers I saw come into The Pine Way were usually rather slim, yet fit. But Jack looked as if he made a habit of hitting up a weight room fairly often. I won’t lie; looking at the muscles in his arms caught me slightly off-guard and there were a few thoughts that went spiraling through my head that were a bit beyond PG-13. Goose bumps rose up on my arms as I reveled in my naughty thoughts.

  Jack turned back towards the counter and I looked away quickly, my eyes going back to the crossword puzzle. As I did, I heard the bell over the door jingle again. I looked up and saw Amber Dawson stepping through the door. She was dressed in a cute sweater and pants that were far too tight. She had on a pair of those ridiculously large sunglasses that somehow looked absolutely beautiful on her.

  I hated her in that moment. And I knew that I would hate her even more when Jack’s attention would predictably shift from me to her. But then something amazing happened and I hated her a little less. She saw that I was in the middle of an awkward conversation with a man that she had never seen before, so she stepped to the side and pretended to find something of interest in the rock climbing section of the store, far away to the back. She was giving me space to talk with the handsome stranger.

  Jack sat the bars next to the register slowly, as if he were trying to think of something to say. Finally, when the last GoBar was on the counter, he found the words he was looking for.

  “Have you ever been to Catchman’s Overlook?” he asked.

  “Once,” I said. “A few years back. I’m really not much of a hiker.”

  “Rock climber?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Runner?”

  “Wrong again.”

  “It seems odd that you’d be the proprietor of a place like this, then,” he said with a boyish grin.

  “It was my father’s place,” I said with a proud smile. “I used to help him here when I was a teenager and I fell in love with it. It was all I ever wanted to do even after I went to college.”

  “Oh. I revoke my previous statement then,” he said, nodding slightly.

  “No worries.”

  An awkward silence fell between us, one that I did not let extend any further than it had to. I started to ring up his GoBars, going as slow as I could in the hopes that he might pick the conversation up again. As I scanned the bars across the scanner, it occurred to me that this was the first time since my divorce that I had spoken to a man in a way that might lead to…well, to something.

  It was both monumental and terrifying all at the same time.

  I was very aware of Amber Dawson in the back of the store. I was sure she was eavesdropping. Therefore, I wasn’t about to be the one to take the next step. I found myself thinking, as if trying to push some sort of telepathic message across to Jack: Ask me out already! At least ask for my number!

  “Heading back out there again anytime soon?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Probably.”

  I had another question at the ready, but didn’t want to seem too obvious. It was on the top of my tongue, but I managed to swallow it. And it was a good thing I did, because he almost crossed the line I was hoping he would cross with his next question.

  “SO, are you here every day?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s a glamorous life.”

  He nodded and smiled at me. Wow, he’s pretty damned good-looking. His smile could light up a room. Jack made sure to hold my eyes with his when he said, “Then I’m sure I’ll be back soon. Bye, for now.”

  “Later, Jack.”

  We held eye contact for another two seconds before he turned around. His eyes were dark brown, almost chocolate. But despite the lack of color, there was a lot going on there. He had one of those stares that was beyond expressive. I could totally get lost in those pools of chocolate.

  When he turned away, I frowned. I saw Amber Dawson come slowly walking down the aisle, hidden from Jack by two display racks. She froze at the edge of it as Jack opened the door and turned back to me. He gave me a smile, a wave, and then he was gone.

  Amber wasted no time in coming to the counter. She gave me an evil grin and nodded. “If you don’t mind my saying so, that guy is beyond hot.”

  “Your point?” I asked.

  “Whatever,” she said, flipping her radiant hair back. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you speak to a man for that long. And I don’t know if you are aware of it or not, but you were looking at him like he was one of our rare thunderstorms or something.”

  “I was not!”

  Amber nodded and smiled. “Oh yeah, you were. And it’s okay. You need to get out and play. He’ll ask you out the next time he comes in. You watch.”

  I looked at her for a moment then the door of my shop. “We’ll see.”

  “And if he does,” Amber said, “you damn well better accept. Let this be your warning: if you let that man get away without at least testing him out under the sheets, I’m going to pounce.”

  Of course you are, I thought.

  I sighed and then gave her an exasperated look. “What do you need, Amber?”

  “Oh, nothing at all. I saw him walk in and followed because I wanted to introduce myself. But then I saw that you two were on the verge of something, so I backed off.”

  “Well that’s pretty considerate.”

  “It is.” She shrugged and smiled.

  We both snickered a bit at this and it helped me to realize that I hadn’t been so excited and hopeful in quite some time. First there was the possibility of acquiring the float plane and now there was the possibility of a man being in the picture, and a hot man at that!

  Things were finally starting to look bright in my little world.

  ****

  I closed up forty minutes later, headed out for my lunch break. I had decided shortly after Amber left that if I had to, I was going to offer Mr. Tanner a sizable deposit on the plane, just to secure it and let him know that I was serious. I knew that he said he had already turned a deposit down from the other person that was interested in it, but I figured it couldn’t hurt my chances.

  I knew that the decision had been made partly because my mood had shifted to something close to bliss. I couldn’t remember ever having been so excited and hopeful—not in the last three or four years, anyway. But I suppose it is better to make decisions based on the motivating factor of a good mood rather than a bad one.

  I reached Tanner’s Fresh Fish and looked out to the water behind the store. The float plane still sat there, the propeller catching the light that bounced form the barely-sloshing water. Seeing it made me feel warm inside, not too dissimilar from the way I ha
d felt when Jack had prolonged the eye contact in the store earlier.

  Jeez, Mac, I thought to myself. You sound like some crazy little love-struck teenage girl.

  Good, I countered. I think I deserve it after all I’ve—

  That last thought was cut short when I noticed something different about the plane.

  The banner with FOR SALE was no longer strapped to the propellers.

  Something heavy settled in my heart. It brought to mind old cartoons where a piano fell from some great height and splatted some unsuspecting bystander on the street below. I stood there for at least thirty seconds, starting at the place where the banner had been strung. I tried to convince myself that Mr. Tanner had taken it down because he knew how badly I wanted it and was saving it for me.

  But I knew that wasn’t true; it was just a naïve thought that was trying to spare me from disappointment.

  Steeling up my courage, I walked into Tanner’s Fresh Fish. Mr. Tanner saw me right away, as he was behind the counter, wiping down one of his electronic scales where I had watched him weight numerous fish in the past. He looked pained to see me, like a man guilty of something that he wasn’t quite certain of.

  “Hey there, Mac,” he said. Even his voice betrayed him. He knew that I was going to be disappointed. It was a childish thing to think, but I sort of hoped that he would be uncomfortable and maybe even feel bad. That is, of course, if he had sold the plane in the first place.

  “The banner is gone,” I said simply. “Did you sell it to the other party?”

  He looked away from me and nodded. “I did. I’m sorry. But I was trying to play a fair game, you know?”

  “Fair how?” I asked. I hear the poutiness in my voice but I did nothing to contain it.

  “Well now, when he came in with his money, I told him that I had someone else that was interested in the plane, too. He offered me another five thousand dollars if I’d seal the deal right there on the spot.”