He twists his wrists in my hands to reveal his palms, still wet from the cold beer he just held on to a moment ago. I look away from his outstretched hands and back into his eyes, but they’re shut, and he suddenly seems miles away. His nostrils attempt to capture more air, but I can see when he loses the internal battle that’s obviously been evoked from within. I can feel his grief and his struggle to not cry. The look on his face is painful, but in an odd way, also peaceful. I know the moment when the memory hits him, and I sense him give up and allow it to play in his mind. I wonder if it’s Joella’s words that triggered the turmoil I both felt and saw in his face earlier. Or maybe it was the consequences of his actions to her words that caused the chaos that still lives within him. Whatever it is—whoever he is—I must know what Joella Gitanos predicted. She’s gone, but her words are calling to me. I need to uncover the truth, the reason for his presence here, and what was so special about him to be the only living person that I know of to have been granted a sitting with the person I wish I had more time with.
“Jeff, are you all right?” Tears run down his cheeks. “Jeff, will you talk to me?”
He abruptly pulls his hands from my grip as if I forcefully held on to him, and then opens his eyes. They are the most extraordinary and tragic things I’ve ever seen.
“Nothing I say will make any sense to you. It only makes sense to me. She had no way, no right to know the things she said to me. I wish I could ask her why? Why did she stop me that night? Why did she say anything to me? I didn’t ask for my future. I didn’t want it.” He’s all worked up, getting himself angry. He’s right. None of this makes any sense, especially if he won’t tell me what she actually said to him.
“I want to understand. Only you can make me understand. I know I’m not her, but I’m the only living link left of her, and I spent five years here trying to understand her. Maybe I can help you. Maybe you can help me. If you need to be angry with someone, then be angry with me. I don’t care if you yell or talk; I just want you to tell me and make me understand why you—why would Joella Gitanos choose to talk to you?”
He gets up from his seat and my heart drops. He’s about to leave. Please don’t go. He’s about to go back to whatever hole he crawled from and leave me with even more questions than I already had. He can’t just come here, stir me up like this, and then leave. He can’t do this to me!
I look up in shock at a man that I suddenly have a burning desire to know. I don’t want him to go. He must see the fear in my eyes, because he stretches out his hand to me. I’m confused and my brain can’t decide what’s happening. Does he want to shake my hand? Is he leaving? Or is he leaving and taking me with him?
“Come.” His hand is outstretched in midair, and he and I both know this isn’t a question. “You and I are about to get better acquainted.” His words ring with a confident finality to them, while his eyes look like a Photoshopped illusion, and I feel hypnotized by both.
I take his hand without an ounce of hesitation, and at this point, I’m quite sure I’d follow him into hell as long as he keeps looking at me.
I come out of my trance-like state and realize we’re upstairs again. Did I go up the stairs? I question my fuzzy memory. He pulls the heavy black curtains to one side and unlocks a door using a key. He’s now holding it open for us to enter into Joella’s old quarters—the ones that haven’t been used since I moved here five years ago, the ones I haven’t yet found the key to. Joella wasn’t able to go up and down these or any other stairs. Everything I know about this part of the building comes from stories I’ve been told by Lauren and her mother. I’ve only seen the outside portion that every patron who visits the facilities sees. I’d never been invited, nor had I ever been asked to go beyond that point. Jeff leads the way as if he’s been in this off-limits part of the bar hundreds of times before. We’re inside, standing in the middle of a round room, and I suddenly feel his strong hand holding on to me. I look around my unfamiliar surroundings and gasp at the location he’s brought us to. He moves us in deeper, pulling me toward him. My mind slowly allows the rest of me to process that I’m walking through my grand-mère’s private chambers, and that’s when I stop pretending to be strong and everything goes black.
“Baby, it’s time to get up.” I hear my maman and feel her warm lips kissing my head.
“Maman, I had a bad dream.” I whimper and crawl into her arms as I recall bits and pieces of my nightmare.
“We don’t repeat bad dreams. We allow them to evaporate with the night.” I feel my beautiful maman pull me close and gently stroke my back as I inhale her familiar vanilla scent, trying to forget the man with frightening eyes who always appears in my dreams.
“Kali, Kali, please don’t do this to me.” His voice is familiar. Where is my maman?
I slowly open my eyes before closing them again. The dim light burns my lids and makes my eyes tear up. His warm hand rubs my cheek and it forces me to melt into his touch. But as I attempt to open my eyes again, his touch is gone and so is his hand—another illusion. I find him sitting a few feet away from me with his arms folded over his body. He’s watching me intently, waiting for an explanation.
“Who are you?” I’ve asked this already, but this stranger named Jeff seems to be in no hurry to answer any of my questions.
“Perhaps I should be asking you that?” he counters, and I, too, don’t feel the need to say more than I already have.
How did he know to bring me here? Who gave him a key? I sit up from the bed he must’ve laid me on, and look at him, realizing that my gut was right about him. “How did you know about this place?” I question, somehow knowing he must’ve been so much more to Joella than I originally thought.
“I’ve never been in this room, but I’ve seen it in my mind before. She gave me a reading in the room we first passed through. It’s where you fainted. Why did you faint on me, Kali? I’m prepared to talk, but I need to make sure you’ll be okay with the things I tell you.”
I can’t look away from him and those eyes of his.
I notice a key dangling on a black cord around his neck. He instantly grabs hold of the key and hides it under his T-shirt. He momentarily looks away from me and rubs his chest, making sure the key is in its place. He’s waiting for me to answer, and I wish I could explain to him why I blacked out. I wish I could tell him that I am prepared to hear everything. But the truth is I’m scared out of my mind and I’ve never felt my heart beat this hard in all of my twenty-five years on this earth.
“Don’t Stand So Close To Me” by The Police
Lately my presence seems to make the women I encounter faint on me, and this is not a welcomed side effect. I wanted to show Kali the room where the fortuneteller, her grandmother, gave me her stupid reading, but that plan just went to shit. The second we entered that room, I felt her small hand begin to shake in mine, right before going limp, as she stopped holding on and began to fall. I was instantly reminded of Sara fainting in the bathroom six months ago, allowing the familiar terror and fear to flood through my veins again. I had Kali nestled in my arms, unresponsive to my touch. I looked around to find a flat place to lay her weak body on and tried to wake her. The living room we were in only had chairs, so I proceeded farther inside and carried her to the next room before placing her on a bed. It was dark, and a strong smell of roses hit me immediately. I’d never seen this room in my life, but it felt familiar like a childhood bedroom that you never forget.
I called out her name, trying to wake her up. I couldn’t help but stroke her hair and face, and that, too, seemed natural. Who the hell is she? Where do I know her from? Why do I feel like I’ve been here already? It had only been a few seconds, but I thought perhaps I needed to call an ambulance. As soon as the thought entered my head, her eyelids flickered. I instinctively moved away from her. I didn’t need to scare her more than all of this already has. Her color slowly came back to her cheeks and my treacherous heart began to beat again.
The fear in her eyes d
oes crazy shit to my insides. I know she’s not scared of me, but I still feel like a dick for somehow causing that look. This isn’t sexual or anything, but I crave to hug her fear away. Who the fuck are you, Kali? Why do I care so much who the fuck she is in the first place? She sat up, and as if reading my thoughts, asked me who I am. I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t think I’ve figured that part out yet. I feel as if she knows more about me than I know about myself. And my questions seem to elicit a similar mute response from her.
I get up, unable to restrain myself and maintain an acceptable distance, and walk over to sit next to her on the bed I’ve placed her on. I know I can’t touch her, but I need to be close to her. She looks confused, like she needs someone to be close to her, and right now, that someone is me. Her eyes enlarge with an emotion I hope to God is not fear. As soon as I sit next to her, I regret our proximity. I immediately feel more than I should for a woman I just met. When I hear her gasp, I instantly get up, because I have no business feeling anything.
There are moments in your existence that you know your life will change forever. I had that moment when I met Sara almost seventeen years ago in that club in New York City. I had a moment with that fortuneteller over a decade ago a few feet from where I stand now. I had that moment when I married Jacqueline, and when my children were born, and I just had that moment with Kali two minutes ago. You can’t explain it to anybody except to the person who caused it in the first place.
I hate myself for what I think I feel. I can’t bring myself to even look at her and, God forbid, see in her eyes the same feelings I have. I begin to frantically look around the room for things that can take my mind off this striking girl who keeps watching me with expectations to deliver her answers, but I don’t have any … just more questions. If she only knew how lost I am. If she only knew what kind of man I really am, she’d stop looking at me with hope. Everything I touch, I ruin. It’s best I touch nothing from now on.
I pretend to examine an intricate tapestry hung on the wall, distancing my thoughts away from how attractive she is. Without warning I feel her arms engulf me into a hug from behind. I glance down to find her hands lace together and wrap around my waist; her chest molds flush against my back. The air I’ve held inside from the second she touched me deflates, allowing her to momentarily incapacitate me.
“You look like you need a hug,” she whispers innocently. I shouldn’t be imagining anything but an innocent hug with this girl.
I turn to face her. Her eyes study me with such anticipation I almost wish I could give her the information she so desperately seeks. Against my common sense I hug her tight to me, not letting my feelings rule this peculiar situation we’re both in. “I think we both need a hug,” I answer with a chuckle, hoping to hide how nervous I am.
She looks up to give me a small smile, and I pull her close again, resting my chin on her head. Embracing her feels as natural as breathing, and yet we know nothing about each other. We stand huddled in the middle of what I suspect used to be her grandmother’s bedroom, and I can’t help but feel for the first time in a long time that I’m in the right place, with the right person, at the right time.
“Please don’t faint again,” I beg her as we begin to pull away from our hold.
“Deal.” She nods with a smile. “Do you think we should stay and talk here?” She’s already moving farther away from me, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like having her close.
I look around the small room covered in old books and photographs with the dried flowers immortalized in dozens of colorful vases scattered around religious statues. I look up at the ceiling draped in a dusty white fabric coming from the center where a dim chandelier gives off almost no light. I return my gaze to the bed, with Kali standing by it. It’s too much for me to stay here and pretend that I don’t feel the things I know I shouldn’t after being numb for so long. This room feels like a hidden lovers’ tent suspended in another lifetime. In a way, this room reminds me of the place Sara and I once called home, and I know I will never again have a home.
“Would it be okay with you if we talk in that first room? I don’t want you to faint again, but this room feels wrong,” I confess honestly.
She nods. I motion for Kali to go back through the doors I carried her across once she fainted. She leads the way, looking down as we pass first the living room and then the room just beyond the curtains, taking a seat at the round table. There are only two seats, so I naturally sit across from her. I just now noticed that this room is completely round, and if I release the black curtains, we’d be in total darkness. Maybe I’ve been in total darkness ever since I stepped into this room years ago. Knowing your future is unnatural. Perhaps I allowed the darkness to live inside me, and instead of forgetting it and running as far as humanly possible toward the light, I ran right back to it.
I hear a scraping sound across the floor. Kali moves her chair, positioning it close to mine. I instantly have a need to tell her how unstable I am. She shouldn’t be moving closer to me, she should be running away. I can end her curiosity in five minutes and get the fuck out of here. I’ll tell her the futile prophecy bestowed upon me by her dead grandmother, and then she will leave me alone and let me live out the rest of my life sentence on this earth without the ones I love.
“What are you doing?” My voice sounds harsh. I know exactly what she’s doing, but she shouldn’t be nice to some stranger. She knows nothing about me. “You know what? I think it’s best if I just write down what your grandmother said to me and then go. You’ll have all the time in the world to read it over and over and then try to decipher what her fortunetelling actually meant. I can assure you that her prophecy never came true and I have yet to understand any of her predictions.” That’s my head talking.
She smiles at me—a knowing, one-sided grin revealing no teeth but plenty of disappointment. She looks away, nodding her head to herself. “Okay, Jeff from New York City. You’re right—perhaps it’s best you go. I don’t want you wasting your time on a dead fortuneteller’s granddaughter. I mean, what can I possibly say to you that would give meaning to Joella’s reading if you yourself haven’t a clue? After all, it must not have been that important to you if you’ve waited all these years to come here to make sense of her words.” The chair scrapes the floor with a soul-piercing sound, the loss of eye contact and her sudden withdrawal from my space begins to cause a panic that makes zero sense.
I feel like I’m letting this girl I know nothing about down. Why is she agreeing for me to go so quickly? Only minutes ago, she had her hands wrapped around me and moving her chair to be closer and now she’s prepared to walk away?
“Kali!” I call after her. “Kali, look at me!” I say her name with more ownership. She finally turns with a victorious, knowing grin on her lips.
Checkmate.
She knows I don’t want to go.
“I Can’t Hold Back” by Survivor
He seems too old to still be playing games, but then again, some men just play games forever. I can see how badly he wants to talk to me. I can feel how much he wants me to help him make sense of things he’s probably never spoken to anybody about. He and I may have just met, but we have one thing in common—Joella. I never knew enough to be able to talk about her, and I’m pretty sure he’s been pretending they never met. But he can’t pretend with me that this is no big deal to him. I didn’t miss the look of fear that just passed in his eyes. He needs me just as much as I think I need him.
“Are you going to stop pretending and playing games? I’m not your girlfriend—you don’t have to worry about me. You have information that I want, and I may have the explanation you seek. I’m not trying to come on to you … I just want you to feel comfortable enough to talk to me. If my gut is right, I bet I’ll be the only person you’ve ever spoken to about what Joella Gitanos enlightened you with, right?”
He nods.
“Let’s start over. I get that I first need to know you a little better in order
for my grand-mère’s words to mean to me what they mean to you. Are you willing to be truthful and open about your life with me?”
I hold my breath as I wait for him to answer. I may have just said that I am not his girlfriend, but I feel something, and he intrigues me in more than a brotherly way. I can’t deny that his eyes are doing silly things to my stomach. But he doesn’t need to know that, he just needs to feel at ease to want to talk to me.
He takes two huge strides toward me, and a tingle a little south of my stomach comes to life. He holds out his hand again, as if to shake mine, and I comply. But instead of a handshake, he just holds on to me, and then turns his hand in mine, opening it to show me his open palm. He lowers himself close enough to whisper, “I’m not happy about how I feel around you. I can count the number of times in my life that I’ve felt this way. I promise you, I’m not playing games. I’m just trying to play it cool. I know you think that you’ll be able to understand your grandmother’s words, but once I tell you about myself, I’m worried you’ll only inherit the burden of knowing me.”
My heart stops beating as his breath warms my cheek, while my shaking hand still rests in his palm. I’m certain of my attraction to him, and I’m certainly not proud of it, either. I have no business being attracted to a man that is probably married, or at the very least, has a girlfriend waiting back in New York. I tilt my head to the side to try and move away from him, and I swear it’s harder than it seems, because I feel the electromagnetic pull between us.
“Do you feel that?” I ask him.
“I do, but I don’t want to do anything about it,” he declares, retrieving his hand.
Lost In Rewind (Audio Fools #3) Page 8
