A New York Romance (5 page)

They sat down in a small booth next to the fireplace. The flames were real. It was not one of those fake fireplaces that simply gave off heat from under fake logs and red glowing paper. Julie listened to the crackling fire. The sound reminded her of the days when her father would light a fire in their living room fireplace. They would lie on the floor and watch movies. She could smell the memory of burning marshmallows flooding the room and the laughter of her father echoing over the television. Those were happy times. She missed him as if she had just lost him yesterday.

Julie pulled her awareness back into the café. She noticed the crooked painting hanging on the wall, perhaps carelessly hung by a low-paid employee. She looked at the busboy as if he were the guilty one. He was obviously from a well-to-do family with his expensive jeans, name brand shirt, and sparkling white teeth. His curly, long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail suggested that he might be a local musician, waiting for his big break. But it didn’t look like he struggled that much.

She turned her attention back to Charlie who ordered a large glass of pineapple juice and a café mocha from the waitress. It was the first café she had been to where they had actual waitresses. Stranger still was the combination of drinks Charlie ordered. She wondered for a moment if one of them was hers.

“What will you have, Juliet?” Charlie asked, then she knew the strange combination was all his.

“I’ll have a café mocha also, please.”

“I’ll bring those right out,” the waitress said with a smile as warm as the fire.

“So when we were at the jail the other night, how did you put the money for your bail in my purse? You never touched my purse; I know you didn’t physically put it there. You didn’t even know you would need it until the moment the officer asked for it. So how did it get there?”

“Juliet, I’m not sure we should discuss these things,” he uttered like a warning against a danger she was unaware of.

“Tell me. I know your last name so you have to tell me now, Mr. Daniels!”

She seemed to be threatening him with humor.

“Yes, how do I explain?” he thought out loud then continued, “As I was saying before, thoughts are not bound by time and time is flexible. Time does not go from past to present to future. Things in the present can affect the past and the future can affect the present. I only learned that I needed $200.00 when the officer asked me for it. I made a wish that I needed you to have $200.00 for me. It had to be
you
because the police already checked my pockets when they arrested me. So my present need for the money affected something in the past. Maybe you found $200.00 a couple weeks ago and put it in your purse and forgot about it.”

“If I put $200.00 in my purse a couple weeks ago I would have known it was in there,” she interrupted, “and I would have spent it.”

“Not necessarily. Because my present wish caused you to put it in your purse a couple weeks ago, you may have put it in and forgot about it until the moment I needed it. Even though it was right before your eyes over the past couple weeks you could not even see it until the moment I needed it.”

Julie squint her eyes and cocked head to the side as most people do when they feel their being fed a spoonful of bull…

“Melted chocolate,” the waitress said. “I think it my favorite smell ever!”

She set their drinks before them and offered her services for anything else they might want.

“Thank you,” Charlie politely nodded. Then he continued after she walked away, “Or maybe a relative slipped it in your purse before you left and you could not see it until I asked for it. I don’t know what happened. All I know is that my present wish affected something in the past and you ended up with $200.00 in your purse, which you could not find until the moment I brought it to your awareness.”

“That’s deep,” Julie commented. “If what you say is true, then isn’t it thrilling to know you can have anything you want?”

She looked up toward the spinning fan high above pondering the endless possibilities. The point of her vision fell like two led balloons and fixed on the strange young man across from her as he continued.

“Everyone can have whatever they want, it just happens to me faster. All of us create our reality all the time. You can make a wish and it will come true for you no matter what it is. But if you don’t really believe it will come true, then you will never see it, even when it is right before your eyes. You don’t see it until you’re ready for it, until you really believe it is there for you. Your thoughts create the wish out of your sincere emotions and your faith, or confidence, gives you the ability to recognize it.”

“Yeah,” Julie sighed. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this. It’s too confusing. I mean I understand what you’re saying, it’s just a little hard to accept.”

Charlie paused then carefully added, “The only difference between you and me is that I know what I wish for will be there. I don’t hope or pray that it will be there, I
know
it will be there. Imagination is like a map showing the possibilities of your life and faith is your transportation from one end to the other. You can accomplish anything you imagine with a confident faith.”

“You sound like a preacher now.”

“It’s not a religious thing. It’s how the world works. It’s the same with true love,” he added with a quieter, almost melancholy voice as if mumbling to himself. “If people don’t know what true love is and do not believe it can happen for them, then they can never find it, even when it’s right before their eyes. They simply settle for what they believe is the best alternative, or whatever they believe
can
come true for them. People don’t dream of true love and create it for themselves because they don’t have the confidence in true love’s veracity.”

Julie found his philosophy very interesting, but she could not simply accept that what he said was true. It simply broke all the laws of physics or some conventional science as she understood it. She thought to herself,
Even if it was true, how could anyone know such a thing
? She scanned his face more carefully than before and continued her thought,
…especially at a young age.

“Here they are,” Charlie suddenly whispered as he stared at an older couple walking into the café—her, perhaps late 40’s, and him, mid 50’s in age.

“Those are the friends you came to meet?” she suddenly remembered the reason they were sitting in the homely café.

“Yes,” he quietly responded, glancing at them from out of the corner of his eye as they chose a seat close by. Julie wondered why Charlie was whispering as if he did not want the couple to notice him.

“Well aren’t you going to say hello? They haven’t seemed to notice you’re here.” She also noticed that they didn’t even look around the room for him.

“Oh no, I never say anything to them.”

“What? You took a bus all the way to New York City to meet them for lunch and you’re not even going to say hello?”

“Nope,” he shook his head. He continued to stare intently at them from the corner of his eye.

She squint her eyes and watched him watch them.

“Why not?”

“Oh, well for starters, they have never met me before, and I do not want to disturb them.”

“They don’t even know you?” She became even more puzzled.

“No, we have never met. How could they know me?” he answered still glaring at them as the waitress quickly took their order. Charlie just watched them as he sipped his pineapple juice like most people sip coffee. Then he poured a little juice in his mocha and sipped it too.

Julie wasn’t sure what was stranger—pineapple juice in a café mocha or the bizarre relationship he had with this couple. She made her choice.

“If you have never met them and they have never met you, then how does that make you friends?”

“They need me. I know what they are about to discover. They’re so close,” he answered.

“Wait, you’re confusing me. You’ve never met them before but you got on a bus from Brookville to New York City to meet them in this coffee shop on this day because they need you?” Julie was getting frustrated, too. “How do you know they need you? For what? What do you know that’s so special?”

“I just know of them and the love they have for each other. I could feel it. All they need is a little help.” He seemed obsessed with the couple, still staring at them out of the corner of his eye, stretching out his lips until he found the rim of his cup.

“Are you going to introduce yourself at all?” she asked, still wondering why he would travel all this way to simply watch them.
How could he know they were even going to be here?
she asked herself, knowing she would not get a straight answer from him right now, or even a sane one.

“No, I am not going to introduce myself. That would be a big mistake. I don’t want to interrupt them. They’re in love,” he said mysteriously, “true love.”

“You’re serious. You came all this way on a bus that blew up to meet your
friends
whom you never met before. Somehow you find them here and you’re not even going to say anything to them,” Julie recapped.

“Nope, I mean yep. I’m serious about coming here to meet them, but I’m not going to introduce myself.”

She started to doubt there was ever a couple he was going to meet. Perhaps he randomly picked a couple that walked through the door, and pretending to know of them was an elaborate prank to lure her in.

“How exactly are they your friends again?”

“They are in love, Juliet,” he whispered, as if he was busy staring into the face of God, or something so extraordinary he could not look away.

“If you’re not going to say hi then what are we doing here? This is a little creepy just spying on them,” she thought out loud.

“I just wanted to see them and help them if they need it. Or maybe I need them more than they need me,” he whispered, following the rising thoughts in his head. “I do not get to see these moments anymore like I used to, ever since…” he caught himself before he let his big secret slip out.

“Ever since what? You escaped from the insane asylum? Oh I’m sorry Charlie, I didn’t really mean that.” She regretted her words immediately. Much of the smile vanished from his face when she uttered them. “I don’t really think you’re crazy. You’re just a little…well, a lot odd. But I like it. I just don’t understand it.”

“Yes, Juliet. How can I expect you to accept me as not strange if I do not reveal myself to you?”

“Exactly! So who are you?!” she demanded, having his full attention for the moment. “What do you keep avoiding to tell me? It’s not like you are an escaped murderer of young girls or anything. Are you?”

The right side of his mouth curled up into a partial smiled. “No,” he said to Juliet’s relief, turning his attention back to the couple. “I just want to watch them a while, then I will serve them.”

If he was just trying to avoid the real question of his identity he was doing a good job of it.

“Serve them? Serve them what?” Julie asked.

“The drinks they ordered.”

“But they’re coming right now. The waitress is bringing them…” suddenly the waitress slipped. The mugs shattered on the edge of the empty table spilling the couple’s drinks all over the floor, “…now,” as Julie finished her sentence.

Julie sat back in the chair wondering if Charlie had anything to do with the accident. She waited in silence staring back and forth at the couple and Charlie, who was still staring at the couple. After a few moments he stood up and took the second tray of drinks off the waitress with a whisper and a pleasant smile as she walked out from behind the counter. On his way to the couple’s table, Julie watched him as he pulled out a tube of purple liquid, opened it up, and poured a drop into the couple’s drinks before he served them. They did not even notice him. Then he placed the tray on the empty table behind them, returned to his table with Julie, and watched the couple sip their drinks as they stared into each other’s eyes.

“What did you do to their drinks?” Julie asked, not really fearing that he was poisoning them or trying to kill them. “What was that purple stuff?”

“Poison.”

“Poison?!” she shouted!

“Shhh,” he whispered with his finger vertically placed over his lips. “It is a special poison I made myself.”

He said it so calmly, like a serial killer reminiscing about his very first kill, the one that started it all.

Charlie continued to watch the couple and sipped his café mocha getting whipped cream on his nose and cheek.

“You made it yourself? A poison?” she whispered. “Tell me you’re not serious. You can’t do that! Are you crazy?!”

“Relax, Juliet.” He used a calm, kind voice as she helped him wipe the whipped cream off his face. “Yes, the potion is a poison. But the poison only disrupts the neurons in the brain that connect past memories with present feelings.” In his quick glance at her Charlie could see that Julie did not understand. He gave her his full attention for the moment and proceeded to explain in layman’s terms. “It will stun the illusions of what love is. It will block past memories of what they think love is so they can be completely in the moment. It is like starting with a clean slate. The poison only lasts a moment, but when the love they feel for each other is as strong as theirs, they only need a moment to see what true love is and then they will carry it with them for the rest of their lives and beyond. I know they will. People go centuries without finding what this couple has. This is a very unique and extraordinary moment in the universe.”