A Step to Nowhere
NATASHA A. SALNIKOVA
A STEP TO NOWHERE
Copyright 2012 © Natasha A. Salnikova
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Description
All Sam wants, running home from work, is to get away from the rain. She doesn’t think, at that moment, of the possibility of meeting the man she is in love with, but to whom she has never admitted her feelings. They had taken different life paths five years ago, but she couldn’t forget him. Suddenly, in the crowd, through the rain, she sees him. Sam stops abruptly and the person behind her runs into her. He drops his phone and Sam picks it up to give it back to him, but
that
person disappears into the crowd. But not him. Not Ray. He explains that he came to this city for work and invites Sam to spend the evening with him. Something happens between them, something that
should
have happened five years ago. Sam forgets the stranger's phone and doesn’t check it until the next morning. She wants to find some number to call and return the thing, but instead she stumbles upon lots of messages that describe her every step. She tells Ray about it and he promises to help. Only Sam finds herself in a situation where it's easier to admit yourself as a mental case than to accept the reality.
Editor – Nanci Nelson Rogers
Life can change in a moment. Anyone who has experienced it knows what I mean. You take a step, only one step, but this step is as long as life. This step is between the past and a future you couldn’t imagine in your wildest dreams. But what if that future wasn’t in
your
dreams? What if
somebody
dreamed it for you? Then you make a step into the void, into the abyss and you have no idea what is waiting ahead of you.
It has happened to me.
I was rushing to the car on a busy sidewalk. I rushed because I was hungry and the sky was drizzling. That kind of rain didn’t demand opening an umbrella, but it could irritate the shuggusm out of you. I was sure my hair was a mess and my makeup had gotten smeared. My facial expression was probably as pleasant as a nail in your foot. With a face like that one could take an ax in hand and attack the walls of a stronghold. Let’s say it simply: I was a woman of extraordinary beauty, in the same extraordinary mood. It was a perfect time to meet an old friend.
I thought my eyes had deceived me. They should have. What was he doing here? In this city, in this place, at this time? I had dreamed of him, cherished memories of him for five long years; I had probably thought myself into hallucinations. Only this hallucination was so vivid that I stopped dead. A person behind me probably hadn’t expected this, because he rammed into my back. He gasped, but when I turned to apologize, he disappeared into the crowd.
I thought it was
he
, but at that time I didn’t really know if
he
was a man or a woman.
He
was of middle height, slightly overweight, with short hair, and dressed in a blue parka and jeans. I heard the sound of a dropped object and looked down. The person who ran into me had lost his phone.
“Hey! You dropped something!” I yelled, bending down and picking up a thin, dark blue box. The person didn’t stop and didn’t turn to me. Passersby slipped past me without paying attention to me or my outstretched hand with a phone in it. Drops of rain fell on its blue surface and rolled down.
“Sam?”
The phone was momentarily forgotten, as well as its owner.
His voice. I remembered it as if I had heard it yesterday. I would remember it after hundreds of years. I slowly turned. People hurried by, but we were standing there, as if struck by the sight of Medusa Gorgon. We looked at each other and couldn’t believe the reality.
I
didn’t believe because it couldn’t have happened. Gray sky, drizzle, tiredness. I
must
have been hallucinating.
Only it
was
him. His brown, smiling eyes with tiny wrinkles around the corners, plump lips, so strange for a man. I remembered these lips, often twisted in a smirk. I remembered how much I wanted to kiss them, but had never dared. He had gained weight, very little. It didn’t destroy his looks, but only added to his charm. Nothing could destroy him.
He was standing in a half turn toward me, frozen in unfinished motion: wet lashes, hair stuck to his forehead, upturned collar that hid half of his face.
I had been dreaming of seeing him, but now I really wanted all of it to be a hallucination. I couldn’t feel my heart, I didn’t know what to say, how to act; I thought about smeared mascara, dirty shoes and wet hair.
“What are you doing here?” My lips produced the best they were capable of.
He moved toward me. To me. His lips stretched into a smile, dimples in his cheeks, his eyes slightly narrowed.
Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall
, I commanded myself, counting his steps.
“It
is
you!” he said delightedly. So close. His slightly husky voice hadn’t changed. “I knew you were here, but I didn’t think I would meet you.”
I touched him, but put my hand down when I realized I was still holding the stranger’s phone in it.
Ray laughed.
“I can’t believe I’ve met you. So many years, so many hours! How are you? What are you doing? You haven’t changed a bit. Except, maybe you’ve become even prettier.”
I opened my mouth, but since I was still in shock I didn’t say anything. Ray kept going without a shadow of hesitation or perplexity. He had never been lost or confused.
“Where are you going? Do you have time? I don’t want to let you just go, but here …”
“Yes, rain,” I said. Slowly. I was still lost, but tried very hard to put myself together. “No, I’m just … going home from work. Is it
really
you?”
“I hope so. Let’s go in there?”
I nodded and followed him as a dog on a leash, without even wondering where I was invited.
Jump from the roof? As you wish, Sir.
It was a coffee shop. We got two big cups of cappuccino and sat at the table by the window. Rain tapped on the glass, competing with the music that was playing inside. Something lyrical: electric guitar, saxophone. We studied each other silently, as if we tried to assure ourselves in the reality of the happening.
“How long has it been? A hundred years?” Ray broke the silence, took a sip of coffee. Foam stayed on his upper lip, but he wiped it off right away with a napkin.
Five years
, I thought.
Every day hoping to forget.
“Married? Kids?”
I shook my head negatively. “What about you?”
“Divorced. Fortunately no kids.”
“What are you doing here?” I drank coffee and burned my tongue, but didn’t show it. A heroine from a comic book, “Hot Coffee Woman”. Die, but don’t wince. Like it could actually destroy something the rain had already taken care of.
“Business trip, I’d say. I’m meeting two people for my project. Also I want to check real estate here.”
“You want to move here?” I asked, as indifferently as possible, glancing in my cup for a moment, then drinking again. This time a small sip.
Does he want to move here?
“I have some business ideas. I plan to come here often and don’t want to stay in a hotel. Do you like New York?
I nodded. One more sip of the coffee that had finally started to cool down.
“Can you recommend a good real estate agent?”
“Sure.”
There are some apartments close to mine.
“When did you come?”
“Last night. I had one meeting today and didn’t know what else to do. I decided to take a walk and here … rain … What can you do?”
His eyes locked with mine. I could see it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about or something he wanted to ask.
“So crowded here.” He looked around.
“Yes.” I put my cup on the table.
“I’m staying at my friend’s place. He went to the West Coast. He taught me how to use a coffee machine.”
I wanted wine, not coffee. I hid my hands under the table so the man in front of me wouldn’t notice them trembling, and shrugged. Unconstrained.
He stood up, I did the same. Everything was natural, but I thought that everyone was looking at us. That everyone understood better than we, what was going on. That all of them
knew
. It was just a game of my imagination. People were too busy with their problems, their discussions and decisions over style of coffee, to pay attention to two adults who suddenly felt like teenagers. Well, at least one of them felt like that. Dubious and disorientated.
“Do you have a car?” I asked.
“Taxi, subway for now. Traffic here is horrible.”
“Let’s go in mine.” I headed to the exit.
“You forgot something!”
I turned to the guy who was already seated at our table. He reached a blue phone in my direction.
“Thanks.” I grabbed the phone and caught up with Ray. “Somebody lost this. I need to call the owner.” I stuck it in the pocket of my jacket and forgot about it till the next day.
We came out under the rain. It wasn’t drizzling anymore, but generously drenching the ground and people. We ran to the car.
At that moment I didn’t know that I had left my old life in that coffee shop. I didn’t know that somebody had started to turn the wheels of my destiny without asking my permission. Could you change a fortune by a wish? At that moment I thought that Fortune had smiled on me and opened its arms to embrace me, fulfilling my wishes and answering my prayers. If I had known that it wasn’t something I had dreamed of, would I change anything? I don’t know. At that moment, more than anything, I wanted to be with him.