LEAVING
Roy Dorman
Jessica Edwards had
gotten lost on the beach.
Maybe not lost. Just
turned around. One can’t really get lost walking on a beach, but if you’re finished
with the beach for the day, you do have to start walking in the right direction
to get home.
Or you can get lost.
She saw a small cottage
set back fifty yards from the water. It looked inhabited and she decided to get
directions to avoid possibly walking still further away from her hotel.
The hotel was about a
mile from the ocean and she’d easily walked to the beach the front desk person
had told her about.
That had been at eleven
o’clock this morning and it was now close to three. She’d missed lunch and was
hungry. And a little irritated at losing her way.
Jessica knocked. A
thirty-something woman dressed in jeans and a plaid work shirt answered the
door with a smile. A very nice smile.
“Lost, right?” she
asked.
“Well, at least turned around,” Jessica said.
“And hungry and a little tired.”
She didn’t know why
she’d added that last part. It sounded like she was asking the woman if she
could come in. And eat. And rest.
“I’m Felicity,” the
woman said, still smiling. “Come in and sit for a bit and I’ll tell you how to
get home.”
***
After some tasty egg
salad sandwiches and then a few glasses of equally tasty Merlot, Jessica felt a
lot better.
“It’ll be getting dark
in a few minutes,” said Felicity. “You’re about a half-hour from your hotel.”
“Oh, I don’t mind
walking in the dark,” Jessica said. “I do it all the time in San Francisco.”
“It’s usually pretty
safe around here, but sometimes some young guys who’ve had too much to drink
can be annoying. And I’d hate to have you miss the start of the little path
leading back to the hotel.”
“Are you saying I should
stay here tonight?” asked Jessica.
Felicity leaned over and
kissed Jessica softly on the mouth.
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying,
Jessica. Stay with me.”
***
It was Sunday morning
and Jessica was scheduled to start the drive back to home and work in San
Francisco today. She would take the week to make the cross-country drive from
Old Orchard Beach, Maine, and be ready for work the following Monday.
Jessica lay in bed
listening to the sound of the ocean. Waves coming in and then going out. Noisy
seagulls were awake and fighting for whatever the ocean had tossed up onto the
beach the previous night.
There was also quiet
singing and the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen. The song was the Joni
Mitchell tune about how you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. The
singing was good.
Jessica thought last
night had been incredible. Unhurried lovemaking in a feather bed followed by
quiet conversation was something she wasn’t used to. She blushed just thinking
about the wildness of it.
Walking into the
kitchen, she smelled toast and eggs in addition to the coffee.
“Oh, Felicity, you
didn’t have to make me breakfast too.”
“But I wanted to.”
The two talked about
work and interests while they lingered over coffee.
Finally, Jessica said,
“I should be going. I have to check out of my hotel by eleven and hit the road.
Thank you so much for everything. Especially a wonderful night.”
“Take me with you.”
“What?”
“Take me with you to San
Francisco. I’ll pay for gas and hotels if you do the driving. I’m a terrible
driver —”
“You can just leave?”
asked Jessica, amazed at what she was hearing.
“I’m all packed. We can
do the dishes and I’ll lock up. I can leave the keys with my neighbor. He’s a
peach.”
All packed? Jessica
considered herself a good judge of character. She should be hearing alarm bells
going off, but there were none. At least if there were she didn’t hear them. Maybe
because she didn’t want to hear them?
There had been many
one-night stands over the last dozen years and there had been many an awkward
morning.
But Jessica didn’t feel
awkward.
“Sure,” she answered. “It’ll be fun. I’d
love
the company. Your company.”
***
Jessica and Felicity had
a short first day. They made it as far as Albany, New York, and had dinner at a
family-run Italian restaurant before checking into a hotel.
Jessica waited and
listened in as Felicity paid cash for one night.
“My sister and I will be
leaving early in the morning,” she told the front desk clerk. “We’ll leave the
key on the dresser.”
The clerk wanted to
argue against her paying in cash with no ID and leaving without checking out,
but Felicity had already turned away and was headed for the elevators.
That night was filled
with just as much as the previous night.
***
Jessica awoke to the
sound of the ocean. And the seagulls.
“There’s no ocean near
Albany,” she thought to herself. “Just some lakes and the Hudson River.”
The Joni Mitchell song
was coming from the kitchen as well as the smell of fresh coffee.
She threw on one of
Felicity’s robes and went into the kitchen.
Felicity turned from the
stove where she was making eggs and said, “I’m so glad you decided to stay with
me.”
“But I didn’t…., I
can’t…., I’ve got a job and a condo in San Francisco. I can’t stay here. I have
to go back…., Wait. How did we get back here from Albany? That’s
impossible….”
“All right,” said
Felicity, smiling sweetly. “If you insist on going to San Francisco, we’ll go
to San Francisco. But first we’ll have a
civilized breakfast.”
The alarm bells were
going off loudly in Jessica’s head. She felt she should run from the little
cottage as fast as she could.
But she didn’t.
***
Getting an earlier start
got the two all the way to Buffalo this time.
Jessica watched as
Felicity dealt with the front desk the same way she’d done the previous night.
Felicity had acted as if
nothing unusual had happened that morning. As if two people and a Kia Soul
could be somehow transported from Albany back to Old Orchard Beach by magic.
She made overtures to
Jessica, but Jessica said she had a headache and just wanted to go to sleep.
Felicity nodded an okay,
but her smile was not the same smile as that first day.
***
Jessica waited until she
was pretty sure Felicity was asleep. It was 10:30 and she wanted to get out of
Buffalo before the “magic” sent her back to Old Orchard Beach.
She dressed as quietly
as she could, grabbed her purse with her phone and keys and started for the
door.
“You’re just going to
leave me here in fucking Buffalo?”
Jessica froze.
Felicity turned on the
lamp on the nightstand and stared at Jessica.
“Just leave without
saying anything?”
“I’m sorry,” Jessica
said, meaning it. “But I don’t know what’s going on. Are we going to be in your
kitchen tomorrow morning? I’m just winding up a three-week vacation. I have a
life back home. I have to get back to San Francisco….”
Felicity got out of bed
and walked over to Jessica. Her stare was intense.
“I could have
been your life,” she grated. “I’m all you would have ever needed. But
you’ve lost that. It’s gone.”
Jessica could feel her
heart hammering. It was beating incredibly fast.
And then it started to
slow. And slow more. She was looking at Felicity when she felt it stop.
***
Felicity took Jessica’s
purse from her dead hands. She made sure she had all of Jessica’s ID. She wiped
the room down to erase any of her own prints and packed the few clothes she’d
unpacked upon arrival.
Leaving the keys on the
dresser, she walked out of the room and to the Kia Soul. She got in and within
minutes she was in the parking lot of Jessica’s hotel in Old Orchard Beach. She
parked the car in a far corner of the lot.
On the way to her
cottage, she threw the keys as far as she could into the ocean.
Though no longer
completely human, Felicity was still capable of feeling sad.
She was sad because of
what she’d had and now it was gone.
Lost.
THE END
