Time after Time ...If you’re lost, you can look and you will find me

johnjgeddes (75)in #fiction • 8 years ago (edited)

I met her over drinks, a year ago in a tiny bar in the Village. From that first magical moment, she took my breath away.

She was Alison’s former research assistant, now lecturing freshmen in Psychology—an impressive achievement for someone, tottering on the brink, at the tender age of twenty-five.

Julia Asher—long honey-colored hair—yoga practitioner. What more did I need to know?

O, but there was more, much more, and first impressions being what they were, I sold her short.

“So Declan,” she smiled mischievously, “You’re a Professor of Romance and Victorian Literature—so impressive.”

The light was dancing in her glass of wine—in her eyes, her hair, my mind—I had to bring myself to focus.

“You make it sound so stuffy,” I teased.

The tiniest line furrowed her brow. “Oh, not at all—I think it’s intriguing.”

“Really?” I parried, “Messers Ruskin, Carlyle at al?”

She made a face. “Oh, not them—they are boring—I meant the Brontes, the Brownings and Christina Rossetti.”

“Ah, I see. But Romanticism, as such, was a literary movement—you seem preoccupied with romantic love.”

“Perhaps I am,” she smiled, “aren’t you?”

I felt my insides divide into hot and cold—and I was frozen into a brittle smile—like the sun on ice, she held me captive.

I tried to regain my voice. “Are you always this precocious, Ms. Asher?”

“I think I’m an old soul,” she whispered, a wistful, far-off look in her eyes. “And please, Call me Julia, or better, Jules—everyone calls me Jules.”

“Everyone?”

“All my friends, Declan.”

She spoke my name as a soft caress. And I wanted to be numbered among those friends—maybe even on a shorter list.

We fell silent for a moment, and then, I had to ask:

“Did you mean what you said about being an old soul?”

She nodded. “Do you think it’s silly?”

“Not when you say it.”

She had a dreamy look in her eyes.

At first, I thought she’d drop the subject, but then she sighed and said, “I have these feelings sometimes—and it’s as if they’re not mine—as if I was feeling something from another time.”

I shook my head sadly, “Time after time…”

“What’s that, she asked?”

“Oh, just a song from the 80’s by Cindy Lauper.”

“I wasn't around for the 80’s,” she smiled.

I colored at the allusion, but she seemed oblivious of my age.

“What line from that song do you remember?” she asked suddenly.

“ Um, I don’t know—I guess, If you’re lost, you can look and you will find me, time after time—for some reason, that’s the line that sticks in my mind.”

“It’s not for ‘some reason,’ Declan—there’s always a reason.”

It was then I wondered what would become of us.

Something huge and greater than us was carrying us along and I felt helpless as a boulder in the path of a glacier.

The night was spent like that—I’m not sure what became of Alison—but Jules and I were lost in our drizzly dream, and I didn’t want to wake up.

We parted near Queen’s Park Circle, the street lamps haloed with tiny rainbows in the mist.

I didn’t even bother to ask for her number since I was certain I’d see her again.

I was wrong.

I drove home that Friday night in a fog—the one within, and the one without. Everything touched by her aura—her colors stained my soul.

On Saturday, I made the usual trip down the Don Valley to the St. Lawrence Market. The leaves were changing and their hues muted in the mist.

It was all so beautiful—the autumn, my feelings, the mystery of her. The very thought of her excited me—even more, her transparent face was everywhere.

I bought flowers that day—white freesia—the bedewed, fragile blooms reminded me of her.

I sat in my front room looking over the ravine, and thought of her.

Every song I heard, the autumn russets, the lonely birds—incanted her.

I wondered if she was thinking of me—and thought I could hear her whispering—her soft voice calling my name.

By Sunday, I was giddy with the idea of simply being with her—walking through the river of yellow leaves outside my window—or, sitting here, lights out, watching the city lights glow like embers of some forgotten fire.

And then came the aching, the longing to see her, and the desire to hear her voice again.

She was nowhere to be found on Monday—I was tempted to ask Alison, but refrained—and she was strangely silent on the matter, so I left it.

All week my heart was a festering open wound. I felt a fool and tried not to think of her, but she troubled my dreams and I awoke many times calling her name.

Jules. The sound was a summons to my blood.

I walked for hours in the rain hoping to banish her fever, but to avail. She had become an obsession and mercilessly held me in her thrall.

I fought the urge to drop by her lecture, or ‘happen’ to run into her in the Hart House dining room—and finally, as October turned to November, I managed to have my feelings more or less under control.

Later that week Alison phoned—there was another party in Rosedale, and would I like to go? Of course, I agreed, no doubt hoping in the back of my mind Jules would be there.

She wasn’t. Afterwards, I persuaded Alison to go for drinks to the same little Village bar—it was a mistake. I just felt more desolate.

Past midnight, I grew morose and sent Alison home in a cab—and stayed on with the intention of drowning my misery alone.

“I missed you at the party.”

I looked up and into the dark eyes and lovely face I see every night before falling asleep.

“You were at the party?” I croaked.

“I was late—you left, so I asked where you went—but nobody seemed to know.”

“Then how…”

She sat opposite me in the chair. “Do you really have to ask?”

I shrugged. “Where have you been?”

“On the Psychology field trip—didn’t Alison tell you? Usually, we’re at conferences in Quebec for two weeks in January, but this year we had to go in October, or not at all.”

“No, I —I didn’t know,” I stammered.

We sat in silence for a few moments as the look in her eyes told me everything.

I finally managed to say it. “I did miss you, Jules. I felt lost.”

She nodded. “I felt that too—took a lot of walks in the rain—listened to a lot of music too.”