Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans (30 page)

A big jet crawls along, taxiing into position until she loses sight of it maneuvering away far down the runway. When she has nearly forgotten about it and turns her attention elsewhere, the jet screams out of the darkness as it returns and climbs into the sky. She watches it go until it joins the stars far above, and she turns to the next jet preparing to fly.

It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, you are pulled up short, coming upon a familiar face in an unfamiliar setting. It is the neighbor you can’t, for the life of you, place when you see her in the checkout line. Or the co-worker you don’t recognize buying movie tickets ahead of you.

Damn it, her face has been in his mind all afternoon and still he nearly walks right past her, not
seeing
her until he looks twice. Dressed in black, she seems simply a shadow, standing near the window looking out at the night.

She is still here. Slivers of pain shoot through Jason’s leg as he walks a wide circle around her, lost in a throng of travelers. He keeps moving, turning back, never letting her out of his sight, wanting to calm down before talking to her.

Finally, he can’t walk any longer and finds a seat in a cluster of chairs in a waiting area. Leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, he watches only Maris. The rest of the airport, the commotion, the travelers walking past, the sporadic broadcast announcements, the lights, they all form a kaleidoscope, swirling out of focus beyond her. Tension knots his shoulders and so he rolls them, stretching his neck to the side. He can’t talk to her yet because as much as he wants to take her into his arms, he also wants to take her shoulders and demand to know why she is leaving.

In time, Maris wraps her arms around herself, looking cold, and he finally thinks he will take his long sleeve shirt, come up behind her and drape it over her shoulders, until his eyes fall on the airline ticket packet visible in the slash pocket of her shoulder bag. She has reserved a seat, has planned to board a plane out of here, away from him. He almost misses Maris turning to the bank of telephones along a far wall, adjusting the shoulder strap of her black duffel as she walks to an empty phone.

She’d gotten the long distance number from Information and dials it carefully. This time she hopes to stay on and speak, to not change her mind and hang up. She focuses on the phone in front of her while waiting for the call to go through, willing him to be home. On the second ring, a hand reaches over her shoulder and firmly disconnects the call.

“Unless you’re calling me, you don’t need to be on the phone.”

Without turning around, Maris closes her eyes. He takes the receiver from her hand and returns it to the telephone cradle, his hand staying on the receiver, reaching around her and blocking her in.

“Maris. Hey, what are you doing?” Jason asks quietly.

He steps close behind her. She can’t move at all unless she turns into his arms. But the anger, and disbelief, comes through in his words and it stops her.

“I’ve been out of my mind worrying about you. What did you think,” he asks from behind her, his mouth close to her ear, “that I wasn’t waiting to hear from you? To see you?” He takes a long breath before pressing his mouth against her hair. “To hold you? Jesus Christ, I’ve been all over the state looking for you.”

She’s glad he can’t see over her shoulder, can’t know her eyes close tightly against the thought of him panicking.

“Talk to me,” he tells her.

“I was calling your house,” she begins, fighting the burning tears. “I didn’t have your cell number.” She turns, but he keeps his hand on the telephone, walling off the other callers. There is no room between them. She can only look at his eyes. “Please believe me.”

“To say goodbye? Is that it? You were going to see me off over the telephone?”

“No,” she says, crying now as his arm moves around her and pulls her closer. “I was afraid. I didn’t know what to do.”

He hesitates before holding her head to his shoulder and rocking gently, embracing her tighter until she feels like he’ll never let go. “Do you know there’s an A.P.B. out for you?” he asks, gently stroking her hair.

It seems like he still doesn’t believe that she is here in his arms, with the insistent way his hand moves over her head. That, and the thought of her friends searching for her, worrying about her, has her give up on the tears. They keep coming. She feels Jason shift his stance, feels his head lower, his mouth near her ear. “Don’t go, Maris.”

She can’t talk. She can only feel him move closer still, turn his head away and take another deep breath before he turns his face back to her.

“Don’t leave me,” he says.

“No,” she whispers. She pulls back and touches his face. “I’m not. I’m not leaving.”

His fingers tangle in her hair. “Do you know how scared I was?” he asks, searching her eyes. “For you?”

“I thought I had to get away, it was all too much. Just too much. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“Shh. It’s okay, sweetheart. Of course I do.” His thumb catches a tear on her cheek. “Let’s go sit down.”

When she nods and steps back, he picks up her duffel and slips an arm around her shoulder, glancing down at her and speaking quietly. His gait shows fatigue. They walk to a coffee shop at the other end of the airport. Inside the café, an entire curved wall of windows faces the wide airfield. Dreams and lives take flight there, she knows. Hers have in the past.

It takes a moment for Maris to compose herself in their booth. She sets down her handbag, twists her watch into place, wipes her face with a tissue. When she looks up, Jason leans across the table and slips her hair behind an ear, then takes off his long sleeve shirt and hands it to her to put over her shoulders.

“Jason,” she says from behind more tears. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry for doing this to you today, for making you worry.”

He reaches for her hand and holds it on the table. “Don’t apologize, sweetheart. I’ve been there, too. Just let me help you.”

“You know, earlier I was thinking how I couldn’t stay, that every single day here was all because of my mother’s car skidding on black ice. That everyone I know at Stony Point I sadly only know because of that one November afternoon when my mother died, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it.”

He doesn’t speak, and she senses that he won’t. Not until she’s said everything.

“And then, I knew. Somehow, I knew that you, and everyone at the beach. You know. The whole gang.” She smiles through her tears then. “You’re all what saved me.”

Jason leans over the table, holds her face and kisses her then. “Have you eaten at all?” he asks when he sits again.

“Not since breakfast.”

“We’ll have a coffee here. Then you need something good to eat. But first a hot coffee,” he tells her as the waitress sets down a silver carafe and two large mugs.

“How did you know I was here?”

“It was something you said about Chicago, remember?” He lifts the carafe and fills her mug. “That troubles can’t find you there?”

Maris nods and adds cream to the black coffee.

“I thought that whatever went down at your attorney’s office shook you up pretty bad. Bad enough to chase you back to Chicago.”

“It almost did,” Maris says quietly. “But what it really did, after I thought about it, was make me realize how much things have changed this summer.” She touches her star pendant. “How things can really change in an instant. Life can pivot on one moment. I just didn’t know how to face all that I learned today. Everything, I mean. It’s too huge.”

“About Eva?”

“Yes. I still can’t believe it. I have a
sister
.”

“She knows.” He takes a long drink of his coffee, then tops off his mug. “Everybody’s pretty surprised. And we thought the worst about how you’d taken the news.”

“Oh I love the idea, but it hurts to think about what I’ve lost, too, for the past thirty years. I mean, thirty years!”

“I know. But it could have easily been so different. Imagine if you’d never known Eva.”

“How is she?” Maris asks, taking a sip of her steaming coffee.

“Eva?”

“My sister.” She smiles then. “I can’t say it enough. My
sister
.”

“She’s worried sick about you,” he tells her. “Everyone is, really. Kyle, Lauren, Theresa and Ned. They’re all at Eva’s house.” He pauses, his thumb stroking her hand.

“What do you think of it all?” she asks him. “Isn’t it crazy?”

“I think it’s amazing. Theresa and Ned are to be commended. So they made some mistakes, okay, but look what they accomplished, too. You’re one lucky lady, and so is Eva.”

“I have to talk to her.”

“It’s late now, and you’re tired. I’ll call and let her know you’re all right and you can rest and think about things tonight. We’ll go have dinner somewhere quiet, okay?”

She nods. “What about my car?”

“I’ll come for it tomorrow with Matt. That’ll give you the afternoon with Eva. But I want you with me tonight. I thought I’d lost you, Maris.”

Maris looks across the room at a jet lumbering into the sky, climbing slowly past the large windowed wall, the sounding might of its engines pressing its way into the room.

“Your flight?” Jason asks.

She reaches into her handbag, slips out her airline ticket and slides it across the table without explanation. “Read it,” she says.

He picks it up and scans the details. It clearly notes her destination. JFK Airport. “New York?” he asks, looking up from the ticket.

“I know it’s close enough that I could’ve driven, but being on a plane, with that sense of being removed from everything, well, I thought I needed that.”

“What’s in New York?”

“That design job I told you about? They’ve offered it to me but are holding it open only till the end of the week.”

He looks at the ticket again, longer this time.

Maris waits for him to realize what she’s done. The airline and flight number are listed, as well as her departure time. It passed two hours ago. She had never gotten herself aboard the plane.

“Don’t close the door on this,” he says, and hands her the ticket back.

“On the job?”

He pauses for a long moment. “There’s room for two in that barn of mine, you know.”

“Well I just might take you up on that, because seriously? I’m never leaving you,” she says, tucking the ticket into her bag. “Never,” she whispers.

Jason stands and reaches for her hand again. “Come on, sweetheart. I’ll bring you back.”

As Maris turns to leave, catching a glimpse through the window of the diminishing lights of a jet, or of starlight in a vast sea of constellations and wishes, wishes from hearts opening to the stars while standing below on earth and looking up, longing for something, or someone, a voice, a touch, a memory, she knows.

These stars are the very same stars above Stony Point. The same stars she rises to each time she boards a plane. The same stars she looked at with her mother, thirty years past, caught on an 8mm home movie. The same stars where her mother is now. Stars, stars all around us. Celestial stars above and ocean stars on the water. Silver threads of stars stitched onto denim. Stars on gold chains. In the end, they are mere glimmers of light. Hopeful and illuminating, as we’re wanting still another day.

.

Acknowledgments

I’m so grateful to work with my amazing team at CreateSpace. Thank you for your continued enthusiasm and for sharing in my vision for
Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans
. You make the process exciting.

To the wonderful readers I’ve connected with on the writing journey. You motivate and inspire me.

To my daughters, Jena and Mary, and to my husband Tony. For everything.

To Point O’ Woods, the little Connecticut beach that started it all.