The Five Times I Met Myself (27 page)

“How do you know?”

Brock shrugged in response, which was no response, eased over to a chair along the side wall, and sat. He tried not to think about his fractured life and how it would work out, but it wasn’t possible. He picked up a year-old copy of
People
magazine and stared at Robin Williams on the cover. It didn’t exactly work out for Robin. What made Brock think things would work out for him? Because God was on his side? Right. Not anymore. Every trip he took to converse with his younger self had made things worse. These days he couldn’t even try. And making things better here in this time line was proving impossible.

Ten minutes later he pushed into the street door accompanied by the jangle of bells at the top of the door. Exhaustion hit him even though he shouldn’t be tired. Actually he had every reason in the world to be tired. He slogged down the street toward his car, eyes on the concrete in front of his feet. But a few seconds later his gaze was pulled up by a voice he felt he should know.

“Brock?”

The call came from an unfamiliar face, but the man’s countenance said they knew each other. The man was over six feet and wore his brown curly hair long. His eyes were bright and his flowing clothes looked like they came straight out of the Summer of Love. The man loped toward Brock with a wide smile and open arms.

“Yes.”

Should he fake it? Pretend to know the guy? Probably. It would avoid a lot of questions and get him home much quicker.

“How are you?” Brock shifted his meal and offered his hand.

“Well beyond what I should be allowed to enjoy.” He pointed at Brock’s bag and frowned. “What is that?”

“Takeout. Thai.”

“No! No! This can’t be.” The man closed his eyes, leaned back, and drew in a long smell through his nose. “Ah, just kidding. Aroon cooks a mean Thai dish.”

“He does indeed.”

“But you?” The man opened his eyes and frowned. “Takeout?”

“Yeah. Rough day.”

“Why not whip it up yourself? Twenty minutes, max. It would be better than this, I mean, it smells wonderful, but with your skill—”

So the man knew he cooked?

“I’m not cooking much these days.”

“Sorry to hear that. Any particular reason?”

“A number of different factors. Mostly just life, you know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

Brock let out a surprised snort. “The cordial thing when someone says something like that is to nod and agree.”

The man laughed loudly. “Do you recall that you and I got
to know each other a few paces beyond the student-teacher relationship?”

“Um, sure.”

Had he taken cooking classes from the guy?

“Do you recall I’m not the best poser in the world?”

Brock nodded.

“Can you handle a serious moment?”

“Sure.” Brock shifted his weight and looked deep into the man’s eyes.

“You have real talent.”

“Thanks.” Brock looked down and tried to focus on the pavement, but he felt the man’s gaze boring into his skull. He pulled his head up and looked into the man’s eyes again.

“I’m serious. The majority of the folks who come through my classes are hobbyists, and some have true skill, but you? You’re a cut above. A few cuts above. I would write a recommendation to any restaurant for you. Don’t give it up.”

The man stared at him as if waiting for an answer.

“Life has gotten complicated.”

“Life is a tapestry of complications.” The man swirled his hand through the air. “You’re no different from anyone else. And the only failures in life are the men and women who stop weaving.”

“Good to see you again.” Brock shifted his meal back to his right hand and nodded. “I appreciate the thoughts.”

The man nodded back and walked off without another word.

Brock ate his meal while he stared at the ripples on Lake Union and waited for another dreamless night to take him. His next meeting with Shagull was still days off, and he fought to believe this would not be his existence for the rest of his life.

Each day that passed without dreaming was another nail in
the coffin. His mind filled with the possibility that he’d never win Karissa back, but he refused to let the thought attach itself to his heart. He would win her back. He had to.

Moments later, as if on cue, the memory of how they met surfaced, and he relived that day back in ’85 when she’d stolen his heart forever.

Chapter 39

A
UGUST
13, 1985

W
hat are you doing on Saturday?”

The sun had just reached the midpoint in its arc across the sky. Morgan and Brock hoisted cans of paint up their ladders propped against the Quail Run apartments in north Kirkland. It wasn’t a bad way to make money for grad school, and working with Morgan made the days move faster. Morgan’s dad wanted him to work more than just at the coffee shop to understand what working for someone else was like.

Saturday? Brock had nothing planned. But the way Morgan asked told Brock it wasn’t a casual question.

“Going somewhere with you?”

“I hope so. I need a wingman.”

“For?”

“I have a date.” Morgan glanced at Brock before turning back to the apartment building. He pulled his paintbrush back and forth across the tan siding, turning it white. “Kind of.”

“I love ‘kind of’ dates.”

“It’s casual, not sure if I want to take it to the next level, not sure if she wants to, but it’s time to find out.”

“What’s her name?”

“Can’t tell you. Don’t want to jinx it.”

“How is telling me her name going to jinx it?”

Morgan appeared to concentrate on the wall in front of him and worked on it with broad strokes. “I met her up at Western. She broke up with this jerk in April that treated her like dirt, and we’ve spent some time together. Just friends, but I think there might be something there. We’ve been writing letters since school got out, and last time I wrote I asked her to go to the waterslides and she said yes.”

“Is that supposed to explain why you won’t tell me her name?”

“I told you, not going to jinx it.”

“Where is this Romeo and Juliet slip-and-slide encounter supposed to take place?”

“Up north. The Birch Bay Waterslides six miles south of the Canadian border.”

“And you think you need a chaperone?”

“Nah.” Morgan sighed. “I just don’t want to be the only guy there, that’s way awkward. She’s bringing two of her roommates. Three against one. I need to you there to balance things out.”

Brock dipped his brush in the can of white paint sitting on his aluminum ladder and worked on the drainpipe that ran up the wall for three stories. He’d be climbing to the top of the building before six o’clock rolled around.
College kid dies falling off a ladder three stories up. Film at eleven.

He sighed and looked at Morg. Brock didn’t want to take an entire day to drive to Bellingham and back, or pretend to be
interested in two girls just so Morgan could make his move on one of his classmates. He’d just broken up with Sheila and didn’t want anything to do with the opposite sex for at least twenty years. On the other hand, Morgan had traipsed along on Brock’s numerous female adventures over the years.

“What am I supposed to do if I go?” Brock climbed another two rungs up his ladder.

“Keep the other two girls occupied while I see if there’s any hope for me. Make sure I have the space to wield my irresistible moves.”

“Does this mystery woman know your moves are irresistible?”

“Ha.” A large dollop of white paint freed itself from Morgan’s brush and splattered on the gray patio ten feet below. “So are you in?”

Brock pointed at the concrete. “You’re going to want to clean that up if you don’t want Gordy reducing the size of your backside.”

“Yeah, yeah. In a minute.”

“Hey!” At that moment, their boss, Gordy Daubenspeck, strode around the corner. “Brock is right, get that cleaned up. Now.”

Brock snickered.

“What are you laughing at, Matthews?” Gordy pointed at the wall in front of Brock’s brush. “How many times do I have to tell you to get enough paint on your brush? We want to cover the wall, don’t we? Tan showing through is not good. So don’t scrub, flooooooow, you must flooooooow when you paint. Got it?”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” Brock gave a mock salute. “Floooooooowwww.”

Gordy strode off as he grumbled, “Rookies. Can’t teach ’em anything.”

Morgan watched Gordy lumber off, then winked at Brock. “So? Are you in?”

“Why don’t you just ask her out, just the two of you?”

“That’s what I thought this was when she said yes.” Morgan lumbered down off the ladder, which protested against his bulk. “Then she added her two roommates.”

“Maybe she’s sending you a message.”

“I’ve never done anything that would make her think we’re more than friends.” Morgan spit on the ground and used a rag to wipe up the paint. “So that’s probably why she invited them.”

“Nice clean-up technique. There’s this thing called water you might try using.”

“I didn’t want to make a move till this weekend, so now that she has friends coming, I don’t want that to mess it up.”

“She’s on to you.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Women are human radar machines.” Brock inspected his flow on the drainpipe and climbed another two rungs on his ladder. “I think they can pick up on if a guy is trying to cross the friend-neutral zone.”

“She’s not on to me.”

“Okay.”

“Are you in?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks. You won’t regret it.”

“Sure I won’t.”

A
UGUST
17, 1985

They pulled onto 405 north at eight Saturday morning accompanied by the sounds of Led Zeppelin blasting out of Morgan’s
Alpine speakers. An hour and fifty minutes later they pulled into the Birch Bay Waterslides parking lot. The lot was half full, with more cars streaming in at the lot’s other entrance. They parked, got out of Morgan’s Camaro, and leaned against the car as Morgan scanned the lot for his kind-of date. Ten minutes later, a late-seventies powder-blue Subaru pulled into the lot, and Morgan pushed off his car. A twinge of nervous anticipation washed through Brock as he caught a glimpse of the driver of the car and her passenger. Where did that come from?

The Subaru pulled into a spot thirty yards from Morgan and Brock. Two girls got out and glanced around the lot. A few seconds later they spotted Morgan, waved, then called out, “Hey! You made it!”

Brock glared at Morgan. “I thought you said there would be three girls. You set me up on a blind date.”

“I didn’t know. Swear! She said she was bringing both her roommates.”

“Great.”

“Here we go.” Morgan flicked a hidden thumbs-up to Brock, then spun and moved toward the girls. He picked up his pace as he got closer, and by the time he was fifteen yards away he had broken into a slow jog.

Brock strolled over with the slow-boat-to-China approach. This would be a long day.

As he approached the girls, he tensed. The one on the right had dark-brown hair, brown eyes that made Bambi’s look dull by comparison, and a playfulness in her face that was more than captivating.
Intoxicating
was the more accurate description. She wore a white tank top and dark-blue shorts that hugged long, tanned
legs. Her gaze was fixed on Morgan and she pointed at him, then wiggled her finger toward the waterslides.

“This should be so fun.”

“No doubt.” Morgan reached the girl and gave her a quick hug, then nodded at the one on the left and said hello.

So the girl on the right was the girl with no name. No question why Morgan was enamored with her. A few seconds later Brock reached the three of them.

“Okay.” Morgan put his sizable arm around Brock. “This is my best friend in the universe, Brock Matthews. Brock, this is Karissa, and this is her friend, Bonnie.”

“Good to meet both of you.” Brock thanked himself for putting sunglasses on. No way for Karissa to know he was gawking at her. It was her. Had to be. The one Future Brock had talked about less than a month earlier.

“You too,” Karissa said, and Bonnie added the same.

“What happened to your other roommate?” Morgan glanced between the two girls.

“Something came up at the last second. Sorry about that.”

“No, it’s all good.” Morgan turned to Brock. “You good?”

“I’m good.” He ignored the hammering of his heart and smiled.

“We going to do this?” Karissa pointed again to the waterslides in back of her, and her smile dimmed the sun.

Brock had dated a lot of girls in high school and college and had enjoyed getting to know all of them. But none came close to the dream girl he’d held in his mind since his midteens. Until now. Stupid to feel this way. How could she be his dream girl after two minutes of knowing her? But the emotion was undeniable. How had the old guy known?

They made small talk as they bought their tickets and listened
to the shrieks of fun coming from the slides. They passed through the gate and strolled into the park, which was filled with the smell of chlorine and overcooked hot dogs. After getting a locker key, Morgan and Brock headed into the men’s bathroom to change into their swimsuits.