Chapter 33
My overnight shift at Sunnyvale starts off rather peacefully, just as I had hoped.
I sprint to Mrs. Lewis’s room, fearing she’s in mid–heart attack or possibly having another stroke, but when I reach her door, she’s standing on her bed in her flannel nightgown, a bright orange Dorito in her outstretched hand, looking otherwise perfectly fine.
“Mrs. Lewis?”
She drops her hands with an exasperated sigh.
“He prefers cheese,” she says, “but this is all I’ve got.
” Once again, she stretches her hand out toward the ceiling, this time making clicking sounds with her tongue.
Only then do I notice the ceiling panel slightly askew and the yellow eyes peering down through the dark gap.
“What is that?” I reach for her, fearing it’s a raccoon or rat. However, a tiny meow escapes the hole, bringing my panic down a notch.
“Pumpkin?”
Mrs. Lewis presses up on her tiptoes, waving the Dorito at the gap. “We were watching a little CSI Miami before bed. A gator jumped out, and the poor thing got spooked.”
“Okay,” I coax Mrs. Lewis rather than the cat, worrying one misstep will have her toppling off her single bed. “How about you let me give it a go?”
It takes me ten minutes to convince Mrs. Lewis to get off her bed, then another thirty to lure the cat out with a can of tuna fish from the kitchen.
Despite Mrs. Lewis’s insistence that Pumpkin is usually a well-behaved little man, I have to call Mr. Lewis to pick up the cat.
I wait for him out front, the cat tucked into the space between my scrubs and my coat, until he rolls up in his station wagon, window down and arms outstretched.
“I told Moira that was a bad idea.” His grin is sheepish as I hand him the cat through the window.
By the time I get back upstairs, it’s time for another round of bed checks, and it’s long past my window to call Reeve back.
Thankfully, the rest of the night passes without any more cat-related or other dramas.
When I clock out, it’s just past 6:30 in the morning. I call Reeve back, hoping to catch him before work, but my call goes straight to voicemail.
By the time I get home and ready for bed, he still hasn’t returned my call, and part of me is a little relieved. Reeve will ask me about yesterday’s meeting. I know we need to talk about it, and I want to, but not until I’ve followed Miranda’s advice and slept on it—ideally for eight solid hours.
I plug my phone into the charger and settle under the covers, but as I reach for the light-blocking sleep mask I usually keep in my nightstand drawer, my eyes land on the diary instead.
I have been so worried about Mansfield and my own problems that I haven’t even thought about my last Kitty dream.
Obviously I knew Beau would have to make another appearance and the dance hall would eventually close given its current abandoned state, but is that really how it all ends? What happened to poor Knots?
Despite my tired eyes and aching body, I open the diary to where I left off the other night, knowing I won’t be able to fall asleep unless I know how it all turns out.
I thumb the remaining pages. There are only a few left unread.
An apprehensive feeling settles over me.
It’s that same one you get when you’re at the end of a book and there aren’t enough pages left for the plot to take much of a turn.
Dear Diary,
I watched the waves today.
They rolled against the sand one by one. Over and over, never changing.
I found myself wishing one would rush forward, crash onto the beach, and continue to roll down Main Street, taking everything in its path along with it.
But every time it felt like one was about to escape, it was sucked right back into the lake.
I want so many things, and all of them feel so out of reach. Whenever I feel like I might just be able to break free, I get pulled back—powerless.
I hate being powerless.
Kitty
It’s a big departure from Kitty’s usual sunny entries. For anyone else, I’d consider it a healthy, if not excessively poetic, expression of teenage angst. However, as I read her words again, something in my chest gives a painful lurch.
They were so happy, she and Knots. They were going to be together. They had a plan, and I wanted so badly for it to work out.
I know it’s irrational. The dance hall now lies abandoned and shuttered, and Kitty lived her last days as Kitty St. Clair, not Kitty…whatever Knots’s last name is.
I know their future doesn’t end in a happily ever after, no matter how much I want it to.
I close my eyes and sink into my pillow, knowing exactly where I will go.
Kitty’s fate was sealed long ago.
And all I can do is watch.
—
There’s a line by the time I get from Dot’s empty bedroom to the dance hall.
The dreamy yellow light spills from the windows, and the catchy and upbeat music echoes through half of the town. However, as I stand in line, waiting to get inside, I notice that the mood doesn’t translate to the crowd around me.
I’m still surrounded by freshly pressed suits and skirts that flutter with every light breeze from the lake. The summer air still smells like perfume and gin. But there’s something else that hangs heavy in the night. An intangible feeling that something is off.
It isn’t until I get closer to the entrance that I fully understand why.
West Lake Dance Hall—one last hurrah! Join us for one final twirl around the dance floor.
The banner is painted in swirling black letters.
All of the air stutters out of me as I read it, and my own mood joins the collective air of melancholy around me.
It’s over. The dance hall is closing.
“Oh, I just can’t believe it,” says a weeping redhead in front of me. She rests her head on her partner’s shoulder. “What are we going to do now?”
Her partner shakes his head. “It’s such a shame.”
The line moves forward. An unfamiliar rope boy opens the front door, and I step inside, knowing deep down that this will be the last time.
My eyes scan the dance floor, looking for Kitty.
She isn’t among the foxtrotting bodies or sitting at the tables or standing in a ticket line.
I even open the door of the tiny back office, hoping that she and Knots might be stealing a quiet moment inside, but there is only a man hunched over a desk, his head resting in the palms of his hands.
“Knots?”
He looks up at the sound of my voice.
“Hey. Um…have you seen Kitty anywhere?”
His head returns to his hands at the question. “She’s gone,” he finally says.
Gone?
“Where? What happened?”
His shoulders begin to shake. The music is too loud for me to hear if he’s crying or simply breathing, but when he looks up again, his eyes are glassy, and his cheeks are wet.
“She left with him. I don’t know where she went, but I don’t think she’s coming back.”
He looks so lost—so forlorn—that my arms ache to hold this man I barely know. When his chin begins to tremble, I step toward him, encircling his heaving shoulders with one arm and making slow, soothing circles on his back with the other.
“It’s okay,” I coax. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
Although I’m not sure it will be.
We stay like that until his breaths begin to deepen, and he finally pats my arm with his hand. “Thank you, Dotty.”
I stand and watch as he wipes his cheeks with the sleeve of his jacket, then pushes back his chair and stands. “I should really get out there.” He clears his throat. “I am still the boss—for one more night.”
He attempts a smile, but it fools neither of us. As he steps past me toward the office door, I’m struck with an awful thought. This could be the last time I ever see Knots.
These dreams haven’t exactly come with an instruction manual, but I have to think they will end when I finish the diary.
“What is going to happen to you?” I ask, not caring that I’m breaking the third wall between this dream and my own reality.
Knots forces another strained smile. “I’ve got some maintenance jobs lined up in a couple of weeks. My brother needs help closing up some summer cottages, and then, who knows?” He shrugs. “I may head up north. I have a cousin up in the Bay who can get me a job on the rails.”
He pauses to see if I have another question. When I don’t say anything, he pushes open the office door and waits for me to walk through.
I step back into the dance hall, sad, lost, and unsure of what I’m supposed to do next.
I don’t want to be in this dance hall any longer.
If I’m being honest, I don’t really want to be in this dream any longer, either.
I leave and head back toward Dot’s house, but when I get to her gate, something compels me to keep walking.
Maybe it’s the sound of the waves that calls me. Or the imagery from Kitty’s diary entry still swimming in my head. But I continue down toward the beach, my feet sinking into the sand until my toes touch the edge of the water.
Above me the moon is beautifully full, and it sheds just enough light to see the outline of two figures just around the bend of the next dune.
My body shivers with a sense of déjà vu, and a line of goosebumps prickles up my arms.
It feels like I’ve been here before.
Watched a scene just like this one unfold.
And just like Knots, Beau drops to his knee. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls something from it.
I find myself holding my breath.
A few moments pass before he removes the lid.
I hear Kitty’s gasp as the stone inside catches the moonlight.
I want her to run. To laugh. To be that brazen, unapologetic woman I know. To throw up her hands and tell him, “No!” She’s taken. Her heart belongs to someone else.
But she nods and holds out her hand. I can’t make out her yes through the wind; all I can hear is annoying repetitive ringing.
I open my eyes and wake up.