4. Jack
JACK
I've never run so fast in my life. Not that it takes a lot to catch up with Alyssa and her short legs.
This feels like the most important thing in my life. Like a miracle. Or maybe it’s a mirage. Maybe I've had a stroke and I'm in the hospital right now, imagining the best thing that ever happened to me nearly slipping through my fingers.
Whatever it is, it stirs me to bolt out of the booth and out of Dolly's Diner without paying my check, jogging down the street to catch up with Alyssa and physically stopping her by grabbing her by the shoulder.
I don't chase women, or at least I didn't before today.
She's as beautiful as ever, but she looks different. I can't put my finger on what it is. I think maybe she's gained a bit of weight. Maybe her cheeks are rosier and fuller.
She looks healthier than I remember. Not that she ever looked unhealthy, but there was something in her eyes the night we met. Something that looked haunted.
She doesn't look haunted right now, but she does look like she'd like the earth to open up and swallow her whole to escape this conversation. I'm not going to let that happen, though.
She got away once.
That was my fault.
If she gets away a second time, it won't be because I neglected to get her phone number or her name.
I'm not gonna fuck this up twice.
When my palm meets her shoulder, it feels like some sort of electric shock, like static being set off by the contact.
Except it's not static; it's just what happens whenever we touch.
It's why I haven't been able to forget about her, why even though she's nameless, she's far from faceless. She makes frequent appearances in my dreams at night, and fantasies of her intrude during the day when I'm trying to concentrate on other things, like work.
“Alyssa,” I say, speaking her name aloud for the first time in weeks.
Round brown eyes look at me in shock.
“You remember my name?” she asks.
“Of course I remember it,” I reply. I feel offended. How could I not remember the woman who had changed everything for me?
I've been trying to change it back ever since and have failed.
The only reason I tried to change it back is because I figured I'd never see her again. Though now that she's here, back in Wildwood, I have to make her see reason. And I have to hope that she sees our connection the same way that I do.
She frowns at me.
“Then why didn't you call?”
“Call?” I ask. “I never got your number.”
“I left it on your nightstand,” she says. “I had to go in the morning, but I wanted to stay in touch. I told you that.”
“I never saw any phone number you left behind,” I insist. “Or I would have called you the very next day.”
And every single day after that, too.
She shakes her head, like she doesn't believe me, and I feel offended all over again.
She would have to be insane to think that I could forget her, that I would avoid her, that I would lie to her. If I had her number, I would have been giving her a phone call every hour on the hour for these last several months.
I would have looked her up. I would have tried to find her with that little detail.
Going further than any highly paid private investigator ever could to track down the woman who had permanently rewired the circuitry in my brain.
“It doesn't matter,” she mumbles.
“Why are you back in town?” I ask.
She looks at me, and then back at the ground quickly.
“Just trying to find my dad,” she says. “Same reason I was here last time.”
Something feels off in her tone of voice. She looks different. She sounds different, even though the electricity between us feels the same as ever.
She shivers, and my concern grows.
“Come back inside,” I say. “Stay a little while. Let's catch up.”
“Catch up about what?” she asks vacantly.
“I don't know,” I say. “Anything. Come inside and get warm. This place has great apple pie.”
She sighs, pulling her coat closer around her body, and looking at the diner behind me longingly, as though the thought of apple pie might have changed her mind after all.
I study her face. Something looks different about her.
Maybe she changed the way she does her makeup, or maybe she's not wearing makeup at all.
I can't tell. I was never good at things like this.
All I know is that the difference in her appearance is subtle enough to be hard to explain, but obvious enough that even after all of this time, I can still tell there's some difference in her look.
“Come on,” I say again. “Apple pie and ice cream, maybe some coffee. My treat.”
I can feel her willpower breaking as she bites her lip. I don't wait for her to agree. Just guide her by the shoulder back into Dolly's Diner and back to the booth where the waitress recently cleared both cups of coffee.
“Have a seat,” I say, guiding her to the vinyl-backed booth.
The waitress reappears.
“Hey,” she says. “I thought you were taking off. Change your mind?”
“Uh, yeah,” I say gruffly, gesturing to Alyssa. “Want a coffee?”
The waitress does a double take at Alyssa, then looks at me, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
Great. She thinks I'm on back-to-back dates with two different women at the same diner, in the same exact booth, running up the same exact tab.
She probably thinks I'm a complete dirtbag, but she doesn't say anything as she writes down our order: Two cups of coffee, two slices of apple pie, two scoops of vanilla ice cream.
“Be right back,” she says, pursing her lips.
The waitress leaves us alone again, and I struggle to come up with something to say to fill the silence.
There's an enormous pressure on my shoulders right now to get everything right, to make sure she stays in Wildwood long enough for me to convince her that it's a good idea to stay forever.
I know, I know. I'm a solitary man.
That was true before I met Alyssa. That would still be true if Alyssa hadn't stepped foot in the diner. If I hadn't seen her today. But the fact is, she's back.
I don't know why.
I don't know for how long.
But while she's in my presence, I'm gonna do my damnedest to convince her that we belong together, that we always have, that I'm a man she can rely on and build a life with. The feeling is exactly the same as it was the night we met, maybe stronger.
I don't believe in soulmates, but maybe there's some kind of pheromone that's unique to this woman. Some sort of combination of traits that makes my caveman brain go haywire.
All I can think about is taking her back to my cabin and making her mine in every way that I can.
Yes, that includes sexually in my mind, and it's a struggle to keep my mind out of the gutter as the waitress brings us two cups of coffee.
I drink mine black, grateful for something to do, while I count the number of sugar packets she dumps inside her own mug.
It seems like useful information all of a sudden, knowing how a woman likes her coffee, knowing her likes and dislikes, her needs, her annoyances, pet peeves, the spot on her back that always aches after a long day on the computer, or where to press my thumb into the sole of her feet to make her lie back and groan with gratitude.
None of these data points seemed important when I was sitting across the table from Carla just now, nor with any other woman that my friends have set me up with. Alyssa is the exception. I don't know why, but she is.
So I say awkwardly, "What's your dad like?"
She pauses.
"Um, I wouldn't really know what he's like,” she says.
“I don't have any memories of him. He left me and my mother whenever I was two years old.
I haven't been able to track him down since.
That's why I was here a couple of months ago.
I learned he lived here somewhere in Wildwood and tried to meet him. "
"Tried?" I ask gently.
“I was told the address I had for him was out of date,” she says. “But I’ve found another possible address for him, also here in Wildwood.”
Her mouth forms a thin, flat line as she says these words.
"Couldn't you just pick up the phone and call him?" I ask her.
She shakes her head.
"He's not that kind of dad," she says.
"Not the pick-up-the-phone-when-his-daughter-calls-him kind of dad?" I ask. "Isn't that just kind of the basics of being a dad?"
"You'd think," she says. "Again, he left me whenever I was two, and he's been unreachable since. I think that's on purpose, not an unlucky accident."
I feel angry all of a sudden. What kind of man abandons his two-year-old daughter and the mother of his child like that?
"Did he send ever you guys some money? Something to help out with the bills and the groceries?"
She shakes her head.
"Uh-uh," she says. "Although that would have been enormously helpful."
Her voice is bitter, and she seems closed off. Like this topic is pushing her away rather than bringing her closer to me. It's the opposite of what I want.
The waitress returns with two plates.
Our pie and ice cream have arrived, and even though I'm not a sugar person, I've never been happier to see a dessert.
To my surprise, Alyssa dives right in, her shyness suddenly fading away at the sight of the treat.
She scoops up a bite that's equal portions of steaming-hot pie and cold ice cream, opening her lips to accept the bite on the spoon and closing her eyes, groaning with pleasure.
So much for keeping my mind out of the gutter.
I can't help it when she's making noises like that.
All I want to do is take her out of here, so that no other man can witness this, and so that I can do all of the things I'm imagining to her somewhere alone.
"Is it any good?" I ask skeptically.
"It is," she says. She frowns. "I thought you said you'd had it before?"
"Oh," I say quickly. "I have. I mean, I think it's good. I just wasn't sure if you would think it was good, too."
I sound like a rambling moron.
I've had weeks to fantasize about what I would do if I ever saw Alyssa again, the smooth talk, the moves I'd make, all of it, but it's all faded away because in my fantasies, it seems like I unfortunately forgot this little detail of how my brain scrambles every time she's near.
Alyssa smiles politely, and I get a sense that I'm losing her already.
We eat in silence. The autumn air sweeps leaves across the sidewalk outside. The sun's beginning to set, the daylight slipping away just like this opportunity.
The waitress comes, and I pay the check, and it's feeling way too close to goodbye, with not enough said between us.
It's now or never,.
"Do you have a place to stay while you're in town?" I ask.
She looks up at me, her brown eyes indecipherable.
"I booked a room at the Wildwood Inn," she says. "It's supposed to be pretty close by…that’s where I was going, before my rental car broke down.”
"I can give you a ride," I say quickly.
She looks reluctant, and I wonder if she's changed her mind about me. The night we met, she certainly didn't think I was too much of a stranger to get into my car.
Maybe she's looking at me from across the booth right now and sees me as one big mistake that she'd hoped to forget.
After all, she came to Wildwood and seemed to have no plans to try to find me. She was going to come to town, meet with her dad, and then leave.
Like we never happened.
It stings a little. Then again, she thought that she gave me her number. She thought I never called her. That probably stung her, too.
So much wasted time. It sucks. But it's all fixable. She’s here now. We can try again. Build something together, something new. Something I meant to build with her from the beginning.
But that reluctant look in her eyes tells me that I’m coming on too strong. Too intense for her liking.
Don’t scare her off, Jack.
I nod to my truck parked outside.
"Just let me give you a quick ride," I say, trying to force my voice to be gentle and easy. "It's too cold to walk."
She pauses for a beat.
"Okay," she agrees.