Chapter 18 #3
Manon waved the waiter over to bring her a second drink.
“I’m sorry, but something isn’t clicking for me.”
“If I tell you my story, you’ll think I’m crazy, which would be a shame, since you’re probably the only person in the world I could ever share it with.”
Manon guzzled her second glass and placed it back on the table. She then wiped her lips with the back of her hand like a pirate and looked right into Thomas’s eyes, daring him to continue.
Thomas held her gaze and told how it all had started—the story of a strange cigarette and a ghostly apparition.
“I realize it’s hard to accept,” he said. “I had a terrible time believing it myself.”
“So, your father came back from the afterworld to ask you to take him to my mother’s funeral?” Manon said as the waiter filled her glass again.
“I get the sense that the afterworld is quite different from what we imagine. I’ve tried to drag more out of him several times, but he refuses to say any more. He says if he spills the beans, they’ll call him right back.”
“They . . . ,” she said, then clicked her tongue.
“Yes, well, I’m afraid that’s as much as I know. But if it makes you feel any better, Dad didn’t come back in a shroud, or dragging a ball and chain behind him,” Thomas said, with an uneasy laugh.
“So, how did he appear?” Manon asked pointedly. “I’m simply curious, of course.”
“Like I said, in the armchair he used to read in. The first time, anyway.”
“Yes, but how did he look?” Manon pressed.
“Ah, I see. Like he always did. White button-down shirt, tweed pants, tailored jacket. But a little younger than when he died.”
Manon nodded, pursed her lips, and took a big sip of wine.
“And he flew on the plane with you?”
“Yes, and thank goodness he did. A passenger passed out during the flight and we saved him. Or, rather, Dad did. I just followed his instructions.”
“And why wouldn’t you? You’re not a doctor, after all.” Manon’s words were thick with sarcasm that Thomas failed to notice.
“That’s what the lady next to me kept pointing out, but no one listened to her. She worked herself into quite a state. I thought it was rather funny.”
“I bet. And then what? Did you land the plane too?”
“No, but what happened next is even more unlikely. I hardly know where to begin.”
“Stop! I’ve heard enough. With an imagination like that, you should give up the piano and become a writer. Really, you’d be a huge success. And that’s coming from a bookseller. That said, I hope you won’t mind if I’m not among your future readers. Fantasy isn’t my cup of tea.”
“You don’t believe a single word I’ve said, do you?”
“Consider it from my point of view. What would you say if you were me?”
“I would quote a book I read a long time ago.”
“And what would this book of yours say?”
“That even stories that seem impossible can become real if just two people believe in them. Can I ask you a question now?”
“You might as well . . .”
“Back when we were kids and our parents loved each other from afar, did you listen to bedtime stories about fairies and demons? Did you believe in those creatures and their incredible powers? Did you dream about fantastic worlds?”
“Of course I did. Just like all kids do.”
“So, what’s changed since then?”
“The woman who read me those stories left me. Yesterday, in fact,” Manon replied.
“Well, my father came back to tell me one more story, and it reminded me why I became a pianist in the first place. So, I did my best to believe him, even if it made me look crazy. Now it’s my turn to ask you to put yourself in my shoes.
Imagine that one morning or evening, tomorrow or five years from now, your mother appears before you and asks you for a favor.
A favor that will determine what the rest of eternity will be like for her.
What will you do? Will you risk looking like a crazy person, or will you turn your back on her? ”
As Manon signaled for another glass, Thomas remarked that this would be her fourth.
“I was hoping to take my mind off my mom tonight, but the guy I asked to dinner keeps telling me about his travels with his dad’s ghost. Given the circumstances, I don’t think drinking a bottle of Bordeaux is my biggest problem,” she replied, a little tipsy despite her assurances.
Thomas glanced briefly toward the bar, where Raymond seemed to be having a grand time eavesdropping on a young couple’s conversation.
Manon noticed. “I can’t believe I made a scene about you looking at that woman when we came in. It was your dad all along, wasn’t it?”
Thomas was quiet for a moment. “I’ll ask for the check and take you home,” he offered.
“No way. The night is young, and I’d kill for some dessert.”
Manon snapped her fingers to call over the waiter. “I need a little something. Whatever you have, as long as it’s chocolate. With two spoons, please. And another glass of wine,” she called after him. Then she turned to Thomas. “Do you like chocolate?”
“Yes. You’re right, I was looking at him. I said he could come if he promised to keep at a fair distance.”
“Your conviction is quite appealing.” Manon sighed.
“I thought it was my awkwardness you found charming.”
“My mother and your father. Have you known for a long time?”
“No, he told me when he came back, and only because he needed my help.”
“Otherwise he would have taken the secret to his grave, obviously,” she replied in an ironic tone. “Tell me everything. After all, it’s as much my business as yours.”
“There’s not a lot I can tell you, beyond the fact that they loved each other for over twenty years, seeing each other only during the summers at first. Then, loving one another from afar once your parents moved here.”
“That’s your father’s version, or maybe another of your fantasies! There’s no proof that it was anything more than a little fling.”
“This is why I decided to keep quiet when we saw each other. I never lied, though. How would you have reacted if I had introduced myself and shared all this right away?”
“I would have asked you to leave immediately, as you know perfectly well. That’s why you didn’t say anything.”
“Exactly. I regret it, though.”
“Why?”
“Finish your dessert and I’ll take you home. You can’t drive, and our parents’ past would make anything else too complicated.”
“What do you mean ‘anything else’?”
“I’m sorry, he does whatever he wants.” Thomas sighed, glancing at the neighboring table.
Manon followed his gaze and burst out laughing. “Is he sitting there now?”
Raymond gave Thomas a mischievous glance and reassured him that he would get him out of the hole he’d just dug his son into. Thomas found himself once again speaking words that weren’t his own.
“It was a gray afternoon. You and your mother were wearing matching blue flowered dresses; you looked like sisters. My father gave you some caramels, and your mother let you take them. The two of them were sitting on a bench, discreetly holding hands while you played hopscotch. You came up to them and asked who the man was. Your mother replied, ‘A summer friend, sweetheart,’ and you ran off to play again, carefree and happy. When fall came, you asked your mother about the man who’d given you the caramels.
She knelt down and told you the truth this time—that he was very dear to her.
She made you promise to keep the secret.
“The year you turned ten, you were practically a shoo-in to win a dance competition, but then you broke your collarbone when you slipped on a balance beam during a gymnastics class.
You were inconsolable, and your mother took you to New Mexico to take your mind off things.
Your mother-daughter trip became a ritual, and every year after that, at Thanksgiving, you traveled together: Antelope Canyon in Arizona, Great Salt Lake in Utah, Yellowstone, New Orleans, Niagara Falls, Baton Rouge and the Mississippi River, Mount Rushmore.
Then, for your sixteenth birthday, she took you to Rome and Venice.
“You were a good student, but you had a tendency to talk back, which nearly got you thrown out of Lowell High. Your father made a donation, and the school agreed to look the other way. At fifteen, you loved ice hockey and you cheered for the San José Sharks. Your mother suspected you had a crush on Bill Lindsay.”
“That’s ridiculous. Bill Lindsay was hideous. I was in love with Todd Harvey, and I was seventeen! And how do you know all that?”
The waiter brought the bill in a leather check holder and placed it down in front of Thomas.
“I’ll get it. That was the agreement,” Manon said as she tried to grab it.
But Thomas had already discreetly handed his card to the waiter earlier. He signed the receipt and put his wallet away.
“I don’t know how you managed that little card trick,” she protested. “I didn’t see a thing.”
“My awkwardness is a great distraction,” Thomas replied as he stood up.
He stopped at the neighboring table and asked his father to make his own way home. Raymond sighed and disappeared.
Manon staggered through the parking lot. When they got to the car, she threw her keys to Thomas and told him her address.
Silence hung over them for a long time after they left Fort Mason. Finally, as the Prius made its way up California Street, she broke the spell.
“Why not, I guess,” she said. “Everyone experiences grief differently. If you still need your father to exist, then who am I to stand in your way? Besides, I’m not much of a drinker, but I’m quite drunk now.
I’m sure I’ll wake up with a monumental migraine in the morning—I can already feel one coming on—and none of this will have ever happened. ”
“That’s what I told myself, too, after the joint.”
“Right. So, how did you know all those things about me?”
They had just arrived in front of her building, and Thomas parked the car along the sidewalk. He turned around to grab the bag he’d left on the back seat and placed it on Manon’s lap.
“Here, you should have these.”
“What’s this?”
“A box of letters from your mother that my father kept. If you ever find the ones he wrote to her, I’d really love to have them.
I wrote to you too—an email explaining everything, but I didn’t send it.
I was too afraid you’d never want to talk to me again.
I copied it down on paper instead and left it at the bottom of the bag. ”
Manon stared at Thomas, unable to speak a single word, incapable of understanding the emotions that arose in her as she prepared to say goodbye.
She wanted to stay and hear him talk more about her childhood, and share more about her mother.
She wanted to ask him a thousand questions, without any attitude or skepticism this time, even if there was nothing logical about any of this, just to hear his voice.
She didn’t want to go home alone. But Thomas was quiet, so she got out of the Prius. After a moment, she came back.
“I just remembered, this is my car.”
“Of course.” Thomas apologized and returned her keys. “I’ll walk you to your door.”
“I can make it on my own,” she insisted as she made her way toward the building.
“I’m not so sure,” Thomas replied. He reached her just as she slid down the railing she was leaning against. He helped her up, waited for her vertigo to dissipate, and then supported her as she climbed the stoop.
They walked up the stairs to the next floor together, and Thomas waited for her to open her door.
“Do you think you can make it to your bed?”
“It’s a studio. I think I’ll be okay. Wait, don’t leave yet. What did you mean when you said that our parents’ past would make ‘anything else’ too complicated?”
Thomas looked straight at her, then drew close to her and kissed her quickly.
“Good night, Manon.”