Curves

I have always been a creature of habit. I like to crawl into bed each night just before the midnight train rushes by, blowing its whistle in the distance. My eyes snap open every morning at exactly 6:30. I honestly don’t even know why I bother to set an alarm. I get my coffee at the same little cafe at precisely 8:05 everyday, five days a week, as I have for the past 15 years. Three thousand nine hundred cups of coffee. Friends ask why I never change it up, but I like it this way. I know what to expect. Life doesn’t come at me willy-nilly, throwing curves.

I know the regulars at Juniper’s. I know the staff. We’ve casually shared our lives. I have many fond memories of sitting in the corner booth on Saturday afternoons with Keith, whispering while we watched the others. Old Ida always sat alone, with her purse carefully set on a chair saving the seat across from to her, though nobody ever joined her. Carole gossiped on her phone for hours while drinking cup after cup of espresso and she always wore something with a cat theme, whether it was an old Tiger-Cats ball cap or a full leopard-print track suit. And while we never got close enough to read the words, Manfred would sit hunched over his notebook, furiously scrawling page after page while his tea went cold beside him.

Keith was the one who first brought me to Juniper’s on our second date. It quickly became our favourite place. A whirlwind romance. A proposal. The very next day, the unexpected. The curve.  Keith’s car skidded off the road and rolled into a ditch in a blazing fireball.

That was fourteen years, 3,640 coffees ago.

So that brings me to today. It’s 8:05 and I turn the corner to go to Juniper’s. But I can’t go inside. There is a man in a hoodie blocking my way, matching my every move as I try to go around him.

“What’s your problem?” I snap at him.

I hear an all-too-familiar chuckle. Keith pulls his hood back just a touch, glancing left and right furtively, and I see him. Right there in front of me. Grinning at me. Alive and well.

I close my eyes and give my head a shake, but when I open my eyes, he’s still there. Still smiling in that way he does that makes his eyes sparkle. He reaches for both my hands, but I pull away. He lets his arms fall and his gaze drops to the ground at his feet.

“I understand,” he says quietly.

I continue to stare at him for a heartbeat that feels like an hour. He’s older. His black hair is sprinkled with grey flecks and there are small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He’s thinner than I remember. But everything else is the same. I want to ask a million questions, but all I can manage is a whispered, “I don’t.”

“Spend the day with me. Let me explain.” He takes a step towards me, but I step back and he stops.

“I start work in 24 minutes,” I say, trying to catch my breath and slow my beating heart.

“Please.” Just one word. One anguish-filled word has me dialling my supervisor’s number and calling in sick for the day.

With his hoodie pulled forward again to hide his face, Keith leads me quickly to a grey SUV parked on the corner. Not too flashy, but not too shabby either. He opens the door and I climb in. He gets in the driver’s side and starts the engine, pulling away from the curb, and away from my safe, carefully planned day.

Neither of us says a word as he drives in seemingly random circles. Eventually he winds his way to the old brewery. It’s been closed and boarded over for years, yet no other business has ever moved in. We used to come here to sit next to the train tracks and talk for hours. It’s secluded and quiet, aside from that midnight train.

Keith parks behind the brewery and turns off the engine, finally pulling down his hood. Minutes pass in silence as I look for any clues as to where he’s been for fifteen years. I look for scars from the fiery crash and see nothing. He’s looking at me with a strange mixture of desire and regret.

“How are you?” he asks.

“How am I?” My voice has gone up several octaves as I try to contain my feelings. I want to scratch his eyes out. I want to kiss him. I want to pummel him with my fists until he gives me an acceptable reason why he is still alive but hasn’t come to me in all this time.

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” he says, turning to face me. “I couldn’t come.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Something happened. And I don’t mean the crash. I wasn’t in that car.”

“Obviously,” I hiss. I’ve been lied to before; I’m used to it. But not by him. I never expected it from him.

“I’ve been hiding. Living a whole new life, far away from here. But not by choice.” He reaches for my hand and this time I do not pull back. Nor do I offer any kind of response. I stare at his fingers wrapped around mine in disbelief.

“Can we go for a walk?” he asks. Numbly, I follow him out of the car and down the dirt path. We make our way down the hill, picking our way through the overgrown weeds until we reach the bottom. The tracks stretch out to the right and left, sheltered by the deep ravine along both sides of track. Nobody will see us here unless they are flying above or riding on a passing train. Even train passengers would have a hard time seeing us as they speed by. The train never stops here in town.

I haven’t been back to this place since the crash, but it hasn’t changed. I take ten steps past Keith and gaze into the distance, trying to fight the flood of memories. The last time we were here, we brought a picnic basket and had dinner in the grass, followed by – no. I will not think about that. Not now.

Keith steps up beside me, staring into the distance with me. “I have been in the witness protection program for fifteen years.” He waits for a response but when I offer none, he continues. “That last night, after you accepted my proposal, I saw something on my way home. And what I saw was enough to put away a violent criminal for the rest of his life. You must have heard about the case. It was a pretty big deal in the news. Trent Rigby.”

My heart skips a beat at the name. Of course, I know the case well. I nod slowly.

“Well, you must know he was a pretty important member in the local mob. I stumbled across a murder that night. He shot the guy in cold blood, right in the alley I used to take to walk home from your place. I ran. The bullets narrowly missed me and I got away. Well my testimony put him away for life.”

Memories of the trial flash in my mind. Testimony from an “unnamed witness” was crucial to the case and did, indeed, contribute to Rigby’s conviction. I never once suspected that mystery witness could be Keith.

He turns to face me and continues. “The cops faked that crash so the family would believe I was dead. They set me up with a new name, a new career, a new home. And they forbid me to contact you. I agreed, because I didn’t want to put you in the same danger I was in.”

“What’s different now?” I breathe, tears burning behind my eyes.

“Rigby died of a heart attack in prison last month. My handlers confirmed that the rest of his family have been arrested over the years. It’s always possible they missed someone, but the threat is low enough now. I had to come find you. I’m not supposed to. They’d withdraw any further support and protection if they knew. But – “

I search his eyes but I don’t even know what I’m looking for.

“How dare you think I’ve just been waiting all this time? I mean, I thought you were dead. How do you know I haven’t gotten married? Had kids?”

“I’ve been watching you. For a few weeks.”

“Well that’s creepy.”

“If I’d seen you had a happy, perfect life, I would have gone back home and stayed dead. But you don’t seem to have anyone in your life. I mean, your routine is so exact every single day. Work, gym, home. I’ve seen no signs of a husband, or a boyfriend. No kids. You still live in the same apartment you always have. So I allowed myself to hope.”

“Do you know why my life is so exact? Do you have any idea the lengths I’ll go to avoid the unexpected now? I lost you. I lost my father shortly after. And so many others. You have no idea what my life has been like for fifteen years.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know about your father. I never even met him, but I know you were close. I had looked forward to getting to know him before – “

“Yes. Before,” I say. He, too, has tears in his eyes and I find myself drawn to him as if no time has passed. “Did you love me?” I ask.

Keith reaches for my hands again and this time I allow it. “I loved you from the moment I met you. I’ve never stopped.” I feel the pain I hear in his voice. I allow him to pull me into his arms and I press my face into his chest as he holds me tight. His scent is as delicious as it ever was. His arms are warm and strong around me. Gently, he tilts my face towards him and kisses me, waking a passion I’ve not felt for a very long time. A war is brewing inside my head between the love I once felt for him and the rage that’s been building with every word he speaks.

“Spend the day with me,” he says again. “At midnight, you can decide to come back with me to my new home and assume a new identity or say goodbye and I’ll never bother you again.”

I nod silently and brush some leaves off the top of the large rock where we used to sit. “Convince me,” I say.

For the next two hours, he tells me everything about his life from his new name to his new job. He’s done quite well for himself and owns a large house in the suburbs. He’s stayed under the radar, not drawing any undue attention to himself, but building a decent career. He hasn’t dated anyone in all these years. I feel a pang of jealousy just the same. I, too, have never found someone else to love and he took until now to contact me. He could have tried to bring me with him. Would I have gone? He’ll never know because he never asked.

In the early afternoon I feel my stomach begin to rumble. Before I can even ask about going to get some lunch, Keith says, “There’s a cooler in the trunk of my car. I packed everything we might need for the day.”

“That was quite presumptive of you,” I say.

“I can’t be seen. Like I said, the cops are pretty sure they’ve caught everyone in the organization, but you never know. There could be a family member that stayed hidden. Someone they don’t know about. I can’t risk it.”

“Understood,” I say, and I wait as he retrieves the cooler from the car.

Not only did Keith pack a lunch, but he has dinner and snacks in there as well. We spend the day catching each other up on every detail we can think of from our lives. Everything that happened in fifteen years, compressed into a few short hours. Well, maybe not everything.

By the time the sun has set, I’ve allowed him to kiss me several more times and we are lying on a blanket in the grass, in each other’s arms.

“Have you thought about it?” He asks.

“About going back with you? I thought I had til midnight to decide.”

“You do,” he answers. “But let me try to persuade you.” He pushes himself up on his elbow and leans over me. “I’ve never stopped loving you. Or wanting you.” He presses himself down on me with a kiss that could persuade a nun to renounce her devotion to the church. I cave to the heat of the moment and before I know it, we are lying naked and spent in each other’s arms. We stay like this until the moon is high in the night sky and I realize the time.

We giggle like teenagers as we retrieve our clothing from the grass. Standing together in the moonlight, he whispers to me, “It’s almost midnight. Please tell me you’ll come with me.”

I become serious now. All playfulness has gone. “You left me,” I say.

“You broke my heart. But that’s not even the worst part.”

“What is it, my love? What is the worst part? Let me make it right.”

“You say it’s safe now? That there is no family waiting in the wings? But what makes you so sure of that?”

Keith looks into my eyes and the moonlight shines in his. “I’m not sure. But the biggest threats are gone. Rigby’s dead. The top mobsters are behind bars. There’s still a risk, but it’s safe enough that I want you with me.”

I pull his arms down and away from me. “You’re wrong.”

Confusion clouds Keith’s eyes as he looks at me questioningly.

“There is still family left. We’re not all behind bars.”

I push with all my strength and Keith falls backwards onto the tracks, just as the midnight train rushes past.