― Curtis Tyrone Jones
These Nights...
Being with Clair was like taking a mystical tour of my past. She was leading me down familiar streets that evoked deep feelings of nostalgia, but I had never visited these streets, at least, not in this lifetime.
We finally stopped outside a vintage restaurant called The Senator, but it was all wrong―it wasn't what I remembered. I pictured a diner and Clair and I peering through the window at a scene reminiscent of Hopper's painting, Nighthawks.
I turned deathly pale. She saw my face and squeezed my hand really tight. "It's okay, " she whispered," it's changed, but you remember it as The Busy Bee."
When she said the name I felt I was being sucked into a black hole bending space and time.
It was weird. The neon sign of the restaurant took on an eerie glow as if light itself slowed down and passed through the prism of memory.
Clair's face face was bathed in the same light and looked incredibly beautiful and ethereal as if she were Dante's Beatrice guiding me through the Underworld of prior lifetimes.
"What happened here?" I asked.
Her eyes were sparkling. "You kissed me for the first time."
The instant she spoke the words the spell was broken and I was back on a dark Toronto street in the middle of winter, cold and confused.
"You're shivering," she said, concerned, "we need to go someplace warm."
We walked on until we spotted a Tim Horton's coffee shop and went inside. I chose a window table while she ordered, and sat there numbly staring into the dark, my mind completely blank.
"Drink this," she insisted, placing a large mug of coffee before me. I dutifully complied and the steaming beverage began to restore me.
She took out her cell and began punching in digits.
"Are you calling Trina?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I'm calling a cab. No way we're walking back to The Wheat Sheaf in this cold. I don't want you suffering from hypothermia."
The way she so readily took charge was incredibly comforting and touching. She was so kind I felt like crying.
I didn't know what it was to be cared for by someone. I had been orphaned as a teenager and raised by a distant uncle who was away most of the time on business in the Orient.
I barely knew this woman but felt I had known her all my life ...and even beyond that―as if she had always been by my side.
Come to think of it, in dreams she had been, as far as I could go back in my mind.
Ten minutes later, an orange and black Diamond taxicab pulled up outside.
It was the most expensive five minute ride of my life but it was worth it―every penny,
We sat in the back, Clair's head resting on my shoulder, while I leaned back and watched the rainbow glow of street lights through the cab's frosty window.
I was totally content and at peace for the first time in my life.
When we got back to the tavern, Dan's SUV was gone, so he and Trina were probably out on the town. I didn't mention it to Clair because I felt we should give them both space and see what develops.
I asked Clair if she wanted to go back inside the tavern but she declined, saying she was tired and preferred to just go home. I was incredibly tired as well and it crossed my mind that even the joy of being with her was still a stress, coming to terms with the undercurrent of our past lives.
"I want to see you again, " she explained, "I need to continue this talk and make sense of our lives. But right now I feel so overwhelmed, I feel like I'm drugged."
"I feel the same way," I laughed, "I feel stuffed like after a big meal and I need time to 'digest' everything we said."
We were mostly quiet on the drive home―she also lived in the west end. But as we drove and she gave directions I thought she was pranking me because we were taking the same route I use to go home.
When we turned into my neighbourhood I was convinced she was planning an elaborate joke until she directed me into a small enclave of townhouses about a mile from mine. Her end unit backed onto the Bruce Trail. I must have hiked or jogged past her house hundreds of times.
"Do you realize we're practically neighbours? My townhouse is just about a mile down the street."
"Really? I've lived here for two years."
"I've been here for three," I smiled. "Who knows what else we share?"
She leaned over and kissed me long on on the lips. "That's why I need to see you again," she smiled mischievously.
"Hey wait!" I called out, "I didn't get your cell number."
"I'm sure you'll figure that out," she laughed as she went into her house.
Later that night, my cell lit up with a text from her, telling me to come by for brunch at eleven.
I figured she'd be in my head all night, but it was the first night my sleep was dreamless. I didn't wake until ten a.m.and just had enough time to shower and dress and show up at her place for eleven.