Her eyes were lined in black with little sharp points at the edges, her lips glossed light pink, her hands folded across her chest. The top of a black-and-white polka-dot skirt was visible. You couldn’t see her legs. She looked like she had lived in the fifties. Standing there, I stared. The more I looked, the more I itched to touch that soft sweater, run my fingertips down her arm or across her smooth face. I glanced over my shoulder.
I didn’t, or couldn’t, do it.
I looked down at her face. It occurred to me that I wished for something that could never be: I wanted her eyes to open. I wanted her to speak. I wished it. I really wished it. Just say something, anything at all.
After a long while, or maybe it was just a minute, I shook my head to clear it. Then I went back out into the glaring sunlight to grab the rest of the flowers. After setting up the last of the arrangements, I looked at a sympathy card affixed to one delivery: Catherine Courington.
I stared down at her one last time, puffed my cheeks, and exhaled. And I did it. I quickly ran my fingertips down the sleeve on her right arm, and it was as petal soft and fuzzy as I’d imagined.
I turned and left.
Every day that next week, I thought about her. Constantly. I wondered how she died. Sometimes, when I was driving down lonely country roads, passing an occasional car headed in the opposite direction, I imagined our life together, mine and Catherine’s. I knew how we fell in love. I knew how our lives unfolded together, how we’d mark the anniversary of our wedding each year by nothing more than reading passages of our favorite books late into the night. We were soul mates. I knew it at my very core.
Does that sound weird? Probably. But it’s the God’s truth. Haven’t you ever seen a stranger before and something in you is inexplicably drawn to that person? Maybe you knew each other—or were supposed to know each other—or maybe you dreamt of that person, once, long ago? Perhaps, in another reality, an alternative world, if you believe in such things, you did. But in this world, this reality, something kept you apart. Maybe it was as simple as taking one street home rather than the other, choosing one path over another, and fate was circumvented forever because of the most minute of decisions. Is that what happened to me and Catherine?
At night I began dreaming of us. We were seated at a wrought-iron table at an outdoor café. A cathedral bell tolled in the far distance. We sipped coffee and she smiled, revealing a slight chip on her front tooth. We held hands, and I swirled my fingers under her palm, noting the lines, like I was trying to read her future. Her mouth opened. She was about to say something.
Please, say it. Let me hear your voice.
But I always woke before she said a word.
In another dream she emerged from complete darkness, like she was in a large room or even a warehouse without a single window or light source. She walked forward slowly into a pool of stark light, her blond hair buoyant on her shoulders. She walked with confidence and poise, closer and closer. Her eyes were radiant, with that black eyeliner with the sharp points at the edges. She lifted her hand to me. My heart leapt. Please, let me hear you.
As she drew near, her face began to melt, like a gruesome wax figure in a Saturday horror matinee. Her makeup ran down her face in streams of color. Then the rest of her face started dripping, her eyes and nose and lips. The molten wax swirled, morphing. As it began to take shape, I knew what it was. It was one of those Mexican Day of the Dead masks—a white skull painted boldly black, red, blue, and yellow, with little white flowers around the sides. In the center, between the eyes, a painted heart dripped three tears.
She opened her mouth.
I’m listening, Catherine.
But something other than words emerged from her lips. It was dark, at first, small and twitching. As it crawled forth it showed itself. Wings. Black and orange. A butterfly fluttered and flew off into the darkness.
After these dreams, I had to know who Catherine Courington was and what had happened to her. But then another thought struck me, a realization of fate, twisted and thwarted: What happens if you meet your soul mate after she has died?
Late one night, after I woke from one of those dreams, I searched the Internet. I didn’t know why I hadn’t before. I guess I felt odd about it, like it was perverted. I knew it was bizarre. I knew no one would understand, so I told no one about Catherine.
In the basement of my parents’ house, where my room was, I sat in front of my computer and typed her name. I found scores of social-networking pages of girls named Catherine Courington. I went through each page, hoping to find her, to find a photograph, to see her. I was hoping for a video clip, to hear her. But after hours, I found nothing. She didn’t have a social-network page.
I did find an unknown English poet with the same name—Catherine Courington, killed in a horse-and-carriage accident in 1882. She had died before any literary success.
I read a title to one of her poems: “The Clock Ticks Unfair.”
Then I found her. I clicked on the link and the page began to load. It was just a small obituary item:
Catherine Courington, 23, of New York City.
Beloved Daughter of Candace (née Roberts).
Funeral services, Saturday, June 10, 11 A.M.,
Peterson Funeral Home, 111 S. Main Street.
The next day I delivered flowers in a hurry, moving across town more like a FedEx guy than a flower man. I needed to buy myself an hour so my manager wouldn’t ask where I was.
After looking up the information on Catherine Courington’s mother, I discovered that she lived in a mobile-home park, off a winding highway. I drove out after lunch.
The Fountain Bleu Mobile Home Park sign was faded, and paint was chipping off at the bottom. As I pulled in, a kid ran across the street, chasing a ball. I slammed on the brakes, the van lurching, barely missing him. He was maybe seven or eight, with a crew cut and plenty of freckles. He glared at me.
“Sorry,” I mouthed, and waved. In the side-view mirror, I could see him as I pulled the van forward, standing with his ball, mouth pinched, scowling.
The mobile homes of Fountain Bleu were so run-down that they looked like haunted trailers, with plywood planking and stained bedsheets over the windows. But some had jaunty flower gardens and new shiny mailboxes in front. I found Candace Courington’s mobile home at the end of the street. A Doberman chained to the neighboring mobile home barked, baring its teeth. Across the street, a man working over the engine of an El Camino looked up at me. I nodded. He didn’t say a word or nod back. He wiped sweat from his brow.
Along the walkway leading to the mobile home, plastic flowers spun in the wind. The windows had dusty metal horizontal blinds turned shut. I stepped up to the door and knocked. The guy across the street wiped his oily hands on a towel and watched me. The dog continued to bark, straining against its leash.
The door opened just a bit.
The woman held a lit cigarette in her hand. She had a dome of swimming-pool-blond hair and tired eyes.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Candace Courington?”
“Yes,” she said, looking over my shoulder to the van parked on the street.
“Flower delivery,” I said, extending the arrangement in my arms.