How the hell would I know? The six-dollar coffee tasted like nothing, and that’s what he felt like just then: nothing.
Incognizant, he stared at a bric-a-brac shop across the street, but all he saw were thoughts that seemed pathetic. All too often, Tilton’s words kept slipping back as if to mock him. The best way to relearn your normalcy, she’d said, is to do what normal people do.
Was it that simple?
He hoped so, for all he was worth, because if it wasn’t…
Just as he felt like collapsing, lost, beneath the table, a twinge of something like hope sparked in him.
Down the sidewalk, heading his way with a smile that lit her entire face up, was Abbie.
Fanshawe jerked upright, to gaze wide-eyed at her.
“Hi, Stew!” she said. Her enigmatically colored hair shined like exotic spun tinsel. Up on one shoulder she held a rather large box. The sight of her made Fanshawe feel like a famished person just being offered a banquet, and he knew at once it was not lust that goaded the sensation. He was simply thrilled to see her.
He jumped right up to his feet. “Hi, Abbie. Let me take that box for you—”
She stopped at the ornate rail which marked the café’s border. Her eyes beamed with nothing more than a happiness to be alive. “No thanks. It’s just lightbulbs, weighs almost nothing.” She lifted the box with one hand, as proof. “How’s your day been?”
“Fuh”—he stammered at the question he could answer only with a lie. “Fine, fine. Each day, I like this town more. It’s really beautiful.”
A mix of luxurious scents drifted off her curvaceous form. “That’s why I left Nashua after only a year. I know I’ll live here the rest of my life.” Her smile homed in on him. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll decide to do that too. What’s New York got that we haven’t—besides skyscrapers, off-track betting, and multiple millions of people?”
“I’m not arguing with you there.” Just the bit of small talk felt therapeutic to Fanshawe. Her smile, voice, her overall proximity worked as an antidote to the mental turmoil he’d been wracked by only moments ago. Thank God, thank God…
“Have you been to the wax museum yet?” she asked.
“Yuh”—he stammered again, impacted as if by a shout. “Yeah, it was pretty interesting, pretty realistic,” he replied, trying to block out the rest. If you only knew. “Now I’m just kind of moseying around”—he looked right at her. “I want to work up an appetite for our dinner date.”
Abbie sighed in relief. “I was so afraid you’d forget, or something else would come up.”
“I didn’t, and nothing has.”
“Good.” She beamed at him again. “I gotta go now; my father’ll have a conniption if I don’t get back and change these bulbs.”
“See you at seven, Abbie.”
“Not if I see you first,” and then she laughed and glided away with her box.
Yeah, he thought, watching her cross the street. Just before she’d entered the inn, she glanced once sexily over her shoulder.
That’s my cure, all right. My normalcy. A sudden thought made him think of going after her, to ask if there was any more word from the police about Eldred Karswell but then realized the downer topic might darken her day. However, Fanshawe felt rejuvenated. Just the few minutes of talking to her pushed everything back—even as serious as “everything” seemed to be.
He pushed all of his worries to the back of his mind. He couldn’t wait for seven o’clock.
(III)
Abbie looked stunning; he’d even told her that when she’d met him at seven, and in after-thought he hoped it hadn’t sounded fake or corny. She wore a summery lilac dress with strap shoulders. Her bare arms and shoulders glowed healthily; her labors at the inn had left her sleek and well-toned. She also wore high heels—not too high but just right. With every ticking stride to the restaurant, those long coltish legs flexed in more radiant feminine health. Best of all Fanshawe found he wasn’t tempted to stare at her perfect bosom when she wouldn’t notice.
Was some factor of Abbie allowing Fanshawe to relearn his normalcy?
I can only hope…
In the restaurant, he realized it was impossible for him to focus on anything but her. The waitresses and many female patrons were far above average in looks, but Fanshawe barely took notice of them. Instead, Abbie magnetized him as she leaned slightly over the table to talk. Before Fanshawe knew it, dinner was done and nearly an hour and a half had passed. Much of their conversation was comprised of either Abbie talking about her life in Haver-Towne or Fanshawe reminiscing (not very positively) over New York. It felt so comfortable in this situation, so—
Normal, Fanshawe marveled.
Just going to dinner with someone he liked, and talking the way regular people talked. I can’t remember the last time…
Not once throughout the course of their meal had a lustful thought entered his head. Not once had he thought of peeping.
The waitress’s brows fluttered when Fanshawe paid the check with his black American Express Centurion card. Then he was walking on the cheerily lit street with Abbie.
It seemed that whenever he was in her presence, his sense of observation changed. He felt grateful for all that was around him, and intrigued: the glow of the streetlamps, the brick-paved road, the old-time architecture. It’s so different, he thought. So honest.
Abbie grinned at him as they strolled Back Street. “What are you thinking?” she asked. “You seem very…enchanted by something.”
Yeah. You. He hadn’t even realized that he was holding her hand. “I guess I’m thinking about how easily I’ve taken things for granted. You’ve made me realize that.”
She seemed astonished. “Me? How so?”
“Just the way you look at things. It’s like you’re the one who’s enchanted, with everything around you, every minute.”
“Well, that’s how I feel most of the time.” Her smile just seemed more and more radiant. “Every day is a blessing—even if it rains, even if my car insurance goes up or one of the toilets breaks and I gotta fix it.”
“I need a bigger dose of your outlook. I’ve lived in New York most of my life, and it’s taken me till now to realize the cosmopolitan world isn’t an honest world—it’s built on greed, deceit, and one-upmanship—but places like this are honest. When you live in the city long enough you become oblivious to the fact that most of our culture evolved out of small little burgs like Haver-Towne.”
“All towns have their veneers, and we have ours. But it’s really only a tourist town on the outside. Deep down it’s pretty genuine, and so are the people who live here. I never realized that until I’d spent that year in Nashua—and that’s not even a big city, really. I’m so glad I came back.”
I’m glad you did too, otherwise I never would’ve met you. “Like what you were saying yesterday. The witchcraft motif and all that. Take out those corny connotations, and it’s just another reminder of our history.”
Abbie squeezed his hand as if enthused. “Finally! You’ve seemed so interested in that since we met but you hadn’t mentioned it all night. I was afraid to bring it up.”
“What, the witchcraft stuff?” he said innocuously, but then remembered what he thought he’d seen at the pillory this morning. “And Jacob Wraxall?”