Chapter Eleven

Coffee & Cigarettes

Leah

The moist ocean air whipped through my hair as we sailed toward Tillamook Rock. I sat beside Paul as he stood behind the wheel, the wind ruffling his hair. "So Tillamook Rock," I said casually trying to understand why, of all places, we were heading there.

When he came earlier this evening to pick me up, his jaw dropped when I opened the door as did my own. He had on a pair of jeans and a black down vest. I sudden felt ridiculously foolish. "It's too much isn't it? The dress I mean."

He stood there for a moment before finally finding his voice again. "It's not, it's amazing, you look amazing, and I just wish I would have told you beforehand where we were going."

"It's no big deal," I said nonchalantly. "I can change, just tell me what I need to put on and we can go."

"It would probably be best to just throw on a pair of jeans and a jacket."

"Jeans and a jacket. Okay, I can do that. Come on in, I'll be back down in a few."

I changed quickly, somewhat relieved that I wouldn't have to sit across from him in a crowded restaurant wearing that dress. I felt decidedly more comfortable in jeans and a bright blue Old Navy pullover. I slipped on a pair of Top Siders and hurried back downstairs. "Alright, let's go."

Paul stood and took a step toward me. "I am sorry," he said. "I should have planned this out a little better."

"It's no big deal. Claire, well she sent the dress. It wasn't really my style. I'm much more comfortable like this. So where are we going anyway?"

"It's a surprise," he said mysteriously, "But I think you'll enjoy it a helluva lot more than dinner in some crowded restaurant.

He was right, of course. Sailing through the darkness marveling at the expanse of the ocean and the lights of the coast twinkling, this was a hundred times better than a date a hundred other guys would have taken me on.

"Yeah, Tillamook Rock."

"What's so great about Tillamook Rock?"

He glanced at me incredulously. "You've never heard the story?"

"Um, no."

"Wow, you are an out of towner."

"What's the story?" I snapped.

"Calm yourself," he laughed. "All in good time."

Out of the darkness rose the small rocky island, a ghostly building rising up out of the fog, its light long since extinguished. "Can you hold the wheel; I'm going to drop the anchor."

I stood and gripped the wheel as he moved away from me. The distinct rattling of chains chinking as the anchor splashed into the surf below. The boat bobbed slightly, catching the current of waves pounding against the rocks before us.

"Are we going onto the rock?"

Paul laughed as he came back toward me, wiping his hands on his jeans. "No. I can't get that close, and it's not safe. Let's go sit over here, we'll eat, and I'll tell you the story of Tillamook Rock."

He picked up a basket from behind where we were sitting and grabbed my hand, leading me to the front of the boat. Pulling a blanket from the basket, he spread it over the deck of the boat and sat down, patting the space beside him. I sank down beside him and glanced over at the abandoned lighthouse.

"Are you hungry?"

"A little. What's in the basket?"

"My specialty, tuna sandwiches and Pringles; oh and some fruit and a couple of beers."

I couldn't help but to laugh. Either he was the most clueless man in the world, or the smartest. This was the craziest excuse of a date that I had ever been on, but I had to admit, he had captured my attention by thinking outside the box and not letting the idea of a date limit his creativity.

He handed me a sandwich, which I accepted, as well as a tall stack of salty chips. "So, in case you haven't guessed, that is Tillamook Rock. It is ridiculously haunted."

I rolled my eyes. "Sure it is."

"No seriously. The place has history."

"Oh really?"

"Yes really. See, the story goes like this. In 1879, this lighthouse engineer sails out to the rock to see if building a lighthouse there was a possibility. He brought a crew with him, but because the seas around the base of the rock were so treacherous, they had to get onto the rock by jumping from the boat onto the rock.

"There was a mason by the name of Trewavas who attempted to jump on the island, well he slipped and went right into the drink. His assistant, a man by the name of Cherry, jumped in after him. Cherry was rescued from the sea, but Trewavas was never found. This of course, put the locals on edge and they began to essentially boycott the project.

He continued to tell me about how none of the locals was foolhardy enough to work on the construction, about how a man named Ballantyne who replaced Trewavas, had to bring in men from out of town and keep them locked away from the locals so as not to scare them away. After the lighthouse was finished, a keeper was hired to maintain the light. He was a local guy from Capeside, married to a woman he grew up with, they were expecting their first child in the fall."

"I have the nagging suspicion that this is going to end terribly," I said softly.

"It does," he said sadly. "There was a Nor'easter, the first floor of the lighthouse flooded, the light went out. The keeper tried to get it relit, but what with all the wind, the ocean kept on coming. No one really knows exactly what happened, but after the storm, a party went out to check on him only to find him gone. With no way off the rock, the authorities assumed he somehow was swept out to sea. When they went to tell his wife, she fell apart. Cops found her body floating in the ocean at the base of Tillamook Head the next morning. Unable to live with the grief of his loss, she jumped from the rock. A week later, after the storm had subsided and it was as safe as possible to get a new keeper on the rock, they did. A few nights after arriving, the new keeper heard a noise coming from the light room at the top of the lighthouse. Figuring it was just birds, he went to investigate. However, what he found was not birds."

"It was the old keeper, wasn't it?" I exclaimed.

Paul nodded. I could imagine the scene, America in its heyday, the beginning of the boom, which birthed life as we now know it. A scared keeper with a scruffy beard wielding a lantern of some sort, quietly creeping through the lighthouse scared half to death. His surprise at finding the old keeper alive and rather well.

"It was. He was barely alive, hypothermia and dehydration had set in, but he was holding on. When they got him back to Capeside, and after he'd been nursed back to health, he asked about his wife and unborn child."

"Oh god, can you imagine that? To weather that kind of storm, not be found when the search party came looking for you, then to find out your wife jumped off a cliff, and well that had to be devastating. What happened to him?"

"He was released from the hospital and went back to his old home. After that, no one really knows. There are several different endings to the story. One says he became a hermit, never leaving his home, choosing to spend his days in self-imposed confinement. Another version says he jumped from the cliff the night after he was released from the hospital." Paul shrugged. "I think that either way, what happened to the old light keeper and his wife are the reason there seem to be so many broken hearted souls in Capeside. I think his grief was so deep that it bled into the ground and became a sort of beacon of its own, shining brightly in the night, guiding other souls toward a place of healing."

The boat bobbed slightly in the surf. I glanced up at the ghostly lighthouse, a dark mass on an even darker night sky. "That is such a terrible story."

"It is," Paul agreed. "But its history."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure?"

"Why did you decide to bring me here, to tell me all of this? Out of all the places you could have taken me, why are we sitting on a boat, freezing our asses off, retelling old tales?"

Paul sighed as he replaced the lid back on the tube of Pringles. "You are unlike anyone I've ever met," he said slowly, seeming to choose his words carefully. "I know I could have taken you to some restaurant and made stupid small talk, or in our case, argued about something completely pointless. However, you're different, that wouldn't have been enough for you. You would have pretended to have a good time, but underneath you would be picking apart my every decision. I knew taking you out on the boat, packing a cheap meal of chips and sandwiches, and telling you some sad story about the past might backfire on me. But some part of me said that this would get your attention, this would somehow tell you that I want to get to know you, maybe someday fall in love with you. This would tell you that I was serious about possibly being what you need."

Here I was, bobbing off the coast of an abandoned lighthouse with a man who liked me, flaws, and all. The decision was easy, easier than even I imagined it could be. "Okay," I said in clear voice. "You proved some point even I wasn't aware needing proving. Just don't hurt me."

"I have no intention of doing so."

That night after dropping me off, I dragged a box of trash bags out from under the sink and tossed out the little bits of my past life. Everything that reminded me of Sam went into the garbage, my life slowly being purged of the world of hurt he inflicted upon me. As I sat amidst the pieces of my former life, all bagged carefully, and ready for disposal, a thought blossomed in my head. Sitting here among the past, I realized that the person I was, was one I didn't recognize anymore. Without even realizing it, I had become someone new. Sitting here, I realized that you never really knew who you were until you were forced to examine the pieces of your life. Who I was when I was with Sam was not who I was now. I was just me, just Leah, not Sam's Leah, or even Paul's Leah. I was Leah's Leah. The realization made me feel strong and somewhat whole again. I could face whatever came, because let's face it; the worst of it was behind me. Sure, there were bound to be rough days ahead, life was not always smooth sailing, but it was a trip I wanted to take.