The name Karen Walker had become foreign to me, for no one dared utter it. I knew though, I knew, that she was on everyone's mind. Grace never removed her empty desk; she just threw some swatches on it. Jack still looked up at her bedroom window when we passed the manse.
It was as if she was there, just invisible, or something, and no one dared speak her name.
I don't know. She was a ghost.
I felt her with me sometimes, I felt her sweet breathe on my neck, I heard her humming in the hall as I was drifting off to sleep, and I could hear her heels click in the kitchen while I was sitting on the couch reading by the fire.
The year mark was coming up; I was getting ready for my trip to Paris. No, I hadn't forgotten about our rendezvous. It hadn't been far from my thoughts this past year. A year can seem SO long, it can seem like it is just taking forever but once it is passed, you almost always wish it had been longer, or that you could go back and do something differently. Not this year, this year wasn't necessarily in the game plan for me, it was kind of just my year to breathe.
I packed for Paris. I was ready to go. Grace and Jack weren't sure why I was going; they figured leisure. I got to the airport and I had butterflies in my stomach, I wasn't sure why, for some reason, I knew that what I was going to find in Paris was hardly what I was looking for, but maybe closure, maybe something. No, no I didn't want to think that way, it was going to be perfect, Karen and I would be together once more and it would be just perfection.
How old was Karen when she left? 48? 36? I don't know, she is ageless, her beauty surpasses time, her life is immortal. On the plane ride I thought about her incessantly, she's chronic.
So I get there, I'm in Paris. I get to my hotel and I take a shower. Very chill; very mellow.
I get dressed, I put on my button up black shirt, my nice black pants, I fix my hair just right, and I walk out the door. I buy a rose from a little store on the corner by my hotel and I walk to the tower. It isn't too far from where I am and I'm enjoying the weather. It is a nice breeze, not too chilly. I hold the rose between my fingers and twirl it; I picture what it would look like between her teeth, behind her ear, in her sweet little hands.
There are several people around the structure, tourists I imagine, just like me. Then you have your various couples just taking in the romantic notion of their surroundings. Then there is me, looking for that one familiar face. She wasn't there, I didn't expect her to be, but I looked anyways.
I set the rose on the ground. That would seem silly, I suppose. Yes it does seem silly, even when I'm thinking about it now. Why didn't I just wait? Why didn't I wait for my Karen to come and hand it to her? Because she wasn't coming. I don't doubt that she wanted to, I knew she wanted to come, I knew she meant to be here, with me, tonight, but she couldn't be.
She got out of rehab and left the next day…that February I got the call saying Karen had died of an overdose.
As I stand under this tower, I remember her more than ever. Her smile, the way she spoke, the way she tossed her hair back onto the pillow. She was too good for this world. She didn't belong here. She knew she wasn't going to have a full life. No matter how old she was when she died, it was never enough for her because she was just so, I don't know, angelic. February, her birthday was in February, she would have been one year older. But age doesn't apply to her. Numbers aren't in her vocabulary, she just was, she was beautiful and that was all that mattered. Her ups and downs were just apart of who she was.
I once asked her how the woman behind the ass-kicking wardrobe was, it seemed like a lifetime ago, and to her, it was. She replied with something and added, "and a little lost." She was so lost, and I tried to bring her back, I tried so hard to get her life back on track, but it was forlorn.
I remember her now more than ever and I look around, trying to find her face among the others, but I know there is no hope. That pretty face is somewhere else now; it is where she had belonged all along. I hope she is happy now, I hope her restlessness was calmed by the only one who knows how to sooth a wandering soul.
I hope he takes better care of her than I did.
I tried; I really tried.
WELL THAT'S THAT STORY. I THINK I LIKE IT, I'M FAIRLY PROUD OF IT. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS REVIEWED, I REALLY APPRECIATE IT, AND SPECIAL THANKS TO PAM WHO HELPED ME IMMENSELY.
