by Ann Fox and Sarah Stella
1998
********
Part Four
********
Taking a deep breath, Caroline pushed the door open, peeping through the gap. Richard wasn't at the partners' desk. She opened the door wider and peered around the edge. There he was, looking as at home in the kitchen as she'd ever seen him. He was mixing something interesting-looking and orange in the blender. She watched as he dropped a few mint leaves into the concoction and continued mixing it. Well at least that explains something.
"Richard!" Caroline hissed, just loud enough to be heard over the loud, mechanical whirring.
Richard turned to face her. "Oh, there you are." He wrinkled his brow at her. "What on earth are you doing in there? I thought you were going to get changed for dinner."
"Uh...I...was, but I thought I'd left my favorite pair of black shoes in here."
If it was possible, Richard's eyebrows climbed even higher up on his forehead. "Caroline, Del wrecked your favorite black shoes when he and Charlie got stuck in that snowstorm awhile back."
"Right! Well, that explains why they're not here." Caroline opened the door and clambered to her feet.
"Sneakers will do. I told you that before, but you never listen..."
"Richard," Caroline said, stepping neatly on the beginning of Richard's rant, "do me a favor?"
"Anything." He waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.
"Tell me how old I am."
"So we're gonna play that game again," he said like he was tired of saying it.
"Again?"
"Thirty-four. Would you care to enlighten me?"
"Y'know," Caroline said hastily, "I think I'll go up and change for dinner after all. It's dusty under there; I really should clean more often." She pounded quickly up the stairs, away from his inquisitive face.
Once she was safely upstairs, Caroline slammed the door. She clicked the lock into place and surveyed the room. She was younger here, wherever here was, and she hoped that was a good sign. But she was still no closer to determining what on earth was happening. Her eyes caught and held against a small, shiny object on her dresser.
A key.
Am I going to give this to Richard tonight? she wondered.
She walked into the bathroom, opened the cold water spigot, splashed some water on her face and patted it dry before examining her reflection critically in the bathroom mirror.
Caroline had played "Bloody Mary" only once, on a dare. She had chanted "One Bloody Mary. Two Bloody Mary...." all the way up to a hundred. She had never done it again because, as she watched, her frightened fourteen-year-old face had wavered like an unsteady candle flame before blinking out completely and being replaced by a pure, cold blue glow. She'd run out of the bathroom screaming and had slept with the lights on for a month. This was almost the same. Her weary face flickered and vanished, but this time it wasn't replaced with the unearthly specter of a dead queen but a familiar scene from her own life.
She saw the main room of her apartment, as if she was looking at it from the top of the steps. Richard and someone who looked remarkably like herself were seated there. The Caroline apparition handed Richard a flat to color. A few seconds later he froze and looked up very slowly. The other Caroline met his eyes, jumped to her feet and gestured wildly before running out the door, leaving the other Richard to pace slowly back and forth.
Caroline, mesmerized by the scene, reached her fingertips out towards the characters. When her skin touched the mirror it didn't feel much like glass at all. It was a little warm and it seemed to pulse and ooze under her touch. As strangely as it had appeared, the scene vanished and was replaced by a startlingly real image of Richard down on one knee, with a small velveteen box in his hand, which was extended toward a shocked and delighted Caroline.
"Caroline?" Richard called loudly from the foot of the stairs.
"What?" a thin strand of hysteria ran under the edge of her voice.
"Are you coming? Dinner's ready!"
"Oh...okay!" Caroline dashed out of the room, her speed motivated more out of fear of the image in the mirror than any eagerness to converse with this version of Richard. She'd have to take her first chance and crawl under the stairs again. One of these times, she was bound to end up in her proper place. Still, yielding to a temporary impulse, she grabbed the key from off the dresser and shoved it into the pocket of her jeans.
Caroline bounded down the stairs and breezed past Richard to take a seat at the table. Richard sat opposite her, looking a little miffed.
"It looks great, Richard," she told him sincerely before picking up her fork and stabbing nervously at the Caesar salad that sat in front of her.
"Thanks." They ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes until Richard broke it, saying, "I talked to Gene Davies today."
Caroline looked up blankly. "Who?"
"Head Curator at MoMA. I've only told you about him a million times."
"Well, what did he say?"
"He said they'd love to have me on board as Assistant Curator for next season."
"Richard, that's great!" Caroline enthused, riding on pure instinct that this would be a good thing. She jumped to her feet and embraced him.
"This is a shock," Richard said, holding her at arms' length. "I thought you'd be upset."
"Not at all."
"Even if it means I have to move all the way uptown?"
"Even if..." Caroline trailed off. A small shudder went through her and she felt the cool touch of the Caroline who belonged in this time, this space. The key in her pocket weighed heavily against her hip. "Of course I'm happy for you." She hugged him again. "It just means we can't see each other as much, right?"
"Not if I can help it." He squeezed her, planting a kiss in her hair.
Caroline gazed absently past him. Most of her apartment's windows were standing open and the midsummer breeze curled among her things, but the window directly opposite to where she and Richard were standing was closed. She had always had trouble getting it to open in the first place. The lights inside her apartment reflected back to her in a dusky mirror but as she watched, the images winked out and were replaced by the scene she'd seen earlier--Richard, down on one knee, proposing. The picture vibrated subtly, like a plucked harp string and the woman to whom he was proposing became a long-legged brunette with classic good looks.
A pang of sadness struck Caroline in the chest and she was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of great loss and heartache. She felt her eyes stinging with tears. Apprehensively, she moved away from Richard towards the image inside the window.
Focusing only on what she saw in front of her, she didn't even hear Richard call her name. At the window, she rested her forearms on the ledge, enraptured as she watched the scene unfolding before her. The brunette pulled the other Richard from his knee and wrapped her arms around him exuberantly. Even with the absence of sound from the picture, she knew that the woman had undoubtedly accepted Richard's proposal. A huge smile crept into Richard's features, lighting up his face and breaking the mask of melancholy which normally hid his true feelings. He seemed truly happy. Caroline's heart sank. It was not a scene from the future, she realized, but a scene from the past. It was Richard proposing to Julia the night Caroline had finally decided to reveal her true feelings for him without realizing that he'd just become unavailable.
"What are you looking at?" asked Richard, suddenly behind her.
Caroline jumped in surprise, unwittingly dispelling the image from the window. Instead of Richard and Julia before her, she now saw the buzzing city below her--the passers-by and the congested street, as viewed from a simple second-story window of a typical apartment building, not a movie screen from another dimension. She sighed.
"You're not worried about that bum again, are you?" Richard inquired. "You know I told him to get lost. I made it clear to him that Salty is not a delicacy. I think he got the idea when I threatened to return his shopping cart to Macy's and report him to the police. He's had a real scare with them in the past, I guess. Something about an incident with a dry cleaning store. I didn't ask, though. As long as it got him to stop lusting after your cat as if she were a chicken, that was enough for me."
Caroline continued to stare out at the street below, not really hearing anything Richard was saying to her. Suddenly she felt his hands on her shoulders as he began to rub her weary muscles. "Caroline?" he ventured quietly when she did not answer him.
"Hmm?" she replied, the sound escaping as more of a whimper than a true response.
"Do you remember that time awhile ago when I went to see that matinee of 'Rent' and told you that I needed the afternoon off so I could paint?"
Not having any recollection of that whatsoever but not wanting Richard to become any more suspicious of her than he already was, she said, "How could I forget that?"
Massaging her neck softly, he continued, "Do you remember how upset you were afterwards when you found out that I had lied to you? How you made me promise that we both had to be completely honest with each other from then on, no matter what?"
"Yes," she replied, leaning into his warm and strong hands.
Richard let out a heavy sigh and stopped working his hands into her neck. Caroline turned around to face him, wondering what he was thinking. She reluctantly met his eyes, a strange feeling of disrepute building inside her stomach. What she saw there was exactly what she expected, even though she didn't quite understand it--deep concern laced with what she was certain was pity, pouring forth from him and drowning Caroline in a flood of shame. Once again she felt the sting of tears and she blinked them back. Despite her confusion, she had to seem strong. At least that's what she told herself. Anything to keep herself from bursting out into tears.
"Caroline?" whispered Richard. It was really more of a statement than a question.
She answered him with a tremble of her lower lip.
Richard pinched both his lips between his teeth, as if deciding how to phrase his next words. "That never happened, Caroline," he said softly.
"What?" she replied.
He brought his palm up to his forehead and rubbed it gently, as if to ward off a headache. "I never saw 'Rent'. I never asked for that afternoon off. We never had that talk......This was a test." He paused, as if attempting to gauge Caroline's reaction. She simply stood there as if she'd just been tranquilized with a heavy dose of sedative, saying nothing, just blinking in disbelief. "I was thinking.....maybe it's time that we did have that talk.......I'm getting a little worried about you," said Richard sincerely.
After awhile, Caroline finally shrugged defeatedly. "Richard, I can't pretend this anymore," she mumbled.
"Pretend what?" he asked.
"Pretend that I'm not confused. Pretend that I actually know what's going on around me. That I'm me. That you're you. That I haven't gone insane." Having said that, she broke down and began to cry softly.
Richard immediately took her into his arms and held her tightly against him. "No, Caroline, don't say that. If there's anything I know for sure, it's that you haven't gone insane. You're just a little preoccupied, that's all. And it's okay. It happens to everyone once in awhile."
"But what am I preoccupied with?" she sniffed.
"I don't know," replied Richard honestly. "I was hoping that was something you'd be able to tell me." Caroline trembled in his arms, crying harder. He knew she wouldn't be able to tell him if she herself didn't know what was going on. He decided the only thing he could do was to offer her comfort. They would get through this somehow. "Caroline, you don't have to be afraid. You can tell me anything. Anything, even if you think it's insignificant, just tell me. All I want to do is understand."
"Me too," whimpered Caroline. She thought about everything she'd seen that day. How many different periods of her own life she'd stumbled into after disappearing into the closet. She knew there was something very significant about everything she'd seen and experienced--that there was a reason behind it all. She was so close to uncovering it, too. Someone, somewhere was trying to tell her something. Was it a higher power trying to speak to her? Was it her own subconscious forcing her to look at the condition of her own existence? Was she having some twisted, contorted dream, controlled by forces beyond her control? Any of these were very likely possibilities, and she wasn't about to outrightly dismiss any of them.
When she'd calmed herself enough to stop shaking, she gently pulled back from Richard's embrace and reached into her pocket. He watched her cautiously as she produced a plain-looking silver key, which she placed in the palm of his hand. He regarded it closely for a moment, wishing desperately he could recognize it, but shook his head sadly when he realized he hadn't the foggiest idea where it had come from. He handed it back to her. She turned it over in her hand.
"I found it on my dresser," she said.
"Do you recognize it?" asked Richard.
"No." Caroline shook her head resolutely. "I have no idea what it's for."
Richard shrugged his shoulders. "Well, hold onto it. Maybe you'll remember."
She nodded solemnly, but both she and Richard knew she had no hope of ever remembering.
"Caroline," said Richard, "I know you're confused, and I really wish there was something I could do to help you, but are you sure there's nothing strange you remem....." He trailed off as he shifted his gaze to the stairs. Focusing on the door below the steps for a moment, he then looked deeply into Caroline's eyes. "Does it have anything to do with the closet?"
Caroline was sort of hoping that he wouldn't have noticed, because she kind of wanted to keep that to herself. Perhaps part of her hoped that the next time she went inside, she'd be transported back to where she was supposed to be. There was nothing she could do now to cover it up.
Sighing as she worked up her courage, she told Richard how she'd stumbled out of the closet and walked into another time and perhaps, another dimension. She could see in Richard's eyes that he didn't believe her, but he nodded in support, urging her to continue her story. She described how she seemed to have been transported to different periods of her own life, conveniently neglecting to mention the fact that a different version of Richard in a different phase in their relationship, had appeared in each scene. It seemed too crazy to begin with--she didn't want to make it sound worse and possibly make Richard freak out.
"So, in essence, you feel like every time you go back inside, you are coming closer to a revelation?" he summed up.
"I guess," she replied.
"Well, the solution is simple, then. Go back inside and see what happens."
"I guess that's all I can do," she decided.
"But this time," Richard said, "I'm coming with you."
Caroline looked him straight in the eye, her gaze unwavering and strong for the first time in a long while. "No," she said simply.
"No? Caroline...I..."
"No, Richard," she said again, her voice even stronger. "I think that this thing...whatever's wrong with me...well, it's my problem. I don't want to drag you into it."
"Caroline, I love you. Don't shut me out like this."
Caroline shook her head sadly. "But I don't love you because you're not you. I mean, not really you; just like I'm not really your Caroline, and the sooner I go in there," she jerked her thumb towards the closet, "the sooner everything can get back to normal."
Richard's lips parted in disbelief. Caroline took a deep breath and opened the closet door, she turned once more toward his astonished face. She wrinkled her brow at him. "Say, Richard? Have you ever wondered if someone could become, well, unstuck in time?"
Without waiting for him to answer, Caroline let the door swing shut behind her and made her way into the now-familiar darkness that was under her stairs, yet the bridge to somewhere new. She inched ahead, dreading the moment when the ground would vanish from under her feet and send her tumbling. She caught the scent of mothballs as she moved forward before finally tripping into space. She landed with a solid bump. Moments later, the door cracked open and a blinding flash of light sliced neatly into her light-sensitive eyes.
"Ow," she complained automatically.
"Well, did you find it?" Richard's annoyed, yet oddly comforting, voice asked.
"Find what?" she replied tentatively.
"The phone book. You can't have forgotten already."
"Oh. Right." Caroline reached far to her right and caught her fingers against the yellow pages. "Here."
"Thanks." Richard helped her out of the closet. She dusted herself off. He raised an eyebrow. "You really ought to clean under there more often."
Caroline nodded at him. "I know."
A heartbeat of strange silence passed between them. Something seemed to struggle for awareness in both sets of eyes. The air was whirling with unspoken thoughts.
Caroline coughed and broke the spell. "Well, I guess we should get back to work. Whaddya say?" She seated herself at the partners' desk and began to sketch furiously.
"In a minute. What did you say that florist's name was?"
"Bella Flora. I'm pretty sure," Caroline said, not looking up from her drawing. She heard the swish-swish of Richard flipping through the phone book. Caroline stared hard at her sketch. It was she and Richard under the cilantro, both looking a tad uncomfortable. I used to think there was nothing weirder than Christmas in July. Caroline let out a soft peal of laughter.
"What sort of flowers, do you think?" Richard asked, placing one hand over the phone.
She considered this a minute. Maybe if she said anything...anything but maroon and cream.... She'd never really believed the future was preordained.
"Maroon and cream roses. A dozen--don't be chintzy."
Richard frowned hard at her but placed the order anyway. "They want ten bucks extra for delivery."
"Do it." Assuring her own future by following the paths that others had taken...it wasn't exactly breaking them up. "I'll pay."
Richard's face softened. "That's decent of you, Caroline."
She waved the gesture off. "Least I could do."
When he had finished, Richard hung up the phone and joined Caroline at the partners' desk. Whatever had happened to her today had happened for a reason. Be it God, Fate or Chaos that had intervened when she'd stepped through the closet door, she'd been given a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Neatly and deliberately, she filled in the word bubble, 'I still love you. I don't know if I'll ever get over it.'
Bravely, she handed it to Richard, shifting a little in her seat as she did so. Something in her pocket poked hard into her hip. With slight difficulty, she pulled the offending object out where she could see it.
The key.
Caroline turned it over in her hands, half-mesmerized by its silvery smoothness. Her fingers caught over some unevenness and she brought the key closer to her eyes. In her peripheral vision, she saw Richard freeze as he read and processed the message she'd sent him. Caroline read the words inscribed on the top of the key very carefully: "To my heart". She tucked the key back into her pocket, knowing for certain that it would appear again shortly, and looked at Richard expectantly.
********
The End
********
Please visit my Caroline in the City webpage: Sincere Amore