Glimpses of Normalcy

"When you've parked the second car in the garage, and installed the hot tub, and skied in Colorado, and wind-surfed in the Caribbean, when you've had your first love affair and your second and your third, the question will remain, where does the dream end for me?"

Mario Cuomo

It was just a little after two that afternoon, the day after Johnny called Tifa, and just when he thought she wasn't going to show, she'd come strolling up the boardwalk scanning crowded café and restaurant fronts for him. He stood leaning over the white stone fence of the Wutaian diner's mock pagoda and waved, catching her eye. She was like a page from his memory made real and whole right in front of him, but the lovely girl he'd remembered had filled out into full womanly curves if the sundress, the way it clung to her and its plunging neckline weren't indications enough. Her smile was subtler than he remembered too not all wide, flashing teeth like in the past; her eyes were two deep glasses of very dark red wine, faintly twinkling against the high tropical sun with some unknown internal reflection.

She sat across from him. She was unusually quiet…well quieter than he'd recalled her being and drummed her fingers against the glass table looking away from him. There was something strained in her manner, and he'd thought something was off over the phone when he was talking to her, but seeing her in person, there was something obviously not quite right with Tifa. Dark mascara masked even darker rings under her eyes, and foundation disguised hairline wrinkles and very slight crow's feet.

Johnny started the conversation admiring her ring, a gracious little gold band choked by diamond so big that it held her whole finger hostage, and she replied with quiet thanks, her tone almost dreamy like she was worlds away at the moment, and then he thought to bring her out of her shell by reminiscing about Nibelheim again, carefully glossing over the parts where Sephiroth entered and exited the story. She chimed in here and there, a dreamy yeah, of course, or no. There was something so blank and passive about this Tifa sitting in front of him as if saving the world had snuffed out all of that inner radiance; hell, stories about her had sent him halfway around the world from the slums in Midgar on a quest to discover himself and make something out of his life. He'd known when she and Cloud had come back to reclaim their villa in town; the papers had made a big fuss about their humble corner of the world being home to two of the greatest heroes ever known. He also knew the couple had gotten married in a big ceremony right on the beachfront and opened up a bar not very far from the diner where he and Tifa were sitting, but he just never had the courage to go and talk to her.

Just when he was going to ask her about Cloud, about why she hadn't brought him, the waitress came up and took their orders. He absentmindedly ordered some noodle dish, and as distracted as ever, Tifa ordered the same. The waitress left, and they were alone again in a sea of tables full of other conversations and lives being orchestrated out in the dramatic, kitschy fashion typical to Costa del Sol.

"So, Tifa," he cleared his throat, but then some admirer had run up to their table, a tanned teenage girl with sandy hair and amber eyes in a blue bikini and sarong whose eyes were entirely on Tifa wide and doe-like with obvious admiration.

"Mrs. Strife?" the girl gushed, wringing her hands in front of her.

"Hmm?" Tifa looked up at the girl, her expression slightly bored as if she were used to this.

"Could I please have your autograph?"

"Of course," Tifa produced a pen from a small clamshell pocketbook looped on her wrist and leaned over to the sign whatever little trinket the girl had produced. Her admirer's quick puffs of jittery breath accented the moment, and Tifa smiled up at her with that classic megawatt smile Johnny remembered and passed over the little memento.

"Oh thank you, Mrs. Strife, thanks," the girl ran off back to her own table, waving the autograph. An explosion of giggles erupted, and Tifa turned away from the girls, back to Johnny.

"I'm sorry about that," she murmured, looking away. Her cheeks were very slightly flushed, and she chewed her lower lip.

He chuckled softly, "You're a real celebrity now, aren't you?"

She shrugged. The waitress came then with their meals and served them, and they ate in relative silence for ten minutes before Johnny resumed the nagging interrogation, finally getting a question in about Cloud.

"So how's that husband of yours been?"

She shrugged. Strange. Johnny quirked a brow, and after a moment, she supplied kind of in that detached way a reporter gives the news that he was doing well, keeping busy at the bar, and added darkly that he was fond of all of the attention, but in the end that she was happy for him, happy that Cloud had finally found something that made him happy. Nothing Johnny had read or heard about the couple led him to believe that their marriage was anything less than stellar; the papers raved about them, calling the two the world's premier couple, partners in love- partners in every way imaginable, completely in sync with one another, and yada yada yada. Their wedding photo had been beautiful; he couldn't go anywhere without seeing it. The picture was on the cover of every tabloid in Gaia. Their two faces stared into each other's, her creamy veil pulled back over her chestnut hair, Cloud's hand wiping away happy tears. The sinking sun, palms, and sea stood behind them both, immortalized in print; the image had been effectively seared into Johnny's brain. No, he wasn't jealous. He'd given up that infatuation he had for Tifa years ago; it was just so surreal, so impossible to put the image of the cute teen that drank whiskey with him underneath the water tower, smoked cloves with the other kids in the mountains, and got into all sorts of country mischief with him was this demure, pretty woman in front of him, so subdued, so civilized, and so sad. There was no question though that she could probably still kick his ass, but she was so wildly different than what he'd remembered.

Her hand waving in front of his face broke Johnny out of his reverie, "Earth to Johnny… Let's talk about you. How have you've been keeping? You know I missed you. I don't know anyone else who survived besides me and Cloud," she leaned over the table, whispering. Where had that come from? That sudden burst of sentimentality reminded him of the old Tifa he knew.

"I've been keeping well enough. I'm an engineer here at the docks. It pays the bills, I suppose…was supposed to go to Junon, but who could ever leave this place? It's heaven," Johnny laughed.

"Indeed," a wry smile tugged at her lips.

A simple little lunch became a walk along the boardwalk. They'd stopped at her bar for an hour; she checked on things, her employees, and Cloud. They didn't speak, he just sort of gave a small wave at her across the room from behind the counter, and she waved back. He gave Johnny a long quizzical stare though, and then he and Tifa set off on their way again. He hadn't intended to spend the whole day with her, and he certainly hadn't intended something as innocent as a little reminiscing over wine in his apartment that night to transform into something so entirely different.

He was certain of one thing though, Tifa wasn't drunk. When they were kids, she could drink anyone in town completely under the table, and so when he felt those strong, soft hands on his shoulders, kneading away at suddenly tense muscles, it wasn't some tipsy accident.

"Today," she whispered, her breath warming his ear, "Today when you looked at me, it was like back then."

Back when? Oh. He knew, a light going off in his head, back then right after she'd bought that cowgirl costume, but she was probably talking about that second time when he'd been going out of his backdoor to the outhouse, at nearly three in the morning. She'd come out Nibelheim's inn, twisting that little leather mini skirt back into place, smoothing out imaginary wrinkles, and he just stopped and stared. She stopped too, her mouth forming a perfect little surprised circle.

"You can't tell anyone about this," his memory and she sighed huskily at the exact same moment, splitting his timeline. He was sitting in his apartment seventeen again, a businessman's wine glass in his hand, the adult Tifa's fingers playing with his collar.

"No one can know," she repeated, "But, I need this. I need you. Take me back."

Take her back where? To that night, to that moment, but that wasn't him. Johnny closed his eyes and opened them in Nibelheim, blinking wildly at the girl before him.

"Tifa," his breath hitched, "Tifa is that you? What are you doing out this late?"

Her hands were on her hips, and she looked up at the window to the only suite in the town's inn.

"Does it really matter?" she grinned at him, winking, and sauntered off into the night.