Dennis Lehane - Shutter Island

…if none of it brought him closer to her?

He knew he was supposed to move on. Recover. Put it behind him. His few stray friends and few stray relatives had said as much, and he knew that if he were on the outside looking in, he would tell that other Teddy to buck up and suck in your gut and get on with the rest of your life.

But to do that, he’d have to find a way to put Dolores on a shelf, to allow her to gather dust in the hope that enough dust would accumulate to soften his memory of her. Mute her image. Until one day she’d be less a person who had lived and more the dream of one.

They say, Get over her, you have to get over her, but get over to what? To this fucking life? How am I going to get you out of my mind? It hasn’t worked so far, so how am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to let you go, that’s all I’m asking. I want to hold you again, smell you, and, yes too, I just want you to fade. To please, please fade …

He wished he’d never taken those pills. He was wide awake at three in the morning. Wide awake and hearing her voice, the dusk in it, the faint Boston accent that didn’t reveal itself on the a and r , so much as the e and r so that Dolores loved him in a whispered foreva and eva . He smiled in the dark, hearing her, seeing her teeth, her eyelashes, the lazy carnal appetite in her Sunday-morning glances.

That night he’d met her at the Cocoanut Grove. The band playing a big, brassy set and the air gone silver with smoke and everyone dressed to the nines—sailors and soldiers in their best dress whites, dress blues, dress grays, civilian men in explosive floral ties and double-breasted suits with handkerchief triangles pressed smartly into the pockets, sharp-brimmed fedoras propped on the tables, and the women, the women were everywhere. They danced even as they walked to the powder room. They danced moving from table to table and they spun on their toes as they lit cigarettes and snapped open their compacts, glided to the bar and threw back their heads to laugh, and their hair was satin-shiny and caught the light when they moved.

Teddy was there with Frankie Gordon, another sergeant from Intel, and a few other guys, all of them shipping out in a week, but he dumped Frankie the moment he saw her, left him in midsentence and walked down to the dance floor, lost her for a minute in the throng between them, everyone pushing to the sides to make space for a sailor and a blonde in a white dress as the sailor spun her across his back and then shot her above his head in a twirl and caught her coming back down, dipped her toward the floor as the throng broke out in applause and then Teddy caught the flash of her violet dress again.

It was a beautiful dress and the color had been the first thing to catch his eye. But there were a lot of beautiful dresses there that night, too many to count, so it wasn’t the dress that held his attention but the way she wore it. Nervously. Self-consciously. Touching it with a hint of apprehension. Adjusting and readjusting it. Palms pressing down on the shoulder pads.

It was borrowed. Or rented. She’d never worn a dress like that before. It terrified her. So much so that she couldn’t be sure if men and women looked at her out of lust, envy, or pity.

She’d caught Teddy watching as she fidgeted and pulled her thumb back out from the bra strap. She dropped her eyes, the color rushing up from her throat, and then looked back up and Teddy held her eyes and smiled and thought, I feel stupid in this getup too. Willing that thought across the floor. And maybe it worked, because she smiled back, less a flirtatious smile than a grateful one, and Teddy left Frankie Gordon right there and then, Frankie talking about feed stores in Iowa or something, and by the time he passed through the sweaty siege of dancers, he realized he had nothing to say to her. What was he going to say? Nice dress? Can I buy you a drink? You have beautiful eyes?

She said, “Lost?”

His turn to spin. He found himself looking down at her. She was a small woman, no more than five four in heels. Outrageously pretty. Not in a tidy way, like so many of the other women in there with perfect noses and hair and lips. There was something unkempt about her face, eyes maybe a bit too far apart, lips that were so wide they seemed messy on her small face, a chin that was uncertain.

“A bit,” he said.

“Well, what are you looking for?”

He said it before he could think to stop himself: “You.”

Her eyes widened and he noticed a flaw, a speckle of bronze, in the left iris, and he felt horror sweep through his body as he realized he’d blown it, come off as a Romeo, too smooth, too full of himself.

You .

Where the fuck did he come up with that one? What the fuck was he—?

“Well,” she said…

He wanted to run. He couldn’t bear to look at her another second.

“…at least you didn’t have to walk far.”

He felt a goofy grin break across his face, felt himself reflected in her eyes. A goof. An oaf. Too happy to breathe.

“No, miss, I guess I didn’t.”

“My God,” she said, leaning back to look at him, her martini glass pressed to her upper chest.

“What?”

“You’re as out of place here as I am, aren’t you, soldier?”

LEANING IN THE cab window as she sat in the back with her friend Linda Cox, Linda hunching forward to give the driver an address, and Teddy said, “Dolores.”

“Edward.”

He laughed.

“What?”

He held up a hand. “Nothing.”

“No. What?”

“No one calls me Edward but my mother.”

“Teddy, then.”

He loved hearing her say the word.

“Yes.”

“Teddy,” she said again, trying it out.

“Hey. What’s your last name?” he said.

“Chanal.”

Teddy cocked an eyebrow at that.

She said, “I know. It doesn’t go with the rest of me at all. Sounds so highfalutin.”

“Can I call you?”

“You got a head for numbers?”

Teddy smiled. “Actually…”

“Winter Hill six-four-three-four-six,” she said.

He’d stood on the sidewalk as the cab pulled away, and the memory of her face just an inch from his—through the cab window, on the dance floor—nearly short-circuited his brain, almost drove her name and number right out of there.

He thought: so this is what it feels like to love. No logic to it—he barely knew her. But there it was just the same. He’d just met the woman he’d known, somehow, since before he was born. The measure of every dream he’d never dared indulge.

Dolores. She was thinking of him now in the dark backseat, feeling him as he was feeling her.

Dolores.

Everything he’d ever needed, and now it had a name.

TEDDY TURNED OVER on his cot and reached down to the floor, searched around until he found his notebook and a box of matches. He lit the first match off his thumb, held it above the page he’d scribbled on in the storm. He went through four matches before he’d ascribed the appropriate letters to the numbers:

18—1—4—9—5—4—19—1—12—4—23—14—5

R—A—D—I—E—D—S—A—L—D—W—N—E

Once that was done, though, it didn’t take long to unscramble the code. Another two matches, and Teddy was staring at the name as the flame winnowed its way down the wood toward his fingers:

Andrew Laeddis.

As the match grew hotter, he looked over at Chuck, sleeping two cots over, and he hoped his career wouldn’t suffer. It shouldn’t. Teddy would take all the blame. Chuck should be fine. He had that aura about him in general—no matter what happened, Chuck would emerge unscathed.

He looked back at the page, got one last glimpse before the match blew itself out.