Deena Goldstone - Surprise Me

And then again, with more indignation, “This is your dog who terrorized me? Perfect! Just perfect!”

“Isabelle—”

“Stop saying that.”

“Amazing.” And then he sees his novel in her hand. “Did you read it?”

“Of course I read it. Why do you think I’m here?”

“To tell me how much you liked it?” And Daniel is grinning, delighted, but Isabelle is not.

“Daniel, you took what is mine and hijacked it for your own use!” Isabelle’s voice shakes with emotion.

Daniel shakes his head. What can he say? Very quietly he tells her, “Isabelle, listen to me. I’ve taken what you meant to me, what you mean to me, what you did for me, and written about it. That’s entirely different.”

“Bullshit! What’s your main character called? Lanie. Sound anything like Me lanie ? Remember her? Remember the novel I was writing with Me lanie as my main character?”

“Yes, Isabelle, I do.”

“And your title! You couldn’t even find your own title? Do you remember “Outlaw”? Out law? So you name your book Out of the Blue ?”

Daniel can’t help it; he starts to chuckle.

“This is funny to you?”

“No, Isabelle, I just think that last accusation is a bit far-fetched.”

“You appropriated every feeling I’ve ever shared with you, every thought in my head, everything I’ve ever told you, and you used it. You used it! You stole my life!” Such a horrible accusation.

And Isabelle starts to weep. Oh, no, how can she be doing this? She stuffs the back of her hands against her cheeks to stop the tears, but they run across her fingers and down her face nonetheless. Oh, she’s exhausted. And mortified. And lost. She knows she’s completely lost.

Daniel just watches her. It’s heart-wrenching, but he knows he mustn’t touch her. Not yet. She has to hear him, and so he waits till the weeping slows.

“The book is a love letter, Isabelle. To the woman who saved me. To the woman who came into my life when I was on the edge of self-destructing and gave me hope. You, Isabelle. You did that for me.”

She shakes her head, either because she doesn’t believe him or because she can’t take it in or…? Daniel doesn’t know, but somehow he does know that he can move to her now. He can take her into his arms and let her cry against his shoulder, and so he does, and he holds her as tightly to him as he has longed to do from the day she first stepped into his office.

They stand together in the glorious woods, with the surrounding world shouting at them to have one more go at living before the winter. And so Daniel takes Isabelle’s hand and leads her back to his spartan cottage and lays her on his narrow bed and covers her with a blanket and lets her sleep. He sits by the fireplace and watches her.

Isabelle wakes to find elongated shadows stretching out across the raw wooden floor. And Daniel asleep in his easy chair, a book open on his lap, his feet crossed at the ankle and propped on the stone hearth of the fireplace. It’s so quiet she can hear the last leaves rustling on the birch trees and her own beating heart.

It must be late afternoon. She’s slept for hours. Quietly, so that she doesn’t wake him, Isabelle turns onto her left side so she can take in the entire room — the two sets of long, uncurtained windows on opposite walls, which look out onto the trees, the plain wooden table where Daniel must work. She can see stacks of paper and his laptop, an orderly pile of books, a ceramic mug — Alina’s? — stuffed with pens. The fireplace, built into the back wall, is beautiful with its large blocks of stone in shades of yellow and rust. Everything neat and swept clean of clutter, so unlike the unsupervised mess of his L.A. house.

It’s peaceful. Could it be this serenity that has worn away Daniel’s sharper edges? He seems less afraid, calmer, as if he’s expanded more fully into himself, she suddenly understands. And oh, how she’s missed him! The physical presence of him, large and solid and awkward all at the same time. And how she’s longed for what he implicitly gives her: his belief in her possibility, his trust in her uniqueness.

“Daniel…” she whispers across the silent room, too softly for him to hear, she’s certain, but he opens his eyes anyway, stretches his arms above his head, and arches his back. He’s too old to sleep in a chair. And then he turns to her and smiles.

“Are you hungry?”

She nods. She’s famished. She can’t remember the last time she ate. Yesterday morning, maybe?

“Will you drive?”

“Oh, Daniel…still?”

He grins. “You can’t expect miracles.”

“I’ll drive.”

—

ISABELLE PARKS HER RENTAL CAR in front of Leighton’s Books and Daniel takes her up to the front window so she can see the display announcing Out of the Blue —copies of the book artfully arranged alongside a small poster identifying him as a local author, irrefutable evidence to Daniel of his resurrection. Here it is — the book, for all the world to see. He waits for Isabelle’s reaction. Did she hear him earlier? Can she see the book as a tribute to her?

“It’s a beautiful cover,” she finally says, and Daniel nods. He doesn’t push for more.

“Let’s cross the street.”

They head for the Granite State Diner, the only game in town. Bev’s shuts down midafternoon. She offers only breakfast pastries and a few simple sandwiches for lunch. By three o’clock the CLOSED sign is hung on the door.

And as they walk past Le Breton’s Gourmet Foods, the realty company, and Sewall’s Pharmacy, Isabelle slips her arm easily through Daniel’s and he smiles at her. He’ll take it. She’s on her way to forgiving him.

At the end of the block, the diner’s neon sign beckons. The whole long name, THE GRANITE STATE DINER, is spelled out in heavy red cursive above the front door, and they walk toward it, arm in arm, two tall people matching strides easily.

“Good thing I wore my boots,” Isabelle says with a sly smile. “I can keep up with you.”

Aldo, who bought the diner from the Olmsteads when Mac Olmstead retired, is standing behind the counter as they walk in, wearing his signature outfit, a short-sleeved white T-shirt, whatever the weather, stretched tight over his ever-expanding girth and an even larger red-and-white — striped apron tied around his middle. Years ago, when Aldo migrated up to Winnock from Bayonne, New Jersey, it was easier to see the firefighter he used to be. He was trim and fit and had a lot more hair. Now countless meals of his own cooking have filled out his form — an advertisement for the tastiness of his food, Aldo tells everyone who will listen.

“Professor. Take a booth.”

“Professor,” Isabelle teases lightly as they slip into the second of a line of red vinyl booths hugging the windowed outer wall. “Wow,” she says as she scans the small space, “you’ve taken me to the quintessential diner.”

“Right out of Norman Rockwell,” Daniel agrees.

With its black-and-white checkerboard floor, long straight counter with red vinyl stools, open kitchen where anyone can watch Aldo and his son, Luca, cook — a competitive show in and of itself — and the requisite wall of windows and booths underneath which look out on the street, the Granite State Diner is a classic.

“Yankee pot roast…fish and chips…meat loaf with mashed potatoes…” Isabelle reads out loud from the menu. “We’re in a fifties time warp.”

“Only one of us here is old enough to remember the fifties.”

“I watched Happy Days reruns,” Isabelle insists, head still bent over the list of possible dinners. How can she choose? She wants pretty much all of them. And then she feels Daniel’s eyes on her face and looks up. “What?”