Tanya Erickson
Creative Writer
The Right Place
August 2020
By Tanya Erickson
A man sat on the dock watching the clear lake water lap against the metal dock and said to himself, "This isn't the right place."
Staring at his wavy reflection on the lake's surface, he retraced his memories, desperate to know where his path diverted.
A few feet behind him, the dock stretched to the shore, more rock than sand. He recalled the drive to the water's edge. A small opening among the grove of trees appeared where pavement peeked its head to catch a glimpse of the curiosities beyond the tree row. The jagged shoreline harshly greeted the asphalt, which was cooling with the lowering sun. Only a few vehicles parked but no people around. He was alone.
His kona-blue Ford Mustang, vintage, anchored at the far end, now shaded by old oak trees. Its sleek acrylic coat, dusty with a scratch or two not visible to the outside world, glinted in his mind like a flashbulb memory. He thought of his father, who would be envious of him for owning such a garish-looking car and equally annoyed at his financial frivolity. A smile crossed his face as he looked up to the cloudless sky in memoriam.
When he first pulled into the lot, a pair of tween boys rolled across the bike path: one on a skateboard, the other on a scooter. Showing off their skills carelessly in an attempt to impress some girls walking along the trees, further down the walk. He waited, watching them from the window of his mustang, awed by their youth. They flipped him their middle fingers proudly, as if rudeness was a rite of passage they had now completed in order to be men. "Again?" He said to himself as he looked beyond his shoulder, confident their gesture was meant for him. As he suspected, there was no one else.
His stretched his memories back further and recalled the drive from his rundown bungalow to the lake. He left just hours ago, and yet it felt like a lifetime. He wound his way through town, stopped at traffic lights, and waited for pedestrians in crosswalks. He observed couples with their children out on their afternoon walks; a boy in tears with a scraped knee; a girl with hair too long to manage, who fussed with her hair tie; and bicyclists who slalomed through pedestrian and vehicular traffic alike. Motorized traffic was surprisingly light for a weekend afternoon, but he welcomed the small moment of roadway freedom.
Just blocks from his home, an obsidian-blue Honda, halted at a four-way stop long before he arrived there, and waited for his mustang to pass through. He ushered the Honda to proceed first with a polite wave to which the Honda's driver responded with a less-than-polite hand signal. With a shrug of his shoulders and a shake of his head, he guided his mustang through the intersection first.
In preparing to leave his bungalow, which was the perfect size for a bachelor like himself, he had a phone pressed to his ear. The phone, still the landline he preferred, resided in the kitchen near the fridge. A notepad hung on the fridge door with a small magnetic pen positioned right next to it. He jotted down a name in a bubble heart font of his creation as he spoke to a woman on the other end. Cecilia. Her voice sounded like flowers in bloom he thought. His heart leapt at her laughter, which boomed through the receiver. He stood in awe as he realized his appreciation for the technology that connected him to her at that moment.
The ringing of the phone had woken him from a sleep in which he was unaware he had been invested. A moment to rest his eyes was all he needed, he had told himself. His body argued an opposing point of view and won. He was in a groggy state of consciousness when he first spoke into the phone and immediately blamed Cecilia for keeping him up too late the previous night. She giggled in response and added that meeting up was his idea. He certainly enjoyed the sound of her laugh.
She was right, of course, he recalled. The plans they shared the previous night had been his idea. He tried to remember the last time he stayed up all night just talking with a girl, especially one as lovely as Cecilia. He studied her face and how the setting sun made her skin glow. Her toothy smile shined in the darkness of the night, making her eyes twinkle like the stars. He was sure he was looking at heaven sitting right in front of him. They shared stories of their lives, some good some not, they laughed and joked as she brushed his shoulder waving away mosquitos. He thought he was going to faint at her touch and mentally thanked himself for opting to sit.
By some stroke of luck, she agreed to meet him at the park just around the corner from the diner. The diner where he didn't know she worked until a week ago. A place he had come to weekly for months but yet hadn't discover Cecilia before. He counted the minutes from the time he met her to the time they met again, and he'd count the minutes until their next meeting. She was skeptical at first, rightfully suspicious of a stranger asking her to meet in the park after her late-night shift. He didn't blame her when she explained herself and graciously accepted her decision to be vigilant. In fact, he admired her resolve and responsible demeanor telling her she has a good head on her shoulders. He immediately regretted sounding like a man beyond his years. He would be at the park all the same, for he wasn't going to miss his chance should she change her mind.
How quickly things had changed in just a week leading up to their, what he would call, first date. Cecilia may view it differently, but they could decide that later. He had arrived at the diner for the Thursday morning breakfast buffet, which they called brunch on Sundays. Having never been there on a Thursday before, he allowed the nuances of the new routine to envelop him. He watched new groups of people enter and exit that differed from the Sunday crowd to which he'd grown accustomed. Fewer children and families, more elderly and business folks. More importantly, Cecilia. A waitress. He watched her zip through her section of tables quickly, wondering if she was a seasoned server or a quick learner. He didn't much care, though, as his focus was now to be seated in her section.
The server in the section which he currently sat, arrived a moment later asking to take his drink order. Instead of responding with an appropriate drink selection, he only asked to be moved to a new table, preferably in the section along the far wall. Cecilia's section. The server sighed with irritation as if this wasn't the first time he'd received this request. He would not be surprised in the slightest to learn that Cecilia had admirers other than himself. The charisma she held as she oscillated between tables, her hair neatly styled on top of her head, and the genuine interest she held in her eyes as she talked with customers was enough to draw in anyone she encountered. The server was quickly offered generous compensation for this request and then reseated him in Cecilia's section.
She arrived at his table, introduced herself, and asked for his drink order. Her perfume smelled rich with a citrus overtone that hit him squarely in his heart. A scent familiar yet unknown, overwhelmed him like a drug, leaving him intoxicated. Knowing his usual was coffee with cream, he panicked and asked for sweet tea. Cecilia smiled politely with a flirtatious wink and walked away only then did he realized how much he hated sweet tea.
He chatted with Cecilia in the stolen moments between ordering and being served his everything skillet sans onions. Sundays at the diner had been his routine until his co-worker, who wrote computer programs in the cube next to him, begged him to switch schedules earlier in the week. He agreed to skip his Sunday brunch and cover the shift for his friend. As a result, he dined on Thursday for the first time.
On Sundays, he awoke with the sun, spent time in the Word, meditated in his lush-green backyard, and sipped coffee while working the Sunday crossword. He found this time the most peaceful. After he'd completed as much of the morning crossword as possible, he'd make his way to the diner. Every morning he passed the same group of people running along his street. He would wave at them, every day. Sometimes they waved back. He began to notice the pattern of the same people and the same cars. There was the silver Dodge Ram that burned oil in the driveway at the end of the block; the late-model suburban hauling their family of five to church; the classy, black BMW returning home from a way-too-late night out; and the Ruby Red Volkswagen Beetle which always pulled out of the diner parking lot just as he entered.
The beetle was bright and hard to miss with its strawberry red facade and chrome rims. The driver wasn't so easy to recognize, given the tinted windows, but from the driver's silhouette he determine a woman was behind the wheel, and the mystery of her identity intrigued him. What type of woman choses to drive a strawberry red Volkswagen Beetle? He'd spend most of his time there crafting an image of this woman's life in his mind. He imagined her strong and confident and not one who wants to being told what to do. Proud and resilient. She'd be one to have goals and ambitions, likely an adventurer. Smart, definitely smart. Maybe one day he'd meet her and see if his assumptions were correct. If he'd adjust his arrival just slightly, could he catch an opportunity? In the meantime, he'd enjoy his breakfast and daydream.
He never took himself as the type of guy who would enjoy brunch. When you see it on TV and in the movies, the people that participate in this mid-morning event seemed pretentious and egocentric. He was neither of those things or so he thought anyway. The people he watched at the diner didn't seem to be those things either.
One night out, late in the evening, he made a change. He used to be a man with his buddies out on the town. Being an observer by nature, but only realizing this quality of late, he began to notice a shift in his world. He watched his pals barking and hollering across the bar with drinks in their hands and women on their arms, and wondered how he reached this point in life. It started as a way to socialize, but he never meant it to be his purpose of being. He used to drink vodka sours in large quantities, basking in the euphoria that followed. The sense of control and power that came along with this freedom to be reckless was nearly as intoxicating as the drink itself, possibly more. After downing six or seven vodka sours he realized the absurdity that had become his life. Grown men whose goals were getting drunk or getting laid--or both-- surrounded him to the point where he wasn't sure if that was why his head was spinning or was it just the vodka?
Waking up the following morning was something of nightmares. Not recalling the drive home, yet finding himself in one piece, scared him on a level he had never before reached. Thoughts of what could have happened and the wonder of what really did happened raced through his mind to the point of repulsion. Hovering over the not-clean-enough throne of the bathroom, he resolved to put an end to his wasteful ways.
Before he met up with his friends, he had spent that morning watching the boats come into the channel, heavy with their freight. Containers upon containers on huge boats docking and cranes loading and unloading the cargo. Smoke billowed from the ships' stacks clouding up the skies. The stench of diesel mingled with the freshwater breeze made his stomach churn. He understood the need for a ship's service and the value to human life it provided, but at the cost of the crippling environment that allows us to even reside on this earth was battling with his conscience.
As he pondered this debate inside of his head, a woman running along the shoreline walkway, engrossed in her music, knocked him over. A shawl of various shades of blue was wrapped around her hair and neck to protect herself from the increasingly warm sun, he assumed. Sunglasses masked her eyes, making it hard for him to sense her soul. He rose to his feet, helping her up as well. She offered her thanks and continued on her way. The vibration he felt emitting from her hand energized his soul as if her existence was a power source he needed for survival. He watched her just a moment as she continued on her path away from him and realizing life is beautiful and that she smelled like magnolias.
His memories dissolved into the present where the sun was lowering now, teasing the tops of the trees across the lot. He carefully strode across the dock, rocking slightly with the water's current. Slowly, he reached the shoreline, feeling rejuvenated despite the unknown plan for him and Cecilia. He'd hoped for more but resolved to be content with what is and what was. If he never saw her again, he would still cherish the few priceless memories nonetheless.
A purr of a vehicle pulled into the lot, but the sun shining in his face left it a mystery. Raising one hand to shield his eyes to see the path before him, he saw a figure exit the newly-arrived vehicle, a red Volkswagen he was sure. Slender and shapely, the woman's silhouette approached. Being polite as he always had, he waved before the woman was even in view, knowing she had a much better visual of him than he had of her. The woman approach him, adjusting her monochromatic blue shawl wrapped around her neck and smiling.
Her perfume hit him long before the view of her face. A sweet floral smell of fresh linen, lemon, and summer swirled around him. He smiled with his heart warming in his chest.
"So," she said with a flirtatious smile, "Is this the right place?"
"Yes, Cecilia, this is indeed the right place."