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Come morning, she gradually awoke from not just pleasant dreams, but knot-free dreams, filled to the brim with cheerfulness. And with the humidity in the air still there, confirming the reality of wonderland, she played the role of Jessica on an ordinary day when the sun always shone, when a strong thread of wonder consistently wove together the fabric of life.
She had arrived.
She peeked through the curtains for a view of the ocean, and its magical shimmer. San Francisco Bay, she just knew it. But thick foggy clouds blocked out the sun, and missing were the rolling ocean waves, the Bay instead lay totally still … covered with some kind of seaweed or floating mire. Her smile dimmed, but only slightly, her inner enthusiasm holding. This was the place; she had seen it a thousand times.
She stepped from the morning shower, wrapping a towel around her hair and pulled out her hair dryer. She lay back on the bed, to rest for a moment. She would look for her cousin Andrew, he said on the phone he would be there.
Amy smiled through mistiness on the elevator down. With her own eyes, she now saw the Bay, through each and every window, where Jessica gazed with her recovered gleam of delight. At one window, Amy gasped lightly, knowing at the moment she herself was really there, the place where she had seen it happen. She strolled slowly along under a lofty ceiling, through the open-air social space, then turned through the doors to the walkway along the Bay. She leaned lightly against a modest sea wall, breathing in the sea air, lifting her arms to invite the sky to cut her knot free. Beyond the sea wall, a tidal mud flat stretched out to meet the lapping wavelets.
Walking along the seaside path, she thought of lunch, pestered by Grandma’s voice telling her to find a cheaper place – the food would be just as good. She passed a burger salad walk-in. No Grandma, not this time. She strolled back to the Marriot, determined, circling to the front door to replay the arrival, allowing the doormen to once again greet her entry. She almost melted this time.
Again, she walked gracefully, slowly, down the spiral staircase, looking out over the casual seating where Jessica sometimes met a friend. People lounged casually on couches, chatting with their companions about events in their wondrous lives. She focused for a second, glancing at the wall clock. Half way down the stairs she spotted Andrew, slouched back with his feet kicked on a stool.
Amy waved, calling his name. But the din of the chatter under the vaulted ceiling muffled her voice. Not until she walked right up on him did he push his sunglasses up to greet her.
“Hi Andrew. It’s me, Amy.” They had last seen each other at the family reunion in Saskatchewan.
“Amy. I was hoping I would find you.” Andrew sprang to his feet, smiling through glassy eyes. He wore a classy suit, like Jessica’s friends, but when he rose, the scuffs and wrinkles stood out, Amy noticed. “Where’s the restaurant? I’m famished.”
A sign hung over the entrance to Jessica’s restaurant. The American Grill; they must have changed the name for Jessica’s show. Amy was delighted when they found a table looking out the window over the Bay. The window’s edge blocked out the mud flats, creating a view of life the way it should be.
As the two cousins settled in, Amy looked around, noticing families and a couple of businessmen. They all seemed to be eating the same thing, some kind of buffet. Children scurried about under one table. Amy ignored the buffet, she would have lunch from the bill of fare and she asked for two lunch menus from the Latin waitress. With the noon hour sunshine beaming, she inquired after her cousin.
“A little tired today, but hey, this should revive me.” He seemed nervous. “I drove up the coastal freeway last night.”
The waitress returned.
“Yes, I’ll have an Allie’s Shrimp Louis Salad,” said Amy.
“Yes Miss. Anything to drink?”
“A Banana Daiquiri, please”
“And you sir?”
“Steak and fries. And a whiskey on the rocks. Canadian whiskey.” Andrew calmed noticeably.
Amy relaxed more herself when he asked of Saskatchewan. She listened to his talk of California, but couldn’t help catching a few words from the businessmen. The inner workings of the business world Amy supposed. Jessica had some friends that were in business, always high-ended business where deals were exciting and fulfilling; ones that financed their exquisite lifestyles. These ones talked quite softly, in hoarse voices, that in a lull somehow echoed over so Andrew noticed too.
“ … he was driving pissed, man. The cops busted him for that, then they found out what he was carrying. He got six years …” She heard the words clearly now.
Andrew’s eyebrows shot up, like he understood more. Must be a more casual part of their lives, Amy decided, not their real business. Then a pair of well-dressed women, classy, walked over to the men’s table. They chatted about club Monaco. Yes, that’s more like what happened for Jessica; she knew a lot of men. A cell phone rang, and one of the men excused himself.
Amy focused back on Andrew, still seeking to feel Jessica’s secrets. As she nodded at her cousin, she saw past Andrew swirling ice around in his glass. The mud flats shrank as the tide advanced. Gentle turquoise waves lapped up on a white sand shore. Tiny ripples with a tinge of magic. Jessica’s world, right there.
Andrew relaxed more when the businessmen left. But then Amy couldn’t help but hear the family, and she realized what Jessica’s life never included. Amy’s enchanted forest threatened to topple as she wondered how Jessica could be happy without children’s laughter.
When she finished her Allie’s Louis salad, she felt delightfully content, even full. Could it be the feeling she sought, or just the feeling of a good healthy meal like Grandma made for Grandpa Paulo. The wailing and chatter of the children filled in as background noise with little musical songs, she listened closely – Christmas songs. In August! Andrew chatted on. Then quite abruptly, he pushed his chair out.
“I have to get back to LA today, sorry Amy, it was really nice to see you.”
“Remember the next reunion.” Amy reminded him. “It would be great to see you at Sahiya Lake again.”
Andy’s hazy eyes struggled to clear. “Yes, that sure was one cool weekend. You guys were really great to be around.” He stood up, putting his third glass to his lips to drain the last of it. “Take care, Amy.”
“Goodbye, Andrew. Thanks for meeting me.”
Amy turned back to the window, the jet airliners coming into San Francisco International. They flew straight up the long pier, the same pier in Jessica’s picturesque background. For a moment Amy felt an inner tingling peace she couldn’t describe. It all came together for that one moment. She settled back, watching people strolling along on the walkway in the now bright sun. A beautiful white jet flew in over the pier gracefully seeking its place to land. She saw a flock of seabirds skimming over the surface of the Bay. Then the sunshine faded behind a cloud’s shadow. How could the wondrous feeling be so fleeting? She couldn’t help thinking of her family now, her refuge. She needed a breath of fresh air.
Wandering outside again, she strolled slowly back down the seaside boardwalk, stopping to sit for a moment, breathing deep. She listened, this time to a couple of young women, well dressed, talking.
“… you want to give as much as you take …” One said straight into the eyes of the other.
The earlier tingle ran reverse, as she somehow realized those words were part of her Marriot message as well. She sat in the sun, musing, as three jet airliners lined up for take-off. The first jet had come down the runway while the other two waited. The airplane circled completely around and began its take off, headed out from the city. Back towards home.
After the jets took off, one by one, she turned, and came face to face with her reflection in the glass wall. Who was this woman? The Golden Gate Bridge loomed in the distance, the bridge that closed each half hour session with Jessica.
Amy walked slowly back to her room. Glancing out the window, she saw once more the cycle of jets
taking off and landing while another jet roared high overhead. Everything was right there, why couldn’t she connect? She fell back on the bed, a tear rolling down her cheek, praying for an answer, any answer.
Packing her things in her bag, she took one last look around, feeling the moist air, sniffing the aromas it brought out. She closed the door behind her, walking past the cleanup people, playing the role most familiar to her back in her house trailer. The people behind the scenes, the ones who made the front seat view of Jessi’s life possible.
Waiting for the airport bus, the voices around spoke of the everyday things. She sat relishing the California view of ocean, concrete and traffic, pondering over what she had seen. Lunch in San Francisco, all the children, the young women on the boardwalk, Andrew’s glassy eyes and the businessmen in Jessica’s restaurant.
The bus took her through the concrete maze of on-ramps, off-ramps and freeway pieces suspended high in the ocean air. The San Francisco International sign appeared in all its sunshine glory and she stepped off the bus to catch her flight.
On the plane, she settled in. San Francisco, how bitter sweet. Excitement around her children and husband now began to build, yet confusion on leaving the Jessica world behind. What would she do with the stomach knot now?
Amy looked across the plane through the windows on the far side. Who might be at the Marriott now watching planes taking off, who might be watching her plane as she had watched them? As they taxied, she could see the hotel, red letters writing Marriot on the sandstone collared building, like a glance over the past few hours … over the past many years.
The trip back passed with a blur of clouds, clear spaces, the great salty lake, more airport gates, walking out to a smaller jet and a drowsy, dreamy time that ended with a final de-boarding. She felt the embrace of the dry prairie air.
Bryan met her at the airport late that night. They didn’t talk much as they drove through familiar streets.
“How are the kids?” Amy asked quietly.
“They’re sleeping.”
“Thanks.” She softly touched his arm. “Thanks, Bryan, for everything.”
They parked in front of the trailer. Looking at each other, knowing they had done something, not exactly hand in hand, but kind of.
Amy slept well, very well, and she remembered her dream in the morning. A bird, one that flew freely through the air; a bird that became a jet; a jet that became part of a cycle of endless takeoffs and landings; a cycle that then turned into a hamster running in its wheel.
She told Bryan about the dream, when he was getting ready for work. He told her of the hamster he had when he was a kid. He said hamsters only live for two years, and he had watched that one in its wheel, for two years, running round and round. Nothing more.
Bryan was gone to work when the kids came running in, and she looked around the trailer – the dishes, the vacuum cleaner, the lunches to make, the clothes to wash she just felt different. She never forgot that give at least as much as you take. And that knot still came and went.
San Francisco was far away now, far from the trailer she lived in, and Amy didn’t watch that show any more. She smiled broadly.
The End
Discover other Writings by Les W Kuzyk
If you like the ideas in Amy's Jessica, my novel The Sandbox Theory follows other members of Amy's family through the eyes of her cousin Sid as he decides to listen carefully at family reunions. Each family member has a different view on the true meaning of wealth.
My soon to be published novel The Shela Directive follows youth in a speculative science fiction novel. The new adult characters in 2029 struggle with the social justice issue of the wealthy, of who owns the wealth and what wealth should really be used for. They had their needs met by the first woman president, but with her assassination each had their social world degraded in this near future urban setting.
My recently published short fiction, A Future History of the Environment speaks to a global scenario of near future climate change as a new adult looks back on our next few decades and writes her university history exam in the year 2052.
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Les W Kuzyk
About Les W Kuzyk
Testing the waters of writing through a graduate university Anthropology and Religious Studies study, Les composed a thesis themed on a morals-based world order. Having thus learned of his passion for words and after publishing several non-fiction writings, he now focuses his writing voice on fiction. He has life experience with various cultures including the pura vida lifestyle of Costa Rica and the Polynesian culture of the South Pacific island nations. He lives with his Eastern European wife and daughter in Calgary.
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