A Timely Vision

She’d gone off without me that day. It was raining hard, and the bridge was wet and slippery. They said she had a blowout and lost control of the car. It pitched over the rail and into the sound. They never found her body, as so often happens in the waters off the Outer Banks.

For the first few months after she died, I hardly slept, waiting for her, torn apart by guilt. I quit college and spent most of my time staring out at the sound. There was unfinished business between us, the hallmark of most ghostly happenings. Every sigh in the eaves, every unusual creak in the old wood, sent me out into the hall looking for her.

I was desperate to apologize and try to make amends. But after six months, I realized it might take something more than waiting around. That’s how I met Shayla. She didn’t have a shop on the boardwalk then. She’d recently moved to Duck and was working out of her home. She tried to contact my mother during a séance. Shayla and I became friends, but there was no message for me from the other side.

Part of me gave up then and reasoned that one unresolved argument wasn’t a big deal. We knew we loved each other. We’d always been close. Talking to her one last time would’ve been great, but it wasn’t necessary.

Part of me still believed. Sometimes, in the deep night, when I thought I heard her voice in the wind, I’d sit up for hours, waiting for her. I’d learned most of those island ghost stories from her. She’d come back, if she could. How many times had I repeated those words to myself? She’d come back, if she could.

I pulled up the blue afghan she’d knitted for me and snuggled down under it, pretending I could still smell her perfume. She’d made this for me on my twelfth birthday. I had many things that she’d given me through the years, but none that I cherished more than this.

It was the death and despair that made me long for her again. Tears slid down my face. I told myself to get up and go home before it got any later. Gramps would be worried. Sitting here crying wasn’t going to make that interview in the morning any better.

I closed my eyes, just for a second, to clear them. I’d get up in a minute and drag myself home. It had been a long day, that’s all.

When I opened them again, it was morning. Don’t ask me how that happened. Sunlight rushed in through the shop windows, blinding me, and someone was pounding on the door. “Dae! Are you in there?”

I wasn’t sure if I was there or not. I recognized Kevin’s voice and sat up straight on the sofa. My face felt pushed in on the right side where I’d been lying against it, and my hair was standing up on my head. Added to that, my clothes were wrinkled and smelled like the old inn. I wasn’t a fit sight for man nor beast, as Gramps frequently says after a long night playing pinochle.

I hoped Kevin would go away, but he kept yelling and pounding. The headache I’d woken up with pounded with him. There was no other way to get rid of him. I was going to have to answer the door.

I tied a blue scarf around my hair on my way to the sink, where I splashed some water in my face. I didn’t have a toothbrush so I used my finger and some water to freshen up my mouth. Finally, I shouted, “I’m coming! Please stop yelling.”

He stopped yelling and pounding. I opened the shop door and found him standing there in a gray suit and black tie. Gramps was beside him, still wearing his flannel pajamas with the fish on them. I couldn’t imagine a more unlikely duo. It almost made me laugh.

“There you are! You promised you wouldn’t sleep here any more.” Gramps rushed toward me. “We’ve looked everywhere for you. I tried calling here a dozen times. You weren’t answering your cell phone. Kevin and I have been scouring Duck for you. Martha Segall assured me that you were attacked and left for dead like Lizzie. I told her to mind her own damn business.”

The story, and the large, coffee-scented bear hug, was almost too much. I swallowed hard and looked past Gramps to Kevin. “You’re out looking for me too?”

“I was supposed to meet you at town hall at eight, r emember?”

I suddenly realized what had happened. I glanced at the teapot clock in the shop. It was almost ten thirty. “I fell asleep! What am I going to do?”

“You’re going to go home, take a shower and change clothes,” he said with all the authority his gray suit could muster. “I’ll tell everyone, and we’ll meet you at town hall at eleven. Can you do that?”

“I think so.” My brain was still not functional. Maybe my reasoning was a little fuzzy too, but it occurred to me that there was a long time between eight and ten thirty. “You were late for the SBI meeting too! Even if I’d been there on time, you’d just be getting there now.”

He nodded. “Guilty as charged. When I went back to the inn last night, I got caught up in looking for other secret places, so I overslept this morning too. Oh well, all’s well that ends well. So . . . are you going to change clothes or not?”