He was parked in front of a surfboard shop down on Pacific Coast Highway, near the border of Newport and Huntington Beach. The shop was closed but Archie had found a spot beside a listing Volkswagen van that looked like it hadn't been moved in years. The traffic on PCH was steady and fast, but from the high interior of the SUV he could see perfectly the Air Glide lot and the front door of the business.
This was the same lot but not the same space where he'd parked the night before. He'd seen what he wanted to see then, a few minutes after midnight. Just terrifically good luck, he'd thought. He hadn't quite known what to do so he didn't do anything. Just went back to the hotel that used to be a packinghouse, stared at pictures of Gwen and thought about it.
The Air Glide window blinds were down but not closed and he could see a counter and a desk behind it and the same pudgy, dark haired man sitting at the desk. A row of shining silver stretch cars waited out front, angled in unison like a school of barracuda, facing the highway. He wondered if he was seeing them wrong and they were actually black, or if Air Glide favored silver to fit in with the flight theme.
"This is what we'll need to get started," said Dr. Sondra Pearlman. "First, make yourself comfortable and get ready to relax. I'd suggest a reclining chair or a comfortable sofa in a darkened area. You can lie on a bed or on the floor with a pillow under your knees and head for support. The key is to be comfortable. If you're prone to falling asleep, don't try the bed or floor positions. Once you're comfortable, you can either choose a small, preferably bright object to concentrate upon, or you can simply close your eyes and imagine a candle flame, an orange-and-blue lilting candle flame."
Archie reclined the driver's seat. Not far, just enough to ease his head against the rest and give him a level sightline to the red neon car zooming through the sky. Without even moving his eyes he could see the front door of the business and the guy at his desk, now nodding, a phone to his ear.
One week ago tonight, he thought. We were here in Newport, at the Rex. Now he could remember how beautiful she was, how surprised and embarrassed, then grateful and happy. Only a few days ago, that memory-and its emotional echoes-would not have come to him. Thank God for modern medicine, thought Archie. Thank God for pills. He remembered the way her dress clung to her body, the great volume of her life pressing against thin fabric. He remembered being impatient and worried and nervous inside, and he was sorry to have spent her birthday that way. The truth was, he was like that a lot.
Sometimes she called him Worry King, as in welcome to
Worry King Live…
He tasted Gwen's sweat and lotion in his mouth, though that happened hours later.
"I'm still here," she said.
"I know," he said back. He looked at her and smiled. Gwen wearing a short yellow dress and yellow sandals, dark hair pulled on one side. She had her dark August tan. "I wish I could touch
"Soon, Arch. Don't worry."
Now Dr. Pearlman asked Archie to focus on his chosen object, just close his eyes, and imagine his favorite place. It should be a place outdoors, a place of stillness and beauty. It should be a place of peace and understanding. She told Archie to include his chosen object into the landscape as a focal point. For instance, if he was staring candle, the candle could become the sun, or the reflection of light off a lake.
Archie stared at the neon sign and imagined it was a bank of nightlights at a big-league baseball park. He imagined the other light banks to the left and right, then moved his mind's eye downward to the empty grandstands, the dark green wall with the white numbers on it, warning track and the outer edge of grass, the crosscut emerald expanse of the outfield, the orange gravel of the infield, the white bases in holy shape and the perfectly chalked baselines and boxes. The flawless infield, crowned by the pitcher's mound with its neat white rubber and the concentric furrows of the groundskeeper's rake. Finally, the elegant pentagon of home plate.
"Now," said Dr. Pearlman. Her voice had become softer slightly more commanding. "As you imagine your place of peace and understanding, breathe deeply and slowly. In and out. In and out. With every breath you take in, let go of all your thoughts. With every breath you let out, let go of all your thoughts once again. In and out. Thoughts going, thoughts vanishing. All you see is your place of peace.
A
ll you hear are the sounds of peace, if there are any sounds at all. Breath in. Breathe out. Thoughts going, thoughts vanishing. Again. Again And as you continue, imagine that you are not just visiting this place of peace and understanding, you are becoming a part of it. You are joining it. You are becoming peace. You are becoming understanding."
"I apologize," he whispered. "For being so uptight on your birthday. I wanted everything to be just right."
"You can't apologize for anything that generous and wonderful, Arch. I won't allow it."
"That's a beautiful ballpark."
"It really is."
"I always loved the crunch of the gravel under my cleats. The first step I took onto the mound, if we were home. The mounds were perfect then."
"I liked the first time I saw you against Dominguez Hills. I couldn't believe you looked at me during a game. But you did."
Archie smiled. "Two-hit 'em that day."
"It was gorgeous. I was sixteen years old and in love with the most beautiful man God ever made."
"I'd have died for you then. And on any day since then."
"Oh, Arch. Don't get on a bummer. Not now, when we have so much to be thankful for."
Archie thought about that as a seagull flew through the outfield lights, white against the blue plastic seats of the grandstand.
"They want me to give up. Go back to the hospital. Probably arrest me."
"You have to do what you think is right."
"I want to be together."
"We'll be together soon. Then always together. Listen to this tape. It really sounds good…"
"… this state of total relaxation, you will allow your thoughts to speak to you. Try not to direct your thoughts. Try not to order them. Simply experience this peace that you have become. Simply feel the understanding that is you. Let your mind wander relaxed, like a deep wide river, and follow it to the places it is inviting you to go."
Archie looked at Gwen beside him, pretended for a moment that he didn't know her. He'd been doing that for ten years, since the first time she'd sat in his car beside him. Such a funny, subversive little thrill to see someone who moved your heart like Gwen moved his, and wonder what it would be like to touch someone like her. Well, not like her, but her.
To touch her. To touch her every way you dream of. Then again. Year after year after year. What a game, then you suddenly unpretend and let the memories flood back. Let them carry you along your own past, rush away with you like a river. Dr, Sondra is right on about a river:
Gwen looking at me outside the theater that first time with eyes that took away some of what I was and back some of what she was, holding her hand in the living room of her parents' house in Norco, and that first time I brought my face hers to see if she would let me kiss her and she dug her nails into the scalp above my ears and kissed me so hard and after that it was a storm that didn't happen all at once but still a storm like the laundry room of the Kuerners' place that first summer so damned hot and steamed up from the dryer and we locked the door and let the dryer pound away while we did the same with the washer groaning thumping under my bare ass and Gwen deep in my lap and oh that had to be one of the strongest I ever felt but there was also the tent in Yosemite and the sleeping bag in Sequoia and the beach at Thousand Steps and Crescent Bay and Diver's Cove and the bench seat of my pickup at the drive-in and the motels her senior year when we were engaged but didn't have a good place to go and we'd make love five or six times in four or five hours and still get to laugh eat fast food and drink a little beer and tell each other every dumb little thing that had happened since the last time we’d seen each other and still be back in Norco by midnight and don't forget the Hotel Laguna and the Newport Marriott and the Hyatt Newporter on those special nights when we had enough bucks for a good room and room service breakfast at midnight and eight in the morning and definitely don't forget the first honeymoon night in the Disneyland Hotel the black lacy things and the great champagne, oh man, all you men out there who were not loved by Gwen Ellen Kuerner Wildcraft that night have never been loved at all and as long as I'm alive you never will be.