A Midnight Sun Page 12

  As I prepare to read the next letter –I have now arranged by date- I breathe with content apprehension, a feeling I know I’ll have with each time I read the letters. There are a total of 7 letters and I want to extend the time to read each, savoring what I’ll find. By the light of a single lamp in my dark apartment, I read.

  December 10, 1937

  Annapolis, Maryland

  My dearest love,

  I write in earnest to extend my apologies for being such a difficult man. It is, I assure you, with a mind to remain close to your heart and tighten the landmass between us, that I offered you the possibility of being together in Maryland. I did not understand your refusal, which is why I felt offended and became angry.

  My intensions that you leave your pursuit in an acting career only stems from my desire of having you near me. I sincerely do not have a rightful explanation for the way I behaved during thanksgiving at my parent’s house, when I, consumed by jealousy and an unreasonable image of you with another, became so enraged and lashed out, regrettably. Since that day, I assure you, my mind has been fixated on making amends to you, my beloved, in a way that will be satisfactory to both our wishes.

  I do not want to part from you, and have an idea, if you would consider it, to a way we can achieve a better arrangement, where distance is no longer a detrimental factor in our relationship. Only until, if possible, a wedding can take place.

  I have just applied for a move of my academics from the year in Maryland, to the academy in Anaheim. The location in California will provide for only a few hours travel time, so we may see each other during shorter leaves, providing as well a shorter distance to both our family homes of childhood. I do not know if they will accept my transfer, but if so, I would move to California for the spring term come next year.

  If you do not desire our relationship to continue, I implore you to make me aware of such feelings, for mine have not changed toward you, yet I would be remiss not to try to comprehend, and justifiably so, for you being sore, from our heated argument of last November.

  In such case, I would drop my transfer request and remain in Annapolis to finish my training.

  On the last thought, I would like to tell you my plan for us will include a later move to the naval base in Oahu, as soon as my training is finished and, if you choose to, we may marry. Pearl Harbor offers a tranquil space where we could start a family and make a home.

  I urge you to consider this with my heart on my sleeve.

  Ever longing for you, yours and faithful,

  Fitch.

  I place the letter inside a plastic cover and dry tears from my eyes, fighting an urge to continue on to the next letter. Delaying that gratification made me feel appreciative of their love.

  How many more letters were there between them? Am I in possession of the complete batch or are there others? I somehow doubt it. There are too few to amount for the time of their love and the time they spent apart. It puzzles me. I want to see Parker’s reply to each letter as well, her penmanship, her affirmations of her love for him, which she surely felt. They have to exist somewhere, the counterparts for the ones in my hand. They are perhaps safeguarded by an older Fitch, a notion which makes me shiver with excitement. It’s quite possible they are alive somewhere, although maybe senile, frail and beautifully aged and wrinkled into a perfect old couple still in love.

  I barely slept last night, and have a strange feeling I might not sleep well tonight either, but I doubt it, since I’ll be going to Braff’s shortly.

  On another thought, the guy I met texted me. Mark scheduled an early dinner for us on Saturday. I accepted but have mixed feelings about it. There’s a possibility that has to do with the fact Scott wrote an email saying he wants to visit.

  I’m not sure why I feel this way now, and I’m also strangely confused as to why I have yet to open his gift. Scotty and I have been friends a long time, but last holidays, something stirred inside me and I think for him too. I miss him…more than I ever have.

  I see Amistad waving me to hurry, so I’m rushed in closing this by stating I have to find out more about Parker and Fitch. This weekend, I plan to make a few phone calls.

  Chapter 26

  Marquee

  Somewhere Between Disappearing Elevators and Rings, A Strange Party Will Commence

  Seattle, January 23rd, 1990

  Soon after we reach the parking floor of Meadow Press where we came to reunite with Syth before going to Braff’s apartment, Amistad walks out of the elevator we take from the lobby and I follow –but Amistad and Syth walking toward the car is not what I see.

  When the elevator doors open, I see Amistad float out of sight, while I too, float, weightless…numb to anything but my current airborne state. The walls of the elevator tower come into view, then, the elevator tower, and I continue to float upward until I unreasonably pop out of the Meadow Press main tower.

  I see everything below me start to disappear. I feel like screaming and try to pinch my arm, wondering if I’m dreaming. I suddenly hear a sound that resembles and feels like being sucked through a vacuum. I am whooshed by some unknown force over the city until I see water broken by land, then, more water. And then, faster, upwards.

  Terror has paralyzed me. How am I not plummeting towards earth? Where did the pull of gravity go? I am dead. I become absolutely sure of it in an instant and begin to scream. Suddenly, my question is answered when gravity reappears and I begin to drop just when I see the curvature of the horizon from the limits of earth and space. I want to scream again, terrified, but the pit of my stomach has caved in and I’m flat I can’t breathe.

  What happens next is as inexplicable as me being in this plane of…existence? Dimension? Is this a vision? What I do instead of screaming is…

  Laugh.

  Laugh?

  I laugh and scream while tears roll from my eyes as I am rushed forward towards earth, and I know I will die. I’m sure of it. But just as soon as I feel like I’m about to hit the ground I begin to float slowly towards earth. My feet touch the ground beneath my feet, and I am spinning. How is that possible?

  I see the meadow from my first vision of Parker and Fitch. But as soon as it materializes, it vanishes and becomes curved walls, glass, wood, and metal. The earth shifted and the empty open space around me is now something else.

  But it’s not over. I’m not on ground level and I can’t explain why. I somersault, twice, three times, over and over, I continue to laugh, but a new feeling comes to my throat –I want to vomit. My stomach is spiraling out of control. Soon, I’ll plummet finally and die, I become sure of it again, but instead, I stop spinning, and then, I’m floating again, and end up sitting on a chair that feels very real.

  “Fitch! My love…please stop!” I scream with delight. Where am I? We, I correct myself, are on a plane. I look to my left and see Fitch…I see the plane.

  I want to open my mouth after I realize where I am. I stop laughing because he is no longer tickling me. Was he tickling me? Fitch was tickling Parker.

  When I feel I can ask him a question, I feel that now familiar pull and back I go.

  ----------------------------------

  I open my eyes to Syth and Amistad. They look pale and scared.

  “What in the fucking heavens was that Mirim?” Amistad yells. I’m not sure which surprises me more –the high pitch of her voice, her wild and huge eyes, or the fact she’s cursing.

  “What happened?” I ask, feeling weak and dizzy.

  “Hell if we know!” Syth says. “Just sort of went down…like a river of water over a steep hill. I’d say you fainted.”

  “Our best guess.” Amistad says, “But I must insist on taking you to the emergency room.”

  “I’ll be perfectly fine, Amistad. Just take me home. I’ll tell you on the way.”

  “Tell us what?” Syth lifts me to his feet so I put my weight on him. I felt tired but still giddy from the experience, like I’d physically been there. “It’s Parker and Fitch. I w
as there…just not really, not entirely. I don’t understand it and don’t really want to right now. Just take me home. Where’s Braff? Ask him to come, too.”

  When we get to my apartment, I lie in bed and they help me undress and support my feet with pillows. Braff appears a while later and sits on my bed. I hear noise in my living room and stare at him before he says anything.

  “Are there other people here?”

  “I had asked some girls to– “

  “My fucking word, Braff. Really?”

  “What could I do? They had arrived and I couldn’t leave them there.”

  “So, you brought them here. Ever heard of calling a cab?”

  “You’d really like them.”

  “You know what, just save it.”

  Braff hands me a bag and holds my reluctant hand while I scorn him with a deep gaze, I intended to burn him with.

  “Chocolates,” he says, “and something else.” I see his nose twitch which means he has a joke for me in the bag.

  I look inside the paper bag and see a ring pop. A joke we shared about rings and how they are a waste of money. The only, if not one of the few things we agreed on in relationships.

  Laughing and pushing him off the bed with my feet, I licked the ring pop and he smiles.

  “Braff, all girls secretly want a ring.” I smirk and head to the bathroom where I get my robe.

  “Liar!” He shouts from my room.

  I laugh and return to bed. “Is my tongue red yet?” I stick it out.

  “No, and I’m more concerned about how you feel than your tongue being red.”

  I look him over and see genuine concern. He never flinches in his typical unbothered demeanor, but he looks softer somehow. empathetic and kind. This attitude makes me uncomfortable. It feels way more intimate than we usually are. I do what I do in these situations. Joke.

  “Feel well so there am I. You how are?” I say fully serious.

  “Woman, I will never buy you a ring again. I’m serious!”

  “Too me serious, I tell.” I smirk and hold his hand. “I’m fine, Braff. For a minute there you had me convinced. Where you actually concerned?”

  “Stop it Mirim. What happened?”

  I breathe deeply knowing he will have none of my jokes at this juncture. “Better ask Syth and Taddy in here. I’d rather tell this whole thing once, cause I think my head is ready for standby mode.”

  When they come in, Amistad sits on the other side of my bed and Syth on the armchair piled with my clothes. I tell them about being on what I thought was a plane, about not knowing where the ground was and feeling like I was floating or flying into the horizon between earth and space. Then, about being with Fitch and laughing together. They sat quietly listening digesting what I’d said. Braff pulled the paper again. He’d had it in the breast pocket of his suit.

  “Here, I took the trouble of making some notes. Read it tomorrow and call me, will you?”

  “Absolutely, but after I go see somebody.”

  “Who?” Amistad asked alarmed. “You can’t. You need your rest.”

  “Will you drive me then?”

  Amistad squinted and crossed her arms. “I don’t like this. Who are we going to see?”

  “Smitty. He’s going to take us to see his uncle.

  “He is?” Syth asks Amistad rather than me.

  “Are you kidding me now?” She says in protest.

  “Yes, his uncle was the president of the Aeronautic Association of Southern California. He also happens to be a veteran who was in Pearl Harbor at the time and might now, if not these people, at least somebody who might.”

  “If they existed,” Amistad says.

  “I believe they did, and actually,” Braff adds, “I was going to tell you today at my house, but I have an appointment on Sunday,” Braff says and stands arranging his tie and buttoning his coat. “Well, we all do. It took a lot of calls and may a pulled string, but I got us a visit to Paramour Studios.”

  They all stood in silence facing Braff. I sit quietly in bed speechless with a scream on the edge of my throat.

  “Yes. You heard me. I arranged an off-the-lot tour and lunch with an old-timer who used to work there. Ehem.” He fluffed his tie with confidence. “Rupert McBride.”

  “No. You didn’t really arrange this.” I said, noting I was saying really way too much and standing over him still in my bed and holding onto his hands. “The actor McBride, as in Fly Me to Chicago and The Way to Eternity?”

  “I have no idea who the actor is,” Amistad whispered, “we’re going to a movie studio is all I heard.”

  “Taddy, only the protagonist of two of my favorite films of all time.”

  “Yeah, yeah, the black and white things you make us watch all the time.”

  “And she always falls asleep too,” Syth said laughing but trying and failing to control his excitement.

  “Yes, I arranged it, and he has a spotless memory going back to everybody he worked with in the 1920s. He happens to remember a girl whose name was…Parker McNamara.”

  I jumped on the bed in excitement. “I knew it! Yes!”

  After everything settles in my apartment, and everybody leaves in quiet succession, starting with Braff and his dates, then Syth, and lastly Amistad who insist on tucking me in as if I were a child and making sure I had water and anything else I needed on my bedside table, I settle into bed, hardly able to contain my excitement.

  The next two days or so will be interesting and I was sure to find out more than I needed about Parker. Not only uncovering more about their lives, but I’ll be able to unravel the story further and give myself some peace of mind.

  As I begin to drift into a profound and restful night’s sleep, I find myself grinning.

  Chapter 27

  Marquee

  Brownstones Are Red Because That’s What We Can See in The Dust Of Bombs

  Seattle, January 24th, 1990

  Amistad was arguing about which road to take. I’m barely registering what she’s saying because I mostly just feel like punching her in the face. Her ability to make a mounting argument, albeit intelligent, out of the smallest of problems –and mine to endure it- was tested and proved today. She’s driving us to see Smitty, who I called yesterday about seeing his uncle. When we finally agreed, I immediately called Taddy and asked her to be at my house promptly at four in the morning.

  Smitty’s uncle lived about a dozen miles away in a rural area near the ocean called Ginterbooth. I’d never heard of it but Smitty said the town was quaint and had a lovely general store where we could sit to have coffee or a snack and watch the afternoon slowly drift into night. Since I had noticed a faint romantic tone in his insinuations of the café, I thought bringing Amistad would be appropriate and suffice as a buffer because I hardly felt like dating Smitty anymore. I am now doubting my decision. She’s seriously getting on my nerves.

  “I probably should’ve asked Syth instead.” I blurt.

  “You would still be in midtown Seattle if he had been driving us here or lost with you in the car because you have no clue where we are going. You said you knew the way!!”

  “Maybe it would have taken us longer but we would have arrived in a more pleasant mood,” I say calmly.

  “We are running late as it is, Mirim. And, if this man lives so far away as you said, we’re cutting it short. I want to be back before nightfall. Today is the last time I take you on a long trip– “

  “Taddy, would you shut up for a sec?” I said, still trying to remain calm but having some difficulty at this point. “I’m thinking here! So stop shouting and let me find the way on this map. Besides, I want to get back before nightfall as much as you do. I have a date tonight, remember?”

  No matter how hard I think, I just can’t remember the way because I had only come to Smitty’s house a couple of times and at night, but I’m slightly embarrassed to tell Taddy. Cars are honking in a long line behind us and a few are already swerving past. Traffic has gotten heavy, hasn’t i
t? I think.

  “I think there’s a culinary festival today up ahead,” Amistad says reading my mind.

  “Can you pull over then?”

  “Yes, I suppose, but only until you remember the way. Think Mirim, please. I really cannot believe you.”

  When she is just making her way into an empty spot on the curb, I feel somebody come to my open window and grab my arm. I scream so loud, Amistad starts screaming too, and I can’t stop, although I realize almost instantly it is Smitty, who probably saw us when we were pulling in.

  “Hey, Mirim. Calm the heck down. It’s me, Smitty!!”

  “Why would you give me such a scare?” I say holding my chest. Amistad looks ready to bombard him with insults, so I stop her with a shove, as if pushing her back into the seat will stop Amistad.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he replies, “I’m sorry. I saw you from the curb of my apartment building. I live just up the block in the red brick townhouse.”

  “It looks like a brownstone to me, but sure dude. Will you just get in?” Amistad says without concealing her annoyance.

  “I see you still love me.” He says and pops into the back seat. “I’m so glad to know since I’ve been losing sleep over it.”

  “Smitty, please. Behave.” I beckoned. “You too, Taddy.”

  She scoffed and drove away.

  Most of the drive to Ginterbooth, Taddy argued with Smitty, which left me free of her angry accusations regarding my lack of direction, but in the long run actually made it worse because, unlike me, Smitty did reply to her provocations and argued just as much about every little thing as she did.

  After an insufferable hour or so, we arrived at a single-story home with shingle tiles on the roof and a mason-style portico. “It’s’ pretty,” I say, standing in front before ringing the bell.

  Amistad shrugs uninterested and starts banging on the door. Before I have a chance to ask her not to, an old lady with gray hair and a plump face that is smiling opens the door.