A Breath Until Forever (31 page)

Laura reached out for Daniel's hand. She hovered his hand over hers, then lowered it, squeezing his hand tightly. She looked up at him in his eyes with compassion and sincerely. Her eyes were wool gray color and soft. “I'm sorry about your loss.” She said sympathetically.

“Thank you.” Thanked Daniel.

Laura released her comforting hand, then retreated back to another concern. “How is your dad?” She asked.

Daniel withdrew for a moment, sitting more back in his wooden chair. His head lay low. “I'm sorry to say, that he is gone now too.”

“Oh no!” Exclaimed Laura. “How awful for you! I'm so, so very sorry.” She could feel tears surface to her eyes. “To lose your parents in a matter of weeks. That is just terrible!” Laura really felt compassion now, stronger than ever before.

“It's okay. He died of a heart attack.” Joshua said. “Was working when he died. They say it was the case. He was a lawyer. But quite honestly, I think he died of a broken heart. Heartbroken that he could never give the love to my mom like Joshua could.”

“Such a shame.” Nodded Laura.

Joshua's order came. With the panini, he had ordered a slice of sweet potato pie. It came as a side dish on a tiny plate next to his panini.

“This pie is on me.” Laura said. “And the meal. No worrying about either of that right now. How long do you plan on staying?”

“For awhile, at least until I get to speak to Joshua.”

Laura instantly sat down. This news not only shocked her, but scared her as well. “Your going to talk to Joshua?”

“Yes.” Said Daniel.

Laura took a deep breath. “Do you think that is a good idea?”

“I want to know more about my mom.” Said Joshua. “I really didn't know her well, growing up being that she was always gone then after she got back, I left for college. I want to get to know her better, how she was, who she was, and I thought Joshua could help me with that. It sounds like Joshua knew her the best out of all of us, even though he knew her for such little time.”

“I believe he did.” Was her response. “It fascinates me, you know. How two people could fall so hopelessly in love in such a short period of time, and even get to know each other so deeply, that they know each other better than friends they have knew all their lives, or family members, even.”

Laura then made a joke. She pointed to a guy at the breakfast bar who was not a very attractive man, was very skinny, wore suspenders, and had hair that looked like a white helmet. “This is what I'm stuck with.” She said motioning Daniel's direction to look towards him.

Daniel knew it was time to go. “Well, thank you for the pie, and for the meal.” Daniel thanked. Laura had been a lot of help to him.

“Your welcome.” She said. “And if you come across Joshua, tell him that there is some whiskey in the back. Tell him to come over and have a drink. He always liked his whiskey.” After Meredith had left, Laura had become Joshua's new drinking buddy. They drank whiskey together for years. Joshua never liked Laura in that way, besides, she was even older than Meredith, and that age gap, even for himself, was too much to bear with. And with that, Daniel left the cafe, but not without swiping the picture of his mother with Joshua off the wall when Miss Laura Piccleby hadn't been looking and put it underneath his jacket, so he may keep his mother safe and warm forever.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Daniel arrived at Lucky's bar punctually at 10:00 pm. The evening air was hot and sticky, aggressively muggy, the temperature throwing a childish tantrum. His white cotton shirt stuck to his skin like the best of glue, and the boxers that he wore underneath a pair of bell bottom jeans, was soaked with ass sweat. Lucky's bar was a small bar located on Main Street, between Laura's Cafe and the Winwest Art Gallery. There was nothing special about this bar, except that it tucked neatly away between these two businesses almost as if it were playing an architectural hide and seek. The bar had a neon sign pulsating in the window, a brand of beer that they stocked, and it throbbed weakly, imitating a flickering, dying light that would be vying for its last breath on an expired Christmas tree.

Daniel opened up the door of Lucky's bar. He instantly inhaled the stale stench of smoke, and it choked his lungs. He found himself searching for a breath of fresh air. But none was to be found in this smog filled cess pool. Cigarette smoke wafted strong and thick, and it made Daniel think that perhaps he had walked into the heart of a hell, instead of a small town bar, and his choking increased with each and every step that he took.

Daniel walked over to the bar, and sat down on a leather stool that had been taped up numerous times by duct tape. It made a squeaking noise as it did, as the wobbly steel legs of it couldn't quite handle a man's weight. He ordered a beer, and the bartender grumpily obliged, dealing him out a long necked bottle beer that was frosty on the outside, and cold and refreshing on the inside. Daniel took a sip for thirst, then a second one for courage. He was going to need all the courage he could get to talk to the man that his mom had fallen in love with so many years ago.

“You from around town?” Asked the bartender as he dried out a glass with a dish rag, his beady eyes narrowing to find out the answer. “I've never seen you here before.”

“Nah.” Answered Daniel as he took another sip. This sip was for getting drunk. “From Seattle, actually.”

“Seattle. Interesting.” The bartender put the newly dried glass on the bar, and poured one of the regulars a vodka and tonic drink. The bartender was in his later 40's, with a dark thick mustache that was as equally bushy as the hair on his head, and he wore a ringer t-shirt with his name on it in white block letters that said 'Carl.' “I was there a few years ago, to see the sea lions in the Puget Sound region. Beautiful place, but pretty foggy.” He exerted. Carl's wife had dragged him clear across country, just so she could see the opposite side of the ocean. She had always been an ocean fanatic, and even though she had visited Myrtle Beach, North Carolina, the Atlantic ocean underneath her feet, she spired for a new view of the salty water from which she loved so much, so she and her husband got into their '65 Pontiac Catalina convertible, and drive nearly 3,000 miles so that she may see the Pacific Ocean, the sea lions being part of her dream.

“Yeah, bad weather out there.” Said Daniel. One more sip. This time for 'why the hell not'.

“So, hey, do you know Joshua? Joshua Aspen? Is he playing tonight?” Asked Daniel to the bartender. Daniel flashed a look at his watch. His watch had a leather band, and a silver face. It was a quarter after ten, and the stage was still empty.

“Yeah, sure is.” Replied the bartender, giving a beer to another regular who sat already drunk and in a stupor at the end of the bar. “He comes on late sometimes, probably getting into that whiskey.” He laughed. His laugh was a bubbling one that erupted with a sputtering spit. “He sure loves that whiskey. As equally as he loves his wife.”

Daniel took a deep breath. He relied on the second sip of his beer, which was for courage. “Do you think he would be willing to talk to me, after the show?”

The bartender, Carl, leaned in close on this inquisitive request. His beady eyes narrowed even more so, and this time, he actually leaned against the bar that served as a sticky wall of protection between Daniel and him. “Now, why do you want to talk to a local harmonica whiskey playing cowboy after a show full of country knockin'?”

“Just wondering.” Daniel retreated back in his shady bar stool, and took another sip of his ice cold beer.

“Your not from the Raleigh Telegram, are you?” Asked the bartender, making a reference to Raleigh's pivotal, and also very influential, local newspaper. “If you are, we don't want your kind around here. Keep your noses up south in Raleigh, where they belong.”

“I'm not! Not at all!” Daniel was quite shocked at the allegations, and wondered what all that meant, but he would save that for another time. His focus now was on talking to Joshua Aspen, the man who had taken his mother's breath away.

Carl nodded up towards the front, giving Daniel the body signal to turn around. A harmonica had started to play in the background, it's steely notes embracing a bluesy sound of exceptional tempo. Daniel turned around. He faced the stage, which was heavily bathed with the brightness of an old, but yet very blazing spotlight. A man in his later 40's was on stage, musically french kissing a silver harmonica, freely moving his talented mouth across the spaced combs of the free reed instrument. He loved the harmonica with his hand as well, cupping his mouth to get a better diatonic on the harmonica. “Rawhide” by Frankie Lane played, and older gentleman, nailed it. Although it was easy to learn the harmonica, none quite had the harmonica playing skills as this guy, as this harmonica player not only played, but he mastered it. The man had dark hair, but extremely salt and peppered, and he wore a pair of tight jeans that showed off a rounded package. He wore a well worn cotton western shirt, blue and faded, decorated with a western bolo tie. The way this man played the harmonica, the way he dressed, and the way he moved with the melody of notes, it was suddenly clear, that this was Joshua Aspen. Yes indeed. It was Joshua Aspen in the flesh. Daniel had a bittersweet moment. The time had finally come to meet the man that his mom had fallen in love with after all these years, something he had wanted to do ever since reading the letter and seeing the old photographs, but suddenly he felt ill, and wondered if he had the courage to actually go up to him and introduce himself. It was an awkward moment, if ever, and Daniel took one last sip of that ice cold North Carolina beer, got up off the bar stool and began to walk out of Lucky's bar. As he began to walk out, a song that his mother used to sing, began to play. Daniel stopped dead in his tracks. “Close To You” by The Carpenters began to play on the harmonica, and memories of his mother began to flood back . The song had a light airy melody to it, and the harmonica meticulously crafted a clean arrangement of it naturally.

Daniel went back inside the bar, and sat at a table now in front of the harmonica playing man, and listened to him finish his solo's. He then sat through a couple songs of the band that Joshua Aspen accompanied in. Joshua and Daniel exchanged a couple of looks in between sets, and Joshua would flash him a weird look, knowing that he had seen him somewhere, that he looked oddly familiar, but all the smoke from the bar, didn't help his image to be clear, and so he would just shake it off, moving from note to note from the harmonica, tapping his toe as he did. Both shows were over now, and Joshua Aspen retreated to the back, where there was a sinister looking dressing room, with peeling wall paper, and chipped unframed mirrors. Daniel went searching for Joshua after the band's last song, and found him there. Daniel knocked sternly, within the door frame that separated the two men. Joshua was sitting in a high backed wooden chair, and had just downed a good shot of whiskey. The other men in the band were gathering their instruments, putting them back together in cases, and teasing the other man in light laughs, but Joshua was alone, selfishly drowning in alcohol.

“Mr. Aspen?” Joshua called out to him.

Joshua turned around. He no longer looked like the young man that he was a long time ago. Rather, his face was lined with wrinkles, the deep soulful lines that come from a hard life, and his cool blue eyes had turned into a steely gray.

“Yes, can I help you?” Joshua's gravely voice had not lost it's deepness, and Daniel instantly became intimidated.

“I'm Daniel. D-d-d-Daniel Hurley sir.” Stuttered Daniel weakly. Daniel was a tall man, well over six feet tall, and had developed muscles from working out three to four times a weak, yet even though he was much bigger than Joshua, much younger than Joshua, he couldn't help to still feel a sense of authority rise above him.

Instantly, Daniel's stomach sank, as so did Joshua's. All the feelings that he once had for Meredith, all the emotions, all the love, stirred up again, as wild and whipping as the same tornado that had taken his lover Adrienne before her, and he felt like he was going to throw up. He had loved Meredith so strongly, so intensely, and with a passion of a thousand men, that it was with no surprise, that Joshua's body was suddenly struck down, and all his feelings manifested into physical sickness. He felt lightheaded and dizzy. He felt as ailing as the smoky air that swirled all around him. He felt like he was going to pass out.

“May I speak to you? If you let me?”

Joshua got up. He grabbed his bottle of whiskey, walked towards Daniel, then past him, but as he did, gave his shoulder a friendly, warm pat, “What's on your mind?” Joshua headed back into the bar, Daniel following him, and they both sat at the small round table that Daniel had sat at while he had watched Joshua play.