Bethel's Meadow (3 page)

“And what about your meds, Smith?” she asked. “You’ve told me your old war stories about what happens when you go off of them. You’re surely not going to subject me to a horror show like that, are you?”

I kissed her cheek and then walked out. I’d had enough of her bullshit, and I was itching to get out of the house. I figured I’d drive around town until the library or the bookstore opened.

“Where are you going, Smith?”

Before slamming the front door behind me, I shouted, “To visit the town pump.”

3

I
LOVE BOOKSTORES AND LIBRARIES, and I enjoy nothing more than reading fiction. When things aren’t going the way they should, literature provides me an escape from reality that movies and television cannot. Caitlin was right about the television: it really is a mind sucker. And I think the same of a movie screen. Trading a book for a movie is akin to piloting a plane and then handing the controls over to someone else. It’s the difference between being a participant and being a spectator.

But as I browsed the titles in the fiction section of the local public library, I stopped and realized that in my current condition I wouldn’t be able to read more than a couple of pages without aggravating my headache, which was getting worse with each passing moment. And the euphoria that I’d hoped to experience by withdrawing from the meds (self-induced mania) wasn’t really happening. I was already coming down from the little bit of a high I’d started the morning with. I was, in fact, experiencing some things that weren’t normal for me in the first several days following withdrawal. Instead of feeling elated and intellectually invincible, I felt irritable and cranky. Instead of wanting to conquer the world, I just wanted to repeatedly bash my head against a steel pole until my brains mercifully blew out of my ears.

But I was here and I wasn’t going to leave empty handed. I removed an Ayn Rand title from the shelf, and then my pal Wally Sidebottom popped up from out of nowhere.

“Hey, Smith,” he shouted as he slapped me on the back. “Whatcha reading there, bubba?”

Sidebottom’s biggest problem in life was that he bore a disturbing resemblance to Newt Gingrich. He was five-nine, a tad on the chubby side, and had dirty blond hair that went all over the place like a damned mop. His nose was reminiscent of actor Owen Wilson’s misshapen beak. His eyes were a dull gray, yet there was a certain playfulness about them that made him tolerable, on the whole. And because of recent teeth-whitening treatments, when Sidebottom smiled it damn near made me snow blind.

“
Atlas Shrugged
,” I answered softly as I glanced at the end of the aisle. I was certain someone was coming to shut us up. “And Sidebottom, how about turning the volume down a tad? We are, after all, in a library. Not to mention the fact that I have a head—”

“
Shhhhhhush.
”

It was one of the librarians. She appeared at the end of the aisle and stood there giving us a reproving glare that we fully deserved. I was going to apologize to her but Sidebottom beat me to it.

“Sorry, honey bun,” he said with a wink, followed by the most winning smile I had ever seen him flash.

I’d never even think about calling any woman “honey bun,” but as of the past couple of weeks such patronizing monikers were rolling off of Sidebottom’s tongue with alarming frequency. He was usually very shy and awkward around women, but now he was acting like he had just been to a Dale Carnegie seminar, without adhering exactly to the spirit of Mr. Carnegie’s principles.

“It won’t happen again,” he said to her. “But I haven’t seen my buddy Smith here in a month of Sundays.” He was lying—we had just seen each other yesterday.

“Well, okay,” she said with a tender smile, seeming somewhat disarmed. “Just make sure that in the future you contain your enthusiasm.”

Perhaps in her late twenties to early thirties, the girl didn’t look anything like the stereotypical librarian. Her long, luxuriant, wavy red hair framed a face with a clear, milky white complexion. She had captivating big blue eyes that whipped up a massive swarm of butterflies in my belly. She wore white slacks and a pink blouse that highlighted the goods so well that my mouth dried up and my knees went weak. At about five-eight, she had a deliciously lithe figure that included absolutely perfect breasts—not overstated, done just right by the Creator.

But what my eyes finally settled upon were her feet: she had on brown high-heeled loafers and white bobby socks. It didn’t diminish her beauty one bit; instead it lent her an air of approachability that she otherwise wouldn’t have had.

She had an angel’s face, a Hollywood actress’s body, and geeky feet.

Still smiling, the librarian gaily marched away. Sidebottom turned to me and softly whistled his approval of the girl’s assets.

“You’re the man,” I said to him. “You’ve recently acquired that indefinable trait that just makes the women melt right where they stand.”

“Yeah,” he said with a mischievous smile. “I’ve been doing a lot of reading up on the ladies of late. I’m still in the early stages of my training, though.” Sidebottom then held up a black leather-bound book with gilded pages.

“The Bible?” I asked.

“Not
the
Bible, bubba, but
a
bible. Look a little closer.”

I took it from him and quickly thumbed through it. It was a true story about a journalist who had infiltrated a cult of pickup artists. I laughed and handed it back to him.

“I think I’ve heard about this book,” I said. “These guys go around the country giving paid seminars on how to seduce women right in the middle of a nightclub or a bar.”

“Don’t be so judgmental,” Sidebottom said. “Not every man has your looks or your easy way around women.” He sounded bitter, not complimentary.

“If you’d just relax around women you’d never have trouble getting on with them,” I said. “You don’t need to resort to shit like this to get into a woman’s pants.” I was trying to build him up a little and maybe convince him to shelve that damned book.

“That’s easy for you to say,” he said. “I’ve seen this time and again when I’m in your presence.” He walked to the end of the aisle, peeked around the shelves, and sighed. “If only that smile just now had been for me.” He whistled again and shook his head. “Damn, that is one sexy librarian. They don’t get that way for me, bubba.” He walked back and poked me in the chest. “It’s
you
. Yeah, I get women, but not of the caliber you snare. You’re eye candy to women, Smith. Don’t smirk like that—you really are. You date eight to tens. Me? I only get five to sevens. I’m going to master these field-tested methods to upgrade the quality of woman I get. I’m tired of eating your crumbs, Smith.”

“Wally,” I said, brushing past him, “you and I haven’t been to a hardcore nightclub or bar together in at least three years—just the occasional happy hour. Don’t blame me for your dating woes. Besides, I don’t exactly fetch the cream of the crop when it comes to hotties.”

Sidebottom followed me to the electronic checkout stand.

“That’s bullshit, what you just told me,” he said. “All you have to do is smile at a girl—and
boom
—you’re done. She’s eating out of the palm of your hand and buying all of your bullshit. You have special, God-given powers. The rest of us have to do things to compensate for our lack of looks and the signature killer smile that guys like you have.”

“Yeah? Well, my special powers aren’t keeping me from having a killer headache right now.” I quickly passed my library card and book through the scanner. As I waited for the receipt to print, Sidebottom offered a suggestion.

“The surefire cure for a headache is a round or two of beers,” he said, “which will all be on me if you meet me tonight for drinks.”

“You don’t understand,” I said as the receipt printed. “This is the headache from hell. I never get sick like this.”

“It’s only stress,” he said. Dr. Sidebottom was in. “Your girlfriend Cathleen is enough—”

“Caitlin,” I said. “Her name is Caitlin.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

I took the receipt and headed for the exit. Sidebottom kept following me while yapping about my personal life.

“I know you love her and everything, bubba. But dammit, Smith, the woman treats you like absolute shit.”

“She’s an orphan, Wally.” Whenever anyone lectured me about the way Caitlin treated me, I always blamed it on her childhood.

As I passed through the anti-shoplifting detectors the alarm went off.

“
Dammit
,” I cried in pain. I grabbed my forehead with my hand, as if my head were a bell I could somehow silence.

“Sir, please come over here and I will scan that properly for you.” It was the redheaded librarian again. I walked to the counter and handed her the book.

“Oh,
Atlas Shrugged
,” she said as she passed the book through the scanner behind the counter. “I keep meaning to read that one. You’ll have to tell me if it’s any good or not.” She smiled as she handed the book back to me. “I just finished reading
Slaughterhouse Five
. I’m trying to read all the classics, now that I work here in the library.”

“You don’t look like the typical librarian,” I said. I wanted to kick myself for saying something so stupid. But then she smiled sunshine right into my heart, the kind of smile that makes you feel like you are the best thing to happen all day to the person giving it.

“Thank you!” She was really happy now. Her smile was so genuinely warm that I didn’t want to ever leave. I could have just stood there all day looking at that face without thinking about anything else.

“I think you’re really cute,” she said.

I felt my stomach drop the way it always does when I become infatuated with a woman. I wanted to thank her for the compliment, but instead I just smiled stupidly.

I then closed my eyes as the pain I had momentarily forgotten returned.

“Damn, my head.”

With the same concerned expression that a mother offers to a child, she said, “I’m sorry about your headache.” She reached below the counter and withdrew her purse. “I have some aspirin I can give you. There’s a water dispenser out in the hall.”

“No, that’s okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

And then I went into total idiot mode. I stared lasciviously at her chest and admired how the swell of her breasts was fighting against the support of her C-cup bra. With my eyes I slowly traced a path upward, from her modest display of cleavage, to the soft pale skin of her neck. I then studied every feature of her angelic face, including the blue eyes that had earlier pumped my stomach full of butterflies.

At that moment I wanted to make love to her like I’d never made love to any other woman in my entire life. I wanted the world to go away and to just leave me alone with her. The feeling was absolute. I knew that if we ever got to know one another, the attraction would assert itself in no time. Inside of my heart it was the Fourth of July. And though I couldn’t see them now, I realized that what really put the icing on the cake for me were . . . her geeky feet.

And then . . . I could see it happening in my mind’s eye. The two of us embraced as—

“Smith,” Sidebottom said, poking me in the chest, breaking me from my sweet dream. “Earth to Smith, Earth to Smith—”

“Sidebottom,” I said, coming back to reality. “Shut the bloody hell up.”

The girl was now staring deeply into my eyes. Her smile was gone and her mouth was agape—she looked stunned. I just knew some sort of cosmic connection had been made. The irrepressible force of her eyes penetrating my own threw me for a supernatural loop.

But before I could slip back into my heavenly trance, I thought of Caitlin. It felt like a door was slamming in my face.

“I have to go,” I said. “Goodbye.”

I quickly turned and madly blazed a path around Sidebottom to get outside. I just wanted to breathe in some cool, innocent air that I hoped would wash from my mind its impure thoughts and the painful urge I felt to be free from Caitlin, the woman that I just then realized I no longer loved.

4

I
WAS HOME, SPRAWLED in the bathtub at two o’clock that afternoon. With the help of Mr. Bubble I tried to imagine myself immersed within a warm, white cloud, far away from the earth and all its troubles below. But I couldn’t escape my aching head and upset stomach. I’d taken a few aspirin to ease the headache a little bit, but I had no medicine in the house to deal with my nausea, which kept coming and going.

I wondered why I hadn’t slept last night. Could missing just one dose of those pills cause a completely sleepless night? And why did being off of them make me so damned sick?

I knew I must have looked like a crazy man running out of the library the way I had. While looking into that beautiful woman’s eyes I had become lost in space—I hadn’t felt the least bit sick. What I
had
felt was a surreal sense of peace and contentedness. Yes, it had begun as a sexual feasting of the eyes for me, but after getting past all that I had discovered something more meaningful and fulfilling. If only Sidebottom hadn’t interrupted, I might have seen much more. I’d felt so close to finding . . .

Hell, I didn’t know what exactly. It was just as well that Sidebottom had interfered. Maybe I wasn’t yet ready to see inside of the librarian’s heart. Perhaps God above had afforded me a brief glimpse of what my life could be like if I made some important changes to it. Or, more likely, I was just trying to over-romanticize a chance encounter.