Chance Encounters (5 page)

When she was through, she decided to call Renee and check
in. She dialed the phone number, and Renee picked up on the first ring. “Holy
shit, Em, I’ve been waiting forever for you to call me. Where the hell are
you?”

“I’m in Arkansas right now. I’m hoping to make it as far as
Washington DC tomorrow and I’ll stop for a while. I’ve always wanted to see the
Smithsonian.” The line went quiet. Emma could sense an awkward conversation
coming on.

“So, I um … talked to Matt. I hope you won’t get mad at me.
I really think you should talk to him, Em, he’s really torn up about what
happened. We all have our indiscretions.”

Emma cut her off. “Oh my God, Renee, are you serious? You
are supposed to be my best friend, not an advocate for his indiscretions. Do me
a favor and stop listening to him. If I hadn’t walked in when I did he could
have continued cheating on me, and think that he could get away with it. I’m
sorry, but there is no coming back from that. I’m just glad it happened before
I made it to the altar with him.”

“I hear what you are saying, sweetie, but you guys are so
perfect together … you belong together. I’d hate to see you walk away if there
is any chance for you two to work it out.” Emma could hear a shuffling sound
and the phone went quiet.

“Renee, are you still there?”

“Yeah, sorry. I dropped the phone. So where was I? Oh yeah,
so he told me that he’s selling the house. I think he’s hoping you will call
and tell him to head to New York. He said he’s willing to leave it all behind,
his practice and everything, just to be with you. I’m just saying that you
should use your driving time as a way to sort things out, but talk to him, Em.”

Emma adjusted herself. She was feeling really uncomfortable.
“Thanks for the update, Renee. I love you, I really do, but I want you to just
let this go. I won’t be changing my mind. I have been doing a lot of thinking
while I’ve been on the road, and I’m beginning to realize that my relationship
really had a lot of things wrong with it; I just never wanted to see it or
admit it. I was swept up in the image of a relationship. I want to find the
person who, when I am with him, no one else exists around me. There has to be
more to life than scheduling sex, and bouquets of flowers.”

Renee cracked up laughing at Emma’s comment. “Speak for
yourself. It sounds pretty perfect to me. At least you know when to make a
waxing appointment.”

Emma ended up laughing, too; she couldn’t resist. “Okay,
Renee, I am exhausted and I need some sleep. I’ll call you at some point
tomorrow and let you know where I am. I love you!”

“I love you too, Em.” After hanging up the phone, Emma
collapsed on top of the bed.

She lay there staring at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep.
Cursing under her breath, she stood back up and walked to the bathroom to get a
drink of water. When she came back out she happened to spot the black journal
sticking out from her bag. She walked over and pulled it out. Plopping down on
the bed, she propped herself up on her pillows and opened the journal.

The first entry in the journal expounded on Jacob growing
up in Liverpool. He continued on to write about his education, which
surprisingly was very extensive. He went to The West Lexington all boys’ school
until he graduated a year early with high academics. He continued on at The
University of Liverpool, where he went for his Doctorate in Clinical
Psychology, and an MA in Music Industry Studies. Emma couldn’t help but be
intrigued by this man. The more she read, the more she hoped to have a chance
to see him again. He was completely unlike any man she had ever known. With the
sort of background he had, she couldn’t figure out why he was hitching a ride
to wherever it is that he’s going.

Jacob wrote about his love of art, and how the famous
city he had grown up in was what seduced him into his love of drawing. His
family was very free-spirited. His mother made a living by making jewelry and
selling it to tourists. His father was a history professor at a nearby
University
.

Emma smiled to herself as she thought about the tall, lanky,
shaggy haired guy she’d seen twice now. He really was handsome in a wild,
free-spirited way. She envied him, with all that he seemed to have experienced
in the world, while she stayed in her Malibu bubble. He appeared to be
everything that she wasn’t. Her life with Matt seemed based on material things.
Just things, whereas the more she read about Jacob, the more she realized that
there is so much more to living than what she thought. Matt always had
expensive taste. His idea of roughing it was a presidential suite and gourmet
room service. Jacob’s idea of roughing it was to sleep out in a field under the
stars while watching a meteor shower. No phones, no electricity, the only
lights were the stars that illuminated the night sky.

She continued to read on. She felt her cheeks flush as Jacob
described in vivid detail his encounters with random women along his journey.
She felt as if she was reading an erotica novel. He described every sensation
in great detail.

Emma held the book to her chest. “Oh dear God, I feel like I
have missed out on so much.” She found herself giggling. The intimate acts that
Jacob described were things that she had only seen in movies, or read about in
a book. They were chance encounters, whimsical romances. The difference was
Jacob actually cared about each and every woman he was with, although he did
say he’s never actually been in love before. “Ha, you’ve had a much better life
with just your casual encounters, Jacob, trust me.”

She cracked up laughing when she realized that she was
actually talking to herself. Continuing to flip through the journal, she found
that Jacob wrote about every smell from every plant he passed by while
traveling through Ireland. He wrote about the different flavors of food while
he traveled to China. Emma was enthralled with this man. He lived off of his
charm. He never had a plan, he simply winged it, with a bag slung over his
shoulders and the open road. She hoped she would be able to meet him again.
Closing the journal, she rolled onto her side. She slept peacefully while
dreaming about far off places, and chance encounters.

WHEN EMMA OPENED her eyes the next
morning, she noticed that no sunlight was filtering through the motel curtains.
The room remained dark. She stood up and sauntered over to the window. Pulling
open the blinds to look out at the dreary gray sky, she knew it was going to be
a rainy start to the day.

Emma checked out of the hotel and packed her things into her
car. She pulled back onto the interstate, hoping to drive away from the rain as
she headed toward Tennessee. Luckily, the weather cooperated with her as she
drove. By the time she had hit the Memphis line, the sun was shining and the
sky was crystal clear. Needing gas, she stopped at a local minimart to fill up
her tank. While pumping gas, a car full of local guys pulled up alongside her
and invited her to a carnival in town. She smiled and thanked them, explaining
that she was just passing through. They happily waved good-bye as they drove
off. It made her smile as she returned the pump.

She climbed back behind the wheel of the car to continue on
her journey. Her driving goals were slightly unrealistic, unless she planned on
driving continuously throughout the night, so she decided to just wing it and
see where she’d end up. She took the top down on her car, turned on the cruise
control, and cranked up the radio.

She remembered the night Matt finally asked her to marry
him. She had eventually made peace with the idea that she would never wear her
fantasy white gown, or say I do in a little white church somewhere. So, when
Matt took her out on a friend’s yacht, she really hadn’t been expecting it.

They had spent the day diving off the boat into the ocean
while swimming alongside the curious dolphins who wanted to play. She enjoyed
sunbathing while the boys fished. As the evening rolled on and the stars came
out, Matt made his grand gesture. He got down on one knee in front of their
friends and asked for Emma’s hand in marriage. She was ecstatic. She leapt into
his arms after he placed a beautiful six karat ring on her slender finger. They
spent the rest of the evening locked in each other’s arms, under the starry
night sky.

That’s when she should have realized things were
beginning to go wrong. Every time she tried to ask for his opinion on details
pertaining to the wedding, he would smile gently at her and comment, “Oh
sweetie, you make the decision. Isn’t this what all you girls dream about your
whole life?”

Renee simply wrote it off as Matt allowing Emma to have
whatever her little heart desired. To Emma, it just didn’t feel right. She had
waited so long for this moment, but for some reason she was not as excited as
she thought she would be.

She stood with her closest girlfriends, sipping champagne
while trying on fifty different dresses before deciding which one was the one.
As she stood in front of the full-length mirror, she looked at herself. Her
long, silky chestnut hair flowed down her back, and the dress made her feel
like a fairy princess. “You are going to make the most beautiful bride,” the
saleswoman told her.

Of course Emma knew how many times this woman must have
said that in a day, but at that moment she felt like the only one. Luckily,
price was no problem. She made a very good salary, and Matt wanted her to have
whatever she wanted. So, she told the woman that her eighteen thousand dollar
dress was the one she wanted.

All the arrangements seemed to be falling into place. But
as the plans progressed, there seemed to be a sort of distance happening
between Emma and Matt. She stayed busy between the newspaper and the plans for
the wedding, while Matt obviously kept busy in his own way. She really should
have seen it coming, how could she have been so stupid? It never should have
taken them that long to make it down the aisle, and it never should have felt
like a chore instead of two lives joining as one.

Emma was still off in a daydream when her car began
stuttering.

“Ahh crap, what’s wrong? Come on, baby, don’t fail me now,”
she said, trying to give the car a pep talk. She looked around and noticed that
she had made it to Knoxville. The area wasn’t what she would have expected; it
was a city full of tall buildings. She decided to pull off the highway and stay
along the main road just in case her car did decide to breakdown. As she passed
through a few stop lights, she got stuck at one of them. When the light turned
green, she gently pushed down on the accelerator. The car sputtered again, and
she realized that she didn’t have a choice except to pull over.

As she pulled the car over to the side of the road, it went
completely dead. “Damn it car. What am I supposed to do now?”

She looked around and realized she was in a pretty sketchy
part of town. Even the clouds seemed menacing, as if to dangle a storm over her
head. “Great … just great. I am in the middle of gawd knows where, so much for
reliable German engineering.” She reached across to the passenger seat and
grabbed her phone from her pocketbook. When she took it out of its case, she
noticed that the screen was black … the battery was dead.

“Damn it all,” she yelled out. She knew she should have
charged it while she was at the hotel, but she had fallen asleep before
remembering to do so.

She tossed her phone back into her pocketbook, grabbed the
bag, and threw it over her shoulder. Getting out of her car, she looked up and
down both sides of the street. It seemed to be all apartment buildings, some of
which were pretty run down, and most of the ground level units had bars
covering them. She put the top up on her car and pulled her pocketbook to her
body, feeling a little wary for being alone.

She vaguely remembered passing a strip of stores and restaurants
not too far back before the car died. It was maybe five or six blocks away.
Taking a deep breath, she began walking in the direction she had come from. She
didn’t pass very many people, but the ones that she did pass stared her up and
down before laughing and passing judgment on her for not belonging in the area.
One woman actually laughed, saying, “Stupid girl! She ain’t got no business
walking all up in here. Look at her all high and mighty like some stinking
Barbie doll.”

The woman stood mere inches from her. “Go back home, Barbie
doll. You gonna get yourself killed walking around here looking the way you do.
Don’t you know girls like you don’t belong in a place like this? Did you get
lost from the country club and take a wrong turn.”

The two women began laughing and the other woman chimed in
her own two cents, “Yeah, she gotta be lost all right, or maybe she just the
type of girl who looking for trouble. You looking for trouble, girl?”

Emma was horrified. She didn’t want to be out there alone,
but she wasn’t going to ask these two for help. They obviously wouldn’t help
her anyway. They just passed judgment on her without even asking. The two women
laughed again as they made their way up a set of brick stairs leading to a
barred door.

Emma clutched her bag to her chest and fought back the tears
that were just begging to erupt from her eyes. She picked up her pace and
continued on to find a payphone so she could call AAA.

As she rounded the next corner, she noticed it was an even
more isolated area. She could hear footsteps approaching behind her. When she
quickly looked around, she noticed a hooded figure walking steadily behind her.
Her heart thumped in her chest. “It’s just someone out walking, don’t assume
the worst, Emma,” she mumbled out loud to herself, quickening her pace.

Every step she took, the hooded figure seemed to take two.
He quickly caught up to her in no time. She felt something blunt being forced
into her back as the hooded figure whispered gruffly into the side of her ear,
“I am holding a gun to your back. You just keep from yelling and slowly walk
with me into the alleyway.”

Emma was panic stricken. She wanted to scream out, do
something so that this creep would just leave, but he led her into a dark
alley. The man turned around and threw Emma to the ground. “Now stay where you
are, bitch, and maybe I’ll let you live.” He grabbed her pocketbook and emptied
it out onto the ground. He scanned the items and took everything of value that
Emma had: all of her money, her wallet, and her cell phone. Emma scurried
backwards on her backside. Grabbing her by the front of the shirt, the man
lifted her off of the ground. She could finally see into his eyes, and they
were the eyes of someone who has lived a hard life. The man looked her up and
down; she didn’t like the look he was giving her. “You sure are pretty,” he
said to her. His breath was hot and smelled as if he hadn’t used a tooth brush
in a while. “It’s been a while since I’ve been with a pretty girl.” She could
smell alcohol permeating off of his clothing.

Emma wouldn’t allow this man to put his hands on her, so she
decided to try to do something about it. She took the heel of her shoe and dug
it into the man’s foot. He let go of her shirt, and she took that as her chance
to run. She didn’t waste any time, she took off as fast as her trembling legs
would take her.

The man was now enraged. He took off after her. “You stupid
bitch, I’m going to enjoy what I’m going to do to you now. You are just like
all those other stupid bitches, and I knew how to shut them up, too.” He
grabbed hold of her hair and slammed her into the side of the brick wall. She
was able to muster one big scream before her world dimmed around her.

She could hear someone in the distance yelling at her
assailant. “Hey, you there, let go of that girl. I have already called the
police.” The man released her and Emma fell to the ground. She caught sight of
her hooded assailant as he grabbed her pocketbook and ran off down the street.

Emma couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. Her head was
spinning and her eyes felt heavy. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t
keep her eyes open.