Moonliner: No Stone Unturned (25 page)

After finally having their fill, they flag the waitress down and get the check.  Beau helps Kendra with her jacket and they leave the restaurant happy.  A waning slice of a crescent moon partially lights the night as they walk arm and arm back to their hotel, looking in shop windows along the way.

Back in their room, Beau lies on the bed scanning the TV menu for something to watch as Kendra prepares for bed in the bathroom.  She soon steps out wearing a burgundy corset with garters.  Beau is most pleasantly surprised.  She walks across the floor in the moonlight, modelling her new lingerie for him, summoning his deeper, primordial nature.  She crawls onto the bed with feline grace and slides beneath the duvet.  She nestles next to Beau, who feels like the luckiest man on the planet.  He puts his arm around her and runs his hand down her back, softly caressing her warm, smooth skin.  She gently whispers, “I love you.”   He can feel her lips pressed against his ear, her warm breath, her wet tongue.  She slides down to his neck.

Sounds of nightlife carry up to the room from the street so far below, while inside Beau and Kendra slip into a state of bliss, taking their union to greater, toe-curling depths.

Moonliner
4:11

Another loud seagull wakes Beau, this one from their very own balcony.  He rolls out of bed and into the bathroom for a shower, quietly trying not to wake Kendra.  Taking advantage of the hotel’s endless hot water and higher water pressure, he stays in the shower a little longer than he usually would.  He smiles as he silently recalls his evening, the dinner and the evening’s amorous close.  This whole interlude has recharged their relationship, and in a healthy way. 

Once out of the shower, Beau dries himself off and gets dressed.  He steps out of the bathroom to cool down but sees that Kendra’s still sleeping, so he slowly slides the balcony door open, grabs the metal plate again, and steps outside to cool down.  He closes the door behind him, leaving it open just a crack for fresh air.  Outside, he again stares at the metal plate.  Beau thinks about the debt of gratitude he owes Time Bender for fine tuning, or harmonizing his marriage.  Here they are in the middle of an unemployment stint, on vacation, having the time of their lives.

The morning’s a bit frigid and it doesn’t take Beau long to go from too hot to cold.  The day, however, looks nice and at least partially sunny.  Again, Beau slides the glass door open and re-enters the room.

              “I’m cold,” he hears Kendra say.

              “I’ll close the door,” he tells her; “I was just letting a little fresh air in here after I took a long, steamy shower.”

              “What do you want to do for breakfast?” Kendra asks.

              “I kind of liked that waffle house,” Beau answers; “or we could go someplace else.  I don’t care.”

              “The waffle house sounds fine,” Kendra says, clearly seeing that Beau wants to go back there.  She really just wants some coffee and toast anyway.

Kendra gets out of bed with puffy eyes and her hair wildly out of control, still in her skimpy lingerie.  She heads for the bathroom.

              “You look so beautiful,” Beau tells her, meaning it.

Forty-five minutes later they’re back in the waffle house, discussing the menu over a cup of coffee. 

              “We’ve been lucky with the weather,” Kendra notes.

              “Yeah, it should be a nice drive back,” Beau adds.

              “Well this is it,” Kendra says excitedly; “the day we leave a message for Time Bender.”

              “I have an idea,” Beau says; “let’s rent bicycles and ride around the seawall.  It’s a popular thing to do here and the weather looks nice.”

              “Can we ride to Lost Lagoon?” Kendra asks.

              “Sure,” Beau answers; “it’s right along the way.  The bike path around the seawall only allows for one-way traffic, which puts Lost Lagoon at the end of our ride.”

              “Can we rent bikes at the park?” Kendra asks.

              “There are a few rental shops right by the entrance, on Denman Street.  Right here,” he says pointing to a map on his phone. 

              “Sounds good,” Kendra says nodding her head, not needing to see the map.

              “We can check out first, leave our bags and car at the hotel, and walk over to rent the bikes.  It’s not too far from here,” Beau says, putting the plan together.

              “Should we put the bags in the car?” Kendra asks.

              “We can leave them with the hotel concierge for a few hours,” Beau answers.

The waitress returns and takes their order.  Both repeat their previous day’s selections.  The sun beams through a window in the waffle house, warming the place.  The days are getting longer and warmer.

After breakfast, Beau and Kendra return to their hotel room, where they spend their last rented hour of room time relaxing, taking in the view and the sunlight, and slowly packing their bags.  Having only been in the city two nights, there isn’t much to pack.  As planned, they check out just before noon, leaving their bags with the concierge.  Keeping their jackets and the metal plate with them, they walk up to Georgia and over to Denman, where they rent a few bicycles. 

They roll down Denman and onto the trail that leads into Stanley Park.  The day remains cool but sunny and beautiful.  They’re glad they waited.  They enter the park and wind their bikes around its seawall, past Deadman’s Island and Brockton Point, stopping briefly at
Legends of the Moon
gift shop to get a drink and use the facilities.  A couple of young Chinese students offer to take a picture of Beau and Kendra together in front of the Totem poles.  They happily agree to it and thank them for doing it.  They get back on their bikes and back on the trail.  The trail seriously narrows at one point as it passes tightly between massive trees and the rocky shoreline.  The north side of the park is cold; it doesn’t get any direct sunlight for much of the year.  A couple passes them on a tandem bike.

              “That’s what we should have rented,” Kendra tells Beau after they pass.

              “They actually had those at the shop where we got these bikes,” he says; “I just didn’t tell you because I thought you’d want to rent one.”

              “Why?” Kendra asks; “don’t you want to ride on one?”

              “Not really,” Beau answers; “I think it’s one of those things that looks more fun than it actually is.  I’m sure I’d be doing all the pedaling anyway.”

              “Oh, come on!  It might be fun,” Kendra says.

              “We couldn’t look at each other like we are now,” Beau tells her.  “Instead, you’d be looking at my sweaty back.”

              “Good point,” Kendra replies.

They ride underneath Lions Gate Bridge and around to the western edge of the park, where the sun shines.  It’s warmer and more scenic as the seawall passes between large rock walls and the water.  They stop again at Siwash Rock, where the park meets its westernmost edge, one of most scenic points for a picture.  It’s sunny.  Beau takes a few pictures of Kendra alone, and one of them together setting the camera on his bicycle seat with a mini tripod and using a self-timer to get the shot.

              “It’s so beautiful here,” Kendra tells Beau as they stand on the edge of the seawall looking out at five ocean-liners anchored way out on the bay.  “I can see why he likes it here,” she adds.

              “Who?” Beau asks.

              “Time Bender,” she answers.

              “Oh, I almost forgot about him,” Beau replies; “speaking of which, we’d better get back on the tail if we’re going to find the stone.”

They roll past Third Beach and around the final edge of the park, along English Bay, Second Beach, and over to Lost Lagoon.  Their excitement rises as they near the Lagoon.  The area is lush and green with huge, tropical-like plants and Sakura trees in bloom all along its edge.  They sit on a bench at the lagoon’s edge.

              “Why do you think he chose this place?” Kendra asks.

              “It’s untouched, especially around the stone,” Beau answers; “but still conveniently close to the city.  It was a wise choice.”

They lock their bikes to a post near the northern tip of the lagoon.  They then find the trail leading into the trees, though again this poses a real task for Beau; it’s neither clearly marked nor well-trodden, at least not in the year 2014.  They follow the path, just as Cedric’s message tells them to.  They come to the large tree in the center of the path, described as a stump in the message; a site now sacred to them.  They follow the path around the tree and Beau spots the stone.

              “That’s it,” he tells Kendra pointing to it.

              “Are you sure?” she asks.  “It doesn’t look like the moon to me.”

              “It was about to rain and I wasn’t paying as close attention then, but I’m pretty sure,” Beau answers as he takes pictures of the entire area with his phone, getting a lot of shots of the rock.

              “I still don’t think we should have put our names on the plate,” Kendra says again.  “What if someone else finds it?” she asks.

              “They won’t,” Beau answers; “and we already know that they won’t.  Remember?”

              “This moment seems to be too real to be real,” she tells Beau, now nervous about leaving the plate beneath the stone.

Beau kneels in front of the stone, then looks around to see if anyone is watching him.  Kendra makes fists with her hands to release tension.  Beau takes the plate and the plastic box he bought to house it from his pocket.  He slides the plate into the box and seals it up.  He overturns the stone.  Sure enough, the coin he left from the NeoTech tradeshow sits undisturbed on the ground beneath it.  He photographs it.  Then, as instructed, he removes the coin from its spot and digs a slightly deeper hole for the plate.  Having not thought to bring a tool, he has to use a sharp rock to dig the hole.  When the hole is finally deep enough, he places the plastic box with the plate into it, photographs it, and buries it with the displaced soil.  Carefully, he places the coin exactly where and how it was found, takes another picture of it, then replaces the stone, also exactly where and how it was found.  He takes one more picture for comparison and looks up at Kendra, who is watching intensely.