Santa Hunk (3 page)

SAVANNAH

So, Savannah here.

Clare left out the next part of the story.

She was probably trying to be nice.

She called me from the ambulance. She was so
matter-of-fact that at first I thought she was joking. I mean, imagine if
someone called you and said, “Hi. I was hit by a bus and I’m on the way to the
hospital.” Her voice was as calm as if she’d said she was stopping at the
store. My brain couldn’t compute.

Finally I figured it out, though, and I immediately jumped
into my car and broke all the speed limits on the way to Rochester General.

About a half hour after I got there they told me she’d
been put into a room. They said she seemed fine, but they were keeping her in
overnight for observation, as a precaution.

I went into her room. She was sitting up in bed
looking like nothing had happened.

“I’m fine,” she said.

It was
odd
. She not only looked fine—she
looked
happy
.

I wondered if maybe she was on pain meds or
something.

Of course I asked her to tell me what had happened.

“I saw a guy trip on a curb and there was a bus
coming, so I pushed him out of the way, and the bus hit me,” she said. “But I’m
fine.”

I was skeptical, to put it mildly.

Of course I wasn’t going to argue with her. I wasn’t
going to say “how can you possibly be ‘fine’?”

Instead I said the kind of thing you’re supposed to
say in these situations. I told her how glad I was she was okay. I asked her
what the doctor had said. I said, “what a miracle nothing was broken!”

Then she turned to me and I thought, here it comes.
The
real
story.

“I met someone,” she said.

Met someone.
Universal girl-speak for “I
met a cute guy.”

For a split second I thought she was talking about
Josh. I thought
ohmygod
she’s confused. She’s telling me about Josh. Doesn’t
she remember it was me who found him and got them set up?

“What do you mean?” I said, trying not to sound too
alarmed.

“He was there,” she said. “He helped me up
afterward—when I came to, I mean. I was lying on the street, and he helped me
get to the sidewalk to wait for the ambulance.”

“Who?” I said. “Who was there?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know his name. But he
was wonderful.”

I probably nodded or something. I know I was trying
to be all calm on the outside. Meanwhile, on the inside I was thinking, first
of all:
humor her.
And secondly: was she in any shape to count this as
a Met Someone? But of course I didn’t say anything like that out loud. I said, “he
sounds like very a nice man.”

She grinned. “Nice doesn’t even come close. He was
the most gorgeous, most sexy, most delicious man I have ever seen.
Ever.
”

Ever?

But what about Josh Martin, the Measure of all
things Boy?

I probably tried to smile back. But I was starting
to feel a bit alarmed. You see, I’d expected bruises, fractures, a concussion. I’d
expected her to be badly shaken up, at the least.

But instead she was …
glowing?

“Clare,” I said. But I couldn’t finish my thought.
It didn’t seem particularly … nice … to scold her at that particular moment.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, smiling.
“But he’s—he’s my soul mate or something.”

I’m pretty sure I wasn’t smiling back any more at
that point, not even a fake smile.

“In fact, I’m surprised he’s not here,” she said. “I
thought he might follow the ambulance to the hospital to check up on me.”

“I see,” I said. “What did you say his name was?”

A little flicker passed over her face. “I—I don’t
know,” she said.

I was sitting on a chair pulled up near her bed. Now
I reached out and took her hand. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “He knows
where they took you, right?”

She frowned. “You don’t understand,” she muttered.

“It’s okay,” I said.

I was thinking, poor girl. She’s in shock. Here I
was thinking it was odd, how
steady
she seemed, but it wasn’t that she
was steady. Not at all. She was in shock.

It hadn’t really hit her, yet, what had happened.

“He had the most beautiful blue eyes,” she said.
“Savannah—it was like we’d known each other forever. He knew
me
—I knew
him
. It doesn’t matter that I don’t know his name.”

“Sure,” I said, squeezing her hand. “I know exactly
what you’re saying.”

I’d crossed the line. I noticed that she was now
glaring at me. She’d figured out that I was humoring her.

Clare always could see right through me.

So she dropped the subject.

Then her parents got there, so I said good-night and
left to go back to the apartment.

So you see: I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe
anything out-of-the-ordinary had happened. I figured she’d had a shock, and
some nice person had been kind to her, and somehow the shock of the accident had
made her misinterpret his kindness as being something more personal and
significant.

And of course the article in the next day’s paper didn’t
say anything about a gorgeous guy with blue eyes.

It was a nice article. The reporter pointed out how
nice it was when people come together for the holiday season. Clare had shown
us all the true spirit of the season by saving a guy’s life. It also mentioned
that some of the witnesses were sure, at first, that Clare had been killed. The
impact, when the bus hit her, tossed her about ten feet through the air,
apparently. So it was also a Christmas miracle that she wasn’t killed or
seriously injured.

I checked the online version of the article, too.

It had photos that people on the scene had taken
with their cell phones.

I looked at those photos. Clare in a heap on the
street. Clare sitting on the curb with a group of people around her. Clare on a
gurney being wheeled to the ambulance.

I’ve looked at those photos a hundred times since
that day.

There’s no cute guy in any of them.

I see the other people she’s talked about. The bus
driver, the African American guy she pushed out of the way of the bus. Even the
worried lady in the knit cap.

But no cute guy with blue eyes.

He’s not in the picture, anywhere.

CLARE: December 9, con’t

I know Savannah didn’t believe me. I could tell by the
look in her eyes.

And the sad thing is, after a few days went by, I
started to disbelieve it a little bit, myself. It started to fade, the way a
dream that is so vivid when you first wake up seems less and less real the
longer you’re awake.

But let me write it all down …

What happened is: the morning after I was hit by a
bus, the hospital told me I could go home. There was no sign of any internal
injuries or anything. I was one lucky young woman, they said to me.

So I took a cab home and then Savannah finished her
shift and picked up Chinese at Wegmans.

And we ate, but when I tried to talk about blue
eyes, she gave me one of her funny looks.

“He told me to meet him at Durand Eastman Park,” I
said.

Her response: “That’s odd.” She wanted to know why
he didn’t suggest we meet for a cup of coffee or something. “Why would he want
to meet you at a park? In December?”

She didn’t say “he’s probably a serial killer” but I
knew what she was thinking.

I could see that the funny look in her eyes was
partly fear.

Maybe mostly fear.

So I realized I couldn’t talk about it. Not to
Savannah.

Plus, I was starting to feel a bit uneasy about the
whole thing myself.

You see, up until then, I expected him to show up.
Starting with when I was at the hospital. I thought he’d come there to visit
me.

No … that’s not true. What I
really
thought
was that he’d come and take me out of the hospital. Take me home with him.

Crazy, right?

He hadn’t told me he’d come for me. But that’s still
what I thought. Like: that connection I’d felt with him was so immediate and
strong, of course he’d come for me, right?

I was so convinced of it that all night long, any
time I heard anyone come near the doorway to the hospital room I popped up,
wide awake, expecting it to be my blue-eyed guy.

And he didn’t come.

Then it was time for me to be discharged, and at
first I thought: maybe I’ll get a taxi, and have it drop me off downtown, near
where I’d been hit by the bus, and I’ll find blue eyes there.

But I was feeling uneasy.

Why hadn’t he come?

What
had
it meant, when he’d winked at me
that way, while I was lying there on the gurney?

And Savannah was right. It was a bit weird.

I couldn’t be in love with a guy when I didn’t even
know his name.

And he didn’t know mine.

I didn’t really think he was a serial killer. But
there were a lot of other possibilities.

Like maybe he was married. No guy that gorgeous
could possibly be running around single, right?

Or maybe he was a real jerk when he wasn’t helping
people get up after they’ve been hit by a bus. He was probably a druggie, or a
ruthless heartless executive. Or gay, maybe.

So now my heart was in a big argument with itself.

Part of my heart knew that I’d met the love of my
life—no, the love of beyond-my-life.

But the other part of my heart thought I was being ridiculous.

The funny thing is, when Savannah went to work the
next afternoon, I realized I was still listening for footsteps in the stairway
up to our apartment.

And then a couple days went by, and I began to think
he wasn’t going to come.

So I started to feel disappointed and let down.

I thought a lot about what he’d said—about liking
trees and about how I could find him at that park, in an oak grove.

Only now the strangeness was sinking in. It was,
like, okay, I don’t know his name and I had this feeling he’d come looking for
me, but he told me to look for him … it was like this big mush of thoughts and
feelings.

Oh, I Googled it. Wouldn’t you? I Googled “Oak
Grove, Durand Eastman Park.”

The search didn’t tell me much. There didn’t seem to
be a place designated by the park as an official oak grove.

I found a couple references to a spot called Oak
Picnic Grove.

And I found an article about the history of the park
that mentioned another oak grove. The article said it was between Sunset Point
and Horseshoe Roads.

I thought about asking Savannah to drive up with me
to check them out.

But I didn’t—because I was starting to realize how
crazy it was.

Savannah was right.

He didn’t know my name. Or where I lived. Or anything
about me.

I thought, okay. I was conked on the head or
something when that bus hit me.

It gave me delusions.

Only now that I was deciding blue eyes was a
delusion, it felt like my heart was going to break.

SAVANNAH

Okay, so now I have something else to feel guilty
about.

Not only didn’t I believe her, but since I didn’t
believe her, I wasn’t there for her while she was going through all this broken
heart stuff ...

L

CLARE: December 10

You don’t really “get” the holiday shopping rush unless
you work retail.

It’s insane.

Fifteen days to Christmas and work is starting to
stress me out totally. Every day, it’s the same. You straighten the merchandise
displays and five minutes later they look like someone stirred them with a
giant egg beater. The check-out lines are ridiculous. And we get no breaks. Every
day, by the time I’m done with my shift, my feet hurt, my calves hurt, my head
hurts.

So on Monday, I left work and as I walked out to my car,
I realized how cooped-up I’d been feeling.

I should mention, I work at an Abercrombie. The
store is so dark. It’s supposed to be, that’s what gives it atmosphere. And of
course there’s music playing constantly. I like the music but little by little,
as your shift goes on, you start to feel like you’re trapped. You can’t escape
the customers, you can’t escape your co-workers, you can’t escape the music.

Stepping outside Monday afternoon, I felt almost
dizzy it was such a relief.

And it was snowing.

I told you already how I feel about snow.

And it was perfect, Christmas snow: big white fluffy
flakes drifting down like they had all the time in the world.

Everything seemed so quiet and clean and … I don’t
know. Uplifted, somehow. Light.

I started off toward home.

But the thought of going back to the apartment
wasn’t very appealing.

I’d been inside all day.

I wanted to be outside in that beautiful snowfall.

So I thought, well, I’ll just go look for the oak
grove.

Why not?

That’s what parks are for, right? So people can
spend a little time outside with Nature.

And it’s not like I ever expected to see the
blue-eyed man. He wasn’t going to just hang out there all day every day after
we met, waiting for me, right?

Of course not.

So I told myself: this wasn’t really about the
blue-eyed man at all. I just wanted to spend a little time outside and why not
spend it that way?

CLARE: December 10, con’t

I guess I’d probably driven through Durand Eastman Park
before, but I can’t say as I ever really noticed the trees.

But this time, I did.

I got there by driving up 590 and going through the
roundabouts and then turning onto Durand Parkway. And that parkway—it’s a
beautiful road! It winds through a corner of the park, and there are enormous
trees on either side. So it’s like you’re driving through the forest.

I felt a bit awed by how large and beautiful and
otherworldly the trees were, with their graceful branches heavy with snow …

Durand Parkway connects with Lakeside Drive by Lake
Ontario. From there, I turned left onto Log Cabin Road—heading back into the
park.

When I got to a place that seemed like a picnic
pavilion I pulled over and parked.

I figured this had to be Oak Picnic Grove, right?

And sure enough, there was a huge tree growing in an
open area near the pavilion.

I wondered if it was an oak.

So I got out and walked over, and around the base of
the tree I knelt and pushed some snow aside and cool: I found an oak leaf under
the snow.

“So, you’re an oak,” I said.

I stood up and looked around. There was nobody else
there, which I suppose isn’t surprising, late afternoon on a work day.

And so that was that.

My outing was going to be just like that.

I was going to look at trees and nobody else would
be around, and then I’d get into my car and drive back to my apartment and have
something to eat, and watch TV, and Savannah would come home and watch TV with
me.

I sighed and got back into my car.

And for a second I felt so disappointed that I
almost didn’t go check for the second oak grove.

After all, what was the point?

My life was set on its course. And in a few days, I
had a date with Josh Martin. I had no reason to complain.

So why did I feel so … sad?

And the thought of going back to that
apartment—being back indoors—was almost more than I could take …

So, silly as it was, I decided I might as well look
for the second oak grove. Because at least, that way, I’d be outdoors for a
little while longer.