If You Could See Me Now (33 page)

Elizabeth had watched Ivan in her mirror as she drove away, intrigued to know what direction he would walk in. He had looked left and right down the deserted streets, which were empty at that late night hour, began to walk left in the direction of the mountains and the hotel, but after a few steps he stopped, turned around, and walked in the other direction. He crossed the road and strode confidently toward Killarney, but halted suddenly, eventually folded his arms across his chest, and sat down on the stone windowsill of the butcher’s.

She didn’t think he knew where home was or if he did, he didn’t know his way there. She knew how he felt.

On Monday afternoon, Ivan stood at the doorway to Opal’s office and chuckled as he listened to Oscar ranting to Opal for a steady ten minutes. As amusing as he was to listen to, they’d have to hurry their meeting along, because Ivan was due to meet Elizabeth at seven
p.m.
He had twenty minutes. He hadn’t seen her since the Delta Aquarids viewing on Saturday night, the greatest night of his long, long life. He had tried to walk away from her after that. He had tried to leave Baile na gCroíthe, tried to move on to someone else who needed his help, but he couldn’t. He didn’t feel drawn to any direction other than Elizabeth, and it was stronger than any other pull he had experienced before. This time it wasn’t just his mind that was pulling him, it was his heart too.

“Opal.” Oscar’s serious tones
floated out to the hallway. “I desperately need more staff for next week.”

“Yes, I understand, Oscar, and we’ve already arranged for Suki to help you in the lab,” Opal explained in her gentle yet
firm
tones. “There’s nothing more we can do for now.”

“That’s simply not good enough,” he fumed. “On Saturday night, millions of people viewed the Delta Aquarids. Do you know how many wishes will come shooting in here over the next few weeks?” He didn’t wait for an answer and Opal didn’t offer one. “It’s a dangerous procedure, Opal, and I need more hands. While Suki is extremely efficient in the administration area, she is not qualified in wish analysis. Either I’m helped out by more staff or you’ll have to
find a new wish analyst,” he puffed. With that he stormed out of the office, past Ivan and down the hallway, mumbling, “Af

ter years of studying to be a meteorologist, I get stuck doing
this!
”

“Ivan,” Opal’s voice called out.

“How do you do that?” Ivan asked, entering the office. He was beginning to think she could see through walls.

She looked up from the desk and smiled weakly. Ivan took a sharp breath. She looked very tired, as if she hadn’t slept for weeks.

“You’re late,” she said gently. “You were supposed to be here at nine
a.m.”

“I was?” Ivan asked, looking confused. “I only called in to ask you a quick question, I have to rush off in a minute,” he added quickly.
Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth,
he sang in his head.

“We agreed you would cover for me today, remember?” she said
firmly, standing up from her desk and walking around to the other side.

“Oh no, no, no,” Ivan said quickly, backing out toward the doorway. “I’d love to help you, Opal, really I would. Helping is one of my favorite things to do, but I can’t now, I’ve made plans to meet my client. I can’t miss it, you know how it is.”

Opal leaned against the desk, folded her arms, and cocked her head to one side. She blinked and her eyes closed slowly and tiredly, taking an age to open them again. “So she’s your
client
now, is she?” she said wearily. Dark colors surrounded her today; he could see them spreading out from all around her body.

“Yes, she’s my client,” Ivan replied less confidently, “and I really can’t miss her this evening.”

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to say good-bye to her, Ivan.”

She said it so coldly, without padding or frills, that it chilled Ivan. He gulped and shifted his weight to his other foot.

“How do you feel about that?” she asked, when he didn’t answer.

Ivan thought about it, his heart thudded in his chest, and he felt as if it were going to move up through his throat and out of his mouth. His eyes
filled. “I don’t want to,” he said quietly.

Opal’s arms lowered to her sides slowly. “Pardon?” she asked, a little more gently.

Ivan thought about his life without Elizabeth and he raised his voice louder, more confidently. “I don’t want to say good-bye to her. I want to stay with her forever, Opal. She makes me feel happier than I’ve ever felt before in my life and she tells me that I do the same for her. Surely it would be wrong to walk away from that?” He smiled widely, imagining the feeling of being with her.

Opal’s hardened face softened. “Oh, Ivan, I knew this would happen.” There was pity in her voice and he didn’t like it. He would have preferred the anger. “But I thought you of all people would have made the right decision a long time ago.”

“What decision?” Ivan’s face crumpled at the thought of having made the wrong one. “I asked you what I should do and you wouldn’t tell me.” He began to panic.

“You should have left her a long time ago, Ivan,” she said sadly, “but I couldn’t tell you to do that. You had to realize it for yourself.”

“But I couldn’t leave her.” Ivan sat down on the chair before her desk slowly as the sadness and shock crept through his body. “She kept seeing me.” His voice was almost a whisper. “I couldn’t leave until she stopped seeing me.”

“You made her keep seeing you, Ivan,” Opal explained.

“No, I didn’t.” He stood up and walked away, angry at the suggestion that anything about their relationship had been forced.

“You followed her, you watched her for days, you allowed the small connection you both had to blossom. You tapped into something extraordinary and made her realize it too.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he spat, pacing the room. “You have no idea how either of us is feeling.” He stopped pacing, marched up to her face, and looked her directly in the eye, his chin lifted, his head steady. “Today,” he steadied his voice and spoke with perfect clarity, “I am going to tell Elizabeth Egan that I love her and that I want to spend my days with her. I can still help people while I’m with her.”

Opal’s hands went to her face. “Oh, Ivan, you can’t!”

“You taught me that there was nothing that I couldn’t do,” he disagreed.

“No one else will see you but her,” Opal exclaimed. “Elizabeth won’t understand. It just won’t work,” she said, clearly distraught by this revelation.

“If what you said is true and I made Elizabeth see me, then I can make everyone else see me too. Elizabeth will understand. She understands me like nobody else has ever done. Do you have any idea what that feels like?” He was excited now by the prospect. Before it had only been a thought, but now, now it was a possibility, he could make it happen. He looked at his watch;
6:50
p.m.
He had ten minutes. “I have to go,” he said with urgency in his voice. “I have to tell her I love her.” He strode out toward the doorway with confidence and determination.

Suddenly Opal’s voice broke the silence. “I do know how you feel, Ivan.”

He stopped in his tracks, turned, and shook his head. “You can’t know how this feels, Opal, not unless you lived through this. You can’t even begin to imagine.”

“I have,” she said, quietly and uncertainly.

“What?” He viewed her warily through narrowed eyes.

“I have,” she said, with strength in her voice this time, and crossed her hands across her stomach, clasped her
fingers together. “I fell in love with a man who saw me more than I had ever been seen in my whole entire life.”

There was a silence in the room while Ivan tried to come to terms with this. “So that should mean that you should understand me all the more.” He stepped toward her, clearly thrilled by the revelation. “Maybe it didn’t end well for you, Opal, but for me . . .” He smiled widely. “Who knows?” He threw his hands up and shrugged. “This could be it!”

Opal’s tired eyes stared back at him sadly. “No.” She shook her head and his smile faded. “Let me show you something, Ivan. Come with me this evening. Forget the office.” She waved her hand around the room dismissively. “Come with me and let me give you your
final lesson.” She tapped his chin fondly.

Ivan looked at his watch. “But Eliz—”

“Forget Elizabeth for now,” she said softly. “If you choose not to take my advice, you’ll have Elizabeth tomorrow, the next day, and every day for the rest of her life. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” She held out her hand to him.

Reluctantly, Ivan reached out to take it. Her skin was cold. Then she took him to a place that later he wished he’d never been.

Chapter Thirty-One

Elizabeth
sat on the end
of the staircase and looked out the frosted glass window to the front garden. The clock on the wall said
7:30 
p.m. Ivan had never been late before and she hoped he was OK. However, her sense of anger was rather more active at that moment than her worry for him. His behavior on Saturday night gave her reason to think that his absence was due more to cold feet than foul play. She had thought about Ivan all day yesterday; about not meeting his friends, his family, or his work colleagues, the lack of sexual contact, and in the dead of the night as she battled with
finding sleep, she had realized what it was that she had been trying to hide from herself. She felt she knew what the problem was; Ivan was either in a relationship already or unwilling to enter into one.

Any niggling feeling she had along the way she had ignored. It was unusual for Elizabeth not to plan, not to know where, exactly, their relationship was going. She wasn’t comfortable with this big change. She liked stability and routine, everything Ivan lacked. Well, now it could never work, she thought, as she sat on the stair waiting for a free spirit, just as her father was. And she never discussed her fears with Ivan. Why? Because when she was with him, every little fear dissipated. He would just show up, take her by the hand, and lead her into another exciting chapter in her life, and while she was reluctant to go with him at times, often apprehensive,
with
him she was never nervous. It was when she was without him, moments like now, that she questioned everything.

She decided immediately that she was going to distance herself from him. Tonight would be the night she would discuss it with him once and for all; they were like chalk and cheese, her life was full of conflict and as far as she could see, Ivan ran so far so fast just to avoid it. As the seconds ticked on and it moved into his
fifty-first
minute of being late, it looked like she didn’t need to have the conversation with him after all. She sat on the stair in her new cream trousers and shirt, a color she would have never worn before, and she felt foolish. Foolish for listening to him, believing him, for not reading the signs properly and, even worse, for falling for him.

Her anger was hiding her pain, but the last thing she wanted to do was to stay home alone and allow it to surface. She was good at doing that.

She picked up the phone and dialed.

“Benjamin, it’s Elizabeth,” she said rather quickly, speaking before she had a chance to backtrack. “How would you like to get that sushi tonight?”

“Where are we?” Ivan asked, strolling down a darkly lit cobblestoned street in inner city Dublin. Puddles gathered in the uneven surfaces of an area that consisted mainly of warehouses and industrial estates. One red-bricked house stood alone between them all.

“That house looks funny there, sitting all on its own,” Ivan remarked, nodding toward the house. “A bit lonely and out of place,” he decided.

“That’s where we’re going,” Opal said. “The owner of this house refused to sell his property to the surrounding businesses. He stayed here while they sprung up around him.”

Ivan eyed the small terraced house. “I bet they offered him a fair bit. He could probably have bought a mansion in the Hollywood Hills with what they would have paid him.” He looked down at the ground as his red Converse runner splashed into a puddle. “I’ve decided cobblestones are my favorite.”

Opal smiled and laughed lightly. “Oh, Ivan, you are so easy to love, you know that?” She walked on, not expecting an answer. Just as well, because Ivan wasn’t sure.