Immortal Light: Wide Awake (4 page)

“
Was the party over?” She could
see his lips move a moment before the sound came over her
phone.

“
No, there were still a few people
there. Kat’s still there.”

As she looked at her father through the
windshield, she realized just how much she loved him.

“
Did you want to go
back?”

Lucy couldn’t believe her ears.
She didn’t quite know how to respond.

“
I … uh, well, I
don
’
t know. Kat
wanted me to stay at her house tonight, but …
”

“
Well, since tomorrow is Sunday,
we’re going to Bandon. Can you be back by ten?”

“
Yes, absolutely.”

This dream kept getting better and
better.

“
Okay, then,” he said with a smile
that radiated in the darkness. “I want you to text me when you get
to Kat’s house. Is that clear?” His tone was calm but his intention
was crystal clear.

“
Yes, absolutely I will.” She
smiled back. “Thank you, Daddy.”

“
Don’t make this a
habit.”

She could see his eyes looking straight at her
from the tree.

“
I won’t.”

“
Okay. Be safe,
Goosey.”

“
I will. I love you.”

“
I love you too, Baby.”

With that, she watched as he pulled the phone
away from his ear and turned it off. He stood in his socks and
watched her pull out. Only when she was back on the road did he
turn to go back into the house.

Relieved, Lucy closed her phone and opened it
again. She dialed Kat’s number and waited, the warmth of her
father’s patience and love filling her.

“
Hey, what happened?” Kat said as
she answered the phone.

“
Nothing.”

“
What do you
mean
nothing
?”

“
I mean I called him and told him
what happened and he was fine.”

“
So, you’re not in
trouble?”

“
No, I’m actually on my way
back.”

“
Really?” Kat exclaimed in a
high-pitched squeal.

Lucy laughed out loud at her friend’s
excitement.

“
You know, Mark’s still here,” Kat
said scandalously into the phone. “He asked me where you
went.”

Lucy’s breathing faltered for a moment. “Mark,
really?”

“
I’m telling you, he likes you.
This is your chance, Luce.”

Lucy smiled widely. “Okay, I’ll be there in a
minute.”

“
Good, I’ll see you when you get
here! Bye!” Kat exclaimed, and hung up the phone.

Lucy couldn’t wipe the grin
off of her face. Just the very thought of Mark made her heart do
backflips. Never had she ever had a boyfriend, and never had she
had such a crush as Mark Thompson.
Finally, this could be it
, she
thought to herself.

The rain had turned to a thick
mist and the empty streets of Coos Bay were lighted periodically by
hovering street lamps. As she rounded a wide corner, she looked up
at the giant American flag hanging soaked on the flagpole of a
Toyota dealership. As the banner caught the stormy winds and opened
up slightly, she suddenly remembered Benjamin and the flag. Lucy
looked at her hand. She rubbed her fingers together as she could
almost feel the shocking sensation she had gotten from him when
they touched. Suddenly her entire consciousness was overwhelmed
with thoughts and images of him, images that had been so
commonplace all summer, but this time were intensely distracting.
The turn-off to the party was on the left, but she drove past
it.

Benjamin, who are you? Where
have you been?
she thought to
herself.

He had appeared from thin air and disappeared
into thin air, but he was always there in Lucy’s head and she
didn’t know why. She suddenly wanted to get away from the street
lights. Turning onto Ocean Boulevard she headed for Cape Arago
highway, which led to Charleston.

The rain seemed to be coming down even harder
as she drove the quiet highway. Street lights were a blur as her
wipers worked hard to keep a clear view. With fewer cars on the
road, Lucy felt more comfortable. It wasn’t long before she had
crossed the bridge into Charleston. The rain was letting up just
enough to make the dark road navigable. Before long, those lights
would turn to darkness, and she would have only her high beams to
lead her to the bay.

Making her way over the few miles
of winding road was liberating. She felt free of everything: her
obligations as a daughter, a friend, and a city employee. She was
left alone with her thoughts and nothing else.

Raindrops fell in a gentle swathe
in front of her headlights. The sight was mesmerizing. As a child,
Lucy had often found comfort in a night drive in the rain with her
parents. She loved the contrast between the warmth and dryness of
the car and the harsh cold of the elements. There was something
about the comfort only safety could provide that made the darkness
bearable.

Lucy’s thoughts were traveling faster than her
car through the shallow turns of the road, and she thought of
nothing but Benjamin. Before long, she emerged from the trees to
where Sunset Bay opened up like a giant door to the Pacific Ocean.
The bay was a horseshoe cove encased by high forested cliffs on the
north and south sides. The road ran the circumference of the curved
sandy beach that filled the five or six hundred yards between the
ridges.

Lucy had hundreds of memories of
Sunset Bay spanning her entire life. It was a place that even in
the stormiest night would be a refuge from the harshness of the
world.

As she rounded the last bend that looked out
on the shore, a burst of lightening filled the sky. The beach lit
up like daytime for a split second, and Lucy’s heart stopped. The
beach wasn’t empty; the figure of a man was standing near the
water.

In spite of the initial shock, Lucy slowed the
car to get a better look, hoping that another flash would verify
that she hadn’t imagined what her eyes claimed to have seen.
Peering through the rain, she strained to get any kind of view of
the beach. It was a good eighty yards away, but she knew she had
seen someone standing with their feet in or very near the
water.

Rolling past at a crawl, she turned off her
headlights in the hope of getting a better view, but the lightning
wouldn’t cooperate. Her heart was beginning to speed up and she
felt uncharacteristically nervous. Pushing the button on the door
panel, she made sure the doors were locked.

Finally, a white fiery flash lit
up the sky and earth, but the beach was empty. Lucy sighed with
relief and a little disappointment. Pushing on the accelerator, she
sped back up the hill, but she couldn’t help feeling that someone
was out there.

After an additional mile of
winding pavement, she pulled off the road and turned the car around
back toward the bay. Heading downhill, she focused hard on the
road. Every curve was anticipated, as she knew them well. Lucy
thought about what she was doing, and common sense told her there
was absolutely no reason to go back. If a person was crazy enough
to be standing on the beach in a lightning storm, he was probably
not the kind of person a young girl should be meeting in the dark.
But, her mind was defying all logic by insisting for some
inexplicable cosmic reason that she had to go back and find
him.

The last turn was just thirty or so yards
ahead and Lucy looked down for only a second to make sure the blue
high-beams symbol was illuminated. Looking back up, she saw him,
standing on the side of the road in nothing but shorts and a
t-shirt. She gasped when she saw his face in her headlights. It was
him. It was Benjamin.

As she passed him, she couldn’t decide whether
to turn around to look into the darkness behind her, or hit the
brakes. She only turned for a second when without warning, in a
flash of wet, matted hair, a deer walked into the Cavalier’s
headlights. Lucy screamed. She pulled back on her steering wheel
and slammed both feet on the brake pedal, but it was too late. Her
little car fish-tailed in the rain before slamming into the deer
with so much force that Lucy’s locked elbows popped free and her
whole upper body violently whiplashed before coming to a
stop.

Lucy could feel her heart pounding
nearly out of her chest. With her hands still gripping tightly to
the wheel, she assessed her condition. She didn’t know if she was
hurt; she couldn’t tell because adrenaline was coursing through her
body. Everything was too confusing in the dark. She needed light,
but the only light she could see was that of her left headlight,
and it was pointing too far to the side to have remained unscathed
in the accident.

Directly in front of her, Lucy
could see that the hood of her car was crumpled like a wave curling
into the shore. Steam or smoke wafted up from underneath. She just
sat in panic-stricken shock for a moment, watching, as her
quickened breathing fogged up the windshield.

Just as she started to arrest her pulse a
little bit, Lucy saw movement in front of her. It was Benjamin, and
she got irrefutable evidence of that as he looked through the
driver’s window at her to see if she was okay.

Lucy just nodded her head, more embarrassed
than hurt.

She watched through the fogged window as
Benjamin bent down just inside the headlight’s rays. She could make
out his dark, wet hair plastered against his face. She was glad
that he was there, but she had no idea what he was doing. The deer
had to be dead, yet it was as though he were checking its vital
signs. The way the impact felt and from the look of her hood, there
was no reason to even bother checking. It was dead, and Lucy’s
heart sank knowing that she had killed the poor, innocent creature.
But then, she didn’t know what was really going on at all. Her
thoughts were traveling at light speed, and she didn’t know if she
had exaggerated the effects of the deer hitting the car, or if her
car was a mangled lump of scrap metal wrapped around the driver
seat and she was lucky to be alive. For all she knew, everything
was okay and it just felt worse than it was.

Lucy shook her head to focus when
she saw Benjamin stand up. It was then that she decided to reach
for the door handle. As she gripped the lever, she stopped. The
sight in front of her only confirmed that she had overestimated the
entire event, yet she was amazed by what she saw. As she sat
staring out the windshield, she witnessed the deer stand up and
look at Benjamin. It was perfectly fine. Lucy’s neck was killing
her, but the deer jumped up as though it was startled from a light
sleep. All Lucy could do was watch as it leapt for the side of the
road and disappeared into the woods.

Convinced that she still wasn’t
thinking clearly, she met Benjamin’s eyes through the windshield.
His expression was of sincere concern as he gently raised his
eyebrows and nodded his head in her direction to inquire again if
she was alright. Lucy answered with a nervous nod of her own and
followed him with her eyes as he came around to the driver’s side
door. She stared at him through the glass. As he bent down, Lucy
could see him smile through the window in the dim reflected light
and he waved his hand in a subtle circular motion. She knit her
eyebrows in confusion before realizing he was requesting she lower
the window. Groping for the button on the door panel, she felt
stupid, both for her bad fortune to be involved in an accident for
which her father would skin her alive, and to be stuck in the rain
with a guy she barely knew, yet thought about almost
constantly.

When the electric hum stopped, she heard
Benjamin’s soft, steady voice speak, “Are you alright?”

Lucy shook her head in affirmation. “Yeah, I
think so.”

“
Good,” he said calmly. “I think
we should get you out of the road. If you steer to the left I'll
push you into the parking lot."

Lucy looked past him in the dark
to the other side of the road and the Sunset Bay parking area. She
didn't know how he would accomplish moving the car by himself, but
he seemed confident enough that she just nodded, put the car in
neutral, and gripped the wheel. In a matter of seconds, Benjamin
had pushed them across the road while she steered. The car came to
a rest and Lucy put it in park.

"Do you want me to call a tow truck for you?”
Benjamin asked as he came back around the side of the
car.

Lucy stuttered, searching for the words to
answer him, when the gravity of the situation finally hit her. “Oh
no! My car!”

She pulled on the handle and threw
the door open, forcing Benjamin to step out of the way. Making her
way around the car, she could see that the entire front was smashed
in. Everything from the right headlight to the grill was either
smashed or bent or broken.

“
What am I going to tell him? He
thought I was going back to the party, but I came all the way out
here. He’s going to kill me this time.”

“
If you mean your dad, I honestly
don’t think he’ll actually kill you over this.” He flashed a cheap
grin at her in an attempt to lighten the mood.