The Chair (21 page)

C
orin sent Nicole three e-mail messages before he closed the store and another just before leaving to meet Tori for dinner at Dale Street Bistro Café.

No response to the first three. Probably not to the fourth either. On the way he called Tesser.

“It healed your friend?” Tesser’s breathing quickened through the phone. “Are you sure?”

“If A. C. says his shoulder is healed, it’s healed.”

Tesser let out a long, low whistle. “You need to get that chair in a safe spot.” Tesser coughed. “You should bring it to my house.”

“Don’t worry, it’s safe.

“Good, good.”

“What do I do now?”

Corin could hear Tesser clicking his pen like a metronome set on high speed. “You should contact the lady.”

“I’m working on it.”

“I’m headed out of town for a few days, but we need to meet again as soon as I’m back.”

“Agreed.”

“And, Corin?”

“Yeah.”

“Trust no one. I mean that.”

Corin hung up and weaved through traffic as the image of his brother kept pounding through his brain. A chair of healing. Since it had healed A. C., it could heal Shasta. Couldn’t it? But the chair didn’t heal A. C. of public speaking; it chose to heal something else. The thing seemed to have written its own agenda. It wasn’t a comforting thought because that agenda might contain items he would want sent to the paper shredder.

TORI WAS ALREADY seated at a table when he arrived. “Don’t worry, you’re not late. I was early.”

Corin sat and pulled his napkin off the table. “How were your classes today?”

“Same as always.”

“You’re bored?”

“A little. The gold is wearing off this adventure a little bit.”

“Then come join mine. It’s getting more intense every day.”

“No thanks.” Her eyes told him she knew exactly what adventure he was talking about and she didn’t want any part of it.

After their waitress came and took their order, Corin said, “I think there’s something to this chair thing, Tori.”

“What makes you say that?” She slumped back in her seat.

“A. C.”

“What, he got healed or something?”

Corin nodded.

“Come on, you’re not serious.” She shoved her knife toward him and scowled.

“He walked into the store this morning and laid the whole thing out. He sits in the chair, starts feeling all warm and fuzzy. A few hours later the pain in his shoulder from an old football injury? Claims it’s gone.”

“And you believe him?”

“He lifted a hundred pound coffee table over his head with his bad shoulder, no pain.”

“And you believe he did it without hurting?”

“He’s lying to me?”

“No, I think he’s convinced himself the pain doesn’t exist.” Tori tore off a piece of sourdough bread from the loaf in the middle of the table and dipped it in a mixture of oil and balsamic vinegar. “What was it you told me about A. C.’s wife? That she was dead set against him doing UFC because of his old shoulder injury?”

“So?”

“So? So?” Tori smirked. “Haven’t you heard of cortisone? He tells his wife about his best friend’s magical chair, then a few days later gets a cortisone shot in his shoulder, then goes home and shows his wife how he’s been healed so now he can fight.”

“Why would he lie to me?”

“A secret is kept by one.”

“A. C. wouldn’t lie to me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What about Tesser and his verification of a legendary chair being passed down since the time of Christ?”

“Who is Tesser?”

Right. He hadn’t told her. Corin explained who Tesser was and what he’d revealed about the chair. “There’s enough evidence piling up here that I have to be open to it being real. First the kid with the asthma, now A. C. I’m supposed to ignore that?”

The waitress brought their order and they ate in silence. Tori would fight him all the way on this thing and he still didn’t know why. Sure, she decided to leave the church because she was tired of Christians being hypocrites. But there had to be more to it than that. She wasn’t indifferent. Under the surface she was hostile. What happened to her?

He stabbed a baby red potato with the tip of his steak knife. “If this chair contains genuine healing power, then it’s hard not to conclude God is real.”

Tori averted her eyes and sliced off another piece of her halibut. “Can we for once talk about something other than that chair of yours?” She dropped her fork and it clanged against her plate. “I have to use the restroom. When I get back I’m sure we’re going to talk about something else.”

So be it. It wasn’t his goal to tear off whatever scab covered her abhorrence of God, but at some point the time would be right. If he was going to have a future with Tori, he needed to know what it was.

After Tori returned, her usual brightness had reemerged, and she smiled at him, any hint of animosity had vanished. “Let’s talk about this professor of yours. You’ve never told me about him.”

“I haven’t seen him for eons.”

“He had a major impact on you.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I can see it here when you talk about him.” Tori reached across the table and wiggled her finger in front of his eyes. “Admiration. Respect. Fondness.”

“Yeah, I liked the guy. Still like him.”

“I think it’s deeper than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m using my college degree at the moment.”

“Psychology.”

“You had dad issues, didn’t you?” She winked at him.

“What?”

“You know, dad issues. He wasn’t there or was there and was always drunk or didn’t pay attention to you or beat you up verbally or physically.”

Corin shook his head.

“Every man has dad issues.” Tori took a long drink of her water.

“I didn’t have a father for very long. He died when I was twelve.” Corin offered a weak grin. “So no issues here.”

“Classic!” Tori smacked the table with both hands. “You have the ol’ didn’t-have-a-dad-as-a-teenager-on-up syndrome so you looked for father figures most of your life, and none of them could measure up to your romanticized fueled-by-the-movies image of what a father would be . . . until you met Tesser. And since you were mature enough by that point to realize no man could be the perfect father, Tesser became the dad you always wanted even with his faults, and you and he lived happily ever after.”

“Do you enjoy psychoanalyzing people?”

“Thoroughly.”

“Fun hobby.” Corin finished his steak and pushed his plate back.

“Am I right? Did you look for father figures?”

She was dead right. Tesser was the closest thing he’d had to a dad, and he’d be loyal to the old professor forever because of it.

“We only spent five or six years really hanging out, but yeah, it was good.”

“During and after college?”

Corin nodded.

“Why’d it stop? What happened?”

“Nothing happened. We saw each other three or four times a year after I graduated, but then I stopped calling as much or he did, and we gradually wound up just talking on the phone every few years. Then it sort of trailed off.”

“You don’t resent him for fading out of your life?”

“Resent him? No. Do I regret not being with him more? Do I regret not picking up the phone or dropping by to see him more often? Sure. But that’s my fault, not his.”

“Your fault?”

Corin shook his head. “He’s been a great friend. There for me whether I called or not.”

“He could have called you. Dads are supposed to pursue sons, not the other way around.”

“He did. And I got busy with life and marriage and would forget to return the call, or I’d put it on my to-do list and never get to it.” Corin slipped his credit card to the edge of the table. “Like I said, my fault.”

“Have you ever told him how you feel? What he meant to you, what he probably still means to you?”

“No.” Corin folded his arms. It might be fun for her—pitching him all these probing questions—but it felt like he was the baseball and Tori was the bat. “Don’t you think it’s about time to tell him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

It was the obvious question. Without an obvious answer. The real reason? Because he was making excuses for Tesser and had just lied to Tori. Tesser hadn’t called after college. Corin had. And Tesser was the one who was poor at returning phone calls. Finally Corin got tired of being the one who picked up the phone and he stopped. He figured Tesser would eventually call, but after a year crawled by, Corin realized he never would. So he stuffed the father figure into the back closet of his heart and hadn’t opened the door again till he’d been inside Tesser’s home yesterday.

But it was okay. Truly. It didn’t matter if Tesser had called him or not. Corin still loved the guy. And he could tell Tesser’s affection for him had never changed. Being with him yesterday had confirmed it.

Corin smiled. “Tesser knows, and so do I.”

After paying their bill, they strolled out of the restaurant and Tori said, “You’re hitting the skies tomorrow with A. C., right?”

“Yep.”

“Who’s watching the store while you’re flying like an eagle?”

“Hailey, as always.”

“Are you looking forward to it?”

Corin drew his hand through the air as if it was a wing cruising on the wind. “Can’t wait. It’s been too long. I’m just hoping A. C. doesn’t talk about anything too deep. I just want to have a nice simple adrenaline rush.”

“What makes you think he’ll—?”

Corin smiled. “Because A. C. said he needed to talk to me about something deep.”

S
hould be a stellar day for soaring across the sky.”

Corin and A. C. tore along the dirt road in Pikes National Forest toward the top of Badger Mountain, flinging up a dust curtain behind them. Corin rolled down his window and stuck his arm out. Warm for this time of year. The thermals should be strong which would keep them in the air for hours.

A. C. hit a pothole that sent Corin toward the ceiling of A. C.’s Jeep. “Hey, think you could keep it under fifty going up this road?”

A. C. laughed. “No problem, we’re only going forty-eight right now. I won’t speed up.”

“Most people crawl up this thing at twenty.”

“We’re not most people.” A. C. threw his head back and let out a whoop.

Sometimes Corin thought A. C. was even crazier than himself. He patted his pants pocket and sighed. “I think I left my cell phone in my truck.”

“So? We’ll touch down at our landing site in an hour. I’m sure your truck and cell phone will be waiting for us down below with big smiles.”

Four trucks and a van came into view to their right as they crested the final rise and pulled into the dusty open space one hundred yards to the right of the mountain’s peak. Three hang gliders looked ready to launch. Another two were doing final testing and checks. Good sign. Other gliders meant the air was handing out thrill-ride thermals for the taking. And Corin was ready to take.

When he was streaking through the air with no sound but the ripple of the wind buffeting his glider and nothing but sky for thousands of feet below him, he never thought of the dream, never thought of Shasta, never thought of his business going bankrupt.

Before A. C.’s Jeep came to a stop, Corin threw the door open, ready to step out into his favorite recipe for freedom.

Twenty minutes later he stood next to A. C. ready to launch, their hang gliders resting side by side, only waiting for the two of them to hoist them up, strap in, and go.

“You have your oxygen?” Corin said.

“Why, you think we’re climbing to fifteen thousand feet or higher?”

“Absolutely.” Corin stared at the sky. “You ready?”

“Did I tell you I went to the doctor?” A. C. patted his left shoulder.

“What for?”

“To have him take a thorough look at my shoulder.”

“I thought it was healed.”

“It is.” Contemplation filled A. C.’s eyes.

“So why’d you go?”

“I wanted the doctor to get in there and look at every muscle, every fiber. To see if it really had been restored. To see if this chair of yours did more than mental gymnastics on me.”

“And?”

“He’s never seen anything like it. He called in three other doctors to see me.” A. C. rubbed his shoulder with a red-gloved hand. “He even pulled up the old X-rays and shot new ones so he could study them side by side.”

“What did he say?”

“He wouldn’t call it a miracle, but he kept saying, ‘This shouldn’t be, this shouldn’t be,’ as he pointed to one X-ray, then the other.” A. C. laughed. “It made me think of that old
Sesame Street
song: ‘One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong.’” He shook his head, then cocked it to the side and pulled his goggles off his face. “Do you know why I’m telling you this?”

“Yeah, because it’s unbelievable.”

“Because I don’t want you to have any doubt I’ve been 100 percent healed.”

“Okay.”

“Because when it really sank in that I’ve been restored, I couldn’t help thinking of something.” A. C. stared at Corin, eyes intense.

“What?”

“It’s made me think of some
one
.” A. C. glanced at the slope in front of them and out toward the shimmering lakes ten miles into the distance, then back at Corin, his eyes still throwing off light like a Fourth of July sparkler.