The Eggnog Chronicles (18 page)
Read The Eggnog Chronicles Online
Authors: Carly Alexander
“And these things might change,” I said.
“Honey, things change all the time. But here's something I'd like you to do, and this is from Lola. Think of where you'd like to be in five years. What would you like to be doing? Where in the world do you want to be?”
I nodded. Right now, I couldn't imagine leaving the Outer Banks, couldn't imagine life without Nate, but I hadn't projected that far into the future. I sighed. “Something to think about when I get a minute.”
“Okay, Lola,” Ben said, putting a beer down in front of her. “I see that you've got the cards out, and I'm ready to cash in on that reading you promised. I'd appreciate if you could tell me what to buy my parents for Christmas, and Tito says you'd better say you see a hottie in my future.”
“Snookems, how can I refuse when you bring me a beer?” Lola pointed to a chair. “Have a seat.”
I started to get up, but Ben gestured for me to stay put as he took the outside chair. “Don't bother getting up. This will be short.”
“Do you think so?” Lola teased him. “In my experience, you quiet ones have a lot going on under the surface. You know: still waters run deep.”
“My life is a blank slate, a tabula rasa,” Ben said with a lazy grin.
“A tabula rasa?” I nudged Ben's arm. Lately he was full of classical allusions, this one referring to the mind before it receives impressions gained from experience. “Geez, Ben, you're taking me right back to grad school days.”
“Everyone has a past, surfer man,” Lola said. “And this gives me a chance to unravel your mysterious past.”
I sneaked a curious look at Ben, wondering about his historyâmainly his romantic history. In the years since he'd come to the Outer Banks no one had seen him dating, and Cracker and I had pursued some wild speculation about his past. In New York I would have assumed such a solo figure was gay, but neither Cracker nor I got that vibe from Ben. He seemed to like women and was kind to every person he met, but emotionally, Ben kept the world at arm's length.
We were all dying to know why.
“Mysterious?” Ben folded his arms across his cable knit sweater. “Me? I've always been totally aboveboard.”
“We'll see about that.” Lola plunked the deck on the table in front of him. “Okay, surfer man. Cut the cards into three stacks.”
As Lola turned over the cards I tried to be discreet. Turning toward the bar, I folded my legs and pretended nonchalance, though I couldn't help but listen.
“The Six of Swords, the Three of Pentacles, the Ace of Cups. And let's see your significator . . . the Hermit. How perfect.”
“That old man is me?” Ben picked up the card and winced. “I may have snow on top, but at least there's no hole in the roof.”
“The Hermit isn't about age. It's about a person who seeks a life of solitude to explore spiritual rebirth.”
“My own private Idaho?” Ben quipped.
“I think you know what it's about, honey.” Lola tapped another card, and I couldn't help but twist around for a look at the Six of Swords, a card with six people on a boat headed toward a light onshore. “See the ship on this card? It's about a voyage, a journey to an unknown destination, an unforeseen future. This is your recent pastâa rite of passage for you. Probably your escape from that other job to come here and start the surf shop.”
“Makes sense,” Ben said.
“Escape from that other job and . . . perhaps a relationship that wasn't working out?”
Ben hid a smile. “You're tracking.”
Lola waggled her fingers at him. “Sometimes it helps me do a reading if you can provide a little information. Helps me make connections.”
“Really?” Ben's brows rose skeptically. “And here I thought you were supposed to be reading my cards.”
“Was this a marriage?” Lola probed.
“You could say that. Legally, yes, it was. But it's over. In the past.”
Lola took a deep breath, as if sucking in the vibe from him. “Okay, then. Now the Three of Pentacles is a work card. It indicates work or skilled labor that will lead to commercial success, but your shop is closed now, isn't it?”
Ben nodded, but I couldn't resist. “Yes, but Ben has agreed to help out in The Christmas Elf this weekend. He's playing Santa.”
“Aah!” Lola grinned. “That's it. Because this card usually refers to work performed together with others. Joint efforts and harmonious partnerships.”
“Works for me. How about this ace?” Ben pointed to the Ace of Cups, which showed a beautiful, mermaidlike woman drinking from a chalice besides a giant water wheel. “I think this might be the card Tito had in mind.”
Lola smiled. “My husband might be a little psychic. You see this woman? She's the Goddess Minne, which means Love. This is the most benevolent card, Ben. It is happiness, love, pleasure, and home. This, my friend, is the jackpot of love.”
“Wait a minute!” I protested in mock indignation. “How did he get that?”
Ben smiled. “Jealous?”
“Definitely.” I tapped the table. “Come on, Lola. I want a reshuffle.”
“Children, children.” Lola shook her head, collecting the cards. “One reading per customer. Besides, Tito and I have to get going. The kids are probably having an X-Box marathon. I need to pull the plug.”
We all decided to call it a night. Even Cracker was going to kick out his last two patrons soon and close up so that he could get an early start at The Elf tomorrow.
“Closing up early for you,” Lola said. “That's a good friend.”
“For Cracker, an early start is anytime before noon,” I said. “But I have a feeling I'm going to need the help, especially since the weather seems to be clearing.”
“What happened to our nor'easter?” I asked as I stepped out onto the plank board porch of the Crusty Captain.
“Looks like it fizzled into a southwester,” Tito joked.
Lola and Tito offered me a ride home but I thought the fresh air would do me good, and Ben was walking in the same direction. We said goodnight, then headed across the highway, figuring it was mild enough to walk along the beach. We stayed on the road, avoiding the man-made dunes built to preserve the coastline, then cut down the path into the cold sand. The winds had softened to a brisk breeze and the sky had cleared to angry dark clouds racing briskly over the horizon. I turned my face toward the Atlantic, awed by the glow of the Appaloosa moon against the water.
“Somehow, you just never get sick of the ocean,” I said. “This is such a magical place.”
“A magical place with a sordid past.”
“Oh, really? How's that?”
He swung around to scowl at me. “Don't tell me you don't know how Nag's Head got its name?”
I shrugged. “Well, no. A nag is a type of horse, right?”
“An old horse. Legend has it that horses with lanterns were used to lure ships close to the shore for pillaging. This was in the early eighteenth century, when some of the landlubbers who called themselves âbankers' got wind of how profitable pirating could be, as proven by Blackbeard. So the bankers draped old horses with lanterns and walked them up and down the beach at night. Merchant skippers in the waters offshore would see the lights and assume they were coming from other ships, closer to the shore. The skippers would move their precious cargo closer and consequently run aground. Then the bankers would go aboard the stranded ships and steal their cargo.”
“Blimey!” I grinned. “That is quite a history. I always knew that Blackbird sailed these waters, but land pirates.”
“They still exist,” Ben said. “Only now they're called realtors.”
“You got that right. But don't rank on Nate just because you feel sorry for me. We should dish about him because he deserves it.”
“Who said I feel sorry for you?”
He sounded so earnest, I had to smile. “Okay, we'll skip the pity party for poor Ricki.” The girl who was abandoned by her boyfriend. You'd think that you'd outgrow romantic embarrassment in your twenties, but somehow that feeling of no-date-on-prom-night lingers.
I decided to change the subject. “You know, Ben, you pulled some very interesting cards tonight.”
“Did I? The illustrations on those tarot cards are so vivid and wild, it's hard to tell.”
“But you've got to admit, your future . . . the Ace of Cups? I really envy you. I wish I could trade futures.”
“Trade futures? I have a cousin who used to do that on Wall Street, but he had to give it up after a few years. Too much pressure. You think my hair is prematurely gray? Three months on the trading floor and he was completely bald.”
The breeze lifted his silver hair, teasing strands over his forehead. His hair looked white-blond in the darkness. “Okay, funny guy. I'll take your tarot cards and your hair, too.”
“Nah. You don't want to be the old hermit.”
“You'd be surprised,” I said, thinking that a life of isolation might be preferable to a life wrought with confrontation and disappointment. Arguments over an ex-wife's hidden agenda, over taking out the trash, over the merits of eggnog versus buttermilk. All day I'd been worried about going home to an empty house, but in truth, the solitude would be a relief.
“Do you believe in destiny?” Ben asked.
“Destiny? I don't know. I hate to think that our futures are set in stone. No, I think life throws obstacles and opportunities in our paths, and maybe that's a form of destiny. But I don't think there's a predetermined timeline that we're all following. How about you? What do you think?”
“I don't know, either.” Walking slowly, hands in his pockets, Ben studied the sky. “It's all a mystery, I guess. We've got such a short time on this planet, and we spend so much of it jockeying for position, trying to find a place, a person, a creed that helps us make sense of it. Like you said the other night, like those cards showed us: we look for the symbols and signs that may or may not mean anything.”
“I like to think they mean something,” I said. “I have to believe that.”
“I've got another question for you, but this is one you should take your time with.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Are you happy with Nate?”
It was a bit of a shocker, hearing such a personal question after our metaphysical discussion. “Of course!”
“See, now, you weren't paying attention. I told you to take your time and there you go answering without thinking.”
I shrugged. “There are some things you just know, Ben. Nate brought me to this beautiful patch of the planet, led me to my friends here, my Outer Banks family. I wouldn't be here right now without Nate, right?”
“There's a difference between feeling happy and feeling grateful,” Ben said. He stared out at the dark water, as if he were trying to identify the clouds gathering in the sky. His silence let me take in the splash of black water against the sand, the rattle of wind in the tall grass of the dunes.
I loved this place. When had Nate and I stopped taking nighttime walks along the water and morning jogs down the beach? He was always too busy. I was too tired. And to be honest, I didn't remember when the feeling of happiness had faded, but it had fled somewhere between the push for Nate's divorce and my yearning to move our relationship to another level. But that stage was temporary, wasn't it? We would find each other again, reconnect, when he returned on Tuesday. What had Lola said? A crossroads was coming up. We were just going through a phase. “Nate and I are going through a rough patch,” I said quietly. “Which happens, I guess. You know, you can't expect to be happy every day.”
Ben tipped his face down toward me. “Why not?”
Wide-eyed, I turned away without answering. Maybe it was a rhetorical question, but it lingered in the wind for awhile. “Were you happy every day?” I asked. “Back when you were married?”
“In the beginning, yes. In the end, there was just no happiness in sight for either of us. That's why we had to end it.”
“Was it a bad split?”
“It was all pretty amenable, but it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It's hard to walk away when you love someone,” he said, his eyes catching mine with a cryptic message. “But we wanted different things. A different lifestyle. I wanted kids, she had no interest in diapers and bottles. I think we each thought the other person would come around eventually, but that wasn't going to happen unless one of us sacrificed our dreams. In the end, it was just too much to sacrifice.”
So they had ended it, and Ben had become the hermit, nursing a wounded heart. I reached up and touched the shoulder of his jacket. “I'm sorry.”
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