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NAVIGATION
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"Sometimes, a feeling that has always been there takes you by surprise." |
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David might have been a Stranger to Lizzie and Frankie, but to Kate he was her best friend. Now that David is in love will he leave Kate behind and forget about her, or will he find that sometimes the things you want most in life have been there all along? |
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Title: Eres (You Are) by: Cafe Tacuba
You are,
What I most love in this world, that’s what you are
My deepest contemplation, you are also that
Just tell me what to do, here I am for you
You are,
When I wake up the first thing in my mind, that’s what you are
What is missing from my life when you don’t show up
The only beauty that inhabits my mind today
What else can I tell you
Perhaps I can lie to you, for no reason
But what I feel today is that without you I’m dead because you are…
What I most love in this world, that’s what you are
You are,
The time that I contribute, that’s what you are
What people promise when they love
My salvation, my hope, and my faith
I am,
The one that wants to love you like no other, that’s who I am
The one that would provide for you day, by day, by day, by day
The one that would give his life for you, that’s who I am
Here I am at your side and I will wait seated until the end
You haven’t guessed, what I have waited for you because you are…
What I most love in this world, that’s what you are
Each minute what I think about, that’s what you are
What I care most for in this world…
That’s what you are
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A faint and obnoxious sound crept its way into Kate’s dreams and grew louder with each ring. It was 2 in the morning, who in their right mind would be calling at this hour, Kate wondered as she picked up the phone.
“Hello?” she mumbled into the receiver.
“Kate it’s me, open the door it’s freezing out here.” Said a very familiar male voice on the other end of the line.
No wonder, Kate said to herself as she hanged up the phone without replying. Indeed the person outside her front door was insane. Only he would be inconsiderate enough to wake her up in the middle of her much needed sleep.
What the heck was he thinking? It wasn’t like he didn’t know she had to get up in 4 hours so she could catch the bus to go to work. But still he didn’t touch his heart to wake her up just so that she could open the damn door.
Dragging her feet, unsure of what exactly she was doing, Kate stumbled to the door, turned the lock counter clockwise and pulled as hard as her sleeping body allowed it. Yet the door was stopped by a lock chain at the top. She opened her eyes a little more and saw a pair of green eyes staring at her through the small crack the partially opened door left.
“I told you I hated that stupid chain.” The voice from the phone told her with the most charming Scottish accent ever heard.
Kate yawned and removed the chain from its safe opening the door at last and allowing a tall and handsome man inside. He was about 35 years old, muscular but not overly, and a little over six feet tall but he seemed much taller next to Kate's tiny five three frame. He was wearing faded jeans, a dark green t-shirt and worn black leather jacket. His hair was cut quite short and he needed to shave soon.
The man was carrying over his shoulder a medium size brown military bag that he dropped on the floor as soon as he was in the house.
“It’s so @#%$ cold out there.” He told Kate as he rubbed his hands together vigorously.
“Yeah yeah.” Kate responded yawning again. “Close the door.”
Five minutes later Kate was holding herself up against the wall and blinking to try to keep her eyes open as her guest talked and talked about his latest adventure. Except for this one didn’t involve a voluptuous blonde, or a stunning brunette, not even a flaming red street race car.
“And when she asked for my name, I asked her what the kid father’s name was and get this, she said Davey. Ironic huh?”
“Uh huh….” Kate said yawning yet again.
“Are you listening to me?!”
“Ah, what, where?!... I’m sorry David I’m just really tired. Couldn’t we talk about it tomorrow?”
“Of course.” The man said with a disappointed look on his face that Kate chose to ignore.
“Okay then. Drop it on the couch like usual…Good night.”
“Yeah, some kind of best friend you are.” David called out to her as Kate walked into her room.
Exhausted and not in the mood to argue, Kate just waved good bye as got back into bed. |
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Four hours later, Kate’s alarm clock went off as loud as a train crossing the railroad tracks.
“Bob damn it!” Kate shouted as she slammed her open palm on the apparatus.
“Shut that @#%$ thing off Kate!” David screamed all the way from the living room couch.
Finally turning the darn thing off, Kate threw the covers aside and sat on the edge of the bed. She shook her head four times and yawned forcefully before letting another scream out.
“Aarrgghh!”
Almost instantly David was at her side thinking she was having a heart attack or something of the sort.
“What the hell Kate?! You know I hate it when you do that!” he said turning to go back to his couch.
Kate saw that he was only wearing his boxers and a muscle shirt. Then she laughed quietly as David scratched his bottom while walking away.
“Hey David.”
“What?” he asked already back on the couch.
“Come sleep on my bed, I’m leaving for work in thirty minutes.” She told him as she entered her bathroom.
When Kate got out of the bathroom she found David sound asleep on her bed with the covers all the way up to his head. Now why on earth would someone sleep like that? She wondered. Don’t you need fresh air once every two breaths at least? Yuck!
“I’m leaving!” she said loudly as she grabbed her keys from the dresser.
There was no response from David. He was either asleep or pretending to be.
When David heard the front door closing, he immediately sat up on the bed and grabbed the phone on the night stand. He dialed his sister’s number and waited for her to answer.
“Hello?” Marie’s voice asked
“Hey Marie, it’s me.”
“Good morning David.” His sister said in a motherly tone.
“Good morning. Did she ask about me?” he asked hurriedly
“A nice ‘how are you doing’ would be appreciated.”
“Come on, just tell me.” David insisted
“She just wondered who you were. Nothing more.”
“So, did you tell her?”
“You told me not to.”
David changed the phone to his other ear as he answered to Marie’s comment.
“I told you not to say anything during the weekend. But you can tell her now.”
“Relax. I told her you were my brother. But I don’t want you to be playing around with Lizzie, she is my friend.”
“Now you relax, I truly liked her.” He said to Marie
“You truly like every girl you meet.”
“That’s not true, I don’t like you.” David said laughing at this own joke.
Annoyed Marie sighted before responding to his rudeness.
“It’s a shame you are not the mysterious, quiet, and charming lad you played out to be with Lizzie. But tell me, where are you?”
“At Kate’s.”
“I swear one of these days I’m going to talk Kate into letting you sleep on the street. You can’t drop in on her like that, one day she’ll have company and she is going to send you straight to hell.”
“Nah, she wouldn’t do that.” David said smiling
But when he had hanged up, David still was asking himself whether or not Kate would truly deny him shelter if she had a boyfriend over. Would his best friend pick a man over him? She had already refused to listen to his tale about Lizzie and her son, what else was to come before she sent him packing?
It can’t be, David told himself, I can’t be losing my best friend. |
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“So go back and ask her out.” Kate said to David after hearing all about Lizzie.
“I can’t do that.” He told her as he served her more spaghetti and meatballs on her plate.
He had cooked her dinner so she would sit and listen to his ramblings.
“Why not?” she asked putting a whole meatball in her mouth.
“Darn Kate you have a huge mouth!”
“Shut up.” She tried saying through the meatball.
David laughed before returning to their previous topic.
“Because the deal was for me to disappear after it was all over.”
“But you said she asked about you. That means she is interested.” Kate said with her eyebrow raised.
“I don’t know.”
“This is the first girl I have heard you say you actually ‘like’ and you don’t want to see her again? You got problems.”
“I just wouldn’t know what to say. I mean one minute I am the kid’s dad, then I am not, then I leave, then I go back, and introduce myself as what to the kid, his dad’s evil twin?” David asked sarcastically
Jokingly Kate nodded agreeing. But when she saw David’s face she knew he really wanted to see that Lizzie girl again.
“Tell you what," she said taking a drink from her glass “this weekend, we will go visit your sister and we’ll see how it goes from there. If you happen to come across Lizzie, you say hello and invite her to dinner. Deal?”
David looked at hid friend with obvious disapproval.
“Deal?” she asked again
“Okay.” He finally answered taking a drink from her glass.
“Great. Watch out Lizzie, David will shag you if it’s the last thing he does!”
David laughed abruptly at her reply and he spit water all over her.
“Eww gross.” Kate said truly disgusted. |
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By late afternoon the next Friday, David and Kate were getting off the bus in the town where Marie lived. It had been a three hour trip and they were both tired and hungry. They walked together toward Marie’s home. The more David told Kate about Lizzie and her son, the more she believed that perhaps this woman could be ‘the one’ for her friend.
“She’s been hurt before that is why I don’t want to seem too aggressive.” David told Kate with a concerned look on his face.
“Sometimes aggressive isn’t necessarily bad.”
“It would be in this case.” He said knowingly.
“She seems to me a woman perfectly capable of dealing with you. You just have to let her know how you feel.” Kate insisted.
Half an hour later the pair had reached Marie’s door step. David was noticeably in a hurry to get inside his sister’s home, almost like he was hiding.
“What wrong David?” Kate asked him as Marie opened her door.
When she saw her brother and his friends Marie let out a delighted scream and hugged Kate affectionately.
“Katie!” Marie said releasing the girl.
“Hey Marie.” Kate responded smiling.
“Hello Marie, hello Kate. Go in you two.” David told both the women as he pushed his way inside the apartment.
They followed David without complaining but once they were inside Marie tried to calm her brother.
“He knows all about it David.”
“What?’ he asked confused.
“Frankie.” Marie simply answered.
“The kid?” Kate asked intrigued, yet totally lost in the conversation.
“Yes. He knew it all along it seems. Lizzie told me a week after you had left. Frankie wrote you a letter, but thinking you would never come back Lizzie didn’t show it to me.”
“I thought you said you told her I’m your brother?” he asked
“I did. But that is all she asked.”
“Wait a minute. She asked for him?” Kate interrupted once more.
“Yes.” Marie said
“See?” Kate told David “I told you she would want to see you.”
He didn’t answer; he just stood there looking at Marie wondering why she didn’t want him to pursue a relationship with Lizzie. She was always telling him to settle down, and now that he had found someone he truly liked she appeared to be against it.
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The next morning, Kate went with Marie to her shop to help her a little while David went to find a hardware store. Marie’s shower had been leaking all night, making the most annoying noise he and Kate had ever heard. When David woke up that morning the first thing on his mind was getting that showerhead fixed.
“Should I just leave the paper here?” Kate shouted out to Marie who was in the back room of the store.
There was no answer so Kate deposited the newspaper on the counter. She would wait until Marie got back to ask her again. But she had placed the paper to close to the edge and it fell over the counter onto the other side.
“Aww no!” Kate said sadly
Kate was knelt down behind the counter trying to get the paper together. It was taking her quite a while because those pages were all over the floor.
Suddenly, Kate heard banging on the counter and she stood to look at a boy with small brown eyes staring at her wondering. He couldn’t be older than 10, maybe less.
They stood looking at each other for a quite some time until Kate spoke.
“Can I help you?’ she said friendly.
The boy did not answer her, instead he pointed to the notepad next to her. Before Kate could say anything, Marie came back in the room.
“Hey!” she said merrily making the boy smile.
Kate looked at Marie and smiled too, then she turned to the boy.
“Kate, this is Frankie. Frankie, this is my friend Kate.” Marie said introducing them as he handed the notepad to the boy.
Kate saw the boy writing something on one of the page, then turned it for the women to see.
Chips, it read.
“Sure thing.” Marie answered as she began to fill his order.
“Do you know Sign Language?” Kate asked Frankie in sign
All of a sudden the boy’s face lid up and he smiled widely as he responded to her with another question.
“Do you?”
Kate returned the smile before answering.
“Yes.”
Marie’s mouth dropped as she witness the two of them talking to each other with graceful moves of their hands.
“Are you deaf?” Frankie asked Kate
“No. My brother was, he is gone now.” She answered sadly, and then smiled again “I need more practice. Would you like to help me practice?”
“Yes.” Frankie told her, then he started signing to the speed of lighting and Kate just had to laugh at his eagerness to help her.
“Wow! Slow down.” She told him “I’m not as good as you.”
This made Frankie smile shyly. He paid for his chips, grabbed the bag a speechless Marie handed to him, and said goodbye to Kate with a wave of his hands as he left.
“What was that?” Marie asked Kate as soon as Frankie was gone.
“He is nice.” Said Kate returning to the floor to continue retrieving the paper.
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"Kate knows Sign language?!" David asked surprised as he tightened the showerhead in Marie's bathroom.
"Oh my Bob!" his sister exclaimed "You have known the girl for almost eight years, you two are best friends, you sleep at her place more than anywhere else, and you didn't know this?!"
"It's not like she ever mentioned." David defended himself.
He was struggling a bit with the showerhead but he would never admit it. His mind was wondering somewhere else, he was not sure why but he kept thinking why Kate never mentioned her signing abilities. It was an awful feeling, he realized, the guilt that his sister knew something so personal about his best friend and he did not.
“Kate!” David shouted out wanting to clear his thoughts “Kate!”
Soon she was standing just outside the bathroom looking at both Marie and her brother with a questioning glance.
“What?” she asked impatiently
“Why didn’t you tell me you know Sign language?” David asked serious
“You never asked.” Kate responded
Marie giggled then stopped as David began speaking again.
“But you never told me.”
“Am I supposed to say sorry?” Kate wondered innocently “I guess it slipped my mind. Besides, it wasn’t one of the requirements on your best friend application, so I never thought it would matter.”
David sighted.
“It’s just odd that you never told me, that’s all.” He said “And you could have taught me a few things so I could have something to share with Frankie.” He added smiling.
Kate smiled at Marie then at David.
“I can still show you some words.” Kate offered “But only if you take me out to dance tonight.”
“Fine.” David agreed.
Suddenly both Marie and David ran out of the bathroom almost knocking Kate to the ground as David dropped the showerhead and accidentally turned the water knob with his leg. Water splashed everywhere wetting the siblings.
The three of them laughed as they tried to decide who would be the brave one to enter the room and stop the water.
“You two are cowards.” David said preparing bravely for a splash of cold water.
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"Kate knows Sign language?!" David asked surprised as he tightened the showerhead in Marie's bathroom.
"Oh my Bob!" his sister exclaimed "You have known the girl for almost eight years, you two are best friends, you sleep at her place more than anywhere else, and you didn't know this?!"
"It's not like she ever mentioned." David defended himself.
He was struggling a bit with the showerhead but he would never admit it. His mind was wondering somewhere else, he was not sure why but he kept thinking why Kate never mentioned her signing abilities. It was an awful feeling, he realized, the guilt that his sister knew something so personal about his best friend and he did not.
“Kate!” David shouted out wanting to clear his thoughts “Kate!”
Soon she was standing just outside the bathroom looking at both Marie and her brother with a questioning glance.
“What?” she asked impatiently
“Why didn’t you tell me you know Sign language?” David asked serious
“You never asked.” Kate responded
Marie giggled then stopped as David began speaking again.
“But you never told me.”
“Am I supposed to say sorry?” Kate wondered innocently “I guess it slipped my mind. Besides, it wasn’t one of the requirements on your best friend application, so I never thought it would matter.”
David sighted.
“It’s just odd that you never told me, that’s all.” He said “And you could have taught me a few things so I could have something to share with Frankie.” He added smiling.
Kate smiled at Marie then at David.
“I can still show you some words.” Kate offered “But only if you take me out to dance tonight.”
“Fine.” David agreed.
Suddenly both Marie and David ran out of the bathroom almost knocking Kate to the ground as David dropped the showerhead and accidentally turned the water knob with his leg. Water splashed everywhere wetting the siblings.
The three of them laughed as they tried to decide who would be the brave one to enter the room and stop the water.
“You two are cowards.” David said preparing bravely for a splash of cold water.
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