Still reading my first serial romance? This chapter marks the halfway point in our story, Our Love is Here to Stay. If you need to go back and start at the beginning, go here. Otherwise, read on.
After weeks of missed connections, this was getting old. Not to mention confusing. Very confusing. This was the fourth Swing Night Thursday that found Matthew and Patty huddled in a corner of The Green Mill trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
His confusion was clearly real, so she no longer doubted his sincerity, and his knowledge of the city was good enough that she couldn’t blame his absence four consecutive Saturday nights on an inability to find her apartment. Besides, after the third week of the problem, they had agreed to meet at Miller’s Pub instead. The Wabash establishment was well known to them both, which should have eliminated any problems.
“I was there, I swear I was,” Matthew told her now, sounding like a broken record. “Right at 7:30, the agreed upon time. And I called again to confirm but that new phone number you gave me is no better than the first. Both are still out of order.
“But I called that number yesterday and it was working just fine,” Patty argued. “And I was in the very front booth at Millers’. Sure, it was crowded, but I couldn’t have missed seeing you arrive. This just doesn’t make any sense.”
She sat pondering the problem in silence. She wanted to get to know him better, to talk together without shouting over the band. She couldn’t explain this problem and she knew he was telling the truth about being there – she could read it in his open, honest expression. She could feel the frustration in his increasing need to touch her hand or her hair. She knew he wanted to kiss her, and she wanted to kiss him back. But not in such a public place
“I missed you,” Matthew told her in a whisper before the band struck up “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” to drown out his voice. His mouth, warm and close to her ear, sent a shiver up her spine. If she turned her head, his mouth would be just inches from hers, his lips could be resting on her cherry ones in just seconds. She could imagine them, firm and pressing against hers, fancy the feel of his arms pulling her closer.
She was wearing another new dress, bought with the money she’d been saving from her paychecks ever since she’d met him. She had picked this one, a lovely blue floral better suited to warmer weather, specifically to enhance the blue of her eyes. She knew Matthew loved her eyes. He spoke to her repeatedly about their unusual color and their hypnotic effect on him. She had worn the dress for dinner Saturday night, but there was no reason not to wear it again. He hadn’t seen it the first time.
I missed you, too,” she told him, speaking to the air instead of turning into that imagined kiss. She had longed to be with him, thought about him when she should have been thinking about work or paying attention to her family during Sunday dinner. She felt closer to this handsome stranger after spending less than twenty hours with him than she had to anyone before. He made her heart leap in her chest when she spied his handsome visage above the crowd each week, relieved to discover he had not returned to California in the intervening days
“We need a solution to this problem,” he was telling her now. “I am pretty good at solving problems, I do it at work every day, but I can’t figure out what is wrong, so I can’t figure out how to fix it.” A scowl furrowed between his brows, puzzling over the problem. “I have no clue what I am missing..
“Or me,” Patty offered. “Maybe I am messing up somehow.”
“I am sick of shouting over the music,” Matthew told her, grabbing her hand and leading her toward the door. He stopped at the coat check and handed the chits to the young woman for both of their coats. He shrugged his on, helped Patty into hers and dropped a dollar in the brandy snifter for tips, earning him a dazzling smile from the girl
“I’ll keep you warm,” he said, his husky voice insinuating more as he buttoned the top button on Patty’s wool coat. He pulled up her collar and wrapped his wool scarf around her neck. “But I need five minutes of quiet and privacy with you.”
Patty happily allowed him to drag her along to the door. She had waited long enough to kiss Matthew, had thought of little more since the first time she met him, and wanted the same five minutes he did. She took hold of his gloved hand and weaved her way to the door, nodding to the bouncer as she stepped outside.
Somehow Matthew had lost hold of her gloved fingers as they moved through the door and when she stepped outside he was nowhere to be seen. She looked to her right and left, waited a full minute for him to catch up with her, then stepped back through the door. The warmth assailed her, along with the hot sounds of “Route 66” but there was no sign of Matthew. She caught a few warm breaths, looked around carefully and stepped into the cold again. Still no Matthew.
Beginning to shiver with the cold, wishing she had worn warm boots instead of her new spectator pumps, Patty gave up waiting after another two minutes and stepped back into the warmth. There was Matthew, chatting with the coat check girl and shrugging out of his coat. Had he been standing there the entire time?
“What happened to you? Have you been standing here all this time?” Patty tried not to appear irritated, She could sense the girl was attracted to Matthew and worried that Matthew might return her interest. The girl was displaying too much cleavage for Patty’s peace of mind as she leaned over the divided door eavesdropping. Patty grabbed Matthew’s arm and pulled him away from the coat closet
“I thought we were going outside,” she continued exasperated. “Where were you?”
“I was outside,” he bit back, equally exasperated. “What happened to you? You were holding my hand one second, then you let go and disappeared.
“Matthew, I disappeared outside. I went right out the door but you were gone. I came back in but didn’t see you and then I went out again, only to come in and find you flirting with that girl.” Patty nodded her head in the direction of the coat check area, not bothering to restrain the jealousy in her voice.
“Flirting? Why would I be flirting? I was asking her if she had seen you. I went out, couldn’t find you anywhere, so I came in and asked her where you’d gone.
“You were outside? Right outside?”
“Right outside,” Matthew confirmed.
“But I was standing right there, just outside the door. There was no way you wouldn’t have seen me. Did you go around the corner?”
“Only when I couldn’t find you,” he explained. “And then only for a second.This makes absolutely no sense. We are going to hold hands. We are going to go outside and talk, and I am going to kiss you. Right now. Any objections?” Matthew donned his coat once more and offered Patty a mischievous grin full of promise.
“None whatsoever, Matthew.” Patty flashed him a brilliant smile. Her luminous eyes twinkled as she wrapped her fingers in his gloved hand. “Lead on, sir.”
Matthew took the ten steps to the door ahead of Patty. She stayed close to his side and held tight to his hand. He opened the door, stepped through, and was gone. Totally gone. She could no longer see him, no longer feel him. Her hand was empty and so was the street. A light snow had started falling, illuminated in The Green Mill sign, but there was no sign of Matthew.
Patty stepped further out and then back into the club. One minute later – maybe less – Matthew came through the door toward her, shaking snow off his coat. How could he have been outside without her seeing him?
“OK, you let go of me again,” he began. She was furiously shaking her head at him. She felt like the floor had dropped out beneath her, or perhaps only her stomach
“I didn’t, I swear. Let’s go out again, but I’ll go first this time, okay? You follow me.” He nodded his acquiescence and she pushed open the door, stepping once again into the snowy night. Matthew should have been right behind her, but when the door closed on the club she was standing outside alone.
She opened the door to step back in to find Matthew standing there looking as if he had seen a ghost. Perhaps he was a ghost. She didn’t know what to think. He grabbed her hand and pulled her out the door again. Same thing. She was standing on the sidewalk but he was no where to be seen. She pulled open the door and saw him standing just inside. He stepped out and she stayed inside, peeking out onto the empty sidewalk. Matthew was not there.
Finally, after repeating this baffling activity several times, Igor told them to make up their minds, “In or out,” he shouted. Matthew undid his coat buttons, looking to Patty as if he were in a trance. She knew she was, there was no logical explanation but that. She handed him her coat, he threw them over a barstool and dropped into the empty seat beside it as if his legs would no longer hold him. He pulled her to stand between his thighs and touched her hair reverently.
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“You are real, right? You are flesh and blood, not an apparition?”
“Of course I am real. Are you? You completely disappeared as soon as I was outside.
“You did the same.”
“I know,” she nodded. He kept touching her, lightly grazing his fingers across her cheek, running a hand over her sleek hair, damp from the snow. He brushed his fingers back and forth over her hand. She looked down at his hand stroking hers and he stopped abruptly.
“Sorry. I am just reassuring myself you are here.”
“I’m here. Are you? What’s happening?” She looked about the room but everything looked normal. Her friends were across the way arguing about something, or out on the dance floor, feet flying though the steps of a jitterbug.
“There has to be an explanation,” he said as much to convince himself as her. “You are Patty Dennison.” She nodded yes. “I am Matthew Herrington.” She nodded again. “It’s Swing Night at The Green Mill.” Again she agreed. “Thursday, February 26, 2015.”
Patty started to nod automatically before her jaw went slack and her mouth dropped open. A sick feeling sank into her stomach and her mouth went dry. “Say that again,” she told Matthew, struggling to get the words out.
“It’s Swing Night at The Green Mill or the date?”
“The date,” Patty whispered hoarsely. She held her breath as the answer came, her happiness, and perhaps her sanity, hanging in the balance.
“Thursday, February 26, 2015.”
Patty felt herself losing control, swaying on her feet but could do nothing to stop it. Something in her face must have alarmed Matthew because he took hold of her upper arms with some muscle and pressed her, “What? What is it, Patty? What the hell is wrong? Are you sick?”
She needed to sit down. She needed to undo the last month of her life, go back to a time when this man didn’t turn her world upside down. When her heart was her own, and not his. When things were normal.
“I must be sick,” she spoke slowly as if to a child, “because I swear I just heard you say it’s 2015 when anyone here can tell you it’s…
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How could she tell him this without accusing him of being insane? Of them both being insane perhaps? How could she make sense of something that made absolutely no sense?
“It’s what, Patty? Tell me,” he was shaking her lightly now, bringing her back to her senses. Better to get this over with. Then she could figure out how to get away from this lovely man who was obviously insane. She would forget him in time.
“Matthew. It is Swing Night and this is Thursday. But it’s not – what did you say? 2015. It’s 1950, Matthew. It’s Thursday February 23,1950.” A tear slid from her eye as she watched shock register on Matthew’s face and she felt her opportunity for true love slip away.