The Purple Dolphin

                                    AT THE PURPLE DOLPHIN
         
        Pushing the remains of her third Peach Margarita across the small patio table  towards the waitress, Hope accepted another. Her fourth? Yes, yes, she was quite certain, just her fourth. Delicious, and comforting, crushed ice, infused with velvet smooth liqueur, embracing the essence of the fruit that speaks of love. A girls best friend; especially when she's contemplating a love that so very recently joined the ranks of those 'once upon a time' fairy tales – about two hours before to be more exact.
         The melancholy of remembrance gave the impression of an amused smile lighting her eyes, but studied it would be recognized as irony. She had honestly,
– naively for a woman of her age – believed that promises so passionately given were from the heart. He had a heart, hadn't he? Look how generous he'd been with his time, his dreams, her dreams, their dreams. His wacky sense of humor. She loved it. Had loved it. In remembering she thought she could still love it. But in the reality of remembering all she could see were the kisses he was sharing with another woman, as she strolled, on a whim, into their favorite, their own special out-of-the-way bistro.
         Where had she been these last few months? My God! Forty-three years old and thinking herself madly in love with a kid of twenty-eight! A god, to be sure, but a kid! Well, almost, but what was she trying to do? Make up for all the
precious years she'd lost, years when she could have learned so much about love?
“Take a look at what that turned you into Hope Walden! The fool who just had to rush in, trampling over the angels!”
         “Yes, look at me, everyone!” She wanted to scream to the crowded tables. “Have a good look at the great successful real estate broker, who never had time for anything to do with love, who finally broke out of her hard little shell only to go raving mad! Love! Love? I bloody well don't know what love is!...I don't know....but I want to....want to....to remember how he....Huh! Remember what?”
         An unsteady hand raised towards the waitress signaled a refill.
        Why bother to remember. He was gone. Gone, and no wind was going to bring him back, or throw them together again as it once had, during a chilling, biting, wonderful storm that literally pushed them into each others arms.
         That was what was wrong! Of course! Too dramatic. Too intense. Too marvelous, too marvelous for words. A mist of a smile breathed across her lips as she hummed the melody of an almost forgotten song. The very first tear found its way down her carefully made up cheek.
         Gazing into her newly arrived fifth Margarita, Hope studied the contents with the intensity of a Gypsy fortune teller, and through the blur of peach essence,
began to see, quite clearly, what she had been blind to before.
          “Maybe,” the thought came to her, “the illusion that memory is honest and reliable, leads to more pain than the actual truth - which, we refuse to believe.”
         Whoops! The philosopher, found in all drinks served to the lonely, and recently dropped, was born again, stirred up by the lazy twirling of a maraschino cherry, rising unbidden from the bottom of the glass to have her say. Her own Peach Margarita self-help guru.
         “Yes, that's where the real pain lies. Pretending we're holding the hand of a forever love, when forever could well have ended yesterday. We keep trying to bring the past with us, instead of preparing for the unknown of tomorrow.”
         Wow! She was sailing! Help was on its way! “Another, please,” she slurred to a passing waitress. “Oh, and an itsy bitsy half carafe of lovely Rose would be nice, sooo nice....thank you.” Two waitresses? Twins? How sweet....such excellent service.
         She gazed into the cloudy archives of her mind to see a man and a woman careening  around the same corner from opposite directions, the wind sweeping them into each other arms, swirling them into a mad crazy dance. Crushed together, clutching at each other as they gyrated along the sidewalk, fighting the wind, thrilled by the moment, and then, by sheer good luck, stopping themselves from a chilling tumble into a mountain of icy slush.
               “We should have laughed and said goodbye. How silly to think it was a beginning. Hell, it was only a beginning preparing for the end.” She mused through a haze of peach ice. “Nothing more.”
         “What was I thinking? Or imagining?”
         Ice cold liqueur, sipped lovingly through a straw, tried vainly to soothe her.
         Immersed in the movie of their first meeting: the laughter blown about by the sharing wind; the rush to the nearest coffee house for something hot and sweet; the breathless, fun filled introduction, Hope's newly acquired philosophical wisdom began to slip away. Eyes emptying tears into her glass, the pain now without solace, she began a slow, slump, forward.
         From the edge of the vortex into which she was spiraling a hand reached out and held her, as the blue of the sky disappeared into darkness.                                             
                                        - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
         Gradually emerging from her alcohol induced sleep, the dryness in her mouth and throat almost painful, Hope reached out, searching the air.
        “My drink. Where's my drink?” Squeezed out through unmoving lips.
        An eye strained in its effort to open. A small slit appeared, showed a touch of green, but stabbed to its very center closed again, then carefully reopened.
         Something was different. The table was gone, her drink was gone, and she
knew, at least she was sure she knew, that she had not, definitely had not walked away from them herself.
         With a painful jab she remembered!
         The Margaritas, the guru, then....falling! She'd passed out? In front of everyone! Oh, God! How could she? She felt terrible! Her head!
         “Hello! Glad to see you're back.” A strong, deep voice – comforting as a warm blanket – wrapped itself around her. She snuggled into it.
          “Don't move, just lie still,” soothed the voice.
         Hope appreciated the advice; besides, she had no intention of doing anything so foolish.
         “If you're up to it, I'll quietly introduce myself.”
         She fluttered an eyelid.
         “Rene Halliwell, owner of the Purple Dolphin. The Pub? You're in my office    ..ahem.. 'recuperating'. Caught you just as you were about to be badly cut by your Margarita glass.”
          She snuggled further into the folds of his voice.
          “It seems you not only wanted to get as much liquor into you as possible, you also planned to drown in it. A very tasty death, but unnecessary.”          
           From far away, Hope thought, “I could so easily fall asleep inside that voice.
Oh, yes, a most...attrac...tive....voi..” And prepared to do just that.
          “Nope! No you don't. That won't do.” He shook her gently. “Come on, we've got to get you back on your feet, and surprise, surprise, I have a nice hot drink  waiting to help.”
          An arm, strong, with soft curly hair, supported her throbbing head, while a hand, displaying dark haired knuckles, held a cup of very strong black coffee to her lips.
        “If you will forgive my impertinence,” Rene said, his voice soft, “I would like to recite a little homily. Okay?”
         A careful nod, but she wanted to ask if it was really necessary.
         “Okay, here it is.” He cleared his throat. “When the heart hurts, it sucks, but liquor is not quicker when it comes to making it feel better.”
         Hope groaned inwardly, “So, now there's a coffee philosopher!”
         “And, of course, the head as well as the heart hurts like hell, when you come around.”  His smile excused the contrived platitude.
          Blurry vision prevented her seeing clearly, but through the haze she could make out a large man, about forty-five, maybe closer to fifty, graying around the temples, salt and peppered wavy hair with matching mustache and, she thought, “A wonderful smile and  a very....fine...nose.”  Pulling the blanket of his voice
around her she again slipped away.
         “Hey! Uh, uh! Lady! Enough with the disappearing tricks. Come on now.”
         Blanket voice was rocking her, not shaking, rocking. Rock-a-bye...She needed to be rocked. Needed and wanted. Wanted more than anything to be cared for. So, okay, a stranger would have to do for the time being. And look, lucky her she'd found one – or he had found her – whatever, it was really very nice, and she snuggled into the comfort of the gentle but strong arms that held her.
         His gentle rocking brought her, ever so slowly, back from a lovely dream – the handsome knight, arriving just in time to save the fair maiden from a fate worse than death, then together riding away into the happily ever after – so fairy tale, so ridiculous, so never for her!
         Her eyes flew open and shards of light cut into her. Quickly covering them, her hands shaking, she forced herself up from the soft comforting  pillow that had
cradled her. Reaching out she felt around to pull it to her again and found herself clutching an arm. A man's arm! Her head had been cradled in a strange man's
arms? She leaped up from its comfort to suffer the excruciating pain of a brutal hangover.
         “Oh, my, God! Oh, my, God!” Simply saying the words brought pain.
         “I bet that really hurts?”
         “You think that's funny?” She shouldn't have said that. Even moving her lips was painful.
         “Don't move, stay still, get yourself adjusted. And I'm sorry, I wasn't being funny,” he assured her, “just sympathetic. I don't envy your condition. It's wicked isn't it?”
         “Uh, huh.” Her eyes hurt, everything hurts.
        “Everything hurts. My eyes hurt,” she muttered through unmoving lips.
         “Then I suggest you keep them closed.”
         Her benefactor stood up, walked over to a desk, opened the top drawer and removed a small bottle. Shaking two pills into his palm, he held them out to her.
         “Here, take these, couple of aspirin, do you good. Help the pain at least.”
         As she groped for them, eyes half closed, her hand brushed against his arm, and she remembered the soft hair that covered them, the strong arms that held her.
         “How long have I been out?” She mumbled, at the same time finding the pills, and with water from a glass held by her hirsute Samaritan managed, with some difficulty, to get them down.
                 “Close to three hours.” A grin played around his eyes.
          He went on. “Let's see. Five Margarita's?” Counting on his fingers. “Yep, that's nearly two an hour. Amazing!”
          Like awnings furling up Hope's eyes slowly widened. “You were watching? Counting my drinks? Now, that's....that's impertinent!” She was sure her head was coming off, just above the collar bone.
         “Nope, it's my job. Well, one of them.”
         He's really quite tall, she thought, even if he is impertinent.
        She clenched her jaw, hoping to stop any more ridiculous stray thoughts and to control the difficulty of speaking. “Oh! And just what is your job?”
         “Manager, as well as owner.”
         “You manage the pub and, I gather, the patrons?”
         “Yes, you could say that.”
         “I see, and you watched me get pissed?....Excuse me. You watched me get drunk?”
         “Very.”
         “Well, all I can say is that you should be ashamed.”
         “Of what? Letting you get 'pissed, or watching you get 'pissed'.”
         “Both! All! Everything!” That hurt!
               “You went there too fast for me, ordering them so quickly I didn't realize what you were up to until the waitress told me you'd asked for a half carafe of Vin Rose to wash down the five Margaritas.”
         “I did not order anything to wash down my Margaritas!”
         “I'm afraid you did. Anyway I came over to suggest that you'd had enough and, fortunately, arriving just as your nose was about to hit the last bit of peach ice in the bottom of your fifth drink.”
        “Fourth!”
        “Fifth.”
         “Fourth!”
         “It's on your tab. Fifth.”
         “I'm so embarrassed.”
         “You needn't be. We all hit bottom at times.”
         His smile was winning, she had to admit that. Easy to admit really, because he's probably married anyway. Pity. What did she mean, 'pity'! A few hours earlier she was shattered. She'd been dropped. And that episode with the woman? It stank! Staged more than likely! God! What a fool she'd been to have fallen so hard, so quickly and so stupidly. Give me romance and I'll give you my all!
        “Look,” she said, “You've been marvelous, and I can't thank you enough, but
I'd better go now.”
      “You don't have to, wait until you feel better.”
         He wanted her to stay? Those eyes could melt ice came into her mind but 
she quashed it.
         “A bite of food, maybe?”
         “No, no, I couldn't.” Things weren't going right. Or were they? She had to get out, get away. “ I have to go, really, I must. Thank you, I've taken up so much of your day as it is.”
         Realizing what she must look like, everything scrunched and wrinkled, she blurted out, “Could I, that is, is there some place I could....? I look like such a mess.”
         “Of course. My office has its own washroom, shower, everything. Please, feel free to use it.”
         “I...I...yes.. well , thank you. Need to throw some water on my face, bit of lipstick. At least make myself presentable.” Accompanied by a poor excuse for a laugh.  She  stood looking at him, couldn't make her feet move.
         “You already look 'presentable'. At least I think so.” He found himself staring, a feeling he had never allowed creeping over him.
         Hope thought, “Those deep blue eyes shouldn't look at a woman like that.”  Then realized she was also staring, caught herself and stammered.
        “Oh, you're... being...too kind, I mean, just look at me. I...I need a lot of
work to...to even look....well...'presentable'.” She managed a weak grin.  Would
she never learn? Always so damned inept when a man complimented her.
         He laughed softly, but not at her, and smiled.
         Please, not that smile again she begged. “He's going to make me cry.”
         “It's over there.” He motioned to a door at the back of his office.
        Hope looked around, confused.
         “The washroom?”
         “The...? Oh! Yes, thank you.” Still wobbly, she moved carefully in the direction indicated.
          “Oh, by the way,” Rene said, moving towards her, “do you mind telling me your name?”
         “”He even smells nice!” Please God, she didn't say that out loud.
         “My name?... My...name...of course not, it's...it's...my name..is..Hope...Hope Walden, yes, it's Hope Walden.” And stumbled through the door.
         “Oh, my God! I'm such an idiot.” She wailed.
         Leaning over the wash basin, embarrassed, and ashamed, looking into a face she hardly recognized, wanting more than anything to disappear, she willed herself
to move.
         Some soap, hot water and a rinse of cold, that's what she needed. Splashing water on her face she decided not to go back to look for her bag, wherever it was,
just to retrieve some makeup. Rene – suited him, made you think of blue eyes – well he'd seen her at her worse, so why bother. She found a brush near the sink and with a “What the Hell!” pulled it through her long, auburn hair, glints of red flashing as the light caught its natural highlights. She'd have liked a touch of lipstick, but c'est la vie, he'd just have to see her 'au naturel”.
         Freshened up, feeling a little more alive, she braced herself and went back
into the office, but not too fast. Her headache, much abated by the aspirin, still jarred.
         As Hope came into the room, Rene marveled that this beautiful woman believed herself unworthy of love. He was at a loss. The unique emerald of her eyes, cheek bones creating shadows which radiated from angles that would need forever to trace. And the sensuous curve of her lips, what man would not beg to linger over them?
         His look confused her. Was she reading something in it? Should she? Something she wanted to believe, but found too impossible to even consider?
“Get a grip on yourself girl, stop imagining unrealistic things, grasping at useless
straws. You're supposed to be recovering from a broken heart!” She had to get herself out of there.
         “Thank you, um...Rene...you're a ...a very kind man. You've been
exceedingly generous and I'm most grateful and...oh dear!” A blush brushed a wash of color over her cheeks. “Please, just accept that I'm so sorry you had to put up with me, and I apologize.”
        “It was my pleasure, I mean that sincerely.” He moved to her, found himself reaching for her hand. “Please, I wish you would stay, be my guest for dinner. I...I would be honored.”
         Backing away, Hope managed, “Thank you, but no...I really must run... I must...thank you.” Cheeks flushed, eyes welling, she rushed for the exit, then suddenly turned.
         “My tab! I haven't paid!”
         “It's paid, you have no debts here.” Then, “My only loss is that you're leaving.”
         She heard her heart say,“Oh! God, does he mean that?”.
         No! Things don't happen like that. She pushed the door open and ran out.
         The sudden breeze, fresh from the sea, halted her, she turned and watched the door close on the pub where she had stupidly attempted to drown her unhappiness. How, she asked, could one day last so long? Tottering for moment at the top of the stairs, she steadied herself, then stepped carefully down to the gravel of the car park.
                  She searched the lot for her car. “I had it when I arrived, I'm sure I did, so where could I have.... No, wait. No, I didn't...I walked here. I walked here? After I saw them kissing! I'm such a fool, such a stupid fool!” Tears streaming, she ran to the beach below the pub, sand, soft from the receding tide sucking at her feet.
         Rene watched from his office window, his mind and heart fighting the desire to run after her. He'd seen a great number of unhappy people attempt to bury the sorrow of a lost love, a destroyed romance or a broken heart in the bottom of a glass. Had held their hands, listened to their tragic tales and watched as they stumbled into the anonymity of the night. Why was this woman unlike the others?  Beautiful? Yes! But there was more to her than beauty. Was it that he felt sorry for her? No! She was not the type you felt sorry for. She had taken a chance, made herself believe that what she felt was love – grasped for something she believed had passed her by – and lost. Now she sees herself as unworthy of love.
         “Damn it, Rene!” He boomed. “Enough!”
         He was becoming bored with his pat answers, easy assessments. He'd listened to the drunken tales of too many broken hearts, given out his homely
versions of sage advice to the forlorn for so long he was becoming sick of it. He saw only too clearly what had happened. It had stopped him from giving his love,
made him unwilling to give his heart to another. The realization wasn't new, it had
come to him long ago, but until now he had refused to see clearly what it was doing to him. Sure he was compassionate towards others. Shouldn't he now show the same compassion towards himself?
         At last he was allowing his heart, not just his brain, to listen. He had  been broadsided by a surprising pull towards Hope, a unique drawing of himself into another, something he had always resisted, had never permitted to surface. Now, as he watched her, standing still and alone, he wanted very much to embrace it and bring her into his life.
         The sand and stone of the beach crunched beneath his feet as he strode down to where Hope, bathed in silver moonlight, stood gazing into the glow of its path across the bay.
         Hearing the sound of approaching footsteps, Hope imagined it was Rene hurrying to take her in his arms, to let her know she wasn't a lost cause, that she could be loved, could love. For a moment, for a scintilla of time she believed, then, “Silly, foolish woman, if it were him, he'd probably just be bringing my purse.” So much for wishes.
         “Hope,” his voice, deep and soft, “you don't have to be alone. If you'll let me, I'd like to share that moonlight with you.”
         It was impossible! She was imagining he was saying such words to her.
Words that made you feel you were special were for other people.
         “Listen to what I'm saying Hope, hear what's in my heart. Please.” So gentle, like the breeze stirring the waves.
         The sound of his voice again wrapped smoothly around her.
         She reached out, searching for him, a frightened child, afraid of being rebuked. He gently folded his hand in hers. Fingers entwined, they stood, would be lovers, framed in moonlight.
         Waves lapped the shore, whooshing across the sand, as the minutes stretched away.
         Hope turned to Rene, and lifting her face to his, looked into his eyes.
         " I used to dream that I would know a moment like this --," she paused, frightened to go on. Was she giving away too much, too soon? Could one day, a few short hours, turn a heart around? Had she grown up that much in a space of time so small it could hardly be measured?  Shaking, afraid of the anwers, unable to go on, she pressed her face into the promised warmth and strength of this man who held her, and fought the tears that begged to flow.
          Gently lifting her bowed chin, Rene tilted her head and softly pressed his lips to hers.
         "There," he said, and smiled that smile. "Sealed and delivered, with a kiss we will always remember."
                                                                                                                                  Now she knew! What she had always longed for was here, in his arms, and her fears, like frightened crabs, scuttled down the sand and into the sea.
         "Oh, Rene! I was so absorbed in my career that I laughed at such romanticism. When at last I woke up to how empty my life was, and realized that the love I had laughed at might never be mine, I rushed to find it. When I imagined that I had, I led with my heart, and got it badly bruised. Now I feel, in some impossible way, that what I wished for might really come true."
         She sank again into the remembered warmth of his voice as it folded around her, “I don't see how it couldn't. I let myself remember my dream when I met you, but I turned away and almost let it go. Now I'm here where I belong, and I promise you, it will never disappear."
         As he held her, he gently swept back strands of copper hair that had strayed across  her cheeks, "You know, if this were a movie I'd break into song about now. Well, why not? Let's see...what about: "You and the night and the...oops, where's the music?"
         Hope felt laughter, which she thought had deserted her, come flooding back, like a refreshing spring rain, cleansing and renewing.
         Grabbing her around the waist, Rene lifted her off the sand, As he twirled her around he cried , "Let's celebrate! Let's wine and dine, throw caution to the wind and have dinner on the Purple Dolphin! And you my dear, why I'll personally prepare you a Pe....!"
         Before he had a chance to finish Hope, put a hand over his mouth and pinched his lips together. "Don't say it! Don't you dare! Please, promise me I'll never see another one!"
         His eyes, his smile, everything about him filled her with joy.
         Cocooned in each others arms, they relived the day, marveling at its outcome.
         Time that waits for no one, but sometimes makes and exception for lovers, paused for a moment, then nudged Rene. He pulled back a fraction, and smiling into eyes as green as precious jade, posed a question.
         "Are your feet getting wet? Mine are."
         Looking down, she gasped at the silver tipped waves licking across her shoes.
         Laughing the laughter of those freed from the fear of love, they hurried from the lapping waves of the shore and into the patio, at The Purple Dolphin.          
         Anyone watching the happy lovers as they ran across the sands might have noticed Hope's right hand, with fingers crossed, cradled firmly behind her back.