Somewhere Out There Ch 1-3

Somewhere Out There

Somewhere out there,
Beneath the pale blue night,
Someone's thinking of me,
And loving me tonight.
Somewhere out there,
Someone's saying a prayer,
Then we'll find one another,
In that big somewhere out there

CHAPTER 1

Her heart raced as she picked up the cold receiver. Come on, do it, she told herself. Slowly she dialed the number -- slowly...slowly...rrrrrring.

"White Investigations."

CLICK!

What a dumbass! Who will know? They don't know who you are. Just call and ask for information. If it gets too uncomfortable, hang up. They don't know who you are!

She glanced at the clock on the entertainment center. 4:32. Friday. They'll probably leave early. But, I can't call right back. They'll know it was me who slammed the phone just now.

Okay. Wait 8 minutes and call back.

4:34.

What if it is too expensive? What if I can't afford the fee? What if? Stop driving yourself insane. Does he ever consider money when it comes to his passion? Quit being the suffering martyr. Just do it! You'll never be able to live with yourself if you don't.

4:39.

Her hear pumped harder -- like a drum in a far off place. Her stomach ached. God, I need to go to the bathroom!

4:40.

Ok. Ok. Ok. I'll do it.

She picked up the phone and hit the redial button. Before she could breathe, "White Investigations."

Oh, god!

"Yes. I need to find out some information. What kind of investigations do you do? There! I did it. Now, stay cool.

"Well, you really need to talk to Ray personally. If you want to know prices and stuff. He's really hard to catch in the office. Out in the field a lot. I can give him your name and number, and he can call you back."

She could see it now. He would come home early and find a message on the machine from Ray White, P.I. Why do you need a private investigator?

"Would it be today?" Of course not. It is 4:45 on a Friday afternoon.

"I could try to reach him in the field. He could possible call you back today. Do you want to leave your name and number?"

"Well, I didn't want anyone here to know about this...” It would ruin my marriage, she thought.

"I could tell him you can only be reached at this number this evening. If he doesn't call you back tonight, would you mind calling him back on Monday morning?" Pause. That might work.

"Sure."

"Your number?"

"555-6839."

"Name."

Do I give my real name? What if he finds out? I can't leave any trace of what I'm doing. Just don't give your last name.

"Jorja."

"Ok, Jorja. I'll try to reach him for you."

Click. She took a long deep breath. That wasn't so bad. She smiled briefly as she realized she had actually done it. The secretary was actually very nice.

What would Ray White, P.I. be like?

4:50 The entire process had taken only 10 minuets. Now she wondered how long she would need to wait for Ray White, P.I. to return her call. She had some errands to run, bills to pay, wanted to buy some beer. Hell, if she has to be home alone, she might as well have a good time, right? But, now she couldn't leave. She was trapped by the phone. Sure enough, if she left, Ray White, P.I. would call as soon as she drove away. Then, she would have to go through the whole process again -- hear pounding, stomach aching, trying to make a call that might change her life forever. With such pressure, she wouldn't make that call. Not again. Better to sit by the phone and pick up when he called. Besides, she couldn't risk a mysterious message on the answering machine.

4:55.

Rrrrrrinnnnngggggg.

OH, GOD! Her insides tensed up, wrapped around each other, as if waiting attack from some outside force. Surely it's not him so soon! Probably her mother. Or a bill collector. Or....


Rrrrriiiiinnnnnggggg. Let the machine get it.

"Hello. No one can...” She had heard the message a thousand times before. Come on, come on. Get to the end.

Beeeeeeeep.

Silence. Some scratchy background noise as a car phone traveled from one service area to another.

"Jorja...."

The voice was not familiar. Deep, rough, whiskey scratched, older.

She quickly grabbed the receiver. Cool.

"Hello?"

"This is Ray White, P.I. I got a message that you called. How can I help you?"

"I was calling for some basic information. What type of investigations do you do?" God, I sound like an idiot. I sound like a first timer. Keep it cool. He doesn't know you. But, I can't hang up on him. He knows my name and number.

"What were you interested in?" He listened closely to her voice.

"I want to find a friend that I've lost touch with. Sort of a missing person." Early 30s, he thought. Soft, feminine, with a hint of Texas.

"If you'll tell me a little bit about the person, I can tell you an estimate of what it would cost." For that voice, I'd do anything, he thought.

"Well, they live in the area. Or at least the last time I talked to them they did. About 5 or 6 years ago. I have an address from about 8 years ago." This wasn't going to be simple.

"So, you have an address."

"Well, an old address. They've moved a couple of times since then."

"To tell you the truth, this case will not be an easy one. I charge $50 an hour plus expenses. Based on what you have told me, $200 minimum. Probably closer to $500. It just depends on how bad you want to find the person."

Silence.

"I really want to find him...but, I can't afford..." she said softly, almost pitifully.

Don't do it, he thought. YOU can’t afford it. This is your livelihood. How you put food (or a semblance thereof) on the table. Don’t do it.

But, that voice…that voice of hers drew him in. If the whole of her is half as beautiful as that voice…

“Maybe we can work something out. Meet me at 1701 Blythe Street tomorrow at noon. The café on the corner. Back booth past the bar. It’ll have to be a working lunch. It’s the only time I have open.” He held his breath for the voice to agree. If there is a god (and that voice certainly proves there is), let her agree, eh thought.

I can’t meet him in public. What if someone sees us? But, he did say the back of the café. Surely, it would be ok. I’ll just say he’s a neighbor if anyone else shows up.

“Ok. Noon. But, we must be careful. No one can know what I’m doing. Or who you are.”

5:15

What am I doing? She thought. In less than an hour, I’ve gone behind my husband’s back, the equivalent of lying to him, hired a private detective to find an old boyfriend, and made a date with another man. Might as well be a date. It’s only lunch. But, many things have come from an innocent lunch. Still, something about Ray White, P.I., intrigued her. The roughness of his voice masquerading the gentleness of his thoughts. Something about him drew her in like nothing else had before. But, she quickly dismissed the thought of him. After all, she must find Sammy – before it was too late.

CHAPTER 2

She drove around in circles – aimlessly – trying to talk herself into stopping at the intimate café at 1701 Blythe Street. For a Saturday, the streets were considerably empty. Probably the rain, she thought. It had been misty since sunrise. Most had probably slept in late and were just now rumbling around their kitchens to cook up a weekend brunch.

Ok, she thought, you must stop this crazy pattern. You always talk yourself out of the most important decisions in your life. Don’t change your mind on this one. Don’t…..

She pulled around back of the café, carefully scooping out the parking lot – also very empty. She held her breath as she pulled into a space next to the dumpster and killed the engine to her 84 sedan. The car continued to sputter for several minutes after she had removed the keys. Only after the car let out its final gasp did she realize that she needed a breath of fresh air. The car was extremely hot inside. The mist outside had already covered the outside of the windshield as the windows began to cloud up from the inside. The air was heavy, sticky, intense. Kind of like my life, she thought as she broke out of this mini version of hell.

She had not bothered with a lot of makeup or primping this morning. Light mascara, a hint of blush, an opaque lipstick. Probably just as well – the mist was sprinkling her face with a greater intensity than when she left Robert and the kids to their usual weekend ritual of action movies and fat-free popcorn -- butterless, saltless. Tasteless. They left her to her usual ritual of disappearing for a few hours. Her long, one-length, brown, semi-permed hair was carelessly pulled back with a combed clip, the kind that looks like a giant, neon spray-painted close pin. She had never been a slave to fashion -- just convenience. The fact that this beauty convenience was the fashion was of no concern to her. She had a hard time trying to decide what to wear. What was the fashion protocol when meeting secretly with your private detective? Formal? Semi-formal? Business? Business-casual? Casual? She never could distinguish the lines between the definitions of fashion. A dinner that called for casual attire inevitably left her in jeans in a room full of women who were dressed for the cover of a magazine -- perfect hair that fell ever so perfectly onto just barely tanned shoulders that were exposed by the sleeveless (though not shoulder less) tea dress in a pastel pink that halted just a above a just barely tanned knee that was electrollically shaven to perfection down to the pedicured feet that gleamed from backless, toeless, not too tall heels. These unreal society types always gathered together leaving her feeling even more on display as she sat alone sipping her wine from a crystal glass.

Today, she opted for her usual attire -- a loose fitting, cotton, white t-shirt, sleeves rolled a couple of times to form a cuff just below her shoulders and loose-fitting, straight-legged, white-washed jeans capped of with leather keds and cubic zirconium studs in each ear. She walked with a timid confidence -- the walk of a beautiful woman who had her share of men's hearts to break, but who had her heart broken more by not only men, but women, friends who were afraid of her presence, and her family who was equally afraid of her capabilities.

The mist began to soak her t-shirt enough to see the outline of two round, full breasts that hung free of society's contraptions. She hated wearing a bra even though she had what they called "full-figured" breasts. The rest of her was delicately thin, but not too thin to hold her beasts elegantly as they pressed against the damp cotton material that trapped them inside. She had not always been so blessed. As a teenager she was what they teasingly said was a carpenter's dream -- flat as a board. Those words still stung, 10 years later. Her body developed these beautiful breasts during her first pregnancy. God and nature were preparing her for the nurturing role she was to provide for her child. But, the time was not right. She and Robert were very young -- she was still in high school. So, on a Saturday much like this one, she and Robert found the clinic on the busy highway of the city and ended her nurturing experience. The breasts remained as if to always remind her of the life that was suppose to feed from them -- almost as if all the nutrients that were made for the first child was stored away, never to be rid of or forgotten. As if the pain in her heart would ever disappear.

She grabbed the box of papers from the trunk and locked the car with the keys. She had gotten into the habit of locking the car door with the keys after she had locked the keys in the car at a job interview -- a miserable job interview. She could not find the front door of the office building fast enough after this interview with a power-monger who only saw her as a pretty face and not as the intelligent possibilities that she was. She raced from the building in a frenzy for freedom from the male chauvinist pig, only to see the keys sparkling from the ignition. She wanted to vomit as she stumbled back into the building to use the phone to call a locksmith.

"You don't need a locksmith, little lady. What you need is a man to show you a secret technique that most women of your type don't know about. Hey, someone gotta coat hanger?"

As the locksmith lectured her on the need for a "pretty girl" such as herself to have an extra set of keys, she vowed never to put herself in that situation again. So, she always locked the doors with the keys. She couldn't lock the keys in the car, because they keys would have to be outside the car to lock the doors.

And she had told the interviewer exactly where to put his coat hangar.

She smiled as she tossed her keys into her backpack -- she hated carrying a purse. A purse was another male-chauvinist contraption invented to make a woman appear more feminine. So backpack in position and box in hand, she glided to the door of the cafe, afraid of what was about to take place, and yet, excited of the possibilities. She was almost sure she had made the right decision in meeting this Ray White, P.I. character.

She swung open the glass door with the "welcome" sign hanging loosely from a single rubber hook and caught the door with her foot just as the box was about to tumble to the floor. Her heart skipped a beat and she held her breath. What an entrance, she thought. I hope he isn't here yet.

The first glimpse he captured of her made him loose his breath for a moment. She was magnificent -- seemingly so simple, yet so incredibly complex. She was everything he had thought she would be -- and yet nothing as he had imagined. She was beautiful, that was sure. But, her beauty was not just surface beauty -- he knew that her presence went far beyond what the eye could see. He felt her beauty from within. He could smell the beauty, feel it, taste it, touch it with his innermost being. There is a God, he thought. Because she is an angel and I am in heaven.

She stopped for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dimly lit cafe. Good, it's dark, she thought. No one can see us in here. Damn! I wish I had gotten here early. She hated people seeing her before she saw them, and she could definitely feel his stare as she desperately tried to remain cool. As the images began to take shape, she saw the hand full of people who were dining on cuisine of pleasure. No fat free, health food here. Then she made contact with him. Not eye contact, exactly, for she couldn't see his eyes. Just an image, a masculine image, waving nonchalantly to her from around the bar. How did he know that she was Jorja? Couldn't she just be another patron of this quaint little place? Maybe he had already investigated her, being a P.I. and all! He probably had checked her out, pulling records, staking out her house, maybe even following her the first twenty times she drove around the block. Oh, God. What does he know about me? Her mind quickly clicked off the major points of her life, searching for all the skeletons that he had probably already dug out from her closet. Run! Just turn around and run and don't look ever back. But, she cautiously made her way around the bar to the back booth -- never even noticing the quizzing stares from the hand full of patrons.



CHAPTER 3

I Saw Star Wars at least eight times
Had the Pac Man pattern memorized
and I've seen the stuff they put inside Stretch Armstrong
well, I was Roger Staubach in my back yard
had a shoebox full of baseball cards
and a couple of Evil Kanevil scars on my right arm
well I was a kid when Elvis died
and my mama cried

it was 1970 somethin'
in the world that I grew up in
Farrah Faucet hairdo days
Bell bottoms and eight track tapes
lookin' back now I can see me
oh man did I look cheesy
I wouldn't trade those days for nothin'
ah, it was 1970 somethin'

Sammy would wait for Jorja after school in their special place, their corner of the world that separated them from reality. As the clock inched toward 3:00, her heart would ache with anticipation. She closed her eyes and imagined the softness, the gentleness of the first kiss they would have in the daily schoolyard rendezvous. Then, slowly, more confidently, his lips would meet hers with more intensity. The ache within her would slowly warm into an immense feeling of hopelessness that she would be lost in him -- and a feeling of hopefulness that he would take her into that unknown.

She opened her eyes and glanced at the clock hesitantly. Please let it be time, she thought. 2:58. Somewhere a teacher was desperately trying to finish a lesson that the students decided was over much earlier. Her heart pounded with excitement as her stomach filled with butterflies. She closed her notebook. Gathered her books together in a neat stack -- big books on bottom, anchored with the Trapper Keeper with his name all over it. She had practiced writing her name with his so many times that she actually liked her "married" name better than her real one. Library book on top. Purse strap on her shoulder. Sweater hung over her arm. One foot in the aisle. She was ready to dart from her desk as soon as the bell rang.

Rrrrrriiiiiinnnnnngggggg.

"Okay, class. Remember to write your essays tonight on what Martin Luther King, Jr. would have accomplished if..."

The voice faded as she hurried down the crowded hall toward him. Sweaty, hormone-filled bodies bumped and collided into one another as 500 emotionally unstable students clamored toward their daily "breakout" from their version of hell -- toward the freedom of the bicycles chained to metal statues, of basketball hoops swinging gently in the autumn breeze calling their basketballs, of shameless games of chase where the boys "played" against the girls -- running fast enough to catch them, then not knowing what else to do, punching them in the arms and running as the girls chased them squealing with rage. The big, yellow buses neatly lined the main street -- doors wide-open, windows spitting out arms and heads. Within minutes, the once packed hallways echoed the desperations of the final few who jumped stairs two at a time to reach the doors of freedom before some invisible unknown snatched them from behind and locked them up all night.

She raced toward the big glass doors that lead to the front courtyard. She could just barely distinguish the outlines of their corner, unable to see him. Oh, God, please let him be there, she thought.

Then, there he was. His warm smile melted her heart the instant her eyes met his. He was taller than most boys his age. Not too tall or gawky. Taller than her, which was all that mattered. His dark eyes were complimented by dark, brown hair that was perfect. Not that pretty boy perfect. But perfect in the sense that he emanated the sensuality of someone twice his age. His olive skin was what many tried to buy in storefront shops from an illuminated box that resembled a coffin. Funny, she thought, that the manufacturers shaped the miracle box into the form of where most users would end up as a result of it. And that smile. A smile that would make girls (and women) swoon for years to come and make other males fume with jealously. It wasn't fair that he had it all -- and the sincereness in his feelings that girls longed for in their boyfriends. And he was hers and hers alone.

God, I am the luckiest girl in the world, she thought. She walked faster as he stepped towards her. The distance between them was only a few yards, yet might as well have been hundreds of miles. She felt as though she would never reach his arms. Then, finally, she was his.

His lips were softer than she remembered. His breath caressed her mouth, her lips, her face as he kissed her over and over again. His hands touched her lower back, then slipped down to rest on her "big butt." He teased her that she had more than her share, though she was much thinner than the other girls her age. She believed him more seriously than he intended. If he knew how much it hurt her, he would never make remarks like that again. But, she would laugh with him. How was he to know that his obsession with her perfectly curved behind would cause him to say things she would take to heart and eventually starve herself to get rid of such an embarrassment? He thought she was perfect. She thought she would never be perfect enough for him.

But, today, he didn't say anything about her. There was not time -- or need -- for words. His hands ran up and down her back as he pulled her more closely. She resisted only enough to let him know that she would not resist anything from him. His tender kisses became more passionate, as his lips parted and he searched her mouth for more intimate forms of affection. She held her breath as their mouths became one. God, touch me, touch me all over, she thought.

Suddenly, he broke away from her embrace. Startled, she glanced into his eyes, only to realize what he was up to. He grabbed her hand and quickly led her to a more secluded area away from the adoring fans that had gathered to gawk at their passion. The squeals and laughter slowly faded. Somewhere, a teacher pounded on a typewriter, a coach was yelling at the team, and the band played a poor rendition of "Surfin' USA". He darted between two of the portable buildings the district had provided when students were crammed 40 per room. The shadows of a setting sun cooled the air and made her shiver. He grabbed her and continued what was interrupted only moments before. Time seemed to stand still -- and race by -- all at once. She was lost in him, following him to wherever he wanted to lead her. His hands moved more freely now -- up her blouse and up her skirt. She knew about these things. Many guys before him had explored these areas -- and she enjoyed him as much as he enjoyed her. She did not know, yet, that guys enjoyed being explored as well. That discovery would come in time -- very soon.

A teacher suddenly burst from the far portable -- making them jump apart as if repulsed from one another by some unknown force.

He held a finger to her lips, quieting her before she panicked. The teacher could not see them from where she was. He smiled a wicked grin at her, and continued his exploration of her mouth and breasts. She tried to push him away (half-heartedly) and then gave in to the hopeless and hopeful feeling within her. Take me, she thought. But, where they were supposed to go, she didn't understand, yet.