Alicia

Alicia

Her thoughts were elsewhere as she walked briskly through Central Park. It was not a day for lingering, the skies being grey with unbroken cloud, the breeze chilly, and the leaves on the trees already dull with approaching autumn. There was no reason why she should notice the face that floated by, a vague awareness that someone had walked by.

A few steps on and something moved her to turn and look back. The man who had walked past had stopped and turned around. His lips moved.

“Alicia?”

He took a step toward her. “Is it really you, Alicia?”

She sensed that something had induced her to turn around. Could it be that she knew this man? His face stirred something in her, as though she might have known him at some time. But she wasn’t sure.

“How do you know my name?” she asked.

He took a few steps forward to stand a bit closer. “It is you, isn’t it? I thought as I passed…” The words died away into the breeze as he looked at her in apparent amazement.

Almost as though he really was surprised to see her there, thought Alicia. But still she could not place him; no forgotten memory drifted up from the past to explode in sudden recognition. Just this lurking sense of familiarity with the face, a feeling that she really ought to know him.

He was talking now, with an eagerness that spoke of memories of a past she did not share as yet. “Don’t you remember? We were just kids and there was no one else on the playground. You wanted to go on the swings but I was sitting on the only one that wasn’t broken.”

Alicia tried hard to look as though light was dawning. He was very handsome, after all. And so tall. Nice suit and tie, obviously a businessman. A cute curl at his brow, dislodged and fidgeting in the wind.

Careful, Alicia, she thought. This could be a scam. It wouldn’t be too difficult to find out her name by following her to her workplace, then doing some detective work on the net. You couldn’t be too careful these days.

But he looks so interesting, she pleaded with herself. And I’m not getting any younger.

“I let you have the swing,” he was saying. “And we tried all the other things then. I saw you lots of times after that. You remember, the old playground on Maple Street? We moved away from Hanbury in ‘95 and I never saw you again.”

She remembered the playground and its scarred and beaten up old equipment. It was a telling point but why couldn’t she remember him? And how much of a coincidence was it that they should both be here in New York on a day like this?

What’s the weather got to do with it, she asked herself. Alicia realised that she wanted it to be true, that he should turn out to be who he said he was.

“Still the same, quiet little Alicia,” he said. “Never mind, I did all the talking back then, I can do it again now.”

“I’m sorry,” she replied. “It’s just that…”

“You don’t remember me.” He laughed, a sound that stirred something deep within her again. “Well, I’d better introduce myself in that case. The name’s Brian.”

Alicia decided that she should run with it, at least for the moment. “Oh, that rings a bell,” she said. “I think I do remember something. And Brian is such a nice name.”

You little liar, she thought. But she had to say something and maybe it would all come back to her in time.

“So, Alicia, will you spend some time with me this afternoon? For old times sake, let’s say.” There was mischief in his eyes and her defences were in tatters.

“But don’t you have work to go back to?”

He shrugged. “I run the show now. I’ll go back when I’m ready.”

“And what do you do?”

It turned out that he was in shipping, whatever that meant, and she was in real estate. In mutual agreement that both were too boring to discuss, they strolled through the park, rapt in conversation that ranged from childhood days to the latest fads and interests. There were times when some little gesture or the way he walked would pull a string to a memory in her, but still nothing surfaced, nothing that could let her relax completely into trust and security. However carefully concealed, her guard remained up through the afternoon.

As the shadows grew long and the sky began to darken, he looked at her and said, almost sadly, “It was all so long ago, wasn’t it?”

She nodded and said nothing.

Looking around at the evening drawing in, he remarked that it was really time for him to go. She agreed that it was time to part. He took her hand in a most formal way and shook it slowly, the sudden contrast to their lighthearted time together making it seem absurd. So outdated and stiff a goodbye after all that had passed in those few hours.

“Thank you for today, Alicia,” he said, his eyes looking deep into her soul.

Somehow she controlled her feelings, that suddenly seemed like grief for a childhood long passed. “It’s been wonderful.”

Then he turned and walked away, with no mention of later meetings or phone numbers, nothing to suggest that they would ever see each other again. And, at the last moment, just as he was disappearing into the gathering dusk, something in the way he moved sparked her memory. She lifted an arm and her voice rang out.

“Brian, wait. I remember…”

But he was gone.


Word count: 957
Written 04.03.24
For: "Game of Thrones" , The North Remembers, What’s Her Story Prompts 4
Prompt: Your protagonist walks past an intriguing stranger, then turns around to take another look at them. The stranger turns around, too. Write about what happens next.