COMPLETE THE CIRCLE - Chapter 17

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Chapter 17

It was early evening when the rocks, forests and deserts of Arizona finally gave way to the urban sprawl that was the Phoenix suburbs. The traffic on I-17 increased accordingly. But conversation had all but ceased between David Lutman and Deanne Clarkson except for when he wanted to check with her that they were on the right highway and whether she wanted further breaks, which she did not. For Lutman, this silence was worrying: she was unhappy with him for some reason, and he did not know why. She did lighten up slightly when they approached Fountain Hills. Even so, this joy was muted.

Her home was a small apartment that was located on the second floor of a three-storey block in a quiet corner of the town.

As she opened the door, she barked instructions to Lutman to dump her bag onto the floor and to put his into the spare room. He went inside and she followed. This room, which had been kept in immaculate condition, acted as her office and storage facility.

Deanne immediately made for a large trunk in the corner that sat on the floor. It was next to a desk which was surrounded by shelves of countless text books. She opened it. Inside the trunk was all manner of clothing: tee-shirts, blouses, skirts, shorts, all of which had not been worn for some time. After a few seconds sifting, she pulled out a tee-shirt and a pair of shorts, and held them in clear view of Lutman, clearly intending him to see them.

He gasped. They were exactly the tee-shirt and shorts that he had described to her earlier.

‘Come with me,’ she said curtly.

They walked into a bright white bedroom that contained a king-size bed and four sets of wardrobes, one of which was clearly quite old. Deanne opened it. She went through one of the shelves, and hidden among the gloves and scarves was that day-glow green baseball cap. And those letters, DJC. She took it out and held it in front of him.

‘Oh my God,’ he murmured.

‘Is this the baseball cap?’ she snapped.

‘Oh my God,’ he repeated, shocked. ‘It is.’

He put his hand out to take it but Deanne swiftly pulled it away. ‘Tell me, David, honestly and truthfully,’ she said grimly, ‘who was this traveller? Was it you?’

He hesitated. Was what he was going to say next going to be the right thing?

But Deanne was not going to gave him time to ponder about that. ‘David!’ she screamed, ‘Tell me, for God’s sake!’

‘Yes,’ he said, very quietly. ‘It was me.’

         ‘Oh. My. GOD!’ She stood back, laughing in disbelief. ‘I gotta think,’ she said to the wardrobe.

         She paced up and down the room three times, and stopped again, then looked at Lutman disbelievingly. ‘You?’

He nodded nervously, staring at her, hoping for a change in her expression. But her beautiful, beaming, cheerfulness had totally disappeared.

‘All right Buster,’ she said brusquely, ‘how did you know about my clothes?’

Lutman stared at her, suddenly numbed at the question. ‘I told you, I –’

         ‘I haven’t touched these clothes in years!’ she yelled. ‘I haven’t worn them since… since… shit, there’s no way you could’ve seen me wearing them… unless you’re not who you say you are.’

She took both garments in her right hand and thrust them in front of his face. ‘So when and how the hell did you sneak into my apartment to check what I had? Have you been rummaging around my things? And did you get some kind of perverted enjoyment out of that?’

Utter bewilderment was now sweeping in. ‘Deanne!?’

‘And to cap it all you managed to get your ultimate prize – me, and successfully got me into bed?’

‘Now wait a moment, Deanne,’ Lutman quickly blurted, ‘you’ve well and truly jumping to conclusions!’

She shook her head in disgust. ‘Oh yes. I am. And you, traveling through time… stupid, childish, nerdy little story. Really should have recognised you were one of those nerdy, geeky, sci-fi single types. Couldn’t you really have come up with something a little more original as an excuse to shag me?’

‘What?! Deanne! –’ That comment unsettled him. That was, in his mind, below the belt.

She began sobbing, her voice full of outrage. ‘Don’t you Deanne me! I was hoping you had some kind of explanation but clearly you don’t. You can pick up your bag again right now and get right out of my apartment!’

         ‘I haven’t done anything!’ Lutman knew he had to somehow fight his corner. ‘Look, for goodness sake, what the hell would I’ve gained by telling you I saw your clothes?’

         But Deanne Clarkson was no longer interested. ‘And to think for some stupid reason I fell for you! The moment I saw you in the store, I… an Englishman! A perfect gentleman! It was all going to be so wonderful! And I wanted to be so much with you and now I’ve been such a… such a… an idiot!’ She became almost distraught. ‘Why the hell did you do this to me? Why did you take such advantage of me?’

And then she slowly sat down on the end of her bed, the mental and physical energy used to express her anger and exasperation leaving her exhausted. She still wanted to shout at him, to tell him what an utter bastard he was, but the words were struggling to come out. Her tears were uncontrollable.

         Still staggered by her reaction, Lutman tried to think. This wasn’t fair! Talk about jumping to conclusions! He now seriously believed he was about to lose this beautiful girl. And everything else will just simply, surely, fall apart…

         And then a thought struck him.

After collecting some kind of composure, he began. ‘Deanne, please, I have to show you something – something that should help prove I did not and have never been through your clothes!’

Although she continued to ignore him, Lutman made up his mind that things could not get any worse. There was nothing to lose.

He sat down next to her and put his arms around her, expecting to be shaken off violently and receiving a torrent of abuse. To his surprise she did not.

‘Deanne,’ he said slowly and softly, ‘come on, listen to me. What would I have hoped to have gained by telling you all this? I could’ve just kept completely quiet, you wouldn’t have been any the wiser, and we would’ve still lived happily ever after! Look, I have to show you something.’

He got up, opened his bag, and took out the baseball cap. The very same baseball cap she had shown him. A little dirtier than hers, but it was the same.

She reluctantly looked up, and then stared at it. ‘Oh God,’ she sniffed quietly.

‘Deanne,’ said Lutman firmly, ‘show me your baseball cap, please.’

She handed him the cap and he looked inside for the black biro lettering. It was not there. He had expected this, but was then not sure what to do next. Deanne looked up at him, wanting to believe him, but she could not accept what he had told her so far. It all just defied reason. ‘You could’ve course have just gone down to the store and had an identical baseball cap made up,’ she said with a hint of derision.

         And then, more in desperation than inspiration, he came up with an idea that, to him, seemed logical. Plus, as far as he was concerned, this would surely prove his innocence and his story once and for all.  ‘Listen to me, Deanne,’ he said to her quietly, ‘and listen carefully. I want you to find something to write with, and then I want you to write a message anywhere inside your cap. You can write anything you like – as big or as small, as short or as long as you’d like it. Do it out of my sight, but do it where you can still see me.’

Deanne looked at him incredulously. ‘What?’

‘Deanne, I’m serious. This will prove everything I’ve told you.’

         She looked at him still doubtfully, but having regained some of her composure, took her cap. She got up and grabbed a pen from one of the many drawers and left the room.

‘Okay. I’m game. But you wait there,’ she told him bluntly.

‘But one more thing,’ Lutman quickly added, ‘I’m going to put my baseball cap on my head, so you can see there’s no way I can affect what’s going to happen next. Now, I’m going to turn my back away from you and put my hands behind my back. You write whatever you want to write in your cap, and at the same time you can keep an eye on me to make sure I’m doing nothing stupid.’

‘All right,’ she said suspiciously from across the room.

She sat on the wooden living room floor next to the large green sofa. She fixed her gaze firmly and distrustfully at Lutman, and then she studied the inside of the baseball cap. She slowly but carefully wrote something inside, every two seconds looking across at the spare room. His arms were clearly fixed behind his back, and there was no way he could see what she was doing, or that he could do anything suspicious. He could only hear her shuffling, but, significantly, he also heard a little tearing of stitches.

         It was five minutes before she was ready. ‘Okay, that’s done. Now what?’

‘Okay, now don’t show me what you’ve written. I’m going to take off my cap and show you exactly what’s inside mine.’

He walked into the living room and held out his cap. Deanne placed her cap on her lap and took his. She looked inside. Her eyes widened as she examined it very carefully.

Then her face turned white. She picked up her cap and looked inside. Then she looked again into Lutman’s, and then exchanged each cap from lap to floor, from right to left hand. Her breathing was noticeably faster.

‘Oh my God…’

She kept looking at both caps several times in both hands. She could not believe what she was seeing. She was about to ask him how he did it, but she knew there was no way he could have known. Despite the slight sweat marks, there, written in exactly the same block handwriting style in the very same white lining where she had torn the stitches away, and in the very same size and lengths, and with the very same ink smudges, were the very same words:

I WANT THIS TO BE TRUE.

Chapter 18 >