Happy Accidents

Finding a checkbook under my car in the parking garage unsettles me. The leather is butter-soft and fawn-brown, faded, cherished. Opening it feels like a crime. I run my fingers across the name. Valarie Chapman. 13 Everett St. Falmouth Foreside, Maine.

Maine? What's she doing in Florida? How am I supposed to return it? Can't mail it back to Maine. She must be in Florida. I'll have to locate her using my non-existent super-sleuth skills. Valarie Chapman. Her name is a song in my head. The checkbook carries a whiff of jasmine and leather so tender, I think of Valarie's skin. She's my age. Fifty-ish. Nah. Mid-forties. Tall, five-foot-eight. Slender, wispy, whimsical. Grind thoughts to a halt. Stop fantasizing about your dream-girl. The one who visits while you sleep and vanishes when your eyes open. Valarie Chapman is not her.

I'm home and unlocking my front door with no memory of driving here. It's Valarie. She's in my mind. Muddling thoughts. Stealing concentration, tantalizing me with tendrils of jasmine lingering in every room of my eighteen bedroom house. I stalk alone through the corridors, opening and closing doors. Step out onto the terrace. Jasmine on a gust of wind. Valarie. Back inside to the indoor pool, Olympian standard. Where my wife was training before—

An internet search brings up ten women named Valarie Chapman. None live in Maine. Maybe she's relocating. Who would leave Maine, for humid, flat Florida? She's a girl of the mountains. Hikes every day, swims in abandoned gravel pits, water black and frigid.

After calling the phone numbers matching my search, I yawn and head upstairs to sleep. Not the bedroom I shared with Angela. Ten years married to an angel, until leukemia stole her. I sleep in the east wing, bedroom window overlooking the gazebo by the lake, where a woman lounges. Valarie? I lift the window sash, smell jasmine. Call out "Valarie." But no one's there. I rush to fall asleep and dream, to see her.

In the morning, Valarie's presence is absent from my mind. I return to the parking garage where I found her wallet. Maybe she left a note. Heading for the security station, a paper flutters, taped on the wall. I yank it off. Valarie's eyes beseech me, and I rap on the guard's window. "Excuse me." He shoves it aside, scowling, and I wave the flyer in his face anyway. "I found this woman's checkbook. Did you see her?"

"Listen, buddy. I got five monitors to watch. Don't have no time to look out at the world."

In the movies, they look at the security tapes. "Can I look at the vids from yesterday?"

"Get outa here. Only employees see this footage. Cops, if they have a warrant. You think this chick's on film? I ain't looking for you."

I square my shoulders and lean in until we're nearly face to face. "She's not some Valarie chick. She's Valarie Chapman. A woman of refinement. Of class and culture."

He jabs my chest. "Back off, dude. Or I'm calling the cops." He closes the window and returns to his monitors. I'm construing a fantasy figure. There's one Valarie Chapman in this world, and she is who she is. Not who I need. Snap out of it.

"Excuse me."

Her voice startles me and I whip around. Wisps of jasmine swirl. "Valarie Chapman?" Her hand is butter-soft like the checkbook.

"Donovan Whitmore?"

"You know my name?"

"Yes, and much more."

"How?"

"I lived in Maine, dreaming of you. I relocated and started following you. Tracked down your parking place."

Valerie's stare speaks volumes, and unexpected words trip from my lips. "You dropped your checkbook on purpose. Why not just come to my house, or"—I gesture toward the building where I'm employed.—"show up at my office?"

"That's not how it works, Donovan."

"Huh?"

"The meeting has to be a happy accident. Only minimal action to set the chain of events in motion."

"Ever since I touched your wallet, I've been consumed by thoughts of you. Desperate to find you. Why?"

"Your wife belonged to 'The Group of Transcendent Awareness.'"

"The what?"

"Donovan, there's much to explain. Now that we've found each other, let's take our time. Maybe have dinner or something?"

"Take our time? Have dinner?" I grasp her elbow. "How 'bout we cross the street right now and get a cup of coffee. I'm not waiting for answers."

"Your choice."

Once settled in a booth, Valarie leans forward, fingertips light on my arm. "Did you read your wife's journal?"

"Journal?"

"It wasn't among her possessions when you left the hospital?"

"I never looked. Just took the bag, tossed it on our bed and closed the door. Forever."

"You were meant to read her journal. Our group transcends earthly tethers, and through meditation we reach beyond our level of consciousness. I belong because my husband died. Your wife joined a few months prior to her—"

I clear my throat, rub burning eyes before answering. A trickle of comprehension eases into my brain. "It's a group consciousness."

Valarie's voice trembles and her eyes are moist. She nods.

"It's a data base, for people who are dying."

"That's one way to express it. Members, like your wife, 'upload' a sketch of a personality, creating a general outline."

"Sketch? Outline?"

"So loved ones won't be alone."

"A supernatural matchmaking data base?"

She laughs and the sparkles in her eyes reflect joy, not sorrow. "Something like that."

My coffee is nearly cold when I lean back against the booth and take a few sips, buying time to let the magnitude settle in. "My wife left 'parameters' for someone like you to meet me."

"Not just 'someone like me.' Tell me how you feel right now." She holds up one hand. "Other than confusion."

I shake my head.

"Before we met. When you found my wallet and looked inside."

My eyes widen. "Familiarity. Compelled to find you." I'm not sure how I ended up sitting next to Valarie, or why I'm nuzzling her neck, inhaling her.

She turns, faces me. Smiles. "Accept the impossible."

982

Written for "The Writer's Baker's Dozen Contest"  Day 3 Prompt

Drama - The Checkbook: You find a checkbook on the ground-perhaps you're in a park, jogging along the highway, or in the parking lot at the Mall. You decide to return it. What happens next?



Thank you, zwisis for featuring my short story in the February 26th 2014 Drama Newsletter.

Thank you Elle - on hiatus for featuring this story in the June 3rd 2015 Romance Newsletter. (Paranormal subtitle)

Thank you, StephBee - House Targaryen for featuring my story here. "Romance/Love Newsletter (October 14, 2015)"