Lost and Found (Chapter Five)

 

The phone rang on another warm sunday afternoon. D****t, another telemarketer. So far, I'd been getting a lot of those calls today. It was damned annoying how they always seemed to call on lazy sundays like this one. Most of them didn't even know my name, instead they called me by the name of the previous tenant. The phone had already been turned on when I had moved in, apparently my landlord hadn't changed the number between tenants. I had never felt like complaining (until now) because it had been convenient to have the phones working as soon as I moved in.

 

And this guy had some strange habits. I hadn't just been getting the normal calls. These were a bit beyond, a bit stranger than your normal telemarketers. At one point a sex shop had even called, apparently he had quite a tab racked up there. After putting up with these kinds of calls all day Saturday, I wasn't in the mood to deal with them early on a Sunday morning. I'm going to have to change the number as soon as I can.

 

I answer the call with a gruff bark of a “hello.” The voice that replied was instantly familiar and as shocked as usual.

 

“Are you always like this?” She asked, a sarcastic tone in her voice. Yet the tone was refreshing when compared to the dryness her voice usually carried.

 

“No Felicity, I thought you were a telemarketer,” and realizing that I had said that before I added, “again.”I was trying not to show my previous abhorrence for her, hoping that the animosities between us had settled. She was actually kind of nice when she wasn't being a “teacher-bot”.

 

Am I that dull to you?” Her tone was inquisitive, playful even. Yet, I could tell the thought was worrying her.

 

“You were. You know, I've never really seen you outside of your official position. It;s not like I've even seen you all loosened up.”

 

“That's part of why I'm calling. I want to talk to you about your daughter. I have some concerns I would like to talk over with you. Over dinner, perhaps?” I can't believe it, is she actually asking me out on a date? She could just as easily be my teacher right now; usually an actual date with a teacher would be nothing more than just a pipe dream. She sounded young and innocent, like a first year teacher just out of college. I imagined that would make around twenty three years old. Of course I could be wrong. I could be going on a date with Ms. Spencer. I shuddered at the thought.

 

I hit the mute button on the phone as I walked to Rosemary's room. I found her laying on her bed reading one of the books I had bought her the weekend before. “What does your teacher look like exactly?”

 

“She's tall.” She looked back at me, blank faced and satisfied, as if she had answered my question perfectly. Actually, she hadn't told me anything as anyone could be tall in an eight year old's eyes.

 

Felicity spoke up, clearly reacting to the silence over the phone. “Are you free tonight, Mr. Oaken?” She was clearly quite nervous from the lack of an answer to the previous question. She had put herself out on a limb and I was doing nothing to reassure her. It was possibly because of this that she added, “Or maybe after school sometime...”

 

Quickly, I hit the mute button on the phone before she had a chance to reconsider completely. “No, I won't have time to see you after class, I've got to work, so I guess I'll have to meet you tonight. And, please, call me Dean.” I added cheerfully. Quickly, I muted the phone and hastily asked Rosemary, “Old?”

 

She nodded. “Old.”

 

Felicity and I spoke almost simultaneously. "Are you free tonight?' She asked me just as I asked Rosemary, "How old?" and then unmuted the phone to answer Felicity.

 

"Sure, I suppose I could make it if you gave me a time."

 

"Like mommy."

 

I looked to Rosemary, muting the phone as I turned. "Your real mother?" She nodded. I stopped to think for a second. Her mother would've been somewhere between twenty three and twenty five when she last saw her. "Like twenty or twenty five?"

 

She nodded silently and I again unmuted the phone. I was basically setting myself up on a blind date, but at least I now knew I wouldn't be meeting someone my mother's age.

 

 

Eight hours later I found myself sitting n a dimly lit booth at Rosa's Authentic Italian waiting on a first year blond teacher to walk in the door. After spending fifteen minutes in the booth waiting I was really getting sick of watching the door. Every short fat brunette made my heart sink to my toes; wrinkly old ladies made it stop altogether. Worried this kind of undue stress might lead to a serious heart condition I crossed my arms in front of me and laid my head down in the midst of them, like I did when I wanted to go to sleep in class.

 

In only a moment I heard the familiar melodic chime of her voice, which was really starting to grow on me. It sounded even more endearing in person. My head shot up in an excited flurry of motion. She was near the door asking the waiter who handled seating where I was. Oh, her words were far more entrancing than the melancholy drivel I had heard the first time she had called me. Somehow in that first conversation I had open the door to the hidden emotions in her speech.

 

Seeing her from behind I could easily tell she had quite the figure, slender legs deserving of a marble goddess rose up into a skirt cut too low to be on an elementary school teacher. With an a*s like hers it was her personal luck she didn't teach in a high school. I could only imagine what some of the less mature boys would do with a teacher like that. It was probably along the lines I was fantasizing as my eyes got their first look at her.

 

Her long blond hair swished around as she turned to face me, seemingly in slow motion like all those cheesy romance movies. Her face was sweet and soft looking, yet smooth like porcelain and sprinkled with freckles which did little to soften her beauty. She reminded me of a nurse in a pediatric unit, with a kind face that would always make the kids smile. She was just plain enough to be the girl next door, possessing average beauty, in the sexiest way possible.

 

"Should've known." She said, looking me over. Despite her slightly condescending tone she looked vaguely intrigued, her eyes brightening slightly as they made their way to meet mine. It seemed as if someone had turned up the heat as she approached the booth and took her seat across from me. Oh great, I could feel sweat welling up in every pore on my body. Nice cleavage, not much more there than a small b cup, but one body couldn't have it all, now could it?

 

The two of us had plenty of time for small talk before the food finally showed up, but as anybody with working tastebuds knows, hot fresh italian is always worth the wait. I had made my best personal attempt to dress slightly older for the date, trying to look about twenty three. I was wearing a loose fitting black button up shirt with a purple Volcom logo above the pocket. Hopefully it made me look a little more mature and also helped to hide my thin figure, making my body look a little more masculine. I coupled this with a pair of slightly baggy and simple yet sexy jeans by SYN denim. All and all they weren't my favorite clothes but at least I wasn't dressed to go to class at high school. A job interview perhaps, but not class.

 

When the food arrived conversation slowed and became less personal, shifting more to Rosemary. Apparently, she was doing well with material from the beginning of the year and stuff they had gone over since Rosemary came to school. The month before, however, was a black hole and this was worrying Mrs. Felicity Preston. "It's like she hasn't been to school in a month or two."

 

"She hasn't, since her mother died and we had to move, well... we've been bouncing around for awhile. It's probably been awhile since we've been anywhere long enough to settle down. I would think you could understand how that could be detrimental to a child's education."

 

I could already see the sympathy in her eyes. "What happened to Mrs. Oaken, if you don't mind me asking?"

 

"That's fine, what things are in the past cannot hurt us, might as well pass them along." I took a brief pause, wondering if my eccentric babble made me appear any more mature, or if it just came off as wordy. "She was killed in a mugging last Christmas; she just wouldn't give him the diamond necklace she bought for Rosemary's present."

 

"I wish I had your strength. You seem so calm despite... your story." If she could've faked tears she would've. Or perhaps her sentiment was real. I doubt it, she was a crafty flirt.

 

Of course, I had been trying to get a response with the story as well; it hadn't needed to be so dramatic. But I figured this would play in my favor more than a simple break up would. Or at least that was the way it worked in the movies.

 

And so things went well with the rest of the meal, or as well as I could've expected. There was no goodnight kiss, but she did ask for another date. "Maybe next Friday or so, when it's not a school night like tonight. So we'll have more time..." The air went silent and her last words were hanging in the air between hastened breaths as her eyes roamed down the leg of my pants. I walked her out to her car when we had exhausted our waiter's patience with coffee refills and free bread sticks.

 

I watched, casually and silently, as she drove away in her tiny red Sonata. I had been hoping we would have more time too. I relished the way things were coming together, between the two of us as well as in my life in general. Things were as normal as I had ever known my life to be. There was a love interest, albeit the teacher of my kidnapped daughter, a home and even the beginnings of a family. More things than I had ever truly had in the past; my past itself was now a faint specter.

 

Yet, this specter loomed in my life's horizon, perfectly ready to rejuvenate my struggles and bring my past into sharp focus as even the most familiar settings began to change around me. Standing on the side of the road in front of Rosa's watching her taillights fade into the traffic I wondered if she was looking at me as I was her. I could not feel the changes at work around me. For once I was completely free of my past, however long that feeling may last.