I want to go back and be with Jessica in the Thirties but Stella is the Siren tempting me in the here and now.
I really need a life—I mean, I completely understand why Elias, my shrink, thinks I'm deluded believing my Thirties house is a time portal to re-connect with a silver screen goddess. But regardless, I don’t feel up to an evening of parrying Stella’s moves.
“Much as I’d love to spend the evening adoring you, Stell, I have other plans.”
She uses her little girl voice, “Really, Theo—you’re going to turn me down?”
I shrug. I could use the excuse of the migraine, but I did that last time.
She coaxes, “I thought we could go back to my place afterwards and vape on the Linnai. We’ll get high, but it’s not alcohol, so it doesn’t count. Besides, it beats tea.”
She wrinkles her nose and places the china cup and saucer on the coffee table.
“So, what do you say? I’ll light some candles—it’ll be romantic.”
I don’t want to embarrass her by turning her down flat, so I hedge a little.
“I’ll make a call and see what I can do. But, I’m not promising anything.”
“Well, I am,” she whispers, and leans in and silences me with a lingering kiss.
“Call me, maybe,” she winks as she heads out the door.
My body keeps buzzing for ten minutes after she’s gone. I’m purring like a cat. Stella has that effect on me—I’m not sure if Jessica, my Thirties screen star does—our two meetings have been brief, so it’s hard to tell.
But she certainly does thunder in my memory.
I endure the tremors another ten minutes, and then reach for a drink—one glass of Shiraz to calm me down, I promise myself—but my promises don’t mean much, as Stella will attest. I wonder how long she’ll endure before deserting me like Maya.
I’m onto my second glass now and feeling mellow—a third, and I won’t care.
But it’s really coming down outside—a tin pan staccato on the terrace raising a din, and between thunder peals I’m hearing another sound, low and persistent—a chorus of frogs.
What was the name of that play Stella wants me to attend with her? Oh God, The Frogs.
I may be losing my grip.
This is insane, I tell myself. Mind you, I have a water feature in the back garden, but I seriously doubt frogs inhabit it. Still, owing to the state I’m in, I have to check it out.
I grab my North Face waterproof hoodie and head to the terrace. The storm is at its height—the lightning flashes are almost continuous, yet beautiful at the same time—romantic, as wavering moonlight.
I make a mad dash across the lawn heading for the arbor before continuing on to the water pool beyond—running between the drops, I smile to myself.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a white blur—someone else running for the shelter of the arbor. Stella?
I duck under the portico to get some respite from the beating rain and use the back of my hand to wipe drops from my face and blink away the blurriness. When my sight clears, I find myself staring into Jessica’s rain-streaked face.
My heart leaps.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” she laughs.
“I hope not,” I say, “I’ve been missing you all this year.”
“But we share this estate—what’s been keeping you away?”
I shake my head, feeling dismal as the sky above our heads. “I’m ashamed to admit but I can only do this when I’m drunk. It’s caused me a bit of grief.”
“So you are an oracle—that’s what Howard told me—he said the Delphic oracles used vapours or potions to enter a trance state, and were even said to disappear—like you.”
“You mean Howard Menzies—your manager?”
“Of course, Silly—but he’s also my mentor and a sensitive as well. He knows things. He knew you were coming—and said you’d return.”
“Yeah, I seem to have mastered that, but does Howard know if I can stay?”
She frowns. “No, you can’t stay—I asked already. But he says you can keep coming back though.”
“Do I—do I have to drink in order to do that?”
“I’m not really sure. This is all new to me too, but it seems Fate has put us together, and Howard assures me it will last.”
“How does he know?”
“It’s simple,” he says. “Love always returns.”
I find her in my arms and am greedily plundering her icy lips.
Later that night, we’re lying in her bedroom—or my bedroom, as the case may be, watching the moonlight flare at the windows.
She’s trembling and I’m holding her close.
“I’m frightened of storms,” she whispers.
“Then why on earth did you venture out into the garden?”
“I was more frightened of never seeing you again.”
Like everything else in this upside-down dream, it’s completely insane and yet makes perfect sense.
The next morning I come to, lying on the love seat in my own front room, staring at Stella’s vacant chair.
Is anything real in this anti-world of pain?
Perhaps, the only still point in this maelstrom of madness is not Elias, my shrink, who fancies himself my guiding light, but Jessica Skye, my Thirties goddess, and the certainty that I’ll keep returning to her over and over again.
But will they always be happy returns?
To be determined...like everything else in my topsy—turvy life.
