"How ironic. That's the song that was playing the night you proposed to me. Do you remember?"
"Kendall, I don't want to talk about this. It's over, okay? There's just nothing more to say."
The song continued to play even as he got up to leave. She sat there listening, numb to the world.
"As free as the wind
And hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
More than this - there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this..."
Fighting back tears, she turned to him and said, "Why are you letting that one part of my past define me, Richard? I'm more than this one thing. The whole really is greater than the sum of its parts. You told me you loved me. You asked me to marry you. So what's changed? How does knowing this one thing change all that? How can you just stop loving me?"
"Goodbye, Kendall," he told her as threw some money on the table.
Jake stood there staring at her. He picked up his phone and said, "I'll never let you be happy. Not after what you did to me. No matter where you go, I'll find you. And I'll be there with the evidence to show whatever new guy you find who you really are."
Kendall had never felt such an intense combination of emotions in her life. Anger, frustration, hurt, disappointment, and even rage. And yet she had never felt more helpless.
____________________
"Welcome! I'm Carter Marin, proprietor and chief instructor. Okay, I'm the only instructor but I'm very happy to meet you." He smiled at the couple and welcomed them as he had each new pair who'd signed up for his ballroom dance class. He taught most other forms of dance, but ballroom was his personal favorite. It was so graceful, so beautiful, so up-close and personal.
Every time he started a new class it created a groundswell of emotion inside of him. Invariably, it started with landing his first job with The New York Times and took him through his marriage to Jill and ended with his shameful dismissal which led to the drinking and ultimately the divorce. There seemed to be no escape from his past, but dancing gave him a temporary respite from it and for a while at least, it made him think falling in love again might be possible. Well, up and until he realized he'd have to tell her why he'd been let go, and that would be that. After all, if he couldn't forgive himself after all these years, how could he expect someone else to look passed it, let alone fall in love with him?
He'd just turned 50 and had long since given up trying. His last date had been nearly five years ago and it had been preceded by many other dates with the last woman he'd ever let himself get close to. He'd thought seriously about proposing to her, but he knew he had to tell her first. And no matter what he told himself, he knew that once he told her, that would be it. Nevertheless, he worked up the nerve to finally share his past with her after a very romantic dinner and moments later, she was gone. Just like all of them.
So dancing and his studio had become his life and although that life no longer held the prospect of romantic love, it was a decent life and, on balance, reasonably satisfying. His only remaining fear was that his past would somehow catch up with him—even here in remote Bellingham, Washington—as far away from his former life as he could get without moving to Alaska or leaving the country—and bring everything else crashing down the way his job and his marriage had. In the darkest corner of his mind, he knew there was an ultimate escape plan; one he dreaded implementing. Yet the thought of living with the shame that came with the revelation often seemed worse than the eventuality of the plan. No, he would sooner die than live in that hell ever again.
"Okay folks, if I can have your attention please? We're going to go ahead and get started. I've already introduced myself and now I'd like you to turn to the couple on your right—you on the far end excluded, of course—and introduce yourselves to the couple next to you. Then turn the other way and do the same."
"I'm Richard Norman," he heard the tall, good-looking man say to the older couple on his right, "and this is my girlfriend, Kendall Anderson." They all shook hands and said hello to one another before Carter began teaching them their first dance, the Foxtrot.
An hour later he thanked them for their time and told them he looked forward to seeing them the following week. He shook a few hands and made small talk with one of the couples who were celebrating their 25th anniversary with ballroom dancing lessons. His face never showed it, but he felt a sharp pang inside when they shared that with him. His own 25th anniversary would have been three months ago. Would have been...
Over the next three sessions, he watched his favorite new couple, Richard and Kendall, grow closer together and at the end of the fourth, he shocked everyone by choosing this venue to propose to her. She cried with joy as she happily told him, "Yes!" and even Carter's jaded heart was touched.
The older he got, the harder it became to guess a person's age and he decided that was probably a good thing. Fewer people smoked and many were very health conscious. His ballpark age for Richard was late 30s to early-40s and maybe mid-20s for Kendall. So possibly a 10-15 year difference in age; not really all that unusual. She was as attractive a woman as he'd ever seen in his dance studio. Outside of New York City where'd he'd lived for some ten years, he couldn't remember ever seeing many better looking women in his life. Richard was also a good-looking guy, but he was most definitely not in Kendall's league. Carter didn't want to be overly cynical, but he had to assume Richard had a great job and a lot of money or some other physical attraction. There just wasn't any logical explanation for that large a delta in their looks. But hey, if they were happy, who was he to judge?
As surprising as the proposal had been, their sudden absence the next week was even more so. Everyone asked about them and no one had any idea where they might be. The speculation ranged from having eloped to a family crisis to some kind of personal tragedy. Without exception, all of them were confident they would be back for the final class the following week. And yet they didn't show up and not a soul had seen or heard from them.
Carter thought of them occasionally over the next several months as summer turned to fall and fall to winter with its cold, raw days and the endless rain. He needed to pick up a few things from the store on his way home and dashed into the local market trying his best not to get drenched. He shook off his jacket in the foyer which was as wet as it always was this time a year and headed inside. He grabbed a small green basket and went straight to the dairy section for a half-gallon of milk. He needed a loaf of bread, too, so grabbed a couple of other items as he headed toward the bakery area when he saw the long, blonde hair.
"Kendall?" he said not sure if that was her until she turned toward him.
"Oh...hi, Mr. Marin," she said without smiling.
"Mr. Marin? I thought we were on a first-name basis. Why the formality?"
"I'm sorry...Carter. I just don't feel much like talking these days."
"Oh. Um, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bother you. I was just so relieved to see you. We were all very concerned when you and your fiancee didn't come back." He saw her quickly jam her hands into her coat pockets but he noticed the big diamond ring was missing.
"No, we didn't come back." She still hadn't looked at him beyond that initial glance. "That's because there's no 'we' anymore."
He saw her eyes filling with tears and instinctively set down his basket and moved closer to try and comfort her. "Don't touch me!" she said putting her hands up.
"Okay," he said backing up and raising his own. "I didn't mean to bother you, Kendall. I'll be going."
He picked up his basket but before he could take the first step she said, "He just could't see passed it."
