Meet Me in Moonlight Pt. 02

I really thought they would have sex again, until I got to the end of his sonnet. I do apologize for the shortness of this part, but that was where the story broke this time. I'm still trying to set the stage. Early days.

There is no sex in this part of the story. If there were, it might be categorized as an Erotic Couplings yarn, but overall Meet Me in Moonlight is a ghost story, so it is categorized as NonHuman.

*****

My first week on the new job was spent filling out paperwork at HR and going through all the mandatory training sessions for new staff. It was exciting to me to be out of academia, and this was a for-profit medical group, it was a lot different than the hospital work I'd done to pay my bills while I was in school. People were friendly, but it was a different vibe.

I didn't try very hard to keep names straight, I was going to be a home care nurse and might not see most of my new co-workers for months. They were all very professional and impersonal; I could tell they were going to want to see how hard I worked before anyone got to know me more personally. I didn't tell anyone except HR about my issues with noise and crowds.

Friday, they cut me loose as soon as the last training video was done; on Monday I would meet the lead nurse that I'd be working under, and get introduced to the patient or patients I'd be responsible for. I knew I'd be working up on the mesa, because they'd checked to see if I had wheels of my own.

Friday night I set out my uniform and gear so I wouldn't have to worry about it Sunday night (or worse, Monday morning). I felt keyed up and laid back at the same time; it would be the first day working with other nurses and patients on the new job, but I'd been working in various nursing positions for nearly 5 years. I started reading my notes from the training sessions, when I looked up it was past midnight, so I went to bed.

Saturday morning, I woke up thinking about Amber. She hadn't told me where she lived, and neither of us had thought to swap phone numbers. I didn't even know her last name; all I could do was wait and see if she came back to the pier. I spent the day doing all the drudgery I'd put off during the week; washing clothes, cleaning the apartment, and stocking my pantry with stuff I could cook on the fly or that would last in the freezer.

Late in the afternoon I found myself driving out to the club; I parked my Subaru in back, next to the gate. I grabbed a jacket and a couple of sandwiches and strolled out to the end of the pier to eat my dinner. There was one old guy fishing, I saw some tails sticking out of his bucket. He left about an hour after I got there, his Mustang spitting gravel behind as it rocketed out of the parking lot.

I found a comfortable spot and watched the sun go down, reading a romance novel on my phone (my English professor told me once that Romance was where all the old-school porn writers went, once the internet made so much free porn available). By the time the heroine had gotten her 'happily ever after' it was after 8 pm, the pier was quiet, dark, and lonely. I could just hear the beat from the club when waves rolled back off the beach. It was cool but with the jacket I was comfortable. I pocketed my phone and lay back to consider the stars. A whiff of tobacco smoke was the only clue I wasn't alone. I sat up to look at Amber.

"Are you sure you aren't a ninja?"

She laughed. "You were head down into your phone, I walked for 50 feet on top of the railing and you never looked up. Dodging the crowd again?"

"Hoping to see you. I never asked how I could find you last week. Do you mind?"

I could see her only as an outline against the lights of the club, but I could tell she was shaking her head. "I don't own a phone, and I can't have visitors where I'm staying. Checking this place is really your best shot, I end up here most nights."

"I, well. I wanted to say, what? Right. Okay, I can do this." I cleared my throat. "Ahhhmmmm, well, Last-week-felt-special-and-I-hope-we-can-do-it-again," I blurted out all in a rush, my eyes on my feet. "Oh god, that sounded so lame."

I could feel the smirk radiating off her. "Yes, yes it did. How can you make it up to me?" She turned and strolled away, then back. "I know, for the sake of unrequited love, we need another sonnet. Make with the love talk, Steve, fourteen lines of poetry to dig yourself out of that hole..."

Leaning my head against her and stroking her ankle I began to work out the poem.

"My lady walks in beauty like the night [borrowed shamelessly]
I meet her on this finger in the sea [I know, excessive poetic license]
To meet in moonlight is the lover's plight,
No glimpse of sun shall either lover see."

She laughed. "Four lines, can you do ten more?"

"A youth who never knew a woman's love [though I had known a woman's LIKE, certainly]
A lady both mysterious and sweet
They fit together like a hand in glove [keep it clean, people]
I sit and babble sonnets at her feet."

"A fourth wall breach, but you kept the syllable count. Continue."

"Tobacco plume an off'ring to the gods [metaphorically speaking]
The rush and surge of ocean underneath
I cannot even calculate the odds
That two such souls should ever chance to meet."

"Bring it home, you're almost there."
"Can two lost souls connect in such a place
And find themselves entwined in loves embrace?"

She stiffened, then abruptly turned and walked away toward the end of the pier. I heard a sob, and then, nothing. I turned around, and Amber wasn't there. She wasn't anywhere.

"Amber? I didn't mean it, whatever I said!" I scrambled to my feet, I ran to the end and looked down at the water; I leaned way over the edge to look underneath the pier, I looked back down the length of the pier, there was nobody.

I spent hours searching the pier, and the beach, I asked the bouncers if they had seen anyone come from behind the club, there was no just sign of her. I drove up and down the highway, hoping to find her walking away. I started again the next morning, walking the beach for miles in both directions, half afraid I'd find something, and half afraid I wouldn't.