Tilting at Windmills by Joseph Pittman Read Free Book Online Page B

my hands, hoping she’d get the hint that as long as I held them, she was holding me up. But she wasn’t giving up easily, and so I cleared my throat to help along my hint.
    She got off the car at last, enabling me to open the trunk and drop both bags onto the carpeted floor beside the emergency repair kit. It helps to be prepared. Except at this precise moment, I wasn’t. Not for this.
    “Brian, don’t you think I’m owed a better explanation? For all of this—us. Brian, for us?”
    I wasn’t budging. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
    She wrapped herself in her arms. “I’ve never seen you be so cold. There’s nothing in your eyes.”
    “The new president of a corporation has important responsibilities, and I’m sure your underlings at work need your expert guidance.”
    “That’s your third reference to work. Why won’t you talk to me—the person, the woman—not the title? Dammit, Brian.”
    “Maddie, what are you doing here? And how did you know to find me here—now,” I asked, hoping we could dispense with this scene quickly and painlessly—okay, quickly. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep up this distant attitude. Truth was, inside I was melting at the sight of her gleaming hair, the resonance of her voice. She was a beautiful woman, nothing could change that, but my feelings went far below the surface, deep down to the heart.
    “Don’t be mad at John—I forced him to tell me.”
    “John. Great. My best friend sides with . . .” But then I dropped it. It was irrelevant at this point. I guess that in the face of true friendship, his actions were justified. He was looking toward the long run.
    “Take me with you,” she blurted out.
    I couldn’t help it—I laughed. And I instantly regretted it. I was angry, yes, but cruelty had no place, not between two people who had once shared their hopes and dreams, their inner souls with each other.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “Look, Maddie, let’s just leave it as is, before either one of us says something hurtful. This . . . whatever you call it . . . my leaving, it’s something I have to do for myself. If I stayed, I wouldn’t be the man you want me to be. He doesn’t exist anymore.”
    “That’s why I want to go. Let me know who you are, who you’ve become.”
    “Maddie, there’s no way you could give everything up now. You’d call it a vacation, and in two hours, you’d be checking your messages. This is no vacation, not for me.”
    “Then what is it?”
    “It’s life, and it’s vital I do this. Alone.”
    “I think you’re running away,” she stated, and for a second I was shaken to the core. Those were John’s words, too, and again doubt crept beneath my skin. Was I really running away? Or had John used this line on Maddie in an effort to get me to change my mind? Was now the time to tell Maddie everything? But if I did come clean now, at this crucial moment, would I still be able to leave, to say that final good-bye, or would the flood of memories we’d created draw me close to her, to where I’d be unable to resist her? Silence enveloped us—indecision on my part, uncertainty on hers—and for a moment I saw the woman I’d fallen for, had come to love. It was a nice way to remember her.
    “Good-bye, Maddie,” I said strongly, confidence taking over. It worked. Maddie let me go, no more explanation needed.
    We’d loved each other, planned a future.
    But people change and so do their plans, and sometimes things are never the same. You can’t relive the past; you can’t recapture its mood. Life is a series of new memories, and new adventures, and I for one was ready for them.
     
    O ne last stop, and it seemed predestined, because I found a parking space right in front of the building. In New York, you find hidden messages in the details.
    I was on 47th Street, a street I’d walked or crossed many times, but only one time in particular did the street leave any lasting impression. The month had been December, just