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“Oh there are plenty of takers, none that have really interested me though.”
She gives me a sober look, like she’s tryin to see all the way through me again, and it feels good to be taken seriously by a woman as real as Fiona. We sit in silence for a good while, soaking each other up through our eyes. I consider grabbin this opportunity to ask about that no-good ex, but she starts back in before I can.
“So…have you lived on the original property all your life? Is that where the flower farm is?”
“Yes it is, and yes I have.” We mutually drop our gaze and fidget with our fingers together.
“I’m sure you have great friends and workers, but it sounds a little lonely,” Fiona says quietly, lookin back up at me.
“Well, I reckon it is in a certain way. But I’ve got them thousands of plant babies to look after, and owls and songbirds all around the place. It don’t seem too lonely to me…but I am always aware of what’s missin. Make no mistake.” She looks at me now with hunger in her eyes, and it feels like we’re devouring each other without makin a single move. “What about you? Born and raised up in Iowa?”
“No,” she answers with a laugh, “not a chance. I grew up in Oakland, with all the privileges of the only child to a clinical psychologist and a chiropractor.” Fiona drops her eyes again, lookin slightly embarrassed by this revelation.
“Well there ain’t nothin wrong with that now is there? Both your parents still around?”
“No actually, they were older when they had me. My mother passed away at age seventy-five but my father’s surviving. He lives in a care facility in Fairfield where I can keep an eye on him, but dementia’s made my visits pretty obsolete in recent years,” she says matter-of-factly.
“Well, you can only do what you can do for him.” Fiona nods her agreement. “Have you lived in Iowa long?” I ask.
“Almost twenty years now. I moved there for the meditation movement in Fairfield, which seemed like a nice place for my parents, and then I met my husband…now my ex, and ended up opening my store there. The community’s been really good to me but I get stir crazy a lot. And the winters drive me nuts. I used to winter back in California before I opened the store, but that’s not so easy with a business to run.”
“I can only imagine what winter must be like up there. So do you do meditation then?”
“I do, twice a day, and I love it. It’s my lifeline. I’m sure I would have pulled my hair out long ago without it,” Fiona says with a laugh, but I can see the lines of stress on her face.
“Well we wouldn’t want that happenin to that beautiful hair of yours.” She smiles and pretends to be bashful. “But seriously, I think meditation’s a great concept. I can’t say I’ve ever learned any official instructions how to do it, but I sorta do my own meditations all the time. Like when I’m waterin or plantin a long row and I get into a rhythm with it, I’ll focus in on the sounds of the grasshoppers, cicadas, breeze blowin, that sorta thing, and my thoughts go quiet and it’s like I’m in an amphitheater of realness where there’s no interference, ya know? Like everything I’m doin is ultra-lucid when there’s nothin in my mind stoppin me from being right there in it.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” she says with the biggest smile. “That’s amazing how you’ve stumbled upon it without being taught any technique.” She’s lookin at me like I’m a god.
“It’s the drone of all them cicadas taught me how to do it,” I tell her with a wink. A musical giggle spills out of her like a mountain stream, cool and crystal clear.
Fiona’s forgotten the punch I stashed under the shrubs; her unyielding attention tells me she’s not wanting for anything more than what she has right here. A group of boisterous people passes by, breakin our focus briefly before she turns back to me.
“So, you said the dreams about…someone who looks like me…have become restless in recent years,” Fiona mentions with some concern.
“That’s correct,” I affirm with a nod, not feelin quite ready to broach the subject.
“Like what kind of dreams…how are they disturbing now?” She’s brave enough to ask and has every right to know.
“Well, it’s usually more of a stressful feelin than anything specific. She seems a little frantic, dissatisfied.” Fiona isn’t quite ready to refer to my dream woman as herself, so I’ll tread lightly. “Like when your life’s fittin together tight like a puzzle…and everything’s doin okay, except there’s this one piece that ain’t cut right. And you keep tryin to cram it in there a million different ways but it won’t go. And that one doggone piece keeps everything else from workin together properly.” She’s starin at me wide-eyed and noddin her head constantly. “Now I did have a truly strange dream just a few days back, but until then they were pretty vague.”
“My God Bo, that’s the description of my life. And the craziest part is, I don’t really know what that odd piece is. It’s like something gnawing away at me day in and day out, yet I can’t put my finger on it. Then again lately…some things have come to pass that are definitely specific.” I wanna ask Fiona what she means by that, but she jumps in first. “So what was the strange dream you just had, if you don’t mind my asking?”
I watch as her body language becomes giddy. She shivers a little, even though it’s still hot out, and I detect a faint shaking in her voice.
I have to take a big breath for this one. “Now Fiona, these are just dreams, okay? And I have been known to take my visions and dreams very seriously a time or two, but the psyche can kick up all kinds of dumb stuff that don’t mean nothin.” She’s lookin more alarmed by the moment; I’d better spit this out. “Well it was too dark to determine the face, but judgin by the hair it was the same image I always dream about. And she was bein restrained by…some man in the darkness.” Fiona claps her hands over her mouth and begins to tear up. “Fiona…darlin.”
I lean forward and take her into my arms, finally holdin her heart against mine the way I have wanted to for so long. Her trembling intensifies, and she leans into me and allows it to come in dramatic bursts.
“Did you hear what I said to that lady in there about my ex husband stalking me?” she asks against my shoulder.
“I sure did, and I’ve been wantin to ask.”
“Well, let’s just say he’s got the upper hand.”
I take her by the shoulders and hold her at arm’s length where I can look into her teary eyes. “Fiona, you tell me about this man. What’s he tryin to do to you?”
“Nothing…I just…it’s a long story.”
