A Step to Nowhere Read online

  NATASHA A. SALNIKOVA

  A STEP TO NOWHERE

  Copyright 2012 © Natasha A. Salnikova

  Kindle Edition

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  Description

  All Sam wants, running home from work, is to get away from the rain. She doesn’t think, at that moment, of the possibility of meeting the man she is in love with, but to whom she has never admitted her feelings. They had taken different life paths five years ago, but she couldn’t forget him. Suddenly, in the crowd, through the rain, she sees him. Sam stops abruptly and the person behind her runs into her. He drops his phone and Sam picks it up to give it back to him, but that person disappears into the crowd. But not him. Not Ray. He explains that he came to this city for work and invites Sam to spend the evening with him. Something happens between them, something that should have happened five years ago. Sam forgets the stranger's phone and doesn’t check it until the next morning. She wants to find some number to call and return the thing, but instead she stumbles upon lots of messages that describe her every step. She tells Ray about it and he promises to help. Only Sam finds herself in a situation where it's easier to admit yourself as a mental case than to accept the reality.

  Editor – Nanci Nelson Rogers

  Table of contents

  Chapter1

  Chapter2

  Chapter3

  Chapter4

  Chapter5

  Chapter6

  Chapter7

  Chapter8

  Chapter9

  Chapter10

  Chapter11

  Chapter12

  Chapter13

  Chapter14

  Chapter15

  Chapter16

  Chapter17

  Chapter18

  Chapter19

  Chapter20

  Chapter21

  Chapter22

  Chapter23

  Chapter24

  Chapter25

  Chapter26

  Chapter27

  Chapter28

  Chapter29

  Chapter30

  Chapter31

  Chapter32

  Chapter33

  Chapter34

  Chapter35

  Chapter36

  Chapter37

  Chapter38

  Chapter39

  Chapter40

  Chapter41

  Chapter42

  Chapter43

  Chapter44

  Epilog

  MoreBooksFromTheAuthor

  Thrvoiceofwaterfalls

  Life can change in a moment. Anyone who has experienced it knows what I mean. You take a step, only one step, but this step is as long as life. This step is between the past and a future you couldn’t imagine in your wildest dreams. But what if that future wasn’t in your dreams? What if somebody dreamed it for you? Then you make a step into the void, into the abyss and you have no idea what is waiting ahead of you.

  It has happened to me.

  CHAPTER 1

  I was rushing to the car on a busy sidewalk. I rushed because I was hungry and the sky was drizzling. That kind of rain didn’t demand opening an umbrella, but it could irritate the shuggusm out of you. I was sure my hair was a mess and my makeup had gotten smeared. My facial expression was probably as pleasant as a nail in your foot. With a face like that one could take an ax in hand and attack the walls of a stronghold. Let’s say it simply: I was a woman of extraordinary beauty, in the same extraordinary mood. It was a perfect time to meet an old friend.

  I thought my eyes had deceived me. They should have. What was he doing here? In this city, in this place, at this time? I had dreamed of him, cherished memories of him for five long years; I had probably thought myself into hallucinations. Only this hallucination was so vivid that I stopped dead. A person behind me probably hadn’t expected this, because he rammed into my back. He gasped, but when I turned to apologize, he disappeared into the crowd.

  I thought it was he, but at that time I didn’t really know if he was a man or a woman. He was of middle height, slightly overweight, with short hair, and dressed in a blue parka and jeans. I heard the sound of a dropped object and looked down. The person who ran into me had lost his phone.

  “Hey! You dropped something!” I yelled, bending down and picking up a thin, dark blue box. The person didn’t stop and didn’t turn to me. Passersby slipped past me without paying attention to me or my outstretched hand with a phone in it. Drops of rain fell on its blue surface and rolled down.

  “Sam?”

  The phone was momentarily forgotten, as well as its owner.

  His voice. I remembered it as if I had heard it yesterday. I would remember it after hundreds of years. I slowly turned. People hurried by, but we were standing there, as if struck by the sight of Medusa Gorgon. We looked at each other and couldn’t believe the reality. I didn’t believe because it couldn’t have happened. Gray sky, drizzle, tiredness. I must have been hallucinating.

  Only it was him. His brown, smiling eyes with tiny wrinkles around the corners, plump lips, so strange for a man. I remembered these lips, often twisted in a smirk. I remembered how much I wanted to kiss them, but had never dared. He had gained weight, very little. It didn’t destroy his looks, but only added to his charm. Nothing could destroy him.

  He was standing in a half turn toward me, frozen in unfinished motion: wet lashes, hair stuck to his forehead, upturned collar that hid half of his face.

  I had been dreaming of seeing him, but now I really wanted all of it to be a hallucination. I couldn’t feel my heart, I didn’t know what to say, how to act; I thought about smeared mascara, dirty shoes and wet hair.

  “What are you doing here?” My lips produced the best they were capable of.

  He moved toward me. To me. His lips stretched into a smile, dimples in his cheeks, his eyes slightly narrowed. Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall, I commanded myself, counting his steps.

  “It is you!” he said delightedly. So close. His slightly husky voice hadn’t changed. “I knew you were here, but I didn’t think I would meet you.”

  I touched him, but put my hand down when I realized I was still holding the stranger’s phone in it.

  Ray laughed.

  “I can’t believe I’ve met you. So many years, so many hours! How are you? What are you doing? You haven’t changed a bit. Except, maybe you’ve become even prettier.”

  I opened my mouth, but since I was still in shock I didn’t say anything. Ray kept going without a shadow of hesitation or perplexity. He had never been lost or confused.

  “Where are you going? Do you have time? I don’t want to let you just go, but here …”

  “Yes, rain,” I said. Slowly. I was still lost, but tried very hard to put myself together. “No, I’m just … going home from work. Is it really you?”

  “I hope so. Let’s go in there?”

  I nodded and followed him as a dog on a leash, without even wondering where I was invited. Jump from the roof? As you wish, Sir.

  It was a coffee shop. We got two big cups of cappuccino and sat at the table by the window. Rain tapped on the glass, competing with the music that was playing inside. Something lyrical: electric guitar, saxophone. We studied each other silently, as if we tried to assure ourselves in the reality of the happening.

  “How long has it been? A hundred years?” Ray broke the silence, took a sip of coffee. Foam stayed on his upper lip, but he wiped it off
right away with a napkin.

  Five years, I thought. Every day hoping to forget.

  “Married? Kids?”

  I shook my head negatively. “What about you?”

  “Divorced. Fortunately no kids.”

  “What are you doing here?” I drank coffee and burned my tongue, but didn’t show it. A heroine from a comic book, “Hot Coffee Woman”. Die, but don’t wince. Like it could actually destroy something the rain had already taken care of.

  “Business trip, I’d say. I’m meeting two people for my project. Also I want to check real estate here.”

  “You want to move here?” I asked, as indifferently as possible, glancing in my cup for a moment, then drinking again. This time a small sip. Does he want to move here?

  “I have some business ideas. I plan to come here often and don’t want to stay in a hotel. Do you like New York?

  I nodded. One more sip of the coffee that had finally started to cool down.

  “Can you recommend a good real estate agent?”

  “Sure.” There are some apartments close to mine. “When did you come?”

  “Last night. I had one meeting today and didn’t know what else to do. I decided to take a walk and here … rain … What can you do?”

  His eyes locked with mine. I could see it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about or something he wanted to ask.

  “So crowded here.” He looked around.

  “Yes.” I put my cup on the table.

  “I’m staying at my friend’s place. He went to the West Coast. He taught me how to use a coffee machine.”

  I wanted wine, not coffee. I hid my hands under the table so the man in front of me wouldn’t notice them trembling, and shrugged. Unconstrained.

  He stood up, I did the same. Everything was natural, but I thought that everyone was looking at us. That everyone understood better than we, what was going on. That all of them knew. It was just a game of my imagination. People were too busy with their problems, their discussions and decisions over style of coffee, to pay attention to two adults who suddenly felt like teenagers. Well, at least one of them felt like that. Dubious and disorientated.

  “Do you have a car?” I asked.

  “Taxi, subway for now. Traffic here is horrible.”

  “Let’s go in mine.” I headed to the exit.

  “You forgot something!”

  I turned to the guy who was already seated at our table. He reached a blue phone in my direction.

  “Thanks.” I grabbed the phone and caught up with Ray. “Somebody lost this. I need to call the owner.” I stuck it in the pocket of my jacket and forgot about it till the next day.

  We came out under the rain. It wasn’t drizzling anymore, but generously drenching the ground and people. We ran to the car.

  At that moment I didn’t know that I had left my old life in that coffee shop. I didn’t know that somebody had started to turn the wheels of my destiny without asking my permission. Could you change a fortune by a wish? At that moment I thought that Fortune had smiled on me and opened its arms to embrace me, fulfilling my wishes and answering my prayers. If I had known that it wasn’t something I had dreamed of, would I change anything? I don’t know. At that moment, more than anything, I wanted to be with him.

  CHAPTER 2

  It happens frequently. You dream about something, but your dreams aren’t realized; you get disappointed and think it will never ensue, but you color your life with your dreams, separating yourself from everyday life. You confuse genuine and make-believe, supporting your mind with thoughts of a different realm so you won’t turn into a gray mass, waiting for the end of the road. Then, suddenly, your dreams become real. You don’t wait anymore, you don’t believe, but a roulette wheel of destiny picks up your lucky number. Then, yes. Everything changes in a moment.

  We reached the building in twenty minutes despite of the traffic. All the way there I was quiet. I nodded, smiled and squeezed the wheel, trying to convince myself that it wasn’t a dream. He really was beside me. More than that: we didn’t argue, didn’t look at each other like two angry wolves. We talked politely (he did), driving together to somebody’s apartment to drink coffee. Yes. Right. Coffee. We used to drink lots of coffee together. At meetings, in the morning, or at lunch. But we had never happened to be alone with each other when doing it, and never outside the office.

  We took an elevator up and while riding to the tenth floor we didn’t talk at all. We stood facing the doors; he was by the left wall, I was by the right, as if we were afraid to touch each other. Ray didn’t insert the key into the lock right away. He slid it back and forth on the metal circle and smiled. He looked ambivalent; Ray. This was something new.

  “Where’s a bathroom?” I asked as soon as we entered. “Mascara emergency,” I added when he hesitated for a second.

  Ray pointed the direction and I locked myself in the room with my bag, stepping in front of the mirror.

  As I expected, mascara was under my eyes.

  “Congratulations. He hasn’t seen you in five years and here you are with raccoon eyes.”

  No wonder he kept staring at me and I forgot about the problem. Damn.

  “You look even prettier,” he’d said. Sure; a real beauty queen. I wetted a hand towel and wiped off the black circles. Then I found mascara in my cosmetic bag and freshened my makeup. I fished out the brush, and while brushing my hair I thought that I needed to get highlights as Aisha had suggested. Five years ago I was light blond and a year ago I had returned to my natural color which was dark with a shade of red. Great timing. What if he didn’t like it? Did he like it before? What was his favorite hair color? I had no idea what he liked or what he thought. I had to relax. I leaned on the sink and stared into the eyes of my reflection. Fearful eyes. I looked like a scared rabbit. That was what they looked like? Anyway, it’s too late for shaking. Act naturally. There is no past between the two of you, only the present, and this time hold it with both hands and don’t do anything stupid. Understand? You will not do anything stupid, don’t even think about it.

  “Act naturally.”

  While I fought my fear and tried to calm down, Ray had made coffee with liqueur. When I left the bathroom he was already sitting on the blue couch, tasting the drink. There was a white cup on the table for me. I wanted only liqueur; wine would have been even better, but coffee would have to do.

  We had spent a few good minutes on meaningless questions about our whereabouts and complimenting each other on great looks. I had known what was going on in his life. Some things I had found on the Internet, some things from conversations with my friend Leslie. Unlike me, she was dedicated to Ray and continued working with him. When I joined the company they had been shooting one show, now there were seven. I had returned to New York because of my mom’s illness and started to work as a correspondent on a local news channel, sometimes freelancing for magazines. I was promoted to an editor in one of them and it had been my main job recently. My new boss hadn’t become a subject of my sexual dreams and that was pretty much okay with me. It was much easier to work when you didn’t think about your boss’s firm ass or didn’t try to imagine what his kiss was like. Three years with Ray had been downright torture. Torture I had arranged for myself.

  Now, the two of us were sitting on the couch, knowing that no one would interrupt. Realizing that we weren’t tied anymore by a working relationship. We talked, but it seemed we didn’t listen. We were approaching a critical moment, delaying it, afraid to say or do something wrong. Finally, he said what I was waiting for, was hoping for, and was afraid of.

  “I’ve thought about you all this time.”

  I didn’t answer at once, swirled leftover coffee in the cup and tried to calm down my madly beating heart. I hoped the jolt, which was growing somewhere in the middle of my stomach, was not going to reflect on my face or come out in the form of steam from my ears. This silly thought began to calm my brain, which was muddled by happiness, and I could look into Ray’s eyes. H
is gaze was upon me. Every time I had looked at him five years ago I went hot as I did now and I needed a cold shower. I needed a cold shower right now if I didn’t want to become a heap of ashes. Or maybe not, today.

  “Really?” I raised my eyebrows in affected surprise. Was it actually affected? Did I really believe he had remembered me? Did I believe that he sometimes remembered my name when I had been thinking about him every night? Every morning I woke up with a nagging longing in my heart. Nothing could be changed, nothing could be turned back. Why had I been so indecisive? Why had he talked so indefinitely?

  “If only you had known how many times I regretted not taking that first step. Something I couldn’t overcome, myself.”

  I frowned. He probably thought I didn’t understand what he was saying. I understood, but couldn’t believe it. He voiced my dreams. I pinched myself without him noticing, and convinced myself that I wasn’t sleeping.

  “I know,” he continued, “I acted like a fifteen year old. A very cocky fifteen year old I’ll admit. Nothing changed because of it. It was all so absurd; our relationship. You moved away … I let you go.”

  “What do you…?”

  He interrupted me, nodding his head.

  “I know what you want to say. I’ve never told you what I felt. I made some silly hints you couldn’t take seriously. Right?”

  I wanted … I wanted to take it seriously.

  “I’ve dated other women which you knew about. I didn’t feel toward those other women anything close to what I felt toward you. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t understand my feelings. You didn’t pay attention to me; you flirted with other guys. With me you would just exchange a couple of sentences. I was afraid you would reject me. At that time I wasn’t a person who could accept the word no easily. I didn’t want to do something when I wasn’t sure about the result. You can understand that. Everything’s different now.”

  I listened to him, but everything seemed foggy. His words hit my mind indistinctly and it refused to grasp them. It was I who was afraid back then. It was he who didn’t pay attention to me, and I did everything to camouflage my feelings. I was afraid he would laugh at me. He was so handsome, so popular among the women, so uninterested in me. Well, to be honest, he was interested. To a certain extent. I thought I was pretty attractive, enough to arouse a sexual desire. He caught the wave and tried to bring this idea to my head in tiny hints. Only sex wasn’t enough for me; I wanted more. I didn’t want a simple relationship with him. I didn’t want that. Then. After I said goodbye to him, after I looked into his eyes that last time, I didn’t care. Five years later, I still didn’t care. I just wanted to know how it could be.