"What are you talking about?" I frowned.

"You've got a mustache. It was Tommy, from the dock. He'd said that a guy was looking for you, a fan I suppose. He didn't say that he knew you, but asked for directions. Tom said he looked pretty nervous." I wiped my milk mustache off. Tom was a sort of care taker of all the boats on his dock which was about forty five minutes from my property. He rented out boat space to the tourists and summertime residents. The guy was pretty funny, when I had come around here first on a couple vacations, he'd predicted that I'd move here before long. He was middle aged, scruffy and worn in. He loved the land around here and was a comfort to have around.

"Well it's probably just someone saying hi, he didn't look dangerous or anything, did he?" I laughed, but I had received two almost stalker-like letters in the past year which had scared the shit out of me.

"No...the only thing that Tom said was that he'd given him directions, and that he had this gorgeous dog in the backseat. Oh yeah, and that he had a different license plate...he couldn't make out the state, some Midwest one."

"Hm, well how gorgeous do I look?" I laughed, I had black athletic shorts and a white tanktop on. I had come back from a run earlier in the evening, and my hair was still up.

"Glorious. Seriously, get a shower, you don't know who this guy could be." Kristen stopped and looked into the fading sunset through the kitchen window above the sink. She leaned her stomach against the counter, pursing her lips with a puzzled look that I didn't understand.

"Naw, don't wanna, I want some chocolate. He's probably just stopping by, like the rest of 'em." I raised my mug to my lips. It was in the middle of August, but I drank hot cocoa and tea all year round.

"Then we'll consult the cards, and then we'll see who's right." With that, Kristen moved away from the window, sat down across from me and proceeded to lay out the deck. Her fingers worked quickly, laying the long painted cards in a strange pattern. She looked at them, then put her elbows on the table, making a frustrated noise. "This makes little sense. Some guy in a picture, the only thing I'm getting from these is that some guy from a picture is coming, and it's important." Her serious face suddenly broke. "Okay, that's it, I win."

"Picture...no, couldn't be, you're cards are lying like a jackal there girl." She grew offended and rushed me off my stool.

"Lying! I think you're hiding something, c'mon, upstairs, gotta make you smell pretty. I have a feeling about this, it's... something." She looked confused to me, but there was something about her. She was able to predict things sometimes, little stuff, she would get like this when it was something decently big. Like when my dog died three months ago, ran over by a speeding tourist while we were in town for the day. She hadn't wanted to bring him, but I didn't take her seriously. So after three months of having a dog, I didn't have one. I was really upset by the whole thing, I couldn't believe that he was gone, in a day. It almost reminded me of my miscarriage, because I had this little life, then boom, the next day, gone. Kris had tried to get me to get a new dog, but I didn't want a new one for a while, I still felt as if I'd failed to be a good parent, even to a dog.

We ran up the spiraling staircase. My house had been completely remodeled, it was mostly simple, neutral colors. Creamy walls and natural wood floors, the dimensions were a bit off, making some features of the room seem more prominent than others. All in all it was a bit of a mess, no, a royal mess. I wrote on the walls whenever I was inspired, and copied the words onto paper later. I had quotes scrawled in quick letters on doors, and favorite posters hanging in random places, next to works of art from Paris, France, and some Midwest paintings. My favorite was a summer star scene, it had the actual constellations within the painting, it was hung above my small fireplace in the kitchen. My parents had visited the first week that it was finished, and I doubted if they would ever come back. They were absolute no-nonsense neat people, they didn't want to see the house past it's week old stage. My furniture was either simple or antiques. I had made a special trip to Europe to buy collectors furniture last year, my favorite piece was my bed from the 16th century. It had been an earl's, the posts were of carved Walnut, enacting an ancient battle of the Greeks in Athens. The soldier's faces were all intricately different, some in the triumph of a kill and some weeping in the thick of the losses. It had been so original that I had immediately bought it, even though it was a disgusting twenty thousand. I had attached off white linen to the connected four thick posts, enabling me to close the cloth and have a sort of canopy. The linen extended to the floor on the front three sides, with the back board to the wall. It was by far the most incredible thing I had placed in my house, the rest of the room had a balcony to add to the high ceiling and a long staircase to the upper floor, where I wrote. I had sent polariods to Kristen before she came, and she'd demanded to sleep in the bed at least once. Once turned into several times, we'd stay up talking, eating oreos or something creamy and fattening. She usually spends the night, the bed felt like a inner world, moonlight filling my room with cool, silvery light. Kristen would tell me stories about who had slept in the bed, she really believes in the whole spiritual side of things, much stronger than I do. Without telling her who had owned the bed, or what was carved into it the first time I showed it to her, she closed her eyes, began to feel the wood, and told me where it had come from. She was probably the only person I would ever let come with me when I wrote outside. We both would talk to trees, at first I was reluctant to talk to live wood, then I bloomed and became comfortable with allowing nature to hear my pain. The nature in the seashore land relaxed me, although I was scared of the idea of being alone, here I was becoming okay with that. Within the first week of moving in, I began to sleep better than I had in years. I usually was up till two am, unable to sleep, thinking of everything that was going on in my life, mostly the problems, now I just concentrated on the gentle noises that the water gave in the night. The crickets, frogs and whatever else was out there seemed to make such beautiful music when the sun went down. On nights when Kris and I had nothing left to say, we would lay together and listen carefully until we feel asleep. She had my guestroom to herself, but it was tacitly said that we felt more comfortable together. It was nothing sexual, not in the least, but we felt very connected, and the fact that I could feel that way with someone was calming to my jumpy blood.

We ran across the upper hall to my bedroom suite. As I went into the bathroom and turned on my shower, Kris put in an old Cure album and as the harmonized guitars started to flood into the house, I stepped into a cocoon of warmth and moisture. I was pretty sweaty from my run and the water seemed to go through my skin and flesh, cleaning me. I started on my hair with a scented shampoo and started to hum to the record.

Kris left the bedroom, after setting out an old pair of cutoffs and a off white tank top, screened with a swirling Russian pattern of dark blacks, blues, and greens for Lane to wear. She nodded to herself, this visitor was special, the cards had told her that it was much more than a boy in a photo. She knew the boy that the cards were speaking of, Lane had left out twenty or so black and white large glossy prints on her bed one time, when she was out walking the dog a couple weeks back. The boy in the pictures was startlingly beautiful, and Kris hadn't recognized him. Lane had taken the pictures, Kris had recognized the worn paper on the back of the prints as the stuff that Lane always used, when she had been into photography anyway. That was before she had met her, she'd seen hundreds of pictures that Lane had taken on her first American tour, and a couple from Europe, but for some reason that she didn't tell anyone, she stopped after her first London date. Kris had spoken to Miles about it, his face had winced with pain. 'She stopped because she really felt like she'd reached her peak I think. Well, I don't know if it was a peak, but I think it reminded her too much of Taylor, she never really got over the death of that.' He'd started on a new subject before she could ask any questions. Miles had never spoken to her about him before, but he knew that Lane had told her a bit about what had happened. Kris knew that there was still a lot of pain in the memory, but she had never asked. It seemed like a lot was going to happen tonight, if he even came.

As I rinsed the detangler from my hair I thought of the moment that I developed the film. I had aged it, so that I wouldn't lose the quality, then shelved it. I didn't have the guts to develop it, I couldn't deal with it for such a long time, it wasn't until two years afterwards that I snuck into Miles' flat in London with his private dark room and developed it. After seeing Taylor in Vermont, I took them out again. He'd changed, he was so much older, it was strange to see him on that morning in the black and white. The natural lighting had been perfect, the moment of his playing had been captured. The emotion was still under my fingers when they rubbed against the worn paper. I took them wherever I went afterwards, when I began to date again I hid them in a private pocket in the bottom of my leather suitcase. I had one live in boyfriend for about six months, a tennis player, who'd been interesting. I was never too nuts about him, the way he was about me, so it was an off balance relationship from the start, my friends thought I was nuts for breaking up with him, he was very good looking, a London model at one time. Once he started to become successful with his tennis playing things drastically went downhill, he started sleeping around. So I left him a note, letter really, around ten pages long about why he should leave. He was gone by the morning, without a word. Miles had been overjoyed that he was gone, he'd hated him from the start, and I wasn't saddened by the whole deal, it felt natural. My last relationship was with a friend of Miles, Robert, or Ro, as I called him. He'd been very sweet, a lot of fun to hang out with, the sex wasn't bad at all either. We'd stuck together for a good five months or so, then he moved back to Miles' apartment, and we'd drifted. That had hurt, much more than the tennis buff, but the planning of the house in Maryland had forced itself into my head, and I didn't have much time to mourn over him. I was more at peace with my singlehood here. Although I still got upset every once and a while over loneliness, I felt more mentally stable with myself with men than I had been in years.

As Robert Smith's romantic wails drifted like lost souls against my walls, Taylor stopped his car. Julian needed to relieve himself, as usual. As he clicked on the dog's leash and opened the car door he inhaled the sweet, salty sea air. He could see why Lane would want to live around here, the man at the dock who looked like a replica of Ernest Hemingway had given him good directions, and hadn't asked any questions. As Julian led him through the thick woods to his carefully chosen spot, he looked at the trees, he knew this was her property, she'd bought a good seven acres, enough for total seclusion. He cracked his neck back, staring at the pines that reached skyward. The land seemed very soft, with sand added to the soil. Julian seemed to like the land, so Taylor let him run around for a while. After two weeks of rushing across the country, he wanted to take it slow, he still didn't know what to say to her. Maybe it wouldn't work out, it could only be good for a day, what if they'd hate each other after such a long time? He didn't know. He walked back to the thunderbird and stuck his upper half in the window, reaching across the driver's seat to the vanity mirror of the adjacent passenger's seat. Carefully he removed the folded papers he'd stuck under there. Returning to the tree he'd been standing under, Taylor sat down and tied Julian's leash to the trunk. He leafed though the thin copier paper, looking at the pictures they'd taken of her. Some, like Details and Rolling Stone had used a ton of makeup on her face, giving her a foreign look that was unlike her personality. His two favorites were taken by Miles, he could barely read his name on the bottom of the picture. She didn't have any makeup on, or any clothes. She was in a bed of vivacious red velvet, decently covered, she wasn't looking at the camera, just off to the side, with a rather unplayboyish look of confusion. His other favorite was of her working in a Southern field, wearing worn, mud splashed white jeans and a white tanktop, both were filthy. Her skin was tan and had a certain glow to it, despite the fact that she was coated with dust and sweat. She was kneeling, arms outstretched on the ground, hands in the mud, as if she was plowing the earth with her bare hands. Her eyes were strict, concentrating on her mud covered hands, her mouth in a small frown that didn't quite make her look strong. The wet mud was up to her elbows, it blended in with the overcast day, a storm approaching and the faint green of a distant line of trees in the background. 'No Coltsfoot to Plant' the caption read, he had recognized the plant name because of one of his younger siblings had read a story that said that Coltsfoot was the only plant that didn't like to be planted roots down, it would flip itself over. The picture made little sense to him, but it was powerful, for some reason. He'd ripped that one out of the magazine, because the library didn't have a color copier. The accompanying article was well written despite the fact that it was in People magazine. It spoke of her new book. 'Twice Upon a Time' was its' title, all the poems were stories, faery tales in a more adult sense. Accompanying each poem was a photo of her, depicting a part of the story. The photography was done with several photographers, most were her friends. Although he felt tempted to buy a book of hers, he didn't. He knew he's be looking for references for them, and he wasn't sure if he could take it if there were none.

Taylor struggled to his feet, untying the whining Julian and opened the car door to let them both in. He stopped and rested his elbows on the car's roof, staring hard into the woods. There were many things to stare at this trip. He didn't know what he wanted to do with himself anymore, he hadn't been by himself like this since he was 13, before they hit it big, it made him think of where he was going with his life. He loved music, and certainly his brothers and his family, he could never leave that, ever. Going into this, he'd promised himself that it would be okay if things didn't work out, people change. But he also knew how much it would hurt to lose what, in essence he had never had.