* * *
“Paul!” Mrs. Petersen exclaimed as she opened the door. “What an unexpected surprise at eight in the morning on a Saturday. Is everything alright? You look a little wild-eyed.”
“Everything is fine, Mrs. Petersen,” answered Paul, self-consciously patting down his wild, ratty hair. “I’m sorry to come over so early, I wasn’t thinking I guess. I just need to ask Stephanie some questions that are kind of important.”
“Well, I’m sure she’s still asleep,” Mrs. Petersen smirked. “She was out late last night with friends. But I’ll go and knock on her door and try to nudge her awake. It’ll do her good to get up before the crack of noon on a Saturday. You can go ahead and wait in the living room if you like.”
Paul thanked her as she let him into the house. He watched her climb the stairs, humming a happy tune, a smile on her face. Obviously, she was more than pleased to have an excuse to get Stephanie out of bed.
He fidgeted with the television remote while he waited, not turning anything on, just turning it over and over in his hands. It was something to do, something to release his nervous energy. Energy, he realized. It is eight in the morning and I have energy. How wonderful it was to feel this way. He couldn’t count how many mornings in the last five years he’d woken up feeling like he needed another ten or twelve hours of sleep. Most of them? All of them. He’d spent so many nights on his bench with his head down. The way he’d been feeling all these years was almost certainly an emotional fatigue born of depression. He’d felt lost, unimportant, and strange for so long that it had become who he actually was. This was his chance for a new life, a new sense of self.
He had to find Lisa.
Still in a rumpled pair of baby blue pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, Stephanie shuffled into the room. She trudged along, making it look like each step was agony, and flumped down on the couch next to him without a word.
“Good morning!” Paul tried for the false happy greeting first.
“What,” she said in a flat voice. It wasn’t a question.
“Long night?” he asked.
She slowly turned to face at him. Her eyes were sunken in, dark circles under-scoring them, and her hair looked like she’d stuck a finger in a light socket. Very slowly, very succinctly, she said, “I drove Steven home last night. And Franklin. And Krystin, Kathy, and Melanie.”
She paused, and he opened his mouth to speak, but a slight tilt of her head told him she wasn’t done.
“That would have been fine,” she began, “because you know I don’t drink and you know I’m glad to get people home safe. But it’s a whole different story when you have two people in the front seat with you and three people in the back, and every one of them is making out like you’re not even there. Franklin and Krystin almost made me crash like ten times because they were all over each other! How am I supposed to drive like that? I had to tell Melanie and Kathy to put their shirts back on at least three times!”
“Kathy?” Paul asked. “And Melanie? With Steven? All in the back seat?” Paul made a small whimpered sound of longing and looked off into space, silently saluting his best friend.
“Focus!” Stephanie clapping her hands once for emphasis. “And then they wanted pancakes. I told them no, but they started chanting Den-ny’s, Den-ny’s over and over until I finally gave in. Paul,” she leaned in close and looked in his eyes with a haunted look, “have you ever spent two hours in a Denny’s with five drunks at 3 a.m.?” She shuddered. “You don’t ever want to go through what I did last night. Not without chemical support.”
Grabbing her shoulders, he faced her squarely. “Last night is exactly why I’m here,” he told her. “I need your help. I need to find Lisa.”
Stephanie pulled back like she’d been poked in the spine with a cold needle, suddenly looking very awake. “What do you mean, speaking of last night? And why do you need to find Lisa? My Lisa? You don’t even know her.”
“I don’t. I mean, well—I do, I met her last night… kind of.” He sighed impatiently. “Look, I can see where you’re going in your head with this and it’s not like that. I just need to talk to her and ask her some questions. It’s super important and I know you gave her a ride home the other day, so I figured since you know where she lives maybe you could show me.”
Stephanie squinted at him. There was a long pause before she said, “Tell me everything.”
Without having considered that he might have to explain himself, all Paul could manage on such short notice was a very unpersuasive, “What?”
“Paul—you fall asleep every night before most people even have dinner, but now here you are at my house at eight in the morning on a Saturday, telling me that you need to speak to the new hot girl because of something that happened last night.” She almost sounded angry. Paul was definitely getting a little uncomfortable. “So if you want my help, especially at this time of the morning after I spent a sleepless night being terrorized by drunk, half-naked crazy people, you’re going to have to tell me what’s going on.”
Paul looked away, avoiding her eyes, weighing whether he should tell her what he hoped was true. This was Stephanie—if there was anyone in his life he knew he could trust, it was her. She’d always been his sounding board, the keeper of his deepest thoughts and secrets.
“Paul?” she asked softly, sounding hurt.
He was pausing. Why was he pausing?
He knew why. Lisa’s final words from last night reverberated in his mind. ‘They don’t know, they will never know, and would never believe it if you told them.’ Stephanie would think he’d lost his marbles. She would convince him that he’d dreamed it all and probably be a little worried about him. ‘The people that are your friends are good people and I’m sure they care about you, but with what you now know nothing will ever be the same between them and you.’ It was true, and it was already apparent. What was he going to do—tell Stephanie that his spirit walked the night? Yeah, right. Not a chance.
“Stephanie,” he took her hand. “I swear I’ll tell you why, some day. But it has to be when I know you’ll believe me.” She started to protest, but he cut her off. “All I can tell you is that this is big, really big, and maybe more important than anything that has ever happened in my life. Lisa is a part of it and might be able to help me. I know this sounds really Mission Impossible, but I can’t tell you more, not yet anyway, because I haven’t figured it out myself. That’s why I need to find Lisa. I really, really need you to trust me and not ask anything else.”