My Deja Vu Lover Read Online Free

something I’d once seen.
       He surpassed me by saying, “Describe the car we were in.”
        “I’m not good at cars. Gray, I think, or maybe light blue, and lots of chrome, the fenders were chrome and it had wide strips around the front of the hood, and oh, there wasn’t any roof.”
       “A convertible?”
       “I guess so.”
       “Do you know anyone who owns a gray convertible?”
       “No, and I’ve never seen a car like it except, wait, I know, on PBS. That’s it, those Masterpiece Theater shows. Only those are in England and they don’t have palm trees.”
       “You’ve lost me,” Tom said.
       Leaning against him, I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the car. “You know those shows on TV that are set at some English country estate and the women wear thin little dresses, the kind Cyd looks for at vintage clothing stores, and everyone talks fast and drinks nonstop?”
        “Mysteries? Dramas? Which series?”
       “I can’t remember names, oh, they take place between the World Wars and everybody is very rich.”
       “The twenties or thirties?”
       “You’re the history major. Yes, I guess so.”
       “All right. Now describe Cyd and Macbeth to me.”   He ran a fingertip down my nose and then across my lower lip.
       I swatted his hand away.
       “I can’t think when you do that.” But as I concentrated on the scene, I saw them all again, not a vision but a memory. “Cyd. She was sitting in the middle and staring right at me. You were all in a row, all three in front.”
       “A bench seat that went all the way across the car. Was Cyd wearing the same style glasses?”
       “No. No! She wasn’t wearing glasses. And her hair, it   was cut short and pressed tight to her head. In some ways she didn’t look like Cyd at all, her face was rounder, but I knew she was Cyd.”
       “And me and Macbeth?”
       “I couldn’t see you too well. You had one hand in front of your face, like you were trying to keep the sun out of your eyes. You were both wearing white shirts. And ties.”
       “Macbeth, yes. Me, no,” Tom said.
       “It was you and both of you had very short hair.”
       “Like an army cut, straight across?”
       “No, but your hair was either cut or combed close to your head, slicked back, I think maybe.”
       “And the car you were driving? Describe the dashboard. What about the hood? Was it a convertible, too?”
       “I can’t remember and it doesn’t matter, Tommy! What matters is that I killed us all, all of us, you, me, Macbeth, Cyd! It was so real. What if I saw something that is going to happen?”
       “You’re describing the past, lovey. So whatever it is, it’s over.”
       “Or we’re all on our way to a costume party. People renovate those old cars and make them look like new.”
       I felt the tears rising and I hated that, hated going out of control. He touched my cheek, must have felt tears, because he pulled me down into his arms and stroked my hair and kissed me.
       Then he piled pillows around me, building a wall of velvet and corduroy, saying, “That’s your barricade against the world.”
       “Make the wall crenelated,” I laughed, gulping back tears.
       He made a few attempts at stacking cushions. They slid off and he restacked, finally arranging them around us   until we sank down, giggling, in the center of the circle.
       His hands and mouth were as familiar to me as my own because sometimes, between other others, we did that, forgot we weren’t lovers, remembered we did adore each other in our weird way. And I did not want to think about anything else.
       “Am I the consolation prize?” I whispered.
       He stopped kissing me and lifted his head. “Why would you think that?”
       “You just broke up, didn’t you?”
       “Oh.” He thought a moment, then said, “Lovey, I want you because I want you, that’s all. Should I quit?”
       “You