Book of Days_ A Novel - James L. Rubart [70]
Cameron lifted his head and stared at Taylor. Was it possible he would finally open the door, even a crack?
"I'll tell you three things about the book if you promise that will be the end of it. Any further search is something you do on your own. No more questions. Agreed?"
"Yes."
At the sound of heavy shuffling feet next to their table, Cameron looked up. No. This couldn't be happening.
"Filling his head with more of your lies, Stone?" Jason stood too close to the table, his thighs pressing into its edge.
Cameron rubbed his eyes. Perfect timing.
"Care to join us, Jason? We'd enjoy gleaning some of the wisdom you have stored up inside that massive cranium of yours."
"Someday, Stone, the falsehoods you've weaved since childhood will fall on you like a net on a bird. Someday the curtain will be thrown back in a flourish and the mighty and powerful Oz will be revealed for the charlatan he is. I will dance in the streets that day, as I will one day dance on your grave."
"Wonderful to see you too, Jason."
Jason squatted and turned to Cameron. "You might not like me. You might not like my methods or personal beliefs. But I don't lie. I speak truth, seek the truth, and press on toward truth." He glanced at Taylor, then focused back on Cameron. "I suggest we talk again, sooner than later."
Cameron watched the big man stride away before turning back to Taylor. "I'd heard you two didn't like each other. I didn't realize how potent the animosity was."
"Powder-keg potent."
"You've known each other for a long time?"
"We grew up together."
"Why the hostility between you two?"
Taylor propped his elbow on the table and rested his head on the palm of his hand. "I never cared about being liked."
"But Jason did."
"Since our junior year of high school, Jason has been trying to one-up me."
"Has he ever done it?"
"I don't know, maybe. I never paid much attention. But if you ask him, he'd probably say never."
It explained so much. "So finding this book would put him on the map, and you'd finally be in his shadow."
"What people do doesn't put them on the map except for a short time; it's who you are that people remember."
"So who are you, Taylor?"
"Someone a lot like you. Someone trying to find answers to the questions rolling around inside his brain."
Cameron glanced around the restaurant. "Thanks for being willing to help me with some of mine. You were about to tell me a few things you know—"
"Like I've said a number of times before, I like you, Cameron. And that emotion got the better of me and turned into a moment of weakness." Taylor wiped up the water on the table with his napkin and set it next to the salt and pepper shakers. "I'm sorry, but as I said before, a secret is held by one."
"Taylor, please I—"
"Be strong." He stood and shuffled toward the door of The Sail & Compass.
Cameron sat for a long time staring at the restaurant's logo—a sail with a compass in the middle, the needle pointing north, unlike the needle on his compass, which was spinning out of control in the middle of the ocean, with no sailboat on the horizon.
That night he dreamed again. Of a sailboat.
Two Years, Three Months Earlier
Jessie and Cameron had spotted four Dall's porpoises as they navigated their rented sailboat through the salty waters of the San Juan Islands, two hours north of Seattle.
In a rare declaration the weatherman said the sky would be brilliant, and it was. The fresh air mixed with the pungent smell of seaweed swirled around them, and Cameron drew it into his lungs in deep gulps.
The seagulls seemed to caw in an intentional rhythm with the wind digging into their sails as they sliced through the gentle swells.
"Another—"
"—crystal day." Cameron finished.
It was their word for a pure day, unencumbered with thoughts of shooting videos or editing or fixing the water pump on his MINI Cooper. And for Jessie, no emergency calls to come in and cover a shift at the hospital or having to think about teaching her aerobics class at the gym.
They sailed on with no need to talk.