okay so for those
who maybe had their appetite wet by my first installment of
p-town fiction
here is the second chapter
and yes
there is capitalization and punctuation
i will post the the third chapter when i write it
if you havent read the first chapter

click on ptown inspirations to read it first before you read this

peace and smooches

***

She shoved the t-shirts and shorts into her duffel bag and placed the black slacks and button down linen shirts in the garment bag. The knapsack was filled with toiletries and the lap-top, (she hadn’t used an electric typewriter since rotary phones went touch tone). She pulled the blue crystal Mason jar out from under her bed and held it close to her face. Then she kissed the glass.

“Your coming with me sweetie,” she said and wrapped the jar in a piece of velvet and slid it into her knapsack next to the computer.

She still couldn’t get used to the notion that all that was left of Daniella fit into this one jar.

She slugged down a cup of strong black coffee and caught the 11:00 AM bus out of Port Authority.

A car ride to P-town is long enough at 6 hours but the bus changes twice; once in Providence and once in Hyannis. Between the two stops and the fact that the ride down the cape goes from express to local, the trip takes 8 and half hours. In the past she’d dreaded the day long drive, but today she found herself looking forward to a day of nothing but the road. The bus was only half full so she let her legs stretch out on the seat next to her and stared out the window. The coolness rising up from the air conditioning vent in the window sill blew gently into her face and she closed her eyes and let herself feel the simple pleasure of the caress of cool air.

It had been 5 years since she’d been to “P-town.” She wondered if what were left of the struggling painters would still be there or if the high rents had driven them out for good. It was always sad to watch a community rise up around its artists and then push them out over greed. She’d watched it happen in every marginal neighborhood in Manhattan and quite a few in Brooklyn. But in Provincetown, a town perched on the final bit of land on the tip of a Cape, she had the sense that if you were pushed out, there was no where left to back up into except the ocean.

She imagined all those painters and writers floating in the sea, hanging on to their easels and notebooks, doggy paddling in the waves. She imagined Daniella coming up from the ocean’s depths. She was old now. Her hair was snow white and cascaded down her porcelain shoulders. Her eyes were still crystal blue and as innocent and open as the last time Leah had peered into them; two round balls of blue filled with wonder.

She reached out and touched Daniella’s face. The years had done nothing to dissuade her sweet naive beauty. She smiled knowing even in her daydream that it was only a daydream. She did this often; conjured up Daniella, how she might have looked if she’d been allowed to live.

The bus pulled into Providence for a forty five minute lay-over. She used the restroom and searched the “Dunken Donuts” menu for something that remotely resembled healthy eating. A bagel with cream cheese was the closest she could come.

She’d gone on a health kick a few years ago when she sensed Daniella was coming into her life. She had been going through a dark spell when everything that came her way was laced with disappointment. She’d taken to staying out in the East Village bars and drinking till the early morning, then waking up and throwing herself into work. The idea was not to let herself sit still long enough for the depression that had been chasing her to catch up. As long as she stayed busy, she felt she could stay one step ahead of the black cloud hovering just behind her.

She was pasting cover-up over the dark circles under eyes, preparing to meet a client when she first heard Daniella’s voice.

“I’m waiting for you…come find me..”

It scared the hell out of her.

Leah shrugged it off as a symptom of a bad hangover and took her meeting. It went well, like all her meetings. She was good at figuring out what people were looking for, so it was easy to tell them what they wanted to hear.

After the meeting, she went for a walk through Thompkins Square Park and watched the dogs play in the dog run. The joy these animals felt romping around, chasing each other, being leash-less, was wonderful to watch. Freedom and each other, that was all they needed for an hour of pure ecstasy.

“Get ready….,” came the voice again.

She turned terrified but there was no one behind her, just the homeless drunks on the benches 10 feet away. She reached her hand up to her ear. It was still buzzing from the sensation of having been whispered into.

She felt her skin get cold as a panic set in. It was bad enough to spend her time running from dark clouds, but if she was going to start hearing voices too, maybe it was time to worry.

She began to hear the voice every morning before she opened her eyes. At first she thought it was the tail end of a dream, but sometimes it would come after she’d reached up and pinched herself. She heard it at the dog run, in the bath, while sipping wine on the fire escape. She heard it every time her mind stopped being too busy to listen. After awhile she stopped fighting and let the voice in. It was only then that she realized how soothing it was; this gentle beckoning. She thought it sounded like that of a little girl calling her out to play; soft, sweet and adorably girlish.

“I’m waiting for you to find meeeeeee,” it called.

“Where are you?” she asked out loud one day at the dog run.

“Inside you.”

Talking out-loud to one-self in Thompkins Square Park rarely warranted a second glance. This was the East Village after all. People talked to themselves all the time. When she answered the voice back, the man standing next to her just smiled, in a knowing, “She’s stoned,” sort of way.

“Who are you?” she asked not put off by the man.

“Daniella,” the voice answered.

“Do I know you?”

“You’ve always known me. I’m a part of you.”

Somehow, though it made no sense to her at the time, she knew the voice was right. Daniella was a part of her, somewhere way back before her earliest child-hood memories. Somewhere stored in her sub-conscious there had always been Daniella.