Ten Moves Ahead (Part 4)

Cornelius begins.  "In both paths I see, it all seems to go back to the red head."

I feel my heart beating faster and I look straight at him.  "Clara?" I ask.

Cornelius nods.  "Yes her," he says.  "I've never met her before in real life, but in my dream and in my visions I can feel your passion for her, almost as if it's my own even though it isn't.  I can tell that you love her, and that you always will, or at least for as far as I can see.  The unclear part is whether she will return your love or not."

"But we're over," I say.  "We've moved on.  I've moved on."

"Have you?" Cornelius asked.  "The whole reason I tried to stop you from dating that other girl was because I saw the pain it would cause, pain that led from your continued love of Clara."

I frown and think about Mandy.  She was such a nice girl.  Could it really be just yesterday that we broke up?  It feels like ages ago.  I'm saddened to realize that when thoughts of getting back with Clara enter my mind, I don't miss Mandy at all.  Mandy deserves better.  But what does Clara deserve?  Doesn't she deserve better, too?  Am I really the best she can do?

"What do you see?" I ask.

"I have to admit," he says.  "It is not entirely clear, the details of what leads to these things, and even bits that are clear, I fear telling you as they might alter the course of events in an unrecoverable way."

I feel myself starting to grow impatient.  This tantalizing taste of Clara is almost more than I can bear.  "Just tell me what you can," I say, trying not to lose my calm.

Cornelius nods.  "Well, the end game," he says, "is that either you and Clara get back together or you say good-bye for ever."

"We already have said good-bye forever," I tell him.

He shakes his head.  "No," he says,  "not based on what I've seen.  You're going to see her again, one last time, in this very bar."  I suddenly look around nervously as if he means right now and he laughs a little.  "No," he says, "not tonight.  Something on the order of 10 months, maybe a year from now.  I'm not really clear on the exact date, but it definitely happens here."

"What happens?" I ask.

"Near as I can tell, one of two things.  In one possible outcome, Clara comes here to find you to tell you she heard about some wonderful thing that you'd done, to confess that she is still in love with you, and the two of you get back together.  You both look happy.  I can feel your joy, and though I can't see much of what comes next, it really feels like good comes from this."

"And the other outcome?" I prompt.

He frowns.  "I see you in this bar, sad and dejected.  Clara comes in, it is not clear if it's intentional or by coincidence.  She says something about being sorry about your friend."

"What friend?" I ask.

Cornelius shakes his head.  "You're withdrawn, a bit rude, but when you see her start to walk away, you apologize.  You tell her that you don't want her to hate you, but that you've realized finally that the two of you can never be together, no matter how much you might love her still.  She tells you that's good because she has a new boyfriend anyway and she really thinks it's going somewhere.  You tell her you're happy for her and offer to buy her a drink, but she declines and starts to leave.  You say something about memories being all you have and that maybe it would be best if you saw each other again if you just didn't say anything.  She nods and leaves.  You take out your phone and delete a number from it.  I can't tell if it's hers or someone else's, but you seem very sad and it really feels like you and Clara will never speak again."

By the time he finishes, I feel myself fighting to keep from crying.  "How do I avoid that," I say softly.  "I still love her, I really do.  How do I get my happy ending?"

He shakes his head.  "I can't tell you that," he says.

"Why not?" I ask.  "Because you're afraid it will break something?"

He sips the beer that the waitress apparently brought us when I wasn't paying attention.  "Because I can't see it that clearly."

"But you said you could see these things as clearly as a memory of your favorite birthday party," I protest.

He nods.  "Yes, usually I can.  But this is more like a memory from some random day of grade school.  I remember bits and pieces, some details here and there, but the full story is lacking.  It happens sometimes.  Memories are fleeting and fickle and incomplete.  This is like that, too."

I feel my heart continuing to beat faster and anger starting to swell up.  Cornelius gives me such hope and then no means to attain it.  I think my face must be growing red.  He seems to get a little scared and says quickly, "I can tell you that both paths involve the two of us doing things together."

"What kinds of things?" I ask, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

"Helping people," he says.  "I know this may seem like I am just trying to serve my own purposes, but I promise you, if you help me, one of those two outcomes with Clara will happen."

"What if I don't want to risk the second one?" I ask.

He nods.  "That's fair," he says.  "Frankly, I'm not sure I would want to risk it myself.  A continued feeling of hope might be preferred to the finality of either having what you want or realizing you can truly never have it. But then again, if you are always living in this hope that Clara might come back, are you really living?  Is it hope at this point, or is it just something that gets in the way of you truly living."

"Well then maybe both are happy endings," I mumble, not feeling that what I've just thought is really true.  There is only one happy ending I see.

"What was that?" he asks, and then takes another drink of his beer.

"Nothing," I say, finally paying attention to my own drink and running my finger around the rim.  I look at the foam and the dark color and admire the texture of the beer.  Maybe I could be a beer connoseuire after all.  Maybe there are a lot of things I'm not now that I could become.  Maybe I could be the right man for Clara. And even apart from Clara, maybe there is something I can do to find meaning.  Maybe it's not all about love of a woman.  Maybe there is something to Cornelius here, something I need to find out.  If he is really trying to help people, shouldn't I try to help him?  And if he isn't, shouldn't I find that out and stop him from whatever mischief he is up to?  I try to think of it that way, to not think about Clara, to resolve that I am doing something now for the greater good, something I've never really done before.  I can do this, and if Clara happens to come back to me, well that's just a nice side benefit.

I look up at Cornelius and nod.  "Okay," I say,  "I'm in.  How do we do this?  How do we get started?"

He smiles.  "Well," he says, "we could start with the bartender.  He's going to need some cheering up after he realizes our waitress is leaving here."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"I think he might be in love with her," Cornelius says.

I glance over at the bar and notice the bartender with thinning hair but a young face glancing at the pretty young girl who's been serving us.  "He looks too old for her," I say.

Cornelius shrugs.  "Not that old," he says.  "But that's not the point.  From what I can tell, when she tells him she's leaving, he begs her to stay and pretty much guarantees that she'll never consider him for anything and never be back this way again.  Whether they should date, I can't say, but I do see a lot of heartache for him. If he can accept her leaving and realize he might not need her as badly as he thinks he does, I think he'll be a lot better off."

"So what do we do?" I ask, strangely interested in my chance to affect the fate of another, despite the fact that it didn't turn out so well for me.

"I don't know," Cornelius says.

"What do you mean you don't know?  Can't you just imagine us doing something and see if it fixes it?"

"There are so many somethings we could do that it's not always clear what each will do, just like with what I just shared about your future.  Most of the time, I just need to try something and then see how I've already changed the future.  That's what I did with you those months ago.  That's why it turned out so badly."

"Well that sucks!"  I exclaim.

He smiles softly, calmly.  "Yes, it does," he says.