Leap of Fate

It was on one Tuesday night that I was talking to Holly, and she told me that Angela Lincoln was now living in Hobart. This came as a shock to me, and I thought that perhaps thirteen years was long enough to stay out of touch. So two days later I decided that I would take a chance on the telephone book, and see if her telephone was listed. The second number I dialled, a female voice answered.

"Hello?"

"Hi, is Angela there please?" I replied.

"This is Angela."

"Is this Angela Lincoln from Burnie?"

"I used to live in Burnie, yes."

"Do you remember someone by the name of Kevin Tanner?" I asked cautiously.

"Yes..."

"Well, that’s who’s on the other end of the line."

The conversation continued for a little while in catch up mode, before her children started acting up a little bit, and she had to go. Nevertheless, Angela told me that she would give me a call sometime during the next week, which sounded fine to me. Another expectation I never would have had, was that this twist of fate would turn into such a turmoil in my own life. I expected that Angela and I would catch up, perhaps develop a friendship once again, and continue life as we were, just with the renewed contact between two old, but close friends.

It was Monday when Angela called again. I wasn’t home at the time she called the first time, but when I got home that evening I dialled star-ten-hash and found a strange number. I thought it was a friend of mine, Joe, whose number I didn’t know off the top of my head. It was too late then to call Joe back, so I decided I would call back the following day. About ten thirty that night though, the phone rang while I was home. I answered and Angela greeted me, ringing from the strange number. She informed me that she was at her boyfriend’s sister’s house, who happened to have two phone connections, and so came the first occasion on which I talked to Samantha Davis. The three of us talked for an hour and a half or so, before deciding that we would go out on that Saturday night to Montgomeries, the local karaoke bar. What I didn’t say, was that I was looking forward to meeting this Samantha person, almost as much as I was looking forward to seeing Angela again after more than ten years.

Tuesday night came and went, although during the course of that night, I was tempted on more than one occasion to ring Samantha’s number and talk to her some more. I decided against it, not wanting to appear a man of desperation. I found out later, however, she had been in the same scenario of wanting to call me that night, only to be dissuaded by Angela. I would get enough conversation from Samantha anyway, for on Wednesday night, she rang me at around eight o’clock, followed by calling Angela for a three-way chat which lasted until about eleven that night, when Angela decided that she wanted to go to bed. Samantha and I stayed on the line for a while, continuing to talk, until we realised that it was now three-thirty in the morning. It was then that Samantha decided that to hang up and try to sleep at this hour was ridiculous, so we stayed on the phone until eight-thirty Thursday morning. Samantha had to drop into Northgate that morning, to buy a new belt from Westco, and I suggested that I join her there. She did not complain. Two hours later, we were in Northgate, face-to-face and very tired.

We headed out to Claremont, where Samantha lives, and watched Not Another Teen Movie, during which I think I probably spent as much time looking at Samantha as I did looking at the television. That might be a slight exaggeration, but from the moment we met, I was smitten, that being if she hadn’t smitten me already during our twelve hour plus conversation on the telephone the night before. All I knew by this point in the short history of our knowing one another, was that I was crazy about her. She had only broken up with her boyfriend of eighteen months the previous weekend, however, so I was willing to wait until she was ready, preferring that over being the rebound guy, which I would still have accepted. We lasted out until one thirty that day, when we took the DVD back to the video store, and caught buses going in separate directions so that I could return home, while Samantha went to work. Well, the first thing I noticed on my bus trip back home, was the dreamy state I had suddenly been placed in. I felt like I was floating six feet off the ground. The second thing I realised was that as I walked through the streets, I was not making second glances at any female I saw, that, if anything, cemented something in my mind, that was already concrete in my heart. That Samantha, in a very short time, had changed me in a very dramatic way. That afternoon I collapsed onto my bed at four o’clock, and fell asleep immediately. At eleven I awoke, and went back to sleep, only to awaken finally at four AM Friday, which meant, of course, that I had no chance to talk to Samantha that night.

School on Friday was a daze. I was still floating, and not noticing anyone around me unless they smacked me around the side of the head with a board. Again, exaggeration but you know what I mean, right? I couldn’t believe what she had done to me, and I knew that I was going to have to call her that evening, if only to say hello. I could never admit to what I felt towards her, at least not then, it was far too soon for both of us. I’d had these feelings, or at least, feelings like this before, but never so strong, and never had there been someone who had turned off my wandering eyes with such solidity. I could not believe the twist of fate that had brought us into one another’s lives. I mean, really, how often does a person contact you who last saw you when you were seven years old, not to mention that, but then comes the fact that Angela had been at Samantha’s when she returned my phone call. It all fit together too nicely and too indirectly for me to push it aside under the easy title of coincidence. Even so, at this point I was still happy just to be in Samantha’s company no matter what level the relationship was at.

Sure enough, Friday night the three of us were involved in the three way conversation again, which Angela hung up once more and left Samantha and I to our devices once again. We did not stay on the phone all night this time, preferring to keep some energy within ourselves for Saturday night, and the fact that Samantha had nine, rather than three hours work the following day. I left, and fell into a happy sleep, waking the following morning with an eagerness to bring the evening about sooner than later. Not only was I meeting up with a long-lost good friend, but I was also going to be meeting up with the girl I had suddenly become absolutely stone-cold crazy about in a matter of less than a week. The day passed unbelievably slowly, or so I thought, until suddenly it was time for me to try and make my way into town. Now there was a predicament.

Firstly, I needed to visit my parents’ house, for what reason, I no longer remember. I ended up showering and dressing at their house, and trying to catch a bus in from there. Before I had come over to their house, I had checked the bus timetable and been informed that the bus was due to arrive at 8:45, at which time I left for the bus stop. I got there only to find I had misread the timetable, and the bus would actually be arriving at 9:05. Angela called me on the mobile, asking where I was, I told her I was waiting for the bus, and I would be in there in about fifteen minutes, or so I thought.

Reminder to people, never try to catch a bus into Hobart on the night after the AFL Grand Final. At nine-thirty, the bus reached the second last stop before the city, at which point the bus driver asked the police to step onto the bus because there was a group of about thirty Brisbane Lions fans yelling, screaming, and worst of all, drinking on the bus. Thus, we waited there for about ten minutes while the police tried to calm them all down. I could have gotten off when the bus first stopped, and I would have met up with everyone sooner, but I wasn’t expecting it to take too long, so I waited on the bus. So finally I arrived in town, over half an hour later than what had been our projected meeting time. Angela and Megan, Samantha’s sister were standing across the road from where we had all planned on meeting, and without Samantha near them, to see if I would recognise them. Across the road, in the dark and thirteen years after our last meeting, when Angela now has black, rather than blonde hair, does not equal easy recognition. I decided they must have chosen to wait at Montgomeries instead. I got three-quarters of the way down the block when I heard a yell behind me, turning around, I finally found the people I was meant to be going out with that night. Together we made our way into Montgomeries, where I immediately found the song list booklet to choose a song, or songs, as the case is almost always when I go to karaoke. My first song of the night was called as I was waiting at the bar for the tender to gather a collection of drinks for us, my shout first evidently. I had to run back to the table and ask Angela to collect the drinks while I got up to the stage for Amazed by Lonestar. Only I knew who that was being sung to that night, as were the other two songs I sang.

Sometime later, we were sitting around the table talking, when Angela jumps up and rushes for the door. Blank looks greeted my own blank look from Samantha and Megan, well, Samantha followed her, only to return five minutes and tell me what had Angela up so suddenly.

"Jessica’s here." She told me.

My eyes went wide. Jessica was a girl who had also been in our class when Angela and I had been at school together in Burnie. Jessica followed Samantha to our table, and we greeted one another, I found out soon enough that Jessica had come into town with her sister and mother. Debbie, her sister, had been in class with my own sister at the same period of time in Burnie, so I was soon on the mobile to Ruth, telling her that Debbie was at Montgomeries. That night became the Havenview Primary School reunion. Well, at least with five of us anyway.

Enough of the friendships, though, and back to what this tale is really about. I got up and sang my second song while I was talking to Jessica, and wishing that I was talking to Samantha, but torn because it had been so long since I had seen these people. My second song was Bad Case of Loving You, which I found that I only knew the chorus for, so the host of the night had to give me a hand when the verse first started. I did fine after I found the melody, though. Again, I knew exactly who I meant when I sang that the Doctor gave me the news I got a bad case of loving you, though no one else could be ascertained that I was singing to Samantha.

It wasn’t long after that second song, though, that I was back at our original table, talking to Samantha, Angela and Megan. A song came on and Samantha started dancing by our table, until a guy came up and danced with her, which made her sit down for a little while. He persisted, and she gave in, the two of them starting to dirty dance next to our table. You would not believe how jealous this made me, and how angry that made me that I was jealous when this was, technically, only a friend even if I did wish, ever so much for more. I walked off, taking a seat by the dance floor where I could not see Samantha and her dancing partner. Well, that lasted until they made their way to the dance floor, which thus led me to move again, back to talk to Jessica, Debbie and their mother, also called Debbie.

Anyway, I spent quite a while there, too scared to go back to the table, and finally I got drunk enough to walk out the door, where I stayed for about ten minutes, before the call of love, whether returned or not, pulled me back. I decided that I could ignore that which had happened, since Samantha was back where she had been sitting, and there was no sign of her dance partner anywhere. This was my call for the third and final song of the night. Bed of Roses by Bon Jovi had been my choice, and no one who I was there with realised that I was the one singing it. Angela and Samantha were both sitting on a windowsill so that they could see the words on the screen across the pub. My eyes refused to leave Samantha once during that song, though neither her, nor Angela realised that, their eyes either closed as they sung along, or watching the words on the screen so that they could sing along. I decided not to tell Samantha that I had sung it to her, whether she had seen me or not. It wasn’t until I got back and asked what they thought that they realised I had been singing the song, so they obviously did not notice that I had been staring at Samantha all through the words, though one guy on the dance floor did, because as I left the microphone and made my way back to my seat, he patted my shoulder and told me to go get her, our eyes mutually travelling to Samantha’s figure getting off the windowsill and back to her chair.

Not long afterwards, we decided, or rather Megan and the guy she had met while being out decided, that the Wild West Sports Saloon was the next place of travel, despite the fact that I wanted to hang around and do The Memory Remains by Metallica, for a change in the mood of the evening. I didn’t win that argument, and off we went to Wild West for a few games of eight ball, none of which I lost. What I did lose, though, was my hope of a chance with Samantha. During the last game her and I were playing, the alcohol started effecting her, and tears began to appear in her eyes. I wanted to make them my own tears, but being one whose tears dried up long ago, I couldn’t, for which I was grateful. It hurt to see her cry though, it hurt even more to know that she was crying because of Simon, her ex-boyfriend. If I could have done anything for her, I would have, I still would do anything in my capability to make her happy. Right then though, I just wished that I had the licence to take her in my arms and kiss her tears and her fears away. The Wild West Sports Saloon had been her and Simon’s regular drinking place, and that had hurt her. If I’d known, I would have been more against the idea of going there, but she was as adamant as her sister, perhaps to prove that she could handle life without Simon. I don’t know her that well yet to be able to pick every detail out of her brain, but I knew enough to know who those tears were for, and that hurt.

We left after that last game, Andrew, Megan’s new friend had already gone previously, and the four of us made our way down Liverpool Street to Club Munchies, for, obviously, munchies, before taking a brief walk around the city, where we witnessed a taxi crash into a stationwagon, which Samantha has such a cute way of saying. The other adorable thing I had noticed at Wild West was the look of determination she got upon her face when she was leaning over the table to line up her shot, just more things I found that I could love about her. We continued walking, and finally decided to go back to Club Munchies, where Samantha bought a second cheeseburger, and also payed for one for Angela, and one for me. This led to us getting into a taxi, and ready to head home. Well, the taxi ride was fun, but at the conclusion, somehow Samantha ended up paying the entire fare, despite it having been decided that her and Megan would share the cost. I don’t know specifics of that occurrence, but Samantha and I ended up walking one way back to her house, while Megan and Angela walked a different path. Absence did not make the heart grow fonder, and Megan chose not to stay the night with the rest of us, which at least gave me a blanket over my body when I curled up to sleep in the spare room of Samantha’s house.