THREE

 

 

A few minutes later he softly woke up Paula and asked her to come with him downstairs so that they could talk.

They made their way down the familiar spiral staircase and locked themselves into the small woman’s bathroom near the carry-on luggage compartment. The bathroom always smelled damp and unclean and this morning was no exception.

Paula dashed some water on her face, toweled it off, and then turned and faced him. “You’re going to jump, aren’t you?”

“At the slope,” he said. “And I hope you’ll come with me.”

“The toy store?” she asked.

“The toy store,” he said. “And my home town is a lovely place to live. And you told me you liked to ski and hike. There’s a lot of that around there. There is no more beautiful place in the entire world.”

She touched his face gently. “I know. You’ve told me a dozen times. It sounds wonderful.”

“But,” he said, “you’re not coming.”

Paula frowned. “I didn’t say that.”

“But I can tell.”

Paula took his hand, her grip warm in his cold palm. “I’ve always wanted to play music. You know that. I’ve told you all my dreams. Your home town is a small town, with no real facilities for me to help my music. I need to go to a bigger city that has a good music community and maybe even a university with a good music program.”

Mason took a deep breath and pulled her close to him. “I know that,” he said, softly. “I just hoped you would come and visit me. I think you’re ready to get your music career really going, start that group you’ve been talking about... and I want you to jump with me. That’s all.”

Paula pushed him back and looked into his eyes. Mason could see that she was fighting tears, but after a short moment she said, “You mean that, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Of course. You need to get on with your music and I need to get on with my toy store. And you know, I’ve been trying to make up my mind on this for so long that I have finally realized that I have more than enough money put away. I might be able to help you a little along the way. As long as you come and see me in my store once in a while.”

That did it. Tears ran down her face and she hugged him so hard he didn’t know if his ribs were going to break or not.

Finally, she pushed him back against the sink and held him as best she could at arm’s length. “Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

She smiled. “For believing in me. That was all it took. Just one person to believe in my dream. My family never did. My friends always laughed.”

Mason smiled and kissed her, her lips wet from the tears. She kissed him back, hard. Then she held him and said, “You’re going to make a great toy store owner, you know that?”

He stared at her. “Now I do.”

A few minutes later they were back at their seats gathering their things. It was going to be a rough jump, but they’d both make it. Of that, he now had no doubt.