“How long does it feel?”
“Well, the diner, the train, and the tunnel ... and here ... I don't know, like an hour or so?” she guesstimated. His smile was back in place, but once again, it didn't quite reach his eyes.
“Then that's how long you've been here.”
He's not gonna tell me anything.
“What about you,” she changed her angle. She took another drink of her beer before continuing. “Do you know me?”
“Of course I do, Adele.”
“I mean, before today. You said you were supposed to pick me up – what does that mean?” she pressed. He rubbed at his jaw and sipped on his own beer.
“It means ... I'm here to help you. You're alone, and frightened. Sometimes that makes it hard to find your way home. My job is to help calm you down enough so you can find it,” he explained in a roundabout way.
“So it's your job? Helping me is your job?”
“Helping people is my job. You're a person who needs help. So I'm here.”
“And here is now.”
“No, now is here. Or was. Now it's now.”
Her brain was about to explode and she contemplated throwing her bottle at him, but then she noticed the glint in his eyes. He was teasing her. She finally coughed out a laughed.
“You're trying to drive me crazy.”
“Ah! But what if you're already crazy?” he asked. She froze in her spot.
“Oh my god. Is that it? I've gone crazy? I'm having some sort of delusional mental breakdown, and I'm actually in some sort of insane asylum, and my brother is pushing me around in a wheelchair while I drool on myself, and I -” she started talking at sonic speeds, but Jones leaned forward and grabbed one of her hands.
“I'm sorry, sorry, bad joke. You're not crazy, okay? You're perfectly sane. Think about it – what's your name? Where do you live?” he threw out some questions of his own. Adele tried to calm down, tried to clear her mind.
“Uh, uh, I'm Adele Reins. I live in Philadelphia – no! Los Angeles. I live in Los Angeles,” she said quickly, her fingers picking at the label on her beer.
“That's right. What do you do there?” he kept pressing. She chomped on her bottom lip for a moment.
“I ... I went to school. I graduated. I was working. Working for a ... uh, design. I do design work,” she couldn't figure out why she was having trouble recalling anything. It was like the fog from outside had crawled into her brain and wrapped around it.
“Yes, you seem very creative,” Jones commented while he glanced around the room. “And what else? What do you do for fun?”
“Oh, I ... I like to be outside,” if anything, the words were getting harder and harder for her to find. “I like ... my friends. I have friends, I think. Z ... Zoey! I was in school with her! God, how could I forget her?”
“Hey, would you like to dance?”
Adele was pretty sure she was almost beyond being surprised anymore, so his question didn't strike her as too terribly odd. She looked at him, at his polo shirt and jeans. Then down at herself, in her sweater and Chucks.
“I'm not really dressed for dancing,” she pointed out. He shrugged and stood up.
“Who cares? Come dance with me.”
He held out his hand, and much like when he'd told her to open the door at her parents' house, she didn't even question it. It was like if he issued a command, she had to heed. So she put her hand into his and allowed him to pull her to her feet.
“Where are we gonna dance? Here?” she asked, glancing around the room.
It was mostly empty, with a couple people sitting at the bar, and one other table occupied. There was no music at all, just the crackling sound of fire from the torches. When she looked at him, the bartender nodded his head in greeting. She turned away quickly, disturbed by the fact that where his face should've been, there was just a blur.
“No, of course not. There's dancing in the next room,” Jones explained as he gently pushed her towards a huge set of double doors.
“Really? I don't hear any music,” she mumbled, trying to peek through the cracks in the door.
“You will. Here, I want it to be a surprise. I'm gonna cover your eyes,” he warned her, moving so he was at her back.
“What? No, I don't like -” she tried to argue, but then both his hands were gently resting against her brow. She frowned, unable to see anything in front of her.
“I promise, you'll like it,” he whispered in her ear.
There was a groaning sound, followed by creaking wood. The doors were being opened. She felt Jones' chest press against her back, almost urging her forward. When she tried to take a step, though, a rush of wind passed over her. Sudden enough to startle a shout out of her, then a shiver, as the cold cut through her.
Then there it was, the sound of music, surrounding her. An orchestra of some kind playing a lively tune. Something she didn't recognize. She licked her lips and braced herself as Jones removed his hands.
Adele gasped. She was always gasping, she realized; it was a wonder she hadn't passed out from hyperventilating. But everything, every moment in this place, was all so much to take in!
She'd expected a similar room to the first, all wood and more torches. Maybe a shitty band, or even a jukebox, like in the diner. The room she was standing in, though, was magnificent. Taken right out of the pages of a fairy tale – gilded mirrors, stretching from floor to ceiling, lined the walls. Golden candelabras jutted out between them, their array of candles dripping wax onto the floor. Above them, a chandelier of epic proportions, and comprised of gold and crystal, twinkled as it slowly spun in a circle.
And the people! There were people everywhere. It was almost standing room only. Couples moved around on the dance floor, marching around in a stately fashion. A dance so old, she didn't recognize it. The men wore tight pants and waistcoats with long tails. The women wore big dresses with huge sweeping skirts and tight bodices.
Adele looked down at herself and felt her brain start to swim in her head. A ballgown was covering her from chest to ankles. All white, with gold lacing over the skirt. She put out a hand to brace herself against a wall or pillar, but she connected with an arm, instead.
Under her hand, which was encased in a long white glove, she saw a bicep. It was covered by a dark green coat, cut in the same style as the other men's. When she lifted her eyes, it was to find Jones smiling down at her. He cupped his hand around her elbow, helping her to keep steady.
“How do you do this?” she whispered. She hadn't moved. She hadn't even lifted her feet. Now she was in a room that couldn't possibly have been on the other side of that door, wearing an outfit she hadn't put on herself.
“It wasn't me,” he answered simply, then he moved onto the dance floor, taking her with him.
“These things aren't possible. They're just not possible. I'm dead. You can tell me, I can take it,” she babbled as he pulled her around to stand in front of him.
“And what if you are? It wouldn't change your situation. If you're dead, or hallucinating, or delusional, or dreaming – it doesn't matter. You're still here. You're in the now. Be in this now with me,” he urged.
“But I don't want to 'be in this now' with you,” she insisted. “I want to go home.”
Jones sighed, and she could tell he was struggling to hold onto his smile. His eyes looked so sad. It broke her heart a little. She didn't want him to be sad because of her. Not when he was only trying to help.
“I know, Adele. I know that's what you want. But I can't make that happen. So for now you're here, whether you like it or not. You can embrace it and start dancing with me, or you can wake up in your bed back at home and we can do this all over again.”
He said it so simply, but it kind of horrified her. The idea of being stuck in some sort of Groundhog's Day scenario, just waking up over and over again in her childhood bed. Finding her way through that dense smoke-like fog, walking through that creepy dark town, seeing all those people with their blurry faces. It sounded torturous.
Be in this now with him.
Adele took a deep breath and slid her arm around his shoulders as best she was able. He smiled and his arm went around her waist. Then he took her free hand in his, and they were dancing.
She had no clue how to do a waltz, had never so much as attempted one before, but her feet moved in the correct steps, keeping up with Jones as he pushed her around the floor.
“You look like Belle,” he broke the silence after a minute.
“I'm sorry, what?” she asked, confused.
“Your hair, your eyes. That dress. You kind of look like Belle, from Beauty and the Beast. You look beautiful,” he told her. She felt a blush rush to her cheeks.
“Thank you. I have my mother's eyes,” she babbled lamely.
“Well, your mother has good genes. I'm glad she shared them with the world.”
The song ended and dancers parted, clapping their hands politely. The band started up with a quicker tune and Jones looked like he was going to ask her to dance again, but another woman twirled in between them. She laughed as she wrapped her arms around Jones, pulling him into the dance. He shrugged, then put his arm around her and whirled away with her.
Adele wasn't sure what to do with herself. She felt like she halfway to fainting, so she made her way to one of the mirrored walls and leaned against it. Welcomed the cool glass against her hot skin. So many people in such a relatively small space, it was so warm. She fanned her hand in front of her face for a few beats, then went off looking for a door.
But she quickly discovered there were no doors. Not one single exit along any of the walls – including where they'd come in. The big wooden doors were gone. Poof!
She groaned as she stared at her reflection. Then Jones' words came back to her, and she actually smiled. She did kind of look like Belle, with her soft brown hair swept up on the back of her head, some curls hanging at her neck. She had wide, almost violet colored eyes – she'd always categorized herself as average looking, with her eyes pushing her over the line into exotic. Her clear, pale skin made her look younger than her twenty-five years of age, and when added all together, the effect was somewhat Disney princess like.