Chapter 10: The Next Evening

We met for an early dinner at a small but well-regarded restaurant called ‘Beauregard’s’ south of my place in Brentwood, about halfway to Franklin. The food was one of the increasingly popular ‘new Southern’ style cuisines in which old Southern dishes were made with fresh ingredients and bringing in different flavors to the traditional mix. It was a fun place that bragged of having 50 different Kentucky and Tennessee whiskies at the bar.

We were seated at a round table for six towards the back of the room and I had taken the seat closest to the back wall looking towards the entrance of the restaurant. We had all been served our drinks and a phone call to Phillip had let him know that his fiancée was only a minute or two away and would arrive any time.

We were eating early because it seems that several of the Adam’s new neighbors from their luxury condo association were coming by later that evening for a ‘meet and greet’ with their new Yankee friends.

The chit-chat at the table was comfortable — Phillip and George talking about the Titans and the Predators — Nashville’s sports teams, wondering whether to buy season tickets, while Alice was mildly flirting with me while describing her adventures in Nashville. I was only half paying attention to the conversations while I sipped my drink.

Then she arrived.

I saw her first because of my position at the table. Her golden blond hair, her striking bright blue eyes and her mouth. The way she moved as she walked towards our table. It was if she had never aged and had stayed frozen in time. She was even wearing a red silk dress that, except for the length and fullness of the skirt, was remarkably like what she wore that first time I laid eyes on her.

Our eyes locked and I stood up pushing my chair back with my legs. She stopped in place for a second or an eon in time, while a current, palpable as an electrical connection surged between us.

“Aurora! Mon Dieu! C’est impossible. It cannot be!”

By then the Adams had turned to see what had caught my attention. Phillip was suddenly rising as well, looking at me with a curious look on his face. Perhaps a bit shocked at my reaction.

“Oh, Christian! That’s my fiancée, Stephanie Molyneux.”

We gazed only at each other as she finally continued to walk towards me until she was only a step away.

“What did you call me?” she asked with great intensity.

“Aurora,” I repeated hoping for recognition in her eyes.

Phil tried to interject, “No, no, no, Christian — this is Stephanie. I told you about her...”

She continued to look into my face but she waved her hand at him to be still. Then she spoke to Phil.

“No, Phillip. He’s right. My name is Aurora. But I’ve never gone by my full name and the only one who ever called me that was my Grandmother. My full name is ‘Aurora Stephanie Marie Molyneux’, but since I was in High School I dropped ‘Aurora’ and shortened it to Stephanie Marie. I’m afraid after Disney named his ‘Sleeping Beauty’ Princess Aurora, the other kids made fun of me.”