Moving Images Challenge #47

THE WAITING

The trouble with costume parties was that secretly everyone went as the character she wished she could be, even if she chose not to acknowledge it publicly.  Ardith knew, for example, that when her mother used to go to one of those parties as Scheherazade, it was because she had harbored a secret desire to have the man of her dreams fall in love with her because she could tell such beautiful stories.  Her mother had been a romantic at heart, trapped in a mundane marriage to an ordinary Joe who sparked not a flicker in her, and those parties had been one way she found a reprieve from her situation.

So did that mean that the bridal gown and veil she had donned for the party represented her wish for a wedding?  She shuddered at the thought, but it was a shudder of desire, not fear or disgust.  She raised her toe idly and pushed the knob on the tap, letting a stream of cold water trickle into the bath.  The veil she still wore on her head tickled her neck as she stared unseeingly at the tap, the empty glass still clutched in her hand.  She knew who she wished to wed, but she didn't know how he felt.  She hadn't seen or heard from him in more than a fortnight.  Her dreams, and her thoughts, had been silent.

The bath water grew cold, and still she sat in it. shivering now, but unable, it seemed, to move, to get out of the bath and dry herself off.  She was caught, like a fly, in a web of silence and memory.  The towel was there, draped across the chair, waiting.  Just as she was waiting...

...Jonah's eyes snapped open, his body on instant alert, his heart pounding out of control.  He swallowed great gulps of air, and sent a thought out to find her...Ardith.  She was there, cold, shivering.

"Baby, get out of the bath!"

He felt her instant attention, her sudden fury...her fear.  It broke him, and he swore.

"I'll be there as soon as I can, Ardith.  I promise you!"