Well I let it happen anyhow, and what I’m feeling now has no easy explanation. Reason plays no part.

Alicia steeled herself outside Bob’s door and quickly ran over the mental checklist of her preparations. The cocktail dress, the same blue as her eyes. Two inch heels, not so high as to cause trouble but enough to emphasize her calves. She pulled out a compact and checked her makeup; everything in place. She took a deep breath, blew herself a kiss in the mirror, and knocked.

It had become something of a game for Bob over the last couple of days to hazard a guess at what the day’s activities would look like, so today’s almost complete lack of activity or even an outfit to wear had put him a little on edge. Do he did what he’d always done when left alone with his thoughts. He’d stressed the fuck out. Now it was kind of nice to not have to do much after what had so far been a very active week, but his brain was crawling with thoughts scuttling around like cockroaches. Had he crossed some lines? Of course he had. This was, after all, nothing more than a coma dream or the last gasps of his neurons as he bled out on the highway. Sort of the inverse of his life flashing before his eyes. Wish fulfillment fantasies like the last episode of Breaking Bad. Even so, last night had been dark even for him. Was he a bad person for enjoying that fantasy come true? Probably, but what really is morality anyway? Does it even apply to a basically dead man?

It was thoughts like this that plagued him as he tried to relax and distract himself throughout the day. Video games didn’t do anything to alleviate it, he couldn’t concentrate long enough to read, couldn’t lose himself in cooking lunch mainly because it was just for himself.

By the time he walked into the restroom to relieve himself at 4:30 (If I’m dying or in a coma why do I still have to piss?) he was such a bundle of nerves that he was starting to get a headache. That’s why it came as such a relief when he found clothes laid out for him. A suit. Charcoal grey with a white shirt and pale blue tie. What does Alicia have in mind?

This was by far the strangest ride Bob had been on since arriving at the Chalet. It started with the usual sleigh jaunt, Alicia sitting primly at his side wearing the kind of dress he’d drooled over her in on opening night senior year for the school play. When they’d hit that event horizon point where they always reentered reality the sleigh had shifted to a 64 foot motor coach bus. Not like a tour bus, but a charter bus of the kind used by senior groups to go to casinos. Alicia had had a pretty similar reaction to what the others had, awe and childlike glee, but she still hadn’t given Bob any clues. Something about this setup seemed familiar though.

It clicked when they reached their destination and he realized where they were.

Or rather when.

In 1989, after serious refurbishment the Imperial Six Theater on Yonge Street in Toronto had reopened, returning to its original name, the Pantages; a name which it kept until rebranding as the Canon in 2001. The primary reason for the refurbishment was the show that the theater would come to be known as the Canadian host of. Phantom of the Opera opened in ‘89 with Colm Wilkinson in the title role, which he played for four and a half years.

The marquee told Bob all he needed to know. In 1994, Ms. McDaniel had chaperoned a trip from McKeesport Pennsylvania to Toronto Canada for the Fine Arts Senior students of the little Catholic high school that was Bob’s Alma Mater.

This was that trip.

It was even more amazing the second time around. Of course the first time he’d been ashamed to admit that he’d fallen asleep mid-performance. Even back then he’d been an insomniac and rather than sleep in a bed with two other guys he’d chosen a chair in the hotel room the night before the show. This time he was rested, dressed to the nines, and had a beautiful woman with him in the box. A beautiful woman who was also currently sitting below in the cheap seats. All of the sci-fi he’d consumed over the years had him worried about paradox right up until Andre and Fermin started singing ‘Notes’ and then he lost himself in the spectacle.

There had been a bizarre moment when he caught sight of his younger self during intermission. 19 year old Bob wasn’t a confident creature anywhere outside of the bedroom. Even though he still had a full head of blonde hair, his cheeks had yet to drop the weight of youth and his jaw had yet to square off. Young Bob was kind of a nerd. Less leading man and more comic relief. He recalled his own resignation at that time, still stinging from KJ’s betrayal. Cheer up, kid. It doesn’t get better, but it does get interesting.

Dinner was further down Yonge. All the way down in fact, at the very foot on Queen’s Quay. In Bob & Alicia’s present Captain John’s Harbour Boat Restaurant was only a distant memory, but in 1994 the old converted passenger liner that had once served as President Tito of Yugoslavia’s personal pleasure barge still sold the best seafood in Toronto.

Small talk over white wine and blue point oysters. Bob had had a rather full life, but Alicia had actually lived a full lifetime, so they had plenty to speak of. Bob was once more the nervous senior with the hot teacher, and for her part Alicia was more then pleased to see that her student had added quite a bit of polished charm to the wit he had displayed so long ago in her creative writing class. Eventually following splitting the Seafood Platter, a decadent affair with a massive amount of shellfish, the conversation inevitably swung to the present.

“So I’m supposed to join your harem then?” Bob nearly choked on the last steamed mussel, but Alicia continued undeterred, a mischievous smile curling her thin lips. “I’m an old woman, Mr. Dobbs. I long ago gave up on avoiding sensitive topics. Or unpleasant ones, which this is decidedly not.”

Bob’s ears perked up like a dog hearing the mailman. “It’s not, eh? So the memories of youth, the romantic dinner in a place that got turned into scrap metal in 2015, all this is leading up to seducing me?”

“It’s been a long time since I had a man, Mr. Dobbs.”

“Why Ms. McDaniel, if I didn’t know better I’d think you were proposing that I make love to you.”

“Maybe someday Mr. Dobbs,” he felt, to his mild surprise, a stockinged foot rub against the thin material of his dress pants, along his inner thigh, “but tonight, I’m proposing that you take me into the men’s room right here and find out if you can make me scream loud enough to get us thrown out.”

(Title: “Heaven Help My Heart” from Chess)