The Secret Nook - Chapter 4 (Doodles)

It took Meadow longer than planned.  A late-Spring snow storm had ground traffic to a standstill.  By the time she arrived at Storm’s, she knew she was late, but it really didn’t matter.  Les was poring over the sports section of the local paper and didn’t even look up.  He only motioned to the coffee pot and said, “Grab a cuppa.  We’re not going to get any business until this blizzard lets up, which they say will be mid-morning.”Meadow hung her coat in the back and took longer than usual unlacing her boots since they were so packed with snow and slush.  Eventually she emerged from the back, routed through the kitchen so she could grab a muffin, and then appeared in the restaurant.  She dropped some steaming coffee into a cup and sat down opposite Les.“I knew you’d make it in, Meadow, but, honestly, if things are this bad, just phone in.  I can cover it.”She smiled, saying, “No matter how hard I try, coffee as good as this is impossible with my little filter machine.  This is the place to be on a cold morning, believe me.”Les merely nodded, but though he appeared to be perusing the newspaper in front of him, casually noted, “Thought you seemed a little … I don’t know, out-of-sorts yesterday.  Just wondered if everything’s okay?”“Aw, Les, I didn’t know you cared,” she replied while laughing.  Nevertheless, his observation struck an appreciative note in her. Since his wife had passed away seven years previously, all he had left was a son and the restaurant.  At some point in that year, he had stopped being Meadow’s boss and treated her more like a partner.  It was a subtle transformation that both surprised and delighted her.  Since then they just “fit” and settled into a comfortable working relationship that could occasionally cross over into friendship.  This morning was clearly one of those times.“I just had a bad night, that’s all – a bad dream, really.  It caused me to think back to my parent’s accident and then to look at an old family photo album.”“Must have been hard?” he said, at last looking up.“Actually, it was awful. But today I pored over the album some more and actually found things a bit better.  I had great parents.”Les lifted himself up off the counter and put more coffee in both their cups.  “Find anything interesting?” he asked quietly.“No … not really,” she answered, thinking back.  “O, well, except for seeing some photos of paintings and drawings I had done when I first got into high school.  It was an interesting collection.”“I’m sure.  I have one of my own, you know,” Les said through a gravelly voice, smiling slightly.Meadow put her coffee cup down and looked at him quizzically.  When Les failed to offer anything else, she reached over and punched his shoulder.“Ouch,” he mocked.  “Carrying around all those dishes each day has turned you into a feather-weight champion, I’ll tell you.”He continued pretending to rub his shoulder while saying, “Well, you don’t really recall such things, but when your Mom was moving into her final year, you spent a lot of time on the counter phone here taking care of all the arrangements.  It took months and was hard on you, I know.”Meadow reached over and placed her hand over his own.  “You were so supportive back then, Les – I’ll never forget it.”“Seems to me you have a funny way of showing it,” he groaned, rubbing his shoulder once more. “Anyway, every time you were on the phone in those months, you doodled.”“I what?”“You doodled – drew on napkins, old menus or your order books.  Remember that one time when the printing company sent us those 11” by 17” menus that were actually blank?  They didn’t want them back, so I arranged to subtly leave some conveniently by the phone, along with a couple of pens, and gratefully watched as you drew an art gallery full of doodles that were actually great drawings.”Meadow was speechless. “You’re kidding, right?  Les, I had no idea – not even a hint of one.” She thought of just how considerate an action her boss and friend had undertaken, but didn’t know what else to say.Then the thought came. “So, where is this grand collection you talk about?  I mean, you could just be making this all up.”“If you want proof, then you’ll have to go the Louvre in Paris.  I sold the lot for a cool three million.”They both burst into laughter, but he eventually moved into his office, returning with an old stationery box, placing it directly in front of her.Meadow pulled off the lid and was shocked to discover what must have been 200-300 doodles, done with either blue or black ink.  Reverently, she pulled them out and passed through them in a process that took 15 minutes. It wasn’t the quantity but the surprising quality of the drawings that struck her.  While some were of the inner layout of the restaurant, the majority were depictions of things she was seeing in her mind – all drawn absently while spending hours on the phone.“Les … Les, these are …”“I know – amazing, right? I had no idea you possessed such talent, Meadow, but this is more than talent.  It’s … it’s God-given.”His words had stopped registering with her, as she slowly lifted one of her depictions and drew it closer to her face.  It almost appeared as a caricature.  It looked like an old building, with a little tower on top.  She had given it dramatic curves as it looked out over a deep valley beyond.I know this place,she thought to herself. But where, and why did I draw it?  In some strange fashion the drawing before her immediately drew her mind towards the dream she’d had in the last two nights.Les had come around the counter and placed a hand on her shoulder.  “What, Meadow?  What’s wrong?”  The shock on her face had given the mistaken impression that she was distressed.“No … I’m fine, Les.  This one here reminds me of that dream I was telling you about.  For whatever reason, it has Dad and Mom written all over it.”“What is it?  A church maybe?  It looks kind of odd.  Whoever built it must have had too much local hooch.”“It’ a caricature, Les – a drawing that purposefully exaggerates something in order to create an impression.  It’s me who made it look so odd.”He grunted, causing her to look over at him.  “What?” she asked.“Well, this is the only doodle where you did that.  The rest all seem pretty normal – beautifully normal.  This one, though, seems to me to be trying to say something.”“You mean, I was trying to say something, since it was me that drew it.”“I suppose,” Les said in a kind of resignation.  “But where is this, and why did you draw this one so differently?”“I … I just don’t know, I’m afraid.  But it does seem familiar somehow.”It was only then that her friend took some of the other pages and laid them side-by-side on the counter before them.  “These all look kind of old – like they were from when you were young.”It’s true, she realized. She had nonchalantly penned depictions of her childhood home, her school, even their old station wagon. There was her Mom in a patterned dress, and another one of her dancing around a campfire.  It was clear now that all the phone conversations about the closing out of her mother’s life had drawn the early years out of her, causing her to put them into drawings.  She had done that exact thing hundreds of times when she was young – putting images of her life to paper.Meadow spent a few minutes going through the doodles, explaining them to Les.  “But this place – it just seems so different.  You don’t recall where it is?” he asked again.His pudgy finger was resting directly on the old structure towering over the valley.  Seeing it again caused her to catch her breath. Why did she do that?  What was so special about it?  She could tell by the very different nature of the drawing she had put on paper years ago that it was a structure that meant something special to her.“I can’t say because I just don’t know.  But, somehow, it’s calling to me, Les – in here,” she said, pointing to her heart.He pointed to her head and added, “And in here.  And if it’s calling you, seems to me you need to go.”Meadow hadn’t thought of that, but the idea was appealing to her.  “I just don’t know where it is,” she said.“Seems to me that you drew it at a time when you depict other parts of your childhood.  That’s probably where you should start.”She held the paper to her chest, turned, and asked, “What are you saying, Les?”“Taking some time off from here,” he said, casting his hand around the room.  “I owe you tons of holiday time anyway.  You never take all the weeks you are owed.”“That’s because of all the time you granted me in that final year of Mom’s life, Les.  I could never repay you for that.”“The most you could do for me right now is to go there,” he said, pointing his finger at the paper she clutched.“It would mean heading up the hills of Virginia and into my past.”“That’s not far from here. Just go, Meadow.  I would appreciate it if you could let me know how it’s going.  Not required, of course, but I’ll worry about you a bit otherwise.”And that’s what launched Meadow onto a journey to her past and her future at the same time.