Two men sat cooling their heels at the Gap, the sun a distant glow at 6.30 pm.
David was enjoying the view of the sea rolling in from the Pacific. The swell crashed relentlessly against the sheer cliffs whose beauty was often tainted in peoples mind by the sorrow the view invoked, it being notorious for suicide jumpers. The wind whipping at his hair and clothes added another line to his already well lined face.
His employer sat beside him oblivious to the grand vista his thoughts firmly fixated on a certain petite brunette and his surprise birthday bash. He didn't notice the odd looks they received from joggers and walkers. A man sitting in a tuxedo with a chauffeur at the Gap was incongruous to say the least.
A surprise party. It was the last thing that Ethan would have suspected his forthright housekeeper to have suggested, considering his openly stated aversion to birthday parties and even more so surprises. This time though he had to admit he was mildly looking forward to the nights festivities. Could it be because Maggie had had a hand in organizing it? That woman had come to mean a lot to him and if she had put her heart and soul into making the party a success in so short a time who was he to put a spanner in the works by not showing up or by not playing the part of the surprised birthday boy. But then what about after the party? Maggie had stated on the boat her intention of was waiting a few days until she actively began to look else where to live. A few days Ethan now realised meant after the party.
Maggie leaving to become Zoe?
He couldn't bring himself to think of the woman as Zoe, even though he'd have had to in 13 days if she was still without a memory. Ironic how he had used her real first name on her credit card. Would her name ever be the same as the card, he wondered? He couldn't imagine a life without her, without her sunny disposition at breakfast and her dry wit at the dinner table. Even his state of permanent sexual tension was preferable to the asexual drudgery of approaching middle age. He had thought that that's all it was, just lust mingled with a desire for companionship. Ethan had questioned himself on the boat wondering if that's all it was. But when he had found out about her apparent duplicity and banished her from his house he had felt his soul tear in two and when he saw her huddling at the station and took her into his arms he had felt it mended, whole, fused with hers.