I didn’t know how far we’d travelled after I had caught the glimpse of Pippa.  I think the driver had gone a block or two before he pulled over and let Bags and I off.  I ran back in the direction I saw her and Bags staggered on behind me until I stopped.

“There’s no one here!” Bags yelled.

“I saw her Bags!  That running girl was Pippa.”

“How could she be here, Jeff?  Didn’t you tell me she had gone off to Quebec City?”

“Yes.  No.  Maybe.  I don’t know Bags.  I thought that’s what she said but maybe she lied.  It was her, damn it!”

What made me so positive it was her?  It had been over a year since I last saw Pippa.  This new vision in the night could have been her.  The hair was a lot shorter and she’d developed a little more in all the right places but she looked like her.  Hadn’t she?  I was confused and I was inebriated.  Maybe my mind had played tricks on me.

I scanned the street.  Bags and I were the only ones out that night.  She could have turned up a side street or entered one of the many homes in the neighbourhood.  Whoever it had been, she was gone.

“I’ve got some tough news for you Jeff.  She’s not here.”

“Not here now or not here ever?”  I asked.  I wasn’t sure if Bags thought maybe I was hallucinating.

“Oh, you saw someone.  I saw her too.  But I don’t know what Pippa looks like.  How can you be sure it was her?”

I hung my head and shook it to try and clear some of the fuzziness.  My head was in a state from too many beers, running around late-night streets, and the shock of seeing someone I had tried to let go of through my performance that evening.

I sat down on the curb to think.  In a moment Bags was at my side and draped an arm around me.

“I’ve got some more bad news for you.  That was the last bus.  It’s on foot from here.”

I lay back on the sidewalk and looked up at the night.  I was a fool.  I had been so ready to launch my goodbye to Pippa and yet there I was beneath a starry sky trying to convince myself I had been premature with my farewell.  

“Let’s go Bags.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  I thought I was ready to let her go.  This just proves how lost I am.”  I got to my feet and pulled Bags to his feet.

“No,” Bags said.  “It just means you left something out of your story that you want to hold onto.  You have to figure it out and add it back in.  Either that or you need a bigger venue next time.”

I laughed only to let Bags know I was still with him.  My mind was elsewhere.  

It took us two hours of walking and stopping and a little puking before we got back to the residence.  On the way, Bags had convinced me to tell him the unabridged version of my history with Pippa.  It didn’t help.  I couldn’t figure out what I had edited out.  

We were both exhausted but sober by the time we reached our rooms.  I flopped into my bed without removing my clothes.  I kicked off my shoes and tried to close my eyes.  I tried to picture Pippa and the girl in the night side by side for comparison.  I couldn’t do it.  Pippa’s was the only face I saw.  I convinced myself I’d pushed myself too fast and too soon at Bags’ insistence.  It couldn’t have been Pippa. Or could it?  Maybe telling my story had been like those times I had practised or competed in track.  I had to leave something for the finish.  Maybe this wasn’t the finish for Pippa and I.  It was obvious I was holding something back.

My head had hurt but I managed to sleep somehow.  I didn’t sleep as long as Bags so I spent some time running the driveway from the campus to the main road.  The fog was cleared from my head and I attributed the incident from the previous night to wishful thinking and too much drinking.

More than a week passed and I didn’t dwell on the girl in the night.  Bags and I had discussed it at length and gone over my relationship with Pippa as best we could but found no clue that would have placed her in the same city at the same time as I.  Her story had ended with her going to Quebec City.  She announced it to me the last time I saw her.  That was a chapter I knew nothing about it.

Bags had wanted me to get back out there and tell my story again.  For my part, I was done with that.  If narrating my brief history with an old girlfriend brought hallucinations of her then I wasn’t ready for another round.

I put myself back into my studies.  I had two English courses, classical Greek and Roman literature, introduction to Psychology, and Philosophy.  It wasn’t a heavy course load but it required some moving about within the city.  Most of my studies were on the main campus and within walking distance.  All lectures were in the auditoriums and theatres near my residence but two of the break-out classes were in smaller rooms on the downtown campuses.

Twice a week I would take the bus downtown and return North through the city after my classes were over.  There was a point about midway between the main campus and the inner city where the northbound and southbound buses would pass each other.  I would often look out the window to see if there was anyone on the other bus I recognized.
It was about ten days after my pub engagement when I found myself heading North again after a small class session.  Our bus was at a stop light waiting to proceed and I could see the other bus, heading in the opposite direction, also waiting on the other side of the intersection for the signal to change.

Both buses had not sped up as yet when they passed.  I had a clear view into the southbound bus.  There she was again.  This was the same girl I saw running in the night.  It wasn’t something imagined from my subconscious because this was not an old vision of Pippa.  This was the newer version with the shortened hair.  It looked like her but then my sighting was split-second.  I had wanted to jump up and urge the driver to halt but it wouldn’t have stopped the other bus.  I had to let it go.  I had to let her go.

It was beginning to be too much.  I had seen the same girl twice and each time I thought it was Pippa.  After the first glimpse in the dark, I had convinced myself I had imagined the all too real running girl was Pippa.  This second time, I wasn’t so sure.

I thought back on ‘Vertigo.’  Hadn’t the character of Scottie often imagined he’d seen the woman he’d loved in a number of places after she was gone?  And that was after he’d had his breakdown.  What was my excuse?  I hadn’t completely fallen apart.  I had started in on a new interval without Pippa.  Why was I seeing her again?  Was I on the verge of my own mental collapse?

I tried to let this episode go but it stuck with me.  I had seen someone whom I had believed to be Pippa on two occasions and in two different locations.  If it wasn’t her then the alternatives were there was a doppelganger for her in the city or I really was going crazy.

Why hadn’t Bags’ wild therapy worked?  I had believed in his analysis it was time to let Pippa go and his bizarre treatment of storytelling to progress the healing.  I had felt better after I had recited my story but then the two sightings had sent me back to the beginning.  What was it Bags said it meant?  He suggested I had left something out of my story I wanted to keep and I had to decipher it and add it back in.  

It couldn’t be that easy, could it?  Of course, it couldn’t.  I had gone over everything and eliminated anything I thought I was not prepared to lose.  There was nothing missing.  The obvious choice, which made total sense to me, related to the Elvis song Bags had told me about.  He had only told me a portion of the lyrics but I had remembered them vividly.  Elvis had been singing about an old love, but not a forgotten love, when he sang “you've been gone away one year, and I have not forgotten dear, the love I had for you so long, is still here”.

Was that it?  Was it my love for Pippa?  Was I refusing to let it go?  It might have been as simple as that.  My brain was telling me the love I had for her so long was still there.  I latched on to that for an answer.  The love I’d had for Pippa was all I had left of her.  It made sense.  

I wasn’t sure my self-diagnosis was correct but it was logical.  There was only one problem, the way I saw it, how do you let go of love?  I’d been in love with Pippa for so long since before we were together and through our off-and-on relationships that it was the only thing that kept me going without her.  I couldn’t abandon those feelings.  If keeping them meant I’d be envisioning her in other girls then I’d have to find a way to live with it.

Naturally, Bags didn’t buy it.  He thought the best course was finding someone new.

“Where are all those numbers you were given?” he asked me after I explained my latest theory.  “There has to be a likely candidate in there somewhere.”

“I’m not crazy Bags, just a little mental.  Besides, I threw them away.”

“Oh man, all those wasted opportunities.”  As if to console himself, he extracted a baggie of gumdrops and popped a handful into his mouth.

“I know you’re right.  There’s probably another girl out there for me.  I just haven’t found her yet.”  I tried to sound convincing.

“And you won’t find her if you keep on looking for the old one,” Bags replied.

“What do you suggest I do, advertise for a replacement?”

Bags snapped his fingers and then pointed at me.  “That’s not a bad idea my boy.”

“I was just kidding!” I exclaimed.  “I told you I’m not in the market for a new relationship right now.”

“I’m not talking about a new relationship,” he said.  “I’m talking about you being sure the old one is finished.”

“You’re not making any sense, Bags.”  He wasn’t.

“Listen first and then answer my questions in order.  You say you saw this girl, who might have been your Pippa, that Saturday night after the pub?”

“You know I did or thought I did.  You were there.”

“Yes or no will suffice,” Bags went on.  “Was that the first night you saw this girl?”

“Yes.”  I decided to string along with him.

“Then you say you saw her a second time on a southbound bus?”

“Yes.”

“You also say the girl you saw in the night was the same girl you saw on that second bus?”

“Yes.  Where are you going with this, Bags?”

“It’s simple.  We need to find out if there really was or is such a girl.  You saw someone and I don’t doubt that because I was the first one to spot her that night.  So, we try and find that girl.”

I was still confused.  Hadn’t Bags and I tried that night to find her?  I wasn’t even sure if the second girl I’d seen was her or if it was another vision of Pippa brought on by self-deception.

“Okay Bags, how do we find her?  We have no clues.”

“Of course we do,” he pointed out.  “The last time you saw her was on a southbound bus when you were heading north.  The point at which those two buses pass means just one thing.  The next stop for your bus was the main campus and the only stop for that southbound bus prior to that intersection was, drumroll please, the main campus.  That southbound bus had picked up that girl somewhere here.  Don’t you get it, Jeff? She’s either a student here or she works here or she was visiting someone here.”

I was speechless.  Why hadn’t I worked that out?  I had been so busy trying to eliminate the possibility of this girl being Pippa, I had credited her to being a figment of my imagination.  

“That’s if the two girls are the same,” I pointed out.

“Are you thinking twins, Jeff?  Ah, split down the middle, one a piece.”

“No, I’m not thinking twins!  I was just saying I’m not even sure if I saw the same girl the second time whom you and I saw the first time.  Does that make sense?”

“None whatsoever,” Bags replied.  “But let’s pretend it does.  Now we go to work proving or disproving there’s only one girl or not and whether she’s Pippa or she’s not.”

“That makes less sense than what I said.”

“Yes, but it sounds better coming from me.”

“Okay, Bags, what do we do next?”

“We advertise!”  His enthusiasm was prolific but I was yet to be convinced.

“Billboard, skywriter, or did you have something specific in mind?”

“Lower key, pal.  Assuming she’s a student then she might read the student newspaper or the bulletin board at the library.”

Bags was on to something.  The student newspaper was a weekly and it wouldn’t cost anything to place an ad or even to post something on the bulletin board.

“Wanted one girl,” I began, “who may or may not be real and might or might not be someone I know.  Apply in person or send photograph.”

“Not exactly,” Bags countered.  “I was thinking something more enticing.  You know the kind that says something like you wore red and I wore white and our eyes met briefly in passing.  If you are the girl who was at such and such a place at such and such a moment then respond to this ad.  That kind of stuff gets them all the time.”

“Don’t forget such and such a place and date times two.  We’re working off two sightings.  How do we have her respond?  Should we give a phone number or say who I am and where I live?”

“We’ve got to perpetuate the mystery, Jeff.  We ask her to post a reply in the paper suggesting a rendezvous day and location.  Or she can post a note on the bulletin board beneath our post there.”

“What if we get no response?  Or worse yet, what if we get a bunch of crackpot responses?”

“Leave that to me,” Bags said, trying to be reassuring.  “I’ll be the lead and meet with anyone who responds.  You can lurk in the background and see who turns up.  Remember, I got a glimpse of her that night, too.”

“Yeah, but you were drunk.”

“So were you Jeffy-boy.  Between the two of us, we should be able to spot the real deal.”

It all sounded perfect but I was also frightened by the prospects.  What if no one responded, like I feared, and I was no further ahead?  Would that suggest I was crazy and there was no such girl or would it mean the girl was still out there somewhere?  My worst fear was this girl might be real and she would turn out to be Pippa.  What then?

Bags took care of the details and sent in an ad to the paper and posted a note on the big board at the library.  The latter produced no results and I suggested after a week we take it down.  The paper, however, yielded one result.  I had thought what Bags had written sounded a little desperate and I was prepared for the cranks to respond.  The response, however, seemed genuine if not a little vague.

“Here it is Jeff!” Bags exclaimed after finding a response in the paper a week to the day after our message had appeared.  “I think this is the one.  ‘Running girl wants to know who seeks her.  The Old Grind, Saturday 2 pm.  Wear a scarf’.”

“How do we know it’s the one?” I asked.  “It’s the only one!”

“Have a little faith, Jeff.  Say, do you have a scarf, I can borrow?”

Bags had agreed to be the front.  He was going to meet with the respondent and scope things out.  We didn’t have a scarf between us but we asked around and were given the loan of a bright green scarf.  It did nothing to compliment Bags’ appearance.

The Old Grind was a coffee shop in the downtown district.  Bags and I both believed this meant the girl lived somewhere near there.  Hadn’t she been travelling southbound in that direction when I last saw her?  The course she had been running at night would have also placed her near there.

I instructed Bags to arrive early and sit at a table in the window so I could watch from across the street.  That way I could see anyone entering and exiting and who might eventually sit with him.

I was nervous.  Twice, I pleaded with Bags to call the whole thing off.  If it wasn’t Pippa we would have to explain to whoever showed up why we were looking for her.  If it was Pippa then I’d have to deal with all the old feelings and question myself as to why I needed to see her.

It was just my luck it rained that day.  I had the hood of my jacket pulled up and around my head and I stood back in an empty doorway across the street from the coffee shop.  It wasn’t directly across because I wanted to be more inconspicuous.  It was the entrance off the right to some apartments that were housed above a local store.  It wasn’t a busy spot.

Bags was about twenty minutes early and I could just make him out in the window.  Several people walked by The Old Grind but no one went in around the designated time.  None of the passersby even resembled the girl I thought I had glimpsed on both occasions.  I waited an extra twenty minutes and then decided to join Bags and admit our respondent, for some reason, wasn’t likely to make an appearance.

I stepped out of the doorway at the same time as someone else from a location a couple of doors down to the left.  I held back and watched her hesitate and then started for the roadway.  She had an umbrella that partially blocked my view but I recognized her right away.  It was the girl we’d been seeking and, more importantly, it was Pippa.  

“Pippa!” I shouted toward her before she stepped off the curb.

She was startled and tensed up but she did not turn to face me.

“Walk away Pink, just walk away,” she said emotionlessly while standing very still and without turning in my direction.

“That’s the best you’ve got to say to me after a year and a half?  Walk away?  Like you walked away from me?”  It had started to shower a little harder and it was so surreal to be having this conversation with her on a public street in the pouring rain.

She whipped around and looked at me.  Unbelievably, she was more beautiful than I recalled.  Her hair had been trimmed in a short pixie cut and her face seemed a little fuller.  My heart was in my mouth.  Here was the girl I’d loved matured into young womanhood and it was suddenly clear I hadn’t been having visions of her…it was her.  In that moment I knew for a certainty I hadn’t stopped loving her.

“That’s not fair, Pink,” she said.  “You know why I left.  I wasn’t walking away from you.  I was walking away from me.”

“What does that even mean?” I asked.  I had found my voice again.

“I had to leave my life behind and you were part of that.  I’m sorry Pink.  I can’t do this again.”  She turned and started across the street.

I couldn’t let her go again.  There had to be something I could say to stop her.  Suddenly the little snippet of that Elvis song popped into my head.  

“You've been gone away one year, and I have not forgotten dear, the love I had for you so long, is still here.”  I didn’t try to sing it but all the words of that verse were accurate.

Pippa slowly turned and came back to face me.  There might have been tears in her eyes or it might have been the rain.  The same was true of my own face.

“How do you know that song?” she asked quietly.

“Does it matter?  The words are my truth.  It’s still here.”  I put my hand over my heart as an added gesture.  It was corny but it felt necessary.

“Did you place that ad in the student paper?”

“Not me exactly, I had help.  It’s complicated.  Wait, my friend said I shouldn’t use that word.”

“What word?” she asked.

“Complicated.  My friend told me everyone uses that word when they want to avoid answering something truthfully.”

“What are you trying to avoid answering, Pink?”

That was a good question.  In fact, what was the other question I was avoiding?  I was certain I knew what it was.  Did I still love her?  That was the real question and one I both hoped she would ask and not ask.

“Can we go somewhere and talk Pippa?”

“I don’t know Pink.  I sure as hell didn’t expect to run into you today.”

“There’s a coffee shop across the way.  Maybe we could just start with coffee.”

“The Old Grind?  Isn’t that where the running girl was supposed to meet the person who placed the ad?  Who thought that one up?”

“His name is Kevin but everyone calls him Bags.  He was the one who was supposed to meet you.  I was to wait over here and see who showed up.”

“That’s what I was doing,” Pippa replied.  “I thought the person was probably going to be some kind of kook.  I was going to size him up and then decide if I wanted to meet him.”

“What do you say about that coffee?  We can just talk.  After all we’ve been to each other then coffee seems pretty harmless.”

Pippa looked around and then rocked a little back and forth on her heels. There was meaning in her hesitancy but I had long since avoided trying to define any true meaning when it came to Pippa.  Carlotta was a catchall for what I didn’t understand.  Standing in the rain, watching a girl I had thought I would never see again, was torture.  How much of the Pippa I knew was in this new woman?  Was she more Pippa or more Carlotta or someone else entirely different?

“One coffee and one condition,” she offered.  “You don’t ask me about Quebec City.  I’m not prepared to talk about it.”

That was one topic for which I desperately needed answers but, like always, I had to play by her rules.

“I agree but you have to agree to my one condition.”

Pippa looked a little distressed.  Who was I to start putting a condition on someone who just put a condition on me?

“What’s that?” she asked worriedly.

“You have to meet my friend Bags.  He’s the reason why you and I are standing in the rain today debating coffee.”

Pippa and I walked separately to The Old Grind.  Bags was still waiting patiently at his table and looked up anxiously when we came in.

“Jeff, she didn’t show…” he began.  Then he looked past me and saw Pippa.

“Bags, this is our mystery girl.  Her name is Pippa.”

Bags looked confused.  “You mean Pippa as in your Pippa?”  

“Well not exactly,” I replied.  “Same name but I think an all-new version.”

Pippa smiled.  It was a smile I hadn’t seen in a long time.  Thinking back on my pub performance I thought of the new ending I had added and the words ‘she reached out across the table in a coffee shop, held his hand, and quietly said goodbye.’  That had been a fictional ending to my piece but I was afraid it might become prophecy.  

“Pippa, this is my friend Kevin and the mastermind behind today’s events.”

She put out her hand and shook his.

“Bags to my friends and pretty girls,” he jested.

“Cut it out Bags.  Listen, you wouldn’t mind taking off for a bit, would you?  I’ve promised Pippa coffee with no strings attached.”

“One string attached,” she answered.

Bags looked at both of us and then stood.  “Of course, of course.  I’ll see you later Jeff.  Pippa, it was nice to finally meet you.  Take notes Jeff, I’ll want details.”

“Maybe Bags,” I said hopefully.  I really did hope there would be something to tell.  That was up to her.

Bags left and Pippa and I ordered coffee and sat opposite each other.  We were quiet for a while as we sipped our coffees.

“Reminds me of sipping Pepsi together in your avocado house,” I said, breaking the silence.

“That was a long time ago, Pink.  Even the avocado house is gone now.”

“Really? What happened?” I asked.

Pippa looked at her watch and then looked around the coffee shop.  There weren’t a lot of customers in there.

“I don’t know if I have time for all that.  It’s a bit of a lengthy story.”

“Just give me the highlights then.  Give me something, Pippa, anything.”

“Jeff, what are you doing here?”  I thought maybe she was trying to avoid my request.

“You mean today, right now, or were you asking more in general?  I could ask you the same question.  What are you doing here Pippa?”

“I’m going to school at Trent for Business Administration.  There, that’s my answer.  What’s yours?”

“I’m going to Trent for a Bachelor of Arts focussing on English and Psychology.”

An expression passed over her face like relief.  She began to relax.  “Oh, I remember, you wanted to write or teach.”

“Something like that I said.  What about you?  What’s Business Administration all about?”

“I want to run a business of my own someday.  I think I told you about it,” she said.

I vaguely recalled her mentioning it once during the weeks following Roger’s death and before she left me.

“I think I recall something.  Can I ask you, did you know I was going to school here, too?”

Pippa took a moment to respond.  I wasn’t sure why the hesitation.

“No, Pink, and if I did, I would have gone somewhere else.”

Well, I had asked for it.  The answer was a little harsh but at least it was honest.

“I didn’t know you’d be here either Pippa.  Frankly, I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Okay, I guess we’re done with the pleasantries, are we?”  She stiffened but she didn’t get up to leave.

“I’m not the one who would have gone to another school to avoid seeing me again.  What’s that all about?  What did I do to you?”  It all came spilling out.  I wanted to show her I was angry and hurt even though I also thought it would push her away.

“And now we come back to the bigger question,” she said haughtily.  “What are we doing here, Pink?”

“You tell me,” I snapped back.  “You’re the one with all the answers.  I haven’t seen you for over a year and I have a million questions.”

She stood up and said, “I knew I shouldn’t have come today.”

“Then why did you?” I asked in a loud whisper.  I wanted to shout it but no one else needed to know what was going on between us.  I didn’t even know what was going on between us.  This wasn’t how I’d imagined our reunion.

Pippa sat back down and leaned across the table.  This is where I thought she’d take my hand and quietly say goodbye.

“Because I thought that ad would lead me to someone new,” she responded softly.  “I’m sorry if I’ve made you angry Pink.  I guess I was looking for some kind of new adventure.  You know me, always looking for the next journey.”

I took in a deep breath and then let out a controlled exhale.  I wasn’t sure if this argument between us was anger or passion.  I had been struggling between wanting to leave and wanting to hold her again.  I wasn’t sure what I wanted or what I had expected.  What if the running girl had turned out to be someone else?  Would I have been ready for that endeavour?  I had also wanted it to be Pippa but hadn’t thought as far ahead as to what to do or say if it was.  There I was with that opportunity and I was blowing it.

“Hi, my name is Jeff Carter, thanks for replying to my ad and coming out on a rainy day.”  It was a bold move.  If we couldn’t pick up where we had left off then could we start over?

Pippa looked at me with confusion written all over her face.  She looked at my smile and extended hand.  She hesitated but then put her hand in mine and shook it.

“My name’s Pippa Bailey.  I’m the running girl.”  She was playing along.  I had to proceed with those terms.  I was excited and afraid all at the same time.  What if my tactic didn’t work?  I had to chance it.  One thing was certain, Bags would never believe it.

“Do you always run late at night?” I asked.

“It’s complicated,” she replied.  “Wait, a friend of mine once told me he’d been told you should never use the word complicated because it means you’re trying to avoid answering something truthfully.  Let’s just say it’s part of a longer story.”

“I’ve got time.”  I had looked at my watch like she had earlier but mine was a more patient response.  I had thought the arguing in the street in the rain had been strange but this new conversation like two strangers meeting for the first time was even more unreal.

“What’s your story, Jeff Carter?  You must have one, too.  I get the sense you’re looking for something or maybe someone you’ve lost.”  She hadn’t let go of my hand since she’d taken it after our new introduction.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”  I placed my other hand over hers.
Pippa placed her remaining hand on top of mine.  Fours hands were intertwined across the table.

She gave both of my hands a squeeze and said “you first."