Later that night, the rain still fell in a way that mirrored Derek’s excitement. Every time he had met with Julia, whatever the magic was, it grew in intensity. Maybe something would happen this time, and Gene would see it. The two walked from their cars, through the heavy rain, to the slight overhang of the Starbucks roof. Derek’s jacket and pants stuck to him, and his shoes made a slight sloshing squeak. Gene came under the cover behind him and shuffled his jacket free of water before going in. Price walked through the door before taking off his wet jacket and went straight to the table where he had always seen Julia. It was empty.

Gene wandered in behind Derek, his jacket under his arm. “So, where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Derek said as he started walking around the café. Gene left to order his own drink as Derek darted through the rest of Starbucks, realizing just how big the sitting area was. He’d never noticed the sign that read, “Max Occupancy: 93.”

“What do you want?” Gene asked as the frantic Derek nearly walked by him.

He paused a moment. “I want the white _mocha… a medium one.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a face look up and quickly look back down. Derek saw a girl under the cover of dark hair, her nose in a book. Feeling the cocktail of courage and social awkwardness, he approached the girl and asked, “Miss?”

The girl looked up. Blue eyes and braces. Not her. A hand fell on Derek’s shoulder, and he turned, hoping to see green eyes. Brown eyes. Gene, holding his drink, ushered him to sit, with bizarre coincidence, at Julia’s regular table. Derek’s sense of normal slowly spun out of control; Gene, his partner from work, was occupying the space reserved for Julia, the one he had seen in that seat for two memorable nights. Derek didn’t sit forward in the chair as he normally did; instead, he was looking from place to place, hoping to see Julia’s car pull up or to see her sitting in a corner he hadn’t carefully combed.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” he said. A fever came with admitting. “She’s usually here.”

“Where?” Hartman said, looking in the wrong place.

“Here,” he said, helplessly. “She’s always been at this table.” Unlike the times before where the magic had slowly passed into the air, this moment was sudden and drowning, as if the unlocked door swung wide open and the cool, revitalizing breeze tried to choke him. He turned around and saw a bald man reading a newspaper and looking at him. With green eyes. Slowly, the newspaper page turned, and when Derek looked again, the man’s eyes looked at him with dull blue irises. Beside Derek, a young girl was tugging at her mother, asking for a sip while the mother glanced at Derek with green eyes that were green for only a second. Derek looked ahead to see a young man intently tip-tapping at a computer. Abruptly, the man looked up, and Derek saw more green eyes. After a blink, they were just hazel. Derek turned down to sip his drink, despite his slightly shaking hand, and as the cup slowly tilted up, he saw his own reflection in the cream brown magically return his gaze with green eyes. As he was setting it down, there was no more reflection. At the end of the cup, behind the man on the computer, Derek saw a haggard old woman stand to pick up creamer for her coffee. She looked at the agitated Derek. Deep green eyes, and when she looked back at him, they stayed green.

“Well, she’s not here now,” Gene said when Price stood up and went towards the old woman near the creamers.

“I’ll be right back.”

As Price approached, the old woman’s step became quicker, and she skirted away to her seat. Derek saw a book on her table, but her wrinkled hands hid it in her bag before he could read its title. He had a guess, though. The old woman had a floral print dress that complemented her eyes, and now she pulled a plastic rain-cover out of her bag and over her head, covering gray hair that might have once been black. Gene came around the bend, and the woman stood to leave her corner. For a moment, Derek’s head swam as Gene, Derek, and the old woman were within five feet of each other, the two rotating around Derek, Gene coming into the nook, and the woman going out. Derek’s head turned to watch her go. He looked back at Gene for a second and noticed that she had left her drink, steam still curling from the top.

“Did you see her?” Gene asked.

“I don’t know,” Price lied. He briskly walked off after the old woman, who had waited at the front door, slowly tying her raincoat to her tiny, old waist.

“That’s not her,” Gene started to say. Derek was already at the front door, the old woman just beyond in the thunderous rain. Gene grabbed Derek’s arm and spun him around. “That’s not her, man. She can’t be Julia. She’s not that old, right? It’s been a long day. The rain makes everyone a little lonely, but it’s made you crazy. Why are you bothering some old woman?”

Derek stammered for a moment, but then his voice was calm. “I’m just going to ask her a question.”

Hartman looked at his partner, and in that long moment, Derek saw confusion in Hartman’s eyes. “All right. Fine, all right. Go ahead.” Flustered, Gene sat down at their table and sipped his coffee, watching through the window. Derek burst into the rain, expecting to run and catch the old woman before she drove away. Instead, she was slowly walking. They met in the middle of the parking lot. She didn’t appear to be walking to any particular car.

“Ma’am? Ma’am,” he said, trying to make her face him. Suddenly he asked, “Julia?” The old woman, raincoat, plastic hair cover, and wrinkles, stopped and turned to Derek.

Green. The only thing he saw was green for a moment. At first, it was just her eyes, but the rain stopped, the sun shone, the atmosphere turned green. He found himself dazed in suddenly different senses. His jacket didn’t feel wet, nor was it there to feel wet. His shoes weren’t spongy, nor were they there to feel spongy. He stood on grass, looking at boots that moved when his feet moved. The familiar look of knight’s armor was on his chest and arms, but the weight of them felt real. Ahead of him, a large tree loomed high, surrounded by smaller trees that barely let the sunlight in through their canopy. What sunlight there was had the color green in it. The roots of the big tree stretched in a tangled swarm around, and as Derek looked at the roots, he saw the grain of the bark moving, flowing like the trickle of water that ran down and behind Derek and the tree.

“Derek…”

Green. He looked up into the tree, and sitting in a chair or throne of roots and tree, Julia smiled at him. Her wild hair twinkled, her smile was sparkling through the haze, and a long dress of leaf and root covered all but her bare feet. Slowly, she lowered herself from the throne or chair and strode to him.

“Where am I?” His voice didn’t sound as out of place as his question.

“My world. You’ve seen a little of it.” Across his path, Derek saw the simple tune of fairies, a small smoke that didn’t rise or dissipate, but instead curled through the air. He touched it with his gauntlet, and the simple tune complicated, growing more sophisticated, as it rounded his fingers. Everything here felt more real than what he was used to, just like those glimpses into this world before. A small cloud of whispers giggled past him, and inside, he saw the dainty figures of fairies, wings, wild hair, and wide grins. The harder he looked to see into the world, Derek realized, the less he perceived. As he relaxed, the slow dance of swaying trees became clearer, as did a thousand other things.

The calm brush of her hand on his cheek pulled his attention back to Julia. “Do you still think love is something that you can control, Derek?”

He shook his head in a somber nod. “No, this… This is something I’ve never felt before,” he said, holding a hand to his heart. “I’ve learned that.” A thought occurred to him. “Why won’t you meet Gene?”

“I only have a little time, and even now, I’m near the end. You’re the one that I love, and I chose to spend it with you.” Despite the fantastic haven around them, Derek found himself more interested in her face, the verdant eyes seeming normal in a world of green. “And we learn from those we love, don’t we?” she was saying. “You had your lesson, and my lesson was the joy of sharing my world with someone. There was nothing magical here until someone got to see it. I’ve been taught the magic of sharing love.” And in her following smile, he saw the same magic in her as he had seen in the cloud of whispers. Julia kissed him softly and turned to walk further into the parking lot.

Rain trickled down Derek’s awed _expression as he watched her open the door to her car. The paint was worn, and it had a crack in the windshield that looked old. Everything was wet, cold, and unserene as she drove away. Then she was gone, and he knew that she wouldn’t order another drink from their café again. Derek turned back, his eyes not seeing what they now saw and his mind not thinking what it now thought. When he eventually sat back down beside Gene, he was a blank slate. Gene looked at him and patted his friend’s chest.

“Told you so,” Hartman started in that same way that used to annoy Derek. “I’m sorry it wasn’t her. Well, not really. You’re like thirty-something, right? Twenty-something? And Julia couldn’t be fifty or sixty, right? She just wasn’t here tonight is all. Maybe she had to work late with one of her kids—who knows? No biggie. We’ll see her tomorrow or something, right?” Derek listened to his friend as though he heard a different language. Gene stood up. “Okay, well, I’ve got to get out of here. Lori’s probably worried, and we’ve got work tomorrow, too.” As a side-note, he looked down at Derek. “Get some sleep.”

As Gene put on his jacket to leave, he gave his puzzling friend one last look. “You can always call her, right?” When Gene didn’t get an answer from the blank Derek, he left into the rain.

Derek Price stared off into nothing for a long time after his partner had gone. Then, in a decisive motion, he got up and reached into his wallet, finding the scrap of paper with Julia’s graceful handwriting still there. He went to the bar. “Can I use your phone?”

The barista, serving two other people, just nodded and went back to asking for orders. Derek picked up the phone from the counter and dialed. As he finished, he looked around the café. A younger woman was studying a pad of paper. The old man was still reading his newspaper. A small cloud of friends conquered the couch. The mother and daughter were gone from their seats, and a young couple replaced them, leaning close to each other and whispering.

The number he dialed started to ring, and in the café, a shrill cellphone began to ring. Surprised, he looked out at the café, searching. He saw a woman beside the window with a book reach into her purse and take out the ringing cellphone. He stared at her summer dress and her hair tied back in a studious brown ponytail that swayed behind her. The rain tinged the edge of her dress a little, and Derek found it odd for someone to be wearing that on a rainy night. Suddenly, he realized he had seen that dress before, but before he could remember where, she pushed a button on her cellphone and held it up to her ear, tossing her bangs out of her eyes.

“Hello?” her familiar voice echoed through the café and the phone line. “Hello?” Unconsciously, she looked around, her face seeming familiar. Then her eyes fell on Derek, his mortal blue eyes staring into her mortal green eyes.

“Hello,” he replied.

Related Links:
“The Color Green, Part 1″
“The Color Green, Part 2″
“The Color Green, Part 3″

***
Youssef Sleiman works as an English Tutor at the University of North Texas. This gives him a paid chance to correct everyone’s grammar. Don’t just be envious - be green with envy.