He smiles.

As usual.

The room is crowded with pretty people and unobtrusive yet helpful waiters. No matter where he looks, it will be directly into someone’s eyes.

A platter of tempting hors d'oeuvres is held before him. He selects a smaller item and the serving dish is removed from his sight. Momentarily, another tray is offered: this with crystal glasses of champagne. He lifts his own glass to show he is “fine” and that tray disappears.

From over the shoulder of her dance partner, a beautiful woman gazes into his eyes. Before any emotion can register, she is whirled away.

He is lost.

Actually, he’s been lost a long time.

It doesn’t bother him greatly, anymore, although he is sometimes perplexed.

Isn’t there some place he’d meant to be? Wasn’t there someone he’d meant to meet, something he’d meant to feel? This place, these people, these feelings...

This is all he has found.

Then from a dusty bank of his memory comes a long ago night: his mother tucking him in, worrying over the next day’s trip to the woods. She gave him more last minute instructions than any lad could digest. One admonition, however, still clung to his mind.

“If you are lost,” she’d said, pointing her finger at him the way she often did, “stay where you are! No one will be able to find you if you keep moving and moving. You will be tempted to wander, but you may be standing right where they will appear next! So stay where you are. And you will be found.”

He stays there now, near a mahogany buffet covered in silver accessories.

And that is where he is found.

“You look lost,” she says.

He turns in the direction of the voice, a voice rich with warmth, wrapped in laughter, bright with life. He sees a creature charmingly wrapped in a diaphanous fabric.

“I am,” he responds.

“Well,” she smiles, “now you are found.”

The balcony they retire to echoes with the music behind them. Nonetheless when he looks at her he hears only the melody that has threaded an inevitable path through his dreams.

“I believe you’ve been waiting for me,” she says.

“Perhaps all my life,” he replies.

“Then why,” she asks, “didn’t you call my name?”

“I didn’t know it.” How could he have known her name?

“Whatever name you’d have called, I would have come.” She watches him, anticipates his recognition.

He is silent.

She sees his lack of comprehension, sighs at this sign of possible hopelessness.

“I’m sorry,” he offers.

“Because you didn’t call?”

“Because I don’t understand you.”

She nods.

“Still, I would like to,” he adds.

She nods again.

He waits.

Maybe he can understand, after all, she thinks.

“I would have come if you’d called any name,” she repeats.

He is listening.

“You didn’t call anyone.”

There. She’s said it.

He didn’t expect anything.

“That’s why no one came.”

He moves his head in assent. Yes, that makes sense.

Except, if you’re lost, he ponders, do you have to call for someone? Is no one aware that you’re missing?

“Did you expect someone to find you?” she demands. His answer means everything to her.

He blinks. Considers. No thoughts stir his mind.

“You didn’t expect anyone!” she cries. “You have to expect someone!”

He looks at her sweet face and is baffled by her disappointment.

She shakes her head. Throws him a look of despair. Shakes her head again.

“I didn’t expect anyone,” he admits, “but you came. So perhaps the ‘wanting’ – the wanting counts?”

His words filter through her discontent, soothe. They will have to do, she decides. Yes, they satisfy.

Enchantment returns to her eyes, plays around her mouth: “All right,” she begins, “now that you are found, what do you intend to do?”

He looks out over the balcony at the endless lights. Some seem to twinkle. Others never change.

So he has been found.

Well, then, what is he supposed to do?

To start with, that means he can move. He can keep moving around and not endanger the campaign to find him. He can move with a purpose other than being found...

She sees the comprehension rising in him.

“Well,” he ventures, still staring out at the lights, “it does change things.”

As much as she wants to speak, she holds her breath.

He turns to her.

“Now that I’m found – “

Her patient demeanor encourages him.

“Now that I’m found – I must find the place I meant to go to, before I was lost.”

She is delighted. Yes, he can do this.

He leans against the railing, looking in the direction of the party.

“This is not where I meant to be.”

She remains still.

Across his expression, suddenly, are written all the places he meant to go, all the things he meant to do, all that he meant to be. He has forgotten, for a moment, her presence.

She is pleased.

Then he remembers his companion.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she insists.

“I need to find my home,” he continues. “Where I live now is just the place I’ve been staying, while I waited to be found.”

Approval glows in her eyes. She turns to go.

He studies her expression, memorizes her form.

Moving toward the interior, she will disappear in a moment.

The man who was lost, and then finally found, smiles on her.

She needs that smile. She needs to be sure that he knows he is found.

Anticipating the answer, he asks her, “When will I see you again?”

“When you call my name.”

© 2003, Darlene Bridge Lofgren