Collinsport – Part 22
From: DSRules

Déjame, déjame sobre los labios
Un pedacito de ti
Déjame, déjame sentir tus manos
Deja tu amor sobre mi
Y déjame soñar que no te marcharás
Que no tendrás que irte
Que tal vez te quedarás*

She turned the corner, and the first thing Rosario knew, she was sitting on the floor looking up into a pair of eyes. A pair of hazel eyes. A very *familiar* pair of hazel eyes.

Shit! she thought. Why him? Why now? Goddess, why?!?

"I'm so dreadfully sorry," Barnabas said to her in that voice that had always made her go weak at the knees, "please, let me help you up." He held his hand out to her.

"No!" she almost yelled, then, collecting herself, she said, "No, thank you. I'm fine." As she put her hands against the floor to lever herself to her feet, she remembered her wedding ring. She scrambled as gracefully as she could to her feet and then, in the process of dusting herself off, she palmed her ring and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans.

"I really am very sorry. Please, let me take you out for coffee to make it up to you?"

Barnabas looked at her with those soulful eyes and before she realized it, she smiled and said, "Sure."

Barnabas smiled, then said, "Allow me to explain why I was so clumsy. You see, it's this painting," he indicated *her* painting. "I must confess that when I came here today, I never expected to see this painting here. This is a painting of a lighthouse in Maine, which is where I," after 31 years, the lie came easily to his lips, "have lived for the past 30 years, ever since I moved here from England."

"Really?" Rosario replied. Having come to this museum to visit this painting so often, she knew every brushstroke of it as if she had painted it herself. Sometimes she felt that she shouldn't be so homesick for a place that had caused her so much misery. However, she was, after all, human, and she couldn't help but be homesick for the place where she had spent such a large portion of her earthly existence, especially considering that Maine was where Barnabas had finally professed his love for her, and married her.

"Yes. It is quite interesting, too. If you like lighthouses, that is," he amended with a smile. "You see, this lighthouse, in Cape Elizabeth, has the strongest beacon of any lighthouse in the state."

Rosario nodded. This wasn't anything she didn't know, of course. She had a photo of the Cape Elizabeth lighthouse as the wallpaper on her computer at work. She wanted to keep him talking, though. She just loved listening to his voice. "There's only one light in the picture, yet the description says that they called it Two Lights. Why is that?"

"Ah!" Barnabas said, changing into his college professor mode, "that's because there *are* two lighthouses in Cape Elizabeth. The other lighthouse was decommissioned in 1924," he looked at the description of the painting, "three years before this was painted. It's still standing today, even though it's no longer used. It's in someone's front yard.**"

He paused then, "Where are my manners? I've never introduced myself." He extended his right hand towards her, "Barnabas Collins."

Rosario placed her right hand in his. "Rosie de la Cruz," she replied.

Barnabas lifted her hand to his lips and lightly kissed the backs of her knuckles, making her heart flip over in her chest.

"Is Rosie a nickname?"

"Yes. It's short for Rosario."

"Rosario de la Cruz. That's a beautiful name. I don't know why you don't use it."

"Well, I guess it's just that, unlike my mother, I don't think that being named Rosary of the Cross is going to make any extra points with the Deity."

He smiled. "Is that what your name means?"

"Yep. Well, if you want to go for coffee, now looks as good a time as any. There's a coffee shop downstairs here in the museum."

"This is my first time here," Barnabas said, "Would you mind leading?"

"Sure. It's this way." She led him back through the galleries that she'd visited that day, and across the hallway into another, dimly-lit, gallery. This room had dozens of small display cases with various objects, most of which seemed to be made of gold, in them.

"This is the pre-Columbian art gallery," Rosario explained to Barnabas.

They passed through a glass door and onto a balcony, white with a silver railing, which contained an enormous ceramic head over five feet tall.

"What is that?" Barnabas asked.

"Oh. That's the Mixtec rain god, Tlaloc." When Barnabas looked at her incredulously, she added, "I don't make this stuff up. The label's right there."

Barnabas walked around the head, examining the faded blue and red paint that covered it and the chipped and broken teeth that protruded from its mouth. When he rejoined Rosario, she said, "There's the coffee shop, down there."

Barnabas glanced over the railing into the coffee shop below. It was just one staircase away. A very long staircase, but one staircase nevertheless. And somehow, he was reluctant to let this beautiful young woman disappear from his life that easily. "I was wondering if there might be a coffee shop somewhere outside the museum that we could go to," he suggested.

"Mr. Collins . . ."

"Barnabas, please."

"All right. Barnabas," she paused for a moment, enjoying saying his name aloud. She had long since stopped talking to Neil about Barnabas, because she felt that the least she could do for her best friend of 200-odd years was not to constantly talk about her one true love, and there was really no one else she could talk to about him.

"Well, Barnabas," there was that name again! "since you offered to buy, I guess we should go where you'd like to go."

He offered his arm to her, which she took almost timidly, and they walked down the staircase. "Every time I come up here to visit Emilio," she realized that Barnabas didn't know her family, so she elaborated, "he's my brother. He's a doctor, and I was supposed to be spending the day with him, but he's on call, and he got called in. Anyway, every time I come here, I think that I should bring a ball with me."

"A ball?!?"

She nodded, smiling. "See that?" she indicated the two three-inch-wide slots that ran, one on either side of the steps, from the top floor to the entry hallway. "Well, I've always wanted to bring a ball, just to roll it all . . . the way . . . down to the bottom."

"How would you stop the ball at the bottom?"

She shrugged. "OK, so maybe I'd bring a ball, and a friend to catch it at the end." It felt good to be able to talk about silly, inconsequential things with him, instead of curses and life-or-death crises.

Barnabas laughed. Not a sound that she had ever heard often, in all the years they had known each other. Evidently, he enjoyed talking about inconsequential things, too.

They had reached the bottom of the steps. "Where to now?" he asked.

"That way," she indicated the closest exit. They walked out the door, through the vestibule, and into the sunshine. "You're lucky you were here now. In San Antonio this summer, it was 110 in the shade and there *was* no shade. I thought I'd spontaneously combust every time I left my apartment. Of course, it was a little cooler here, but it was still pretty hot."

"You mentioned that you come up to visit your brother. So, you come up from San Antonio? Or, how do you pronounce it? San Antone?"

"No. We pronounce it San Antonio. I've lived there my whole life, and I think I've heard maybe three people call it San Antone in that whole time."

By now, they'd reached Harwood Avenue, and they walked slowly along the sidewalk. It was a warm day, but not overly hot, and a light breeze blew as they strolled beneath the parallel rows of trees that lined the sidewalk, their silence punctuated by the hum of passing automobiles.

"There's a hotel around the corner. I'll bet they have a coffee shop," she said.

"That sounds good to me." He allowed her to direct him southwest on Ross Avenue, and they stepped out of the shade of the trees and into the sunshine. They walked awhile longer in silence, and then she noticed that his lips were moving. She held her breath and listened very, very closely.

"I've never made promises lightly, and there've been some I've broken. I swear in the days still left, we'll walk in fields of gold," Barnabas sang softly to himself. After a moment, he noticed her looking at him and blushed slightly.

"You were singing!" she exclaimed. "You have a very nice singing voice."

He looked away. "Thank you. A friend introduced me to that singer's work. I feel a particular affinity for that song, because it reminds me of someone I loved. . . very much, once."

There was a brief silence while she digested this, and realized that he was talking about her. I've got to tell him who I am. Should I? Would it be fair to Julia? To him? He and Julia have built a life together, and I have no right to interfere with it. But Julia has the life that I should have had. That I would have had if . . . She noticed that they'd reached Akard. They crossed to the other side of the street and went into the hotel.

Once they were seated, Rosario's conflict resumed. Should I? No! What purpose would it serve? Well, I could tell him how I was killed, for one. . .

"Rosario? Rosie?" Barnabas asked, concerned.

Relieved that she had an excuse to forget the decision she had to make, she responded, "Hmm? Sorry. My mind just wandered for a moment. So, you're from Maine. What brings you to Dallas?"

"My wife is a psychiatrist, and she's here for some mental health symposium or other. We decided to make it a sort of vacation for us, as well. I've been spending a lot of time at the National Archives in Forth Worth doing research since I got here, though. You see, I had – have -- a younger sister. I had always been led to believe that she died during her childhood, but I just found out that she didn't die, and now I'm trying to find her."

This was the last thing she expected Barnabas to say, and it startled all other thoughts out of her head. "That's nice," she began, lamely.

Before she had the opportunity to elaborate, the waitress came to take their orders.

"I'll have a tea," Rosario said.

"I'll have the same."

With a gesture, Rosario detained the waitress, and said, "Barnabas, I don't think that you're going to get what you're expecting. In Texas, when you order just tea, you get iced tea."

"Oh. What do I ask for if I want regular tea?"

"Hot tea," she coached.

"Please make that hot tea," Barnabas requested of the waitress.

They sat, chatting companionably, drinking their tea. Once their tea was gone, Barnabas paid the waitress, giving her a handsome tip, as well. Then they walked back to the museum.

They walked back along Ross Avenue, then back up Harwood. Just as they were about to leave the shade of the trees, Barnabas stopped. Turning toward her, he looked at her piercingly. "There's something . . . in your eyes. . . "

Fearing that all he was speaking of was a loose eyelash, Rosario blinked twice.

Barnabas raised his right hand and curled his fingers gently around her neck, rubbing his thumb lightly across her chin.

She opened her mouth, about to tell him the truth, when they were interrupted by a female voice saying, "Barnabas! There you are! I've been looking for you everywhere!"

=========================================

* Hasta Mañana by Grupo Limite

Here, with a little help from the International Lyrics Server, Altavista (http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/) and my copy of the Vox Compact Spanish and English Dictionary, is my stab at an English translation:

Leave on my lips
A small piece of you
Leave me to feel your hands
Leave your love over me
And leave me to dream that you will not leave
That you will not have to go
That perhaps you will remain

**Everything Barnabas says about the Cape Elizabeth lighthouse is true. There also really is a painting of the Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse in the Dallas Museum of Art. The painting is called "Lighthouse Hill," and it was painted in 1927 by Edward Hopper.

My information on the Cape Elizabeth lighthouse is from Bill's Lighthouse Getaway.