Following Bliss (The Quest series) (4 page)

“Yes, I would
love to! What should I bring?”

“If you can, just
bring some red wine. You know me with all my food allergies, so we’ll have the
food covered. You’re such a lucky girl, you can eat whatever you want. Just
don’t bring any mac n’ cheese to torture me with and we’ll be fine.”

“Deal. And you
know I wouldn’t taunt you with gluten and dairy—well, not at your own party
anyway. For the wine, I’m presuming a good Malbec is in order?”

Kathryn was a
known lover of the Argentine red wine.

“You know me
well. Besides, I’ve got to enjoy as much of it as I can before we get pregnant.
Speaking of…I better get going to bed. Scott is already there.”

“You two are so
adorable. Thanks so much for listening Kathryn. Sleep well and I’ll talk to you
soon. Oh, and send good thoughts about my guy.”

“Oh, he’s
calling. As soon as you’re away from your phone, that is.”

# # #

Go to him.
Give him my message. He has to know the truth.

Shelby sat up in
bed with a start, looking around. She could have sworn she heard a woman’s
voice.

You have to
tell him to meditate, every day. He needs to do this. He needs to open up his
heart. Only you can do this.

Shelby rubbed
her eyes. She looked around her bedroom, but didn’t see anyone. Just her white-washed
nightstand, a vision board that she and Laney created one night while watching
The
Bachelor
and drinking red wine (complete with all that she hoped to manifest
in the next several years—a new jewelry station, a Canon Rebel, and a vacation
to Paris, among other things) and her grandparents maple TV stand that she
converted into a dresser. Was she dreaming? She had been in a dead sleep and
wasn’t sure if the voice was happening in her dream or outside of her sleep
state.

She lay back
down, but as soon as she closed her eyes, she heard the voice again.

He needs you.
You must give him this message.

“Who???” Shelby
yelled out loud. She was a combination of freaked out and angry. No one messed
with her sleep—not even non-physical beings from beyond or weird dreams within
dreams, or whatever this was.

Silence. She
didn’t hear a thing.

“Oh, so now you
don’t have anything to say?? Thanks a lot. Who am I supposed to give this
message to and why is it so important that you tell me at…” Shelby grabbed her
cell phone off of the nightstand. “3:35 a.m.? You know what, if you want me to
give a message to someone, you’re going to have to do a better job than this at
delivering it to me. How about sending me an email? That would be a lot more
convenient!”

Shelby lay back
down with a loud sigh. Waiting, wondering what the hell was going on. Nothing.
Just dead, middle-of-the-night silence filled the air. But now, Shelby was so
amped up that she couldn’t go back to sleep. She laid there for some time
before she finally felt the pull of sleep come over her.

At 8 a.m.,
Shelby’s alarm (the lovely sounds of a cello) awoke her. She was thick with
sleep, the images from a dream still hanging on. As she laid in bed, attempting
to wake-up, the details of the dream became more clear. So clear, that Shelby
was shocked at the content.

Daniel was
there. He was in a garden, sitting on a park bench. He was smiling so handsomely
that she wanted to run to him, jump into his arms and never leave—and possibly
spend a lot of time making out with him while in those strong, sexy arms. But
that wasn’t the point of
this
dream. He was smiling at something off in
the distance. Then, Shelby watched as a young woman and her small son walked
by. Daniel was watching them. The woman stopped to help her son put on his
jacket, and even Shelby—as the observer— felt a chill hit the air. The little
boy put his arms around his mother and said, “I love you mommy.” Shelby watched
as Daniel’s eyes filled with tears. He slowly got up, and walked away. As he
was walking away the woman turned to Shelby.

You have to
tell him. Tell him I’m here and that it’s time. It’s time for him to open his
heart. You are the only one that can do this Shelby.

Shelby looked at
the woman more closely. She had brown, almost black hair, pinned back and was
wearing a fitted navy dress, in the style you would see in the late
1950s—dressed somewhat like the perfect Stepford wife. Her brown eyes were
dark, and the way she looked at Shelby made her feel very uncomfortable.

Why do I need
to tell him? Why are you coming to me?
Shelby asked in her dream state.

Because he’ll
listen to you, Shelby. Please. I’ve tried everything and I need your help.

The alarm had
cut short the rest of the dream. Now that Shelby was more awake, the events of the
night came rushing back to her. The voice at 3 a.m., the anger she felt, then
somehow falling back to sleep only to have this dream. Daniel was the one she
was supposed to tell. But, what would she tell him? She was sure he or anyone else
would think she was a complete freak. She shook her head. She had just met this
man. She was not about to get involved in his business.

Getting messages
via dreams—and potentially from beyond—wasn’t exactly foreign to Shelby. She
had received a visit from her grandfather two months after he passed away last
year. It was part of what convinced her that Laney may be on to something and
not merely some brainwashed Portland hippie dippy. She had been in Kauai with
her then-boyfriend and woke up to the sound of her grandfather speaking to her.
She could smell him and feel his hand holding hers. Only, there wasn’t anything
there. She was so freaked out that she asked him to leave—she was too afraid.

He had asked her
to be quiet, so he could tell her something, but she was too freaked out to
hear what he had to say. Two nights later he tried again, visiting her in a
dream with a message for her grandmother (who did not believe in the afterlife
and would probably think Shelby was crazy). But, her grandfather had insisted that
she deliver the message, even giving her some information about the electrical
wiring in the house as proof. When Shelby called her grandmother the next
morning, her grandma had been a bit cautious in her response, but did not write
Shelby off the way she had imagined she would.

She had simply
said, “You know, it’s funny you mention the electricity here at the house
(Shelby’s grandfather had shown her a broken lamp in the living room with a frayed
cord and indicated something could happen to cause a fire if it wasn’t fixed)—we
had an electrician out here yesterday because we were having problems.”

Shelby had been
ecstatic to hear this, because it meant she wasn’t crazy (what a relief!), and her
grandfather really had delivered a message to her. Her grandma continued,
“Dreams are really funny, Shelby. I don’t know where they come from, but they
are certainly interesting.”

This was her
grandma’s way of saying that Shelby’s grandfather had also appeared in her
dreams, but because her grandma didn’t believe in the afterlife, she couldn’t
make sense of it.

So, even though
Shelby had been overwhelmed by the visit from her grandfather, she felt good
that she had delivered the message and that on some level her grandmother had
been able to receive it. She had done the right thing.

But, giving
Daniel a message seemed too far out of her comfort zone. Who was this woman
anyway? And why was Shelby the only one who could give him this message? In any
event, she had an out—she didn’t have Daniel’s contact information—so if that
woman wanted the message to be delivered, she was going to have to make sure
Daniel contacted Shelby.

# # #

Daniel was
covered in sweat and completely flustered. He had torn apart his entire car,
retraced his steps from his car to his studio and still he could not find
Shelby’s number. He had practically shredded his khaki pants in search for her
number. It was nowhere to be found. He had considered calling the hotel to find
out if someone had turned it in, but there were thousands of business cards
being passed back and forth at the conference—no one would turn in a card at
the front desk.

He was beside
himself. Meeting Shelby had completely shifted his energy that day. Just
looking into her eyes was like taking a walk on the beach, with a cool breeze
blowing in whenever needed. Connecting with her had transformed him in some way
and had completely altered the course of his big meeting with Kaley. Fully
submerged in the bliss of having met Shelby, he was able to truly be himself,
unattached to an outcome and passionate about his work. He had never had an
experience like that before, and he definitely wanted more of it. In fact, if
he hadn’t met Shelby in person he would swear she was an angel.

Not being able
to find her number was definitely making him think maybe Shelby had been an
angel—only sent to him for that brief moment in time.

“If angels
really exist, that is,” Daniel mumbled under his breath.

Although he had
been exploring the Law of Attraction in greater detail, even reading
The Law
of Attraction
by Michael Losier, Daniel wasn’t sure what he believed when
it came to deeper spiritual topics like angels and the spirit world.

I’ve got to
find her number. I’m starting to lose it speculating that she isn’t even a real
person!

The trouble was,
Daniel didn’t even have Shelby’s last name. Daniel sat down on his couch,
feeling defeated. He put his head in his hands; how could he have been so
careless with her card? The excitement of meeting her and then going directly
into his pitch meeting with Kaley had somehow caused him to lose the card. He
had been careless and overzealous.

Daniel took a
deep breath. He began a tapping technique called Cortices that one of his
BodyTalk healing practitioners had given him. It helped balance the left and
right sides of the brain, allowing him to calm down and think clearly. BodyTalk
was a form of energy medicine that Daniel had used occasionally over the past
few years whenever health issues came up in his life or whenever he felt stuck
in some way. The healing always felt so good to him, but he often found himself
unable to commit to a continued practice—it was as if some part of him enjoyed
being stuck. He hadn’t tapped in several months, and it felt good to do
something other than freak out over the loss of Shelby’s card. He took another
deep breath and began tapping Cortices again.

Suddenly, he
knew what he needed to do. He needed to meditate.

Daniel hadn’t
meditated in at least a year, as his primary focus for the past year had been
writing his novel and becoming a successful writer. He didn’t know how or when
his meditation practice had stopped, but it had slipped away and, for some
reason, in this moment he knew that’s exactly what he needed to do. Several
years prior, he had attended a Vipassana meditation retreat—and for 10 days he
had not uttered a word, instead engaging in roughly 10 hours of meditation a
day. After that he had maintained a solid meditation practice, sitting for 45 minutes
to an hour almost daily.

Doing so had served
him well. His life flowed with so much ease, making it possible for him to save
up all the money he felt he needed before embarking on his journey of being a full-time
writer. But, once the fear of not being successful gripped him, he had done
nothing more than work tirelessly to force the writing and the subsequent success
to come to him. This was yet another reason why he had been drawn to the Law of
Attraction. His forcing and will-powering habits hadn’t worked, although
yesterday’s events certainly seemed to indicate that things were beginning to
shift.  

Daniel arranged
a blanket and pillows on the floor, and assumed his meditation position. He sat
like that for 45 minutes. When he opened his eyes, he knew what he had to do
next.

# # #

He revved the
engine of his Subaru Outback, asking Daphne (he named his car this several
years ago after dating a woman who followed the path of
Hoʻoponopono,
which believed everything was living and deserved respect. Daniel had to agree
and loved the practice of naming everything—from his apartment to hotel rooms
to his laptop—he found it created a sense of connection and warmth.)
to
get him to northwest Portland as quickly as possible. For some reason, he was
feeling an intense urgency.

Winding through
the streets of Portland, Daniel felt lighter. He was surprised how easily he
was able to drop back into a meditative space. He didn’t have to fight with his
mind as much as he anticipated he would. Instead, he was able to reach that sweet
place of surrender and bliss relatively easily. Even though going into the
meditation he felt distressed about losing Shelby’s phone number, he now felt
that somehow it would all be okay.

And that’s why
he decided to follow the intense urge he had to go to his favorite coffee shop
in northwest Portland. Despite not knowing exactly why he needed to be there.

That
meditation must have really put me in the flow
, Daniel thought as a parking
spot right in front of CoffeeTime became available as he pulled up. His
parallel parking skills were somehow much better than usual, as he skillfully
guided Daphne into the spot. He jumped out of the car eager with anticipation;
he couldn’t wait to see what awaited him next.

The coffee shop
was filled with the usual suspects
—Portland hipsters
and
single girls with dogs, preferably pugs. Daniel loved CoffeeTime because it had
open windows and doors that made for great people-watching and fresh air,
especially during Portland’s Indian summer months of September and October. He
found it stimulated his creative juices, and often wrote poetry during his
visits.

Today, he wasn’t
sure what he was going to do, but he figured he would let the Universe show him
the way.