One More For The Road

by Delilah Blake

  She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a piece of paper, folded into quarters, edges worn and stained from both time and wear. “That’s when I realized you weren’t coming back,” she says, flicking the paper into my lap.

  I stuff the paper into my bag without unfolding it. What good would reading it do? I already know what it says. Hell, I’m the one who wrote it.

  “I fucking knew this would happen.” She shakes her head, weary. “I should have tried to stop you. I should have done something, chained you up, dragged you down the aisle kicking and screaming.”

  “That would have made for a lovely wedding.”

  “How can you think this is funny?” She plants herself in an adjoining plastic chair.

  I turn to her in desperation, worry buried deep in my gaze. “Please don’t tell them where I am, Katie.” I take my sister’s hands in mine. “Please, please, please. They’ll kill me.”

  “They won’t kill you.”

  “Not right away. First, they’d beat me with mint green centerpieces and orchid floral arrangements. Then they’d kill me.”

  A sly smile stretches across her face, strung like salt-water taffy. “I won’t tell them, Frances,” she says after a long minute. “But I’m not going to lie for you if they ask. Not this time. You got yourself into this mess.”

  She doesn’t go on.

  “Aren’t you supposed to say, and you can get yourself out?”

  “I’m not sure there is a way out for you this time.”

  I exhale slowly and lean my head against her shoulder, taking in the full extent of her words. She puts her arm around my shoulders, the first sisterly moment we’ve had in a long time. Maybe Katie’s right. Maybe there is way out, no hidden exit, no magic trap door. There’s no going back, and only one path forward.

  We sit in silence for a few precious, short-lived minutes. I stare at the floor, creating images and patterns out of the cracks and speckles, anything to stop my overactive imagination from running rampant until the P.A. system rings to life.

  “Bus 272 to Kansas City is now boarding at Station 7. All passengers please have your tickets and ID’s ready before boarding.

  I sit up. “That’s me, I guess.”

  Katie stands, rising with the stilted grace of a woman twice her age. I can’t help but wonder if that’s partially my fault.

  I follow her example, standing and heaving my bag onto my shoulder. “I don’t know what is going on inside that head of yours, but promise me you’ll be careful, Frances,” my sister pleads. “Okay?”

  I nod, and the two of us fall into an awkward hug. It’s not something we attempt often in our family. Mostly we learn to avoid them.

  But something about this moment feels like it calls for one, like this might be the last chance in a long time to give my only sister a hug.

  “Just tell me one thing,” she says when we finally pull apart. “Why did you say yes in the first place?”

  I shrug, already knowing the answer. “I was in love.”

  She tries to cover her pity with a smile.

  I spin on my heel and head toward the line of people waiting to board. I hand my ticket to the attendant and step through the open doors, through the stifling heat to the bus that will take me west.

  2.

  Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

  Oh God, don’t panic.

  The words bounce around my brain, playing over and over again like a new mantra. I’ve had far too long to consider what I’ve done, far too much time on this highway to hell to understand exactly what it is I’m doing.

  The interior of the bus is the color of cheap 1970s carpet, and smells like unwashed clothes or a funeral home on wheels, which, ironically, it has every chance of becoming. Save for a few, the seats are filled by those over the age of sixty, gray-haired ladies chatting about their grandchildren and gossiping about their husbands who sit complacently, gumming down fruit cups.

  The sky outside turns black with the encroaching evening, and although the window is smeared with condensation and fingerprints, I can still see a few valiant stars glittering among the darkness.

  “Excuse me?”

  I stare up into the wrinkled face of a small, elderly man. He must be at least eighty, with thin white hair combed neatly to one side, a matching white drip drop beard that trickles from his chin like water from a leaking faucet. He’s dressed in a pale blue polo shirt and jeans, though most of his tiny frame is enveloped by a too-large, green windbreaker.

  “Excuse me,” he repeats. His voice is frail and raspy. “Is that seat available? I’m afraid someone took mine at the last stop.”

  I look over at the empty seat next to me. I don’t relish giving up the extra leg room, but how can I say no? “Sure,” I tell him, motioning for him to go ahead and sit.

  He sticks his hand out for me to shake. “Martin Monroe.”

  “Frances,” I tell him, offering no last name.

  “Where are you headed to, Frances?” he asks, pushing a pair of wire-rimmed glasses up his nose.

  “California,” I answer. “And yourself?”

  “Vegas.”

  A burst of laughter slips between my lips. “I didn’t think Las Vegas was much of a hot spot for the over eighty crowd, Martin.”

  If he’s offended by my estimation of his age, he doesn’t let on. He only smiles as if he can’t possibly be bothered. “My wife and I were married there,” he offers instead, folding lined hands over his lap. “Sixty-three years ago, to be exact.”

  Fantastic. More wedding talk. “Is your wife sitting up front?”

  “No, no,” he mutters softly. “Charlotte died years ago. God rest her soul. But I go back every year and take a trip down memory lane. I hit all our old spots, the all-night wedding chapel, the restaurant where we ate our first meal as man and wife, the fountain where we had our picture taken. I’ve made a little game out of it, trying to find pieces of her around the city.”

  That may be the saddest thing I have ever heard.

  “But I never can seem to get all of her back,” he finishes with a resigned sigh.

  I take it back.

  “But just listen to me, rambling on, boring you to tears.” He offers a sad chuckle before I can protest. “Tell me, Frances Why is a pretty girl like you traveling all alone?”

  My answer catches in my throat. Martin seems like a nice man, but I’m not sure I’m ready to share my story just yet, even with someone I’m sure I’ll never see again. Then again, he seems harmless. Kind, even. Certainly not the type to judge someone for her mistakes, however unfavorable they might be.

  “It’s quite all right, dear,” he answers with a soft pat of my hand. “I’m just a nosy old man.”

  “I was supposed to get married this morning!” I blurt, the intensity and volume of which surprises him and me both. I settle myself and continue. “Just a few hours ago, actually. He… Andrew… proposed a year ago, and then the day actually came, and a year didn’t feel long enough. We’d planned everything and I still didn’t feel ready. Andrew always was a planner and he certainly didn’t hold back. Our wedding, our lives, our future, everything was laid out ahead of us like ducks in a row.” The words pour from me with neither restraint nor caution. “And then today actually came and I... I…” I can feel the tears brimming behind my eyes.

  “I don’t know,” I say, turning my face to the window. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I just had to get away.”

  “From him?” he asks, leaving the rest go unsaid.

  I somehow manage to nod and shake my head at the same time. “Yes. I mean, no. No, of course not from Andrew. He’s a good person, too good for me, I’m sure. I couldn’t stay. Not with him. Not with anyone. I have things I need to do with my life, you know, Martin? I know running may have not been the best option, but what was I supposed to do? Marry a man I don’t love?” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, stemming the tears at the source.

  I take
a moment to compose myself before asking a final question.

  “Martin… am I a terrible person?”

  “Yeah. A little bit.”

  Don’t sugarcoat it for me, Martin.

  “But everyone has terrible moments in their life, my dear,” he goes on. “How we move forward once we realize we’ve done wrong, that’s what saves us from losing the good inside us. How we choose to repay our mistakes, to atone, that’s what truly defines who we are.”

  I meet his gaze with a glassy, tear-streaked stare. “What if it’s too late?” I whisper, wiping at my cheeks with the back of my hand. “What if I can’t fix what I’ve broken?”

  He sits quietly for another moment before finally responding.

  “Mend yourself first,” he says. “Then mend what you’ve broken.”

  He gives me a final silly grin before closing his eyes. I follow suit and allow sleep to claim me.

  “Babe, where do you keep the salad forks?”

  “They’re in the top drawer under the microwave!” I called from my place at the stove. “And I don’t call them salad forks.”

  “What do you call them?”

  “Forks.”

  Andrew was digging furiously through my kitchen cabinets, looking frantically for silverware, cheeks flushed and pink from the heat of the stove and the cramped quarters of my kitchen.

  “How are the noodles coming?” he asked, setting the non-salad forks in place on the table.

  “Almost done. Just another minute.”

  “You sure?” He walked up behind me, leaning his tall frame over my shoulder to peek at the bubbling pot. A swathe of pale hair spilled across his forehead. “They’ve been on there for a really long time.”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” I nudged at him with my hips. “You set the timer. You set the oven clock. You even set an alarm on your cell phone. Stop worrying. I won’t over cook the noodles.”

  He nuzzled his mouth to slope of my neck, reaching a hand into my front jean pockets as he pressed himself against me. I could feel his hard length push gently into my hip bones.

  “Down boy,” I giggled, pulling my neck away before any delicious ideas could come to fruition. “Our parents are going to be here any minute. Do you really want them to walk in on us in flagrante?”

  “There’s an image I’ll never get out of my head.” He let go, grumbling his way over to the refrigerator to pull out the pre-made salads.

  “Sorry,” I sang over the sudden ringing and beeping of kitchen timers I took the massive pot of noodles off the stove and poured them into the strainer. A breath of steam flew against my face just as a trio of harsh raps resounded from the front door. Andrew returned my panicked expression.

  “They’re here.”

  He straightened his tie and went for the door, opening it to reveal three well-dressed adults, the closest of which was a small, hobbit-esque woman with a puff of bottle-blonde hair: Andrew’s mother, Darlene, alone after his dad’s death five years earlier.

  The two other guests were my own parents, or, as I had fondly nicknamed them sometime around my sixteenth birthday, “The Gruesome Twosome”. My father, Doctor Alan Renner, as he consistently reminded anyone within a four-mile radius, was dressed to the nines in a three-piece, custom-made, gray and navy Italian suit, while my mother, Jean Renner, wore flowing black palazzo pants and silk line jacked, one I was sure cost more than my monthly rent, entered by humble abode with a dismayed shake of her dark head. As usual, her foundation and blush was layered on thick, and topped by penciled thin eyebrows that nearly reached to an unnaturally smooth forehead, giving her more of the startled love-child of Elton John and Joan Collins look than I’m sure she was going for. Her nose, held a clear foot higher in the air than the rest of her, was only complete with a look of apparent disdain written all over her weathered, once beautiful features.

  It had taken every ounce of dignity I possessed to coerce my parents to dinner at my apartment. Even then, Andrew had been forced to step in and ask, ensuring that it was a special occasion and they should expect a big announcement.

  I wasn’t surprised. My parents would never willingly set foot in my “hovel” and would certainly never allow me to cook for them for fear of being poisoned, even though I assured Andrew that while I would never intentionally poison my family.

  He always tried his best to understand the chasm between my parents and me, offering sympathy where he could. I never expected him to truly get it, how my parents stopped inviting me over for Thanksgiving three years ago, how the Christmas cards stopped coming, how the last time they treated me as an actual flesh and blood daughter and not a pariah was on my seventeenth birthday. It had been a pleasant day, complete with a pleasant lunch and pleasant conversation, followed later by a pleasant trip to the City Police Department after I “borrowed” my mother’s BMW and promptly wrapped it around a city mailbox.

  In all fairness, she shouldn’t have left her keys in the ignition. It was careless, really.

  Andrew greeted my father with a shake of the hand before turning to kiss his mother on the cheek, the rosy apples split into an unwavering smile.

  “Hi, everyone!” I called from the sink. “You guys are right on time.”

  “Yes, well we almost didn’t make it at all,” my mother drawled as she lit a cigarette, not bothering to glance around and locate an ashtray. Not that I had one. “We were almost run over by some hooligan in the parking lot. Your father got the license plate, thank heavens. I fully intend to turn it into the authorities first thing tomorrow morning. Can you imagine if I had been run over?”

  “Don’t tease,” I mumbled, smiling wickedly into the salad bowls.

  “It’s a good thing I live next door to an emergency clinic then, isn’t it?” I set the pasta creation on the dining table, a wicker fold-out Andrew and I had set up earlier.

  Darlene chose a seat next to Andrew. “It smells delicious, Frances. You made this yourself?”

  I blushed, forever uncomfortable with praise. “Andrew helped.”

  “She’s just being modest,” he admitted. “Frances had most of it done before I even got here.”

  My parents each picked a seat and joined us around the tiny table.

  “Frances has never been a good cook,” my mother said, picking up her glass for a drink. “She has trouble making sandwiches. It’s a good thing you were here to help.” She smiled without humor and shook out her napkin.

  “No one respects clinic doctors,” my father voiced suddenly.

  I stared him down, confused and already sensing the signs of an oncoming migraine.

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “No one respects clinic doctors.”

  “I’ll alert the media.”

  “You said you lived next door to a clinic. I was simply stating that no one in the medical community respects doctors who work at the clinic.”

  I shook my head. “Well, I’m sure the people who can’t afford treatment anywhere else respect them a great deal.”

  “Don’t be snarky,” my mother chimed in, still shaking out her napkin.

  “Why are you still doing that?” I snapped, unable to keep the sharp edge of frustration from my tone.

  “I’m checking for mice, dear.”

  Andrew reached for the dish in the center of the table, helping himself to a scoop of noodles before passing it to his mother.

  “I love spaghetti,” Darlene said as she measured out her own portion and passed it to my father. “Did Andrew tell you that?”

  I nodded back. “It’s nothing special, really. But I hope you like it.”

  She smiled at me before twirling long strands of pasta around her fork and taking an unnecessarily large bite. “Mmmmm!” It was a bit to over-enthusiastic to be believable.

  “So, Andrew,” my father said, passing the bowl to my mother who in turn, served herself exactly five noodles before ignoring my outstretched hand and laying it back on the table. “Darlene tells us you’re studying for a master’s
degree in political science?”

  “Yes sir,” he answered without hesitation.

  “Good man.”

  “What do you plan on doing with your degree?” my mother asked, snuffing her cigarette out on the side of her plate.

  “I will mostly likely start out with a teaching position. But if something… more profitable comes along, I’ll be first in line to take it, ma’am.”

  “Do call me Jean. Ma’am makes me feel so old.”

  “That’s because you are old.” I snorted into my foot. “But it’s hard to tell when you get a new face every year.”

  Andrew pinched my knee under the table.

  “And you graduated with honors?” my mother asked before turning to Darlene who was still smiling at everyone around the table, oblivious to the tension the rest of us were busy cutting with a knife. “You must be so proud. We’re still holding our breath in anticipation for Frances to finish her degree.”

  I grabbed my water glass and took a long drink

  “I’m sure Frances will finish whenever she’s ready,” he answered before I had a chance to throw a less than friendly retort her way. He met my mother’s eye, a simple show of solidarity for the two of us, and an act that very well might have killed a lesser man.

  “How sweet of you to believe that,” she said, wiping at a smudge on the tip of her knife.

  “I love your daughter very much,” Andrew bit back, showing the first sign of teeth I’d seen all evening. “And I believe she’s capable of anything she puts her mind to.” He turned, looking at me for approval. “In fact, we have some exciting news for all of you. Mom. Mrs. Renner. Mr. Renner—”

  “Doctor Renner,” my father supplied for him.

  Andrew sighed, never taking his eyes from mine.

  “You tell them,” I allowed. I could tell he wanted to.

  The words burst from his throat like water from a levy. “We’re getting married!”

  Darlene was on her feet in less than a heartbeat, squealing with genuine glee. “I’m so happy for you!” She threw her arms around her son’s neck, nearly pulling him out of his chair. “I always wanted a daughter!” she cried, releasing Andrew, and latching her arms around my shoulders, tears of happiness soaking through my shirt. “I’m so pleased my boy has found such a wonderful girl!”