One More For The Road

by Delilah Blake

  “I’m good, thanks.” I shook their hands in turn.

  “Well.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well,” Bogie clarified. “You’re doing well.”

  “Bud and Bogie are on the board of the Garden Springs Country Club,” Darlene clucked, hooking her arm once more with mine. “The same one you were working at when you met our Andrew! Isn’t that funny?”

  “Hysterical.”

  “Yes, imagine my surprise when Darlene told us you worked at the same club to which your parents claim membership!” Bud laughed, wiping his brow with a slightly damp handkerchief. “I wouldn’t have assumed they would have cared much for their daughter working behind the scenes, as it were. What was it you did for us at the club?”

  “I used to work valet, but I don’t anymore.”

  “Ah, I see,” Bogie said, though it sounded very much as though he did not see. “Well, it’s certainly better than working in the kitchens, or heaven forbid, housekeeping. I must say the Renners are two of our finest members, very generous indeed. Why just last month, your father wrote a rather sizeable donations for the renovations needed on the tennis courts.”

  “No starving children in Africa to support that week, I guess,” I mumbled.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Frances!” I heard my name called yet again, discovering Andrew at my side less than a heartbeat later. “Come with me,” he urged. “I want you to meet a few of my old friends from college.”

  I waved a half-hearted goodbye to Bogie, Bud, and Darlene, as Andrew steered me over to where his friends mingled by the buffet table.

  “Rob, Jeremy,” Andrew said, gesturing first to a handsome, dark-skinned man in a navy suit, then to a blonde in Dockers on his left. “This is my fiancé, Frances.”

  The man to my right reached for my hand, giving it a light pat. “The ever- elusive Frances!” he laughed, stooping to brush his lips across the back of my hand. “Our boy has told us so much about you, none of which does you justice, I might add. You look absolutely stunning.”

  “Find your own girl, Jeremy,” Andrew chided.

  “But there’s a pretty one right here.”

  I tugged my hand free. “Yes, but this one is taken,” I told him. “And more likely to knee you in the balls than any of the other ladies here.”

  “I like her!” Rob laughed, stroking at a barely there, peach fuzz goatee. “Let’s see if she’ll do it! It’s been a while since our boy’s been kicked in the family jewels.”

  “Don’t listen to Rob,” Andrew nudged his friend in the ribs with his elbow. “Besides, Jeremy got a decent kicking just the other night.”

  “Oh, Patrice,” Jeremy reminisced. “She was quite a woman.”

  They broke out into a chorus of laughs. I giggled as well, eager to be in on the joke.

  “So, if this one’s off the market,” Rob started in again, “then where are those twins you were telling us about earlier?” He tousled his fair curls in a manner I was sure had been practiced in front of a mirror.

  “They’re talking with Darlene,” I said, grateful to have something to add to the conversation.

  Andrew leaned in close to my ear. “Not Bogie and Bud, Frances. Jen and Jan, my cousins.”

  “There are more than one set of twins?”

  “They run in the family.” Andre turned back to his friends, pretending to send a right hook to Jeremy’s jaw. “But I’m not sure I want to introduce them to this group of horn-dogs!”

  “A promise is a promise, man,” Rob teased, straightening his tie. “Just because you managed to lock-down your own fine piece of ass, doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t still looking.”

  “Watch it, Rob.” Andrew’s eyes clouded like an oncoming storm.

  Rob held his hands up in surrender. “I apologize,” he said, turning to me with a mock frown. “But to be fair, you are fiiiiine, girl.”

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Noted.”

  Andrew slipped his arm around my waist, as if anyone in the room didn’t already know we were together. “If it means you’ll stop hitting on my fiancé, I will gladly introduce you to my cousins.” He leaned down to meet my eye. “Do you mind, Frances?”

  I smiled, though I knew it didn’t quite reach my eyes “No.”

  Yes.

  “Go.”

  Don’t leave me here.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he assured me before heading off, a parade of yuppies in tow.

  I craned my neck in search of Katie, not finding my sister by the bar or at a table with our parents. It was a toss-up whether she was busy throwing up that last daiquiri in the restroom down the hall, or if she’d managed to make an escape while my back was turned.

  I was in the middle of debating how gauche these suburbanites might consider it if I were to follow my sister’s lead and make a run for it, when I heard it.

  “And did you see her dress?”

  I balked at the arrival of the new voice, finding the owner around the nearest corner, hidden behind the ballroom entrance. Andrew’s aunt Susan, one of my least favorite people, and someone I’d tried to avoid for the majority of the afternoon, was deep in a gossip session with Bogie and Bud. “Talk about inappropriate!” she laughed, coughing through the affected rasp of a serial smoker.

  “Yes, but you have to admit, the color is quite lovely on her,” either Bud or Bogie replied. I still couldn’t tell them apart.

  “But who wears red to an afternoon social?”

  I looked down at my crimson dress, realizing in a flush of embarrassment precisely who they were talking about.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” Susan snapped. “Andrew is much too smart for her. Don’t you know? She dropped out of college twice already. Couldn’t handle the course load apparently.”

  I felt my face flush to match the shade of my dress.

  Susan circled the rim of her glass with a single, sausage-like finger. “Her poor parents. They must be humiliated, though I suppose they should be thankful one daughter turned out alright though.”

  “She seemed charming enough,” one of the men said. “If not a little crass. I’m sure there’s some reason why our Andrew loves her.”

  I watched as they strolled through the door and over to their assigned tables, either not noticing or not caring that I’d just heard their entire conversation.

  Andrew returned, sans the other two musketeers, before I could add the finishing touches to my now assured escape plan.

  “I left the guys to get chummy with Jan and Jen,” he chuckled, wiping his palms on the tops of his thighs. “God forgive me. I may have just thrown my cousins to the wolves.”

  I hooked my arm through his. His closeness would comfort me if nothing else. “Can I have a word with you,” I whispered, tugging softly at his elbow.

  I led him away from the milling mass of people, over to a secluded corner nestled beside the party’s grandest feature, an intricate swan shaped ice sculpture swimming over a sea of fresh fruit. Its beak was already starting to melt, dripping gleaming droplets onto the tray below.

  I held his wrists in my hands, feeling the fine bones and muscles flex beneath my fingers. “Listen, I think I’m going to go home.”

  “What? Why?” His calm expression quickly turned sour.

  “I’m just really tired.” Why put effort into an excuse I knew would never work? “I think I need to go lie down for a while.”

  “Oh, give me a break Frances.” His gorgeous baby blues burned with a sudden fire. “That’s not even a good lie. Why don’t you just tell me the real reason you want to leave?”

  “Fine! I just think you’d be better off if I weren’t here, okay? I clearly don’t belong! I mean, I don’t even like the country club!”

  “No one likes the country club. That’s one of its many secrets. That and the fact Mrs. Mariano pays her fees by giving Bud a monthly lap dance.” He took my face between his hands, brushing gentle circles ac
ross both of my cheeks as if calming a frightened puppy. “But you can’t leave. This party is for us. You can’t just walk out of it.”

  “You’ll still be here. One out of two ain’t bad.”

  “Don’t say ain’t.”

  “Sorry. I promise ain’t gonna do it no more.”

  “You can’t leave,” he said, more firmly this time, unamused by my blatant disregard for grammar. “You can’t embarrass me by leaving.”

  “I’m an embarrassment now?”

  “No! Don’t twist my words around. I hate it when you do that. I just don’t want to have to suffer through this by myself, okay? Please stay. For me.”

  He glared down at me and I took a moment to steady myself.

  “Sure,” I agreed. “I’ll stay.”

  He relaxed into a sigh, bending to place a kiss to my forehead. “Don’t let them get to you.” He swung an arm out at the mob. “They’re not as perfect as they would like you to believe. See that woman over there?” He pointed to a tall woman in a yellow sundress. “She’s a friend of mom’s. Takes enough pills every morning to sedate a horse. And that guy over there? His wife ran off with their pool boy. Half her age. Quite the scandal.” He took me by the hand, leading me back into the crowd. “Don’t worry about not fitting in. You may just be crazy enough to join the country club one day.”

  “Maybe I can get the same discount Mrs. Mariano.”

  Andrew’s friend Jeremy was waiting for us on the other side of the long, rectangular table, dripping liquid from his face and hair onto his crisp, tan blazer.

  “How’d it go with Jen and Jan,” Andrew asked, covering his cheeky grin with his hand.

  “One of them threw her drink in my face the second I suggested we all go back to my place.”

  “Which one?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Jeremy shrugged. “The other threw hers in my face too after the first one told her what I suggested the three of us do there.”

  “Come on,” Andrew says, wrapping an arm around his friend’s soggy shoulder. “Let’s find you a clean shirt. I’m sure there’s one around here somewhere. Will you be okay on your own for a few minutes, Frances?”

  “Sure.”

  He leaves with Jeremy before the words are off my lips. I’m not even sure if he heard me, or if he did, he probably wasn’t expecting a different answer.

  Not that I’d be likely to give one. Not anymore.

  “You don’t like me, do you?”

  I jolt awake, my back cracking loudly as I jerk upright, the harsh fluorescent lights overhead stinging my eyes for a moment until they adjust. Sitting directly across from me is the dark-haired stranger who so graciously helped me with my book selection in the gift shop.

  “Huh?” I ask, wiping crusty sleep from my eyes.

  “You don’t like me,” he repeats, slower this time.

  How am I supposed to answer that? I stretch my arms over my head to stall. “Well, considering we just met, I can honestly say I don’t have much of a personal preference.”

  He leans forward in his seat, those damned chocolate eyes landing heavily on mine.

  “Can I help you?” I ask.

  “You have a zipper mark on your face.”

  “What?”

  “Right here.” He stretches across the aisle to trace a line over my forehead.

  I follow the path with my fingertip, discovering a row of tiny indentions.

  “Fantastic,” I grumble, realizing I must have fallen asleep across my bag’s zipper. “Anything else?”

  “Well, yeah,” he says as if it were obvious. “I want to apologize for ruining that book for you earlier. It was an honest mistake. I have this bad habit of saying whatever pops into my head.”

  “I’d never believe it.”

  “I know, right? Anyway, I want to make up for it.”

  “Well, you can cross waking me up from my nap off your list.”

  He begins rummaging through the pack resting at his feet in response, digging until he finds a small, well-worn paperback book.

  “I just finished reading it yesterday,” he says, handing it over. “It was great. Really suspenseful. And don’t worry. I won’t tell you anything about it.”

  I turn the faded book over in my hands. It looks like a cheap romance novel, glossy, crimson cover, a shirtless, swoon-worthy man on the cover, the kind of book you could find in the back corner of a sketchy, poorly lit flea market.

  Flowers in Love Bloom Forever.

  “You read this sort of thing?” I ask, laughing at the title before cramming the book into my already full bag.

  “I read everything,” he answers with a laugh like lightning. “Dickens, Simmons, Immanuel Kant, Thoreau, Ginsberg, Gregory, Rilke. Pablo Neruda. God, I love Neruda. Chopin, Byron, Vonnegut, Rowling. You name it, I’ve probably read it.” He swipes his hair out of his eyes with a quick flick of his fingers. “Admittedly it’s been tough finding quality literature out on the road. But you take what you can get, right?” He offers his hand, barely pausing for breath. “I’m Jesse, by the way.”

  I grasp it in mine and shake. “Frances.”

  Why did I do that?

  “Frances?” He quirks an eyebrow. “I like it.”

  “Glad I have your approval.”

  He looks at me with the same peculiar stare. “Can I call you Frannie?”

  “Not unless you want me to knee you in the nads every time you do.”

  “So, no, then?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Is that a no as in not no? Because technically a double negative equals a positive.”

  “The only thing I’m positive about is that I will beat you to death with the heaviest book I can find if you ever call me Frannie.”

  “So… no?”

  I hoist my bag over my shoulder and hastily get to my feet.

  A deep furrow forms between his brows. “You’re leaving?”

  “It sure looks that way…”

  “Jesse.”

  “Like it matters.”

  He reaches a hand to my arm, brushing it with a feather light touch. “Please don’t go.”

  His pout breaks into a sudden smile, the result of which is the startling revelation of a new person, the sharp lines, and angles of his face softening into a beaming, energetic charm.

  I’m not sure why but I feel compelled to stay, but I do. Stuck like a magnet.

  I’ve always been a sucker for a smile.

  “So why are you going to Colorado?” he asks once I’m back in my chair.

  My mouth hangs open a moment too long. “How do you know I’m going to Colorado?”

  “I was behind you in line while you were yelling at the ticket guy over having to spend the night in a bus station. It’s not his fault you didn’t pay attention to the departure times, you know. So, why are you going?” he asks again, impossible to derail.

  “Because it’s on the way to California.”

  He waits for me to go on.

  I don’t

  “That’s quite the tale,” he says finally. “Thank you for taking the time to tell it.”

  “Are you always this charming when you first meet people, or am I just lucky?”

  “I’m just trying to be friendly!” he fires back with a deep chuckle, eyes widening with feigned innocence. “I’m simply attempting to make good-natured conversation with the only other person in this station under the age of sixty. I even gave you one of my books, and I didn’t tell you about the part where Johanna has the Duke’s baby.”

  Unbelievable.

  4.

  It’s another hour before I manage to pry my new shadow away from me, using the tried and true, albeit completely fake excuse of needing to use the restroom. What I really need is some time alone to clear my head.

  “Okay. I’ll meet up with you later!” Jesse calls over the heads in the crowd. He waves in parting.

  I enter the restroom and make a dash to the nearest sink. I
t’s been over 24 hours since I’ve last seen my reflection, and it greets me in the mirror with the all the gentility of a well-placed slap. I stare intently at my own face, half expecting the girl in the glass to say something. She gazes back at me in silence, lips pressed into a thin line, eyes spattered with flecks of green now circled by twin, purple shadows of sleep deprivation and worry. I roll my neck in a slow circle, hearing the joints twist and pop with even the slightest movement.

  I turn the faucet on, splashing handfuls of cold water over my face before brushing my teeth and pulling my somewhat greasy hair into a ponytail, allowing my sweat and hairspray coated neck to finally breathe. I change clothes in one of the stalls, exchanging my jeans and tan top for shorts and an oversized t-shirt I manage to tailor with a fashionable knot at the front. A few ladies and one very lost pre-pubescent boy mill in and out of the restroom, each grinning politely as they come and go. I smile in return, thankful none of them want to strike up a conversation.

  I emerge from the restroom a few minutes later and begin searching for a vacant seat. Over by the information desk are a few shabby looking chairs hooked together by rusting, dilapidated metal bar at the base of each. The majority are empty save for an elderly man occupying a chair at the far end of the row. His hair is wild and unbrushed, his faded t-shirt and mismatched flannel jacket riddled with holes I debate finding another seat, deciding against it in the end. He doesn’t look as if he means me any harm.

  I know in my heart that while I might not have much to my name, I know this man probably has less. I reach into my bag and pull a five- dollar bill from my wallet.

  “Um, excuse me?” I turn to him with a whisper. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I would like you to have this.” I show him the bill in my hand.

  He stares at me without saying anything for so long, I begin to wonder if he even speaks English. But then he smiles, exposing a missing canine and a row of soft, pink gums.

  “Thank you,” he wheezes, taking the bill. I smile, happy to be able to do something nice for someone else, something good.

  “You’re a sweet lady,” he says with a slight lisp. He runs his tongue along the outside of his lips, coating the cracked skin in moisture. “I bet you’ll make some man very happy one day.”