Anywhere But Here

by Jenny Gardiner

  “Jumping into Niagara Falls?”

  “Hey, why the hell not? I mean, look at us. I just left my meal ticket. He’s probably on my trail, ready to kill me if and when he catches me. Why don’t I save him the trouble? Heads I win, tails I lose. Maybe I’ll live through it, and it will have been the most invigorating thing I’ve ever done.”

  “Maybe it’ll be the stupidest.”

  I shrug. “Who knows? Won’t know till we know, will we?”

  Smoothie shakes his head. “I don’t know, Mary Kate. I like to think that after bad times come good times, so you need to ride it out to see what’ll come of it.”

  “Good times don’t follow a girl like me, Smoothie. It’s just not how it works in my life. So riding it out is precisely what I’m talking about,” I say. “Think about it. One bold ass statement of intent. Start from about a hundred yards away, take off at a fast pace, and launch yourself into the maddening water.”

  “It’ll be cold, you know.”

  “Invigorating.”

  “Dangerous.”

  “Impulsive.”

  “It won’t be impulsive if you plan it.”

  Good point. “Okay. I’ll stick to bold. I’ve never done anything my whole life. Not anything. I’ve just slogged along, doing what’s expected of me. This is the ultimate chance-taking.”

  Smoothie shakes his head. “I dunno. I hear ya, but I’m not buying it.”

  “The more I think of it, the more I like it.”

  I don’t feel like talking about my crazy notion anymore, so I put Smoothie on the hot seat. “Truth or dare for you. What are you gonna do with yourself if you’re not going back to Donna?”

  At that Smoothie gets up from the end of the bed and scootches me over so we’re sitting side by side. Smoothie looks straight ahead as if he’s watching television, but it’s not on.

  “I’ve thought a lot about what occurred,” he begins. “A whole lot. I still don’t know how this all happened. I was blindsided by it. And I feel like such a fool for that. Such a goddamned fool. How could I not have known? How could I have trusted my wife—trusted my wife!!—and be so thoroughly betrayed by her? Here she was holding a torch not just for someone else but for another woman, on top of it all. And I was naively going along thinking we were happily married. What the fuck? I don’t know, Mary Kate. I don’t know what I want to do with my life, to be honest. I do know that this took the wind right out of my sails. I’ve lost my enthusiasm for the life I had, and I most certainly lost the ability to trust someone intimately. I don’t know that I’ll ever get that back. Hell, maybe I don’t want it back. I think that’s why I just said to hell with it and stuck my thumb out on the side of the road. I didn’t really give a care what happened to me. Let the chips fall where they may.”

  He chuckles quietly as if laughing at some joke only he is privy to. “Who’d have known I’d get picked up by the likes of you? The least threatening human being on the face of this earth. I guess I should take it as a sign that I wasn’t picked up by some crazed maniac. Maybe that means I have to figure out something useful. But right now, I really don’t want to think about it. I just don’t.”

  Smoothie’s alarm goes off on his watch, conveniently allowing him to change subjects. “Looks like you’re officially cooked,” he says. “But first—”

  He steps over to the bathroom and hangs another towel over the small mirror above the sink. “You can’t look yet,” he shouts out. He comes back out and takes my hand and escorts me to the tub, where he motions for me to sit on the cold tile floor and lean my head uncomfortably back onto the edge of the tub.

  “This hurts!”

  “Beauty comes at a price. It won’t be for long.”

  Smoothie cradles my head with one hand and pulls down the sprayer from the showerhead with the other, directing the water toward my hair. Hardly ideal hair salon conditions, but he is awfully near me and his shirt is still off and I can watch him without his noticing me, since he’s concentrating on rinsing out the purple or orange or psychedelic puce green stuff from my hair. When he’s concentrating, his eyes take on the color of sea glass. From my perspective, looking up, I can almost see through them.

  Smoothie reaches over for the shampoo, and begins to massage the stuff through my hair. His strong fingers send wave after wave of pleasure through my scalp, and I feel like he’s scrubbing away my worries with his efforts. He rinses through then works conditioner into my hair and rinses that. I can’t help but notice the lack of feeling of hair. Like how short is it?

  “We’re almost done. Just need to get this blow-dryer going, and make sure the blast of air doesn’t blow the towel off the mirror—I want this to be a big surprise.”

  He says the word surprise with a thick country accent and I can’t help but laugh cause he sounds like Gomer Pyle.

  “Okay, now stand with your back to the mirror so there’s no looking.”

  I squinch my eyes at him and he chastises me, telling me to shut them for just a little longer. The blow dryer comes on and the warmth feels good against the cold damp of my scalp. Smoothie runs his fingers through my hair, allowing the air to flow through it evenly.

  “Nice, nice,” he mumbles while he dries. “Lean over, hang your head down.”

  Hmmm. Sort of a compromising position, hanging upside down with a shirtless and very handsome pseudo-hairdresser pressed almost up against me with my butt in the air. But I comply. Who am I to ask questions at this point? Upside down feels good, getting the blood flowing to my head. Smoothie is fluffing and puffing and doing all sorts of things to my hair to accelerate the drying.

  “Okay, stand up,” he orders me as he turns off the blow dryer. He spritzes something onto my hair, then scrunches it all around with his fingers.

  “You ready to look?”

  “I don’t know. Should I be?” Oh, God, what if it looks hideous? Well, I guess it wouldn’t matter that much. After all, in a day or two I’ll be plunging into the icy Niagara, where my hairstyle won’t matter one bit. Am I really insane enough to contemplate that?

  “Dah dah dah dah!” Smoothie trumpets as he whips the towel off the mirror. “You can open your eyes!”

  I cautiously open one eye at a time and stare at the stranger looking back at me. Holy shit! Who is that woman?

  “You’re silent. What are you thinking? You’re making me nervous, Mary Kate.”

  “It’s short. And, and, and—” I am almost speechless. “It’s stunning. I can’t believe you did this. All by yourself. In a dingy room at the Penn’s Woods Motor Lodge. You should be a hairdresser or something. Or a fairy godmother.”

  Smoothie’s warm laugh burbles up. “Fairy godmother. That might be a better description for my soon-to-be ex.”

  “Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to say the wrong thing. Fairy godfather then.”

  My hair is short and spiky. It’s a glossy mahogany with auburn highlights so subtle you’d only notice it when the light catches it the right way. It’s how my hair would have looked if I could have invented the color myself.

  “I just don’t know what to say. It’s beautiful. It’s unbelievable.” I fling my arms around his neck and squeeze. Smoothie laughs some more, that low resonant laugh that vibrates from his chest to mine. For a minute I jump back, again so startled by physical contact, downright pleasurable physical contact, with another person.

  “You okay, Mary Kate? You’re a little jumpy.”

  I nod. “Yeah, sure, I’m fine. I’m just, I guess maybe I’m a little weirded out. This—” I point to my hair. “And this—” I point to my belly button. “And these—” I point to my ears. “And these—” I point to my clothes. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Smoothie pulls me back into a hug. “You don’t have to say a thing, girl. Your face says it all. We are on course for the emancipation of Mary Kate Dupree. So far, so good, don’t you think?”

  I stare at my spiky hair and nod my head up and down.
That we are indeed.

  Chapter 16

  It’s late and time for bed, but damn, what am I to do? Put on that red cami and tap pants, which would suggest something, possibly, and I don’t think that I should be suggesting anything. Frankly, I wouldn’t know how to suggest something. In my world, The Act has always been thrust upon me like bad debt on a Third World nation. I would no sooner be able to act on my own impulsive urges—that is to say, if I had impulsive urges—than I would know how to knit a cardigan from dog hair.

  Besides which, I’ve got to have at least eight years on the guy—I’m practically old enough to be this man’s granny. I think I’d cause him mental anguish if he saw me in a sexy nightie.

  I decide to just leave on Smoothie’s t-shirt and hope he doesn’t notice. I go into the bathroom, brush my teeth and wash my face, take a quick pee, and tiptoe out of the bathroom quietly, hoping to not be too obvious, considering I’m now missing my shorts. Smoothie’s sprawled across the bed, glued to the TV, watching some late-night show, and doesn’t notice me as I slip under the covers on the far side of the bed. It’s our first official night sharing a bed, and I sure don’t know the protocol on something like this.

  “You clean your piercings yet, Mary Kate?” Smoothie looks over at me as I feign instant fatigue to avoid the awkwardness of going to bed with someone other than my husband (even though this someone is much nicer than Richard, if that makes me any less of a sinner).

  “Shoot, I totally forgot.” I hesitate to get out of bed to retrieve the cleaning solution—he’ll definitely see my undies then. “Would you mind digging around in my bag for the saline stuff and the q-tips?”

  Smoothie goes into the bathroom. I hear him brushing his teeth and going to the bathroom. We’re like an old married couple. Only not. He comes back out wearing a pair of black boxer briefs and my heart skips a couple of beats. Sweet Jesus, I had no idea a man could look so good in so little.

  Smoothie jumps on the bed and plops on his stomach so he’s at eye level with my own stomach.

  “Doctor Cunningham at your service, ma’am.”

  “I don’t dare ask you what kind of doctor you are.” Smoothie laughs but doesn’t reply.

  He pulls out the saline solution and—I kid you not—reaches over to scooch my t-shirt away from my navel.

  “Decide not to wear your new pj’s?” He chuckles that throaty chuckle that rumbles through me, a powerful train rolling down the track, getting closer and closer.

  “It’s just that I was so comfortable in this t-shirt,” I lie as I watch Smoothie shifting up my—his—t-shirt, thoroughly exposing my underwear, to my deep chagrin.

  “Nice,” Smoothie says, noticing my brand new boy briefs. Just about now I wouldn’t mind willing the white cotton high-tops onto my body. I feel as naked and exposed as if I was wearing one of those sheer thongs he also coerced me into getting.

  Smoothie leans over me, impossibly close to the lower half of my body. He drizzles some of the cold saline solution onto my belly, takes a q-tip and works it around. A mixture of pain and pleasure threaten to cancel each other out. That or kill me. The sting from the still-raw wound hurts like hell, but the erotic nature of having this suntanned, smooth-chested, sexy-as-all-get-out superman lying prostrate at my mid-section is enough to help me forget my pain.

  “It looks good, sweetheart.” Smoothie looks up at me with an incriminating grin, and I probably look gaga-eyed as I stare at this scene. Unable to reply, I just nod. My hands practically shake as my fingertips press discreetly and repeatedly into the motel sheets. “Sweetheart. Sweetheart. Sweetheart,” they type.

  Smoothie gives me a wink, reaches over me and puts the bottle on the nightstand next to me. His shark’s tooth necklace grazes across my body and sends shivers up my spine. Just as quickly, he rolls over to his side of the bed.

  “You don’t have to worry, Mary Kate,” he says. “You’re safe with me. G’nite, Miz Doooopree.”

  Before I can even look over at his face to interpret the intent of his comment, Smoothie clicks the light off.

  We lay there, awake but silent, for a couple of minutes, and then I hear his breathing getting deeper and I know he’s fallen off to sleep.

  “Thanks, Smoothie,” I whisper. “For the best day of my life.” I pull the blanket up over my head, turn to face away from this man who confuses me, close my eyes, and drift off to sleep.

  #

  Bright sunlight flickers into the room along the edges of the curtain, and as I open my eyes to the glare I am reminded of my alcohol indulgence of the day before. I groan, close my eyes and turn over, knowing I’m going to be hurting once I finally do have to get out of bed.

  Smoothie stirs, and I glance over to see him stretching his arms behind his head, his strong chest just taunting me, the blanket gathered right below the waistline of his boxers. I haven’t the faintest idea what is stirring inside of me, but something in my head keeps making my fingers want to trail along the edge of the blanket, working my way over to where it rests on him, hand over hand along a lifeline, if only for a minute. But I refrain. I couldn’t do such a thing. It’s just not who I am.

  “Mornin’ glory,” Smoothie drawls.

  I groan again.

  “What’s the matter? Tequila got your tongue?” He turns his head my way and grins.

  “Something like that. I’m not exactly acquainted with post-game day repercussions from tequila shooters.”

  Smoothie reaches out and scruffs my head, which reminds me, I’m missing some hair.

  “You still likin’ it?” He asks me. I reach my hands up and touch the short strands and our fingers cross paths briefly and I shudder slightly. I really need to avoid tequila; it seems to have a delayed hallucinogenic effect on me.

  “It’s great. It’ll take some getting used to it being so short.”

  We lay there quietly for a few minutes. Smoothie scratches my scalp with what seems like settled affection, like you would your trusted collie. Finally Smoothie rolls out of bed, scrubs his hands up his chest, stretches, scratches his crotch, and wanders off to the bathroom. I just shake my head, marveling that I am lying in bed watching someone who was a complete stranger just days ago, going through some of life’s more intimate motions. My simple, boring life sure has become something more than simple. Or boring, for that matter.

  #

  “So, where to, boss?”

  Smoothie is at the helm of our State Trooper-mobile. After donning my plaid hipster shorts and a red halter top (which sure does lend itself to jiggling up top), I throw on my sequined flip flops, we grab a bite to eat at a nearby 7-11, then load up the car with our minimal baggage. I’ve got the map opened, trying to find a small road we can meander along.

  “How about here,” I say, pointing to one of those thin gray lines on the map that resemble fragile threads from a cobweb. “I prefer the spider web to the throbbing artery.”

  Smoothie looks at me with questioning eyes. “Huh? Something’s throbbing over there?”

  “Yeah, these big fat red lines on the map. They’re like throbbing arteries and I don’t want to use them.”

  “O-kay then,” Smoothie says. “Note to self, avoid things that throb.” He takes one of the maps and whacks me on the head with it.

  We pick the thinnest of thin gray lines and head out in search of nothing. Which is, after all, what we’re essentially doing.

  We drive in silence for a while until we happen upon a small town with a detour sign veering us away from where our road was supposed to take us. We pull over on a side street to figure out what to do.

  “What is going on here?”

  And then we see it a block away: a crowd of people gathering alongside the street, waving small American flags, dressed in all sorts of garish combinations of red, white and blue.

  “It must be
Independence Day!” I suddenly remember. “It looks like the parade is about to begin.” I pull my phone out of my purse and turn it on, hoping to check the date, since it hardly seems like today should be a holiday.

  “Hot damn, Mary Kate. I love the Fourth of July,” Smoothie says. When he says the month it sounds like “Jew-Lie.”

  My phone suddenly springs to life and begins to vibrate, telling me I’ve got messages. It almost seems to be yelling at me, it’s vibrating so hard.

  “Oh, God. Do I play them back?” I ask Smoothie as I scroll down to see about fifteen missed calls.

  “Hell yeah,” he laughs. “Put it on speaker phone. I wanna hear.”

  I call up my voice mail and through the crackle of a bad connection we hear these:

  “Where in Christ’s name are you, goddammit?”

  “Mary Kate. I want you to call me NOW.”

  “What the ever-loving fuck are you playing at, woman?”

  “I’ll find you, you stupid mother fucker.” Gulp.

  “Sheeyit, baby. Why won’t you talk to your pork chop?”

  Smoothie looks at me like you would if you just heard the minister fart during his sermon at church.

  “Pork chop? Are you kidding me?”

  I play that one over again.

  “Sheeyit, baby. Why won’t you talk to your pork chop?”

  We burst out laughing.

  “Where in tarnation did he get that?” I holler, mocking Richard’s ingratiating voice.

  We listen to several more fervent messages from my wretched husband, and then come to this:

  “Mary Kate. It’s your husband calling you. You need to come quick. It’s your mother. Something’s happened to her.”

  I look over at Smoothie, somewhat alarmed. I say somewhat because truthfully, there is little love lost between me and my mama. I’ve made my peace with her as much as I’m ever gonna, and I simply avoid her as much as possible. As little as Richard knows or cares about me, surely he’s aware of that.