In the Long Run
Page 31
Between us.
To: Taylor@TaylorMadetoTravel.com
From: B_Watson@CityofFaircombe.com
Subject: Re: And you call yourself my friend
November 18, 8:15PM
I wasn’t avoiding you. I was busy. Had a very busy day today. Had to go to bed early last night. Plus, Gremlin got out and ended up in a scuffle with the Kellerman’s dog when I got home from work last night, because they were walking one of the trails near my house. Had to go to the vet (she’s fine, because I’m sure you’ll ask. Scratched up a little. Wanted to be calm and cuddle today. Unusual).
And then we have the Turkey Trot happening this Saturday, so I was overseeing the admin for that set up all day.
I just don’t see what you’re talking about. I don’t think there is anything we need to discuss.
How’s Murray Field, Mississippi? That’s where you’re at now right?
To: B_Watson@CityofFaircombe.com
From: Taylor@TaylorMadetoTravel.com
Subject: Re: And you call yourself my friend
November 18, 9:13PM
Oh no! Send me a pic of Gremlin all cuddly with you because I’m sure it’s adorable, and I hope she’s feeling better.
Jo’s told me all about how she is helping out at the Turkey Trot, because she’s volunteering at the elementary school for the mentorship program.
Murray Field was decent, but not impressive. Def not hitting the list (I’ve managed to weed out a decent handful, actually). Sending you my notes (don’t think I haven’t noticed the little additions you’ve made on the notes app. Admit it, I can read you like a book. You love having all of the info in front of you and you love the way I sent it up, all organized like that).
But mostly, don’t try to change the subject.
Seriously, Brooke. We kissed! We kissed and it was a damn good kiss. You can’t tell me you didn’t think it was.
Don’t lie to me. Not even through email.
To: Taylor@TaylorMadetoTravel.com
From: B_Watson@CityofFaircombe.com
Subject: Re: And you call yourself my friend
November 18, 11:51PM
Fine. Attached are cuddly Gremlin photos. I wasn’t prepared for a photo op so you’ll live with my lounge wear.
Jo’s actually been great working at the middle school mentorship program. She even came to city hall to help set it up.
I’m not changing the subject! The whole reason you’re gone and we’re emailing is because you’re scouting out all of these cities for the list.
I’m not saying the kiss wasn’t good, Taylor. I’m saying what I said that night – it’s a bad idea.
To: B_Watson@CityofFaircombe.com
From: Taylor@TaylorMadetoTravel.com
Subject: Re: And you call yourself my friend
November 19, 7:56AM
I love your lounge wear. I love it so much, I’ve kept what you’ve loaned me and I even brought it with me to sleep in.
Brooke, it’s not a bad idea.
I’ve thought about it since the day I left. It’s all I’ve thought about, really. Distractingly so. And the conclusion I’ve come to is that you are so wrong that this is a bad idea. So wrong that four turns couldn’t make it a right.
The way I see it is this:
We’ve known each other for our entire lives. We like each other as people, more than we like most other people, I think. We understand each other more than most people understand us, and we always have. We respect each other. We make each other laugh. We are good at being there for one another when laughter is the last thing we feel.
We’re insanely attracted to each other. We already know we have great chemistry in bed, and all I’m saying is that maybe we should explore it more than one night.
Because it’s here, Brooke. It’s between us. And I don’t want to waste the next five weeks I’m spending in Faircombe pretending it’s not.
I don’t want to spend five weeks pretending I don’t think about how your mouth feels against mine. Pretending I don’t want to feel your body against mine. Pretending that I don’t want to see you more than just on Sunday night dinners or occasionally around town.
Tell me how that is a bad idea.
To: Taylor@TaylorMadetoTravel.com
From: B_Watson@CityofFaircombe.com
Subject: Definitive list of reasons why dating Taylor Vandenberg would be a total fucking disaster
November 19, 5:19PM
1. Because we would be a disaster waiting to happen.
2. Because we’re working together on this list! You don’t date people you work with.
3. Because you have to drag my feelings out of me and you blurt yours out at the drop of a hat; we’re too different. That’s just one of the ways in which we are TOO different. You know this.
4. Because your brother is my best friend. And you’ve only just started reconnecting with him.
5. Because your sister and niece and your parents are like my family.
6. Because we’re working together on the list. Deserves to be said twice. Because you don’t date people you work with!
7. Because the last time we had sex, I bruised my finger on a wine bottle and that fucker hurt for days.
8. Because your use of the word vibe would be the end of me.
To: B_Watson@CityofFaircombe.com
From: Taylor@TaylorMadetoTravel.com
Subject: Re: Definitive list of reasons why dating Taylor Vandenberg would be a total fucking disaster
November 19, 8:21PM
Nothing you said in that email sounds like a true deterrent to me. It sounds like a list of excuses. Don’t you feel a hint of what I’m feeling for you? I think you do.
1. But what an amazing disaster we could be. We had an amazing night together in San Diego. You made me come so hard, and that was even before we got to really reconnect like we have in the last couple of months. It would probably be even better now. Our kiss was, I think.
2. My family is like your family, which means we get the benefit of knowing each other so well already.
3. Don’t try to say we work together and use that as an excuse! We’re building the list together, but it’s not like you employ me.
4. We are different, but our differences have always helped us balance one another. Always.
5. I’ll keep all bottles of wine safely away from you.
6. You like my vibes.
7. You have such amazing lips and I’d like to feel them on mine again. As soon as possible. The day I come home, if I can. Only three days away…
8. Because I’ve been in Raley Cove, Alabama all day and it’s beautiful, Brooke. It’s so beautiful – one of the underrated southern gems for sure – and amidst enjoying being here by myself (which, I am), I find that I’m wishing you were here to provide your typical Brooke commentary.
I can hear your comments in my ear, the ones you would make derisively about the lackadaisical attitude of this coastal town. I can picture how antsy you would be to move around it and search out every nook and cranny to see what it really means to be here. It inspired me to go out and actually peek around city hall and go talk to some city officials instead of just enjoying the vibe and going where the wind took me, because I knew that’s what you’d have done.
I can picture the way you’d sit next to me on the beach, with your shoulders just a little tense and your face set into that slightly unimpressed look while the sand got on you. And how you’d roll your eyes but laugh when I kicked the sand at you.
It’s not a bad idea.
Brooke sat at her typical seat at Grady’s, frozen, as she stared down at the email she’d just received from Taylor, her heart in her chest.
She didn’t know why she hadn’t expected this volley right back, this volley of words from Taylor that made her want so much. Not sexually, even. Just want. Brooke was familiar with wanting when it came to sex; that was kind of the easy part of relationships.
But it was only with Taylor that she felt
this hard tug inside, this pull of want to just be in her orbit. To be with her, to be near her, to know what she thought, to hear her voice.
There it was. Written right in front of her, all of the reasons that it would be so easy to sink into what Taylor’s offering.
It was a terrible idea, though. It was. Her list was all the truth.
And at the end of the day, she hadn’t even had the heart to write the truest statement of all.
That Taylor would be gone in five weeks and Brooke would miss her when she left. Achingly so. Hell, she already missed her. Right now, she missed her.
She just had to stay strong and hold out – against the memory of that kiss, which, in turn, continued to remind her of their night together. The night she still remembered in vivid detail three months later – for five weeks.
Five weeks, and then Taylor would be gone. Off… somewhere. Brooke frowned, tapping her fingers against the table, as she raked her mind over Taylor’s comments from the last couple of months. The thing was, nothing Taylor ever said just escaped Brooke’s mind. It was all catalogued up here, somewhere.
And she couldn’t remember where Taylor was going to next. Or, really, why it mattered.
Against her better judgment, as she cast her eyes around the pub to do one last scan for Ben, who had texted her to say he was running a couple minutes late to trivia, she opened her phone.
She took a deep breath as she typed in the URL to Taylor’s website for the first time. Idiot, she insulted herself even as she did so.
She’d never looked before; she could lie to herself, as she had in the past, and say it was because of lack of interest. Or she could be honest and admit that it was because it was easier to box Taylor completely out of her mind than let her linger like an ever-present ghost.
Immediately, she was brought to an engaging, colorful home screen. There was a little airplane, emblazoned with a stylized T, at the top, that was flying over a map, and the map was lined with what had to be hundreds of pins.
Before she could click on anything, Ben fell into the seat across from her and she jumped, her heart racing as she scrambled to put her phone away, locking it and placing it face-down. Idiot, she grimaced at herself once again.
Ben sighed, dragging his hand through his hair. “Sorry, had to drop Jo off with Teresa, hit traffic on the way home. And then there was a problem at the clinic that I got approximately fifty thousand calls about; the supplies drop off guys were being real assholes to my front office.”
“Yeah, no problem. It’s all good,” she spoke quickly, shaking her head as if that would work to push out the emails.
In all honesty, she’d thought Taylor leaving – especially after that last night, when Taylor had kissed her – would be great. A good break for her to be able to see clearly, without the Taylor-tinged influence.
Instead, she heard from Taylor every day, and she couldn’t bring herself to ignore the emails.
She’d tried.
Ben gave her an incredulous look. “It’s never yeah no problem when someone runs late. I mean, even just a joking comment, but never no problem.” He looked down at her phone, which was still clutched in her hand, she realized seconds too late, as she released it onto the table. “What kind of inappropriate things are you doing on there, huh? Writing shitty Yelp reviews for other cities under a codename?”
Brooke rolled her eyes and deadpanned, “You caught me. That’s how I spend every night after trivia, how’d you figure it out?”
“FaircombeRulez69… it was a pretty obvious username,” Ben shot back, before the smile on his face turned more genuine. “I mean. You did do it the one time, when we took Jo to the circus in Guston, five or six years ago.”
“The stage they used for their production wasn’t up to code and they threw peanuts into the crowd! We didn’t fill out a waiver, saying we were not allergic to nuts. That’s a fucking nightmare to deal with, as I’m sure the mom of that kid who had to get his EpiPen also thought,” she challenged, indignant, before they both broke down into laughter.
She took a deep breath. This. This was good, familiar territory. None of those stomach clenching, worry inducing, over-thinking moments. Not here. This was just – normal.
It was far, far too easy to lose herself in Taylor, even in her emails. This? Was where she needed to force herself to stay.
***
The strength to keep Taylor tucked into the back of her mind lasted all of until she got home that night. She’d done everything she could – played with Spoon and Dolly, and even Gremlin had joined in a bit, emailed Kevin back and rejected his ideas for their next council meeting, cleaned up the kitchen from where she’d prepped some food for the Faircombe Turkey Trot festivities tomorrow… and all of that had gotten her to eleven thirty.
She refused to answer that email. The one where Taylor listed all of the reasons they could work in a together-couple sense, because Brooke couldn’t let herself really believe that. The email that made her heart pound and ache, because she knew she was right. That her stance on the two of them not working, was intrinsically correct, and they just shouldn’t cross that boundary. No more than they already had.
Instead, she pulled up Taylor’s website again.
By two in the morning, she was lounging on her couch, and even though it was far past her typical bedtime, she felt wired.
Because – damn it, she really did have to give it to Taylor. Taylor-Made to Travel was really something, and Brooke had been wrong for the last twenty years.
This was no “little blog” and all of the times Taylor jokingly laughed or snorted whenever she referred to it as such made a lot more sense now.
She’d only intended on clicking one or two of the little pins on the interactive map on the site, that were dated for the time that Taylor traveled, and titled with little captions.
Some of them were light and fun – Spoiled in Spain, which detailed her adventures on a two month trip through the cities of coastal Spain. Some of them were somber – Mixed-up in Mostar, which spoke candidly and respectfully about not just Taylor’s experience on the tenth anniversary of the ending of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also painted a picture of the history that happened there.
And some of them were telling about Taylor – Born in Barioche, which spoke of how she’d ended up in Argentina almost a year after she’d left Faircombe for the first time, and how it was while kayaking there that she’d realized she’d found happiness in her constant travel. It was where she’d realized this was the life she wanted to live.
Once selected, it brought you to the multitude of photos, videos, and blogs about Taylor’s time in that particular area. Her pictures were more than impressive – they were beautiful, moving, silly, sweet, and everything in between. Her videos – that usually featured her partaking in an activity – always somehow felt like she took the audience with her.
That was how she’d gotten so successful, Brooke had realized in the last couple of hours. Because that quality Taylor had, like you were the center of the world when her attention was on you, shined through even like this. Even not in person, though her website. She took you with her through the world.
But what Brooke liked the best was the blogs. Because while she’d never thought Taylor unintelligent in the least, her writing was a shocking strength. She commented on the universality of life while remarking on the individualism of the world. The devastation of genocides and wars she’d physically seen, and the joys of new life and the sheer wonder of the beauties of the world.
Humans – the concept of humanity and the life we’re given – is utter wonder.
We are all these creatures of flesh and bone, heart and brain. We’re born and we breathe and we love and we fight and we cope and we grieve and we laugh. We all have people we adore and the ones who break our hearts, dreams we aspire to and the barriers that block them.
The incredible fact of life is that no matter where you are in the world, no matter who you are sitting nex
t to, this is the truth of what it means to be human. That we are all the same inside.
The wonder of it all is the possibility we’re given. Physically, we are all built the same, but all 7.6 billion of us look different. You can make your own choices, but still be the casualty of someone else’s war. We all have the people who’ve shaped us, but the same person who broke your heart is someone else’s hero. The thing you’re running away from is exactly what someone else is running toward.
Make your mistakes. Chase your dreams. Speak your truth.
Listen to other people’s truths along the way.
As always,
Taylor
“As always?” She muttered, rereading the way every piece was signed off. No, she wasn’t misreading anything; it really did all sign off with as always. “What is that?”
All of it, excepting that ridiculous sign-off, was brilliant. It really was. Taylor really was.
But what got to Brooke the most was how Taylor could visit a place once, sometimes for just a few days, and could see right to the core of it. How she could understand a place and see it at its best, even if she visited and literally saw it at its worst.
Yet, she couldn’t feel that way for Faircombe.
In the past, this frustrated her, angered her, upset her – ran the gamut. But now? Knowing everything she knew about Taylor and being able to slot in the key facts she’d learned about her in the last couple of months… it just made her sad.
And determined.
Taylor once asked her to really show her Faircombe, and Brooke finally understood the assignment.
To: Taylor@TaylorMadetoTravel.com
From: B_Watson@CityofFaircombe.com
Subject: Important Question