If I Lose Her

by Greg Joseph Daily

  “I’ve invited Pete in for some supper.”

  “But mom!”

  She held up her hand again, closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “He’s just passing through town and is only going to be here for a few days and wanted to see how we were doing.”

  “We’re doing just fine,” I said standing up and pushing my plate across the table, but she put her hand on my chest, so I clenched my fists and held my peace.

  “It’s just dinner Alex,” and she waited a minute to see if I would respond. I just turned away. Then she went back to the front door and opened it.

  “Hey kid,” he said when he came inside.

  You son of a bitch. I’m not twelve anymore so you better watch it!, I thought to myself.

  Pete had gained weight and lost hair since the last time I had seen him, and I had put on about 25 pounds of lean muscle, so I walked up to him and got close enough to see his dandruff and smell his body odor. He just smiled.

  My mother could have dinner with him if she wanted, but I wasn’t about to, so I walked past him and down to the front yard. Then I kicked the aluminum trashcan sitting on the curb for tomorrow’s pickup and sent a couple of bags flying into the street. I didn’t care.

  The night was warm and I could hear the crickets chirping out the night so I turned and started walking, up the hill toward the edge of one of the universities in town where I knew the trees were the most beautiful and I would be alone.

  My walk was heavy, but this wasn’t burning off any adrenalin so I burst into a sprint.

  There is something deep in the heart of every man that lies beneath the layers of accountability, social etiquette and moral response that is passionate and wild, and tonight I didn’t give a shit. I ran so hard I couldn’t feel the world beneath me, I ran until my legs burned, I ran until my heart was the only thing I could hear and could run no more. Then, on the green manicured lawn of the St. Olaf football field, I finally collapsed.

  I gulped down lungfulls of air and let the cool grass hold me while I looked up into the night sky. I heard someone walk up.

  I sat up.

  It was Kristina. She was breathing heavy too, just not as heavy as I was.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I was on the porch drawing when I saw you kick the shit out of our trashcan, and I thought you might need someone to talk to.”

  I picked myself up and dusted some of the grass off of my jeans.

  “How’d you keep up with me?”

  “School and sports remember? You okay?” She asked stepping closer.

  I rocked back and forth and ran my hands through my hair not sure what to say.

  I looked at her again and saw her pressing forward, so I kissed her.

  She ran her hands through the back of my hair and kissed me right back.

  Now, I don’t know if one of us knocked the other one over or if we tripped, but next thing I know we are in the grass quickly throwing our friendship right out the window. She was so warm and so fresh and so here. Then I thought about…

  Jo!

  I pulled back and rolled off of her, wiping my lip with the back of my hand.

  Holy shit, what HAVE I done?

  “What, what’s wrong?” She asked sitting up.

  “Oh my god, Kris I’m sorry, but I have a girlfriend back home.”

  “But she’s not here right now,” she said leaning forward and putting her hand on my chest.

  I turned away.

  She stood up and I stood up with her.

  “Kris I’m sorry I just…” and I reached for her hand but she pulled it away, and I saw her put her hand to her mouth as she turned and started walking. I followed her.

  “Kris please, I’m all screwed up. You didn’t do anything. Just let me…”

  “Alex, it’s fine,” she said walking faster.

  I tried to keep up but she started running. Then she bolted off faster than I could even hope to keep up.

  I ran for another block or two then gave up and walked the rest of the way home.

  When I got back to the house I walked up to her front door. Her sketchbook was lying open on the window ledge. She must have left it when she took off after me.

  I had seen her sketching on afternoons out front and at the lake when Nate and I were fishing, but I had never seen any of her work except that one piece she had shown me the first day we had hot chocolates together.

  I don’t like showing people my work. I remembered her saying, and I picked up the book to close it and make sure she got it back when I saw the image she had been working on, with the pen laying still uncapped in the fold of the book. It was me, standing on a dock with a fishing pole in my hand.

  I couldn’t help myself, so I turned the page.

  On the next page was my hand, holding a fish that hung from a line. There was one of a dock with reeds along one edge. Then another of me, at the coffee shop with a book, and one of my eyes close up. There was another of my hand then another of me and another and another. Most of the book was some aspect of me, mostly at moments when I was occupied with whatever it was I was doing.

  What have I done? I didn’t realize…I mean I guess I should have. We’ve been spending so much time together.

  Pete’s car was still in the drive.

  I wasn’t ready to deal with him yet, and I knew that I couldn’t just leave things like this with Kris, so I looked at my watch. It was nearly eight. I still had time.

  Pete’s car was parked behind my mother’s so I walked the twenty minutes to the nearest grocery store hoping to find some way of showing Kris that I hadn’t meant to hurt her.

  I found what I was looking for and walked back to the house.

  Now Pete’s car was gone, thank God, and my mother’s Ford Focus was the only one in the drive. It was almost nine. Kris’ parents must have gone off somewhere for the evening.

  I walked up to the door.

  Her sketchbook was still sitting open on the ledge where we had both left it. I unwrapped the single yellow rose, laid it between its pages, folded her book shut and set it between the screen door and wooden front door of her apartment.

  There was a light on inside, and I almost knocked, but I decided not to.

  Fifteen

  The next morning my mother was up and dressed before I was, and there was no breakfast on the table like there had been on mornings when we would be going out to sell brooms together.

  “Hey,” she said. “I think I might give you the day off.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked standing in the doorway to her bedroom. She was leaning into her mirror and applying a subtle shade of red lipstick.

  “Peter asked if I wanted to go out with him while he visited some accounts today, and he offered to buy me lunch, so I said yes,” and she smiled at herself in the mirror, tilting her head this way and that.

  “What? You’re going out with Pete? And what do you mean accounts, what kind of accounts?”

  “Alex, we don’t have a monopoly on selling brooms in Minnesota.”

  “They’re broom accounts? Are you kidding me?! Why are you even talking to that asshole?”

  “DON’T you use that language with me,” she said holding up a finger. “We’re just going out for a few hours.”

  “He STOLE your business mother! There is no way that he disappears for the last two years and then suddenly shows up on our doorstep, all the way up here, just to say hello.”

  “I don’t need a lecture from you Alex, running around with that Kristina from California with her tight shorts while you have a wonderful girl waiting for you back home. Besides I am OLD enough to decide WHO I want to go out with.”

  “There is NOTHING going on between us!”

  I didn’t think there was anything going on between us.

  “Look Alex, who you date is your business,” she said walking past me to her purse sitting on the kitchen table. “Here’s twenty bucks. Go see a movie. Go fishing. Go take some pi
ctures. I don’t care, but I’m going out.”

  There was a honk outside. She turned and walked to the door. Then she stopped.

  She turned back around, walked over to me and put her hand on my cheek.

  “I know you’re trying to look out for me, but I’m a grown woman. I was looking out for myself long before you were here.”

  Then she kissed me on the forehead and left.

  I took a shower, got dressed and went downstairs. There wasn’t anything I could do about my mom, but I needed to try to do something, say something to Kris.

  Their car wasn’t in the driveway, but that was no indicator since their parents were often out for the day and long into the evenings.

  I walked up to the door then stopped. I rubbed my knuckles and the back of my neck. I turned and left the porch and looked up and down the street. Not looking for anything in particular, just nervous about what to say. I turned and went back to the door and knocked. Nate answered.

  “Hey Alex,” he said stepping outside and pulling the door shut behind him.

  “Hey Nate, is Kris here?”

  He nodded his head yes but said: “I’m supposed to tell you that she isn’t here, and that she doesn’t want to talk to you.” Then he grabbed my arm and pulled me off of the porch.

  “What happened?” he whispered. “She’s had Sarah McLachlan going all morning.”

  “God Nate, I don’t know. This total prick my mom knows shows up last night and I got all wound up and took off up the hill to St. Olaf, to blow off some steam right, but I guess your sister saw me take off and thought I needed someone to talk to or something, so she followed me. Then when she came walking up my head was all in a mess and I was angry…so I just kissed her.”

  “So, what’s the problem? She’s had a thing for you pretty much since we got here.”

  “I didn’t know that! I mean I should have. We flirt and stuff, but I thought it was all innocent.”

  “Dude, flirting is never innocent with girls.”

  “Well, shit. Thank you for that mister Cupid. Where were you last night when I could have used some relational advice?” And I rubbed my forehead. “Anyways, the problem is that I have a girlfriend, so when she kissed me back I pulled away.”

  “There it is,” he said shaking his head. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do, say: ‘Hi, my name’s Alex, let’s catch some fish. By the way I have a girlfriend?”

  “Uh, yeah. You could have at least mentioned her.”

  “Can we stay focused please?”

  “Well, normally I’d say I have to kick your ass, but I like you Alex. Besides, I don’t think you’re trying to dick over my sister, otherwise we’d be having this conversation after you slept with her not after you kissed her. The best thing to do is just give her some time. It’s all a little too raw at the moment.”

  “I don’t have a lot of time though Nate, mom and I are heading back next week after the ‘Defeat of Jessie James Days’ fair, and I don’t want to leave things like this. We’ve had too good a summer.”

  “Hmm,” he said rubbing a hand through his hair. “Look, go buy some flowers or candy or something and come back in an hour, and I’ll see if she’ll let me talk to her.”

  I’m not even dating this girl and I’m trying to make up with her, I thought as I walked downtown. And how am I going to explain all of this to Jo? I suppose I could just not tell her.

  I played with this idea for a few minutes. No, I don’t want to lie to her like that. How did this even happen? The smiles. The walks with me downtown. She probably WASN’T on her way downtown already like she told me. Her wanting to come out to the lake.

  I looked in the various shop windows not sure what to do to make up for what I had done. I couldn’t just buy her a bunch of flowers, I didn’t want to send her more mixed signals.

  Us laughing over Mexican hot chocolates more times than I could remember. Mine and Jolene’s first date was over hot chocolate. I need to drink more coffee. Then I snapped my fingers. I know what I’m going to do.

  When Kris finally opened the front door wearing jogging pants and a hoodie, I was sitting on the table in the front yard with a cup of Mexican hot chocolate- a cup of Mexican hot chocolate so large that I was barely able to carry home.

  She walked out with her arms crossed over the front of her chest.

  “What is that?” She asked.

  “I wanted to say how sorry I am, so I thought I’d get you a Mexican hot chocolate, and since I am REALLY sorry, I had to get you a really big cup.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  I wasn’t sure if she was offended or in disbelief.

  “Uh, no.”

  She walked over and touched the cup that stood from the table, where I was sitting, up to my shoulder.

  “Is it really full of hot chocolate?”

  “Forty-seven cups of hot chocolate to be exact and two cans of whipped cream.”

  She smelled the comedicly oversized mouth hole and looked in.

  “How did you do this?”

  “I guess whoever sells them their cups made this one as an advertisement. They had it sitting on the back counter for the past few months.”

  She looked up at me when I said this.

  “Don’t worry, I made sure they washed it. You should have seen the look on the clerk’s face when I told her I wanted this thing filled with hot chocolate. It took them forty-five minutes, and I had to pay them a hundred bucks plus the price of the hot chocolates, but it’s worth it if you’ll forgive me.”

  Her lightened attitude grew grey again as she came back to why we were having this conversation.

  “I wasn’t expecting anything Alex. I didn’t even know if you liked me, but the past few weeks we’ve been spending more time together, then when you kissed me last night…”

  “I know Kris. I’m sorry. You’ve been a lot of fun to hang around with, and if things were different, I think we could have hit it off, but I really love my girlfriend back home.”

  She walked over and put her finger on my chest. “What’s her name?”

  “Jolene.”

  “Jolene huh? Is she pretty?”

  “I think she’s amazing.”

  Kris turned a bit and looked up at nothing in particular. Then she sat down on the table next to me. “Well, how’s a girl supposed to drink out of this thing?”

  “You could tilt it, but I wouldn’t recommend that,” I said reaching behind my back and revealing an empty cup. She took it, I helped her get the giant sized lid off and she scooped up a cupful of the liquid chocolate. All but a thin layer of the whip cream had melted. Then she took a drink and a drip of brown ran down her chin. She caught it with her sleeve and smiled.

  “Well, it tastes like a good apology.”

  “Do you think I can have some?” I asked revealing a second empty cup.

  “I don’t know. I might want to let it get nice and cold before I let you have any,” she replied dipping her finger into her cup and flicking the warm liquid at my face.

  My mother went out with Pete every day for the rest of our trip, including weekends, which meant I had too much free time on my hands. Since I was pretty tired of fishing, I went back to what I knew and took photographs of everything I had neglected up until now. Nate and I went back to the dock a couple of more times so he could fish while I took photos, but I only saw Kris one more time before I left.

  It was the last night of the ‘Defeat of Jessie James Days’ fair when the whole town of Northfield comes alive to celebrate the day that the townspeople took up arms and gunned down the notorious bank robber and his gang right in the street as they tried to flee with the town’s money. There are re-enactments and music, carnival rides and food.

  Nate and I sat as the sun went down watching the lights of the Ferris wheel spin and people try to knock over some metal bottles with a ball for a prize. We were talking about how many fish we had caught and eating a dish of frie
d cheese curds covered in ketchup when Kris walked up and planted herself down between us. She looked like she was up to her old self, drawing attention from several of the guys around us.

  “So, did you win anything?” She asked us both as she reached into my plate and fished out a fried chunk of cheese.

  “We’re not really playing anything,” I replied.

  “Ah, don’t you need to win something for the girlie friend back home?”

  “She’s not really into that kind of stuff.”

  “Well she’s probably pretty excited to see you anyways.”

  “Actually, she thinks I won’t be home for two more weeks. I’m going to surprise her tomorrow night.”

  “How sweet. I see you’re back to taking photos,” she said fiddling with the camera hanging around my neck.

  “You should let me take yours.”

  She smiled and stood up on the balls of her feet. “Only if you ride a ride with me.”

  I’m not sure about that.

  I hesitated.

  “Oh come on Alex, just one. I promise I’ll behave.”

  “Okay,” I said handing Nate my camera. “What do you want to ride?”

  “The Ferris Wheel of course.”

  So, we walked up to the Ferris Wheel, I bought us two tickets and we climbed on. We sat down in the bucket seat, clamped the bar across our laps. Half way through the second rotation she took my hand and laid her head on my shoulder. I just let it be.

  When the ride was over we climbed off and I took my camera back. “Can I still have a photo of you?” I asked. She just nodded. She put on her best smile and threw her arms up in the air as I snapped the photo of her with the spinning red of the Ferris Wheel in the background. She walked up to me, gave me a hug, kissed my cheek and said goodbye. Then she walked away.

  I said my goodbyes to Nate explaining how mom and I always liked to get an early start, and we promised to call each other. Of course we never did.

  Sixteen

  The drive back to Colorado wasn’t nearly as fun as the drive to Minnesota for either my mother or I since I was upset that she was talking to Peter or seeing Peter or whatever it was she was doing with Peter, and she was frustrated that I wouldn’t just leave it alone and let her make her own decisions. We made the usual stops for gas and stuck to food that could be eaten on the way.