“Good luck.”
“Thanks,” he said, and his hand touched mine on the armrest before he quickly pulled it away and asked, “Uhm…so, how about you? Travelling for work?”
“So you make me guess, but I’m supposed to just tell you, huh?”
“Yes?” He raised his eyebrows and tried to judge my expression. “Uh…no.”
At that, Shane seemed a bit taken aback and I instantly realized why. He was looking at me, a girl wearing a simple old shirt and a pair of jeans, with wind-blown hair that was still all over the place. Why hadn’t I at least brought something to tie my hair back with? Or taken a shower this morning? God, he probably thought I was homeless! I must have looked like I just rolled out of bed and climbed aboard the bus, which wasn’t far from the truth. Embarrassed blush rose to my cheeks as I watched his eyes wander over me thoughtfully.
“I…” he started.
“You don’t really have to guess,” I cut in. “I was only giving you a hard time. I’m a student.” I ran my fingers through my hair in another attempt to straighten it. Total failure. “Ugh. And one whose hair does not get along with this weather.”
Shane smiled. “Your hair looks fine. I was going to say I thought you were a nurse.”
“Wow, you’re a lot better at this than me. You were pretty close.”
“Part of the job,” he said. “It helps when I have to poll for juries and don’t have a lot to go on about someone.”
“That’s what I’m going to school for, believe it or not. Nursing.”
“Really? What’s that like, taking care of sick people?” Shane looked genuinely interested and continued, “I’d be horrible at it, I think.”
“Exhausting,” I said, nearly sighing it out. “But I love it, most of the time.”
“Never enough nurses, you know.” Shane rubbed his hands together and adjusted the little wheel that controlled the airflow on his side. “So what brings you on this seven hour tour of the great state of North Carolina? Going to visit family? A little late for summer break isn’t it?”
“Yes and no,” I said regretfully. The smiling man before me was ushered out of my mind by images of sitting in a cold hospital waiting room with my father, praying that the surgeon would bring us good news. “They don’t even know I’m on this bus. My mother is having surgery tomorrow morning, and since my ride left me, I grabbed a ticket on this thing at the last minute so I could get there in time.”
“Oh…” Shane whispered quietly. “I’m really sorry to hear that. About your mother, I mean.”
“Don’t be. It’s ok. She’s going to be fine, I know it.”
“Of course she will be. I shouldn’t have been asking you about your business, though. I get kind of claustrophobic on these things I guess, and it makes me ramble. You’re nice to talk to, though.”
“You’re not so bad yourself,” I flirted.
Hale would have been furious to hear me say that. Hell, he would have been upset just to see me sitting and conversing with a man like Shane. Nevertheless, even without Hale there to shoot me an angry expression, the conversation trickled off until both of us were enjoying the ride in silence. Long trips will do that to you. Fifteen minutes passed without a word between us until Shane finally spoke again.
“Seeing all these trees makes me think of home,” he said as he watched the landscape whiz by outside the window. “My old home, anyway.”
“Where’s that?”
“Up in Michigan. A little rural pocket of a town called Snowberry. You could drive into town and right back out and not even know you’d been there. I liked it, though. Quiet. My favorite place to go was the woods right outside my parent’s house. Right past the backyard. The trees there were so big and tall. I could take a trail and lose myself in them for hours. It was my place to just think, you know?”
“I’ve got a place like that,” I said, already wishing I was there on a nice, sunlit day. Maybe even with Shane. He could come, too. “Not as many trees as your place, mind you, but still just as peaceful.”
“Does this place have a name?”
I nodded, watching his mysterious amber eyes examine me, and answered, “Stokes Pond. Real simple, huh?”
“Simple’s good.”
“There’s an old pier out there my father used to take me fishing on when I was a kid. Most girls hate fishing. I loved it because I could sit on the end of the pier and see all the way to the bottom, the water was so clear. Watch the turtles, that kind of thing. It didn’t matter if a fish got caught or not. Being out there was like an escape, and it was a place I went to for figuring things out, even after Poppa stopped taking me.”
“It sounds nice,” Shane offered.
“It is. Or was. I haven’t been back since forever. The old dock’s probably fallen apart by now.”
“Maybe not. You should check it out when you get home.”
Maybe I would.
Shane’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he answered, nodding silently and murmuring quietly to the person on the other end. I watched the landscape through the foggy window, seeing around his face in profile against the rain. Out in the downpour, vehicles passed on either side of the bus and the seemingly infinite, painted yellow lines on the asphalt in one far lane blurred into a single long streak as we rode along. There were trees and more trees for miles, and besides the occasional sign to point the way or advertise something no one wanted to buy, I saw nothing else that stood out from them.
Hours passed. We talked about nearly everything, from the odd choice of green employed by the Median Bus Company to the overpriced, automatic back massager I found for sale in one of the free magazines. Shane told me about his many trips around the country, and I told him about life being yelled at by patients in a hospital. The case he was trying in Wilmington never came up, and thankfully, neither did Hale. The phone in my purse was all but forgotten.
As we passed the city line into Greensboro, I reached up tiredly to rub my aching neck and touched the thin chain that hung there. I’d almost forgotten I was wearing it because I so rarely took it off. The locket twirled in my fingers and I watched it spin.
“Carol, I want her to have it. I insist.”
I could still hear my grandmother’s lively voice as she argued with my mother on the day she gave it to me. My sixteenth birthday. She’d called me over to her favorite chair and draped the lovely necklace around my neck. Hanging heavily on the bottom was a small locket, almost as thick as my little finger but no bigger around than a quarter. An intricate, curling, abstract design was stenciled into the metal on the outside edge. Superimposed over the polished center were two doves with outstretched wings flying towards each other.
Grandmother’s voice came to me again. “You take care of that now, Mary. Your grandfather gave it to me on the day he came home from the war.” She always called me by my proper first name, but I didn’t mind.
I clicked open the latch, which I hadn’t done in months. Inside was the same photograph she’d put inside that birthday morning, a picture of my family, taken on a warm Easter day outside their church. My father standing proud in his Sunday best, with his arm wrapped snugly around my smiling mother. They were frozen in place that way forever. The photo was a little worse for wear and the color had faded a bit, but there they were, looking young and happy and full of life.
I ran my finger along the inscription on the other side. For Elise. My grandmother’s name. And below that, in the same stylized cursive, To keep my love and lift her spirit.
The locket was balanced in my hand and I sat, staring at it for the longest time, thinking about how deeply they must have cared for each other. How much he had loved her! It was no wonder she always wore the thing whenever I saw her, before it fell into my hands that fateful day. She would have never parted with it, I realized, unless she knew that her time remaining was drawing short.
“Whoa,” Shane said, breaking me out of my trance. “It’s getting bad out there.”
Stro
ng wind buffeted against the side of the bus, howling as it went, shaking the steel sidewalls and blowing a warm draft through the cabin. Hard rain crashed into the window in waves like a thousand needles and the windshield wipers looked to be going at maximum speed just to keep up. I could sense the bus slowing down, but still the driver took us ahead, into the growing storm. A shot of fear surged up into my stomach.
“Looks like some of them are stopping,” I said, lifting my head up and over Shane to see. A few cars had pulled over; wary motorists that weren’t about to try and brave the hard weather until it passed. “Do you think we’ll have to do the same?”
“Hmm, I kind of doubt it, Kat. This is a big bus. It can probably handle the rain.”
“I kind of wish he would stop, though. Let it blow past.”
I wanted to curl up in a blanket and forget about everything; the terrible storm, my problems with Hale and mother, everything… except maybe Shane. Somehow, he made it easy to forget all those things for a little while.
Shane nodded and pushed back in his chair before saying, “Raleigh is only another thirty miles. By the time we’re finished there and back on the road, I bet this whole thing will have passed over us.”
He was only half right.
Four
A few turns and exits later, we pulled into the boarding area at a transport terminal that put the little one in Watauga County to shame.
The rain was still blowing sideways when the enormous bus slid into a parking lot. Thankfully, the other, equally large buses on either side of us blocked some of the elements so the trip outside wouldn’t be too bad. It was hardly getting into the late afternoon and the thick, fast-moving storm overhead blocked out the sun into nothing more than a dull glow through black and grey clouds. Shane was already up and grabbing his bag from the overhead compartment when the driver groaningly exited his seat with a long stretch and spoke into the microphone once again.
“Welcome to Raleigh, ladies and gentlemen. In just a few minutes, you’ll be able to exit. There are a few restaurants inside the main terminal and we’ll make an announcement when we’re ready to continue on our way, so please don’t wander too far off. For those of you who are permanently de-boarding, your luggage will be on the carousel located at Gate C shortly.” Then, as if he’d suddenly remembered something intimately regrettable, “And thanks for riding with Median.”
As soon as the driver hung up the mic, the other passengers began shuffling around, ready to get off the bus.
“You hungry?” Shane asked. “I could really go for something. I haven’t eaten since first thing this morning.”
I considered it for a moment. Should I really go with him? It was one thing to just ride next to a guy or have an innocent chat, but it felt like something altogether different when Shane asked me that. It felt like…a date…almost.
I technically still had a boyfriend. That would most likely be changing soon anyway, though. In the end, I decided that it couldn’t hurt and it was much better than sitting alone and staring at my phone. If Hale didn’t like it, that was tough. It was his fault I had to take a damned bus home and he didn’t deserve to know what I was doing anyway.
“Sure,” I answered confidently. “I’d love to.”
Once the driver gave the all clear, the bus emptied out and we joined the shuffling line of people. Shane and I made our way through the weather, getting peppered with stinging rain only briefly as we left the safety of the buses to cross out in the open before reaching the sheltered entrance gate. The terminal inside was well-lit, with high ceilings that went up nearly twenty feet and smooth, marble-tiled floors that seemed to extend in two directions for nearly a quarter-mile each way. Tinted glass windows ran along the entire length of the outermost walls, and through them I could see row after row of multi-colored buses, taxi cabs, and rental cars. The sound of the storm raging outside took on an insulated, heavy drone.
I walked quietly beside Shane, wondering if I should try to say something to him about my complicated relationship with Hale. Ultimately, I couldn’t think of anything interesting to talk about other than how much nicer this depot was than the one we’d left. So, I simply enjoyed his company as he blazed a trail for us past the other passengers and made way for the glowing neon signs that seemed to point us towards a quick meal.
“A sushi place?” he said, stopping by a set of wooden benches in the middle of the thoroughfare. Straight ahead of us there was a small eatery featuring a pink, glowing frame of a fish with Japanese symbols that hung over the cash register. Behind the counter there was a man in a chef’s hat diligently manning his post with one elbow on the counter and a hand against his chin. No one was in line. The poor guy looked utterly bored out of his mind.
“Uh, no thanks,” I muttered. Sushi was not on my list of places to eat today. I was cold and wet, and the last thing I wanted to eat shared the same qualities. It looked like everyone else had the same idea.
“Oh yeah, I know. It just seemed strange to find one here in a bus depot.” He scanned the long corridor of restaurants. “There’s a burger place. How’s that sound?”
“That works,” I answered, my stomach already gurgling at the smell.
The line wasn’t very long and the service was fast. Neither of us knew how much time we had before the bus would board again and the driver hadn’t exactly been specific. We grabbed a table near the wall and tore into the warm bag of food like people that hadn’t eaten in days.
I’m not going to say it was the best burger I’d ever eaten. I don’t even recall the name of the place. Being there with Shane, alone with him among the crowd of anonymous travelers going this way and that was the only thing I could rest my mind on the entire time.
“So,” Shane said between french fries, “Are you from the big city of Wilmington itself? Honestly, you seem like more of a country girl than that.”
“Kirkland. It’s a small town outside of Wilmington. Same county, though. My family owns a farm there. That’s what most of the people do where I’m from - The ones I know, at least.”
“I’ve never actually been on a farm before. My folks both worked at Baker College. Desk jobs. They weren’t teachers or anything like that. Administration, or something…I think. To this day, I couldn’t tell you what they did there to save my life. They retired early and now they’re the proud owners of a little townhouse in Florida.” He stuffed a fry in the paper container of ketchup and swirled it around before holding it up. “So what kind of stuff does your family grow on this farm? Potatoes?”
“They do, actually, but they also grow corn, soybeans, cotton, even broccoli,” I answered. Shane turned up his nose at the last one. “Not a broccoli fan, huh? Daddy changes it around just about every year. Keeps the soil rich.”
When I discovered he shared my quirky habit of putting the fries on the hamburger and making it all into one big sandwich, I couldn’t help being a bit enamored by the coincidence. I’d never met anyone else that liked to do the same. Most people thought it was kind of weird, stuffing your palate with everything at once like that. Shane seemed even more surprised about it than I was.
“Are you copying me?” He asked, watching as I laid out a neat row of fries across the bun and smothered them with ketchup.
“Nuh-uh.”
He titled his head as if to be sure I wasn’t pulling his leg and asked, “Really?”
“Yeah,” I said, and felt the blush run to my cheeks again as a smile spread. “This is the best way. I’ve always liked mine like this. You do yours too?”
“Definitely.” he looked down at his burger and mashed it all together, with the edges of nearly a dozen shoestring fries hanging out both sides. “What a coincidence, huh? I’ve traveled over ten thousand miles and have the points on my credit card to prove it, but I’ve never met a girl that liked stacking fries on a greasy ol’ burger like I do.”
“It must be fate,” I joked and raised my sandwich, tipping it towards his like I was giving a toast. “Her
e’s to high cholesterol, then.”
“Hear, hear.”
We continued talking about small things as we ate; the weather, the food, things like that. It was pleasant and altogether comforting to have a person to talk to that I could say I knew, even if he was just an acquaintance. Sitting alone would have been boring and I’m sure the food wouldn’t have been half as good. Shane just seemed to make everything better.
As he become more serious and began discussing the court case he was facing in Wilmington, I found my gaze meeting his soulful, mesmerizing eyes again and again. Before long, I was lost in them as he spoke. Shane could have been telling me about quantum physics and it wouldn’t have mattered.
“…so they called me down to the coast. The field office I’m usually at is in Ohio, so it was a bit of a drive,” Shane said as I drifted along in his presence. When he crunched up the wrapper to his burger and tossed it in the empty bag on the table, I think I finally blinked. “And then the darn car broke down on me. Next time, I’m getting a Beamer.”
Just as I finished the last sip of soda in my cup, the PA system blared out the announcement that our bus was boarding.
“Was that us?” Shane said hurriedly, and emptied his tray into the trash.
“I think so.”
We started off, walking so closely together because of the crowd that I found myself longing to hold his hand or attach myself to his arm as we went. I barely knew him, yet there was something that seemed to call me to him. Normally, had I been alone in such a new place, I would have been uncomfortable. With Shane there, it wasn’t like that at all. He made me feel confident, safe. My heart beat faster in his presence, and in a very, very good sort of way. We’d made it through to the end of the food court when the PA barked out the final call for our bus.
“That was fast, Kat. Don’t they know how packed this place is?”
Love Lift Me Page 3
