by Laura Miller
“Wait.” Jack lowers his phone and looks up at me. “What did you say?”
His hawk-like stare makes me straighten up. “What?”
He cocks one of his eyebrows up and gives me a puzzled look. “You just said something.”
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah, you just said that you saw her.”
“Nah.” I shake my head. “You’re hearin’ things again.”
He narrows an eye at me. “First off, I don’t have a habit of hearin’ things. Second, damn it, I’m not deaf. What do you mean you saw her?”
“Damn it,” I push out, under my breath. “I saw her in the airport.”
“When?”
“When I was in the airport,” I say.
“Damn it, Rem!”
I laugh and run my hand along my thigh. “In St. Louis. She lives in Texas now.”
“Texas?”
“Yeah,” I confirm.
“Well, what’d she look like? What’d you say?”
“She looked...the same. And I didn’t really say too much. In fact, I really didn’t say anything at all.”
Jack sets his phone onto the cardboard coffee table and sits back in the couch. “Wow,” he says, his gaze straight ahead. He’s got this laser-like focus on the wall, all of a sudden. “All this time, and then boom, there she is.”
I nod my head. “Yeah, I know.”
“She was like a missing person.”
I nod again.
“So, she didn’t say anything about... You know?”
I drag in a long breath and then shake my head. I know what he’s gettin’ at. “No,” I finally say. “Nothin’.”
“Really? She never said nothin’ about why she left?”
“No,” I say. “Nothin’.”
“And you didn’t...?”
“Bring it up?” I ask.
He just blankly stares back at me.
“No, surprisingly, in the few minutes we talked, that subject never came up.”
“Well, I don’t know,” he says, shruggin’ one shoulder. “I was just askin’.”
I refit my cap over my head and catch myself starin’ in the direction of the TV. I think I’m secretly hopin’ it will distract me, or better yet, teleport me out of this room.
Jack is quiet. I don’t say anything either. I had waited until Mike was gone before I said anything in the first place, mostly because Jack is the only one who’d really care to hear about it. But now, I don’t really feel like talkin’ about it anymore.
“Well, damn.” He exhales or sighs or somethin’, and I watch as he grabs his beer off the box. “I bet that was like seein’ a ghost.”
I smile halfheartedly. “Yeah, it kind of was.”
“You all right?”
He gives me that same look he always gives me in situations like this. I’ve seen it at least a hundred times. We were seven when I got my first wild pitch—right to the eye. It turned black and blue on the spot. And I could tell he wanted to cry more than I did; but he didn’t. He just stared at me in my one good eye, gave me that look and asked: “You all right?”
I shift in my chair a little. “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
He takes a swig from the bottle and then swallows. “Well, is she still, uh...doin’ the publishing thing?”
“She’s actually writing now, evidently,” I say.
“Ha!” He starts to laugh. “You better watch out. She might end up writin’ you into one of her stories.”
I laugh to myself and sit deeper in my chair. “As long as she gives me better-lookin’ friends in the fiction version.”
Jack fishes a plastic soda bottle off the table box and throws it at me. “Shit, I ain’t so bad on the eyes.”
I deflect the bottle, and it goes flyin’ to the floor. Good thing it was plastic.
“Now, Mike,” Jack goes on, pointin’ the neck of his bottle in my direction. “Mike could use some groomin’.”
We both laugh just as Mike barrels down the stairwell, his long, shaggy hair trailin’ behind him. He thinks his mane, along with the beard that goes with it, is what attracts the women. Jack and I think he’s full of shit. But then again, there always seems to be a girl on his arm, so maybe he ain’t as full of it as we think he is.
“Got your food, suckers.” Mike drops the bag onto the box, pulls out a burger wrapped in white paper and falls into his usual chair in the corner.
“What’d I miss?” he asks, stuffin’ half the burger into his mouth.
“Nothin’,” I say, “it hasn’t started yet.”
“Well, what are you two Twinkies laughin’ at then?”
Jack looks at me and then back at Mike.
“Oh, Rem, here, was just complimentin’ us on how good we look.”
Mike raises a brow at me, and at the same time, tugs at his beard. “About time you noticed. I told you it’d drive ‘em crazy. Hell, even my dog likes me better this way.”
Jack gives Mike a puzzled look before he turns to me. I just shake my head and turn up the TV. The game’s about to start. Plus, this conversation is gettin’ a little too weird for my taste.
Mike eventually stops strokin’ his beard, and I grab a burger. But I can’t get her out of my head. Damn it. She’s not supposed to be there. She left. I forgot...or at least, I tried to. That’s how it’s supposed to be. She’s supposed to be forgotten.
Chapter Eleven
Past (4 Years Earlier)
Rem
“I’ll have a bacon cheeseburger with fries,” I say to Kristen.
“Oh, and can I have a beer with mine?” Jack blurts out.
Kristen just rolls her eyes and looks to Owen. “What can I get ya, Owen?”
I’ll just have the same thing as Rem,” Owen says. “And I’ll take a beer.” Owen looks over at Jack and just smiles. Jack looks back at him with a scowl.
“Now, you can have one,” Kristen says, smilin’ at Owen. And none of us miss the wink she gives him either.
Kristen turns then and heads back behind the bar.
“You got a ways until you’re twenty-one, don’t ya?” Owen asks Jack. “If I remember right, I believe you were still in diapers by the time I started school.”
“Shit, you don’t remember that,” Jack cuts back.
“I remember you two babies cryin’ in the principal’s office that day Miss Evans caught ya cheatin’,” Owen says.
“Oh, here we go,” I say, sittin’ back in my chair.
“Well,” Jacks says, gaining momentum, “we wouldn’t have been cheatin’ if someone hadn’t told us that it would be a good idea to write the times tables on our arms in permanent marker right before the test.”
“Hey, I didn’t tell ya to wear short sleeves,” Owen says. “I was only tryin’ to help ya.”
“Yeah, help us wind up in Mr. Geriatric’s office,” Jack says. “It was May. It was hotter than shit that day. And we were supposed to wear long sleeves?”
“Here ya go, honey,” Kristen says, slidin’ a beer across the table to Owen.
“Thanks, sweet cheeks,” Owen says, smilin’ back at her.
Jack cringes at Owen and Kristen’s exchange, as Kristen turns and walks off.
“Hey, where’s mine?” Jack hollers to her back.
“It’s sittin’ in the cooler,” she says, not even botherin’ to turn around. “And it’ll keep on sittin’ in there for a few more years.”
Jack looks back at us and just sighs.
“Now, you see that, dunderheads.” Owen points the neck of his bottle in the direction of Kristen. “There are some things in this world you just don’t take for granted, and that,” he says, pausin’ to lock eyes with Kristen across the bar. He smiles at her. She smiles back. “That is one of them.”
Owen kicks the leg of Jack’s chair and takes a swig of his beer.
“Who? Kris?” Jack asks. He’s half scowlin’, half grinnin’.
Owen refuses to say anything in response, so Jack turns t
o me instead. I just shrug. Owen doesn’t usually say things like that. Of course, Owen is Owen. I stopped questionin’ him a long time ago.
“Geezer wisdom,” Jack pipes up, a big grin takin’ over his face all of a sudden. “That’s what Owen’s got.”
I look at Owen and laugh. “Must be,” I agree.
“Ya old geezer,” Jack says, through a laugh.
“Hey, call it whatever you want,” Owen says. “I still get to drink my beer out in public, while you two dunderheads gotta sit here with your sippy cups of Coke.” He takes another swig and shakes his head. He’s got this fake, sympathetic look on his face now.
I can tell Jack doesn’t know what to say to that. Hell, I don’t have a comeback either. So, we all just sit there starin’ at each other, until Jack finally starts laughin’, and then I join in, and finally, Owen does too.
“What are you guys all laughin’ about?” Kristen asks. She stops at our table and sets down three plates of burgers and fries.
“Oh, nothin’,” Jack says. “We’re just learnin’ what fun-filled life we got waitin’ for us at twenty-one. In fact, in the time it took Owen to finish his beer, I’ve already looked into a nice retirement home for myself.”
“What?” Kristen gives Jack a puzzled look.
“Oh, Jack’s just got his panties in a bunch; that’s all,” Owen says.
“What’s new?” Kristen asks, smilin’ at Jack.
Jack just rolls his eyes, while I take a big bite of my burger and watch as Kristen steals a fry from Owen’s plate and pops it into her mouth.
“Now, you boys stay out of trouble tonight,” she says, smilin’ at me this time. “Or at least, tell me, so I can come too.”
“Of course,” Owen says, givin’ Kristen a wink.
With that, Kristen turns on her heels and heads back to the bar. And not even a second later, Owen kicks Jack’s chair again.
“What the hell?” Jack barks.
“Remember what I said,” Owen warns.
“Yeah, whatever, geezer,” Jack says, smilin’ wide, despite his mouth full of food.
Chapter Twelve
Present
Rem
I’m in Sunny Square. The vendors are out. There are people all around me. Mike is here. He’s wearin’ his old Cardinals cap and laughin’ over at Joe’s Kettle Korn. But something is off; something’s not right.
I allow my eyes to quickly sweep the street. Jack is here, too. He’s leanin’ up against the theater’s brick side talkin’ to Kristen. She’s got a smile on her face. Jack does, too. The sun is out, but the air feels thick. I briefly close my eyes and try to breathe it in.
“How much for the quilt?”
I open my eyes and look up. Some older guy I don’t recognize—probably because he’s from out of town—is starin’ at me. He’s hovering over a faded blue and yellow quilt. It’s my quilt. Ashley found it at an antique store one hot day in July. She said I had to have it. “It will make your living room look more like a home.” I play her words back in my head.
The quilt is lyin’ across the couch that Ashley and I would spend our lazy afternoons on, watchin’ reruns of Seinfeld and old Humphrey Bogart movies.
“How much?” the old man asks. His voice is getting impatient.
“Uh, it’s not for sale.”
He gives me a strange look. “Then why’s it out here?”
I don’t answer him. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why it’s out here. He frowns at me and then marches off with an older, gray-haired woman, who, I assume is his wife.
My eye catches on an old hockey stick next. It’s mine. I used my lawn-cutting money to buy it from a sporting goods store when I was twelve. I was going through a hockey phase. It lasted a couple months. It’s a left-handed stick. I’m right-handed. I didn’t know any different back then. But why is it out here? Why is all my stuff out here?
“How much for this lamp?”
I turn around. A brunette, who’s maybe in her twenties, is starin’ back at me, holdin’ up a big, green lamp.
“Ten dollars,” I say. Ashley hated that lamp.
The girl gives me a ten-dollar bill and walks away with the green lamp.
“How much for this?”
Before I can even look up, I recognize the voice. “Ashley.”
She’s holdin’ up the bamboo plant—her love plant. I’m nearly breathless just lookin’ at her.
“Can we talk?” I ask.
“I can’t.” Her smile fades and is quickly replaced by a thick coat of sympathy. “I’m with my husband.”
“You’re married?” My heart sinks to the deepest crevasse of my chest.
She nods and sets the plant back down.
“Hey, buddy, Kristen said Caleb is havin’ some people over later.” Jack is, all of a sudden, in front of me. I look at him and then back to Ashley, but she’s gone.
“Not now,” I tell Jack.
I scan the crowd of men and women and kids and dogs on leashes, turnin’ on my heels as I do it, and before I get all the way around, Ashley is back.
“Come on,” she says. “Walk with me.”
She takes off toward the river. I’m so nervous or dumbfounded, it takes me several seconds before I pick up my feet and follow after her.
“You’re married?” I ask her again, once I’ve caught up to her. The scent of her perfume brings my senses to life and forces me to remember how much I’ve missed her.
“Yes, just married,” she says. She holds out the ring. But she might as well have held out a knife.
“Well, he’s a lucky guy.” I’m surprised at how calmly I say the words. I’m surprised at how calm I am.
I follow her to the bench that overlooks the river. The water is dark and murky and eerie. I’ve never seen it like this.
She sits down, and I do, too. She’s wearin’ a long, white gown. It’s slit up the side, and a corner is blowin’ up in the breeze, exposin’ the tanned skin of her thigh.
“We sat here once,” I say to her, takin’ a breath. The air’s no longer thick. “Do you remember? It was our first date.”
She smiles. “Of course I remember.”
I feel my lips turn up at that. Something about her thinkin’ about a memory that only we share makes me happy again...for a moment.
“Why does it have to hurt so much?” I ask.
Her smile fades a little. “It’s not supposed to be painless, Rem. It’s supposed to be worth it.”
I take in her words. She said that same phrase once when we were together. But she had said it with a smile. It was after I had sat through an entire special viewing of Titanic—the one with Leonardo DiCaprio drawin’ pictures and pretendin’ to fly on a boat for almost four hours. This time, however, her words strike me in a whole different way. And at the same time, I notice the river is clear now. It’s clear like creek water. I can see straight to the bottom. And I definitely know I’ve never seen it this way, but I quickly dismiss it.
“Ashley, I’m sorry. There’s so much I would take back.”
Her lips don’t move. She just looks up at me with a sad expression glazin’ her face. I look into her eyes for several seconds, and then I look away. The story of our time together is written on the green in her eyes, and I don’t want to read it. I look down at the grassy ground by my feet instead, as the sound of a freight train roars behind us. “I loved you so much,” I go on. “I loved you so much more than I showed you. I’m so sorry.” I stop to take a breath, but I still don’t look up. “Ashley, I love you. I’ll always love you.”
It’s so quiet. Everything’s so quiet. I no longer hear the voices from Sunny Square in the background. The hum from the train that just went by has disappeared. And the air is like mud again.
I try to take another breath, and I look up, and Ashley’s gone. Immediately, it feels as if a knife jabs straight into my heart.
“She didn’t hear any of it,” I whisper, as it sinks in.
I sit back against the iron bench
. There’s an ache so strong in my throat that I can hardly get a breath, or even swallow; I’m devastated. I don’t question why she left or if she were ever really there at all. My mind is just so consumed with the fact that she didn’t hear anything that I needed her to hear. She didn’t hear any of it—not even a word.
I close my eyes. Liquid forms behind my eyelids, though for some reason or another, I can’t feel it; I just sense it. And when I open my eyes, there’s another train. It sounds its whistle so loudly that it startles me. And the whistle doesn’t stop either. It’s just one continuous, high-pitched noise. And it sounds as if it’s getting closer. I stand up and turn toward the sound. And immediately, I notice the train is off its tracks. It’s comin’ straight for me. I try to move, but I can’t. My feet are cemented to the ground. So instead, I close my eyes and prepare for impact.
My eyes snap open.
I’m in my bed. My alarm is blarin’ from the cardboard box I use as a night table. I swipe at it, and the room goes silent.
I turn on my back and look up at the ceiling. I’m breathing heavily. It was just a dream.
“It was just a dream,” I whisper to myself.
I rub my eyes with the palms of my hands and then slide my fingers through my hair. I feel as if there’s a thirty-pound weight sittin’ on my chest.
“Ashley,” I whisper, suddenly recallin’ the rest of the dream.
I jump up and run to my laptop. It’s at my kitchen table where I left it the night before. I log onto Jack’s Facebook and type Ashley Westcott into the search box. We’re not Facebook friends. We haven’t been since the day she left.
I click on her About section and quickly scroll down through her place of work and where she lives. It doesn’t say she’s married. I go back to her timeline. Workin’ quickly, I scroll past photos of her and her friends, smilin’ and havin’ fun; shots of a little brown and white beagle; pictures of a sunset over a lake. But there’s no wedding photos.
She’s not married. I breathe a sigh of relief.
This is crazy. Of course she’s not married. I just saw her. She would have told me if she were married. Right? Hell, maybe not; I don’t know. Anyway, I would have seen the ring.
