by Dela
“Oh, I didn’t notice.” But I did. How could I not? The woman was practically wearing frosting with shiny, fake eyelashes on her spread-out eyes.
We were now standing at the edge of the garden, Los Angeles twinkling below us. Kendal stuck his hands in his pockets as another gust blew past us. It brought Colby’s voice to us louder than I expected. The conversation seemed serious.
“What do you think about her?” Kendal asked, breaking me out of my reverie.
“Does it matter?”
He looked toward the city and sighed. “No. None of this does. It’s all stupid.”
“Excuse me?”
“Hey, Jessie! Kendal, good. I’m glad you’re here too.” Colby approached us with a heavy pant before kissing me on the cheek. “I have to fly out tonight back to the office. There’s been a turn of events for our client. Kendal,” he swallowed, as if what he was about to say was hard for him, or else he was still catching his breath. “I know you offered before to drive with Jessie to Oregon. Do you think you can still do that?”
“What? Why? No, hon. It’s okay, I can postpone and wait for you.”
“It won’t be over then. Our biggest client just got himself into a heap of trouble. There’s going to be court docs, police statements, media, interviews. I don’t have any clue how long it will be. I’d like to come home to you at night. I want you there now.”
It was Kendal who then swallowed hard, looking away again, this time toward the restaurant, where there were no subdued lights to dimly illuminate his face.
I nodded, nervous to look back to Kendal.
“Is it even possible?” I asked him.
His move looked calculated the way he turned to Colby, a mere smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “I’d be happy to help.”
Colby sighed with relief. “Okay let’s find Austin and Gizelle.” He looked around, coming out of his frazzled state. Then a puzzled look flashed on his face. “Where’s your date?”
“Bathroom.”
“Oh. One of thoooose.”
“Apparently,” he nodded. The silence grew awkward.
I looked around for anyone, anything, to distract me. I spotted Austin and Gizelle conversing near the pool. “Oh look, there’s Austin and Gizelle.”
We approached them with the plan when Tamara decided to join us. She looked disappointed that the night was coming to an end—probably because she had readied herself up for another eight hours—but remained professional about it with a subtle nod. As we drove home I wondered if she could see Kendal’s eagerness for tomorrow. I could, and I could also tell that Colby was having second thoughts. But it didn’t matter, the limo driver still had Colby’s luggage in the back and took him straight to the airport.
Chapter Thirteen
Kendal
I rang her doorbell promptly at eight, eager as hell to spend the next two days alone with her. I dangled the U-Haul keys in my hand, focusing on how I could spend this time with Jessie in the most efficient way possible. Ever since Colby asked for help it was all I could do to think of how to win Jessie. The door swung open.
“Hey, thanks for doing this.” Her face was washed clean, hair in a messy bun. She whipped around, walked to a pile of cardboard boxes, and began taping the tops.
I grinned. “What can I do?”
“You see those boxes over there in the corner?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re ready to go out. This pile will be too in a minute,” she said.
I glanced around at her small, bare apartment. “You don’t have much stuff. Should I call Austin and tell him he doesn’t need to come?”
“It’s been just me for a while,” she said. And me, too, I thought as she glanced around with her hands on her waist. “That’s probably a good idea. I didn’t realize how little I have.”
After I texted him I reached for the first box, biting back what wanted to be said. But I had the bad habit of saying what was on my mind. “And now it’s going to be you and Colby.”
I was almost out the door when she grabbed my arm softly. “Can we please not talk about him on this trip?”
I’m unsure how many moments passed before I could muster a nod. “Of course, Vixen.”
It was ten after ten when the last of Jessie’s belongings were loaded into the truck and we hopped in sweaty. Our few personal things inside our duffels were tucked between us at her feet. She adjusted to get comfortable and moved the vent to point on her face as we headed toward the freeway.
“We should stop to rest for the night somewhere after Sacramento so we can miss morning traffic,” I suggested.
“Good idea. Maybe we can make it to Oregon.”
I nodded.
A few miles later we were on the I-5 heading north toward San Francisco when Jessie pulled out her phone.
“I’m texting Colby to tell him we are on our way,” she stated.
I nodded again and waited for her to finish. When her fingers stopped moving, they remained on the phone as if a response would materialize immediately. I hardly expected him to reply so soon, the way he barely glanced back at the airport.
But I was wrong.
Jessie began giggling, her shoulders hunched over anticipating his next text. I squeezed the steering wheel, wanting to murder it.
“What’s so funny?” I wondered out loud, resisting my jaw tightening.
She shook her head while her eyes stayed glued on the phone. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Great.
She shrugged. “It’s personal.”
“Okay Bubblegum.” I briefly glanced away toward my window, relieved to have but just a second of not having to see him make her smile.
Fifteen minutes. A whopping fifteen minutes he had her smiling with sweet nothings. But he couldn’t give her a proper goodbye kiss at the airport? I didn’t understand what everyone saw in Colby. Sure he was a nice guy, and had nice curls I suppose, but he also had a wide range of things going against him that for some miraculous reason I seemed to be the only one who noticed. For example, he pays more attention to his phone than he does Jessie. I thought Austin was a bit much, but then they had Daniela and his phone obsession lessened, which is when I realized it was a problem in the first place.
And Colby likes cats. Austin told me. Who the hell follows cats on Instagram?
A sharp burst of laughter erupted our silence. I looked at her suspiciously, noticing she was holding her phone out toward me. “Oh my gosh look at this cat!”
Oh no, Jessie. You too? I glanced quickly, not because I was driving and needed to stare at the road, but because a cat simply couldn’t have produced such a laugh. The kind that was light and whimsical. The kind that made me want to engage when clearly it was against my own wishes. I needed to separate myself from cat-loving Colby, but I had no choice but to look at her phone.
A video? I sighed, knowing I needed a series of multiple glances even though I had just given myself strict instructions about showing interest. I watched in flashes while keeping an eye on the back of the suburban in front of us. A box . . . a small cracker . . . and then out of nowhere a speedy little paw reached from underneath the box and snatched the treat blindingly fast before dragging it underneath the box. A mere chuckle escaped my lips before I could stop it.
“That’s funny,” I said.
She scrolled through her phone without looking up and said with a glee, “There are hundreds of videos like this on Instagram.”
“Do you follow every one of them? Please tell me you don’t aspire to be the old, cat lady. I thought I knew you better than that. ”
“Very funny,” she responded, shoving my shoulder. She sat back and raised her knees to tuck her feet underneath her butt. She looked back at her phone and continued swiping pictures along before talking from the side of her mouth. “I only follow a few accounts. I’m not that strange.”
I laughed. “How many are a few?”
“Ten. Tops.”
“Ten?!”
&nb
sp; “Yeah, so?”
“Whose cats are they?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Some of them are the owner’s accounts, some are just random ones other people post. Don’t judge my accounts, Seat 2A. I follow Vargas’s account, too, to even it out. And I’m not going to lie.” She looked once again to the cats on her phone and raised her eyebrows with a grin. “It’s not as good as my cat accounts.”
“You’re comparing cats to fashion?”
“Hey, don’t get mad at me! Some accounts just can’t compete with a good cat photo.”
“Oh man, can we please change the conversation?”
She wiggled in her seat. “I probably should have used a restroom before we left.”
“Want me to stop?”
“No, I’ve got a good two hours in me.”
“Two hours? Are you serious?”
She straightened up as if she could make the pee go away from her ready-to-explode bladder. And I wasn’t presuming, her face told me it was about to explode. “Why?”
“Because when I say I have to go to the bathroom, I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Oh, I guess it’s become habit to hold it when I have a classroom full of kids and I can’t leave.” She was still wiggling. Unbelievable.
“I’m not going to make you wait that long.” Despite her protests, I took the next exit and pulled into a gas station.
“Thank you,” she cried, half out the door.
Jessie returned with large fountain sodas in each hand. “I got you a coke.”
“You were thinking of me?”
“Always,” she blushed. “Don’t you think about me?”
That tug that came any time Jessie and I were alone—really alone with no distractions, no Colby—came back full force into my chest. It tightened so much that my breath stuttered. I grinned slowly through the lovely pain. “In the worst way.”
I started back on the road with a smile when GPS rerouted and made us take a couple U-turns to get back to our spot on the I-5. We drove straight for four hours before our truck began huffing fumes.
“I’ve got to stop for gas. You hungry?”
She peeled away from the window, arching her back and stretching her arms far above her head. “Starving,” she yawned.
“Would you like to get out and stretch?”
“No, I just want to keep going.”
I looked around, studying the non-promising neon fast food signs. “We’ve got hamburgers or sandwiches.”
“Hamburgers. Cool?”
I nodded. “Lock the doors.”
Two dripping cheeseburgers later, our U-Haul roared to life. I had my food on my lap and was carefully unwrapping it from its paper packaging with one hand when from my peripheral, I saw Jessie tanking down her first couple bites. I didn’t blame her. We were a couple hours past lunch and my own stomach gave me hunger pains too.
“This is so good,” she mumbled with a mouth full of food. When she looked my way, noticing my struggle, she grabbed the burger and began unwrapping it.
“Thank you.”
She set it unwrapped on my lap producing a smoldering heat on contact. I glanced nervously at her hoping she wouldn’t have noticed the pinch in my muscles as they contracted for something more. Instead she sank back into her seat and munched down another bite with a raw ferocity. I was now glad I got the fries because she might need them; despite my surfacing memories of the last time we ate fries together. No airplane, I think we’re good. I turned on the radio and took my first bite.
Four long hours later, we stopped for more gas. We were about an hour north of Sacramento as the sunset left orange and pink hues in the sky. My back ached and my legs killed to stand up. I hopped out, releasing an involuntary sigh as I stretched. Jessie met me on my side as I slipped the pump into the truck.
“How much longer do you want to go?” I asked.
She put her hands on her lower back and bent backwards like she was doing some yoga move. “If we eat I’ve got maybe a couple more hours in me.”
“Deal.” I looked around again wondering what our options would be this time. “Pizza or pizza?” There wasn’t much. At this point it didn’t matter. My whole body felt sick from lack of movement. What would a measly slice of pizza do to my stomach?
Jessie winced. I assumed she felt the same. “Pizza is fine.”
She stayed and topped off the pump while I ran inside to fetch the greasy gut bomb. There were cardboard-looking pizzas behind a glass dome at the far end of the gas station. They had to have been thawed this morning and left under a small heater lamp at the top of the fingerprint-smeared glass case. There was no pizza oven to re-warm them, and it wasn’t like there was a chef standing around to take my order for some fresh ones. I ordered two reluctantly, then the worker promptly put them into small, flat boxes and handed them to me with a blank face. “Have a great night,” he said.
Carrying our disgusting dinner in one hand, I reached for two cold water bottles out of the fridge and went to the candy aisle. I grabbed a couple packages of sweethearts, a bag of Dorito chips, and some sunflower seeds. Jessie was already sitting in the passenger seat by the time I got back. I opened her door and handed her the bags.
“Sorry, this is all junk,” I stated.
“I didn’t expect anything else,” she responded, eyeing the bags with concern.
Back on the road, we were done with our stale pizza in no time and worked our way to the sugar. I glanced at Jessie. The taillights of the car ahead glowed a red hue against her stunning face. She caught me staring at her and made a lovely smile extend cheek to cheek.
“This brings back memories,” she said.
“How so?”
“You bringing me a bunch of random food, us inhaling it as fast as we can as if our stomachs are made of steel.”
I laughed at the pleasant thought, until the image of me running to the bathroom on an airplane took precedence. “That was quite an eventful morning.”
She laughed with me. “Remember when you slipped and fell on your butt in the village?”
“Why did you have to remember that part of our trip?”
She didn’t answer. Her lips stayed pursed as large brown eyes studied me.
“What?” I wondered.
She moved a strand of hair away from her eye and paused for a brief moment. “I’ve missed you.”
Without thought, I replaced my right hand on the wheel with my left, and reached for her hand in the dark. It was easy to find, because I’d been eyeing it all afternoon. I’d been suppressing the urge to hold her hand for the past eight hours, until now. It slipped into hers with ease along her lap without any resistance. She glanced down, then up.
“Kendal, I . . .”
“Jessie, shh. Let me hold your hand.”
She held still a moment and then suddenly her tender fingers slowly wrapped around mine like a warm glove. She leaned back and sighed. “How much farther do you want to go tonight?”
My body screamed—stop now, get a room—but I knew I had to take it slow. Be patient. But oh, touching her again. The icy sharp pain of years of loneliness began to melt and my heart yearned for her in more ways than I knew she would allow.
“I’m going to try to make it to Oregon.” The green city sign on the side flashed as we passed it. Ashland was only 150 miles away. “Ever been to Ashland?”
“Never.” She closed her eyes peacefully, resting her other hand atop mine. “That sounds good. I’m getting tired.”
“Get some rest. I’ll wake you when we get there.” I squeezed her hand to assure her, wishing it were mine to kiss.
Eventually Jessie’s head lobbed to the side and her mouth was agape with steady breathing. Her hands had become slack but I didn’t care. I wasn’t letting go.
We had gone another fifty miles when out of nowhere, a pain erupted in my stomach.
Gas!
I checked Jessie. Her body hadn’t moved for twenty minutes. I slowly released the bomb, careful no
t to overdo it otherwise surely the smell would wake her. A little air slipped out, but it didn’t release the pressure building in my stomach. I tried shifting my weight to the other leg but now my stomach decided to be queasy as well.
Oh no.
I needed to release a little more. I double-checked Jessie first. This one was rancid. Crap, no crap! Crap needs to come out too. In a panic, I scanned the side of the road for another green glowing sign. Next town, thirty miles?!
Our cab became a sudden death trap. I rolled down my window just an inch, hoping I could keep Jessie asleep, but the noise of the air (window air, might I clarify) awoke her with a start.
“Oh my gosh!” she rushed, her hands pulling away to wipe hair strands out of her face.
I sank in my seat, utterly embarrassed. “What?”
Her hands fell to her stomach, and I might have felt relieved if I didn’t already feel like I needed to shit my pants, when she winced. “My stomach hurts so bad.”
Phew. “Really? Mine does too.”
Then her nose started to twitch. She looked at me questionably but I pretended not to notice. Keep. Vision. Ahead.
“Can we stop to go to the bathroom? I think I’m going to be sick,” she claimed. Now she was hunching over. As long as she didn’t notice my wretched stank.
“Again?”
“Kendal, please!”
Ugh. I wasn’t going to make it either. I squirmed in my seat uncomfortably as bowel movements rocked my body. “The nearest town is thirty miles away!”
She rolled down her window and stuck her head out. “I don’t care. Just stop.”
“I don’t have any tissue or anything to wipe,” I said, worried.
“Kendal I have to throw up!”
“Oh.”
I pulled over in ten seconds and her door was opening.
“Jessie, I have to go to the bathroom too but I don’t know where to go,” I said impatiently. It was coming. My legs wiggled anxiously as I hobbled around the truck. “Where are you going? I just want to make sure you aren’t near.”
I wondered why she didn’t respond when I spotted her dark figure in the night, five feet off the pavement leaning forward, holding her hair as dinner rushed out of her mouth. I paused, confused about what to do. Hold her hair or run off and take care of business that I was sure couldn’t wait? A sudden breeze whizzed past my face, carrying bile stench to my nose. It was instant and there really was no stopping it. I hunched over with just enough time for my own puke to miss my shoes.
