by Liora Blake
If this doesn’t bounce, let’s begin our email correspondence with an easy topic. Tell me what you majored in when you went to college in Langston. The fine art of cheerleading? How to Drive Dudes Crazy 101? Did you graduate? Are you now the hot girl with a degree in molecular biology or something?
* * *
TO: jake.holt6239
FROM: laciegracie93
RE: Hoping you didn’t scam me
Why would I give you a fake email? As you pointed out, I was attempting to mount you on my front porch. This is usually a good indicator of a woman’s interest in a man.
Plus, give me a little credit for a smidge of creativity—if it were a fake email, wouldn’t it be lame? Nevergoingtohappen69? Or, sexygirlnot4u?
I majored in Pretending Like I Belong Here with a minor in How Long Do I Have to Stick This Out Before Going Home. I only lasted two semesters, so I never got beyond a few core curriculum classes.
Kate, of course, finished her journalism degree early. In three and a half years, with honors. So even if I had gotten my associate’s degree in whatever, I would have remained the half-wit sister.
What about you? Did you go to school when you left? Or did you continue on the path of being the smart guy who acts like he isn’t?
Tell me where you went the day you left—start there.
PS: For your reference, my sheets have a purple-and-white floral pattern. I wasn’t planning to show you the sheets, though. Up against the door would have worked just fine for me.
* * *
TO: laciegracie93
FROM: jake.holt6239
RE: Hoping you didn’t scam me
Against the door? Christ.
Inconveniently, I’m more than a thousand miles away, so I can’t confirm whether you’re all talk or not.
No school for me, other than the hard knocks one. Never found a reason to bother, I guess. But I like that you think of me as a smart guy.
The day I left? Uncle Rick drove me to the Greyhound station in Langston and bought me a ticket to anywhere as a graduation gift. The first bus out was headed to Portland and that seemed like a good enough reason to go there. When I got off the bus in downtown Portland, that was the first and only time I ever wished I were back in Crowell.
Bus stations are always filthy and full of people you shouldn’t make friends with, but I didn’t really know that. My understanding of everything down and out was theoretical. Things I gleaned from reading Burroughs and Bukowski. Before my mom dropped me like a hot potato at fifteen in Crowell, we did our time in the ‘burbs of everywhere, so I stumbled into skid row sorely lacking in actual street smarts.
I thought about you a lot. Kept me warm at night, as they say, even when I was sleeping under a bridge or tucked into a dark spot behind some nasty strip-mall dumpster enclosure.
I can practically see your jaw hanging open as you read that. . . . Don’t fret. It was a long time ago. I survived.
After a few months, I found some decent people who pointed my dumb, brave, idiot self toward something that might give me a future instead of an arrest record. And no, it wasn’t Jesus or anything like that. Just a job as a greenhorn on a crab-fishing boat.
In the end, being scared shitless in Portland was good for me. I was able to see how getting lost in the world usually leaves you with nothing. Junkies and alkies are lonely, miserable people. And seeing that life close-up is depressing as fuck.
Tell me what happened when you came home. Did you go straight back to The Beauty Barn or do something else first? Wait tables at Deaton’s? Haul feed at the co-op? Work as a dancer at the strip club in Langston? I’m crossing my fingers for a detailed description of an act where you were dressed as a wanton Catholic schoolgirl or something. Please don’t disappoint, I beg you. Make it up if you have to.
5
As it turns out, Jake hasn’t sent me a single political rant chain email or forwarded any cute kitten videos. Instead, his emails have become the highlight of the last month for me. He’s usually funny and sometimes heartfelt, but always manages to make even the most inconsequential anecdote worth reading twice. A fresh email from Jake is better than the latest issue of Vogue, a blog post from The Pioneer Woman, and a new Nora Roberts—all rolled into one.
But the email I woke up to this morning is . . . confusing? Seductive? Not sure.
Right after I read it, I consider a phone call to respond, but that might be harder. Especially if that phone call takes place in the daylight. If it was midnight and I was under my covers, with the shades drawn, all the lights off, and the sound of Jake’s voice in the dark, maybe that would help.
TO: laciegracie93
FROM: jake.holt6239
SUBJECT: Your porch
Since I left you on your porch, I’ve given a great deal of thought to your ass.
Do I have your attention? Good.
I’m about to say a few things that might cross the line, but just bear with me . . . these things need to be said.
Your ass in my hands was almost enough for me to lose it on the spot while you were moving yourself against my leg. Smooth, firm, plenty for me to grab hold of, but not so much that I can’t get all of you in my hands. I fucking dream about that now, obsess over how good you felt, almost lose my mind thinking about how much I wanted to drag you in the house and strip you down until I could see everything.
Just thought you should know the power your ass has over me.
Wield this power carefully, Lacey.
I feel like we’ve been dancing around what this thing between us really is. For me, it isn’t pen pals or some weird nostalgia tour. What that means beyond me admitting to feeling whipped over you (again), I couldn’t really say.
Know this: I missed you. I didn’t even know I did because I tucked everything about you away in a memory bank. But I haven’t felt this stupid over a woman in a long time. Maybe ten years or so.
Go ahead. Do the math.
If none of this causes you to block my email permanently, I’d be curious to know what you think of my ass. The effect it has on you. Or any other body part you prefer to name. My wicked brain, perhaps. Or my very hot, passion-inducing kneecaps. A drunken old Inuit woman in Alaska once told me that my kneecaps were sexy as hell, but these things are subjective.
Tell me, pretty girl. Tell me everything you want to say but probably think you shouldn’t.
OK, honestly, how does a woman properly respond to that? Does she send back a forty-seven-page email detailing a number of provocative things about his eyes, the scruffy hair on the back of his neck, his arms, his torso, and the insanely arousing roughness of his hands? Or does a woman with any sense of self-preservation indeed block his email?
Since I can’t decide, because thinking clearly is too difficult, I close the email and commit to waiting until this evening to respond. I’m already a few minutes late to meet Trevor and Kate, so I couldn’t write back even if I wanted to. We can hope that Sunday-morning pancakes at Deaton’s will be enough to throw my lewdly wandering mind a bone toward other things.
When I arrive outside Deaton’s, just beyond the front window Trevor and Kate are sitting side by side in a large horseshoe booth looking like a picture postcard for contentment. Trevor with one arm casually thrown over Kate’s shoulders, his fingers curled loosely at the nape of her neck, while he absentmindedly pokes at his cell phone. Even from here, I can see his thumb lightly tracing the skin just under her left ear. Kate is using one hand to rock Nic in the baby carrier sitting next to her as she thumbs through a newspaper. Only weeks out from delivering Nic, and from certain angles Kate almost looks like her old self. The combination of prenatal yoga and daily five-mile runs up until the last month of her pregnancy kept her body from ballooning up anywhere beyond her belly.
With Jake’s email still at the forefront of my mind, observing those two is a catalyst for pa
nic. What Jake probably wants is a round or two in the sheets for old times’ sake. As for what I really want? What I expect? Who the hell knows? It changes based on the day, the hour, and the email.
What I do know is that I’m going to be thirty years old in a few short months, which makes the idea of something fleeting sound less practical than it once did. Sure, buried after the lede, as my newspaperman father would say—there are words in Jake’s emails that hint at more, but what we’re doing right now doesn’t feel like that. It feels like I’m a twenty-dollar bill he found in his coat pocket, the one he forgot about but can’t wait to spend. Once he does, that’s all there is.
Inside Deaton’s, once our plates arrive, Kate and I dig into the fat stacks of pancakes in front of us while Trevor supposedly enjoys the annoyingly responsible egg-white omelet sitting sadly on an otherwise empty plate. While he has blended into our little town rather effortlessly, he sometimes shows his Californian-ness in moments like these. However, as evidenced by the handful of local guys who pass our table and exchange weird urban-esque finger-snapping handshakes with him, the man is one of us now, egg whites and all.
Moriah, the grande-dame owner of Deaton’s, even makes a point of coming over to ask Trevor if he wants one of her homemade pecan pies again this year. That’s basically the Good Housekeeping seal of approval around here, because Moriah is ninety-two years old and comes out of her illustrious pie-making retirement once a year. She makes ten of the highly coveted delights for Thanksgiving, and then handpicks the lucky recipients. It’s Crowell’s version of holding a Wonka-style golden ticket. I’ve lived here my whole life and never been fortunate enough to get one.
Trevor behaves exactly as he knows he should. Looks surprised and sheepishly bowled over by the offer, then answers with a resounding yes as swiftly and enthusiastically as possible. Moriah pats him on the shoulder and toddles off, and I have to restrain the urge to stomp my foot and stand up to remind everyone, loudly, that I was born here.
After he finishes his diet plate, Trevor returns to his phone, doing all of the poking and typing he always is. Without looking up from the face, he reaches out his hand toward Kate and strokes it down the length of her hair.
“Katie, did you make a list of the things you want brought out here from the Malibu house?”
Having just shoved an unladylike forkful of pancakes in her mouth, Kate chews and swallows with a nod. “Yup, I already emailed it to Devon. She called and gave me some crap about wanting so many books sent back here, but she said she found everything and had it boxed up.”
Trevor looks up to speak. “I was originally going to have everything shipped, but I was thinking about paying Jake to fly it out here right after Thanksgiving. Might be just as easy. That way we don’t have to worry about some shipping company fucking anything up in transit.”
My eyes shoot up immediately and I find Trevor staring, his eyebrows slightly raised as if he was waiting to see my reaction. Oh God. Jake, here in Crowell again. Able to profess and demonstrate his affection for my ass in person. The idea sounds perfect and panic-inducing. I pick up my fork again. Another bite of syrup-drenched goodness will give me something less tricky to focus on.
Kate gives a slow exhale. “Jake Holt. How nuts is that, Lacey? I didn’t even remember him until I really thought about it. The town misfit makes a triumphant return. On a Learjet. It’s kind of awesome, right? Trevor said Jake mentioned seeing you at the hospital. You guys catch up? I ask this despite knowing that the idea of you two associating with each other back in the day is an unlikely concept.”
I wave my fork aimlessly in the air to feign nonchalance and a drip of syrup lands on my other forearm when I do. “I saw him at Lonigan’s.”
Kate lets out an odd-sounding sigh and snort. “Well, that boy’s definitely been eating his Wheaties. I just remember Doc Martens and a lip ring—or maybe it was an eyebrow ring. Whatever. But now, he’s certainly all grown-up.” She emphasizes the last three words and then chuckles softly.
Trevor takes a side-glance Kate’s way and waits for her to see it, but she simply shoves another mouthful of pancakes in. When he cranes his neck to emphasize it, she finally notices.
“What?”
“I’m sitting right here, woman. As you lick syrup off your lips talking about Jake like you want to pour syrup on him.”
Kate rolls her eyes, then leans forward and continues talking.
“Anyway, as I was saying, Jake Holt all grown-up and wanting to catch up with the prom queen. Please tell me that Dusty was at Lonigan’s when all this went down.” Trevor shakes his head but continues to tap away on his phone.
All I want to do at this moment is spill every detail. I want to open my mouth and let everything out, not stopping until my sister knows enough to be able to tell me what to do. Advise me on whether I should dive headfirst into the abyss or batten down the hatches and wait out the storm.
Kate pauses after noticing my silence. My lack of a response even catches Trevor’s attention.
“Jake is . . . Jake was Idaho.”
That’s all I have to say. Kate’s face goes slack at my cryptic announcement.
“Holy shit.”
Trevor volleys a glance between both of our faces. “What’s Idaho?”
Kate and I continue to gape at each other but manage to say, “Nothing,” at the exact same time.
There was a time when Kate and Trevor almost didn’t become Kate and Trevor. When a gossip rag published a two-page piece that turned the circumstances of Kate’s widowhood into a twisted version of the truth, it made her look like an alcoholic, heartless train wreck who was about to drag Trevor down with her. After the article came out, Kate went into freak-out mode, shutting everyone out and burying herself behind that façade of self-reliance she does so well, only this time it was a total sham. Inside she was crumbling and I could see the cracks rising to the surface, patiently waiting for the moment when those cracks ruptured into gaping fractures that she might gladly crawl into if I wasn’t there to hold her back. When Trevor showed up in town trying to draw her out and bring her back to him, she went tearing out of her office, hell-bent on disappearing. I was in her driveway ten minutes after Rita called with an SOS, then I told Kate if she needed a change of scenery, that was fine, but I was going with her.
We ended up just over the state line into Idaho, in a small town I suggested, surrounded by natural hot springs. We soaked and she sobbed. We came home once she was sorted enough to see how stupid it would be to walk away from a man like Trevor.
I hinted at my knowledge of the area but didn’t tell her the whole story. She doesn’t know that Jake and I went there during spring break of our senior year. While my friends were getting trashed and amassing regret after regret in South Padre, I spent three days holed up in a dingy motel room with Jake, the best place we could find that would rent to two seventeen-year-olds without a credit card.
We gave it up to each other in a room that smelled like commercial-grade floor cleaner and mothballs. But they were some of the best days of my entire life. No one contradicted the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, so I had Jake all to myself without Crowell, his angst, or my incessant panic about getting caught, to intrude. That first night, under the scratchy sheets with Jake moving inside me and trying so hard to do things right, I felt simultaneously whole and shattered, healed and hurt. He was perfect. I was perfect. Every moment was special and forbidden and if I thought no one would have noticed our absence, I would have demanded we never go home.
Kate lets her eyes narrow and her mouth drops open for a moment; it’s obvious she’s both processing my revelation and trying to decide how to respond.
“Let me get this straight.” She pinches her thumb and ring finger across the bridge of her nose. “You and Jake Holt started something, when exactly?”
“Right before senior year.”
“
And, it was some cloak-and-dagger, big ol’ secret thing? Nobody knew, right? Because that would have been worth a few words around here.”
I nod my head.
“When was Idaho?”
“Spring break.”
Kate shakes her head a little and thinks. “So when you said you were going away with your friends on some girls-gone-wild thing, you were really in Idaho with Jake. I’m assuming to . . .” She makes a knowing face and raises her brows. I nod again. “Not Dusty? Dusty wasn’t . . . ?”
“Nope.” I scratch my fork across my now-empty plate. “Then Jake skedaddled from town the day after graduation. No good-bye, nada. Until now.”
Flopping into a slump against the back of the booth, Kate takes a long look at me.
“Wow. So much of the wow.” She averts her eyes before speaking again. “And now? Are you guys trying something again? Doing the whole rekindled-flame thing?”
Shrugging, I notice Trevor’s eyes quirk up to see how I’m going to answer.
I debate on how much more to reveal. Then Kate leans forward and the genuine interest on her face prompts me. “We’ve been emailing. Catching up on everything that’s happened since we last saw each other. Along with some other things.”
Before either of them can interrogate me on the definition of “other things” and I end up blathering on until I disclose Jake’s email dissertation on his appreciation of my ass, I start in again.
“He said he wanted to ‘stay in touch.’ Who knows what that really means. Maybe he’s just screwing around to pass the time. Entertain himself or something.”
“Seriously?” Trevor lets his phone drop to the tabletop with a small thud. “Women. You guys fucking think too much.”
I look over just as Kate shoves him gently in the ribs with her elbow. “God, she’s having a whopper of a life moment here and you don’t know the details; give her a break.”
