by Dan Bryan
Chapter 9
When he woke up, there were more than a few glasses on the coffee table, and the only sound was the faint rush of air from the vent. He stood up very slowly, walked around with his head still throbbing, and drank more water. He drank a lot of it, several glasses, and he went out to the front driveway and Olivia's car was gone. The only thing that was out there was the morning paper. It looked like it was no later than six.
He drank even more water still and went back to sleep on the couch, all of his clothes still on.
Later in the morning he sat up on the couch again, surprisingly clear headed. All of their bags were stacked by the front door. His essential task that morning was writing Marcela back before they vanished to the road again. Everyone else was eating eggs and bacon off of paper plates in the Karlsens' stately dining room.
He sat at their computer and banged a message out in five minutes.
"Marcela,
It was fantastic to hear from you. We got to Seattle very late on Monday night, and after the driving we did it was not long before we crashed. We were also very busy yesterday, doing the typical Seattle things. Everywhere you look it's green and there were slugs crawling around their porch last night, which is one of those strange little things you never see in Chicago. And there is one great mountain overlooking the city which must be a mere fraction of what you see in Chile. It would be cool if we could make a trip some time.
The best stop we made on the way was in the Badlands in South Dakota. Never in my life have I been to rocks like the ones they have there. Everything is stacked so beautifully and there are rings of different colors. It's a true wonder.
Tienes que decirme de su viaje al mar, con tu hermana!
I wish you were here,
Quentin"
When breakfast was done, Carson sat on the couch in the den watching cable news while the rest of them got themselves together. He wished them all good luck with the rest of their lives, and told them that his own agenda for the day involved discussing the possibility of employment and/or investing with some people he and his family knew.
And so they left Seattle, the three of them, with much greater space to stretch out in. Alessandro laid down across the back seat and slept as Quentin drove the car eastward.
"My brother Carson," Kjell began, shaking his head, "I don't know what his plan is, but we were driving home from the city last night, and he just started asking me for a place to stay in Chicago. He was talking about going in on business together. I'm like, 'What business?'. What the hell is he talking about?"
The next two days should have been interesting, but for Quentin they were meaningless. They drove back from Washington in a slightly different way, if only to avoid the repetitiveness of identical scenery. Through the night they drove again, through the hills and deserts of Oregon and into the empty flat part of Idaho, crossing Boise. They drove through Utah and Wyoming, and crossed into the flat plains and open corn fields of Nebraska. The entire way, Quentin looked at things he had never seen before, and he felt nothing. In Omaha they stopped downtown and walked by the Missouri river for an hour, just to break up the monotonous heartland landscape. They ate lunch in an old diner close to the freeway. It was eleven in the morning and they ate slowly, watching as the Omaha business crowd began to file in, wearing clothes that were cheap and formal all at once.
And ever he thought of Marcela and decided that he had to end things. Or at least to see if he should end things after two or three days together. Maybe people were right. What were they doing together? What did she even see in him to begin with, and vice versa?
They got back to Chicago as the sun rose. It was a Friday morning. They had finally been too tired to continue, sleeping by the truckers at an Iowa rest stop. They slept much longer when they made it to Chicago. In six days, the group of them had driven about four thousand miles, and at the end of it all he slept in the same place he always had.
He caught the scent of her perfume before she met him with a kiss. She was nice without pretense, he now remembered, because when she smiled she threw her entire essence into it, never scared about the world's esteem. She lacked the mercurial dark side that lurked in other people. Everything else he dismissed as his own stupidity.
He went to over to her building on Sunday, and the guard let him straight through, recognizing him and smiling.
"Missed you over break, my man." he said.
It was around the time when people made it home from church, or those people who left for it in the first place. Marcela had pastries from the corner shop and she was making coffee, and they kissed at the front door. She showered him with questions about the road trip, and he told her everything about most of it. With an entire day in front of them, they went out into Chicago towards downtown and it was a mild, sunny day for March.
"Your hair is getting so long! I had forgotten about that, not seeing you for a week. Do you want to keep it like that? It's really cute, but only if you take the time to style it." she said.
"I just haven't got it cut lately. There's no grand scheme."
"I missed you. My father gave me a lot of advice about to where to work, I think that things went well in that regard. Since I've decided against investment banking, he recommended finding a good internship with a commodities... a mining business perhaps. So it looks like I will work in Chile this summer slash winter and get some experience in a corporate environment. I did some interviews. You'll have to come this time, even if it will be winter."
After walking by the lake, eating lunch, and getting Quentin a haircut, they found themselves in front of the cinema. They bought tickets to the movie that Marcela really wanted to see -- the new one with Kate Winslet -- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She had popcorn and she grabbed at it one piece at a time, until he got impatient and started taking handfuls from the bottom of the bag. They sat towards the back and kissed a couple times between the scenes. He could tell Marcela liked the movie from the glowing countenance of her cheeks.
"That was so neat!" she said when they left the theatre. "Like watching them lay down on the ice. And just all the effects. Most movies today are nothing like that."
"Do you think the second time will work?" he asked her.
"Of course it will work! That is the entire point of the movie, darling."
"I don't think it's so clear cut."
They stayed together through the night. She played her dance songs on the stereo and they kissed with wine glasses in their hands as the music came out magically. She said how glad she was to be with him, and he replied the same to her. They woke together Monday morning, looking off into the sky and everything was clear and warm. When they got up from her bed and left, it was day one of the quarter and his thoughts were focused only on the coming hours.
*****
About the Author
Dan Bryan is a writer living in Chicago, Illinois. This is his first published work of fiction. He also has written on the subject of American history for https://www.americanhistoryusa.com
To find Mr. Bryan online, check out his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/dan.bryan.503
You can also send an email to [email protected]
If you enjoyed this book, please leave a brief comment or review on the site at which you downloaded it. Alternatively, if you know someone who you think would like it, please do pass it on.
