Summer Blowout

by Claire Cook

  “Welcome to Lannah,” the cabdriver said.

  “Who’s Lannah?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Where you headin’, Ma’am?”

  I put Cannoli down on the seat beside me and started rifling through my shoulder bag. “I think it’s somewhere on Peachtree.”

  He looked at me in the mirror. His skin was the color of mochaccino, maybe a MAC NC30, with a sprinkle of freckles that looked like chocolate. “You gotta do bettah than that, Ma’am. They all Peachtree in Lannah.”

  I had no idea what he was saying, but I loved the melodic way it sounded. I found the address for Hotel Indigo and read it out loud to the cabdriver. We pulled out into the traffic.

  I opened a water bottle and drank half, then fed some to Cannoli, since I figured she could handle it now. I looked out the window. I held Cannoli up so she could look out the window, too.

  Most of the traffic was coming out of the city and toward us, but there was plenty going in our direction, too. The highway had so many lanes it made Boston look like the boondocks.

  “Is the traffic always like this?” I asked.

  “You should see it when the Chicken Pluckers Convention comes to town.”

  I laughed, in case it was a joke. He looked at me in the mirror. “Where you from, Ma’am?”

  “Bahs-tin,” I said, for the first time in my life. In a minute I’d be saying Pahk the cah in the Hahvid yahd on cue.

  “Okay,” he said. “I got one for ya. A couple from Bahs-tin was tourin’ the back roads of Georgia. They’d seen the folk art and were fixin’ to eat in an authentic Southern restaurant.”

  He put his blinker on and switched lanes. “They stopped at the first one they came to. The dinner menu consisted of grits, sweet tea, and chicken three ways. The Bahs-tin gentleman straightened his tie and said, ‘Excuse me, Ms., but could you please tell us how you prepare your chickens?’

  “The waitress took her time thinkin’ about it. Finally she said, ‘Well, sir, in these here parts we don’t do anything real special. We just tell ’em straight out they gonna die.’”

  “Did you get that one from the chicken pluckers?” I asked when I finished laughing.

  “Drive ’em every year,” he said. “We love ’em in Lannah. Those good ol’ boys know how to eat, and they sure are fond of naked women.”

  That last part made me a little bit nervous, so I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the way to the hotel. Then, since I arrived safely, I gave the cabdriver an extra-big tip for the joke.

  The hotel was on Peachtree Street, not to be confused with West Peachtree or Peachtree Road or Peachtree Place. Maybe I could leave a trail of peach pits behind us when I took Cannoli out for a walk, just to make sure we found our way back to the right Peachtree.

  As soon as I saw it, I knew why Andrew and Amy had picked this hotel for everyone to stay in, even though it was closer to the Fox Theater than it was to the Margaret Mitchell House. Hotel Indigo was the cutest boutique hotel ever, just the kind of place Mario and Todd would have picked. It was a funky little oasis in the middle of midtown, with a totally hip and welcoming indigo blue awning with a seashell on it over the entrance, and a front patio dotted with bistro tables and flanked by a flower garden. I didn’t know where the chicken pluckers stayed when they were in town, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t here.

  In the lobby, we were greeted by another shock of indigo blue, with crisp white and soft green accents. “Oooh,” I said to Cannoli. “Let’s move here.”

  Cannoli was ignoring me. She strained at her leash, trying to reach a dog about her size, which was wagging its tail like crazy.

  “That’s Indie,” the guy behind the desk said. “He’s a Jack Russell terrier. Indie’s the star of the show around here.”

  If I were an eight-pound Chihuahua/terrier mix with a dye job, I think I would have found Indie pretty hot, too. He was an inch or two taller than Cannoli, with a cinnamon face edged in nutmeg and a mostly white body. He had a strong, proud chest and intelligent eyes. I realized I was checking out a dog, which was more than slightly scary.

  I finally dragged Cannoli away, after promising her that maybe Indie could go for a walk with us later. Our room was up on the third floor, facing Peachtree Street, and it was soft beige with an abstract mural on one wall, and black, white, purple, and green accents. The bed had a great white bead-board headboard that was beachy enough to make me feel at home. There was a cute haiku that made the tiny bathroom seem more poetic than inadequate, and the Aveda bath products were a nice touch, too. You can tell a lot about a hotel by its bath products.

  We got our clothes hung up and everything else put away. I leaned back against the headboard and put my feet up on the bed. I flipped through the channels on the TV.

  Cannoli walked over and sat right in front of the door. I ignored her. She started scratching at the floor. She let out a sharp bark.

  “All right, all right,” I said. “Wow, you’ve really got it bad.”

  Ten minutes later, I had my sneakers on, directions to Piedmont Park in one hand, and leashes attached to Cannoli and Indie in the other.

  “Okay, you two, it says ‘walk ten blocks north on Peachtree Street, then walk about four or five more blocks down Tenth until you get to the park.’ This better be worth it.”

  We worked up a good appetite getting there, so we stopped at a shacklike place called Woody’s right across from the park. I got a delicious hot dog for me and one for the dogs to split. So far I was lovin’ Lannah.

  The dog park in Piedmont Park was easy to find—we just followed the dogs. There was a small-dog park within the dog park within the park park. It seemed like there should have been a song for it, maybe something like the old kids’ song about the knee bone being connected to the shinbone.

  Cannoli and Indie played like crazy, mostly with each other, but sometimes with Indie’s other friends, whose owners all knew him by name. “Stayin’ at the hotel?” a few of them asked me.

  I nodded and smiled, and even told some of them about Andrew’s wedding. Everybody was so friendly that at first I thought they were being sarcastic. They were well dressed in kind of an upscale, urban professional-looking way. I tried to imagine what it would be like to move to this warm, happy place where people talked to strangers. Maybe I’d find a place to live near Piedmont Park. Somewhere not over a hair salon. Somewhere nowhere near my family.

  Then I pictured myself showing up at Andrew and Amy’s apartment every Friday night with a pizza box, overcome by the urge to create a Marshbury South down here. Or, just my luck, it would turn out that my family was connected to me as if we were all wearing bungee cords. As soon as I’d move, then boing, Mario and Todd would spring here next, then Angela and her family, then Tulia and hers, then Sophia and my ex-husband…. Pretty soon we’d all be living on top of one another again. Maybe faux Italian Shaughnessys could only survive in a pack.

  “Okay, you lovebirds, that’s enough,” I said finally, though I didn’t really have anyplace else to go until 11 A.M. tomorrow.

  We left the small-dog park, then the large-dog park, then found a bench in the park park. I poured some water from the bottle I’d bought at Woody’s into a paper cup and let the dogs take turns drinking. They curled up next to each other on the ground. They looked so happy just lying there that I didn’t have the heart to break them up.

  I leaned back on the bench. From what I’d seen so far, all Atlanta needed to be perfect was an ocean. I wasn’t sure if I could actually survive without the smell of salt air, the feel of sand between my toes when I walked the beach.

  A few benches away from me there was a guy stretching. I couldn’t see his face, but he was wearing shorts and sneakers and looked like he’d just finished his run. He had a nice long back, and his hamstrings looked pretty flexible, too. I kept looking away, then looking back at him. I was so drawn to him, as if I somehow knew him. Maybe he was the man I’d be with if I got up the nerve to move here. Maybe our stars were aligned, an
d strong chemistry was calling out to both of us.

  Any minute he might turn around and say hi, or hey, as they said down here. I’d say hey, too, and he’d come over and ask me about the dogs. I’d tell him the whole story about Cannoli, and we’d just keep talking. And then he’d want to know if I’d had dinner yet.

  The man finished stretching and turned around.

  It was Craig.

  26

  “GEEZ, LOUISE,” I SAID. “CAN’T I GO ANYWHERE?”

  Cannoli jumped to her feet and started barking away like a maniac. Indie joined her in perfect terrier harmony.

  “What’d I do?” Craig asked as he approached. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or the dogs.

  “Where’s your girlfriend?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Back in the room. We just got here this morning, and we’re fighting already.”

  “Aww,” I said. “Too bad.”

  Cannoli bared her teeth. Indie bared his teeth. Then they turned their backs and curled up on the grass again.

  Craig nodded at the bench. “Can I sit down?”

  “Knock yourself out,” I said.

  “You don’t mean that literally, I hope.”

  “Ha,” I said.

  He sat down anyway. I slid sideways on the bench, away from him.

  Craig leaned back against the wooden slats and crossed the legs I should have been able to recognize, even from the back, even in the South.

  It was hard to remember what I’d ever seen in him. He’d come into the salon for a haircut one day about a dozen years ago, a referral from a co-worker of his who was a client of mine. I was attracted to him right away, in that way that you either are or you aren’t. He was friendly and handsome, with sad eyes and fine, thinning hair.

  Some clueless stylist had made a mess of his hair by texturizing it, something you should never do to fine hair. I gave him the illusion of volume with some stacked blunt layers. He smelled good. He was on his way to pick up his kids for the weekend. They were planning to go the aquarium. His ex-wife had the house in Marshbury; he’d bought a condo in Boston’s South End. He seemed lonely. I knew I was. He asked me if I wanted to have a drink on Sunday when he dropped the kids back off at their mother’s. I did.

  “Did you call the plumber yet?” my former husband asked.

  I had a brief flashback to my dream on the plane. I pushed it away fast. “Yup,” I said. “All fixed. So I guess I won’t be needing you anymore.”

  “Can I ask you one thing?” he asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Why are you so mad? I mean, what exactly did I do wrong?”

  “That’s two,” I said, even though I knew it was childish.

  “Okay, pick one.”

  I took a sip of my water, then thought about whether I should offer it to Craig. On the one hand, I didn’t want to get his germs. On the other hand, I’d had ten years to build up immunity.

  I handed it to him. He took a sip and handed it back. We were both still staring straight ahead. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Listen,” I said. “Neither of us did anything wrong. Everybody does it. It even has a name. It’s called hot sad sex with your ex.”

  Craig covered his face with his hands. He arched his back and tilted his elbows up toward the sky. “And the sad part would be?”

  I didn’t say anything. Down in the grass, Cannoli and Indie both started to snore, their little bodies twitching in time to their dreams.

  Finally Craig stretched his arms over his head. Then he put his hands on his thighs and stretched way out over his knees. “Hey,” he said. “Lizzie called the other night. She’s all excited about the cooking kit you said you’d help her make.”

  “It’s not that big a deal. It’ll probably turn out to be mostly recipe cards.” I turned my head to look at him. “You’re not mad?”

  He turned to look at me. “No, not at all. You were always great with Lizzie. And Luke.”

  “What about Sophia?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

  Craig sighed. “She wants us to have kids of our own.”

  I looked down at my hands. They seemed to be peeling the label off my water bottle all on their own, as if they’d completely disconnected from my brain. “And, what, you’d rather lease a midlife Porsche?”

  “It’s just that I was hoping to have a few years off before I started gearing up to be a grandfather. Things were supposed to start getting easier.” He ran his fingers back through his hair and looked at me with his sad eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about all the things you and I were going to do once Lizzie went off to college.”

  I wished I’d thought to casually ask Sean Ryan whether hot sad sex with your ex was a single or a multiple occurrence. Just in case, I was glad Craig and I were sitting on opposite sides of a park bench and it was still fairly broad daylight. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to sleep with him again, but I hated the idea of never again waking up in the same bed with him. Or sitting around a table in a restaurant with Craig, Lizzie, and Luke, maybe celebrating Luke’s graduation or first postcollege job, or Lizzie’s first real cooking show.

  It was an odd little sort of family we’d created on alternate weekends and holidays, but I’d loved being a part of it. And, sadly, there was no slicing it down the middle into an even smaller piece of the pie. Every third weekend and holiday didn’t exist. Craig got it all, or what was left of it as the kids moved on to their own pies.

  I stood up and threw the empty water bottle and the strips of label into a trash barrel. When I looked up, Craig was checking me out the way he used to a long time ago when he didn’t think I was looking.

  I’d tucked the ends of the dogs’ leashes in between two slats of the bench, and I pulled them out now. The dogs both jumped up, ready to go. Cannoli bared her teeth and gave Craig a little growl.

  “What did I ever do to her?” Craig asked.

  “Word gets around,” I said.

  We walked back along Tenth together. I was kind of glad to have Craig with us, since it might up my chances of finding the right Peachtree and getting safely back to Hotel Indigo. A woman said, “Hey, how y’all doing today?” as she walked past us.

  “Who was that?” Craig asked.

  “No idea. I think she was just being friendly. Kind of scary, isn’t it?”

  “No shit,” Craig said.

  We both started to laugh. Then we really started to laugh, that great kind of out-of-control laughter that takes all your energy and starts to hurt after a while. We moved over to the edge of the sidewalk so people could get by us. The dogs tilted their heads and looked up at us.

  “Oh, boy,” I said.

  Craig put his arm around me and kissed me on the forehead. “I miss you,” he said.

  “I bet you do,” I said. “I’m totally missable. One of the most missable people I know, in fact.”

  “Yeah, you are,” Craig said.

  “Don’t look now,” I said. “But here comes Sophia.”

  I TRIED TO REMEMBER IF I’D ever stayed in a hotel room by myself before. Or at least without human companionship, since Cannoli provided more than her share of the canine kind. I’d finally managed to pull her away from Indie in the lobby, after making plans for Cannoli to hang out with him at the hotel tomorrow while I went to the college fair and then to Andrew’s wedding. Maybe I’d let her wear the bridesmaid dress anyway, just for Indie.

  I felt bad about running into Sophia earlier. She’d turned around as soon as she saw us and started walking in the opposite direction. Fast. Craig ran after her.

  Fortunately I wouldn’t have to see them again until tomorrow. Andrew and Amy had decided to keep the rehearsal dinner small, just their parents and the people who were actually in the wedding. The sheer size of my family could be overwhelming. I guess the plan was to spring us on Amy’s family gradually.

  So I had the whole night off. It was a good opportunity for solitude, something I should learn to savor. I was kind of getting used to l
iving alone now, though in the beginning it was tough. I’d never even had a bedroom to myself growing up. And I’d had roommates in college and after college. Then I lived with a boyfriend. Then I broke up with him, moved home, moved in with another roommate, married Craig.

  But now I was alone in a hotel room with nobody to answer to. I could keep the TV on or turn it off. I could kick off all the covers or leave them on. I could stay up till all hours reading a good book. Or go to sleep right now if I felt like it.

  I called room service and ordered a grilled panini and a glass of sweet tea, just to see what it was like. I wolfed down the sandwich while Cannoli ate a can of dog food in a more ladylike manner. The sweet tea was another matter entirely.

  “How can they drink this stuff?” I said to Cannoli as I dumped it down the sink in the bathroom. I brewed myself a cup of hot tea, no sugar, no nothing, in the coffeemaker.

  I checked my dress for tomorrow. It was still pretty wrinkly, so I hung it up in the bathroom, along with Cannoli’s, turned the shower on hot, and closed the door.

  Ten minutes later, our dresses were wrinkle free. That left the rest of the night. I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels while Cannoli napped. Then I went back into the steamy bathroom and put some Hot Nights by Lancôme on my lips.

  We moseyed on down to the lobby. There was no sign of Indie, so the two of us went for a walk down a Peachtree and back, two single women out and about in a new town, having a little girlfriend time, a simple evening free of men.

  Since I hadn’t taken the time to look in the mirror before we left, I used my favorite trick to keep any excess lipstick from landing on my teeth. You just pop your index finger into your mouth and pull it out. You might get a few looks, but any excess lipstick will come off on your finger. It was brilliant in its simplicity. I just wished there was a trick like that to tidy up the rest of my life.

  We turned right and walked down another Peachtree. “I don’t know about you, Thelma,” I said, “but I’m bored to tears.”