Always Something There to Remind Me

by Beth Harbison

  All the elements were there—Pete was a great guy, and he did take her on proper dates—but at the end of the night, it was always Nate she wanted to kiss good night. And he’d been ridiculously patient about it, waiting for her to get tired of the game and come back to him. He knew she would, apparently, and she did.

  And here she was.

  Pete, on the other hand, didn’t appreciate being part of the game. When he realized she’d never given up ties with Nate while she was dating him, he came to her house to confront her. His timing couldn’t have been worse. No sooner had he finished accusing her of “fucking me over by dating Nate at the same time” than Nate himself showed up and offered to kick his ass home for him if he wasn’t out of there in three seconds.

  Nate might have been gentle and easy with Erin, but guys found him intimidating.

  Actually, that was just one—no, two—more things she loved about him.

  She pushed one of the cassette tapes she’d made into the player and Bread’s “Everything I Own” came on, the plaintive voice singing about love lost irreparably, grieving loss when it’s too late. “This is a sad song,” she said. The melody had haunted her since childhood. The loss was like nothing she’d ever felt, yet when she heard the song, she felt it. “But pretty.”

  “This is how I’d feel if I lost you,” Nate said, without any self-consciousness.

  That struck her as exactly right. It was how she’d feel too. But she didn’t want to acknowledge even such a possibility. “You’re not going to lose me!”

  She felt him shrug.

  “You’re not.” She listened to the words with tears in her eyes. “But it’s how I would feel too, if we weren’t together.” She could imagine it a little too well. The sadness, the longing … she would remember forever how warm and secure he made her feel. How could she ever live without that?

  He turned right onto River Road and the lights of Potomac Village fell behind. They drove past fields and houses that got smaller on land that got bigger. The farther they got from new Potomac, the more rural old Potomac became.

  “Theresa’s parents are going away next weekend,” Erin said after a couple of songs had played.

  “Who’s she going to have over? Sam or JP?” Nate paused, clearly amused. “Or Michael?”

  “Ugh, I don’t know.” Theresa was kind of known for having a lot of boyfriends. All the guys liked her—she was petite and pretty and knew how to flirt like a champ—but she was just looking for one true love. Problem was, that one true love changed all the time. “I can’t stand Michael. Or JP. I don’t really know Sam—”

  “You said he smelled bad.”

  “He did, but that might have just been the one time. Even if it wasn’t, he’s still better than the other two, so I hope that’s who she picks.”

  “Are we going?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll try and get off work.”

  “Do that.” She closed her eyes and listened to the words. It was nice that Nate said he’d feel that way about her if they broke up. She’d feel the same way about him. God forbid, if something happened and she lost him for good, she would give up anything to have him back. Anything and everything. “I love you,” she said, and put her hand on his jeans-covered thigh. “I love you I love you I love you.”

  He laughed. “I love you too.”

  She smiled into the darkness.

  After another ten minutes or so, Nate turned the car onto the dirt road that led down to the lock. “Your dad will kill me if he wakes up and realizes you’re gone.”

  “We’ll just tell him we ran off to Mexico together.”

  “And you think that would go over better than a drive in the country?”

  “Maybe not. He’s not a fan of hot weather.”

  Nate shook his head. “It’s a good thing you’re not eighteen yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you probably would have talked me into doing something really stupid by now.”

  “Ah.” She was sixteen. Nate was eighteen. They’d talked about getting married a million times. One night, on the way to the beach with Theresa and Michael, they’d even stopped at a house marked JUSTICE OF THE PEACE and pounded on the door, though Erin wasn’t sure what she would have done if someone had answered. Luckily no one had. “Like getting married and running off to Mexico?”

  “I’m not a fan of hot weather either.”

  She pouted. “Don’t you want to marry me?”

  “Of course I do. I just want to do it right.”

  Good. She was glad. “I don’t want a big wedding, you know. Just a little courthouse thing will be fine.” Actually, they’d already said they’d do it September 4 the year she turned eighteen, since September was her lucky month and 4 was her lucky number.

  Who needed rented tuxedos and overpriced bridesmaid dresses? She wanted the guy, not the party.

  He parked and looked at her. “You’ll probably change your mind about that.”

  “No, I won’t.” She shrugged out of her coat. “Weddings are a big waste of money. I’d rather have the money. Maybe get a house.”

  “Aw, baby.” He cupped his hand to her cheek. “You’ll have it all.” He kissed her, and again every other thought fell away.

  The silence around them was thick and heavy. There was nothing but the sound of their breathing and her heart pounding. She loved him beyond expression. She loved this. It was intoxicating and she couldn’t stop things now if her life depended on it.

  She’d been waiting for this since he’d picked her up.

  At this point, they had the choreography down pat: they could remove every stitch of clothing in the front seat of a car with their bodies and mouths locked together. Houdini could have learned a thing or two from them. Nate pulled her shirt off and snapped her bra off with one hand, she undid his pants and slid them down over his narrow hips … they’d done it all a thousand times before but it never lost its intensity.

  Nate eased her back on the bench seat and her head hit the armrest. She laughed, the spell temporarily broken. “This is exactly the time the hook-handed guy is supposed to show up.”

  “I’ll take care of you.” Nate moved on top of her and glanced out the window above.

  Her heart quickened. “You don’t see anything, right?”

  He shook his head and kissed her again, simultaneously entering her and making her feel safe from the world.

  Time blurred. Erin couldn’t have cared less when she got home or if she ever got home. All that mattered was this moment and that this moment continued.

  He went slow, exploring her body with his hands, her mouth with his, until finally he reached his limit and quickened to his crescendo.

  They lay together for a long time afterward, skin to skin.

  Finally, Erin said, “It really is kind of spooky down here.”

  “Down here? You mean…?”

  She laughed. “The lock. The canal is beautiful, but there’s something a little creepy about it, don’t you think?”

  He nodded. “But very private.” He moved to sit up.

  “I’m good with private,” she agreed, and reached down to figure out which clothes were hers and which were his.

  When they were dressed, they opened the windows to unfog them enough to drive.

  Erin, exhausted from the hour and from everything she’d just spent in passion, wrapped her coat around her and lay down with her head in his lap while he drove. The road hummed underneath the tires and the radio sounded tinny and far away. This was just the way it felt when she’d fall asleep on long trips with her family in the back of the station wagon. Perfectly content. Not a care in the world.

  She slept so deeply that when Nate tried to wake her, she was completely disoriented, even though it couldn’t have been longer than fifteen minutes.

  “You’re home, baby,” he said gently. “You better go in.”

  She sat up and blinked against the faint house lights. “I don’t want to.”


  “Yes, you do. You were talking about your bed in your sleep.”

  Oh, no. “Are you serious?”

  He nodded and smiled. “You were pissed that you couldn’t get the covers up.”

  “It is still a little cold in here.” God, how clearly did she speak in her sleep? Had she ever said anything else? Maybe something even more embarrassing?

  “Come on.” He started to get out of the car.

  “That’s okay, you don’t need to freeze.” She put her hand to his cheek. “I can make it to the door by myself.” She kissed him.

  For another five minutes or so, he kissed her back, then, before things started over again, he pulled back and said, “Go in to bed.”

  “One more,” she said, and kissed him again. She didn’t want it to end. Ever.

  He moved his arms around her and drew her close. By the time they parted, the windows were fogged again and the sunrise was starting to light the edge of the horizon.

  “Your mother is going to be up any minute,” Nate said, nodding at the light.

  “You’re right.” She forced herself away from him. “Want me to open the window?”

  He looked dubiously outside. A cold wind was picking up. “I guess so.”

  She did, then turned to him. “Good night. I love you.”

  “I love you. Talk to you in a few hours.”

  She got out and pushed the car door closed slowly and quietly. He didn’t move his car until she’d opened the front door and stepped inside. It was silent. No one had noticed she was gone.

  She went up to her room and took off her clothes, slipped her Redskins shirt over her head, then got into bed and pulled the sheets up around her. She smelled like Nate now. Her mouth tasted like him too. She liked that.

  Within minutes she was asleep, dreaming of her romantic tryst under the moonlight.

  So maybe she and Nate didn’t have the 1950s version of dating. They had each other.

  And she couldn’t imagine living without that.

  Chapter 12

  Present

  I started to walk down the street I’d grown up on. The front yard of my mother’s, and of the neighbors’ house, smelled of the boxwoods that had been growing, slowly, for thirty years. An earthy, solid scent that always helped me feel grounded.

  I needed to think.

  Rick was a great guy. I was one of the luckiest women on earth to be proposed to by someone (1) who was so hot, (2) who I was certain would be a fantastic husband, and (3) who would love me and take care of me and Cam for the rest of our lives.

  God, I was being such a jerk, even just thinking about another man. Even if the Other Man was a specter who had been gone for ages.

  I just needed an exorcism. But I didn’t have a priest or even a smudge stick, so, I thought, maybe some perspective would do.

  The sun was dipping in the sky, throwing a slant of amber light across the neat row of little brick Monopoly houses and cherry blossom trees. Everything was dramatic—the long, reaching shadows, the way the wind skittered fallen cherry blossoms across the street, and the faint smell of charcoal smoke hanging in the air, like something remembered.

  I hated this mood I was in.

  I knew there was another side to the mood—it wasn’t normal for me to be dwelling on the past for so long. Granted, it hadn’t been constant by any means—years had passed in which Nate was barely in my consciousness, perhaps just a passing thought now and then.

  But now was somehow different. More intense.

  I wondered if he remembered us as well as I did.

  Then I chastised myself immediately for even wondering. I already knew I was nuts for still thinking about this. How could I even imagine that he was too?

  I walked along Victory Lane and then turned right onto Parker Drive, where my old school sat nestled among green trees, grassy lawns, and stone walls.

  I was still for a moment, looking at the school facade, thinking about how much history this building held for so many people. And everyone’s story would be different. Every triumph would have a different prize, every heartache a different face.

  I turned and headed back to the parking lot to leave. Passing the tall tree I’d passed every day on my way to and from Nate’s car when he’d drop me off and pick me up. Somehow it was the tree that got to me. It made me tremendously sad, not just because of the time that had gone but because the time had somehow gone without me really noticing it.

  For one crazy moment, I remembered what it felt like to walk this pavement without the weight of my world on my shoulders. To head toward the old blue car he drove and get in, tossing my books in the back and sliding against his familiar warmth.

  Would Nate and I have the same memories of those times? Not all of them, of course, but if a police sketch artist were to somehow illustrate our time together based on what we said, would it look even remotely the same?

  Or had I created a mind full of sunny days and starry nights because I knew I was adored? He’d had cause to doubt that, time and again—would his picture of the same time look bleak and sad, reflecting tension and anxiety instead of a powerful optimism that anything was possible?

  It wasn’t that I was a terrible girlfriend. I’d loved him more than I’ve ever loved anyone else—but I was so young and he was so sensitive.… I had a nagging fear that maybe the little jabs I’d tossed around to make him jealous or to bring a reaction out of him might have been more hurtful than I’d ever known or intended.

  My adult perspective on the situation was much different than the selfish, childlike perspective I’d had at the time. I knew now that his home life had been turbulent, that his parents were on the verge of splitting up, and that he had probably spent a lot of time feeling out of place in an acrimonious atmosphere.

  I just hadn’t realized it at the time.

  I left the parking lot and headed back out the way I’d come, pausing for a moment to see the echo of Nate’s car, where he always parked, waiting for me after school.

  Then I headed out, along the path I’d walked many times after that. But when I got to the corner of the road, I turned left toward his house instead of right toward mine.

  I wasn’t ready to go back to my mom’s yet.

  And, honestly, I wasn’t quite ready to go back to the present yet. I’d delved this far into old memories, there didn’t seem to be much reason to abort the mission now. Might as well go all the way.

  So I walked down the hill, passing the little houses from the sixties that had looked outdated for as long as I could remember. I’d passed them all so many times in my life that under hypnosis I would probably be able to give an exact and detailed description of each. The only detectable difference between now and high school was the cars.

  I remembered walking this way on many summer nights with my friends, and sitting outside of Nate’s house, talking as dusk got heavier and heavier and eventually became night. In my mind’s eye, all of those nights had been balmy enough to go swimming and get out of the pool without freezing. The sky in my memory was always filled with stars. And the neighborhoods were green and lush, and at night they smelled like earth and wet pennies from the sprinklers that hummed back and forth on the many manicured lawns.

  It wasn’t like that now.

  The road at the bottom of the hill was under construction, with orange traffic cones rerouting cars that drove too fast on the residential street and clunked into and out of the potholes that the hard, salty winters had carved into the old pavement.

  I longed for the heat of real summer.

  I turned onto Nate’s road, not stopping to think what I would say in the unlikely event that his mother happened to be outside and happened to recognize me (his parents had divorced around the time we’d split up—news he’d gotten the night before we’d broken up, as it turned out—and I had no idea if his father was even still in the area). A quick glance up the street told me there wasn’t any obvious movement in front of the house, so I was probably safe.

/>   I moved as if compelled by some force other than my own will. Next thing I knew, I was there, in front of the house. I remembered a cold night that felt like it had been a hundred years ago when I’d run here in bare feet to beg Nate to take me back after I’d broken up with Pete Hagar.

  Odd, how time had shaken out those two relationships. I remembered Nate with crystal clarity, of course, but I had only a few memories of Pete and most of them were from school, not personal. Which was funny because Pete and I were Facebook friends now, so we shared brief exchanges now and then about meaningless things, yet when I looked at pictures of him now I could barely reconcile them with the heavily faded photograph of him in my mind.

  Yet this—the house Nate had grown up in—was almost as familiar as my own. Obviously I used to pay a lot more attention to my surroundings than I do now, because the pattern of bricks on the walkway to the front door, the gold and black mailbox, even the small gap of cement where the garden was just a little bit lower than the front stoop, were all things I could draw with my eyes closed.

  I stood out front. It was a stupid compulsion, I was completely aware of that. Under any circumstances, I’d feel like an idiot if anyone who knew me caught me down there because it wasn’t exactly the normal route for a walk from my old house.

  But I had to do it. I wasn’t sure why. In a way, I think I kind of felt like if I saw the house, I could glue some pieces back together and not feel so fractured when I remembered those years.

  Like I said, I know it was stupid, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  For years, every time I’d passed this street, I’d looked for his car in front of the house where I stood now. Obviously it hadn’t been there; it had been an old model back then, so I’m sure it was long dead.

  Still, it was weird standing where he used to park and having it not be there, since, like the rest of the landscape, not much had changed.

  Suddenly there was the metallic clang of a trash-can lid from the garage.