Always Something There to Remind Me

by Beth Harbison

  I froze.

  Oh, shit.

  Shit shit shit.

  Someone was there.

  Someone who, if they saw me, would undoubtedly recognize me and mention to Nate that I’d been walking past, like a freaky stalker. I mean, really, how could this not seem weird?

  I started to turn and walk back where I’d come from, but then I saw him.

  And I couldn’t move.

  He was wearing ratty old clothes, splashed with paint. From this distance, he didn’t really look very different, same presence, same posture. His jaw was shaded by a day’s worth of growth, and added to the sense of him being older, yet his movements were as youthful and powerful as ever.

  What the hell was he doing here? Hadn’t he moved away ages ago? Last I’d heard he was in Arizona. How was it even possible that I was looking at him right here, right now? Had I somehow conjured him? Was this the first—or maybe last—step to going certifiably nuts?

  Panic built in me, but I wanted to see him. Yes, I could have walked away undetected at just about any point up to then, but I had to see. It was like standing in front of an accident, terrified of seeing dismemberment but having to know.

  He was putting bags into the trash can. Paint flecked his pants and forearms. As I carefully moved closer, I could see his triceps flexing as he moved them and was surprised to realize that the movement of his muscles was something I still recognized. The jut of his elbow. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen a man’s arms in years, but I still knew Nate’s when I saw them.

  Then he turned.

  My first impulse was to hide. Turn around, dodge behind a car, dive into the sewer, maybe simply evaporate.

  But there was no way to slip out of view. The stupid home-owners’ association had insisted on planting Japanese maples all over these neighborhoods thirty-five years ago and they’d all gotten diseased and died and been replaced more recently by immature trees that afforded no hiding places.

  So I stood there, feeling naked, in front of his house.

  We made eye contact.

  And there it was—recognition.

  Now, I know the normal thing to do at this point would have been to perhaps wave, say hello, approach him with some sort of plausible reason I happened to be passing his house. Out for a run after a heavy meal of grilled burgers and wanted to stay off the main roads, maybe.

  But I was mute. Really, I couldn’t think of anything reasonable to say. Just about everything that crossed my mind would have been such an obvious ruse, including—and I’m embarrassed to admit I thought about this—pretending not to recognize him.

  So I said nothing. I just watched the shock in his eyes as he took me in, and knew mine probably looked the same. Shocked, glad, scared … it was hard to read both what I saw and what I felt.

  But I couldn’t look away. And when I saw him try, I realized he couldn’t either. He glanced down, a muscle in his jaw tensed, but then he looked back at me, still unspeaking.

  And, following an impulse unlike anything I’d ever felt before, I walked toward him, holding his gaze the entire time.

  As he held mine. Standing there. Silent. Watchful.

  It’s hard to describe what was happening because I don’t entirely understand it myself. All I know is that one minute I was walking down the old streets, feeling melancholy and drenched in the past, and the next minute I was completely in the present, facing a Nate who looked the same only older and, to me, even more beautiful because of the years that were beginning to show in his hair and around his eyes.

  Yet in some strange way I felt like I’d been looking at him the whole time, through all the years.

  I stopped before him and, completely unable to come up with something clever or even coherent to say, I just followed a crazy, inappropriate impulse and reached out to touch his cheek. I laid my hand to the stubble, my thumb on that familiar cheekbone.

  His hand shot up and grabbed my wrist.

  There was a second of uncertain eye contact, then he pulled me hard against him. I softened against his chest, melting into him in a way I’d done a thousand times a thousand years ago, and the next thing I knew his mouth was on mine and I was drinking him in with the kind of hungry desperation usually reserved for shipwreck victims finding water and food for the first time in three days.

  It was good.

  Not just familiar, because that sounds too trite. In fact, anything I could say about it would sound trite. Too small for the emotion. It felt like it fit. A puzzle piece sliding into place and completing a picture that had been hidden for too long.

  He held me so tightly I almost couldn’t breathe, then moved his hands up and cupped my face, tangling his fingers in my hair.

  Everything—the taste of him, the smell of him, the feel of his arms around me, the touch of his hand to my face, the expanse of his back and shoulders and everything else I touched—it just felt right.

  I could have cried.

  I don’t know, maybe I did.

  The moment was dark and dizzying, and I felt like I was spinning through time and space and never wanted to stop. If there is a way to recharge your soul, that was what was happening to mine at that moment.

  I couldn’t believe I was here, couldn’t believe I was touching him. It was like touching a ghost. I’d wanted him so much twenty-three years ago but he’d kept me away. Now I’d just gone for a walk, it had felt like a hundred years later, and ended up living a moment I’d never dreamed I’d have again.

  I trailed my fingertips down his back, slowly moving over the muscles I’d once known so well. How many times had I felt them flexing, moving under my palms as I clung to him while he slowly moved within me?

  How many times had I thrown my arms around these shoulders and laughed or cried or just held on tight?

  I moved my hands over his body, down his biceps, up his rib cage, across his lower back. It was tactile memory and I could feel it filling my heart and mind, like warm water spilling into a bath.

  All the while he kept his mouth on mine, and his breath filled me and revived me. It was no longer a matter of me wanting this, I needed it.

  I needed this and more.

  We drew back and looked at each other and it was like all the weight of time arced between us. There was nothing to say. Nothing we could say that wouldn’t be way smaller than the moment.

  His eyes narrowed fractionally and his gaze traveled downward. Then he took my hand in his. It was warm, his grip strong, and he pulled me with him toward the front door and I went with him, followed without having any real idea where this would lead. But I knew we were alone.

  There was a faint smell of fresh paint in the air, obviously the same paint that flecked his forearms and T-shirt right now.

  We went up the stairs. The wallpaper was the same, if fading, and my knuckle grazed it where the handrail was still warped. The floors had gone from shag-carpeted to hardwood. In the upstairs hall, I looked into the warm brown eyes of the oil portrait of his great-grandmother that hung on the wall, as I’d done a million times before. He led me into his old room, which was almost exactly as I remembered it: a simple desk with books in the hutch, a double bed, a dresser, and two windows overlooking the side and back yards.

  There was no time for melancholy, though. We tumbled onto the bed together, bodies locked as one, mouths hot, open, moving and communicating wordlessly. The span of time that separated this from the past dissolved like smoke.

  It had been a long, long time since I’d felt this kind of thrill from a kiss, and we took it slowly, exploring for I don’t know how long.

  Then he pulled back slightly and we looked at each other. Really looked into each other’s eyes, and I saw that same soul I’d always seen. I wanted to tell him I loved him, that I’d always loved him, and that life—and I—had never been the same without him there.

  Instead, I just expelled a breath I think I’d been holding for years.

  I wasn’t even sure my voice would work if I tried to speak.


  For a moment, I thought he was going to say something, but he just held up his hand in front of me. I looked at it, then pressed mine to it, and our fingers twined. His eyes were fixed on mine, but it was impossible for me to tell what he was thinking.

  I couldn’t even figure out what I was thinking.

  He lowered our hands and shifted his weight, pressing the back of my hand against the mattress. Then, with more deliberation than I’d ever seen or felt, he laid his other hand to my cheek and drew me in for another kiss. It got deeper fast, more urgent. His beard stubble raked across my skin and I knew it would show on my face later, but I didn’t care.

  It was the first time I’d felt fully in a moment in as long as I could remember. I couldn’t bear to think that this would ever end, that we’d have to speak, that we’d have to say good-bye, that I’d ever have to do anything but feel him feeling me. So I let go of all of that and drowned in him.

  He ran his hands down my sides and pulled up my shirt. Seconds later, we were skin to skin, pressed together on top of the old brown quilt that had been there since he was a teenager.

  He moved his mouth across my lips, my jaw, my neck, and skidded his hand down across my abdomen to my pelvis. I arched against it, moving his touch to below the zipper of my khaki capris.

  There was no need to explain. He pressed his hand against me, only the fabric between him and me. The years blurred. I clutched the bed, but in my mind I felt the linoleum of my old basement floor, the rough bales of hay at the old barn where I worked in the summer. I was here, and now, but I was also swimming in the past, living these same motions we’d made so many times before.

  I fingered the cold snap of his jeans, uncertainly for a moment, and his breath tightened. That small movement was enough to make up my mind, and I yanked the snap and pulled the zipper open.

  As I slid the jeans down over his hips, I remembered things I hadn’t let myself think about in ages: the muscular dent in his hips—unlike the soft curve of mine—the hard V of his abdomen, the perfect size of him.

  There were times, when we were younger, when we might have taken our time, but our urgency was high now and he moved to whip my pants down so effortlessly it was like a magic trick.

  Then he rolled on top of me and nudged my legs open with his knee.

  Again, the calendar pages flew and I could close my eyes and see the canopy of my bed over me, I could feel the seat of his Chevy beneath me.

  He put his hand between my legs and played me in a way that showed he’d never forgotten me.

  I reached for him, our hands bumping, and nudged him toward me. This was a signal we’d worked out a long time ago. Slowly he removed his hand and moved it up to my shoulder, looking so deeply into my eyes that it felt like he could see right through me.

  Then he bent down and put his mouth to mine, simultaneously pushing into me with such delicious force that it took my breath away.

  It was like coming home.

  I rocked my hips back and wrapped my legs around him, bringing him as deeply into me as I could.

  For one endorphin-blurred moment I thought I could die right now and my life would have had perfect symmetry.

  He cradled me in his arms and moved slowly, gradually building the urgency. I closed my eyes and tried to feel everything at once, his movement inside of me, the way the muscles of his back moved under my fingertips, the warmth and taste of his mouth, and the way his teeth would click against mine now and then when things got hungry.

  He tightened his arms around me and we rolled over so I was on top of him. It had been a long time, but I remembered what he liked, and ground against him, watching him as he closed his eyes and his breathing grew strained. I stopped a moment, then moved again, and the muscle in his jaw tightened and ticked the way I’d seen it do before.

  He was close, so I moved down and rolled us back over so he was on top. He didn’t even open his eyes, his mouth just found mine, and he moved hard and fast, quickly taking me to the top.

  I held my breath, living the physical sensation, the emotional fulfillment, the mental explosion.…

  The release was tremendous.

  And when he climaxed, he kissed me hard, hands gripping my shoulders, digging into my flesh. I remembered this too, the way he kissed me at that moment, the way he held me, the way he moved until he was spent.

  Then he sank against me, his rough cheek against mine, his body heavy on me.

  We breathed in sync, hearts pounding just millimeters apart.

  I had forgotten sex could be like this. I’d forgotten it could feel like my soul was in it. Usually it was just my body—and, don’t get me wrong, that wasn’t bad—but this was so much better.

  Afterward, we lay there for a while, still not speaking, but touching, hands, faces, hair … Finally, of course, I couldn’t ignore the passing time. Cam would be waiting for me. Everyone would wonder where I was, though no one would ever guess.

  “This would be a good time for me to say something really profound,” I said, with half a laugh.

  “I’ve been thinking you should,” he returned with a smile. That voice. Something in me, some tiny part that had somehow made it through all of this intact, melted.

  I ran my hand across his chest and sighed. “I’ve got nothing. I’m not even sure this is real.”

  “If it isn’t, I’m the one who’s dreaming it, not you.”

  “That’s what you’d say in my dream.”

  “Mm.” He nodded, as if understanding.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “I don’t have an answer to that. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. I was just out for a walk after my mother’s cookout, and…” No point in finishing. He knew how that ended. “I thought you lived out West now.”

  “I moved back three months ago. I live down in Palisades now.”

  Palisades was an area of D.C. by the reservoir and Georgetown University. It was no more than five or six miles from where I lived, but in a city this populated and in neighborhoods as distinct and closed as the ones we lived in, it wasn’t surprising at all that we never ran into each other. A lot of very recognizable people lived within a few miles of me—newscasters, musicians, politicians, and so on—but I never saw them.

  “So you just happened to be here today.…”

  “I’m doing some work for my mom. She’s thinking about selling the house.”

  I felt a stab of sadness at the idea. “That would be a shame.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a lot of house for one person. What about you? Where are you these days?”

  “McLean Gardens.”

  He met my eyes and I knew he was going through the same thought process I’d just had: so near and yet so far.

  For a moment, we looked at each other wordlessly. There was so much to say, yet it was all so big and so overwhelming that it was easier to say nothing.

  Then he kissed me again, and it felt like we said more that way than words ever could.

  A while later I tore myself away from him. I had to go home. Cam was waiting. Real life was waiting. And, in some weird way, I was eager to get away from this situation so I could think about it with some distance. So I went into the bathroom that used to smell of Pert shampoo and Coast soap to pull myself together as much as possible before facing everyone at my mother’s house again.

  I went to turn on the faucet.

  And that’s when I saw it.

  A gleaming gold wedding band next to the hot water tap.

  My heart dropped. I mean dropped. Moments before it had been soaring like an eagle and now it was like a Perdue roaster splatting on the kitchen floor.

  I picked up the ring and looked at it, searching for some clue as to who it belonged to, even though I already knew.

  It wasn’t his mother’s; his father didn’t live here anymore.

  He’d taken it off to paint. I would have done the same thing.

>   But the confirmation was engraved inside: N & T Forever.

  I felt sick. All my internal systems went on full alert. I wanted to run, to scream, to smash something, to cry. But all I could do was stand there, frozen in shock.

  Then I felt him move up behind me, his body heat pulsating toward me like an invitation.

  But it was too late for that, and the air was thick with that fact. I can’t say how, but I knew we both knew it.

  I looked up. Our eyes locked in the mirror.

  He glanced at the ring in my hand, then back at me.

  Then he spoke, words that had been hanging in the air around us for almost two and a half decades, though I’d never wanted to acknowledge them before.

  “I never wanted to see you again.”

  Chapter 13

  February 1987

  Winter stretched on and on.

  By the end of February, Erin sincerely wondered if she was actually going crazy. Every day had been gray. The sky was gray. The street was gray. It was like looking at a faded black-and-white photo. It was hard to imagine there was anyplace in the world that was more depressing than Washington, D.C., in February.

  She was restless. Depressed. Hopeless. Maybe it was the years of watching sunny romantic comedies like The Love Boat and Fantasy Island, maybe it was the books she read that were set in exotic, sunny locales like Crete and Majorca, but Erin felt like if she had to spend one more day trapped in this cold house in this depressing landscape going to that boring, bleak school she’d lose her mind.

  The fact that the plan for the night was to go to one of those cheap-o dollar theaters to see some ancient Bruce Lee movie, Enter the Dragon, with Nate and his friends didn’t help matters much. But what was she going to do? Suggest a John Hughes flick? Not quite the same mood.

  It was Todd’s last week in Maryland before he moved to Seattle for some internship with a big computer company he was doing for school, and he was meeting them at the theater. Obviously they were going to want to do Guy Things, it was a wonder Nate had thought of bringing her along at all.

  Nate and Todd had been doing Guy Things since they were in first grade and joined the local baseball team together. Thus began a love/hate, help-at-all-costs, win-at-all-costs rivalry that had characterized their friendship for more than a decade. If they were on the same team, they were as solid as a rock, fighting side by side to win together. Erin had witnessed that herself.