by E. R. FALLON
“I need to do this on my own. It’s hard to explain but that’s what I need. Besides, Paige needs someone to stay with her and make sure she’s doing all right.” I disentangled myself from Sammie’s embrace to resume my packing.
“Paige can come with us. We’ll bring her along. She enjoys car trips. The car needs gas. Why don’t I go and fill it up and then I’ll return to pack, does that sound good? Do you want to leave tonight or tomorrow morning?” She spoke as though she hadn’t heard me.
“Sammie, I need to do this alone, I’m sorry.”
“I’m not going to say I’m okay with that.”
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I can take a bus if you want me to leave the car here with you so you’ll have it.”
“I want you to take the car.”
“I’m not sure I would feel safe if you’re here without a car. What if you need to take Paige to the vet’s?”
“We’ll be fine. I can carry her there if that happens, which I hope it doesn’t, and most taxis accept small dogs these days. I want you to take the car. We hardly use the car here. Your trip will be more comfortable if you do take it. You said once how rural your hometown is. How will you get around when you’re there if you don’t have a car?”
I closed my suitcase. “So, you’re okay with this, after all, with me leaving?”
She went into the bathroom and came out with my toiletries, handing them to me. “No, but I know how stubborn you are and that you’ll leave no matter what I say, so I don’t have a choice, do I?”
I opened my bag and struggled to find room for what she’d handed me. “Thanks for remembering these. How would I survive without you?” I gave her a smile.
Sammie didn’t return my gesture. “You’re so stubborn, I’m really not sure how you would survive. You have to call me when you arrive so that I know you made it there safely. What’s the name of the hotel where you’ll be staying?”
“I’m not sure where I’ll be. I don’t have a reservation with any place.”
“Are you saying your plan is that you’re going to pull into some place when you get there and hope they’ll have a room available for you?”
“Something like that.” I closed my suitcase and picked it up to set by the front door to take with me when I left in the morning.
Sammie took my suitcase from my hands. “What if there aren’t any free rooms? What will you do then, sleep in the car?”
“Oh, they’ll be plenty of vacant rooms. You know, Freedom’s only got one hotel. ‘Least they did the last time I was there.”
“One hotel? No, I didn’t know that,” Sammie said. “One hotel. What makes you think they’ll have rooms available?”
“We’ve never visited my hometown, so you wouldn’t know this, but no one goes there. It’s the kind of place people leave; they don’t go there for a visit.”
“And when were you there last, when you were in high school? Places change. For all you know it might be a very popular place to visit now and you’ll end up sleeping in the car. It isn’t summer anymore. You’ll be cold at night.”
“I doubt I won’t find a room.”
“You’re so confident sometimes, I could just kill you.” Sammie gave a wry chuckle.
“You can kill me, but don’t kill Em.” I grinned at her.
“Very funny. I want you to call me whenever you stop and when you get there. I need to hear how you’re doing. I also need you to ask how I’m doing, for my sake. Are you leaving early in the morning? I want to say goodbye before you go.”
“I won’t leave without giving you, and heck, maybe even Paige, a goodbye kiss. Now, can I have my suitcase?” I held out my hand.
She held the suitcase behind her, out of my reach. “Not so fast.”
“What, why?— ”
Sammie gave me a dark, half-lidded gaze and set the suitcase on the rug in our bedroom and pulled me down onto the unmade bed with her. She pressed me onto the bed with her body and unbuttoned my shirt.
*
I’d intended to wake up before Sammie and quietly get ready, then rouse her to take Paige for a walk together so I could say goodbye to both of them properly. But I awoke to Sammie resting on her side, halfway under the covers, watching me.
“Good morning,” I said.
She put her arm over mine when I started to sit up. “Please don’t do this,” she said.
I rolled on my side to face her again. “After we talked about it last night, I thought that you had accepted my decision.”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly. There was a lot going on at the time. I thought about it some more during the night. I hardly slept, I was thinking about it so much.”
I had felt her moving next to me in the night. “I know, I heard you tossing and turning during the night.”
The bed smelled of Sammie’s perfume. I attempted a smile but stopped when I noticed something had wet the area of the sheet by my hand—Sammie’s tears. She blinked her eyes to prevent more from falling. I leaned toward her to dry her eyes, and she buried her face in my hand. I made strokes on her soft cheekbone. “I won’t be gone forever,” I said.
“I can come with you. Paige and me, we both can.”
“It’ll be too hard for her on the road. And I’m so sorry, darling, but I need to do this alone. Can you understand that?” I gently touched her face.
“I’ve never visited your hometown once even though it’s only a few hours away,” Sammie said. “Do you not want me to be around that part of your life, is that it?”
“No, you don’t understand. They don’t know me as Evan there. No one from back there knows I’m transitioning. Them, that place, isn’t my life anymore, and there are good reasons for that.”
Sammie’s need to protect me came through her voice. “Then you’ll need me there to be with you, to support you. You know how people can be, I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“They can’t hurt me. I won’t let them. They might’ve known me as having the name Evelyn but I’ve always been Evan. Just because my name changed, doesn’t mean my soul has. I’m as tough as ever.” I didn’t know whether I spoke the words to comfort Sammie or myself. “I haven’t decided whether I’ll even bring up Evelyn,” I said.
“You’re right, they don’t need to know. Maybe you shouldn’t bring up the other name. After all, you are Evan.”
“I’m not going to hide if I don’t have to,” I said. “I’ve worked hard to accept who I am, and I’m not going to pretend to be someone else so others will feel more comfortable. Fuck that. I still have the same soul.”
“I know, but people can be awful sometimes.”
I knew all too well. And Sammie did, too. I’d had people scream in my face that I was a freak and we’d had them spit at us. Someone once had thrown a cup of hot coffee at us when Sammie and I were walking home from brunch, right there in our home city, because they thought we looked ‘funny.’
“Yes, but we can’t let them stop us from living our lives,” I said.
I sat up and made another attempt to get out of bed. Sammie held onto my shoulder and wouldn’t let go. Paige, who was still sleeping, stirred at our feet. She lifted her small head to peer at us.
“Sammie,” I said, touching her hand. “You have to let me go. I’ll call and text, and I want to hear from you, too, okay? Get in touch whenever you want and I’ll answer. I’m going no matter what, and I don’t want to leave on a bad note.”
“You’re running from me?”
“I’m not running from you but, rather, to solve something.”
“Then why are you running from this, from what’s happened—happening— to you?” she asked.
“It’s affected you, too,” I reminded her.
She looked away from me and didn’t seem to want to confront the pain the situation had caused her. “What do you plan to do there? How do you think visiting there is going to stop what’s happening here? It’s not your fault, Evan. You have to move on from what your mother did. She’s not
you. You’re a completely different person than her.”
I turned away from her. “I’m not running from anything, I’m running to find answers.”
Sammie glanced at me and pried her fingers off me one by one. She sat up, hugging her knees under the covers. The position made her look young and fragile. Paige waddled on her short legs over to Sammie’s side of the bed and stopped in front of her, looking at Sammie and then at me. I sat on the edge of the bed with my feet touching the floor. Sammie got up and Paige followed her into the bathroom. Sammie slammed the door shut and I rose to make coffee for us.
I left the apartment two hours later, after showering, dressing, and waiting for Sammie to return from walking Paige—I hadn’t been invited—so that I could say goodbye to them. Sammie gave me her cheek and wouldn’t let me kiss her goodbye on the lips.
I sighed and carried my suitcase with me to the garage where we’d parked our car, around the corner from our building. There was a train service to Freedom Village and its surrounding areas but I wanted to get there as fast as possible.
Having packed light, I could easily carry what I had with me as I walked to the garage. It turned out Sammie and I had forgot to pay our monthly bill for the garage, and after I got that matter sorted, put my suitcase in the trunk, and finally started the car, I needed to stop for gas straight after leaving the garage.
I left Seven Sisters later than I’d desired, but I avoided the morning commuter traffic and headed out of the city with a full tank of gas. I’d checked my phone at the gas station and sent Sammie a text to let her know I was only then departing. I deleted the numerous apology texts from Em—Gilani had asked me not to communicate with her—and waited for Sammie to write back, but she never did.
*
I used the GPS on my phone to navigate my unremarkable journey to Freedom Village. Along the way I stopped for coffee at a roadside café, a rundown place off a quiet dirt road surrounded by cornfields that swayed in whichever direction the wind took them. Before I got out of the car, I saw that Sammie had written me back. My phone was also inundated with requests for interviews. Somehow journalists had obtained my number. I deleted them and read Sammie’s message.
Have a safe trip. Don’t forget to keep in touch.
I smiled knowing Sammie and I were on good terms once again. I quickly wrote back that I loved her.
I shut off the engine, left my sunglasses on, and went inside. The other patrons didn’t so much as turn my way, and I felt safe enough to remove my glasses for now. The people who sat on the red vinyl stools at the coffee counter looked like members of the local farming community on their lunch breaks.
Before stepping inside, I’d planned to get a cup of coffee to go, but once there and smelling the delicious aromas, I sat on the only free stool at the counter, the vinyl seat still warm from the last occupant. I grabbed the stained menu that was already on the counter when I sat. A woman a few stools down from me lit a cigarette and shook the ashes onto her finished plate, and nobody acted as though she couldn’t.
I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee from a waitress wearing a yellow apron. I wasn’t a local resident, but no one seemed to particularly pay attention to me, other than a few glances my way. They drank their coffee, ate, and chatted among themselves. I wondered if strangers passed through there often given the café’s location close to a road that was an offshoot of the main highway. I discreetly downed my pills with my coffee. My doctor had switched me over to a pill form of testosterone because the injectable kind hadn’t agreed with me.
The waitress, a pretty young blonde with her nails painted red, set my wonderfully greasy sandwich on a plate on the counter. She smiled warmly.
“Do you know how many miles it is to Lamont?” I asked. Lamont was the closest city to Freedom Village and a destination point most people in those parts would have known about. I could have just as easily checked the route on my phone, but travelling in the car had made me lonely and looking for a chat with someone approachable. So I took a risk and started a conversation with her.
“I’d say you’re about sixty miles from there,” she said, refilling my coffee with a grin. A streak of red lipstick stained her gleaming white teeth.
“Thanks.” I’d already driven close to seventy miles.
“Are you going there for business? Or maybe visiting family? Most folks who stop in here on their way to Lamont are traveling for business, but you don’t look like a businessman.” She looked me over carefully from behind the serving counter. I wore jeans and a long-sleeve shirt. She spoke in a soft drawl, her body language a little too welcoming, and her blue eyes shiny with interest.
Even if I hadn’t had Sammie, the server was too young for me to have been interested in her, but I said in a polite tone, “Business, even if I don’t dress the part.” I grinned. Then I uttered the first career that came to my mind, “I’m a journalist.” Because I’d decided in the car that was how I’d get access to my mother in the correctional facility. I’d say I wanted to interview her for an article I was writing. But I’d need someone like Detective Mack, who, according to a Google search, was still very much alive and still a detective, to get me through the gates.
“Like for a newspaper?” the waitress asked. She seemed vaguely impressed. I could tell she stood on her toes to get a better look at me.
I nodded, not wanting to give too much away, like my home city. I’d been tempted to look at social media to see how far the Crime Man story had disseminated since I last checked, but the potential emotional setback of that prevented me from venturing to what could be dark places.
The waitress didn’t ask me which newspaper. “Are you staying around here overnight?” Her interest in me deepened her voice.
I loved Sammie and didn’t want this girl to get the wrong idea. “No, I’m passing through,” I bluntly said. “Soon as I leave here, I’m back on the road.”
“Oh.” The waitress frowned. Then she seemed to remember I could be leaving her a tip. Or not. “Enjoy your lunch and have a safe trip, Mr. Journalist,” she said. Flirting until the very last moment, she beamed at me, and I avoided returning her gaze but watched her heading for another customer farther down the counter.
I finished, paid the bill and did leave her a generous tip, and also got a large cup of coffee to go. I stopped frequently along the way to text Sammie and to get more coffee, and, then, dinner.
Chapter 9
I made it into Freedom Village around 10:30 that night, and I figured I had less than an hour to check into the town’s sole hotel. Despite gentrification in areas nearby, the town hadn’t changed much since I’d last been there almost twenty years ago. I quickly found the hotel, which had been renovated into a quaint chalet style building that spread out behind the main street, tucked between the hardware store and the pharmacy, and across the street from the butcher’s. I drove around the corner and pulled into the nearly filled parking lot at the rear of the building. Perhaps I’d underestimated the popularity of the hotel, and of the town.
In case they hadn’t a room available and I’d have to spend the remainder of my night searching for lodgings on the outskirts of town, I left my suitcase in the car. Sammie would have said, I told you so. I texted her as I walked to the front entrance and into the softly lit lobby, letting her know I’d arrived safely and to see how she was, and how Paige was.
The lobby was painted a neutral tone and resplendent with vases of long-stemmed orange and white flowers. A dark-haired woman at the front desk, who was around my age and wore a white dress shirt and a slender gold necklace that glittered faintly in the light, greeted me with, “Hello.”
The burnished floorboards squeaked as I approached her. A laughing couple exited the one elevator in the lobby and walked past me at the door, out into the night, and I smelled the woman’s spicy perfume.
“Welcome to the Freedom Lodge, sir,” the woman at the desk said. “Do you have a reservation?”
“Not exactly
. I was hoping you’d be able to squeeze me in somewhere, but now that I’ve arrived, I’m wondering if I should’ve planned ahead.” I tried to persuade her with a smile.
I didn’t want to begin a discussion with her about how surprised I’d been to find the lodge overflowing with business, in contrast to my youth, because I didn’t need her asking questions about my identity. I didn’t need everyone in town knowing that Alice Lane’s kid was back home; everyone, because if I told the front desk attendant it was inevitable she’d tell someone else, and so on.
She squinted down at the computer screen and typed something on her keyboard. “Let me see. We are crowded.”
I waited for her to tell me no.
Then she said, “But I do have a small room available, if that’d work for you. It’s very small.” She smiled warmly, and I recognized her as someone I’d known in high school, someone I had hung around with a little, Rebecca—Becky—and I couldn’t recall her surname. She didn’t seem to recognize me, though.
“Yes, that’s fine. Anything will work.” I could waste hours if I had to seek out accommodations outside the town. Growing up, there hadn’t been places to stay outside of Freedom, and driving up there I hadn’t seen that any new hotels had been constructed.
“I’ll get you checked in, then.” She typed on her keyboard.
I’d had top surgery but not bottom, and I had the scars to prove it. The process of changing my legal name hadn’t been simple, but I’d made it happen with the help of my physician and an understanding lawyer Sammie knew through her work. My identification, including my credit cards, had me as male. Regardless, I paid for the room with the cash I got before I left Seven Sisters, and I gave the woman at the desk a different last name, Samuels, a play on Sammie’s name.
“Do you know where I could get breakfast around here tomorrow?” I considered asking her whether the diner was still there but that would have revealed too much. “Is there a restaurant here in the lodge?”
She stopped typing. “I’m afraid not, about a restaurant being here, that is. I do know the owner is considering opening one here in the lodge. We do offer a continental breakfast every morning in the lounge. I recommend the diner for other meals.”
