by June Hydra
“You’re flattery and kindness is unwarranted. Anybody could do this.”
Preston lingers at the table for no more than three extra seconds. He shakes his head. “Remember, lunch starts at twelve, okay?”
“I packed baloney today.”
“Fantastic. I brought bread.”
Another coworker bothers him with a client follow up. I’m left to admire my new life. I stare at the tile flooring, the impenetrable doors. Steel and glass. Metal. I’ve busted through. I’ve ascended like Preston’s said.
When did the self-depreciation start though? Have I always subconsciously undermined myself?
I know.
The tough-girl façade doesn’t last. People see through it. Just before I asked Bishop on a date, Caddy called me out. He read my apprehension. I can fool some but can’t fool forever. Insecurities leak, weaken the foundation, insidiously melding you into another person on the inside while letting you retain your mask. Beauty, strength, intelligence, front all you want, you know what you are. Ugly, weak, stupid.
Wrong. I’m wrong too. I’m wrong about being ugly, weak, and stupid. I’m not any of those. I am beautiful, strong, and intelligent. Like Caddy and Piranha and Bishop and Preston have all told me, except now their validation means nothing.
I validate myself. I am good enough for myself and the world. Anybody can and should love me because I am great. Look at the radical choices made, look at the path taken, look at the final act—I’m here, act III, ladies, I’m here and not wimping out.
Within boils an enervation, complete tiredness with my former self. I slough off the victim girl, the pitiable girl, the girl who faced abuse and hurt.
And from that trauma concoction springs a new me, one who’s truly confident without airs. A woman who’s graduated from college and graduated from young adulthood.
Not a survivor but a warrior. Championess. Tigress.
Violet Walker.
Be careful, Spade, Dad, Mom.
Because I’ll run you over next time I see you.
CHAPTER 34
“Pin-yas. Pin-nyas. Try it like that.”
“Pinahs.”
“You should be banned from dealing with Spanish-speaking customers. Knowing how you butcher their crazy pretty language hurts the kids in Africa.” Caddy breaks apart his salad with a spork and passes slabs of lettuce and tomato my way.
“I see we’re back with our acid in our throats.” I nibble on his leftovers. Caddy saturates his salads in sour cream and onion dressing, thus deleting the beneficiary effects of his whole greens. I almost sigh but catch myself in the act.
“You guys do that so much,” Piranha says. “I keep telling them, go see a doctor, doctor, doctor for those throats. But they never listen.”
Bishop grins at her, sprinkling croutons on his salad. “Everyone has their quirks.”
“Three years ago, she used to snore. Badly. We had to kick her out one night.” Caddy waves his spork at me. “Yes, sir, be careful if you marry the girl.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Bishop winks. Underneath the table, we lace our feet together. And Caddy chomps, big scoops into his big mouth. And Piranha hums Amazing Grace, possibly the first time in forever that she hasn’t sung verses directly related to America.
“I’m just warning you,” Caddy says. “Since you’re going on that trip tomorrow.”
“When do you think you’ll be back?”
Never.
“Monday,” I say. “Just a getaway thing.”
“Make sure to come back,” Caddy says. “We’ll miss you too much otherwise.”
The drive to the countryside shoves us along multiple alleyways and dirt paths. We kick up dust in our wake, though you can’t see the fanning particles in the night, only a stream of black-blue trailing and at the wind’s mercy. Clouds paint the sky in deep smudges that threaten to cover the moon dabbed center overhead. I capture as much imagery with my eyes but eventually concede to snapping a few photos. I don’t know. Photography seems girly. But that’s a silly insecurity attempting to spread its roots. I nip the buds before they bloom and take photos as I please.
“All your angles are great. Should be a model.”
“America’s worst liar, right here, folks.”
I clap his shoulder and lower myself. Entire fields of flowers roll past washed in lunar colors, petals catching the light and appearing like stars.
“You can actually see them.” I point to a cluster in a corner of the sky.
“You’ve never seen stars.”
“Show them to me then.”
Bishop revs the engine, and then presses his boot down. We hurtle down the road, gravel bulldozed aside. Moonbeams bend across the landscape, soupy bands of light so thick you could ladle out the brightness.
We storm across several crossroads. Wind catches on Bishop’s convertible, purring and licking at the steel, thrusting my hair straight behind me like a banner of victory, declaring to the world my newfound carelessness and freedom. I swing my camera around my neck and simultaneously fiddle with the lens and touch Bishop’s crumpled shirt collar and shutter my eyes. I mark the sights with my memory. Here’s a field of corn, there’s an oak tree, and large bales of hay, big enough to hide in. The cows must play during the daytime.
“Do you know where we are?” he says.
“No!”
“We’re heading towards paradise. The real country.” I fold my legs up on the passenger’s seat, throwing my arms to my left and right, just trying so desperately to capture the happiness.
I cling hard to control. That is the last remaining bastion my parents built in me. They erected a console panel of which they could press upon. The red button would elicit fear, and the blue sorrow, and the yellow melancholy. They could push, press, slam the console at during their most abusive spouts. I’d join all those clubs and extracurriculars and wrangle the controls back, and when I’d failed, I exerted control on those around me, on what I could.
And now, with my arms to the sides, and my legs folded, and the world roaring tirelessly, I finally relax. I dismantle the panel. I shoo away control. No more.
If my happiness falters, if my sorrows come, let them soak me completely. Let them soak me entirely in emotion and event. No more wrangling the rollercoaster.
“You’ve got a shit-eating grin plastered on right now, what’s up?”
“I’m so happy.”
“Want me to try faster? We’re in rural country now.”
“Don’t kill anyone!”
The engine blasts and spites the moon. It shrinks as we travel onward towards an unrelenting darkness, until array of stars bursts through the clouds, illuminating what Bishop was speaking of. A starry carpet, no single star more prominent than the next. Constellations unravel overhead, and I pull against my seatbelt as if strumming Lyra’s harp or stroking Leo’s mane.
“I’ve literally never seen anything like this.”
“Cityslicker.” Bishop pinches my nose and I wriggle free from his touch. “Can you see why leaving home was hard for me?” He slows the convertible to a modest hum and shuttles us between swatches of wildflower. He hangs his arm over the side, and he pats his door. “It’s like living in a cocoon. Everyone’s religious. Everyone’s quaint. They can keep their systems outside of modernity’s reach. It works grandly if everyone’s on the same page, but when you get bad seeds like me, no dice.”
“Bad seeds like your parents,” I say.
“They were so hell-bent on saving me. On having me believe in Jesus their way, the right way, the only way. Everybody else is on track to Hell but them in their minds. Leaving here was hell.”
“How’s coming back then?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter that I’m here. It matters that you are.”
I clutch my camera. Though the flash is off, I snap. Even in the dark, Bishop can be seen, the contours of his cheeks and the definitive profile curving through the photo like a sickle.
“I’ll remembe
r you saying that every time I look at this one.”
“That’s sweet. You like that camera?”
“That should be a firm statement. Something you can yell.” I cup my hands around my mouth and inhale a deep breath. “I love this man and the camera he gave me!”
Bishop laughs. “I’m glad you do!”
“Where are we stopping, sir?” I loll my head around, tasting the raw country tang of nectar and clean air. “Tell me where we’re stopping. I can’t wait to set up camp.”
“Did we have a goal in mind?”
“We’re getting lost?”
“We already are.”
“I already am in you.”
Bishop careens off an exposed pathway, following a line of tulips. Beyond the line, an open space rises out of the earth. The ground rumbles from the weight of the convertible. I bang my head against the window shield, and the seatbelt strangles me, but the thrill of discovery strangles my apprehensions. Where to?
“There,” he says.
I’m careful about sticking my head out. Bishop brakes for me to understand.
A trickling. Trickling water. With the high beams, we can make out a single stream cutting through soil and rock.
“We’re camping here?”
“The chariot has stopped.” Bishop unbuckles me. “You can roam anywhere you want, Eve. This is your kingdom.”
The waterlogged soil squishes underneath my soles. I bounce on my heels, stabilizing myself. After a long drive, with few reference points, I decide on staying still, just saturating all senses with the outdoors. Crickets rub their legs. Birds cut the sky with deep, harrowing swoops. Insects bug out on my skin.
“You need another application of this, miss.” Bishop shakes a can of repellent and sprays. He smears the product with an open palm, rubbing my bare forearms and sliding a hand up the length of my hamstring. An icy jolt worms its way along my tendons. Him touching me is nothing new but an experience to be savored.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
I drape my fingers around the bottle, stroking the elongated portion with the tips. He releases his hold over the repellent.
“You need some too, sir.”
I squirt a blob out and begin patting down his exposed areas, the mountain bicep of his arm, the flanks of meat creating his sloping neck.
“How’re we going to set the tent up?” I ask.
Bishop rounds the corner of his sedan and wriggles free our tent. It’s flat and circular like a CD and zipped in mesh. He unzips the top portion, and the air fills with the whine of metal teeth unbuckling.
He bites the disc’s edge. “You ready for magic?”
“Go ahead, magician.”
The disc spins into the air, and with a pop, it unfolds as an elongated rectangle. Bishop catches the farthest end of the tent and begins hammering a stake through a rivet.
“You like it,” he says.
“I’m glad we live in the future.” I crouch next to Bishop, scrounging around in the soil for debris. I swipe my hands across rocks and toss them. “I’ll admit, pitching a tent old-style wasn’t super appealing to me.”
“Cityslicker.”
I pinch soil between my fingers and flick them at Bishop.
“Dirty girl.”
He charges at me and grabs a hold of my ass, lifting me onto one foot. He then dips me, pushing my hair aside.
“I love when you can feel your hair falling behind you.”
“Yeah?”
Bishop twists his feet and swings us around in a particular triangular pattern, stepping this foot left, that foot up. He reverses his step and falls into a mesmeric line dance.
“You’ve got quick feet.”
“In the dirt, yeah.”
“You know, you’d be great in a ballroom setting.”
Bishop locks up his arms and forces me upright. The moon shines on his stubble and crowns his head in wispy blue column of light. I rub his chin. Feel the scrape.
“I like freefalling hair. I like men who can dance. I like men who put spells on me like you have.”
“Yeah?”
“What do you see in me?”
“A woman. An Amazon.”
Bishop hitches my standing leg up and carries me against his chest. His sweaty skin warms us both in an oily slick. If he were anybody else, I might be disgusted. But there’s something odd about being in love with someone. When you do, you realize the nastiest aspects about human beings are some of the most fundamental. You see them in yourself and can’t fault others for acting so or being so. They’re ingrained. Shared.
I inhale his musk. I press my forehead to his and let our core temperatures dance their dance, modulate our bodies. He might be colder one moment and I hotter the next but we are the same within.
Bishop carries me to the tent. He dangles my feet, and I climb off him.
“After you,” he says, opening the front side.
I weigh the tent down even though there’s only one stake in the ground. Bishop steps out and brings in a foldable cot. It comes complete with blue blankets and cotton sheets that ruffle when the wind blows at its hardest. I sit at the foot of the cot, enjoying the breeze shuttling through the tent’s canvas fabric.
“Sit,” I say. “You’re doing all this work, I feel bad.”
“You deserve this kind of service, miss.”
“I missed that pet name”
“That’s how I think of you.” Bishop kneels, unbuttoning his shirt. “As my miss.”
I help him roll up his sleeves, and then he strips off his shirt, revealing his muscularity for my pleasure.
“It’s hot,” he says.
“It is.”
“You want to cool off too?”
“Why not. The breeze would be great all over me.”
Bishop peels off my oversized t-shirt. Sweat drenches the shirt. Not a blush rouges my cheeks though. I’m not uncomfortable knowing Bishop in the most feral way.
“I’m not much of a country girl, but I do have to say it’s much more peaceful here in the country than anywhere in the city. Getting away from all the noise. It’s so peaceful.”
“It’s a blessing for sure. Something I took for granted when I lived out here. God.”
“We had to make our decisions.”
“Absolutely. No hassling yourself over choices. Just do it and go.”
“Exactly.”
I crawl towards Bishop. I draw my hands onto his distinct Adam’s apple. Patches of stubble drape his neck in a forest of rigid hairs. They resist my even the strongest press of my hand.
“You are my man,” I say. “I hope you never felt emasculated. Like the woman coming to save you was a horrible thing.”
Bishop clenches my wrist. He yanks me against him, and I clamber around his neck for support. “Never,” he whispers. “You were only defending what’s yours. I would do the same. Expect the same.”
“I wanted to make sure. When we were first discussing what happened, you seemed almost ashamed.”
“I was a little. Only a little. But exposing vulnerability as a man…you know that’s taboo too.”
“I know. I want it though. Show me everything. Don’t hide behind shields or barriers or gestures. Like leaving our homes. Just do. We should feel connected and uninhibited. I crave that connection with you.”
“I crave it too.”
“But do you feel that way?”
“Do you?”
“Yeah.” I stroke the length of his nose, then pluck the tip, following along downwards to the points of his upper lip. “I’m touching my own face,” I say. “Yours and mine are so similar. If I had my eyes closed—” and I do so for dramatic effect “—I would think your face was mine.”
“We’re a couple. We have to be connected somehow.”
“With work though. We’ve worked so much. Sometimes seeing you during the dates we could get, it felt like there was this distance. A gulf. And I’d try to reach across, really hard, but I cou
ldn’t feel you. I didn’t feel like yours.”
“So, you’re saying you love the country.”
I laugh. “More or less. Just the clarity of mind. Being able to talk without people busting in on our lives. Literally and figuratively. People, people, people. They’re everywhere in the cities.”
“To be fair, the country’s not much better. Small town gossip is infectious. Nothing better than guys and girls jamming their noses into anything resembling your business.”
“Maybe we should make a place of our own then. Where nobody can intrude. Nobody but us.”
“That’s a nice pipe dream.”
“If we think it’s just a dream then it has zero percent chance of happening.” I tug on his nose. “Dream with me a little. There are stars you can wish upon.”
Bishop’s breath is a mighty thrum against the shrill winds. He speaks unintelligible words. I put my ear close to listen.
“Did you catch that?”
“No.”
“I said I’ll dream with you. I’ll do anything with you.”
I spin around. “Mind unclipping me?”
My bra tumbles to the ground. I sway in place, wind caressing my breasts.
“We’ve been talking so long.”
“You’re tired?” he says.
“Nope. I just didn’t take off my bra to keep talking.”
“Ah. Smart girl knows what she wants.”
“You.”
I lie backwards into Bishop, and he hoists me onto the creaky cot.
We’re louder than even the wind all night.
Sunlight sets the tent ablaze in a striking hue of muddy orange. The orange pools at the tent’s seams, and the canvas bellows as breezes slam into the sides like invisible tsunami waves. My skin sticks to Bishop’s as if we were composed of tape and glue. We’re a mosaic completed only with the fragments of one another.
“Amazon.” Bishop gropes my belly. “Are you awake?”
“I’ve been so.”
“Where’s your camera?”
I swing an arm down below, grasping at the floor. Eventually I happen upon a lanyard connected to the camera. “Here. It’s here. Take it. What’re you doing?”
“You need to be in the album too.”
The flash sparks an incredible shock of light comparable to the sun. Bishop takes a couple more shots and adjusts the settings to sharpen the focus or blur the image.
