He was the opposite of you, Andrew. Salt and pepper hair, jeans that hugged his muscular thighs and snake skin cowboy boots. A hat was pulled low over his eyes that were the color of a summer sunset. He introduced himself as Barret in a timber voice. I lied and said my name was Ashley because in that moment, I wanted to be Ashley. A young woman who just graduated from Oklahoma State University with a degree in social work and was driving cross-country to visit her family in California. She was peppy, like a cheerleader with an adorable naïveté that Barret fell for, hook, line and sinker. It felt good for that hour to shed my old skin, become somebody else. When he first approached, I had little interest. Older men aren’t my type.
“What are you drinking?” he drawled, glancing at my amber filled glass.
“Scotch, neat.”
“Rough day?”
“Something like that,” I replied shortly. My body turned toward the door, away from him. “If you will excuse me, I’m busy.”
“Of course.”
He tipped his wide brimmed hat and departed to a booth in the corner. I was taken aback by how easy it was to get rid of him. I had gotten used to your tenacity and forgot not all men are like you. As the scotch burned a hole in my stomach, an aching loneliness washed over me. I missed you with every cell in my body. I missed your laugh, your smile, and the way you said my name. That was what spurred me to down another shot. Four sheets to the wind, my feet jumped off the barstool and over to the man known as Barret. We chatted about random topics. The weather, football, and my fictional life as Ashley. I slipped easily into her role, the lies popping out of my mouth like a Pez dispenser. It didn’t take long before his hand was on my leg. Unconcealed lust shining in his eyes. Our conversation became threaded with underlining sexual innuendos. The whiskey had loosened my tongue and lowered my inhibitions.
My mouth dipped to his ear. “Why don’t you meet me in the bathroom?”
“How ‘bout we go to my place instead? So I can take my sweet time with you.” Barret traced my jawline with the tip of his finger. He smelled earthy, like soil after rainfall. “You deserve to be taken care of.”
I didn’t want to be cherished. I wanted to be fucked over the edge of the sink, hard and fast. Anything slower than that would allow my brain to wander. When my brained wandered, it wandered to you, Andrew. Placing my hands on his scruffy cheeks, I kissed Barret roughly, pouring out my misery and disappearing into the embrace. He responded equally with fervor. When we broke apart, his erection pressed against the zipper of his pants.
“Meet me in the bathroom in two minutes.” Adjusting his crotch, he slid out of the booth and walked bowl legged to the family style restroom.
Cigarette smoke lingered on my tongue, it tasted wrong. I lifted my fingers against my lips, they were swollen and bruised. I thought Barret would make me forget but really he made remember how you and I fit so perfectly. You have ruined sex for me because you showed me how amazing it is when love is involved.
I abandoned Barret in the bathroom and drove to a motel where my tears soaked the pillow. It has been fifty-five hours, two minutes and eleven seconds since I left you kneeling in the snow.
Haven
Dear Andrew,
California is a gold dusted mirage in the middle of a sprawling dessert. Palm trees reach as high as the sky and waves lap against the seashell-strewn beaches. I arrived in San Diego as planned, but kept driving until I hit Los Angeles, or more specifically Santa Monica. There is a creative energy here that you would thrive in. Art is everywhere. Painted on the walls, the sidewalks, and even hanging off telephone wires. I can imagine us buying a bungalow and growing old and wrinkly together here.
Although my pockets are empty, my soul feels full. Each morning, I wake up and bike ride to a small diner that has been there since the 1930s. The food is cheap and the coffee is stale but there is something about it that reminds me of home. Words flow from my ballpoint pen to the stained pages of my journal while the sunny afternoon sun beckons. The stories aren’t very good, or even memorable, but they are stories nonetheless. I don’t know if this is my calling in life, to be a writer. For right now that doesn’t matter. I’m grabbing onto my happiness where I can find it.
Yesterday a man with your color hair caused my heart to flip while hope surged. I almost ran up and flung my arms around his neck. When he turned around though, that’s where the resemblance stopped. To say it was a huge letdown would be an understatement. There are fourteen voicemails from you, one each day I have been gone. Thirteen are unlistened to. During a lapse in weakness, I closed my eyes, scrolled randomly and pressed play.
“Haven….” You paused as if you were waiting for me to answer. When I didn’t, a sigh brimming with regret shuttered across the line. “There are a million things I want to say to you but all the apologies in the world won’t be enough. I messed up and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life. Just know this: I’ll always love you. Always.”
Tossing the phone aside, I curled my body into a ball as guilt ate away at my insides. I have a confession to make, Andrew. Your fraternity ring was what made this road trip possible. Before leaving Detroit, I hocked it at a pawnshop. The sleazy storeowner gave me close to a thousand dollars which, combined with my savings, was just enough. I’m not proud of what I did but you will get every last cent back, promise.
My anger toward you dims each day, however, the betrayal doesn’t. It sits like a heavy stone in my stomach. Nonetheless, I’m grateful for all the blessings you gave me during our short relationship. Sumiko owes her sobriety to you. She is currently at a rehab center in Santa Barbara. Once her court ordered two months are up, I invited her to live with me. Sumiko said she will think about it, which is better than nothing.
I don’t know when I’ll see you again. Santa Monica’s salty ocean air is the balm over my wounds and I have decided to stay here for the immediate future. Figure out who I am and who I want to become. Typical twenty-three-year-old soul searching. There is one thing I’m certain of though: I don’t regret meeting you, Andrew. You are the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me. The best because you showed me how to fall in love. The worst because you got exclusive lifelong rights to my heart. I’ll never love anybody like I loved you.
It has been 336 hours, 2 minutes and 1 second since I left you kneeling in the snow.
Haven
Three Months Later
Locking my door, I bounded down the steps to where my beach cruiser awaited. The baby blue bicycle had a basket in the rear for my groceries. The fog blanketed the streets as it did in the early mornings. My co-workers didn’t understand why I wanted the six a.m. shift but this was why. In Los Angeles, nobody got up before the sun rose. I had the normally congested city to myself. Plus, the weather reminded me of the gloomy winters back home. Peddling the measly ten flat blocks to the coffee shop, eighties music blasted through my headphones. After my road trip had ended, the obsession for cheesy love ballads only grew. Tina Turner hit one of her high notes as I pulled up in front of Cafe Solo. Painted a soft pink, the Spanish style building had two planter boxes underneath the windows, overflowing with succulents. Fredrick, the owner, had a deep affection for California architecture. Speak of the devil; he sat at a table near the bar, a shot of espresso and a half eaten croissant in front of him. Shrouded in darkness, the cafe didn’t open for another thirty minutes.
Flicking the lights on, Fredrick glanced up and smiled. “You should learn to appreciate the darkness.”
This was our routine every morning. I replied with my standard response. “Nothing good comes out darkness.”
“From darkness comes…”
“Light,” I said. “I know.”
Fredrick wiped the crumbs off the table into his wrinkled palm. Nearing eighty years old, he looked decades younger. I hadn’t seen him in anything other than a three-piece pinstriped suit and a silk necktie since I’d started working at Cafe Solo.
Fredrick had become a surro
gate grandfather. He took me underneath his wing, providing a place for me to live and work. The tiny apartment above his garage would ordinarily rent for fifteen hundred a month but he’d cut me a deal, saying I reminded him of his granddaughter. She lived back home in Cuba with Fredrick’s daughter and he only saw them twice a year. Fredrick’s and my lack of family bonded us together in the first place. A regular at the diner I frequented, we got to know each other and forged a bond. Grabbing a rag, I cleaned Fredrick’s table of his dirty dishes. He waved the Los Angeles Times in the air.
“I read your article,” he bellowed. “Pure genius.”
I blushed. “I wouldn’t call it an article. It’s a blurb about my friend’s band.”
“Still, not everybody can say they wrote for the Los Angeles Times.”
“Guess that’s true.”
In my spare time, I also worked as a freelance journalist, something I fell into by chance. Los Angeles was a city of connections. Everybody knew everybody and had at least one valuable friend or family member in their back pocket. My co-worker Morgan’s father owned an independent art magazine. By accident, I’d left my journal lying open and she’d read my short story about the stolen sun. Morgan encouraged me to submit it to her father’s magazine. I did and it was accepted. The past couple of months, assignments had been steady, which was extra income to send to Andrew. I stuffed the checks in an envelope without a return address. Although, he hasn’t cashed a single one, it’s the principle of the matter.
“Why are you frowning?” Fredrick asked. “Thinking about the boy again?”
“Nope,” I lied.
There wasn’t a day that had gone by when Andrew didn’t enter my thoughts. For the past three months, he had called once a week and left a voicemail. Camilla wasn’t mentioned but her voice was once heard in the background. It was like having a scab ripped off. I didn’t understand why Andrew kept calling if they were together. Emotional cheating was still cheating. Nonetheless, I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t miss those phone calls if they stopped.
Dumping the dishes in the sink, I wiped my hands on my apron. Fredrick opened the cash register and began to stock the drawer.
“When my wife died, I thought I would never love again. She was my soul mate, my companion and best friend. What I came to find out though is that each love is unique,” Fredrick said.
“How did you get so incredibly wise?”
“That what happens when you turn seventy. A lifetime of experience catches up to you.”
“Seventy is the new twenty,” I joked.
Fredrick grinned while he counted the stack of bills he was holding. Dating and or loving someone else was a far ways off. It wouldn’t be fair to get in a relationship when your heart was reserved.
My hands twisted the dishrag into a knot. “Hey, are you sure it’s still ok if I leave for three days? I know Morgan wanted to go to that concert.”
“Of course. Your best friend’s wedding is more important than a concert. Go, enjoy, and breathe in some clean air.”
“Thank you. I’m leaving tonight and we will back in time for my shift on Tuesday.”
Fredrick slid a glance my way that said I was being crazy. “No you won’t. I’m forcing you to take a vacation. Four days without work won’t kill you.”
“I like work,” I pouted.
“No you like being distracted. You have gone five hundred miles per hour since you arrived in Los Angeles. Pump the brakes.”
Fredrick spoke the truth. I hadn’t had a moment to breathe or think, which was the point. Soon after I’d gotten the apartment, Sumiko moved in with me and then promptly moved out. She said I was cramping her style. Whatever that meant. She found a three bedroom sober living house in Detroit to share with a couple of other girls. We started a weekly phone call on Sundays to catch up. So far, she hasn’t touched a drop of heroin or alcohol.
“Fine, I’ll pump the brakes,” I conceded.
“Good. Can you make the sure espresso machine is cleaned before you leave today though? Morgan always forgets.”
I saluted Fredrick and turned the closed sign to open. The craziness began soon after.
Mallory and Clint decided to elope in Santa Cruz with the reception held in their parents’ friend’s backyard. On the way up there, I swung by the airport and picked up Monica who had become one of Mallory’s close friends as well. My absence had forced them together.
Although it would have been faster to drive the 405, I wanted to see the splendor that was the 101. The highway butted up against the white sand beaches, totally worth the extra two-hour drive.
Monica rolled down the window. “I love you, California!” Breathing deeply, she turned her face toward the sun and smiled.
Laughing, I forgot how brutal the winters were in Detroit. This must be heaven for Monica. The salty ocean air whipped her hair around her face but she didn’t seem to notice. Surfers shed their wetsuits behind towels and propped their boards against VW bugs and trucks alike. Eye candy at its finest.
Monica repositioned herself in her seat. “I’m jealous you live here.”
“Then move down and become my roommate. There are plenty of clubs you can work at here.”
“Yeah, but Detroit is my home. I grew up there and frankly, I can’t imagine leaving.”
“It’s easier to leave then you think.”
She looked at me from the corner of her eye. “You didn’t leave. You ran.”
“True, I ran faster than you could count to three. There are too many bad memories in Detroit. My mother and Andrew have tainted it.”
“I think you’re giving your memories too much weight.” Anticipating an argument, she held up her hands. “Don’t yell at me. I’m simply stating my opinion.” She yanked her chair backwards and shut her eyes. “Wake me up when we get there.”
“You are going to miss out on the beautiful views.”
“Fine. Wake me up in an hour.”
It didn’t take long before her breathing regulated. Monica had the unique ability to fall asleep anywhere. When we’d lived together, we had to do our laundry at the mat across the street. Monica would drift off in one of those hard plastic chairs while I twiddled my thumbs in boredom.
In the silence, Andrew’s face drifted in front of my gaze. My heart constricted in my chest and I punched the radio on. Right now wasn’t the time to get weepy. I had to concentrate on the twisty highway that was a sheer drop off the side. Rock’n Jill, the radio host, did nothing though. Nor did the eighties power ballads. Andrew’s and my relationship played like a romantic comedy montage with a fiery ending. Damn it! Monica shouldn’t have planted this seed in my mind. Now its gonna bug me on top of the thousand other thoughts that already do. Looking over at her, drool puddled in the corner of her lips. I smacked my hand against her headrest.
She jerked awake, startled, which turned into anger when she saw the car was still in one piece. “What the fuck?! I thought we got into a fender bender or something.”
My eyes narrowed. “You have no right to say what you said.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If you had my memories, they would hold a certain amount of influence over you too.”
Monica dragged her palm across her face, exhaling. “Really? That’s why you woke me up? I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Well surprise, surprise, you did.”
“Look, both our childhoods were crap. My mom is dead, my dad is in jail for money laundering and the only person who watched out for me was my grandmother, who at the ripe age of ninety also died. Granted, I didn’t have the horrible experiences you went through but it hasn’t been easy. I could always rely on you though. You are my family, Haven.” A smile played on her lips. “My sister from another mother, but then you also left. You said it’s because you wanted to get a fresh perspective, however, I just don’t believe that.”
“Why do you think I left then?”
She shrugged. “I’m not a psychol
ogist.”
Annoyance oozed like vapor through my veins. “Take a wild guess.”
“Fine.” Monica crossed her arms and tucked her chin to her chest, her signature-thinking pose. After a lengthy silence, she finally spoke. “I think you left because you are afraid of turning into your mother when really you are following in her footsteps.”
I nearly collided with the car in the oncoming lane. “I’m not a drug addict and/or a loveaholic!”
“Hear me out.” Monica waited for my knuckles to loosen on the steering wheel. When they did, she continued. “Your mother hauled you around different cities because of the men she dated, correct?” I nodded. “I think she partially did that not because of the money but because she was seeking a connection.”
“To drugs?” I clarified. “She was a seeking a connection to drugs.”
“No she was a seeking a personal connection and attempted, although badly, to give you a sense of home. The thing is she was partially successful. You have Sumiko, me, my grandmother, Mallory, and you did have Andrew.”
“She didn’t give me any of that—only Sumiko. I cultivated those friendships and connections myself.”
“Maybe, but your mom always came back to Detroit. If she didn’t, we wouldn’t have met and Andrew wouldn’t have entered your life for better or for worse. I understand getting a fresh perspective, but you can do that by going on a vacation. Like your mom, you are seeking a home, somewhere to belong. You thought you’d found it with Andrew and when that went up in smoke, you left. The thing is though—a home isn’t a place, it’s where your friends and family are and amongst the breakup drama: you forgot Mallory, Sumiko, and I are still there in Detroit. Whenever you are ready to return, we will be waiting with open arms.”
Jagged Love Page 19
