Second Chance

by Katie Kacvinsky

  He turns and heads for the sidewalk and I fall into step next to him. “It’s not my fault this country’s lagging behind in fashion.”

  “It must be hard being a trendsetter,” Gray says, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

  “It’s a huge responsibility,” I agree. “Fashion is a risk. I pull it off with a balance of confidence, mystique and rebellion.”

  Gray shakes his head and his lip twitches at one corner. It isn’t even close to a smile, but it’s a start. I sneak looks at his profile while we walk. His thick, shaggy dark hair spills out from under his hat, his blue eyes mirror the sky, and he’s tan and even more gorgeous than I remembered. I glance down at his long fingers with veins wrapped around the knuckles—the sexiest hands in the world. I remember things his hands have done to me and my face flushes. Meanwhile, his face has all the emotional investment of a rock.

  Gray informs me the team’s leaving this afternoon to go on the road until Sunday. My heart sinks at the news. I have to wait three more days to talk to him? I haven’t seen him for months and my stealth reentrance into his life has consisted of passing out like a drunk, sleeping for twenty hours like a bum, and then making a scene in front of his roommates worthy of a Most Dramatic Female award.

  “You can crash at my place if you need to,” he offers, but his voice is still hostile.

  No way.

  I shake my head. “No, thanks,” I say.

  He regards me with blue eyes that are darker, stormier than normal. A shadow slides over them every time he looks at me. “You have other options?” he asks.

  “I might.”

  “Who else do you know in Albuquerque?”

  “Catherine,” I say.

  “Catherine, who?”

  I stall because I’m terrible at remembering names. “Catherine, um, Catherine Kra-ker-krin-skin,” I stammer. He’s frowning, which means he knows I’m clueless.

  “Catherine Krakerkrinskin?” he mocks.

  I laugh and admit I don’t know her last name. I tell him I met her in Interlaken. He just stares at me like I mentioned a planet in the Triangulum Galaxy.

  “Where’s that?”

  “Switzerland,” I say. I explain she plays for a band here, named Charlie’s Angels or Angels in Charge or—

  “Chuck’s Angel?” he asks. He stops halfway up the steps in front of the café and stares at me. “You met Cat Parker in Switzerland?”

  “Parker,” I say. “I was close.” He rolls his eyes and we stand on the steps in the sun while I perform a dramatic retelling of the evening I lost my luggage and was stranded and saved all within the same hour. He shakes his head and opens the door to the café. We’re met with a buzz of commotion. I glance around to see an entire restaurant full of college students studying, or pretending to study, but mostly talking on cell phones or to each other. I watch girls checking out Gray, whispering and smiling and laughing like they’re all in on a secret. I glance at Gray to see if he notices the attention, but he’s watching me with a frown.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You’re like Forest Gump,” he says while we wait in line. “Everything works out for you. You always meet the right people at the right time and it’s all an accident.”

  “Maybe it’s not an accident at all,” I say and study a long chalkboard suspended on hooks over the cash registers. “But I always love a good Tom Hanks movie reference.” I smile at him but he won’t meet my eyes. I look back at the menu, written out in small, block letters. I lick my lips and feel my stomach buckle from hunger pains.

  “I can loan you some money,” Gray offers. I stick my nose up in the air and shake my head because the last thing I want from him is a handout. All I want are his lips and his mind and his body. I decline to mention this.

  “I have money,” I say. I hope. I dig into the front pocket of my jeans and pull out a crumpled wad of cash. I separate the Euros from a few dollar bills.

  I squint up at the prices listed on the blackboard—I’m determined not to go over my $3.75. Gray starts talking to a girl behind the cash register and I try to make my mind up but even the condiments on the counter look appetizing. I start to salivate at the ketchup and mustard dispensers. I haven’t had ketchup in months. I reach over and pump a dab of red sauce on my finger and suck it off slowly to enjoy the sweet tomato flavor.

  “Mmm, that’s so good,” I say to no one in particular. I reach my finger out to taste the mustard, but Gray grabs my wrist.

  “It’s not an appetizer,” he informs me.

  “Hey, want to know the most bizarre food item I’ve ever seen on a menu?” I ask him.

  He raises his eyebrows.

  “Bull testicles. Isn’t that sick? It’s considered a delicacy.”

  “Where? In prison?” he asks.

  “In Montana, I think. They’re called Rocky Mountain Oysters and—”

  “Would you just order?” Gray barks.

  I face forward obediently, like a kid reprimanded by an impatient parent. The girl behind the counter narrows her eyes at me, but it’s more out of curiosity than annoyance.

  She’s wearing a Brew House T-shirt, the front featuring a yellow outline of a coffee mug with steam curling above the cup. Over the T-shirt she’s wearing a bright orange apron that looks like a tattoo artist practiced patterns using a black magic marker. There are swirling snakes and daggers and dragons and skulls and crossbones all over it. The images are angry and morbid and I sense an “I hate my life,” vibe radiating off her. There’s even an illustration of a python strangling a coffee mug. I meet her eyes and smile. Her outfit makes an obvious statement.

  “Great apron,” I tell her. “I get the feeling this isn’t your dream job?” She yanks on her lip ring and glances at Gray.

  “I think that’s the first thing you said to me,” she tells him.

  I order a sandwich and set my money on the counter. I notice this girl glance at me and back at Gray and Gray looks at me and back at her like we’re playing stare tag. I decide to call them out on their little game.

  “Listen,” I say. “If I have toothpaste stuck to my face, would one of you just point it out instead of gawking at me?”

  “You must be Dylan,” she says. I nod and she extends her small hand to shake mine. “I’m Lenny,” she says. “It’s an honor.”

  GRAY

  Take a deep breath. Okay, so the ghost of love’s past just paid you a surprise visit. No reason to freak out.

  I slam my hands into the pocket of my hooded sweatshirt and stomp to class. I avoid eye contact. Usually every other person I pass recognizes me on campus, but I can’t muster up a fake smile right now. Not when my chest is smoking. I pull the rim of my cap down low and turn my music up.

  My lips flatten into a tight line. This is not happening.

  She is not staying.

  Dylan’s a smart girl. She definitely got the hint that I’m not exactly thrilled to see her. She might even be gone before I get back on Sunday and that would be for the best. Besides, what do we have to say to each other? Neither of us does small talk, and why rehash old memories that are better swept under the rug?

  We can’t recreate what we had. You can’t bring back the past. So why fight about it?

  Also, I’m obviously not attracted to her. I take a deep sigh of relief as this fact resonates through my mind, like cold ice soothing a burn. What did I ever see in her? She’s skinnier than I remembered. She almost looks malnourished. I like curves. And that wild hair—is she ever going to cut it? Her clothes—seriously, she’s too old to dress like a bum. It was interesting in Phoenix because it was different, but now it’s just embarrassing. People know me on campus. I can’t be seen with a girl who looks like I picked her up from the local soup kitchen. People are going to assume I’m doing community service, not hanging out with my girlfriend.

  I have an image to maintain.

  But she smelled really good in my shampoo and her eyes still make the energy in the room shift. Her smile still heats
the air and my mind and makes something hollow feel occupied by something warm.

  But that’s just because we’ve been intimate. Some feelings are bound to resurface. That’s normal. We’ve had sex. We’ve had sex multiple, okay, maybe hundreds of times. And it was toe-curling, mind-blowing—

  No, no, it wasn’t that good. Not with Dylan. It couldn’t have been. She’s not even my type. She’s just this novel creature, this rare specimen. And when it comes to sex, I just have nothing else to compare it to. I need a second opinion, that’s all. I need to get laid.

  That’s it. Maybe I’ll hit it off with Kari. Kari lives here, she’s in college, I can relate to her. Dylan’s just a girl in my past. She lives in a playground of her imagination and that’s the last thing I need right now.

  But then why is everything so effortless with her? Why is it so easy to want the wrong person?

  DYLAN

  Relax and breathe. Okay, things didn’t go quite the way you hoped. Scratch that. Things didn’t go even a fraction of a decimal point close to the way you hoped, but no need to panic. Count your blessings. You have your health and your wisdom and all your teeth.

  I sit on my duffel bag on the top of Gray’s balcony and stare out at the rooftops stretching below. I’ve never felt more lost, like a feather plucked out of a bird that slowly descends to the ground only to look misplaced. Where do I go from here?

  At least I didn’t go out of my way to tie a big red bow around my naked body. That would have been sufficiently humiliating. Gray might have used it to hang me from the nearest tree. That’s about how happy he was to see me.

  All I want is for Gray to love me. And he not only doesn’t love me, he downright loathes me. He mega loathes me. It’s so strange that people get angry, not by what you do, but by what you don’t do.

  I look at the rooftops huddled around me and I want to skip across them and slide down a chimney chute into a place I feel welcome. Right now I feel like an intruder. I want Dick Van Dyke to pop out of a chimney and sing, “Step in Time,” and then draw a chalk picture of a perfect landscape for me to jump into. Why can’t I just add a spoon full of sugar to sweeten the sad moments in life? Why don’t birds land on my finger when I whistle to them? I keep trying, but it never works for me.

  I need to move, but what direction do I take? I didn’t plan one step ahead of this moment. I have a summer job waiting for me in Wisconsin, but not until June. I have almost three months to kill and no money. This is what I get for following my heart—a big dose of rejection.

  I make a mental note: Next time you take directions from your heart, plan on getting lost.

  I count my net worth, and once I convert it to dollars, I’ll have about $100. I stare into the horizon and contemplate how to spend it. If I’m lucky, it will just be enough to cover a bus ride back to Wisconsin. And then what? I’ll be stuck living with my parents and getting a job with all my high school townie friends whose idea of traveling is ice fishing up north. Everyone will say “I told you so” and “look where you end up when you don’t plan better.” Broke. Living under your parents’ roof. Suckling the parental teat.

  My future becomes terrifyingly clear. I’m forty years old, still living at home in a room above the garage. My wardrobe consists of a plaid bathrobe and white orthopedic slippers. I don’t bother shaving my legs anymore. My skin smells like Lubriderm lotion and my robe smells like cranberry potpourri air freshener. I raid my parent’s refrigerator everyday for leftovers because all I have in my place is a hot pad and a mini fridge. I spend every night reading trashy romance novels with my four cats curled around my feet: Fiffi, Fluffy, FooFoo and Fro.

  Ugh. The image is too painful to endure.

  I shake my head to break free of this nightmare. I stand up, suck in a deep breath, and make a decision I’m determined to keep. I’m going to stay in Albuquerque. I’m going to show Gray he can depend on me. I’m going to prove that even if there’s distance, even if our relationship isn’t perfectly spread out before us like a map from point A to point B, it doesn’t mean it’s over. Maybe our relationship curves and dips and weaves and cuts off and forks and then comes together again, but maybe that’s who we are and who we need to be. Besides, aren’t the things you work the hardest for, the sweetest victory in the end?

  I am not giving up on Gray. It isn’t over between us.

  Feeling better, I pull out a piece of paper with Catherine’s address and email written on it and I pray she’ll be a little more excited to see me.

  ***

  A half hour later I find Sage Street. It’s unnerving to discover Cat lives about six blocks away from Gray’s house. It’s one of my stranger fates. I hear someone strumming a guitar and I follow the sound until Cat’s in view, sitting on a brown couch on the front porch of a small, single story green house tucked between two maple trees. I swing my duffel bag down on the ground to find my camera. I take a couple shots of Cat while she’s stuck inside a creative haze before she notices me. She stops strumming and blinks over at me.

  “Dylan?” she asks, though she doesn’t look surprised to see me. She already knows me too well. “What are you doing here?”

  I set my camera down and laugh at myself. At this point, it’s either laugh or cry my eyes out.

  “I took your advice,” I say as I walk through the grass to the porch steps. She stands up and sets her guitar on the couch. “I came back to see Gray.”

  She regards my face. “It didn’t go too well?”

  I sit down on the steps and shake my head. There’s an ivy plant crawling up the metal railing and I rub the smooth leaves between my fingers. Cat walks over and sits down next to me.

  “It appears time has two different effects on the heart,” I say, still looking at the leaves. “It either makes it swell with love or shrivel with bitterness.”

  “Yeah,” Cat agrees. “It’s usually one extreme or the other.”

  I nod and a long sigh escapes my chest. She wraps her arm around me and I rest my head on her warm, soft shoulder.

  “The good thing is,” Cat says, “the heart has an amazing capacity to forgive. It might just take a little convincing.”

  We sit out on the porch for a few minutes. Cat rubs my arm and I think about forgiveness and try to walk around in Gray’s shoes. I try to understand exactly what I did wrong.

  Cat tells me she has a place I can crash. She grabs my duffel bag and I follow her to a one-car garage detached from the house. She unlocks the door and explains she used to use the space for band practice, but they’ve been signing so many shows they hardly need it anymore. I look around at the renovated apartment. There are huge windows along one wall that faces out to a row of tall sycamore trees. There’s a small bathroom attached to it, and a futon with a pile of blankets folded on top. The floor is gray cement with a few woven rugs scattered around the space. The walls are painted light brown, and a few apple crates piled on top of each other form a makeshift shelf, stuffed full of music books. I set my bag down next to it.

  “It’s perfect,” I say. I promise Cat I’m going to look for a temporary job and I’ll pay her rent as soon as I can.

  “How long do you think you’ll stay?” she asks as she helps me sort through my heap of dirty clothes.

  I shrug. Until Gray forgives me. “I have a summer job back in Wisconsin, so maybe a few months, if it’s okay,” I tell her. I hope it’s enough time.

  GRAY

  Sunday night the team bus pulls into the parking lot of the Lobo center after a three game weekend. We’re all sunburned, exhausted, and starving. Why didn’t I get groceries before I left town? Oh, yeah, because I had some unexpected company.

  After we separate our gear, we pack into Todd’s car and Travis joins us because he lives next door with a couple football players. We all discuss ordering pizza.

  “I’m broke,” Bubba says.

  “You say that every time we order out,” Miles says.

  “Well, every time I’m broke.”

&n
bsp; “Maybe if you stopped spending all your money on Amy…,” Travis hints.

  “We broke up, but thanks for mentioning it,” Bubba says.

  When we pull into the driveway, Todd slows down and stares up at the house. Half the lights downstairs are turned on. Bubba turns and glares at me.

  “Dude, did you give that crazy girl keys to our house?” he asks.

  “What crazy girl?” Travis asks.

  I shake my head and insist she’s staying with a friend.

  “Then who gets the numbskull award for leaving the lights on?” Bubba asks.

  We grab our bags out of the trunk and I’m the first one to the house. The front door’s unlocked, and when I walk inside, I’m hit with smells that make my mouth water—garlic, butter and marinara sauce.

  I hear footsteps and Dylan appears in the hallway. She’s wearing a green apron around her signature baggy shirt and jeans. Her hair is braided in pigtails.

  “Welcome home!” she says. The other guys walk in and drop their bags.

  “What is that glorious smell?” Bubba asks.

  “Dinner,” Dylan says as she wipes some flour off her arm. “I hope you’re not mad,” she says, her eyes directed at me.

  “How did you get in?” I ask.

  “You left your bedroom door unlocked.”

  I narrow my eyes. “So unlawful entry is justified if it comes with a home cooked meal?” I ask her. I frown at her smile, her thoughtful gesture, her appearance in general. “Since when do you cook?” I ask.

  “Ha,” she says. “Me? Cook? That’s just a fire hazard.”

  Before I can respond, out walks Lenny, holding a steaming pot of lasagna in hands covered with red oven mitts. I didn’t even know we owned oven mitts.

  “Dinner’s ready,” Lenny says.

  The guys pass us to get to the kitchen, shoving each other like little kids running to get to the front of the lunch line. I notice Travis give Dylan a double take. I watch her closely and I don’t know if I should be happy she’s here, or angry. But I’m not surprised. She turns and heads back to the kitchen with her bouncy gait.