Still, I wasn’t just disappointed, I was angry. To my way of thinking, I was more than happy to spend an evening with her friends, even an additional afternoon. But almost every day? After a year apart, when we had so little time left together? It bothered me that she didn’t seem to share the same desire. For the past few months, I’d been imagining that we’d spend as much time together as we could, making up for our year apart. But I was coming to the conclusion that I might have been mistaken. Which meant… what? That I wasn’t as important to her as she was to me? I didn’t know, but given my mood, I probably should have stayed at the apartment and let her go by herself. Instead I sat off to the side, refused to take part in the conversation, and pretty much stared down everyone who looked my way. I’ve become good at intimidation over the years, and I was in rare form that night. Savannah could tell I was angry, but every time she asked if something was bothering me, I was at my passive-aggressive best in denying that anything was wrong at all.
“Just tired,” I said instead.
She tried to make things better, I’ll give her that. She reached for my hand now and then, flashed a quick smile my way when she thought I’d see it, and plied me with soda and chips. After a while, though, she got tired of my attitude and pretty much gave up. Not that I blame her. I’d made my point, and somehow the fact that she started getting angry with me left me feeling flush with tit-for-tat satisfaction. We barely talked on the way home, and when we got into bed, we slept on opposite sides of the mattress. In the morning I was over it, ready to move on. Unfortunately, she wasn’t. While I was out getting the paper, she left the apartment without touching breakfast, and I ended up drinking my coffee alone.
I knew I’d gone too far, and I planned to make it up to her as soon as she got home. I wanted to come clean about my concerns, tell her about the dinner I’d planned, and apologize for my behavior. I assumed she’d understand. We’d put it all behind us over a romantic dinner out. It was just what I thought we needed, since we would be leaving for Wilmington the next day to spend the weekend with my dad.
Believe it or not, I wanted to see him, and I figured he was looking forward to my visit, too, in his own way. Unlike Savannah, Dad got a pass when it came to expectations. It might not have been fair, but Savannah had a different role to play in my life then.
I shook my head. Savannah. Always Savannah. Everything on this trip, everything about my life, I realized, always led back to her.
By one o’clock, I’d finished working out, cleaned up, packed most of my things, and called the restaurant to renew my reservation. I knew Savannah’s schedule by then and assumed that she would be rolling in any minute. With nothing else to do, I sat on the couch and turned on the television. Game shows, soap operas, infomercials, and talk shows were interspersed with commercials from ambulance-chasing lawyers. Time dragged as I waited. I kept wandering out on the patio to scan the parking lot for her car, and I checked my gear three or four times. Savannah, I thought, was surely on the way home, and I occupied myself with clearing out the dishwasher. A few minutes later, I brushed my teeth for the second time, then peeked out the window again. Still no Savannah. I turned on the radio, listened to a few songs, and changed the station six or seven times before turning it off. I walked to the patio again. Nothing. By then, it was coming up on two o’clock. I wondered where she was, felt the remnants of anger starting to rise again, but forced them away. I told myself that she probably had a legitimate explanation and repeated it again when it didn’t take hold. I opened my bag and pulled out the latest from Stephen King. I filled a glass with ice water, made myself comfortable on the couch, but when I realized I was reading the same sentence over and over, I put the book aside.
Another fifteen minutes passed. Then thirty. By the time I heard Savannah’s car pulling into the lot, my jaw was tight and I was grinding my teeth. At a quarter past three, she pushed open the door. She was all smiles, as if nothing were wrong.
“Hey, John,” she called out. She went to the table and started unloading her backpack. “Sorry I was late, but after my class, a student came up to tell me that she loved my class, and because of me, she wanted to major in special education. Can you believe that? She wanted advice on what to do, what classes to take, what teachers were the best… and the way she listened to my answers…” Savannah shook her head. “It was… so rewarding. The way this girl was hanging on everything I was saying… well, it just makes me feel like I was really making a difference to someone. You hear professors talk about experiences like that, but I never imagined that it would happen to me.”
I forced a smile, and she took it as a cue to go on.
“Anyway, she asked if I had some time to really discuss it, and even though I told her I only had a few minutes, one thing led to another and we ended up going to lunch. She’s really something—only seventeen, but she graduated a year early from high school. She passed a bunch of AP exams, so she’s already a sophomore, and she’s going to summer school so she can get even further ahead. You have to admire her.”
She wanted an echo of her enthusiasm, but I couldn’t muster it.
“She sounds great,” I said instead.
At my answer, Savannah seemed to really look at me for the first time, and I made no effort to hide my feelings.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I lied.
She set her backpack aside with a disgusted sigh. “You don’t want to talk about it? Fine. But you should know that it’s getting a little tiring.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She whirled toward me. “This! The way you’re acting,” she said. “You’re not that hard to read, John. You’re angry, but you don’t want to tell me why.”
I hesitated, feeling defensive. When I finally spoke, I forced myself to keep my voice steady. “Okay,” I said, “I thought you’d be home hours ago….”
She threw up her hands. “That’s what this is about? I explained that. Believe it or not, I have responsibilities now. And if I’m not mistaken, I apologized for being late as soon as I walked in the door.”
“I know, but…”
“But what? My apology wasn’t good enough?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what is it?”
When I couldn’t find the words, she put her hands on her hips. “You want to know what I think? You’re still mad about last night. But let me guess—you don’t want to talk about that either, right?”
I closed my eyes. “Last night, you—”
“Me?” she broke in, and began shaking her head. “Oh no—don’t blame me for this! I didn’t do anything wrong. I wasn’t the one who started this! Last night could have been fun—would have been fun—but you had to sit around acting as if you wanted to shoot someone.”
She was exaggerating. Or then again, maybe she wasn’t. Either way, I kept quiet.
She went on. “Do you know that I had to make excuses for you today? And how that made me feel? Here I was, singing your praises all year long, telling my friends what a nice guy you were, how mature you were, how proud I am of the job you’re doing. And they ended up seeing a side of you that even I’ve never seen before. You were just… rude.”
“Did you ever think that I might have been acting that way because I didn’t want to be there?”
That stopped her, but only for an instant. She crossed her arms. “Maybe the way you acted last night was the reason I was late today.”
Her statement caught me off guard. I hadn’t considered that, but that wasn’t the point.
“I’m sorry about last night—”