We are ushered into the VIP wait lounge in the airport terminal, and for today that is more about me than Jack. The tabloids have been our crushing shadow all day. I don’t care. They don’t know what the last three weeks have been about, and they never will. Let them write what they want. No one other than Alan and I will ever know or understand it.
It is too honest. Too human. Too real. I love Alan and he loves me. That’s it. End of story. And I leave New York for the simple reason that that is what girls like me do. We say goodbye. We board the plane. We go home and fix our own shit.
Jack hasn’t said a word since we finished clearing out Mom’s personal things from the apartment. It never occurred to me until I came to New York that Mom’s things were exactly where she left them and Sammy’s room remains exactly the same as it was that day. Jack has lockboxes too. I am like him that way: keeping things in little boxes, hurting privately and slow to share my pain.
Jack’s silence today is more about him than about me, and I am OK with that. I understand it because I said goodbye to Alan today.
More airport security comes when it is time for us to board the plane, and by how everyone on the plane stares at us I can tell we are the last ones on the plane even though our seats are first class.
I laugh. No proletarian seats today.
We are in the air before Jack speaks.
“It’s going to be OK, Chrissie. It will all blow over. It always does.”
But I don’t want it to blow over. I am in love with Alan.
I smile. “Why did Rene leave yesterday?”
I was so consumed with Alan I didn’t stop yesterday to wonder why Rene left me.
“The school is graduating you early, Chrissie. They remarked that they would prefer you clear out your things on Sunday so as not to disturb the returning students. Rene and Patty are packing up your things from your dorm room today.”
Oh shit.
“Are the Thompsons angry we’ve been kicked out of school? I know how Rene’s mom feels about never having the crap be public.”
Jack gives me a small smile. “They didn’t kick out Rene. She left in solidarity and the Thompsons are cool with it.”
It’s awful, but I start to laugh anyway. I can’t help it. I was kicked out of school before Rene. What were the odds of that? I laugh harder and Jack laughs, and suddenly we are laughing in a crazed way that doesn’t match any of this.
When the laughter quiets, it is a comfortable thing. A comfortable thing, for the first time, in a very long time, between Jack and me.
“I think tomorrow we should go buy you a new car,” Jack says somewhere over Colorado. “A Volvo. The safest car on the road, but not flashy. Hopefully, it won’t be something anyone wants to steal.”
OK, what’s up with that? I expected to be dragged to an in-care lockdown therapy center. What’s with the car shopping, Jack? Things might be better between us, but it doesn’t make Jack’s parenting any less confusing.
“Why are we buying me a Volvo?”
“You’re out of school early, Chrissie. You were planning a road trip across country this summer with Rene. Leave early. Get lost for a while. Let it all go. Sometimes it’s the only way you can find yourself.”
I smile and think of Alan. Jack is right, but I also think I might have already found myself, and that returning to Santa Barbara is a very big mistake.
When Jack falls asleep, I pull out my journal and make my Alan entry. I stare at the newspaper photo I have tucked there. I love this photo of Alan and me. Us on the terrace, curled around each other, waiting for the sunrise. How did they get it? Telephoto lens? I wonder if you can ever get a real photo from a newspaper. It just seems to capture us, and everything that was us, through these unexpected weeks. I start to cry. The caption is cruel and wrong, those fuckers in the press never get anything right, but the photo is totally us.
I wish I could see the future. I wish I knew with complete certainty if my decision were right. I wish I were older, looking back after having gotten through this.
What if I’d stayed?
I turn to stare out the window. I can’t see the earth and I can’t see the sun and I can’t see the journey ahead of me.
~THE END ~
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He doesn’t laugh. Instead, his gaze sharpens on my face. “I am being nice, Kaley. I came to you. I got tired of waiting.”
What? Did I just hear what I think I heard?
Before I can respond, he says, “How’s your afternoon looking? Do you have time to take off and come see something with me?”
My afternoon? There is something. I’m sure of that, but I suddenly can’t remember a single thing.
“What do you have in mind?”
“I want to show you where I’ve been living. What’s I’ve been doing? I think you’ll find it interesting.”
Interesting? Why would I find it interesting?
“So, do you think you can cut out for a few hours?” he asks, watching me expectantly.
I focus my gaze on the table, wondering if I should go, wondering why I debate this, and what the heck I have on calendar that I can’t remember. God this is weird, familiar and distant at once, and I haven’t a clue what I should do here.
I stare at his hand, so close to mine, on the table. Whoever thought it would be so uncomfortable not to touch a guy? It doesn’t feel natural this space we hold between us, spiced with the kind of talk people have who know each other intimately. What would he do if I touched him…?
His fingers cover mine and he gives me a friendly squeeze. The feel of him runs through my body with remember sweetness.
Suddenly, nothing in my life is as important as spending the afternoon with Bobby and for the first time, in a very long time, I don’t feel like a disjointed collection of uncomfortably fitting parts. I feel at ease inside me being with Bobby.
I stop trying to access my mental calendar. I smile up at Bobby. “I’ve got as much time as you need.”
Bobby chuckles and his hand slips back from me. He rises and tosses some bills on the table. “Just a few hours, Kaley. I’ll have you back before the end of the day.”
I rise from my chair and think not if I figure out fast how not to blow this.
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She became aware all at once how utterly delightful it felt to be here with him, alone on the quay, with the erotic nearness of his body.
She closed her eyes. “Listen to the quiet. There are times when I lie here and it feels like there is no one else in the world.”
“No one else in the world? Would that be a good thing?” he asked thoughtfully.
“No. But the illusion is grand, don’t you think?” she whispered.
Krystal turned her head to the side, lifting her lids to find Devon’s gaze sparkling as he studied her. He shook his head lazily. “No. The illusion wouldn’t be grand at all. It would mean I wasn’t here with you.”
It all changed at once, yet again, and so quickly that Krystal couldn’t stop it. The ticklish feeling stirred in her limbs. Devon’s words, as well as the closeness of their bodies, should have sent her into active retreat, and instead she felt herself wanting to curl into him. What would it feel like if kissed me? Would I still feel this delicious inside? Or would that old panic and fear return?
Laughing softly, Devon said, “I’m not used to relaxing. Can you tell?”
“I wasn’t used to it before Coos Bay, either. There is a different pace of life here. At first I thought there was no sound. That’s how quiet it seemed to me. Then I realized that there is music, beautiful music in this quiet.”