I laugh, almost choking on the joy it brings.
“And can I tell you something else, Beecher? I don’t think you’re in love with the past. I think you’re scared of the future.”
I lift my head, turning toward her in the seat next to me. When we were leaving St. Elizabeths, Clementine said that the hardest part of seeing Nico was that so much of her life suddenly made sense. And I know I’m overstating it, and being melodramatic, and rebounding something fierce just because we raised the specter of Iris-but ever since Clementine returned to my life… life doesn’t make complete sense. But it definitely makes more sense than it used to.
I turn toward the passenger seat and lean in toward Clementine. She freezes. But she doesn’t pull away. I lean even closer, moving slowly, my fingers brushing her cheek and touching the wisps of her short black hair. As my lips part against hers, I’m overcome by her taste, a mix of caramel and a pinch of peach from her lip gloss.
There are great kissers in this world.
I’m not one of them.
I’m not sure Clementine is one of them. But she’s damn near close.
“You got better since Battle of the Bands,” she whispers as she takes a quick breath.
“You remember that?”
“C’mon, Beecher… how could I forget my first kiss?” she asks, the last few syllables vibrating off my lips.
Within seconds, I’m no longer leaning toward her. She’s leaning toward me.
I’m overwhelmed by her scent… by the way her short black hair skates against my cheek… by the way her hand tumbles down my chest and slides so close to everything I’m feeling in my pants.
Behind us, a flood of red lights pummels the back window. I barely heard the siren from the police car, which is now two cars behind us, trying to get us moving.
Taking a breath, I slowly pull away.
“Feeling any better?” she asks.
“Definitely better. Though also pretty terrified that we’re still on this bridge.”
She offers a quick laugh. But as she settles back in her seat, she knots her eyebrows, offering a brand-new look-a sad silent confession that I’ve never seen before. Like yet another new door has opened-I’m starting to realize she’s got dozens of them-and I finally get to see what’s inside. “We’re all terrified,” she says as we race ahead and leave the bridge behind. “That’s how you know you’re alive, Beecher. Welcome to the present.”
“Please make next… left turn,” the female GPS voice announces through my cell phone over an hour later. “Destination is… straight ahead… on the left.”
“Clemmi, we’re here,” I call out as I hit the brakes at the red light, waiting to turn onto her narrow block. As I’ve done at every stop since the moment we left the highway, I check the rearview. No one in sight.
When we first arrived in the small city of Winchester, Virginia, a huge brick residence hall and an overabundance of kids with backpacks told me we were in a college town. But as with any college town, there’s the good part of the college town, and the bad part of the college town. The closer we weaved toward Clementine’s block, those students gave way to boarded-up row houses, far too many abandoned factories, and even a pawn shop. Let’s be clear: The good part of town never gets the pawn shop.
“Clemmi, we’re… I think we’re here,” I add as I turn onto the long dark block that’s lined with a set of beat-up skinny row houses. Half the streetlights are busted. At the very last second, I also notice a taxi, its dim lights turning onto the block that we just left.
Two years ago, the Archives hosted a brown bag lunch for an author who was presenting a book about the effects of fear and its role in history. He said that when you go down a dark alley and you feel that tingling across the back of your neck, that’s not just a bad feeling, that’s a biological gift from God-the Gift of Fear, he called it. He said when you ignore that gift-when you go down the dark alley and say, Y’know, I’m sure it’ll be okay-that’s when you find real pain.
Next to me, while I’m still replaying our kiss, Clementine is fast asleep in the passenger seat, exhausted from the long ride as her chin rests on her clavicle. It’s late enough and quiet enough that when I listen closely, I can hear the rise and fall of her breathing. But as I squint to read house numbers and pass one home with a door off its hinges, and another with a spray-painted sign across the front that reads PVC pipes only, no copper inside, all I hear right now is God’s biological gift telling me this is not where I want to be.
Behind us, a car turns onto the block, then changes its mind and disappears.
“Destination,” the GPS voice announces. “You have arrived.”
Leaning forward, I double-check the house numbers: 355. This is it.
With a jerk of the wheel, I pull into the nearest open spot, right in front of a freestanding row house with a saggy old sofa on the front porch. I remember having a house like this. Back in college.
As I shift the car into park, my hand knocks into Clementine’s purse, which sits between the bucket seats and opens its mouth at the impact. Inside, I spot the edge of a purple leather wallet, a ring of keys, and a single sheet of paper that makes me smile. Even with just the light from the lamppost, there’s no missing what’s on it-it’s young me and Clementine, in a photocopied black-and-white version of the framed photo she gave me earlier today. She gave me the color one. But she kept a copy. For herself.
“Mary Mother of Christ! What you do to my girl?” a cigarette-stained voice calls from outside.
I jump at the noise, but as I scan the block, I don’t see-
“You! You heard me!”
The sound takes me up the cracked brick steps, to the front door of Clementine’s house. The screen door’s shut, but thanks to the glow of the TV inside, I see the outline of an old woman with a bob of white hair.
“She said she’d call me back-she never called me back!” the woman shouts, shoving the screen door open and storming out into the cold wearing a faded pink sweatsuit. She hobbles down the stairs.
Right at us.
49
"Clemmi, this would be a good time to get up…” I call out, shaking her awake. As I kick the car door open, the woman-in her late sixties, maybe seventies-is already halfway down the stairs. She’s a thin and surprisingly tall woman whose sharp features and natural elegance are offset by the slight hunch that comes with age.
“And I’m freezing!” she yells. “Where the hell you been?”
“Nan, you need to get inside,” Clementine pleads, snapping awake and racing from the car.
Nan. Nana. Grandmother. Clemmi’s grandmother.
“Don’t you tell me where to go!” the grandmother explodes, narrowing her glassy blue eyes, which seem to glow in the night. As she reaches the curb, she shoves a plastic bottle of pills at Clementine’s chest. “With dinner! You know I take my medicine with dinner!” Turning to me, she warns, “Don’t you think I’m talkin’ ’bout drugs either! Rectal cancer. I got cancer in my rectum,” she says, patting the side of her leg. I didn’t notice it at first. The lump that’s hidden inside her sweatpants. A colostomy bag.
“What kinda person leaves ya with no way to open your medicine?”
“Nan, I’m sorry…”
At first, I assume it’s Clementine’s way to soften Nan’s outrage, but the way Clementine won’t look her in the eye… She’s terrified of this woman.
On our far left, at the very end of the block, there’s a loud clink-clink. Like a beer bottle spinning on concrete. Clementine and her grandmother don’t even notice. I tell myself it’s a cat.
“Of course you’re sorry,” Nan growls, snatching the now open prescription vial from Clementine’s hands. Again turning to me, she adds, “Who’re you anyway? You the one who did this to her?”