Surviving Valencia

We both began to laugh. Adrian kept going until he had tears in his eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time we had laughed like that together.

He reached over and took my hand, and kissed it, then held it to his face. His thumb rubbed my knuckle and the spot where my wedding ring had been for the last many years. He drew in a breath, and I thought for a second that he was going to pass judgment on my naked, non-puffy fingers, but he exhaled and kissed my hand again. I bit my lip and looked away, out to the Midwest cornfields and farms, cold and serious, so different from Savannah.

“An exit is coming up,” I reminded him.

He set my hand back in my lap and nodded. “I could use a break,” he said, his eyes weary, his face, a moment earlier laughing, now the face of a tired, middle-aged man.

Chapter 67

Welcome to Stewartville. The Future is Bright! promised the sign by the highway. It was a peeling, weathered statement against the bleak, slategray sky.

Adrian pulled into a gas station and got out to stretch his legs while I went inside to use the restroom. There was a line outside the ladies’ room, so I went over to the magazines, hoping to find something I hadn’t already seen at Alexa’s, something I could take along to my parents’ house. Of course there was nothing but tabloids and the local paper. I glanced over at the line by the restroom door, but it hadn’t budged.

Something propelled me to I pick up the Stewartville Star and flip through it. I stood there, tired and devoting only a small bit of my attention to the smalltown stories: A local hairdresser was retiring. A new restaurant was opening in town. Two couples, lifelong friends, had taken an Alaskan cruise to celebrate their fiftieth anniversaries. Pages four and five were devoted to school events and sports. 2007 Winter Formal Court Chosen read the headline on page five. December 1 to be One Enchanted Evening the subhead added, an unprofessionally curly typestyle emphasizing the specialness, the youthfulness, of such an evening.

I examined the students’ faces, momentarily transported back to my own unpopular high school years, that jealous, lonely time. There were ten or twelve couples, some sitting on bleachers, some standing, all with healthy, wholesome smiles. One girl in particular caught my eye, made me catch my breath. She was tall and beautiful with that particular grace I had only ever known one other person to hold: Valencia.

I squinted at the smeary black and white photo, then looked over at the bathroom line again. Finally no one was waiting. My bladder was ready to burst so I shoved the paper back where it had been and hurried over. The door was locked.

“Just a minute,” yelled the old woman inside.

From where I stood I could see the car. Adrian was in the passenger seat, asleep, his head pressed against the steamy window.

Just use the men’s room, I told myself. I peered inside and saw the seat was covered with urine. So I continued to wait outside the ladies’ room. Minutes ticked by. Finally I couldn’t help myself.

“Are you okay in there, ma’am?”

No answer.

“Ma’am?” I knocked on the door.

“Just a minute, dammit!” she yelled again.

I went back to the magazine rack and picked up the paper again. I flipped to page five to reexamine the photo, to decipher that mystique I thought I’d seen. There she was; I hadn’t been imagining it.

I looked beneath the photo to see her name. What if her name is Valencia? I mused. What if, somehow, I have gone back in time? But it was definitely 2007. The headline said so.

I skimmed through the names of students on court, keeping one eye on the bathroom door. Then I found her, and I nearly, literally, wet my pants. Elliott Johnson to escort Coral McCray.

I looked up at the photo of the students, making sure I was matching the correct name to Valencia’s doppelganger. Yes, this name went with this face.

I closed my eyes, thinking I might be dreaming, but when I reopened them I was still me, still standing in a gas station, the smell of hotdogs all around me. I shoved the paper back in its slot and grabbed the one beneath it, irrationally thinking the photo might be clearer. It was the same. This girl still had Valencia’s face, and more than that, she had Valencia’s presence. I could feel it. And her name was still Coral McCray.

Coral. McCray. Straight from the pages of one of Valencia’s high school notebooks.

Chapter 68

“What took you so long?” asked Adrian, when I got back in the car.

“Sorry, there was a line. Shh, you just go to sleep while I drive.”

I put in an old Tori Amos CD to keep him from initiating a conversation and pulled back out onto the highway. Soon the sound of his quiet snoring drowned out the music and I felt like I could try to think. The newspaper was in my bag. My heart was racing,

my head was spinning. I shook my head, laughing silently, shaking all over. I felt tingly with adrenaline. I was thrilled, giddy even, from the rare, elusive shock of a positive surprise. How often in life are we shocked in a good way? Once a year? Once a decade? At a certain point, maybe age forty or fifty, it may never happen again.

“What’s the matter with you? Are you alright?” Adrian asked suddenly.

“What? Sorry, I just…” I looked at him. He was squinting at me, looking a little scared, a little irritated. I wanted to tell him so badly, yet I wanted him to never find out. “I was just remembering something funny,” I said. It was the kind of answer that should have been completely dissatisfying, considering how I was behaving.