I guess sometimes the greatest memories are made in the most unlikely of places, further proof that spontaneity is more rewarding than a meticulously planned life. A meticulously planned anything.
I turn to Andrew. “I don’t know why, but I feel… well, I feel like all these months on the road since December were to get to this place. This city. This hotel.” I can’t believe what I’m saying, and immediately I start questioning my reasons. It could mean so many different things, but the one I think it means most is that we needed to come back here.
Yes, that’s exactly it, or at least it’s what I needed. As this revelation hits me, I find myself standing in this room surrounded by thoughts rather than material objects. I look into Andrew’s eyes, but I don’t really see him. I see him in the past instead. Same magnetic green eyes, different year.
Why am I feeling this way?
“Maybe you’re right,” he says, and then his tone shifts to something more mysterious. “Camryn, what are you thinking right now?”
“That we left too soon the first time.” It was the first thing that came to mind, and only now that I’ve said it do I start to understand just how true it might be.
“Why do you think that is?” he asks, stepping closer to me.
I don’t feel like he’s asking me questions he already knows the answers to this time. It’s like we’re both thinking along the same lines, both trying to make sense of it all and seeking answers from each other.
We sit down on the foot of the bed together, my hands wedged between my thighs, just as his are, and we’re quiet for several long seconds. Finally, I turn my head to see him on my right and say, “I never wanted to leave when we did, Andrew. I knew our next stop after New Orleans would be Galveston. I wasn’t ready to leave this place… but I don’t know why.”
And this truth makes me anxious.
Why? Other than fearing that Texas meant the end of the road for us, or that I later felt like I knew something bad would happen there, why else would I want to stay here? I didn’t necessarily want to stay here forever, just that simply we left too soon.
“I dunno,” he says with a mild shrug. “Maybe it’s just because this is where we finally sealed the deal.” He elbows me playfully.
I can’t help but smile. “Yeah, maybe, but I think it’s more than that, Andrew. I think it’s because we found ourselves here.” I stare off toward the wall in thought. “I just don’t know.”
I feel the bed move as Andrew stands up.
“Well, I say that this time we make the most of it before we leave.” He reaches out his hand to me and I take it. “Maybe we’ll figure it out.”
I stand up and say, “Or… maybe it’s a do-over.”
Honestly, I have no idea what made me say that.
“To do what over exactly?” he asks.
I pause, thinking about it, and then answer, “I don’t know that, either.…”
Andrew
30
I cup her face in the palms of my hands. “We don’t have to figure that out right now,” I say and kiss her lips. “I smell like cow shit and I need a shower. Hopefully, you’re not so turned off by that and will join me.”
Camryn’s thoughtful expression dissolves into that grin I was shooting for.
I pick her up, cradling her ass in my hands, and she wraps her legs around my waist, hangs her arms over my shoulders. The second I taste her warm tongue in my mouth, I’m carrying her off to the shower with me, both of our shirts falling onto the floor before we make it past the bathroom door.
* * *
The very first place we hit after sundown is Old Point Bar. When we walk through the front door, we’re welcomed by an excited Carla who practically pushes two big guys out of the way to get to me, her arms wide out at her sides. We collapse into a hug.
“It’s so great to see you again!” Carla says over the loud music. “Let me look at you!” She takes a step back and examines me from my shoes to my head. “Still as handsome as ever.”
She turns to Camryn now. Then she glances at me and then back to Camryn again. “Uh-huh, I knew he wouldn’t let you go.” She pulls Camryn into a hug and squeezes her tight.
“I told Eddie after you two left,” she goes on, looking back and forth between us, “that she was a keeper. Eddie agreed, of course. He said the next time you came around here that Camryn would be with you. He tried to bet me money on it.” She points at me and winks. “You know how Eddie was.”
In two seconds I feel my heart sink into the soles of my feet. “ ‘Was’?” I ask warily, afraid of her answer.
Carla doesn’t lose her smile, maybe just a little, but for the most part she doesn’t lose it. “I’m sorry, Andrew, but Eddie died in March. A stroke, they say.”
My breath hitches, and I take a seat on a bar stool next to me. I sense Camryn step up beside me. All I can see is the floor.
“Oh don’t you do that now, you hear me?” Carla says. “You knew Eddie better than just about anyone. He didn’t even cry when his own son died. You remember? He played his guitar all night long in Robert’s honor.”
Camryn’s hand interlocks with one of mine. I don’t look up until Carla walks around the bar and grabs two shot glasses and a bottle of whiskey from the glass shelf behind her. She sets the glasses down in front of me and starts pouring.
“He always said,” Carla continues, “that if he died before any of us did that he’d rather be woken up on the Other Side to people dancin’ on his grave than cryin’ on it. Now drink up. His favorite whiskey. He wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Carla’s right. Even though she is, and I know Eddie would hate it that anyone grieved over him, I still can’t let go of the bottomless hole I feel in my heart right now. I look at Camryn next to me and see that she’s trying not to cry, her eyes coated with tears. But she smiles, and I feel her hand gently squeezing mine. Camryn reaches out for the whiskey that Carla poured and waits for me to take the other. I slide my hand across the bar top and grasp it in my fingers.
“To Eddie,” I say.
“To Eddie,” Camryn repeats.
We touch our glasses, smile at each other and drink it down.
Our serious moment is quickly over when Camryn brings her hand down, slamming the glass upside-down on the bar. She makes the most disgusted, kick-in-the-teeth face I’ve ever seen a girl make and lets out a sound like her breath is on fire.
Carla laughs and takes her shot glass away, wiping the area underneath it with a rag. “Didn’t say it was good, just that it was Eddie’s.”
Even I have to admit the shit is nasty. Rotgut nasty shit. I don’t know how Eddie drank this all those years.
“Are you two still playin’ together?” Carla asks.
Camryn climbs up onto the empty bar stool next to me and answers first, “Yeah, we’ve been doing a lot of that.”
Carla looks at us both suspiciously, taking my shot glass and putting it away underneath the bar somewhere now.
“Been playin’ a lot for how long? And why haven’t I seen you here sooner?”
I sigh heavily and fold both hands on the bar, leaning more comfortably against it. “Well, after we left here we went to Galveston and I sort of ended up in the hospital with that tumor.”
“You sort of ended up in the hospital?” Carla says, and I wonder if her smart ass is related to that cop back in Florida somehow. She points sternly at me but her words are for Camryn. “We told him to go to the doctor, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“You knew, too?” Camryn asks.
Carla nods. “Yeah, we knew. But your boy here is as stubborn as a mule.”
“I agree with you there,” Camryn says with a hint of laughter in her voice.
I shake my head and lean away from the bar again. “Well, before you two gang up on me,” I say, “anyway, obviously I’m alive. Later, Camryn and I went through some really messed up things along the way, but we both made it through OK.” I smile warmly over at her.
“Looks like you came full circle,” Carla says, and it invokes our attention at the same time. “I hope you’re going to play tonight. Eddie would’ve loved to be up there with you one last time.”
Camryn and I lock eyes briefly.
“I’m up for it,” she says.
“So am I.”
Carla smacks her hands together. “Well, all right then! You can go on whenever you want. The only band we had scheduled tonight cancelled.”
We hang out at the bar with Carla for an hour before we finally make it to the stage. And even though the bar is only half-full tonight, we play to an excited crowd. We start off with our trademark duet, “Barton Hollow”; it seems only fitting that it be the first one, since Old Point is where we performed it together the first time. We go through several songs before finally getting to “Laugh, I Nearly Died,” in which I make an announcement on stage beforehand that it’s in honor of Eddie Johnson. I play it without Camryn and with an Eddie replacement, some nice Creole man named Alfred.
A little after midnight, Camryn and I say good-bye to Carla and Old Point Bar. But in true New Orleans style, we don’t go to bed early, we stay out and party with the best of them. We hit d.b.a. first, then head over to the bar where Camryn schooled me in a game of pool that night. It’s been almost a year since we were here last and were kicked out on our asses after a bar fight; I hope they don’t remember me. By two in the morning, after several games of pool and several drinks, just like last time I’m helping Camryn into the hotel elevator because she can barely hold herself up.
“You all right, babe?” I laugh lightly, repositioning my arm around the back of her waist.
Her head sways side to side. “No. I’m not all right. And you would laugh.”
“Aww, I’m sorry,” I say, but it’s only partly true. “I’m not laughing at you, just wondering if we’re going to be sleeping next to the toilet this time.”
She moans, though I think it was her way of arguing with me instead of expressing her discomfort. I get a better grip on her as the elevator opens, and I walk with her out into the hall and back to our room. I lead her to the bed, strip off everything but her panties, and help her into one of her tank tops. She lies down against the pillow, and I start to cover her with the sheet. But I remember that being this drunk, anything other than her panties and top will just make her sweat profusely, ultimately causing her to lose all of the alcohol she drank tonight.
Just in case, I grab the small wastebasket near the TV and place it next to the bed on the floor. Then I go into the bathroom, wet a washcloth with the cold water, and wring it out over the sink. But by the time I make it back to the bed to swab Camryn’s face and forehead, she’s already passed out.
* * *
When I wake up the next morning, I’m surprised to see that she’s awake before me.
“Mornin’, baby,” she says so softly it’s almost a whisper.