Getaway Girl (Girl 1)
“Are you really?”
For some reason, I think of the way she rubbed her face on my coat as I carried her, but I set the image aside. “Yeah, I am. She’s the one thing in my life that hasn’t been planned.” If there are no plans, none of them can backfire, right? “I’m happy when she’s around and…I don’t want to force this into something conventional.” I slide my finger beneath my collar, searching once again for that itch. “What’s the other option? Start dating her? I’m not going to force her into a pattern. My whole life is made of patterns.”
Lydia shakes her head. “Who says it would be the same with Addison?”
A weight presses down on my lungs, but I laugh my way through it. “Why are we talking about this? We’re just friends.”
Ignoring how hollow those words sound, I go back to inexpertly cutting flowers.
*
Addison
I press the yellow rose between the pages of The Remains of the Day and close the book tightly. It belonged to my grandmother and it was on her bedside table when I arrived, on top of a stack of other depressing classic literature. For some reason I’ve never moved the books from their place, enjoying the vision of my grandmother reaching for one in the morning. Catching a few pages before hitting the shower and picking it back up at night.
Now every time I wake up, I’ll think of one of Elijah’s roses locked inside, flattening and drying, so I can keep it around longer. Maybe it’s a bad idea—a self-destructive one—but I find myself returning the book to the nightstand, arranging it carefully and remembering the veritable greenhouse I’d glimpsed through the doorway before Lydia left this morning. At my request, she’d handed me one yellow rose and I’ve been staring at it in kind of a half-delirious state since then, trying to envision Elijah’s giant hands handling something so delicate.
By all accounts, I should probably be dead. Half of me still feels that way, my ribs sore from coughing, my head light and foggy from spending a full day trapped in a fever, another one coming down from the boiling height of it. I didn’t die, but something about me feels different. Restless. In a moment of clarity during the fever, I remember experiencing this immense grief over never having kissed Elijah. Now I’m being prodded by some weird urgency that wasn’t there before. I either have to squash it or do something about it.
Squash it. Definitely squash it.
And speaking of prodding, my bladder has been complaining for an hour. I really need to get up. When I push aside the covers, though, my eyes are drawn back to The Remains of the Day and I notice the edge of something peeking out among the worn pages. I pick the book back up and set it on my lap, sliding out a…visitor’s guide to kayaking in Charleston.
Say what?
A local phone number is circled at the bottom of the brochure, along with a man’s name and a date in July. But July hasn’t happened yet…unless this is in reference to a previous July? It’s possible, since there’s no year. Did my grandmother have plans to go kayaking? Or did she already go? Sure, she was fearless and adventurous once upon a time, before my mother was born. I can’t exactly picture her paddling down a river, though.
Resolved to investigate once I’m done peeing, I put the book and brochure back on the nightstand. I’ve only set one shaky leg on the ground when my bedroom door bursts open.
I scream at the top of my lungs.
“Just me.” Elijah holds up his free hand, since the other is holding a glass of orange juice. “Are you decent?”
“Jesus.” In a series of hasty movements, I belt my robe and make sure my breasts aren’t showing. Normally I’m not so self-conscious, but I’ve been in bed for two days and feel like I’ve been rolled in shit. “You’re supposed to ask before you walk in.”
His smile belongs on the cover of Esquire. “Ah, Goose. If you can snap at me, you must be feeling better.”
Over the last couple days, Lydia told me Elijah carried me from the market to his truck, made sure I got home and even called my employees to cover my shifts. Pretending to be someone else, of course. I’m poised to say thank you for everything, but I’m too wrecked and raw from being sick. I’d probably make a fool out of myself and start listing the reasons he’s so wonderful. “What are you still doing here? Go to work.”
“I’m on my lunch break.”
Cold crackles in my belly. “You shouldn’t be coming here when it’s light out.”
His smile dims. “And I told you not to worry about things like that.”
“When?”
For several beats, he says nothing. Did I miss him telling me not to worry about his career? I’ve been waiting for that day he’ll come home and finally unload on me about election pressure or hint that he needs encouragement. Anything. But the longer its taken for him to share, the more I’ve begun to assume Naomi must have been his sounding board. Maybe they traded anecdotes about his politics and her pageant days or charity work as an end-of-the-day ritual. It’s possible he’s just not ready for a new confidant.