Screwdrivered (Cocktail 3)

I pulled my pillow from behind my head and covered my face to muffle my giggle. What in the world had gotten into me?

Then I heard him take a breath. Deep, prolonged, and almost . . . shaky? Almost a . . . shudder?

My own breath? Caught. Held hostage by a librarian three thousand miles away who called me in the middle of the night to ask me about a bisected suit of armor.

I held so very tight to my pillow.

“You want to know if that’s the only reason I called, Vivian?” he asked finally, his voice octaves and octaves lower than Daytime Clark. Raspy, gruff, rough-and-tumble.

“Uh-huh?” I squeaked.

“That’s the only reason,” he said. “Have a good night. Sweet dreams.”

He hung up.

I buried my head into the pillow, kicking my legs into the air.

Eventually, I slept.

But sweet dreams? Not in the slightest. Salty? Hell, yes.

Over the next week, my activities mirrored what I’d been doing on the West Coast. Except instead of packing up someone else’s things, now they were mine. My things, my clothes, my pictures, my knickknacks and paddywacks and everything I owned. It was easier and harder than I thought it would be. Harder, because I was hanging my hat in a new state, and new state of mind. I was leaving my family and my brothers’ families.

Yet it was also easier, because I was ready to sink my teeth into the renovation and get started on whatever was coming next. Easier because I missed waking up to the sound of the waves crashing, missed the fresh sea air and rocking in my old lady rocking chair on the back porch while the sun set on the ocean, Scotch in hand.

Mendocino was on my mind, but Philadelphia would always have a piece of my heart. And part of that piece of my heart was currently in the kitchen, packing up my collection of refrigerator magnets. My mother insisted on wrapping each one of them in tissue paper, even though there was nothing remotely fragile or breakable about a magnet that said “I got crabs in Key West, Florida.” Stone crabs, to be clear. Good eating. My magnet collection was my one spot of tacky chaos in my chaos-free apartment.

“Ma, you really don’t have to do that, seriously. Just throw them in a box, it’s all good,” I said, walking past her on the way to the living room, where the fort of boxes was getting higher and higher. Clothes, personal items, artwork—both mine and some I’d purchased over the years. My furniture was either going into storage (read: my parents’ basement), being donated, or being appropriated by a brother. My mountain bikes were bound for Cali, same for my kayaks. I couldn’t wait to get out on the trails and into the water out there.

“Since when do you just throw anything into a box?” my mother asked.

“What does that mean?” I asked her, grabbing for the tape roll that she held just out of reach.

“The daughter I know likes everything neat and orderly.”

“I still do. I’m just thinking that they’ll be going back up all messy and random, so it’s not necessary to make it perfect inside the box, right?” I shrugged.

Perhaps a little touch of California had already made its way into my sensibilities. Wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.

Clark continued to call me while I was back east, not every night and not always at the same time. But late enough and with enough regularity that I went to bed each night wondering whether Nighttime Clark would be making an appearance. And more often than not, he did.

“Wait a minute, just wait a damn minute. Chess team? Please tell me you’re joking,” I said during one phone call. I was lying in my bed, eating Sour Patch Kids and asking Clark about his high school days. A few nights ago we’d started chatting about grade school, progressed on to everyone’s least-favorite and most-awkward junior high years, and had finally made it to high school.

“Chess team was serious business. Do you know how great that looks on a transcript? Colleges eat that shit up.” He laughed and sipped his Scotch. Three hours ahead of him I wasn’t indulging at the same time he was, but it did make for a more relaxing conversation. And for a looser Clark.

“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse before, Mr. Barrow.”

“I’m sure I have,” he said.

“Nope, pretty sure you haven’t. Although I’ve gotten a few willy-nillys and a holy mackerel and—”

“I’ve never said holy mackerel and you know it,” he interrupted me, and I laughed.

“Oh yes you have; it was when I was going to throw away the moth-eaten blanket that was on the back of the couch in the living room. You launched into this tirade about how it was an authentic Adirondack woolen blanket, extremely rare for California, as they were typically found in upstate New York, from the old camps where wealthy families would go to escape the heat of Manhattan and Philadelphia and Boston at the turn of the last century, and that we couldn’t possibly throw it away. That it would be akin to trashing Americana as we know it,” I said, snorting a little at the end.

There was a long pause.

“You have a stunning memory, Vivian,” he finally said, a hint of humor in his voice. I’d been worried I’d hurt his feelings.

“Sometimes I do, I suppose. About some things.”

I switched positions on the bed, getting more comfortable. “So, chess team, huh? Tell me more about that.”

“What did you just do? You sound different,” he said.

“I just turned around in bed, I had my feet up against the wall before.”