Part 17 (1/2)
One of the phrases they had drilled into him in anger management cla.s.ses had been, ”Live in the now.” An empty catchphrase that had no meaning other than hippie, feel-good bulls.h.i.+t. Until that very moment.
With Emmy he finally understood. Nothing else mattered but being with her. The past and its demons, the future and its worries, all of it fell away when he saw her laugh when they discovered a waterfall along the side of the highway. He had held her hand as they picked their way to the top of the cliff and found themselves on a plateau overlooking the Delaware Valley, the only people for miles around.
J. made love to her alongside the stream, her cries drowned out by the rush of the water, and nothing else had mattered except her. If he stopped paying attention to the glory of his present, he might miss something: the way her cheeks flushed cherry-red when she was excited. The way her hair fell in tumultuous waves down her back and curled tighter and tighter in the heat and humidity. The way she looked at him as he moved above her, her blue eyes wide, her raspberry lips parted as she cried out his name. The past was drowned out, the future was muted. Being with Emmy was what it meant to live in the now.
”Are you okay?” Emmy looked at him expectantly. The waitress was poised with her pencil and pad, her drawn in eyebrows raised at him.
J. looked down at his menu. They had eaten at this diner for every meal for the past four days. He could probably have recited it back to the waitress. ”Burger, medium rare please. With mushrooms and Swiss.”
”The usual,” the waitress nodded and gave him a ghost of a grin. ”You know the grilled chicken is pretty good, and better for your heart.”
Emmy raised her eyebrows and nodded, but J. shook his head. ”I like the burger. Thanks.” He snapped his menu closed and handed it to the waitress who gave a disaffected grunt and left.
”Is the burger really that good? I'll have to try it.” Emmy peeled back the paper on her soda straw. There was something different about her small hands today, but he couldn't place it.
”It's alright,” J. shrugged, looking out the window onto the highway.
The diner was not in the pretty part of town that catered to tourists. They were surrounded by locals; farmers plowing through huge plates of food after a hard day in the fields, and truckers searching for something a bit more like home than a rest area off the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The parking lot was huge, shared by a strip mall full of down on their luck secondhand stores and a garishly decorated p.a.w.n shop.
”Then why do you keep ordering it?” Emmy pressed. She had ripped the paper down into little pieces that now snowflaked the table top. J. watched her nervous little hands fondly.
”Because,” he replied slowly, trying to figure it out at the same time he explained it. ”I ordered it the first time we came here.” She looked up at him, a hint of a smile playing along her lips. ”So it feels lucky to me.”
Her smile widened. She took one of his hands into hers. It took two of them to cover his ma.s.sive palm.
”I don't want anything to change, either.” She nodded towards their entwined hands. ”That's why I did it.”
”Did what?”
She turned her hand over flat on the table. ”I p.a.w.ned it.”
Once he saw the blank s.p.a.ce on her ring finger, he wondered how he hadn't noticed it immediately. The huge, blinking diamond that she wore like a leaden weight on her hand was gone.
”You did what?”
”While you were waiting for our table for us.” Her eyes shone excitedly and two pinpoints of color flamed in her cheeks. ”I didn't go to the bathroom, I ran across the parking lot.” She grabbed his hand again. ”Now we can stay here longer. Now we don't have to leave and go back.”
J. stared at her hand, dumbstruck. ”Is, is your fiance,” he cleared his throat as she looked at him sharply. ”Is Robert going to care?”
She tossed her head angrily and took back her hand. ”I don't give a f.u.c.k,” she hissed tightly. ”He gave it to me. He's gone from my life.” She took a sip of her drink, her eyes far away. ”As far as I'm concerned, it's my compensation. Paying me for what I went through.”
J. swallowed and took a sip of his own drink. If it made her feel freer of her past, then it was definitely a good thing that she got rid of the ring. If it helped her move on. But it nipped at J.'s pride to know that she was using the money to pay for their room, his meals, his gas. He slid his hand back over hers, carefully squeezing.
”I'm glad you're free of it.”
She snapped back to focusing on him, her blue eyes lively once more. ”We'll have enough money to stay for a while,” she babbled excitedly. ”In fact, if we're careful maybe we could even use it as a security deposit on a place up here. You know,” she gestured over to the entrance of the diner, ”I saw some apartment guides, it's pretty cheap to live up here. Well, cheaper than Philly anyway. We could put a security deposit down and maybe have enough money to get a few pots and pans or something.” Her eyes gleamed wildly and she clutched his hand. ”A new start, what do you think?” She shook her head, her blonde hair swinging in her face. ”We'd never have to go back.”
The spot of color blazed bright against her pale cheeks and J. ducked his head to avoid her piercing eyes. Just then the waitress arrived with their tray, and the next few minutes of jockeying plates around and removing gla.s.ses gave him time to organize his thoughts.
He took a bite of his mediocre burger, but the magic of its sameness was gone.
”Emmy,” he started, putting it down and wiping his fingers with a napkin. ”What about money? Jobs? I've been wearing the same jeans for five days now.”
She shook her head. ”We'll find something.”
He bit his lip. ”My skills don't really transfer well to the wider market,” he smiled ruefully. ”Plus, haven't you noticed I'm the only black guy in town?”
She furrowed her brow. ”But you have a degree! And it shouldn't matter, the color of your skin. It doesn't to me.”
He touched her hand. ”I wish everyone were like you. But they aren't Em.”
He hoped she would let the degree talk slide. Now wasn't the time for him to have to tell the truth on that lie.
Pressing her lips together, she looked at him furiously for a second and he felt his own anger growing.
”Don't be naive, Emmy,” he spat, more viciously than he meant. ”We can't just f.u.c.king run away from our problems.” He clenched his fist and exhaled, trying to temper his words. ”This has been nice. Wonderful even. But I'm not willing to get run out of my town and my life by some redneck piece of c.r.a.p calling me names.”
She blinked. ”But I don't want to go back to my life.” Her voice was low and dangerous. ”I left everything behind and I don't want to look back.”
”There's a difference between starting over and running away, baby girl.” He tried to find the right words. ”Starting a new life on your terms is a good thing. Getting bullied into running away? That's not something I'm willing to accept.”
”I've lost my appet.i.te,” she replied calmly, her voice high and tight. She stood up from her side of the booth and looked out over the top of his head, rather than meet his eyes. All the fire and life that she had shown a minute ago was gone. ”Will you please take me back to our room so that I can lie down?”
He blinked at her, astonished. ”That's it? We're done talking about it? You're just gonna give up?”
”I don't want to fight, please,” she replied primly, her face a mask of tightness.
J. stood up, trembling with rage. ”Don't you give me that bulls.h.i.+t, Emmy,” he hissed. ”I'm not f.u.c.king Robert. Don't you just pretend everything is okay and avoid the issue.”
She snapped her eyes at him and for a moment they blazed in fury that made his heart leap. But then she shook her head and the glazed, faraway look returned. ”I don't want to fight, please,” she repeated. ”I'm tired, I want to lie down.”
J. threw down his napkin. ”f.u.c.king pay the lady then, I ain't doing no dine and dash.”
Emmy placed money on the table. The sight of the bills and the knowledge of how she had acquired them made his anger flame anew. But how would he tell her that if she refused to talk about it?
She only held on to him loosely on the ride back to the Carriage Inn. The wind rushed into the s.p.a.ce between their bodies, making the distance feel greater than it was. It bothered him so much they were practically in the parking lot before he noticed the police cars parked haphazardly in his way, and the guns that were all pointed in his direction.
Chapter 31.
Emmy I wasn't going to get angry. I wasn't going to make a scene in the middle of a diner, no matter how badly I wanted to shriek and rage at J. No, I wasn't going to lose my cool, because if I let down my guard for one second then the tears would start to flow and never stop.
I said I wanted to lie down, the lie springing to my lips to convince me of its truth. Really I didn't want to look at him anymore. Because if I had to look in his face, I would start to believe the truth of what he was saying. That running away was not the answer. That I couldn't just disappear into a new life with him. That he wasn't my savior, no matter how much I now knew I loved him.
I loved him and that was f.u.c.king terrifying. When I loved someone, bad things happened. If I could just get back to the room and pull the covers over my head. If I could just hide in a ball for a while, blanking out the world and pus.h.i.+ng the truth of his words from my head, then maybe I could emerge unscathed.