Chapter Eleven - Paul #3
I see his eyes blur as he takes another drag.
I say it again. “He loved you .”
I don’t know if anyone’s said that to him. It’s not like Pops sat down with me after Mom died and reassured me. It’s not like he said she loved me very much or offered me any sort of comfort. His fingers were gripping the bottle the very next day, his skin sallow, and the ashtray full.
When Jean Valjean died, he left the world loving those around him. A daughter that wasn’t his. A son that wasn’t his. It’s a rule, I think, you can’t die without loving someone before you go.
“And I love you,” I say, so simply, it’s like I could be telling him it’s almost stopped raining, no big deal, I say it to fellas all the time. Pal.
He looks at me, and he doesn’t say it, but I can see it.
Far behind the blue irises there’s a steady warmth.
I never imagined I would say those words in this way, in a place like this, or with someone like him.
I imagined it as something you whisper after you make love, wrapped up in someone’s arms. And he’s just made love to me again, so I need to say it now.
Before I lose my chance. And I feel like I’m growing wings already, and I’ll be lifted into the heavens and gone and he can say he knew me when.
He can say out loud I was his pal and keep the rest locked inside his heart.
He kisses me. He kisses me for a long time, long after the rain has stopped, and it gets hot under the horse blanket.
My fingers are on his face, trying to memorize every ridge of bone, every curve of flesh, trying to take it all in because this could be the very last time, and it seems he knows what I’m doing because he does it too.
The two of us trying to etch each other in our memories, in this time, in this place.
Because he can’t promise me a thing, and I can’t ask for anything else.
Because we both know I’m never going to let him go.
The bus station stinks of gasoline and rubber.
It’s bustling for a weekday and it wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so hot. The grass outside of his farmhouse was starting to get crunchy, and his brother’s hand was sweating when he gave me a fond farewell.
It’s as if we’ve taken a long walk and come to a cul-de-sac. Problem is, the road disappeared behind us as we moved along. There isn’t much you can do when you can’t retrace your own steps.
I clutch Aunt Amy’s suitcase in one hand, her Tupperware in the other. His mother washed it out, gave it back to me, with the same blue eyes he has, a dishtowel slung over one shoulder. I ponder on the kindness of strangers, of hospitality, of long journeys that circle back.
His arms brace against a metal railing. He makes some remark about one of the buses, about the drivers, what a job that would be.
Part of me wants to just go now, just get this part over with, so I can have my time to mourn alone.
The other part of me wants him to take me somewhere, ride off into the sunset, to a lakeside cabin where memories and love are made.
Now that I’ve told him, my shoulders feel unburdened.
My throat feels clear. I think even the stars will shine brighter tonight.
I don’t have any expectations or delusions about what he can share with me.
What he can say, what he can feel. It’s enough to know that he has something of mine that he can keep for always.
But I want to know the obvious. “Are you going to come back?”
His eyes roam all over the bus station. “I don’t know.”
I nod and push my glasses up my sweating face. “Can I write you sometimes? Just every so often?”
“If you want.” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
My bus is going to leave in a minute, and so this is how it happens then.
It isn’t anybody’s fault either. It just happens like this.
His brother will need help with all that land, I know.
And he wants to talk to them, that’s what he said on the way here.
He wants to talk to them about his older brother and why he left.
He said he’s worried they’ll be angry with him, that they’ll blame him, and I told him they won’t.
They’ll see what I see. Someone loved him just enough, at just the right time.
I look up at him and the affection he can’t blatantly show me in the middle of the bus station is there. He’s holding me close, saying how much he’ll miss me, how much he wishes he could make promises, but there’s only hope.
It’s enough.
“I need to go now,” I say.
The toe of his shoe bumps against mine, rubs, and I press the toe of my shoe into his.
His eyes flicker with a longing that I know he can see in me too.
This is the best we can do, though, the best we can manage.
I don’t think anyone would look twice if I hugged him, but I won’t just hug him and if we touch any more than this my bus will leave, the place will close down, and we’ll still be two fellas embracing each other like life rafts in the open sea.
“Well. Goodbye,” I say.
“Have a safe trip.”
And then I turn to go. I get on the bus. I take my seat. A cul-de-sac behind me, circling back to another beginning.
I gave him all I could. And maybe, just maybe, it was exactly enough.
One month later.
I get the counter wiped off, pushing crumbs into my palm.
There are a couple drips of milkshake left down at the end and then I’ll be done. Except there are still two couples hitting the same song on the jukebox that they’ve been playing all night. If I must hear the Del-Vikings for the eleventh time, I at least want to be halfway out the door.
“All right, you kids, let’s move on along now,” Mr. Meriwether says, as he comes around from the back.
The foursome rolls their eyes and one of the fellas says it’s only nine o’clock. Don’t we close at ten?
Mr. Meriwether opens the cash register and says the store stays open till ten.
Soda fountain closes up at nine. I’ve noticed he just makes up things as he goes along.
It’s just because he can. The soda fountain closes when he’s too tired to deal with teenagers anymore, or it stays open when there’s a mad rush like after a baseball game two nights ago.
It was little league, and they spun around on the stools until they got dizzy and one kid vomited up a cream soda and yours truly had to mop it up.
“You wanna go see a picture?” one of the guys suggests, his buzz cut accentuating the sharp angles of his face.
“Sure!” the girls say in unison, but the other fella, who’s wearing a tie pulled loose by his date, makes a face.
“Let’s just go over to the park.” His eyes get wide and his brows waggle.
“Gee, I gotta be home by nine-thirty,” says one of the girls with a pout.
“Since when?” Waggle Brows asks.
Then there’s like this argument, and Mr. Meriwether goes over to the jukebox and emphatically pulls the plug.
They get the hint and bicker all the way to the door and Mr. Meriwether follows, locking it with his big set of keys.
He has keys for everything. A set of keys for each register.
A set of keys for his safe. A set of keys for his office.
A set of keys for his car. A set of keys to open and lock the front door.
Another set to open and lock the back door.
Another set to open a metal box he keeps on his desk.
Another set for each door at his house. And there’s still a few more on the ring I’m not even sure about.
He keeps them all in his pockets and it’s a wonder his pants don’t fall down.
I sweep behind the counter with a push broom, hoping he doesn’t notice I’m just dispersing the crumbs and other bits and not using the dustpan. But he goes back over to the register and pulls out two twenty-dollar bills. He hands them to me.
“What’s this for?” I stop sweeping.
“An advance for the weekend. I don’t need you Sunday. Billy can be here. Why don’t you take your auntie shopping?”
I look down at the money. “She doesn’t really like to shop.”
He glances at me. “A dame that doesn’t like to shop? My word, the world’s gone topsy turvy these days.” He counts out the rest of the cash. “Well, take that and buy yourself something nice then.”
I’ll just give it to Aunt Amy. So far, I’ve given her $150 for my “rent” but she doesn’t like for me to call it that.
Nonetheless, she takes the cash and says she’ll put it in her rainy-day box, no matter how much I insist she use it for her bills or her groceries.
I’ve figured out a way around it, though.
She can’t object when I buy the groceries, and the other night I bought spaghetti.
I tried to make it like my mother did, but it was terrible. Aunt Amy ate it anyway.
Mr. Meriwether gets the cash counted and puts it in a little black bag.
I finish cleaning up, hang up my apron and hat, and bid Mr. Meriwether a good evening.
As I walk home, there’s a chill in the air with the promise of autumn.
I make a mental note to start bringing a jacket with me.
And I think maybe I could get myself something nice, but it’s just an idea.
I don’t really know what I would buy. I read the same books over and over, because I’m worried if I start a new one, I won’t like it, so I won’t finish it.
So then I’ll buy another one, but I won’t finish that one either, and I’ll have all these unfinished books and what will I do with them?
And besides, why go to something new when the old stuff hits the spot?
I keep tick marks of the times I’ve read Les Misérables inside the torn front cover.
I’m on my 157th read. Perhaps I’ll open a bottle of champagne when I get to 160.
But now it’s giving me ideas. They’re practically crawling through my mind like vines, and I write them on Aunt Amy’s little typewriter in the evenings.
Just snippets of things, scenes, and whatnot, and I’m excited to get home to work on another one just brewing.