22. Chapter 22
Lindsey jolted as if shaken awake. The plaid ceiling was the first thing to come into focus.
She sat straight up. The gauzy haze of a dream dissipated as she stared at the back of Jase’s head.
He was behind the wheel of the Country Squire, Graham was sleeping against the passenger door, and Elvis was singing a melancholy song on the tape stuck in the deck.
They were all tired of Elvis, but when the buttons for FM didn’t work—which was most of the time—the King played them tirelessly across the miles.
Elvis. He had been in the dream, and…
Jason.
She reached for the red journal and scribbled down the details she remembered.
He had been as young as he was in the Polaroids, and a perfect melding of his sons.
Hair the same dishwater blond as Graham’s, only straight and windblown off his forehead like Jase’s.
Tall with broad shoulders and a solid frame.
There was a twinkle in his eyes Lindsey recognized from her own memories, a playful challenge to accept his hand for a dance on the patio of his old stone house.
He smelled the way she remembered, a smoky mix of bourbon, cigars, and aftershave.
The scent of a leading man. She didn’t know why the thought occurred to her or if it came first in the dream or after, but it was true—Jason was a leading man.
If Lindsey still wrote what she wanted to, not what had been required for school, Jason Sr. would’ve inspired her pen across the page.
In the dream, a black dress trailed around her knees as he twirled and dipped her and brought her up to his chest.
“Where were you when I was young?” she had laughed. “I would’ve been in so much trouble.”
“So would I. It’s not me you want, kid. It’s the love. I know how to do it.” He spun her out then wound her into his chest and put his mouth to her ear. “And you want to be loved hard.”
Lindsey looked up from her last words on the page. With one foot still in the dream, the heat of Jason’s breath warmed her skin.
“You awake back there?” Jase asked. “Mind checking the map?”
She closed the journal and reached for the map lying open on the seat.
Out her car window, the ocean lapped brown, frothy waves onto the shore.
Once they hit the coast, the map’s black line hugged the ocean, slowing them down through every seaside town.
Pascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport. Lindsey talked Jase down I-10, across bridges, to the clogged streets of the French Quarter.
Graham woke up after Jase hit the brakes for a mob of people cutting through traffic, too busy drinking out of tall plastic cups to notice the giant teal wagon rocking to a hard stop behind them.
They followed Jason’s route to a park on the Mississippi River and left the car for the briny, sweltering air to take their picture overlooking the water.
A riverboat rolled lazily by, lit up for passengers on a dinner cruise.
Lindsey leaned on the railing at the water’s edge and studied the Polaroid of Jason and his wife from that place.
His smile reached through the ages like the apparition haunting her dream.
He was wrong about this trip. They couldn’t recreate his travels, no matter how exactly they followed his instructions.
Not when Graham didn’t even put his arm around Lindsey in the photo they snapped themselves.
If Graham couldn’t love her hard, it was already over.
Someone touched her arm. She turned away from the water and Jase asked, “You coming?”
Graham was already in the car. Lindsey would not sit alone at the hotel tonight. She didn’t care if Graham never said a word to her. New Orleans was loud enough to drown out his indifference.