Saint and Scholar

by Holley Trent

  “Hey, sweetie, I couldn’t keep your little rendezvous with the Irishman a secret from our Meggie,” Sharon said. “Meggie’s not too pleased.”

  “That so, Meg?”

  “Um, yes. Talking each other out of Very Bad Ideas is the cornerstone of our friendship, remember?”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Sharon dissented. “We’ve also talked each other into some Very Bad Ideas. Remember Otto?”

  “Look, I said I was sorry about Otto. Spike vouched for him.”

  Carla held her tongue and busied herself with rolling up camisoles.

  Sharon scoffed.

  “Look, it’s a trip I probably would have taken anyway, but this way I won’t have to fly alone. He’s trustworthy, right? He’s a freaking professor. Well, he is now anyway.”

  It was Megan’s turn to scoff. “Right. So was James Moriarty and he was a criminal genius. Oh! And he was Irish, too, right?”

  Sharon didn’t get the reference, having been a communications major and not particularly interested in mystery fiction during college. Megan told her to visit her local library and to spend some time with Sir Doyle’s extensive backlist.

  “You’re overreacting,” Carla mumbled with her mouth turned away from the mic.

  “No, you’re underreacting,” Megan sniped. “Did you have sex with him?”

  Carla barked with laughter. “What?”

  “Don’t play coy. I saw the way he was looking at you at the club.”

  “Explain,” Sharon said, putting her face closer to the camera of her laptop to better emphasize her arched brow.

  “Sharon, he was looking at her like she was a dripping ice cream cone that needed a lick.”

  “Ooh!”

  “Oh, he was not!” Carla balked.

  “You just didn’t notice what he was doing when he wasn’t sucking your face.”

  “Meg, baby,” Sharon crooned, “if memory serves me correctly, didn’t you fail level two composition the first time through? Who taught that?”

  Meg blanched, which was an impressive feat for someone as pale as she was. “Uh, I gotta go. Spike’s calling.” Suddenly, a third of the conference split screen went black.

  Carla and Sharon stared at each other, then burst into laughter. “Call or text me at least three times per day while you’re there,” Sharon demanded.

  Carla shook her head. “Once I land, I’m not even going to turn my phone on. I’m not paying those ridiculous international rates.”

  “Then pick up a cheap prepaid phone when you get there and let me know the number. I’ll call you. That’s what I ended up doing in Australia.”

  “I’ll try to remember.”

  “You’d better. What does your mother think of the trip?”

  Carla suddenly became concerned with the state of her cuticles.

  “You didn’t tell her either?”

  “No. And I won’t.”

  “Wow, you’re an awful daughter.”

  “Honey, it’s complicated. Right now I’m upset with my mom about a lot of things. Anything she would have to say on the subject would probably perturb me. I’m twenty-five. If I want to throw myself into the mouth of a shark, I think that’s my right.”

  “Look, sweetie, you know how I feel about the situation. Just practice safe sex. I wouldn’t want you to fly over for a week and end up stuck on a sunless island, barefooted with a gaggle of pale Catholic children swarming you in a small kitchen and not giving you time to piss in peace. I mean, unless that’s what you want. That’s cool, too.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, don’t mind me,” Sharon said, wearing an oddly blank expression. “I’m just rambling.”

  * * * *

  Carla hadn’t been joking about her temper. She picked Grant up early Monday morning looking fresh as a daisy and chatted amiably about her excitement for the trip. Then some kid in a pickup truck cut her off on I-40, nearly clipping one of her headlights as it angled into her lane.

  “Is he fucking kidding me?” she asked no one in particular while pounding the steering wheel.

  “I don’t think he did it on purpose, love.”

  She blew out a breath and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “Right.”

  He spoke too soon. The truck driver slowed to well beneath the speed limit and rolled down his window to wave back at her.

  “I stand corrected,” Grant said.

  “These people drive like they want to die, and frankly I don’t want to go down with them.” As soon as she was able, she darted into the left lane and caught up to the truck to initiate a two-mile long shouting match through the closed windows.

  The truck exited the highway, and her sense of shame obviously reactivated because her face blushed scarlet. If Grant wasn’t so concerned with his physical well-being at the moment, he would have thought her humiliation was charming.

  “Sorry. Pet peeve.”

  “Are you typically this ferocious while driving?”

  “Only when the shit-for-brains element is on the road.”

  “So, yes.”

  “Yes.”

  While her road rage colored in an aspect of her personality he didn’t anticipate, her argument with her brother Ashley, who’d phoned as they pulled into the airport’s long-term parking lot, left him befuddled.

  She got out of the car and stormed off into the crowded lot with the phone, yelling into it in what Grant suspected was very vulgar Italian. He lingered in the passenger seat, rubbing his chin with bemusement at her Jekyll and Hyde transformation. She had tried to warn him, but he hadn’t thought it possible for someone so retiring to have such a sharp tongue. He wasn’t sure whether to feel sorry for Ashley on the receiving end on her tirade, or worry that he’d be its next victim. If he was next, would he argue back like Ashley did or just take the tongue-lashing? They hadn’t established their dynamic yet. What would she expect from him? Fiery passion or for him to concede?

  Grant pushed the thoughts aside as she made her way back. She didn’t look angry as much as worried.

  He reached across the seats and unlatched the trunk. They walked in silence toward the shuttle stop and stood next to their bags in quiet for a while.

  Without looking at him, she said, “Well, I’m having a gold star morning.”

  He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. She started to cry.

  “Uh oh, what’s wrong, love?”

  She buried her face into his chest. “You must think I’m off my meds.”

  “No, I don’t.” He stroked the back of her loose hair and rocked her as they stood. A clump of people approached the stand, but he focused on his shaken sweetheart. “We’re still in the learning stage, right?”

  She wiped her eyes with the heels of her palms. “I’m sorry. For everything that I am, I’m first and foremost Southern. We Southern girls are only allowed to fall apart in private.” She lowered her voice to a whisper as an older couple settled into the shuttle shelter with them. “It’s just that Ashley thinks that since my dad died he and Tony have the right to tell me what I can and can not do.”

  “How’d he find out?” The shuttle approached, so he picked up her carry-on and waited as she put her arm through the straps.

  “Don’t know. Only two people knew I was coming: Sharon and Meg. Meg is surly, but she’s not a tattler. Sharon is the pro-Grant one of the two.”

  Well, glad to know I have at least one advocate.

  “If you’re having second thoughts, I’ll understand. I know things are moving sort of fast.” He said it, and as soon as the words came out of his mouth he regretted them. He would certainly understand her hesitance but he would not encourage them putting the brakes on what he had waited so long to spark. She’d be scared enough when she found out just how quickly he wanted to buckle her down.

  She stabbed her index finger at his chest and furrowed her brow. “I’ll tell you if things are too fast.” She made absolute eye contact when she was angry, and she obviously was. The blue in h
er eyes looked like the Caribbean being thrashed by a tropical storm.

  “Oh, you’re looking at me for once.” He bent in close to her ear and whispered, “Is there an Off button to that fury, or do I have to figure out a way to ride it all the way to Ireland?” Angry sex actually sounded pretty good, especially since he knew the first time wouldn’t last long. It might as well be rough.

  Carla backed off him a bit and smiled. “I don’t scare you?”

  They held back until the other people under the shelter dragged their bags onto the bus.

  “Yes, you scare me,” he admitted.

  When they were seated in the vacant rear with their bags at their feet, he reached over and squeezed her thigh. “You scare the hell out of me. I had an idealized version of you in my head for the longest time.”

  She scoffed. “And you’ve figured out I’m not it?”

  “Yes, but perhaps my ideals have changed.”

  “Are you that mercurial? Change your mind easily?”

  “Are you implying I’m not selective, love?”

  “No, Grant, I’m implying you might be a little nuts if you still want me after seeing that. That…” She shook her head and choked out a dry laugh. “That discussion with Ashley was only about sixty percent of it. When I get really angry it’s like I’m possessed. I snap out of it sometimes and have no idea what I was even arguing about.” She grimaced and started to twiddle her thumbs. “Tony calls them tantrums.”

  Tony obviously hadn’t seen a real tantrum, then. Fran was a master. He entwined his fingers between Carla’s. “Tony obviously lacks a sense of self-preservation.”

  “As do you.”

  “Nah, I’ve got one. It tells me to try not to piss you off. My da’s not exactly a scholar, but he taught me one important lesson about successful marriages.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To shut up and wait.”

  * * * *

  During the first leg of the trip between RDU and JFK, Carla was squashed near the rear lavatory between an elderly woman who needed to keep climbing out from her window seat to go to the bathroom and a man at the aisle who was so tall he spent most of the flight with his legs in her space. She started to feel boxed in, especially knowing Grant was up in first class and probably luxuriating with his long legs stretched out. To make matters worse, the man chatted nonstop and had actually propositioned her. She resorted to closing her eyes and counting backward in her head down from twenty repeatedly until the damned plane finally landed. He tried to interrupt her meditation once more, but the look she gave him was nasty enough that he didn’t try it again.

  When they landed in New York, Grant was waiting at the front of the plane for her. He relieved her of her backpack, grabbed her hand, and pulled her off at a sprint to the counter at their next gate, in a completely different terminal approximately two galaxies away.

  “What’s the hurry? We’ve got a four-hour layover!” Carla panted as he pulled her around a woman on crutches.

  Grant had barely broken a sweat. “I know that,” he said in an even voice without slowing down. The guy was in shape, a refreshing change for her. Otto hadn’t been able to get up two flights of stairs without wheezing, thanks to cigarettes and numerous other unhealthful lifestyle choices that went along with being a member of a rock band. “We need to change your ticket before all the travelers who haven’t been assigned seats check in. Not flying all the way to Ireland sitting on two different ends of the plane. Did you not watch Lost?”

  “Um…actually…”

  She didn’t have a chance to finish, because they were already at their gate.

  He put their tickets on the counter. “Is first class full on this flight?”

  The attendant shook her head. “No, but coach is oversold. We’re going to start bumping passengers soon.”

  “Can you upgrade her ticket, please? I’ll pay whatever it costs. I also have some frequent flyer miles that are going to expire soon, if they’re transferrable.”

  “Yup. They are. And the flight back to New York and Raleigh-Durham, too?”

  He stared at the attendant for a moment, but said nothing. She didn’t understand the look on his face. It was a yes-or-no question and he’d said himself the miles were available. “Um, yes. The entire itinerary,” he said finally.

  “Okay, Mr. Fennell. Oh, your ticket’s one-way. You coming back by yourself, hon?” the woman asked, turning to Carla.

  She nodded.

  His hands tightened their grip on the counter edge so his knuckles went white.

  “Oh, you’re not a couple? You’re real cute together.” Carla’s new ticket spit from the clerk’s printer and she tucked it into a folder.

  “Yes, we’re a couple,” he said testily, taking the tickets back from her. “We all done? All checked in?”

  “Yes, sir. Enjoy your flight.”

  They killed some time in the airport bar until close to boarding time. Carla took a dose of Dramamine with her late lunch and chased it with a stiff drink. She was usually fine with short flights, but knew she would be pushing her luck with a trip longer than a few hours, especially if she wasn’t sitting at the window. The idea of vomiting into a bag next to the smartest, sexiest man she’d ever met fell squarely into the category of too much too soon.

  He swirled a strong drink of his own, but was really only sipping it. “Carla, tell me about your dad,” he’d suggested after refusing her offer to share her fries.

  She pulled her long hair free of the chair back and twirled it into a quick, messy bun. “Well, I don’t really know how to describe him. He just seemed to be there all the time and I took it for granted.”

  “That’s funny coming from someone who draws faces for a living, huh?”

  She laughed. “Well, I can tell you what he looked like. That’s easy. Here.” She extracted her leather wallet from her backpack and dug a photograph out of one of the credit card slots. “That was at my high school graduation.”

  He studied the photo for a minute and handed it back to her. “He looks kind.”

  “Yeah, he was.” She leaned back against the booth bench and looked up at the ceiling while she thought. “He showed up for everything for all three of us kids, even the stuff I don’t remember telling him about. Little things. He was just proud that way, I guess. He tried to be everywhere at once.”

  Grant leaned across the table and folded her hands into his. “Okay, so now I know he was kind and proud. What else?”

  “Well. He was always smiling as if smiling would fix everything.”

  “An optimist?”

  “Maybe. Um, he worked a lot. He owned his own company and also taught trade classes at the community college. He must have been really popular. The school sent a huge floral arrangement to the funeral home.” She felt encouraged by the gentle squeeze of his hands around hers and took a deep, calming breath.

  “Did he have a big family?”

  She shook her head. “No. By the time us kids were born, most of his family was all older folks. He didn’t have any siblings and had only one aunt, who never had children.”

  “I can relate.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. You didn’t have the knucklehead brother blessing.”

  “’Twould be a blessing, I think.”

  “Yeah…I guess in some ways. Anyhow, I think Daddy grew up kind of poor. He never really talked about it, but it was pretty easy to intuit.”

  “I’m sure it’s been tough finding out anything about him now that everyone is gone, huh?”

  “Yeah. If I had a time machine I would go back to one of those lazy days where we sat on the sofa watching bad television programs, and pick his brain. I want to know everything about what made him the man he was. I want sons like him one day.”

  He gave her a curiously blank look she didn’t understand. It was if she’d pushed some button.

  She looked down at her fries. “So…what about your mom? What was she like?”

  Grant freed his hands a
nd worked the toothpicks out of his club sandwich. “Dad always said she was the prettiest girl in the county and she only would have him because she felt sorry for him.” He shook his head and chuckled as he picked up a wedge of his sandwich. “The truth was they were just good for each other. She didn’t take any of his shit and he put her up on a pedestal for it. I could never get anything by her. She was a real taskmistress, but she was very giving with her affection. I could tell her anything.”

  She pushed her coleslaw around on her plate. “What would you tell her about me?”

  He chewed thoughtfully for a few moments and set down his sandwich. “I’d tell her…I’d tell her I waited a long time for you and that you have yet to disappoint me.” He gave her an expression that dared her to look away.

  She didn’t. She noticed that the more time she spent with him, the darker his mood seemed to turn. He wasn’t altogether cheerless, but something had changed between the two of them and she didn’t know him well enough to peg what it was. When he didn’t immediately go back to eating and sat staring at her, she stood, leaned across the table to give him a sweet, short kiss, and excused herself to the restroom.

  She locked herself in a stall and dialed Meg.

  “Change your mind about going?” Meg asked upon answering. “Where are you, New York? Not too late to come home, you know.”

  “No, I haven’t changed my mind yet. I just wanted to ask you something.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Did you tell Ashley I was going to Ireland? He was really pissed.”

  “Nope. I haven’t talked to Ashley since Tony’s wedding.”

  Carla knew who her culprit was then. “Okay, another question.”

  “What? And do I hear toilets flushing?”

  “Yes. Um, how can you tell if you’re meant to be with someone?”

  “Well, for starters–”

  “I’m serious, Meg. Put your personal opinions about Grant aside, because you don’t know him. Speak in generalities.”