He flushed and stammered a bit before turning from Chris and back to me, looking vaguely stunned. “What? Uh, no, not yet. I’m running every day until the opportunity presents itself though. Now that the apartment is almost done…”
“Running?” I asked, unable to resist baiting him. What can I say? I’d been bored this week. “Won’t you sweat? What if he doesn’t like sweat?”
“Well, I’ll…I’ll…I guess I could just stand near where he crosses and start running when I see him. Maybe bump into him or something.”
I grinned, having successfully diverted his attention from Chris. “Good plan. Let me know how it goes.”
Chris watched this conversation with vague curiosity. “I’ll explain later,” I mouthed behind Adair’s back.
Adair’s phone beeped and he glanced quickly at the screen. “Katya,” he said. “Wants to know what I’m bringing home for dinner.” He sniffed toward the kitchen then grinned at Chris. “Maybe Angelo’s. It’s one of my favorites.”
I rolled my eyes.
Chris grinned, still oblivious. “Mine, too.”
Adair departed and Chris dished up the meal that, despite my sulkiness, smelled heavenly. Vertigo did nothing to diminish my appetite, though it had, on a couple of occasions, diminished the volume of food in my stomach shortly after eating it.
“What was that all about?” Chris called from the counter behind me.
“Adair’s in lust,” I said, eyeing the suitcase across the room and wondering how long it would actually take me to pack, and whether my time was better spent packing or lying on the couch praying for miraculous healing.
“With who?”
“Some bizarre guy we see in the park when we run.” I frowned as I suddenly envisioned the atrophying of my muscles from lack of exercise. All the more reason to rise and walk—or run, as the case may be. But, as usual, the room spun the moment I tried to move. Maybe a little more rest would be good. I closed my eyes again.
Chris came into the living room, bringing with him a smell that brought my eyes open. He handed me a plate heaped with cheesy lasagna and herbed garlic bread. My mouth watered in response. “Is that what brought on Adair’s wardrobe overhaul?”
I nodded, my mouth already full of the best Italian food in the city.
Chris plopped down beside me and turned on the news. We ate silently for several minutes, benignly observing the daily New York news—which included a cat who gave birth to a litter of kittens on the tracks under the F train and a man who was crushed to death when the shelves housing his yo-yo collection collapsed—until we were both full and sated.
“Thanks.” I set my plate on the coffee table. “I needed that. Probably like a hole in the head, since I can’t go run off the two thousand calories I just ate.”
Chris laughed and carried the plates to the kitchen. I heard him scraping and rinsing them, before he returned to join me. “You realize you’re on KP for about a month, once you can stand.”
I glanced up at him, startled. “I’m not planning on being here that long, am I?”
He shrugged. “Got any other plans?”
My eyes shifted to the suitcase on the floor, knowing I would have a fight on my hands.
Chris followed my gaze. “What’s that?”
“My suitcase.”
“Going somewhere?” His face told me he knew exactly where I thought I was going, and he wasn’t happy about it.
I stood up to prove I was fine and that I was going on this trip, no matter what he said. To my surprise, the room stayed still. Ha! Maybe Angelo’s lasagna contained some miraculous healing power. Magic oregano maybe?
“I’m leaving in two days.” I moved confidently over to the boxes to continue my packing.
“No, you’re not. You can’t drive.”
“I’m fine,” I argued. “Look.” To prove my point, I grabbed a handful of underwear and threw them into the suitcase. Half of them landed on the floor next to the suitcase. Apparently equilibrium affected aim, too.
Chris stared at them for a moment then cocked a grin. “So that’s what your underwear looks like.”
I squatted down quickly to pick them up. “Stop looking.” I swayed a bit, but my balance held. Maybe it would be okay after all.
“You can’t drive, Margo. You’ll kill someone.”
“Yes, I can. And, no, I won’t.” I reached for more clothes. “How hard can it be to sit in the car all day? It’s not like I’ll be walking all that much at first. By the time I get to Graceland, I’m sure it’ll be gone.”
“You can’t drive. You can barely stand.”
I opened my mouth to contradict him again, and Chris lunged for me. “Boo!”
I jumped and the walls billowed like sails in the wind. The next thing I knew, I was on my ass on the floor, gripping my head in both hands, willing the lasagna to stay in my stomach.
“What the hell was that for?” I asked, once I could open my eyes again.
Chris towered over me, hands on hips. “Trying to scare some sense in you. Though I’m beginning to think that’s impossible. You’re the most hard-headed woman I know.”
He walked away and I stuck my tongue out at his back.
“I saw that.”
I groaned and decided, while I was on the floor anyway, I should probably take the opportunity to fold the clothes overflowing my suitcase. I was going on this trip. No one could stop me.
“Did you get the invitation to your mother’s wedding today?”
I nodded then realized he couldn’t see me from the kitchen. “Yeah. Adair brought my mail over from the other apartment.”
“Do you have your tickets yet?”
“What tickets?”
“Your airline tickets to the wedding.”
“Why would I buy airline tickets when I’ll be driving?” Shit. I hadn’t meant to remind him I’d be there in time for the wedding.
He wandered back to the living room. “So you are going.”
I dropped a half-folded shirt into my lap. “What part of ‘I’m not going’ don’t you understand?”
He lowered himself to the couch, where he stared at me through narrowed eyes. Finally he spoke. “How much do you want to go on this trip?”
I placed the newly folded shirt in the suitcase and picked up another before turning my most charming smile on my best friend. “I’m going on the trip and that’s final. I’m not going to the wedding, and that’s final. I don’t care if the interview takes place in the church…during the ceremony.”
“Let me rephrase the question. How much do you want to live through this trip?”
“Ha, ha.”
“I’m not kidding,” Chris said, suddenly pissed off. “Hell, you can’t even walk down the hall without clipping the walls. And what if you have a dizzy spell while on the highway? What if you hit someone because you can’t tell up from down? What if you kill someone?”
I dropped my hands into my lap and stared at them. Deep inside I knew he was right, but giving up this trip felt like defeat. It felt like, if I skipped this trip, I’d never get my act together, never get another job, never put the pieces of my perfect life back in place. I’d originally thrown out the idea for this vacation just to annoy my best friend, and now it somehow seemed like a matter of life and death. However, it wasn’t worth taking someone else’s life.
“How much do you want to go on this trip?” Chris repeated, leaning back and resting his hands on his thighs.
“Stop asking me that!” I shouted. “You know I want to go. And you know, just like I do—” I tossed the shirt, still in a rumpled ball, back into the suitcase, “—that I can’t.” I sagged against the stack of boxes and willed myself not to cry.
“Are you willing to go to your mother’s wedding, if it means you can go on your trip?”
I looked up. “What does one have to do with the other? If I can’t go on my trip, I’d have to fly to California for the wedding, which still means no trip.”
“What if I
drove you?”
“You mean like a surrogate?”
“A what?” He cringed like I said an ugly word. Like vagina.
“A surrogate. Driver, that is. Adair mentioned it.”
Chris shook his head. “Whatever. I just meant that I have to go to L.A. anyway, for business…and for the wedding.”
“You’re really going?”
“So are you, if you want me to drive you halfway across the country on some Fanatical About Elvis tour.”
“Dedicated to Elvis.”
“Whatever,” he repeated, rolling his eyes. “So, are you going to the wedding, or staying here and pouting—and putting a cramp in my love life—until you’re healed and can get your lazy butt back to work?”
I frowned. The idea of going to my mother’s wedding was possibly more depressing than missing the trip. I looked over at my Elvis bobblehead, sitting motionless on the coffee table among Chris’s sports magazines and business journals. This might be my only chance to see Graceland.
Where I could pretend all my problems didn’t exist…if only for a few days.
I bit my lip and looked back at Chris. “You hate Elvis.”
“I’ll adjust.”
“I’m touring Graceland and Graceland Too. I’m staying at the Heartbreak Hotel. I’m eating fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. I’m going to the Elvis-A-Rama Museum in Vegas.” With each sentence, Chris’s lip curled a bit more. I took no pity. “I’m going to see a show with Elvis impersonators.”
Chris’s nod was slow and painful.
“I’m serious. If you drive, you have to remember this is my vacation. You’ll have to live and breathe Elvis.”
“I’ll…suffer through it. Literally.”
I sighed. “Okay.”
Chris grinned. “Now, for my rules. We’ll take my Jeep, not that SUV thing you rented.”
“But the SUV is bigger.”
Chris raised a warning eyebrow at me.
“Fine.”
“I get to do some things I want on this trip.”
“Okay. Whatever.”
“You’ll go to the wedding. No fuss?”
I took a deep breath. “No fuss.”
“And you’ll wear whatever dress your mother picks for you, no matter how lacy it is?”
I threw a pair of socks at him. “Don’t push it.”
Chris smiled. “I don’t want you to miss your trip.”
“You don’t want me to stay here any longer, keeping you from having sex.”
“That, too. The sooner you get Elvis out of your system, the faster you can get back to your life. Which means I can get back to mine.”
“Sorry I’ve cramped your style.” I pushed myself up from the floor, deciding the packing could wait until tomorrow morning. Suddenly something occurred to me. “How are you going to take the time off work?”
“I’m the boss. I can do what I want.” He pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number I assumed was Chip’s. While he waited for an answer, he plucked his cordless phone from the side table and tossed it to me. “Call your mother. RSVP for the both of us.”
Well, gee, that just about took all the joy out of going on the trip after all.
Chapter Seven
“I Need Somebody To Lean On”
Chris leaned on the horn impatiently—which had about as much effect as the honking of every other vehicle in Manhattan—warning me he was ready to leave. I’d remembered something in the apartment I needed to get.
Ten minutes later—slowed down by the vertigo—I arrived back at the car and slipped into my seat. I reached up and slapped my Elvis bobblehead on the dashboard. I’d rigged him up with Velcro so he’d stick.
“What the hell is that?” Chris asked, staring at it like he’d never seen it before in his life.
“Elvis. My good-luck charm.”
“Good luck, my ass!” He grabbed it and started to heave it into the rear recesses of the car, but I stopped him with a quick hand. My reflexes weren’t totally gone.
“Put. Him. Back.”
“In. Your. Dreams.”
“Chris, you said this was my trip.”
“This is my Jeep. Jeeps don’t have Elvis bobbleheads on the dash.”
“This one does.” I reached up with my other hand and removed Elvis from the clutches of The King Hater and stuck him back on the dash. “Touch him and die.”
“Big threat,” he shot back, but he put the car in gear and pulled out into traffic without trying to dethrone Elvis again. Although he did tend to slam on the brakes in a purposeful way, trying to dislodge Elvis from his position on the dashboard. He wasn’t successful and after a while gave up.
The traffic, of course, was hideous at this hour of the morning. It’s hideous at any hour in the city. By the time we drove through the Lincoln Tunnel and into New Jersey, I’d discovered riding in a car was hell on vertigo symptoms. I finally gave up and closed my eyes, resting my head back on the seat.
“Dizzy?” Chris asked, with a smile I could hear.
Not willing to concede weakness this early in the trip, I lied. “No, just tired. I didn’t sleep well. You need a new couch.”
“I need to not have a guest on my couch that was meant for sitting, not sleeping.”
I ignored him. “When are we going to get there?”
“In about nine hours. Want to drive?”
I groaned and glared at him through slitted eyes. Long car trips, at least when you weren’t occupied by driving, were boring as hell. Without thinking, I reached over and punched the seek button on the radio until it stopped on WKUP. For a moment, it sounded like any other jazz radio station. Music was music in any language. But, when the DJ came on, completely unintelligible to English-speaking listeners, it hit me that WKUP Wake Up Country was gone. Forever.
“Miss it?” Chris always picked up on my mood.
“I’ll be back.” I repeated the phrase I’d used on my listeners two short weeks ago. “One door closed but another will open.” Stupid cliché, I know, but I needed to believe it.
“Ever thought of trying another type of station besides country?” Chris made the peace sign at a passing Jeep that looked like it was on steroids, painted with a rainbow of colors, hyped up on monster truck wheels and with enough lights to illuminate a night game at Yankee Stadium.
“I’m not exactly an R&B or hip-hop kind of girl. Easy listening puts me to sleep, and gospel would be kind of blasphemous, don’t you think?”
Chris laughed, but I was serious. Sure, the thought had crossed my mind that it might be easier to settle for a job at another type of radio station. But I dismissed it just as quickly. Jockeying for anything other than a country station made as much sense for me as being a fashion consultant at Bergdorf Goodman.
***
“So, you wanna tell me what happened with you and Kevin?” Chris asked later. We parked Chris’s red Jeep in the parking lot of a Roanoke, Virginia, campground late that afternoon and donned our packs for the hike up to a camping spot Chris swore he’d been to before, but which looked to be beyond civilization. I took him at his word, only because I had no other choice.
The camping was being forced on me by Chris, who wanted to try out a new tent before he stocked it in his store. We’d ship it back to Chip tomorrow, after seeing if it withstood a night in the Virginia hills.
I huffed out a breath as I trudged up the dusty hill behind him, and it wasn’t only from exertion after being confined to a tiny car for nine hours. “Do I have to?”
“It’ll give us something to talk about.”
“How about the weather?”
“How about what you did to make Kevin throw you out with less than a week’s notice?”
At first I didn’t answer. It took all my concentration to keep walking without giving in to the dizziness that had been threatening ever since we got out of the car. I wasn’t quite ready to collapse, but if I gave in even for a moment I would be.
Chris glanced back over his
shoulder, and I straightened up so he wouldn’t see how much of a toll this relatively easy hike was taking on me. “You okay?”
“Fine. Keep walking.”
He turned back and my shoulders sagged again. I desperately wanted to ask how much farther.
“So? Spill.”
Giving up, I answered the question. He’d find out soon enough anyway. Actually, considering the size of the mouths on all my friends, I was surprised he didn’t know already. I took a deep breath and blurted it out. “He asked me to marry him.”
Chris stopped so fast, I ran into the back of him.
“Geez.”
He grabbed my shoulders to steady me, but I moved away quickly, sucking it up.
“Marry him?”
I made a face and played it casual by reaching up and taking my ponytail out, making a big production of nonchalantly redoing it. “Yeah. Can you believe anything so stupid?”
“You obviously said no.”
“Of course, I said no! I’m not my mother.”
I turned and led the way up the path myself, assuming Chris would tell me when to stop.
“So what brought this on?” He caught up to me and took my arm as we climbed over a fallen tree.
I shook him off. “Heck if I know. One day everything was perfect and the next he told me we needed to go house hunting and get married. Then,” I said, halting in the middle of the path, causing Chris to run into me, “when I said no, he became this raving lunatic. He didn’t like my clothes. He didn’t like my job. He didn’t like Elvis.”
“Can’t say I disagree with him there.”
I slugged him in the stomach and continued walking. Obviously I didn’t hit him hard enough, because he followed.
“The point is, we’ve been together for more than two years, and he never said anything about any of that stuff. Then, when I don’t agree with the change of game plan, he goes off about how childish I am and how it’s time I got a real job. I mean, if he felt that way, why was he with me in the first place?”
The Kiss Test Page 9