The Crossroads Duet

by Rachel Blaufeld

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m getting a coffee,” he said with a snarl.

  Concerned that he’d been drinking, I tried to bring my palm up to his face to touch the man who had saved me years before, but he slapped it out of the way with his own rough and heavy hand.

  “AJ, what are you doing to yourself?”

  “I’m getting a coffee, Bess,” he answered, my name coming out long and slurred.

  Narrowing my eyes at him, I crossed my arms over my chest. “You know what I mean.”

  “Why don’t you get me a large coffee to go. And while you’re at it,” he sneered, “you can tell me why you’re working in this shithole of a diner when you have a cushy job over at the WildFlower. You slumming it again? Like when you gave me a whirl in bed?”

  I turned around to the coffeemaker and grabbed a Styrofoam cup, filling it as I willed myself not to cry. I closed my eyes tightly for a moment, pulling air in and out of my nose.

  Whipping back around, I handed AJ the coffee and said, “No charge, it’s on me,” before moving toward the kitchen.

  Once behind the swinging doors, I ignored the light film of grease covering the linoleum floor and slid down to sit on the dirty piece of shit, dropping my head between my knees as I gulped for air.

  I’d picked up a shift or two per week at the diner over the last month, ever since the day Lane left. The emotional bruises were taking much longer to heal than the physical, and I found even one day off work a week was too much time to be alone with my thoughts.

  By chance, I’d hobbled into the diner the morning after Lane ran away, hoping for coffee and a hug from Shirley. She’d been short a waitress, and since I was off work that day, I filled in.

  Sadly, I didn’t do a good job of hiding my injury, and ended up at Doc Riley’s after painfully serving breakfast to locals and tourists who wanted real rural flavor. The gentle gray-haired man assured me that my rib was bruised—not broken—and since I was an addict they preferred not to prescribe pain pills for, I just needed to grin and bear it.

  Shirley had run home and retrieved a hot pack, which she wrapped tightly around my middle with a bandage, and tucked me into bed with a steaming mug of tea and Brooks. Then she’d sat on the side of my bed, stroking my hair as she made false promises that everything would get better.

  Much like she was doing now on the kitchen floor of the diner.

  Shirley slid down next to me. “Come on, girl. He’s a big boy. When he wants help, he’ll get it. No one knows the program better than AJ, honey. He knows we can’t offer him help when he isn’t willing to accept it. I’ve been keeping an eye on him. Me and one of his buddies.”

  My heart breaking, I sniffed back my tears and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Aw, Bess,” she said and grabbed my hand, squeezing my knuckles. “You’ve had so much on your plate, I didn’t want to trouble you any more than I had to. With Lane gone and your side injured and the way you were pushing yourself at your other job—not taking any sick days even when I told you to—I couldn’t let you know about this.”

  I leaned my head against her shoulder. “But it’s my fault. Everything.”

  “This is not your burden, Bess. AJ should have never messed with you; he knew that. You were his responsibility to be there for in times of need, not sex. If he confused it all, that’s on him.”

  “But I participated, Shirl. Ugh, And Lane. He was helpless, flailing in the bed, all tangled up in the sheets, screaming, and I couldn’t even figure out what to do for him. I’m such a failure at anything but this ridiculous life of mine with nothing but work. And it’s not even meaningful work.”

  “There’s nothing you could do for Lane, honey. He just needs time.”

  “How do you know?” I practically wailed. “You’ve never even met him. It seemed pretty final when he walked out . . . ran out with his boots in his hand, his button fly open.”

  “You’ll just have to trust me on this one,” Shirley said as she ran her hand soothingly down my arm. “Go home, sweetie. Get a warm bath, take a rest. I’ll call you later.”

  There was no rest in the cards for me, though, because as I pulled down my gravel drive, I saw a courier waiting for me in front of my house. Slamming my car into park next to his vehicle, I began to wonder how much more I could take today.

  “Can I help you?” I yelled as I walked toward the truck.

  “Delivery, ma’am,” the guy in the uniform said, stepping out of the truck.

  “For who?” I asked foolishly. I didn’t get deliveries except from . . . Lane. This must be a mistake.

  “Bess Williams, is that you? I was told this was your place and instructed to wait for you, make sure your hands touched the package.”

  “That’s me,” I said with a sigh.

  “Great, sign here,” he said, shoving a clipboard at me. Obviously, he was through waiting for me.

  I stood in the driveway, holding the small box with trembling hands until he was gone. Then I opened my door and let Brooks do his business before sinking to the floor for the second time in one day.

  Still wearing my jacket and Nikes, I stretched my legs out in front of me. With my dog’s head resting on my shin, I tore the brown paper wrapping off the box.

  It was a blue box. A Tiffany’s box. I only knew this from watching movies; I’d never been to Tiffany’s in my life. Had never even dreamed of going.

  My heartbeat picked up its already frenetic pace as I tugged at the narrow white satin ribbon, allowing it to fall to the floor like I had done with the airplane ticket months before. And like my heart had done when Lane walked out.

  When I removed the lid, my breath halted.

  I set my hand on my dog’s head, and he looked up at me with what looked like compassion. A letter fluttered out of the box and into my lap. I picked it up, my eyes almost too blurry to read it.

  My beautiful Bess—

  I’m sorry for my horrible behavior when I left your place so abruptly last month. I’m most sorry for hurting you and not staying to take care of you.

  There are no explanations or excuses. Just know that it wasn’t about you. There are pieces of me you don’t know, and I hope you never do. They are buried deep where they belong, but recently some stressors made them move to the forefront of my mind. The nightmares are not new. I thought they were contained; they had been for some time.

  I never meant to hurt you, either physically or emotionally. Your feelings and your body and its safety are of equal importance to me. I’ve come to cherish both more than I care to admit.

  You also need to know that I’ve maintained my distance over the last month for your sake. Obviously I wasn’t in a good place, and I had no intention of drawing you further into any of that. It’s age-old business that needs to stay where it was—in the past.

  But the more time passes without you in my life, the greater the void I feel. Like an idiot, I thought maybe time would make it easier, but there is nothing more that I want than to see you again.

  This is a little gift from me to you, but no expectations are laid on your receipt of it. Whether you agree to see me or not, I want you to have this.

  Please call me if you want. I can make arrangements to come see you or for you to see me.

  Bess, know this—my heart was on autopilot until I met you, and you made it beat steady and strong again.

  ~Lane

  P.S. The various shapes are for us—you and I are different, but together we work. The yellow is for the bright lemons, their zest only rivaled by your essence.

  My eyes stung, my pants leg soaking from where my tears had dripped on it, and my body was hot and cold at the same time. I was sweating, but a fine layer of chilled goose bumps had formed along my arms. Sensing my tension, Brooks whined and stood up, pacing back and forth next to me.

  My fingers shook as I took the gift out of the box. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. A heart pendant hung from a white gold chain. I didn’t think
it was silver. Not from Tiffany’s.

  It was a big heart, framed in white gold and filled with diamonds. Not just little chips of diamonds but diamonds. They were all shapes and sizes, clustered together in a random pattern that only made sense as a whole. Mixed in every few stones was a yellow one. I assumed these were some type of special stone or colored diamond, I didn’t know. But their yellow brilliance sparkled and shone brighter than the clear ones.

  The piece took my breath away; I was afraid to pull it out of the box. Tentatively I slid my finger into the box and stroked the piece without removing it, massaging it to life like the letter was doing to my heart.

  Then I shut the box, set it on the counter, and went to take a bath.

  My emotions were whipping back and forth like a yo-yo, something that was never good for me. When I was in high school and my feelings overwhelmed me, I found alcohol. When the boys took advantage of my body, I found pot and other light mood enhancers. When I got to college and didn’t know who I was, I demanded the harder stuff.

  Right now my emotions were in overdrive. My body was still reeling from the effects of AJ’s harsh, cold touch and the warm, gentle stroke of Lane’s tongue. At the same time, my mind spun because I had not one single clue what my life should or could be. The cumulative effect of all this upheaval in my life was very, very bad—bad times one million for me—and I needed to calm myself, not run away or slip into old habits like using drugs or alcohol or men to dull my pain.

  I didn’t know how to do this, how to cope with stress. I only knew day-to-day boring, and that was all I could handle.

  Bess

  Following Shirley’s instructions, I filled my massive claw-footed tub with bubbles and sank in, leaning my head back against the small rolled-up towel on the ledge. Outside the bathroom window, dusk was painting the sky with hints of orange and purple that filtered through the glass, the bubbles picking up the color in their iridescence.

  With my eyes tightly closed, snapshots like Polaroid photos flitted through my mind one after the other, highlighting snippets of my life.

  There was an image of my mom leaving, her beat-up brown suitcase rolling behind her as her long dark hair blew in the wind, her black boots carrying her far away from our apartment and me. I’d always imagined her with a big smile on her face as she left me and the responsibility that came with being a mom, but now I understood it. In my own way, I’d fled from any responsibility in my life too, first with alcohol and sex, and then drugs. I still did it today, creating a life for myself devoid of any true responsibility other than showing up to serve food to strangers.

  When I released that image, another took its place. It was me, a very drunk me, dancing on a table in college as I shook my hair all around me, my jeans riding low, boots up to my knees, and a guy standing below with his face at the level of my crotch. I was reckless, without a care other than feeling good. Later I lay underneath the same guy on a damp and musty futon, his small, almost-limp dick sliding in and out of me, his pelvis slapping against mine with little to no regard for making me feel good. The scene was blurry, but it was there burned in my memory. The alcohol and whatever else—weed, maybe—was enough to dim any responsibility on his part or mine. If I had demanded any sexual pleasure, it would mean I’d have had to care about his, and I had never done caring. Not since my mother abandoned me.

  Using my foot, I turned on some more warm water. The tub had chilled, and I wasn’t done yet with the photos in my mind. They might be awful and painful, but I needed to stop escaping.

  As if a video was playing in slow motion, I watched AJ driving away from me time and time again. Not because he was abandoning me, but because I was emotionally unavailable. I might have been sober and standing in front of him, but I was as shut off and unavailable as anyone could be.

  Then I saw Lane running away from me, truly escaping with the fear of God instilled somewhere deep, and I saw a lifetime of myself in his own actions.

  Running.

  I caught a glimpse in my mind of a blown-up picture of my friend Camper and me that I’d pinned to a bulletin board in my old apartment. We were standing in front of a long row of tequila shots, her wearing skinny jeans and a bright red tank top, and me in a navy minidress. We looked a mess, our pupils like pinpoints, our faces shiny from sweat and our makeup smeared all around our eyes.

  I was a fucking disaster those days, but didn’t know if Camper was; I’d never asked. I might have wondered, but didn’t want to care. She’d been with me the night I ended up in the hospital after the disastrous yoga class, and it was the last time I saw her. I had no idea if she’d tried to see me in rehab, and had never wanted to know.

  I could still see the nurse on the first day I was in rehab, standing in the doorway to my room as I’d yelled, “I don’t want any calls or visitors. Nothing! You hear me? Now leave me the fuck alone.” Starting that very day, I’d asked to be alone, planned to be by myself, asked for this life of loneliness.

  Me. I’d done it to myself—this was all on me.

  At that realization, I opened my eyes and took in the blue dimness of dusk wrapping its way around my bathroom now that the sun had set. The color made me think of Lane’s eyes, like a beautiful blue sky, but with a storm lingering in the distance, a furious, angry storm. I’d never asked what was behind those clouds in his eyes. I had gone on and on about my past, my demons, but I’d never asked about his.

  An empty glass on the floor came to mind. The sparkling cider. He heard me when I told him about my addictions, and he didn’t run. Instead he’d accommodated me. And what the hell did I do?

  I now knew Lane was constantly racing, trying to stay ahead of his own dark clouds. I hadn’t made the effort to care last month or the month before, but I should have. He hadn’t really mentioned his family, which now made me wonder since my problems stemmed from my family, and I’d left it at that. But I should have asked.

  For the first time in my life, I felt like I had it in me to care about another person. To take care of someone else. To want to become concerned about their well-being. To be attached. To be their family.

  The pictures stopped flashing through my mind, having done their job, so I stepped out of the tub and nearly slipped on the cold tile. I knew now that I couldn’t abandon Lane. I would open myself up and learn to be caring. For him.

  While I was toweling off, a knocking started on my door. It echoed through my small house, punctuated by Brooks’s frantic barking.

  My heart raced as the thought hit me that it was Lane. Would he follow behind his generous gift, the gorgeous heart I didn’t deserve but wanted to more than anything?

  I put on my robe and padded out to the living room, where the knocking grew in intensity, becoming loud bangs.

  “Bess! Are you in there? Open the door!”

  Shit, it was AJ. Was he drunk? For the first time since moving to the mountain, I felt unsafe. I hesitated, leaning against the door as Brooks came to my side and pressed against my leg, letting out a low warning rumble.

  “AJ, what do you want?” I called out. “Are you okay?” I raised my voice, hoping it would travel through the wood door to the other side.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Open up.”

  “Are you sober?” I foolishly asked.

  “Yes! I want to talk with you, Bess,” he roared.

  “Okay,” I said weakly before unlocking and opening the door slowly. Darkness had started to settle on the mountain like it had on my heart.

  AJ’s boots ate up my wooden floor as he stomped in, stopping by the mantel before laying into me. “Bess, you’re driving me crazy. I fucking fell in love with you the day I picked you up at rehab. What the fuck? You give me a chance and then change your mind?”

  I stayed where I was, my back to the cool door, my dog at my feet on high alert.

  “AJ, it’s not like that. We had this talk, and I apologized. I confused my feelings for you with something more than they were.”

  He sw
ung his hands out, his movements exaggerated, large and clumsy. “Damn right you did, and you fucked with me while doing that shit. And I’m a sad fucking sack because of it.”

  “I don’t know what else you want me to say, other than I’m sorry.” I reached behind me, gripping the door, looking for purchase as though I might fall.

  “Sorry doesn’t cut it.” He spat out the words, his eyes narrowed. “Quit the diner. I go there. Quit Shirley. She’s fucking bad. Didn’t you ever hear her story? She’s bad fucking news. In fact,” he said with a sneer, “why don’t you go back to your new man, Mr. High-and-Mighty in Florida, and get the hell out of here altogether. This is my small town.”

  My head was spinning. Shirley? Why Shirley? I needed her. Although, it now occurred to me that I’d also kept a distance between her and me, only sharing about myself. I needed to change that too. Needed to connect with her story and care for her, not just let her care for me.

  The sound of glass shattering dragged me out of my head. I jumped and yelled, “What the hell?” not knowing what just happened. And then I saw it. The jar that I’d kept on the mantel with the sand and shells from Lane was spread out all over the floor, shattered and broken like my heart.

  Brooks leaped toward AJ, barking, warning him to keep his distance, but AJ didn’t pay any mind. He kept walking right toward me. With my eyes on my only memento of my time with Lane, I whispered no to myself. I treasured that votive. It was all I had left of that weekend, and now it was gone.

  I didn’t have time to dwell on it because AJ leaned into my face. “Is that what you do now? Make pretty little pieces of shit to remind you of that guy?” he yelled, his mouth tight, his hands flexing at his side.

  There was no time to answer because my cell phone, plugged in on the kitchen counter, started to buzz. AJ spun me around and said, “Get it! It’s probably Shirley. Tell her you’re busy!”

  With a trembling hand, I picked up the phone. When I saw who was calling, my heart cracked.