by J. C. Gatlin
That night, they saw Congress William Dietz dining at a table across from them. And according to the gossip rattling through the clubhouse, Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty were dining in the back room. Mallory asked the waiter if he had seen them.
Over a three-hundred dollar bottle of wine, they ordered dinner. Addison requested a medium-rare steak, Mallory lobster tail and Kim the veal. Ross asked them to bring him a cheeseburger and told the waiter he didn’t like the wine. Please bring him a Belgian Shock Top.
Kim was furious, and told him as much. “You were entirely out of line,” she scolded him when they were back in his Camero and headed home along Morris Munger Road.
“I can’t stand your fake friends,” he said. “Money does not impress me.”
“Good, because you’ll never have any if you keep working at the garage.” Kim removed the engagement ring from her finger and dramatically dropped it in the cup holder. “Until you grow up, we can’t plan a future together.”
“You don’t want to marry me?”
“I don’t want to marry an immature boy,” Kim said. “You once told me that I make you a better man. But I don’t see any evidence of that. We just keep going round and round in circles. It’s infuriating!”
“It’s infuriating, is it?” Ross was yelling now. “Infuriating?”
He took the curve along the road a little too sharp, and the Camero skidded across the lanes almost hitting an abandoned fruit stand. Slamming on the brakes, he skidded onto the gravel shoulder. In one angry swoop, he grabbed the diamond ring from the cup holder, rolled down the window and chucked it outside.
Kim screamed at him and jumped out the Camero. Running into the road, she searched for the ring as cars around her skidded and stopped. Horns blared and one angry driver shouted and shook his fist at her. Kim ignored them all, frantically searching for that elegant Solitaire diamond ring with a thin, two-toned band.
But she couldn’t find it.
Crying and standing in the middle of the road, she lifted her head to see Ross roll-up his window and skid back onto the pavement. The tires spun loudly, before the old Camero sped off down the highway.
It would be the last time she ever saw him.
That night, she walked home, alone, hoping he would be there waiting for her. Hoping he had cooled off. But the townhouse was empty, save for Zeus watching for her out the front bay window. Ross though wasn’t anywhere to be found.
A week later, she was still angry and boxed up many of his things. She had Mallory drive her to Eddy’s Garage downtown and placed the box outside his locker. To teach him a lesson. But he wasn’t there either. And if he ever got the box, she never knew. He never responded to the gesture.
As the days passed, Kim found herself drawn to Morris Munger Road. There, she searched for that diamond ring. Sometimes she wondered if Ross backtracked to the spot and beat her to it. Maybe he knew exactly where he threw it and had already returned to retrieve it. Since she didn’t know for sure, she continued looking.
Everyone thought she was crazy for being so persistent. “It’s in the past,” Mallory would say. “Get over him.” But she couldn’t. She even heard the neighbors and the landlord asking Mallory what she was doing on the side of the road.
“What’s she looking for?” Mrs. Roundtree asked. “Again and again she searches that road. She’s driving herself crazy.”
“I think that boy really hurt her,” the landlord added when Mallory told him that Ross had tossed her engagement ring out the car window. “He didn’t deserve her.”
“I’m just glad Ross is finally out of her life,” Mallory would tell them. “Good riddance and I hope she never speaks to him again.”
Now, after five weeks, she was about to see him again.
* * * * * * *
She had so much to say. It was all she had really thought about. But now she was unsure of herself and her future. So she did the only thing she could: concentrate on the old downtown buildings rushing past her outside the passenger-side window.
“For Ross’ sake, I hope he’s a gentleman and apologizes to you,” Mallory finally said, breaking the silence. She reached over to Kim and took her hand. Kim turned her head and Mallory winked at her. “Else when I get through with him, he’s going to be missing enough body parts to qualify for handicapped parking.”
Mallory laughed at her threat as she pulled onto Eighth Street and into Eddy’s Garage on the corner of Cypress. Kim and Mallory got out of the Miata as a young mechanic with greasy blonde hair and wearing a black sleeveless Metallica t-shirt approached them.
“You broads needing your oil changed?” he asked, shooting them a toothy grin and wiping his hands on a rag. “It’s Wednesday. We got a Ladies Special running on Wednesdays.”
“No, thank you.” Kim looked past him into the garage. She ran her hands along her sides down to her upper thigh, as if to smooth out the wrinkles of her tight red dress. She thought there would be more men standing around with tools, working on cars. “I’m looking for someone,” she said, then added, “Ross McGuire.”
The young man looked puzzled. “Who?”
“Ross McGuire?” Kim repeated. “Tall, nice build, works out, early twenties with short black hair.”
He gave her a blank stare. Kim laughed and glanced at Mallory and then back at the mechanic.
“Ross McGuire,” she said louder, a little more forceful. “He’s worked here for about a year.”
The mechanic, either bored with the conversation or thinking Kim was hallucinating, shrugged his shoulders.
“I ain’t never seen a guy like that before, but I just started.”
Kim bit her lower lip, glancing around the garage. “Where’s the owner, Ed? Do you know him?”
He pointed to the office in back. Kim and Mallory walked toward it.
Ed looked up from behind a cluttered desk as the girls approached. He was a middle aged business man wearing jeans and a dirty Guns-N-Roses t-shirt.
“Miss Bradford,” he said. “How are ya?”
“Fine Ed. How’ve you been?” She held out her hand. He grasped it and shook it, then released her to swipe away the beads of sweat on his forehead.
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for Ross.”
“Ain’t seen him for a couple of weeks now.”
“Really?” This surprised her. “Where’d he go?”
“He’d been threat’n to head on outta here. I kinda figured he finally walked.”
“He didn’t say where he was going? Another job?” Her voice raised an octave from a little bit of excitement mixed with panic. “Did he get the box I left him?”
“You didn't know?” Ed squinted. “He jest didn’t show up one night a couple a weeks back. You ain't seen ‘em?”
“We had a fight and he left me. I broke off our engagement,” she said quietly. “I hadn’t realized he’d quit his job too.”
“It ain’t suprisin’, Kim. Ross din just have a chip on his shoulder… he had a whole boulder. His attitude was tough as hell to handle sometimes.”
“I see..” Kim shrugged, glancing at Mallory, then turned. She started to leave when Ed called to her again.
“Hey Kim. You know what,” he started, getting up from his desk. “Someone else was looking for him too.”
“Really?” She turned back around. “Who?”
“Some guy, a kid about your age,” he said.
“Who was it? Do you remember his name?”
“Naw...” Ed shook his head. “But he said he goes to the University. He was a thin, little guy with black hair with heavy bangs that fell into his face. Maybe you know him?”
Kim inhaled deeply, thinking about her literature class.
* * * * * * *
At that same moment, a black and white patrol car rolled down the muddy road behind the Flying J Truck Stop, finally parking behind a 1987 midnight blue Camero. The officer stepped out, moved cautiously toward the Camero, and peered through the black tinted windows. The
vehicle had been reported abandoned and left by the roadside. But he saw nothing unusual. The front seats were worn and beer cans piled in the floor board. The keys were left in the ignition. He paused, and briefly scanned the woods around the car. Nothing unusual.
Returning to the patrol car, he radioed dispatch. “We have an abandoned 1987 Camero. Dark blue. License plate number X13-78G.”
A voice answered, crackling over the radio. “Vehicle is registered to a Ross McGuire at 1200 Meadowbrooke Lane...”
Writing out a ticket, he got back out of the squad car and returned to the Camero, placing the ticket behind a windshield wiper.
9
Deadly Still Waters
Thursday, January 13, 2000
10:38 AM
The Professor droned on in front of a classroom of roughly eighty students. Kim's mind was elsewhere. She made notes in her spiral notebook, writing, If you forget me, there's something I want you to know. She thought of Ross, and the poems he had written. The beautiful, handwritten love letters.
Earlier, she had walked to the University taking the longer route along Morris Munger Road. Just as she had done for the last five weeks, she stopped at the curve in the road and searched the ground around the old fruit stand and real estate sign. She searched for the ring, but still didn’t find it.
Five weeks, three days and seven hours, she thought. Five weeks, three days and seven hours.
Then the warm memory turned cold. Once again she could feel him watching. Feel his eyes burning holes in the back of her head. Self-consciously, she looked up and behind her.
There was a classroom of students around her, but she made eye contact with the black haired boy in the back. He was glaring at her again.
Kim had tried to approach him before class. She had even arrived early and waited for him. But class started and the Professor began his lecture when the kid slinked through the doors. He was now sitting in the back of the classroom. After watching him a moment, she looked back down at the notes. She had been scribbling the romantic phrase, “If you forget me.” The Professor suddenly stopped talking and the classroom went silent. Kim turned around.
“If we're not disturbing you, Miss Bradford,” he said. He started to continue his lecture when Kim raised her hand, interrupting him.
The Professor called on her again and she asked about the poem, If You Forget Me. “What does it mean?”
“Neruda,” he said. “It's his most famous poem.”
“It's about unrequited love?” Kim asked. “It's so sad, though. Why would someone in love give this poem to, say, his girlfriend?”
The Professor put a hand to his bearded chin and turned, as if contemplating the question.
“I cannot be sure without talking to Neruda himself, and of course that is impossible since he is dead now these thirty years.” He laughed as if he had made a joke. The class was silent. “But as I reread this poem, it occurs to me that it is not so much selfish, 'Hey, stop loving me and I'll stop loving you. Easy breezy.' No, this love he talks about is too expansive to drop so easily as if costing nothing. You can hear it in the lines, 'Everything carries me to you / as if everything that exists.’”
He moved toward Kimberly, sitting in the middle of the classroom. He continued.
“Instead, I think this is a poem about how love cannot exist in and of itself. Love needs love. If one stops loving you, it is not a law of physics that you will stop loving them back, but they should not be surprised if they too are forgotten and replaced with another love.”
He picked up the poetry book on Kim's desk and studied it a moment. It looked like he was reading the handwritten inscription inside the front cover. He set it back down.
“This poem is a warning to his lover that she could lose his love if she's not careful,” he said to Kim, almost as if she was the only student in the classroom. “This poem tells me to be careful. In fact, Neruda says things like, 'Everything carries me to you,' and 'My love feeds on your love,' which tells me that he is admitting his dependence on her. Thus if she stops loving him and forgets him, his love will likewise diminish.”
The student in the back of the class shuffled in his seat. “All I see in this poem is a cynic who loves only for the sake of getting love in return,” he said.
All heads in the classroom turned to him. It was the thin, quiet boy with shaggy black hair that fell down into his face. He pushed the hair out of his eyes and glanced at Kim. Their eyes met. He glared at her, as if angry that she even brought it up.
“Michael, that is so provocative,” the professor said, leaving the silent exchange between his two students unacknowledged. “Would you care to elaborate?”
The boy's eyes widened as tense lines formed on his face. The muscles on his forearm hardened. After gulping a deep breath, he finally spoke.
“Well, if his partner's love for him diminishes, he mercilessly abandons her.” The boy shifted in his seat and his voice squeaked. “What a horribly self-centered person he is. He should not be given the right to love anyone. He is a disgrace for all the pure hearted lovers in this world.”
The class was silent.
“I must admit I'm more than a little surprised,” the Professor said, slowly. “You’re generally so quiet and reserved. I don’t think you’ve said two words all year.”
The boy looked down. “Still waters run deep.”
After class, the boy collected his books and made his way out of the classroom. Kim jumped from her desk and ran after him.
“Wait,” she yelled at the edge of the door. In the hallway, he stopped and turned around to face her. Other students pushed past them as they blocked the door.
“Did you go to Eddy’s Garage looking for my fiancée?” Kim asked hesitantly.
He didn't answer. After several seconds of awkward silence, she continued.
“Okay...” She forced forward, closer to him as the last student lumbered out of the classroom and bumped into her. She glanced at the clumsy girl, then back at him. “So why were you there? Looking for my fiancée?”
He sheepishly paused and looked down at his feet. Exasperated, Kim gave up. She moved past him and started down the hallway. He called after her.
“Wait. My name is Michael.”
Kim stopped walking. She turned her head and gave him a sidelong glance. “Hello, Michael.”
“Hello.” His face closed, as if her was guarding a secret.
“I'm Kim.” She walked back to him, standing shoulder to shoulder. She held her breath, waiting, then forced a thin smile. “So, are you going to tell me why you were looking for my fiancée at Eddy’s Garage?”
He shook his head, but said nothing. Silence grew tight with tension. The smile left her face and Kim told him she had to go.
“Wait!” he called out again. “Have you seen him? I mean, have you heard anything... from Ross, I mean.”
“Yes...” she thought about it a moment before saying more. It would be the first time she told anyone. She drew her lips in thoughtfully. “We have dinner plans on Friday.”
“Oh.” He stared. It was as if she just slapped him. The tension between them increased with frightening intensity, then his expression darkened with an unreadable emotion.
Kim took a step back. Stumbling ever so slightly, she apologized, then said she really had to go. Turning, she walked away, picking up pace.
Later that afternoon, Kim tried to disguise her foul mood when she walked into the old folks home. Nurse Carla was helping a man walk along the wall, his hands gripping the railing. Seeing her, Carla lifted up and beamed.
“Miss Bradford, your Grandaddy seems to be feeling better today.” She waved a hand, motioning Kim to come closer. “I took him to the cafeteria to eat his peas and carrots and then we went for a walk.”
“He’s out of his room?”
“He’s in the rec room talking to all the pretty ladies.” Nurse Carla laughed. “An’ child, he’s been there all morning.”
Kim turned down the o
pposite hallway and made her way past a pair of elderly women in a walker and wheel chair. There was a woman in a nightgown sitting in a gray folding chair outside her room. She called out to Kim with her arms raised, asking if she’d seen her little daffodil. Kim made her way past them to the rec room at the end of the wing.
Across from the kitchen, the Rec Room was a large den with metal fold-out chairs and tables. There was a piano in the corner. Several television were pushed against opposite walls with couches positioned in front of them. There were about thirty patients in the room. Some were in groups, sitting at tables where board games were laid out. There were two catatonic men staring at a television set.
Kim found her Grandfather, dressed and wearing a brown sweater, sitting in an arm chair along the back wall. He was facing a picturesque window that looked down at the street.
She walked over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He was asleep in the armchair, his body slightly leaning toward the left. Quietly snoring, he had been staring out the window, watching the world below him. Kim knelt beside him.
“Hi, Grampa.” She paused. Feeling a cool draft coming from the window pane, she fixed his sweater so it better covered his chest and neck. She thought about returning to his room to retrieve the old quilt, but changed her mind. It would probably get left behind or someone would take it. Then she straightened up and sat in a matching armchair beside him.
“You look good today.” She watched him a moment. His head leaning to the side, he was breathing deeply, snoring with several light wheezes followed by one long sigh. Then it all started over again. “I love you, Grampa,” she said into his ear.
She said nothing more to him during this visit. She just simply sat beside him and watched him sleep in the chair.
* * * * * * *
In her bedroom loft, Mallory lay on her stomach atop the bed. Her legs bent upwards and a single high heeled shoe dangled from her left foot. With one hand, her fingers pressed the buttons on her phone as she held the receiver between her shoulder and chin. She groaned at the shrill beep of a busy signal, hung up and dialed again.