Souvenir

by Therese Fowler

  An escape, he said. She liked the notion of escaping, an hour or two’s diversion from her life, which vibrated now with a strange, uncomfortable energy, as though the MRI and EMG machines had infected her entire existence. Brian, golfing as always, would never even know she’d gone out.

  “All right, I’ll come. What’s the address?”

  He gave it to her. “I’m out of rotation today, so come by as soon as you want. I’m told my etchings are worth a look.”

  “I expect they are,” she said.

  Still feeling somehow outside herself, she changed her clothes—shorts instead of slacks, a baby blue linen shirt in place of the rose-colored polo, simple flat sandals—and, after two tries, changed her earrings, too, then left the house. She had trouble getting the key in the ignition and starting the car but refused to let it frustrate her, reined her mind in from its gallop toward the day when even stubborn effort would no longer allow her to escape.

  Forty minutes after his call, she parked behind Clay’s old convertible Jaguar, a reconditioned classic. He came out to meet her, opening her door with a smile that made it easy for her to feel welcome. In his sporty white shorts and colorful madras shirt, he was even more attractive than usual. She could smell his cologne, a mild, spicy scent that made her think, somehow, of a hotel she’d stayed at in Caracas.

  “I like a woman who doesn’t waste time,” he said as she got out of the car.

  “I like a man who doesn’t wear shoes,” she said, noting his bare feet.

  He shut her door and kissed her on her cheek. “Soon as we get inside, I’m throwing all my shoes away.”

  He showed her around the remodeled low-country house, much larger than the one she’d grown up in, and much nicer, of course. It was airy and cool and, as he pointed out, far more in every sense than a bachelor needed, but he loved the space, and what else did he have to do with his money? At thirty-three, he’d outgrown the free-and-easy single life and wanted to feel more settled, he said. “All I need now is the right woman.”

  “So what’s the holdup?” Meg asked as they entered the kitchen.

  Clay opened the refrigerator and began taking out small bowls of chopped onion, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, broccoli. “The best ones are already married.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  He stopped and went to her, stood very close. She noticed the dark gray ring that surrounded the blue of his eyes as if to highlight his feelings. He said, “The best one is already married.”

  Any other day of her life, she would have backed away and made light of his comment, knowing better than to encourage this sort of interest. Where did affairs get people, besides entangled in something likely to become a joyless burden for one of them, if not for both? Today, though, she needed to be alive, to be a woman alone in a house with an attractive man who desired her. Was that so bad? So wrong?

  “Not so happily married,” she said with a small shrug.

  Clay came even closer then, moving his hands to her waist and kissing her tentatively, a test. His lips were warm and soft, but their unfamiliarity reminded her of who she wasn’t kissing. And she knew, then, that he was only a stand-in for the man she wanted to be with but couldn’t.

  He kissed her again, pressing his body to hers, and she willed herself to go with the moment, to close off her sense of duplicity. What difference did it make if she thought of Carson more than Clay—and nothing at all of Brian? None of them would know. She could let Clay make love to her and imagine they were both different people: he would be Carson and she would be herself before her body had begun to fail.

  Clay leaned away and began to unbutton her shirt, careful surgeon’s fingers making what was now a trial for her look effortless. She watched his hands and then glanced at his face, those gray-ringed eyes.

  “Clay.”

  “Am I moving too fast? I’m sorry.” He began to do up the buttons again. “Overeager.”

  “How about the bedroom,” she said.

  He led her there, and she closed her eyes as he finished undoing her buttons, stripped her shirt away, unclasped her bra, and moved his hands over her bare skin. She let his murmured compliments, his kisses, his lips on her neck be Carson’s. False though it was, all of it—him touching her, her being there—it was better than the truth.

  “Tell me if I’m going too far,” he said, taking off his shirt. “We don’t have to—”

  “It’s okay,” she said, shaking her head. “I want to.”

  He drew her down to the bed with him, smiled as he leaned above her and stroked her belly. “I won’t say I haven’t thought about this a few hundred times. Don’t worry, though; I know better than to think this means forever.”

  Like an animal caught by headlights, Meg froze. Something in the soft drawl of his forever set off a panic in her. Her pulse raced, and not with passion.

  “I have to go,” she said, struggling out from under him, looking for her bra, her shirt.

  “What? Wait—what’s the matter?”

  She found the clothes, put them on as she moved for the door. “It’s not you,” she said without looking back. “It’s—I’m sorry. It’s me. I wanted to—” She stopped at the doorway, closed her eyes, then opened them again and turned. “I am so fond of you. But I can’t stay.”

  He stood up, bewildered. “Don’t go; I really did mean to feed you, not seduce you. Please, stay. Outdoor seating…?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  As she backed the car out of the driveway, he watched from his porch—perhaps thinking there might be another time for them. She drove away without looking in the rearview mirror, not blaming him if he hoped he’d get a second chance, a third. She’d wished for the same thing herself. But she wouldn’t have that wish granted, nor any of her other more basic ones, wishes she should be entitled to the same as everyone else. To see her daughter find a career, marry, have a family—whatever Savannah chose. To be there.

  And because she could not face this wishless future, she began to try to outrun it.

  Thirty-one

  FOR HER FIRST IN-PERSON DATE WITH KYLE, SAVANNAH WORE HER GENUINE “Carson @ Johnny’s” tee, as Carson had written over the front left shoulder. Then he’d signed his name, big and obvious, on the left sleeve. Rachel, who was riding with her and Angela to the hotel where Angela would drop Savannah off, wore her T-shirt too. “I love love love it,” Rachel was saying from the front seat, “but aren’t you worried Kyle will get, like, possessive or jealous?”

  “He’s not like that,” Savannah said, picking at a third broken fingernail. “He’s not the jealous type.” As if she knew for sure. She wasn’t worried about it anyway; mostly she just wanted Rachel to shut up.

  “Have you told him about Monday?”

  “I left him a message about it, but he never got it.”

  “If he, like, gets really mad, just call us, okay? I mean it. We’ll come get you, won’t we, Angela?”

  Angela shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”

  “He won’t be mad,” Savannah said. “He’s really sweet and, you know, understanding.” As far as she knew. What if he wasn’t? What did she really know about him? If she got there and saw he wasn’t who he was supposed to be—if he was, like, forty and fat, or worse, she wouldn’t bother to call Rachel. She’d just bail right there on the spot, just call a cab or something.

  Angela drove up into the hotel’s circle drive. “Have fun,” she said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

  “Which leaves, like, nothing,” Rachel said, turning around to face the backseat. Savannah reached for the door latch, but Rachel grabbed her arm. “Do you want me to come in and wait with you?”

  “No—I’m good.”

  “Be careful, then, okay? I mean, like, use protection and all that. God! I can’t believe you’re going to, you know, do all this stuff before me! I never would’ve believed it.”

  “It’s fate I guess,” Savannah said, sounding braver than she felt as sh
e opened the door. “Don’t worry, you’ll find the right guy soon.”

  She got out and shut the door. Rachel leaned out the window. “Call me tomorrow, you swear?”

  “I will. And remember: if my mom calls your mom for any reason, I just left your house and am walking home—and then you call me that second, no matter what time it is.”

  Rachel nodded dutifully. “You can count on me. On us.”

  “But don’t call otherwise. Okay—see you. Thanks, Angela.” Now that they’d helped her scam her parents, they’d protect her—or it would be their asses too.

  She turned and walked inside with faked confidence, inhabiting twenty as best she could in case Kyle was there already, watching for her. The walk was unnecessary, though; she knew the moment the doors slid closed behind her that the guy standing at the check-in desk was him. His back was to her, but she knew. Something about his clothes—a rumpled white T-shirt and caramel cargo shorts, black flip-flops—and the canvas bag dropped at his feet, along with his mop of curly black hair, assured her this was the guy she’d been growing to know—maybe even to love?—these past few weeks.

  She stopped and studied him. He sure wasn’t forty and fat. His skin was like coffee-milk, his calves muscular and hairy, but not too hairy, and his broad shoulders angled down to small hips. He looked a little shorter than she expected, but still very good—from the back, at least. And if his back matched his picture and description, his front would too; it only made sense. She flashed again to that photo of him, thought of the lean slope of his belly, the trail of hair…it made her palms itch.

  He picked up his bag, turned, and saw her. She began walking toward him, the same walk she’d used coming in, that she’d practiced in private all week.

  “Whoa,” he said. “I am definitely in the right place!”

  The urge to turn tail and run almost overwhelmed her—not because she was scared, though she was a little, but because she felt like an imposter. Kyle didn’t just look like his picture; he looked like more. More…genuine, more male, more…adult. She just hadn’t realized what twenty-three looked like—who did she know that age? Nobody. It had been a number not so far ahead of her fictitious twenty, but she had no real, no true idea of how it would look on a man. He looked like everything he was supposed to be. Whereas she felt more like twelve than twenty just now, and was sure it had to show.

  She was here, though, and he was here, and…and so she had to try, anyway.

  “Hi,” she said. “Yep—if you’re Kyle, you’re in the right place.”

  “The envy of every man—that’s me, as of this moment.”

  “Um, thanks,” she said. She could feel her face growing hot, knew it must be red. She reached for some poise, came up with, “You’re very sweet to say so.” The etiquette training hadn’t been for nothing after all.

  He stepped closer to her and they stood there, in the middle of the lobby, close enough for her to smell the slight salty scent of him, mingled with a musky perfumelike scent she assumed was deodorant. Was his heart beating as hard, as quickly as hers? He looked very calm.

  “I got us checked in.”

  “Oh…good.”

  “They asked me if I wanted to leave the charges on Ms. Hamilton’s credit card.”

  Oh shit. “Yeah, um—”

  “No sweat,” he said, reaching out and tugging a bit of her hair. “I already knew your last name wasn’t ‘Rae.’ I just didn’t know what it was. It’s all good. I don’t blame you for keeping it back, right?”

  “I’m sorry—I hated to lie. But yeah, I didn’t want to just have it out there for anybody to see.”

  “Makes sense—I like a smart woman.”

  Smart, right. Not smart enough to know they’d ask him about the credit card.

  He said, “My other question is—and don’t freak because I’m asking—do you really go to the university?”

  Oh God, she’d really screwed up. What made him think she might not go there? She felt trapped by his question, by his proximity, standing so close that she could see his pulse in the side of his neck. To buy some time and space she asked, “Could we like, sit down?”

  “Yeah, of course!”

  She was relieved he didn’t insist they go to their room instead; she wasn’t ready to be alone with him. They moved to a grouping of sofas and she stopped, unsure which seat to choose, unsure what she would tell him, unsure that she could handle this whole scene. She’d thought it would be easy, as easy as chatting online, as easy as talking on the phone. Until she saw him, she’d felt she knew him; now, she felt awkward and stupid.

  Kyle took her hand and sat down, pulling her with him. “So?” he said. He let her hand go.

  She set her purse, the green canvas one that, in addition to holding her usual stuff, now held her bikini, a pair of panties, a tank top, and a small bottle of a lemon juice solution, onto the seat next to her. She kept the strap in her hand as if it were a security blanket, and prepared to confess. If he was going to reject her because of the lies, now was the best time to find that out.

  She shrugged. “So…okay. I don’t go there.”

  He nodded amiably. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. I checked their directory at first, in case, you know, Savannah Rae was your real name. No match, right? So I asked around, e-mailed your picture to some dudes I know there—nobody knew you. Not that they would, right? Necessarily? But I figured, a babe like you gets noticed. So I decided, hey, just ask her!”

  He didn’t sound angry at all. “You must think I’m awful, but really I’m not! You know how it is with Internet stuff—girls have to be super careful. I planned to tell you today; you just, you know, beat me to it.”

  “I totally understand,” he said, and she could see in his dark brown eyes that he did. He smiled and a dimple appeared on his left cheek. “But your name, it is Savannah, right?”

  She nodded vigorously. “Yes! Savannah Hamilton. And…I actually live here, in Ocala.”

  “I appreciate the honesty,” he said, taking her hand again. “Look, it works both ways, right? People have to be careful. Now I gotta tell you: I’m not really a grad student.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Nah—truth is, my parents cut me off before I even finished my bachelor’s—some stupid-ass lie the dean told them…so I’m a few credits short. I just didn’t want you to, you know, think I’m some loser. I’m serious about marine biology, right, and I really want to go back to school.”

  Savannah gaped at him. “Okay, well…do you really live in Naples?”

  He shook his head. “Me and a friend rent a place down by Summerfield.”

  “Oh my god! We’re, like, just a couple of liars,” she laughed. “I don’t feel so bad, now!”

  He reached over and ran his fingers over her lips, sending an electric thrill straight to her groin. Leaning close, he said, “You don’t look so bad, either. So how about we check out our room, now that we’ve set the record straight?”

  The record wasn’t straight; he still thought she was driving to Miami with him on Monday, and he still thought she was twenty. Those clarifications could wait. Obviously he was an easygoing person, just as warm and sweet as he’d seemed to be—probably he wouldn’t care about her other lies either. But just to be safe, she would confess them later—or tomorrow, maybe. Yeah, tomorrow would be just fine.

  Thirty-two

  AFTER FOUR HOURS OF DRIVING AWAY FROM THE FIASCO WITH CLAY, MEG was thick into south-central Florida under a sky whitewashed by heat. Colorless grassland flanked the pale gray highway for as far as she could see. Here, long miles away from anything that would attract a tourist’s dollar, the landscape looked desolate. She hadn’t seen another car—except abandoned ones wearing rust like barnacles—in an hour or more.

  There was a numbing simplicity to the view and the hum of her tires on the road. She was nowhere, she was no one, she was contained, she was safe.

  She was lost.

  The road came to a T and she slowed the c
ar, then stopped, unable to decide which way to go next. She needed some road signs—sticks with placards nailed to them if nothing else, signs with arrows pointing the way to “Salvation” or “Cure” or “Do-Over.” What she saw, though, was tall grasses and shocked, barren, limbless trees reaching skyward. A toppled jug that once held radiator fluid. The carcass of a washing machine, a few yards away. She turned off the Lexus and got out.

  Heat like a blast furnace enveloped her; this part of the state was its own special hell, it seemed, with its roads to nowhere and its heat and its dust. She began to sweat immediately, tilted her face upward to the blank sky so that the sweat streamed into her hair and ears. There was a fetid smell, as of small fish and crustaceans decomposing in the hidden swamp, and the only noise was the sound of grass against grass, a slight hiss in the barest of breezes.

  She wanted to yell something, to say, “Why, God?” To make promises, barter her way back to good health. She would welcome the devil, even, if he was the one to offer her a commutation of her sentence. Anything, anything but the failure of her body and of her efforts to do right, to be right.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  Nothing.

  Thirty-three

  “MODEL THE BIKINI FOR ME,” KYLE SAID, AS SOON AS HE AND SAVANNAH were inside the hotel room. “You brought the flowered one, right?”

  “What? Like, now?”

  “Yeah now.” He put his arms around her shoulders and pushed her playfully backward, against the wall. With his full body pressed against her, he kissed her—first just lips, then tongue, too. This felt fabulous; this felt right. He drew back. “I just want to see you in it; been thinkin’ about it all day.” He pushed his hips in tighter, and she felt the hard length of him, bulkier, she thought, than her friend Jonathan. Because Kyle was older, maybe?

  She liked this, what they were doing; the thought of changing into her bikini and modeling it for him, though, the thought of being scrutinized, embarrassed her. “You can see me in it when we go to the pool.”