True North

by Liora Blake

  My eyes close and I can smell the inside of the car again, the salty, sweaty scent of James from a morning on the river, and the faint perfume wafting from the stupid air-freshener tree hanging from the rearview mirror.

  “I always remember how he took his seat belt off about fifteen minutes after we got on the road. Then he leaned his seat back and fell asleep.”

  Eyes drifting open, I take in Trevor’s face, looking for any new signs of disgust—perhaps a grimace, or a widening of his eyes. I twist the corner of my napkin around my index finger as a small respite from the intensity. “That was three years ago.”

  Trevor peers down and finally takes a bite of his food. Then he pauses to gaze at me, tipping his head to one side. “I don’t have a goddam clue what to say.”

  “Trust me, I’ve heard every corny comment, read every cheesy sympathy card there is. There’s nothing to say. I’m sure you have some dramatic life details that I wouldn’t understand.”

  I look off to the side, avoiding his eyes, and watch a young couple on the other side of the room who seem to be silently fighting with each other. Watching them makes me wish I had a simple little life story to tell, the kind that doesn’t include grief so big it sometimes obscures every other detail of who I am.

  After Trevor quietly offers the obligatory “I’m sorry” and I nod, we let the conversation drift to less dramatic topics. As we do, I realize I’ve broken the cardinal rule of every women’s magazine out there. On a first date, you don’t talk about weird stuff. Including politics, religion, your deep, aching desire for twelve children, or your exes. And you certainly don’t talk about your dead husband.

  Too late now. This is a fluke, anyway.

  When our model-like waiter arrives with the bill, I reach for my bag and pull out my wallet.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve got cash to cover mine,” I say. Trevor looks down at the ticket, waving me away with his hand.

  “I don’t make a practice of going dutch on dates.”

  I look up, gliding over the date statement, but I can’t leave the rest alone. “Did you just say ‘going dutch’? Who says that anymore? Other than toothless old people in retirement communities?”

  Trevor snorts a laugh and smiles down at the receipt. “You’re hilarious. Finish your wine; I’m sure it will continue to make you even more charming.”

  Being in the middle of a restaurant where it feels like everyone is trying not to stare makes me want to be alone with him. When we leave and walk to his car, he opens my door for me and I swallow a surge of endearment. It’s such a traditional and small gesture yet so wrong for a guy who probably uses the word “bitch” far too often in his daily vernacular.

  “What now?” Trevor looks at me from the driver’s seat.

  “I don’t know. Take me someplace very LA. But in a cool way, not in a lame way.”

  All I want is to spend a bit more time with him. Even though I know this is likely a one-off, something I can look back on in my old age and retell over the bridge table (“Ah yes, I remember it clearly, the time I had a date with Trax: he was famous and handsome. . . .”), a part of me wishes for some potential.

  Another dinner. Maybe drinks. Breakfast. My mind wanders down that path for a bit. Dirty, dirty mind.

  Trevor smiles and starts the car. “I’ll take you someplace I think is cool. Only one of its kind in the country.”

  We haven’t driven very far when Trevor turns down a few side streets and then edges into a parking lot adjacent to what looks like a city park. The night is turning dusky and when he stops the car, I see a vast concrete expanse, lit by tall fluorescent streetlamps running along the sides. There are kids and adults everywhere, some on skateboards, BMX bikes, and even rollerblades. It’s a huge skatepark, bigger than I’ve ever seen. In Missoula, there is a skatepark for the local kids, but it’s just a few jumps and one large bowl.

  I gape and turn to Trevor. “You don’t expect me to do anything but watch, right?”

  “Nope. We’re just going to watch. It’s just a cool place to come and hang out. People don’t gawk, they don’t bug you. They’re just here to ride and couldn’t care less who might be watching.”

  Trevor moves to my door and opens it, waiting for me with his hand out. His hand is just right, much bigger than mine, smooth without being soft. When he gently tugs me toward him, my body rolls into his and we fit together immediately. My head falls into the space just near his shoulder, so when he slips his hand from mine, his arm drapes over my shoulders perfectly.

  We walk a bit, past the skateboarders, then past another group playing some kind of goofy polo game on a tennis court, but riding bikes instead of horses. Trevor stops us at another concrete labyrinth, and this one is crowded with people on BMX bikes. A chain-link fence surrounds the space where the riders are, but a grass-covered sloping hillside runs all around the perimeter so people can watch without being in the way. He stops at the edge and points to the ground.

  “Does this work?”

  He’s looking at me with the sweetest expression I’ve seen on a man’s face in a long time. Especially from someone who makes a living by shouting angry sentiments and gesticulating wildly onstage. It’s confusing, trying to reconcile all the parts of him. The guy who compliments my shoes. The guy who gets defensive about people bending the rules. The man who held my gaze onstage with such intensity it nearly sent me crawling across the armchair into his lap. On national television.

  Nodding, I flop down on the grass and he settles in next to me, stretching his legs out, and leaning on his outstretched arms.

  “Do you come here a lot?”

  “When I have the time or if I need to get away from any bullshit. When I first came to LA, I used to skate and ride here all the time. I’m getting too old for this shit now, though, so I mostly mountain bike these days. It’s the best way for us middle-aged dudes to ride without killing ourselves.” Looking over at me, he chuckles and lifts his eyebrows.

  After a moment, he raises his hand and drags his index finger down over my arm, where a few goose bumps have risen. The way his finger feels trailing from my shoulder to my wrist makes it worse—a touch so faint, yet I swear it resonates to my belly and my toes. Paralyzed for a second, I study the invisible trail left behind from his gentle, steady stroke.

  “You getting cold?” He stares at my arm. Embarrassment at the way my body reacts to the touch forces me to move my focus, suddenly finding the green grass we’re sitting on unreasonably interesting.

  “Not bad. I’m fine.”

  “No, no. Can’t have that. You seem awfully delicate.” He winks and then jumps up with an annoyingly graceful strength. “I have a jacket or something in the truck. Be right back.”

  With that, he takes off up the grassy hill at a nimble jog, all his limbs moving with elegant athleticism. Nothing about his body betrays him, even in the half darkness.

  I take a deep breath while I can and try to push down the way I’m feeling because something about this desire rings of betrayal. Despite the years that have passed, the other men I’ve been with, this ache building in my body is different. The others were merely placeholders in a life that felt momentarily empty, or obligatory excursions that helped it look like I had moved on.

  Before I have a chance to take the panic I’m feeling and use it to fuel a sprint across the park to the nearest freeway and hitch a ride with a burly trucker, Trevor returns, sitting down behind me and draping a black hoodie over my shoulders. I slide my arms in, sneaking a tiny sniff while I’m at it. I don’t know him well enough to know if it smells like him or it’s just clean, but something about it reminds me of crystallized ginger.

  Trevor slides in closer so that I’m sitting between his outstretched legs. Running his arms around my waist, he nudges me toward him. I scoot back to close the remaining few inches between us and then lean back into his chest.

  I try to make bland conversation to counteract the intimacy of how our bodie
s have nestled together far too naturally. At some point, I’m not sure exactly when, he rests his chin on my shoulder so when he speaks it’s low and soft in my ear.

  “OK, see the guy on the green bike, with the red T-shirt on?” His mouth is practically nudging my ear, so close that his words vibrate against the skin. It feels so goddam good I can barely stand it.

  “Watch him. See how he keeps riding back and forth along the same path? He’s planning something.”

  I find the rider he’s talking about and train my eye on him. But it’s difficult to resist closing my eyes and blocking out everything but how each word feels against my skin.

  “Ok. Watch . . . watch . . . watch.” The way he strings the words together sounds like a mantra, meditative and stimulating all at the same time. The rider starts to pedal like crazy, racing toward the edge where a huge spire of concrete juts out. The force created by the buildup carries him to the top, where he throws his bike into multiple spins, around not once but almost three times. Then he pulls his center of gravity in and finds the ground without even the slightest bounce. Trevor grabs my waist and pulls his arms around me tighter, rocking me with a tender kind of delight.

  “See how he did that? That’s so cool.” He loosens his grip around my waist a little. “Fuck. I miss that sometimes, hitting a trick just right. There’s nothing like it.”

  Suddenly, all the lights in the complex begin to flicker and dim in a timed sequence. I peer around to see if anyone else looks alarmed and consider the concept that this is an earthquake. I don’t know a thing about earthquakes, other than they seem to happen in California a lot. The entire goddam state sits on precarious fault line. This may be it, the final break, and in the morning, I’ll end up marooned on the Island of California in the nether regions of the Pacific Ocean. My body must have stiffened because Trevor lowers his head again, murmuring so close that his mouth teases against my earlobe occasionally, and the sensation has me considering the most subtle way to tip my head to the side, exposing more of my neck. Just in case he is so inclined to put his lips there also.

  “It’s just a reminder the park is closing in ten minutes. They flash the lights so everyone can clear out. After that it goes totally dark.”

  The riders all slow down and start pedaling toward the exits. The radios, which have been blaring a cacophony of punk rock and hip-hop, start to quiet one at a time. Oddly, a group like this, with their tattoos, wallet chains, and piercings, all act like a bunch of righteous rule-followers when a few lights flicker.

  Trevor stands and, like the rest of them, makes a move to leave. He holds his hand out to me and then pulls me up off the ground. Apparently he is unaware of his own strength, as the move is more forceful than necessary and I have to steady myself against his chest so I don’t topple back to the ground.

  “Jeez, sorry,” he says and then wraps his arms around my waist and holds me there until I regain my balance. “You’re so tiny.” He pauses for a moment and then murmurs. “Fucking perfect.”

  “Or you’re just too strong for your own good,” I deadpan and then push away from his chest playfully. He makes a move to grab at my waist again, trying to wrap me up in him, where I won’t be able to think rationally. My instincts kick in and despite the fact that I’m wearing boots with tall heels, I run up the hill and laugh.

  My only real advantage is that I’ve taken him by surprise. At home, I trail run every day, and while that consistency might benefit me, the heels will likely counteract that. I’ve seen just enough of his body to know I’m probably gloriously screwed in any physical contest I might stupidly engage in with him.

  Once I crest the top of the grassy hillside, I bolt to the right, where I can see an open field that ends near a playground with a swing set and seesaws. I barely make it to the edge of the playground when the lights over the skatepark elicit a series of loud snapping noises and it goes completely black.

  Since I’m forced to slow my gait enough to adapt to the darkness, Trevor is able to grab me from behind and he laughs. “Home court advantage, baby. Can’t run very well in those heels, can you?”

  “I almost had it. The stupid lights screwed me up.”

  My body sways in his arms and we collapse gently to the grass. Although it shouldn’t have, the little jog has made my breathing a bit labored. It all feels so playfully delicious that I end up lolling my head back and forth against the ground while giggling quietly like a schoolgirl. Trevor is laughing with me for a moment and then crawls over me so his lips are right next to mine. Instantly, all I can think is that I want him all over me, pressing against every single part of me until I can’t feel anything else.

  His lips are on mine, tantalizingly gentle at first, with small tentative kisses. I lean up and pull him closer by tugging on his shirt. Just short of my making a complete spectacle in throwing myself at him, he takes the bait and pushes my mouth open slightly so his tongue can tease mine gingerly. I have to stop my legs from wrapping around his waist and force my hands to stay where they are, instead of slipping under his shirt to his chest and back. First date, for Christ’s sake, Kate.

  While I struggle to keep it PG-13 because we’re lying on the ground in a public park, Trevor pulls his mouth from mine and works his lips down the side of my face and over my neck.

  “You’re a terrible date, you know that?” I stutter out. All I get from him is a grumbled groan and another kiss against my neck that includes a small nip with his teeth. “Chasing and then toppling your date to the ground is kind of rude. Usually those things indicate it isn’t going very well. Like she’s desperately trying to get away from you.”

  He pulls back from my neck to move up toward my ear. “That’s debatable. Sometimes having her on the ground just like this means it’s actually going really, really well.”

  Leaning back, a wide grin covers his face and his teeth shine a little in the dark before he pulls us up from the ground together. Instead of dialing back his pull on me, he does it with the same force he did before, shoving me against him again. His head nuzzles against my hair and before I can catch my breath, he pulls away.

  “Come on.” He pulls my arm and leads me toward the playground. He points to one of the swings. “Sit. I’ll push you.”

  I sit down gingerly on the swing and begin to push with my legs. Trevor falls in behind and starts to push gently as I swing back and forth. Weightless and safe in the ease of feeling like nothing bad can ever happen again, just so long as I stay right here, with the only creaking lullaby of the swing in the air.

  “When do you go home?” Trevor asks.

  One simple question and it punctures the enchanting moment. My voice cracks a little. “Tomorrow. Ten a.m. flight.”

  “You miss home?”

  “Always.”

  He stops pushing me and I slow to a gentle sway. I feel like this is ending, the distracting and delightful little dream is about to poof into dust and disappear.

  “Don’t stop.”

  Instead of honoring the wish I just croaked out like a desperate woman, he grabs each of the swing chains and halts me completely. His mouth is at my ear again.

  “I like the way that sounds when you say it.”

  Thankfully, he’s behind me, so he can’t see my face go slack, my eyes fall closed, and my lips part. When he starts pushing me again, I practically fall off the stupid swing.

  When he returns me to the hotel, I’m not sure what to expect. I can’t even be sure what I want to expect. Part of me, specifically the southern region in the state of Kate, wants more. The northern hemisphere knows the southern states can’t be trusted to make a good decision about much of anything, though. Left to its own devices, the southern hemisphere makes decisions that usually end up with you wandering Weck’s drugstore for a pregnancy test or asking old Doc Calvin to prescribe something for the itch that just won’t go away.

  Still, I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved when Trevor leaves me at the elevator in the hotel lob
by with only another aching kiss, one of his hands twisting in my hair at the nape of my neck and the other at the small of my back, his fingers grazing the top curve of my ass. All I can be sure of is that the shouting in my head barely drowns out the pounding of my little heartbeat as I watch him walk away.

  6

  Crowell is the same as always when I arrive home: quiet and unassuming. No one in town could have any idea that I went on a date with an exceptionally famous, sexy, seemingly sweet guy in LA. None of it matters since, to everyone in Crowell, I’m still just Kate. A regular ol’ widowed, slightly sarcastic, hometown girl.

  I get home Friday and spend the day doing laundry, catching up on the mail, and going to the grocery store. I spend Saturday morning in bed, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper page by page. I try to forget the last few days. Whether they were good or bad, they were an illusion. Here in my empty bed, in a home I built with the only man I ever loved, is my reality. For better or worse.

  I start another pot of coffee because, well, I can do that if I want to. I’m an independent gal who can slurp down two pots of bad coffee over the course of a lazy Saturday if I feel like it. Staring out the window above the sink while the coffeepot fills with water, I look out behind the house to James’s shed, the place where all his very manly junk remains. There are pheasant mounts and deer heads, gaudy neon beer signs, an old couch that sags so deeply in the center it’s hard to get out of, and a refrigerator for beer.

  Right now, at this exact moment, I wish for nothing more than to see the light on in the shed and hear James laughing with his friends over a weekly poker game. Because that would mean in a few hours, he would crawl into bed, smelling like wood smoke and PBR. He would try to be as quiet as he could, curling up behind me and kissing my ear gently, and his nose would be cold from standing outside saying good-bye to his friends. Then we would make love and drift off into the kind of peaceful sleep that only comes from deeply sated desire and tenderness.