by Anthology
“Oh … oh, wait no. Yes, friends are fine, but I’m not a lesbian. I just went through a divorce … from a man.”
“So, no use for either sex.”
“Not a one.”
“Smart move.” She continued on through the kitchen and opened up the back door. “There’s a covered patio to hang out in. No smoking anything inside. I have a little garden that I like to grow vegetables to cook with, but I do eat meat. Is that a problem?”
“Is eating meat offensive?”
“To some people.”
“Meat doesn’t offend me.”
“Good. I’ll help you bring your stuff upstairs and let you rest. I think all of the houseguests will be going out for a drink tonight if you want to come along.”
“Sure, that would be awesome.”
The suitcases seemed a lot heavier going up a flight of stairs. At the top, I passed two closed doors and one open door leading to a bathroom. The wheels of the suitcase rolled down the hardwood to the opposite end of the hallway. She pushed open the door to a spacious room with the same orange accents as the downstairs.
“Since you’ll be staying awhile, we can work out a laundry schedule. The laundry room is on the way down to the basement. Just text me if you want to wash and I’m not at home. I work during the day from ten to three.”
“What do you do?” I asked, putting down my laptop bag.
“I’m a hairstylist at a salon on Alberta. Let me know if you need a haircut while in town.”
I looked at her colorful hair and then the drab brown hanging over my shoulders.
“Maybe I could use a little color.”
“You’re single now. Get crazy.”
Three
The rain tapped against the roof while a subtle beat played from downstairs. I could hear laughter and a couple of glasses clanked once. I wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at myself. My frizzy, damp hair hung in waves over my bare and somewhat flat chest. I turned to the side and stared across the all-white bathroom at the full length mirror. I needed to eat. Maybe I’d get fat and happy because I didn’t have to be some attorney’s trophy wife anymore. I grabbed my makeup bag and applied the basic essentials needed, then dug out the most hipster outfit I could come up with: skinny jeans and a cardigan. I still looked like a southern socialite, but I could fake it as best as I could. I grabbed my crossover and headed downstairs.
The laughter guided me to the kitchen as five strangers stood around Hades. A guy a few years younger than me with perfectly styled hair and horn-rimmed glasses said, “Bang, bang,” and Hades rolled over and played dead. Now his name suited him. Horn-rimmed glasses then said, “Treat.” Hades rose from the dead.
“Quinn,” Zoe called out. “Come meet everyone.”
Ten eyes were suddenly on me. That drink would come in handy tonight.
“Yay, the new girl,” horn-rimmed glasses said. “Hi, I’m Patrick.”
“Quinn,” I answered. In no way, shape, or form did I consider myself the type to place stereotypes on anyone, but Patrick was the gay guy.
“This is my brother, Jonah,” he said, motioning to a guy that looked identical but not as put together. Both cute. Young, but cute. “And that’s Tara and Beth.”
“Drinks,” Zoe said, breaking through the group. “Let’s go.”
I followed her out the front door as the rain splattered on my head. I gazed up as one drop rolled into my eye.
“It’s just a little water,” Beth said, walking past me to Zoe.
Tara came alongside me and asked, “So, what’s your story.”
“I want to hear the story,” Patrick said. “But I can’t hear in the back.”
I turned my head to look behind me. He followed along with his brother, walking around a tree that seemed to grow directly from the sidewalk’s center. I turned back to cross a street. I waited for a car to pass, but they waved us on through. Pedestrians apparently have the right of way in Portland, I noted. Zoe pulled open a wooden door, and we walked into a pub. Smooth music crooned from the back. Small mason jars lit the middle of each table lining the wall. A dozen taps stood one next to the other behind the bar. I was pretty far from South Carolina, but this place felt like home. At least I would be easily broken in by Portland. I followed Zoe to the back wall, and we climbed into a u-shaped booth. Jonah stood in front of the table, asking what everyone wanted to drink.
“Quinn, what are you drinking?”
“Beer is good.”
He stared at me a second longer and said, “You’re going to have to help me out more than that.”
“Something Portland-ish.”
“I can do that.” He turned away.
“Oh, wait,” I turned for my bag to give him money, but Patrick grabbed my arm.
“We have a brother who works here. It’s on the house.”
I glanced to the bar where Jonah stood waiting, and then back to Patrick.
“Are you two visiting your brother?”
“Yes, Jonah and I are twins. We’re both in our fourth year at Berkeley, taking a semester off to travel a bit. Where did you go to school?”
Jonah placed a beer in front of me. “Thank you,” I said as he scooted in beside me. I turned back to Patrick. “Clemson.”
“Grad school?”
“Nope.” I took a sip of beer.
“Is this where the story starts?” Tara asked.
I looked around the table of strangers, all awaiting the life story of the new traveler on her lonesome journey. “I think I’m going to need more than beer to get this all out.”
“That bad, huh?” Beth asked.
I took a long sip of beer.
“I think that’s an answer,” she observed.
I nodded.
Jonah hopped up to the bar to wave someone over and returned with a small tray of five shot glasses filled to the rim with clear liquid, a lime hanging from each one.
“Oh, shit,” Tara groaned at the shot placed in front of her.
We each downed the tequila and, after the wincing subsided, I began, “I got married two months after college graduation.”
“Jonah, we’re gonna need another round,” Patrick ordered.
I grabbed Jonah’s arm and shook my head. I didn’t need any more tequila. I reached for my beer instead and took another long sip.
“We got married right after graduation, and I got a job soon after, helping him through law school. He graduated and joined a firm in Charleston. He worked out of their Myrtle Beach office at first, and then they started shuffling him between both cities. He started spending more and more time in Charleston. Now, he’s engaged to another woman, and here I am.”
I tilted the glass back and chugged every last drop, slamming it down on the table a little too hard.
“I need another.”
Jonah closed his gaping mouth and left the table without a second glance.
“So, how did you come to be here?” Tara asked, pushing her half full shot toward Beth.
“Well, I sat on Myrtle Beach for about a month before I decided to throw my ring in the Atlantic and hop a plane.”
“In the ocean?” Jonah asked, returning with beers.
“Yep.” The drinking came quicker.
“So, that explains the no need for either sex,” Zoe added.
“Yep.”
Another tray of shots and limes landed in the middle of the table. My eyes drew up from the hand holding the tray, to the cuffed flannel shirt just below the elbow, to the scruffy beard, to the horn-rimmed glasses. The beer god of Portland standing before me looked like Jonah and Patrick blended into one with roughly ten years added to their age. I knew it was the beer consuming me, but for a small flicker of a second, I wasn’t sure if I was really against sex anymore. I gazed up at him. He looked back at me … and … nothing. No sparks flying from his eyes. No world coming to a complete halt. No voices hushing as the doves sang. He registered nothing on his face.
“Is this the southern girl?” he as
ked everyone at the table except the girl he referenced.
“That’s me. I go by Quinn, though. No need for labels.”
And just like that, I got a little smirk. Score one for the southern girl.
Four
Coffee. It was a necessity of everyday life. My love of coffee began in the later years of high school, and by college it had turned into a major food group. As a newlywed, the smell of a brewing pot was constant. He needed it to study. I needed it to get my ass out of bed every day to ensure he’d succeed in his studies. Years later, well after he was gone, it was still a morning ritual. Portland coffee was quite a different experience. Portland coffee wasn’t only a way of life; it was an art form.
By this time, the area surrounding Alberta Street had become my comfort zone. I discovered all the clothing stores and the rad pie place my Uber driver had told me about, but my daily comfort had been this little coffee shop. The same two baristas stood behind the counter every morning. By the second week of my Portland adventure, they began making a vanilla latte upon my entering. Sometimes it was a leaf design within the foam. Sometimes it was a heart. Once, on a slow morning, I received a pine tree. I sat on what appeared to be an old church pew for an hour every morning, sipping my vanilla latte (leaf design today), and read from one of the five books I brought with me – the ones I couldn’t live without. I had thousands on my kindle, but in an atmosphere such as this, a book with paper seemed more fitting. There was something about the smell of coffee beans and bound books.
While engulfed in the words of Jane Austen, the chair sitting opposite of me scraped silently against the rough hardwood floor as a latte identical to mine was placed down across the table. I peered over the English prose and my eye caught sight of plaid. Plaid didn’t distinguish one man from the next here. It didn’t distinguish men in the south either. Down south, plaid got tucked into some Wranglers paired with cowboy boots. Here, plaid got paired with a knitted hat. The man seated across from me was distinctive in his own way: the tattoos on his arm, the slight beard on his face, the horn-rimmed glasses resting on his nose. A flutter in my hollowed chest gave him the most distinctive quality.
“Walt,” was all he said.
I closed my book, laid it facedown, and looked over the rims of my own glasses. I had ditched my contacts after three days of being in Portland. Poor eyesight, something that seemed like a flaw, was celebrated in Portland. I’d joined the masses in wearing frames.
“How is the north treating you, southern girl?”
“It’s Quinn. And it’s been treating me well, Walt.”
“I remember. I just like the quality of southern girl.”
“I can’t disagree. Being from the south is a good quality.”
That phantom smirk rose up his cheeks. “So, how long are you staying here?”
“The plan is to shoot for a month.”
“And then where to?”
“I’m not sure yet. Maybe Boston, maybe Chicago.”
He took a sip of his latte. I wasn’t really sure why he chose to sit across from me, but I had to admit, I welcomed the attention.
“Maybe I’ll stay a little longer than a month.”
He reached across the little table and touched my book. My breath hitched very slightly, unnoticeable to anyone but me. His fingers grazed the spine, and I felt as if he touched my soul at the same time.
I nodded, accepting his curiosity of my book choice, and awaited his response to my prehistoric romance.
“Persuasion,” he said. “You strike me as a Pride and Prejudice kind of girl.”
“I like to be unpredictable.”
He studied me a little. Self-consciousness bled through my cold veins.
“So, you’re on a cross-country trip after suffering the end of the wrong man.”
“Men gossip more than women,” I said, sipping my lukewarm coffee.
“Just a brother answering a question.”
I studied him as he sipped his coffee, never breaking eye contact. He let it sink in that he’d asked one of his brothers about me. He put down his mug and flipped through the pages of my book. He eyed me long and hard before closing it and placing it back in front of me.
“This is one of five books you’ve brought with you.”
“How did you know I only brought five.”
“Every person always has five books they can’t live without. One of yours is Persuasion.”
“Are you going to guess what the other four are?”
“I don’t know you well enough yet. Have you ventured off Alberta Street?” I shook my head. “Not even to Powell’s?”
I’d heard of that place long before my journey here, but had yet to go. I shook my head again.
“That’s just unacceptable. Do you have plans today?”
“Just being in Portland.”
“You have not been in Portland if you haven’t gone to Powell’s. Even people who aren’t book lovers go to Powell’s.” He picked up our empty mugs and placed them on the back counter. I put my book back into my crossover.
“Think of it this way,” he began as I stood up and crossed my bag over my head. “Maybe you’re like Captain Wentworth and you’re supposed to go on a timely adventure. And when that is through, you’ll come back to be who you were meant to be.”
“Maybe so.”
“But any good adventure begins with a really big bookstore.”
Truth be told: I swooned a little at the simple mention of Captain Wentworth.
Five
When the Uber stopped, I expected to see the multiple story building, encompassing a city block, better known as Powell’s City of Books. Instead, I found myself in an alley with crisscrossed lights overhead. Pink picnic tables lined up before bars, restaurants, and possibly a strip club.
“This doesn’t look like a bookstore,” I said to Walt, who was busy throwing a couple of bucks into a musician’s guitar case.
“I figured if you haven’t been to Powell’s, then you haven’t been to Voodoo.”
“Voodoo?”
“Voodoo Doughnuts.” He reached for my hand to pull me through a corner door and dropped it just as fast. The sweet sugary smell of fried dough hit my nose and the thought of books were long forgotten. Among the voodoo paraphernalia, two glass cases of donuts spun like a record on the front counter. I stood staring at the names of the various doughnuts.
“Cock-N-Balls?” My mouth gaped slightly.
“That’s really good actually. Is that what you want?”
“I’m a Voodoo virgin. I think I need to ease into this.”
“You should try the Triple Chocolate Penetration.”
“I’m sure the double is more than filling.” I tried to hide my smirk at the overly obvious sexual flirt. I was a rookie at all of this. Our turn came next.
“She’ll have the Triple Chocolate Penetration, and I’ll have the Old Dirty Bastard.”
I chuckled inwardly and looked up at him as he fished out his wallet.
“I can get mine.”
“I’m all about equality, but I’m also a gentleman. I asked you out. That’s how dates work, right?”
“I wouldn’t have a clue,” I said, reaching across the counter for my doughnut. “I’ve been out of the game for a while.”
I led the way outside to one of the pink picnic tables. He sat across from me and his face lit up like it was his first Voodoo Doughnut. Men and their sugar. The next few moments were relatively silent except for a few moans from him (possibly, one from me). We left the sugar coma in our wake, and I followed Walt down the street, letting him be my guide.
“So, how long is a while?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, staring straight ahead while walking down Burnside.
“You said you’ve been out of the game a while. How long has it been since you were single?”
A few seconds passed in preparation for whatever type of response I would receive.
“First week of college.”
&
nbsp; His steps slowed. “Shit. For real?”
I nodded and continued walking forward.
“The same man since you were eighteen?”
“Yep.”
“Huh.”
I guess it was a foreign concept, but, really, it was. All of my adult life I’d spent with the same man. Now I was in Portland on the way to a bookstore with a man polar opposite of my ex. I was just beginning to understand the concept of living.
A tugging on my hand brought me from the depth of my thoughts. I came to a stop and looked back at Walt. He nodded his head forward. I turned back around.
“Whoa.”
I didn’t say another word. I didn’t turn back in his direction. I wedged forward like an earthling being sucked up into the unknown interior of a UFO. I couldn’t have fought against the pull even if I wanted to. Walt said my name behind me, but it didn’t register. A car slammed its brakes as I crossed the street. But this was Portland, right? Pedestrian heaven. I pulled open the glass door and the smell of bound paper soothed every molecule in my body. It was an indescribable euphoria. The closest thing I could compare it to was an orgasm, but even that didn’t do it justice. If this was like an orgasm, it was like the best orgasm in human existence.
“Before I lose you in this magical chaos, I have to show you my favorite spot.” I let him take my hand again, but it was probably because I was too busy gawking to care. Another sign of a traveler. We stepped into an elevator and the doors closed behind us. I snapped out of my trance for a moment and turned to look at him. Instead of his aloof smirk, he had a genuine smile. A small smile, but a smile all the same. My fingers threaded with his, and the weird flutter in my chest happened again. This euphoria wasn’t only from the books. It was him. It was this whole day. I never would have done this had I not gotten on that plane. We stepped off the elevator and weaved our way among the rows and rows of books to a room encased in wood and glass.
“This is the Rare Book Room. The best smell ever.”
The door creaked when he opened it for me. The aroma hit me so quickly, I may have moaned louder than I had with the doughnut.