Baggage Check

by M. J. Pullen

  “No, I’m stuffed,” she said. He stood and she followed him toward the door. “You didn’t have to buy me dinner. Thank you.”

  “As long as you know I’m expecting sex in return,” he said as he walked out into the night. He was kidding, she knew. It was the same to him as Scooby-Doo and the haunted house, and the ten thousand other jokes he had made since they met. But the smile felt brittle on her face, and her stomach churned.

  They navigated the grassy, unlighted parking lot in silence. There were thousands of stars in the sky, more than she could ever remember seeing before. He followed her gaze upward as he unlocked the passenger’s door for her. “It’s the country. You can’t see them near the city because of all the light pollution.”

  “Oh,” she muttered. She climbed into the car but kept her focus on the sky, even as they drove away.

  A memory floated back to her. She was with her dad and Cory beside the creek one summer night, watching a meteor shower. She did not remember where her mother had been, why it had been just the three of them. But she and Cory had been squabbling for half the night—probably he was picking on her about her braces because he knew that drove her crazy. And she was calling him stupid because it was her only defense, his only perceived weakness. Their dad had put one arm roughly around each of them and said, “Hush, you two. Don’t you know the stars are magic? You can’t be angry when you look at them. Stars are for wishing, and you never know what might come true underneath them.”

  They had quieted then. Not so much because of the magical stars, but because Richard was not one to tolerate disobedience, not back then. Rebecca had still been angry with Cory and made a hasty wish on the next meteor she saw flare across the sky. I wish he would just leave me alone. For years after Cory’s death, Rebecca had half-believed that it had been her wish that caused it.

  “You okay?” Alex said. They had been driving for several minutes in silence.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You sound fine.”

  “Sorry, I think I just ate too much.”

  “Me too,” he said, patting his belly. “It’s worth it, though, don’t you think?”

  “It was really good.”

  “Hey, do you want a beer?” he asked. “I know a great spot.”

  “I thought it was a dry county?”

  “It is, but I happen to have a six-pack in the trunk. It’s cold, or at least it was two hours ago. There’s a beautiful view of the river down one of these back roads. And an angry old man who shoots trespassers on sight down another. I’m pretty sure I remember which is which.”

  “That sounds great, Alex, but I think I just want to get home tonight. Can I take a rain check?”

  “Oh. Okay, sure.”

  “I’m sorry. I just realized how tired I am, and I really did eat too much.”

  “Definitely. No problem.”

  They went back to being quiet as he navigated down the darkened highways, and Rebecca watched the stars appear and disappear over the silhouettes of the trees. Alex began to whistle. At first it was sort of a tuneless whistling, and then she recognized “It Had to Be You,” among other things.

  25

  Alex stopped by the house on his lunch break Thursday, bringing her a turkey sandwich and a Coke from a little insulated lunch cooler in the passenger’s floorboard of the patrol car. Since his radio was quiet, he even helped her reach a few boxes that someone had managed to wedge into the upper reaches of her former bedroom closet.

  “So this is where all the magic happened,” he said, dusting his hands and looking around at what had become the “office,” but still had a faded border by the ceiling of pink and blue bows with a couple of sections missing.

  “Not in here it didn’t,” she said. “I was a good girl.”

  “Never let Roger Simon have a peek under your Beta Club T-shirt?”

  She blushed. “No! I didn’t think anyone remembered me and Roger, besides my dad.”

  “Oh, yeah. I was so jealous of him back then.”

  She felt suddenly uncomfortable. “His wife now seems lovely, from the pictures I’ve seen.”

  “She is. I had dinner with them a few weeks ago. Great kids, too. Honey played with them in the backyard for hours.”

  “You had dinner with Roger?”

  “Sure. I mean, raging jealousy over you aside, we’re old football buddies. Besides, we’re sort of in the same industry. I mean, at least we both have ‘law’ in our job titles.”

  “Well, yeah, at slightly different levels.” She regretted it as soon as it was out of her mouth.

  His smile faded. He took a step toward the window and looked out in the direction of the patrol car. “I don’t know. I like to think what I do is just as important as what Roger does.”

  Regret crept up from her belly. Why had she said such a stupid thing? “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. Of course your job is important.”

  “But you think I could do better.”

  She hesitated. “Not better, no.”

  “But?”

  “To be honest, I have wondered why you gave up on becoming an engineer. You talk about rebuilding that old house with such passion.”

  “I wonder that sometimes, too,” he said quietly. He turned back to her. “Who knew you were such a snob?”

  “I don’t mean to be,” she fumbled. “I have no room to talk. Most people think I’m just a waitress who works in the air.”

  “What’s wrong with being a waitress? Lots of my friends are waitresses. They bring food and that makes people happy.”

  She thought about the lady at Abelle’s the night before and felt even worse. “No—nothing is wrong with it, I just meant…” Jesus. Who else can I insult?

  “Do you think less of my parents because they’re just restaurant owners? Is your dad just a mailman? These jobs make the world go around and they’re not appreciated.”

  “I know, that’s true. I don’t mean—I—” She was flabbergasted. How had this conversation gone so wrong so quickly?

  Alex stared at her for another minute before his face broke into a wide grin. “I’m just messing with you, Williamson. You need to learn to relax a little.” He smacked her ass playfully as he walked past. “We’ll work on that later. For now, I gotta get back to work.”

  She stood unmoving, listening to him go, and did not let out a breath until she heard the patrol car leave the driveway.

  * * *

  Rebecca worked until nearly nine that night. This was partly because she had a purging fit, during which she put more than half the items in her “unsure” pile out on the blue tarp for donation. And partly, she had to admit, because of the nervous energy left over from her conversation with Alex. He did not call her that afternoon, which was certainly not unusual, but she wondered all the same if he was angry with her.

  It’s totally unfair for him to call me a snob, she thought, carrying an unopened under-the-cabinet microwave to the blue tarp. I am not a snob. I mean, what’s wrong with wanting something better in life? There was a box of brand-new, artificial white poinsettias she’d contemplated saving in case they came in handy for the Junior League Christmas gala. Blue tarp, she decided. If everyone were satisfied just doing any old job, we wouldn’t have music to listen to, or art, or inventions. We wouldn’t have the Internet.

  I can’t believe I said that about his job. He’s so brave to do what he does, and I know I sounded like a jerk. The elephant lamp with the red tasseled shade. What was I thinking?

  Maybe I’m embarrassed about my job? I don’t have my own company like Suzanne or a book deal like Marci. I’m never going to be featured on PBS like Jake. There was an old typewriter from the 1970s, still in its blue plastic case. It clanged as she placed it on the tarp next to the lamp. I’ll never be asked to be a keynote speaker for anything.

  Next came a set of colorful melamine mixing bowls. She liked them, but remembered that she never cooked. Then again, most people are never asked to be keynote speakers. Most
people have normal jobs where they work for someone else, and they raise their families and live their lives and try to be happy. I see rich, powerful people in first class all the time and they don’t seem happier than anyone else. Less, even.

  This went on for a couple of hours, with no resolution, until it was full dark and the blue tarp was overcrowded with items for Goodwill to pick up early the next morning. Finally Rebecca stopped, staring.

  “Oh, crap.”

  She must have been through twenty boxes of clothes, toys, and knickknacks, plus many small appliances and miscellaneous items. In her frustration, however, she had lost track of what she was doing. There were several piles of things she’d intended to save that were now on the blue Goodwill tarp, and half of what she’d put on the red tarp to keep actually belonged in the Dumpster or the donation pile.

  She considered calling the Goodwill guys and asking them to skip tomorrow, but a missed pickup would mean the yard remained crowded with junk for an extra three days. “Alex,” she breathed, shaking her head, and went back to work resorting everything she had just done.

  By the time she left the house that night she was ravenous, and stopped at the Git up N’ Go off Highway 9 on her way to her dad’s. A toothless old man held the door for her, and she went out of her way to give him her most genuine, not-snobby smile.

  She could not be sure, but Rebecca thought he let out a wet-sounding whistle as she brushed past him. She glanced down at herself, in filthy jean shorts and an ancient white tank top, sweaty and rank from the day’s work. There was an odd line of grayish dust across her midsection from something she had carried, and she could feel a matted curl of hair hanging across her brow. Commercials and Flashdance had taught her that men had fantasies about sexy women doing hard labor in skimpy clothes, but she was almost positive she could never live up to those images in her current state.

  “People are weird,” she said aloud.

  “You tellin’ me,” agreed the old black man behind the counter. He was counting a stack of bills at the register and did not look up at her.

  She contemplated an egg salad sandwich in the cooler, but decided she did not trust the expiration date on gas station egg salad, no matter how hungry she was. In the end, she returned to the counter with a stick of beef jerky, a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips, and a large Diet Coke to wash it down. It was a far cry from the juicy burger and mixed green salad with balsamic vinaigrette she was craving, but it would have to do.

  “Have a blessed night,” the cashier said when he handed her the change from her rumpled five-dollar bill.

  “I’ll try,” Rebecca said.

  She was almost to her father’s house when she slammed on the brakes and put the car in reverse. It only took ten minutes to get back to her mother’s house, but she felt inexplicably panicky the whole way. What if it’s gone? What if I’m too late?

  But there it was, exactly where she’d left it on the blue tarp, in all its tacky glory. She loaded it into the backseat, thinking how ridiculous the red tassels and eclectic design were going to look in her sleek, modern apartment. “Maybe it’s time to make room for some weirdness in my life,” she said. It was too late that night, she decided, but she would call Alex tomorrow and set him straight.

  26

  That Saturday morning, for the first time in a month, Rebecca got up at 3:30 A.M. On purpose. She put on jeans, a light jacket, and a baseball cap, along with the old tennis shoes she cleaned in, and headed out the door.

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” she told Alex when she found him, using her phone as a flashlight. He was about thirty yards from the parking lot next to Lake Ofeskokee, sitting in a folding camp chair.

  “Shhh,” he said. “You’ll wake the fish.”

  “Can you catch them if they’re sleeping?”

  “No, but you’ll scare them away. Did you bring coffee?”

  “Yes,” she whispered dramatically. She fumbled carefully to get the foam cup into his hands in the dark. His fingers were warm and lightly calloused as they brushed against hers. “Can I get you anything else? Blanket? Pillow? Beverage napkin?”

  “You really do miss your job, don’t you?” She could hear the smile in his voice.

  “I don’t miss getting up before dawn to bring people coffee, no.”

  “This was our deal—I bring the gear and you bring the coffee.”

  “I don’t understand why we couldn’t do something during daylight hours. Or something with other people around. How do I know you’re not going to strangle me and dump me in the lake?”

  “It’s still a possibility,” he said drily.

  “Or worse, I’ll be eaten by some wild animal out here in the wilderness.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who asked me what you could do to prove you weren’t a snob. This is it. Well, it’s this or pig wrestling.”

  “Fine. Where’s my pole?”

  “Here. I even baited your first hook for you. After that, you’re on your own.”

  “After that, I’ll probably just go back to bed.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll bait all your hooks. Jeez, girl, you’d never know that you were born and raised in Alabama. You’ve gotten all prissy and citified.”

  “Yes, I can see how the fact that I have some minimal hygiene standards and basic literacy would make me seem like an outsider.”

  “Whoa, now. That’s harsh. This is your town, too. And we’re not that bad. We have a library. I’ve even been in it. Nice clean bathrooms.”

  She gave his arm a gentle shove and lowered herself carefully into the second camp chair. “So what do I do next?”

  “Put the hook in the water.”

  “Yeah. And?”

  “Wait.”

  “Just wait?”

  “Just wait.”

  * * *

  She waited. And waited. Fifteen minutes went by, and then twenty. Alex pulled three decent-sized bream out of the water and tossed them in a bucket between them where they thrashed and rested in turns. He caught a few smaller fish that he threw back. But Rebecca got nothing. Once in a while she felt a tiny bumping sensation at the end of her line, but each time she pulled it out, the worm was gone and Alex had to hook another one on. She watched him do it the first time, piercing the short yellow mealy worm with the point of the hook so that a bubble of white blood formed around it while the poor thing squirmed helplessly. She felt all the blood rush out of her face so that she was nearly sick. From then on, he baited her hook while she looked in the other direction.

  The sun began to rise behind the trees, painting the sky in glorious warm pastels. She wedged her pole between her knees, the leg of the chair, and the bucket so that it would not move, and allowed herself to sit back and watch the sky beneath the brim of her cap. Slowly the world came into being around them, from gray outlines of predawn to orange light like flame, and finally a muted version of full daylight. Alex materialized next to her, too, in an army sweatshirt and black jogging shorts, with his eyes closed and head leaning back against the canvas of the chair. His jet-black hair was a rumpled mess, sticking out in every direction. She felt a sudden impulse to run her fingers through it, and then something stirred between her legs.

  “Ah!” she yelled, forgetting the early hour and Alex’s orders to be quiet. “I think I’ve got something!”

  The pole jerked sideways, nearly knocking over the bucket next to her; it almost got away from her before she could get out of her chair and get her hands tight around it. Alex jumped from his seat to help her as the pole bent under the weight of whatever was at the other end of the line. He reached around her to grab the pole and widened his stance to give them stability. She was aware of his body behind her, close and warm, his arms around her.

  “Here,” he said, “anchor your right foot back and put your left foot forward.” She did so just in time, as something tugged mightily on the other end of the line and nearly pulled her over.

  “I hope it’s not an alliga
tor,” he said.

  She turned to glare at him. “Don’t even play like that.”

  “Kidding. I’m kidding. It’s almost totally impossible that it’s an alligator.”

  “Almost? Alex!”

  He laughed in her ear, finding the reel with his right hand and beginning to spool the line in. “You just hold on, okay? I’ll bring it in. It’s fine.”

  She could not believe how strong a fish could be, as she struggled to hold the pole steady while he turned the little silver handle on the reel. The pole looked like it was in danger of snapping in half at first, and when the fish finally broke the surface, they both reeled backward. She thought she would fall and the fish would end up halfway to the parking lot. Alex held her up, though, and managed to swing the pole back around so that the fish finally dangled in front of them, shimmery green and silver. She’d never thought a fish could show emotion, but this one looked angry.

  She squealed in half-squeamish, half-victorious delight as Alex moved carefully around her to lower the fish into the bucket. “Oh my God! I caught one! And it’s huge!”

  “It really is a beauty,” Alex said. “Looks like a red-eared bream.”

  “Do you see how big my fish is?” she said, ignoring the specifics and doing a little jumping dance. “I caught a really big fish!”

  “I knew you could,” he said. He threw his arms around her and jumped with her while they hugged in celebration. She felt giddy, and a little silly. But she thought she was beginning to understand why her dad liked fishing so much.

  Alex stopped jumping and grinned at her, hands still on her shoulders. “See? I told you.” And then something in his eyes changed, and he leaned into her with a gentle kiss that tasted like stale coffee. His face was rough with stubble and prickled her chin. For a moment, she was swept away. She closed her eyes and let her hands rise to his shoulder blades and her mouth press against his kiss. He pulled her closer. She trembled just slightly—whether from the chill of the morning, the excitement of catching the fish, or Alex, she could not have said. But she felt his warmth against her, and moments later, a hardness stirring in his jogging shorts. This brought her back to reality.