The People We Keep

by Allison Larkin

  And then Justin is back. Body on mine. The wet towel wrapped around him falling to the wayside.

  * * *

  “Where are you headed next?” Justin says after, rolling on his side to look at me.

  I shrug. “My plans got pushed around.” I was going to book more gigs from Red Bank. It’s the first time in a long time with a big span of empty in front of me. I should have called places from Arnie’s but it felt nice to just be there.

  “So you can go anywhere? Like whenever you want to?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Mostly. I mean, I have to fund it, so there’s work involved.”

  “God, you’re so lucky. Even on spring break I’m supposed to be home going to interviews for a summer internship I don’t even want.”

  “So why go?”

  “My dad’s making me. I want to intern in New York or Washington, someplace real, you know? But I have to spend the summer in Rochester. He won’t pay for me to live anywhere else. He hates the idea that I might actually have fun at some point in my life.”

  Justin looks so defeated. It’s real hurt that his dad won’t pay for him to have fun. I can’t imagine his world. He probably can’t imagine mine either. But I do understand feeling stuck and misunderstood.

  “What would happen if you came with me instead?” I say. It’s hypothetical. A gift to him, so he can feel like he has choices. It’s safe. He won’t take me up on it.

  Justin laughs. “My dad would shit himself.”

  I laugh too and run my finger along his arm. “See, technically, you could, though. You have more than one narrow path.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Technically, I could.” The gears are turning. He might actually be considering it. I wait for the fear to hit, but it doesn’t. Instead, he wraps his arms around me and I can still breathe all the way in and all the way out. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I learned not to travel with people. I know better. But this is different. It’s Justin. He’s the first person I met after I left Ithaca. I’ve known him for a long time. I run my finger along his forearm from one freckle to the next, like I’m connecting stars.

  * * *

  Over hash browns and coffee at a diner on State Street, we start plotting. We’ll go south until it gets warm enough to swim in the ocean. He has a ton of mixtapes. I’ll pay for gas. He’ll pay for rooms. He has his dad’s credit card. For emergencies. “This is an emergency,” he says, halfway between funny and earnest. “It’s my junior year, and I’ve never even gone anywhere good for spring break. At some point I have to live my life, you know?”

  I nod, willing my mind to ignore how far apart we are. I need a break from myself, and this is the closest I’ll get to taking one. We pick up my car from the parking lot at Arnie’s without stopping in to say hi. I think we both know our getaway plan will fade fast if we lose momentum.

  Back at Justin’s, he throws things in a duffle bag, quickly, like the house will burn to ashes around us if we don’t get out.

  And then, we’re gone.

  — Chapter 36 —

  Justin has terrible taste in music. I’m almost offended he likes my songs so much. The broken tape deck in my car wasn’t even a problem for him, because he brought his boom box, so we could listen to his ten thousand mixtapes that are a jumble of songs by the same five shitty college radio bands in slightly different order. He can’t read a map. He won’t pee on the side of the road, and he’s an endless pit of hunger. He’s the opposite of practical.

  Here’s what Justin gets at our first gas station stop: pork rinds, a jumbo bag of pizza-flavored Combos, two giant slushies (blue and red, because why should we have to choose), couple Cokes for later, Fruit Stripe gum, and a Zagnut bar with a wrapper that’s sun-faded and dusty, because he’s never seen one before. He swears he’s not going to eat it. It’s just because the word Zagnut is funny.

  Here’s what I get: thirteen gallons of gas.

  Most of what I eat is convenience store food. It’s not amusing. It’s just convenient. I have a hard time holding my tongue about how he chewed up good daylight laboring over his junk food choices. But then he smiles between bites of fossilized Zagnut—“Want some? It’s disgusting!”—and I feel like I have to play along and pretend all of this is novel and fun, the way you don’t tell other kids the truth about Santa after you know. It’s not fair to ruin the end of the movie for everyone else. But the end of his movie is better than mine. It’s not something I have to think about when I leave after one night, but it’s sad to see up close. I feel like I’ve found a new kind of lonely.

  “That’s okay,” I tell him, shrugging off the Zagnut. “I’ll let you keep that all to yourself.”

  “It’s so stale!” He laughs, and crumbs of decaying chocolate spray from his mouth. This is an adventure to him, and I will myself to feel the same way. I want to believe there will still be newness in the world for me. That it’s not all faded and dusty. A few miles later, I look over, and he’s rocking out to some horrible shouty song with a pseudo-Egyptian riff, grinning like a dog who escaped the pound. Knowing I’ve made him so happy helps tame the churn in my stomach and kills the urge to leave him in the next rest stop bathroom. I like him. I swear, I do. But it’s hard to like someone. It’s a job that’s never quite finished.

  * * *

  “Hey,” Justin says, pointing toward an exit sign. “Do you think the water is warm enough in New Jersey?”

  I laugh, thinking he’s making a joke, but when I look over, his face is serious.

  “No,” I say carefully. “I don’t think that’s south enough for swimming in spring.”

  “Oh.”

  And then, “Do you think we can stop? For a restroom?”

  After we get back in the car, he falls asleep. His mixtape runs to the end and I’m left to my thoughts and the road noise.

  I glance at him from time to time. There’s something sweet about someone feeling comfortable enough to sleep in front of you. The light from the setting sun makes his eyelashes glow. He doesn’t even stir when I hit a pothole. He has so much peace. He believes the life ahead will work out in his favor, and it probably will. In the grossest of thoughts, I wonder if I could go with him. If I could piggyback on his life, the end of his movie would be mine too. I could stay in Binghamton while he finishes school. Arnie could get his knee surgery, and I’d take care of the bar while he recovers. I’d be safe and warm and clean. Maybe, if this trip goes well, Justin would want me there. Or maybe, at least, I could visit him more. I could rest.

  The sun goes from a sliver to nothing. Justin snores.

  — Chapter 37 —

  It’s easier, I think, to plunk down in the middle of romance. Or lust, or whatever it is. Justin and I know what roles we’re supposed to play, what goes where. There’s a script. A way to act. Friendship is so much harder. It needs time and I never have any. I don’t ever stay long enough to be a friend. The one time I tried to make a friend on the road, it turned upside down, and I never saw it coming.

  I met a girl at a gig about six months after I left Ithaca, and she played guitar too. Her car was having problems and wouldn’t it be so much more fun if we traveled together? Wouldn’t it? It was easy, right away, which should have been a sign. I mean, Carly didn’t walk up to me and say, “Let’s be friends.” But I was too lonely to be leery, and that girl made me feel important.

  She taught me to play barre chords and crack lockbox codes on empty rental houses. How to push back when a bar owner claims the take from the door was lower than it obviously was. How to pick the right guys to go home with, so you don’t have to spring for a motel room but you don’t have to give more than you want to. I needed her.

  She found out, three days in, that I’d never been to the ocean, so she called a guy she knew in Asbury Park and booked us a gig. Two days later we were at the boardwalk. She ran straight into the waves with all her clothes on. I did too, dunking my head under water so she wouldn’t notice my tears. I felt like she gave me the ocean. Lik
e all of it was ours.

  Half the contacts in my notebook are because she introduced me to someone. Or she introduced me to the someone who introduced me. She was so much fun until she wasn’t. Until I caught her trying to take my guitar to a pawnshop because we could both use hers. Because she needed the money for a ‘thing’ she couldn’t tell me about yet, and she’d get more cash for mine. The fight we had was brutal, and it got worse from there. I had to leave her. You can’t travel with someone you can’t trust. I did it the best way I could. Told her I was going. Tucked a bus ticket and some twenties in her bag before I drove away, but somehow I was stuck with gasps of guilt that still take over in the quiet.

  Women notice more. They pay attention to tiny details, so it’s easier for them to break you apart from the inside. Maybe I should have been willing to share my guitar. Maybe the ‘thing’ was going to be more than a little plastic baggie she’d empty in a day, and I was a horrible person for thinking otherwise. Maybe I’m too chipped and cynical and stale, finding the worst because I’m looking for it.

  Now I always ask who else is playing before I book a show to make sure we won’t cross paths. But she never is. Cole told me that the last time she gigged at The Downtown, she looked like “death on a coke bender,” and the songs she played were mostly mine. He said some people live hard and burn out fast and that I should learn not to get too sad about it. I try to not even think her name.

  * * *

  It’s late. I’m tired. Justin’s been sleeping for most of the trip, so when he stirs and gives me a dopey smile, I suggest he take the night shift, even though I feel funny about him driving my car.

  “We’ll just stop at a cheap hotel,” he says, yawning loud. “We’re not in a hurry.” He stays awake to watch for lodging signs. The mixtapes start again and I miss the quiet.

  * * *

  Justin has a very different idea of what constitutes a cheap hotel. A good lock on the door and a mattress that doesn’t smell like piss is as fancy as I can justify. And even that feels like a splurge. In my notebook I keep a list of the motels that aren’t so bad and the ones I will never, ever set foot in again. I assumed we’d look for something on my list, but Justin points out a Holiday Inn sign from the highway and says, “There. That’ll work.” Hands his dad’s credit card across the counter without asking what the rate is. Orders burgers for both of us from room service.

  The room just smells like clean and I don’t even feel like I have to check the lock.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe you don’t like live off of room service,” Justin says, jamming a stack of steak fries in his mouth. “That’s what I would do.”

  “I don’t usually stay in places that have room service. Plus,” I say, trying to make it all sound better than it is, “most of the places where I play feed me.”

  “Where do you live when you’re not on the road?” He puts his pickle slices on my plate. He always remembers things about me that I’ve forgotten he could know.

  “Nowhere,” I say, trying not to let the word settle into my brain.

  “So the traveling never stops?” He looks at me, mouth open, horrified. There are still pieces of french fry stuck to his tongue.

  “Not really,” I say, forcing a smile. It’s hard to see him process how little I have. “I mean, there are a couple of places—friends let me stay for a week or two to catch my breath sometimes.”

  “What about your parents? Do you ever go home?”

  “That’s not… that’s not really an option for me.”

  He hugs me close. “Add me to the list. You can always catch your breath at my place.”

  I love the feel of his arms through his soft, clean shirt. He kisses me hard. I can feel the ridges his teeth make through his lips. And then it evolves and he’s kissing me everywhere like he’s trying to memorize me. We have lazy sex with the TV and all the lights on.

  When it’s over, that itch I get to escape is so diluted I can barely feel it. I rest my head on his chest. He’s watching Billy Madison. I like hearing him laugh from the inside. I feel myself fall away without trying to stop it.

  * * *

  I wake up startled. I’m not sure what sets it off. A dream that disappears when my eyes open, or my body rejecting sleep. My cheek is damp against his chest.

  “Hey, sleepyhead,” he says, and I wonder if his mom says that to him. “You were zonked. And you drooled.”

  “Sorry,” I say, wiping the puddle from his chest, feeling my cheeks burn.

  Justin laughs. “Don’t be sorry.” He smooths my hair and lets me rest on him again, rubbing my back absentmindedly. The movie has switched to something with Jim Carrey that I haven’t seen, but I can’t keep my eyes open long enough to watch any of it. It’s the best sleep I’ve had in years.

  — Chapter 38 —

  In the morning, Justin makes coffee in the machine on the dresser. We lay the map across the bed and figure out our route. Florida for sure, but we have to decide which part. Justin wants to go to Weeki Wachee to see the mermaids. It seems kind of ridiculous, but really, why shouldn’t we? That’s what a vacation is, to the best that I can tell. Driving to see what there is to see without any other purpose.

  I’m always careful about my expenses. I have money saved. Two hundred, plus the extra forty I always keep hidden in my guitar case. But when I hesitate on Weeki Wachee because we don’t need to go all the way to the left side of Florida to get to warm water, Justin jumps in with “I’ll even pay for gas. Don’t worry about it.” So really, there’s no reason not to see the mermaids.

  Justin goes downstairs to check out while I brush my teeth and dry my hair. I’m supposed to meet him at the car, but a few minutes later the room phone rings and it’s Justin saying, “Can you come down here?” So I leave my stuff in the room and sprint down the stairs to the lobby, because his voice sounds desperate and the elevator is probably slow.

  There’s a manager at the desk looking stern. Justin is red-faced, hands shaking.

  “My dad canceled the card,” Justin whispers in my ear. “Declined the charges. Manager says he might arrest me.” He looks like he will break into sobs at any moment. He hands me the bill. The movies were pay-per-view, not regular cable. Plus room service. Plus tax. It’s a hundred and thirty-seven dollars.

  I want to shout at him about calling me into it. I’m terrified they’ve already sent someone to the room and they’ll take my guitar. But Justin gets messier by the moment. He looks young, defeated, and I realize that he is not equipped to handle this.

  I put my hand out to shake the manager’s. It throws him off, which is the point.

  “I’m so sorry for this misunderstanding,” I say, using my best waitress voice. “If you could give us a chance to go upstairs and make a phone call, I’m sure—”

  “I’m afraid we can’t allow—”

  “If he calls collect, can he call from the lobby? It’s just a misunderstanding.” I smile sweetly. There are other people in the lobby. I can tell Justin is embarrassed to have witnesses, but it’s our asset. The manager won’t want a scene, and as long as I use a calm and reasonable voice, he’ll look terrible if he loses his cool.

  He allows Justin to use the courtesy phone in the lobby, next to a mauve couch and a table with a vase of fake flowers. The manager and I stand at the corner of the desk, watching him. Dial, wait, hang up, dial. Justin’s dad denies the first three calls but accepts on the fourth. Justin wipes tears from his cheeks as he talks, cupping the phone to his mouth for privacy.

  The manager shifts his weight from one foot to the other. His name is Brian. It says so on his name tag. He sighs. I smile at him, cool as a cucumber, and settle into the silence. I’m okay with quiet, but chances are he’s not, so again, I have the advantage.

  I study his face and make up his life. He was probably kind of cute in high school, when girls could still dream about him being something more. Button nose, brown eyes, reddish-brown hair that’s starting to grey at the
temples. Freckles. His chin will disappear soon. Divorced, definitely. Long enough that the pale band on his empty ring finger has tanned up again. Ex-wife is pretty in an Ivory soap and water kind of way. Two kids, who would rather not go to his sad apartment on weekends. He’d rather not have them there and wonders what kind of person that makes him. That’s why he drinks. Late at night, after he gets home from work, microwaves a Salisbury steak, when the talk shows turn into reruns, he snorts a line or two off the glass coffee table he rents from one of those lease-to-own furniture places. He will never own that coffee table.

  He blushes in my gaze. His hand goes to his cheek. Self-conscious about his freckles. That’s why I stare at them. I guessed right.

  “So where are you from?” he asks after several minutes watching Justin whisper arguments into the phone.

  “Western New York,” I say brightly, as if I’m thrilled to chat with him. This is not a problem. If I act like it’s not a problem, it won’t be.

  “Staten Island?”

  “Outside Buffalo.”

  He nods. Everyone seems to forget New York is more than a city, that there’s a world beyond the boroughs and the people who live there are real. But I don’t want to sound snotty and I’m worried maybe I did. I’m about to say more, and then Justin hangs up the phone and waves me over. I smile at Brian. “ ’Scuse me for a sec.”

  Justin tries to whisper in my ear when I sit next to him. “No,” I say quietly. “Smile. Talk softly, but smile.”

  “My dad’s pissed that I didn’t come home for my internship interviews and he’s not going to pay for my dalliance.” He uses finger quotes. “But he won’t press charges.”