FROM ATLANTA, IT was on to the Big Easy for jazz and jambalaya in The Quarter and riverboat gambling on the Mississippi. For two days, they combed the streets of that old historic district, marveling at the Creole townhouses by day and downing hot Cajun food and “big ass beers” by night.
With New Orleans behind them, they headed for Memphis in a six-hour tear up I-55. There, Tak insisted, they would find the best barbecue on the planet. But they did more than gorge on butter-soft baby back ribs and pounds of pulled pork; they lost themselves in the melancholy sound of blues on Beale Street, danced rooftop at The Peabody Hotel and strolled the banks of the Mississippi by moonlight.
“My mom never said why she killed my dad,” Deena said, the Mississippi River to her right as they strolled. The moon was high and shone on the water, shimmering with its fullness as if promising to pop. The air was thick with the heat of the south and summer.
“Not even after she was convicted?” Tak said.
Deena shook her head. “No.”
Another couple passed, staring. Tak either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Deena figured it was the second one.
“You said that you didn’t remember much. Could you have suppressed her explanation?”
Deena shrugged. “I suppose. But I doubt it. When I say I don’t remember much, I mean about the murder. Like, it comes in snippets for me. The blood, my mom with the gun, things like that. Never in sequential order.”
“And when you dream, is it the same way?”
She hesitated. “I don’t dream about that very much anymore.”
Instead, images of her parents were being ousted in dramatic fashion by lurid snippets of sex, courtesy of a sweating and shirtless Tak.
He glanced at her. “You don’t dream about them much?”
She shook her head.
“Well, that’s odd. When did that happen?”
Instantly, she wanted to say, “right about the time I started wanting you inside me.” After all, they were the same moment.
But she cleared her throat instead. “Um, I’m not sure.”
When he glanced at her, she looked away. She dared not look up, so afraid was she that he knew her secret, so certain was she that everyone did.
Four hours separated Memphis from St. Louis, next on their list of “must sees”. The I-55 corridor that linked the two cities weaved them through highlands and plains before dumping them in St. Louis, the self-proclaimed “Gateway of the West”.
They were hurdling towards exhaustion, crisscrossing first the south and now the mid-west at breakneck speed. By the time they arrived in St. Louis, they’d clocked better than 1800 miles over two weeks in Tak’s Ferrari. More telling, however, was the way they traveled—top down, wind in their hair, his arm around the back of her chair.
Deena identified with the conundrum that was St. Louis, Missouri. An independent city, it seceded from its county better than a hundred years ago. It was a speculative place, being equal parts north and south, east and west, and therefore a different thing altogether. It endured extremes with sweltering summers and frigid winters, and whole sections of it had been abandoned. Deena could definitely relate to St. Louis.
They were touring the city, architecture and art museums, sights and tourist traps, when they decided to stop at the Gateway Arch for pictures. A massive and gleaming structure of stainless steel, it was the tallest monument in the country.
Deena brought a hand to that iconic image, the identity of St. Louis, made not by others, but by what it envisioned itself to be. It was then that her phone rang.
A sort of resigned indifference passed over her at the sight of her grandmother’s name on the caller I.D. Deena answered with a sigh.
She was calling to complain, to do nothing but bitch. Lizzie had been suspended again, this time for fighting. When Deena breathed a sigh of relief, she nearly laughed. How desperate did she have to be to be relieved that her sister had been fighting? But as far as Deena was concerned, fighting was a damned sight better than nickel and dime blowjobs on the bathroom floor.
“They talking about putting her out of school for good because she so much trouble,” Emma said. “And when they do, you gonna be the one to pay for private schooling.”
Deena chuckled. She loved the way her grandmother thought that a college degree came standard with an inflated bank account. If she only knew, her granddaughter could barely afford the vacation she was on.
She promised to speak with her sister when she returned to town and hung up before the old woman could protest.
“Everything okay?” Tak said, looking up at her expectantly.
Deena nodded. “Everything’s fine. Lizzie’s suspended again, same as usual.” She offered him a bright and false smile. “Now what were we doing? Pictures, right?”
“Right,” Tak said.
Deena pulled the zipper up on the white parka she wore and gave him a grin. “Well, what’s the hold up, buddy?”
Tak responded with a grin.
When they ventured a good distance from the arch, they waved down a passerby for pictures. It was a sweet-faced old lady that stopped, took Tak’s digital camera, and waited for their pose.
They stood arm in arm with a pond and a good deal of the arch in the angled shot. In the instant when the old lady went to snap their picture, Tak stole a kiss, a single kiss, on Deena’s freckled cheek. Deena blushed and the old lady gushed, insisting that they were as sweet as Tupelo honey. When she returned the digital camera, with the image of Tak’s stolen kiss still emblazoned on it, Deena stood there, her cheeks still flushed. She stared at that frozen screen in silence, the image of Tak’s kiss burning into her mind. Behind her, he peered over her shoulder with his four-inch advantage and smiled down at the camera.
“Perfect,” he said. “Absolutely perfect.”