Beauty and the Mustache

Elizabeth put her hands on her hips. “Is he okay? Why is this burnt?” Picking up the envelope and giving it a closer inspection, she added, “The postmark is from Franklin, North Carolina. Did he move there?”

I shrugged, lifting my hands palms up, my eyes glued to the notebook. “I don’t know. I have no idea. I haven’t talked to him since Momma’s funeral.”

The last words I’d said to him were I’m not your problem anymore.

I couldn’t get over Drew until I started disliking him. I wasn’t going to be able to forgive and forget. This wasn’t going to be one of those relationships where we could be friends. He’d cut too deep with his good intentions, not to mention our brief interludes of perfect physical chemistry.

Anger was essential because otherwise I was just tremendously sad. Bitterness and anger provided harvestable energy, something on which to focus, something through which to work. Sadness simply left me adrift.

But now, dread gripped my chest as I studied the book; my stomach coiled into a knot at the sight of the charred cover. This book had been in a fire.

I rubbed my fingers over my chest because my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my ribs. Without accepting the notebook, I rushed out of the kitchen and ran to my cell phone. I hesitated for a minute then decided to call Jethro just in case Drew was alive and well and I was overreacting.

His phone went straight to voicemail. I called twice more. Both times it went straight to voicemail.

Then I called Drew. His went straight to voicemail.

Then I called Billy. He picked up on the third ring.

“Hey, Ash. What’s up?” I knew he was still at work because I could hear the telltale sounds of saws in the background.

“Billy! I tried calling Jethro and Drew. Neither of them picked up. Are they…is everything okay?”

“Uh, yeah, as far as I know. They’re in North Carolina on that Appalachian trekf or two weeks. Jethro will be back Friday. They turn off their phones because there’s no service where they are, but they have the satellite phone with them for emergencies. It’s probably off to save battery life.”

North Carolina.

“They’re together?”

“Yep. Why?”

“When is the last time you spoke to either of them?’

“Uh, this morning. Hey, are you still coming for Christmas? Jethro said not to count you in this year.”

I breathed a huge sigh of relief, the tension in my chest easing.

“Yes.” I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “Yes, of course I’m coming for Christmas. I said I’d be there. I’ll be there.”

For Billy, his response sounded almost chipper. “Oh. Good. Cletus is making moonshine eggnog.”

“Ugh, that sounds gross.” I laughed, my head hitting the wall as I closed my eyes. My brain was still coming down from its skyscraper of worry.

“Listen, I’ll talk to you later. I have to get back to work. Did you want me to tell Jethro something?”

“No. It’s nothing. They get back Friday?”

“Jethro gets back Friday, yes.”

We said our goodbyes, and I glanced at the phone screen after hanging up, absorbing the information Billy had just related. I became aware of a presence at my elbow and glanced to my right. Everyone was hovering around me. Their expressions tense.

“So? Everything okay?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yes. Jethro and Dr. Ruin…Drew…are doing some trek in North Carolina. Their phones are off. Billy just talked to Jethro yesterday.”

“The envelope was sent before yesterday.” Elizabeth held it up like it was evidence. “Whatever fire burned the book happened before yesterday, so Jethro and Drew must be fine.”

“If either were injured, Billy would know.”

Sandra held the notebook out to me. “Ashley, I think he must’ve sent this to you for a reason.”

I glanced at the burnt book then met her green eyes, wide with earnest concern. I gathered a deep breath before responding.

“I don’t….” I shook my head. “I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“Why don’t you start by looking at it?” She held it out to me.

I didn’t take it. The deep breath I’d taken felt insufficient, so I crossed to the couch and sat down.

Field notes. That’s what Drew said was in the book.

Sandra followed and sat on the coffee table facing me. She took my right hand in one of hers and placed the book in it.

“He sent this to you. You don’t have to read it, but it belongs to you now. You have to take it.”

I nodded, holding but not looking at the book. I wasn’t ready to speak, not yet; I didn’t know my own thoughts. Sandra seemed to sense this because she stood abruptly and walked back to the kitchen.

“Where are Marie and Fiona?” I heard Elizabeth ask, and the subject was officially changed. My friends left me alone with Drew’s burnt notebook.

I listened to their discussion from the other room, the sounds they made gathering around my table to eat. I loved their noises, their laughter. It felt like home, comfort, contentment, safety.

My emotions were a stampede of conflict as I looked at the notebook in my hands. I brushed my fingers over the brittle, charred leather.

It was covered in ash.

CHAPTER 26

“If you read someone else’s diary, you get what you deserve.”

?David Sedaris

It was 6:14 a.m. and I was awake.

In fact, I hadn’t gone to sleep.

After my knitting group left, I paced the apartment, cleaning, straightening, turning the TV on, turning the TV off, trying to read The Brothers Karamazov and failing, though to be fair, I was only reading The Brothers Karamazov because I’m a bit of a masochist.

I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t.

The notebook rested on the desk in my bedroom. It looked angry. Its presence felt like a rabid raccoon perched at the edge of the wilderness, ready to lunge forward and attack me until I succumbed to madness.

I realized in the wee morning hours that ignoring the notebook was futile.

Therefore, around 2:30 a.m., I surrendered to madness and opened it to a random page near the front. On the page was a poem.

For Ashley—

I expect man,

You are woman

Resplendent

Resilient

Refined

I turn

Before you see

The way

You affect me

It was lovely, simple, and sad. The next one I recognized, and it made me sigh, thinking back to the day I’d first heard it.

For Ashley—

Fire burns blue and hot.

Its fair light blinds me not.

Smell of smoke is satisfying, tastes nourishing to my tongue.

I think fire ageless, never old, and yet no longer young.

Morning coals are cool; daylight leaves me blind.

I love the fire most because of what it leaves behind

Then, I read another one, then another. Soon, an hour had passed and I was still reading. Some of the passages were poems; some were letters. I skipped over the ones that weren’t addressed to me and was astonished to find that toward the center of the book all the poems and letters started with my name.

Ashley Austen Winston,

You don’t know how deeply you cut when your intentions carry no knives.

Ash,

When you cried, I learned what helplessness tastes like. Because all I could do was swallow.

Ash,

I want to give you a book so I can watch you read it. Your lips move. I watch them as I watch you. I want you to speak to me. I want your lips to move for me.

- Drew

For Ashley—

You are my Sugar

Sweet to taste, sweet to see

Cravings last until

Your body surrounds, comforts, and ignites

Your skin velvet, your hair silk

Your tongue honey

Ash,

Your sheets, still a white pile on the table, know that envy keeps me from washing them. You left an impression, deep creases where you lay your head, where they cradled your body. It was only three days, but they memorized your scent, they carry it even in their stillness.

Were they too gentle? Was their touch too light? Do you remember how it felt when they held you? Or did you never commit it to memory?

Was I too gentle? Was my touch too light? Do you remember how it felt when I held you? Or did you never commit it to memory?

- Drew

Ashley,

I caught a bear today in the new trap. We’re taking it a hundred miles north. That’s a hundred miles closer to where you are. I’ve decided units and measurements of distance are bullshit. With you there are only two distances that matter:

Here.

Not here.

You are not here.

- Drew

Dear Ashley,

I’ve been reading your e. e. cummings. I hear your voice in my head when I read his words, and it’s a peculiar kind of torture. I can’t seem to stop doing it. I love your voice, even when it’s a peculiar kind of torture. I miss you in a way that causes words to fail me. They are as inadequate and empty as I am.

I wonder, did you like your body when you were with my body? Do you carry my heart with you (in your heart)? He speaks of carving out places, but I didn’t feel like I was given a choice. I removed nothing. I made no room for you.

Yet you arrived. I saw you. You spoke. That was it. I gave up nothing, but I lost everything.

- Drew

Sugar,

Tonight the silence sounds like a scream. If you were here, we could chase it away with our whispers.