Chapter Ten
Twenty minutes later, we’re tearing up the asphalt, heading north away from Eden fast enough to leave it a twinkling dot on the horizon behind us – or at least, I’m sure it would be if I dared to look around. The sun is hanging low in the sky to my left, casting a deep, rich glow across the countryside, painting the world in reds and oranges. The scrubland whizzes past us too fast for me to focus on any one thing, blurring with motion until it turns my stomach and makes my head spin just to look at it. How the hell does anyone travel on one of these things for fun? I think – but that lasts just about as long as it takes me to look out to the open road in front of us. Over Hale’s shoulder, I can see the white lines against the black of the asphalt, stretching out towards the horizon like they’re grasping for the future, for everything that could be. What’s behind us doesn’t matter, as long as there’s a destination – somewhere for us to head towards.
And who cares if we never reach it, eh? Who cares if the road keeps going, as long as I’m here with Hale?
~~~
I’m still in a state of complete bliss when he pulls off the main road and slows the bike down from what might as well have been a million miles an hour to a slow crawl. The place he’s chosen isn’t bare desert, although it might as well be; there’s nothing but a large patch of once-clear ground that has just started to be reclaimed by the most stubborn of Texas weeds. Once upon a time, it might have been a rest stop, but now there’s barely any sign that anyone ever spent any amount of time here.
‘How come we’re stopping?’ I ask as he pulls himself off the bike and helps me down after. His hand is soft and strong around mine, but even once I’m safely back on two feet he doesn’t let go. He leads me over to a large flat rock, easily the size of a picnic table, and hoists himself into a seating position on top of it. It’s a lot easier for him, with eight or so inches of extra height to work with, but ever the gentleman he helps me scramble my way up next to him.
He shrugs. ‘Figured it was as good a spot as any. Nice view.’ He’s not wrong about that; it might not have been easy to pull myself onto the rock, but the view is worth it. The sunlight isn’t the burning fire that makes most summer days so unbearable; with night approaching, it’s now just a soft, warming glow that spreads itself lazily out across the landscape. It’s the kind of evening that calls for a couple of beers on a porch with good company: time with no purpose except to be wasted with friends and loved ones. ‘Besides,’ he continues, ‘I wanted to talk to you about something. It’s been weighing on my mind.’
‘Oh yeah?’
Hale shifts uncomfortably; sincerity was never his strong suit. ‘I wanted to say I’m sorry for before. Properly, I mean.’
I wave his apology away. ‘Really, don’t worry about it. She was just doing her job.’
A slight furrow crosses his brow as he realises just what I’m talking about. ‘Oh, no,’ he says eventually, smiling. ‘God no. Not Merry. I don’t think anyone can ever apologise enough for Merry when she’s in one of her angry moods.’
‘She’s very…’ I begin, but words fail me.
‘Yeah, she really is. But she’s good at what she does. I don’t understand all that crap, but… well, I wouldn’t be where I am without her. I’d still be washing dishes and singing Open Mic nights.’
Suddenly, it’s hard to feel quite as ungenerous about Meredith. I mean, sure, everything about her seems clipped and serious, and I don’t think she’s the kind of person who values other people except as stepping stones – but on the other hand, it’s hard to deny that she seems to have her shit together. Looking at her is like looking into a strange Twilight Zone, wondering if – if I’d made a few different decisions over the years, if I’d just been a bit more ruthless about going after what I wanted – that might have been me.
I don’t particularly care for the idea, but… well, Hale knows her better than I do. If he says she’s alright, maybe there’s something there, underneath that brash exterior. Either way, she’s around for the next couple of days, at least as long as Hale is. All part of the package.
‘So what did you want to apologise for?’ I ask.
He doesn’t answer, not at first. ‘Back at the trailer,’ he says at last. ‘The things I said, about being disappointed you were still here… I was being an asshole, Carrie. I shouldn’t have said all that crap. I guess things were pretty rough after your dad died?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Well, I wasn’t thinking. Of course you were right to stay – and honestly, I wouldn’t have expected anything else. That was always you, right through. Always looking after people. Even me. Even when I was an ass.’
‘Like earlier.’
‘Like earlier. So what do you say? Forgiven?’
I can’t help but smile. ‘So that’s your plan, is it? You going to leave me out here if I say no?’
‘Yep. I mean, it’s me or the coyotes.’
I make a deep, dramatic sigh. ‘Well, I mean, if you’re giving me no other option…’
‘Seriously, though. Are we OK?’
I nod. ‘Yes, Hale. We’re OK. You’re forgiven. Everyone makes mistakes, right?’
‘That’s a good line. Must have been a smart man who said that. A real keeper.’
‘Nah… just some guy. No one special.’ I lower my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Actually, on the quiet, he was kind of a dope. You know. Our little secret.’
Hale grins. ‘Man, I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed this.’
‘What?’
‘Just… this, you know? Having people around who’ll be a smartass to me. Since I kind of got big, it doesn’t happen all that often.’
‘Really?’ I say. ‘That’s pretty hard to believe. You must always have people around you, City Boy.’
He shakes his head. ‘I mean, Merry gives me a hard time, but she gives everyone a hard time. She lives her whole damn life on the clock. But normal people, they see your face on the front cover of an album or stuck on a flyer and suddenly it’s like they’re afraid to screw around with you. But you… you don’t let me get away with a damn thing. I love that. Love it.’
‘It’s been two days, Hale,’ I say. ‘Maybe I’m just not quite as star-struck as all your city girls yet.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Mmm-hmm. See, that’s the thing about us hicks… we’re a real tough crowd.’
‘Is that so?’
‘It really is. I mean, how do I know you’re any good? Maybe you lost your magic touch when you went full Yankee.’
The look on his face is infuriating, but it’s oh-so-typically Hale. I remember it well, that confidence. I haven’t seen it quite so prominently since he’s been back in town, but here it is in full force: the cocky little tilt of the head, the raised eyebrow, the way he manages to treat even the idea of him losing his touch with an amused sort of disdain. Come on, Carrie, his smile seems to say. We both know that ain’t true.
And the thing is, he’s right. New York might have knocked a few of his rough edges off, but it’s done nothing to dull his wit, nothing to diminish his charm – and my God, nothing to make him less attractive. In the soft desert light, black shirt unbuttoned to reveal just a hint of the firm, smooth chest we both know lies underneath it, he looks like he belongs on the cover of a dime-store romance novel: the quiet intensity in his eyes, the effortlessly natural designer stubble – not to mention the size of him, the raw strength in his back and shoulders. Sitting next to Hale is like having a front row seat at a tornado. For all I know, he hasn’t lifted anything more strenuous than a guitar in years – certainly not like in the days when he used to hoist bricks at construction sites to earn a living out of school – but it’s obviously that he’s taking good care of himself in a way that I… well, let’s say that after being on my feet all day at the diner, I’m not usually in the mood to hit the gym. Not so with Hale, though.
He works out, I tell myself. I can picture that. Not for vanity, not to please anyone but himself, but his body is a coiled spring of energy ready to burst forward at any minute.
Of course it isn’t true. Hale has lost none of his touch. He’s only improved, in every way I can imagine.
But he’s willing to play it off as a joke, as long as I am – willing to keep the flirtatious illusion alive. ‘Maybe one of these days I’ll prove it to you,’ he says. ‘You know, a private concert, one on one. Just like old times.’ He clears his throat, grins at me, and breaks into the opening bars of Georgia On My Mind with a voice that could have melted butter.
‘Wrong state,’ I say, but he doesn’t even miss a beat. With a quick spin he’s whisked me off the rock and twirled me around like a demented Fred Astaire, never dropping a note, and suddenly we’re dancing as he sings like two kids on prom night, alone for miles in every direction.
‘Oh, stop it, you goof,’ I say, hoping he won’t notice the childish blush that springs to my cheeks.
‘Nope. Not until you admit you’re wrong.’
‘Yeah, OK. You’re a regular Taylor Swift.’
‘I’ll take it,’ he says, and dips me so low I could swear that my hair touches the sand. ‘I met her once, you know.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah. At a party from the record label. Well, I was at the party, and so was she. Apparently. It was hard to tell through all the security.’
‘Hell of a story, Hale.’
‘I know, right? It’s a crazy world, being not-at-all-a-celebrity.’
‘I bet.’
We’re still dancing, me in his arms swaying softly back and forth in the middle of nowhere. For a while, I’m so entranced by the rhythmic thump-thump of his heart in his chest that I don’t notice he’s stopped singing, but that’s OK; perhaps he hasn’t noticed either. For the moment, it’s just the two of us, alone together.
‘I was sorry to hear about your dad,’ he says eventually. ‘I always liked him, you know. I know he wasn’t ever crazy about me or anything, but I liked him.’
I’m not quite sure where it came from – somehow, being twirled and dipped by Hale has managed to push my deceased father as far from my mind as you could possibly imagine
‘Dad liked you well enough. You know, considering that you were trying to corrupt his only daughter and all.’
He laughs. ‘Is that so?’
‘Mmm-hmm. It was my mom that couldn’t stand you. Maybe you should take her out into the desert and give her a pretty speech, see if you can win her over too.’
Hale grins. ‘I remember how terrifying your mom is,’ he says. ‘I think I’d rather take my chances with the coyotes.’
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘You remember her how she was, before Dad died.’
‘Oh? She’s mellowed, has she?’
‘God no. She’s a thousand times worse now. I think it’s just loneliness more than anything else. Not a lot of eligible bachelors in Eden, especially for women of a certain age.’ Or for any age, now that I mention it, I think. It’s no goddamn wonder I wound up getting all gooey over you again. It’s the truth of it. There’s no one like Hale in a hundred miles. Maybe a thousand. Maybe anywhere.
‘So what have you got planned for the next couple of days?’ I ask, finally pulling myself away from him and hating it; I only spent a few minutes pressed up against his body, but now the space between us just feels like a vacuum that I long to fill. ‘Before Meredith drags you back up to New York, I mean.’
He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I’ve got a meeting with some realtor out in Fort Palmer in a couple of days to see about selling Pop’s trailer. Other than that, it’s just a case of clearing the damn thing out and signing over the paperwork.’
‘Clearing it out?’
‘Yeah. You know… there’s a bunch of stuff in there still from when he was alive. Figure I should probably make sure there’s nothing important in it before I junk it all. You know, in case he managed to hide a winning lottery ticket or something just before he died. Then again, mean old bastard that he was, he probably would have burned it just to spite everyone.’ His words are bitter, almost spat into the dirt at his feet.
‘Are you doing OK over there?’ I ask.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know… in the trailer. Can’t be easy, with the way everything happened. You going back to where you grew up. You left for a reason, after all.’
He pauses for a moment, thinking it over. ‘I don’t know,’ he says at last. ‘Kind of. It’s like poking the space in your gum when you lose a tooth. Sure, it hurts, but you can’t stop doing it. Somehow, even though you know you might be making things worse, you’ve just got to keep doing it. I hate it, but it’s like I need it. Is that dumb?’
I shake my head. ‘No. I don’t think so, anyway.’
‘Good. I thought I was going crazy.’
‘You know if you ever want to stay in town… I mean, I’ve got a foldout couch with your name on it.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Oh yeah. Price is reasonable, too. I’ll beat Polly Kimble any day of the week.’
He smiles. ‘Thanks, Carrie, but… no. I mean, that’d be too much. I wouldn’t want to be a burden.’
‘You wouldn’t be.’ Not ever, I think. ‘I mean it, Hale. If you ever decide that you’d rather be in town rather than out there in the boondocks, then all you have to do is call.’
‘Would you believe me if I said I had my reasons for saying no?’
‘Depends on what they were.’
He pauses for a second, thinking it over, but I know even before he speaks that he’s not going to be drawn further on the issue no matter how much I want him to. Whatever reason Hale has for choosing to stay in that hotbox of a trailer, he’s not sharing them – at least, not tonight.
‘Come on,’ he says at last. ‘Let’s get you home.’
~~~
By the time Hale pulls up outside my apartment, the streetlights are fully-lit: a line of orange dots that mark out a return to civilisation, and an end to our time together. I could easily live without them if it meant making the evening last that little bit longer – just a few more moments like the ones we had in the desert, when the rest of the world and all of its problems were too far away to matter.
Wishful thinking, I know. I’ve been doing a lot of that recently.
‘So I’ll see you tomorrow?’ he asks as I slip off the bike. I can swear I can still feel it vibrating beneath me, but perhaps that’s just my heart in my chest. It wouldn’t be the first time Hale had that effect on me.
‘Tomorrow?’
‘At the diner. Where else am I supposed to go and eat in this town?’ He smiles. ‘Best burgers south of…’
‘The panhandle,’ I finish. ‘I know. But I’m not going to be there tomorrow. It’s my day off.’
‘Really? Damn. I’ll be honest, seeing you has been kind of the highlight of my day since I got back here. There’s not a lot to look forward to in that trailer.’
I try and disguise the way my heart skips a beat, and I’m not sure I pull it off. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah. I thought it would be weird – and it was, at first, I’ll be honest – but now it’s just…’ Please don’t say just like old times. Please don’t say like two old friends. Please please please please please…. ‘Just so natural,’ he finishes. ‘Normal. Is that weird, after so long? After how everything went down with us way back when?’
I shake my head. ‘Not to me.’
‘Good,’ he says, and I can see the relief painted large across his face. ‘I was starting to think it was just me. All that alone time can do strange things to a man.’
Don’t I know it, I think. Even the thought of a day spent alone in my apartment – especially after a night like tonight – makes me feel practically sick to my stomach. Knowing that Hale’s there, way across town, equally alone… well, that just doesn’t sit right with me at all.
‘Well, why don’t I help you?’ I ask it almost without realising; the words slip from my mouth a little too easily, like I’m drunk from the bike ride and a half-hour with my arms wrapped around Hale’s waist.
‘With what?’
‘You know… sorting out the trailer. Your Dad’s stuff. With two of us, you could wrap it up in half the time. Maybe even actually enjoy the rest of your time here, instead of staying cooped up in that tin box like something out of The Shawshank Redemption.’
He looks at me, confused. ‘You’re offering to help me clear out a lifetime’s worth of crap from a trailer? That’s your idea of fun?’ The way he says it, he makes it sound as though I’ve just asked him to spend a day running over my head with a flatbed truck.
‘Sure,’ I shrug. ‘I don’t mind. Like I say, it’s my day off. It’s not like I’ve got anything else planned.’
He shakes his head. ‘Carrie, come on. I’ve seen how hard you work. You don’t want to spend your day off helping me clear out my dad’s shit.’
‘No, no… you’re right. I mean, think of all the other fun things I could be doing in Eden. Scuba diving. Bungee jumping. I was thinking about going for a night at the opera, but hell, I did that last week. I wouldn’t want it to become boring or anything, would I?’
‘It’s still got to be better than helping me shift boxes for a couple of hours.’
‘If I’m not helping you, I’m at home in my apartment, doing nothing except reading a book I’ve probably read twenty times before. At least if I’m helping you I’ve got someone to talk to.’ Jesus Christ, Carrie… when you put it like that, you really do sound like a charity case. ‘But, I mean, if you don’t want me to then that’s cool. If you’d rather have your alone time.’
‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s not that. It’s easy to go crazy in that trailer all by myself. It’s like a prison cell. It’s no wonder I spend so little time in it when I was a kid.’
For a moment, I can see the other side of the old Hale again: not the confident charmer, not the smooth-talking, guitar-playing, panty-dropping almost-celebrity I’m rapidly becoming used to, but the way he was when he was sixteen – scared and restless, without a place to call his own. I like the new look a lot better, I’ve got to say, but it’s nice to know there’s some of the old version still in there somewhere.
He pauses, tilts his head slightly, and draws a line under the conversation. ‘Well, it’s settled then,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you at… what, ten?’
‘Ten sounds fine to me.’
‘Good. Then it’s a date.’
All of a sudden, I’ve got this image of myself in one of those game show prize booths, the ones where there are a bunch of tickets and they blow in air from the bottom until you’re left in a swirling cloud of confetti, desperately clutching to try and find that one magic ticket that’ll win me a brand new Cadillac – except now all I want to do is find the one with those words written on it, tear it into little pieces and choke it down back to where it belongs.
It’s a date.
It’s a date.
It’s a date.
Jesus Christ… what the hell was I thinking?
I’m busy praying that a crack opens up in the middle of Maple Avenue and swallows me up, taking me somewhere where I won’t be allowed to open my big dumb mouth ever again – somewhere, perhaps, as hot as my face suddenly feels – but Hale just grins at me.
‘Sure thing,’ he says. ‘It’s a date.’
And before I can say anything to ruin the moment, he tips his head gently in my direction, smiles, and takes off down Maple on the bike like a bat out of hell.