Chapter 2 – Mariah
“I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe this is all a mistake.”
Kimmie just sighed and kept driving. She didn’t slow down or anything else. She knew that I was freaking out and the best thing to do was to let me just chill out. I would work myself up, much like I had now, and I was close to a panic attack minutes later. What was I doing? I couldn’t just move across the country to somewhere I didn’t know but a couple of people. I didn’t even have a job. Greg had made sure that I didn’t have any money in my own account, and my ATM card for our joint account had stopped working. That left me with less than a thousand dollars and no idea what I was going to do.
Everything was brighter around me and even the beating of my heart in my chest was loud enough to be unsettling. Everything about this day was unsettling, and the further south we got, the more nervous and doubtful I became. I didn’t want to do this.
“I’m serious, Kimmie. Drop me off at a bus station. I’m going back.”
“What are you going to go back to, Mariah? Your cop boyfriend who’s pushy and will start a fight if he doesn’t get his way? Or do you want to go back to the parents it took you years to get away from? Kallie and Sasha were right when they left Coloma. There’s nothing left for us there, and I’m ready to find something new.
She was right, of course. I didn’t have any reason to be there. I already missed Greg, but it was a pain that I knew would subside daily until he was but a faint memory in the back of my mind. That was how I knew I was going to be okay, but the unknown scared me and I had to wonder if it was better to stay with the devil I knew.
“Why do you have to say it like that?”
“Because you’re freaking out and you’re packed and there are a hundred miles behind us. It’s too late to freak out, Mariah.”
Kimmie knew me too well, but she was wrong about one thing. It wasn’t too late to freak out, not for me. It wasn’t convenient, and I wished I wasn’t like this. But I was, and now I wanted to back out. What would I do when I went back, though? She was right about there not really being anything for me there. I could get another job at one of the town’s couple of restaurants, or at a gas station, but there was nothing else in Coloma for me.
“I’m not trying to.”
“I know, Mariah. That’s why I’m not going to listen to you about it right now. I know this is the fear talking and soon you’ll see it differently.”
“You seem pretty sure.”
“You like the water and the sun. It’s already getting warmer, can’t you feel it?”
I could feel the temperature difference, but it wasn’t enough to make all of the nonsense in my head go away. “Yeah, but I don’t see why that matters.”
“Because it’s supposed to be seventy degrees today in New Orleans. It’s forty degrees right here. It’s going to start warming up, and then you’ll feel better. This doesn’t have to be forever. If we don’t like it we can leave and go back home.”
“You already have a job lined up. I don’t know what I’m going to do for money and a job.”
Kimmie shrugged it off like it wasn’t a big deal. “You’ll find something. Sasha says they are always hiring where she works.”
I gave my friend a look. I now knew what Sasha did for a living, and it wasn’t something that I really wanted to get involved in. She was far more liberal with her sexuality than I was. It was good money, I’d heard it a million times, but I didn’t want to go there. I didn’t even want to think about it.
“Yeah, I don’t know about that.”
Kimmie sighed and turned the radio back up. She wanted to end the conversation, and I welcomed the music loud enough to silence the thoughts in my head. It was just a trip with Kimmie. If I wanted to stay I could, but if not, I could always leave. That’s what I told myself to calm myself down a little bit. It didn’t have to be so dramatic. I just had to calm down. It was easier said than done, but I was working on it.
***
“Come on, Mariah, get up.”
“What, why?”
“Because we’re here.”
I opened my eyes. The sun was a lot brighter than I remembered. It felt like we’d been driving all day, and after hours in the car, my body was dying to unfold from its current position.
“Are you serious?”
I moved to get out of the car. I could tell that we were definitely not in Michigan anymore. It was a lot warmer, and I didn’t have to put on the jacket that I’d brought with me. The most amazing part of it, though, was the fact that it was February and instead of being cold, everything was green and it was warm and sunny outside.
“What do you think?”
Kimmie had gotten out and was next to me. I was looking at the house in front of us. It had a boat tied to the porch and a huge pond in the middle of the yard. The house was not too big, but the location didn’t leave anything to be desired. I could be happy here, I thought to myself. I don’t know why, but I did feel a bit of peace come over me. Maybe it was because of the place, or maybe it was because it wasn’t where I’d just come from. Either way, I was happy to be there, and I was more than a little glad that Kimmie hadn’t listened to me when I told her to drop me off.
“It’s so pretty here. I didn’t know it would be so different.”
Everything looked different. It wasn’t just the color of all of the plants, but the plants themselves were ones I hadn’t seen before. Everything from the trees to the bushes looked different.
“I know. Sasha sent me some pictures of this place and I’ve wanted to come down ever since.”
I didn’t blame her. I could see where the draw was. It really was a pretty place.
“So where is Sasha?”
“She’s at work. I guess she tried to get off early, but her boss is a bit of a prick, so she left the key under the mat and told us just to make ourselves at home. She will be home around two.”
“In the morning?”
Kimmie nodded and went to the trunk to get our bags. I grabbed mine and followed her to the door. The stairs up to the house were high, and it was only then I realized how far off the ground it was. I made a comment to Kimmie, but she seemed to think that it was normal.
“It floods here a lot. That’s why there’s a boat.”
I looked around the yard and tried to figure how it would be with water covering everything. It was really hard to imagine. I couldn’t see it full of water like that, but Kimmie said it so matter-of-factly that I knew she wasn’t making it up.
The key was where it was supposed to be and she opened the door. It was just like Sasha, and I did feel right at home immediately. The furniture was dark and she’d even painted the walls black. Sasha had brought the darkness inside. I had to giggle at the skull lamps.
“This is where we’re staying?”
Kimmie shrugged, but I could see the wisp of a smile on her face. “It’s quaint. Did you expect it to be any different?”
“No, I just wouldn’t have thought she’d had the time to do all of this.”
“Sasha has been down here almost a year.”
“Really? Where the hell was I at?”
“With Greg. You didn’t have time for us when you two were together.”
I wanted to deny it, but I sort of had melted into him for a while. Bringing him up made me think of him again, and I could feel the sadness come over me. Well, it was either that or all the black in the room. Was this a mistake?
“I have time now. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. I have a couple of days until I start the job. I think we should just go out. We could go to that club that Sasha works at.”
The idea was enough to make me shiver. “If you want to go, I’m going to stay here. I don’t think I’m ready for all of that.”
“You don’t have to do anything, it’s just like a themed place.”
There was a picture of it in my head, but I wasn’t sure how accurate it was. I saw women in nothing but leather and people chained up on the walls. Maybe it wasn’t like that, but that was definitely not the first thing that I wanted to do in a new place.
“I know, it’s just…”
“You’re a little uptight, I know, but think about how happy she would be if we popped in to say hi.”
I thought that if she wanted us to come, she would have invited us out. She hadn’t, and I was unsure if that was the right surprise. If I did something like that for a living, I probably wouldn’t want my friends even knowing about it, let alone seeing me do it. It just seemed a bit too iffy to me to get behind.
“Let’s just wait. If it’s the type of place that we can just go in and visit, we’ll go out tomorrow once she clears it. I don’t want to get her in trouble with her job. You already said her boss is kind of a jerk.”
“Yeah, but she’s dating him, I think.”
I was getting really confused about the whos and whats, but going out did sound good.
“Okay, I’m not getting into all of that. Let’s just go to the French Quarter and do some dancing?”
Kimmie agreed and I relaxed. I felt like I’d really dodged a bullet there.
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