The Edge of Always

31

I don’t remember falling asleep. When I open my eyes, the clock beside the bed says that it’s eleven ten. And I realize that I don’t feel naked because I have no clothes on, but I feel naked because Camryn isn’t in the bed with me.

She’s sitting on the windowsill, dressed in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt without a bra. She’s gazing out the window.

“I think we should go,” she says without taking her eyes off the bright New Orleans landscape.

I sit up on the bed with the sheet draped over my lower half. “You want to leave New Orleans?” I ask, confused. “But I thought you said we left too soon the first time.”

“Yeah,” she says, but still doesn’t turn around. “The first time we left too soon, but we can’t stay here longer now just to make up for that.”

“But why do you want to leave? We’ve only been here one day.”

She turns to face me. There’s something like sentiment or resolve in her eyes, but I can’t make out which, or if it’s both.

After a long hesitation, she says, “Andrew, I know this might sound stupid, but I think if we stay here… I…”

I stand up from the bed and step inside my boxers I find on the floor. “What’s going on?” I ask, approaching her.

She looks at me. “I just think that… well, when we first got here yesterday all I could think about is what this place meant to us last July. I realized that I kept picturing the times before, trying to relive them—”

“But they’re just not the same,” I add, having an idea.

It takes her a second, but finally she says, after a subtle nod, “Yeah. I guess it’s just that this place is such a significant memory—Shit, Andrew, I don’t even know what I’m saying!” Her thoughtful expression dissolves into frustration.

I pull out a chair at the table in front of the window and sit down, leaning forward and draping my folded hands between my knees, and I gaze up at her. I begin to say something to add to her explanation, but she beats me to it.

“Maybe we should never come back here.”

I didn’t expect her to say that. “Why?”

She presses the palms of her hands on the windowsill to hold up her body, her shoulders rigid, her back slouching. Confusion and uncertainty start to fade from her face as the seconds pass and she begins to understand.

“It’s like, you know, it doesn’t matter what you do, even if you try to replicate an experience down to every last detail, it’ll never be the way it was when it happened naturally the first time.” She looks out at the room in thought. “I remember when I was a kid. Cole and I would always play in the woods behind our old house. Some of my best memories. We built a tree house back there.” She glances at me and laughs lightly under her breath. “Well, it wasn’t so much a tree house as it was a few boards fixed between two branches. But it was our tree house and we were proud of it. And we played in it and in those woods every day after school.” Her face is lit up as she recalls this moment of her childhood. But then her smile begins to fade. “We moved away from there and into the house my mom lives in now, and I always thought of those woods and our tree house and the fun times we had together there. I used to sit alone in my room, or be driving somewhere, and get so lost in those memories that I could actually feel those feelings just like I felt them years ago.” She places her hand on her chest, her fingers outstretched.

“I went back there one day,” she goes on. “I got so addicted to the nostalgia that I thought I could intensify the feeling if I went, stood in the spot where our tree house used to be, sit down on the ground where I used to sit and drag a stick through the dirt to leave secret messages for Cole to read if I got there before him. But it wasn’t the same, Andrew.”

I watch and listen to her intently.

“It wasn’t the same,” she repeats distantly. “I was so disappointed. And I left that day with an even bigger hole in my heart than I had when I went there looking to fill it. And every day after that, whenever I’d try to envision it like I used to, I couldn’t. I shattered that memory by going back there. Without realizing it until it was too late, I replaced that memory with the emptiness of that day.”

I know exactly that feeling of nostalgia. I think everybody experiences it at some point in their lives, but I don’t elaborate or go into my own experience with it. Instead, I just continue to listen.

“All morning, I’ve been tricking my brain into believing that we’re not really in this room. That the bar we went to last night wasn’t Old Point. That the sad news about Eddie was just in a dream I had.” She looks me straight in the eyes. “I want to leave before I destroy this memory, too.”

She’s right. She’s absolutely right.

But I’m beginning to wonder if…

“Camryn, why were you trying to relive it?” I hate it that I’m about to say this. “Are you not happy with how things are? How we are?”

Her head snaps upward, her eyes filled with disbelief. But then her features soften and she says, “God, no, Andrew.” She moves off the windowsill and stands in between my parted legs. “That’s not it at all. I think it’s just that because we came here I subconsciously started trying to re-create one of the most memorable experiences of my life.” She rests both hands on my shoulders, and I reach out and hold both sides of her waist, looking up at her. I couldn’t be any more relieved by her answer.

I smile and stand up with her and say, “Well, I say we get the hell out of here before that brain of yours knows you’re full of shit.”

She chuckles.

I move away from her and immediately start tossing our stuff in our bags. Then I point to the bathroom. “Don’t forget anything.” Her smile widens and she rushes immediately past me into the bathroom. In just a couple of hectic minutes, everything is packed. We each have a bag and a guitar, and without looking back, we leave the room. Neither one of us even glances at the door of the room next door that we didn’t rent this time. When we make it downstairs and into the lobby, I step up the counter and request a refund for the week in advance that I paid for. The clerk takes my credit card and refunds it back as I slip our card keys across the counter to her.

Camryn waits impatiently next to me.

“Stop looking at shit,” I demand, knowing she’s risking the memory.

She laughs lightly and squeezes her eyes shut for a moment.

“Thank you for staying at the Holiday Inn New Orleans,” the clerk says as we leave the counter. “We look forward to seeing you again.”

“Holiday Inn?” I pretend. “No, this is the… Embassy Suites in… Gulfport. Yeah, this is Mississippi. What’s wrong with you, ma’am?”

The clerk’s features crumple and she raises a baffled brow, but doesn’t say anything back and we exit the building.

Camryn plays along once we get outside and start loading everything in the Chevelle: “I say we drive straight past New Orleans when we get to Louisiana.”

It’s not really as hard as I thought it would be to pretend we’re someplace we’re not.

“Sounds like a plan,” I say, shutting my door. “We can drive straight past Galveston, too, if you want.”

“No, we have to visit your mom,” she says. “After that we can go wherever.”

I put the car into gear and say just before backing out, “Doesn’t mean we can’t stop somewhere on the way to Galveston, though.”

She purses her lips, nodding in agreement. “That’s true.” Then she looks at me as if to say, Now let’s get out of here.

We take the long way out of New Orleans and make our way northwest through Baton Rouge and Shreveport, and eventually over the Texas state line and then into Longview. We stop for gas in Tyler and drive from there to Dallas, where Camryn insists we drop in West Village for a “gen-you-ine cowgirl hat” (her words, not mine).

“Cain’t road-trip through Texus without dressin’ like ah Texun!” she said just before I agreed to take her.

Personally, I don’t do cowboy hats or boots, but I have to say it looks good on her.

And we stop off for a night at La Grange, where we have a few drinks and watch a great country-rock band play. And the next night we hang out at Gilley’s, where Camryn rides El Torro the mechanical bull, of course, with that sexy cowgirl hat on. And later, when we go back to our hotel, being the horny bastard that I am, I pretend I’m the mechanical bull and let her ride me. Wearing the cowgirl hat, naturally.

Two days later, we find ourselves about an hour from Lubbock, broke down on the side of the highway with a blown tire. I guess I should’ve checked out all four of the tires back at that gas station in Tyler.

“This is fucked up, babe,” I say, squatting down next to the shredded rubber. “I don’t have another spare.”

Camryn leans against the side of the car, crossing her arms over her chest. Sweat glistens on her face and the skin above her breasts. It’s hot as hell out here. There’s not a tree or a structure of any kind for miles. We’re surrounded by an almost completely flat, barren landscape of dirt. It’s been a long time since I was this far west in Texas, and I’m starting to remember why.

I stand up straight and hop on the hood of the car. “Let me see your phone,” I say.

“Gonna call a tow truck?” she asks after reaching in the front seat to get it and placing it in my hand.

I run my finger over the touch screen, flipping two pages to find her Yellow Pages app. “It’s the only thing we can do.” I type in “tow trucks” and scroll the results before choosing one.

“I hope this one actually shows up this time,” she says.

The tow service answers, and while I’m talking to the guy, telling him what size tire I need, I notice Camryn lean into the backseat through the open window and emerge with that sexy cowgirl hat on, likely to help keep the beating sun off of her.

She moves around to the hood and jumps up on it next to me.

“OK, thanks, man,” I say into the phone and hang up. “He said it’ll be at least an hour before he can get here.” I set the phone on the hood and grin over at her. “Y’know, all you’d have to do is cut that pair of jeans in your bag into a pair of Daisy Dukes, take off your bra and just wear the tank top, and you could—”

She puts her finger on my lips. “No way,” she says. “Don’t even think about it.”

We sit quietly for a moment, looking out at the nothingness that surrounds us. It feels like it’s getting hotter, but I think it’s more due to sitting directly in the sun on the hood of a black car that’s soaking up the heat like a sponge. Every now and then a nice breeze brushes our faces.

“Andrew?” She takes her hat off and places it on my head, then lies down with her back against the windshield. She fixes her hands behind her head and draws her knees up. “Number five on our list of promises: if I die before you, make sure I’m buried in that dress we bought at the flea market and without shoes. Oh, and none of that eighties blue eye shadow stuff or drawn-on eyebrows.” Her head falls to the side and she looks at me.

“But I thought that was the dress you wanted to marry me in.”

She squints, turning her eyes away from the sun. “Yeah, it is, but I want to be buried in it, too. Some believe that when you die, your afterlife is reliving the happiest moments of your life. One of mine will be the day I marry you. Might as well take the dress with me.”

I smile down at her.

I take the hat off and lie next to her, pressing my head close enough to hers that I can prop the hat over both of our heads to help keep the sun off. After I get it balanced I say, “Number six: if I die before you, make sure they play “Dust in the Wind” at my funeral.”

She glances over carefully so the hat doesn’t fall away. “Are we back to that again? You’re starting to make me hate a perfectly good classic, Andrew.”

I laugh lightly. “I know, but I saw an episode of Highlander when his wife Tessa died. They played that song in the background. I’ve never been able to get it out of my head since.”

She smiles and reaches up to wipe sweat from her brow.

“I promise,” she says. “But since we’re on the topic, I’d like to add number seven. Have you ever seen Ghost?”

I glance over briefly. “Well, yeah. I guess everybody’s seen that movie. Unless you’re sixteen. Shit, I’m surprised you’ve seen it.” I nudge her with my elbow.

She laughs. “That was my mom’s doing,” she admits. “Ghost and Dirty Dancing I’ve seen about a hundred times. She had a thing for Patrick Swayze, and I was the only girl around growing up she could talk to about how handsome he was. Anyway, so you’ve seen it. Number seven: if anyone ever kills you, you better come back like Sam and help me find your killer.”

I laugh and shake my head, accidently knocking the hat off momentarily. “What is it with you and movies? Never mind. Yeah, I promise I’ll come back and haunt your ass.”

“You better!” she laughs out loud. “Besides, I know I’ll be like those people who think their loved ones are still around after they’ve died. Might as well give me more reason to believe it.”

Not sure how I’ll pull that off, but whatever. Hell, I’ll try.

“I’ll promise, if you will,” I say.

“As always,” she says.

“Number eight,” I go on, “don’t bury me where it’s cold.”

“Fully agreed. Me either!”

She wipes more sweat from her face and I lift away from the hood, reaching out my hand to her. “Let’s sit inside, out of the sun.”

She takes my hand and I help her down.

Two hours later, the tow truck still hasn’t showed up and it’s starting to get dark. Looks like we’ll get to watch the sunset together over the barren Texas landscape.

“I knew it,” Camryn says. “What the hell is it with the tow trucks?”

And just when she says that, a set of blinding headlights comes down the highway toward us. Overly relieved, we get out to meet him and the first thing I notice is the same thing Camryn notices. The guy could be Billy Frank’s doppelgänger. She and I glance at each other, but we don’t comment out loud.

“You need a tow or a tire?” he asks, thumbing the straps of his denim overalls.

“Just the tire,” I say as I follow him around to the back of his truck.

“Well, I don’ have much time to stay here while ya change it,” he says and then spits chewing tobacco on the road. “You two’ll be all right?”

“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” I say. “But wait one second.” I hold up my finger and lean into the car to turn the key. When the engine starts without a problem, I shut it off and walk back over to him. “Just wanted to make sure it started.”

I pay the doppelgänger and watch his truck’s brake lights fade into the darkening horizon as he drives away. When I walk back to the car where I left the tire, I’m shocked as hell to see Camryn already lifting the car up with the jack.

“Hell yeah, that’s my girl!”

She smiles up at me, but keeps on working at it, that blonde braid draped over one shoulder.

“It’s not so difficult,” she says, now rolling the new tire over after managing to get the lug nuts off the old one by herself. I think I’m getting a hard-on. No, wait, I’ve definitely got a hard-on.

“No, it really isn’t,” I finally reply, my smile getting bigger.

Several minutes later, she’s letting the car back down and tossing the jack into the trunk. I lift the old tire for her and throw it back there, too.

We get inside and just sit here.

It’s so quiet. Enormous streaks of pinkish-purple and blue cirrus clouds are cluttered together in the sky, stretching far over the horizon. As the heat of the day wears off, the mild breeze of approaching nightfall funnels through the opened car windows. The sunset is beautiful. Honestly, I’ve never paid much attention to one before. Maybe it’s the company.

And I’m not sure what’s happening right now between us, but whatever it is, we’re so synced with each other that we both share it. I look at her. She looks at me.

“Are you ready to go back?” I ask.

“Yeah.” She pauses, looking toward the windshield, lost in thought. Then she turns back to me, more sure now than she was just seconds ago. “Yeah, I think I’m ready to go home.” She smiles.

And for the first time since I left Galveston on my own that day, or when Camryn boarded that bus in Raleigh that night, we finally feel… fulfilled.