Can I See You Again? (18 page)

“Simple? Like simple-minded?” I slide my hot dog onto a bun.

“No, definitely not. I mean simple in demands. I like a woman with little makeup, an easy-to-come-by smile, and shoes that won't make her complain about walking too far. I want someone who can give me a run for my money. A woman who wears confidence and nothing else.”

“She'll be chilly.”

“Okay, confidence and a tight pair of jeans.” Thin laugh lines frame his smile. He lowers his hot dog closer to the embers and says, “At the end of the day, I want a relationship like my parents'.”

My mom's nightly ritual of leaning toward Dad and kissing him before sitting for dinner comes to mind. I glance at my scar, covered by my shirt.
Me, too.

We sit quietly for a couple of minutes, listening to the
popping of the twigs and hot dog grease hissing in the flames. This evening is comfortable. The space between us smaller.

“Nixon, if you don't mind my asking, why not tell your mom no? Why agree to this charade? Seems a lot of unnecessary trouble for you.”

A long stretch of silence passes before he says, “We're a lot alike. You and me. Both seeking redemption of sorts, trying to prove our worth.”

“You're a very successful man. What do you have to prove that you haven't already?”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a scratched silver coin. He flips it back and forth between his thumb and middle finger like a poker player fiddling with his chip, contemplating whether to bet or fold.

“My uncle Marcos, my mom's brother, worked at a Taco Bell since he was fifteen. Every day after school, he cleaned the floors, scrubbed the ovens and fryers, emptied the trash, washed the pots and pans, doing whatever they asked of him until long after midnight. Then he got up the next morning, went to school, and did it all over again.

“They promoted him to manager the day after his high school graduation, the youngest at the time. A couple years later, he bought the Taco Bell. One restaurant turned into two, two into four, and eventually he owned nine locations around Southern California and a couple in Nevada.”

“Wow, that's impressive.”

Nixon stares into the fire. “Even though he could afford not to, he still scrubbed the grease off the fryers, climbed on the roof and fixed the condensation lines, labored on his hands and knees, working until the day he died of a heart attack twelve years ago. He had no children and left me a trust fund.” Nixon rests the coin in his palm. “And you know what I did? I gambled it. All of it. I blew his life's work, his sweat, his sore back, his
swollen knees, his tired bones on blackjack tables in Vegas and Reno. Didn't take me long, a few years is all. My uncle worked his whole life, his whole goddamned life, and this coin”—he aims it toward the flame's light—“is all I have to show for it.”

“So you've worked hard to prove—”

“That I'm not a total fuck-up, yeah. I've worked hard to rebuild Marco's legacy, leaving no time to focus on a relationship, but I don't want to disappoint my mom any more than I already have.”

I know the feeling.

“If she wants a girl on my arm, I'll give her a girl on my arm.” Nixon slips the coin into his pocket, then finishes his beer in one long swallow.

“You surprise me, Nixon. For the past few months, you've portrayed this suit-and-tie, too-busy-for-love kinda guy and yet, once or twice, this softer side of you pokes through. This mushy center. It catches me off guard.”

“You've caught me off guard, too.” The fire flickers in his eyes as he holds my gaze.

Should he look at me like that?

Should I want him to?

“Whoa, careful,” he says.

“What?”
Was my stare that obvious?

“An ember bounced on your sleeve. Your sleeve is burning.” He flicks off the glowing coal and pats out the smoke.

“Thanks. That could've been bad.” Without thinking, I slide my sweatshirt sleeve up my forearm. “Thank goodness, I—”

“What happened there?” Nixon points at my scar.

“Oh, God.” I hurry to pull down my sleeve.

Nixon places his hand on my wrist. “Don't.”

I haven't discussed my parents' accident in years, and with no more than a few people. Shown my scar to even fewer. But something in the warmth of Nixon's touch tells me it'll be okay.

He lets go of my arm.

Before I realize it, I start to tell him my story. “Sophomore year in high school this guy I liked asked me to meet him at a party in Oceanside. My parents said no. Defiant and totally pissed off, I pretended to have a headache and went to bed around nine p.m. An hour later I sneaked out the guest bedroom window and met my friends. We went to the party and that guy kissed me. My first kiss, actually. I remember thinking,
This is the best night of my life
.”

“First kisses can do that.”

“Yeah, everything was great until Mom checked on me before going to bed and discovered I wasn't home. Such a stupid kid.” I pick up a broken twig. “They picked me up and the entire way home I sat in the back of the car pouting like a spoiled brat. Thinking only about myself, embarrassed my parents dragged me out of the party, thinking that guy would never talk to me again.”

I toss the stick into the flames, wringing my hands, grateful that he's quiet. Just listens, doesn't judge.

“We approached this intersection and I remember thinking,
Good, the light is green. We'll get home faster.
I didn't want to be in the car a moment longer because I despised the way Mom rubbed Dad's temple and how he drove with two hands gripping the wheel. It was them against me, and I couldn't stand being trapped in the backseat with them another minute. Told myself I'd sneak out a hundred times more, just to get away. Those were the last things that ran through my mind, how much I hated them and having to answer to their rules, how much I wanted to get away from my parents.” I wrap my arms around myself. “We didn't make it through the intersection. Some guy ran his red light and smashed into Mom's side of the car.”

I close my eyes, remembering the screams, sirens, and smells. The nosy people, standing curbside watching the firefighters
straighten the mangled metal crushed around my mom and dad while I picked at a knot in a tree umbrellaed over the sidewalk, nothing but a cut on my arm. I remember a neighbor lady wrapped in a blue robe who put her hand to her mouth when they placed Mom on the stretcher and covered her with a white sheet.

Nixon says nothing.

My tears blur my vision of the flames. “The police report said
driving while intoxicated
, but it doesn't matter what they wrote as the reason.
I'm
the reason my parents were driving across town at twelve forty-two a.m.
I'm
the reason a drunk driver plowed into my dad's Jeep Cherokee.
I'm
the reason steel crushed the life out of my mom's body.
I'm
the reason my dad died on the operating table two hours later.
I'm
the reason Jo lost her family.”

“Bree—”

“No, it's okay. You don't have to try to make me feel better.” I wipe the tears from my cheeks. “I'm ashamed and I miss my parents. Simple as that.”

“People aren't judged by their worst moments. Draw attention to what shaped your life, don't hide from it.”

“I'm not worried about being judged.”

“Then why do you keep the scar hidden?”

“Because it's a painful reminder. Because I don't want to explain what happened. Because I don't want people feeling sorry for me. Because I don't want to be judg—”

“The accident wasn't your fault. You weren't behind the wheel.” He stares at me with eyes as hard as flint. “Your parents and their memory should be honored, not hidden.”

Maybe it's his definitive gaze or the unvarnished timber in his voice, but for the first time in my life, I almost believe it's true.

A few more minutes of silence pass, and I stare at the flames whirling in the shared space between us, unsure of what to
say. Swallowing the rest of my beer, I want to make a turn in this conversation. No one likes talking about dead parents. Especially me. “Sorry, you didn't come here to listen to me rattle on about my sad story. So, enough of that. Now, where do I . . . you know . . . tinkle?”

“Tinkle? Are you four years old?”

“Ha ha.”

“There's a bathroom up the road.” He hands me the lantern. “Want me to walk you?”

“No, thanks. I'm fine.” Gravel crunches under my feet and crickets chirp in my ear as I head toward the restroom. Though I'm still not a fan of the outdoors, especially at night, I am savoring the break from city life. The brisk air. The slow, quiet evening. And, I must admit, I'm relieved to have shared the weight of my past.

I reach the bathrooms only to find a sign that reads S
ORRY
—
RESTROOM
BROKEN
.
U
SE
O
NE
AT
HOST
'
S
OFFICE
. Seriously? The office is more than a mile away.

Nixon's drunk a couple of beers; I don't want to ask him for a ride. And I sure as hell don't want to walk.

I survey what's around me. Nothing but campfire glow and billowing smoke clouds the shadows. We are
camping
. This is what campers do, right? Become one with nature. Give back to the earth.

I weave through the thick trees, sneaking a peek at the Boy Scouts' campsite below. Except for a citronella candle burning on the picnic table, it's dark. They're likely catching frogs or rebuilding a beaver's dam or something nature-y.

I set my lantern on top of a large boulder and out of sight from the road, I duck behind the rock and slide my jeans around my ankles.

This morning I never thought I'd cruise up a mountain on a motorcycle, roast a hot dog, and pee in the Idyllwild forest.
Come to think of it . . . this whole experience is liberating. Kinda free. Kinda I-am-woman-here-me-roar stuff.

And then I hear it.

The wiggle of a branch.

The
scratch-scratch
on the boulder.

My eyes adjust to the darkness and I see it.

Two beady eyes fix on me. Sharp claws glint in the lantern's light.

A squirrel.

Stay still, Bree. Relax. No sudden movements.

He scuttles closer. The scamp chitters at my feet.

Oh, God. Oh, God.

A rational reaction would be to shimmy him off my foot, calmly walk toward Nixon—after I pulled up my pants—and say, “Funny story, a squirrel scurried across my foot. Ha-ha-ha.”

But the shifty bastard circles me. His tail brushes along my ass.

“Aaaagh!” I try to scramble to a stand, but my jeans tangle around my feet and I plummet backward down the bank.

End over end, my body tumbles down the hill. I bump into and over sharp rocks, tree stumps, and pine needles.
Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
I roll over damp mud and muck, grasping at branches, twigs, anything to slow my course. Finally, I land face-first in the dirt at the base of the Boy Scouts' camp.

I look up as flashlights shine in my eyes.

One of the boys laughs. “Check out her butt.”

“Congratulations on the tension of the zip-ties.” I lift my bound hands in the air, sitting in Bill the host's office. My overpriced jeans are ruined, stained with gunk, littered with holes.

“Care to explain why you went streaking through a campsite full of Boy Scouts?” he asks.

“I wasn't streaking. I used the outdoor facilities because yours are broken . . . thank you very much . . . when a squirrel attacked me.”

“I highly doubt that, ma'am. A squirrel only attacks if his food supply is threatened.”

“Let me assure you, I did not try to eat his nuts.”
Okay, that sounded very wrong.

“Excuse me,” Nixon says, walking into the office. “Mind cutting her some slack? She's a camping newbie. Never peed in the woods.”

“No kidding?” Bill reacts as if Nixon said I'd been born with twelve toes.

“Forgive me for being civilized.”

The host's wife walks in with H
ELLO
,
I
'
M
H
ELEN
written on her name tag. She exchanges glances between Nixon and me before covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh my gosh. Are you Bree Caxton?”

“Yes.” I wave as much as the zip-ties allow.

“And this is Nick?”

He nods. “Nice to meet you, ma'am.”

“All this time I've wondered what you looked like. You're just as handsome as I imagined.” She nudges my shoulder. “Bet you two
do
have a great time in the sack.”

“Helen?” Bill scolds.