Cancel the Wedding (12 page)

Graham and Logan walked toward the restaurant leaving us alone in the car. Elliott gently rubbed the edges of the bandage over my knee to make sure it would stay put. I said, “Thanks. I can't get it to stop bleeding.”

Elliott took his hands off my leg and sat back. “No problem.” He smiled, making the car seem as if it were getting ever so slightly smaller. Then he teased, “It's pretty nasty. I don't think I want that thing oozing out while I'm trying to eat dinner.”

I climbed out of the car. “Oh, are you telling me they prepare food in this dive?”

“You better be careful. If anyone hears you talking about the J that way they'll take out your other knee.”

I followed him into the Circle J, which looked like it had once been a gas station. There were large bay doors that were rolled up and open to the terrace where a patio had been created using potted plants to delineate the edges. The chairs were plastic and so were most of the tables.

The patio was full of families with young children, so we elected to sit inside. This was obviously more of a bar area so Logan and Graham were very happy to be allowed at the adult's table.

The walls were covered in rusty old road signs and gas station logos. It looked like the kind of place that had slowly and lovingly been built out of garbage over the years. The resulting pastiche was actually pretty charming.

The long bar had three televisions above it all tuned to different baseball games. The floor was covered in a slight layer of sand; I wasn't sure why.

Elliott said that a visit to Tillman would not be complete without dinner at the Circle J, which supposedly had the best food in town. This was one of those dives that locals always adored. It made one feel terribly authentic to think the “best food in town” was served at an old gas station.

The place was pretty crowded but most of the bodies were at the bar so we didn't have any trouble finding a table. Elliott seemed to be either related to or good friends with half the patrons in the bar. I was trying to listen for familiar names. I was starting to wonder if I was distantly related to any of them too.

It looked as if Logan and Graham were on a date and that Elliott and I were serving as chaperones, which technically we were I suppose. So it was all legal in my opinion.

We ordered food and then the waitress dropped off a bowl of peanuts. Graham said something that sounded like “bald peanuts.” I went to take one and Elliott snatched the bowl away from me.

“Have you had these before?” Elliott had a mischievous smile on his face.

“Peanuts? Uh, yeah.”

“No, boiled peanuts.”
Oh, boiled not bald.

“Why would you boil peanuts?” I asked.

Graham butted in, saying, “Because they're awesome,” grabbing some from the bowl.

Elliott picked a few peanuts out of the shell, turned to me, and said, “Open up.”

“What? No. You're not feeding me.”

“You have to trust me. These have to be experienced cold the first time without knowing what you're in for.”

“Eww. You're not making it sound very—” he popped it in my mouth. It was cold and wet and salty and mushy. It was, in a word, disgusting. “Good lord! That's foul. Why would you do that to a peanut?”

I don't think anyone at the table heard my protestations about the blasphemy that had been done to that poor little nut. They were all laughing at me.

Elliott said, “Those are a Southern tradition.”

“Yeah, like marrying your cousin. Not all traditions are good things.” I washed away the taste with the last of my drink.

A band started playing in the corner. The lead singer was a red-faced, potbellied man wearing a multipocketed, khaki fishing vest. He got about two slurry lines in to some country song when I turned my head slowly toward Elliott, eyebrows raised as if to ask,
What's with the band?

Elliott leaned in to me so he could speak into my ear. “It's karaoke night.”

“It's kind of loud.”

He said, “What?”

I just shook my head.

I limped up to the bar for another round and as I waited for the drinks I was surprised to see Graham and Logan take the stage. This seemed so unlike her. For so long she had been the quiet girl in the corner trying desperately to be invisible. I guess when you're in a place where no one knows you, you're free to reinvent yourself. She looked so cute up there with her little sunburned cheeks and a smile plastered across her whole face.

Ben, the drummer from the band, came over to our table and sat with us between sets. I was losing track of which ones were Elliott's cousins and which ones were just old friends. I had never been in a place where so many people were so interconnected.

The drummer stood up to head back to the band and looked around our table. “Which one of you is going next? Eli?”

Logan slapped my back causing me to choke on my drink. She said, “Aunt Livie is next.” I was coughing and shaking my head. Logan looked at Elliott and said, “She won't shut up in the shower and she practically lost her voice singing on the drive down here.”

I politely declined the offer to sing. “No thanks, Ben. I'll just watch.” Then I kicked Logan under the table.

Ben let me off the hook and made his way back to the stage, scooping up one of the waitresses on his way. He twirled her toward the microphone, and the crowd broke into rowdy cheers. She was obviously a local favorite.

I used to love to go to places like this, joints out off the highway. When was the last time Leo and I had been to a dive bar? We had to attend so many dinners for his work. And they were usually at some pretentious restaurant. Some new “it” place. Leo had become such a food snob in the last few years.

I tried to think back to the last time I had been someplace that made me feel this comfortable. Not just this bar, but this whole town. I felt like it was my choice that brought me here and there was so much contentment in that. How had that feeling of driving my own life just slipped away? Without a struggle or a fight or even a whimper? It had just vanished.

I was realizing more and more that I was just letting life happen to me. Letting it flow downstream and take me with it. I wasn't participating in its course correction anymore.

The waitress had a deep, raspy voice and was singing soulfully about the end of an affair, the loss of desire. I missed having desire. Maybe it was because of what Logan had said earlier but I was suddenly very aware of what I
didn't
feel about Leo. I was lost. And discovering that my mother's entire childhood was sitting underwater somehow made everything in my life just feel—shaken.

The whiskey-soaked lyrics that the waitress was belting out were hitting a little too close to home, and I realized I was getting choked up. Dammit, who gets emotional while listening to karaoke? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to settle myself so I didn't actually start crying like an idiot.

The waitress finished the song, lamenting about the loss of love, the lack of desire, the fading away of any need to keep going. She was singing out the exact thought that had begun to trouble me about Leo. I just hadn't been able to put my finger on it. Until now.

I had to excuse myself. I needed a minute away from the noise. What was wrong with me? I went outside the door and stood off to the side, gulping in fresh air. The muffled sounds of the band and the bar clatter were drumming in my head.

I really was a mess. Maybe this was some kind of posttraumatic stress thing. I did lose both of my parents in the space of two years. And I had stood in the burned-out remains of my mother's mysterious childhood one day and been chased down a mountain at gunpoint the next. Maybe that was it. My breath caught as I finally started crying.

I heard someone come up behind me and turned to see Elliott. “Are you escaping?”

I wiped at my eyes, trying to pretend like I wasn't wiping at my eyes. “Sort of. It was getting a little smoky in there.”

He noticed that I was crying. “Hey? You okay?”

“Yeah, I'm okay. Maybe. I don't know.” I rubbed my eyes and smiled at him. “That's not much of an answer.” He stayed silent, waiting for me to continue. “I just—I'm just feeling like everything is a little bit messed up right now.” Then I did that really embarrassing thing where a sob sneaks up on you and chokes out without you knowing it was coming.

“Oh man. You are a mess.” He pulled me into a hug and let me cry on his shoulder.

See, Logan
, I thought.
He's just a nice guy.
Just a nice guy who's easy to talk to. One of his arms was wrapped around my shoulders, holding me tightly as my head cradled into his neck; the other was slowly and gently stroking my back.

The part of my brain that handles the reasoning function was scolding me right about now and urging me to pull away. But the more primitive part of my brain coldcocked the reasoning part and I sunk into him a little bit more. Now Elliott smelled like smoke and fried food from being in the bar. I stayed there just a beat too long I think.

I finally pulled back and laughed a little at myself, embarrassed. He wiped my cheek with his thumb and stared down at me. We were standing close, too close, and I surprised myself by not moving back.

Then the door to the bar opened and we jumped away from each other.

I apologized. “God, sorry. I'm fine. It's just been a long day.” I began to fidget and rub at my eyes.

“I understand.” He ran his hand through his hair.

Out of habit my right hand rubbed at the pale white circle of skin on my left hand where my ring should be.

He asked, “Do you . . . want to talk about it? Tell me anything?”

Then I said something that was probably a mistake. “No. I mean, let's just . . . not. Not tell each other all of our . . . stuff.” We were just research partners looking for a good story, right?

There was an unspoken understanding. He wouldn't have to explain the unanswered phone and I wouldn't have to explain, well, anything. He nodded and said, “Alright then. Let's get back in there before Graham drinks all our beer.”

Elliott and Graham dropped us off at the inn after our dinner at the Circle J. I sent Logan to the room while I sat in the lounge for a minute to decompress. At some point during the evening I had come to realize that I didn't want to leave Tillman anytime soon. I wasn't ready to go home and walk away from the possibility of understanding my mother and this place she came from. There were probably some other things I didn't want to walk away from too, but I wasn't able to see any of that very clearly. As far as dealing with the reality of my job and Leo and even Logan, I had no idea how to make all of that work, but I knew I could figure it out.

I ordered a drink and called Leo. It was late and his phone went straight to voice mail. I rubbed my eyes as I left him a message: “Hey, it's me. You might be on an airplane right now. Listen, I know this is a crazy time at work, but do you want to come down here for a few days?” I didn't realize I was going to say that until it was already out of my mouth. Which was classic Olivia. I needed to figure out what was happening between Leo and me. “I know you don't get back from San Francisco until Sunday, but maybe after that. I mean I'd really like it if you could see all of this. I want you to see the ruins of Mom's house and the family graveyard. We need to spend some time together. It's just a thought. Talk to you soon. Love you.”

I squeezed a few more limes into my drink and then looked across the bar. My eyes landed on Emory, the bigwig from the marina. Why in the world was he here? He was staring at me. He held his glass up and smiled a hello. I smiled back and then pretended to be very interested in reading the menu of aperitifs served at the bar.

Emory suddenly appeared on the barstool next to me. “Olivia, isn't it?”

“Yes. Hello, Emory. It's nice to see you again.”

“Are you having a nice time in Tillman?”

I had a fake smile on my face as my eyes darted around the bar trying to figure out why he was talking to me. I couldn't shake the memory of the way Elliott had described him. Ten steps ahead.

“We are having a nice time, thank you. It's a great little town. Are you from Tillman originally?”

A man attempted to approach Emory but a small flick of the hand made him walk back the way he had come. “I didn't grow up here, but I've been here long enough to call it home. Where do you call home?”

“Maryland, outside of DC.”

He nodded. “Lovely up there. I bet you can't wait to get back. I'm sorry again about your mother. Is your father still living in DC?”

“No, actually he passed away a few years ago too.”

Emory said, “Oh. I'm sorry to hear that.” Then he asked, “Were they happy?”

That was an odd question coming from an odd man. I wasn't sure how to answer it, or why he was asking me in the first place. I asked, “Did you know my mother?”

He didn't answer me. He seemed captivated by the melting ice in his bourbon as he swirled the glass.

I kept talking because that's what I do when I get nervous about a long, silent pause. “I've come down here to try and find out about her childhood, about her growing up here. Her name was Jane Rutledge.”

Emory didn't say anything to that either. He did not seem to be the type to say something for the sake of filling the void, like me. At length he stood up to leave. He turned to me with one last comment. “I'm sorry that all of Huntley is under the lake. There may not be much here for you to find.”

I wasn't sure what to say to that. I just dumbly nodded my head as he walked away. Something bothered me when he made the comment about Huntley being under the lake. It took me some time until I realized why. I had not mentioned to Emory that my mother was from the now dissolved town of Huntley. Maybe he did know her. I looked around the bar to see if I could ask him how he knew that, but he was long gone.