Landslide (16 page)

“Plane, train, or any automobile that isn’t a black ’67 Chevy Impala, because my baby isn’t rolling a single tire in this town again once I get her out of here safe and sound. I promise you, this time when I say gone, I’m talking gone for good, beautiful,” he answers, and I honestly hate to admit it, but I think he was talking to his car, calling it beautiful and not me, because he said the last half of that while looking at his car in the driver’s side mirror like he could’ve been looking at the love of his life.

I want to be irritated with his stubborn insistence about never coming back, but at the same time, I don’t. I understand his reasoning and that he feels justification on the one hand, and on the other, he appears to be genuinely happy and excited about what awaits him now. And I am too. At this point, starting our trip off arguing with him about where he’ll end up when all is said and done would be intrinsically childish and rather selfish of me, not to mention that it would effectively ruin the beginning of our adventure. So, I keep quiet and turn my attention to the radio to see that Cole had evidently been a very busy bee this morning and had pulled out his car stereo and hooked it up in the camper. He’s already connected his iPod too so all I have to do is push play as he turns the ignition and lets the engine warm up some. Knowing him and figuring he probably has some kind of road trip playlist queued up already, I just click play and sit back, ready and just as anxious now to hit the road as I know he is. However, when the speakers reveal the little known secret of what a nerd he can be by picking up part way through the song he’d last had playing, I have to look at him.

Rather than making excuses, Cole just faces me, raising an inherently cocky and imperious eyebrow, and challenging me to say something, whether it be along the lines of amateur psycho-analyzation into his thought process or outright questioning him and “Highway Don’t Care” as the song he chose to listen to on his way back to get me.

I step up to the battle line and respond with raised brows of my own and a “Really?” look, but it doesn’t seem to have an effect aside from amusing him further. So, I decide to fight fire with fire and rapidly scroll through songs on the iPod. The signature Southern rock guitar and bluesy rhythm of drums belonging to The Black Crowes as they sing of unwavering and unflagging support in “By Your Side” combine to abundantly make my point as Cole puts the camper into drive.

He gives me a half-grin and just as we set off for our journey of untold excitement, I turn the volume up, just so that there’s no doubt.

Judiciously allowing a couple of his sparkling white teeth to show and soften his features, his smile widens just barely as he winks at me and commends me with, “Atta girl…”

12

“You Don't Seem To Miss Me”

—Erica—

“Oh my God, remember this?” I ask and snicker a little, holding up my iPad mini so Cole can see the picture that I’d taken of him with an actual bearded lady and a set of Siamese twins we saw at the traveling circus we’d stumbled upon a couple weeks ago.

We’ve been so many amazing places, seen so many awe-inspiring sights, and done so many incredible things this summer so far. Cole’s been bungee jumping off a bridge in Idaho, he saluted four of our nation’s most prominent past presidents at Mt. Rushmore while I recited the Pledge of Allegiance and laughed about what dorks we were being, and we saw a concert at Colorado’s famed Red Rocks Amphitheater. We’ve experienced a lobster festival in Maine and gorged ourselves on some of the best lobster that I will ever ingest in my lifetime, we celebrated the Fourth of July in small-town America; parade on Main Street, apple pie, chili cook-off, dancing in the town square, and fireworks all encompassing, and we’ve stepped at minimum one foot each into almost all the states accessible by motor vehicle. We sort of made doing that our thing. We set out with a goal of being in each state of continental America, even if it was just our big toes, and every time we cross state lines, we stop and take a picture of one another in front of the welcome sign. Quite a few times so far, Cole and I have been fortunate enough to not be the only people marking their journey in this way, so we have a decent handful of pictures of us together in front of the sign as well as individually.

It’s become like a twice-weekly routine almost for me to pick out pictures to print so that I can send them to my grandma. It’s sort of how I’ve chosen to check in with her and let her know I’m alive and am having a great adventure. I’ve called her several times too of course, but I really think she gets a bigger kick out of seeing our trip with her own eyes, rather than listening to me use words to relay the experiences.

Cole glances up briefly and absent-mindedly chuckles his acknowledgement of remembering the event the picture depicts. Soon after though, he goes back to whatever he’s doing on the computer he’d finally managed to crack the password of—playing game after game of solitaire I think. He hadn’t spent too much time trying to figure out what word or phrase Holden used to lock his computer, but every so often, he’d pull it out and give a couple of things a try and then when he was unsuccessful, he’d either flip the laptop the bird or just stick his tongue out at it like a frustrated and disappointed child.

When he jumped up and did a goofy happy dance, having finally hacked his way in, I smiled and asked, “You finally figure it out?”

He nodded and sat back down before looking at me in a kind of odd way and saying, “Yep. It was easy once I actually thought about it.”

He didn’t divulge the password to me and I didn’t ask. Holden’s computer although Cole’s now, and really, just a machine, which I try hard to look at it like; it holds pieces of a past that makes seeing the future too difficult for me still, so I honestly want nothing to do with it. And now that he’s conquered the challenge he thought of the password as and completed his quest to be able to use the computer, I’m not sure if he’s thinking of it as his yet or not. I am pretty certain though that all Cole does on it is listen to music and play games. However, I do know that one night when we were lucky enough to find a campground with Wi-Fi, he went ahead and added his email address to the iMessage and FaceTime apps on it because he was being silly and used the computer to FaceTime and make all kinds of funny faces at me from his bed while I was trying to read in mine.
 

I copy the picture and another one into the photo album that I use to help me remember what I need to print and what I’ve sent and what I haven’t yet, saying more or less to myself, “I don’t know why I haven’t sent these to her yet…”

Cole’s response is the barest shrugging of his shoulders and a slight shake of his head. From the kitchenette table, I frown up at his profile where he’s relaxing shirtless with the computer on his lap on the overhead bunk-bed that sits atop the cab of the camper. Tendrils of sun-lightened brown hair bend up at the ends, curling this way and that to flirt around his ears and tease the back of his deeply tanned neck. He needs a haircut; his occasional subconscious scratching or irritated hair ruffle agrees with me, although every molecule of his glowing bronze body that has ever been allowed exposure to a beam of sunlight concurs with his insistence that sunblock is for pussies. I’ll give him another week before suggesting again that he reacquaint himself with what hair clippers are for; however, my still slightly sunburnt butt is done trying to convince him and his stubborn, completely and totally healthy looking skin that the sun can be harmful. I mean, as long as he doesn’t take another picture like one my eyes just now fall upon of me asleep on the beach getting redder than an over-cooked hotdog that is.

Going through pictures and being reminded of the recent good times makes me smile in my heart and appreciate Cole. He’s become a wonderful friend. Not that he hasn’t always been, but these last weeks of being with each other constantly has made for a bond to be forged between us that most people will never have in their friendships. With him I can be myself, regardless of whether that’s a good thing at any given moment or not, like when I reach PMS bitch mode, which I can now admit to hitting the status of like clockwork. He takes me, my ups and downs and sideways moods, and each and every road trip hiccup we’ve encountered along the way in quiet stride without ever losing his temper. He provides everything for me; food, shelter, comfort…just, everything, and I know in my soul I’m safe with him. He’s selfless and I’ve come to appreciate qualities he possesses that, because we haven’t spent this amount and kind of time together since we were younger, I haven’t really had a chance to recognize in him before.

Lately, though, there’s been something not quite right with him. There’s something off. I can’t quite put my finger on it, however it almost feels like he’s drifting away. Like a distance has sprung up between us somewhere on the road and it’s too wide a gap for me to bridge if I were to try to. I don’t though. We talk, about a lot of things actually, but, verbalizing our thoughts or emotions really doesn’t seem to be our thing. Still, I wish he’d let me know in some way what’s bothering him so that I can for once be there for him like he is for me day after day, and…night after night.

Hearing the screen door of one of the deluxe RVs camped next to us open and slam shut again, I think back and determine that Cole started changing right about when we pulled into this campsite and met the group of early to mid-twenties jarheads who’re camping in the two spaces next to ours. Actually, the guys aren’t Marines and their hair is just buzzed really short all over rather than the signature high and tight haircut, but they’re still members of the Armed Forces and they’re just…too much. There’s five of them—well, five guys. Two are cousins and one cousin is married to the sister of one of the other guys and has a three-year-old, and one of the others has his long-time girlfriend with him, so altogether, Cole and I have seven next-door neighbors. Or, seven and a half, counting the cutie-patootie toddler.

And although I really like the girls and the little boy is freaking adorable, the guys irritate the crap out of me and I have a really hard time understanding how these two women can stand the constant, over the top bravado and measuring of penises that these guys do. What’s worse is that Cole seems to have found his people. He latched onto them almost immediately and they welcomed him into their little pride without question, leaving me to either fend for myself or suck it up and sit around the fire every single night listening to the guys tell what, sadly, could qualify as tall tales, but I honestly think the stories they’ve told have all been 100% true, embellished for effect as they may have been.

Thanks to the blown water pump on the camper that resulted in a cracked radiator, we’ve been stuck here for a little over a week now, waiting for the radiator and some other assorted parts that needed to be ordered from the local automotive shop in town; local being approximately forty-five minutes to an hour away of course. It’s picturesque here, however, and not a half-bad place to be stranded; although when our neighbors are around, which is almost always, or when we’re all hanging out together, I get the distinct impression that I’m being ignored by Cole, or…neglected. At least that’s how it feels sometimes. Like Cole would much rather spend all his time with them than he would five minutes with me. I haven’t said anything to him about it though because it’s nice to hear and see him laugh, not to mention that he seems to have formed some kind of closer-knit friendship with one of the guys over the others, and I don’t begrudge him that.

He and Wyatt will sometimes break away from the rest of us and when that happens, the two of them can usually be found talking in either our camper or Wyatt’s RV, or sitting in silence on the bank of the cove together holding fishing poles. Wyatt’s girlfriend, Kylie, and I went in search of them one evening to let them know dinner was ready, and we couldn’t help but stand there and watch them enjoying the peace and quiet of a summer sun setting on water. It was actually really touching how they just sat there saying nothing as they cast their lines out time and again in what looked to be perfect contentment. And I think it’s healthy for him to have a guy friend, I do, but I just wish that the friend and the others would stop encouraging Cole to enlist. By telling him how well he’d fit in, the world travel he’d be able to do, and reminding him of all the great and exciting stories he’d be able to tell by sharing all of theirs with Cole, I worry about him being enticed to take a job that will put his life in jeopardy every minute of his work day, and let’s not forget what the commute to that job would probably be like too.

We didn’t argue about it at all, although I did make my feelings on the topic clearly known to him one night after the routine of sitting around smoking and downing beer after beer while military machismo bedtime stories are told, which is always followed by the guys putting the fire out with their penile fire hoses. I tearfully told him that I would never forgive him if he left me to play with real bad guys and guns; that I wouldn’t be able to handle the everyday stress of worrying about whether he was okay or even alive while deployed in some far-off war zone on another continent. He’d laughed a little about how serious I was being, but he understood and reassured me that being a soldier wasn’t part of his game-plan for the future. Later that night when I was having a hard time falling asleep and he heard me tossing and turning, he had me get in bed with him, and he finalized his promise by holding me tight, reiterating what he said, and placing a tender kiss on my shoulder.
 

Cole’s irritated muttering draws my eyes to him once more. “Everything okay up there?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I just can’t win a single goddamned hand at this level. It’s pissing me off,” he answers without looking at me.

“You wanna come with me? I’m gonna go into town with Kylie and Amanda. I wanna get these pictures printed and we need some groceries…” I ask hopefully and with a smile.

“Mm-mm. I think I see a nap in my near future.” His answer is mumbled, if even that, and I don’t mention that it’s only nine-thirty in the morning.