Running Against Traffic Page 4

  Suddenly he had frowned. “Just remember,” he said, brusquely, “I am married.”

  Paige’s mouth dropped open but no words came out. Finally she was able to stammer “congratulations” before he smiled and said he would ease Mindy out and be in touch soon.

  “A job, huh?” Al studied her face for a moment. Then he hopped to his feet, picked up Paige and set her on her feet, and tucked her arm through his. She felt like a doll, stunned into submission that she would allow a complete stranger to behave as if he was her best friend. That she would talk to him at all. This town was having a bad effect on her. That’s it, she thought, I’m over that edge. There’s no hope for me now, not that there ever was.

  “Right,” Al said. “Come with me.” He steered her to Darnell’s, through the door, and they threaded their way through the scattered tables, mostly unoccupied as lunch was long over.

  The bar was surprisingly hopping, for mid-afternoon on a Tuesday. Time didn’t seem to harness the drinking in Wells Lake.

  Al sat Paige down onto a barstool and slid onto the one next to her. “Barkeep,” he called, snapping his fingers. “Two shots of tequila here, with training wheels!”

  The bartender was a rotund and handsome older version of Al, but with brown eyes and richly darker skin. His fleshy face was also much rounder, but the same dimples appeared as his jaw flexed in annoyance.

  He set the drinks on the bar in front of them and handed them lemons wedges on a paper napkin. He held up a warning finger at Al. “Don’t call me Barkeep. Don’t be a smartass.” Paige drew back a few inches, but Al ignored him completely.

  They downed their shots and sucked on the lemon wedges. Paige was beginning to feel a bit reckless, so she elbowed Al. “Let’s do one more,” she said.

  Al nodded. “I like your style. Barkeep!” He snapped his fingers in the air. The bartender’s huge hand sailed across the bar and shoved Al off of his stool and onto the ground.

  “Yo, Darnell, what the devil?” Al asked, struggling to his feet.

  Darnell crossed his arms. “Sit down and shut up, for once.”

  “Paige, this is Darnell, my brother and the proud owner of this fine establishment. Darnell, your excellency, would you mind pouring us another round?” Al asked.

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Davenport.” Darnell didn’t smile, but he refilled their shot glasses. Paige watched him nervously.

  Al raised his glass high in the air. “Here’s to family,” he said, throwing his brother an indignant look. Then turned to Paige and smiled. “And here’s to new friends.”

  Paige picked up her glass. What the hell. New, only, whatever. “Right on,” she said.

  Darnell served them the best burgers Paige imagined she had ever tasted. They drank iced tea mixed with lemonade, heaped with crushed ice. Stuffed and refreshed, Paige took Al up on his offer to show her around town.

  “Do you think we’ll be able to do it in one afternoon?” she asked.

  “You think you’re funny, don’t you?” Al said, as they walked to the park at the end of the main road. The park grass ran up to the edge of the forest and was studded with a few spindly trees and bushes, and wooden benches circling a pond.

  "This here is the centerpiece of our town,” Al said, holding out his arm to it as if inviting it to dance. “Wells Lake."

  "Is it a well or is it a lake?"

  “Movin’ right along,” Al said.

  “Hang on, I think we’ve happened upon the eighth wonder of the world, here.”

  Al looked annoyed. “We’ll come back later.”

  They walked back down the street to Carmen’s grocery. Deirdre was outside with Carmen, sorting through fruit crates. She tossed Al a peach and held one up for Paige.

  Al leaned to kiss Deirdre’s cheek. “Has everyone met Paige?” He asked.

  “Of course we’ve met,” Deirdre said, as if it had happened years ago and where had he been? “Al and I go way back,” she added, returning to the crate of peaches. Carmen made goo-goo eyes at Al. He didn’t appear to notice.

  They sat on a bench by the lake, eating their peaches. The sweet juice ran down Paige’s wrists. She wiped them on her skirt. The town was eerily quiet as the orange sun sank behind the wooded hills. Things ran low and slow in Wells Lake. Sounds were individual, unlike the melded din of the city. She could hear a squirrel shaking the branch of a tree and the rapid clicking of its feet scampering against the bark, the buzz of a lawn mower somewhere nearby, the voices in her head.

  A lone duck high-stepped through the town puddle, pausing here and there to poke around for something to eat, his bill jutting in and out of the water, sending rippling rings around him. “Look,” Paige said, pointing. “That duck can stand up in the middle of this ‘lake’.”

  “There you go again,” Al said, frowning. “The water’s low, it’s the middle of summer.”

  “So, now that I have seen the town, tell me what I shouldn’t miss out on. Please don’t say hunting. You don’t hunt, do you?”

  “Not animals. You like canoeing? I could take you canoeing.”

  “Canoeing? Where?”

  “There’s a river that runs through these here woods.”

  Paige shook her head. “I don’t think canoeing is a wise idea. Have you seen the movie Deliverance?”

  Al stretched out his legs and watched the sky.

  Paige asked what he did when he wasn’t bar backing for his brother.

  “I’m a contractor,” he said.

  She sighed. “You should see my house. It needs everything.”

  He whistled under his breath. “Girl, I’ve seen it. That place is a dump. But with a little work, you never know.”

  “Can’t afford it,” Paige said.

  “I guess you’re too old to ask your parents to help you out.”

  “They’re dead.”

  Al didn’t take his eyes off the sky. “Sorry. When?”

  “Years ago. I was a kid.”

  He looked over at her. “No trust fund?”

  “All spent.”

  “Damn. Well, maybe we can work something out. Arrangements can be made.”

  Paige shot him a sharp glance. “Just what are you suggesting?”

  “Why Miss Scott, where is your mind!” Suddenly he sat up straight. “Hold up, here comes the duck.”

  “Oh goody, do you have any crackers?” Paige watched the duck splish-splash their way.

  "Don’t make eye contact with that bird,” Al muttered, cringing backward.

  "Why?"

  "Because birds like that attack you when you look them in the eye."

  "No they don’t. Do they? His attack would be like a camel spitting on you."

  "Whatever. I don't want to experience either in this lifetime. Look away! Look away. Here he comes."

  Paige looked down at the duck, speed-waddling across the bank toward them.

  “Look at him,” she said, enthralled. “He’s too stupid to attack you. He just wants something to eat. Come, Dingbat!” Paige looked up and around her. Al was halfway down the street.

  She leaned back on the bench, and caught herself wondering when she would see him again.

  Chapter 6

  Paige never new her parents very well, having been mostly left to the care of a revolving string of foreign au pairs. They were warm and young and picked her up from school, made sure she had her breakfast and dinner and baths, until she was old enough to take care of most of this on her own. They spoke very little English, learning as they went along, and it was nice for Paige that they learned by talking to her.

  By the time they could understand Paige and she could understand them, however, they would leave.

  There was a dry detachment between herself and her parents, until her mother died when she was eleven. Having lived more in her absence than in her presence, Paige was completely unprepared for the painful fear that knocked her down. The thin thread that attached Paige to other human beings was badly frayed, and she withdrew from family,
acquaintances and classmates even further, while for the next three years her father drank bourbon and did little else. The thread softly snapped when one night Mr. Scott went for a moonlit drive into a nearby river.

  Paige sat in a pew in the front of the church at her father’s funeral, flanked by relatives who she didn’t know well, and who weren’t speaking to each other for one reason or another. At the elegantly catered reception that followed, fourteen year old Paige sat on an ornate chair that was not meant to be sat upon, in the corner of her parents’ great room. She hooked her feet around the chair legs and was still as a china doll, trying to become a part of the chair, to disappear into the pattern of the upholstery. She said nothing to the people who drifted near. Cloying perfume scents mixing with sour breath from drinks past plumed around her, making her stomach churn, as people bent over her, murmuring. Still, she didn’t move as balloon faces floated in, bumped into her and floated away. Whispers perforated the air in the room. He died of grief. He died because he bottled up his grief. Paige thought he died from not leaving the Maker’s Mark bottled up.

  She had taken a calculated look at her life, in that chair, before she was led away to her aunt and uncle’s home to live.

  Paige walked into town often. She brought crackers with her to the lake to feed Dingbat, who always made a big production waddling over to her, lowering his neck like a missile for greater velocity.

  “Ms. Scott, how goes it?” Deirdre called cheerfully from atop a ladder, as Paige wandered into Carmen’s grocery to buy more crackers and frozen dinners. She half waved and poked around the shelves. Deirdre hopped off of the ladder and approached, standing over Paige where she crouched to explore a low shelf until she looked up.

  “Paige, you’re looking too thin. And these packaged foods aren’t good for you, you know. They’re full of sodium, chemicals, preservatives…”

  Paige looked down at her basket. Before she could respond, she heard Al at the door calling to Carmen. She tried to hear what he was saying, but Deirdre kept chattering on.

  “Why don’t you come over for dinner,” she continued. “We’ll fatten you up a bit.”

  “Sure, sometime…” Paige craned her neck to peek around the shelves. Al was leaning with his elbows on the counter, chatting with Carmen, who was trying unsuccessfully to appear aloof, as splotches of crimson lit up her fair cheeks. Al turned and spotted Paige. “Oh yeah, looking good today, Paige Scott,” he called out. The other shoppers turned to stare. “Yeah, that’s right, I’m talking to you!”

  Paige ducked back behind the shelves, and bumped against Deirdre who was waiting patiently with a smirk on her face. “Well, give that dinner offer some thought.” She shook her head and went back to work.

  Paige slunk to the front with her basket. Al lounged against the counter, watching her. She pushed the groceries toward Carmen, who rolled her eyes and began ringing them up.

  Paige turned to Al, who was now flipping through a store circular, both elbows on the counter. She took a breath and then blew out the words in one rapid gust. “Al, I was meaning to ask you, can you fix my front door? The lock is broken.”

  “Sure, I’ll come by.” He smiled cordially and looked back down, flipping the circular over.

  “When?” Paige asked. She tried to slow Carmen’s quick progress by picking up a jar and pretending to study the ingredients list. Carmen narrowed her eyes and waited for her to put the jar back down.

  Al simply said “Soon.” He didn’t look up when he said it.

  “Today?” Paige asked, fishing around in her purse for her wallet.

  “Can’t today. Few days, maybe.”

  Paige dropped her money into Carmen’s outstretched hand and must have looked defeated. Al crossed his arms and tilted his head, watching her take her change and reach for her bags. “Paige,” he said, reaching to lift a grocery sack off of the counter for her. “You want to go get some lunch at Darnell’s? I have a little free time now.”

  “Why is everyone trying to feed me, today?” Paige demanded, cooling her voice to frosty. She took the groceries from him swished out the door.

  Paige could feel her backside sinking into her rotting porch steps. The street was dead quiet on Saturday afternoon, and Paige was ready to start lighting things on fire just to have something happen when Al rounded the bend in the road and walked up her driveway. She jumped up and sprang off the steps into the front yard as if catapulted, absurdly pleased to see him.

  “Whoa, slow down, girl,” Al said, grinning and flashing his dimples.

  “What’s up,” Paige said, trying to appear nonchalant, feeling her face flush. She stuffed her hands into her shorts pockets and poked at some crabgrass with her toe.

  “Paige,” Al said, looking down at her earnestly. “Don’t be embarrassed. Every woman from Darnell’s to your house took a flying leap off their porch at me as I walked by.”

  Paige covered her face with her hands. “I’m just so bored and lost,” she groaned.

  Al stepped closer and peeled her hands off of her face, holding them in his. “Good. Admitting that is your first step.”

  “Ha ha. Come inside. It’s hot out here.”

  Al flipped switches and studied the floors and walls as they walked through to the kitchen. Paige set out two glasses and handed Al the canister of instant iced tea. He spooned some into each glass and Paige filled them with water.

  “Thanks,” Al said, after she handed him the tepid, gritty mixture. He peered down at it and then around at the kitchen and grimaced. “Paige, no offense, but I don’t think your husband likes you.”

  Paige sighed. “You could be right about that. But I told you, I can’t afford to renovate.”

  Al looked at her with something in his eyes that she couldn’t identify, but it was penetrating and made her turn to reach inside the freezer and bang around some ice trays.

  “Did you love him?” Al asked, behind her.

  “My husband?”

  “Yeah. I mean, at the time he left you.”

  “I don’t know. That’s a really personal and difficult question.”

  Al half smiled. “So? You got somewhere you gotta be?”

  Paige sat down and stared at her glass. “I…I don’t know. I feel like I need him back, which is the worst part of it. I guess I loved him at one time.”

  “What time?”

  Paige knew exactly when. After the fire. They were freshly married and renting a row home in Fairmount, an area across the Ben Franklin Parkway from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Despite its close proximity to Center City, and its quaint, tree-lined streets and cozy pubs and restaurants that you could walk to, the neighborhood was still just shy of turning trendy. This made it an economical – aka cheap – place for David to get his law career underway, and Paige to really settle into her stagnation.

  The economical nature of their neighborhood extended to their house, which was in desperate need of upgrades, particularly the glaringly faulty old knob and tube electrical wiring. Their landlady refused to do anything about the sparking outlets and frequent power outages caused by simply running a hair dryer, and about a week after they had decided to move, they were awakened at three in the morning by a loud popping sound under their bed. They leapt out of bed, sleepy and confused, and Paige saw a flickering glow and leaned in to look.

  David pulled her back and told her to get out of the house immediately. Suddenly the bed was on fire, then flames licked the walls and caught the books on the shelves.

  David grabbed Paige and his cell phone and the next thing she knew they were outside on the pavement, barefoot and watching pop-eyed as their bedroom windows exploded, black glass showering onto the small sloped patch of front lawn.

  David had recovered quickly, and after speaking with the fire fighters, he drove Paige to his parents’ house in the suburbs, all the while telling her that it didn’t matter, because they were safe. All that they had lost in the fire was just junk that could be replaced. Objects, things. She c
ould tell he believed it, and through her daze she felt an intense pull, a surge of admiration for his independence. He had no real fears, no worries, even through this.

  She wanted to be that person.

  The sheer power of the fire, and how quickly it had swallowed all physical evidence of two lives, also left Paige with a glimpse of gratitude, a taste of simplicity and of personal insignificance except to one another, no matter how weak their bond. That was all they had left, as they stood together, barefoot on the sidewalk in a bath of flashing lights and gray smoke.

  The feeling was short-lived, of course, but for a brief time she lived with that glow of possibility. And that glow lit Jeremy’s path.

  “You lost everything?” Al asked, leaning back in his chair and shoving his hands in his pockets.

  “It wasn’t much. I’ve never had a lot of stuff. It was the displacement that I couldn’t stand. I’ve never been very good at transience.”

  Al nodded. “I guess not. And yet, here you are again.” Paige wondered if he was saying that it must be something to do with her.

  “Don’t worry, we can fix this place up, and you’ll have a proper home that no one can kick you out of,” he said with a grin.

  Paige sighed. “I told you, I have no money to renovate.”

  Al leaned forward on his elbows. “That’s sorta why I’m here. Remember when I told you that things can be worked out?”

  She eyed him suspiciously, and he laughed. “I have a housing situation.”

  “A situation?”

  “Yeah. The situation is called eviction. I can start fixing up your place, at cost of materials, in exchange for room and board. I know you have two extra bedrooms. I’ve been in this house before.”

  “Oh you have, have you?”

  He laughed again, head tilting back slightly, the sound beguiling and velvet. “Yes. It has some potential, but you gotta admit, right now its shit.”

  Paige nodded. “That it is. But I like my shit private.”