Lengths (14 page)

-Thirteen-

Deo

There’s something epically depressing about cooking a girl a romantic celebration meal and ending up alone in the kitchen putting the leftovers in questionable Tupperware instead of rolling around in the sheets with said girl.

But that’s what I’m doing, because Whit doesn’t like people pawing around in her life and I’m like that cat that got all fucked up by curiosity.

By the way, I guarantee that stupid curious cat wound up yowling from the top of some junkyard fence, lonely, with a raging set of blue balls. If he wasn’t dead. Or eating someone’s face.

I shake my head to clear it of all cat-related thoughts and try to put together a plan. Whit said she needed ‘space,’ which seems like a colossally bad sign to me. Isn’t ‘I need space’ the universal couples equivalent of ‘I need you to pack your shit and get out of my life’?

I have no clue, since I’ve never really done this couple thing. I’m winging it and brilliant plan number one is just to keep busy and hope she cools off and comes back. But there are only so many dishes I can wash or piles of junk I can move around before I start to get antsy and wonder where the fuck Whit went. She grabbed her keys and her wallet off the table, but left her purse, which has her phone in it. So she’s driving around, possibly pissed and upset, with no phone.

I definitely hate all of this.

I decide to do a drive-by of Rocko’s. If her car is there, I’ll know she’s safe and come back. I can stay on the couch until she kicks me out or wants sweaty make-up sex. I’m seriously hoping for the latter. My brain is spinning jokes to keep things light and help aid in my anti-panic plot, but all comedy and calm goes flying out the fucking window when I’ve circled the parking lot for the second time and realize Whit isn’t here.

Maybe she’s at the beach. But she’s scared of sharks, so she’s not swimming, and I told her how the cretin fucking crackheads troll the shitty areas at night and to stay away. I wonder if she listened to me.

Maybe she’s just cruising around, clearing her head. But her fucking Lebaron gets dick gas mileage, and she doesn’t usually have money to waste on that.

Maybe she called Ryan.

For a minute I lose my trademark calm and smash my hands on the steering wheel over and over, screaming like a fucking maniac. I don’t give a goddamn who sees me or what they think. This is about Whit, my Whit, out somewhere, possibly not safe, and I’m feeling so out of control, I don’t really know what to do.

I’m either going to break my steering wheel or my hand, so I kick the door open and closed and stalk into Rocko’s store. He’s just finishing giving some cougar a tramp stamp when he sees my face and asks the woman, “Would you mind waiting a minute?”

She looks me up and down, and I can practically hear her purr across the shop. Painful flashbacks of my cabana days punch me upside the head. Rocko has me by the shoulders in a minute flat.

“Deo. You look like you saw a ghost. Everything okay?” He stares at me, and I can’t get the words out for a minute. “Is Marigold alright? Your grandfather?”

I nod twice, and when I manage to find my voice, I have to tear it out of my throat. “Whit.”

His eyes go wide. “Doreen,” he calls over his shoulder. “I have a family emergency. If you could be a sweetheart and let me finish tomorrow, I’ll do the color on your shoulder piece for free.”

“You got it, baby.” Doreen slides off the table and saunters out, but not before she gives Rocko a sticky kiss and shoves a scrap of paper in my jeans pocket. I’m sure it has her name and number on it, and I’m also sure I’m never, ever going to look at it.

Rocko is already flipping the lights off and turning the sign to closed. “You want to take my car?” he asks.

“Yeah. I came over in the Jeep, but it’s sort of low on gas at the moment. I don’t mind stopping to fill up if we need.” Rocko says we’ll just take his car, and I don’t even bother to lock my doors. My Jeep will be fine in front of Rocko’s well-lit shop. Plus that, I know this area backward and forward, and have more than a few car thieves in my band of merry friends. It’ll stay put.

I jump into Rocko’s cherry-red Camaro. “When did you last see her?” He pulls onto the highway and heads for the beach.

“An hour ago. I made dinner for her, and it was all going alright until she got a call from her parents she wouldn’t take. I asked a question or two, and you know Whit.” I shrug and lean my forehead on the passenger window of his car, watching the bright white of the lights shine intermittently into the interior.

“I do. Know Whit.” Rocko’s voice is calm and cool. “Deo, how much did she tell you about her parents?”

“Um, let’s see. I learned their names today. And I know she’s living in a shithole because she won’t take their money.” I lean my head back on the seat. “I don’t think I’m being all weird about things, you know? It’s normal to want to know things about someone else, right? Someone you care about?”

Rocko nods and runs a hand over his slicked-back hair. “It’s normal. It is. But Whit is…look, I’ve never met anyone with as much need for control as Whit has. That girl is dealing with a ton of shit that would buckle you and me. But she just plows on. I don’t know how she doesn’t collapse.”

I don’t tell Rocko that I know exactly when she does collapse. It’s when she falls into bed at night, shaking with exhaustion and shuddering in my arms all night long. “So, what is it? What’s the big secret she can’t tell me?” I look at him, his mouth pulled down in the dim light. “Her parents are satanists? She was kidnapped at birth? Drugs? Sex? Rock n’ roll? Give me a hint at least.”

“You know that isn’t my story to tell. I want her to tell you. I think you kids make a hell of a lotta sense together. But whether she tells you or not isn’t my decision.” He’s about to say more when his phone beeps. He switches on the speaker. “Marigold!”

“Hey babe.” Her voice is a low, scratchy whisper. “I just wanted you to know that Whit is here and she’s fine, but she may not make it to work tomorrow. She’s had a really rough night.”

Rocko looks my way, his eyes bugged out, and I shake my head, letting him know he should keep quiet about me being in the car. “Um, did she mention what happened, Mari?”

“Just that she’s been dealing with a lot. Poor thing. She’s overworked and overwhelmed. I thought Deo was staying at her place, but maybe he went back to check on his grandpa? Anyway, she’s going to stay the night with me. I’m going to run her a lavender bath and give her a massage. She has the back of a fifty year old drill sergeant! I thought she and Deo were doing the dirty work at the crossroads if you know what I mean, but she’s so tense! I think she needs to get lai—”

“Uh, someone just came in to the shop. A customer. Just walked in. So I should go, Mari.” Rocko does not make eye-contact with me, and I’m grateful.

“I gotta go, too. I didn’t want Whit to know I was calling. She’s all about being independent and that whole liberated woman thing. But you, my love? Get ready to park your yacht in hair harbor later tonight!” My mom’s whisper is all kinds of dirty and so wrong, I wish for ear and brain bleach to cleanse it all away.

“You bet! Will do! Gotta go, baby!” Rocko fumbles to end the call, and I consider that he might wind up driving us off the road in a fiery car crash.

After hearing that little convo with my mother, it doesn’t seem like such a bad end to my night. Rocko u-turns and takes me back to the shop. Now that I know Whit is safe, I expect to feel relieved, but it’s more like I’m deflated.

“Sorry about all that with your mom—” Rocko starts, but I wave my hand at him in a desperate plea for him to allow me to begin the immediate process of forgetting.

“It’s cool. I know you two, er, are adults. And thanks for covering for me.” I rub my eyes. “I have no fucking clue what to do now. What do you think?”

“I know you’re not going to love hearing this.” Rocko looks over at me and gives me this sad, sorry little smile. “I think you’re gonna have to give her time. And, you know I can’t tell you without Whit’s permission, but let me just say, what she’s going through is real. It’s the kind of thing people spend their entire lives trying to get over.” He pulls up next to my Jeep and cuts the engine. “And I meant what I said about you two. I’m rooting for you guys to figure this all out.”

I clap my hand on his shoulder, appreciative that he gave me advice, even if I have no plans on taking it. I like Rocko. Even if he and my mother are near constant breakers of the TMI code. “Thanks, man. I appreciate the ride.”

I get in the Jeep and think about taking a long, fast cruise along the twining ocean roads, but I don’t feel like bothering to fill the tank, and I’m exhausted anyway. I’m old-man tired, and I consider going to my grandpa’s house to revel in my codger-dom, but the only place that I feel like going to is Whit’s apartment.

I know I made a mistake as soon as I open the door and walk in. Without Whit, this is just an overcrowded, cluttered, dirty little depressing space. I pace back and forth, tempted to drive to my mother’s house, when I notice her laptop open on the coffee table.

I don’t go through other peoples’ shit.

I don’t do it because it’s disrespectful, and also because I don’t care to dig for information on people who just don’t matter all that much.

But Whit matters. She matters more than anyone else ever has. And I care. So much.

So much that I break my own moral code and click the machine on. It was in sleep-mode, so I don’t have to be a dirtbag and try to figure out her password. I can just be a dirtbag and spy on her shit.

There’s an icon for a web browser at the bottom of her page, and when I click on it, some super boring anthropology article pops up. Blah blah wedding practices around the world. I open a tab and type in ‘Facebook.’ I have a page I haven’t logged into or checked in a few years, but girls tend to like this stuff better.

My intention is to log-in as myself and search for Whit. But I’m not sure if I can even remember my password after all this time. And her user name is already in. And the little password box is filled with circles, like the computer automatically saved her information. I click the log-in button like I’m having an out-of-body experience, and a picture of her with the long, wavy hair that she has in her ID photo pops up. She’s not really looking at the camera and not really smiling. It’s a picture that makes me sad for reasons I can’t put my finger on.

I quickly find that Whit and I have one thing in common. Neither one of us checks our Facebook account often.

I click her ‘information,’ but I already know her gender and birthday and the fact that she loves Eleanor Roosevelt quotes and zombies and is scared of sharks.

She has no photo albums set up.

Her last update was months before, something about naked Ewoks. So she’s a Star Wars geek? And aren’t Ewoks always naked? I’ll have to find a non-incriminating way to bring it up.

The rest of her page is mind-numbingly boring. A tiny part of me feels letdown that I threw my morals to the wind for this disappointing lack of anything substantial.

Then I click on her wall.

And people I’ve never met fill in the blanks Whit never told me about.

RIP Wakefield. <3 You were the brother I never had.

Thoughts prayers and love to your family whit.

I know no words can ever make the hurt go away, but time heals all wounds. It’s the truth.

God bless your brother and all the brave men and women who gave their life for this country. Forever in our hearts.

I can’t believe he’s really gone. I was just gonna call and ask him to a drag race. I hate the days when I forget and have to remember again.

Whit, if you need me, I’m here. I know we grew apart this summer, but you’re never alone.

Luv to you and yours whit. Wakefield was one of a kind. Never be another one like him.

There’s a picture someone tagged her in. Her arm is around a guy with her same brown eyes and wicked smile. He’s in an army uniform and he’s hugging her close. Whit’s face is glowing in a way it never, ever has in all the time I’ve been with her. The caption underneath says,
You two were always so tight. I know what he meant to you, Whit. Wakefield will always be in your heart.

The ‘W’ behind her ear isn’t for her name.

I push the lid on the laptop closed and jump up, pacing from wall to wall.

The day at the beach, in my jeep, when I insulted the army guys jogging past.

I punch the door-frame, scraping my knuckles and leaving the imprint of my fist in the dozens of layers of paint.

The lack of pictures. The lack of phone calls. Running away from her home. Avoiding any talk about her past, her family.

I  pace to her room and fall into the bed that smells exactly like her and feels cold as the Arctic and empty as the Sahara without her. I spread across the entire bed. I roll myself into the covers. All of the covers. No one sweats, snores, or kicks me. And I’m miserable. Too many thoughts and worries crowd and jumble for space in my head.

Sometime in the early dawn, I hear the door creak open. Keys drop on the counter. Feet tiptoe to the room. I watch between my eyelashes as she shimmies out of her jeans, unhooks her bra and pulls it through the armhole of her tanktop and starts for the bed, the smell of my mother’s lavender on her body and hair.

“I was worried.”

Whit jumps and slaps her hand over her heart. “Deo,” she hisses in a whisper, even though we’re both wide awake. “You scared the shit out of me.”

I hold my hand out to her and she takes it. I pull her onto the bed, and she moves toward me on her knees. “I’m sorry about last night,” she says, her voice low and dark. “I was in a shitty mood, I didn’t want to talk about things. I had no idea I left without my phone. I would have called.”

“My mom called Rocko. I went to him because I was panicked out of my damn mind.” She runs a hand over my jaw, but I don’t nuzzle against her skin like I normally would.

“I’m sorry. Very, very sorry.” Her voice goes sexy, and I know how totally upset I am by my ability to resist this amazing, irresistible girl. “Can I make it up to you?”