Let Your Heart Drive (13 page)

“Trey, I think we’re ready to go home now,” she insists never taking her eyes from his. He evenly nods agreeing with her. He never introduces us or delivers a reasonable explanation of who she is or the little girl for that matter. He just hands me the few extra paper napkins left in his hand and starts to walk away, but before he’s a few feet away he taps his black Stetson felt hat and waves back over his shoulder at me.

“I’ll see you later, Sin.”

“The minute I heard my first love story,

I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.”

-Rumi

“‘I’ll see you
later, Sin?’
That’s all he said?” Chelsea asks for the hundredth time tonight. I yank back the covers on my bed and twist my lips into a frown. After we left the fair, I fought internally not to expose the disappointment quickly settling in my heart. Trey was more than some guy I talked with from time to time, he guided me and distracted me when I needed it, and he became a curator of sorts keeping me from worrying. Keeping me from the darkness that looms over my mind and I know no matter how hard I try not to think about it, it’s there, it’s always there.

Chelsea gently slips the comforter from my hand and tips my chin upward. “Sinead, maybe we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions just yet, the fact is we don’t know if he’s with someone. I mean, I saw him just like you did walk away with
her,
but
…
”

I smile lightly. “It’s okay, Chelsea. Really,” I state forcing my voice to sound strong and unaffected. I lift a brow up and reconfirm my tone, “But you have to admit he was tempting.”

She folds the sheet back on top of the fleecy down comforter and scoffs, “Pfft, I wouldn’t just say tempting, Sin.” She playfully bumps her hip into mine and adds, “And the way he was looking at you…” She pauses with a heavy, dreamy sigh like she’s just set sail, drifting away on some imaginary cloud nine. Without looking back at me she mumbles, “It reminded me of when Brett and I first started dating. The way he would look at me.”

“Oh Lord, please don’t start with ‘
the look
’ story, I was there remember? And as for Trey I’m pretty sure he gave
that look
to the brunette too and that’s why they left together,” I grumble pulling my shirt up and over my head. Once it’s finally free I snag whatever pair of pajamas I can find and start wrestling them on. “Look, let’s just drop it Chelsea, it really isn’t something we should be in a tizzy over.”

“Really?” she pops off, hands on her skinny blue jean clad hips. Mirroring my same quirked eyebrow expression from earlier.

I immediately stop what I’m doing and face her. “Really.”

She motions a hand toward me and says, “Well, tizzy or not your pajama bottoms are on backwards and you’ve missed fastening a few buttons there on your top, Sin.”

I untwist my makeshift hair bun and drop my eyes lower, I look like someone who has the worst case of dyslexia ever. I shake my head at myself and wordlessly point toward the bedroom door.

Chelsea grins knowingly and gallivants to the door before she closes it she peeks back at me and says, “
Instead of assuming try this novel idea called asking first.
” 

_

I stayed awake for another hour and talked with my dad. Telling him about the big banana Brett and Garrett won at the fair and how great their funnel cakes were. I omitted the part of who bought the cakes and kept everything pretty up beat. Until my curiosity creeps out.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“How did you know mom was the one?”

I hear the sound from the old leather chair he sits in. Piqued, as if he reclines back a little too roughly, rubbing his day old stubble on his chin, wondering, debating how he’s going to answer me. It’s not a question we’ve hounded him for years about, but when I did bring up it once before I could see the pain it inflicted on him. He never answered me, rather chuckled it off and went on about his business.

A leery long intake of breath resonates through the phone before he says, “I knew it the moment I saw her.”

“How?” I pry further curled up on my bed biting the tip of my fingernail, anxiously. He’s never talked about her much, never reminisced the days with her to Chelsea or even me so, I wait on tender hooks hoping he’ll give me some small piece of how they met. Maybe a part of my own deep-seated fear stems from his, his pain. Loving someone so deeply and so much and losing them. And losing them becomes so agonizingly painful that you can’t even bring yourself to share the good with your own children.

Another long dreading sigh comes out and finally he lightly mumbles, “At the time I was a desk officer and she came in with a report of a stolen vehicle. She’s was so upset and I remember calming her down, she’d just gotten off work and walked out to find her car missing. I… I wanted to make everything right for her, I remember wanting to be someone who could help her and—”

“And?”

“And I knew she was someone I couldn’t live without. She carried such a brightness with her, wherever she went, just like you and your sister. She had a way of making you feel complete.”

“So…did you ever find her car?”

“No… we never did, but I think we found each other instead,” he chuckles softly through faint tears.

“
Thanks Dad…
” I whisper quietly hugging the pillow next to me.

“For what?” he replies, his tone crisper, clearer and I can tell he’s shielding his heart again.

“For telling me.”

The next day I find I’ve missed three calls from Trey. I’d fallen asleep after talking with Dad and dreamed about stolen cars and forgotten lovers. Now, I’m sitting with Garrett and watching the amazing Spiderman swing heroically through the city of New York and wondering if Peter Parker would be ballsy enough to ask—
So, are you married? Seeing someone? Have you fathered any children? 
I start to imagine him shoving his dark framed glasses up his nose asking in a slightly geeky tone yet suave style. And I just can’t find Parker or myself asking the burning question. I slump lower against the couch with Garrett sprawled across the floor munching on vegan white cheddar popcorn. Chelsea trails in as cool as a cucumber and nudges her big toe against my leg.

“Hey, I think there’s someone who wants to talk with you,” she says holding my cell phone in her hand.

I give her my grumpiest glare and mumble, “Who? And why do you have my phone?”

She shrugs. “You left it in the kitchen and I think it’s important, it’s him, Sin—
the voice guy
.” She cups her hands around the phone like she’s trying to conceal our conversation from the caller. She squats next to me and whispers, “You’re definitely right about one thing, he does have a sexy voice.”

I stand with her and snatch the phone from her hand. “Why did you answer it, Chelsea?” I don’t wait for her to answer or for her reaction, instead I lead her out of the living room and into the hallway. I don’t want to interrupt Garrett and his web slinging Spiderman moments. I wheel around and meet her eyes and as quietly as possible, I begin my rant, “You know this isn’t going to work, Chelsea. So, why start this?
Why?
”

She rolls her eyes at me and sends me a straight-faced smirk. “Just talk to him.” She lifts my willing arm up and presses the cell phone to my ear. “Now, say
hello
…”

I narrow my eyes back at her and let the words tumble out, “H
-hey
Trey…”

“Why am I getting the feeling you’re trying to dodge me?” His smooth voice drifts out and just like clockwork I’m set in a time that nothing else matters except his voice. That tenor, that tone, the soft unnervous laugh he gives whenever he asks a question, much like the question he’d just asked. I perch myself on the stairs and watch as Chelsea disappears leaving me alone with him.

“Dodge you?” I say it like it’s the most preposterous thing.

“Yeah,” he draws with no hint of believing a word out of my mouth. “Your sister said you were being trained in spidey-senses,
so…
did I call at a bad time?”

I laugh and brush my hair back. “No, I think I’m all trained up for now,” I tease with curiosity. The burning question searing through my throat and dying to come out, but I lick my dry lips and sink it quickly. I don’t want to know. I don’t want these moments to dwindle away when/if I find out he’s with someone else. It’s none of my business, really. I mean after all we’re just
friends…

“What’s your plans, Oh…say within the next hour?”

“What?” I ask stupefied, slowly I lean forward so that my bottom lifts off the step and I crouch around the corner. I’m still alone, not a soul in sight and I crack an antsy smile. “Ah, nothing I guess. Why? What do you have in mind?”

“So you’re not going to bail on me?”

“No… I’d just thought you were
with—
” I stop, the question hits my lips and I catch it before it falls.

“The girl from last night?” 

“Yeah?”

“Mel?”

Okay, so I have a name to go with the face, but it still doesn’t quite explain who Mel is.

“Sin, Melanie is my sister.”

I let out a huff of suffocating air, the relief of knowing he’s single and solo. And then I rethink things for a second. “Hey, um…Trey? This may sound kind of strange since we’ve been talking to each other for a while now, but just to clear things between us I need to know, you’re not married right? Or have a girlfriend?”

“No, and just so I know, you’re not some criminal on the run after knocking off some kingpin in LA and hiding out here in the bible belt?”

“What? No…no I’m afraid my life isn’t that exciting,” I confess and drum my nails along the polished wooden railing. “But I am a gambler of sorts.”

“So let’s narrow it down, are you a risk-taker if it involves Cool Ranch Doritos?”

“Ah, that’s a definite yes,” I quickly remark sitting on the edge of the carpeted step, my mind racing with thoughts. He remembers what I like and I’m desperately craning my neck around to see if anyone can see my blushing red face.

“What if I bring a bag of Doritos, I’ll get your address and we could go somewhere I thought you might like.”

“Where?”

“It’s called the Philbrook Museum of Art. Ever heard of it?”

“No.”

“Well I figured since you’re a tourist and traveled across one of the most known highways of America that you might wanna try one of America’s finest museums.” 

I don’t waste a breath and ramble out the address and the details of the house. By the time I hit end on my cell phone I’m practically sprinting toward the kitchen. Both of my hands tightly grip the doorway while I rush out, “He’ll be here in less than twenty minutes, we’re going to the Philbrook. So, if you want to call Dad and do some sort of background check on him you better do it quick.”

Chelsea closes the dishwasher and stares flabbergasted, I don’t wait for her response I turn and disappear upstairs.

“Every picture shows a spot with which the artist has fallen in love.”

– Alfred Sisley

Trey picks me
up in a silver Dodge truck, it looks like it wants to crawl all over the cars in front of us. A giant gas guzzling machine. I bite my lip hard and hop inside without a speech on
step ladders must be acquired, while being assisted into the vehicle
. He closes the passenger’s door and briefly, I’m engulfed with the scent of him, his cologne and the sound of music.

I laugh and lift a brow. “Somthin’about a truck, huh?”

“Hey, don’t knock Kip Moore, he’s just a good ol’ country boy,” he quips and starts singing with the song.

I can’t help but smile. His voice drops just like Kip’s, smooth and sultry and it makes me turn seven shades redder. I readjust myself in my seat and fiddle with the seatbelt.

The song strums out and he slowly turns the sound down. “You’ve never heard of him have you?”

I shake my head.

He juts his clean shaven chin out and says, “All right, what kind of music are you in to?”

I steal a quick breath and respond with, “Well, I guess a little bit of everything really. I like Alabama Shakes
—
”

With one hand lazily over the steering wheel he aims with his right at me. “Next time we go somewhere we’ll listen to Alabama Shakes, deal?”

“Who says there’ll be a next time?” I tease and wiggle my finger back at him. “Boy, you weren’t kidding about being ambitious.”

He slows down at a stoplight and I see his grin, it’s a grin that says it all.

“You should be getting used to my ambition by now,” he spouts never looking my way.

“Oh, believe me, I think I’m starting to, just make sure you don’t let it run away.”

“I’ll try not to,” he replies still wearing his clever grin, he spins the steering wheel beneath his hand and we make a turn into the museum.

We pull into a parking space and straightaway I’m studying the architecture. It’s larger than life, exquisitely grand and I recognize the undeniable era. It’s an Italian Renaissance villa. Every small, minute detail from brick to stone is accented beautifully and I grip my hope, wondering if this museum really is a museum. Trey helps me climb out of his truck and as soon as my feet hit the ground, I ask warily, “Trey?”

“Yeah?” he genuinely replies, he glances at me as we walk toward the entrance. He opens the door for me and I step by him still trying to grasp the brilliance of the place, it’s like someone recreated the Villa Lante in every aspect.

“Where are we?”

“The Philbrook,” he chuckles softly and lifts his head at all the masterpieces surrounding us. “Since the only thing I really know about you, other than you’re a gambler…” he pauses a beat and leans closer whispering ever so lightly in my ear, “
I didn’t forget your Doritos.
” He straightens shoving his hands inside his back pockets casually. “You know a thing or two about interior design and I thought you might appreciate this place.” 

Appreciate. I toss the word over and over inside my mind, I can’t even convey what’s in front of me. Elaborate columns straddle the upstairs hallway, which are embellished with detailed grapevine designs. Impeccable cerulean carpeted stairs, which probably lead up to the art paradises, and I’m not even sure where we should wander first.

Trey clears his throat and nods his head to follow him. “Would you believe…” he starts to say and turns on his sneakered heels and walks backwards, facing me. And I realize for the first time he’s not wearing cowboy boots or a cowboy hat today. I step up my pace and motion my hand around for him to keep going.

“This place wasn’t always a museum?”

I slap a hand across my chest in fake surprise. “
No?
”

“It was built in 1926 by Edward Delk
for…
” he pauses and waits for me to come closer. “An oil tycoon and his family.”

“So, this place really is a mansion,” I state easing myself beside him, barely brushing my arm against his as we stare at a painting together. I smile inside because Route 66 was built in the same period, is this another
sign
that I’m here in a mansion that was made and constructed in the exact same era? Is it a message or a warning? My intuition doesn’t care anymore I guess because for the first time it finally feels right.

“I guess the oilman had a really big family,” I state peering up to him.

He narrows his dark eyes and answers, “No, not really, it was just him, his wife and his two children. Seventy-two rooms on twenty-three acres. Can you imagine what it would be like living back in those days?”

“Could you imagine living in a house like this, today?” I ask quietly and for a few seconds I do envision what it would be like living in the heart of the roaring twenties. Trey sends me a sideways racy smile and I pretend he’s donning some type of bootlegger’s clothes. Wearing a sexy dark blue button-up vest and matching slacks, paired with a classic printed tie and a Godfather’s styled hat or just a fedora. I must’ve exposed my cheesy-dreamy grin because Trey bumps my arm.

“Are you thinking about me naked, Sin?”

“What? No!” I scoff and push him away from me. Good God, I must’ve really expressed some major drooling or sighed dramatically for him to say that. I tuck my hair behind my ears and immediately regret it and brush it back. I feel the heat flooding through me and I know my ears are probably glowing red.

“So is this all I get to see today, the lower floor?” I quip and face the other direction, feigning interest in another painting. Trey strides by me like he’s Al Capone, confident, cocky and carrying a swagger like a true gangster.

He looks over his shoulder at me and says, “You wanna see more? I got more for you…” and with that we venture across the Kasota limestone floors to the stained glass window in the majestic foyer. Along with American, Modern and Native American art the museum also holds European and Asian art, but this piece, this meticulous stained glass window tells a story of Dante and Beatrice. A requited love story.

Trey’s the first to break the silence as we both look fixedly at the stained glass. “Now, can you imagine being in Florence during the medieval times and falling in love at first sight?”

“No, I can’t even imagine years of not talking to him and then one day you’re married off never knowing how deeply in love he was. He inspired some of the greatest poets.”

“And she inspired him,” he replies lightly still studying the glass. I steal a couple of secret glimpses at him, his hair is tousled over to one side like a baseball cap once rested there. I want to reach up and touch it, see if his hair is as soft as it looks.

“She died at twenty-four and he loved her for the rest of his life and in fact he immortalized her through his work and eight hundred years later we’re standin’ here talking about them, I think that’s pretty amazing. Don’t you?” He turns and smiles at me.

“Yeah, it is pretty amazing,” I reply with a sadness clutching my voice. I drag my finger up toward the stairs and change the subject by reminding him. “We’re still technically on the first floor.”

He laughs and ever so gently he takes my hand and leads me upstairs.

“So, you’ve never really told me
why
you’re driving Route 66, is it your family? Are you just visiting your sister here in Oklahoma or are you planning on stayin’ here?”

I glance upward at the handpainted ceiling motifs which are the exact reproductions of the Italian Renaissance and again I’m in wonderment. This place breathes perfectly of a past I can only dream of and what makes this even more unreal is, him. I’ve traveled hundreds,
no
thousands of miles searching, discovering, and now I’m about to fall madly in love. And suddenly all I want to do is yank on an emergency brake somehow and stop the collision before it’s too late, because I’m speeding, soaring past the safe limits. Fear knocks faintly on my backdoor and I can’t decide if it’s the thrill of the ride or my own darkness reminding me it’s a fire-eating beast ready to devour the very hope-dispensing fire Trey ignites within me.

“Well the plan was I stay here with my sister until my dad arrives, which should be at the end of this month,” I explain reading the title of another painting called The Shepherdess.

“And what happens at the end of the month?”

“We’ll finish the route to Chicago.”

“So you’re gonna finish it with your dad?”

I send him a quick look and return to the painting and answer, “Yeah, that’s the plan.”

“And then?”

I shrug noncommittally. “I don’t know, I haven’t really thought that far ahead.”

He nods like he understands and lets the rest of the conversation die. He doesn’t press any further, he just quietly holds my hand a little tighter. The contact doesn’t make me feel foolishly impaired like I thought it would, but somewhat preserved, cherished and safe.

I lean in and see a name noted on the 1889 painting which was gifted to the museum in 1947 and I ask, “I wonder why someone would want to part with such artistry?” 

Trey explains as he looks over the woman dressed in peasant apparel, she’s standing alone, barefoot in a field with a stick balancing across her shoulders, she’s naturally beautiful. But something about her expels a despondency, a wordless sadness.

“My great, great aunt, Laura Clubb, donated a collection of artwork to the Philbrook. This is one of them.” He points toward the gold framed painting and adds, “My mom researched some of our family roots here and found out that she, Laura, had married an oilman who owned a hotel in Kaw city. They had a ranch together and struck it rich when they hit oil. The oil money was divided between them, he bought more land and she… well she bought art. She traveled worldwide and not only purchased pieces like this one by William Bouguereau, but Constable, Sargent, and Chase. Anyway, she filled their hotel full of paintings, linens, antiques, and rugs, until they both passed away in 1951.

The hotel was later flooded to make a lake and they say she’d always felt that since the money came from the soil of Oklahoma that the art should stay here too and she donated her entire collection to the Philbrook.”

I grasp his arm before he starts to walk away. “So wait…they flooded their hotel to make a lake?”

“Actually the entire town was flooded, so now it’s called Kaw Lake.”

I glance back at the painting thinking about all the stories it could tell, the people who passed by it and the journey its traveled to be here.

Trey tugs on my hand and asks softly, “You comin’?”

I follow his lead passing expressive sculptures and oiled painted canvases that seem virtually lifelike. We make our course through another set of doors and outside. I stand with the crisp fall wind nipping at my face and I’m thrown back into some kind of fairytale landscape.

Motionless, I take in the scene before me, standing on the limestone terrace I look beyond the first stone oval fountain seeing an intricate, strongly influenced Italian countryside. Water flows from one fountain to the other, each telling their own story of humanity’s journey from the golden age.

Water streams mystically through the middle of the highly manicured garden, a crisscrossing design, and eventually we navigate to the end of the earthy autumn green shrubbery. Trey leads me to the lower section, which is flanked by massive trees and lavished raised flowerbeds and into a white gazebo. A pool of water from the last fountain reflects the season of reds and oranges along with the columns that house us. A thought skips through my mind—
how many girls has he taken here?
 

I can see why he would, it’s breathtaking. Being outside you completely forget your presence was just inside a museum. I slip my cell phone out and take a shot of the mansion from where we’re standing.

“It’s pretty impressive isn’t it?” he asks leaning an arm up against one of the ribbed columns.

“It’s extraordinary,” I agree and peek playfully his way. “You’re not only roadside, stand-in boyfriend, zombie consultant, tent builder, art savant,
and now
a local historian. I think there’s probably something else I need to add.”