Payton Hidden Away (18 page)

We’re almost back to my place.
Ritchie hasn’t uttered a single word to me since we left the party. In fact, he
hasn’t talked to anyone since he saw me with Joanne. He’s upset, drifting
behind me, eyes zeroed in on my back. That much is obvious, and even if I get
the chance to explain, he’d just see it like he wants to.

It was nothing.
It was a hug. Two friends hugging it out. Nothing more. Besides, I’m with
Kristie, not Joanne. I wasn’t doing anything more than trying to console a
friend. Of course, this clairvoyant explanation has been worked out only in my
mind. I thought for sure he’d confront me once we left Lawton and were out of
earshot. Perhaps down by the Beaver. But he stayed quiet, hanging back a few
steps the entire trek back into Payton.

My neighborhood
is nearly dark. Only a few scattered windows are lit, and it’s late—probably
three in the morning. I didn’t get much time alone with my girl. What was
supposed to be a great night wound up a bitter disappointment, and now all I
want is to put the evening behind me and get past this ‘thing’ with Ritchie. I
stop at the foot of my driveway knowing I need to say something. Ritchie and I
don’t fight. We’re too close. But not knowing what to say, I settle on
ignorance and pretend as though I’m completely unaware that anything is wrong. “Well,”
I say, faking a yawn. “Goodnight.” I turn and make my way up the driveway.

“What you did…”
Ritchie says, his voice gruff as it trails after me. I stop. “It ain’t right.”

“What isn’t
right?” I ask turning.

“I saw it,” he
continues. “And I saw you seein’ me see it.”

“Saw what?”

“You and
Joanne.” He’s not looking away. He’s looking right at me. “Was that your way of
provin’ you can have both at the same time?”

“What are you
talking about?’

“That hug.”

“A hug?”

“Yeah. When you
hugged.”

“Is that what
you’re all bent about?”

“I saw you.”

“It was a hug,
Rich. That’s it.”

“Then why you
all nervous?”

“I’m not
nervous. It was a hug.”

“A hug.”

“A hug. She was
feeling down. And where were you? As usual, you avoided her like the plague.”

Ritchie is
silent.

“Did you even
talk to her tonight?”

He says nothing.
He just stares.

“Go home,” I
say. “Sleep it off. We’ll sort it out in the morning.”

“You already got
her sister,” he growls. “You leave Joanne alone.”

“You’re right. I
already got her sister,” I snap. “Jo’s also my friend, so no, I’m not going to
leave her alone.” I turn away then turn back. “And for the record, nothing
happened. It was a
hug
.”

Ritchie takes a
step forward, and I feel my heart seize, but I hold my ground. My best play is
to continue pretending this is just a regular conversation between friends.
He’s not going to punch me, because I’m not angry, and if I’m not angry then
it’s not a fight.

Ritchie smiles,
his stained teeth glinting under the single street lamp. “You think you got
what it takes, small time?”

I shake my head.
“You’re drunk, asshole. Sleep it off.”

Ritchie glares
at me. I can smell his beer breath and the sweat that’s permanently caked into
his shirt. He’s breathing heavy, probably from the long walk, but maybe because
he’s still worked up. He chuckles before doing something I never would have
predicted. Rather than pounding my face into the concrete like I’m half
expecting, he merely turns his back and lumbers away. I’m not sure if this is a
good or bad thing. Ritchie’s not much of a thinker. He reacts to the moment,
and there’s no way he’s going to just let it go, so that means he’s planning
something else.

I watch after
him for a minute just to be sure he’s not coming back before turning up the
driveway toward my comfy bed and my big, fluffy pillow. I’m exhausted. The
windows are dark, and all I want is to collapse into bed and wake up sometime
next year.

I crawl through
my bedroom window, careful not to knock anything over or trip on a wayward
baseball. I carefully slide the window shut, slip out of my shoes and crawl
into bed. I even nearly get away with it.

Nearly.

“That you?” I
hear Mom call from far away.

“Go back to
sleep, ma,” I mumble, burying my face in the pillow.

There’s a long
pause, and for a moment I think maybe she did go back to sleep. That’s when I
hear her plodding along the hall. Our house is old, and so is everything in it,
so I even hear the doorknob squeak as it turns. A shaft of light cuts across
the floor.

“You’re in
late,” she says.

“It was a party.
Party’s get over late.”

“No more
fights?”

“No more
fights.”

“Then what was
Ritchie talking about?”

“You heard
that?”

Her silhouette
shrugs. “The window was open.”

“That was
nothing.”

She’s quiet for
a moment. “Did you make a move on Joanne?”

“No, I did not
make a move on Joanne. I’m with Kristie. The whole thing’s a big
misunderstanding.”

She stands
there, her huge frame filling the doorway. “I just don’t want to see you and
Ritchie fighting. You two mean too much to each other. Don’t let some silly
little girl fuck it up.”

“I got it, ma.
Thanks for the graphic image though.”

“I’m just
worried.”

“You’re still
worrying.”

She stands still
for a moment. “Goodnight.” She pulls the door shut, her footfalls fading along
the hall.

“Outta here,” I
whisper as I collapse into my pillow and stare up at the ceiling. One week. One
week and I’m all the way gone. And as if to demonstrate the rebel inside dying
to break out, I pound my mattress, tearing off the covers, refusing the tears
welling at the corners of my eyes while mouthing over and over, “outta here,
outta here, outta here …”

My hotel window is open. Rain is
falling steadily outside. It’s the kind of rain I remember as a kid, but
nothing seems as familiar as the emptiness in my heart. I’m disappointed in
myself. I lied to her, not because I needed to, but because lying is easier
than telling the truth. She had it in her head that we’d find her sister’s body
out at the old Johnson Farm, yet we found nothing, and I let it go. To top it
off, I was not vey sympathetic or patient with her. I made up excuses,
conjuring up ‘that’s-how’ instead of ‘what-ifs.’

I want to go
back to Atlanta, but I’m stuck here until Allstate settles my claim. I’d ride
the public bus just to get out of the city except there are no buses, and this
isn’t a city. It’s Payton. It’s barely even a town, yet I’m stuck here, just
like
Hotel California
. Once you’re in, you’re in for good.

Parting the
curtains, I watch the rain. It’s coming off the roof in a clear sheet of water,
a reminder that no matter how much change there is, things tend to stay the
same. I’m stuck here, destined to wait out the storm.

My hair has
dried, and I’m wearing fresh clothes, my drenched shirt and jeans draped over
the stained chairs in the corner of the room. The television is on in the
background, and the cheery sounds of some sitcom I’ll never watch is my
company. A car drives through the parking lot, its high beams cutting through
the rain before pulling into the parking spot next to my room. A couple darts
out and disappears from my line of sight, the sound of a slamming door next to
mine synchronized nicely with a boom of thunder overhead.

I let the
curtains slip shut, and I pace the room, watching TV with my arms crossed,
utterly disengaged. My mind is elsewhere—somewhere between here and twenty
years ago. At some point after leaving the Johnson farm and before getting
dropped off at the hotel, something inside the gray matter of my mind clicked,
and memories began trickling in like a slow leak, feeling like a paper cut
bleeding out. Things I intentionally forgot, things I unintentionally forgot—
things.
And what I’m suddenly remembering is scaring the hell out me while reminding me
why I left in the first place. I feel clammy, dirty and cold, and when there’s
a knock at my door, I wonder if it’s Lucifer himself coming to collect his toll.
It’s not until I remember that I ordered in that I grab the bills I’d neatly
stacked on my nightstand and cross the room.

“Abbott?” the
pimply girl asks I open up. She holds up a pizza box stained with grease. “Room
sixteen?”

“This is
seventeen,” I say all smug.

She looks down
at the piece of paper she’s holding, the rain cutting through the fabric of her
shirt and plastering the hair to her forehead. Then she looks at the number
hanging on the door. “It says sixteen.”

Now I feel bad. “Never
mind. It was a joke. A bad one at that.”

She frowns,
looking like she might cry. “So, this is the right room?”

“Yeah, it’s the
right room.”

She holds out
the pizza. “$21.49.”

“The guy on the
phone said twenty bucks.”

“Inflation.”

“In the last
forty-five minutes?”

She shrugs.
“Blame global warming.”

I pay for the
pizza and throw in a tip. “Have a nice night,” I say, shutting the door in her
face. Peering through the peephole, I watch her stare at the door a moment
before shaking her head and turning away.

Settling on my
bed, I open the top and grab a slice of hot pizza, the cheese stretching the
way the commercials say it should. The breading is crunchy, but the toppings
are soft—the tomato sauce thick as it runs from the edge of the V-shaped slice.
Everything about my meal should be perfect, but something’s missing.

The television
show is going on about some parade, and the cast is making cracks while the
audience laughs on cue. My cell-phone rings, and I check the number. Kristie.
Wiping my fingers on my jeans, I answer.

“You okay?” she
asks.

“I’m fine. Why?
What’s up?”

“Nothing,” she
answers after a pause. “I mean, nothing’s wrong.”

“Then why are
you calling?”

Silence.

“I didn’t mean
it like that,” I say.

“You got quiet
earlier. I thought you were mad at me or something.”

“I’m not mad at
you. I’m not mad.”

“Then what?”

I stare at the
TV and the make-believe people imitating real life. It’s funny. Not the show or
anything about this day, but everything that’s supposed to appear one way but
instead is the other. I’m supposed to feel sad because everyone in this screwed
up town is sad. Or maybe I’m supposed to laugh because of my stupid bell-curve
shaped life, my average apartment and my meaningless job.

“Tony?” she asks
from across the line.

“It’s nothing,”
I answer.

She’s quiet, and
I can hear her thinking from five miles away. I know her. She conjures a
hundred different choose-your-own-adventures at once, and then she gets
flustered when she doesn’t know which door to open. Suddenly it’ll be all about
me and what I’m thinking even when I haven’t said a word.

“You’re going to
leave, aren’t you?”

I shrug before
remembering that we’re talking on the phone. “Eventually.”

Silence.

I might be the
world’s biggest moron. The girl of my dreams is within reach, and I’m once
again holding her at arm’s length. I let her go once before, and now I’m doing
it all over again. And why? So I can go back to my cocoon life in the big city.
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” I say. “I need tonight off. My head’s all
messed up. I need some time to process.”

“Guys don’t
process.”

“We process.”

“Guys aren’t
built to process.”

“Then maybe I’ll
ruminate.”

She’s quiet a
few moments. “And tomorrow?”

I stare across
the room at the TV where people are pretending to be alive. For some reason, to
the rest of the world, that’s funny. “Pick me up in the morning.” I do the math
in my head. “Around ten.”

“Where are we
going?”

“I want to show
you something.”

“Show me what?”

I stare out my
window while smelling the pizza in my lap. “You’ll see.” Thunder rumbles beyond
the window and the audience cracks up from the television. Watching the idiots
hopping around onscreen, I feel like my life is a script pinned together by
mediocre actors and sub-par jokes like a sitcom with no punch line. Yet
everyone’s laughing while I feel like crying. “You’ll see,” I repeat, hoping
she’ll finally give up then hang up.

“I’m going to
lie awake all night wondering what.”

“You won’t.”

“I’ll just lie
here.”

“You’re
exaggerating.”

“...naked.”

I pause. “You’re
not naked.”

“And if I am?”

I exhale,
holding the phone away. If she is? Then I’m the biggest moron ever. But what if
she isn’t? What if it’s a ploy? That would be typical. It would be just like
her. It would be just like my ex-wife too. Heather pulled that shit and got
another 15%.

“I need to go,”
I say. “Dinner’s here.”

“What’s on the
menu?”

“Dominos.”

“Dominos? You flew
halfway across the country, and you’re having fast food at a Days Inn?”

“I’m an
unoriginal bastard.”

Long pause.
“Want company?”

My choices are
to wallow in self-pity or get laid, and I haven’t been laid in nearly a year. I
think
the last time was with Stephanie, not that I remember what
Stephanie looked like or if that was even her name. Regardless, the experience
wasn’t all that memorable. Neither was she.

“I’d love company,”
I answer. “But not tonight. Like I said, I’ve got a lot to process.”

“Guys don’t—”

“Or ruminate
over,” I snap, looking toward the window where lightning flashes, lighting up
the curtains. “I just need to be alone for awhile.”

She’s quiet.

Commercial. The
TV stops laughing.

“I gotta go,” I
murmur. “Pick me up at ten.”

Thunder.

“Sure,” and she
hangs up without saying goodbye. She’s probably mad, and if not mad, she’s at
least disappointed. She’s processing. I’m ruminating. We’re connected, yet we
couldn’t be further apart.

I dig into my
dinner and enjoy burning the roof of my mouth. I’m sitting Indian style on my
frumpy hotel bed, watching bad TV and realizing that I’ve not only been lying
to her, but I’ve also been lying to myself. I’ve been lying because I
do
remember what happened twenty years ago. I remember what happened with Joanne
and Kristie and even Ritchie.

Thunder.

I
remember
.

I sit there, an idiot
sitting in the middle of a stained bed, a steaming pizza in my lap, fingers
greasy, a terrible comedy reminding me why real life is so much better than
what we spend our time watching. It almost feels like a vacation. After all,
this is what people do when they run away. Though it doesn’t feel like I ran
away. It feels like I ran home. Not that I feel at home either. I feel like an
idiot eating a pizza from the middle of frumpy bed tucked inside a shitty hotel
room.