The Den (4 page)

“Never heard of it?”  Skyla prompted.

“Sounds fascinating,” Alex whispered with a little smile.

“Oh, it is quite beautiful and peaceful, when school’s out anyway.  I most likely will never go back.” It was a statement and a realization all in one.  “And you?”  Skyla pressed again.

“Well, I guess my family wandered a bit.   We mostly lived in Georgia, but I ended up doing most of my growing up in Louisiana, in New Orleans.  I have a twin sister who lives in the French Quarter still.  Everyone else blew away with the wind or perhaps melted away in the intolerable heat.”  Alex gave a little chuckle.

Oh, no.  A poet
. 

“I left about six months ago.  I will definitely never go back.”  He did a little tap on the table to add punctuation to the pledge. 

For some reason, Skyla didn’t believe him.  His eyes had a sad and longing look.  He must be a bit lonely, too, she thought—homesick.

“I’ll never go back for good, anyway,” he said.  “I guess I am about due for a visit soon.”

“Well, I have never been to New Orleans.  It has always intrigued me, though.  I would love to take a road trip there.  Maybe it would be fun to take a drive down the coast and check out some new places on the way.”  She’d come up with the idea on the spot.  It seemed to come out of thin air, but it was just what she needed.   

New York City suddenly seemed … confining.  Skyla felt that old familiar trapped feeling and guessed it was time to move on.  She’d lived in the same house in Chestnut Hill for seventeen years.  She’d never realized that the uneasiness she felt was actually restlessness.  After Skyla had left home for college, it was torture to spend a significant amount of time in one place.  The first college she’d gone to, Northeastern, was too close to home.  She told her parents she longed for a campus life.  Then she transferred to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, but it was too big.  Brooke begged Skyla to try Boston College.  She thought it would be just right.  Well, it turned out to be fine.  Why not?  Though it wasn’t a better fit, Brooke was there.  Skyla’s mother was happy to have her close by.  Her father was at his wits’ end on the other side of the world.  Skyla was sick of packing and moving.  So she stayed and finished at Boston College.  In fact, she stayed on campus for all the summers, too.  After the two transfers, she needed to make up some classes, and she was determined to finish on time so that she could get out on her own.  Skyla’s father, the successful businessman, and her stepmother, the properly pleasant and charitably busy housewife, could not understand the lack of ambition.  Why not go on to law school, med school, an MBA program, etc.?  Skyla’s mother could not care less but wanted her to get a nice job near home.  If Skyla ever got married, she would have enough sense to
not
have only one child.  Being an only child is quite excruciating at times.  It was so much stress to be such a disappointment.

“Really?” he responded to her travel plans, bringing her back to the present moment. 

Alex’s eyes sparkled just a bit more.  Skyla must have been right about the homesickness.  He was being pulled back.  One could see the lure in his eyes and his too-controlled mouth.  His soft lips squeezed together.  He was trying not to smile, but she could see where the pink was turning white because he was pressing too hard to squash that little excited smirk.  Skyla must have been staring at his mouth for a bit too long, because he became noticeably uncomfortable and shifted in his seat.

“Really,” Skyla said and forced her eyes to look up.

“Well, I guess I wouldn’t be much of a Southern gentleman if I didn’t escort you on your road trip.”  He looked down.

A bit embarrassed at his offer, she figured. “Well, I guess you wouldn’t.  So let’s start making plans,” Skyla said, hoping that he wasn’t a psycho and knowing Brooke would freak out.

“Um, okay.  I mean, I have to ask for a week off.  Do you think a week is enough?  I mean ... do we drive down?  Should I ask for two weeks?  What about you?  Do you work?”  

As he rambled, Skyla thought she might rather go alone.

-Five-

Southern Charm

Skyla sat back in her chair and studied Alex.  She struggled to get her thoughts straight.  He really was so familiar.  It was also strange how she felt so confident around him.  Usually she would have been timid around such a gorgeous guy.  She embraced her courage.

Skyla told Alex, “I am waitressing and I am not attached to the place.  I actually don’t make much money.  So I think I will quit and play it by ear.  But you can come for as long as you like.  Maybe take the drive with me and then fly back?”

Skyla suddenly wondered what Alex did for a living.

“Well, I am bartending at this bar on Avenue B and Seventh Street.  It is such a great bar.  I only got the job because I hung out there reading want ads and redoing my resume over and over for the first two weeks I was in the city.  I think the manager felt sorry for me.  I was lucky to get the job, and I make decent tips.  Maybe I will say there is a family emergency.  I will tell him that I might need up to two weeks off, but I will call when I get down there.  What do you think?”  Alex swiftly scooted closer so that their noses nearly touched.  “You must think it’s an adequate plan.”

Skyla started.  She could smell his musky after-shave and inhaled deeply.

Alex slid his chair back and cleared his throat.  He looked down to wipe an imaginary smudge off the table.

“What do you think?” Alex repeated in a calm tone.

Skyla blinked rapidly and checked her breathing.  She knew that she would instantly fall in love with him if she weren’t careful.  In the past, she wouldn’t have had enough sense to avoid that predicament.  Luckily, she was smarter now.  She had learned a serious lesson after Craig, and it had been only three short months since that breakup.  Her manager, Seth, was just a small, more recent reminder.  She would not let her guard down, especially when this one seemed to be such a suitable travel companion.

“I think that sounds like a great idea.  I mean, if you aren’t superstitious,” Skyla stated very sensibly.

“What?  Why?”  He looked confused.

“Well, some people think that if you say there is a family emergency, then you will bring danger onto your family.  You know?  Like, a jinx.”

“Oh!”  He laughed a bit.  The kind of chuckle that would make your stomach do a little flip if you were careless enough to like that kind of boyish, Southern charm.  “I am definitely not superstitious!” he proclaimed with another chuckle.

“Right.  Silly.”  Skyla would keep further thoughts of superstition and other such things to herself.  If he knew that she was slightly strange and that totally freaky ghosts were following her, he would leap up and leave, a trail of dust left in his wake.

So Skyla and Alex made the arrangements.  They would head south in exactly one week, on Friday, August 27.  It would be a significant weekend for the people of New Orleans.  On August 27, 2005, President George W. Bush had declared a state of emergency for Louisiana.  Two days later, Hurricane Katrina made landfall.  It would be a time of remembrance of the tragic events that had taken place so many years before.  

As long as no one is superstitious, that date should be fine.
 
It will not be a bad omen. 

Skyla and Alex would both work as many shifts as they could to make some extra travel cash.  The hardest part was yet to come: telling Brooke.

Skyla sat twirling her hair on the couch.  She stared at the TV even though it wasn’t on.  She could see her reflection watching back.  Skyla finally heard Brooke walking up the steps—
click-clack
,
click-clack
and
thump
.  The laptop bag and oversize pocketbook dropped to the floor as Brooke fought with the door lock and then the big bolt.  Skyla took a deep breath.  Brooke kicked the bags through the door and flung her keys onto the little end table that she had found and dragged home from the corner of Avenue C and Eighth.  She slipped off her black patent Manolos as she crossed the room.  Brooke flopped down next to Skyla.

“Oh, my poor little toes!  Ahhh, it feels so good to sit.  I am utterly exhausted!”  Brooke rubbed her feet while sitting like a pretzel on the tiny love seat. 

“So why torture yourself?  Wear sneakers and change when you get to work,” Skyla said quite matter-of-factly.

“Are you crazy?  What if someone sees me?  No way.  If I want to move up, I have to take this internship very seriously.  It isn’t easy to get an assistant buyer’s position at Bloomingdale’s, you know!”  Brooke was constantly put off by Skyla’s nonchalance about her carefully chosen career path.

“So.  I was thinking,” Skyla started. 

“What?”  Brooke sat straight up and stared at Skyla.  Her big blue eyes were accusing before she even knew the half of it.  “You were thinking about what?  Are you leaving?  You did not even give it a chance, Skyla!” 

“Don’t yell at me, Brooke Leigh!  You don’t even know what I was thinking.  I just was going to tell you about my day.”

“Sorry.  It was just a tough day.   Rob was so demanding.  He was sending me all over for samples, and then I had to talk to all of these rude people and argue pricing for him.  Can you believe he kept me in the office until 10 tonight?  I can’t wait until I have my own assistant to boss around.”

She had that dreamy look about her, and Skyla took the opportunity. “So, Brooke, I was thinking I would go on a trip,” Skyla blurted out very quickly. 
Best to pull these things off like a Band-Aid.
  “I will be gone for a little while.  I actually gave my notice at work.  I hate that place really anyway.  I can always find something else.   I will be gone for at least two weeks.   I am taking a road trip down South.  I want to visit New Orleans since I have never seen it, and, well, I met someone who is from there, so I figured I would take the trip with him.”  Skyla came up for air.

“Skyla!  Are you crazy!  What are you talking about?  Seriously, who did you meet?”  Brooke tried to control her temper.  She squeezed her eyes shut and started her meditative breathing technique. 

“Well, Brooke, I am just feeling a bit confined here.  I mean, not with you in this spacious studio apartment.”  Skyla thought adding a bit of humor would lighten the mood.

“Fine.”  Brooke breathed the word out, but it sounded more like a hiss.  Mood not lifted.

“You see, I was sitting at the coffee place when …”

“When what?”  Brooke asked, shifting to face Skyla, her curiosity getting the best of her.

Skyla recounted the conversation she’d had with Alex.  Brooke wasn’t happy about the trip, but she relented because she saw that Skyla simply had to go. Skyla stressed the fact that it was going to be for only about two weeks, but Brooke was not so sure.  She could see right past Skyla’s cool façade and into the heart of the matter—well, the heart and soul of Skyla, actually.  Brooke prodded about this Alex guy.  Skyla didn’t have much to give her, though.  She realized she really hadn’t gotten any information on him. 

“He is really sweet.  I feel so comfortable talking to him.  It’s weird, but I feel like I’ve known him forever.  He is really friendly and charming.  He walked up to see if I were OK, because I looked worried about something.” Skyla stopped short.  She didn’t think it was necessary to tell Brooke what that something—or someone—was. 

Skyla had seen a spine-chilling type of man right before she’d met Alex.  It wasn’t necessary to scare Brooke when Skyla was not even sure she hadn’t imagined it.  She would revisit the café and see if she spotted the black-haired man again. 

Brooke noticed that Skyla had turned pensive. “What’s the matter?  Did something happen?  Sky, what is it?” 

Skyla ignored Brooke’s questions and went on to explain that Alex was ridiculously gorgeous.  He was tall and had broad shoulders.  He smelled great, but she was not going to get romantically involved. 

Brooke just laughed at Skyla.  Brooke certainly had heard it before.  Skyla had a history of falling in love.  She either had no interest in someone or she just simply and completely had to have him.  It was a curse, for sure.  One of the lessons Skyla would definitely have to learn in this lifetime was moderation.  It was on the list of goals that Brooke and Skyla had written years earlier when they were going through a transcendental faze.

The next few days blew by so quickly.  Skyla felt as if she were inside one of those books where, when you flip the pages quickly, the cartoon characters become animated.  Brooke met Alex and instantly liked him, maybe too much.  She even introduced herself as Brooke, not Brooke Leigh.  She had taken to using “Brooke Leigh” as a matter of principle when she turned 16.   “One never knows who is connected with the fashion world,” she’d said.  “ ‘Brooke Leigh’ is, after all, more professional-sounding than just plain old ‘Brooke.’ ” 

Alex was quite taken with Brooke.  That was not a first.  Guys had a difficult time resisting Brooke’s charms.  It would be a prerequisite for Alex to get along with Brooke if he were going to be a friend of Skyla’s, but still it touched a nerve that they got along so well.  Not that it should, since Skyla had no intention of becoming romantically involved with a sappy Southerner who didn’t even know where he was from really. 

-Six-

Predictable

Skyla and Alex made the necessary arrangements.  It was happening too easily.  Skyla went over the previous night’s resolutions with Brooke.  Alex had reserved the rental car that they would drive down to New Orleans and leave there.  They would decide later if they would drive, take the train, or fly back.  Alex’s boss, Joe, had given him as much time off as he needed.  Joe would keep a job for Alex.  Skyla was starting to figure out that most people would do just about anything this guy Alex asked them to do.  Brooke agreed that that seemed to be the case.

Hopefully, he won’t ask me to do anything like hold his hand or kiss him or run my fingers through his hair.  Or maybe he wouldn’t ask.  Maybe he would just simply walk up to me, stare into my eyes, and kiss me on the lips.  Then when I didn’t argue or push away (surely I wouldn’t be able to do such a thing), he would lean in and gently touch his lips to mine again, pressing his strong body into me.  Stop!
She shook the images out of her head.