The Light in Her Eyes (2 page)

I am careful not to answer her in
any manner that will agree or disagree with what she has just said.

More. I say.

Well, I mean, it's the same thing.
I know with my job I have a lot of security and now I have more money than I
know to do with.

My heart jumps, and yet I'm still
careful to not fall whole-heartedly for what she's saying. If what she says is
true, then it would only be another reason to let myself fall further into the
grips of her lust, love, or what have you.

And...

I say, my hand winding up asking
her to further explain.

Well... She says this and looks at
me then at the ceiling.

I am, of course, thinking her past
actions out through my head. I haven't known her to be particularly material.
This world is material, as more than one pop-star has pointed out, and yet as a
veteran getting used to the civilian life I have been nothing but disgusted
everyday with the proliferation with the material in the civilian world...

I need a new life. She speaks with
a very specific yearning in her voice. Still I want more from her.

What do you mean?

I mean I want something else.

No more work? I ask then move away
from her. Funny how her aesthetic beauty can sometimes interfere with a serious
topic. Especially this one.

Not the work I have right now.

Then what?

There are still many questions left
to be answered, but she's the type of person who gets annoyed after a few. As a
result I'm thinking of which ones are the best.

Anything. She says with a sigh that
seems angry with me for not getting it.

I'm still wondering what anything
means, and part of me thinks that perhaps it implies that I won't be in her
future. Anything. What a word. I wonder if she has gone off the cliff, and what
I would do if she has. Will I follow her? She has, as much as I hate to admit
it, been a great find for me. She has managed to coax out the pieces inside me,
eat me and spit out the man who I am. Never good to admit such a dependency,
but there was a reason I was willing to ax down her damn door. She was crazy,
but she gave me everything. Even I was smart enough to know how fucking rare
that was.

Her tension pulls her away.

And so is this how it ends? I feel
the physical distance between us multiply the emotional and suddenly I want to
hug her, but decide, instead, to be absolutely tough about it.

She, however, looks at me with a
hurt look. I wonder why I'm being so distant. And yet I still don't know
everything in her head, do I? I can't very well just assume that my hopes and
dreams are correct, should I?

My stillness inflicts a
restlessness in her and her voice now sounds like it's trying to catch up to
something.

I'm not certain. But it will be
with you. If you are willing to come along.

And there it is. She wants a blank
check. Whatever she wants to do, she wants me to drop everything I have, take
her hand, and go with her. In the Army we had a word for this. She's trying to
fool me. But I fight back those words that the military taught me. Something
deeper than that tells me to take the risk, to move forward and not worry.

I am.

The sucker borne, the jeering
harder part of me that still thinks like a soldier calls out. Why don't you
just tell her you love her?

She reaches for my hand and I take
hers. I pull her warmth into mine, and push mine into hers, and we hold each
other trembling, until sweat beads up on my chest. I let her go, and she pushes
her face into my chest. This is the way it should be, I think.

The next day I wake up to her
looking at me as I sleep. There is something else in her eyes and I'm not certain
what she's up to. The soft eyes of the previous night are gone and all I see
are hard and rigid orbs glaring at me.

What is it? I ask and rub out the
crust from my eyes.

Nothing.

The softness returns. This has
always been her way. Back and forth, passion and coldness, but now that I've
decided that quitting my job, walking away from all the 'career' I've worked up
to, is the way to go... I feel that this change in her is almost uncalled for,
sinister, conniving. Do I do all this in the hope that she will change? That is
definitely a fool's calling.

We get in the car and drive. I want
to ask how much money she has, but I decide not to. We are soon in a mountain
range I have never seen before. The rocks here are sharper, the peaks more
creative and bolder. The plants are wrecked pieces of life rising from the
rocks like demons. We drive up a pass. When I get out during a short break, the
cold air comes screaming at me, wiggles inside my clothes, tearing away the
cocoon of warmth I have built up. I shiver. The air smells like something foul,
which doesn't make sense in this cold air.

You smell that?

I do.

She snuggles up to me and her body
heat provides me with some level of comfort. This is how it should be. But the
smell reminds me of death. It seems to be disturbing her more than it should.

You've done something very bad,
haven't you? I ask and examine her face, looking for any quiver that will give
her away. There is none, but she waits far too long to answer.

What if I have?

I'm asking. I think it's only fair
that we should be honest with each other.

There might be policemen coming
after me.

Soon?

Very.

Where's your money?

I have it all in my bag.

I stop from asking how much. Then I
remember that I don't have much myself. I'll take out what I have on the next
ATM drive.

Was it self-defense?

Do we have to talk about it?

Yes. I say firmly, like I'm angry,
though I'm not and it's really only the cold making me clench my jaw. That
soldier part of me hasn't reared its head today, though I'm certain it will
sometime soon.

It was. She says and buries her
face further into my body. I'm not sure if it's to fend off the cold, or the
truth.

We run back to the car and warm
ourselves with another round of slow love.

That night we sleep in the car, in
a warmer valley. But I wake up several times with my teeth chattering. I try to
hold her tight, and keep the blanket as close and tight as possible.

I wake up in the morning, tired.

I think the police are here. She
says as she pulls her head away from the radio.

How do you know?

The DJ said that everyone should be
on the look out for me, and they gave my description to a 't'.

I nod my head. The soldier in me is
marching left right left right and it tells me to leave this bitch to her own
destiny, that there is no reason that I should suffer for her, and that there
is plenty of pussy in the sea. I think of my life, I think of the other women
I've met and I think of the boredom and hatred I hold for the possible life with
the other women and I know how much of a dawn this woman before me has been.
There is no other choice.

You can go if you want. She says
with her head looking through the glove compartment.

You can go and you can do whatever
you want. I'll understand.

She's hurt, like she knows what at
least half of my look meant. I take her hand, smile. Her hurt makes me like her
more.

You can go. I say, half mocking her
voice.

She full-punches me.

Are you planning on taking on the
cops?

I ask and pull the gun out of her
hands.

If need be. They're never going to
take me alive.

Why are they after you?

No reason...

She twirls her hair.

Come on. I say now with anger in my
voice. I don't like the feeling of being pulled around.

It's just that they won't like what
I've done. She says while looking off at the nearby interstate run-off.

And what's that?

I might have stolen something that
wasn't mine.

How much?

Enough to live off... forever.

I think for a second after she's
done speaking. I could keep hounding her, but I knew her. This was as much as
she was giving. And I could leave, go back to the small world and little career
that I had built up. Go back to all that, or I could...

Her hand reaches across for mine.
There is a yearning look in her eyes.

I feel her touch, and it spreads
through my body. Even though I know that there is no guarantee of a forever
between us, I want to try her out. My mind can't be that wrong, can it?

All right. Where do you want to go
to? I ask, wondering if we should change cars, or perhaps even get plane
tickets.

Canada. You ever been?

Yes. It's far.

Half a day away, then we can cross
over.

But they're looking for you.

Yes. But we'll find another way.

She takes the wheel and we drive
north. I'm not certain that we will be safe in Canada. After all, isn't it
nothing more than an extra state? Where were we going to hide?

She pulls out two passports, from
Switzerland. I open them. The first is her, perhaps a bigger jawline, but the
resemblance is there. The second is me.

When did you get these made?

Now I know that she has planned
this long before today. That meant most everything she said to me and did with
me was done with this in the back of her mind and I hadn't had a clue. My pride
doesn't take this well. If she could do it once she could do it again, couldn't
she?

You going to answer me? Or you
going to spit out some more lies? My voice is gruff, my throat tightening
around my chords and my hands balling up into fists.

I'm sorry. I know I should have
asked, but I wasn't certain if I could trust you.

My worry evaporates, too easily for
my taste. I smile and nod.

More silence follows and the sun is
setting as I realize that we're no where near the border. Her eyes are drooping
and I know we need a break.

Pull over.

She gains resolve from me trying to
push her aside and her eyes stay open for a few minutes. They droop again.

Listen, I'm here with you, so let
me drive. We're doing it together, aren't we?

She clenches her jaw. I stare at
the road, the forest that gives way to open winter farmland, the desolate
nothingness we are racing through. We should come across some mountains when we
swing over to the Canadian border.

You know anyone in Canada?

She shakes her head in reply.

No one?

Maybe.

For some reason this sets me off,
I'm pissed and I don't want to hear any more obfuscation from her.

Pull the goddamn car over.

I growl and shoot her a look I hope
she can feel. She must, because she pulls over and drives the car in from the
highway until we are on a lonely country road. She pulls over on the shoulder.

What?

That she asks this with a modicum
of impatience only further infuriates me and I slam my hand on the dashboard.

Goddamnit! Stop acting so damn
aloof. I want answers, and I think you owe me some.

She nods. She's thinking, which
means I haven't got through to her.

I'm sorry. I do know someone in
Alberta.

Her words take some steam from my
anger and I look at the empty road, once again feeling like a fool, though I'm
not certain what the reason is.

She looks around, then pulls the
park brake and undoes her seat belt. She climbs over to my side, deftly tilts
my seat back and starts to kiss me. At first I try to hold off. I will myself
not to be turned on, to not be such a simple animal. Because for a second, I
think that she's too used to turning me on, that she's too used to me being the
good man. And that is the last thing I want—to be taken for granted. The
sad thing is, as she continues to kiss me and reach her hand down to my groin
area, that I know it's a futile defense on my part. There's nothing I want more
than her, and I only hold out for a little longer—I want her to do the
work—before joining her kisses with my own, and gently caressing her. I
playfully slap her. She smiles. Flesh is bared and we meld, I feel the
heightened sense of
want
, then the
final collapse of all of it, and the holding, the truly futile attempt at
feeling something that's closer than the moments with me inside her. We can
touch now, and we can kiss, but it's always without anticipation.

I'll drive. I say.

She doesn't argue with me and we
set off.

The sun hits the ground faster than
I expect, and I pull over when it happens. We drive through a small town, and
when we drive by a small parking lot Jenny snaps her head.

There, stop!

What?

I ask as I turn, checking my rear
view mirror for any other cars on the road.

A car.

The parking lot has a few trucks
with the classic orange-black-bordered placard with a price written on it.

A large man, with a cutoff shirt
and a lumber-jack jacket is driving away. Jenny leans over and honks the horn.

The man turns his pick-up truck
around. Jenny jumps out of the car. I pull the parking brake and watch an
animated Jenny talk to the man. He looks over. I decide that this is my queue.
I haven't been out to the sticks, to the real sticks with the real Americans in
a while, but I know how the people here think. They're not sexist or anything,
but if they're going to deal with women, it's going to be in a language they
can understand, not the refined speak that Jenny tends to drift towards.

I walk up. I can smell dip and
beer. The man is alone. He eyes me. I maintain the stare and throw back some
more verve.

Jenny now has her hands on her hips
and she is waiting for me to say something.

So what's the deal? I ask her.

I want that truck.

Jenny points to a truck that sits
on the parking lot, a sticker of ten grand lies slanted on the window.