Inside, I felt on the verge of breaking down and crying like a baby, right there in the middle of some weird diner outside of the city; I felt like screaming and tearing out hair, doing the whole biblical weeping and gnashing of teeth in a pile of ash, just to indicate the deep levels of my torment. Inside, I felt like an explosion was occurring, and I was applying all of the force that I could muster within me to hold it in, to contain it, to keep it from breaking out, making me lose my grip completely. It was much easier to stay on the lighter side of things conversationally, and as long as Janine would let me remain there, things would be fine. Contained. Controlled.
Corentine was the only person I'd ever know that I felt completely at ease with opening up to, and that connection happened almost instantly. And she was gone without a trace.
"Technically, I shouldn't be doing a lot of the things that I do, you know," she said, lighting the cigarette, then passing it to me. She reached into the pack and pulled out another one. "But I'm not like anyone else that you know, am I? Smoking is hardly breaking the rules compared to the other ways that we're defying what's ‘supposed' to be ‘right'," she accented the words with her hands, making sign language quotation marks before lighting the second cigarette. "You're avoiding talking about this already, I know, and I want you to know that I noticed."
"Guess I'm still in shock or something," I offered.
The waitress returned, dropping off the check.
"I'll pay this," Janine offered, and I shrugged.
"If you want," I said, looking out the window.
She grabbed the check and got her wallet out, then walked up to the counter. I wasn't paying that much attention to her, but when she still hadn't returned to the table after a few moments, I looked towards the counter to make sure everything was okay. It would be completely unacceptable for someone else to vanish on me, I thought.
She was talking to a man at the counter, and he was pointing in the direction of another man working under the hood of a RV in the parking lot. She shook the first man's hand, and then returned to the table.
"Ready to go?" She asked.
"Yeah, let's get moving," I said. "It's not getting any earlier."
I left a tip on the table and finished my coffee off in a gulp, and then we left the diner. Janine yawned and stretched as we stepped into the parking lot.
"I'm so sleepy," she informed me. "That coffee didn't seem to work at all!"
I thought about how I could use a nap myself, but I doubted that I'd be able to sleep anytime soon. It was getting chilly outside, and the sky was overcast, clouds obscuring the rising moon. The iodine lights in the parking lot clicked and buzzed and the sound of cars on the nearby highway were a dull drone, filling the background with ambient noise.
Somewhere in the distance, I heard sirens. I stopped for a moment, looking up at the sky, taking a deep breath of the cool night air.
Janine hailed the man standing at the mobile home, and he returned her wave, so she started briskly walking towards him.
Paris had its moments. The French were generally amicable, but I'm sure that her impressive command of their language helped us out a lot. I'd heard stories of less prepared tourists who were stranded in a city full of people who understood English but refused to speak it, strictly on principle.
The city smelled like a thousand years of humanity, the same as all of the other old cities scattered across Europe did to one degree or another. I guess that being in love and abroad makes things seem a little better, though; the dust and soot take on a charm of their own when they're part of a place's personality, no longer mere negligence or disrepair on the part of the city's inhabitants.
Paris was a city undoubtedly filled with waste, dust, and soot, but it was also a city filled with the smells of green hay, candle wax, and melting butter. Dark, dusty library basements were overflowing with the records of generations already forgotten. Steam rose on cobblestone pathways like the ghosts of famous expatriates. It was one of those places you loved to visit, but you'd never want to live there; the veneer would have worn a little too thin in places and the perfection rested a little bit too far across the line: on the fairy tale side of things. But that's what made it perfect, that morning as I watched the city come alive from our balcony, as she alternated between chewing her nails with utmost concentration and dropping halves of strawberries into her glass of champagne, curious about the bubbles that appeared from nowhere around each sinking piece of fruit.
I turned to follow Janine in the direction of the RV. She had already arrived and was speaking to the man who she had called to from across the parking lot. He wore a red checked flannel shirt that looked like he hadn't washed it in years, and his modern-looking glasses slid down his nose as he explained to Janine that his engine had overheated and that it looked like he was stranded in the parking lot for the night.
Janine raised an eyebrow, looked under the hood, and immediately commenced tinkering with the workings of the engine. The man and I both peered over her shoulder, trying to see what she was doing.
"You're in my light," she said, and we moved out of the way. "Can you pass me a screwdriver?"
"Hold on for a sec," the man said, walking over to a small red toolbox, where he evidently was keeping a screwdriver. He passed her the tool, and few moments later, she closed the hood of the RV.
"Try to start it," she ordered, smugly sticking her hands into her pockets after wiping them off on her pants. He hopped into the driver's seat and turned the ignition switch. The engine started on the first try.
"Very impressive mechanical work going on there! Now it runs so quietly!" The man said to her, ignoring me completely. "What's your name?"
"A little trick I picked up once when I was dating a mechanic," she replied with a nonchalant expression. "The name's Janine." She shook his hand. He lingered, holding her hand just a little bit longer than he probably should have.
"I appreciate the help," he answered, still looking at her. "I'm totally useless when it comes to the mechanics of things, so you just saved me a call to the tow service and a high probability of getting scammed by a shop somewhere. My name's Hunter."
Hunter wore glasses, the kind that looked expensive and hip, made of brushed ultra-light alloy. They were the kind of spectacles you'd find in fashion magazines from exotic foreign countries that you'd never been to and couldn't pronounce the names of. Interestingly, the glasses were in direct contrast with the rest of his disheveled style, in fact, with his appearance as a whole, as if they were the one monument to a life of prosperity amidst the ruins of a man now on the road. He was unkempt, and I compared his style with that of a typical eight year old; it seemed that he had made an effort to coordinate an outfit, but he'd failed miserably at matching things up. His shirt was buttoned incorrectly, wrinkled, and smelled slightly like mildew. One of his shoes was untied. His socks didn't match.
It was intentional, of course, I'm sure of it, though he'd deny that if you were to ever ask him about it. It was all part of some statement he was probably making in defiance against whatever life he'd lived before. He was probably some rich kid trying to be a bohemian.
Was it wrong of me to make such an assumption about him based merely on my first cursory impression? It seemed like he wanted people to look at him and think he was stupid, disorganized, and carefree. There was something about the way he looked at us, though, that made me think that there was a lot more going on in his head than he was letting on.
Despite all of those seemingly unattractive qualities, he seemed like a good person. I had one of those feelings that you get, you know, when you click with someone straight off the bat. Not quite the same as it was with Cor, how could it be? But not altogether different, either. Could we trust him? Was I wrong?
"Where are you heading, Hunter?" I asked.
"Well, I'm kind of just driving around, but I planned on going out west once I checked out the town. Almost made it, too, until I started having this problem with the truck
overheating. You know, see the sights of America before I settle down, before I start a life somewhere."
Well, at least he seemed to fit into the mold of what I'd expected of him by my precursory assumptions about him: probably not knowing how to add coolant to the radiator, probably ignorant about how to change the oil. I wondered if he'd ever even looked under the hood.
"I owe you one," he said. "Can I give you two a lift somewhere?"
"Actually," Janine answered, "my friend and I need a ride to a place that's about an hour outside of the city. Think you can help us out with that?"
"Don't see why that would be a big problem," he said, opening the passenger door of the RV and gesturing for us to climb on board. "Guess taking a cab outside of the city would be a pretty expensive fare, huh? Why else would you want to get a lift out there, right?"
"It's actually kind of complicated," I answered, a little put off. I turned to Janine. "If it's a problem, we can find someone else to help us."
"It's not a problem, man," he said to me. "If you're ready, I'm ready! Just point me in the right direction."
"We appreciate it," I said to him, kicking at a piece of broken glass on the asphalt and looking back into the diner, which was as empty as ever.
"You guys don't mind pitching in for a little gas, do you?" Hunter asked us. "This beast of a ride may be comfy, but she only gets about seven miles to the gallon." Although he had posed it as a question, I think that it was more of a friendly way of telling us that it was an expected contribution. There was a glimmer in his eye that made me a little curious, but I dismissed it.
"Not a problem," I replied. "It's good to see you've got reclining chairs in here," I said, yawning. I was much more tired than I had realized and the coffee from earlier hadn't done a bit of good.
"You can find your way around in here," he stated, indicating the entire cabin of the RV. "Make yourself at home. Sure you guys want to head out tonight?"
Janine looked at her watch.
"It's pretty late already," she observed. "But we shouldn't call it a night yet. Besides, I bet you're pretty eager to make your way back towards the city once you drop us off."
"Cool," he said, smiling at her. "I'm gonna take a bathroom break, then, before we hit the road. There are drinks in the fridge if you want something," he offered.
"Do you think we can trust this guy?" I asked quietly asked Janine once Hunter had walked out of earshot and was closer to the diner.
She checked her watch again.
"It's getting late. It will take us at least an hour to get to Partain's facility. We could call a cab, but it's probably going to take more than an hour for one to get out here, then another hour or more to get to the location. A ride's a ride, and we've got one now. Or would you rather wait until tomorrow, when the trail might be colder than it already is?" Sarcasm, maybe, but she made a good point.
"We don't know him, though. And he might think we're crazy if we tell him the truth."
"So don't tell him anything, stupid!" She shoved me playfully. "Relax. It's just a ride. I'm sure that a night watchman will be at the labs and can let us check the surveillance tapes to see if Cor's passed through there. Maybe we'll run into someone that's seen her, which would make things a lot easier for us for sure."
"If she's been out to the labs in the first place, anyway," I said. We were grasping at straws, and I knew it. "She might have gone somewhere else – someplace that we'll never be able to find her at."
"Walk some more?" I asked, stretching out a little.
"Let's," she said, standing.
We walked around the neighborhoods for a while in the early hours of morning before returning to our room at a little bed and breakfast. The hotel owner was behind the counter working on a crossword when we made our way through the front door towards the stairs that led up to our room. She nodded at us with a knowing wink and returned her attention to the crossword puzzle. I'm sure that she had plenty of experience with drunken American couples stumbling in at all hours, and she'd found that it was best to just ignore them, for the most part, until they'd moved on.
Shortly thereafter, we climbed into bed together, shivering from the chill in the sheets. With chattering teeth, she expressed what I interpreted at the time as the first signs of becoming bored with me.
"I'd like to get a job once we get back home," she said, shaking.
"Are you drunk?" I asked, not believing that she was serious.
"A little, but sober enough. I need to pull more weight with things. You can't just hang around with me while we wander around town every day for the rest of our lives, you know. I need a job, something to help with stuff around the house, at least. You know, I'd like to be the one to pay for our dinner sometimes," she said, and I could tell by the tone of her voice that she really was serious.
"No. I mean, I don't know," I answered her, defiance already creeping into my voice. "I've got plenty of money left from the divorce settlement; it should get us through a pretty good stretch of time. If anything useful came out of that relationship, it's the cash."
She kicked her feet a little, as was her habit when she first climbed into bed, something she did when she was excited or trying to stay warm. It was just another one of those things that you always notice but don't really pay a whole lot of attention to until the weirdest times, when they either annoy you or seem inappropriate. This time, it was both. I didn't want her to leave if she didn't have to. In my mind, we didn't have to stay in the apartment forever; there were countless cities we could explore together. The idea of getting a job and settling down seemed to be a threat to the magic, so of course I was opposed to it!
"It's not really about the money, though," she informed me.
"What's it about?" I asked, suddenly feeling very doubtful of my own ability to control the next few minutes. I felt a lump rising in my throat, worry that she needed the space to get away from me, that she was bored with me or that I had outlived my usefulness to her, or worse, that she'd concluded that she didn't love me anymore. When you're caught up in moments like that, the logic of the situation is completely overridden by the emotional entanglements you have with the other person. I was getting scared. I'd been down the road of doubt and instability before and the only place it ended was when one party reached a point of being too broken to carry on any farther.
"It's about the fact that you went from being completely independent, answering to no one but yourself. Now you're at the other end of the spectrum, all because of the one day that I knocked on your door. The one day that I chose your specific door, and I changed everything in your life. It's about how you never asked for any of this, and one day I was just there, needing help, and how, in a few short months, you're traveling all over the world with some stranger who has amnesia about everything in her life up to the point that she met you," she spoke quickly. She'd obviously been thinking about it for a while.
"It's about how you've never said no, how you've never been unkind about things, how you've never gotten frustrated or annoyed with me and all of my weird stories and problems. You've been nothing but perfect, and I can't help but feel like it's all a house of cards, about to be blown away, leaving me lost without you," she was crying as she spoke, and I felt a little sick and nervous, all sorts of emotions triggering a conflict of physical reactions within me. I didn't move.
"Lost without you is something that I can't take," she continued. "Not now, and I don't know why that is or how it came to be that way, but I just couldn't go on. I want to give you space so I don't suffocate you, so I don't drown you in all of me."
"I've had a few lessons in drowning, but this isn't one of them," I replied. It was, as usual, a light-hearted response to a serious topic, but I knew that she'd understand. She always did.
Chapter 09
"Have you seen anything weird behind us?" Janine asked.
"Anything weird?" Hunter repeated the question.
"Guess not," she decided.
"What do you
think that you saw?" I asked, pulling the blinds apart in the back window of the RV so that I could get a better view out onto the road behind us.
"Nothing, I'm just being paranoid I guess," she said.
"Paranoia's a good thing after a day like the one we're having," I reminded her.
"I probably just need a nap."
I nodded, reclining the oversized and comfortable swiveling chair.
"That's a good idea. Hunter, can you wake me up in 15 or 20 minutes?"
"No problem, man. No problem."
When I slept, I dreamed, and while I wouldn't go so far as to call the dream a nightmare, it definitely was frightening. I wasn't sure about its basis in reality, but I knew that my mind was reflecting on the past few months, and more specifically, the events of the past few days.
It was continuation of an old dream.
I couldn't find my voice, and I was trying to warn Cor about a sudden, menacing darkness moving towards her from the far end of the corridor behind her. It was right behind her, like a vast shadow, except that it was more substantial than any shadow; it was almost as if the distance and imagery behind her was being erased with each moment that passed.
She didn't notice the panicked look on my face; she just kept smiling at me, doodling little neon designs with her finger on the glass. I started pointing frantically to the approaching blackness behind her, but she didn't respond. She didn't react to me at all.
As it came closer to her, it took on the shape of what appeared to be a giant angel or demon, wings spreading out of the blackness and taking shape, and then whatever it was took on the more recognizable dimensions of a man. A man with wings: that's an angel, right? When the eyes of the creature opened, they were the color of fire, and I finally cried out, punching at the mirror as hard as I could. The glass broke into thousands of pieces and fell away. Blood dripped from my hand to the bathroom floor, quickly forming a puddle much like the one that was caused by the overflowing sink in the apartment, back on Day One.
There was no wall behind the bathroom mirror; instead, there was a long tunnel. It reminded me of a ventilation shaft, like the kind that you see in movies where the lead character has to make his way through it in order to avoid being detected and captured by security. Or monsters. For some reason, it seemed like a good idea to climb into the ventilation shaft that was behind the mirror. I took the towel off of its hanger on the wall behind me and wrapped it around my bleeding hand, mindlessly twisting it around and around in my fist so that I could stop the bleeding. I concentrated on seeing something in the shaft in front of me besides an inky darkness. I climbed in, breaking the faucet off of the sink, ignoring it as it crumbled away into nothingness, part of a forgotten scene.