I settle back in my seat, proud of my crassitude.
Caleb exits the building about ten minutes later with an older woman trailing behind him. When he reaches the car, she throws up a hand and waves at him like he’s an A-list celebrity. Her jowls flap around like pillowcases and I snicker. He is forever making friends…or fans. Amnesia apparently does not change everything about a person.
“They don’t allow tents here,” he tells me, but they have these structures that they rent out. Looks like a tent, but bigger and it has wood floors.”
I already know this. The first time he deceived me into coming here, he told me that we would be staying in a luxury cabin. I packed my bags, excited to be leaving Florida, something I had never done before, and wondered whether or not our ‘cabin’ would have a fireplace. When we pulled up to the camp grounds, I looked around for the cabin in anticipation.
“Where is it?” I had asked, craning my neck to peer into the trees. All I saw were tepee-like tents. Maybe the cabins were further back into the woods. Caleb had smiled at me and parked his car in front of one of the tepees. He laughed when my face turned white.
“I thought we were staying in a cabin,” I had said, folding my arms across my chest.
“Trust me, this is posh camping, Duchess. Usually you have to erect your own tent and the floor is just thin canvas beneath you.”
I grunted, and stared at the tent miserably. He had tricked me.
Despite my initial horror, it turned out to be the best weekend of my life, and I would be forever addicted to ‘posh’ camping.
“Let’s go buy fur coats,” Caleb says blasting the heat. I nod and stare contentedly out of the window.
We find a Super Wal-Mart a few miles away, leave Pickles in the car, while Caleb puts his arm around me as we run for the doors. People stare at us like we have antennae growing from our heads. Some of them are in shorts.
“Its arctic cold out here,” I say to Caleb, and he smiles like I’m silly.
“Not to them.”
I am freezing, even though it’s at least fifty degrees out, and I wonder what it feels like to be in snow. I think of asking Caleb about snow but then I remember he doesn’t have any memory of it.
We head to the clothing department first. Caleb finds a matching pair of sweatshirts with kittens on the front that says, “I’m Cat’s About Georgia.”
“We are getting these,” he says throwing them in the cart.
I look at them in mortification and shake my head.
“How’s a girl supposed to look pretty wearing something like that?”
He tweaks my nose.
“You would look pretty wearing burlap and mud.”
I turn away to hide my smile.
We fill our cart with underwear, sweatpants, and socks and then head over to the food aisles.
By the time we stand in line to pay, we have enough food for two weeks. Caleb pulls out his credit card and refuses to take any money from me. We pull our sweatshirts over our heads next to the free magazine rack in the foyer and then dash to the car with our bags.
“Breakfast,” Caleb says tossing me a can of boiled peanuts. I pull a face.
“I’m pretty sure I saw a McDonalds back that way.” I pass the can back to him.
“No way,” he shoves it at my chest, “we are doing this the right way. Eat your peanuts!”
“The right way,” I mumble. “Is that why you bought an electric heater?” He looks at me out of the corner of his eye and I see a smile creeping at the corners of his lips. He always liked it when I sassed him.
We pull into our temporary gravel driveway around nine and begin lugging our supplies into the tent. I set up inside, stripping our new sleeping bags of their tags and arranging them on opposite sides of the small space we are sharing. I glance outside the tent and see Caleb arranging logs to make a fire. After a moment of watching his strong arms tug and pull, I yank the sleeping bags closer together. I might as well stay as close as I can—while I can.
Once the fire is lively and spitting, we each grab a semi-chilled bottle of beer and cozy up on our rainbow striped beach chairs.
“So does this feel familiar?” I ask, stroking Pickle’s head. He furrows his brow and shakes his head.
“No. But, it feels good. I like being here with you.”
I sigh. Ditto.
“What are you going to do about your apartment?” he asks not looking at me.
“Start new I guess. I don’t really want to think about it. It’s depressing,” I pull the lid off of the can of boiled peanuts and fish one out.
“We can both start over,” he flips the cap off another bottle of beer and lifts it to his lips. I watch him quietly waiting for him to continue.
“I’m going to start living my life the way I want to live it,” he tells me. “I’m not really sure who I was before the accident, but by the looks of things I was pretty miserable.”
I down the rest of my beer and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. I wonder idly if he was miserable because of me. Was it possible that right before his accident that he was still affected by my betrayal?
I think of Leah and I wonder if she is waiting at his condo, waiting to crack me open like the bad egg I am. Maybe I should have let it happen. It would have expedited the inevitable. I could tell him right now, but then I’d have to share a car with him back to Florida. Eight hours of torture. I deserve it. I open my mouth, the truth burning behind my lips to be let out. I can say it all quickly and then take cover. I toy with the idea of calling Cammie to come get me. I look at Caleb just as he stands up and stretches.
“Bathroom?” he says, scratching his chest. I point to a building that sits like a grubby egg-carton in the middle of the campgrounds. It is communal and it stinks like bleach. I watch him until he disappears into the building and go to the car to look for the bag of dog food that we bought. I am digging around in the backseat when I hear a rattling noise. I pull myself up and peer over the seat. His phone is lying on the passenger side floorboard. It is vibrating and from where I am I can see the name “Leah” flashing on the screen. Glancing over my shoulder I check to make sure he is still in the bathroom and snatch up the phone.
Seventeen missed calls—all from Leah. Wow! She is really gunning for me. I see my wrecked apartment in my mind and I shudder. If Caleb sees how many times she’s called, he will surely call her back. He is too considerate of a person to let her worry. I shut my eyes. I can’t let that happen. I hold down the power button and watch the screen turn black. Then I shove the phone into my pocket.
“Olivia?” I spin around. My heart is beating so fast, I can feel it pounding in my kneecaps. Did he see what I did?
I open my mouth to make some excuse, when he interrupts me.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he says.
A walk.
“A walk?”
“It’ll warm you up,” he holds out his hand and I take it. I have once again escaped the inevitable.
I grit my teeth as we walk. This whole escape-by-the-skin-of-your-teeth scenario was getting old.
Caleb’s phone feels like a wad of guilt against my thigh. I pray that he doesn’t see the bulge and make sure that he walks on the opposite side of where it is hidden.
Later, when we are back at our tent, I tell him that I need to call my boss.
“I need to tell her that I won’t be able to work for a few days,” I explain.
“Sure. Take your time. I’ll...uh….” He points a finger down the hill.
“Wander around?” I laugh.
He pulls a face and heads off.
I wait until he is a safe distance away and I head toward the lake. My sneakers suck at the mud and make revolting noises.
My message to Bernie takes only a minute. I briefly explain about the break in and promise to call back in a few days. I hit the end button and glance over my shoulder. Caleb is nowhere in sight. I pull his cell phone from my pocket and power it on. Two messages. I jab at the voi
cemail key and hold the phone to my ear. A voice asks for the password. Shit. I type in his birth date and the voice tells me that the password is incorrect. I try his birth year and bingo!
First message.
“Caleb, it’s Leah. Look…we really need to talk. I have some very interesting news for you. It’s about your new little friend Olivia. She’s not who you think. Give me a call back as soon as you can,” a pause, then, “I love you.”
The second message was left thirty minutes after the first.
“It’s Leah again. I’m really starting to get worried. I’m at your place and it looks like you left in a hurry. I just really need to talk to you babe. Call me.” I make a face and snap the phone closed. She has a key to his condo. Why didn’t I suspect she’d have a key? She was probably snooping around in his apartment while he was in the hospital after the accident. The little tramp has probably already seen her ring!
I glare at the phone, weighing my options. It has to go. It was the phone or it was me.
I walk down the little dirt incline that leads to the water’s slimy edge and watch the mosquitoes dance drunkenly along its surface.
“Leah,” I say looking down at Caleb’s phone. “Not yet.” And then I throw it into the water.
“Olivia, Have you seen my phone?”
I am crouched over a can of beans trying to manipulate the cheap can opener we’d bought. I drop both of them.
“Shit,” I say sidestepping the brown mess that is creeping across the ground towards my toes.
Caleb grabs another can from our stash and opens it for me.
He dumps it into our hot pot.
“You can use my phone. It’s over there on my sleeping bag.”
Caleb takes two strides to where I point and lowers himself to his haunches.
“I could have sworn my phone was in the car….”
“Maybe you dropped it at Wal-Mart,” I suggest over my shoulder.
“Yeah…”
I hold my breath while he dials and pray that he isn’t calling Leah.
“Mum,” I hear him say and I slump against Pickles in relief.
“No, no, I’m fine. I just decided to take a little trip…she did? What did she want?”
I didn’t think about Leah calling his parent’s house.
“…Oh, but she didn’t tell you why?…well, I’ll be back in a couple of days, I’ll talk to her then…Yes I’m sure mum. Love you too.” I watch his face carefully. He looks worried.
“Hey,” I say taking my telephone from his hand and stuffing it in my purse.
“Come flirt with me while I heat these beans up.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the plug outlet.
For the next four days, we stay cozened in our tent as the temperature drops to forty. We eat cup o’ noodles and fight over who got to sleep next to the portable heater. When it grows dark outside we pull our beach chairs together and wrap ourselves in blankets to watch the fire. Caleb keeps bringing up my failure to fill out my law school applications and I respond with a jab about his failure to propose to Leah. By the time we crawl into our separate sleeping bags at night, we have stupid smiles plastered on our faces. Every night Caleb engages me in an exchange that makes my toes tingle underneath all four pairs of my socks.
“Olivia?”
“Yes, Caleb?”
“Are you going to dream about me tonight?”
“Shut up.”
And then he laughs that beautiful, sexy laugh.
Chapter Eleven
The Past
“Do you love me?”
“I’m sorry—what?!”
“Do you love me? That’s a simple enough question. Would you prefer if I asked you in another language?” He rolled from his back onto his belly, rearing up above me. “M'aimez-vous? Você ama-me tanto como o amo?” Caleb, who was fluent in French and Italian, was showing off. The grass beneath my back began to itch like his question.
We had been dating for exactly one year and I had successfully skirted, ignored, and deferred my way through not answering it. It was hard work putting any of those techniques into use when Caleb Drake was inches away from your face, staring at you with his intense eyes. I took a deep breath to level myself and thought about the millions of starving children in Africa. We were in Georgia, camping much to my chagrin. I was tired and sweaty and wearing the same pair of pants that I wore the day before. We had been here for twenty-four hours and all I had received other than this rather obtuse question, was a bazillion bug bites and sore muscles.
“When I get home, I’m going to sponsor one of those kids from Kenya,” I said scratching my knee. “You know—from those Children’s Fund commercials?”
Caleb gave me a look.
“I…I…love…ice cream…” I said squirming underneath his gaze. “And I love hot showers and clean clothes.”
“Olivia?” he said in a warning voice.
“Caleb,” I imitated his tone. He frowned at me and I looked away. It wasn’t like I was holding back the Canaan wine here. He hadn’t said I love you to me either, though he asked me this question often enough.
“Why do you always ask me that?” I sighed, ripping a piece of grass from the ground. I began tearing it into little shreds and tossing it to the breeze.
“Why do you never answer?”
“Because it’s a hard question.”
“It’s a yes or no, actually. You have a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right.”
If only it were that simple. Did I love him at this point? I loved him from the first point…the point where our two lives crossed the first time. I couldn’t tell him that though, I didn’t know how and every time I tried, the words would get stuck in my throat.
“You’re pressuring me.” I pushed him away and sat up dusting my hands on my sweats.
Caleb sprang to his feet, paced, and then turned around to face me. He was seething.
“I’ve never pressured you to do anything.”
I felt my face turn white. It was true. It was a lousy thing to say to a twenty-three year old man who never complained when his girlfriend always stopped short of second base.
“You’re trying to make me say something that I’m not ready to say,” I choked looking away.
“I’m trying to find out where we are going. Olivia. I already know you love me.”
I glared up at him in shock and he shrugged.
“The fact that you can’t say it—is a problem. I love you.”
My lip trembled. Pathetic, but it did. I felt my chest heaving in an effort to breathe. He loved me.
“You can’t say it because you don’t trust me. If you don’t trust me, I can’t be with you.”
I felt panic swell in my chest. Was he threatening me?
He was still towering over me, so I stood up. It didn’t do much good because he was a foot taller.
“I hate you,” I said and he started laughing.
“You fight like a child. I’m not dealing with you.” And he walked away, leaving me both utterly bewildered and buzzing in excitement from this new information. He loved me. I collapsed back into the grass and smiled up at the sky.
Later, when I grew tired of sulking by the lake, I went back to our tent and moped around. Caleb had yet to appear from wherever he stalked off to and I was getting hungry. I was digging around in our food stash when he walked through the flap of our fancy tent. Our eyes met and I dropped the bag of pretzels I was holding. Something was wrong, there was trouble written on his face. Was he going to break up with me now? I prepared myself and lined up some nasty things to say to him.
“You’re spoiled.”
“I’m an orphan,” I pointed out. “Who is there to spoil me?”
“I spoil you. I let you get away with too much. I give you free reign, and you take advantage.”
“You don’t own me, to give me free reign,” I said narrowing my eyes at him. “What an asshole thing to say.” I turned away but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me
back.
“I own you,” he said pulling me against his chest and holding me there. I stared up at him openmouthed.
“No,” I shook my head, but I wasn’t so sure what we were talking about anymore.
My wrists were tiny and they were clamped so securely in his big hands, that I didn’t even bother trying to pull away.
“Let me go.”
He held me tighter. We were so close I could feel his breath on my face.
“Who owns you then?” he challenged.
“Me. Not you, not anyone else…ever.” I felt petulant and foolish, but I lifted my nose in the air anyway and glared at him. Caleb’s eyes were cold and hard. He laughed at me, a deep throaty laugh. Then he looked down into my eyes and said;
“You are master of your own body, yes?”
“Yes,” I spat. Lava-like anger was erupting inside of me. I was ready to let the white trash out.
“Then you won’t have a problem controlling it,” he finished, and I stared at him through angry eyes—confused.