Let's Get Lost (17 page)

Sonia

 

1

THE NOISE IN
the restaurant had built to a dull roar. Silverware clinked against plates; laughter reverberated off the brick walls. Every few minutes a busboy carrying a plastic container full of dirty dishes would shove open the kitchen doors and let out a cacophony of ladles scraping against pots, the sizzle of something being sautéed.

Sonia closed her eyes the way Sam had taught her to and listened for the occasional word that could be heard over the chatter. Sometimes, the two of them would make a list of the words they heard and then string them together into nonsensical sentences. Sonia never told Sam that she used to save those sentences in secret. She'd turn them into a line in a poem or dialogue in a short story.

In the months since Sam's death, though, Sonia had only managed to hear Sam's name in the murmuring.

Why Sonia expected things to be different at the rehearsal dinner for Sam's sister, she didn't know. She opened her eyes and noticed Martha and Liz waving her over from across the restaurant. She put on a smile and made her way to them, greeting them with hugs, as though they hadn't seen each other in a long time.

“God,” Liz said, holding her wineglass out to a passing server for a top-off, “I cannot get over how great you look in that dress.”

“Absolutely beautiful,” Martha agreed, making Sonia blush.

“If Sam were around, he wouldn't be able to keep his hands off you,” Liz said, nudging Sonia. Martha shot her a look, but Liz just shrugged and said it was true.

Sonia looked down at the flowered dress as if it was embarrassing her, patting its hem down with her fingers. “He would have loved those Thai-chicken thingies.”

“I know!” Liz cried out. “When we did the tasting, there were so many delicious hors d'oeuvres to choose from, but I couldn't turn them down. Sam would have killed me if he knew I'd passed up on anything Thai.”

The roar of restaurant chatter had come back, and the three of them looked out at the room, their eyes following a waiter's trajectory around the tables, filling up glasses of wine.

Sonia sipped her soda, trying to not look in the direction of the groomsmen. “Thanks again for making me a bridesmaid,” she said. “It means so much.”

Liz rolled her eyes. “Will you stop thanking me, already? It would have been weird not to have you as a bridesmaid.”

“I know, but, still...”

“‘Still' nothing. You're basically my sister.” She took a swig from her wine and waved at someone. “Duty calls,” she said with a smile, and she made her way to a group of her friends at a corner table.

“Can you believe she's getting married?” Martha asked. “I feel old.”

“The first time I met her, she was coming down the stairs in her pajamas, carrying that stuffed duck. She looked twelve. I thought Sam had been lying to me about having an older sister in college.”

“Roger says she still sleeps with it sometimes.”

Sonia laughed. “I guess there's no rule about having to get rid of your stuffed animals when you get married.”

“Yeah,” Martha said, her eyes still fixed on Liz. “I still see her at that age. Twelve, I mean. Carrying notebooks full of boys' names, squirming when I hugged her in public. I still see her when she was two, smushing food into her hair. I see them both at every age they've ever been.” She fell quiet, then shook her head and looked at Sonia. “Look at me, getting all nostalgic.”

“It's okay,” Sonia said. Noises coming from the kitchen now sounded like basketball shoes squeaking against the court. Sonia thought of how Sam used to obsessively wipe his hand against the bottom of his sneakers to clean the soles. His palms would be black by the end of every game, and Sonia would worry about germs.

“I'm so happy you're here. It wouldn't be the same without you.” Martha let out a sigh, then put a warm hand on Sonia's bare shoulder. “This is a weekend for celebrating. You should help yourself to some wine.”

“I will,” Sonia said, even though she had no plans to comfort herself with alcohol. If there was celebrating to be done, it was to be done alone with Jeremiah. Immediately after that thought crossed her mind, Sonia felt a wave of guilt come over her and decided that a glass of wine might be a good idea. “I'll go get one right now.”

“Good,” Martha said, her hand giving Sonia's a light squeeze. “Make sure you get some of the dessert, too. It's your favorite, key lime pie.”

Sonia smiled and then turned to go find a waiter with a tray of wineglasses. As soon as her back was turned to Martha, she felt herself start to tear up. She picked up a napkin from a nearby table and dabbed at her eyes to keep her makeup from running.

* * *

Later that night, Sonia slipped out of her hotel room and tiptoed down the hall in her sleeping shirt and some shorts to knock on Jeremiah's door. As she walked, she could feel the buzz of alcohol in her veins from the few drinks she'd had at the hotel bar with the wedding party. Jeremiah answered with his shirt unbuttoned, the shadows emphasizing his subtle ab muscles, which hadn't completely disappeared into the year's worth of college drinking and lazing he'd been doing.

“Hey,” he said.

She lingered for a moment, not entirely sure why she'd come. It would be safer, smarter, to be back in her room, writing as she did every night before bed. Then Jeremiah broke into that smile of his and reached for her hand, and she remembered how comforting his presence was.

He pulled her in for a kiss, shutting the door behind her.

“I've been wanting to do that all day,” he said, the two of them lip-locked and waddling backward until they fell onto the bed. Sonia could feel the taste of wine on her own mouth, the taste of beer on his. She pulled her shirt off over her head and leaned back down to kiss him.

“Me, too,” she said, as he ran his hand through her hair.

She felt his heart beating beneath her, felt her own heart beating back. She tried not to imagine some hidden illness lingering within, something in his brain about to silently pop. Since Sam's death, she'd started seeing disease in everyone around her. Whenever she laid her head against Jeremiah's chest, she had to keep herself from counting heartbeats, from listening for skips that might take him away, too.

“You are the best kisser on the planet,” Jeremiah muttered.

“You sure about that?”

“Yup,” he said, moving away from her lips to plant those quick kisses he liked to give on the corner of her mouth and her cheeks, as if he couldn't afford to miss even an inch of skin. “I've done plenty of research. Thousands and thousands of women.”

She pulled away from him, holding his head in place so he couldn't come after her for more kisses. “You are a terrible pillow talker. Please don't start talking about statistics.”

He pulled away from her arms and looked back to where his head had been resting on the bed. “This isn't technically pillow talk. We are at least two standard deviations away from the closest pillow.”

“I don't know much about statistics, but I'm pretty sure that that statement didn't make any sense.”

“You don't make any sense,” he said, bringing her back in for another long kiss.

Sonia had been shocked the first time they'd kissed. It'd been a great kiss, hard to pull away from, lingering on her lips for so long that she'd spent the rest of the night guiltily wondering whether Sam had ever been a good kisser and she simply hadn't known the difference until Jeremiah came along.

As he was wont to do, Jeremiah suddenly stopped kissing her and spun them around so that she was beneath him. He simply looked down at her, his hand combing through her hair in that way that made her want to close her eyes and smile for hours.

“Whatcha doing?” she asked, holding him closer.

“Just looking,” he said with a smile. He held her gaze for a second, then kissed her neck. She'd noticed that he couldn't hold eye contact for a long time, and for some reason she adored that little bit of shyness. “You're absolutely beautiful.”

Sonia smiled at him, pulling him in for a cuddle, weaving her legs between his. “Your pillow talk has vastly improved in the last thirty seconds.”

“Again, not pillow talk,” he said, studying her face as if he'd never before seen anything like it.

The room was quiet except for the whirr of the air conditioner and the occasional soft smacking of Jeremiah's kisses. Sonia caught a glimpse of the muted television showing sports highlights, and she was thankful it wasn't basketball season. Outside the room, a couple of people clamored down the hallway, laughing—drunk, from the sound of it—probably other wedding guests. Jeremiah moved his hand from her hair down to her collarbone, running a finger up and down a couple of times before leaning in to retrace the path with kisses.

It was only in these moments that Sam's absence didn't hurt. When this moment ended and she was back in her room alone, Sonia knew she would be so racked with guilt that she wouldn't be able to sleep. But for now, that constant ache she'd been living with for almost a year was nearly forgotten.

“I want to dance with you tomorrow,” Jeremiah said. “At the wedding.”

Sonia sighed. “With Sam's family there? Yeah, I don't think so.”

“Come on,” Jeremiah said. “I've been looking up video tutorials online on how to salsa, and I'm almost at the point where I can dance in rhythm.”

“I'm impressed. But you'll have to show off your skills with someone else.”

“I don't want to dance with someone else.”

“That's very sweet,” Sonia said, putting a hand on his cheek. “But it's not happening.”

“Why not?”

“Because they'll know,” she said simply, hoping it would kill the conversation.

Jeremiah sighed, picking at a thread on the comforter near Sonia's head and rolling it between his fingers. He looked at her, his eyes green and beautiful, a hint of sadness in them. “So what?”

Sonia leaned in to kiss that spot where his neck met his jaw. Every now and then while making out, he would stop and point to that spot and say, “Here.” It was the look on his face after one of those kisses that had made Sonia realize she loved him, though she had yet to tell him.

“Let's not talk about it,” she said.

Jeremiah pulled away. “I think we should.”

Sonia groaned and rolled away from beneath him. The dull ache returned to her stomach, that hidden area of her gut that had come alive as soon as Sam was gone. Sonia moved to the desk in a corner of the room. She pulled out the chair a little too brusquely and had to catch the tuxedo jacket that Jeremiah had laid over it.

“Do you not want to be with me?” Jeremiah asked, sitting up, his eyes averted.

“You know that's not it,” Sonia said, folding the jacket over her lap and smoothing out the fabric.

“Then what is it?”

Sonia didn't say anything.

“I know you've been through a lot, So. I know that a part of you still loves him and probably always will. I understand that, and I'd never ask you to try to forget him.” He rubbed one arm with the other, cracked his knuckles, and looked up at the ceiling. When he spoke again, his voice was shaky, and the pained look on his face made Sonia want to both kiss his neck and yell at him for bringing this all up. “I'm too crazy about you to keep this bottled up.”

Sonia crossed her arms in front of her chest, suddenly feeling exposed. She glanced up at him. He met her gaze and didn't look away, and she could feel tears welling behind her eyes. “I just can't dance with you,” she said.

“You can. It would just be a dance.”

Sonia felt a chill, and she unfolded the tuxedo jacket from her lap and slipped her arms through the sleeves, though it did nothing to calm the goose bumps on her skin.

Jeremiah still hadn't looked away, and she could see an added shimmer in his eyes. “Are you over him? Enough to be with me?”

She tried to stifle the sob in her throat, but it broke through, loud and sharp in the quiet hotel room.

Finally breaking eye contact, Jeremiah looked down at his lap. “I need to be alone for a little while,” he said.

As soon as she was out of the room, Sonia felt like she was suffocating. She rushed down the hallway to grab her purse out of her room and then took the stairs, desperate for fresh air. It wasn't until she was outside that she realized she was still in Jeremiah's tuxedo jacket.

Everything about the town of Hope, British Columbia, screamed quaint. The light posts were made to look like old-style gas lamps. The streets were lined with three-story brick buildings, mom-and-pop stores, flowerpots, and so many benches that the whole town could be accommodated for street-side seating at a moment's notice. The pretty streets were perfect for the kind of aimless, hand-in-hand wandering she and Sam used to do whenever his family invited her up here to their cabin. She'd tried several times to capture the charm of the city in writing, but it always evaded her.

Sonia made her way toward a convenience store, hoping it'd still be open so she could get something to calm herself down. Halfway there, she burst back into tears and had to stop to steady herself against a car, the sobs coming in spurts that felt like seizures.

“Are you okay?”

Sonia looked up. A girl more or less her age was standing in front of her, a cup of coffee in one hand, car keys in the other. Sonia stepped away from the car and nodded but couldn't contain her sobs. The girl extended a napkin, and Sonia took it, wiping at her nose. “Sorry,” she said.

“What happened?”

“It's complicated,” Sonia said, wondering if she and Jeremiah were still together. The thought made her cry harder. She tried to calm herself down by taking deep breaths, focusing on little details: a crack in the sidewalk, the fly buzzing against the convenience store's window.