Mad River Road (7 page)

She was home before ten o’clock. She’d thought of stopping at the Breakers, then thought better of it. If Brad wanted to get in touch with her, he knew exactly where to find her. Besides, his premature departure had pretty much said it all where she was concerned. And who could blame him? It was bad enough to sleep with a man on your first date, but she hadn’t even waited that long. Their first
encounter
, for God’s sake. “What’s the matter with you?” Jamie was muttering as she walked up the outside steps to her apartment. She waved at a stooped old man at the far end of the hall. The man stared back at her, as if he had no idea who she was. And maybe he didn’t, Jamie realized, hearing her stomach rumble, and knowing she had nothing in her place to eat but leftover pizza. She should have picked up some cereal and milk. Maybe even some eggs. A cheese omelet sounded awfully good right now. With a toasted sesame seed bagel and a cup of strong, black coffee, she thought, as the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted teasingly down the corridor toward her. What a shame she’d never gotten to know her neighbors. She could have stopped in for a friendly cup.

Except she didn’t have any friends. And she didn’t have a job. “And I don’t have any coffee,” she wailed, unlocking her front door and stepping inside her living room.

The smell of coffee rushed to embrace her, and for a minute Jamie thought she’d wandered into the wrong apartment. Except that the red, secondhand sofa her sister had passed on to her after she’d redecorated was still sitting against the far wall, at right angles to the black leather chair she’d bought on sale at Sears, and her mother’s expensive glass table was still littered with the latest batch of fashion magazines.

So, this
was
her apartment. And the handsome man emerging from her tiny galley kitchen and walking toward her, a mug of steaming black coffee in his outstretched hand, was the man she’d spent the night making mad passionate love to, and here he was, still anticipating her every want and need, and so obviously, this had to be a dream. In fact, the entire morning had
been a dream, a dream that was just now starting to get good, and so naturally, this was the moment she’d probably wake up, which was the last thing in the world she wanted to do. Please don’t let me wake up, she was thinking as he placed the coffee in her hand and bent to kiss her softly on the lips.

“You came back,” he said, kissing her again.

He feels so real, Jamie thought. He sounds so real. “So did you,” she heard herself say, her voice pushing her out of her fantasy and into the real world.

Brad Fisher was still there.

“I woke up early and thought I’d surprise you with one of my special breakfasts,” he told her, nodding in the general direction of the kitchen. “But the cupboards were pretty bare, so I hightailed it over to Publix to pick up some bagels.…”

“You got bagels?”

“Thought I’d make it back before you left for work, but my car broke down, and I had to get it towed, and by the time I got back, you’d already left.”

“You got bagels?”

He smiled. “Somebody sounds hungry.”

Jamie stumbled toward the sofa, sank down on the pillow, took a long sip of her coffee. It was the best coffee she’d ever tasted. “How’d you get in?” she asked.

Brad shrugged. “Door was unlocked.”

“I forgot to lock the door?”

“Apparently.”

“First I forget to set the alarm clock, then I forget to lock the door. My mother used to say I’d forget my head if it weren’t attached.”

“She ever say anything nice?”

“She said I had a smart mouth.”

He laughed. “Not exactly what I had in mind.”

“I quit my job,” Jamie wailed.

“You did? That’s great.”

“Great? No, it’s not. It was stupid and impulsive.…”

“You hated that job.”

“I know, but it paid my bills.”

“So, you’ll get a different job.”

Jamie took another sip of her coffee as a sly smile overtook Brad’s face. “What?” she asked.

“I have a great idea.”

Jamie felt a stirring between her legs. “You do?”

“I think we should do what we talked about last night.”

Jamie cocked her head to one side. Very little of what she remembered from last night involved dialogue.

“I think we should just get in the car and go,” he elaborated. “Of course we’d have to use your car, since mine’s in the shop.”

“And where would we go?”

“Wherever.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m very serious.”

“I can’t do that,” Jamie said.

“Why not? We’re both unemployed and unattached. There’s nothing keeping us here. It’s the perfect time.”

“You
are
serious.”

“Deadly.”

The phone rang. Jamie grabbed it, pressed it to her ear. “Hello?” Immediately, Brad’s hands were around her breasts, his lips tracing a series of tiny kisses along the tops of her shoulders.

“What the hell is going on?” her sister demanded.

“Hi there, Cynthia. How are you?”

“Don’t ‘Hi there, how are you?’ me. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Jamie wondered if Cynthia had a surveillance camera in her apartment, that even now she was watching Brad’s fingers gently outlining the contours of her nipples beneath her blue blouse.

“Todd just phoned to tell me he had an angry call from Lorraine Starkey, that she told him all about that little stunt you pulled.…”

“It wasn’t a stunt.”

“You quit your job without so much as a word? You didn’t give notice? You didn’t offer any explanations.…”

Brad’s fingers disappeared underneath her blouse. Jamie moaned audibly.

“What was that? Did you just moan?”

Jamie grabbed Brad’s hands to still them, and in so doing, dropped the phone.

“Jamie?” Cynthia called from her lap. “What’s going on there?”

“Sorry. I dropped the phone.”

There was a slight pause. “Is somebody there?”

“What? No, of course not.”

Brad leaned forward, resting his chin on Jamie’s shoulder and monitoring the conversation.

“Are you all right?” Cynthia asked. “You’re not having some sort of breakdown, are you?”

“I really hated that job, Cynthia.”

“You can’t keep doing this, you know.”

“I can get another job.”

“I’m not talking about that. You know what I’m talking about.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“You can’t keep fucking up.”

“I won’t.”

“Just call Mrs. Starkey and tell her you’re sorry.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because I’m
not
sorry.”

“Okay, look,” Cynthia said. “Obviously this isn’t the best time to be discussing this. We’ll talk about it when you get here.”

“What do you mean, when I get there?”

“What do
you
mean, what do I mean?”

“What?”

“This is great,” Brad said, a small chuckle escaping his mouth.

“What was that?” Cynthia demanded.

“What was what?”

“Are you laughing?”

“Of course I’m not laughing.”

“Because this isn’t funny.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“Then what time are you coming over? And don’t you dare tell me you forgot and made other plans.”

Brad began nodding his head up and down. “You’ve made other plans,” he whispered in her ear.

“What did you say?” Cynthia asked.

“I’m sorry, Cyn. I
have
made other plans,” Jamie said.

“You can’t do that to me,” her sister protested. “You said you were gonna come over and we’d go through Mom’s things. You promised.”

“We’ll do it another time. Tomorrow …”

Brad shook his head. “You’re busy tomorrow,” he said.

“What?” Cynthia asked.

“Not tomorrow. Sorry. Tomorrow’s no good.”

“And not Sunday either,” Brad said.

“This weekend’s just not good for me,” Jamie said.

“Well, when
is
good for you? We can’t keep putting it off forever.”

Why can’t we? Jamie wondered. Why the rush to dispose of Mom’s things? It’s not like she was going anywhere. Jamie leaned her cheek against Brad’s, felt his morning stubble rough against her skin. “Look, I think I’m going to go away for a few days,” she said suddenly, feeling Brad’s smile stretch across his face. “Maybe for a week.”

“What? What are you talking about? What do you mean you’re going away? Where are you going? What are you talking about?” Cynthia questioned angrily.

“I just need a break.”

“A break?”

“Not for long. A week. Maybe two,” she added as Brad held up the middle and index fingers of his right hand.

“This is unbelievable. When did you decide this?”

“I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

“Call me when you grow up,” Cynthia said before slamming down the phone.

Brad was instantly on his feet. “Way to go, Jamie.”

“She’s really pissed.”

“To hell with her.” Brad grabbed her hands, twirled her around the living room. “Come on, Jamie-girl. Time’s a wasting. Let’s get this show on the road.”

“But where are we going? Do we have any plan at all?”

“Of course we have a plan. We’ll head north. Maybe stop for a few nights in Ohio.”

“Ohio? What’s in Ohio?”

“My son. Wait till you see him, Jamie. You’re gonna love him. Come on. You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

Second thoughts were exactly what she was having. Everything was moving so fast. Too fast. She’d already committed one impulsive act today. Was she actually considering driving off into the sunset with some guy she’d just met? In
her
car, no less! She needed to take a deep breath, calm down, think things through.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Brad said, kissing her gently on the lips.

What was she worried about? she wondered, tossing aside any pesky concerns. “Where in Ohio?” she asked him.

“Dayton,” he told her, flashing that wondrous grin. “A street called Mad River Road.”

T
he two-story wood house at 131 Mad River Road was like all the other houses on the street: old and slightly shabby. Its gray paint was peeling, and the once-white shutters framing the four front windows were stained and tilted at a variety of precarious angles. The shutters outside the bedroom windows were in particularly bad shape, caked with years of accumulated debris, and barely hanging on. Just like me, Emma thought, breathing in the crisp morning air and reluctantly pushing her long legs up the six crumbling front steps. She stopped on the tiny porch before the torn screen door. Beyond the screen door was another door, this one solid and painted black, although the color was faded and the surface scratched. Across the threshold was more peeling, more crumbling, more fading. The old house had definitely seen better days. Emma shrugged. Who hadn’t? Besides, what did she expect for the kind of rent she was paying?

Several years ago the street had been bought up by developers with the idea of tearing down the existing houses and erecting a row of pricey townhomes. Gentrification, they called it. Except that someone on the
city council had objected, and the project had stalled, mired in a seemingly endless ball of sticky red tape. In the meantime, the developers, reluctant to give up on their investment and hoping to reach a satisfactory accord with the powers-that-be in the near future, had decided to rent out the houses on a monthly basis. The result was that Mad River Road had become something of a haven for women in a state of flux, women whose pasts were murky, whose futures were uncertain, and whose presents were on hold. Not surprisingly, these included a large number of single mothers and their offspring. When Emma and her young son had arrived in town looking for an inexpensive apartment in a safe neighborhood, preferably one within walking distance of an elementary school, the real estate agent had thought for only half a second before directing her to Mad River Road. True, the houses were in less than stellar condition, and you could be booted out with only two months’ notice, but the inhabitants of the street had worked hard at sprucing up their surroundings, planting flowers in the front gardens and painting the exteriors of the houses a variety of interesting pastels. Besides, where else could you find a two-bedroom home in the city for this kind of money? “It’s a charming little house,” the realtor had pronounced. “Lots of potential.”

The potential for a fresh start, Emma remembered thinking. Except that potential cost money, Emma thought, and she was going through what little cash she’d managed to hide from her ex-husband at a speed she hadn’t imagined. Soon there’d be nothing left.

She tucked shoulder-length dark hair behind her right ear, listening to the sound of birds in the nearby trees, and
wondering absently, What kind of birds, what kind of trees? She should know these things. She should know what kinds of birds—robins, blue jays, cardinals?—serenaded her in the mornings as she walked her son to school. She should know the types of trees—maple, oak, elm?—that lined both sides of the long street and threw deep shadows across her small patch of front lawn. She should know stuff like that. Just as she should know the names of the flowers—peonies, posies, pansies?—that old Mrs. Discala had recently planted along the sidewalk in front of her house. Emma fished her house key out of the side pocket of her jeans, pulled open the screen door, and unlocked the next. Both squealed loudly in protest. Probably need oil, she thought, wondering fleetingly, What kind of oil? Animal, mineral, vegetable?

Inside, the house was stuffy, but Emma dismissed the idea of opening a window. In truth, the temperature suited her mood, which was lethargic and verging on depressed. Today was supposed to be the day she went out looking for a job, but her son hadn’t slept well last night—another nightmare—which meant, of course, that she hadn’t slept well either, and she doubted the bags under her normally vibrant blue eyes would make a good impression on a prospective employer. Her eyes had always been her best and most striking feature. They were large and oval and dominated an otherwise blandly pretty face. Besides, she hadn’t really decided what kind of job she was looking for. “I’ll look later,” she told the morning paper, still lying on the light hardwood floor inside the front door.