Page 45 of Taming Tesla

TWENTY-FOUR

Patrick

Cari’s gone.

I keep my eyes closed as long as I can, convincing myself that’s she’s standing at her easel in front of the window. That when I open them, I’ll see her. She’ll be wearing one of my shirts, hopelessly spattered with paint. Legs bare, save for the bright swipes of color left behind by her brush. Honey-colored hair piled on top of her head, bottom lip caught between her teeth in concentration.

When I open my eyes, she’ll be here. She’ll be painting me. She’ll finish, and then I’ll make her breakfast. I’ll skip my run. Talk her back into bed with me. I showed her how I feel and it was enough to make her stay.

I was enough.

When I open my eyes, she’s gone.

It takes me awhile to talk myself into getting up. I stumble down the hall in a fog. Push my way into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. Turning, I lean against the sink to dry my face. The shower is empty. No charred painting. No melted shower curtain. If not for the fact that fiberglass shower surround is completely fucked and my arm is raw and blistered, I’d think I dreamt the whole thing.

But I can still taste her in my mouth. Feel the weight of her on my chest. The scent of her is pushed into my skin, so deep, I’ll never sweat it out.

But I’m going to try.

In my room, I pull on joggers and a T-shirt. Shove my feet into my runners and step out the ruined door, hanging lopsided on broken hinges. The pizza box is still sitting on the landing. I want to kick it down the stairs. Instead, I step around it and leave.

I run until the sun comes up. Until Mrs. McGintey’s dog comes careening around a corner, pacing me for a while before pulling ahead. Dumb dog must be a hundred years old by now, but he still runs, every time she opens her front door.

After returning him to Mrs. McGintey (and visiting with her for an hour), I buzz by Benny’s. As soon as Nora sees me push my way through the usual crowd, her gnarled face breaks out in a smile that she covers up with a grimace. “You know better than to come in here all sweaty.” Even as she’s saying it, Nora’s lifting her cheek for a kiss.

“I couldn’t wait to see you,” I tell her, pressing my lips against her soft, papery skin. “Forgive me?”

She suppresses another smile. “You think I’m easy or somethin’?”

“Maybe a little.” I wink at her.

She cackles, slapping my cheek just hard enough to sting. “You’re worse than Con these days.”

I rub feeling back into my cheek while a woman stands from the long bench against the wall and approaches the hostess station. “Is our table ready yet?”

“Did I tell you it was ready, Ethel?” Nora snorts in her direction, tiny hands stacked on bony hips. “No? Okay—then sit down and shut the hell up.”

Ethel? Ethel Merman? Despite the yawning, black pit in my chest, I fight the urge to laugh.

Troublemaker dealt with, Nora narrows her eyes on my face. They’re dark and sharp like she’s reading my mind. “Where’s Veronica?” She looks behind me, searching for Cari. It makes me realize how long it’s been since I’ve been here without her.

“Sleeping.” I lie because I can’t say it out loud. That Cari is gone. That I wasn’t enough to make her stay. Not yet. “Got a burrito back there?”

Now her eyes sparkle because if there’s anything she loves more than browbeating customers, it’s feeding a Gilroy. Turning, she walks to the pass-thru where take-out orders are stacked, waiting to be claimed. Climbing onto a step stool, she rifles through paper bags until she finds a burrito. It has the name ROBERT scrawled across its wrapper in grease pencil. “Eggs, bacon, and cheese.” She slaps it into my hand with a smile. “Your favorite.”

“You’re my favorite,” I tell her, dropping another quick kiss on her cheek before I leave with Robert’s burrito.

I go home.

Sitting on the couch, I unwrap my stolen food and eat it. While I chew, I stare at the painting Cari hung on the wall before she left. Not the one she set on fire, along with a counter check for a million dollars.

No, I’m looking at a different painting. One I’ve never seen before.

I saw it the second I walked into the living room, my eyes drawn to its bright splashes of color against the muted tone of the wall. Seeing it is why I left in the first place. Why I spent extra time with Mrs. McGintey. Why I stopped at Benny’s. Why I had to force myself home instead of going to Con’s. Drag myself up the stairs instead of fucking around downstairs with shit work that doesn’t need to be done.

I wasn’t ready to see it then. I’m not ready to see it now, but I force myself to look anyway because I’m finished running. I’m not hiding anymore.

It’s of me, sitting in the front seat of my car, the one I used to drive in college. I can see the hint of a smile, my profile bathed in the glow of a stop light.

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