Page 16 of Taking It To Overtime
It starts in her eyes, the prickle of awareness as she takes me in from head to toe, the lines that burrow into the corners of her eyes. Her brows come up, her hand presses to the top of her chest.
“Vera?”
“Hi mom,” I wave, the bag with Dad’s birthday gift swinging wildly from my wrist.
“Oh my goodness, come in, sweet girl. Come in.” She ushers me into the apartment and it looks exactly the same as my memories, and completely foreign, all at once. I’ve only seen photos of the space, and there’s something strange about seeing the living room set from all my childhood memories spread out in a completely different space.
There’s the side table with the pale water rings I left there despite mom begging me to remember a coaster. The same lampwith the stained glass shade that Dad and I scoured the local antique stores for after we broke the original one. The couch where I first got to third base with Robbie Oakes. We were teenagers when he slid his hand down the front of my jeans and touched me through the cotton of my underwear. A year later, I lost my virginity on the same couch.
Not that I’m thinking about him again. Our past is just woven into all of my memories of this place. It makes sense that they’d boil over after coming face to face with the man after all these years. Especially when I’m an expert at lying to myself about how often I think of him.
Not every day.
Definitely not every time I need to come.
“Did Robbie drop you off?”
I stumble over the edge of the living room rug and almost brain myself on the massive cuckoo clock my dad built one summer. The one that never sends the bird out at the right time. We used to make a game of scaring newcomers. The hour would pass, Dad would shake his head and tell our guest that unfortunately the clock wasn’t working, then watch as they jumped out of their skin when the bird flew out squawking roughly nine-point-three minutes later.
“Don’t mind the clock,” mom says. “It’s not working right.”
I laugh at the joke, but it’s forced.
Robbie didn’t drop me off, and there’s no reason for mom to think he would. Unless it’s nostalgia. I’m having a hard time keeping distance from the past and I’ve been in town for less than six hours.
“No mom, I got a rideshare.”
“That’s a shame.” Mom wipes some imaginary lint off the top of the coffee table. “I haven’t seen that boy in far too long.”
It must be a parent thing to think of us as kids, even in our thirties. I wonder if she’ll still think of him as a boy even whenhe has babies of his own. A boy maybe. Strapped into skates and pads before he can even walk. His dad holding him up, making lazy loops across the rink. The kid’s red freckles and green eyes catching in the light reflected off the ice. I shake the image out of my head. For all I know, the guy has kids already, or a wife.
Okay, maybe not. I scoped out his left hand while he drove and found no band on his fourth finger. And fine, I know he hasn’t been officially—or unofficially—linked with anyone. I can’t even remember the last time he was photographed with a woman until Spags snapped that pic at the airport.
“Tell him to come to the door next time he picks you up.”
There’s not a chance that man will pick me up again, ever. My hands are still clammy just thinking about the sheer odds of just running into each other today. If we risk it again… well, I may just do the one thing I swore I never would do. Tumble right back into obsessive crush territory with a man who had no issue dropping me like a bad habit in order to pursue his dream.
Aaaaaaand? My traitorous brain pushes.
And so that I would pursue mine. Fine.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Mom.” I use my foot to fix the corner of the rug, shifting my suitcase out of the way so it can nestle back into place.
Even if Robbie and I were planning on seeing each other again, him picking me up still wouldn’t be here at Shady Brook. It would be from my hotel. Mom still wouldn’t be able to say hi.
“Oh, don’t worry baby, I won’t say anything to embarrass you in front of your boyfriend.”
Maybe I did hit my head against the damn clock. Or I’m still on the plane, dreaming. Honestly, that makes the most sense. Kimmelwick is small compared to a lot of other places in New York, but we still have close to ten-thousand people living here, and Genosa is even bigger. The odds that Robbie Oakes, who doesn’t live in the area anymore either, would run into me at thearrivals area of the airport? I’m not even sure how to calculate them, but I don’t think seeing him would’ve been a contender in most books.
“Do you want me to take your suitcase to your room?”
We both pause at that, looking around the one-room apartment. The one with the old couch not quite big enough for me to sleep on. Or anyone over the age of ten, for that matter. With their bedroom door open a crack, I can see literally every room in this apartment. It’s a nice space, a very nice one, and it holds all the nostalgic touches of home, but it’s not big enough for three adults, not even for a week. It hadn’t even occurred to me to think of staying here. I booked a room at the only hotel in town. It’s not like I don’t have the expendable income.
Okay, it’s not the only hotel, but the only reputable one.
“Right,” she says, wringing her hands together. It’s a show of nerves I’ve never seen from my mother before outside of major sporting events or the conclusion of American Star, the singing competition show she used to watch religiously when I was growing up. “I’m sorry.”
This visit is turning out nothing like I planned and I’m trying not to let it I get to me. Trying… and failing. And I know, I know, that I showed up on a whim, unannounced, in a town I’ve avoided for years. And I know,I know, I can’t control other people’s actions, only my reactions, but I still thought all of this would go differently. Usually once the plane wheels touch down, things get better. This time, they didn’t.
