Page 52 of If Not for My Baby
“Why did he say that?”
He seems to weigh his possible answers before admitting, “I told him to.”
I can feel my eyebrows hit my hairline. “You didn’t. Halloran…”
He grimaces. “Tom, please.”
The gratitude threatens to knock me over. He took such good care of me last night. Far more than I deserved after I unceremoniously snuffed out whatever it was we’d set alight in Atlantic City. He also saved my job, and thus my mom’s shot at the clinical trial. And all the while he’d spared my dignity at the cost of his own. “Thank you, Tom.”
His eyes drop to my lips as if he’s been fighting it all morning and finally succumbed. “Don’t mention it.”
—
The road to Portland, Maine, from Philly in the peak of summer is beautiful. Driving it in Rhett Barber’s 1960s baby blueFord Thunderbird with Tom Halloran at the wheel, coasting under sun-drenched New England woods, is like seeing colors for the first time.
The radio plays a bittersweet indie song—one replete with handclaps and chord progressions that conjure ripe strawberries and the last cannonball into some shimmering lake before summer ends. I crank the stereo until it’s at the highest decibel and sing along. Tom’s knees hold the steering wheel in place, and he drums his thighs with his fingertips. His rhythm is flawless.
The greens of the trees lining the single-lane highway are verdant and warm, sun sparkling through each breeze-fluttered leaf. The blue of the shiny old car’s hood has nothing on the sky above us—it’s so candy blue up there I could take a bite out of it. The rich brown of Tom’s overgrown hair, whipped about by the wind, is the same brown of his tortoiseshell sunglasses, which is the same brown of his jacket, rippling under the sun, basking in that decadent heat. Heart-stopping, gold-flecked chocolate.
This drive has cured my hangover. It’s cured me of every ailment I’ve ever had. This moment—this summery speedway—needs to be bottled and sold like the Advil I took this morning.
I tip my head back and languish in it. Kick off Indy’s heels and let my toes curl on the dashboard. For just this one moment I’m not going to dwell on anything that happened last night. On what a fool I made of myself in front of Tom. On how I’ve killed our budding attraction. On why that hurts so much.
The song ends and the next one on the radio is an oldie of Tom’s. Off his first album, a stirring, acoustic romp about making it to the hanging gardens of Babylon only to realize his baby back home is more exquisite than any wonders of the Old World.
“Christ.” He sighs beside me and moves for the toggles on the FM radio.
I snatch his fingers in my hand. “No,” I plead. “I love this song.”
His eyes find mine behind his sunglasses, and I realize I’m still clutching his hand in my own. My skin warms beneath his touch and I release him.
The chorus blares, driven by a seventies-twinged mandolin riff, and I can’t help singing along. “Against my lover’s lips or my baby’s hands, compared to my darling’s darkness, paradise is no-man’s-land.”
We speed through a thicker copse of trees and the melody dances in my hair, in my bones. I picture the scene conjured in the song: some mythic, lush garden beside the Euphrates River, waterfalls cascading, one into the next…and some woman who was more beautiful to him than the lot of it.
Suddenly the story is a different one. As we pull off the highway and roll slowly into a rural gas station, all I can picture is a younger Tom—wide-awake in his nocturnal hours in some boyish bedroom in Ireland. No headboard. Navy sheets. His thick mane of hair gathered in his man bun, reading glasses on as he jots down the words to this very song. Cara Brennan asleep in bed beside him.
He’s killed the engine and now all I can hear is the faintzooming of cars passing us by on the freeway. An insect whirs near my ear.
“Look at the pallor of you. You’re pale enough to see through.”
“The hangover’s returning a bit. I’m going to get some more Advil while we’re here.”
“Here,” he says, handing me his credit card. “Your purse is on the bus.”
Of course. I am brain-dead. Despite all he’s done for me, my cheeks still pinken.
The rusted sign tells me this gas station is just off the I-84 in some rural part of New England. We were three hours outside of Portland last I checked, so we’re probably pretty close. The power lines high overhead buzz under a radiant midday sun, and though I scan for locals or other road-trippers, the station is empty.
A bell dings when I slip inside the Quick Mart and cool air-conditioning sends a pleasant chill across my skin. A teenager watching videos on his phone sells me the Advil without looking up and I’m wandering back out for the restroom when I nearly walk into Tom’s back.
He looks up at the sound of my footsteps, mid-cigarette.
“Did you need something?” I ask “Water?”
He shakes his head. “Just a light.”
I narrow my eyes. He’s standing directly outside the doors. “Why are you smoking over here?”
