Tailwinds Past Florence Page 6

  “Ooh, the Mariners are on,” Kara said, as a baseball stadium flashed on the screen. “Must be the home opener.” She jumped her stool forward and rested her chin atop her pyramided elbows, eager to watch.

  A female bartender, chewing gum and possessing a surly demeanor, eventually came over to check on them. Kara showed her the room key and ordered another round as Edward added three dollars to the earlier tip.

  Kara waited for the drinks then asked: “Can you maybe turn up the volume on the baseball game and mute the weather report? Our team’s playing.”

  Had a record been playing, it wouldn’t have merely skipped. It would have kicked aside the needle and hurled itself across the room. Edward felt the glare of everyone within earshot.

  “Honey, there ain’t nothin’ more important to the folks in these parts than the weather. And certainly not some ballgame.” She wiped the bar where the drinks had been sweating and leaned closer, lowering her voice. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like listening to it all day either, but that TV has been playing The Weather Channel nonstop ever since the cable man first came to town. And it ain’t gonna stop ‘cause some out-of-towners want to watch men play with a ball and scratch themselves.”

  Edward fought to conceal his amusement as Kara looked on in frozen surprise.

  “Holler if you want another round,” she said, leaving them.

  “What. Was. That?” Kara asked, in cartoonish shock.

  “That was all hope of you fitting in going right out the window. Might as well order that cosmo, princess.” Edward laughed and wrapped his arm around his wife. He took a long pull from his drink and settled into the stool as the stress of the day melted in bourbon warmth. In silence, the red-carpet player introductions wrapped up and the team took the field.

  An empty Bud Chelada can soon appeared in front of Edward. “Excuse my reach,” a deep voice said. Then louder, “Two more, Sally.”

  Edward turned and came face-to-chest with a man who appeared to be a third again his size in every dimension. The landscape’s alkaline scent perfumed his mustard-colored Carhartt jacket, the size of a billboard. Edward straightened atop the stool.

  “You two Mariners fans?”

  “Yeah. From Seattle,” Edward said.

  “What brings you this way?”

  Edward leaned aside as the man reached for his drinks. “We’re biking across the country.” It was easier for acquaintances to swallow this nugget of information than the whole menu of their itinerary.

  “No kidding. Well, welcome to Circle. I’m Ricky.”

  “I’m Edward and this,” he said, getting her attention, “is my wife Kara.”

  Ricky nodded and smiled. “Nice to meet you, Ed,” he said, shaking his hand.

  “It’s Edward.”

  Ricky shot him a puzzled look.

  “You’ll have to excuse my husband, he’s a bit formal,” Kara said, elbowing Edward in the side.

  “Hey, no worries. Anyway, that’s my family over there by the pinball machine, and this big slab of beef is my buddy Matt.” Ricky wrapped his arm around the shoulders of a man that could have been his twin. The four exchanged pleasantries as Ricky passed Matt the other can and said, “We’ve been standing all day. Let’s grab a table. Come tell us about your trip.” Then, to Matt, “These two are biking across the country.”

  “Wow. You riding Harleys or a Goldwing?”

  “No, no. Bicycles. Pedal power,” Edward said, smiling as he and Kara followed the men to a table.

  “You okay?” Kara whispered to Edward.

  “Better than okay,” he said, swirling his drink. It wasn’t just the alcohol though, but the vibe. He didn’t know what to expect before they entered, but family-friendly wasn’t it.

  Kara draped her jacket over the back of a chair facing the television.

  “So, bicycles huh?” Matt asked.

  “We’re headed around the world,” Kara said without looking, the response automatic.

  “We left Seattle three weeks ago,” Edward added.

  “You two biked across the Rockies this time of year? That’s crazy.” Matt’s disbelief seemed genuine.

  Kara, taking advantage of a commercial break, explained their route across the northern United States and their plan to cross into Canada at Lake Superior. Having recited the same description a dozen times in as many days, Edward played with the stir straw in his glass and looked around, barely paying attention.

  Matt spoke up: “I haven’t heard of half the towns you mentioned, but—and I hope this ain’t being rude—what are you doing for money?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering. You look pretty young. Are y’all working while you travel?” Ricky asked.

  “You tell them,” Edward said to Kara as he grabbed their empty glasses and stood. He gestured at the men’s beer cans, asking silently if they needed refills. They declined. At the bar, Edward ordered two more Beam and Cokes, then, because he couldn’t remember if they said yes, ordered two additional Bud Cheladas for his new friends. And since the booze was cheap, he tossed back a shot of Jameson before returning with the drinks.

  “Thanks for the beers. Kara was saying the trip was all her idea at first and you didn’t want to do it.” That was Matt. Or Ricky. Edward had forgotten who was who.

  Kara interjected, “Butttt, then he surprised me. I came home from work one day in February and he was waiting for me with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and a poster-sized map of the world. We left a month later,” she said, beaming.

  “Verve click-what?”

  “Oh, sorry. It’s champagne,” Kara said. Then, tilting her glass at Edward, “He was practically raised on the stuff.” Everyone laughed. Even Edward.

  “So what changed your mind, you win the lottery or something?” Ricky (or Matt) asked.

  Edward took another sip and glanced over the ice cubes. Kara gazed back with pride, clearly loving the attention, but he sensed she too was curious.

  He hiccupped. “No lottery. Actually, kind of the opposite. I was in VC, venture capital. I’m not sure what you guys know about the VC world—”

  “Nothing, except you probably make more money than we do driving combines,” one of them said, clinking his beer can with the other.

  “Yeah, that’s probably true. Well, we’re like angel investors. Start-ups come to us for money and guidance, and we help them grow. A little seed money, a little nurturing. Profit.”

  “Sounds like farming,” one of the guys said with a laugh, “Minus the profit part.” The other snorted.

  “So I was working eighty, sometimes a hundred hours a week,” Edward continued, noticing that both Ricky and Matt turned to Kara when he said this. She nodded, sullenly, confirming the veracity of Edward’s statement. It was a look he was all too familiar with.

  “I was in line to get promoted to Principal—that’s like Junior Partner. And then the owner of the firm, Ron Madsen—” Edward said the name with such vitriol he earned a startled look from Kara. “He called me into his office to tell me they were going in a different direction. Tells me my career’s just beginning, that I should be patient. Then he says they’re going to promote this other bastard instead. I doubled the guy’s revenue two years in a row and he gets promoted.”

  “Huh,” one said.

  “You don’t say,” the other added with fading interest.

  “Wait a second. Did you quit?” Kara asked, setting her glass down. “You never told me any of this.” Matt and Ricky exchanged curious glances, as if a surprise plot twist had been revealed for their entertainment. Mischievous smiles crept across their faces.

  Edward cleared his throat as a drop of sweat ran the length of his chest, leaving a trail of nervousness streaked behind it. He stood and grabbed the back of the chair.

  “No. No. Well, not exactly,” he admitted, his thoughts drifting back to the day he was fired. Edward’s knuckles turned white as he clutched the chair back, straining against the pressure he’d been living under. He needed a
release. For two months, he’d been silently battling constant regret, the worry that Kara would leave him if he couldn’t maintain the lifestyle she’d been accustomed to, the shame of having never told her what really happened.

  The room spun as he sucked the last vestiges of bourbon from the ice in his glass. He bit down on a cube. He wanted more. Needed it. But even drunk in a bar serving two-dollar wells, he knew they didn’t have money to burn. It was this awareness that pushed him over the edge, the stinging slap of reality reminding him that his top shelf days were over.

  “All those hours. All that money for the company?” He was gaining steam. “Still young? Be patient? Fuck him!” he yelled, shoving the chair against the table, causing one of the cans to tip, spilling a slick of tomato-stained beer.

  “Whoa, whoa, easy.” Matt (or Ricky) leaped from his chair and clamped a meaty hand on Edward’s shoulder as the other reminded him there were kids present.

  “Sorry. Sorry.”

  “So you quit,” Kara spat, now standing, her hands on her hips. “I thought you took a sabbatical.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Well, you sure as hell didn’t correct me.” She glared at him, her eyes were bulging, unblinking.

  He had to come clean. The realization struck him with a thwack, like a cartoon character stepping on a rake.

  He couldn’t look in her direction. “I lost my shit. I went nuts.”

  Kara yanked his arm, spinning him to face her. “What are you saying? What’d you do?”

  Edward’s chest heaved as he sipped tiny breaths of air, drawing courage from the barroom vapors. “I cursed Ron up and down and—” he explained, glancing back to the guys, “I never swear. I don’t.”

  Kara nodded.

  “I got so worked up, though … There was this autographed baseball on his bookshelf—” Edward pointed at the TV just as the camera zoomed in on the pitcher, “Signed by that guy right there. Felix. And I wound up and threw it at him, display case and all. I missed him, but the ball flew out of the case and went straight through the window. It was one of those old wavy windows in Pioneer Square, and, well, the ball was from Felix’s perfect game. Thing was probably worth thousands.”

  There was a brief pause of astonishment before Matt and Ricky burst into a fit of laughter. They held onto one another for balance as they doubled over in hysterics.

  Edward’s stomach knotted as Kara’s sobering gaze wrung the energy from him, leaving him unable to withstand the shame washing over him. “I don’t know who packed up the box,” he said. “Security threw me out before I had a chance to do it.”

  Kara stared at him, her almond-shaped eyes pulled into walnuts, her head shaking in disbelief. Her face twitched, seeming to oscillate between confusion, hurt, and fury.

  Across the table, Ricky and Matt reenacted the office scene in Vaudevillian theatrics. Two corn-bred giants performing wild, leg-kicking wind-ups, delivering empty-handed fastballs.

  Edward fought every desire to look away, to order another drink, or even retreat to the motel, but he didn’t. He deserved whatever he had coming and wasn’t too drunk to know it. He let his temper get the better of him, jeopardizing their future, and doubted he’d be able to find work in Seattle again. The VC world was small and Ron was a big fish.

  Kara swallowed twice and ran her tongue across her lips. When she spoke, her voice was faint, scratchy, as if she had to drag the words out of her. “So, if you had gotten the promotion, we wouldn’t be here right now?”

  “No, I can explain—”

  “You didn’t really want to take this trip, did you?”

  “Kara, no, it’s … it’s not like that,” he said. But wasn’t it? He’d never taken the idea seriously. It wasn’t until he was alone in the apartment, drowning in self-pity like some unemployed loser, that her suggestion became his lifeline. The champagne, a nice touch when she got home. It was easier to let her think whatever she wanted. “We would have done it, just not right away. Maybe once I made Senior Partner.”

  Kara stepped to him, challenging his desire to retreat. “You don’t even know why I wanted to take this trip, do you?”

  Edward slumped into the chair and avoided her glare, afraid to guess wrong.

  “Send Ron my thanks.” Kara snatched her jacket and barged past Ricky and Matt on her way out the door.

  Ricky and Matt pulled their seats closer, flanking Edward. Once the silence had downshifted from awkward to unnecessary, and perhaps in an effort to distract him from the fact that his wife had stormed out, taking the motel key with her, the men engaged him with questions about camping gear and bicycles. Edward’s responses were light on details, his attention never straying from the cocktail napkins he was tearing into confetti.

  “So, you packing?” Ricky asked.

  “What?” Edward replied, not understanding the question.

  “A gun. You got a gun, right?”

  Edward repeated the word until it sank in. “Nah, I’m not much of a gun guy. Besides, we’re headed into Canada in a few weeks and then over to Europe. You can’t carry a gun around with you outside the States.”

  “Aren’t you worried about protecting your wife?” Ricky asked. Edward remembered the mustard Carhartt was Ricky’s, the drama having sobered him.

  “From what? People bike across the country all the time. The only thing cyclists ever talk about is how nice people are, especially here in America.”

  Ricky made a face like he had smelled something awful. “People are always getting shot, don’t you watch the news?” he asked.

  “That stuff is rare,” Edward said, earning him polite head shaking. “Besides, we’ve got pepper spray. Though that’s mostly for dogs.”

  “One of those keychain things women keep in their purse?” Matt chortled. “Yeah, that might help against a dog, but what if somebody tries to rob you—or worse?”

  Ricky leaned closer, his eyebrows raised. “You ought to at least get yourself a big ol’ can of hornet spray. That shit can stop a man twenty feet out.”

  “You don’t say.” Edward’s interest fizzled. He needed to leave. If for no other reason, than to escape the litany of unsolicited advice. “We’re really just worried about dogs and cars. I swear.”

  “Suit yourself,” Matt said before heading to the men’s room. When he returned, he took the seat next to Ricky. Conversation shifted to hunting stories and tales from the wheat fields, leaving Edward isolated with his thoughts.

  He waited as long as he figured it would take Kara to get back to the room, to calm down. Would she let him in? He could only hope.

  Edward rose to leave and thanked Ricky and Matt for the company. The two wished him good luck with the missus, a glint of humor in their looks.

  Ricky hollered across the room as Edward reached the exit, “Get a gun!”

  “Dogs and cars,” Edward yelled back, “Nothing but dogs and cars.”

  Chapter 6

  Tuesday, April 14 — Jamestown, North Dakota, USA

  Kara woke to warm breath on her face and the sense that the tent had shrunk in the night. It was Edward leaning over her, smiling brightly. She blinked the sleep away and tried remembering where they were as he brushed the hair from her brow and kissed her forehead. His lips glanced her nose then landed tenderly on her mouth, lingering, his eyes closed.

  “Happy anniversary, my love.” His face hovered an inch from hers, his breath minty.

  Eight days had passed since the incident at the American Legion, six since Kara had ceased giving him the silent treatment. She hadn’t forgiven him, not completely. Rather, she ran out of the energy required to ignore a husband with whom she spent every moment of every day. Unlike at home, where she could retreat to her studio, slamming the door behind her, bicycle touring forced compromise, or at least a ceasefire. A tent was too small a battlefield for open hostilities.

  She fought to stifle a yawn as a cowbell clanged in the distance. Closer, the sound of flags snapping in the morning breeze
. The fairgrounds, she realized, recalling the colorful pennants atop the wash house. “Happy anniversary to you, too.” She reached between them, tugged at the zipper on her sleeping bag, and peeled the top flap back, an open invitation.

  His eyes flickered with flirtatious excitement as he rolled onto his side, his hand on her belly. “I’ve got a surprise. Hurry up and get dressed.”

  “Can’t it wait?” Kara grabbed his wrist and pulled him near. It had been too long.

  He let out a faint groan, as if the temptation was a test of will against which he had taken an oath. “I’m already dressed. I got up early. But tonight …”

  Rejected, Kara raised her hand and turned away, waving at the air where her mouth had been as he moved in for another kiss. “I haven’t brushed yet,” she said.

  “Since when has that stopped us?” He scooted closer.

  Suspecting he might be willing to ignore his policy on their anniversary, she pulled the top of her long underwear off. To hell with subtlety. Kara closed her eyes and leaned back, propped on her elbows in anticipation of his caress.

  With the force of a feather, he traced her profile. From her forehead, he dragged his finger over her nose, her chin, and down the length of her throat. His touch rose and fell as she gulped for air, her throat choked with passion. She arched her back ever higher as he descended along her torso, plummeting between her breasts toward her belly button. He didn’t detour, he didn’t rush. Unlike her heart, which now fluttered like a hummingbird.

  He dipped his finger beneath the waistband of the full-length silk underwear and slid it back and forth across the trim of her bikini briefs. She breathed deep and arched higher still as she raised her pelvis off the crinkly sleeping pad. Another invitation. Her muscles tightened as he traced ticklish figure eights across the satin triangle. She willed him to go further, lower.

  Beyond their nylon cocoon, a tractor rumbled to life on the featureless landscape. But inside the tent, it was the luxury of a palace and she was the queen to be worshiped.

  A soft breeze on her face. She felt him leaning over her now like a parachute holding her in suspended anticipation. She licked her lips, he blew them cool. The elastic stretched and snapped audibly against her waist as he yanked his hand away. He patted her on the stomach twice, pecked her lips with his, and rolled away. “Not in the tent.”