Him
“Are you going to tell me where you going? I mean, it’s not that I don’t like having you here but it’s that I don’t like having you here,” Ram says. “You kind of cramp my style.”
The laugh that bubbles out of my throat surprises even me. I haven’t been in much of a laughing mood lately. “I was here ONE night. And please! What style? Your nightstand is literally a stack of Playboy magazines from the 1970s.”
“Exactly. Porno chic,” Ram retorts.
“Yeah, well, you needn’t worry about people stealing it from you. Anyway, relax. I’ll be gone by the time you get home tonight.”
“Where are you going?”
“Away,” I shrug.
There’s a twitch of his left eyebrow, but he doesn’t push it. “Is there anything you need me to do while you’re gone,” he asks, but he didn’t need to ask.
“No,” I say, even though we both know it’s a lie. “You take care of your business and I’ll take care of mine.”
“Mate, that’s always been the problem. Your business is my business.”
Our smiles at each other soon turn into idiot grins.
“Should we hug it out?”
“Fuck, no. You’ll just break my ribs again.”
Her
“Jade, I can’t thank you enough for letting me stay here,” I say, as she reaches into a moving box and pulls out a cushion and lays it on my bed.
“Are you kidding me? I am so happy to have a friend in the building. I’m thrilled this apartment became available just in time. And don’t worry, you’re far away enough not to hear my baby cry at four in the morning. Although five floors away isn’t far enough from me not to come down and have a chat with you every night,” Jade says, and then giggles, reaching over and squeezing my arm.
The truth is I can’t thank her enough. I was supposed to move in with Cameron while I looked for a new place but even the mere thought of his name right now makes me shudder. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to be in the same room with him again, but right now all I can think about is how he tried to manipulate me by committing one of the most heinous things I could ever imagine someone who calls themselves my friend could do. My life feels like it’s fallen off a cliff, and there’s nothing left for me to hold on to.
“Jade, about the youth center. Now that I’m not partners with Cameron anymore, do you still want me to finish the design work?”
Jade shifts closer to me on the bed and takes my hand in hers. “If I recall, we hired you, not your firm.”
My firm. As much as I can’t imagine ever working with Cameron again the thought of the business we worked so hard on together now lying in ruins breaks my heart.
“Hey. You’ll work it out. And will be here to help you.”
All I can do is nod. I’m sure she’s had enough of my moping by now. I hadn’t known how she and Kaine were going to treat me; it would’ve been understandable if they’d wanted to kept their distance from me considering how close they were to Xavier. But once again, they’d proven just what wonderful people they are. It’s only fair I try to repay them by doing the absolute best job on the youth center that I possibly can.
Jade cuts open another box and reaches inside.
“Hey, what’s this?”
I look over as she turns a crumpled white envelope in her hand. Just seeing it turns my stomach upside down. I reach for it, turning it over in my hands, remembering.
“Just something from the past.”
She smiles, “Looks like it’s had an interesting life.”
I nod.
“Actually, Jade? I’ve just had an idea I want to float by you,” I say to her. And something about the thought suddenly brewing in my mind makes me smile for the first time in a long time. Apparently, it’s contagious, because Jade grins and sits up straight, suddenly looking just as excited as I feel.
She gives me a wink and says, “I’m all ears. Float away.”
Him
Do you ever wonder what they mean when they say, you can never go home? Do they mean that home isn’t really a place, a location, an X on a map? Maybe it’s just a feeling you have in your heart that can’t ever be recreated.
I never really thought about it, I guess, because I don’t know where home is. I love Manhattan, I really do. The hustle and the bustle and the manic chaos and the anonymity while having nothing but a thin wall between you and your neighbor excites me, keeps me feeling alive. But home?
I don’t know. I don’t know what home is supposed to feel like.
But some places, home or not, are coded in your DNA forever.
That’s how I feel as I step off the company jet onto the tarmac in Portland, Maine.
The last time I was here, I was eighteen, sitting on a bus, backpack stuffed with three days’ worth of clothes, a crumpled letter in my hand and fear in my heart.
Scared but, I remember, I felt alive.
And oh, how alive I feel now.
A gust of wind kicks up as I walk to the car Patricia booked ahead for me, and blasts against my face. I close my eyes to shield them from the dust, while breathing in the scent of mown grass and sea air.
I throw my overnight bag into the back seat of the convertible and settle into the driver’s seat, breathing lungful after lungful of nostalgia. And something inside me starts to heal over.
I plan for the drive to Langham to take me almost half an hour. Or it should only take me half an hour, but I can’t help constantly stopping along the way. Every few miles I pull over to take in the landscape of my childhood. We didn’t take a lot of trips after my father left but in that short time when I remember having two parents, on lazy Sunday afternoons he would have us all jump in the car, then somebody would shout out a town name not too far but close enough for us to play several car games and off we would go. Off to Gray, off to Auburn, off to Reid State Park we would go, the six of us crammed into his old Buick with so much excitement sometimes I think the car ran solely on our energy.
Somehow, everything looks the same and yet everything looks different. The road signs are different, the fields of wildflowers have been leveled for farmland, the old lobster shack that you could see from the road with its red roof is faded and covered in spiderwebs. Every few miles I stop and take it all in, readjusting the images in my head of what Maine looks like now. It’s almost two hours after I land when I finally turn off the exit into Langham. I try to pretend I don’t know where I’m going but my internal navigation system steers me to the place that I’ve been longing to return to.
I turn into the half-full parking lot and the sign tells me they’re still open for the summer season. The sign still says Dairy Joy but it’s faded, the menus on the windows have changed to typed and laminated, a far cry from the owner’s messy scribbles on the chalkboard. The door is closed probably to lock in the cold air. Two kids laugh as they race their way out of the ice cream parlor to a bench under the shade, multicolored ribbons of ice cream already trickling down their arms. I slide through the closing door and the aroma that wafts into my nostrils instantly takes me back.