Chapter 9
“Shit,” she said, waking with a start. She looked at the clock. “Shit shit shit!”
It was a forty-five minute drive to the airport, where her flight was taking off in exactly ninety minutes. Panic slammed her chest. She was fully awake now and remembered that she wasn’t in her own room, but his. And he was nowhere to be seen. She looked toward the bathroom—the door was open but he wasn’t in there either. She didn’t have time to wonder.
She sprang from the bed and gathered up her scattered clothes from the floor, wriggling into one article and hopping to the next. It wasn’t just any flight; her agent had told her there was only one flight to Boston per day. And the tour had been extended by a day. However surprisingly last night’s diversion was—however hot—she needed to catch to that flight. It was the end of the tour. She had spent weeks on the road, enduring indignities large and small. Minor humiliations and diminishing returns. There had been some good shows, but she wanted to go home now. Needed to go home.
She calculated. She could dash to her room, throw her shit in her bag—she hadn’t really even unpacked—and could be back down to the lobby in under five minutes. The barback from the sports bar would be waiting for her. He had to, it was part of the contract. As long as Dungeon Dick didn’t fuck her over, it was just possible she could still make it.
She took one last look toward the bed and the tangled sheets and wondered with a pang where the hell Kyle was. But there was no time.
She grabbed Clyde, flung open the door, and bounded into the hall, colliding with Kyle. He was carrying two coffees and her momentum smashed one of them into his chest, pouring down his pants.
“Ah!” he yelled.
“Oh my God!” she yelled back.
“Coffee,” he said, gritting his teeth at the hot spill and handing her the surviving cup.
“I’m sorry,” she said, breathless. “I have to go. I didn’t realize the time and I’m late for my flight and there’s only one flight out today.” She could feel herself melting down and he must have seen it.
“Whoa,” he said, “slow down. How are you getting there?”
“I should have a driver. I hope…”
“Hope?”
“Last night was amazing, but I have to go…” She pecked him on the lips and began to jog for the elevator. “I’m really sorry…”
The elevator opened as she reached it and bounded in. She poked her head out and yelled, “Tweet me!”
She jabbed the button for her floor, then sprinted for her room. She cleared it in under two minutes, and jogged with her bag in one hand and her guitar case in the other. She reached the lobby and scanned, praying.
No Tank.
Her heart began to pound.
When she was nine years old, her parents took her camping in Vermont. At the end of the trip, they each thought she was in the camper shell in the back, laying on the mildew-smelling convertible couch, comics sprawled before her. It was the year before they would get the divorce and they were bickering with each other too much to check. But she was in the campground restroom, and when she came out, her parents had driven away. They didn’t discover her missing for an hour, which meant another hour’s drive back to retrieve her. By the time they had returned, some other campers summoned a park ranger, and she was waiting for them in the ranger station, terrified and inconsolable, sure her parents had abandoned her forever. It was before cell phones were ubiquitous, and the quarter she carried around in her shoe had done no good. There was no number in the car to call.
She was left utterly alone.
For a moment, she was nine years old again, abandoned in the woods, darkness falling.
Maybe he’s in the parking lot, she thought, desperate. Despite knowing better, she rushed outside. It was a gray day, low and overcast, but there was no sign of rain or snow. Or Tank’s beater.
“Fucking asshole!” she bellowed.
It was a last fit of defiance before her chest and throat began to tighten. Tears welled in her eyes. She could get another room, another flight, but she wanted to sleep in her own bed, damn it. To stretch out and be alone in her own place, with the exception of Iggy, her cat. She had fantasized about it for weeks. She was tired of gloomy Midwestern days. She wanted her gloomy Boston days back. She didn’t know what to do next. She blew shaky plumes of breath in front of her, trying to fight off the tears welling in her eyes.
A BMW cruised up and its window slid down in a quiet thrum.
“Stood up?” asked Kyle.
She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
“Get in. I’ll take you.”
“You don’t understand,” she said, trying to keep her voice from sailing off into hysteria. It was nice of him, generous even—she wasn’t so far gone that she couldn’t recognize the gesture—but the idea of being trapped in a car with someone she didn’t know, who she had just slept with and in her agitated state seemed like a terrible idea. At best, it would be the walk of shame, but in a car and stretched to forty-five minutes. At worst, he would fucking hate her as much as she hated herself in this moment. She was melting down and she couldn’t help it. “We’ll never make it,” she muttered.
“Not with you standing there, we won’t.”
She tapped her foot on the curb and looked in both directions, as if Tank was going to magically appear.
“Corey,” he said.
There was a small click and the trunk yawned open. She looked at it and back at him.
“I’ll get you there. I promise.”
She almost burst into tears, but instead she threw her bag and guitar case into the trunk and got in. The car was pristine, like it had come off the showroom floor. A gleaming, perfectly-fitting glove of metal, rubber, and leather, without a scrap of trash or a piece of lint. It even had that new car smell. She had been in limousines before, had done some music award shows with red carpets, but the limos always smelled of pleasant artifice, like they were masking something. She was suddenly aware that she had not had a chance to shower after their romp.
“Kansas City International?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice still thick.
“Buckle up,” he said. She complied and as soon as he heard the audible click of her seatbelt, the BMW was off like a rocket. He weaved through the streets of Lawrence, taking sharp, tight corners, driving as if they were being timed, which, she supposed, they were.
In moments, they found the onramp to I-70.
“Look, I appreciate it,” she said, “but we’ll never make it.”
The Bimmer rose onto the onramp and they merged onto the highway. It was at the tail end of the morning rush, and Corey was slightly relieved to discover that not all rush hours were equal. Lawrence, Kansas was not Boston. The road was clear enough.
“Yes,” said Kyle, “we will.”
Hope sparked in her heart.
He punched it, and Corey felt herself getting sucked into the leather seats. After a few seconds, she glanced over at his steering column and was startled to see the speed they were going.
“Um,” said Corey, “what’s the risk of you getting pulled over?” Her voice was sharper than she meant it. She felt stupid and she felt needy and she felt stupid for feeling needy. And this was the nicest, most comfortable personal vehicle she could ever remember being inside. In the space of a night, she went from feeling like an ax-wielding rock and sex goddess to barely an adult.
He glanced over at her and smiled. “Damn the torpedoes and all that.”
She turned her head toward the window, tears threatening to spill.
“You didn’t have to, you know,” she mumbled.
Great, she thought, now I’m a petulant child. Careening toward full-blown bitch.
“When I was in the Coast Guard,” said Kyle, keeping his eyes on the road, “we’d be out for months at a time. But we always knew the day we were coming home. Once or twice, the night before pulling in we’d get redirected. Usually just to support some stupid operation, not even a search and rescue case. Just steaming along a line in the ocean, cutting holes in a nautical chart. That was the job, of course, but I’m not going to lie, it felt like waking up on Christmas morning to be told, ‘Sorry, kid, Santa got held up.’” He reached over and squeezed her forearm. “Not on my watch.”
The lump in her throat grew. A tear rolled down her cheek and she swiped it away roughly. She was melting down and it was mortifying, but she couldn’t help it. He had nailed it.
“Can you check into your flight on your phone?” he asked gently.
She nodded.
“Give it a shot.”
She fiddled with her phone, happy for something to do.
“Here,” he said. He touched a button on the steering wheel and the car flooded with a morning news show. “Find a station.”
She hit the Scan button. A needy part of her desperately wished one of her own songs played. The thought alone was pathetic, but less pathetic than crying in his car, and it just might remind him of who she had been last night. The silence was broken in regular intervals by the Scan cycling through different song snippets until it found a college rock station. A growling, stomping rocker she had never heard before pounded out of the system. She leaned in, intrigued, until the lyrics kicked in.
When you were young you were the king of carrot flowers…
“What the fuck?” she blurted.
“What is it?” said Kyle.
She turned to him, aghast. “Someone had the balls to cover Neutral Milk Hotel?”
“Those words don’t make any sense. Are you having a stroke?”
It was sacrilege. Wasn’t it? How do you cover such a singular, delicate gem as King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1? Well, whoever roared from the Bimmer’s speakers never got the memo and decided to set the fuzz gun from “indie” to “T. Rex” for good measure. The song planted its feet, grabbed itself by the crotch, and demanded she reckon with it. It was audacious. It was undeniable. The guitars were feral, the drums relentless, and she found herself tapping her foot in time on Kyle’s spotless floor mat. She looked at him, then at the dash. The speedometer, already high, pegged even closer to the edge.
“It’s sacrilicious,” she said in wonder.
“Pretty badass, whatever it is.”
She turned to him, beginning to feel like herself again. She smirked.
“Keep driving, Binder Man.”
After all these years, a song could still shock or startle or delight her, making her lip curl in an involuntary, appreciative snarl. A song could bestow secret knowledge. It could make her feel as cool as draping the perfect leather jacket over her back. The right song at the right time could offer a blast of wind into her sails when she was down or help her achieve escape velocity when she was up. The right song, when all hope was lost and all other resources were depleted, might just get her to Kansas City International Fucking Airport in time to catch the 9:37 am to Boston.
At the song’s thunderous close, a DJ with a reed thin voice announced, “That’s King of Carrot Flowers by—”
Ringing filled the car.
“No!” yelled Corey.
“Shit,” said Kyle. “That’s my partner. I have to take this…”
Boo deep.
“Kyle! Where the hell are you?”
“Hey Charlie…”
“Wait, are you driving?”
Kyle brought his forefinger to his lips. Corey nodded.
“Look, you’re going to have to cover the morning session for me.”
“Dude…”
“Please, you can do it in your sleep.”
“You feeling alright?”
“Yeah, fine. There was a…wardrobe malfunction. Some crazy lady in the hotel spilled coffee all over me.”
“A crazy lady?” said Charlie.
“Yep. A toothless, bearded hag.” Corey punched him in the shoulder. “Ow. I mean, out getting new pants.”
“You travel with, like, seventeen identical pairs of pants.”
“It was a lot of coffee.”
“Did you get lucky?” asked Charlie, the suspicion audible through the speakers.
Corey’s eyes widened in mock surprise and Kyle laughed.
“No!”
“Of course not,” said Charlie. “Kyle the Stoic, what was I thinking?”
“Look, just cover the session this morning and I’ll take yours this afternoon.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just get here whenever you can. I expect payment in the form of beer this evening.”
“Fair enough. Thanks, Charlie.”
Corey leaned over, and in a breathy voice said, “Thanks, Charlie.”
“Wha—”
Dee boop.
“You know,” said Kyle, his face splitting into a grin and his cheeks turning red, “I’m not going to hear the end of that. The questions will consume my entire evening. Several evenings.”
“Kyle the Stoic? I’m just trying to rehabilitate your reputation, man.”
“Very charitable of you.”
“I’m known for my magnanimity.”
She tapped at her phone.
“Kolars!”
“What’s that?”
“That song. The band.” Corey was thrilled by her new discovery and was adding it to her phone when Kyle backed off the speed. When she looked up, she saw a sign announcing the airport in two miles. She looked at the time on the dash, then over at him.
“Oh,” she said, “We’re here.”
She couldn’t believe it. Home was within reach.
He took the Arrivals lane. She turned to him and saw that he kept looking from the traffic to the clock on the dashboard, his brow furrowed and his mouth an even line. She felt too, somehow, that it was a mask, but she didn’t know for what.
It began to hit her then what he had done for her and it felt like an arrow piercing her giddiness at the prospect of getting home. It had been a sublime night, and any other day, any other situation, she would not have fled the bed. He was handsome and square-jawed and not at all what she was accustomed to, but he made her come again and again and she couldn’t get enough of his face, even in the weak morning light, and she realized now that she had wasted an entire car ride sulking instead of staring at it or getting to know him. Maybe it was for the best, she tried to tell herself, because she knew better than to trust things that were too good to be true.
But he drove you.
Maybe it was better just to treat it as a nice little cosmic surprise, like the King of Carrot Flowers, and just leave it at that, instead of…what? Having another night with him? She felt pulled between the imminent flight and the tug of the hotel room, the bed.
What the hell have I done, she thought?
Stop it, Core. Be cool.
“You have to go,” he said. He hit the trunk release and leapt out of the car as soon as it came to a stop. By the time she unbuckled herself and got out, he had already removed her bag and guitar case from the trunk, and set them on the curb, his brow furrowed. Binder Man, All Business.
“You can just make it if you hustle,” he said.
“I’m all about the hustle.”
He smiled then, but it looked more like a wince, and it made her wilt a little.
“You should hurry.”
“Thank you,” she said. “For real.”
“It was nothing.”
“No,” she said, “it wasn’t.”
She grabbed him by his coat and pulled him into a long, wet kiss.
When she stopped, his eyes were still closed. His head floated for a second, as if she had short-circuited his brain. Good, she thought.
A TSA agent blew a whistle at them to move along.
“Okay, okay!” she yelled. “Jesus.”
Then to Kyle, she smiled and said, more softly, “Bye.”
“Bye,” he said.
She walked away, leaving him dazed on the sidewalk. Before she had gotten to the terminal’s automatic doors, she whirled around. Kyle was watching her go.
“Wait! My number—”
The TSA agent blew his whistle again, a long, piercing screech that cut her off.
“What?”
The agent was now marching toward him.
“Tweet me!” she yelled.
He looked momentarily confused, then blurted, “I’m not on Twitter!”
“Your loss…” she shrugged and walked inside.
When she looked over her shoulder, he was wearing a loopy grin, despite the approaching TSA agent. The grin spread to her face as well. She puckered her lips in a mock kiss, then the automatic doors of the airport closed behind her.
Once she was out of his line of sight, she hauled ass. Gone was the sexy rock vixen. She bolted toward the security checkpoint. They had made unbelievable time, but she wouldn’t feel comfortable until she was through security, then on the plane, then cruising at 30,000 feet. She was adrenalized now, but she knew she had made it. They had pulled it off. She’d already checked in, so as long as she made it through security before they closed the door to the jetway, she was golden.
And yet.
She made it to the front of the line, her ID already out and her e-ticket up on her phone. A TSA agent gave an expressionless look at both, then at her face, and let her pass. She threw her bag and guitar case on the conveyor and threw her jacket and shoes into the tray.
Big time rock star, she thought.
The turbulent rapids of the security screening deposited her into a cove of tables and benches where she began to reassemble herself. She put her phone in her pocket and was pulling her boots back on when she looked up. Beyond the rows of metal detectors, behind the queue of anxious travelers waiting their turn to be screened, stood Kyle.
He was smiling.
What was he doing, she wondered? Then it hit her like a punch in the chest. He found somewhere to park and came back, just to see if she’d made it. And she had. Her throat constricted and her eyes welled up, but he was too far away to notice such details. He could probably see the blush though. She smiled back at him across the sea of people, not a half-grin or a wry, sexy smirk, but a gobsmacked, loopy smile of the kind she only found herself smiling on stage.
He tilted his head. Go.
On most flights, a passenger or two might do a double take. Once she sat next to a fan on a cross-country flight who peppered her with questions about The Toddlers and she spent much of it pretending to be asleep. It was part of the job description, and by necessity, her shields had to go up a bit. This time, she walked onto the plane in a daze, not only not scanning the faces of the seated passengers, but unaware they were even there. She buckled into her seat and continued to stare out of the window as the skylines of familiar metropolises passed below, wondering the same question over and over.
Why the fuck was I in such a hurry?