Wrecked(4)

The dusky air outside the house is deceptively still. It is the silence before the starting gun. The final breath before the plunge.

Looming night trembles with possibility.

. . .





2





Richard


Her hair, like milkweed spilling across Richard’s chest, smells of wood smoke. A few strands cling to his lips.

Downstairs something clatters in the kitchen. The shower, on the other side of the wall behind their heads, thrums with the uneven staccato of water hitting a plastic tub. The scents of bacon and coffee seep into the room.

“You’re like a dog,” Carrie always teases him. “I’ve never met anyone more sensitive to smell.”

“Rrrruff,” he’d replied the first time she compared him to a dog. He’d buried his face in her neck and taken a good long draw, as if to prove her point. Goat milk soap. The laundry detergent she liked from the natural foods co--op rising from the sheets as he pressed her back into the bed. They were in bed the first time she’d said it.

They were usually in bed.

“Dude,” Jordan had said with an exaggerated wink to Richard shortly after their first public appearance as a couple. Jordan had spotted them in the dining hall, seated across the table from each other, silently concentrating on the chocolate chip pancakes stacked on their plates. Carrie didn’t usually come to the dining hall. She preferred cooking for herself in the big communal kitchen at Out House, the building where she and all the other students into hiking and camping lived. But that morning there were no eggs in the fridge and she wanted pancakes, so they made the long walk across campus for brunch.

It was a Sunday. Richard remembers this because even though he wasn’t particularly hungover that morning, he was dreading the long afternoon ahead: a boatload of number theory to get through and a paper due by noon Monday that he hadn’t started. He was thinking he’d need to get back to his room to collect his stuff before heading to the library. He was also thinking, More coffee, and he was about to ask Carrie if she wanted a refill when she reached across for his free hand. Didn’t break stride on those pancakes, didn’t look up from her plate, but laced her fingers through his and held them there while she ate.

That’s pretty much how and when Richard—and everyone, including Jordan, who saw them that morning—knew: they were a thing.

Richard wants to pull the hair off his mouth, but he’s afraid Carrie will wake, and he’s not ready for that yet. The room is bright—she refuses to draw blinds at night, claiming she likes to rise with the sun—but he’s the one always woken up at dawn while she’s impervious to the light. Once up, though, she springs to action. She doesn’t exactly bolt from bed, but extricates herself from the tangled sheets and heads for the shower before his eyes fully focus.

“Good morning . . . I guess?” he’d said the first time he stayed the whole night and witnessed this routine. She was sifting through her closet, quick--clicking the hangers as she parsed her clothes. She had her back to him, and he was treated to a view of her naked butt. “Whatever happened to pillow talk?”

Carrie pulled out a kimono and slid her slim arms through the sleeves. It had a red, yellow, and black dragon festooned across the back. She turned, smiled at him. Grabbed a mesh bag from the top of her dresser.

“I told Gail I’d meet her for breakfast downtown,” Carrie said. She was at the door, hand on knob, when she reconsidered. She returned to the bed. Bent to plant a barely--there kiss on the side of his face. “Plus I’m not really the pillow--talk type,” she said. “See you later?”

Before he could answer, she was gone. He listened to her footsteps, heard the bathroom door open and close, and only when he could make out the unmistakable sounds of water gushing through faucet did he get up, retrieve his clothes from the floor, and leave.

Here’s what Richard’s never told her: sometimes, after they’ve spent the night together, he doesn’t shower. He carries her with him throughout the day, lifting the back of his hand to his face and breathing in her lingering scent. The shampoo she uses. Her skin. He can’t get enough of it. As opposed to her, jumping in the shower as soon as she’s awake, staying in there too long, and, according to her housemates, using up all the hot water and making them late.

She’s right. He must be part dog.

The racket from downstairs increases as voices are added to the mix, and Carrie stirs. Instinctively he tightens his arm around her. Her head, which has been tucked warmly between his chin and shoulder, lifts. The veil of blond hair lifts as well, detaches from his lips.

“Hey,” he says.

Carrie squints, wrinkles her nose. Shifts slightly away from him and buries her face in the pillow. “Who the hell is banging the drums?” she moans. She moves as if to rise, but he holds her.

“Just because your housemates are frying tempeh sausage instead of sleeping in doesn’t mean you have to get up,” he says.

He feels her relax slightly. She widens her eyes. They’re burnished brown, flecked with gold.

“It’s not tempeh,” she mumbles. “It’s tofu.”

“Same thing,” he replies. He waits for her to argue with him, but she closes her eyes.

“How much did we drink last night?” she says instead.