Nine Lives(59)

On his third mule, Ethan spotted a pair of women in a back booth who looked familiar. It took a moment, but he figured out they were both servers at a club he used to play at when he’d been in a short-lived band called the Buckets. He wandered over and they invited him to join them; he bought a pitcher of Lone Star and slid into the booth. An hour after he’d sat down it occurred to him that he’d hooked up with the prettier, chunkier girl at the table, about two years ago after one of his shows. Her name was Alicia, but she pronounced it with four syllables instead of three, and it seemed like she remembered their night together because she kept pressing her knee up against his under the table.

They all left together at closing time. Jennifer had already ordered a Lyft, jumping into it as soon as they were out on the street, leaving Alicia and him together. They walked to his place, Ethan telling her about a new song he’d written for a female vocalist, and maybe she’d sing a little of it for him if he played it on his guitar for her. He’d used that line before, and for a brief, panicky moment he thought he might have used it on Alicia before, back when they’d first hooked up, but if he did, she didn’t show it.

Back at his place Alicia rolled a joint while he tuned his guitar and printed out the lyrics he’d written. She actually had a pretty voice, and the song was better than he remembered. They went through it a couple of times, then made out on the couch, Alicia asking him if he remembered doing this before. “Why do you think I came over to say hi to you?” he said.

After they’d moved to the futon and turned out the lights, Ethan thought of Caroline for the first time since getting back to the apartment. He had a sudden longing to be alone, to open his laptop and see if she’d join him on Skype. He looked at Alicia, visible enough in the moonlight coming through his window for him to see that her eyes were barely open. Her breath was sharp with alcohol.

“Hey, Alicia,” he said. “I’m going to go put on a record. Close your eyes but don’t fall asleep on me, okay?”

“Of course not,” she said.

He got up, put on a Rachael Yamagata record, then sat for two songs on the sofa. When he crept back into the bedroom, he was happy to find Alicia on her stomach, one leg kicked out from under the covers, and gently snoring.

He went back to the couch, opened up his laptop, and looked for a halfway point between Austin, Texas, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. There were some nice cabins near the Shawnee National Forest that seemed as good a spot as any. He texted Caroline:



I missed you tonight. Want to meet at Rolling Brook Cabins in Makanda, Illinois?





4





FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 11:15 P.M.


Caroline looked at the text from Ethan and wrote back: Yes. When?

You pick a date, he wrote. I’m always free.

Caroline opened up her calendar, although she pretty much knew her schedule. She’d be free the following weekend, and even though she had a ton of grading to do, she’d gotten a lot done tonight, and she could do extra all week. The thought of seeing Ethan face-to-face was tying her stomach into knots, but not necessarily in a bad way. She told herself that if it was awkward, that if they had no physical connection, or something, then at least they could stay friends. That much had been established.

Meet on Friday? she wrote.

I can do that, Ethan wrote back.

Caroline: It’s Halloween Weekend

Ethan: Is that a big weekend for you? Should we cancel?

Caroline: It’s a very big weekend for my students. Lots of sexy outfits.

Ethan: You invited to a party?

Caroline: Always. One of my colleagues always has something on the Saturday night around Halloween.

Ethan: Should we make it another weekend

Caroline: God, no. Seeing you will mean I don’t have to think about a costume.

Ethan: Slutty Sylvia Plath

Caroline: I did that two years ago. People would remember. What about you? Party?

Ethan: There’s a party I could go to but I’d much rather go to Illinois Caroline: I’m glad. What was going to be your costume?

Ethan: Down-and-out rock star. Same costume every year

They texted back and forth for another hour and by the end of it, Ethan had booked two nights at the cabin for the following Friday and Saturday nights.

Caroline got into bed and tried not to worry about seeing Ethan, and what he’d expect, and what it might feel like to be with him. Instead she worried about who she’d get to watch Estrella and Fable, and she worried about the dangers of traveling to a place that would put her and Ethan together, considering they were both on someone’s kill list. Maybe it was stupid to even attempt to get together. But part of her didn’t care, or at least didn’t care enough. The feeling she had when she was talking with Ethan, or even emailing or texting him, was so intense, so freeing, that she needed to see if that feeling would persist when they were face-to-face. She sometimes wondered if she’d ever truly been in love before. Her only serious boyfriend had been Alec Gresham, whom she’d met at Oxford, when she was there for her Fulbright. He’d moved to America for two years to be with her as she completed a PhD in Ithaca, and by the end of his stay, they had felt more like best friends than lovers. No, that wasn’t true. She loved him then, and she still loved him, in a way. But she had never felt about him the way she suddenly now felt about Ethan. A quote from Sense and Sensibility kept running through her head: “It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.” Was that what Ethan and she had—a disposition? Or maybe it was only their circumstance, but she needed to find out one way or another.