Folsom (End of Men, #1)(52)

“Please, please put it in…”

I glance out the window and lean my forehead against hers, still pumping against her. “We’re almost there.”

“Please…just once…”

I slide into her all the way and her legs stretch wide to take me. And then abruptly I pull out. Shuddering, I come on her stomach, sticky white against her olive skin. I clean her up and we kiss until we feel the car stop. I pull myself off of her and try to straighten our clothes, knocking heads and elbows as we do. When the door opens we fall out of the car laughing, and that’s when the lights start flashing.

We run for the restaurant, her hand in mine. The buzz of excitement I felt in the car is gone, replaced with dread. I’d made reservations and the owner had assured me I’d receive the privacy I requested, but somehow things like this always leak. We are ushered through the doors while the press is forced to stay outside. We’re shaken, but we have to gather ourselves quickly as we’re being ushered to the table.

“Apologies,” the owner says. He’s a stocky man with stains underneath his armpits, no doubt from the stress of arranging five reporters outside. I stare at him but say nothing. I have no doubt he told them we’d be here. Good publicity.

“Where would you like to eat tonight?” he asks quickly, catching my look. He shifts nervously and I have the urge to send my fist straight into his face. “We have a lovely Riviera, and there’s a charming bayou setting…”

Gwen gently places a hand on my arm and I’m jarred back to reality. We’re here, and she is hungry. I shake off my anger and smile down at her.

“I sent it ahead,” I tell him. A moment of confusion clouds his face and then he runs off to check. In the meantime, we are seated in the center of a white room, much like the SIMS room we just left. Seated across from each other I am given a view of Gwen’s face, her messier than usual hair. I smile lopsidedly; she catches me and I squeeze my eyes shut because I know what she’s going to ask.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re very pretty, Gwen. And your hair is crazy like you’ve been rolling around in the backseat of a car. And we smell like sex.”

She opens her mouth to say something, but the lights dim and flicker, and for a few seconds we’re left in darkness, and then we’re not.

When they turn back on we’re in a garden. The air is crisp and scented with the smell of cut grass and wet dirt. When I look up, wisteria hangs overhead and the scent of jasmine is cloying in the air. To our right is a white colonial with a wraparound porch and a bright blue door. It’s sunset and crickets are singing from somewhere nearby. Gwen’s head is straining around to see everything.

“Where is this?” Gwen asks, turning to me.

“It’s my childhood home.”

Her mouth makes a little “O” and she looks back toward the house, studying with a different set of eyes. Through the back window I can see the silhouette of a woman washing dishes at the sink: my mother.

“Is she—?

I nod.

“You wanted to show me…”

“I did.”

“I didn’t want to ask, but I wanted to know.” She looks down at her stomach even though there’s nothing to see. “For later…to tell him.”

“Her name was Greer. She was named after her mother who had lavender hair…” I point to the wisteria above us. “She loved wisteria because it reminded her of my grandmother.”

Loved. The odd thing of referring to your mother in past tense. I can still hear her laugh, feel the powdery softness of the skin on her arms. The wind blows and even though it’s a simulation it feels real. The leaves of a nearby tree rattle, and Gwen’s hair moves around her face like it has a life of its own. A server appears with two glasses of purple lemonade and a basket of rolls, placing it down between us.

“Your mother used to make these?” she asks, taking one from the basket.

“Yes. And this is Marionberry lemonade.” I nod at the drinks. “She was a good cook. But the day my father and brother died she stopped. It was just the two of us then.”

“What was she like?”

I don’t have to pause here because I know what my mother was like; I’ve turned her over in my mind so often that even my memories looked frayed and worn. “She was simple. Good. She didn’t ask for much. She put jam on everything: pizza crust, cereal, eggs…she salted her apples and wore socks to bed, even in the summer. We made fun of her for that. Sometimes my brother and I would sneak into their room in the middle of the night and pull her socks off while she slept.”

Gwen laughs.

“Did she know it was you doing that?”

“She figured it out. She didn’t say anything, but on the mornings she found herself without socks, she’d make liver and onions for breakfast. We hated liver and onions. We got the message loud and clear.”

“She sounds fun. Tell me something else.”

I search my memories for something else to tell Gwen. It feels good to talk about her.

“When she cleaned the house, she played Janis Joplin as loud as she could. If we didn’t help, she’d chase us with a spray bottle of cleaning solution and squirt us with it. When my brother and father died, all of that stopped. She withered away like it was her fault.”