The Leaving(43)

“Tarpon Springs.” She nodded. “We’ll be there in time for lunch.”

They suffered through beach traffic, then followed signs for Tam pa, Sarasota, Orlando, and something about leaving town—something about the promise of other places—seemed to lift a weight the size of a large stone off Lucas’s chest.

He wished he’d told Scarlett everything when he’d told her about the tattoo.

Wished he’d told her about the gun.

Wished he’d told her about . . .


AVERY. THE RV. STANDING SO CLOSE. ON HER KNEES. ELBOWS TOUCHING. ELECTRIC.


No, maybe not that.

How had she learned how to drive?

Had he?

There was no point in asking; she wouldn’t know.

Her mother’s car’s rearview mirror was loaded up with junk. A string of shiny green shamrocks caught the light of the sun. A pair of fuzzy dice entwined with them. An air freshener shaped like an orange, with two green leaves, couldn’t do much to fight the smell of cigarettes.

They’d kept the windows down as long as they could, but when they hit the main highway, they had to close up.

She turned the radio on and scanned the stations and listened to a handful of songs for a few seconds each. “I don’t know any of these songs,” she said. “You?”

“No,” he said.

“Do you think we just never listened to music? Or did we somehow just forget that, too?”

“I don’t know.”

“And why do I know how to drive? It seems like if we could drive we could . . . leave. Or escape.”

“Maybe we didn’t want to escape,” he said. “Maybe we thought wherever we were was where we were supposed to be.”

“We must have.”

“Who have you told?” he said. “About Anchor Beach?”

“No one,” she said. “I thought we should go there first. I don’t trust anyone. Except you. Is that weird?”

He shook his head. “Not to me.”

“Who have you told?” she asked. “About the book. About Orlean.”

“Just my brother,” he said. “His girlfriend.”

A sign for the Ringling Brothers Circus Museum conjured the image of a large statue of an elephant; Lucas imagined figures made out of wood or plastic perched on trapeze bars overhead. He hoped there’d be a big tent, a photo opportunity where you could put your face into a ring-master’s body, with a super tall hat atop it. Or maybe a midway, with funhouse mirrors, where he and Scarlett could stand side by side and be small and tall and warped like he felt inside now that he’d lied to her about Avery.

His guilt ticked up with the car’s odometer, increasing with each mile of the long drive.

And yet he kept his mouth shut.

Finally, the exit for Tarpon Springs came up and they drove down a long four-lane road lined with fast-food restaurants and motels with hourly and day rates posted on big white boards with black letters.

At a light, Scarlett turned to him and they shared a look that meant things he couldn’t articulate but mostly that they were a team. He was becoming increasingly sure that they had been in love.

And still were?

Could be again?

Had he given her the penny?

Been there with her?




HIS HANDS. HER HAIR. HER MOUTH. HER NECK.

MEMORY? FANTASY? SOURCE ERROR?




Once?

More than once?

But first this.

Daniel Orlean.

“Where do we start?” Scarlett had just parked in a municipal lot and they were heading for the main street through town.

At the top of it, an old boat sat in a canal with a display out front about the town’s history as a sponge-fishing hub. Lucas stepped up to an antique scuba suit on display and felt like he knew what the bends felt like; he’d been plunged deep into The Leaving and was now coming up out of it and into the light too quickly, without guidance. A thick rope net full of yellowed sea sponges made him wonder what his brain looked like, with holes in it that hadn’t turned up on his MRI. Holes where memories should have been.

Scarlett pointed down the road. The sign on a corner building said “McHale’s” beside a shamrock. Unlit neon signs in the window promised Miller High Life and Rolling Rock. Three empty kegs formed a line by the side door.

“Looks pretty dive-y to me.” Lucas said.


No one there knew Orlean.


No one at the next place, either.


They were on their fourth bar, and Lucas was thinking it was just about time to either give up or change strategies altogether when the bartender met eyes with him. “Sure! I remember Danny.”





AVERY



She’d forgotten entirely about Sam’s cousin’s wedding. So when Sam had called that morning and asked her if she’d come with him to pick up his suit “for later,” she’d panicked and choked and couldn’t think of an excuse. So here they were, in Men’s Wearhouse. If she’d ever been to a more depressing place, she couldn’t remember it.

Rows and rows of suits. All lined up like soldiers in some sleeping army that might at any moment come to life and attack—maybe hit her over the head with a briefcase or strangle her with neckties.