Kiss Me Hard Before You Go (33 page)

***

Evie pulled the lid off of the cake stand and cut two slices of Coke cake. “Katie’s trying her hand at baking,” she said, placing the slices on plates. She slid a plate his way.

He bit into his slice and smiled. “It’s good.”

Evie agreed and handed him a bottle of Coke. “Here. To wash it down with,” she said.

He took a sip and swallowed.

“Have you thought more about what I said?” she asked.

“What? That I’m an expert kisser or that my eyes are dreamy?”

She shot him a look.

“I’ve thought about it, and Evie, as much as I want to stay, it wouldn’t be right for me to live off of you.”

“You wouldn’t be living off of me. I told you I’d put you to work,” she said.

He sighed. “And where would I stay? Here? The town would talk.”

“Who cares what the town says. And when did you become a nanny panny?”

“Nanny panny?” he repeated and gave her a peculiar look. “You mean, namby pamby?”

“Namby pamby, nanny panny, either way, you’re acting like one if you’re worrying about what the town thinks.”

He lay his hand on hers. “I just don’t want people saying bad things about you. Me I can handle, you, you’re a different story.”

“I can handle a few bad choice words, Finch. You think I didn’t hear people talking when my mom left, or when Daddy came up with some of his hair brained schemes? I’m tougher than you think,” she said. “Besides, you make it sound scandalous. You’d just be staying here, not like we’d be shacking up.”

“You’re my girlfriend, Evie, what else would you call it?”

Evie formed a slight smile hearing him call her his girlfriend.

“People in a town this size in the middle of the Bible belt aren’t going to see it any other way,” he said.

“They’re all...”

“Stupid heads,” he interrupted, finishing her sentence. He laughed and then his lips cast down. “You’re just stretching, reaching for a way to make me stay, and believe me, a huge part of me wants to forget everything, all my responsibilities and the life I know, and take you up on your offer. But I can’t,” he said.

“You can’t because you’re afraid,” she said, and he couldn’t argue that. “I am too, you know,” she whispered. “Every single day since my daddy’s been gone.”

“You’re tough, Evie. I’ve never met anyone stronger than you.”

“The offer still stands.”

“And my answer is still the same. Can’t we drop this topic for tonight and just enjoy each other with the time we’ve got left?”

Evie looked up at the clock, seeing the hands steadily moving. Time was closing in on them, and she knew Finch was as pig-headed as she was. She wasn’t going to talk him into anything. “Okay,” she finally agreed.

***

Finch rose early. He stood over Evie, watching her sleep peacefully, and felt a sharp pain to his heart. He’d miss this, this feeling of bliss that life had given him this summer. Never before in his life had he ever been so content, so happy. He poked her gently and whispered, “I have to go.”

She opened her eyes and peeked out the window, seeing the sun hadn’t even risen yet. “Right now?”

“We’ve gotta take everything down, and it’ll take a while,” he said.

She sat up and peered up at him. “At least have breakfast with me.” She yawned and stretched her arms high above her head.

“Okay,” he agreed. “But then I have to go.”

“Pour more lemon juice on that paper cut will you,” she said sarcastically.

***

They finished their breakfast, and Katie had woken early to join them. “Promise you’ll not forget about us farm girls,” she said to him.

“I could never forget about you farm girls,” he said.

She gave him a tight side hug and patted him on the back. “You’re a good egg, Finch Mills,” she said.

He gave her a warm smile. “Take care of yourself and that baby of yours.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Evie said to him.

They made their way out to the front porch, and the sun had just started to rise above the horizon. Patches of orange and blue filled the skyline, and a rooster’s crow echoed into the morning air.

Tripod hobbled to Finch, begging for a pat, and he bent down to pet him a few times. Then he stood up, looking at Evie. She was fighting back tears and promised herself she wouldn’t be a sniffling mess when he left.

“I’ll call you, and I’ll write as often as I can,” he said, holding her.

“And you’ll come back when you’re done on the circuit, right?”

“Yep,” he said with a reassuring nod.

She looked up at him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Kiss me soft before you go.”

“Only namby pamby’s kiss soft, Evie,” he said, mocking her.

“Fine. Kiss me hard before you go,” she said in a challenging tone.

“You asked for it,” he said.

His lips smashed against her parted lips, and he brought her closer to him, kissing her violently with a sense of urgency. It was careless, reckless, and messy, and Evie yearned for more. She wanted more of him. When he would try to pull away, she tugged on his shirt, moving him back to her, and she kissed him harder and with more passion, her hands roaming all over him.

He reluctantly pulled away from her and took each of her hands, kissing her on the finger tips. “Evie,” he said as if drugged. “You can’t kiss me like that and expect me to leave.”

She lay her head against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. “Then don’t.”

“I have to,” he said, and it hurt to say those words. He let go of her and looked down into her blue eyes.

She swore she wouldn’t cry, and so help her, she was trying, but her damn eyes were welling up with tears faster than a flash flood.

“Don’t cry,” he said, and he ached to see her so sad.

“I’m not,” she lied, sniffling. “I’ve just got something in my eyes.”

He laughed with a sad expression and brought her to him, kissing her on the forehead and then letting her go. “I’ll call you when we’re set up. Promise.”

Chapter 32

As the days passed, Evie attempted to go back to her old routine. She got up at the crack of dawn to take care of the pregnant heifers and then the calves and spent the rest of her time trying to occupy herself by taking care of the property. She repaired what she could without resources, funds or people.

She felt the void – her daddy was gone, and Finch, and that carnival that she used to hate. Now she missed it. She’d give anything to smell a funnel cake or hear that annoying music.

The town hadn’t been so kind, and McDaniels had his way, inciting some lemmings in his quest to make sure the carnival left Haines as soon as possible. She received her cash payment from Kip – it was less than she anticipated, but with the fire and the accident, business had come to a near dead stop.

“Don’t know if we’ll be back next year,” he told Evie.

“I figured,” she said, sticking the stack of bills in the front pocket of her overalls.

“Maybe being gone a year will make people forget,” he said.

“Maybe so,” she said.

“We’ll give it some time and see how it goes...” his voice trailed off, and he offered no further promises.

But she knew—they were probably gone for good which meant no more extra income and more importantly, no more Finch. He called her his girlfriend and promised to write and to call, and so far his word was good as gold. Each night at precisely the same time – nine thirty – he called her, and they talked as long as he had dimes, and he had a stack of them.

“I wrote you a letter today,” he told her one night.

“Oh yeah, what’d it say?” She lay on her couch with her right leg crossed over the left, and the phone cord stretched all the way from the kitchen to the living room.

“You’ll have to wait to see,” he said.

She sighed. “I wish I could write you.”

“I don’t stay in a town long enough, Evie,” he said sadly. He wished he could receive letters from her, but with his vagabond lifestyle, he’d never receive them. “What would you say? If you wrote me?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Sure you do. What would you say?” He leaned against the glass in the phone booth, trying to stay dry. It was raining buckets outside, but that didn’t stop him from driving to that phone booth in the crappy town where the carnival was.

“I guess I’d say Dear Finch,” she started.

“And?” He smiled at the anticipation.

“This is embarrassing,” she admitted, blushing.

“It shouldn’t be.”

“Well... it is. Maybe if I had it written I could just read it?”

“Then do it. Tomorrow night. Read me the letter you can’t send,” he said.

She bit on her lip and breathed. “I can’t promise you anything good.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” he said.

***

He called her the next night a few minutes late, explaining that he got stuck behind an old driver who he guessed couldn’t see too well at night considering that he swerved the entire time and kept slamming on his brakes.

“So,” he started, dying to hear what she would say. He had thought about it all day. All damn day.

She blushed again. “You have to promise not to laugh,” she said.

“I can’t do that,” he said. “You make me laugh.”

“But this isn’t funny,” she said.

“But your Evieism’s make me laugh,” he defended.

“Finch,” she whined.

“Okay. I promise.” He crossed his fingers as he said it.

“Dear Finch,” she started.

“That has a nice ring to it,” he interrupted.

“Shh,” she said. “Are you going to let me read this or not?”

“Go on.”

She held the notebook paper in her shaking hand, unsure why she was so nervous. “Dear Finch,” she repeated. “I woke up this morning, thinking it was time to clean Daddy’s room. I’ve had the door closed for a while, and thought if I kept it that way, he wouldn’t be gone. But the more I kept passing that shut door, the more my heart hurt. It just reminded me he was gone.” She cleared her throat, feeling the tears forming.

“It took me a few hours to get up the nerve to open the door, and once I did, I shut it as quickly as I had opened it and walked away,” she said. “It took me a while, but I came back to his room, and finally resolved to open the door and go on inside. Everything was the same – his bed was unmade, his dirty clothes were in a laundry basket near the door, and I could smell him, Finch. Like he was there.”

Finch didn’t say anything. The operator interrupted requesting another dime be put in and Finch added two just to shut her up.

“And I just sat there, smelling him, and seeing everything in that room that was a part of him, and I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it,” she said with a strained voice. “Katie came in and saw me crying, and she knew just what to say and do because best friends are like soul sisters – she just knew. And we took things real slow. I changed his sheets and remade his bed, and washed his dirty clothes. But I couldn’t get rid of anything. Not yet, anyway. It would just seem wrong, but you know what’s strange?”

“What?” he asked quietly, forgetting that she was reading from her letter.

“It helped. It really helped to go in there and do what I did,” she said and continued. “That was how I spent most of my day with the exception of thinking about you. You cross my mind at the most peculiar times, Finch Mills. When I’m cleaning dishes, or bottle feeding the calves, or riding on my ATV. I see your face everywhere. I’m not going to spend the rest of this letter writing how much I miss you because I think you know. If I’m seeing you outside of my dreams, then you know. Love, Evie,” she said and took a deep breath. She lay the letter in her lap and then sat on her shaking hands.

“I liked that Evie Barnes,” he said with a wide smile. He placed his hand to his chest, feeling his heart beating quicker. “I liked that a lot.”

***

Evie received Finch’s letter the next day. She ripped the envelope open and ran up the stairs, closing the door behind her to read it in private. She knew she was being silly, like those school girls with crushes, but this was more than a crush, it was something deeper and more profound, grown-up and delightful. She put a Kiss album on the record player and pointed the needle to the song, “Beth,” one of Finch’s favorites. She bought the record after Finch left town and played it every night just to think of him.

She lay down on her bed, propping herself up against the pillow, and unfolded the notebook paper.

Dear Evie
,

I’m in some town (can’t even remember the name it’s that unmemorable) outside of Greensboro, North Carolina, and one of the largest cigarette factories is a few miles away. You know how I love the smell of cigarette smoke. All the carnies are having a field day, and the stench of cigarette smoke is everywhere. Everyone here smokes, even the kids. I swear I saw a toddler holding a cigarette. I want to get out of this dive, but we’ve got a few more days here.

I woke up this morning and realized something - I miss hearing the cows. They grew on me. Who thought a “citified” guy like me would say such a thing? I know you’re probably glaring at me now. You know I always say these things on purpose because it’s so much fun to get a rise out of you. Your face turns beet red and that little nose of yours scrunches up.

I miss you, Evie. There, I said it. Take it how you want, but I miss you more than you’ll ever know, and sometimes I kick myself and call myself a “stupid head” for not staying there with you because you’re all I ever think about. Well... you and those cows of yours.

I’ll talk to you tonight. Same time. Nine thirty at night has become my favorite time of day.

Finch

Evie reread the letter three more times before she folded it into a neat square and placed it in her top dresser drawer, safe and sound. Within a couple of weeks, her dresser drawer was lined with identical squares – each and every one of them was from Finch.