Leaving the Comfort Cafe (17 page)

“We all hurt. We all get hurt. My hurt is nothing special.”

“You’ve got to tell me about Cornell.”

“Austin,” her voice was strangely serious, “I need to know that you’re not going to push me on this. I mean, who exactly do you want me to be for you?”

“No one. I just want you to be yourself.”

She gave a weak laugh. “Which self is that?”

“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. I find it hard to believe that a scholarship to Cornell was the product of luck.”

“Yep.” She sighed. “That’s also how I ended up in Conyers. Dumb luck.”

“Well thank God for dumb luck.”

He kissed her long and full on the lips. Blythe slid her arms around his neck, and Austin felt like he was not in the room, not in the small town of Conyers, but that he was really in a movie with a glorious actress, and hundreds of people were marveling at their beauty on the silver screen. Her lips sparked with the ring of fireworks, but also with the comfort of a warm bath.

“I have to get up early in the morning,” she said, almost as an after thought.

“All right.”

“But I don’t want you to leave.” She eased into his chest and kissed him deeply.

“I don’t have to leave.”

“Just stay a little while longer.” She lay beside him on the couch.

“I’ll stay as long as you want.” She edged over to him like she was getting comfortable in a bathtub—not enough room to completely stretch out, but just enough to fall easily into the crook of his arm.

“My nephew.” The words curled around the air like high-octane nicotine puffs. “My nephew, Charles—Chas, we call him—got burned. Pretty bad. On his face and hands. I just know the other kids are going to make fun of him when he starts school. It’s going to be so scary for him.”

Austin stroked her hair in the same way you would stroke a cat to encourage it to purr. “How did it happen?” he asked in the gentlest voice he could conjure.

“It doesn’t matter how. All that matters was I was left in charge of him when it did. All that matters is that I was the one who had to get him to the hospital. I freaked, Austin. I panicked. I could tell when I looked into Chas’ eyes. He expected me to be calm, collected, his smart, Ivy League Aunt Blythe. Instead, he saw fear. He saw panic. I could tell by looking at him, he thought that he was dying. That made it worse. He looked at me, and instead of comfort, he thought he was dying.”

“Anyone could panic in a situation like that.”

“Anyone could,” she said. “It could have happened to anyone. Accidents happen all the time. But it didn’t happen to anyone. It happened to me. And that’s what makes all difference.”

“Does your family still hold it against you?”

“I do. That’s all that matters.”

Her eyes were growing droopy, as if the hours of sass she had spread around the café were slowly taking their toll on her. She never finished her sentence. She breathed deeper, slower and more deliberate. He started to rise from the couch to change the CD, but realized she had fallen asleep in his arms. He shifted his weight to give her more room.

He would take her to the café in the morning. But now, he pulled her hair away from her face and kissed her again. The evening faded. The night arrived. Then it was tomorrow. And tomorrow. And it was tomorrow, once again.

The next morning, Austin made sure Blythe was awake and ready to go to the café before he headed to Town Hall. Austin came to the Comfort Café for lunch, taking his usual table by the corner—Blythe’s table—her lips still fresh on his mind. She brought so many things fresh to his mind, the way her hair smelled like a strange combination of coconuts and coffee, the way her fingernail polish changed color almost by the hour, and the way there was something phenomenally bright and intelligent hidden just behind her powerfully evocative eyes, as if her story was a secret only they could share.

These things, coupled with the newfound boldness of his comic drawings in the second drawer kindled another idea. He tried to talk himself out of it several times, once even in front of the mirror as he was shaving. He nicked himself and had to use a tuft of toilet paper to stop the bleeding. He would have walked into the office with the white dandruff dancing on his face if it weren’t for a random glance in the rearview mirror of his truck.

“What would you think of taking a trip?” Austin asked. Blythe took her break any time that Austin came into the restaurant, but Austin had no desire for her, or himself, to fall out of the graces of the café’s matriarch and Blythe’s boss.

“A trip?” Blythe tossed her head from side to side, as if the thought had to roll around in her head for a while. “Where?”

“I dunno. Somewhere you’ve always wanted to go. Somewhere we can just take a break and hang out. Someplace that wouldn’t be Conyers.”

“You mean there are places out there other than Conyers?”

Austin laughed. “You have vacation time, don’t you?”

“I—I don’t get a vacation,” Blythe stammered.

“Of course you get a vacation. Everybody gets a vacation.”

“Even the town manager?”

“Especially.” Austin grinned. “Especially the town manager.”

She paused. He knew she was going to say yes, but for some reason really wanted him to work for it. They played games like this sometimes. It’s only when you really like someone that you can coyly turn your gaze to the half-empty salt shakers when all you really want to do is wrap your arms around them until you can forget the entire world.

“Well?” He took a sip of his coffee, which was about due for a refill.

“I dunno.” She smiled playfully. “And leave all of this?” She gestured to the ketchup bottle.

Grandma came over to the table.

“Hey, Grandma,” Austin called. “Do you think you can do without Blythe for a weekend, or maybe longer?”

“Yes, yes, dear God, yes,” she barked.

“So you wouldn’t mind if I took her away for a long weekend?”

“I wouldn’t mind if you took her away, period.”

Austin turned to Blythe. “I can almost feel the love,” he said.

“Don’t get me wrong. I want to go. I really, really want to go. It’s just that…”

“Well?”

“I can’t afford—”

“No one’s asking you to pay. Besides, we could just charge it up to the Suffolk County Library.”

“Your eyes.” Blythe gazed right through him.

“What? Is there something in them?”

“This is the first time I have ever seen your eyes.”

“You see my eyes every day,” he said.

“Yeah, but I’ve never seen them smile.”

Austin felt he was seeing with his eyes for the first time. The world didn’t look as dark as it once did. Conyers wasn’t where he wanted to retire, but it wasn’t a mess of swamps and circumstance and mired misery. Everything seemed a little lighter, like it had all had this sticky film across it, and he was just now seeing the town all spit-polished just like it must have been when it was first built. All new, pristine and full of possibilities.

But the trip was more than a romantic weekend getaway. Austin had the first draft of his new graphic novel completed. He wanted to wait for the right time to show Blythe the character she inspired. The characters Conyers inspired.

“So…” He reached across the table and took her hand. He was no longer shy about taking her hand in public. In fact, sometimes he did it just to irk people, particularly the mayor. He always felt like he was in seventh grade when he took her hand and folded her fingers—and whatever God-awful nail polish she had on them—in his. He felt like he should have been asking her if she would go with him to the student body dance.

She leaned closer to his face and whispered, as if she were plotting some brilliant criminal scheme. “Let’s get out of town.”

“Great, what looks good for you?”

“I think Grandma’ll be glad to get a break from me any time you want to take me away.” She raised her voice. “You hear that, Grandma! My present to you this year is I’m going away for a weekend.”

“Maybe longer,” Austin said.

“Maybe longer,” Blythe added.

“Go away for the whole month, as far as I’m concerned,” she lovingly retorted in their daily give-and-take. “I can run this place without you.”

“Yeah, but not as well,” Blythe grinned.

“So, where will we go?” Austin asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve always wanted—Nah, you pick the place.”

“No. Tell me.”

“You know where I want to go. The wild ponies on the Outer Banks.”

“Ocracoke?”

“Yeah. We can even rent kayaks and paddle around the sound.”

“We’ll go see the ponies.”

She was nearly giggling, and with his newly improved, even greener eyes, Austin saw a glimpse of that teenager she used to be. So precocious, so full of promise. “There are so many places I’d like to go.”

“Well, let’s hit all of them. Not at once, but maybe a couple of times a year. Maybe every other month.”

“Can the town live without you that long?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

“You know, my cousin owns a gallery in Charleston. He says it’s a great town. You know they even have ghost tours?” Her eyes grew wide. “I always wanted to see his art gallery. You know, maybe get a dose of inspiration.”

“Well, let’s make a list then. Charleston can be after Ocracoke.”

She acted like a princess who had been handed the keys to the castle and couldn’t believe that this wonderful place with all these rooms and servants was really hers.

“I’ll go online to see if there are any specials or anything going on,” she said.

“Go. I’ll depend on you to set the itinerary.”

She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Grandma barked for Blythe to put on another fresh pot of coffee, and Blythe bounced back to the kitchen.

What happened to that teenager? Where did she go?

She came by with a fresh brew of coffee. She was pouring Austin a cup when the color suddenly drained from her face. She stared out the window and looked as if she might become violently ill. She licked her lips together several times like you generally do when you’re about to throw up. She fixed her gaze on a man who entered the café. Austin had not seen him around town before.

Blythe’s hands quaked, causing her to spill Austin’s coffee and drop the entire coffee decanter, shattering it into a thousand pieces and spewing steaming hot liquid on her feet. She darted into the kitchen before Austin could ask if she was okay.

The man, dressed in a clean, neatly pressed, blue golf shirt and Dockers peered around the front of the restaurant, as if looking for someone. Austin realized Blythe was not coming out of the kitchen. Grandma had heard the shattering glass and scattered whispers of the morning crowd. She approached the gentleman—her confident swagger was not intimidated by his broad shoulders and chiseled face.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Is Blythe here?”

“She got off work early. Left out the back.”

“Where did she go?” he asked.

“Hellifiknow.”

“Give her a message for me?”

“Give her a message for yourself.”

“Tell her Nate came by.”

“Nate who?”

“Nate Shelley. I’m her brother.”

Here Grandma cowered with a glare that bordered on demonic. “That’s not so. Blythe’s brother is dead. Died on I-sixty-four when that tanker overturned three years ago.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” he said. “The last town I went to, she said I had died of the hanta virus.”

“Order or leave,” she said.

He was about to head for the door when Austin’s pale hand made a sweeping motion to the seat beside him. “Over here,” Austin said. “I’ll get the message to her.”

“And who are you?”

“I’m her boyfriend.”
Did I say that out loud? Is that what I am now?

“Coffee, black.” Nate gestured at Grandma as he eased into the chair across from Austin.

“And an order of scrambled eggs and hash browns,” Austin added, not because he wanted anything to eat, but because he thought increasing the bill would ease Grandma’s stinging glare.

“And you’re Blythe’s boyfriend?”

“Austin.” He started to shake her brother’s hand, but felt his gesture would not be welcomed. “Austin Parker.”

“Nate,” he nodded. “Nathaniel Ethan Shelley.”

“So, I understand you’re dead.”

Nate gave a tired, dry laugh, as if he were trying to suck in enough air to get through the next sentence. “Yep,” Nate said. “Let’s see, thus far, I’ve had the usual variety of traffic accidents, HIV, fallen off an

overlook on the Parkway, disappeared after a hiking trip, committed suicide, gone off to live in a hippie colony, and—my personal favorite—a victim of some disease that makes your dick fall off.”

Austin raised his eyebrows. “You’re kidding.”

“Yeah, I know. But the hanta virus. That’s a good one. I got to give her credit for the creativity.”

“For the record, I never thought you were really dead.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” he said. “Of course, I guess when you die seven or eight different times you begin to take what Blythe says with a grain of salt.”

“Yeah, Blythe’s a creative one, alright,” Austin said. “Probably what helped her get into Cornell.”
Maybe he’ll tell me. Just a hint. That’s all I’m looking for. Just a hint.

“If she ever went. Made us all sick. Has a great opportunity and just pisses it away because she can’t get therapy and get over it. It sucks, but we all got to move on, you know. We all got to move on.”

Maybe that’s what Kerry was trying to tell me when she moved to New York. We’ve all got to move on. That’s what Blythe is…I’m moving on…now she needs to…

“You wouldn’t think it would be that easy to hide in North Carolina,” Nate continued. “I’ve been following her around the whole darn state. Just a fluke that I knew she was here. Went to a conference in Raleigh and someone was from Conyers and talking about this homemade raspberry pie and this flaky waitress who attacked a cashier at the Mega Shoppe.” He took a sip of his coffee. “It wasn’t too difficult to put two and two together.”

“What do you want me to tell her?”