Leaving the Comfort Cafe (22 page)

“What?”

“That was Blythe.”

“Blythe? The college reunion Blythe?” Kerry was shocked.

“I felt like I had to tell you.”

“What, is she stalking you now?

“I don’t think—”

“She’s stalking you,” Kerry said. She seemed genuinely afraid, as if living in New York had taught her not only that these things do happen and they do happen to people you know, but that it is not at all unusual when they do happen.

“Blythe’s not like that. She’s—”

“And all that time she was checking me out and you never told me. Does she know where I live? Does she know where we are staying?”

“Kerry, really, she’s not like that.”

“You’re saying she wouldn’t slash my tires or play some cruel trick on me?”

“Well, she might do that, but she wouldn’t actually hurt anyone…”

“I don’t believe this.” Kerry’s walk picked up speed until she was nearly jogging. “Did you know she was going to be here? Is that why you didn’t want to be near me on the carriage?”

“No. No, I mean, things—it just didn’t feel right.”

“You have changed. You’ve changed a lot.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Austin said it louder than he expected, and a few pedestrians stopped to stare.

Kerry stopped her frantic pace and sighed. “I just want to have what we did back in grad school.”

“What did we have back in college? Because I don’t know. I was spinning in circles thinking about you, and then I finally meet someone, and you come down out of the blue and expect me to be instantly head over heels with you?”

“You were always someone who understood me as an artist. Who cared about everybody. Who was…who was…”

“Who was safe? Someone you didn’t have to worry about getting the wrong impression? Someone who would be the designated driver?”

“You were safe, but not like that.”

“Let me guess. I was that guy you figured, well, if I turn forty, and I’ve not found anyone, I can just call up Austin. He’ll still be available. Then he and I can settle down together. It’s not like he’ll have anyone. And even if he does, he’ll drop her for me.”

“I just wanted to catch up with you. I heard about you at the class reunion. Okay, yes, I was jealous, I’ll admit. You were always like a big brother to me, and then, when I found out you were with that woman, it was like maybe I’d been mistaken. Maybe you weren’t like a big brother. Maybe you were the one, and I let you slip through my fingers. New York is so lonely, Austin.”

“But all I heard about was your great friends, your gallery openings.”

“I have a lot of people all around me, but New York is still very lonely.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re lonely. But moving to Charleston, to North Carolina, or even, even to Conyers won’t change any of that.”

“You’ve changed.” She said it almost as a whisper.

“I’ve not changed,” he said. “This is who I am, this is always who I have been. I just never had the courage to show anyone. And no one ever had the patience to bring it out of me.”

“Until now.”

“Until now.”

Kerry blinked her eyes several times; they were getting moist. She wasn’t crying, but Austin could tell that if he didn’t watch his next words carefully, he might have to be ministering to a bawling mass of tangled blonde hair on the streets of Charleston.

“If you’re happy, and this is what you want, I can accept that, I can be happy for that,” Kerry said. “You’ve always deserved the best, but…”

“But?” They walked over to a bench and sat down.

“But her?”

“What about her?”

“She’s, well, she’s the last person I pictured you with.”

“Why?”

“She’s kind of flaky, isn’t she? I mean, from what Luke told me. And seeing her stalk you in that art gallery, she just doesn’t seem, well, grounded in reality.”

“She’s got her moments. I’m not going to lie, she’s pretty flaky at times. But she finds joy in the strangest things, like going to a supermarket or buying silky underwear.”

Kerry glared.

Okay, the underwear thing was not a good line. Recover.

“My point is,” Austin continued, “it’s not the job or the pay or anything that makes me stay in Conyers. It’s her. She has taken this dreary, hot, sticky, mosquito-ridden North Carolina swampland and turned it into someplace I could stay forever.”

“I’m glad this girl was able to give you what you wanted.”

“She didn’t give me what I wanted,” Austin said. “She gave me what I needed. She gave me back myself. Now I have to help her. She’s got some stuff going on.”

“Great. You’re turning me down not only for a ditz, but a ditz with baggage. Austin, are you listening to yourself?”

Swiftly and suddenly, Austin realized something else Blythe had given him. It rose inside him like an ocean, and he had to filter it. He realized that sometimes the most difficult things were necessary if you cared about someone, whether a friend or lover.

“Frankly, Kerry, I wish you could see yourself.”

“What?”

Austin stood up, grabbed her hands and pulled her off from the bench. He stretched her arms apart, almost as if he was trying to get a good look at her chest. “Have you looked at yourself?” Austin tried to sound gentle, but the words spat out a force of their own. “Dear God, Kerry, what has happened to you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Talking about? Do you own a freakin’ mirror? Look! If you weren’t wearing a shirt, I could see your ribs.”

“You think I’m some kind of basket case? You think I’m one of those models that gets all mental and barfs up her food?”

“I think you don’t look well.”

“I’m busy, the gallery, I’ve got this high metabolism, I eat, you’ve seen me eat!”

“One weekend in Charleston isn’t going to convince me of anything.”

“This is the game you play? You can’t have what you want, so you start criticizing me? You don’t love me so you want to just make my problems even worse?”

“Kerry, it’s because you are my friend, and it is because I love you I had to say something. I’m never going to let anyone go out of my life again without letting them know I care about them. Without letting them know that grace is plenty, and without letting them know that their cup overflows with it.”

She jerked her arms to her side. An angry tear started down her cheek and she quickly brushed it away.

“I just thought,” she stammered, “I mean, I love you, Austin!”

“No, you don’t. You don’t even love yourself. Until you get that straightened out, you can’t love anyone.”

She sat down on the bench again, rubbing her eyes, making it look as if her allergies were flaring up. Austin sat beside her and gingerly touched her shoulder. “Kerry, this is serious stuff. You’ve got to get help.”

“Well, you’re the only one who seems to have a problem with this. Everyone thinks I look great, and I won’t let you tear me down.”

“Who are these people who think you look great, and what in the hell is the matter with them? You don’t look great, Kerry, you don’t. You look like you’re three steps away from being in a concentration camp. If they are your friends, they’d tell you that.”

He let the words seep in for a while. It was a technique he’d seen Blythe master.

“Maybe it would be a good idea to come home for a while. I mean, you’re still pretty close with your folks.”

“So should I just leave a note in the gallery telling everyone I’ve had a nervous breakdown or something?”

“Just tell them you’re taking a vacation. I want you to promise me you’ll get this taken care of. I don’t know what’s happened, but I don’t like what it’s done to you. Promise me you’ll get help for this.”

“I don’t owe you any promises.” She got off the bench and walked toward the hotel.

And Austin let her.

It went without saying that Austin would not follow Kerry to the hotel room. She was so upset she might actually be throwing up, albeit maybe for entirely different reasons.

Instead, he meandered down the streets, passing by the umpteenth historic church, passing by a horse and carriage he thought was Rhett, but upon closer examination, he found that the horse was without Rhett’s distinctive white blaze. There was a clothing store, which usually didn’t interest Austin, except they had this perfectly bohemian outfit in the window, a green peasant top with silk brocade printed skirt that would be perfect for Blythe. He went inside and bought the matching set. He thought it was her size, but just to be safe, and remembering her black blouse from earlier that day, he bought her a top that was fairly generous in the bust.

He hadn’t really thought about where he was going to sleep that night. He was thinking about going back to the hotel after a while, allowing enough time to ensure Kerry would be asleep, and then just sneak into his bed while she was oblivious. He would take her to the airport in the morning.

He walked into the hotel lobby, through the circular revolving doors he’d loved as a child but secretly feared as an adult, proudly holding the decorative shopping bag in his left hand, as if to showcase to the patrons in the lobby that not only did he have someone special, but he’d bought something for her, something that would please her.

But unfortunately, this someone was not waiting for him in the hotel room. He pressed the elevator button. At the front desk, a guest was complaining about the size of the bathrooms, and someone was asking the concierge about how to get to Poogan’s Porch and whether or not they took reservations.

“I’m sorry.” The voice was unexpected, but familiar.

He whirled around. Blythe was seated in one of the cushy hotel chairs—-the kind that always look comfortable but never, never are. She was still wearing the black outfit she had on earlier, and it gave her this Audrey Hepburnesque look, as if she had suddenly walked off of a movie set and just happened to find herself in the lobby.

“For what?” Austin asked.

“I didn’t realize she was in bad shape.”

“You noticed?”

“How couldn’t you? I’ve seen bigger toothpicks. Man, that chick needs a good head shrinker. No offense.”

“None taken. In fact, I all but told her that today.”

“Good. I’m proud of you.”

“Blythe, I’m so, so sorry. It was wrong of me to come here with Kerry, you have every right to be angry with me.”

“I am angry with you. I originally wanted to come down here, find what floor you were on, and then burn some microwave popcorn so the smoke alarm would go off and you’d have to enter the street in your boxers.”

“But you didn’t.”

“But I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“Frankly, when I saw Kerry, it wasn’t any fun. And talking to her, I mean, she knows a lot about art, but she just doesn’t feel it. Do you know what I’m saying? Dylan says that’s the biggest problem about artists. They think that to be famous, they have to be stuck on themselves and get everyone to like them. But really, they only have to let themselves speak through their art. If they are being true to that, then people will like it. She just seemed so sad. It’s no fun to be mean to someone like that. It just isn’t. And it isn’t necessary. They’re usually miserable enough as they are.”

“Do you want to get a drink?”

“More than you could ever possibly imagine.”

With its soft burgundy carpet, dark cherry furnishings and soft piano music, the hotel bar was classy enough to not feel like a pickup lounge, but not so classy that Austin felt uncomfortable being without a tie. Blythe ordered an amaretto sour. Austin ordered a Tom Collins, though he normally didn’t have a taste for liquor.

“I got something for you,” he said anxiously, almost like a child who couldn’t wait to give his mother one of those plaster plates with his handprint on it for Mother’s Day.

Blythe held it against her. “I love it!” She was excited but refined. “You know me so well. You know what I like.”

“Thanks. I thought it would go well with your eyes. And the humble pie I have to eat.”

“I know. Don’t think you’re out of the doghouse yet. You’re just lucky Kerry’s so darn pathetic, or I’d snap her like a twig.”

“You don’t have to pretend anymore, Blythe. You’re stuck with me. Whether you like it or not.”

“I like it. God knows you have your moments, but overall, I like it.” She ran her finger along the rim of her glass and motioned for the bartender to bring her another amaretto sour. “In a way, I’m just as malnourished as Kerry. I’ve been letting this thing with Chas keep me from doing what I want. The point is I can punish myself and punish myself, but that’s not going to get the moment back.”

“I know.”

“I can even narrow it down to the precise moment when my life changed. I see it every day, like a badly drawn cartoon. Some days the colors are different. Some days it runs a little longer than normal, but it is always drawn really poorly, and it always ends the same.”

The bartender brought her another drink, smiling at Blythe, and giving Austin a look that said he was a very, very lucky man.

“Do you want to know about the exact moment my life changed?” She asked.

“Only if you want. You don’t have to.”

“Yes, I do. You see Kerry? Something’s happened to her, and she’s got a poison in her. She’s not letting it out, and it’s gnawing away at her. If I don’t let this come out, it’s going to gnaw at me. That’s the way women handle things. Men go off to war. Women just whittle away until we vanish from sight, but,” Blythe said, “I’m only going to tell this story once. And I want something from you. I want to know that once I leave myself vulnerable here you’re not going to run off to another state with some old alumni girlfriend or some college professor you had a crush on.”

“Blythe, there is only you.” He held her hand. “Actually, you know, I think there was always only you. Even before I met you.”

“Well good. Because God knows you need someone to buy you fancy underwear.”

“It snows a lot in Asheville,” she said. “Not as much as Utah or Colorado, but it still snows. Not a good, powdery snow, but a sharp, icy-like one. That’s why my brother had a flattop stove. We had electric heat, and if the power went out, so did the heat. Water went out too, because the water pump was electric. But if you had a flattop stove, you could melt snow and boil it, cook on it, do a number of things if you wanted.”