LITMIR.BIZ

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scoff. “Nah, I think I’ll wait until we find a place.”

      “Suit yourself.”

      I know he would totally look. And, well, it wouldn’t bother me much …

      The windshield wipers are swishing back and forth full blast and it’s raining so hard that it’s still difficult to see the road out ahead. Andrew leaves the heat on until it starts to feel like a sauna and he turns it down after checking first to see if I’m good with it.

      “So, Hotel California, huh?” he asks, grinning over at me with deep dimples. He reaches out and presses the button to choose another CD and then keeps pressing until he finds the song. “Let’s see how much you know.”

      His hand drops back on the wheel.

      The song begins like I always remembered with that eerie guitar, slow and haunting. We look at each other back and forth, letting the music move through and between us, waiting for the lyrics to begin. Then at the same time, we raise our hands as if knocking on the air one, two, three with the beat and we start to sing with Don Henley.

      We get fully into it, line after line and sometimes we switch off, him letting me sing a line and then he sings one. And when the first chorus comes, we sing together at the top of our lungs, practically shouting the lyrics at the windshield. We squint our eyes and bob our heads and I pretend I’m not mortified by my singing. Then the second verse comes and our taking-turns starts to get a little tangled, but we totally have fun with it and only trip-up a couple of times. And we say ‘1969!’ loudly together. Then we lose a little of the passion to sing and just let the music funnel through the car instead. But when the iconic second chorus comes around and the song slows and becomes more haunting, we get serious again and sing every single word together, looking right at each other. Andrew hits ‘alibis!’ so flawlessly that it sends shivers up my arms. And we both ‘stabbed the beast’ together, pumping our fists at our sides and getting into it.

      And that was how the drive was to wherever for the next several hours.

      I sang so much with him that my throat became sore.

      Of course, all of it was classic rock with the occasional early nineties: Alice in Chains and Aerosmith mostly, and none of it bothered me one bit. I actually loved it all and the memory it was creating in my mind. A memory with Andrew.

      We find a rest stop off the freeway in Jackson, Tennessee, and take full advantage of it. We slip inside the restrooms to change out of our wet clothes, which we’ve been in for longer than either of us realized. I guess our fun together in the car with my less-than-stellar singing and him pretending he loves it distracted us from everything else.

      He’s dressed before me and already waiting inside the car when I stroll out wearing the only thing I had left in my bag that was clean: the white cotton shorts and varsity tee I like to sleep in. I only brought one bra and I happened to be wearing it when I was being rained on so it’s completely wet still. But I’m wearing it anyway because there’s no way I’m getting in that car with him bra-less.

      “I am not wearing these shorts for your benefit,” I say, pointing sternly at him as I crawl back inside the car. “For the record.”

      The corner of his mouth lifts into a grin.

      “Note taken,” he says, jotting it down on a pretend tablet.

      I lift my butt from the seat and grasp the end of my shorts, pulling them just a little so they aren’t crawling up my crotch and to cover a little more skin on my thighs. I start to kick my black flip-flops onto the floorboard until I see how saturated the floor mat is and decide to leave them on. It’s a good thing the seats are leather.

      “I’m gonna have to find some more clothes,” I say.

      Andrew’s wearing jeans again and his black Doc Marten boots, and another plain gray t-shirt, lighter in color than the last one. Like anything, it looks good on him, but I kind of miss his tanned muscled calves and the black and gray Celtic tattoo on the ball of his ankle.

      “Why is that all you brought?” he asks, keeping his eyes on the road. “Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

      I smirk over at him. “I guess since I didn’t know where I was going I didn’t want to lug a bunch of crap around.”

      “Makes sense.”

      The sun is shining in Tennessee and we’re heading south now. The other side of the freeway is grid-locked because of road construction and we both express how glad we are that we’re not on ‘that side of the road’. Eventually, the daylight fades behind the landscape and dusk bathes the rice and cotton fields in a purplish haze; there’s always some kind of massive field on either side of the freeway, stretching far off in the distance.

      We make it to Birmingham, Alabama, a little after 7 p.m.

      “Where do you wanna stop for clothes?” he asks, creeping along a city street lined by stoplights and gas stations.

      I rise up from the seat and look around, trying to glimpse the lighted signs for someplace suitable.

      Andrew points out ahead. “There’s a Walmart.”

      “I guess it’s as good as any,” I say and he makes a left at the stoplight and we pull into the parking lot.

      We get out and the first thing I do is pull my panties out of the crack of my butt.

      “Need some help?”

      “No!” I laugh.

      We walk together through the sea of cars in the parking lot, my flip-flops snapping against my heels. Instantly, I recoil into myself, knowing I look like hell with a dirty, matted braid over my shoulder and dressed in these skimpy shorts that keep crawling up my ass. No makeup anymore, since my becoming-one-with-the-rain washed it all off. I keep my eyes on the bright white floor as we walk through the store and avoid eye contact with anyone.

      We head to the women’s clothes first and I grab a few simple things: two more pairs of cotton shorts that are still short but not up-my-crotch short like the ones I’m wearing, and a couple of cute v-neck graphic tees with random stuff on them. I hold out on my desire to visit the panties and bras section. I think for now I’ll make do with what I have.

      Then I follow Andrew over to the area by the pharmacy where all of the vitamins and cold medicines and toothpaste and stuff are.

      We go straight into the aisle with the razors and shaving cream.

      “I haven’t shaved in a week,” he says, rubbing the stubble that has been growing on his face for the past few days.

      I think it’s sexy, but with or without it, it’s still sexy so I don’t complain.

      Why would I anyway?

      I grab a pack of razors, too, as well as some Olay shaving cream in a gold can. Then in the next aisle, I pick up a small bottle of mouthwash because one can never have enough mouthwash. I adjust my purse on the opposite shoulder as the items start to fill up in the other arm. We go into the next aisle and I pluck a set of shampoo and conditioner from the shelf, trying to balance them in my hands with the other stuff, but Andrew takes it from me and carries it instead. He takes the mouthwash, too.

      We head over to the medicines and there’s a middle-aged couple standing in front of the cough syrup, reading the labels.

      Andrew says casually, without lowering his voice, “Babe, did you find that yeast infection stuff?”

      My eyes spring open and I freeze in front of the Tylenol.

      He removes a small box of Advil from the shelf.

      The couple pretends not to have heard what he said, but I know they heard him.

      “I mean are you even sure that’s what’s causing the itch?” he goes on and I’m literally melting from the heat in my face.

      The couple does glance over

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