Spoiler! :
Jack meant to get an early start the next morning to make up for the day they’d lost, but the auto repair shop didn’t even open until eleven. With the oil changes that were scheduled for regular customers taking precedent, it was noon before the Taurus was rolled out. He wrote the one hundred and seventy-one dollar check in silence, reflecting sourly that the repair would have cost him no more than the price of a new serpentine belt if he’d only done it himself at the garage back in New York.
“At least they were open today,” Adele said as they finally put the rural Ohioan town behind them. “Most mechanic’s shops aren’t open on Sundays. We could’ve been stuck here another night.”
Jack wondered uncomfortably what might’ve happened if they’d spent another night there, given last night’s circumstances at the Keegan Motel. She’d just been curious, he told himself, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, she’d just been curious about his tattoo. But telling himself that repeatedly hadn’t stopped him from lying awake on the couch half the night, staring at the water stain on the ceiling and thinking about how her fingers felt on his stomach. The back of his neck was burning again. It had done that way too much in the last three days, he thought. He hoped she wouldn’t notice.
In three hours they had crossed the border into Michigan. Adele threw up her arms and cheered as they passed the sign saying WELCOME TO PURE MICHIGAN.
“Glad to be out of Ohio?” Jack asked.
Adele grinned.
“Nothing against Ohio,” she said, “but it felt like we were there forever. Besides, this is the first time I’ve been home in nearly a year. I’m just – I can’t even tell you how much this means to me.”
“You don’t have to,” Jack said uncomfortably. He was pretty sure an excess of gratitude on her part would make his neck go red again.
She smiled.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to get so sentimental. It’s just, I grew up in Mt. Clemens and I haven’t been back regularly since I graduated college.”
“Why not?”
“Can’t afford it. And I could just come back to stay, but what kind of opportunities are there for actors in Michigan? New York’s better for that – or it would be, if there weren’t thousands of other actors there for the same reason. Besides, it’s just an exciting place to live. The native New Yorkers would probably look down on me for saying it, but I love doing all the touristy things – you know, doing the Statue of Liberty tour and visiting Ellis Island and everything. I’ve lived there for five years and it never gets old.” She looked at him and asked, “Have you done any of that – any of the tourist attractions, I mean? How long have you lived there, anyway?”
“About four months now,” Jack said.
“Oh, then you have plenty of time. You know. If you want to do that stuff.”
Jack thought about that. For a while he’d visited the famous places of each new city he’d moved to, within a month of moving there, but after Chicago (when had he lived in Chicago? Three years ago? Four?) he’d given it up. He figured that after seeing he major attractions of five big cities, he’d seen more or less all the attractions big cities had to offer. So he’d just forgone them in the last three. (Though, he remembered, he had brought his nephews to the National Aquarium when his brother’s family had visited him last year in Baltimore, but that had been a special situation.)
He half listened to her talk alternately about home and New York, but he was still preoccupied with thoughts of the night before. He wondered if she’d thought about it at all or if it had just been a chance, a passing happenstance. Maybe she was used to randomly touching men’s stomachs… No, he thought, that was just bizarre.
He could tell when they were nearing the Mt. Clemens area because she suddenly dropped all talk of New York and started pointing out places she knew as they passed by.
“There’s the subdivision my best friend from elementary school lived in! She found me on Facebook – do you know, she’s got three kids now, it’s so weird to think about… Hey, Macomb Community College! That’s where I did my first two years before I transferred to Columbia, they’ve got a gorgeous performing arts center… Could we get off the freeway?” she asked. “Drive through town just a little?”
“Long as you can direct me,” Jack said.
“Get off at the next exit.”
They passed the brick school and attached church she’d attended in her childhood, a fortress-like restaurant that she’d always loved to look at (though she’d never been inside), the animal hospital she’d had to rush her cat to shortly after getting her driver’s license. She was delighted. Finally they turned down a quiet, tree-lined residential street where Adele pointed at a two-story brick-and-vinyl house and said, “This is it.”
Jack pulled into the driveway, parked the car, and got her bag out of the trunk. She stifled a smile at the sight of him wearing jeans and a cowboy hat and a purple tote bag slung over his shoulder.
“I would’ve carried it, you know,” she said as they walked up the front steps. Jack shrugged and adjusted the bag on his shoulder. He reached for the door, but it flew open before he could knock, and there were Adele’s parents. Her father was a rotund, bald black man with glasses and a wide, warm smile that was exactly like hers except for the gap in his teeth, and her mother had the same light latte-colored skin and the same dark kinky hair as her daughter did, though hers was pulled back into a bushy crown while Adele’s was allowed to hang loose and wild.
“Adele, honey!” her father cried, pulling her into a hug. “We missed you so much – so disappointed when you couldn’t be here yesterday – and this must be Jack! Can’t thank you enough for bringing our little girl home—”
“Dad,” Adele said, but she was grinning. “Give him some space.”
Her mother rolled her eyes good-naturedly and held out a hand. Jack almost felt like he ought to kiss it and was relieved when they instead shook hands.
“Yvonne Jackson,” she said. “This is my husband Dean.”
“Jack Allen,” he replied. “Nice house you got here, ma’am.”
“Nuh-uh, boy, don’t you ma’am me,” she warned. “It’s Yvonne. ‘Ma’am’ can wait til I’m an old woman. Now. Thought we’d ask you to stay for dinner, since you were kind enough to bring our baby girl home for her birthday.”
He tipped his hat and said, “Thank you, but no ma—Yvonne. If you folks’ll excuse me, I’d best be getting on. My brother’s expecting me.”
“You’re not leaving already?” Adele said.
“Left the dog in the car.”
“Oh! Poor Zeus. I forgot about him. Let me walk you out, at least.”
Her parents shook hands with Jack again, and he and Adele went back out to the car. The pointer pawed at the windows, barking. Jack and Adele stood scuffing the toes of their shoes against the driveway.
“Thanks,” Adele said. “For, you know. For bringing me home.”
“My pleasure,” Jack said, and he meant it. “Well—”
He wasn’t quite sure what to say, but he didn’t want to leave without saying anything. Still, no use standing around like an idiot, he thought glumly, so he opened his door. In an instant the dog was in the driver’s seat, trying to wriggle out of the car. It licked Jack’s hand with desperation. Adele laughed. She hugged the dog and let it lick her face.
“Yes, I’ll miss you too,” she said, rolling her eyes at Jack, and he knew he had to ask.
“Can I have your phone number?” he said.
Pink tinged Adele’s cheeks, but she gave him the widest smile he’d ever seen and said, “I thought you’d never ask.”
Your characterization was good, along with your pacing, so no comments on those.
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