Dotty lived in, but Caro had gotten so weak that she now slept in a bedroom on the main floor. I’d asked her if it was time to call back Betsy and Joey yet, and she said no. I didn’t push it.
So, yeah, it was a nice little routine. Kind of myTuesdays with Morrie, except it was nearly every day, and it encompassed not only Caro, but Dotty and Stick as well. Many days we’d just spend talking, careful to avoid tender subjects like my mother.
It seemed Caro was in the process of going through the kids’ photos, with the idea of putting them in albums, but that never seemed to happen. She and Dotty would start to reminisce about the day such-and-such had happened with each picture.
But that was probably more important than organizing the pictures—relivingthe pictures.
Reliving her life.
It felt odd seeing the pictures. Seeing the life I almost lived. The life I never could. And yet I was fascinated by them, too.
Dotty was suspicious of me at first, but warmed up after a few visits. Most times, she’d take advantage of our visits to go grocery shopping or run errands or something, never wanting to leave Caro home alone.
And yes, I started calling her Caro, after she’d asked me to. It felt odd at first. I’d so often heard my mother say, “that fucking Caro” that I stumbled the first few times. And then, like the whole surreal situation, it started to feel natural.
I hadn’t told Lily or Syd about my sojourns to Chesney. They both worked during the late afternoons, so it wasn’t obvious to them that I wasn’t around.
I don’t know why I didn’t say something to them. Partly, I guessed, because I’d have to tell them about Caro’s health, and I wouldn’t do that. But I also sensed they’d read more into it than there was.
Or more than I wanted to admit there was.
Another part of the routine was the kissing. It was as if turning off Yvette’s ignition after we were parked in Lot H was some kind of starting gun going off, the way we’d be at each other the second it happened.
Sometimes I’d reach for him, sometimes he for me. Most times it was hard to tell who moved first. We’d kiss for half an hour, longer. It was always too long, and it was always not long enough.
Yvette, champion chaperone that she was, prevented things from going any further, though there was some furtive groping—on both our parts.
As sleek and cocoonlike as each side of the cockpit was, it was hell to try and make out in.
“Why did you choose a Corvette,” I’d moaned more than once into Stick’s mouth as he kissed me when I’d try to get closer to him, only to be thwarted by the console and stick shift.
“Right now, I have no fucking idea,” he’d say, and keep kissing me senseless.
When we were at Caro’s, or even on the drive to or from, we were our usual selves—trash talking and constantly bickering.
Except when I’d go to the garage while he was working. He’d be mellow there, humming while he worked, a quizzical look on his face as he studied a car. A smile spreading wide as he would solve whatever mystery that car held for him.
It was too pure for even me to want to muddy up with insults, and I’d leave him alone, content to watch him in a place he belonged.
It occurred to me more than once that I had no such place. Never had.
I think it was the pool for Lily. I’d seen her swimming, and just after she’d be done. It was the same look of…completeness that Stick had when he worked on cars. He even had it when he was helping Caro.
But the kissing…that was definitely the best part of our afternoon jaunts.
Eventually one of us would come to our senses and end it. And then a little trash talk would fly, usually followed by a curse or two (by both of us).
And always—always—when he would get out of the car, he’d lean back in, look at me and say, “Tomorrow?”
I would nod and he would leave. And I would walk to my dorm room swearing to myself that I wouldn’t let it happen again.
But it always did.
* * *
Spring came earlyto the area, and by the first week of March I was roaring Yvette up and down the backroads by Caro’s estate.
“Why’d you get me a stick, anyway? Why not just an automatic?”
