“No.”
“Call, then,” He directs me. “Book two. We’ll leave today.”
I feel like I should put up a fight, but I’m compelled to do as he says—he’s so bossy. He gives me the phone number from the map listing, and I nervously make the call and book two rooms at the Monarch Resort under my credit card. He finishes his breakfast without another word.
“Why are you visiting your mother?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.
“Because she’s my mother?” Dean retorts. “Why wouldn’t I visit her?”
“Yeah. I guess that makes sense.”
“Of course it makes sense.” What doesn’t make sense is that he left a week early to visit his mother or he’s delaying his visit by a week, but I don’t dare ask that.
Hannah brings the bill to our table, and Dean pays it completely in cash and tips 25% without me asking. I raise my eyes to meet his eyes for the first time since he snapped at me earlier. I can’t help but give him a grin because what we’re doing is absolutely wild.
“What?” He asks, his voice serious as ever. I think it would kill this man to lighten up.
“Nothing,” I say. I know I’m a neurotic landslide, bowling down the side of a mountain.
“You should be institutionalized.” Dean remarks, he looks down to zip up his coat, but when he looks back at me again, I’m dazzled. His lips are upturned, and I can see his white teeth. It’s the first time he’s actually smiled at me.At me.Even if he thinks I’m sick, it has melted my heart to earn his smile. I beam back at him.
I bundle up in my coat, zipping it all the way to my chin, slinging my trusty tote bag over my shoulder. We leave in a hurry, eager to get out of the bustling diner that’s now truly bursting with patrons; the line is out the door. I take my place as a passenger princess and try not to let it ruin my tiny, tiny ego that Dean smiled at me.
We get onto Route 295 in no time, and soon enough Route 295 turns into Route 1. The pines are dancing along the road, with NPR on the radio, Dean relaxed in the driver’s seat. I’m at ease for once, and I don’t feel ill. I don’t feel the need to take medicine, and I don’t feel the need to reach for my inhaler.
I feel in control.
When they diagnose you with hypochondriasis, they reframe it as health anxiety. Anxiety is all about feeling out of control. I’ve always been an anxious, neurotic person. After Andy’s death I really spiraled, afraid that his sudden health crisis could soon become my own. I was so afraid.
Andy was like an extension of my own body. If he could die at any minute, so could I—and that was my own personal brand of hell. Not knowing if it was coming, being out of control of something. I was never so worried about my own health before.
After my accident, I made the decision to see a doctor and I’ve been getting better, taking my medication regularly. But still, I have my bad streaks of being anxious. Part of me feels nervous for what is about to come, but part of me is proud for making it this far. Andy would be proud of me.
But then again, Andy never knew that I could be this person that I am now.
4
Idig through my bag and pull out the postcard Andy wrote from The Monarch Resort. It’s a photo of the building exterior with a small, scrawled message on the back, much like the others. This one notes that while playing the show at the local theater was fun, the karaoke at the resort bar was outrageously rowdy. I hum to myself—I wonder if Dean is the kind of guy who likes karaoke. He doesn’t strike me as anyone who likes any kind of fun.
“What are you reading?” Dean asks me, taking note of my shuffling.
“Postcards from Andy,” I say quietly. Andy isn’t always a touchy subject for me, he’s been gone a long time now. I am making my peace with that. I finished most of the visceral, physical portion of my grieving years ago, but still, every now and then, saying his name throws a wrench in my throat.
“Do you want to talk about him?” Dean offers, although he sounds like he’d rather listen to me talk about international estate taxes or the price of gasoline.
“Not really,” I deny him any more information about Andy for his own sake. I want to keep these parts of Andy for me. Thepublic has enough. Dean could just look Andy up online if he wants to know more.
“Why not?”
“What’s there to say? I bet you know what happened already,” I say. It was all over the news, the papers, the internet. TMZ did a whole expose into his death. Andy was a huge loss for the folk-rock community and everyone in the world knows it.
“Yeah,” Dean whispers. “I know what everyone else knows from the media. That he was famous. I know his public persona. But what was he like to you? How’d you meet?”
I swallow. It’s been a long time since I told this story. Mostly because it’s boring and not romantic.
“We went to grade school together. Then, his parents moved to Portland and we reconnected in college when we went to the Maine College of Art.”
“He went to art school?” Dean asks, his voice raising significantly at the end. “You went to art school?” I can’t tell which he’s more shocked about—me or Andy.
