Todd slams the door of his truck and
steps out in his driveway. He sees his girlfriend Angela standing on the front
porch and wonders briefly if he forgot to meet her after work again. Sometimes
he forgets things like that and it makes her sad. He walks up to her and they
hug, her small frame encompassed by his, but she turns away when he leans to
kiss her. Todd cocks his head and frowns, gazing down at the top of her head.
Angela leaves ten minutes later, striding quickly to her car. Todd stares at the dying grass of his small lawn until he can no longer hear her driving away. He digs out his keys and it takes him a few tries to fit the right one in the lock on the front door.
That evening, he packs a few worn duffel bags into his ancient pickup and drives off. Angela’s words run through his mind as he consults the long list of directions he printed out from the Internet.
“You should go after her. It’s obvious she’s the one you really care about.”
Angela had been right about a lot of things, but he’s not sure she’s right about this.
Todd stares at the sky and frowns. Seattle is not the sort of place he imagines Gillian living. It’s too cold, for one. Todd had to rush to the first store he saw and buy an umbrella and thicker jacket – in April.
He stares and thinks about her…about Gillian. Growing up it was always him running after her, and in the process he learned a lot about her. Most of it he doesn’t remember clearly. As a young man he often paid more attention to her looks than to what she said. It had been so hard to focus on her words when he could watch her shiny blonde hair, usually cut short, and straight white teeth that never needed braces.
It starts to drizzle again and Todd quickly climbs back in his truck. He had pulled into a coffee shop just before reaching his destination, drumming his fingers on the stained table as he gazed at the final stop on the directions. He hadn’t seen Gillian in about three years. They exchanged letters for the first two, but the last letter he had from her was short. She had written only an address, nothing else, and never responded to the letters he sent after.
One year to the day since he had received the address, Todd started driving. Three days was a long time in a car; Austin was a long way from Seattle. He had stopped once in every state he passed through – New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon. Finally, Washington.
Finally, after so long, Gillian.
He speeds the last few miles and ends up not at a house or apartment building but a strip mall. Todd pulls into the parking lot and reads the spray-painted numbers of the stores. The address is the same as the one in the letter. Gillian lied to him.
He isn’t sure if she meant this as a trick, a way to stay hidden from him, or to make him look harder. He parks in an empty space directly in front of a taco shop that bears the same four digits her letter described. Todd doesn’t think Washington is known for its Mexican food, but he goes in anyway.
“Hola, welcome to Pancho’s Tacos.”
Todd stares at the fair-skinned teenager behind the register. “Carne asada burrito, no guacamole or salsa, and heavy on the sour cream. And a medium Coke.”
The teen’s glazed look is shaken and he stops mid-transaction. “Are you Todd?”
“What?”
“Just gotta ask, dude. Are you him?”
“Why?”
“I dunno, man, you got that burrito so I’m supposed to ask.”
“Yeah, my name’s Todd,” he scowls.
“Hold onna sec.” The kid opens a door behind the counter marked “Employees Only” and sticks his head inside. Todd hears a scraping sound, a few mumbled words, and then a short Hispanic man walks out.
“Todd Robinson?” the man asks pleasantly.
“Yeah, what of it?”
“Please come back at closing time tonight,” he smiles.
“Uh, why? Does this have to do with Gillian?” Todd glances at a white lined square of paper the man pulls out of his pocket.
“Please, just take the note and come back later.”
Unnerved, Todd accepts the slip of paper from the man. He unfolds it and reads “Taco shop, 10 PM. Come or leave.”
He doesn’t move. It’s definitely from Gillian.
“So, you still want that burrito?” the teenager asks.
Todd’s eyes never leave the paper. “Yeah. To go.”
The sky turns dark quite early with the constant cloud cover. Todd drives around a bit and checks into a motel. He gets lost on the way back to the shop but at 9:47 he’s found the right parking lot. Four deep breaths later, Todd pushes the Plexiglas door open and looks around. The cashier raises her head and smiles. Gillian.
She darts around the counter, ignoring the couple in line, and stands before Todd, hands tugging at her black uniform.
“Hey,” he says as casually as he can manage.
“Took you long enough,” she smiles in return.
He looks away guiltily. “I would have come if I knew you wanted me to.” Her smile turns down at the corners and he knows this is the wrong thing to say. He looks everywhere but at her.
“We have to leave.” She turns around and grabs a large purple bag from behind the counter.
“Aren’t you working?”
“Nope,” she says as she walks briskly out of the shop.
Todd hurries after her, worrying that he upset her. “Where are we going? We should talk, I haven’t seen you in forever-”
“And whose fault is that?” She whips her head around, glares, and keeps walking.
Todd pauses, perplexed. “Well, you left.”
“You let me.”
“What does that mean?”
She sniffs in response. He keeps following her, wanting to ask her what’s wrong but knowing she won’t tell him. After a few minutes she turns and walks into a bar, doors propped wide open. She stomps straight to a two-seater booth. Todd takes the seat opposite her.
“Remember that time you kissed me and I laughed?” She says the moment he sits down.
Todd groans. “How could I not, Gillian?”
She grins. “You were such a little nerd. I can’t believe I ever had a crush on you.”
His head jerks up. Reflexively he brings a hand up to casually scratch his ear.
“It’s been so long,” she continues softly. “And still you came. You’re here, with me, just like it used to be. And…you’ve hardly changed. Same floppy hair. Same ugly jeans.” She leans closer, looks into his eyes. Her dark eyes have somehow become more beautiful since the last time he looked into them. “What would you do, Todd, if I…kissed you now?”
She leans so close he feels her breath on his lips. “Gillian…”
She breathes out, slowly. “Too bad it will never happen.”
“What?” Todd blinks, wide-eyed.
Gillian slides halfway out of the booth, pauses, and looks him straight in the eyes with a hard grimace. He tries to break the gaze but she does it first and strides out the front door. Todd bangs his knee against the edge of the table as he hurries after her. He shoves through a group of people walking through the double doors and catches sight of Gillian, sprinting across the street and around a corner.
Todd sighs. He pulls out her last letter, his favorite because she told him that things were different. That she had stopped running.
He crumples it, takes a deep breath, two, three, and then opens it again and smoothes it out.
The next night, Todd arrives at Pancho’s at 9:59. He peers through the clear door, but Gillian isn’t there. The freckled teenager sees him looking and gestures for Todd to come inside.
“I dunno what the hell you did, dude, but Gillian quit this morning,” the boy shakes his head and hands Todd another folded note.
The car parked outside the empty bus station wasn’t Gillian’s. Todd remembers her ranting about all the sporty little mid-life crisis cars on the road and doesn’t think she’d ever buy one. He approaches it anyway, as it’s the only other car around and this is where her note said to meet.
He’s about to knock on the tinted window when he hears a sniff. He looks around for the sound and hears it again, this time accompanied by a stifled sob. Peering around the side of the car, he sees Gillian sitting against the curb, trying to staunch flowing tears with a thin napkin. She glances at him and shoves the napkin into her pocket.
“Take a picture,” she snaps. She stands up and doesn’t meet his eyes.
He shifts his weight back and forth. “Is this really your car?”
Silence. Her eyes dart to his face and then retreat to her dark layers of clothing. She nods.
“Was there a reason for making me come here?” he asks, patience already thin.
She squints at her patterned scarf for a moment. She dips her head slightly so her loose hair covers her face. When he doesn’t apologize, she shakes her head. “I guess I don’t have much to say.”
Todd tries not to meet her eyes, remembering the way she teased him the night before. He takes a deep breath, sighs it out, and realizes he’s going to give in. “We should talk. Really talk, somewhere you’re comfortable. I want to hear about how things have changed,” he touches her arm and meets her gaze as she glances up.
She hesitates, then pulls out a set of keys. “Get in the car.”
He wants to ask where she’s driving, but decides to show her that he can still be patient. She pulls up to a motel much like the one Todd is staying in. As he looks at the flickering lights and ragged lobby chairs a shiver runs through him.
“You don’t seriously want to go to a…I mean, now…?” He raises his eyebrows.
“What? I’ve been staying in a room here the past few months,” she says blankly.
“Oh, I thought you wanted…nevermind.”
He follows her through the lobby and up two flights of stairs. A maid stares at him steadily as she mops the floor and he quickly averts his gaze. Twice he stumbles when the tip of his boot doesn’t clear the next step and he tries not to take this as a sign that he should stop following her.
Gillian doesn’t look once to see if he’s still there. She opens a dark door at the end of a long hallway and he stops before it, glancing back and forth at anyone who might see him enter. He sees no one and steps inside, shutting the door behind him.
A thump from the hall wakes Todd with a start. He sits up quickly and looks around, momentarily disoriented.
He yawns and lies back down, grabbing for the cool pillow next to him. His eyes snap back open as he reaches over, feeling for warmth. Instead his fingers reach a cool, fluffed pillow. Little feathers stick out and jab him as he runs his hand across it.
“Dammit!”
Todd grabs his cell phone and scrolls through the contact list. He presses send more forcefully than he means to.
Four rings, and then…
“Hey. It’s Gillian. Leave a message.”
Todd sighs and sits on the edge of the bed. After a while he knocks the pillow to the floor and doesn’t pick it up. Eight minutes later he steps out of the shower and picks up the phone again.
“…Leave a message.”
Todd waits for the beep. “This is getting old. Really old.”
For the first time since he’d known her, Todd considers not following Gillian’s latest instructions.
He takes a cab back to his truck and sees an envelope wedged under the front tire. Todd opens it and finds a photograph of a wooden sign.
“Sparring Park,” Todd reads. “Where the hell is that?”
He sighs and presses his head into the brown leather of the steering wheel. When he sits up, his rearview mirror shows him the pattern driven into his forehead. Rain starts to fall and he sits, watching, before finally starting the engine.
Todd drives around for a while, stops at a Denny’s and orders coffee. He sits alone in the large, empty booth and examines the photo again. As he flips it over he notices small black numbers on the bottom corner and is reminded of the days of disposable cameras. He always took too many pictures and never got around to putting them in albums.
He pauses, then looks closer and realizes they’re not just numbers, but a date. The photo was taken over a year ago.
He asks the overweight waitress for directions and drinks his coffee until the rain finally becomes a light mist. He drives four miles to the park. It’s small, only a few parking spots, and the rusty playground is empty except for one figure, dressed in a white snow jacket, rocking slowly on the wet swings. Todd sighs, digs his new umbrella out of the back seat and walks over.
She looks up as he approaches and mumbles, “Not a day goes by that it doesn’t rain.”
He shifts forward so the umbrella covers her as well. “You can have this if you want.”
Gillian doesn’t move. He waits a few seconds before speaking again. “Why did you go?”
She shrugs. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“I think you could.”
“Maybe I won’t, then.”
“Now, that I believe.”
She doesn’t respond. Todd runs his hand through his hair and tries to speak several times before rubbing his face with his free hand and groaning.
“Gillian, what the hell is going on? Do you want this to be…something, or not? I need to know.”
She kicks the tufts of grass under the swing and nods her head noncommittally. “Why? Can’t we just do what we want? I really missed you, Todd.”
He walks a few steps away. When he returns, his fists are clenched. “I have no idea what you want. I don’t have a damn clue what I want because of it.”
“I’m not trying to do anything.”
“Then why are you here? You never told me you wanted to see me in all those letters. You never tried to come back. You didn’t even sound like you cared when you said goodbye.” Todd sets the umbrella aside, scratches his head and leaves his hand there for a minute. He turns back toward her. “Will you just talk to me, for once?”
Todd leaves the umbrella lying on the ground when he finally goes. Gillian had run off nearly an hour before, bolting for the other side of the park, but he sat on her vacated swing thinking about how cold it is.
He trudges back to his car and decides to go back to his room. It’s too late to start the long drive again and he dreads getting on the empty road.
Morning comes quickly and Todd packs even quicker. He’s throwing together the last of his clothing when his cell phone buzzes. He looks at the unfamiliar number for a few seconds before answering.
“Hello, is this Todd Robinson?”
“It is, who’s calling?”
“Officer Stoller of the Seattle Police Department. Do you know a woman named Gillian Taylor?”
Todd feels the phone slip from his grasp. He grabs it again and presses it to his ear. “What happened with Gillian?”
Pause. “There’s been an accident, I’m afraid.”
Todd speeds to the hospital, following Stoller’s directions. He parks quickly and doesn’t bother getting any sort of permit. He rushes to the front desk and asks to see Gillian. The nurse asks if he’s family. He tells her what the police said to say.
She leads him to a room in the ICU. Gillian’s bed is curtained off.
“Would you like to hear about her condition, sir?” The nurse asks. Todd waves his hand and nods.
“Well, we believe she’ll recover. We don’t know when, but she should be able to walk again. She has not woken yet, so we can’t ask what really happened, but reports from witnesses say she was speeding…down the wrong side of the road,” the nurse says delicately.
“Thanks.” Todd doesn’t look up.
The nurse nods and leaves. Todd takes a seat next to Gillian’s bed. She’s unconscious, and after staring at her for a while he grabs her phone off the bedside table.
Contacts. One entry. Todd Robinson.
Todd sleeps by her bed, but not very long. She awakens later in the day and the nurses eventually declare her stable. They leave and she stares at Todd until he leans close to her face.
“Will you stay?” she whispers, barely audible.
Todd doesn’t answer. His eyes are hard.
“It’s driving me crazy, seeing you again,” she continues with a stale smile.
Todd smiles slightly and reaches around the IV drip to pat her hand. “Everything will be all right. I promise. Just…think about yourself for a while, okay?”
He gives her one last pat and rises from the chair. He grabs his keys and jacket and strides out the door.
Gillian watches him go, then notices her phone lying near her pillow. She reaches for it, unable to curl her fingers around it and drags it closer so her other hand can pick it up. Weakly, she presses the ‘Contacts’ button on the keypad. She starts to cry.
No entries.
