Sweet Adaline

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Earlier that day, while I was out with my mother having coffee, discussing her mistakes and how she and Jack collided over Adaline, she remained at my apartment. She roamed about, and in my room she rediscovered her diary. Light reflected from its white leather cover, like a beacon of hope, idle on my dresser. She knew she'd never understand what it was I'd read that recovered me the night before. For that reason she was drawn to it, enticed by its mystique. It was as if her diary had taken on a life of its own, spirited by her words but now independent. She opened the book without directing it to which page. That choice was up to the book. It took her to the letter that she could not discard. It was folded and taped, and when she outstretched the page, out fell the pick that she never could bring herself to play with. It was a relic, more prAngieed possibly than her guitar, also a treasure from the same time. Only, in this pick was infused with more than a year and a half of ruthless punishment. Even as strings and calluses broke, with it he played her song relentlessly. It was the weathered body of his young fantasy's demise. The fantasy of true love, young love. And with it, the death of a gentle boy's innocence.
She took it up with care, and felt in it, despair. A thousand times he played with it, notes he wrote for her. She was transported by that song that coursed through her brain, immediately more clear than it ever had been. She heard him croon his butterscotch words, imagined from soft pink lips and his nearly perfect teeth. And of the letter, words seemingly so distant as if they were read in some past life, lost in tumultuous history.
Adaline carefully wrapped the tattered relic in tissue and slipped it into the side pocket of her new purse. With her book in her lap she sat contemplating. She'd confided, but she'd never read it. To do so seemed to plead for a curse of enduring again what she'd only barely overcome. To read her own thoughts, thoughts she'd worked so hard to let go of. To see how Elisa responded so clearly. She wanted only to read how he told her he loved her. It was a mystery now, how his words wrought such yearning. She wanted to read her own words used to express her divine affection for him. She wanted to know that girl, for the first time. That hurt and bitter girl so softened by his touch and by her warm memories of him.
She unfolded the page one careful fold at a time. It wasn't hard and resentful, the way it felt when I experienced it. It was a sweet gift. A pleasant answer to a question her heart would still ask her on occasion. Foster; did he really love me. Was it love was it just the word and some promises. She still would wonder if he ever would still think of her, and of so, how. Did his spirit sing the way hers would, hypnotically doleful while still so rich with delight? Was she that mystery to him that he remained to her? Did he think of her when he would kiss a girl, the way she did so often when she would kiss Brian?
"I felt like everything was perfect." He wrote. She read those words again and again. But then she read the heart of the letter. "I still love you, but I wonder if it's really you, or just this image that I keep of you in my mind that I love so much." Those words she could only read once. They hurt her but not because they were hurtful. They hurt her because they were true. She was to him, only what she allowed him to see, which was everything, and then it became nothing. She transformed, in his moment of her life, and she'd never be his Adaline again. Whether Foster could forgive her for the things that she'd done, were irrelevant. She would never be able to forgive herself, were she to ever tell him those truths. He was protected while under the belief that when he lost, he lost her forever.
She found herself reading on, into the pages for a bit searching for her hearts response to him, but then it got rough. All the reminders. All her mother's words. She still couldn't discern anything for certain, such as if they were Elisa's in fact. Though she tried to push on, from curiosity, she couldn't and had to stop. The whole thing simply shook her. She pulled out the letter and it's envelope, and placed it into her purse. The she noticed a mason jar on the counter, and remembered instantly what was inside. The final portion from my last distillation, that potent whisky drink. She stared at it with mischievous eyes. It was not a thing that belonged in my house any longer, she reasoned. She would simply be doing me a favor. A thought more passed before she felt it was fine enough take it as well.
Finally, she closed the cover of her journal and returned it to my room, so as not to let me know that she'd been in it. She was in no hurry to have it back. All that was important from it, she either had with her, or had lost a year ago.
She locked the front door as she closed it and headed to her favorite coffee spot, so conveniently up the street.
It was dreary outside, but it didn't rain. A chilly wisp of wind skirted past her on occasion. Aside from that, the afternoon was pleasant. No Portland rain was this pleasant, at least. It was actually relatively warm for the condition.
Adaline was mildly disappointed to notice the owner she'd just met the day before wasn't anywhere around. She ordered her mocha, iced, and once she had it, moved to the phone. She called Danny at Jack's office to check if he was in. They spoke briefly, at first about me. He asked how I was, and if I was safe. She assured him of my sanity. Danny was not a judgmental guy, but was certainly leery of me being around her. Adaline thought it was sweet the way he was so outwardly protective of her. It made her feel good, like she was worth something again. Not just attractive to some guy, but appreciated. Someone worth looking out for. Worth risking their job for.
She told him that my mother had left Jack. It was something they'd discussed might happen, and neither was surprised. She expressed to him, her fears. He promised her he'd help in whatever way he could. She told him that she was going back home to gather whatever she felt was important to her, and intended to keep it at her boyfriend, Brian's house. To ensure an uninterrupted visit, he promised to call the house if Jack at any time left the office, so she could leave suddenly.
"Oh, Danny!" She said, suddenly as she remembered. "Do you know anything about cell phones?"
"Yeah. A little. Why?" He replied, confused.
"Angela gave her cell phone to me, just in case I need it. Except, I can't figure out how to call from it." She said, sheepishly.
"Oh. Just put in the number, area code first, even for in town calls, and then press send. It should be a green button." He said, warmly.
"Oh!" She chirped. "Well that's simple. I wouldn't have figured it out though. Danny to the rescue, once again." Her voice leveled to a tone of sincerity. "But really. Thank you, Danny. I cannot tell you enough how much I appreciate you and all the things you do for me."
"Don't get sappy on me, Adaline. It's not your style." They smiled on opposite ends of the phone.
"Right you are, Danny boy. Later, then."
"Alright. I'll talk to you later. Be safe."
"Yes sir." Adaline replied and then hung up the phone. She was heavily tempted to pick it up again and dial Brian's number. She wanted to be certain that he was anxiously waiting close by the phone for her to call him up and reconcile their mistakes. Usually that meant him apologAngieing for one thing or another, often something he wasn't even aware that he'd even done.
This time, it was different though. If he was waiting, it wasn't to put what he could behind them. If he was confused, it was heavily so. More than likely, he was irate. From where Adaline stood, it was more than likely that he might not even answer the phone. If that was the truth, she didn't think she could endure it. It was better yet to give it a little bit more time. Until then, she'd bring it all back to my place, and hide out until something seemed clear.
The bus rambled through every half hour, and stopped a short ways down the road. It was the no.14 bus, the one she'd gotten to know best in the city. It stopped the closest to her house and would take right through the center of town. Pretty much a straight shot.
She picked up her new purse, packed to capacity with her jar of booze, lead phone her relics and headed to the stop where she waited no less than the time it took to gather change before it arrived, late as usual. On that whole ride, she contemplated the meeting she fully expected to have with him. She thought about how it might turn out. She was reminded of her mother's words, revitalAngieed from some distant recollection. "Jack's not a vindictive person."
She hoped like hell he wasn't because she wouldn't be prepared with defenses. Not even words were on her side anymore. Only the thin plea for mercy, and even that she thought she really didn't deserve. Despite everything that Angela had said about it, and everything Brian had told her, Adaline knew what none of them did. She was the cause. She was the cause. She was the cause for everything.
It could be anywhere from a fifteen minute ride, to twenty five. The latter was how long she rode. When she arrived, the neighborhood looked barren. No garage doors up. No cars on the street. Just Adaline, her purse full of booze and her keys. It felt like "Night Of The Comet". So, alone, she made her way up the drive. Hers was the only garage left open and empty, beckoning her like some cavernous mouth awaiting her entry. She was tempted to fix the door so that it would close, all in the hopes that she could squeeze back into Jack's good graces, but immediately replied to the thought, "Fuck it. He's too pissed for that silly shit."
Despite knowing he wasn't there, with no car parked outside, still she grew anxious that he might still be home. It was irrational, certainly, but still the thought plagued her.
She peaked her head inside. Not a sound. No rustling in the kitchen. No voices from upstairs. Just her and the vacant house. Cautiously she strolled through the kitchen. A rocks glass half empty, but still with murky water, kept company an empty bottle of Kettle One vodka. His commonly pristine counter was littered with papers and dusted with crumbs.
She listened for his voice as she crept towards his office door. There was nothing, so she peaked in as she passed by it. Then as stealthily as she could, she slinked up the stairs to the bedrooms, thinking to herself, "always with the god damn stairs." There were no voices still. The door was closed. The upstairs was much smaller than her first home in Portland. The hall was short between two doors. Hers on the right, theirs on the left. She looked at the master bedroom door and she checked her composure.
"Fuck that." She said to herself, not about to test her luck or her confidence. "Not again."
She accepted the house was clear, forcing out any fears that somebody waited for her in that room. It was a difficult fear for her to block out, but that was after all, the girl's forte.
She headed straight into her room with a nasty chill that ran down her spine, slamming the door shut behind her. The rush of adrenaline vanished with the chill. It was that old familiar safety. Behind her closed door, nobody could get her. No dead mother could enter. Nothing frightening could ever come through that door. And even though, her rules of safety were flawed in such an earth shattering way, it was still a clearly comforting thought to believe in when she needed to.
Her Gibson, acoustic guitar sat upright, propped up next to the window that looked out onto the street in front of the house. Adaline set down her purse and picked up her truest confidante. She plucked out a scale, checking the tones as she always did. Then she strummed chords. She picked out a loose rendition of Foster's song to her.
She strummed the chords of the chorus, and then returned to the verse. Then she stopped, set down the instrument, and pulled from the side pocket of her purse, a rugged and cracked, black pick.
When she resumed, she played his song out with the type of precision and fervor, I'd only seen when he played it himself, that afternoon on the bank of Oak Creek. She closed her eyes, consumed by the notes, and was carried into lyrics that lifted the girl up from her weakened shell and took her to a playground where she swung and swooned, she sang inviting.
Adaline was so transported by her waves of melody that the engine just outside her window crept up without notice. She paused for a second and the faint recognition of a thud outside. She waited with a perked ear for any semblance of disturbance. Cars were easy to hear. And when the garage opened, the motor rumbled low across the floor of her room, where it was bolted just below her. There was no rumble. There wouldn't be.
She continued to sing, carried into each verse, seamlessly. The way you play that first song of your repertoire. Perfected, personified. You play it with such exact precision, because you've made it a part of you. It your instruments accent, as well as your own. And despite how versatile you may become, that song is always rich with the culture you've learned and admired and practiced and immersed each note and subtle bend, in. You play it not as if it were your own, because it is yours. It is exactly that. Your song. A gift. A remembered dialogue. A spirits words engraved inside you, dancing, pleading jubilantly to be spoken again, in your own words.
She sang wholeheartedly through a chorus so profound in tone it seemed to resonate and multiply in that somewhat bare walled room. Her joined the waves from each string in flawless harmony.
Only once she'd lain her hand upon her thigh to say goodbye to those last passing tones that drifted out of her instrument and out of her immediate consciousness, did she hear the knock at her bedroom door. It was discreet. Her every muscle tensed, and tempted her to dive beneath the bed or out her window. "He's here!" she exclaimed in thought. Not so much in words as wide eyed certainty. She sat still without an answer.
Again the knock, followed by the voice.
"Can I come in?" Angela asked in that gentle motherly tone she'd mastered in her twenty three years of practice. Time she'd spent sweet-talking her belligerent son and everybody else she needed something from, to selflessly give into her every slightest wish.
Adaline sat still, rigid even, until it sank in that it was only Angela. As it sank, she wondered why she even had a jolt of any fear at all. It was absurd, she knew well enough. Jack was no one but a man that was hurt. The thought flashed and she shook it off.
"Yeah. Come in." Adaline called to Angela standing patiently in the hall, ear aimed towards the door.
She turned the knob and cautiously peered in, careful not to upset the energy of the room.
"Hey there" She said softly, and smiled just as warmly. "I didn't expect to catch you here."
"Yeah. I..." Adaline began to say, "I just needed to pick up a couple things. You know. I think I'm gonna stay over at a friend's for a couple days." She said, rolling the words towards Angela as thought they were bullshit, despite their honesty. The air was awkward, and neither was blind to it. Still, Angela smiled, warmly as ever.
"I get the feeling I startled you. Sorry." Angela said with that, "I'm an ass" foolish shrug.
"I just heard you playing and..." She stepped further into Adaline's room and sat on the edge of her white desk. "You play that incredibly well. It sounds very familiar. Who is it?" she asked, vexed with deja vu.
"I'm not sure. Something I heard on the radio." Adaline replied with tangled reserve. Angela looked back blankly, unsold.
"Oh." she said with the slow nod of resignation. "I must not be listening to the right stations," she said with a smile. Uneasily, Adaline let her smile free with a brief moment of silence. She always felt guilty of her avoidance of ever bringing him up. Foster was such a close part of her, under her rawhide armor, he left a sensitive wound that simply would not heal. As it always is with these sorts of affairs, it could not heal. She couldn't allow it. In a way, she believed it was all that kept her alive, in the worthiest sense of the word. She couldn't bear to reveal him. Just to hear his name would carry her into teary details, she feared.
"I just..." Angela said, recognAngieing Adaline's apprehension. "I've heard you play and, when you sing, the hairs on my neck just stand straight up, you're so good. That song especially. I can't help but see that you mean every word of it. Just incredible." She said with one last exclamation.
"Thank you," Adaline replied, staring at her guitar, too moved to look up. She wove her pick through the strings at the neck.
"No, really, sweetheart. You've got it all!" My mother carried on, "I wasn't sure, because I've heard you play that song so many times, but this time you played it so well. I wasn't sure I'd ever mentioned what a beautiful song it is." Adaline began to smile from the shameless honesty and appreciation Angela poured onto her.
"You did," she replied with a coy grin, "and you asked me who played it, and I couldn't remember."
"Oh?" She replied with interest, not at all surprised.
"Yep. And you didn't believe me then either." Adaline said and looked up with her idly coy expression of surrender..
My mother smiled. What they shared was a look of accord I knew well, the type that arose when she and I would both concede our bluff. It was a simple admission of privacy. As she taught me, it's an issue of respect. I'll respect your privacy as long as you respect my intelligence.
Hardly an orthodox parenting approach, it helped her disregard the guilt of what she hid from me, apparently a weight that grew with every year.
"I'd like to take you to lunch, Adaline." Angela said as she stood from the desk. "What do you say? You grab your stuff, I'll grab mine, and we'll get out of Dodge before the Sheriff gets back?"
"That would be really cool." Adaline smiled as she set down her guitar. I'll just take a minute then.
"Fair enough." Angela said and headed back to her room.
The two of them ransacked their closets, pulling only their most prAngieed and necessary possessions. Adaline packed the largest duffle bag she owned, full with long sleeved t-shirts and jeans, a pair of tennies and a small blanket, remembering the sorely lacking state of my apartment. She packed on, pulling out a number of Brian's folded letters she'd kept in her desk, and from the bottom drawer, three stacks of letters in various sAngieed envelopes, rubber banded together. Each one with the same name, with three separate return addresses. In pronounced, though ratty handwriting, was a return address to Foster Gamble. She shoved them all in her bag. Then the phone rang.
At first, she thought, it's better just not answering it. Then it hit her. Danny! She snatched up the line on the fourth ring, just before the machine picks up, and waited silently.
"Hello?" a timidly familiar voice spoke. "Adaline?"
"Danny!" Adaline answered back. "What's up? Did he just leave?" She asked.
"He left but I'm not sure when. I'm sorry. I was doing a cleaning when he left. I just noticed his chair was empty. He must have finished and taken off." He said, winded. "I'm so very sorry. You should go."
"Like, how long do you think?" Adaline asked, keeping cool.
"I don't know. He was working on fitting a crown when I went in, but I thought he had someone else booked right after. My cleaning was a half hour so, my best bet would be, five, ten minutes." Danny replied. "I'm really not sure. He's pretty fast when he wants to be. There's really no telling. If you don't want to run into him, go now. Oh, and Adaline," His voice narrowed out to Danny's usual tone of paranoia, "please erase this number from your caller ID. It's my cell number. I really don't need to be fired just yet. Ok?"
"Sure, buddy. Thanks, Danny!" She hung up and snatched up her bag.
"Time to go!" she called to Angela as she dashed down the stairs. "He's gonna be here any minute!" Her hand released the giant red bag, once she hit the foot of the stairs, as quickly as she turned the corner into the kitchen, where the phone with the caller ID hung on the wall.
"What?" Angela shouted down the stairs. "How do you know?"
Once erased, she returned to her duffle bag as Angela dragged her two largest suitcases down the stairs with a look of bewilderment. She repeated herself. "How do you know he's on his way?"
"I, uh. I have a man on the inside, I guess." She replied jokingly waxed with urgency. "But really, we've got to go, unless you want to hang out with Jack. I for one, have gotten kind of partial to the idea of not."
"Here, here! Let's go." She replied as she rushed out the door. Adaline tossed the bulky bag over her shoulder, throwing her slightly off balance. She closed the door behind her, turned to lock the bolt, and then escaped. By the time she made it to Angela's Volvo, the bags were already stowed. It was boldly apparent that this was not her first rodeo.
She pumped the bag into the backseat like an artillery shell into the chamber, and threw herself in car. She pulled the turns like a pro as she made for the road, out of the neighborhood. It was then as she pulled onto Harrison, that Jack's car caught her eye. Jack didn't miss her either. And he didn't miss Adaline either, in that glance as they passed him by. Not much ever really got by Jack, except for the appropriate time and approach.
Their hearts were racing. Angela giggled, and soon they both broke out into nervous, anxious laughter. Both knew they'd be having their showdown's with him soon enough, and by the looks of the bottle in the kitchen, getting their perspective across to him might not become any easier with time. Despite what confidence Angela felt she'd instilled in Adaline, they both knew this would be a hardened one-on-one confrontation only. No holding hands when the bell tolls.
"Shit!" Adaline spat with the sudden realAngieation that the one thing she intended most to bring, was her guitar. And now, the threat of losing the pick was strong enough to ask Angela to turn back. She swallowed the urge, however. There was a gamble to take, but she was confidant that, for the moment they were safe from any misdoing. Safe until he began drinking. Jack wasn't the violent type, but as for vindictive. Well, Elisa had been wrong in the past, and no man is exempt from that moment of utter psycho-sociological collapse; A point at which anything's possible.
Jack was well aware that her guitar was her essence, should he ever want to destroy her. All these thoughts were alive in her head, hampering her witty conversational skills.
Adaline paid no attention to the direction they'd headed in, but glanced up to notice how remarkably run down the business plaza was, where they pulled in. She parked in front of a rundown diner with a sign that read Terry's Diner, that was half lit and faded from red to orange.
Adaline was vexed. The Angela she'd come to assume she knew would have never so much as pulled into the dilapidated plaza.  
"I hope you're up for some good ole fashioned Chicago style eats," Angela said with an ear to ear grin. It was one mixed with personal delight, and recognition of the look on Adaline's face that this lunch would be something entirely their own, and entirely out of the norm. "This place has the best Philly in Tucson! Bar none!" She exclaimed proudly, as if it were her own.
They headed across the poorly patched asphalt and concrete parking lot, inside. Adaline's interest grew exponentially from the dark and greasy interior. The last time she'd ordered from such a disheveled menu was when she'd gone to Batman at the DeAnza Drive-In with her mother. She was eleven then, but remembered quite clearly how wretched the state of the concessions counter was. Letters crooked and even missing from the menu items. Fluorescent lights that flickered, and that offensive smell of stale popcorn and beer. Her shoes stuck to the concrete floor with each step as they crept down the line, holding her momma's hand.
It was a memory she'd forgotten. One where she and Jack and Momma enjoyed the space they shared, a large popcorn and the flat Wild Cherry Pepsi. Jack was Jack, not exactly warm to the sentiments, but he laughed at the jokes. He'd see her giggle, and he'd smile. What he was to her, he enjoyed. He was her father, for a time.
In flashes, this place that Angela had brought her to, became something magical. Each table littered with Chicago Bears trading cards, newspaper articles and magazine clippings, and sealed beneath yellowed vinyl. It was inviting. The stained and matted green carpet, with poorly matched patches replaced. Broken arcade games. Torn vinyl seats, poorly repaired with some liquid vinyl constitute.
The linoleum behind the counter was a disgrace, and the walls were a mess of cheap Bears memorabilia and local articles about the place.
The counter implied that there was little in the way of service to be had. The register was ancient, the oldest one she'd ever seen.
They migrated to the counter, slowly. Adaline scoured the menu for familiar items.
"How are the burgers?" She discreetly asked Angela, the apparent aficionado.
"Probably be the best thing you ever tasted." replied a haggard voice behind the counter. A woman, as worn and sun beaten as any middle aged trucker, peered around the corner, stirred from her break. "That is, unless you ever had the Philly." She was purely matter of fact, but not abrasive. "Let me know if you have any questions." Her drawl was transplanted Texan. Subtle and used.
Angela asked Adaline, "Are you ready?"
She nodded, encouraging Angela to go first. She ordered a burger with the works. Adaline scanned its description. Chili, onions, peppers and mushrooms and, the list just went on and threw her right off.
"Uh.." She started, still lost in the crammed, indecipherable menu. "The Philly's good? No, I'll just have a...a burger. With cheese." She decided hurriedly. "With chili! But no onions." She added.
The rugged woman at the counter added up the total with an order of their infamous steak fries and a couple of mammoth drinks, on her vintage 1960-something register. Adaline found her way to a relatively stable bench table, and slid in comfortably. Angela joined her with ketchup and napkins, and smiled mischievously.
"Well, well," Adaline said with an insinuating tone. "I didn't take you for the "works" type." She threw out some air quotes with the comment.
"Yeah well," Angela shrugged, "you know how it is when things go to shit. You gotta splurge a little. And I'm not big on ice cream." She smiled.
"Where did you ever find a place like this, though?" Adaline asked with fascinated intrigue.
Outside, cold and heavy drops began descending. The patter quickly grew across the roof until the volume of their voices were rivaled by it. Sheets of rain came down against the thin roof, striking hard against the river that was 22nd Street, now devoured by the storm. The sprays from cars, like crested waves, came crashing down drawing wakes in the current. The cool breeze was exhilarating, and they perked up by the thrill of what this moment was. Adaline sat, anxious for where this small tale might lead her.
"It's a fun story. Actually, this is where I met my first husband." Angela began girlishly grinning.
"Oh?" Adaline said with magnified interest.
"And..." She smiled with the thrill of the tale, "It's where I first fell in love with Ashley's father." She was beaming with a fantastic glow. My mother adored talking about him. When I was younger, and not so resentful, she would speak about him with me and the things he would say to her, and glow that way. But rarely, if ever, the way she glowed right then, in Adaline's eager gaze.
"Really?!" Adaline exclaimed.
"Yeah! Get this." She checked over her shoulder, and they leaned in for a gossip huddle. "I was that woman behind the counter."
"You worked here?"  She clarified, taken back by the thought of it. "Wow. I can't see you in fast food."
"Yeah well, I was very different then. I was young. Seventeen, actually. I had just turned seventeen when I met him...Ashley's dad. That was also when I first met Terry. I didn't marry him for a while after, however." Angela descended quickly into the tale, juggling dates effortlessly while Adaline hung on with all concentration. "I never loved him the way I loved AJ. That's what his friends called him; AJ. He didn't like to tell people his name. He always felt like he got a lot of flack about it. But to me, he was always my Jeremiah." Angela wove her electric espresso hair through her fingers as she reminisced fondly about her young romancer.
"That was the guy? AJ?" Adaline, clarified. "He was the first boy you ever loved?"
She weighed the question, debating in her head. There were boy's before him, and after him, men. To her, many men. But none of them were Jeremiah. No deliberation was necessary.
"Yes he was. I think he was, in fact, the only man I've ever loved. And truthfully, I don't think I ever tried to after him. Love, love like the kind we had, isn't love by any standard definition of the word. Ours was rare and unguarded. Passionate and dangerous. Like baby rattlesnakes, you know. Completely unable to restrain ourselves in any way." My mother was always the most remarkably animated storyteller I had ever known. And this was her favorite story, beyond comparison.
Adaline was mesmerAngieed, fixated on her every gesture.
"So, this was my first job. I had just moved here from North Carolina to stay with my dad. He worked at the airport, as a mechanic.
"I had just turned seventeen. I'm not going to disclose the year," she smiled, " but you can figure it out, I'm sure. This place had only been open for two years before I was hired, and it was much busier. All the high school kids would come over after school and hang out, so we had that whole crowd.
"Anyway, I was working one weekend, it had to have been a weekend, and Jeremiah came walking in with two of his friends. Now, I'd seen him around, but we never ever talked. He was a whole year ahead of me, and that was actually a big thing then." She scoffed at herself.
"Listen to me, dating myself. Back then! So, anyway. It was the Seventies. He came it wearing these brown corduroy jeans and this Iron Butterfly t-shirt that I kept for over half of Ashley's lifetime. That is, until moths finally finished it off.
"So he walks in, and the minute we made eye contact, I knew, I knew there was something there. Some kind of spark. At first I thought, oh god, he's gonna think I'm some psycho if I keep staring at him. So I stopped, but every time I'd hazard a glance over at him, he'd quickly look away, as if he was staring at me the whole time and thought he'd just been caught... which he had been.
"Now, I was wearing glasses then, but refused to wear them because I thought I looked nerdy, etcetera, etcetera, so I really couldn't see his expression all that well. So, then I started to wonder if he really wasn't looking at me at first, but was now because he saw that I was staring at him. And, maybe, he kept looking away because he didn't want me to get the wrong idea, that he was remotely interested or anything.
"So I'm going through all this in my head the whole time they're there, which felt like forever. Then they left, and I was finally able to think again. I was praising god that he didn't come over and want to talk to me, because I was seriously, clinically retarded right then." They laughed. The story struck so true to what Adaline had felt when she first met Brian. She knew, however, the story of Brian and her would pale in comparison to this one being told, she absorbed it, and simply basked quietly in it's relativity. 
Just then, the bonny hag from the counter arrived with their burgers. They thanked her, and returned their attention to each other chatting around the story a bit, and more about the ambiance and food. Over small talk and the ruckus of rain pouring outside, they ate and enjoyed each other's company.
Angela worked through nearly a half of her burger with remarkable determination. Few people ever witnessed her tackle such a cholesterol-laden meal. With every move, growing up from city to city she and I scoured the furthest corners of town for these types of places. The more run down the greasy spoon, the better. It was our secret quest. Our private pleasure that only we knew of.
Angela, though conceited and demanding as she appeared to men, was still just a girl. The way to her heart was always with simple comforts and honest words. However, the men that understood that were the type she worked hard all her life to avoid.
"Well, what happened after that? You know. After he left." Adaline eagerly inquired, reinitiating the epic tale of Jeremiah. "Did you talk to him at school or what? How did you and Jeremiah hook up?"
"Oh! Yes! Well, I did see him at school" She replied, diving back in, thrilled with Adaline's interest. "Or more importantly, he noticed me. But he didn't come up to me. We saw each other between a couple of classes, passing by. I was actually completely blown away by just how much we must have passed each other without my ever noticing him. But now we did, and I knew he liked me. I was sure he thought I was cute, only, I assumed once he noticed how completely into him I was, he'd be totally put off.
"So, after that first day I saw him at school, and we made it very clear with looks, or at least I did, that the heat was on, I decided it was time to change my game up. If I ever wanted to talk to this boy, I needed to play it cool, so that's just what I did. At least, as much as one could with a heart that raced like a hummingbird every time he passed. With sweat soaked palms and a head full of a million wrong things to say, should he say hi to me at any moment, I played it pretty cool.
"Couple days later, I think it was a Wednesday because my dad's league would bowl on Wednesdays, he shows up with this friend. Not one of the first two, though.
"He she shows up and stands outside, just talking for a couple minutes. I didn't actually notice him out there at first. It was Terry that pointed them out, joking about them with the cooks. Terry was the owner's son, and so, was one of the managers by proxy. He was seventeen also, but didn't act any more mature than the rest of the juniors in the school. And he wasn't a jock or anything special, but he had a nice car and his parents had some money from the restaurant.
"So Terry points out a couple chumps, hanging out in front, undecided on whether they were going to come in or not. And finally they came in. I remember that moment so well because my eyes were glued to the window. I couldn't breathe. I imagine you know the feeling.
"Um, yeah." Adaline replied.
"I had no idea what to say or how to act if they did come in. Normalcy was completely out the window, from everything I was feeling. But I didn't think I could just let him go, if he didn't come and talk to me. I was ready. Well, not exactly, but I could hold back any more.
"So they come in and sit down at a bench, that one actually," Angela says pointing to the bench across from them, right next to the door. The seat was torn and the table looked crooked.
Adaline peers at it and returns her attention to Angela, unfazed by the state of it.
"Yeah I know." Angela nodded with resignation. "This place has seen better days. It was the place to be back in its heyday, though," she said, remembering what it once was. Adaline glanced around her taking it in, trying to capture the image of what it must have been like in its prime.
"So he sat down. Then what. Did Terry say anything to him?" Adaline asked, already icy towards Terry. His "character" already represented something to Adaline, that she uniquely despised.
"Terry?!" Angela chortled with disdain. "He was never the type. Terry's the kind of guy that talks big when there's nothing on the line. You know? Proud and loud, until you're in earshot. Then he's just an ass kissing mouse with beady eyes."
"I get the impression you still have feelings for the guy," Adaline replies with a smile.
"Yeah," Angela snorted and sneered "I've got feelings for him alright! That son of a bitch Got wasted and saw fit to slander Jeremiah right to my son's face. My six year old son." She shook her head in sheer disgust.
"Are you serious!" Adaline gasped.
"Right?!" She exclaimed. "I went ballistic when I found this out. He's lying up and down about how Jeremiah just up and abandoned me in the middle of my pregnancy. And he went on telling Ash, who let me remind you was six at the time, that Jeremiah was beating me and swore at me. To a six year old!!" She exclaimed again. "So I left him, but that's another story, and one that's not nearly as fun to tell."
"Works for me." Adaline replied, ready to charge on.
"So, anyway, They're sitting at this booth and every couple of seconds, they'd glace over at me. One then the other, until finally, he gets up and walks up to the counter where I'm standing. My heart feels like it's about to explode. And he looks at the menu...and looks some more. Never really makes eye contact with me, though. Then finally, he orders a small french fries, pays, and mind you, I'm wondering what the hell's going on. Like, I'm wondering if he's testing me or if I'm supposed to say something. You know, testing if I'm really interested. I just didn't know. I give him his change, and then his fries, and then out he goes.
"There I am, totally oblivious to what just happened. Confused, and even a little bit disappointed. It was right around dinnertime, so almost as soon as he left, customers came flooding in for the dinner rush. And Wednesdays were incredibly busy.
"Fifteen minutes later, wouldn't you know it, just as soon as the line to the counter's practically out the door, in he strolls alone this time.
"Well, the time to chat had passed, no matter how bad I wanted to. I would have been mauled by the customers if I tried any of those shenanigans. But he was too determined, the way he tells the story, to walk out without at least my name, and ideally my number also. So he just stands off to the side of the register, right there," She said as she pointed towards a bus cart that was sitting by the entrance to the kitchen, equipped with ketchup and Tabasco bottles, napkins and
bowls of other condiments, "and he just waits there, arms crossed, watching me. These customers are telling me their orders and so I'm trying to concentrate, but all I can think about is him, standing there looking at me.
"He stands there for at least five minutes, maybe longer. I was no judge for time. It felt much longer than that, but still, not nearly long enough, and the customers kept pouring in. I'm so nervous that I start giving incorrect change and I'm forgetting what people are ordering right as soon as they tell me. I was a mess, and he's just smiling, entertained by my nervousness.
"Then his friend walks in and they go."
"Just like that?" Adaline asked with her brow furrowed by curiosity for such a thing. "He didn't say anything? Not goodbye or anything?"
"Nothing! And I wanted nothing else but to go after him, but I would have lost my job if I just walked away from the counter like that, and they were paying me really well for what it was.
"Wow!" Adaline exclaimed.
"Exactly. And I had the worst day at work because of it. I couldn't get anything right. I was messing up orders left and right. Horrible day. Lucky for me, I had a short shift. So, six thirty rolls around and I'm done. I'm waiting for my ride home, when he shows up again in this little Hornet. They were hot cars. Seriously hot." Her eyes grew wide and emphatic.
"I get the hot flashes again, but it's all too sudden for me to freak out. He rolls down his window and says, 'Let me give you a ride.' I tell him I have to wait here. I just called my ride. They're probably already on their way. He asks me if he can wait with me and I'm like, 'yeah!' That's about when I realAngiee that this is my chance. The thing I've been going crazy about all day, and I'm telling him, I have to wait for Angie to get here late, as usual."
"I say, 'You know what, let's go.' He looks at me confused, 'What about you're friend?' he asks me. So finally I say, 'I've been waiting for you to come back for the last two hours. To hell with my ride.'
"Hell yeah!" Adaline interjects.
"Then I get in the car and the rest is..." Angela was fairytale dusted in the magic of that moment, remembering all those feelings that invigorated her.
Adaline watched her, captivated, absorbed by the romance of her awkward Romeo.
"Perfect?" Adaline said, filling the open end.
Angela looked at her, grounded again. Eyes began to show her years more than moments earlier. Though her expression remained soft and cheerful, the truth of it was there. What followed was not perfect. Not remotely.
"It was perfect." She agreed, under conditions. "We were in love, 100%. It wasn't something that happened or developed. It just was, and everyone could see it. Like we were in love before we ever even met. We alienated ourselves from our friends until it was just the two of us, all the time. And I adored it, every minute we shared. So did he, but it was so different from anything I had ever experienced, and I couldn't contain my feelings. It was all so intense."
"Did you feel like all you wanted was to make him happy, but even though he said he was, and you did everything you thought you could, you just couldn't believe it?" Adaline interjected, concerned.
"You hit the nail on the head. And we argued. I didn't notice it at first because I was so in love, but it got to a point where we were arguing a lot. I mean a lot a lot. Probably every day, and no matter how much we made up and promised to try harder to not be difficult, and no matter how much we talked through the stuff that started the fights, almost right away, we were fighting again.
"I'd say it was probably the "making up" that we really liked the most. For me at least. It became the best part. I mean, the fighting was not fun at all. Fighting with someone you care about never is. You feel sick to your stomach and exhausted, but then you make up, and you're reminded that being in that persons arms is the only place on the planet you could ever want to be. We were so passionately, madly in love."
"Then what?" Adaline urged on, engorged.
"Well, honestly?" Angela asked, uncertain for a moment how censored she should keep. "We had sex."
The words struck a chord that twanged in Adaline's gut.
"I went through it over and over in my head, and I keep coming to that moment as the reason.
"We were still very young. You probably don't feel it now, but at that age I, personally, was just not able to deal with all the things that came with it.
"Before we ever had sex, we were very physical. Passionate, like I said. But we were happy with each other. Then, every now and then, we'd say something to the other that would resonate. Something that would stick, and then, it would come up, seemingly out of nowhere. That just started repeating. I did a lot of that. I see that now. And that's about where that thing that you mentioned, started.
"I got it in my head that there was something wrong. I felt like I wasn't the girl he wanted and that I was only keeping him from his dreams, so on and so forth. It wasn't true, of course. We were kids. If I wanted, I could have helped him do anything and certainly vice-versa. I think I was just scared that I was in too deep, but I absolutely didn't understand. If I were in the same situation now, now that I've lived a bit, it probably wouldn't have been as overwhelming. Then again, love is love. And love is overwhelming. Period."
"Amen" Adaline sighed under her breath.
"We were both very physical, but I was the driving force. I just wanted him so badly. The way he kissed and the way he touched me." Angela heard what she was saying and began to get nervous. "You can't tell Jack I'm telling you this story. He would not approve of us talking about this kind of stuff." She said, concerned.
"Angela. Trust me. Jack and I don't talk about anything. Anything. I'm certainly not going to talk about the things we talk about. It's just not ever gonna happen." Adaline assured her. "Please go on, though."
"OK," She agreed, taking a deep breath. "Well, one night, it was around Christmas time, we had his parents house all to ourselves. And we had mentioned it a couple times, but didn't try it. No," She stopped in scattered thought, trying to arrange the chronology of her memories. "No. We did try. It was proving more difficult than we thought.
"Nevertheless we had the whole house to ourselves. So we were getting into it and..." she lifted her brow, "and we did it.
"After that, we started doing it more and more. All the time. We got creative and tried new things, and almost always used it as our make up. So you see what I mean? About fighting just to make up? Making up meant sex and we liked sex. Unfortunately, eventually the only kind of sex we would have is the angry kind, which is truly corrosive.
"Everyone we knew saw that, also. Friends. Our parents noticed our strange relationship, but couldn't put their finger on it...or so I'd like to think.
"Then we broke up in a nasty, nasty fight. He said things he couldn't take back. I said things I couldn't take back. And we were too bull headed to, anyway. So we became those mortal enemy, ex's.
"Five weeks later, I find out I'm pregnant. School ends before I start showing, and I move back to North Carolina to live with my mom. Which was a complete mistake. I realAngieed then that there were very distinct reasons why I moved to Tucson.
"I moved, however, because I couldn't bear to tell my dad that I was sexual. I thought it would either kill him, dad had a bad heart, or he would kill me. A couple months after Ashley was born I managed to conquer my fear, and came back to Tucson with my baby." Angela wore a pristine smile. Her eye's showed a glint of watery emotion. The love she had for her baby was resoundingly apparent.
"But why Ashley?" Adaline inquired, naively. "I just mean, it's kind of a..." Angela smiled awkwardly.
"Feminine name? Well, Adaline. Probably for a stupid reason," my mother said as she nodded her head, and resigned herself to tell the story she seemed to hate to tell. It was one she never told me, no matter how badly throughout childhood I berated her about it.
"Jeremiah and I would fantasAngiee about having this perfect family. Just he and I and our baby girl. He was certain that if we had a baby, it would be a girl. He was just certain, and when my Jeremiah got something in his head, that's how it stayed. Plain and simple.
"And you guys decided that if you did had a girl, you'd name her Ashley." Adaline interjected with immediate clarity.
"Bingo." She chimed, almost sheepishly.
They sat for a bit longer, talking about this and that. Adaline told her a bit about Foster, a bit about Brian, and she told her what she had done, giving me the diary. Her obvious trust in me, brought genuine tears to my mothers deep chestnut eyes.
"You know, all I ever wanted was to be able to give that boy a sister. He's needed someone like you his whole life. Someone to protect and to confide in. I know I was never much of a mother to him. Not a great confidant, either. I tried, but I didn't try that hard. I was too busy trying to pay the bills and get a good man to make a family with. I wasn't looking for love though. I was scared of love. Deathly afraid. Maybe, I was even a little afraid to love him the way that I could." She said with remorse.
"I'm sure he knows you love him more than anything in this world." Adaline replied, taking my mother's hand.
"I'm sure. But he deserves so much more. More than any of this. He never deserved what Penny did to him. I just wish I could have done for him, something. I just wish that I knew what he needed" Tears escaped her eyes, just brief enough for her to catch before her make-up ran.
"But now I do. I need to do what I never had the courage or the faith to do for him. And that is to find Jeremiah Mercer, and introduce him to his son, and his daughter." Angela smiled through her teary eyes and squeezed Adaline's hand.
"What do you mean?" Adaline replied in a disarray of emotions, unspoken questions and exaggerations.
"Adaline, you are Ashley's sister. Not step, but half-sister, which is the same thing as whole in my book. I have no damn clue as to how, but if Andrew Mercer is your father, the writer, and he's the Andrew Mercer I believe he is, then he is in fact my AJ. Your mother had good taste." Angela said with beaming pride.
"At one point in her life," Adaline chortled, playfully snide.
"Hey, you can't begrudge us our weaknesses. Cash has a way of settling the heart's appetite, and Jack has an income." Angela replied in her defense. "Writer's on the other hand..."
"I have one other question."
"Shoot." Angela eagerly prepared.
"Does AJ know about Ash, that he has a son?" She asked timidly.
Angela smiled nonchalantly. "I'm sure he must know something. We had a lot of the same friends. Even though I never told anyone much about Ashley, or about that time that I spent in North Carolina, people could piece it together. There's always talk."
"Wow." Adaline said with a deep exhale. Her eyes widened and lips parted as all these revelations sank in. The sheer notion that she had a half brother was riveting, and that it was me even made more sense than it surprised. How she felt when we played, when we spoke. It was as if a burlap bag was taken off her head, and she could finally see what she envisioned from the miscellaneous sounds she could hear, but couldn't quite explain. And the majesty of just how ideal the truth really was, coursed through her and erupted in expressions of genuine happiness.
"But how did you know?" Angela asked, a question that had confounded her from the moment I had handed her the receipt with Andrew's name written on it.
"Huh?" Adaline mumbled, jostled from her trance.
"How did you know his name? I mean, it always seemed as though you didn't really know who your dad was. You put up with a lot, it seems. A lot for someone..."
"It's complicated. Mon.., my mother gave me his name. I just didn't believe I would find him until I was on my own. But I did expect that one day, if even just accidentally" she realAngieed this was that day, and her face expressed that thought, "one day I'd stumble onto him. It was always my dream. The only good one I can remember ever having.
"I figured, hey, my lucks gotta turn some time." Adaline smiled at Angela.
"It did sweetheart. It did."
The rain that bombarded them had begun to subside, and they took the hint and charged through it to the car. They bounded like school children at the bell, without a care in the world. Then it occurred to them both as they bounced into their cushy plush seats, heavily dampened, there were still things in life that hung over them. Despite the ominous inevitable, in their hearts glowed embers of unprecedented delight for these secrets they had shared.
Adaline explained why she needed to return, and most likely face off Jack. Though Angela resisted, they both knew it what the options were, and Adaline made her choice. She asked Angela not to wait or come in with her. It would all be easier if they each held their own dialogues. At least, that was what Adaline believed. Angela regretfully obliged.
They pulled up towards the house as they grey skies fell into darkness. The sparkle and shadows of rain fell through the glow of street lamps that lined the road.
Adaline left her bag in the car, and once they arrived, marched towards the door, into the battle and out of the rain. Inside was the beginning of the end.