ST. CHARLES
The train screeches as it blasts toward St. Charles. My stomach churns like I just ate something dicey from one of those sidewalk food carts. I text Amelia.
Evie: Have you ever gotten a weird letter from “a fan?”
Amelia: Yes. Dick pics. Did someone send you dick pics?
Evie: No.
Amelia: What?
Evie: Just a letter.
Amelia: What did it say?
I skim it. Reading it the second time I’m not sure it says all that much.
Evie: Not that much. Maybe I’m over-reacting.
Evie: I’ll show it to you when I get back.
Amelia: Forward it to me.
Evie: Not now. My train’s getting in. Besides, it’s snail mail.
Amelia: That’s even weirder.
Evie: I know. Talk later.
“St. Charles. The next stop will be St. Charles,” the conductor announces.
The train’s slowing down and I make my way to the front of the car. I step off into a late afternoon summer, the sinking sun practically blinding me. I shade my eyes and glance around at the stretch of parking lot chock full of sedans and SUVs.
A wolf whistle pierces the air and I swivel. Dylan’s leaning back against a Jeep convertible. “Lucky Charm,” he calls out, moving two fingers away from his mouth.
“Hey.” I go hot, then cold, then hot again, my knees practically knocking about under the twenty dollar country club casual dress, because I want his mouth on me and for that matter, his fingers too.
“Looking awfully pretty on this summer day. Need a ride?”
He’s wearing black khakis and a fitted V-neck T-shirt showing a dusk of groomed chest hair and, oh holy hell, how did I miss the definition in those arms the last time I was with him?
“Yes, please.”
“What? No overnight bag?”
“I assumed we’d be working,” I say, my throat going dry. “Besides you didn’t include that in your instructions.”
“You actually read my instructions?” He leans in, kisses me on the cheek, and I could swear he lingers a second. His scent is subtle. Cologne? Soap? Does he smell this great naturally?
My cleavage flushes. It’s hotter out here in the suburbs. Maybe the heat’s rising off the asphalt or the train grinding away from the station. Maybe it’s just shooting off Dylan McAlister like firecrackers leaving puffs of smoke trailing across a hazy summer sky.
“Of course, I read your instructions.” I take a step back and execute a slow twirl. “Country club casual.”
“Holy hotness, Doris Day.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.” He opens the Jeep’s passenger door and I climb in. Our arms brush and my pulse quickens, my mouth going dry. Like somehow this is fate. I’m supposed to be his lucky charm. Why do I get this weird premonition he’s going to be mine?
“How was your week?” he asks. He drives down Route 34 and we motor past shopping plazas filled with parking lots bigger than the actual grocery and sporting goods stores.
“Same old, same old. Yours?”
“Nothing to write home about.”
We cruise past VFWs, White Hen Pantries, Thai food take out joints, and gas stations on every other corner. The air is warm. It smells different than big city air. Fresher, greener, if that’s possible.
“How’d the game go in Tulsa?” I ask.
“‘How was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?’” His handsome facade cracks. Weariness seeps out.
“That good,” I say, my updo breaking apart. My hair blows in the wind. I push back strands of hair.
“I missed you, Evie.”
He might be tired but those reflective Aviators make him even sexier.
“I missed you back.”
His thigh muscles contract and release under the black khaki pants when he shifts gears. I wonder what they’d feel like under my hand? I vote for hard and ripped.
He turns down a smaller four-lane highway. In a few miles it narrows to two lanes. We zip past subdivisions filled with upscale tract houses on large grassy lots surrounded by marshland. Ducks and geese make their homes here. Another ten minutes and we’ve left the suburbs behind for the country, passing farmland and hacked off corn fields.
It’s yellow and green and lush and relaxed out here. So different from the grit, grime, and hustle of the city. Wouldn’t it be nice to be doing this for real? Motoring down a rural road in a convertible, sunshine bathing my shoulders, hair flying about in the breeze, a handsome guy who seems to like me seated next to me in the driver’s seat? I could get used to this. “Where’s the game?”
“The Schillinger Batavia Estate and Inn. Historical landmark. Pretty place. Built by a robber baron as a summer home for his beloved mistress.”
“His mistress?”
“Yes.” He turns into a driveway and cruises up a black top road toward a three story Victorian mansion. “Schillinger kept the wife and kids tucked away on a lake front estate north of the Chicago,” he says. “There’s sixty miles between the two properties – a proper distance between his two lives.”
A former 1800s mansion lies tucked back from the road on twenty-five acres of thick, lush Midwestern woods and farmland that now looks like an arboreteum. I didn’t grow up with money, but I’ve seen plenty of it in pictures. This place could pass for one of those magazine spreads – it’s big money – no wonder Dylan’s request was for country club casual. I twist my hair back up into a loose updo and secure it with a few clips.
“Nervous?” he asks.
“Not really. Why?”
“Lots of hair fiddling going on.”
“Good thing you’re the one playing poker and not me.”
He smiles. “That remains to be seen.”
We sip on bubbly water in a cozy dark bar inside the 1800s mansion, sink back into old, comfortable leather chairs and fall into easy banter, just like the first time we met.
“Do anything interesting and different since last time I saw you?” he asks.
“Kind of.”
“Cheer me up. Share.”
Probably best not to confide I rocked out an orgasm fantasizing about his mouth on my sex. “Drinks at a sports bar with some friends.”
“Sounds like fun,” he says.
“It was. You?”
“Nothing all that interesting. I’ve been having difficulty concentrating lately.”
“Tell me more.”
He checks his watch and rises from the table. “I will. After the game.”
We make our way down a cedar-chipped path through manicured lawns with a smattering of flowers, to a refurbished barn on the back of the property.
“Sorry,” he says. “No gift for you this time.”
My hand flies to the diamond pendant resting on my breastbone. “I’m already wearing the pretty one you gave me.”
“And yet you’re missing something.” He reaches down into a bed of flowers, and plucks a daisy. He catches strands of hair between his fingers and smoothes them behind my ear. “Thanks for coming out to see me again. I think I gave you mixed signals the last time we were together and for that I apologize. The game’s getting to me.”
“We’re cool.” Wow – he realized it. This is good. Better than good – excellent. “Can I help?”
“You’re already doing that. You make me calmer.” He tucks the flower into my hair on top of my ear. It feels like an apology of sorts. “My beautiful, Evie. Ready?”
“Yes.” We reach the door that mysteriously opens before he even knocks.
A pretty young woman smiles at us. “Mr. McAlister?”
“Dylan McAlister. And Ms. Berlinger.”
“Great,” she says. “We’ve been expecting you.”
Sixteen hours pass. Monetarily Dylan’s up and down – winning some, losing more. The stacks of chips in front of him dwindle. I’m chatting with one of the hostesses in a far corner of the room, not even watching the table when an empathic reaction rolls in, striking with a cold fury like I’ve been stabbed in the chest with a fat icicle. My gut twists. My heart hurts. And I know the game is over for him. I break out in a sweat and sink in a pit of crappy sensations.
“You okay?” the hostess asks. “You look a little green.”
“I’m good. Just tired.” I squeeze my eyes shut for a few seconds and pinch the thick acupuncture point on the fleshy web between my thumb and forefinger, the stabby sensation rooting me to reality.
‘This isn’t your quicksand,’ Queasy says. ‘Don’t drown in it.’
I’m not sure I want to shut this empathic hit down. It connects me to Dylan and if I hold on tight I might find a pony under this pile. It would be nice to do that before the skin crawls off my bones.
‘Everything’s a teachable moment,’ Hope says.
‘How so?’ I ask.
‘Identify the feelings. Name them,’ she says. ‘That way you own the pain, it doesn’t own you.’
If I get a grip on these emotions maybe I can mitigate the damage they’re wreaking inside me, and help Dylan as well.
Three. Two. One.
I sink into the empathic layer and the world spinning out of control around me slows down. The twists in my gut soften, untangle and in the murkiness I identify the sensation: desperation.
Dylan’s desperation.
Weird. As soon as I name it the feeling within me dissipates only to be replaced by the next wave. A bitter taste of bile blossoms in my mouth. I pull back, grow space, and identify it. The sensation is shame.
Dylan’s shame.
Wow. I might be able to do something with this.
This time the poker marathon lasts twenty hours instead of twenty-three. Dylan folds at the end, hustled by a guy my age who made a fortune in a social media company. I catch myself the second before I cringe in regret and keep a poker face.
The players tip the help and the event organizer. Folks use the bathrooms, gather their stuff, and wander out of the bungalow. Dylan and I walk back down the cedar-chip pathway toward the main building and the parking lot. It’s late afternoon, not as hot as the day before, and a gentle breeze rustles the greenery. I’m wiped – for both of us. I’d lay money that sex is off the table but my heart still sinks when he confirms it.
“I’ll order you a car, or you can train it back to the city,” Dylan says, slipping an envelope inside my purse. “I can drop you at the station.”
Anxiety bubbles and I finger my necklace. Here we are again. What if this is the last time I see him? “Are you blowing out of town?”
He shakes his head. “I couldn’t get a direct flight. I’m staying a day to recoup.”
Hope pinches me. ‘Opportunity knocks…’
I square my shoulders. “What are you doing between now and then?”
“Sleeping. Talking to my mom. Doing something that involves nature. I miss nature. These games just keep going and going and eventually you forget to get outside and move. The great outdoors is literally a stone’s throw away from where I’ve been holed up in a room breathing crappy recycled air but I forget about that because I’m going over the game in my head, or thinking about the next one.”
“Do you over-think everything?” I bend down and pluck a daisy from a fat, happy cluster.
“Yes. For the most part, I do.”
“Ever consider mixing that up a bit? You know, playing it a bit different?” I bring the flower to my lips, kiss it, and tuck it behind his ear.
He coughs and blood floods his cheeks. He looks healthier already.
“Yes,” he says.
“Good.” I give voice to the words that have been bumping around my brain since the last time we parted. “Want company?”