3.

Lauren. Her name was Lauren. It sounded a lot better coming from her lips than mine, but then so did everything. I hadn’t expected her to be there in the morning, but when she opened the blinds I found myself angry at the darkness for having ever hidden her. We sipped coffee for breakfast and feasted on each other for lunch. That night, she directed me to a nearby house. I parked up the street while she went inside and filled a backpack. The house’s porch light flicked on as we departed, and she sank into her seat. We stayed in Pasadena four more days, finding ourselves in that same bar each night. Lauren worked the jukebox as if pulling a playlist from my own mind. I swam in her eyes, unconcerned with drowning. We hid from the world inside each other.

At an ATM the following evening, I waited longer than usual for the all-too-familiar DECLINED and monotone buzz. I looked at Lauren standing down the busy street, pushing out smoke. She smiled to me. ‘This won’t do,’ I mumbled. Pushing coins into a payphone, I called my Australian bank for the first time in months, daunted by the prospect of how tiny the balance I expected a teller to recite could be. It didn’t matter though. I would move it all over, every cent, just to spend more time with her. I quoted account details from a weathered card in my wallet and almost choked when the teller responded. I made him repeat himself a few times before accepting it.

‘Yes, all of it. Same account as before, thank you,’ I said into the phone. Lauren noticed my seriousness and came over.

‘Is everything okay?’ she asked as I hung up the handle and stared at nothing.

‘It would appear I just sold a house.’

‘Is this one of your jokes I don’t understand?’

‘Not quite. Hey, you ever been to San Francisco?’

‘No.’

‘Ever wanted to?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let’s go to San Francisco in the morning.’

‘Okay.’

The Miata hummed a happy tune as we cruised up the coast with the top down the next morning. I ignored signs for Santa Monica and Venice on the way like they were company not welcome at the party. Lauren placed a hand over mine as it rested on the shifter, almost causing us to sail from the cliffs of the Pacific Coast Highway when she dragged it to her lap and slid my fingers into her.

I watched her move inside a gas station as I squeezed one of pump’s triggers outside, wondering what life could be made with her. We got back in the Miata and carried on. I asked her how to say, ‘I love you.’

She replied, ‘Te amo,’ curious why I wanted to know. I told her I might need it soon. She pushed on my shoulder and hid a smile behind her wrist.

A haze sat over the harbour, radiating blood orange from the setting sun. The peaks of the Golden Gate Bridge poked through like it was being consumed by a brilliant, gentle inferno. I watched the colours reflect in Lauren’s eyes and felt the same way. We drove to a hotel on Mason. The valet seemed offended by the Miata.

‘Be careful, she is a very special lady,’ I said as I closed the door for him. He scowled and I listened to the rotted exhaust drone all the way into the far corners of the car park below.

Waking from sleep beside Lauren made me need less of it somehow. I’d rise with my soul on fire, my heart pulling me around like some unruly dog on a leash. Love until that point had been a radio wave for me, undulating and ambivalent, but with her I was a tiny rowboat being heaved over a never-ending wave.

I returned from an early morning walk to find her still asleep. I looked her over: at the sheet ending where her lower back rose; how the light climbed and fell over her features like brush strokes. I refused to believe we’d grown from the same soil. Plotting kisses from her ribs to neck, I watched lips curl into a smile as she woke. My heart was full to the point of bursting, but then I felt undeserving of her company. A woman like that needed wonder and awe and magic to match what she gave to the world. Anyone could give her a beat-up car and a hotel room.

We walked to the wharf arm in arm, sharing heat and safety.

‘Why do you keep this jacket?’ she asked.

‘What do you mean? I like it.’

‘The leather, it is hard and rough,’ she said, rubbing her nails against the tattered sleeve like a file.

‘Yes, it is, but it still keeps me warm.’

‘Do you not think it is ruined?’

‘No, it’s not ruined. It’s just seen time, my love.’

‘Oh … then I like it too.’

We reached the wharf. There was somehow clear skies and fog at the same time. I kissed her forehead.

‘Would you like to go to New York City?’ I asked. ‘We could fly.’

‘To do what?’

‘The same as we’ve done here. Walk and talk.’

‘Hmm, no, I don’t think so.’

‘Fair enough, how about Chicago? Maybe Philadelphia? We can go wherever you want.’

‘I think I want to go home.’

‘We can do that. Let’s stay in Beverly Hills.’

‘No, baby, I mean I want to go back to my home and my family and my life.’

‘What? Why? You’re not enjoying this?’

‘It has been nice and I like you very much, but this feels … it feels like running. These hotel rooms and bars, they are not life. It has been fun, but it is time to go home.’

I looked over the bay, cloudy and sunny all at once. She buried a head into my shoulder and I put an arm around her.

We reached Pasadena that night. I left the engine idling in case she changed her mind. ‘Smile, Mark, this life is a happy thing,’ she said. I nodded because she was right, not because I wanted to. ‘Goodbye, maybe we will meet again someday,’ she added, kissing me. I felt her lips tear something from me as they pulled away.

Heels clicked across the street to the house I’d been directed to before. She pressed a buzzer and waited. Its front door opened, illuminating the path and front lawn. She looked up at someone, sunk her head then walked through. A man stepped out to where she’d stood. A husband or boyfriend, maybe a brother or a friend. He looked at me with low, uncertain brows as I leant on the Miata under a street lamp across the street. I nodded. He took a moment, reciprocated, then went inside and closed the door, the light spilling onto the front lawn thinning until it was gone. I let out a breath, lit a cigarette and got in the Miata. Love was just something I’d read on a Hallmark card. Pop-up headlights lifted and showed the way. I let the clutch out and drove west.

A room on Lincoln Boulevard near Santa Monica welcomed me. I washed my face and stared into the bathroom mirror. Retrieving my razor, I ran it back and forth until my beard was gone. A younger, kinder face I thought I’d lost stared back in the mirror. I crawled under the covers and stared at the ceiling through darkness, unable to feel upset. I’d run fingertips along perfection and not been burnt.