It was two months later and Josh was sitting on the steps of the L. Rolling a bottle of beer between his palms, he stared out over the treeline at the beginnings of a late May sunset. Mollie lay at his feet, splayed in the last corner of sunlight.
For Happy Hour, Moetown was uncharacteristically deserted. Lucky was down in San Tomas playing lo-ball. Donna was in Kinsella with William, helping pick out furniture for his new office. Clark and Zeke were camping up in Oregon, and Carol was on location in Boston with Paul.
As the sun vanished over the trees, Mollie stirred, then sat up, her fur up, a low growl hanging around her throat, ready to leap. Then she recognized Alexis and her tail moved from straight-up to side-to-side.
Alexis stopped in front of Josh. She was dressed for her shift. “You eat yet?”
He shook his head. “A little early. What time is it, anyway?”
“A little after six.” She looked around at the cabins, then down at her feet. “Listen. I need to ask a favor. Would you ride with me tonight?”
He leaned forward. “Is someone giving you trouble?”
“Something like that.” She saw him hesitate. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
They spent the first hour talking about Donna, how she was slowly gaining weight, how she seemed to be making a conscious effort to rejoin the community, and how sad it still was to watch. She and Mollie had begun joining Clark and Zeke most mornings on their walks. Afternoons she spent with Carol, trying to restart work on the book. It was difficult, frustrating going, with little to show for all the hours of effort. But she was trying. And, in a move that caught everyone by surprise, she had recently volunteered to join the legal team of a Kinsella woman accused of murdering her husband, a man who had abused her for most of their twelve years of marriage.
“Remember when we were driving down to the hospital to pick her up?” Alexis said. “I asked you if you thought she was going to turn the corner?” He nodded. “What’s your take now?”
“Do I think she’ll try to kill herself again? No. But I don’t think she’ll make it all the way back, to be the Donna we knew before all this.”
“Why not? I feel like I made it back from my brother’s death. And I’m sure there have been tragedies in your life…”
“Your brother was part of your life, part of your heart, I’m sure. But Pete and Harry—they pulled her back from a darkness. And now that darkness is back, except it’s far darker than either you or I can imagine.”
“No chance she’ll ever get involved with someone else?”
“Like who?”
“Well,” she looked embarrassed. “What about Clark?”
He shook his head sadly. “Only in the movies.”
The evening began with a number of in-town short hops in Kinsella. Then one of her business clients needed one of their team taken over the mountain to San Tomas, a thirty-dollar fare. When she dropped him, she looked at her watch. “It’s eight o’clock. Ready for dinner?” He nodded. “Mexican? I’m buying.”
She clicked her radio. “Twenty-one.”
“Go ahead, two-one.”
“I’m going dark for an hour. Anyone up in San Tomas?”
“Only you and Tony, and he’s about to call it a day.”
“Okay, I’ll be at Manolo’s, but only call me if there’s an airport run.”
“Done.”
They settled into a corner booth. Josh ordered a beer, Alexis a club soda with orange juice. The drinks came immediately, before they even had a chance to look at the menus.
“So what did you want to talk about?”
Alexis frowned slightly and tapped the formica tabletop with her fingertips. Then she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope and placed it on the table between them. “This came four days ago. From my ex-husband.”
He looked at the envelope. “What’s he want?”
“Me. Back.”
Josh put down the beer. “My,” he said, his quiet voice matching hers.
“Yeah. Serious business.”
“What’s he want? Specifically.”
“To give it another shot. Says he’s a changed man, that it took him a while, but he finally knows what’s important.” She raised her glass. “And I’m a big part of it.”
Josh raised his chin, nodding at the envelope. “Do you believe him?”
“I do. You live with someone, you get a feel for where the truth ends and the lies begin. My folks say he’s changed, too. Say he’s not the go-go career boy any more, that they actually enjoy his company.” She looked up. “He visits them when he’s in town.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.” She looked up and a bark of a laugh escaped her lips. She covered her smile with her hand. “I’m sorry, Josh, but you should have seen your face just now.” She patted his hand. “Relax. I’m not hitting on you. I just need your help with this.”
They leaned back as the waiter arrived with their plates. After he left, Josh took a long sip of beer. “I don’t see what help I can be. I don’t know you that well. And I don’t know your husband at all.”
“Ex-husband.”
“Ex-husband.”
She nodded at the envelope. “That letter confused me. And I don’t like being confused.”
She nodded to the waiter as he refilled her drink. “I’m trying to avoid sounding like a cliché here, but I’m trying to figure out the difference between being alone and being lonely. The first one doesn’t bother me—I like being alone a lot of the time. But the second one does bother me—it’s not what I want to be, it’s not who I want to be.”
She motioned at his plate. “Go ahead. Eat.” She picked up her fork and picked at her chile verde, flaking the meat idly. Then she took a bite. “What I realized is that, if I say no to Scott and stay here, I’m pretty much saying that I’m willing to go through the rest of my life alone.”
“And would that be a bad thing?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I love being here with you guys. And maybe the camp goes on forever, until we’re all in walkers and gumming William’s tuna casserole. But I’m not sure I want to wake up alone each morning for the next thirty years, no matter how full the rest of the day might be.”
Josh took a forkful of beans and rice and washed it down. “I’m not sure what you’re asking me.”
“If it’s worth it. You’re the only one around here who seems to have made that conscious decision, to spend the rest of your life alone.”
“What about William?”
She shook her head. “William’s going to get married again. He misses it, you can tell. And with his clientele he’ll have lots of opportunity, once he’s ready.” Her eyes tightened on his face. “I’m asking you.”
Josh took his time. His eyes seemed to lose their focus and turn inward. He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and idly thumbed his beard. He sat that way long enough that the waiter came over to see if everything was alright. Alexis gently waved him away.
Finally, through his fingers, he said, “This decision you’re making, it’s for yourself. That makes it a positive decision. My decision was a negative one—it wasn’t about myself but about other people. And that’s all I’ll say about it.”
She put down her fork. “I’m sorry, Josh. Normally I’d just nod at that and let you get away with that cryptic answer. But tonight I need more. Please.”
He took in a long breath and let it out. Grudgingly. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, let’s start with ‘are you happy?’”
“Yes. My life is filled with great people. That life had a hole in it while my brother was inside. But now I’ve got him back. So yes, I’m happy.”
“And that’s enough for you?”
“It has to be. Anything else would be too…” He looked off. “…dangerous.”
“Dangerous for who?”
He motioned for another beer and didn’t speak until the waiter brought it. “I’m going to say this once, and no questions, okay?” He gave her a hard, expectant stare. “Okay?” When she nodded, he continued. “A long time ago, I did something I’m ashamed of to this day. And don’t ask me what it was.”
He looked at her as if he was expecting an argument, but she stayed quiet. “What I did showed me a black side I didn’t know I had. There’s no other way to describe it—a black side. And it told me that any woman who got involved with me would be in danger.” She shifted in her seat and leaned forward, but he shook his head. “We agreed. No questions.”
“Then I’ll make a statement. I know enough to guess that we’re talking about something that happened back in Baltimore. I don’t need to know what it was, but damn, Josh, that was twenty years ago.”
He tried to smile, but it came out crooked. “You said earlier you didn’t want to sound like a cliché. Now it’s my turn. Some things…” He looked off. “There isn’t a statute of limitations on some of the things we do.”
At ten-thirty, Alexis pulled up in front of the card club. “Do me a favor,” she said, leaving the engine running. “Go in and see how Lucky’s doing. Sometimes, if he’s losing, he has a couple of drinks to break his rhythm. If I’m over on this side, I’ll come get him at the end of my shift. If he’s winning, it’s club soda, and he’s on his own.”
When Josh came back a few minutes later, Alexis was standing next to the Cadillac, her back to Josh. She was talking to a denim-clad man who kept leaning closer to her as he spoke. Their voices, but not their words, carried. Josh stepped up his pace and drew nearer. The man hesitated for a moment at Josh’s approach, then turned away.
“What was that all about?” he said as they got back into the car.
“A fare who wanted to go to a remote location. Until he saw you. How’s Lucky doing?”
“Club soda and a nice stack in front of him.” He nodded towards the departing man. “You get many like him?”
“A few.”
“How do you deal with them?”
“Mostly you learn to read them before they get in the car. Most times you can.”
“And when you can’t?”
“I’ve got something worked out with my dispatcher. If something doesn’t feel right, I call in the destination and, instead of saying ‘over’ at the end, I say ‘out.’ The dispatcher then tells me I’ve got an emergency at home and we have one of the other cabs meet us at a nearby corner and I transfer the fare. Most times I’m wrong and the fare continues to that address. But sometimes they change where they’re going once they’ve got a male driver.”
They rode for a while in silence, the darkness wrapped around the cab. “You’re trusting a lot in that first read, aren’t you?”
“I guess so, but what am I supposed to do? Look for another line of work? Besides, I’m pretty good at it, as my track record shows.”
“True, but it only takes one time being wrong.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I’m pretty good at sizing someone up.”
Josh looked at the stranger who had approached Alexis, now long down the street. “What about me?”
“What about you?”
“What if I got into your car and asked you to take me to one of those remote locations?”
“I’d take you.”
“Even after tonight?”
“Especially after tonight.”