At the top of the garage exit, he stops, setting his feet on the ground while the metal door rolls up. He turns to look at me. “We went public, Chrissie, in a very ugly public way. I would have preferred not to do that. Ignore everything on the street. We’ll be out of the city in a couple hours.”
Everything on the street? Oh shit, and then I see it. How is it possible that there are so many of them? There are tabloid photographers blocking the exit. They are blocking the road. They are running from the front of the building, all while shouting and rapidly taking pictures.
He pushes through them, he doesn’t answer, and he speeds off really fast. It would scare the hell out of me if I wasn’t relieved to be out of there.
* * *
The traffic is thick and slow, as New York traffic is, but Alan drives like a maniac and I wonder if he really thinks he can’t die because he isn’t twenty-seven.
My rational self, trying to keep me from freaking out about all this, points out that he is only doing it because the tabloids have tried to follow. But cutting through cars at high speeds on the Washington Bridge Bronx Expressway it has given us an advantage that Colin and the car would not have.
I hold on and let him whisk me away. Still, I’d sort of like to know where we are going.
We lose the last of them by the Garden State Parkway, and he immediately eases off the speed when we enter the New York State Thruway. We are going north and away from the city.
With each mile, the tension ease out of Alan, and the feeling of soaring up roads, in the open air, is strangely liberating and soothing. I feel calmer inside and less frantic holding him. We feel good again, so connected, and so very right.
I feel a slight letdown as he turns off the highway and onto an off-ramp, gradually slowing. I lift my cheek and study the little village by the lake in front of us. I guess this is where we are going, but really Alan, couldn’t you have asked if I wanted to leave Manhattan.
He can be so highhanded at times. I add it to the rapidly growing list of adjectives about him: highhanded, brilliant, gentle, kind, sensitive, sophisticated, angry, elegant, obnoxious, and harsh. What else have I forgotten? I know that’s not the entire list.
We stop at an intersection. We haven’t spoken for hours. “Where are we?” I ask.
“Lake George. I think you’ll like it. Rural New York is very different than the city. Too many people go to New York and never leave the city. Totally different world. A good place to stay until things quiet down again.”
My gaze locks on a hokey little place with white cabins. “Well, they certainly have lodging here. I vote for the Seven Dwarfs Motel and Cabins.”
He gives me a smile that tugs at my heart. “Are you still angry?”
What’s in his voice floods my heart. “No. I should be, but I’m not.” I make one of my little playacting faces. “And heck, why fight. I’m about to be bounced in a room named after a Disney movie. How great is that?”
He laughs. “Are you hungry?”
I nod. I could eat. I point to the Papa bear statue wearing a plaid beret. “How about there?”
Alan laughs. “Really?”
I shrug. “Why not? I like A&W. I never get fast food. There doesn’t seem to be much choice here.”
He rolls us into the parking lot and turns off the bike. As I study the menu, I look at Alan and I laugh. I wonder when the last time it was he did something like this. Probably never. Somehow I don’t think many girls drag him to fast food.
I listen to him order, then take the plastic number stand and find a table. I settle in an outdoor plastic booth, but he pulls me up from the seat, until he’s eased back against the wall, slightly turned with me between his legs and sitting against him.
His chin is resting on my shoulder and he is holding me. He is quiet, troubled beneath the surface. Something is bothering him. I can feel it.
“Is this your first date-date at fast food? Something tells me you don’t go to this type of place very often.”
He pretends to give it thought. “Actually, yes.”
The food service girl comes to our table, delivering our tray. She gives Alan that look, the I know who you are look, but when I glare she takes off without saying anything. Back at the order window, she is rapidly talking to the others in the fast food box. I can feel their stares.
“It’s a good thing there are no tabloids here,” I say, prepping my food to eat it. “People would really start to wonder what’s happened to you if they could see this.”
He doesn’t even give me a slight laugh for the effort. He just picks at his food. My Alan radar is not askew. Something is bothering him.
I squeeze some ketchup and ranch dressing into neat swirls on my plate. “So, where are we staying? How long are we here?”
“I own a farm, not far from here. It’s on the lake. We use it as rehearsal space. It’s a good place to chill and other things. I want to stay on The Farm a few days.”
I stare at him. A few days? I don’t have anything with me except my purse, which he tucked into his pack, and my birth control pills. God, Alan, I’m a girl! I don’t have anything with me.
“Why are you frowning?” he asks.
“Because you just did this. You didn’t ask and the only things I have are my darn pills and my wallet.”
He smiles, a touch wicked. “Then you have everything you need, Chrissie.”
“Very funny.”
I stare at my food. I take a handful of french fries and onion rings and angrily dip them into the ranch dressing, then the ketchup.
“Why do you mix your food like that?”
Really? He wants to talk about that? That seems important to him.
“When you eat the onion rings with the fries it makes them both taste better.”
He studies my face. I can tell he knows I’m angry. And then, because he’s decided to be irritating it seems, he starts to sing one of my favorite Dylan songs but has changed the verse to “she eats just like a little girl.”
“That was terrible. And it is sacrilege to change the words to a Dylan song.”
He pouts. “I had to. I couldn’t sing that you break. You don’t break, Chrissie. You don’t know that, but you are not the kind of girl that’s ever going to break.”
I stare at him. So, I don’t break? Oh Alan, as much as you understand me, sometimes you don’t get me at all.
* * *
We roll to a stop on the gravel drive. The Farm. It looks like something from a Norman Rockwell painting. Whitewashed wood, with pretty little porches and picket rail fronts. Apple trees. A barn. An old, open framed jeep that is little more than a rust bucket.
I can hear sounds from the two story farmhouse and that’s when I notice that there are cars in the driveway. Lots of fancy cars. Who is here at Alan’s farm?
The front door opens. Linda rushes out in shorts and a tight tank top. She is carrying a margarita glass.
She waves. She smiles. She laughs.
She pounds Alan’s chest with a finger. “You bring everyone up here, and then you don’t show. You were supposed to be here yesterday. Not smart, Manny. Not a good way to start.”
She fixes her laser-focused stare on me. “I’m glad you made up. I’m glad you’re here, Chrissie. I could use a friend.”
The Farm.
The larger dysfunctional family.
This isn’t a date.
I remember the adjective I forgot: mean. Yes, Alan can be mean and this is very mean.
He tricked me. He deliberately dragged me here with him, knowing very well I would never want to see any of them ever again. I watch him ease off the bike, unzip his jacket, and toss it across the seat.
Oh Alan, you make it so easy to hate you at times. Only it’s not. It is not easy to hate Alan.
Chapter Fifteen
We follow Linda into the house to find the entire dysfunctional family downstairs. The room is spacious, comfortably understated in shabby chic country furnishings coordinated in yellow and blue. From the dark wood floors to the open beamed ceilings, it is vintage Americana, windows of colored stained glass, blue check curtains on black iron rods, and heavy wood everywhere. The farmhouse is charming.