The Edge of Always

28

We’re on the road again, somewhere on a highway between Gulfport, Mississippi, and New Orleans. The day is perfect, with clear blue skies and just the right amount of heat so that we can still ride with the windows down and not feel the need to turn on the AC in the car. Camryn is driving and I’m kicked back on the passenger’s side, a lot like she usually is, with one foot hanging out the window.

We stayed in Mobile for a week and paid for our hotel room, all of our food, and the gas in the car with just a fraction of the cash we scored performing and Camryn’s tips from waitressing. My busboy tips were just a drop in the bucket compared to hers.

My cell phone buzzes around in the pocket of my black cargo shorts, and I answer it. “Hey, Mom, what’s up?”

She tells me how much she misses me and goes right into questions about my check-ups.

“No, I’ve been getting checked out,” I say. “Yeah, I got a scan not long ago at a hospital in—No, they just called in to Dr. Marsters for my info and—Yes, Mom. I know. I’m being careful.” I glance over at Camryn, who is smiling back at me. “Camryn won’t let me get away with not going. Yeah. Well, right now we’re on our way to New Orleans. I don’t know how long we’re staying there, but after we leave we’ll swing by home for a visit, all right?”

After I hang up with her, Camryn asks, “Texas?”

Instantly, I get the feeling she’s having the same thoughts she did during our first road trip, but she proves me wrong when she says, “Not that I have any problem with it. Just curious about the destination.” She smiles, and I can tell right away that she’s not hiding anything.

“Texas doesn’t worry you?” I ask.

She looks back at the road as we go around a curve, then she glances over at me again. “Not at all. Not like it used to.”

“What changed your mind?” I pull my foot from the window and turn to better face her, intrigued by her change of heart.

“Because things are different now,” she says. “But in a good way. Andrew, last July was tough. For both of us. I don’t know how I know, but I think I knew all along that something bad was going to happen when we got to Texas. For a while I thought it was all just me worried about it being the last stop on our road trip. But I’m not so sure about that anymore. I feel like I knew…”

I smile slimly. “I think I understand,” I say. “So then that leads me to one question.”

She looks at me, waiting.

“Will we ever settle down?”

Her reaction isn’t what I expected it to be. I expected her smile to fade and the moment to be lost, but instead her eyes brighten, and I feel a sense of calm emanating from her.

“Eventually,” she says. “But not yet.” She looks back at the road and continues, “Y’know, Andrew, I want to see Italy one day. Rome. Sorrento. Maybe not right now or even in the next five years, but I hope to see it. France, too. London. I would even love to go to Jamaica and Mexico and Brazil.”

“Really? It would take a long time to see those places,” I say, but not in a way to deter her from wanting to do it. I would love to do it, too.

The wind from the open window brushes through her hair, pulling more loose strands from her braid as they dance around her bright face.

“I feel free with you,” she says. “I feel like I can do anything. Go anywhere. Be anything that I want.” Her eyes fall on me once more and she says, “We’ll settle down soon, but I never want to settle down forever. Does that make sense?”

“Definitely,” I answer. “I couldn’t have said it better.”

We make it over the Louisiana state line just after dark, and Camryn pulls over to the side of the highway.

“I don’t think I can drive anymore,” she says, stretching her arms behind her and yawning.

“I told you an hour ago you needed to let me drive.”

“Yeah, well I’m letting you now.” She gets cranky when she’s tired.

We both get out of the car to switch sides but stop when we meet each other at the hood.

“Do you see where we are?” I ask.

Camryn looks around on both sides of the desolate highway. She shrugs. “Ummm, the middle of nowhere?”

I laugh lightly under my breath and then point to the field. Then I point up at the stars. “Last time didn’t count, remember?”

Her eyes light up, but then I sense she’s conflicted. It doesn’t take me long to figure out why.

“It’s a flat, clear field. And there are no cows as far as I can tell,” I say.

I know that absolutely nothing I just said makes her feel any better about the possibility of snakes, but I was going for subtle and stupid, hoping she’d overlook it.

“What about snakes?” she asks, not overlooking it.

“Don’t let your fear of snakes ruin a perfectly good opportunity to finally get to sleep underneath the stars.”

She narrows her eyes at me.

I break out the big guns and just beg. “Please? Preeeety please?” I wonder if my attempt at puppy-dog eyes is as effective on her as hers always are on me. My first instinct was to throw her ass over my shoulder and carry her out there, but I’m curious about the effectiveness of my begging technique, just the same.

She mulls it over for a minute and finally caves to my charm. “All right,” she says a little exasperatedly.

I grab the blanket from the trunk, and we walk together through the ditch and over the low fence and then through the enormous field until we find a good spot several yards out. It feels like deja vu. I lay the blanket on the dried grass and do a quick snake-check of the surrounding area just to make her feel better. We lay down next to each other on our backs, legs straight out and flat against the blanket, our ankles crossed below. And we look up at the dark and endless expanse of sky filled with stars. Camryn points out various constellations and planets, explaining each one to me in detail, and I’m impressed by how much she knows and how she can tell them apart from one another.

“I never imagined you’d be so…” I struggle to find the way to word it.

“So knowledgeable?” I can sense her smiling briefly next to me.

“Well, I… I didn’t mean that I think you’re—”

“A brainless, superficial girl who doesn’t know that the Milky Way is something bigger than a candy bar or that the big bang theory isn’t just a television show?”

“Yeah, something like that,” I say, just to play her at her own game. “No, but really, where’d all this come from? I guess I just never took you for the scientific type.”

“I wanted to be an astrophysicist. Decided that when I was twelve, I think.”

I’m completely shocked by her admission, but I continue to stare up at the stars with her, my smile growing.

“Well, really I wanted to be that plus a theoretical physicist and an astronaut and I wanted to work for NASA, but I was a little delusional back then. Obviously.”

“Camryn,” I say, still so surprised that I barely know what to say. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “It just never came up. Didn’t you ever dream of being something other than what you are?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I say. “But baby, why didn’t you pursue it?” I lift away from the blanket and sit upright. This calls for my full attention.

She looks at me like I’m overreacting. “Probably for the same reason you didn’t pursue whatever it was that you wanted to be.” She draws her knees upward and rests her hands over her stomach, her fingers interlocked. “What did you want to be?”