The Edge of Always

I turn off the TV and lift up from the couch and look around the room. I hear the water running in the shower and the cars driving by on the street outside. I think about the conversation I had with my boss yesterday, about how since I’ve been at my job for nearly two years now, that I have two weeks of vacation time coming up. But I know that two weeks just aren’t enough when it comes to Camryn and me doing the things we want to do. The whole job situation is the only thing that we never quite worked out when it comes to what we’ll do when we want to leave Raleigh for a month or more. Neither one of us wants to lose our jobs, but we ultimately came to one conclusion at least: it’s a sacrifice that we’re willing to make and will have to make if we’re going to fulfill our dreams to travel the world and to avoid being victims of that everyday, monotonous life that scares us shitless.

We know we won’t be at these jobs forever. And, well, that’s kind of the point.

But I told my boss that, yes, I would need to take those vacation days in the next couple of months. I decided not to give him any kind of notice about leaving, until after I talk to Camryn tonight first.

I get up from the couch and grab a notepad from the drawer at the computer desk and sit down at the kitchen table with it. And I start to write down the various places that Camryn and I have already talked about wanting to see: France, Ireland, Scotland, Brazil, Jamaica… I write until I have a pile of strips of paper in the center of the table. While I’m folding them one by one and dropping them into Camryn’s cowgirl hat, I hear the water shut off in the bathroom.

She comes into the kitchen with wet hair plastered against her back.

“What are you doing?” she asks, but realizes it before I have the chance to answer. She sits down next to me. And she smiles. That’s a great sign.

“Maybe we should leave in May or June,” I suggest.

She drags a comb through her wet hair a few times and seems to be thinking about it. Then she places the comb on the table. “You think Lily is ready for that?” she asks.

I nod. “Yeah, I think she is. She’s walking. We said we’d wait at least until she started walking.”

Camryn nods, too, still thinking about it, but she never looks unsure. “Have to get her started early,” she says.

We definitely aren’t like other families. A lot of parents would completely reject the idea of traveling out of the country with a small child just to be traveling. But not us. I admit that it’s not for everybody, but for us it’s the only way. Of course, our “travels beyond” won’t be like the times Camryn and I spent on the road in the United States. Driving around aimlessly for hours and days and weeks on end with a baby in the car isn’t entirely feasible—Lily would hate that. No, these travels will be more staying put in cities we want to explore than going from one city to another without much rest in between. And unfortunately, we won’t be taking the Chevelle.

Camryn pulls the cowgirl hat over to her and shuffles her hand around inside. “Did you add all the ones we put on the list?” she asks.

“Of course,” I say.

She playfully narrows her eyes at me. “You’re lying.”

“What? No, really I did.”

She nudges me in the shin with her bare foot underneath the table. “You’re full of shit, Andrew.”

Then she starts pulling out the strips of paper and unfolds them and reads them off.

“Jamaica.” She sets it down. “France.” She sets it on top of the other one. “Ireland. Brazil. Bahamas. Virgin Islands. Mexico.” One by one she stacks them on top of each other.

After several more she pulls out the last one, holds it up folded loosely in her fingertips, and she snarls at me. “Something tells me that this doesn’t say ‘Italy.’ ” She’s trying so hard not to smile.

I really don’t know why I thought I could actually pull this off.

While I’m trying not to laugh and keep a straight face, she unfolds the paper and reads its contents: “Australia.” She drops the paper on the top of the pile. “I should penalize you for trying to cheat,” she says, rounding her chin and crossing her arms stubbornly over her chest.

“Oh come on,” I say, unable to keep a straight face after all. “At least I didn’t add a few more that say ‘Brazil.’ ” I laugh.

“You thought about it, though, didn’t you?!”

I wince at her loud voice, and we both glance toward the hall where Lily is sleeping in her bedroom.

Camryn leans over the table some and hisses through her teeth, “I’m penalizing you. No sex for a week.” She leans away again, pressing her back against the chair and smirks at me.

OK, this isn’t funny anymore.

I swallow down my pride, hesitate, and then say, “Come on, you can’t be serious. You like it as much as I do.”

“Of course I do,” she says. “But haven’t you ever heard anywhere that women have this magical ability to be able to live without it longer? I’ll get myself off.”

“You’re bluffing,” I say, not convinced.

She nods subtly with that hell-no-I’m-not gleam in her eye, and it’s making me nervous. “What are you going to do to make up for it, then?”

One side of my mouth lifts into a grin. “Whatever you want.” I pause, holding up my finger and add before it’s too late, “Well, as long as it’s not degrading, disgusting, or unfair.”

Her grin getting bigger, Camryn stands from the chair slowly. I watch every move she makes with the utmost attention, a part of me worried I’m going to miss something. She fits her thumbs behind the elastic of her panties and taunts me with the idea of sliding them off.

Oh my fucking God… seriously? You call this a punishment?

I try to retain my composure, pretending as though the few gestures she’s made haven’t affected me in any way whatsoever when, in truth, it takes practically nothing to make me crazy for her.

She walks away from me.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“To get myself off.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me.”

OK, so I did, but… that’s not how this was supposed to go down.

“But… what’s my punishment?”

She stops just long enough to turn and look back. “You’re going to watch.”

“Wait…what?”

I start to follow. Evil witch.

She goes into the living room and lies down on the couch, her head resting upon the arm, one leg propped over the back.

Evil, evil witch!

She looks up at me seductively and that’s all it takes; the second her eyes meet mine I move over and on top of her, crushing my mouth over hers. “No fucking way, babe,” I whisper hotly onto her mouth, and I kiss her even harder.

Her hands grasp the front of my shirt, her tongue tangled passionately with mine.

And then Lily starts to cry.

I stop. Camryn stops. We look at each other for a moment, both of us frustrated, but we can’t help but smile. Lily is a deep sleeper and hardly ever wakes up at night anymore, but somehow her timing tonight doesn’t surprise me.

“I’ll do it this time,” she says, lifting herself from the couch.

I stand up, running my hand over the top of my head.

After she disappears down the hallway, I head back into the kitchen and sit back down at the table to scrawl “Italy” on another strip of paper. I drop it into the hat and refold all of the others and drop them in it, too.

Minutes later, the house is quiet after Camryn gets Lily back to sleep. She sits down in the chair next to me again, pulling her bare legs onto the seat and crossing them. Propping one elbow upon the table, she rests her chin in her hand and looks at me with a warm smile, like something’s on her mind.

“Andrew,” she says. “Do you really think we can do this?”