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I fumble with my phone and call him again. Again, there’s no answer. He’s really mad. I know Ginger’s right and he might just be busy, but I can’t believe he could be so busy he missed every call and couldn’t call me back. That’s just not Rex. He has to be avoiding me on purpose. And I guess he has every right to be mad. I did yell at him when he was just trying to be nice.
So, that’s that, then. I’m going to skip the morning sessions and just get the hell out of here. Go home.
Wow, I can’t believe I just thought of Holiday as home. But, actually, the picture that flashed in my head as I made my decision wasn’t of Holiday, or of my shitty apartment. It was of Rex’s warm cabin, the windows glowing with sunlight or firelight, the full kitchen where Rex looks so hot cooking, the cozy living room with Marilyn snoozing on the hearth, and the bedroom where Rex makes me feel things I’ve never felt before.
Christ, I’m such a sap. Ginger would be grinning so hard right now if she could see this train of thought; my brothers would beat the shit out of me.
I throw my stuff into my duffel, not bothering about my wrinkled jacket, pull on some jeans, and splash the weak, hotel-room coffee into one of their to-go cups. And then I do exactly that. I need to talk to Rex as soon as possible.
Chapter 9
October
I’VE BEEN psyching myself up the whole drive home, singing along to a tape that was in a John Hiatt case but turned out to be the Pet Shop Boys—score!—and I’ve played the whole apology over and over in my head like it’s a conference paper: introduction, claims, supporting evidence, conclusion, questions.
Driving through Detroit this morning made me homesick for Philly. I almost called Ginger just to hear a familiar accent, but it seems like every time I’ve talked to her lately she’s ended up listening to me whine, so I just turned up the volume and sang along, speeding as fast as my poor little car would take me. I mean, the best thing about Michigan so far is that the highway speed limit is seventy.
Around 2:00 p.m., ten miles from Rex’s house, I think practical thoughts like that I should go home and shower, or call again, or get something to eat, but I know if I stop to do any of that stuff I’ll lose my nerve, so I just drive straight to his house, hoping he’s home. My stomach flips in relief when I see his truck in the driveway. I barely register that his shades are down when they’re usually open to let in the sun.
When I get out of the car, I’m jittery from nerves and too much caffeine. I knock on the door, but he doesn’t answer. I’m pretty sure he’s home because I can hear Marilyn barking from inside and there’s nowhere he’d walk to on a Sunday without her. At least, I don’t think. But I guess I don’t really know. I try the door and the knob turns in my hand. I’m about to just push the door open and walk in, guns blazing, yelling that I’m sorry, but pictures of Richard making out with another man flash through my mind. What if I walk in on Rex with someone else? I seriously could not stand that.
I’m not sure what to do. I knock again, noticing for the first time that Rex doesn’t have a doorbell. Then I hear Marilyn whining at the door. What if Rex is hurt? What if someone broke in and shot him or he passed out from carbon monoxide poisoning or something? That happened to the mom of a guy I worked with at the bar. They just found her sitting in her armchair like she was watching TV, only she’d been dead for three days.
I push the door open even as my logical mind tells me there’s not going to be carbon monoxide in a cabin in the woods, nor is there likely to have been an armed robbery. Still, the fear of Rex lying somewhere, hurt, is stronger than the fear of finding him with someone else. As the door swings open, Marilyn darts through it. I’ve never seen her do that before; she’s so well trained. I swing around to run after her, not wanting to have to tell Rex I lost his dog on top of everything else, but she just pees on a bush by Rex’s garage and trots right back to me.
I walk inside tentatively, feeling like I’m about to find blood-streaked bodies lying all over the house like in a slasher movie or In Cold Blood.
“Rex,” I call. “It’s Daniel. Are you here?”
