“I’m driving across America,” I tell her, “to try and escape you.”
She follows me everywhere. Every room smells like chalk and Chanel no. 5. She’s putting out cigarettes in my day-old coffee. She’s chewing on her subway token like an Olympic medal. She’s sprawled out across the Persian rug in my apartment reading Tolstoy. Quoting Anna Karenina in my ear.
And now she’s sitting on top of the thick, ugly desk generously provided by the Palmetto Motel in Athens, South Carolina. She’s picking at a chip in the veneer. The walls are sweating. I flip through a waterlogged 1953 edition of the Bible left in the bedside drawer, pacing.
“I told you this wasn’t a good idea, dear.” she says, pausing to stare down at me.
“Thought you liked it when I got all… experimental.” I say.
“God,” she grins, “you can be socute when you’re desperate.”
I slam the book shut. “I’m not desperate.”
“Normal people don’t drive for 12 hours-”
“11 and a half.” I interrupt.
“11 and a half hours down the coast, lying about going on sabbatical--! to do to a little soul-searching.”
She pauses. Reaches down. Cups my face in her hand. I wrench my head away.
“I’m proud." she says. "I missed this. You were so passionate before the-”
“The funeral.” I mumble. “I know.”
The bed was too big for one person. The breakfast was passable. A stale Honey Bun and oversteeped, acidic black tea. I saw ten cockroaches during my stay. Five stars.