Letting Loose. Joanne Skerrett

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СКАЧАТЬ do my part to help the economy.”

      “So this is not about you. It’s your patriotism doing the talking?”

      “Yeah, that and my other selfish interests.”

      “I see. I’m considering it. I’d like to do my part to help the Dominican economy.”

      “I admire your generosity.”

      “Awww, thank you.”

      “I’m serious, though. I want you to be a part of my life.”

      “I…okay. Yes, I feel the same way.”

      And so it went. We talked about everything and nothing, and four hours later I was yawning but still unwilling to say good night. This was big trouble, indeed.

      “So, why not go visit? Go down on spring break.”

      Huh? Whitney interrupted my thoughts.

      “Please stay here with me on earth while I talk to you.”

      “Oh, sorry.” I rolled my eyes back at her. “I can’t go there alone.” I had never left the country in my entire life. Heck, I’d only been out of the state of Massachusetts about five times.

      “You wouldn’t be alone. You’d be going to meet him! What are you afraid of? Live a little.”

      It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought of it. And we, Drew and I, had talked about it, but I was, as Whitney said, afraid. What if I hated it there? What if he hated me on sight and I was stuck in a foreign country for a whole week, miserable and alone?

      “I’d offer to come with you, but I don’t want to be away from Max….”

      “The sex is that good, huh?”

      “Ooooh, girl, yeah, it is. Usually I have to be with a brother to get that kind of action, but this man is smoking…”

      I tuned her out. I couldn’t help but be a little envious. I wondered if I would describe Drew as smoking if we were to ever, um, find ourselves in that situation.

      “Wouldn’t it be cool if you went down and you guys just hit it off and you move down there and live happily ever after?”

      “Thanks, Whitney. I never once thought of that the whole time I’ve been talking to him.”

      “It could happen,” she said. “Well, no. You’d find some way to screw it up.”

      “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

      “Seriously, though, Amelia, if I were you I’d go down there and lay out on the beach, go diving, know what I mean? It’s not just about going to meet him. It’s about getting away from this place for a week.”

      “Yeah, you have a point. I’ll think about it.”

      Later that night in bed I did think about it. So much that I could feel sand trickling between my toes as I fell asleep. I could smell the salty ocean in my dreams. Hear calypso music swirling and thumping like my heartbeat. See a ferociously beautiful sun high up in a clear blue sky. I didn’t want to wake up.

      Chapter 9

      My life was changing. I was becoming even more of a recluse; shut in by an irrational infatuation. Drew was making it so hard for me to live my life in peace without thinking about him constantly, craving warm weather, hot days under the sun, smoking nights under the sheets.

      James and Kelly commented on the amount of time I spent on the phone and the computer, and Kelly one day actually bought me a phone card. “For your own good,” she said. The thought had never occurred to me, but it turned out to be a huge money saver.

      I’d become so overwhelmed by this online/phone relationship that I’d forgotten to buy Ma’s groceries one week. She’d called me wailing, saying that I was intentionally trying to starve her to death. “Is that what it’s going to take?” I asked her. She hung up the phone. She doesn’t get my humor sometimes. I’d run out to the Stop & Shop early Sunday morning, dropped off the bags in her living room, and rushed back home to read Drew’s latest e-mail.

      Hi, Amelia. It’s about 4:30 A.M. and it’s pitch-black outside. I’m up in the country, where I spend most of my time. I like it out here because it’s quiet, cool, and very beautiful. I think you would like it up here, too. I have a huge jacaranda tree in the back with a hammock under it. It’s great for reading or whatever else one might want to do on a cool afternoon. I came up with the idea for building schools while sitting here one day. I had started to feel restless again and worried that I would never accomplish anything that would change anyone’s life. It’s kind of like what you told me the other day about teaching. That you know you could be doing something else that’s more lucrative or even less stressful, but that you liked the idea that you were doing something that was truly important. I can identify with that. With you. Will you come down on spring break, Amelia? I know you have reservations, but with every day that goes by I become more and more consumed by thoughts of you. I look at your picture and I know that there is so much more I could know if I could just look into your eyes—in real life. I want to touch your hair, smell your skin, hear your voice without the static. I know you’re afraid of what may happen or what may not happen, but I don’t think you need to be. If nothing else, this would be a sunny vacation for you in a great place and you would have made a new friend. I’m awaiting your response.

      Drew: I’m up early, too. I couldn’t sleep. I was really wrestling with a lot of things. On the one hand, I could use the vacation. I need to be away from my family and roommates right now. Sometimes I feel that there is absolutely no one in my life who gets where I’m coming from. That was a tangent, by the way. On the other hand, I feel strange flying two thousand miles to meet a man I’ve never met. I feel the same way you do. These days I can’t take a breath without thinking about you. And even with all of that, it still somehow doesn’t feel real. I don’t think it would until I could meet you in person. And that’s so exciting to me. Sometimes I think that it would be the best thing that could ever happen to me, and then other times I worry. What if we don’t hit it off? What if we hate each other? I know. You’ve already answered that question—I would have a great spring break on warm, sunny Dominica. But this life I’m living now, the one with you in the starring role, is so much fun. I almost don’t want to give it up. Do you get what I mean? It’s like the unrealness (Is that a word?) is much more fun than the possibility of real life. But I am thinking about it. Seriously.

      Later, as I worked on my lesson plans for the week, I began to picture myself a brave heroine, willing to do anything for love. It had been done before. I tried to find precedent in the literary canon. People who had risked it all for love, or the possibility of love: Romeo, Juliet, Jane Eyre, Madame Bovary, even the tragic Antoinette Cosway from Wide Sargasso Sea…. The results did not look promising. What if I ended up like Antoinette? Crazy, locked in a room somewhere, while Drew went off with some other Jane Eyre…. Was I crazy? If I told my mother any of this she would laugh at me. “You’re going where to meet who?”

      Actually, that made the concept a bit more appealing. Maybe then she would finally see that I just may not be here forever, and that it was time for her to start getting her life straight. If I did this, it would be the craziest and bravest thing I’d ever done. Was it worth it? He could be an ax murderer. A kidnapper. Or worse. On the other hand, he could be exactly what he said he was. Remember: СКАЧАТЬ