At the stop sign, I lean across and push the passenger door open. Adam runs over. Gets in, his weight shifting the balance of the car. He smells like dryer sheets.
“You don’t travel light,” he says, eyeing the jumble of blankets and clothes and garbage bags in the back seat.
I don’t know how to explain myself.
“Hey.” Adam touches my arm with the tips of his fingers, light, and I don’t flinch. “You don’t have to tell me. I won’t ask. I’ve been there too.”
I nod, wondering where it is he thinks I’ve been.
He pulls his hand away and looks out the window, but I feel the imprint of his fingers still.
On the radio, a low voice says, “Hey, this is Tommy Flash, I’m kicking it live here on ICB. I’d like to send this next one by Pearl Jam out to all my boys in the West Tower.”
Adam laughs. “College station.”
I’ve learned since I got here that the town is in a valley with schools on both the bordering hills, but “College” always means Ithaca College. When people are talking about the other one, they say Cornell, and I think that’s on the other hill, not the one we’re heading up.
We make the turn on Hudson and Adam points to a big white Victorian with a row of black metal mailboxes by the front door. There’s an open parking space out front. He shows me where to make a U-turn. We are quiet as I drive back to the spot. We listen to the song. It’s about a girl telling someone not to call her their daughter.
I park.
Adam opens the car door. “I’m asking one more time,” he says.
My fingers are cold enough to hurt. I have to pee already and there’s no bathroom I know how to find. I get out of the car. Leave my stuff, keep the key clenched in my fist. Adam doesn’t make a big deal about it, which makes it easier to follow him to the front door.
There’s water rushing. A river or a creek. I feel the water in the air, but I can’t see it, even when I strain my eyes to look into the dark behind the house. I can go in and use the bathroom and then tell him I want to sleep in my car. I don’t have to stay. He won’t make me stay, I’m pretty sure.
He lives on the top floor. The stairs squeak when we climb them. There are other doors. Other people. Someone baked cookies. Someone’s listening to reggae.
The lock makes a loud click when he turns the key. He flicks a switch and the apartment is flooded with light. The walls are bright white and the ceiling is high, slanted at weird angles. He has the kind of old metal radiators that make the heat smell like melting crayons. There’s a big desk with a tilted top. A black footlocker for the coffee table. Bookshelves built into the walls filled with books and CDs. The futon is clean and white. The hardwood floor has a rug in the middle that’s woven in bright colors. No one in Little River lives in a place like this. It’s not cluttered with things that were useful once and might be useful again. Nothing is old or worn out that doesn’t look that way on purpose.
Adam kicks off his boots at the mat and I do the same, feeling strange about losing that level of protection. Now I will have to stop for my boots when I leave. Bend over to put them back on or grab them as I flee and try not to slip running downstairs in my socks.
“Can I use the—”
“Oh, yeah.” Adam points to the hallway. “The bathroom is right there.”
The bathroom door is open. To the left there’s a kitchen, enough street light coming through the window that I can see the stove and a small table. But on the other side of the bathroom, there’s a door and it’s closed. I can’t tell if it’s the bedroom or a closet and I start to worry that the futon is where Adam sleeps. I close myself in the bathroom, turn the lock until it latches, and try to run through everything Adam said to me about staying at his place. I thought he talked about making up the futon like it was something extra he would do. But I’ve never been in an apartment like this before. Maybe I don’t understand how he lives. Maybe he doesn’t bother folding it down for just one person.
After I flush, I wash my hands the best I can around the bandage and pull my fingerless gloves back on. Margo would never have let me work in knit gloves. They’re already pilling and full of crumbs and coffee dust that won’t shake out all the way. My fingers feel stiff. I know I should wash the cut and change the bandage, but I left all that stuff in the car.
“Okay, do me a favor,” Adam says when I get back from the bathroom. He’s pulling the futon away from the wall. “Grab over there.”