point of rudeness. And then I make the ultimate mistake by saying what I’m thinking.
“It matches your eyes.”
The problem is this: Her eyes are still closed. She would never imagine how I have them memorized like a poem. The color was what made them memorable, but not in the way you’d notice someone with “bright blue” or “wild green” or “rich brown” eyes; hers are a vague composite, a mixture crafted from a painter’s palette. But the intensity of her irises, the dark circle at the edges, the marbled swirl of color, had me forever lost in them. Sometimes the most beautiful and breathtaking objects are those lacking vibrant colors at all, like a fresh snow-covered landscape; not everyone has eyes of autumn leaves and Caribbean waters. And so it is here my words betrayed me. True, anyone could have—would have—noticed the glow and hue within moments of meeting her, but I have revealed something more. She and I both detect the oddness of my words the second they pass my lips.
She pulls the sweater from her face, opens her eyes but avoids eye contact. “You’ve seen me for just a few minutes of my life and you know my dress size and the color of my eyes?”
I can’t read her words, can’t determine if she is flattered or creeped out. In either case, it wakes me up, has me shoving the car in gear and the wheels in motion at a speed high enough that precludes jumping out. “I got you a bunch more stuff in the trunk, but we gotta get out of here.”
I pull onto Route 13, whip an illegal U-turn, and within seconds we’re driving northbound at sixty miles an hour. Melody shifts lower in the seat and drags the sweater across her torso like a blanket. She covers her face with her hands and shakes her head, a series of motions that could only be translated as what am I doing? I’m glad she’s taken the risk to trust me, and though she might be fearing what the feds will infer if they find out she willingly left with me, it would have to be slight compared to their finding out how she manipulated the program for her personal benefit.
The sound of the concrete under my racing wheels acts as a buffer to our talking. The air is still moist and thick, will have us feeling dirty when we finally stop. We drive for a few miles before Melody assembles the confidence or curiosity to glance at me, and even then it is only for a second before she looks away. A mile later, she glances again, her eyes lingering longer. She repeats this as I drive, each time her gaze staying upon me with greater time, greater boldness. We are no more than ten miles north of Cape Charles and she is now officially staring at me.
I try not to look her way, but the harder I try the more impossible it becomes. I meet her eyes and smile, take my hand off the stick and wipe my forehead, reach under the seat and pull out my CD case, hand it to her. “Pick anything you can listen to at top volume,” I say, hoping to avoid the silence, the space between us that can only be filled with explanation; I want her to relax before I unload.
But as she unzips the pouch, I realize I’ve made a second critical mistake. She says, “What do we have here? Bach? Mozart?”
Hardly. It’s like the friggin’ Melody Grace McCartney funpack. How freaked will she be when she sees a collection of her favorites? Tipped off to her purchases at Best Buy so long ago, I moved from one band to another, inadvertently associated similar artists, likely mirrored her library.
She flips through the collection, studies each disc, slows with each one. “You’re a… pretty mellow guy.”
I shrug, need a cig. “I have my moments.”
She frowns, keeps turning the pages. “We have surprisingly similar tastes.”
Just one of many surprises to come. She pulls out Hot Fuss by the Killers and waves it in front of me. “Funny,” I say as I jam it in the CD player.
The car screams up the road, a perfect line to the north, and when I tell her of my plan, I hope it’s the only thing screaming. Mr. Brightside I’m not.
Miles pass and so do the tracks. By the time “Somebody Told Me” finishes, it feels like I should be talking myself,