Logan will be sharing my bed tomorrow night.
Jubilee knew I meant business by the way I ran down the stairs wearing my old, road-worthy clothes I had chosen for the trip to retrieve Logan from Tennessee. She stared and then nodded as I passed her in the hallway, and she cheered, ‘Go get him, chica!” as I beat feet for the garage.
By 4 pm I’m out of New York state and rolling toward Sweetwater, Tennessee. I had always hoped I’d get back to the south again some day, but I never dreamed that it would be a rescue pick-up of Logan after he disappeared during a mission. I spend the night halfway there, in a cheap trucker’s motel where it’s quick-in and quick-out, and the wheel feels so good in my hands as I drive Xavier’s Lincoln Continental in the monster lane, the cruise set about 15 miles per hour over the speed limit. Nobody’s gonna pay attention to a dark, sedate, elegant car like this, so I push the envelope a little, making Sweetwater get closer by the minute.
Google gave me what I needed in the way of street addresses, and I know if I get to Sweetwater before closing time, he’ll be waiting at the A&W by the tracks on the ass-end of town. It’s sundown now and there’s the corporation limit sign, then three lights, left toward the industrial neighborhood, another left and good lord, that’s the worst railroad crossing I’ve EVER seen! I thought the Continental would drag bottom before I got over the god-awful hump that was the crossing. It’s a speed bump on steroids. I crank the wheel over and pull into the A&W and tuck it into a parki.... ah-ha! It really is a drive-in with car hops! How quaint. Now, which one looks like she doesn’t speak English and could have loaned Logan her cell phone.
Bet he had to sweet-talk her to get her cell phone. He still uses his looks to get what he wants from women, even though we’re sexually exclusive now. The handsome bastard...
God, I love him.
I wait a good long time before pushing the order button, visually searching the area for him to appear. Logan said he’d meet me here if I came in during business hours, or at the main Post Office if it was after hours. It’s 2 hours until closing time, and he should be here.
But he isn’t.
I order a dog with everything including cole slaw, eat it, drain my Coke, and send the tray back. Pretending to hunt a bathroom, I get out and walk around the entire building, then circle the lot slowly, and scan the surrounding neighborhood. Nothing. Where the hell is he? When I get on the isolated backside of the parking lot, I call out his name several times, knowing if he’s in the area he’ll hear me.
Nothing. No one. Nowhere. Dammit.
I move the Continental to the edge of the lot and wait. The lights eventually go out, and the car hops leave, and I ask one girl with a lovely Tennessee accent where the main Post Office is. I’m there in 15 minutes, and the lobby is empty.
Where the hell is he?!? A momentary wave of nausea and the shakes hit me again, and I can’t believe he’s lost for the second time this week. Or maybe the hot dog was bad, but it tasted wonderful, so it’s just stress and my ‘condition.’
I wander the Post Office’s parking lot, find no one, go back into the lobby, and almost jump out of my skin when my cell phone rings in the cavernous old marble-lined building.
Another unknown number, but I don’t hesitate this time. “Hello?”
“Marie, where are you?” I hear Logan’s voice over the babble and hum of background noise.
“I’m at the Post Office - where in hell are you?!” I almost yell at him.
“I’m in jail.”
“Shit!”
“No kidding. This is my one phone call, so make sure you don’t walk around and lose the signal until we finish talking, okay?”
“Okay. What happened? What did you do? Where is the cop station?”
“One question at a time, and let’s keep it short.”
“Where’s the cop station? Is that who’s got you?”
“Yeah. I’ll have them give you the address when we’re done. Do you have money and plastic with you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Come pay my fine and get me the hell out of here.” He hesitates a moment before, “Did you bring any clothes with you?”
“Yeah, a change for me, but why do you ask?”
“Any of my stuff?”
“No, you said...”
His sigh interrupts me, “I know what I said. Go somewhere and buy me some clothes, then come to the address they’ll give you and pay me outta jail.”
“Okay, but sugar, what happ... oh, never mind. It’ll be hard to find anything open this late, but I’ll do my best, even if it’s morning before I get there.”
“Yeah, it’s not like I’m goin’ anywhere. Now, talk to the nice officer and get directions here. I’ll be in Holding, makin’ friends with the drunks and hookers.”
“Logan,” I asked before he hands the phone over, and I know he can hear the teasing smile in my voice, “this isn’t your first experience in jail, is it?”
“Bite me, Marie.”
I write down everything on the back of some junk mail I find in the trash cans and start into the darkened city. On the outskirts of town, near the freeway, I find a 24-hour Wal-Mart and buy Logan jeans, socks, t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and then I wonder if he needs shoes. I scold myself for knowing his inseam, chest and waist, but not his shoe size. I guess at it and pick out a pair of black runners, keep all the receipts in case they’re wrong, and head for the police station.
The city jail is a beehive. A local rivalry-fed football game devolved into a riot, and there are high schoolers and teachers and parents and grandparents everywhere. Boys are hanging their heads low, a few are crying. Girls are crying, cussing, trying to explain things to livid parents and laughing siblings. Firemen and paramedics are walking through, sorting out testimonies and paperwork and reports. Cars were overturned, burned, property damaged, minors were drinking: it’s small town chaos on a grand scale. There are lawyers coming in everywhere. I almost laugh.
I go to the desk, get a clerk, get my bags searched, get a handful of paperwork, pay a hefty fine, and the clerk directs me to Holding. I walk down a hall, to a guard, down a flight of stairs to a hallway painted a calming, industrial green, and ahead on the left is a large cell with several men in it. I see Logan slouched against one wall, sitting on the floor, dressed in ill-fitting prisoner’s orange pants and shirt. His head is resting on one arm, which rests on one knee; and before I can say a word, I know he can smell me and he’s leaping to his feet, bee-lining to the wall of bars between us. I step up to him and both our arms snake through the bars to embrace each other.
He takes one deep breath from the area of my neck, jolts back, grabs my shoulders, drills his eyes into mine, and yells loud enough for everyone on the entire floor to hear, “Christ, kid, you’re pregnant!”
I smirk a little and sarcastically add, “So much for breaking the news in private.”
Logan alternates comically between staring dumbfounded at me, hugging me, staring again, and when one of the other prisoners makes a comment about my ample ability to nurse a baby, Logan whirls and snarls and I swear the claws are coming out. I can see the tips just straining against his skin, but he pulls back and then swears a blue streak at the freshly intimidated guy who wilts back into the shadowy background.
Focused back on me again, he stammers, ‘How... when... you? Really? Christ, Marie...” and his hands lace through his mussed hair, a familiar trait that I love. I can pretty much read him like a book now, but this is one thing I can’t predict: how he’ll react to an unplanned pregnancy.
“Yes, sugar, me, us, now. Let’s get you out of here and talk about this later, in private.”
“Yeah,” he breathes at me and visibly calms.
I motion at the guard who’s getting paperwork from the clerk, and while they sort that out, I turn to Logan again and ask, “What did you do to get in here?”
His head drops a little and he smiles that wonderful, bad-boy smile that reeks mischief, then confesses, “Well, it started last night when a cop caught me asleep in the Post Office lobby. He rousted me out, then they started patrolling the joint. Second time they found me walking around in the lobby they tried to shake me down for vagrancy ‘cause I didn’t have any cash or ID, then later it sort of turned into public indecency when I took a piss in the parking lot, and then it was resisting arrest when I... sorta... resisted arrest. Then they ran something through the computer and logged a reported petty theft, and got me on that, too. I stole some clothes. They wanted ‘em back. And then there was the trespassing charge on the freight car and I matched the description they had in the computer system...”
“Okay, I get the picture. You’ve been busy. Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“I did, but I guess there’s a dead spot in cell coverage south of the Ohio River, and I couldn’t get through to you. Had to wait until you got closer. I can’t believe you’re preg...”
“Not here, I said. We’re going to a motel and sort this out ASAP.”
Finally the clerk and the guard had everything they needed, and the guard opened the cell, letting Logan out. We were ushered to a small room where he changed clothes and handed the orange jail suit over to someone, signed out, and we left. The shoes were a good fit.
Outside the building, he stopped again and just started at me silently, then held out his open palm.
“What?”
“Keys.”
“No way. You don’t have a license on you, and I’m not spending the night in jail with you if we get pulled over for ANYTHING! I’m driving until we get back home.”
Unexpectedly, he opens the door for me and then slides into the passenger’s seat with no argument. I guess logic really does have it’s uses. But before I can reach for the seat belt, he’s pulled me into his arms, onto his lap, and he starts kissing me like crazy. When he finally buries his face in my hair and shoulder, and after all this time of worrying about him, thinking he was dead or captured or being dissected in a lab somewhere, I fall apart and sob on him. He rocks me and holds me until I’m cried out and gasping and shaking.
Speaking softly into my hair, he says, “Let’s get a motel room, and some food, and settle in and talk this through.”
“Okay,” I snuffle and wipe my nose on my sleeve. I’m such a graceless mess sometimes.
And I still can’t read him about the potential baby. He hasn’t said a decisive thing about it since he figured it out. Will he want it, not want it, hate it, love it, propose marriage, or leave me over it? ‘Cause right now, I’m not sure where I stand on the subject. I might leave me, too, if I could figure out how.
I have no clue what’s going on inside his head right now, and after the last three days, I know we’re both too exhausted, too mentally and emotionally fried to handle any more, so it’s just got to hang there, like a big, fat, immensely pregnant albatross.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
"I have no clue what’s going on inside his head right now, and after the last three days, I know we’re both too exhausted, too mentally and emotionally fried to handle any more, so it’s just got to hang there, like a big, fat, immensely pregnant albatross."