Destination

The moon and stars shone above, but were fading toward dawn as Jake stumbled to his feet. They illuminated a forest and a gravel path around him in pale blue.

Jake was from western New York. But spending his entire adult life in the City, he’d forgotten how incredible an unlit night sky could look, or how fresh and clean the air could be. He took a long, deep breath, taking in the earthy world around him. He was shirtless, in a pair of comfortable jeans and perfectly worn in hiking boots.

The air up here was cool and crisp. He wondered where he was, and whose dream he was in, then laughed as he realized he both knew the answer, and that it was the sort of dream where the thought would even have occurred to him. The sound rebounded off the trees and mountains back at him, and it was so absurd that he laughed even louder.

It felt good. Everything felt good.

He stretched, took in another breath of mountain air, then stopped to truly absorb his surroundings.

He was no sort of ecologist, but he’d been in the Catskills, and this wasn’t them. He tried to think of what range he might be in, then remembered how pointless this exercise was in the first place. It was a dream. The place he was in didn’t even need to exist. To learn, he need only explore, and found he wanted to.

Emerging from the clearing, he found a woodland trail that led up to a long suspension bridge spanning a chasm between his side of the mountain, and a rocky island that towered above a sea of open air.

He recognized the figure standing on the other side at once.

He wanted to meet her, but took his time enjoying the view. The sun was peeking over the horizon now, bathing the world in orange, purple and gold.

The wind blew her cream colored dress against her body, whipping her hair into a trail of fire that glowed in the rising sun. Barefoot and bare legged, she stood atop a rocky outcropping like the figurehead of the world.

“Hello Mrs. Lane,” Jake said as he climbed his way up to join her.

“Mr. Cooper,” She replied with a nod and courtesy.

The two stood there in silence for a moment, admiring the dawnlit world sprawling out around them.

“This is a pretty fucking amazing,” He said after a while. “You did a hell of a job building this.”

She gave a musical giggle.

“The lord built the view, not me.”

“Huh. I just assumed it was a dream thing,” He said. “Where are we, anyway?”

“We are standing on Grandfather Mountain in western North Carolina,” She said, nodding toward a little wood observation platform on the edge of a cliff. “Hunter proposed to me right down there.”

Her full, pretty lips nearly formed a snarl as she said his name, but the expression was gone as soon as it came.

“Sorry to spoil the vibe,” Jake said, not entirely sure why he was the one apologizing when she’d brought it up.

“Don’t be. This is one of my favorite places in the world,” Loretta said, her smile returning. “And I reckon there’s some truth to the fact that I’d never have seen it if not for him.”

Jake took a long look out across the valley. Dawn was fading into true morning now. Spectacular as the view was, something caught his attention. Really, he’d noticed for a while.

“Is it…” He started, unsure of what he actually meant to ask, “Is time…moving faster?”

Loretta stood and stretched. That view was also nice, though Jake tried not to gape at it.

“We should get a move on,” She said. “I’ve got a lot to show you.”

Jake cocked an eyebrow.

“This some kinda Carolina tour?”

“Something like that,” Loretta said. “A tour of it, and a tour of me. A tour of us, if that’s what you want it to be. The particulars, you get to decide.”

Whether it was the cool, crisp air, the marathon of hookups this contest had turned into, or the experience of getting flicked around realities every few hours like a pea, he felt an uncharacteristic boldness take hold of him.

“And if the thing I wanna do is make love to you in the sky all day?”

The look she gave him was that of a teacher disappointed with a pupil who was more eager than thoughtful.

“Easy, tiger,” She said flatly, “You’re gonna have to earn that.”

Jake sighed and brushed the nape of his neck.

“What is it about you that makes me step on rakes?”

Loretta put a hand on his shoulder.

“It ain’t just you, so don’t get in your head about it,” She said, then nodded toward the road.

“I gotta car on the other side of the trail. It’s loaded up for a drive along Blue Ridge Parkway, which is for my money, the prettiest drive in the country east of the Pacific Coast.”

Jake gave an approving nod.

“So…roadtrip.”

“With exits,” She said, “Which you can explore or ignore at your leisure.”

She shrugged.

“C’mon. Time’s a’wastin.”

After a short walk, the two came to a nondescript red convertible. At some point, and without his awareness, he’d gone from being shirtless to wearing a comfortable flannel. He opened the door for her like a gentleman, then climbed in and started the car.

“So what’s the plan, here?” He asked as he pulled out.

She raised an eyebrow.

“I just told you. We got the open road. You’ll see where it takes us.”

But Jake shook his head.

“I guess I’m wording this wrong,” He said. “Like, so far, I’ve been through alternative histories, had my consciousness split in two, toured psychedelic Europe. I got to be a woman, and lived in a goddamn video game. By comparison, a cruise through North Carolina seems almost normal.”

Lori gave a mock pout as he took off down the road.

“Did I go too conservative for you?” She said, “Trust me, there’s more here than meets the eye.”

Jake shrugged, and put the car in gear. A moment later, they were cruising along a highway high above the Southern mountains.

Loretta hadn’t lied; it was beautiful up here. Each curve, each rise, each crest in the road exposed some new, scenic vista; an expanse of dogwood, cypress and pine swaying in the mountain breeze like a rolling green ocean, broken only occasionally by the Blue Ridge peaks, and distant villages, miniscule below their exalted position. Around a bend, the road narrowed, down to a two lane highway with horizons stretching eternal on either side.

Jake, who’d never much appreciated natural beauty nor thought to find it in a place he felt was America’s backwater, found himself awestruck.

“Sure is somethin’, ain’t it?” Loretta said, reading his mind and snapping him back to the moment.

“To say the least,” He breathed. “It’s like we invented the flying car.”

Loretta’s hand found his thigh, a gesture more familiar than intimate, and he knew they were sharing a moment.

“Yeah. That’s how I felt the first time we drove up here.” She said, her voice distant and wistful.

She wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on the world around them. After several rounds as the center of an abstract universe, it was almost refreshing.

“You and…” Jake fumbled for the name, and lost it. She seemed to take his meaning anyway.

“Keep him in mind,” Loretta said, her smile now that of the ebullient cheerleader, “And slow down as you come down this hill. You’re gonna need to stop at the bottom.”

Ever the soul of obedience, Jake pumped the brakes as they crested the hill. He kept looking back at her, and the road, at the gauges and panels that, in this dreamscape existence, had only the shape of something readable. Anything but opening a conversation, which all these years later, he still didn’t know how to do.

Suddenly, he realized that was the essence of it.

“You know,” He began, “Of all of…”

He still couldn’t bring himself to call it a “harem”.

“The contestants,” he offered instead. “I think you’re maybe the one I know the least.”

A grimace, for only a moment; a blink and he’d have missed it, then replaced by a genuine, winning smile.

“I guess our time got cut short by that storm,” She said, “It’s just one night, I suppose.”

Jake remembered Sabrina, who’d flipped his expectations of her on their head, of Farrah, who’d transformed from a matronly figure into something different in their evening together, Lacy, who’d broken through and made him think of her as something more than pitiable.

He shook his head.

“Nah. You got jobbed. Completely screwed,” He said, “You and Julie needed it more than just about any of you, and you’re the ones I didn’t get any time with.”

“Ain’t no use crying about it now,” She said, “What’s done’s done, Jake.”

Before he could open his mouth to argue, they’d reached the hill’s bottom. The narrow road had given way to two wide shoulders, with small parking lot rest areas dotted with kitschy, quarter fed tourist binoculars lining either side.

It took only a second to realize that one on each was plated in gold.

“What’s up with that?” Jake asked, pointing to one as the car rolled to a stop.

Loretta leaned over the stick, kissing his cheek. Her green eyes met his.

“That, darling, is the gimmick,” She said, leaning across his body to indicate the gold tower viewer on the driver’s side, “That one sees my past.”

The shape of her, as fantastic in life as in his steamiest teenage imagination, pressed against him, then vanished as she pulled back.

“And that,” she said, indicating the other, “Is what could have been.”

Understanding dawned.

“Huh. Very three fates. Any preference on what I choose?”

She turned on her side, head propped on her wrist.

“I ain’t being enigmatic,” she said, “I need the time more’n most. I wanna make an impression, but I also want you to know what makes me tick. I reckon you can only do one or the other, so which you want is up to you.”

Jake shook his head, struck not for the first time by the injustice of the exercise.

“Double duty. Tough,” He sighed.

He considered, then decided, for once in her presence selecting his words rather than vomiting them.

“I think I want to get to know you. There’s always been this idea of who you are…for all my crushing then and all I’ve seen you around now, I don’t think I’ve ever made it past that.”

Loretta extended her arm, manicured nails outstretched toward the binoculars nearest him. A pair of coins dropped from her hand into his; shiny, freshly minted nickels with the faces of a man and a woman on them in place of Thomas Jefferson, a pretty woman and a handsome, if rough hewn, man.

“My folks,” She told him as he turned them over. “Throw ‘em in the viewers, you’ll see.”

Jake nodded, trudging across the asphalt. The coins fell with a metal clank, and as his eyes met the lenses, a world of sensation blew up around him and he found himself transported as a spectator to someplace altogether different.

*****

The girl is four years old. She is on a stage, flanked by eleven just like her; a dozen little girls lined up like the dolls their parents have made of them. She has been trained not to fuss, or fidget while she’s on stage; to stand with her back straight, and her chin up, the better for the audience and judges alike to see how pretty she is.

She has spent hours practicing this; standing at attention as her mother worked about their tiny kitchen, as her father watched television, feet aching from the heels that sit uncomfortably on the cheap linoleum floor. An egg timer taunts her, one plastic click at a time. When she falters, playing with her hair, fiddling with her skirt, growing tired or simply losing interest as small children do, she is met with a scolding.

“Bad girl!” Her mother snaps, as though she is a dog who’s peed on the floor.

Her father never yells, only chides, disappointed.

“That’s no good, Lori,” He’d say coolly, “You know better.”

She’s unsure which she hates more, and both mean the exercise must start anew.

The training is effective, and she’s proud of how rarely she’s rebuked at all anymore. Yet as she stands on stage, she cannot help but steal glances at the competition around her. Her hair is piled in curls atop her head, but styled by her mother rather than the professional perms and blowouts of the other girls. Her makeup was applied this morning, one coat for the whole pageant, and she is surprised when her competition comes armed with elaborate kits and airbrushing machines; that they each change into a new face between rounds while she is limited to one. Her dress, her fourth and final outfit of the pageant, is a pretty, silken thing she knows her parents have paid too much for. It is mint green, contrasting her hair while accenting her eyes; pretty under normal circumstances, but lacking the bodices, the sequins, the frilled skirts and flowery trimmings she sees around her.

Unbidden, she smoothes it out, as if doing so might transmute it into something more impressive. She knows she’s performed well, that she’s done what she’s asked; better, even, than most of her peers. But she looks much worse than the others. She looks like what she is, a poor child among rich ones. Yet she can’t help the stir of hope she feels when another girl’s name is called for third place, and then for second. She is not alone. Out in the crowd, her parents look excited, too.

When the winner’s name is read, she sees their faces drop. The prize, $2,000 they covet, goes to another. All of the prizes have.

The drive home is silent. The parents who have doted on her for weeks say nothing.

“I liked the other girls,” She tries, and when this fails to start a conversation, “I really did my best.”

A chilly wall of silence is her only answer. She begins to sniffle.

“I’m sorry I lost…”

This time, her mother answers.

“Enough. And no crying,” She snaps. “A lady keeps her cool.”

The girl is a teenager now. She stands before her locker, scrubbing away the word scrawled in red across it. Her tormentors are clever. If this were lipstick, it’d have come off easily. Nail polish is tougher. She’s managed to scrape off the W, the H and O, but the R and E prove less tractable. Her wrist aches from the slap she’d given Ashley, and this effort is not helping.

For years, she’s been a pretty girl who might have been popular, had the school bus not retrieved her from the Shamrock Mobile Home Park each morning. The popular girls are the rich ones, or at least what passes for rich in Eden. But over the last two years, a metamorphosis has occurred. She has outgrown the girls at school, up and especially out. She is an early bloomer, and by fifteen, it is clear that in a year, maybe two, the pretty girl will become the beautiful one.

The boys take notice, and the girls resent their noticing. Despite her moniker, she’s not slept with anyone; hasn’t even let the boys do more than look. But “A lady must look her best” is another of her mother’s maxims she’s compelled to live by, and look they have.

She is taking her time. She doesn’t want to go home. At home she’ll find her mother, who’s doubtless heard the news of her fight by now. A lady must keep her cool, and today at least, she has failed utterly to be a lady. Their cramped mobile home is simply not large enough for two of them and their recriminations.

She sighs. There will be others to clean this; a school custodian will paint it over. She is stalling, but the last bus left over an hour ago, and without it, she has a very long walk ahead of her. She doesn’t mind. She could use the air. The baseball team is still practicing as she leaves, and she puts a sway in her step for them as she passes the field. If the girls will invent sins for her anyway, she may as well be appreciated.

The sun is low when she returns to Shamrock and her stomach drops as she approaches their lot. There are two cars in the drive; her mother’s beat up old Saturn, and her father’s equally ramshackle truck. Did she call him from work over it? She knows she’ll be grounded now, and raises her estimate from days to weeks.

They are waiting within.

“Where have you been?” Her mother asks with all her customary tenderness, “You should have been here hours ago.”

Loretta smooths her skirt, and lowers herself onto their dingy gray loveseat. This time, she remembers to be a lady. She doesn’t know what they’ve been told, and endeavors to volunteer as little as possible.

“I missed the bus,” She tells them; the truth, technically, though she omits the why of it, “I had to walk home.”

They relax. A positive sign, but it’s clear they have something pressing to discuss.

“We need to talk,” Her father confirms, “There’s no easy way to break this, but we’re moving next week.”

Loretta blinks. It is not at all what she expects. If they’ve heard she was in a fight today, they make no mention of it.

“Moving? To where?”

And what about your job? And with what money? She might add.

“We’re moving in with Grandma Jones,” He says, “With Uncle Kenny in California, we’re the only family still near here, and she’s having a harder and harder time on her own.”

Her mother speaks up.

“Mom offered to let us move in if we helped her out. She’s got more than enough space for it at that place,” She said, “It gets your father closer to work, and it saves us the rent money we’re paying here.”

Her heart quickens. West Seneca is a good town, her grandmother’s home an old, spacious, two story foursquare. Over this town, this cramped trailer, they are an immeasurable upgrade.

“We know it’s sudden,” Her father says. “And it will take some adjusting.”

“No. It’s fine,” She says, perhaps too quickly, “I mean…it is sudden, but that kinda sounds good for you guys.”

They exchange a glance; one that says, “She’s taking this well.” And she is. There are other places than Eden, she realizes; better ones.

The move is easy. Grandma’s house is fully furnished already, and it’s not as if they have much. Their things go in the pickup, and she rides with her father in the cab. The Western New York countryside gives way to the low suburban sprawl of outer Buffalo, green hills to steadily rising buildings. It is not DC, where she will someday settle; not even Chapel Hill, where she’ll go to school and meet her husband. But there are people here, tens of thousands of them who know nothing about her, as opposed to the hundreds in Eden who knew everything.

When her new classmates ask what her story is, she will not be Whoretta. She can be…anyone.

Jake stumbled back from the tower viewer, blinking and disoriented. He’d experienced a dream within a dream; a span of years played out in scenes, as Lacy’s had been. Only he’d not been a starring character. He hadn’t even existed; he’d inhabited Loretta’s body, and heard her thoughts.

*****

The horn honked behind him. Loretta was leaning over her seat. It broke him from his haze.

“You alright?

Jake rose shakily, the mountains around him returning to focus.

“Yeah. We’re all good!”

“Well then, get over here!” She said with a smile, “We gotta get a move on.”

With a final shake of his head to clear the cobwebs, Jake returned to the car, thoughts buzzing with what he’d just witnessed.

Loretta’s expression was guarded, but cheerful.

“So what’d you see?”

He regarded her, curious.

“You don’t know?”

This time, he thought she seemed nervous.

“Not really. I told it to give you some big memories from before I knew you. What did it show?”

Now it was his turn to be nervous. They were her memories. Her life. And he’d been rooting through them.

“I saw you as a kid. A really little kid,” He said cautiously, “You were in a pageant. And then it kind of jumped to the day you found out you were coming to live in my hometown.”

She groaned, though if the memory pained her, she made no other sign of it.

“That’s what it picked, huh? Must’ve reached back to the beginning for that.”

Jake glanced at her, then frowned. They were winding up a mountainside now, the road parting the green sea of trees. A breathtaking view, but he fought to keep his attention where it mattered as much as the road allowed.

“And why’d it do that? Why is that the moment it chose to show me?”

From the corner of his gaze, he saw a graceful shrug, and for a moment he thought she’d dodge the question. ‘How should I know?’ or something like it. But she surprised him.

“It’s when I realized what I was worth.”

His hand flew to her thigh, so overwhelmed by apology that it preempted hesitation.

“Hey, it’s just a stupid pageant,” He soothed, “You’re not a loser, or unpretty, or-”

However he’d meant that sentence to end, it died when she giggled. She placed her hand on his, her look nearly as pitious as his tone.

“That ain’t what I meant,” She said. “Just that you’re only as good to the world as what it expects you to be.”

He’d thought the moment was so tender that the sudden cynicism made him recoil. He had to pump the brakes to keep control of the car.

She giggled, which Jake thought was an odd reply until she spoke up.

“It’s all relative, hon. My parents expected me to be a princess, so I disappointed them. Hunter expected me to be the good, supportive wife, and I rarely let him down,” She said. “People want something from you, and you either give it to them or you don’t.”

“That’s a very…transactional way to view relationships,” He said.

Her laugh was bitter this time, though her expression was as sunny as ever.

“That implies I’m gettin’ something back,” She said, “I’ve only ever been with one person who didn’t want me to be something.”

Jake knew without asking.

“How’d that get going, anyway, you and Farrah? You never struck me as anything less than straight.”

She giggled.

“I think everyone is less than straight. At least among women,” She said. “I think most of us would date women, if we could stomach it and make kids that way.”

“But to the question at hand…” He pressed.

“How does it ever begin when you aren’t expecting it to? We were spending a lot of time together, helping Julie when she was still going through it. And the two of us clearly had it together in a way she didn’t.”

She turned her gaze toward the mountains.

“I guess the levee broke after Ryan remade herself into Lacy. That was tough for Farrah, and I was there for her. She kissed me and it just felt right. I don’t even know if she meant to do it.”

Jake scoffed.

“I doubt Farrah ever accidentally does anything.”

That earned a reproachful look, and for the briefest moments, even an angry one.

“Then you don’t know her at all,” She said, smiling “Farrah don’t let her guard down often, but she’s as human as any of us. If you’re gonna be in charge, you should learn that much.”

The road had shot the peak; wound fully around toward its inevitable descent. He no longer needed to accelerate the car, only to steer it.

Abashed, he changed the topic.

“I’ve got another question,” He started.

“You would. As well as this is going,” Loretta interjected.

He felt a blush, and forced himself to keep going.

“You weren’t this southern before. When we met. You were country as all hell, and I guess I know why now, but the accent, the…dialect. That’s all new.”

Loretta shook her head.

“Can’t be helped. Ever since I used that damn gun to make myself part of Hunter’s family, it’s thickened up,” She said, “I hate it. It’s not even just the way I talk, it’s the way I think. Like my brain’s gotta accent all of a sudden. All these localisms runnin’ around in it.”

Jake frowned. Asses and umptions, he thought, in the voice of his mother.

“I guess I assumed it was affected.”

Again, a flicker of anger that gave way as soon as he saw it.

“And why is that? Why’s everyone assume I’m some sort of scheming bitch?” She asked. Her tone was sharp, but her expression had slid back into placidity. “Where’s that comin’ from?”

This time, Jake was ready.

“You’re a schemer, Lori. Or at least that’s how you seem to all of us.”

“And why is that?” She snapped, “What’ve I done here but help others? You see me tear anyone down?”

“No,” he admitted. “But we all saw you cleaning up after your husband. We saw you come up with a whole digital prison, setting yourself up for a landing after this is all over.”

A bitter laugh.

“Hunter…It always comes back to him, don’t it?”

They drove on in silence, swinging along a wide mountainside. He took it too fast. He was, to that point, taking everything too fast, and he had to fight to control the impulse.

He shook his head.

“Not for me. For me, it was your family. I know why Julie did what she did with hers, but you just straight up erased yourself from yours. Care to explain that?”

“My family,” She barked, “Daddy’s been dead for years, and Mom…”

Again, Jake caught himself abashed. Had he not just seen that relationship; not just felt it?

“Somewhere between disappointment and rivalry?” He tried.

“No love lost,” was her only reply to that, “So I set myself up with some money and a base of power. What of it?”

His reply was gentle.

“So it makes you look like a schemer. Everyone’s thinking it.”

She turned to him now, tilting to her side, dropping her sunglasses so their gazes could meet.

“Like I said,” She repeated, “It always comes back to Hunter.”

By the time the path had leveled, rather than steeply falling, another scenic overlook greeted them. The tower viewers were in a long line this time, arrayed from East to West along a cliffside. But just as his last encounter with them, there were two gold ones.

He pulled the car to a stop.

“Same deal?”

She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head, tossing him a coin. It was a quarter this time, the face of Hunter Lane on its head side.

“No…this time you’re going down the past,” She said. “I know I intended to offer a choice here, but I got the feeling that if you don’t learn to understand how me and my husband got going…what it all meant to me…this whole exercise is a big waste of my time.”

Jake nodded.

“Which one?”

“East,” She said. “And god, I hope it shows what I want it to.”

Again, he questioned how there was any doubt to this; if there was any doubt to it. If it showed him something genuine, vs something curated, something earnest vs a story made up from whole cloth, how would he know? And what was even the point of speculating? The vision, ultimately, would be the vision.

So he took her quarter, marching across the road after, stupidly, watching both sides for traffic that clearly wasn’t coming.

He dropped the coin into the machine she’d indicated, and once again, the world around him fell away as he fell into Loretta’s life along with it.

*****

She is panting; trudging upward, and barely keeping pace. She’s by no means sedentary. Her way to Chapel Hill is paid on the volleyball court, the track, and cheering on the football field. This latter takes more effort than its admirers or detractors, both mostly men, usually realize. How many of them can hoist a person their own size to their shoulders?

But this climb, this steady ascent into thinning air, is new to her.

“You alright, darling?” Hunter calls down to her.

She stands straight, willing a bold face and a thumbs up.

“Doing great, babe!”

He laughs. It’s a good laugh, and she smiles in spite of her weariness.

“If you need a break, you let me know, okay.”

She shakes her head, taking a step forward, further up the hill, to prove herself. She refuses either to show or submit to weakness.

The two have dated for a year now. He is handsome, charismatic, and from a good family; his father having made both a fortune and a much loved, two-term governorship before his 45th birthday. Hunter is a catch by any reasonable measure, and has, according to his reputation, liberally sampled from the parade of giggling Southern belles that trailed him his young life. He might have chosen any of them, but instead, he’s chosen her. And while her looks may have enticed his affection, it is the wit, the Yankee bluntness, and the steel beneath them that have arrested it.

It is her toughness that appeals to him, and she’ll cede none of it willingly.

This is most obvious in their sex life, or rather the lack of it. They are always affectionate and often intimate, but she has yet to sleep with him. His friends, even his sister, warn that he will grow bored with this, but she has found the opposite. Far from losing interest, her refusal to give way to his passions seems only to inflame them.

Some of them, the stupid ones, accuse her of leading him along; of using the fact of their abstinence to control him. Her detractors, who once called her a whore, now deride her as a tease. If they are determined to make you a villain, she supposes, there really is no winning.

The truth is that for all their chemistry, all his gentlemanly overtures, she’s not yet made up her mind about him.

“Where are we headed, anyway?” She asks.

She thinks of adding “And how much further”, but stops herself. If he notices her labored breathing, he’s polite enough not to say so.

“Up above this hill,” He tells her. “We’re almost there.”

She extends her arm, and he helps her up. She can see that the concession pleases him.

The view takes her breath away. The sun is setting on the mountains and the trees, bathing the world in golden magnificence as it stretches beneath them. As he holds her close, she is speechless for the first time in their year together.

“It’s something, ain’t it?” He says, his awe almost matching her own.

“Yeah…I’ll say,” She whispers.

She turns to him, kissing him.

“I’ve been waiting to bring you up here for six months,” he tells her.

“Why’d you wait?” She asks. “It’s wonderful…”

She pauses.

His worst quality, the thing that keeps her from committing, is his overconfidence. He is not a supercilious boy, the way rich, handsome young men tend to be. He is merely one the world has yet to disabuse. He is blessed with the surety that it will provide as it’s always provided; an absent minded conviction that life has protagonists, and he is one.

It is utterly absent now. For the first time, she sees him vulnerable, uneasy.

“I guess…” he starts, pausing, “I wanted to be sure…”

She cocks her head, patient; inviting, rather than demanding him to share. He licks his lips, shifts his weight.

“That…I’m sorry. This is…a first for me,” He starts, stops, fumbles, then takes hold of the words he means, “I love you, Lori.”

It is the last thing she expects, though reflecting on it later, she supposes it shouldn’t have been. She cannot remember the last time anyone said it to her. They are words she didn’t know she needed, and they crash through her caution. She melts into his arms, kissing him with a fervor she’s not felt before or since.

“I love you too,” She breathes, at least thinking she means it.

His hands grip her waist. She arches her neck, inviting his lips, which attack it eagerly. He caresses her breasts. She wants nothing more than to tear the top off, to shimmy out of her shorts, to let him do whatever he wants with her.

As if reading her thoughts, he retreats, slinging his backpack off his shoulder. He is withdrawing a blanket, the sort that is thick, soft, capable of acting as its own bed, in a pinch. It’s folded, a suggestion, still. He looks up to meet her eye.

“Do you want this?” He asks.

She is glad he’s stepped back, so she can comprehend her decision. Her head is cooled, if only slightly, and the choice ahead of her is clear. He worships her, in part because she’s not yet given way to him. She has her reputation to consider, and all the names she swore she’d never live up to. And while she’s hardly doe-eyed about her virginity, there seems an irreverence to giving it up on a blanket in the woods.

Still, when her lips part, “Yes” is the word that escapes them.

He lowers her gently to the blanket, and turns his eyes as she undresses and he does the same. When they return to her, they are wide with admiration. He looks at her as if she’s the first woman he’s ever seen this way, though she knows she isn’t.

“You sure?” He asks, one more time, and she nods, beckoning him.

He is wreathed in moonlight when he enters her, his back to the sky. It’s nothing like she expects. She is afraid he’ll be hungry, to grope and bite like an overeager boy. She’s afraid she’ll make a mistake, hurt him, or more likely herself, and ruin the experience, or that her head will get in her way, too busy thinking and worrying to live within the moment. Mostly, she’s afraid because she has no idea what to be afraid of.

Instead, it is magnificent. Their bodies become one, falling into an unspoken, instantaneous rhythm. Their chests meet, a leg entwines with hers. Her hand runs through his thick, brown hair, his cups her head, turning it up so he can see her face. In her moment of pleasure, she arches her back, whispering his name in a low breath. He’s not far behind.

Afterward, they lie together, naked in the grove that overlooks the cliffside. She supposes they should make an effort to dress, or cover themselves should someone come along. But rather than hide her form, she lays back, presenting it to him. His gaze remains fixed on her, a finger idly exploring the contours of her body. Hers flits, from him, to the expanse beyond the rocks, to the gorgeous, starry sky overlooking it all; anything to keep her mind off the thoughts of a future with this man that she knows are simply afterglow.

“How you feeling?” He asks.

“Good,” She says, “Amazing, even. Hunter, this…”

He waits, and eventually, she shakes her head. Whatever words she wants prove elusive. He kisses the corner of her mouth, and his meaning is clear. The moment needs no explanation.

She has seen many sides of him, the braggart, the southern gentleman, the charmer, the partier. But this tenderness is some new dimension. She wonders how many more he has, and despite herself, what a life exploring them might be.

She moves into his arms, gently turns his face to meet hers.

“What do you want, babe?” She asks him.

It’s a clumsy question, but again, he surprises her.

“You,” he tells her.

It is not the words that take her off guard, but the delivery. There’s no flirtation, no humor. He is utterly sincere.

“I want a partner, Lori. And I think you’re the one for it.”

She does not say yes, but rather cracks the door, watching how he chooses to enter.

“A partner for what?”

He frowns, shrugs.

“I dunno. Maybe business. Maybe I’ll run for something.”

She shakes her head. Perhaps it’s the scene, or the afterglow, or the gravity of these professions; perhaps it’s all of it that combines to make his answer unequal to the moment. She finds she now wants his overconfidence, to wield and temper it toward a purpose.

“No,” She says with a shake of her head. “If you want a partner, let’s aim for something big. I know you believe in things. I’ve seen you get fired up about them.”

Her breath quickens. With a start, she realizes her hand has drifted between his legs again. It’s happened almost idly, her words exciting them both.

“It’s true,” he admits, with a grunt. “Helping the poor. Women…women’s rights. Equality of…”

He’s touching her in kind now, thumb massaging a breast, fingers exploring the dampening place between her thighs. His words trail off to a moan.

“Think on it. We could build something. Really be something,” She breathes, and by the way he hardens against her, she knows he agrees.

She sees it all then, the brilliant future laid out for both of them like the world beyond the cliff. Two lovers, the rich, charming boy and the determined poor girl, completing one another and changing the world. It all seems so imminent; so tangible.

As if sharing the thoughts, he enters her again. Nothing gentile now. This time, their lovemaking is urgent, impassioned. And when she cries out, it’s loud enough for the whole world to hear.

Time passes, years abbreviated in a blur of motion, images and memory.

Now, she stands in a van. Above and around her, a heavy, machine gun rain beats against its panels. Her hair is done not in the flowing beach waves she uses to allure, but a messy ponytail with loose bangs. Her makeup is immaculate, but understated; the sort of look that makes her flawless, without being obvious. No form hugging dress this evening. Tonight she wears a loose white blouse, tastefully though not too provocatively buttoned down, and jeans that show off all the form she needs. The look says “I am beautiful, but approachable; one of you.”

She shifts the leather satchel, containing her speech for the evening and talking points for follow-up questions in one hand, slipping her heels off with the other. The woman beside her turns to her, arching an eyebrow.

“You’re gonna run across that lot barefoot?” Lena Hatfield, North Carolina’s 4th Congressional Representative asks, “You outta your goddamn mind?”

Lena is a beautiful woman, young for Congress with a wit as sharp as her features. She projects presence; the sort of woman who exudes an aura of easy command, and begs to be listened to. A two term member who was barely out of college when elected, she is an ideological firebrand, popular in the party nationally, and a hero within the state. That she’s stumping for Hunter, both a newcomer and one who wouldn’t have made it this far without Daddy’s money or connections, is a sign of his authenticity.

“It’s for her sake,” Lori corrects her, motioning to the van’s third occupant.

Miranda wields the umbrella like a shotgun, pulling into place before opening it.

“Ready when you are,” She says in her Great Lakes dialect.

For now, she plays the dutiful peon, willing to soak in the rain so that the candidate’s wife doesn’t have to. But she’s proven just as agile in her capacities as enforcer, fixer, dirt digger and general manager of affairs. She is not the campaign manager, but has risen from a lowly field organizer sent by the party to the second in command. For Loretta’s money, she’s the most invaluable part of their staff; a veteran of the Chicago political scene who realized her only path to a career of relevance was out from under the city’s machinery, but had adopted its bare knuckle sensibilities before leaving.

The three of them form a triumvirate; a shadow campaign within the whole in which Loretta runs as much as her husband. They are the vanguard, moving from rally to rally either to open for Hunter, or to keep the momentum up when he’s otherwise occupied. At the outset, Lori feared that being a Yankee trophy bride would be an issue, but once again, her worries are subverted. At rallies she is approached by party officials, by voters, praising her for her performances. As volunteers beat the doors and phones, she comes up in their conversations. In a short time, the campaign decides that their efforts are better split, her presence strong enough to double the ground they can cover.

“Alright. Three. Two. One,” Loretta says charging forward.

The others join, and together they run laughing through the rain. By the time she and Lena take the stage, their perfectly manicured looks are sodden, which only seems to endear them to the audience; an unexpectedly robust gathering of almost 1,200 potential supporters in a high school gymnasium. She feels almost at home, like a pep rally.

“Hello, Rocky Mount!” She shouts into a microphone, “How’re y’all doin’ tonight?”

She delivers a stemwinder, which could be her husband’s as much as her own. Their stump speech is so rote now that she can deliver it from memory. She makes hard promises about healthcare and taxes for the rich, alongside soft platitudes about change, and the urgency of fresh faces. When it’s over, she basks in the applause.

Halfway through her speech, Hunter enters toward the back, ushered by Thomas Mantel, his tall, handsome head of security and personal handler. At once she can see Hunter is flustered; upset about something. Their eyes meet, but she never breaks her stride.

“Well, I bet you didn’t all come to see me jabber at you,” She says, “Let’s get the love of my life up on the stage.”

A round of applause. Hunter takes it gracefully, appearing almost bashful as the spotlight turns to heralding him across the floor. He waves, stopping to greet a few important constituents in the audience as he goes. She stands in the dark, relieved for the break, but possessed of a strange disappointment as the light leaves her. Its absence proves temporary, and soon it shines on her and Hunter together as they embrace for the crowd.

“Isn’t she great?” He says, embracing her right there on stage.

“Take it away, darlin’” She says, delivering a chaste kiss to the corner of his lips.

Lena meets her as she descends the steps.

“You’re gettin’ good at that,” She says.

“I would hope,” Lori says, undoing and shaking out her hair, which hasn’t fully dried from their run through the rain. “I’ve delivered that speech enough times.”

But Lena’s shaking her head.

“I meant the accent. You sound like one of us now,” She says, “I bet you most of these folks got no idea you’re a New Yorker.”

Loretta smiles, pleased by the compliment, and joins her against the wall.

“I barely feel like one these days,” She admitted. “I don’t know if I feel like I’m a southerner yet, but I feel like…something.”

Lena’s brown eyes search her. Her lips upturn.

“You feel like you’re in a movement,” She said. “It’s because you are.”

She nods to Hunter. If he was tired when he entered, melancholic in any way, one couldn’t tell it now. He is firing himself up, taking the ball she set and spiking it into the floor.

“You two are fantastic. I’d put every cent I got down on you winning in November.”

Loretta tilts her head.

“The last poll said it was close. You seem pretty sure.”

Lena laughs; a warm, infectious sound infused with all her confidence.

“Honey, they ain’t polled this thing in three months. Not since you got out of that ugly damn primary,” She said, “And they won’t, either. But you don’t need to worry.”

Loretta turns, looking straight on.

“You don’t think it’ll be close?”

She shrugs.

“It might be. It might not. But you’re gonna win. Folks love what you’re selling and each of you is doing twice the work Offerman is. Besides…look at it…”

Lena pauses, a roar of applause punctuating her assurances. She tilts her head as it washes over the gym, as if to ask, “Can you doubt it?”

Loretta considers. From the previous October, when even the necessary signatures to make the ballot seemed elusive, to their surprise primary showing forcing a runoff, to their unexpected and razor thin victory, she has not truly allowed herself to consider winning. They would need a new house, or at least some apartment in Washington. It means a change of income. They certainly can’t continue to draw a VP salary from the family business if he’s there most of the time.

Mostly, though, it means fulfilling the promises they’ve made. It means work that must be done at the center of world power, and an opportunity to do the things that matter they both agreed to on that mountainside three years earlier. It is the realization of heated debates on right and wrong, hushed, excited plans for the betterment of the world. It is the door to all their dreams creaking open, inviting them through.

Lena’s hand finds hers, and squeezes.

“It’s intimidating. And god knows you shouldn’t let me talk you into letting off the gas. But you best start thinkin’ about life after the trail.”

“I’ll do that,” Loretta vows. “And…thank you for all this. The help on the trail. Getting us ready for what’s coming.It means a lot to both of us.”

Lena leans back, staring at Hunter as he pumps his fist.

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t believe in him. And you. We need good people, because there’s a lot that needs doing.”

Her hand falls to Loretta’s shoulder.

“Don’t let him let me down.”

Lori smiles, returning the gesture. Not for the first time, she feels a kinship with this woman; a sisterhood united in the common goal of Hunter’s elevation, and the expectations they both share for it.

“I better go talk to his staff,” She said, “They came all the way from Elizabeth City today.”

“You do that. I gotta join him up there here in a sec anyway,” Lena tells her.

Loretta steps back behind the stage curtains, and further still through the hallways that both look and smell like those of any high school anywhere else in the country.

“Tom! You got a sec?” She calls out.

Thomas turns. He is a big man, handsome in a rough hewn sort of way.

“Loretta, hey. Is he about done up there?” He asks.

She clicks up to him, smiling.

“I think he and Lena are about to rap for a while. Take some crowd questions,” She says.

She’s about to elaborate, that she wants to thank the crew for the long day she’s certain they’ve put in, but stops when she sees the look on his face. More than tired, he looks stressed, stricken. She remembers Hunter when he entered.

“What’s the matter?” She asks. “Did something happen?”

His face is a collision of feelings, and hard to read. That there is conflict is obvious. She lays a gentle hand on his arm, stepping closer. It’s something with the race, she can tell; some minor issue they need to smooth over. After Lena’s encouragement, it feels almost trivial.

Tom glances around.

“Maybe…” He starts, “Maybe it’s best to discuss it in private.”

Suddenly, she’s aware of the other staffers; of eyes lingering on her longer than they should. And she knows even before Tom drops his voice.

“There’s been an incident…with the campaign film girl,” He says, gesturing to a classroom, “Let’s step aside.”

Another leap forward, not though years of promise this time, but of disappointment.

She stands on a mezzanine, above a crowd. A brilliant green dress hugs the contours of her body. It would be an exaggeration to say that the eyes of the Washington establishment are on her, but not that she’s catching a good lot of them. Not for the first time, she reflects at how far she’s come, from the pretty, outcast trailer girl to sipping champagne in the halls of power.

The thought should embolden her, but she tastes bile.

From her place on the bannister, overlooking the party, she sees the bar. Hunter is there, in a blue suit. His tie is discarded, and he leans back, an old fashioned in one hand. His other stretches across the bar, his arm snaking behind Lena’s back. They are not quite close enough for the gesture to be scandalous, but after a decade, she knows him too well. The posture, the flush in his cheeks, the easy laughter, and the look in his eye; all tell a story. He is not merely flirting with her, not merely too comfortable. They’re already fucking.

She likes Lena, respects her, and shares her idealism. His betrayal with her hurts Loretta all the more for it. Unbidden, she regresses to her earliest memories; the underdressed, inadequate girl on the pageant stage, holding her head high though she has no hope of victory.

She turns from the scene before it can hypnotize her; before she is so fixated that it becomes obvious to reporters among them. She needs air, needs space, needs to do anything other than marinate in the sight before her. So she finds a small office, mercifully unoccupied, and closes the door behind her. Watching the bustle of K Street from its window, she nurses both her drink and her resentments in solitude.

The door whispers, opening and closing with discretion. It is Thomas. Among this gala, which donors have paid as much as $50k a head to attend, his simple black suit with his simple black tie make him almost unremarkable. Yet the years in her husband’s service have improved him. At 45, he is older than his charge, but the streaks of salt that have blossomed among the pepper enhance his looks.

“Ma’am, Barney would like to speak to you.”

She feigns confusion.

“Me? What’s he want me for?”

“The fundraising. He’d like to see Hunter make more effort on the part of the party. And you, for that matter,” He tells her.

Barney is the head of the Congressional Campaign Committee’s fundraising arm; the whip cracker responsible for ensuring that each rep under its umbrella spends several hours of his or her week dialing for dollars. She knows from experience that he’ll browbeat her over her husband’s absence from the phones, and beg her to jump on them herself. In Hunter’s district, she’s still nearly as popular as he is, and the long running joke is that the good people of the North Carolina 4th are blessed with two House reps, where most Americans only get one.

“Put him off for me,” She wants to say. But that will raise questions. So she sighs, collects herself, and fights to clear the gloom from her face.

“I’ll go talk to him,” She says, and she can tell by her own voice she hasn’t succeeded.

Tom looks at her, and the concern on his face is so genuine, so beyond that which his job requires, that she is touched in spite of herself.

“Are you alright?” He asks, softly.

Her heart isn’t up for deflection.

“No,” She says miserably, and to at least make some effort to save the situation, “It’s the Child Tax Credit. I didn’t think he’d be a no.”

It is a marvelous policy; one they both believe in, and has proven results at elevating young families from poverty. Yet Hunter was a no, as the Barneys of the party had advised him to be.

She is unhappy about this. But her mind is back at the bar.

“I’ll go talk to him,” She says, and her voice catches as she makes for the door too quickly. The world blurs.

His hand stops hers on the doorknob.

“You should…take some time.” He advises.

For a moment, they stand together, unsure of how to proceed. Finally, Tom speaks up again.

“It’s not my place…” He starts, pauses, then stares at the floor toward the bar, “How many is this now?”

Embarrassed, he adds.

“Other…women, I mean.”

So even he knows. She should deflect; to tell him it’s not his business. But she needs someone to talk to, and Tom is a better candidate than most. She fights to hold back tears.

“Four,” She sniffs, “The first was that girl on the trail you told me about. I guess I should know better by now.”

Tom shakes his head.

“For Christ’s sake, why?” He says, “I mean…look at you.”

“Same reason he won’t fundraise anymore. Same reason he won’t vote for what he really believes,” She says, and she knows at once that she’s finally putting to words what she’s understood for years, “Hunter only loves the chase of the thing. Once he has it, he gets bored.”

Tom’s hand, which has not left her wrist, squeezes it gently.

“He doesn’t deserve…” he starts, then backtracks, “You deserve better.”

It is the first kindness anyone has shown her in some time. Before she can stop herself, she reaches up, turning Tom’s head to kiss him. Before he can stop himself, his hands around her waist. A flick of her wrist locks the door behind them. He lifts her easily, placing her on the desk. Her arms wrap around his neck, holding him close as he returns her kisses; his find the vent in her dress and the thigh beneath it.

Only when she hikes her skirt does he step back, control reasserting itself. He seems bewildered, as though he’s awoken from a sleepwalk.

“I’m sorry…we shouldn’t,” He says.

“No…” She replies, though whether she‘s acceding to his moment of clarity or rejecting it, even she can’t tell.

As he backs away, she buries her head in her hands, guilt consuming her. Not for Hunter, who would more than have this coming, but for Tom; an innocent who, for her own needs, she has nearly ruined.

“I’m sorry,” She groans, “I didn’t mean to drag you into this.”

Looking up for a moment, she can see he’s torn. He wants to comfort her, but is hesitant; afraid that if he does, it will start all over. Instead, she stands, seizing the initiative.

“I’ll go out first. You wait a while.”

He nods. He’s turned his back to her, toward the window, wrestling with his own regrets, she suspects. The sight of it deepens her own.

Head swimming, she descends the stairs toward the door. She will call a cab, she decides; flee the scene and choose her next move in the privacy of her own home. She’s planned that far ahead when a hand falls on her arm.

“Where’re you goin’?” Hunter asks, confused.

She turns to face him, momentarily surprised into silence.

“Home,” She says, composing herself. “I need to get out of here.”

His brow furrows. He can sense that something is wrong, but pushes past it to the heart of the matter.

“But baby…we got people to meet,” He says, “The Senate committee is looking at me, and I need you to-”

“I almost cheated on you just now,” She says, low and urgent, “I have to go.”

The news hits him like a slap. He steps back. She can see he’s hurt, and the audacity of it clarifies her confusion into real anger. How dare he be hurt?

“With who?” He demands, looking around to see if anyone is watching.

“Does it matter?” She says, putting ice into her voice. “You’ve got Lena.”

He absorbs this, understanding blooms.

“I guess that’s fair. You’ve got your little revenge. You good now?”

The accusation is another twist of the knife; the casual assumption that because she’s covered and ignored his transgressions, tolerated all he’s done to her, that it’s all a parcel of some scheme. Again, she’s been thrown back in time, undone as the second Congresswoman, and reformed as Whoretta all over.

“I should leave you,” She spits.

“Yeah, but you won’t,” He says, “Where would you go? You tellin’ me you’d give up all this to what? Go back to the trailer park?”

It is the hurt speaking, she sees. The truth has injured him, so he wields it to return the blow. Knowing that does nothing to soften it.

“Go ahead on home,” he says, straightening, “If you want, we can talk about all this in the morning.”

“Or we can not,” he leaves merely implied, “And we can go on like all the other times.”

She wants to slap him, to scream at him; to grab a flute from a serving tray and throw it in his face, in front of God and the press and everyone.

But a lady keeps her cool.

*****

Jake stepped back from the tower viewer blinking. The sun had begun its descent toward the western peaks, but after the dimness of the fundraiser, his eyes needed to adjust. But even more than the glare, the sense of disorientation was staggering.

He turned to find Loretta sitting on the hood of the car, a Coke bottle and straw having materialized in her hand. She looked taught and nervous, yet as soon as she saw he’d finished, she was all smiles again.

“What was it this time?” She asked.

Her smile was coquettish, but didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Hunter. Your life with him,” He said.

He spared her the specifics. That he saw her first time with him, her near affair and the shame it made her feel…it was all so intimate, and there were some secrets she should be allowed to keep.

“I…get why you hate him so much,” He added to fill the silence.

Loretta shook her head.

“I don’t hate Hunter. I’m disappointed in him. It breaks my heart,” She said, “It should have been so much…more than what it was.”

Jake nodded. He was still processing his time living her life, but he certainly understood her as he hadn’t prior to the vision.

“So you two…his career…” He ventured slowly, “That was about something?”

“At the start,” She agreed, “I think it eventually became a means to an end, but we really wanted to make a difference. Or at least I did.”

“Well, at least you planted a seed for that. The gun, and all,” He tried.

It was a delicate subject, and again he felt them tiptoeing around the man at the center of it. Still, she had set herself up for a sort of success; a life after the game.

But Loretta only giggled, dismissing it with a wave of her hand. Jake fought back a flash of real irritation. Was she so unwilling to be consoled?

“It was a good idea on my part,” She conceded, “But it won’t come to nothing. The best thing I can do at the end of that is change Hunter back and let him go onto whatever he wants.”

Jake’s handle on his annoyance finally broke.

“What the hell does that mean? You get to step into his job. If you think he’s doing it wrong, do it better. You don’t even have to act like you’re married to him anymore,” He said, more harshly than he intended. “You can’t sit here and tell me you’re powerless after you literally empowered yourself!”

Her smile was almost pittying, which only inflamed his temper. She laid a gentle hand on his thigh, and when she spoke, her tone was almost chipper.

“You’re angry. What’s got you all worked up?”

“That, right there,” He said, “This front you put on where you’re so fucking happy all the time.”

For a second, and only a second, her eyes transfigure into green fire; hot anger that twisted her beautiful face into something almost frightening. But it was replaced by a smile and a giggle a moment later.

“You think I’m putting that on?” She asked. “You’ve done so little to get to know me that you don’t even remember the curse they stuck with me.”

She was still smiling as her delicate hand rolled into a ball, pounding on the hood of the car so hard it left a dent, and Jake jumped at the sight of it.

“You saw me as some cheerleader, and so did the audience. So now I have to flounce around smiling and giggling like some kinda goddamn floozy,” She said, and there was real hurt in her voice despite the expression she wore. “Do you know what it’s like when you can’t cry? When you can’t get mad? When you can’t express yourself like a normal person? And then you call me a fake for it?”

She ripped her sunglasses off and sent them skittering down the road before burying her head in her arm.

There’s that rake again. But this time, he owned it.

“I’m sorry,” He said, “You’re right, I completely forgot. I’ve barely seen you during this whole thing and that is absolutely my fault.”

She shook her head, taking a breath and sighing.

“Not entirely, and that’s not just me buttering you up,” She said, “There’s twelve of us and one of you. It’s not like you can be everywhere. And it’s certainly not your fault that our date got cut off.”

He felt very tired. It seemed even when the women in his life didn’t lecture him about the time he hadn’t spent with them, he found a way to do it himself. He could see more clearly than ever what a disservice his isolation had done all of them; the peril he’d put them in.

He experimentally put his arm around her. And when she leaned into it, resting her head on his shoulder, he gave her a squeeze.

“I guess I thought you were trying to please me. Like putting on a happy face would do that,” He admitted.

“Oh, that is what I’m doing. I just didn’t choose to do it,” She said, and he saw the truth of it, “It’s like I said earlier, you’re only as good as what people expect you to be.”

“But you could be a Congresswoman,” He said, returning them to the original topic. “Why would you just walk away after all you did to set that up?”

“Yeah. A Congresswoman in a harem? How’s that gonna work?”

It was a good point. Jake didn’t know, so he didn’t answer.

“I could try to keep it secret, I s’pose. Keep you as my official husband,” She said, “House members’ spouses don’t get that much attention, less’n they want it. But it’d be dicey, and you couldn’t hide what we all are forever. That district ain’t the type where you can have some poly thing going without a huge scandal.”

She shook her head.

“No. There’s only one way I get to live that life. Same way I've ever gotten anything.”

She didn’t need to specify. For the first time he saw her clearly, for what she was, what motivated her, and how she got this way. She needed to win, because everything else had only ruined her.

Finally, he considered his thoughts.

“Listen…I can’t promise you power or influence or whatever. But I can promise that we’ll take care of each other,” He said, “And whatever life we can build, or difference we can make…I’ll do whatever I can to make it.”

When he finished, Loretta’s smile seemed more genuine.

“I like that.”

“That’s a relief,” He grumbled, “I think it’s pretty weak stuff, as vows go, but it’s the best I can do.”

She leaned into his grasp, kissing him, and it took him off guard.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted from anyone, Jake. Their best,” She said, taking his hand, “And I’m tired of people making promises they can’t keep.”

He returned her kiss then. In the corner of his eye, he could see those glorious mountains breaking down into pixels, the sky becoming a featureless black void. The dream was ending, but he held her tight, enjoying the moment until the end overtook them both.