Freckles and Sketches

Alright. This is it.

I’ve sold my baby. I feel great and sick at the same time as I hand over the keys to the dealer. The emotional attachment I enjoy with my baby Mustang could be a higher love of sorts. Define higher love however you want, just make sure it’s something good.

A slightly nostalgic silence ensued from me after that and the good ol’ dealer, who’s standing in front of me, rolls up his eyes from under the hood of his cowboy hat and asks, “Everything alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Good.” I nod. “Everything’s good.”

“Hmm. It better be ’cause a deal is a deal and I’m not giving this car back to you. That’s why I’m one goddamned dealer.”

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

“Good luck with your new ride,” he says as he drops a key in my hand.

“Thanks.”

He stalks inside while, with a sigh, I turn to face my new ride. An old Ford truck waiting for me at the side of the road looking older than the dealer and rustier than dried wood. It looks fairly experienced and wise, ready to break down any chance it gets.

“This is gonna be great,” I tell myself as I finally step towards it over the cobbled pathway.

I rub my hands together under the November chill, brushes off the few flurries of snow from my hair, and gets inside. I look around me, trying to get accustomed to it. I peer over to my Mustang over the rows of cars one last time.

An absolute beauty. I’d been riding it since I was sixteen and over the years I’d modified it to fit my own choice, painted it all over with graphics, and what not to fit my artistic taste. I bought that car with my own savings and I babied it like a Queen, never let anybody mishandle it until Augustine smashed its window that one night I kissed his girlfriend.

Sophia.

I guess they’re still together. I bet.

I turn the key and ignites the engine. The machine comes alive grunting like an angry bull and seemingly shaking as if to protest he doesn’t like me.

“Alright. Alright. Alright. This is good.” I nod as I place my palms on the steering wheel, ready to hit the road and start afresh.

“This is for the good. The better,” I say one more time and hit the accelerator.

I’ve left it all now. There’s no looking back from now on. Keep moving ahead, Timothee. Just keep looking straight ahead.

I turn up the music and settled into the seat. My head starts to move along with the beat of Queen’s Radio Ga Ga. Half an hour into the ride on the stretch of a deserted highway, I have really learned to party on my own (without being high). I love the feeling of hitting one wide road as if I own it. By the time I reach a town, I have finished listening to my playlist.

I stop by to grab something to eat. Then I continue driving, leaving behind one town after the other. When dusk set in, I reach another small town called St. Louis. I roll down the highway at a slow pace, looking out through the glass for any place I might want to stop by. I keep on going until my eyes finally land on a bookstore – Jimmy’s Books and Coffee. I figured that would be one of the quietest places in town and I love both coffee and books so, that clearly made the cut.

I park my truck at the side of the street and push inside the door. Something chimes above my head and a girl with short, wavy hair chopped to a lob, looks up from the book she’s reading. She has the lower half of her face hidden behind the book while her eyes watch me approach her.

“Hey. Can I have a cup of coffee?” I ask.

She put the book down on the counter, got up from her place, grabs a tissue from the box on the table, and blows her nose into it.

Taking a breath and wiggling her nose, she answers in a rather stuffy voice. “Sure. I haven’t seen you here before.”

“Yeah. I’m just passing by.”

“That’s cool.” She nods as she squeezes two drops of sanitizer in her palm and rubs it all over her hands before she proceeded to make coffee for me. “You can grab a book and read while you wait. It’s just books and coffee here so I’m sorry I can’t provide you anything else.”

“No. That’s alright. I’m here only for coffee.”

She rolls up eyes up at me from the machine and gives a smile. Her eyes are light hazel and they’re beautiful but the one thing about her that fully captivates my attention is the light pinches of freckles spangled on her fair cheeks and the bridge of her nose.

She’s cute.

“I could bring the coffee to you. You could take a seat.”

I snap out of my trance and sputters. “Oh, right. Yeah. Totally.”

I pay for the coffee and leave her to take a seat by the window. The place is pretty small with only three tables having two chairs each. There are bookshelves on all sides of the room except for that one wall where. . . Freckles’ desk is. That one has exposed red bricks and a few framed photographs of coffee cups and some sayings. It’s quiet and cozy here. I take notice of the tiny house plants kept on the window sills in white flower pots.

While I’m engrossed staring at the plants, Freckles appears with my coffee.

“Here you go,” she says as she places the coffee before me.

“Thanks.” I look up to her and sees that she’s wearing a rather hideous skirt thick enough to be a curtain.

“No problem!” She responds.

“When does the store close?”

She looks at the clock on the wall by her desk and says, “In half an hour.”

It is 7 pm now.

“Okay.”

Freckles goes back to her desk, once again sinking behind the book she’d been reading. I sit warming my hands on the cup and taking sip after sip of the coffee, staring at the plants and out at the road. I can see the snow falling on my truck and forming a silvery sheet and I just keep wondering about everything and nothing in particular.

Now, I’m wondering if my old Ford would simply crumble to a piece of junk as it stands there motionless.

The door chimes again and two girls walk in, brushing the snow off their coat and fussing about the chill outside. Once they see that I’m here, they lower their voices and steps ahead to Freckles’ desk. I watch them fall into a conversation with Freckles as they return the books they’ve borrowed. One of them looks my way followed by the other.

“Passerby,” Freckles tell them.

The girls leave soon after. Freckles goes back to her reading again. After simply sitting and staring out to the street for long, my coffee is empty but I keep sitting. It’s taken me only a cup of coffee to fall in love with this place. I love the coffee. I love the books. I love the plants. I love the silence. I kinda like Freckles too. Not that I am in love with her or starting to have a crush on her, nothing like that. I just find her intriguing.

Suddenly, an alarm clock on her desk rings out loud as if to wake all the dead people from their grave. I can’t help but jump a little in my seat. I glance over at Freckles wondering if she saw me jump. She doesn’t seem to. Instead, she puts her book down on the desk and stretches out. I figured it’s time for me to leave. But I have a problem. I don’t want to leave yet.

Freckles looks my way and says, “It’s time to close the store. I’m sorry but you’ll have to leave now.”

Exhaling a disheartened sigh, I stood up. “Yeah. Sure.”

I rub my – now warm – hands together in preparation, since I no longer have any choice but to brave the chill outside. Then I slide out of my chair and make my way to the door.

“Are you gonna drive now?” Freckles asks from her desk behind me. “Like, are you leaving town? I mean, it’s pretty late and it’s cold too.”

“Well, that’s the plan actually,” I reply, looking back at her and standing by the door hesitantly.

Her eyes are warm and full of concern. It feels nice to be cared for even by a stranger but, I always end up messing things up so, I don’t know if I should take this chance. Running a hand through the back of my head and chewing on my lower lip, I thought for a while. Then, I walk over to her.

“I’m thinking I should stay. Do you know a place around here? A hotel perhaps.”

“Well, we don’t really have a hotel around here. It’s a pretty small town. Umm, I could offer you to stay over at my place but we’re crowded again. There are kids and. . . um, they’d crap the shit out of you. But I do know a friend who has a place to stay. Just across the street from my place. He’s really nice.”

“Sure! No problem.”

“Okay.” She smiles. “I’ll just fix the place up before I leave.”

“Yeah. No problem. I’ll wait.”

Ten minutes later, she’s done. She locks the store and turns to me. I can’t help but stare at the skirt she’s wearing.

“So, you probably have a car with you.”

“Yeah. It’s that truck.”

“I actually walk all the way here from my place. It’s not that far. Well, at least not for me. My sister says I’m crazy for walking all the way here. Well, the point is, get inside your car.”

It cracks me up and I end up laughing. She does too. It’s nice. The feeling, I mean, having someone to laugh with.

I opened the door for her. She hops in. Then grunting and stirring through the snow, we finally reach her neighborhood. Her sister is right. Freckles is crazy for walking all the way here. It takes us about twenty minutes from the store to reach here.

“That’s my place!” She says pointing to a house with a tall pine tree in the front yard. “And that’s the house you’ll be staying in today.”

It’s just right across the street as she said earlier.

“He’s the owner of the library I’m working at and he’s 96 years old,” she tells me as she opens the door.

Wait, what?

I follow her out of the car.

“Your friend is 96 years old?”

“Don’t worry. You’ve nothing to worry about. He’s really active and healthy. He cooks on his own meals. He drives his own car. He says young people drive crazy. So, he doesn’t trust anyone. And like I said before, he’s reeeeeally nice. You’ll be alright.”

“Yeah?” I nodded with a boggled mind.

“Come on.”

She leads me up to the house and rings the bell. As we stand waiting, we hear people laughing inside.

“He’s probably got his friend over for dinner. Mr. Duncan,” Freckles says, “He’s 90 years old and he drives his own car too.”

“The old folks here are crazy,” I say causing her to laugh.

When the front door opens, we come face to face with an aged African-American man. He’s slim or he’s just thin because he’s old. Whatever. He has a dark green cap on his head and he stands just about as tall as Freckles, which isn’t much. But that’s partly because he’s slightly bent and yeah, Freckles is pretty short.

“Hey, Jimmy!” Freckles beam and put her arms around him.

“Chantry!” He hugs her back with a bright smile on his small, wrinkled face.

“I got you a friend. He’s. . . I’m sorry. What’s your name?”

“Timothee.”

“Timothee here needs a place to stay over for the night and I remembered that you have a spare room.”

“Oh, absolutely. Come on in! Don’t you stand there. It’s cold outside.”

Freckles, or Chantry, gives a light slap on my arm, beckoning me to follow her inside before she walks ahead with Jimmy. The moment we step inside, a gush of homely warmth enveloped me, chasing off the coldness slapped against us by the breeze outside.

We find Mr. Duncan, Jimmy’s ninety years old white buddy, sitting in the living room and watching a silver screen movie on the TV. He leaves just as we arrived. Jimmy shows him to the door while I peeked out through a window just to see if he actually drives his own car like Freckles said. He does.

“Old Ford,” Jimmy remarks when he comes back to us. “Is that your car, son?”

“Yeah.”

“Get it up to the garage. I got space.”

I do as I’m told. The garage is just big enough to fit my truck beside his own Ford. Then, Jimmy shows me up to my room. Chantry stays a while, talking to us before she leaves.

“Thank you and good night,” I say to her at the door.

She smiles in return. “You too. I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye, Jimmy!”

“Bye, Chantry!”

Just as she pulls the door close behind her, she bolts back in, saying, “Jimmy. He just had a coffee at the store. . .”

“No problem! I’ll heat up something for you to eat, young man. In five minutes. You can use the bathroom in the meantime. It’s got hot water.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

I stand a little awkward and embarrassed at the fact that I have bothered them quite a great deal. But I’m also thrown off by the kindness of these two people. I watch behind Freckles as she leaves with yet another smile.

“Amazing girl, isn’t she?” Jimmy says to me.

“Yeah.” I nod.

“She’s an angel.” He shakes his head and goes to the kitchen.