Free If I Lose Her by Greg Joseph Daily Page A

want our
last meal to be some stuffy hotel steak. So, how’s Paris sound?”
     “Paris
sounds good,” she said finally turning to look at me again.
     We drove
downtown to the café and chatted about what her plans were for the summer.
Every two or three years, her parents liked taking a road trip to a national
park. Rocky Mountain National Park. Zion National Park. The Grand Canyon. Her
dad especially liked anywhere where there was desert, since he had grown up in
New Mexico. If they couldn’t afford a longer road trip, either because of time
or finance, they liked to at least get away to one of the many campgrounds
scattered around the Colorado mountains. There wasn’t going to be any extended
event this year, just a four-day weekend up Golden Gate Canyon to stay at their
favorite campground.
     Susan had grown
out of camping four or five years earlier, but this made Jo love the camping
trips even more. Now she got some good alone time playing games and going
hiking with her parents. After that she thought she might look for some
part-time work, mostly just to keep herself busy.
     We pulled up
and parked across the street from the café that was busy, inside with people
listening to the live band brought in a couple of times a month and outside
with people smoking and chatting about god knows what.
     “I have something
for you,” I told her as I turned of f the car and reached into the back seat.
     “I have
something for you too,” she said sliding her hands over the lid of the box on
her lap.
     “Let me go
first,” I told her, handing the gift to her about the size of a shoebox wrapped
in butterfly print.
     She took it,
tore the paper away and lifted the lid.
     “I told you
I would write you, and I want you to write to me.”
     She lifted
up a pad of paper printed in flowers, a stack of matching envelopes and a roll
of stamps.
     “There are
enough stamps there for you to write me every day for 3 months,” I told her.
Then she moved the stationary aside and found the small blue box with a hinged
lid. She picked it up and opened it. Inside, in a small pile, lay a gold chain
and a locket.      She opened it. A tiny photo of me smiled
out at her.
     “Alex, I
love it,” she said running her finger around the edge of the photo. “Help me
put it on.” I did.  “Now open mine.”
     I untied the
bow and lifted the lid.
     The first
thing I noticed was the cloud of her fragrance that rose to meet me. First was
a stack of seven photos that she had taken of herself. Around her house, around
school, one was even of her in the darkroom back on campus. This one I liked
the most.
     “I’m going
to send you a new set every week,” she told me.
     I kept
digging.
     There was a
pack of Oreo’s (my favorite cookies), a letter that I wasn’t supposed to read
until I was at least two states away, a brown leather bracelet with button
clasps, and then I lifted up a white tee shirt- thin with holes. I wasn’t
entirely sure what to make of it at first, then I realized that the
intoxicating bouquet I was smelling came from this.
     I lifted it
to my nose and drew deeply of it.
     “I usually
only sleep in that and my underwear,” she told me. “Now that I’m giving it to
you, I’ll only be sleeping in my underwear. Just remember that when you’re off
in Minnesota.”
     At that
moment, for the briefest of moments, she could have asked me for anything and I
would have said yes, but she didn’t. Instead she leaned over, kissed my cheek
and got out of the car. I took another deep inhalation of this amazing mix of
her perfume, lotion and natural body fragrance before I put everything back in
the box and followed her inside.
     For the next
two hours, neither of us was going anywhere for the summer. We were both
entirely present on this little island in time of music and sandwiches,
laughter and spiced tea. Then the music stopped and it was time to say good
night.
     I dropped her
off at home and we said