memories from my hotel room

One. memory

I remember being moody and pissy one day in July when Clay was visiting. What was I moody about? Was I PMS-ing? Had he said something that was really very humorous, but I didn’t catch what was funny? Did he make fun of me, and I didn’t want to hear it?

I have no idea. I just know that whilst being moody I really wanted cucumber salad, and Mom didn’t have any. I left Clay at my apartment and drove to Kroger by myself to buy fresh fruit, hummus, feta cheese, and cucumber salad. It was expensive, but I was pleased.

I brought the food back, and Clay and I ate the couscous he had made, and the goods I had brought. He was quiet, which is I think his was of being loving and patient, and let me deal with my moodiness by myself.

We might have watched a movie later. We might have read books. We might have talked. I don’t know. But I know I loved it, despite my moodiness.

Two. memory

Another day Clay was visiting Lexington, a Sunday, I think. I was supposed to go to dance class. I put on my dance clothes and reluctantly kissed Clay goodbye, pulled away from my apartment building and started towards the Tates Creek and Malabu intersection. I hadn’t been driving for a minute when I decided I really didn’t want to go to dance, now. I didn’t need to be there until later. I should have been, but I wasn’t needed. I pulled the car over. I called Leslie Heerman or Lynne Costello—I can’t remember—and told them I’d make it to dance later. I pulled into the driveway of the next apartment complex and turned around.

I drove back to my apartment building, and smiled to see Clay sitting under a tree in front of my building, smoking a cigarette and reading. He looked up when I approached him.

“Why are you here?”

“I didn’t want to go to dance. I wanted to be with you.”

I went into the apartment and put on warm-up pants because I hate wearing shorts unless I’m dancing, and brought out a book. We sat in the grass for a little while. We may have shared a cigarette or a Black and Mild.

I’m really glad I went to dance late that day.

Three. memory & thought

I don’t particularly fit in with Clay’s Grayson County friends. I enjoy accompanying Clay to Grayson County parties or to random bank parking lots where people are smoking, drinking, or being bored, but I don’t work with them. I don’t get all (or any) of the humor and jokes; I don’t listen to the same music, think about the same things, share the same GC history. GC is a place apart, truly. They are of a different breed there. I’m not from GC.

I was dismayed by Clay’s admission of how much I don’t work with that culture after my last GC party, at Paul’s house. I really enjoyed that evening. I didn’t drink anything; I smoked a little. I watched Clay and his friends laugh, loved it when Melissa gave me a hug, found Zach’s “America” persona exceedingly funny. The whole night I was slightly awkward, didn’t know what to do or say, so I sat in a chair or made small talk with Transy GC kids or with Clay’s friend John. I liked how it took thirty minutes for us to say goodbye to Paul, the host of the party, because he just kept talking. As strange and out of place as I might have been, I liked all of it.

But, apparently, I don’t fit in with Grayson County. DoraLee St. Clair, a woman from Falls of Rough whom I met in Rabat’s medina, told it to me plain. “You’re not a Kentuckian. You don’t sound like one.” And I’m not from GC because I don’t share any of those eccentricities or stories.

I love Grayson County, though. I don’t know why, but I do.

Four. memory

One day this past summer I was visiting Clay and his family in Grayson County, and he and I stayed up late in the living room to watch a movie. His dad and step mom when to bed in the room adjacent to the living room.

Whose idea was it to sneak out to the pool late at night? Did I whisper it to him? Did he mention it to me? Did we just look at each other and then at the pool, and know that at 2:00am we’d sneak downstairs and outside, and slip into the pool silently where we’d kiss and look at the stars?

That night was one of the best I’ve ever spent with Clay. I felt like a child again, looking at the stars. He mentioned that, while he watched my face. “You look like you’re seeing stars for the first time.”

I couldn’t stop smiling.