The Sorrows, page 13
Of course he was sure, nothing to worry about.
The next time was better.
The third time they slept together, she got into it some, using those strong, thoroughbred legs to brace herself as Eddie banged her. Soon they were going through the different positions, Lily finding she liked being on top best. She could not climax yet—her fear of pregnancy precluded that—but she was getting closer. Eddie lay beneath her, fascinated, as she pumped her glorious hips, pistoned up and down, her tongue poking out the side of her mouth in concentration.
One night in September she was riding him when her expression changed, her eyes suddenly alert, almost bewildered. She paused a moment, then began again, pumping with a purpose now, something going on inside her. Eddie watched, delighted, as she made a face, her voice going higher and higher, pouty and tortured, and around him her body quivered, clenched, a tremendous shiver spinning through her. It felt so good he let loose inside her.
He broke up with her the next day.
She took it badly, like he knew she would. She even, Christ almighty, threatened to tell her daddy how mean Eddie was being.
You do that, honey, and see you around.
Lily didn’t give up easily.
He figured she would be that way. Clingy. Scorned. What unnerved him was the tenacity with which she demanded he change his mind.
I’m sorry, Lily, we had some good times, but I’m graduating this spring.
I’ll go with you. Eyes glassy, obsessive.
No, you’ll go on with your tennis career and your education.
I don’t want those things. Not anymore.
Come on, Lily.
I want you.
Please, Lily.
In October he began to grow frightened of her. She showed up outside a bar where he and some buddies were drinking. She wasn’t old enough to come inside, just stood at the front window, one of his buddies spotting her first.
Dude.
What?
By the sign.
His stomach dropped.
Outside the bar, What the hell’s your problem?
I called you last night.
And this morning. And this afternoon. Can’t you take a fucking hint?
I need to talk to you.
He thought, Don’t tell me. No way, not that.
Her eyes confirming it.
He swallowed. How late are you?
A week.
That’s not so long. It—
I’ve never been late.
Two weeks after, she showed up at his management class. Walked right in during the lecture, his professor staring open-mouthed at the intrusion.
Under his breath, Jesus, let’s go outside.
In the hallway, loud enough for everyone to hear, I got the test back. It’s definite.
Eddie leading her, hand on her back, practically shoving her out the door. Turning on her. What the hell do you want from me?
You should marry me.
Are you insane?
You’re the father of my baby.
Hands to his ears, Jesus.
You should do the honorable thing, Eddie.
Get the hell away from me. Jogging to his car, too frightened or sick to run.
He holed up for two weeks at his dad’s house.
She found him on Halloween.
He’d managed to hook up with a pretty little waitress at the Chinese fast-food place in Santa Rosa. The girl named Mi Chi or Mai Tai, it didn’t matter. They were in the pool; he’d gotten her top off, when the gate opened and there stood Lily.
He yelled, Get out.
Crossing her arms. What are you doing, Eddie? Like she’d caught him.
Get the fuck out of here, Lily.
I’ll be waiting outside.
You wait then.
He went back to Mai Tai, but she was paddling away. The Asian girl’s white ass bobbed in the white bikini as she retrieved her top, climbed out of the pool and left without a word.
He could have killed Lily.
Outside the pool gate. Eddie in a towel, Lily actually looking quite hot in the short skirt—too bad she was a psycho.
What do you want, money?
You know what I want.
You’re crazy.
Because I want to be with you? Raise this child—
Just quit talking. Jesus.
Eddie.
Don’t talk to me. Walking away.
A hand on his shoulder. Her voice soft, Eddie.
Whirling and screaming into her stupid, stubborn face, I don’t want you, can’t you figure that out. You want money you can have it, just stop following me.
Eddie, please. Both hands on his shoulders, her face full of lunatic adoration. We belong together. You and me and the—
He hit her. Hit her hard.
Her belly felt soft, and the sound she made as she doubled over reminded him of what was inside her and then he really did get scared, the coughing and the shrieking and his dad was out of town but what if the Robertsons down the road heard and then he saw, oh no, the shiny black stuff that wasn’t black but looked that way in the dying evening sun as it dripped down her legs. He put a hand on her back, felt her tense. She’d seen it, touched one black streak with her middle finger, looked at it in slow-dawning horror, her eyes locking on his.
Lily.
My…my baby…
Lily.
Walking, staggering toward her car.
Lily, I didn’t—
Something he couldn’t quite make out.
Lily, please, just wait.
Pats of blood on the concrete.
He swallowed. Let me help.
She fell forward or he shoved her toward her MG, knees scuffing concrete, head denting the car door. An ugly, red splotch on her forehead where she hit, eyes dazed. Eddie thinking prison, execution, and he didn’t know how his hands got on her throat but they were there and she didn’t even struggle, though her eyes still recognized him and they rolled to white. He looked down, saw the black blood pooling between her legs, about to reach his toes. He hopped back, stared unbelieving at her body, propped there against the car like a huge doll.
Lily slumped. Dead.
He couldn’t think, couldn’t look at her face anymore, at her white eyes.
He dove in the pool. Under water for a moment wondering, What if I stayed down here? Would I die or would it all go away?
He returned to the driveway, dragging the hose, and cleaned the blood as well as he could.
He stared at it. Thought, it would have to do.
Put her in the passenger seat, shut the door. Started the MG. Drove down the lane, curved right, Bennett Valley Road three miles ahead. He drove them up without a glance in her direction.
Steep turn. Climbing, curving. The spot he was looking for. Stretch of road a hundred yards long without a guardrail. Rocks below. Sharp, spiked teeth. Please let there be fire. Please.
He parked and hauled her over to the driver’s seat. Heavy before, nearly immoveable now she was dead.
An ugly, black stain on the passenger seat. Part of that death, his.
Hoarse, choked sobs. Please. Body shaking. Please make fire.
Eddie stood wondering. Should he get gasoline, light it before?
Looking around. No one there, but any minute. He’d been lucky so far, but it couldn’t last. Have to do it. Can’t think anymore.
MG into neutral, door open. Eddie walking it easily, crunching gravel. Reaching in, turning the wheel. Sheer drop, fifteen feet away. Crunching, like gunshots. Ten feet.
Hand on his arm.
Alive.
Eddie screamed, recoiled, oh Jesus, looking at him, blood trickling from her lips and saying
Eddie
No no no no, he whispered
Confusion in her face, then comprehension, then panic
Eddie
Slammed the door, her wrist crunching, bones grinding. He shoved her arm inside, staring out at him frantic-eyed, white palms pressing inside the window
Eddie
Five feet
Rolling with grade
Eddie, muffled now
Front end dipping, scraping, muffled howl of anguish
Eddie on all fours watching it fall
Red car tilting almost gracefully, falling
Impaled on steeple of rock
Then the whump, explosion
A second one
Yes
Pushing up and jogging back, must return before they come asking questions.
Thought of Mai Tai—Witness.
Daddy, her tennis friends, Eddie’s own friends—Motive.
Pace yourself, you can make it. No one lives up here, though soon someone will see. Have at least an hour before they come, much more if they can’t identify the plates right away.
Could still hear the crackleburn. Scorched thighs. Charred teeth.
Eyes goggling at him inside glass.
Eddie.
Slapping palms, tears.
Eddie.
Descending tire tracks, Bennett Valley Road ahead. Making great time. Block out the other.
Thinking of grim faces at the door. Where were you tonight?
Out for a run, had a fight with my ex-girlfriend.
Jogging, panic cooling away, Eddie began to smile. Yes. Don’t deny anything. But be shocked when they tell you.
At approximately…Lily Stearns died in an automobile accident about four miles from here.
What? Say it like a wince. Hand on your mouth. Slow head shake.
You were the last one to see her alive. We have some questions Will you come with us?
Of course, Officer.
Cooperate, but you better look shocked. It was the whole ball game.
He got home and showered, listening for the bell.
Got into bed, still listening.
They came around dawn.
He did well. They did not act suspicious but probably were.
Days and days of unpleasantness. Daddy especially. Wanted Eddie to fry.
The Blaze family attorney came through. So did Eddie, an epic performance.
No charges. No trial. Eddie went back and finished spring term and graduated after summer school. Her friends thought he did it, but never said so. Fuck ’em.
After Berkeley, Eddie never mentioned her again.
Chapter Six
He thought of Lily, floating in the studio window like some goddamned vampire.
Eddie shut his eyes, threw an arm over them, but the memory pursued him, Lily’s grotesque grin, blood dripping from her mouth the way it had that night on the cliff. Only this time she was working her tongue around her teeth, smearing the blood to show him she liked its taste.
Now he chanced a look at the window, which he’d covered with the drapes. The thick fabric was wine-colored, like the droplets that stippled Lily’s sharp canines. He could hear the storm kicking up outside, but that shouldn’t make the curtains rustle, should it? He imagined them coalescing into the shape of a woman, the wine-dark material reaching for him. Breath growing ragged, he cast a glance at the nightstand. He wanted the light from the bedside lamp, but he kept it off knowing it would mark him as awake.
Turning away from the window, he shut his eyes again and tried to remember the last time he’d been so paranoid. No, not even after Lily died, Daddy threatening to have him killed. He had to go back to early childhood, his nightlight a talisman too feeble to ward off the boogeyman.
The wine had given him a headache. He lay there and sweated and knew he should take off his clothes, but that would mean getting up and what if his shoulder brushed the drape or the movement of his body alerted whatever was out there of his presence?
Eddie wondered what the others were doing. If Eva was still awake. Or Ben.
Claire was just next door. She seemed kind enough to sit with him until he got drowsy.
No, he couldn’t imagine getting up now. Couldn’t imagine braving the walk to the door, the hallway churning with reflections of storm clouds.
Eddie jumped as wind battered the castle. Then a bone-jarring rattle as freshets of rain pelted his window.
To get his mind off the hallucination—it had to be that, something in the wine exhuming the long-buried guilt—he thought of Eva. She was very different from the image she’d constructed, the real Eva more vulnerable than he would have thought, more human. Yet something about this new Eva frightened him too.
Her story about Lee Stanley and her mother was ghastly, the stuff of one of Lee’s movies. He couldn’t imagine what kind of havoc it had wreaked on her psyche, but if her cold staring eyes and her lowered voice were any indication, Eva was a woman bent on revenge.
And what would Lee Stanley do when he found out? Eddie felt an abrupt chill thinking of Lee and the dog and the glassy-eyed crowd. What would he do to Eva when he learned who her mother was, what Eva hoped to do to him?
The sleep haze evaporating, Eddie sat up. He needed to go to her, tell her to reconsider. Help her if possible. She was muddled by rage, she had no idea who she was messing with. If she happened to appreciate his concern, demonstrate her gratitude…all the better. She probably liked it rough. They’d wrestle a little, maybe even exchange a slap or two. Then he’d force her to the floor, one hand around her throat, the other one ripping her underwear off. He’d bite her, make her bleed—
Eddie jolted. Where the hell had that come from? He shook his head, wondering why the hell he’d been thinking so many crazy thoughts.
You know why, a voice whispered in his head.
He scowled, rubbed his eyebrows with the heels of his hands. A nasty glaze of sweat had enveloped him, itching and cloying.
Eddie stood and a wave of dizziness almost felled him. He extended his arms as though navigating a tightrope. The vertigo dissipating, he padded to the door and paused. He pushed away the image fluttering at the edges of his mind—the maniacal eyes, the bloody slaver, her white dress billowing. Jesus, Lily had never even worn such a dress.
Eddie’s lips formed a wry smile. Too many horror movies, too much Dracula. He opened the door and froze as an unearthly glow lit up the hallway.
Just lightning. Eddie stepped down the hall as a roll of thunder like roaring devils vibrated the passageway. He ignored the windows, there was nothing to see anyway. Like sitting in a car during a storm without the wipers on. Pelting rain and indistinct shapes.
He knocked on Eva’s door. No answer, she was likely asleep. What time was it? Two in the morning? Three? He knocked again, harder.
When no sound came, he tried the knob. He remembered the taste of her kiss, the killer body in the green dress pliant against his, Eva ready for anything if only he hadn’t seen…
He opened the door.
A small Tiffany lamp glowed dimly in the master suite. He saw a twist of bedding, rumpled sheets, but nothing large enough to conceal a human body, not even one as slim as hers. For good measure, he went to the bed and leaned over with probing fingers. No Eva.
The master bath. Eddie sidled around the four-poster bed and peered into the darkness. He couldn’t see into the little room with the toilet, but she might be in there. She’d be enraged to find she had an audience. Eddie stood just outside the bathroom and listened for underwear whispering up legs, a flush, but no sound came.
Had she fallen asleep on the pot?
Grinning, he stepped into the master bath and peered into the toilet area.
Empty.
Then where the hell was she?
Not with Ben, he was too in to Claire. He thought briefly of Eva wakening Claire, crawling under the covers with her, but shook off the image, a teenage fantasy.
So Eva was up in the studio getting a bird’s eye view of the storm. He thought of her up there, a black negligee, warm flesh strobing in the magnesium flashes of lightning. She would turn as he approached, a salacious gleam in her eyes. What took you so long?
Then he’d see the black eyes gazing hungrily through the windowpane, the white dress billowing.
To hell with that.
Eddie made his way back to his room. A peal of thunder rattled the knob as he shut the door.
He had to piss. All things considered, he thought as he crossed to the bathroom, the accommodations were good. The wind whispered over his face, it felt nice, but…
Eddie turned and saw the fluttering curtains, the sill slick with rain.
He’d shut the window. He knew he had. Christ, had he been able, he would have nailed two-by-fours over it.
And now it was open.
With a helpless moan, Eddie took a step in that direction even though he knew he could not compel his arm to reach out and crank the windows shut. What if a long-fingered hand fell on his? What if she pulled him, screaming, through the window?
His socks felt cold, soaked through. Mouth open, he lowered his gaze and saw the rain puddled on the floor.
So what? he tried to protest. The wind was driving it through the open window, the whole room was probably drenched.
Yet the water trail was narrow, winding. He tracked it around the side of the bed, where it disappeared. Walked over to where he had lain on top of the covers. They were bunched now, tangled, and he was certain he hadn’t twisted them that much.
Dread gripping him, Eddie drew back the covers, beheld the soaking-wet S where she had lain. Touched the damp pillow, freezing cold.
He sank to his knees, but his sounds were inarticulate.
Eddie wept and waited for Lily to visit him one last time.
Chapter Seven
Ben dreamed he was walking through his recently broken home, but the pictures on the walls, the doorways he passed, seemed somehow askew. The air in the house had an unhealthy, curdled odor that made him think of seedy nightclubs and violent sex. He was overcome with an inexorable, atavistic terror. He heard voices in pain.
Sliding into the dream, Ben’s breathing grew uneven, his reason a feeble defense against the icy talons of nightmare. He realized why everything seemed askew. He was seeing the world from three feet lower, through a trusting, terrified set of eyes.
Joshua’s eyes.
Abruptly the thought came. Ryan and Mommy are making noises again.
Ben ached at the boy’s innocence, his heartbreaking lack of understanding. He reached into Joshua’s mind, did all he could to coax the boy back to his room, but he kept walking, walking. Ben wanted to turn away as he and Joshua neared Mommy’s room, but Joshua passed it, and Ben’s despair gave way to bewilderment. Joshua padded toward the room at the end of the hall. Ben realized that Mommy was asleep in her room, her sound machine flooding her dreams with the susurrant rush of Waves on Beach and was therefore unaware of the noises in Kayla’s room, the room Joshua was approaching.
