by Megan Crane
“Fantastic,” I said brightly. “Are there rats out here too?”
“Probably,” Scott said.
He backed me into the wall, reached down, and pulled me up so that our hips were flush against each other. The shock of it was like a punch. I shuddered. And then he stared at me, leaned his forehead against mine, his mouth just a breath away.
I forgot how to do anything but stare at him.
He was much bigger than I was, and he used that fact to his advantage. He traced the skin my halter top left bare with his hands, using the leverage of his chest to keep me pinned to the wall. Not that I was trying to get away.
And his mouth was still just a breath away.
His eyes dared me. I was breathing too hard. He was breathing too hard.
“I thought you exorcised me,” I taunted him. He laughed a little bit.
“So did I.”
He bent and fastened his mouth to my neck. Fire licked through my veins. He backed away slightly. His hands were like electricity across my skin, tracing my hips, and then they came around to the fastening of my jeans. I caught his hands, and he reared back slightly to pin me with his narrow gaze.
“Say it,” he told me.
“Say what?”
“Say yes or no,” he said. “I’m an officer of the court. Be very clear.”
It was a long, endless pause. I could feel my pulse in every part of my body—hair, elbows, heels. It was maybe a few seconds, maybe whole lifetimes.
“I don’t want to say anything,” I whispered.
“That’s not no.”
Our eyes caught and held. I couldn’t look away.
“It’s not no,” I agreed.
I dropped my hands and saw his mouth curve slightly. Never breaking eye contact, he unbuttoned my waistband, and then slowly lowered the zipper. He hooked his fingers in the strings of the bikini underwear I was wearing.
“Ready?” He was taunting me again.
I could hardly breathe. I forgot how to speak.
In one fluid motion, Scott pulled my jeans and underwear down to my knees, sank down in front of me, and fastened his mouth between my legs.
I felt my knees buckle, and I stopped thinking altogether.
He stood across the alley and watched in brooding silence as I readjusted my clothing.
“What was that?” I asked quietly.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I had an urge.”
“I have to go.”
I smoothed my hair with hands that shook, and knuckles I’d scraped across the bricks. I frowned at the scrape, and caught his brooding look.
“My sister will be missing me. So.”
“Of course,” Scott said with acid politeness. “I’m glad I could be of service.”
Something rolled inside me and rushed straight to my head.
“I didn’t ask you for anything!” I yelled at him. “I didn’t ask for your ‘I had a crush on you’ or ‘your smile almost made up for the things they did’! Your whole crappy adolescence is not my responsibility, and exorcism? How long did it take you to come up with that one? Entire years?”
He had the gall to smile—a real smile.
“Well,” he said. “Yeah.”
I didn’t smile back.
“It was a shitty thing to say.”
“It was.” His smile faded and he held my gaze. “I’m sorry.”
We looked at each other for a long moment. I could feel the insanity of his mouth on me still jangling around in my nerve endings, and the impossibility of the way he made me feel—all those dark and addictive physical things I had never believed in before.
He reached across the space between us and carefully tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His thumb brushed against my cheek.
He didn’t follow when I broke away and stumbled back toward the bar.
“Where were you?” Hope had to yell to be heard over the music.
“Bathroom!” I shouted back.
“What kind of soap do they have in there?” Hope asked archly in my ear.
I frowned at her in confusion.
“You appear to be having an allergic reaction,” Hope informed me solemnly. Her eyes zeroed in on my neck, right where Scott had fastened his mouth against my skin.
“Son of a bitch!” I clapped a hand to my neck.
“Or maybe not the soap?” Hope asked with a twinkle in her eye.
Chapter 8
Long after midnight, I was exhausted but determined to keep going as long as Hope did, no matter how much I wanted to crawl under the table for a quick nap. I was losing myself in the crowd, the music, and half-formed memories of other nights I’d spent in this same bar—possibly even on this same barstool—back when I was someone else.
Which was to say, I may have been zoning out like the old lady I was when someone materialized in front of me.
“Hi, Meredith,” she said, as if it had been minutes since we last spoke. Instead of years. “I’ve been trying to get the nerve to come over here all night, and I think I’ve finally mustered up the courage, so, hi.”
I stared at her, confused. And then it hit me.
“Rachel Pike,” I said in wonder. “I don’t believe it. Look at you!”
“I know,” she said, and grinned. “Behold the wonders of Weight Watchers.”
“You look amazing!”
She really did. Back in school, Rachel had fulfilled the funny fat girl stereotype so necessary to our group of girls. She had been the comedian of our little clique and like the rest of us spent most of her time alternating between vying for Jeannie’s positive attention and trying to avert the inevitable, gut-wrenching putdown from Ashley. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her without about fifty extra pounds, starting sometime way back in elementary school. Tonight she looked toned, tanned, and fantastic.
A far cry from the last time I’d seen her.
I cringed as the memory swept over me. I had gone out of my way to put Rachel Pike out of my mind. Rachel, who had inadvertently been the last straw between Jeannie and me—and Jeannie and me was what I had concentrated on when I thought about what had happened. Not Rachel, who had been chubby and harmless and who I’d liked, but not enough. Not when it counted.
“Oh no,” I said in remembered horror. The margaritas got in the way of what I wanted to say, and I shrugged, feeling helpless. “That summer . . . I’m so sorry, Rachel.”
Our eyes met, and even through the haze of alcohol, I felt small. Rachel Pike was one of the things I’d hated most about who I was around Jeannie. But I didn’t have the slightest idea how to begin making up for that. Or even mentioning it directly. After all, she hardly looked like it was bothering her, in her toned little body.
“You don’t have to apologize,” she said. She smiled briefly. She glanced around. “I figured Jeannie would be around if you were, though. I imagined you guys continued to hang out?”
I groaned.
“That is such a long story and I am really so tired of thinking about high school and high school people,” I confessed. “It’s unavoidable when you come back to your hometown, I guess, but all I remember from high school is desperately wanting to grow up and escape.” I took a deep pull of my drink. “And yet here I am again, which is my worst nightmare come to life.”
“Yours and mine too, believe me,” Rachel said, and laughed. She considered me for a moment, as if making her mind up, and then nodded at the barstool next to me. “Mind if I sit down? I’m on a break.”
“You work here?”
“I have the great pleasure of tending bar here every weekend.” Rachel grinned. She slid in next to me. “You think you’re sick of thinking about high school. I feel compelled to mention that I’m in business school, and that bartending in this ridiculous town is not my life’s ambition. For the record.”
“I’m just back here taking care of my father,” I told her in the same tone. “Car accident. And tonight? Out with my little sister.”
“Because we’re gro
wn-ups,” Rachel said at once, in solidarity. “And are in no way reliving our glory days, not that I remember any kind of glory.”
“Amen.”
We smiled at each other. I felt a surge of something like relief flood through me.
“So I have to know,” Rachel said in a sudden rush, “because I vowed to hate her until the day I die—although, in a strange way, she inspired me to deal with myself. Do you know what Jeannie Gillespie is up to? Please tell me she’s living a deeply unhappy life, and is really, really fat.” She leaned forward. “She was like the evil black cloud that followed me around, always saying those things I thought I would die if someone said out loud.” She grinned, clearly over those things.
I blinked. “I hardly know where to start with that, although I’m sorry to report that she’s not at all fat—”
“Oh my God,” Rachel interrupted me, her bright and sober eyes fastened to my neck. “Is that a hickey?!”
It was still there in the morning. Small but unmistakable.
What are we, fourteen? I stared at myself in the mirror. The glorious creature of the night before had been reduced to melted mascara bags and scary hair.
To say nothing of the hangover and the goddamned hickey.
I stood in the shower, face tilted into the hot water, when it hit me that I had forgotten to feel guilty and dirty for what Scott had done to me the night before.
What I had let Scott do. What I had wanted him to do.
The remorse was even more flattening for being delayed. I leaned against the wet tiles and squeezed my eyes shut tight. I didn’t know what I was doing. There was no “stuff happens” clause for this. And now there was no “it’s just one night” clause either. Scott had given me the opportunity to say no. And I hadn’t. That was the entire situation in black and white. Stark and true.
I wasn’t the nice girl, the good girl. I was a cheater and a liar who bore no resemblance to Saint Meredith, Miss Perfect, me.
I was turning into someone else, and I didn’t have the slightest idea how to stop it.
When I hauled myself into the kitchen, Jeannie was in the midst of preparing a feast. So maybe the “turning into someone else” thing was going around. My face must have showed my confusion.
“Sunday brunch!” she said merrily when she saw me. She had a bright, broad smile across her face. “You shouldn’t have to do all the cooking around here.”
Okay, that was alarming. Since when was Jeannie helpful? Much less thoughtful?
“Wow,” I managed. I looked at the fresh fruit and bacon, and inhaled one of the best smells in the world: French toast. “Where’s Christian?” I asked, a little warily. “And what did you guys do last night?”
“We just watched some television,” Jeannie said, still in Stepford mode.
I settled into a chair at the kitchen table and watched Jeannie fiddle with pans and chop up more fruit. For once, I felt no urge to leap in and help out. I was too hungover and it was nice to let someone else be responsible. Particularly when that someone was Jeannie. I hitched the collar of my sweatshirt up a little bit higher. Scott’s mark was on my collarbone and, luckily, easily concealed.
And yet a small part of me wished it was the size of a plate and impossible to hide at all. Because then someone would notice, someone less forgiving than Hope and far less amused than Rachel, and I would have to face my actions and what they made me.
“Did you have fun?” Jeannie asked.
Her tone was suspiciously devoid of inflection. We might not have been close in years, but I could still recognize alarm bells when I heard them.
“It was nice to get out.” I gave her an automatic smile. “Hope is actually a lot of fun.”
I wanted to mention Rachel, just to see what reaction she might have, but restrained myself. Barely.
“You and Hope are bonding, huh?”
“I guess we are,” I replied noncommittally. What did she want?
“That’s great,” Jeannie said. “She’s such a force.”
“She sure is.”
Was Jeannie complimenting Hope? Had the world started spinning in the opposite direction?
Jeannie turned and faced me then, her face set along determined lines.
Here we go.
“I know this isn’t any of my business,” she said quickly, as if she’d been rehearsing. “But I just . . . Go easy on Christian, would you? He’s all tied in knots. I don’t think he’s dealing with your dad’s accident very well.” Her big eyes were pleading. “You know how he hero-worships your dad.”
I didn’t know anything of the kind. I hadn’t ever really considered Christian’s relationship with Dad. I’d kind of assumed we all had the same distracted, puzzling relationship with the man, but, if I thought about it, it made sense that the two of them would have a different guy thing going on. It disconcerted me that Jeannie took as a given something that hadn’t even crossed my mind. I coughed slightly.
“I don’t know what to say,” I hedged. “I didn’t think anyone wasn’t going easy on Christian.”
“You made a few comments about his not being here to help out,” Jeannie reminded me, in that same sweeter-than-sweet tone. She sighed. “Part of him thinks that if something really bad happened to your dad, he’d have to step in and be the man in the family. You know.”
Something flickered in Jeannie’s eyes as she held mine, and I knew suddenly that there was no way Christian didn’t know about this conversation.
I’ll say something, honey, I could practically hear Jeannie promising him with her usual matter-of-fact confidence. If I get a minute with Meredith, I’ll just say a few things.
I was saved from having to answer Jeannie further by the appearance of my father and Christian. Dad was leaning heavily on him, and I was struck anew by how much he took after Dad. With their heads so close together, they looked like a before-and-after picture.
Christian looked at me for a moment, then helped Dad toward his seat at the table.
“Look at all this,” Dad said. He sounded genuinely pleased, which was so unexpected that I smiled just hearing it. Christian and his issues went right out of my head. “What a spread!”
He aimed a faint smile at Jeannie. His smile was contagious for all its faintness, the way it always had been, and we all returned it. With varying degrees of relief.
“You’re looking pretty good, Dad.” Christian beamed at him, every inch the jolly and supportive son. I had a hard time thinking of him as a man in the first place—that sounded way too adult—much less “the man in the family.”
“Did you sleep well?” I asked Dad, instead of disturbing myself further with thoughts of Christian’s adulthood. If Christian really was an adult, thinking about it would only depress me as I reenacted my adolescence. Better not to engage with such unpleasantness.
“In fact, I did.” Dad settled into his seat and propped his leg up on the stool next to it. “I hadn’t been sleeping well at all, and then last night I think the exhaustion caught up with me.” He focused on the food before him. “This looks terrific,” he said. “I might beat this thing after all.”
Later, we maneuvered Dad out onto the front patio as a little Sunday treat. Fresh air could only be good for him, I figured. And if I felt stir-crazy, imagine how he must feel? At least I was physically capable of leaving the house.
Christian kept up a running commentary, mostly about his job and its frustrations—things Dad could understand, after his years as a corporate executive. He had woken every morning before dawn and made his way to the train with a good percentage of the rest of the town. He had been a managing director at an investment bank before his early retirement just last year. He and Christian liked to bore everyone around them to tears with pompous commentary on the intricacies of the business world. Maybe it was a guy thing. Maybe this was a sign of the hero worship Jeannie had been talking about.
“Nice day,” Dad commented into the small silence left after Christian exhausted his Wall Street J
ournal synopsis.
It really was a nice day. The humidity had dropped off the night before, and the usual breathless mugginess of the air was gone. The sky was blue and clear, and the sun was bright.
I decided to take it as a benediction.
There was no sign of Scott in his mother’s house across the street, and I found I hated myself for both the anticipation I felt and the accompanying disappointment. I tried to crush them both.
Eventually, Dad grew tired, and Christian, still in jolly son mode, leapt to help him indoors. I stayed out on the front step with Jeannie, and probably should have stopped staring across the street.
Especially when Mrs. Van Eck and the loathsome Isabella appeared in my line of vision.
“Oh Christ,” Jeannie swore.
As if she heard—and who knew, the woman bordered on the supernatural as it was—Mrs. Van Eck turned her sour and disapproving gaze on the two of us. She was standing on the sidewalk, some fifteen feet away, and yet both of us jumped.
“Hello, Mrs. Van Eck,” we chorused.
“Aren’t the two of you thick as thieves,” she said with a sniff that suggested she’d thought something a whole lot worse than “thief.”
“Beautiful day!” I chirped. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jeannie’s fake smile crumpling around the edges.
Mrs. Van Eck harrumphed and tugged on Isabella’s leash to move her along.
The nasty little creature gave us a malevolent look from beneath the bobbing bow, turned her back, and aimed her hairy ass at the front porch. Still holding our gaze from over her shoulder, she squatted—deliberately—and peed.
If she’d had fingers, she’d have been waving the middle one.
“I love all dogs,” I said through my teeth. “Except that one.”
“Surely she can’t live forever, right?” Even Jeannie whispered, until the old lady disappeared around the corner.
“They’ve both been living on meanness for the last fifty years,” I said. “Obviously, Van Ick feels it’s her calling to maintain the status quo around here. God forbid the town change in any way.”
