Candy Apple Red

by Nancy Bush

  Note to self: don’t get on the dog’s bad side.

  The third and last event—and this was the one that really got me—happened as I was getting ready for bed: Murphy dropped by my bungalow, flowers in hand. It was barely nine o’clock and though the heat of the day lay thick in the air, the day’s events had left me chilled and peculiarly tired and I’d fallen hard asleep on my sofa. When the doorbell rang Binky launched into a strange barking howl that sounded sort of like woo-woo-woo. I was trying to figure out what that meant as I glanced down at my oversized orange T-shirt which says simply: Go Beavs! It’s an homage to Oregon State University, sixty miles south in the city of Corvallis, Oregon. I also own a Duck shirt as I’m bi-fan-ial, if that’s a word, and root for the University of Oregon as well. But I don’t like their colors—yellow and green—so I stick with orange and black.

  Peering through the peephole I recognized Murphy in the fading purple light. “Shit.” Rapidly finger-combing my hair I wondered if little grains of sleep were stuck in the inner corners of my eyes from my nap. Quickly I scrubbed them with my fists like a child.

  Reluctantly, I opened the door. “Hello there,” I said with just a trace of question in my voice.

  “Catch you at a bad time?”

  “It’s bad for all of us today.”

  “You got that right.” He brought irises. My favorite. My mind raced. When people are nice to me I don’t know what to do. Mostly I think they want something from me.

  “Thank you.” I shut the door behind him.

  He looked like hell, to put it nicely. His jeans were dirty, as if he’d been wiping muddy hands on them. Maybe he’d been part of the rescue team. His hair was slightly mussed, but it was the deeply etched lines bracketing his mouth and the dullness of his eyes that revealed his true state of mind.

  “How are you holding up?” I asked, taking the flowers from him.

  “Not good.”

  “I’m sorry about Bobby. And his family. And everything.”

  “Jane…” He swallowed hard.

  I stared at him, my heartbeat beginning to speed up. To my shock he suddenly wrapped his arms around me and held tight. From a distance I saw myself, holding out the flowers, my arms stretched out straight and stiff while Murphy drew me to him like a life-giving elixir. I was too surprised to do much else.

  “I feel…sick,” he murmured against the side of my throat.

  I shivered from the frisson that raced down my spine. It was my turn to swallow and gently bring my hands around his back.

  Binky, whom I’d managed to forget in the heat of the moment, let out a sharp, little bark. I felt Murphy start and he pulled away from me to look down at the dog. The little traitor. I’d just been beginning to enjoy the wonder of Murphy’s embrace.

  “You have…a pug?”

  Murphy knew my aversion to pets of all kinds. “She was a gift,” I said, scooping Binks up and carrying her to the bathroom where I firmly shut her in.

  The moment had passed. I wasn’t sure how to feel. My pulse raced light and fast. The depression that had loomed all day hadn’t dissipated. It had manifested into something else. Something between us.

  “I have some wine,” I said through a dry throat.

  “Good.”

  Murphy followed me to the kitchen, his gaze turning toward the bathroom door as Binky began a furious scratching. I figured the paint job was already ruined. Without asking, Murphy let the eager little beast out again. Binks snuffled Murphy’s sneakers which were covered with leftover grass from a newly mown lawn. He bent down to scratch behind her ears but she sidestepped him. She’s not that easily won.

  He said, “Did you hear the Coma Kid woke up?”

  “Uh-huh.” I thought for a bit. “What’s his name again?”

  “Jesse something, I think.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  I uncorked my bottle and poured us two glasses of Chardonnay, hoping against hope that Murphy hadn’t become a wine connoisseur during our time apart. I possess two wine glasses just for an occasion such as this. One’s a little chipped on the edge, and hostess that I am, I kept that one for myself.

  “I’m really worried about Cotton,” Murphy said as he settled onto one of my two kitchen stools. They sit beneath my counter overhang and like my wine, they’re cheap. The stool’s legs creaked ominously beneath his weight. “He’s not doing well.”

  “I can imagine. It was a rough day.”

  “This has put him over the edge. He wasn’t well before, but now…”

  I nodded and sipped the wine. Kinda tart. Spicy. Not especially good, but since we were drinking at my place it was either this or a few shots of vanilla extract. I’m pretty sure I have a bottle of that around somewhere. Doesn’t everybody? “There’s no more wondering whether Bobby’s alive or not. There’s no more kidding himself.”

  Murphy grimaced. “Cotton’s always had a soft spot for Bobby, regardless of what he’s said. Bobby was his only son. I don’t think he believed he could really kill his family.”

  “No one wants to believe it.”

  He gave me a straight look. “I had to face facts eventually, Jane. I’m pretty sure you meant that for me.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

  “I hated Bobby for what he did,” Murphy bit out intensely. “I didn’t want to hate him. It was easier not to believe. It was easier to go away.”

  “It’s over now. At some level, anyway. Maybe this will help Cotton, in some strange way. Give him closure.”

  He shook his head, teetering a bit on the stool. I prayed it would hold his 6’4” frame. Binks sat nearby, alternately staring up at us and panting.

  We drank the entire bottle of wine, saying little of any further import. Two or three glasses in I remembered why I liked Murphy. Or, more truthfully, I forgot what I didn’t like about him.

  I suddenly wanted to kiss him. To hell with that, I wanted to make out with him like it was a reality show requirement to keep from being kicked off the team/tribe/show. I managed to keep my lust from obvious view. At least I think so. When Murphy moved to the couch, I took the dilapidated rocker—the only other seat in the living room. Binks was torn. She wanted to sleep on the couch by Murphy but apparently felt she needed to show some allegiance to me. She stayed by my chair, flopped on the hardwood.

  Time passed and Murphy began to talk about Bobby. It wasn’t anything specific, just some memories of childhood that were positive. I think he’d been waiting for the chance, but Bobby’s heinous crimes and disappearance had prevented him. Now it came pouring out, all the love of their friendship, all the competitiveness between them, the hurt over betrayals, some minor, some large.

  “You know, at first, it was just about Laura. I never forgave him for taking her from me,” Murphy said, gulping the last of his wine.

  Murphy and Laura had dated first, a high school thing, meaningless, frivolous, but oh, so important at the time. “Weren’t you and Laura way over when she hooked up with Bobby?”

  “Yeah…I guess. There was a lot of time in between. But it didn’t feel that way sometimes, y’know?”

  “That’s merely competition talking.”

  He looked into the bottom of his now empty wine glass. “You’re right. It was over.”

  There was a hint of something in his tone that suggested something else but my own wine consumption was leaving me a little off. “Over, but not way over?”

  “She was a sweet girl. A woman worth falling in love with.”

  I buried my nose in my glass. It wasn’t meant as an insult to me, but it felt like one anyway. I made a noise of agreement and viciously castigated myself for being jealous of a dead woman.

  “I wasn’t in love with her. Not in the ‘let’s get married’ way. She was too religious. I couldn’t be that way with her or for her. I knew it. I spent most of my time trying to corrupt her, I guess.”

  “But that was high school.”

  “I didn’t want Bobby to have her. That’s hi
gh school. I didn’t want them to get married. I wanted them to break up. I tried to get them to break up.”

  “That’s natural.”

  “No, it’s not. You don’t know what I did.”

  I heard some aggression in his tone. “What did you do?”

  “I slept with her some more. A few times. I told Bobby. I made Laura cry.”

  He looked away, ashamed. “They got married anyway. None of it should have happened.”

  Seeing the path of his guilt sobered me up as if I’d been thrown into Lake Chinook. “Bobby did not kill his whole family because he was angry at Laura and you.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?” I looked at him hard. “Murphy, Bobby was a hatchery fish. He was made that way. His choices were from a serious lack within himself. It didn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “I wanted to make it up to them. When you and I were together, it was great. We could all hang out as friends.”

  So, that’s what I’d been. The girlfriend to round out the foursome. The balance. Great.

  “I loved being with you,” he said, grabbing my thoughts before they could follow the path they’d suddenly taken, turning them around. “I loved driving around.”

  He’d owned a candy apple red Mustang convertible. Not quite vintage. Just old enough to be a tad uncool, just new enough to run. It had come in another shade of red that year, but he’d had it painted in a richer, deeper tone. I followed that car out of southern California. I’d driven around Lake Chinook, the wind tearing through my hair, my thoughts full of love and marriage and tin cans hanging from the Mustang’s back bumper as we drove off, into the sunset.

  He stared at his empty glass. “Do you have any more wine? I want to get stinking drunk. So that when I wake up tomorrow, I feel like hell.”

  “You came to the wrong place, I’m afraid.”

  “Then, I’ll be back.”

  “Where are you going?” He’d risen from the couch with purpose and now I didn’t want him to go.

  “To the store.”

  “Are you okay to drive?”

  “More than okay, unfortunately. I’ve had time to sober up. But I’ll make up for it. Mind if I sleep on your couch tonight?”

  I shook my head.

  He returned within half an hour with a half case of wine. I’m no expert on labels but I knew he wouldn’t pick the cheapest bottles on the shelf as I was wont to do. I tried to be a host by sharing some more, but honestly, I started feeling dizzy way too soon. I wanted to track his conversation and record these moments. I wanted to remember being with Murphy. I could recall being in that car and kissing in that car and yes, struggling to have sex in that car. And while Murphy drank and mumbled about how he’d betrayed Bobby and Bobby’d betrayed everyone and how he wished it was all the way it used to be and Laura and the kids and Bobby were all still alive, my mind’s eye was filled with an image of a bright red car and singing wind and joy.

  I don’t remember stumbling into bed. I do remember not being able to stay up any longer. I wanted to kiss Murphy good-night but I knew it wouldn’t end there. I chose the safer path and merely up and left him on the sofa, crashing onto my bed, my head full of bright, past images and way too much wine.

  I woke at four a.m., mouth dry, every cell screaming: WATER! I stumbled into the kitchen, taking a quick scan of the sofa and finding it empty.

  “Shit,” I said through my teeth. I grabbed the pitcher of tap water in the refrigerator and thought about drinking out of the side. Good manners prevailed and I managed to pour myself a glass, drinking half down in thirsty, slurpy gulps before I realized my sliding glass door was slightly open.

  A jolt swept through me, then a lightening of spirit. I stepped outside into a velvety warm night and found Murphy asleep on my plastic lounge chair. His head was thrown back, his mouth open. His last glass of wine sat beside him on the deck, looking untouched.

  I had a chance to view him directly this way through the gray-black darkness. My kitchen light threw a yellow square of illumination across his chest and brought the features of his face into sharp relief. I wondered what I felt for him. Part of me wanted to dismiss him as the past, but isn’t there always some irrepressible need to woo the one who dumped you? To make them fall in love with you all over again? To be the one to realize that your feelings really aren’t all that deep and that it was over then, and it’s over now, and it will always be over? Don’t we need that?

  Moonlight, caught behind clouds, slipped through and played on the smooth water of the bay. I inhaled and exhaled slowly. The trouble was I wanted to jump his bones. I could feel it as if it were a living thing, desperate to feed. Thank God I was still dying of thirst as it kept me from acting like a horny teenager and waking the man up with a kiss. It’s annoying to realize that even seeing him sleeping with his mouth open couldn’t turn me off. I found it endearing. Made him seem more human. More approachable. More winnable.

  I returned to my water pitcher, gulped some more, and nearly tripped over Binks who’d toddled from her bed and stood blinking in the kitchen light.

  “Back to bed,” I said softly, turning off the light. The dog complied, curling back into her bed and watching me slide between my sheets. I felt her gaze on me, so I leaned over the side of the bed, catching sight of her wide eyes in the ever so faint moonlight sneaking through my shuttered window.

  “I didn’t kiss him,” I said, just to remind her.

  I woke at the crack of dawn, scurried through the kitchen and found Murphy still sleeping on the deck lounge chair. Glancing around, I found my pound bag of hazelnut coffee I’d purchased at the Coffee Nook. Hallelujah! Sure, it was girly coffee. No man I know drinks it and expresses joy at the flavor. But it was coffee, for God’s sake. It counted.

  Pulling out the coffeemaker, my eye fell on the waffle maker. For the briefest of moments I considered trying my hand at breakfast. I’d managed to make myself a passable waffle without benefit of an egg the other morning, now I could do the real deal. In the next second I mentally berated myself. Why was I trying so hard to impress him? We were through and it was okay. But I can make waffles, I argued with myself. I can do that. That’s no big deal.

  “Hey…”

  I spilled grains of coffee across my countertop at the sound of Murphy’s voice. Slowly, thoughtfully, I picked them up with a sponge as Murphy entered the kitchen and closed the sliding door behind himself.

  “I feel like hell.” He rubbed a hand over his face.

  “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “Yeah…Could I have a glass of water?”

  “Sure.” I poured him a glass from my refrigerated pitcher. He drank lustily and hormones began to sing through my veins again. I concentrated on the brown liquid pouring through the coffeepot’s filter into the glass receptacle.

  “Cotton’s put me in his will as prime beneficiary,” he stated morosely.

  The baldness of this brought me up short. “What about Bobby? I mean, his body was just discovered.”

  “He had it already done. Didn’t matter if Bobby was alive or not.”

  “Wow…” I let this process for a moment, then asked, “What about Heather?”

  “I told Cotton to leave it all to her. Or Tess or Owen. Anyone but me. I don’t want it.”

  “You talked this over with Cotton?”

  “More like he talked to me. Heather’s got some idea about it, I think. She’s been friendly but tense. I’ve been staying at the island. I don’t want to, but Cotton’s been insistent and now…” Murphy sank onto a stool, looking upset. “I’ve gotta get outta here. I’ve got a ticket back to Santa Fe.” He threw me a glance. “Would you come with me?”

  “Ha, ha,” I laughed, pretending he was joking when I wasn’t sure he was. It was a good thing I’d already rewrapped the hazelnut decaf package because I wouldn’t have trusted my hands not to spill the whole bag.

  “I’m serious.”

  “You want me to go with you to S
anta Fe?”

  He nodded.

  “Just like that?”

  “I can’t stay here, Jane.”

  “Well, I can’t go,” I said simply.

  “Why not?”

  I couldn’t decide whether I was thrilled or angry. I had a life in Lake Chinook. Without him. Yet he acted as if I’d been just hanging around waiting for him. “You’re sure you’re the beneficiary?” I asked, sidestepping.

  “Cotton met with his attorney, then he talked to me.”

  Ah, yes. Jerome Neusmeyer.

  “I think it would be better if you stayed here,” I said carefully. “You need to see this thing through no matter what happens.”

  He silently stared at me, his chest rising and falling. He was definitely in some kind of emotional crisis. This, too, I found peculiarly attractive. Murphy was always in such fierce control of himself that this faint vulnerability was like an aphrodisiac for me. I liked thinking he might be a bit softer now, which was such a bunch of horseshit when you thought about it. What did I want from the man? Nothing, I reminded myself sternly.

  “I quit my job in Santa Fe,” he said. “Worked freelance investigation for an insurance company there until a few months ago. But I could go back to it. I’ve got a house there. Small, but functional. I’ve been thinking about you a lot, and when I saw you at the island, I started thinking a lot of other thoughts.”

  “Oh?” I poured us two mugs of coffee. Carefully.

  “If the Bobby thing hadn’t happened…” He trailed off, then switched gears. “We were a good team, Jane. If you don’t like Santa Fe, we could go back to southern California.”