Phoenix Heart

by Carolyn Nash

  Except worse. So much so that when the hitting starts again it’s like I’m watching it happen to someone else. The crying stops and I huddle in the Safe Place, which is safe no longer, and I hear pounding on the wall and a voice yelling, “I called the police.”

  My father stands over me panting, then he says, “Nothing but bad luck since she was born. Nothing.” He leans down and hisses words at me: “Look what you made me do,” and those are the last words I hear from my father. My mother pulls at my father’s arm. “Leave her. You need to get out of here,” she says, and those are the last words I hear from my mother.

  The word “nothing” echoes in my mind as they go through the apartment door without another glance in my direction. They are gone and all I can think is that I am alone and I should have said that up was down.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed the memories back, way back, way down, closing the hatch that the fear had opened. I turned to look out the car window. When we moved through the next pool of light, I saw only a passing pillar and a parked car.

  Excellent.

  The limousine came up out of the garage onto a narrow road next to a high, curving cement wall. The road continued to rise as it followed the curve of the wall, and suddenly we were up at street level, feeding into the main terminal road. The car moved smoothly into the traffic leading out of the airport. I saw the large green freeway signs ahead as the road forked--San Jose to the left and San Francisco to the right. Oh god, a week in San Francisco, I thought, and almost laughed.

  “Melanie, I don’t know how to begin to apologize and to thank you. I still can’t believe what you did in there. I understand that you’re upset, but I had to at least try to say thank you.”

  I turned. Andrew was silhouetted against the light reflected from the headlights of passing cars. I couldn’t see him clearly, but it didn’t matter. I knew what was there: Six-foot, two-inch, well-built, healthy-looking male of unusually fine-looking countenance. Polite, soft-spoken, intelligent. Appears somewhat upset, perhaps under some form of unusual stress. Though ability to induce sudden rise in temperature and heart rate in female observer had been previously noted, ability seems to have been lost.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You know, that was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.”

  I shrugged.

  “I’m serious. You saved my life in there.”

  I shrugged again. “Don’t forget my A’s on those mid-terms.”

  “I won’t forget. Anything.”

  I smiled and turned back to the window. Off the freeway a dark expanse of black stretched for miles, blackness that I assumed could only be the San Francisco Bay. On the other side of the black, a string of lights edged the darkness. In some areas the lights rose up what must have been the sides of hills.

  I turned to comment on the view, but Andrew was laying back on the seat. His eyes were closed, so I watched the view alone. I saw a sign for Candlestick Park and caught a glimpse of the stadium sitting on the edge of the water before the freeway turned and climbed to cross a hill. We moved down around a sweeping curve with overpasses crisscrossing above them and freeways jetting off to the left and right, then a minute or two later the limo rose up another hill.

  And the city lay before us. All lit up. Short squat buildings, tall, soaring buildings, the pyramid-shaped Transamerica building poking up from behind the rest, one down near the front arched in an art-deco fashion on top--all cheek by jowl, fighting for space. It was really quite beautiful. Really. Ordinarily, I would have been going into absolute paroxysms of joy.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” So, he was awake.

  “Um-hmm,” I said.

  “And magic.” He was watching me.

  I laughed. “I’m a big girl. I don’t believe in magic.”

  “Oh, no. Don’t say that. You’ve got to believe in magic.”

  “I don’t have to do anything but die, pay taxes, and pass biochem.”

  He wouldn’t stop looking at me. “You’re a funny duck, Melanie Brenner.”

  I batted my eyes. “Please, Dr. Richards. Don’t compliment me so.”

  “Andrew. You risked your life for me. Why?”

  “Oh, I didn’t risk my life.”

  “Yes, you did. And for Lance this morning.” His eyes didn’t leave mine.

  “It wasn’t anything.” For God’s sake, blink!

  “Yes it was.”

  “Look. It’s the second Friday of the month. I try to save someone’s life every second Friday. It’s a habit.” I shrugged. The limo was heading off the freeway down a ramp into the city proper. “So, what are you going to do? Do you have friends, here, somewhere you’ll be safe?”

  Andrew just kept looking at me. “You’re an unusual woman.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Thank you?”

  He unbuckled his seat belt and leaned forward to tap on the sliding glass partition. “Mr. Kent, could you pull over and let me out?”

  “Certainly.”

  I looked out the window. “Here? There’s nothing but office buildings and stores.” I caught sight of a street sign: Market and Tenth.

  “I can catch the bus. It’ll get me over near the University. You forget. I was a grad student here. It’s been awhile but I think I can still find my way around.”

  The car pulled over and he opened the door and stepped out onto the curb. I shifted over on the seat and rolled down the window.

  “Thanks again for everything,” he said. “I don’t know how I’ll ever…” He was looking at me again with that same intent look.

  No, I’m not going to let it get to me. He’s almost gone from my life. I’m not going to

  Andrew reached through the window, cupped my cheek with one hand and kissed my mouth lightly. He started to straighten, then he stopped, took my face in both his hands and kissed me again, and this time it was anything but light. In the plane the fire of the setting sun had seemed to come from his eyes. Now that heat came from his lips. It burned through me, vaporizing the ice that I had painstakingly formed around my heart on the ride from the airport. I put out a hand, holding on to the car door to steady myself.

  Andrew broke the kiss and pulled back. I looked into his eyes; the light from the passing cars glinted in them. That lock of hair had fallen down across his forehead and I reached up and brushed it back.

  He touched my cheek. “Extraordinary,” he said, then turned and walked away.

  As Mr. Kent pulled the limo away from the curb I turned in the seat, looking back, watching his tall form until it disappeared around a corner.

  I had turned forward again by the time the tan sedan pulled into the space we had vacated. I sat, touching the warmth on my lips, staring down at the carpet, feeling the flood of feeling his kiss had released in me, confused and happy and afraid and, therefore, I didn’t see the tan car or the tall man with the large gut step out of it in order to follow Andrew into the darkness.

  And, I didn’t see the smaller man who was driving the tan sedan pull away from the curb and drop into the traffic behind Mr. Kent’s limousine.

  These things I only found out later.

  CHAPTER 8

  An extraordinary woman.

  I touched my lips, ran a finger across them.

  An extraordinary woman.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, eyes half-closed.

  Andrew stands in the doorway of the suite, leaning one shoulder against the frame. “Everything’s all right, now, Melanie. It’s all been settled.”

  Has it?

  “Yes, my darling. Now we can concentrate on more important things.” He pushes away from the door and walks toward her. She feels her tell-tale heart begin to thump faster. She’s glad she’s sitting down, because her knees would be too weak to allow her to stand. He stops in front of her. He nudges her knees apart, spreads her feet wide and steps between them. He reaches down, takes her face in both of his hands and kisses her. Suddenly, he grabs her upper arms, pulls her to her feet. He kisses
her again, roughly, voraciously, as he circles his arms around her, crushing her to him.

  I opened my eyes. The doorway was empty, the suite silent.

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

  My Lord, Melanie! Get a hold. It was only one kiss.

  My fingers retraced where his lips had touched mine. I laughed and pushed off the bed. “Get a grip.”

  My suitcases had been delivered within ten minutes of my arrival. I’d been in a fog when they arrived; in fact, I’d been in a fog the entire way to the hotel, saying good-bye to Mr. Kent, while checking in, while riding the elevator to the top of the hotel. I probably appeared quite blasé to the assistant manager who escorted me to the suite. It was two rooms and a bath, the living room large and inviting, furnished with what looked to be genuine early American antiques, and carpeted in a thick, blue, Chinese rug with a pattern of green and black vines. The living room opened onto a balcony which overlooked most of the northern half of the city, and you could even catch a glimpse of the lights of the Marin headlands through the wisps of fog coming through the Golden Gate. The bedroom was wonderful: an enormous four-poster bed, a big double-wide arm chair with a reading lamp nearby, and a closet in which you could have housed a family of four.

  Even so, I’d barely reacted to the size, the beautiful furnishings, the fresh flowers. The assistant manager had proudly showed me the suite, the view, told me of the history of the hotel, at least I think she did, but I was hearing Andrew’s voice, feeling his hand on my face, his lips on mine. Poor woman. She finally left and I had sat and dreamed away most of my first evening in San Francisco.

  I looked down. I was standing in front of my suitcase, my big, oversized blue sweater folded over my arm, smoothing it down, stroking it again and again. I laughed and turned to drop the sweater into the bureau drawer. I finished unpacking then called room service from the bedroom and ordered a salad for dinner. As I placed the phone back in its cradle, my cell phone rang in my pocket. My hand shook as I pulled it out, but when I saw the caller ID, I sat back heavily on the bed.

  “Cheryl. Hi.”

  “Wow. Try to contain your enthusiasm.”

  “Sorry. I thought you were going to be someone else.”

  “Okay. So tell me! What’s it like? How’s the hotel? How was the flight, and the limo ride, and did you meet anyone interesting on the plane?”

  “Well, great, great, fine, different, no, not on the plane.”

  “Very funny. You making fun of the way I talk?”

  “Of course not. Why would I do that?”

  “Shut up Brenner what do you mean not on the plane? You met someone somewhere else?”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “Melanie! Stop being cute. Tell me!”

  I laughed. “Well, I didn’t really meet him. I already knew him. It was in the limo on the way to the airport.”

  “In the limo, you mean that hunky driver?”

  “Not the driver. Someone else.”

  “Who? How?”

  “I can’t tell you who.”

  “What do you MEAN, you can’t tell me?”

  “I just can’t. Suffice it to say that he made the limo ride and the flight very interesting.”

  “Melanie Louise Brenner you tell me this minute or I swear I’ll never speak to you again.”

  I lay back on the bed, grinning at the ceiling. “God, Cheryl, I am dying to tell you.”

  “Melanie, you know you can trust me.”

  “I know,” I said. “Well, he didn’t say I couldn’t tell anyone, just not the... well, just not certain people.”

  “Look,” said Cheryl. “I don’t want to know anyway. I think you’re just making this all up, you didn’t meet anyone, and if you did, he’s just some short, skinny accountant from Oxnard with adenoids.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said. “If Andrew Richards can be considered short and skinny, and if he moved, changed professions and that deep voice of his suddenly became nasal.”

  “Andrew Richards.”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “Melanie.”

  “What?

  There was a long silence. “Have you had a chance to look at a newspaper?”

  I sat up on the bed. “Cheryl, he didn’t have anything to do with the explosion.”

  “Like hell. Why did he run?”

  “He’s not running,” I said. “He’s here to get the evidence that will clear him.”

  “Oh, crap! Melanie, you, Lance and Chuck could have been killed. Call the police.”

  “No! Cheryl, he’s innocent.”

  “Just because he smiles in your direction with a sincere look in his eye, doesn’t mean it’s true.”

  “Cheryl.”

  “Damn it, Melanie! Call the police. He is dangerous!”

  “I am not calling the police.”

  “Then I am.”

  “No! No, please Cheryl, you can’t.”

  “Look, I’m hanging up now.”

  “Cheryl, listen to me. Listen to me! Please!”

  I heard her breathing on the line. I stood at the side of the bed, the phone clenched in my fist, willing her to answer me.

  “Melanie…”

  “Thank you, Cheryl, thank you. Just give me a minute. I can explain the whole thing.”

  “One minute.”

  I told her as quickly as possible about the ride to the airport, how Andrew had been waiting for me, how desperate he was, I tried to skim over the part about the ticket, but Cheryl interrupted me.

  “Wait. You gave him your other ticket?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t any big deal.”

  “Yeah, right. Go on.”

  I told her his story, of the research, J.P. Harrison, Lance.

  “You see? He couldn’t have done it. He would have never taken a chance of hurting Lance or anyone else. Never.”

  “Maybe he didn’t think he was taking a chance. Maybe he didn’t think Lance would be there.”

  “No!” I said as vehemently as I could considering her words were bringing back every doubt that I’d had since Andrew had first run up to me in the hallway outside the lab. The words spewed out as I tried to convince myself with each one of them. “Damn it Cheryl! Andrew did not blow up his lab. He is not some airhead playboy. Ask Chuck. Ask him. Andrew is intelligent, and caring, and, and...”

  “Minute’s up, Melanie.”

  “Cheryl.” I tried not to scream into the phone. “You’re my friend. You can’t do this.”

  “You’re right I am your friend and that’s why”

  “No! You are not going to do anything. You are going to let me make this decision and handle it the way I see fit.”

  There was a long pause. “Look, Melanie, you don’t have experience with this kind of manipulating slime. I do. They use their good looks and their charm to get whatever they want. They just love to manipulate women, especially sweet innocent ones like you.”

  “I’m not innocent and it wasn’t like that. Well, maybe at first, but we sat together on the plane.” I began to pace. “We had a chance to talk. He’s not like that.”

  Silence.

  “Cheryl, he’s not.”

  “Mel, I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  I grabbed a tissue and scrubbed at the tears dripping down my face, and wiped at my nose. “I’m not hurt. But I will be if you do this. Cheryl, this is my decision. This is my life. Don’t butt in. It doesn’t matter that you think I’m some naive idiot.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Yeah, I can tell.”

  “Oh, look, I’m sorry.”

  “All these years you’ve known me you’ve kept telling me that I should believe in myself, that I was special, and the first time someone comes along who might… well, who is actually pretty great, you tell me that the only reason he would have anything to do with me is because he’s some manipulating slime, using me. Thanks a lot.”

  There was a long silence. I held the phone to my ear in a death grip, stari
ng at the floor, blinking fiercely to try to stop the tears.

  “Melanie? That’s not what I meant.”

  We listened to four hundred miles of static crackle.

  “Melanie, please. You know I’d never try to hurt you. I’m trying to keep you from being hurt.”

  I sank back down on the bed. Damn. I knew that. In the four years I’d known Cheryl, she had only been my friend. In the three weeks I’d known Andrew Richards, I’d become the next thing to a babbling idiot, an accessory to a felony, been conned, chased, and used.

  And kissed.

  “I know, Cheryl,” I said finally. “It’s just that I hate it when you’re right. I guess I knew all along what was really going on, but when he kissed me, I just felt so, oh, I don’t know what I felt except that I liked it.”

  “He kissed you?”

  “Yeah. I know it was probably nothing. Just a thank you kiss. I blew it all out of proportion.”

  “Melanie! Why do you ever listen to me? What do I know? Maybe he isn’t a slime. God, when am I ever going to learn to keep my big mouth shut?”

  “When hell freezes over?”

  “Thanks.”

  “When all the men in America get together and decide football really is a pretty silly game?”

  “All right.”

  “When Congress votes themselves a pay cut?”

  “Okay. I got the message.”

  “When...”

  Cheryl laughed. “All right, already!”

  Get somebody to laugh, and they’re yours. I wiped my face again. “Had enough, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cheryl, look. I know he used me, but I do still believe his story. I don’t want you to call the police.”

  Silence.

  “Okay?”

  She sighed. “Okay, but you have to promise me one thing. If he comes anywhere near you again, you run screaming into the night.”

  “Deal. Look, there’s one more thing. In the news story, was there anything about Lance? Is he really going to be okay?”