Running From Mercy

by Terra Little

  “Hell no,” Pam gasped. “Did you?”

  “Hell no,” Nate mimicked her playfully. “To Chad either. How would I have been able to explain what happened between us and still keep my best friend? Some things aren’t negotiable, and I have a feeling that where Chad is concerned, you’re one of them. I’m just glad we didn’t ruin our friendship in the process.” He brought their clasped hands to his lips and kissed the back of hers gently.

  “It was good.”

  “Damn good. Still is. You ever regret it?”

  She looked at him, surprised. “Regret what? Having the chance to know all of you? Never. Why, do you?”

  Nate released her hand and laid it over the sleeping semi-erection resting against his thigh inside his jeans. “That answer your question?”

  Pam allowed herself a gentle squeeze before slipping her hand away. “Don’t tempt me, Nate.”

  “Are you tempted?” She rolled her head around on her shoulders and ran her tongue along the skin just below his sleeve. A chuckle rumbled low in his chest and worked its way up and out of his throat. “You’re bad, Pam. You make it hard for me to remember that you’re still his. How do you suppose it’s so easy for us to fall in bed together, then hop back out and carry on like nothing happened?”

  “A true sign of friendship?”

  “Or treachery,” he replied smoothly. “Idle minds are the devil’s playground. Speaking of which . . .” He reached around and stuck a finger in his back pocket, came out with a half-smoked joint and put it between his lips. The rest of the world had moved on to smoking blunts, but he still preferred smoking his weed the old fashioned way.

  “You lured me all the way out here to get me high and relive the past, Nate?” She laughed and watched him light the joint with a disposable lighter.

  “Don’t think the idea didn’t cross my mind. Think anybody would notice if I conveniently left town the same day you did? This is premium Jamaican shit here, P. Pace yourself.” He took one, then two drags off the joint and passed it to Pam.

  “Now who’s bad? How’d you smuggle this shit past customs?”

  “Did you hear me a few minutes ago, talking about treachery?”

  They were quiet as they passed the joint back and forth between them. When Nate was satisfied that Pam was good and high, he tossed the roach in the creek and shifted in the grass until they were facing each other. Her eyes were tight and the silly grin on her face matched the one on his.

  “You are fucked-up,” he said and burst out laughing.

  Pam thought the sight of him laughing was funny and she joined in, laughing so hard her stomach hurt and tears ran down her cheeks. “Where was this weed when we were kids?”

  “The grown folks had it all,” Nate predicted. “Keeping it a secret and shit. Tell me what you know about Miles Dixon, Pam.”

  Pam’s brows met in the middle of her forehead. Genuine confusion was on her face as she locked eyes with Nate. “Whoever he is, I don’t know him. Did he say I knew him?”

  “I think he might’ve introduced himself to you as David. David Dixon. Sound familiar?”

  “Oh, yeah. He’s Moira’s stepson. You know him?”

  “I know of him,” Nate said carefully. He was fucked up too and concentrating on keeping his thoughts in logical order. “He’s the dude that owns all those newspapers and gossip magazines, P. He writes those tell-all books about celebrities.”

  Pam was shocked. She leaned forward and put her face close to his. “Who do you think he’s going to write about next?”

  For a second, Nate was speechless. He stared into her tight eyes and caught his breath. Then he threw his head back and laughed hard. “Pam listen to me,” he said, still giggling. “That motherfucker followed you here to gather information about you for his next book. It’s about you, baby.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. You remember Humpy?” He was referring to James Humphries, a boy they’d hung around with a few times in high school. It took Pam a few seconds to connect the dots in her head, but she finally nodded. “Apparently, he dropped a dime on you about some of the shit we did back in high school and from what I understand, Dixon’s been going around town asking folks what you were like back then.”

  She was silent a long time, soaking in the ramifications of what Nate was telling her. Then she dropped her head in her hands and moaned disgustedly. “I met him for lunch a few times. I thought he was nice and he’s Moira’s stepson, so I didn’t see the harm in it. What the fuck was I thinking? I should’ve known better than to think he didn’t want something from me.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing much. He already knew about Jose, but that’s about it. I guess now he knows whatever fat-ass Humpy told him. I told you that cocksucker was no good,” she snapped and punched Nate in his thigh. She had never particularly cared for Humpy.

  “You did and we cut him loose before he could get too comfortable, so fuck him. How do you want to handle Dixon?”

  “Wait a minute, let me see if I have this straight. David, I mean Miles, followed me here and pretended to be friendly with me so he could pump me for information. Is that what you’re telling me, Nate? That he intends to write one of those cheesy-ass books about me?”

  “That’s the understanding I got.”

  “And how do you know all this?”

  “He called my publicist several times while I was away and left messages for me to get in touch with him. Your name came up, and I got on the first plane here to see what was up. This is what’s up, and he needs to be dealt with.”

  Pam hopped to her feet, snatched up her slides and took off toward the woods. “I’m going to fucking kill him,” she spat out as she stomped past Nate. “And then I’m going after Moira because she had to know what he was up to.”

  Nate rolled to his feet and caught up with Pam before she could disappear into the woods. “Hold up, P. You can’t go storming over to his hotel tonight.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because you’re high as a kite, for one thing. I didn’t come all the way to Mercy just to get hauled off to jail, and you know I would, right? You’d go over there throwing shit and clowning, and I’d have to come with you because that’s just how we do it. He’d probably fuck around and do something stupid and I’d have to kick his ass, and then we’d both go to jail. I told Merlene I’d go to church with her in the morning, so I cannot go there with you tonight, okay? You know I wouldn’t hear the end of it if they had to drag her ass out of the sanctuary right when the choir was getting down on ‘Amazing Grace’ to come and bail me out.”

  Pam had a thought. “Chad could come bail us out. He wouldn’t hesitate to spring you and then you could talk him into springing me, too.”

  “Pam . . .”

  “Come on, Nate. We’ve done shit like this before. I’ll just knock on his door and when he comes out, I’ll punch him a few times and then we’ll tear his room up looking for the evidence. By the time the police get there, we could be back at home, damn near asleep. No witnesses, nice and quick. And Paris isn’t here to harp about consequences and shit, either.”

  He had to admit the idea did sound tempting. “Listen to me, forget Dixon for now. I want you to let me handle him. If I need some backup, I’ll let you know, okay?”

  “But what if he—”

  “Hey,” Nate cut her off. He lifted her chin with his finger and made her look into his eyes. They were cold and hard. “I said to let me handle Dixon. You trust me?”

  “With my life Nate, you know that.” She stepped into his arms when he opened them and burrowed in, hugging him tightly. “Oh . . . Nate, I’m so glad you’re here. I missed you so much.”

  “I love you too, Pam.” He laughed as she spun away from him, grabbed his hand and dragged him along behind her through the woods. Just before they reached the road where her car was parked, he cuffed her arm and brought her around to face him. She slammed into his chest breathlessly and opened her
eyes wide as his head dipped toward hers. Their lips pressed together, stayed that way for long seconds, and then slowly opened against each other’s. The kiss was long, wet, and deep.

  “Damn, Nate,” Pam drawled as they climbed in her car. “I didn’t know you had it going on like that.”

  The line had a ring of familiarity to it and it brought that day so long ago back to his mind, fresh and vivid. He reclined his seat and got comfortable as Pam shifted into drive and shot off down the road.

  “Yeah, you did,” he responded and let his eyes slide closed for the remainder of the drive back to Chad’s house.

  Chad and Nikki were in the kitchen when Nate and Pam came stumbling through the doorway and trudged down the hall. Chad’s water glass stopped midair, halfway to his mouth, as he surveyed the silly grins on their faces. He shot a careful glance toward where Nikki was seated at the table flipping through a fashion magazine and doing her damndest to stay awake, then wriggled his eyebrows at Nate. Pam paused in the hallway long enough to dig around in her purse and slip her sunglasses over her eyes. Chad thought he’d told Nikki to go to bed an hour ago and now he wished she’d listened. Pam and Nate were high as hell.

  “What are you still doing up?” Pam studied Nikki’s face through the black lenses.

  Nikki turned flat eyes on her aunt and then on her uncle. “I was just going to bed,” she mumbled. “Good night everybody.”

  Chad watched his daughter disappear down the hallway, thinking that she’d been acting strange lately, then he divided an expectant look between Pam and Nate. “What’s up?”

  “Tell him what’s up, Nate.” Pam nudged Nate in his side. Her tone implied that she was too disgusted by the recent developments to be bothered with repeating them.

  “Well . . .” Nate began in a reasonable tone of voice.

  Pam rolled right over his words clumsily. “What’s up is that David Dixon is a spy and he’s been playing up to me hoping I’ll tell him all my little dirty secrets. He wants to write one of those unauthorized biographies about me and my life in this hideous little town.” She whipped the glasses off her face and propped a hand on her hip. Her head rotated back and forth between Chad and Nate. “Can you believe that shit? I mean, doesn’t that just take the damn cake?”

  “You are so fucked-up,” Nate murmured, shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. He took two steps backward, bent over at the waist, and roared with laughter. Pam dropped into the nearest chair and joined him. Chad shook his head at both of them.

  SEVENTEEN

  Dear Diary,

  Pam and I got on the bus that night knowing where we were going and what we were going to do. We had it all planned out, right down to the last detail. Pam saved her money from working at the funeral home and I had mine from my work-study job, and that’s what we lived on during those last seven months in California. We got off the bus in a little town called Orange and stayed in a claustrophobic little hotel room. Pam wasn’t famous then, so nobody took any notice of the two of us walking around town getting exercise and waiting for Pam to go into labor.

  Her water broke in the middle of the night and we took a cab to the hospital. They tried to separate us there in the emergency room. Tried to make me wait in the waiting area until after Pam gave birth, but Pam told them she would get off the stretcher and go out into the middle of the street to give birth before she let them separate us. What could they do? She was scared, hurting like she’d never hurt before, sweating like a pig, and screaming these bloodcurdling screams. I thought she was dying, her face was so red. I started crying right along with her.

  Nikki made us wait for her for fourteen long hours and then she finally made her appearance. Oh, she was the most beautiful baby. Brown and perfect. She looked like Chad from the very beginning. And Pam, too. She has Pam’s eyes and her mouth, my eyes and mouth. We held her and just stared at her for the longest time. Then the nurse came to take her away for the night. Pam had to have stitches and the Demerol they gave her made her sluggish and tired. She decided to get a good night’s sleep while she could.

  “What are we calling her?” I asked Pam.

  “Nicole,” Pam told me. “Nicole Angela Greene.” Her middle name is for Chad’s mother, since we never had one, and Pam wanted her to have a connection to someone, to have a history.

  That was the name Pam wrote down when the woman came around to collect the information for Nikki’s birth certificate. The woman wrote down the time of birth, the city and state, the sex of the baby and then turned to Pam, pen poised. “Father’s name?” she asked. Pam told her that Chad Anthony Greene was Nikki’s father. The lady asked Pam to please spell her name, so that no errors were made and me and Pam looked at each other one last time before we did what we did.

  Right from the start we called our baby Nikki. And we told the woman that her mother’s name was Paris Marie Mayes. We had no idea what we were doing. We didn’t know that by switching places we’d be casting our lives in stone. Pam had no reason to believe that I would betray her and do what I did. It never occurred to her that I would marry Chad and steal what was hers. Why should it? She trusted me to keep my word to her.

  The second part of our plan was over before it even began. Pam was supposed to come back for Nikki, but two years passed before she was ready to come, and by then it was too late. We fought bitterly. She called me names that I can’t bear to write down here, but I know I deserved them, just as I deserved the six months of silence I suffered through. I robbed my sister of the ability to come home again. But two years is a long time, and in all that time she would never give me a date. She never said when she was coming . . .

  This loveless marriage has got to be my punishment. That and the occasional look that comes over Pam’s face when she is looking at me and thinks I’m unaware of her eyes. She doesn’t love me the same, I feel it in my bones. When we were kids we always said, “We come first,” and we meant it. It was our solemn oath. Nothing and no one would ever come between us. Yet, this has. There are no words to describe what I feel. I wonder what might’ve happened if I had gone out with one or two of the guys who asked me out in college. Would I have gotten married and had a couple of kids of my own? Would I have made a life for myself, instead of stepping in where Pam’s left off and failing miserably at filling her shoes? I don’t know and I suppose I never will.

  Nikki is a wonderful child, bright and curious, lively and so loving that it hurts my heart sometimes when she looks at me with those big, trusting eyes. I love her so much. Too much, I know. Enough to want to make her mine. Chad says nothing, but I can see in his eyes that he wishes I was Pam and that the two of them were raising their child together.

  I promised Pam and told myself that I’d never write about it, never tell a soul. And I haven’t ever told anyone, but I have to get it out somewhere. Chad is not an option and every time I bring the subject up to Pam she says she doesn’t want to talk about it. I have made it so that Nikki can never know that Pam is her mother. So where does that leave me? Some things are too big, too consuming to keep inside forever, don’t you think?

  Paris

  Nikki closed the diary and stared into space. She wasn’t aware of the exact moment the anger she tried to swallow bubbled to the surface and twisted her face into a rigid mask of outrage. She didn’t hear her own ragged breathing as she swept everything from the surface of her bureau and sent bottles and jars crashing to the hardwood floor. Mingled scents floated up in the air, reached her nose, and turned her stomach. She stumbled away from the bureau, gasping for air, and vomited down the front of her pajamas.

  The wall at her back kept Nikki from losing her balance and falling to the floor. She collided with it, with a loud thud and slid down to her butt. The scent of vomit was thick in her nostrils, and she sucked in air through her mouth to escape it. She wondered if this was what Aunt Pam felt when she was having an anxiety attack, like her heart was going to jump out of her chest and land with a splatter on the floor
, like needles were jabbing into her skin all over, like she couldn’t catch her breath. Then she remembered who and what Aunt Pam was, and the tears came.

  In the kitchen, Nate’s eyebrows shot toward the ceiling as the noise upstairs grew louder and louder. It was still early, way earlier than he would normally be up and about if he was home in Seattle. It took him several minutes to remember that Chad wasn’t home and that Nikki was the only other person in the house. He sipped his coffee slowly, unconsciously listening for the sound of footfalls on the stairs, hushed voices and doors creaking open. If Nikki thought she was about to sneak some little peanut-headed boy past him and out of the house, she had another think coming. It wouldn’t hurt his feelings one bit to start the day off with a little ass kicking.

  Why wait? Nate thought. If he moved fast enough he might just be able to catch the little thug with his pants still around his ankles.

  Nate took the stairs two at a time, knocked once on Nikki’s closed door and then stuck his head inside. His eyes darted around the messy room, taking in the clothes strewn everywhere, the bottles and jars scattered on the floor, and finally, the pool of vomit in the middle of the floor. The smell slapped him in the face at the same time that he noticed Nikki curled in a ball against the wall. He left the doorway and went to kneel beside her.

  “I thought I was about to catch you sneaking a boy out of the house,” he said, hoping to get her to lift her head and look at him. He pushed her hair away from her face and felt her forehead. She was sobbing uncontrollably and he was, for once, at a loss for words. Crying women made him nervous, so he said the only thing he knew to say. “Peachy, what’s wrong?” It was enough to have her crawling into his arms and crying on his shoulder.

  Chad was called out of an administrative meeting to take the call from Nate. He went to his office and closed the door so he’d have some privacy. Nate wasn’t one to call during a workday just to shoot the breeze or to ask where Chad kept the sugar. He was more the type to tear the house apart looking for the sugar and to hold whatever news he needed to share until work was done and it was time to play. Chad punched the button for line two and put the receiver to his ear, already knowing something was wrong.