The Story of Lansing Lotte

by L. B. Dunbar

  I sat back slowly in my chair and turned to look out the window. The day was cold and blustery. The wind had picked up papers in the street and they danced down the pavement. I tapped my hands lightly on the table as Guinie and I both seemed lost in our own thoughts. My mind wandered back to Arturo. How could he do that to her? How could I? And how could I do what we’d done to him? It was a fucked up triangle of Fate.

  I ran a hand down my face and turned to look at her. Despite the glasses, I knew she was watching me through the darkened lenses.

  “How’s Lila?” she asked, but what she really wanted to know was would Lila tell anyone.

  “She won’t say anything,” I replied to the unasked question. “Lila wouldn’t share secrets like that.”

  She watched my face closely and her eyebrows rose.

  “You like her, don’t you?”

  “Of course, I like her,” I laughed bitterly, confused. “She lives with me.”

  “It’s more than that,” Guinie’s voice rose. “You like her, like her.”

  What, were we in high school? Then, the recognition hit me. Could Guinie be jealous? It was the same tone she had used when she spoke of Layne, or Elaine. Was she jealous of Lila?

  “Lila’s different.” Those words had gotten me into trouble before, so I continued to clarify.

  “She’s…she’s had things happen to her in the past and she understands. Well, she doesn’t understand, but she isn’t judging me. Well, she is judging me by not exactly talking to me. She just doesn’t understand,” I sighed deeply and ran my hands through my long bangs. I wasn’t making any sense.

  “What doesn’t she understand?”

  “Our attraction.”

  A smile crept across her lips for a moment and then faded.

  “But that attraction is all wrong. We were wrong. You and I have got to let each other go.”

  I was still looking down at the table, tracing a design over the smooth wood with my thumb.

  “This isn’t healthy, Lansing. And it isn’t real.”

  My head shot up to look at her.

  “What we did was very real to me,” I said, a bit of anger in my voice.

  “It was real to me, too,” she whispered and a tear trailed down her cheek.

  “Guinie, I…” I reached for her hand, but she moved hers below the table. I had the strangest sensation of being watched again and I turned to look out the window. A black livery car was waiting across the street. A man stood on the other side of it, leaning on the roof. He had longer hair that blew in waves around his face. His jaw was thick with scruff and dark aviators covered his eyes, but he was clearly staring into the coffee shop.

  “Guinie…” I said shakily, not taking my eyes from the man. “Is that…?”

  Before I could finish my sentence, the man entered the car and the black vehicle began to move with the traffic. My gaze broke from following the taillights of the car down the street and I looked at Guinie. She was still staring at me and hadn’t noticed the man, but I had. I would have recognized him, despite the longish waves and facial hair. Arturo King had been watching us.

  I had to take the shot. No one would believe me otherwise. There was Arturo King, alive and looking well. Looking really well, leaning over a private car in New York City. His hair was longer, waves emphasized. His face was covered in thicker stubble than I preferred, but he still looked fine. Real fine.

  I fumbled with my phone. It wasn’t high powered enough to catch the expression on his face. It would have been hard to define the look with those aviators covering his eyes, but he was intent on something across the street. His jaw clenched and I could sense his pain; at what he saw, at what he felt. He was hurt.

  I had to take the shot. Not because I wanted to capture his sorrow, but because no one would believe me that I saw him. No one would believe that Arturo King was alive if there wasn’t visual proof.

  The stop light ahead changed and the driver must have yelled something because Arturo quickly entered the dark car. The door slammed shut as the car began to move forward and brake lights lit the back of the vehicle. I still stood in shock as I lowered my phone. There was commotion all around me, but a movement in my peripheral view to the left caught my eye. I turned in that direction and saw Lansing Lotte standing outside a coffee shop, his hand still holding open the door, and Guinevere DeGrance exiting behind him. Suddenly, I clearly understood the painful look on Arturo King’s face.

  I was stunned, and completely convinced that time that I had seen Arturo. Guinie stood next to me breathing heavily as if she had run a race.

  “Are you sure it was him?” she asked.

  “Positive.”

  There was no question in my mind. Arturo stood across the street and watched us.

  “What did he see?” Guinie immediately asked, a hint of panic in her voice.

  “I don’t know,” I sighed. “Us.”

  I turned to see Guinie looking at me. Her face was white and she looked sick.

  “Guinie?” I reached for her. She turned away from me to vomit in the trash can outside the coffee shop. Attempting to balance on the edge of the can with fisted hands, her hair fell forward, and I scooped it back as best I could while placing a hand on her neck.

  “Guinie, it’s okay. It will be okay,” I tried to soothe. She stood abruptly, wiping her lower lip.

  “It won’t be okay. He’s alive and he’s ignoring me.” She stopped for a moment. “Us? There is no ‘us.’ Why hasn’t he made contact with me? With everyone?!” she yelled.

  “He has to have a reason,” I said, the voice of Lila in my head.

  “Reason. Reason? I want to know what his reason is. How can he ignore me? Why isn’t he coming back to me?”

  The tears were streaming down her face as she yelled on the public street. I reached for her, pulling her into my chest and wrapped my arms around her in an attempt to shield her. If I could take away her pain, if I could answer her questions, if I could…I would. But I already knew that I was only adding to her troubles.

  I rode in the cab with Guinevere. She was still under my arm, but we weren’t touching. Her heart was closed off to me. I felt numb all over. Guinie’s breakdown resurfaced my constant questions, as well. What had happened to Arturo King? And if he was alive and well, why didn’t he come back to us?

  I returned to my apartment after calling Kaye. I hadn’t had much contact with him as the weeks passed. He continued his search and came to endless dead ends regarding Arturo. After I thought I saw him upstate, the entire tri-county area around Lake Avalon was searched. Camlann hadn’t been touched in weeks. The place was scoured like a crime scene. Nothing was found to show that anyone had lived there in months. Mure Linn had still not been in touch with anyone, but I had my suspicions that Ingrid Tintagel knew of Mure’s whereabouts, as did Vivian DuLac.

  Mure Linn was in love with Vivian. It had grossed me out as a child that someone, so much older than her, loved her. It bordered on creepy old man with a twenty year old. Vivian didn’t seem to give in to Mure’s attention, but she didn’t discourage it, either. She flirted with him, knowing that he drank up each wink, each gentle kiss on his cheek, each tender touch of her hand. His eyes continually betrayed his admiration of Vivian. She was worldly although she hadn’t been anywhere, and she knew the art of holistic medicine which Mure was curious about. He often joked that if he could turn back time, he would be a man to never let Vivian go.

  In a hippie sort of way, Vivian also knew the pleasure of music. She was actually the one to teach me how to play the guitar. That was another attraction of Mure Linn to my mother. She understood the skill needed to play the six strings. If there was anything I was grateful for out of the mess with Vivian, it was her passion for music and her patience to teach me. Once I knew how to work the guitar, it was Vivian who introduced me to Mure Linn and the rest was history.

  It was with those thoughts that I stood in my room staring at the three guitars I owned. I had removed them fr
om the living room after Fleur moved into the apartment. It never occurred to me that she might break them, but Lila thought it would be safer. In my heightened anger at Arturo and Guinievere, I didn’t care about safety.

  My first thought was to smash them. Smash them all: the Gibson, a Fender, and my original acoustic guitar, a 1931 Gibson L-I Flattop. It had been Vivian’s and she gave it to me when I was eighteen years old. My initial reaction was: why would I want a hand-me-down guitar? I already had my other Gibson, which I earned with several paychecks after the band started getting gigs, but Vivian explained that the flattop had sentimental value. It belonged to someone very special to her, and she knew it had top value if I ever wanted to sell it. She didn’t have much, she always told me, but she had her health and her music. Her guitar to me was the greatest of physical gifts.

  I had the neck in my hand and the guitar raised. I could do it. I could smash it all to hell. I was over this shit. Over Arturo’s missing. Over Guinie’s sadness. Over Guinie, period. We would never be together. Not like her and Arturo were. We would never be in love like that. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be in love like that with anyone. Elaine and the baby. Layne and her death. Guinevere and the night of sex. I was a mess when it came to ladies and love.

  Adding to my anger was Arturo. Maybe I was dreaming, I thought. Was my guilt conjuring him up, like some kind of sick mirage? Was my conscience telling me I had made a mistake? Another one. Was my mind trying to show me that I had been a bad person? I had killed three women, one literally and two others figuratively. How much more damage would I leave in my wake? How much more bullshit could I take?

  The flattop was over my head.

  “Mr. Lansing?”

  The sweet voice of Fleur made me fumble the classic guitar. It slipped from my fingers. I juggled it between both hands before grabbing in and hugging it to my chest. I was visibly shaking with my anger and my grief.

  “What do you want, Fleur?”

  I didn’t mean it to sound so bitter. Fleur was a four year old child. I wasn’t about to take my pain out on her as she stared at me from the doorway. She leaned on the jam, her cheek on the frame and her innocent eyes looked at me. We were locked in a stare-down that only little kids can pull off. I pulled away after a second in shame and swallowed hard my disgust at myself. Fleur still hadn’t spoken.

  I slowly sank down to the edge of my bed, hanging my head, and letting the guitar slip to the floor to balance between my knees.

  “What do you need, Ladybug?” I tried to speak again.

  She continued to stare at me. I felt like she was willing me to say something or do something, but I wasn’t certain what I was supposed to say or do. I’d never felt at such a loss as I experienced at that exact moment. I picked up the guitar and place it over my thighs.

  “Ladybug, want to play?” I asked trying to keep my voice calm. My hands still shook with my anger. She approached me slowly, knowing I was wound like a predator ready to pounce. When she was standing at my knees, I showed her how to strum her thumb over the strings. She did it several times and looked up at me. A smile slowly crept over her little mouth and she started to flip her thumb faster over the guitar. Eventually, she used her fingers and plucked back and forth, listening to the sound as it made a thunk and twang.

  “Here,” I said to her and I picked up the flattop so she could stand between my thighs. She faced away from me and I returned the guitar to my lap, caging Fleur in. I held the neck and told her to place her hand on the neck under mine. Her little hands couldn’t handle a guitar this big, but I would show her how to play each string. I moved her tiny fingers to the A, then followed suit through to G. We repeated a few times before she pulled her hands back and I took over. I began to hum softly as I gently played a song The Nights normally rocked out.

  It was slow in tempo and the melody was sad. I was reminded of how Lila had described the song. He wants her and he’ll do anything for his one chance. He wants to freeze time. What would you do? What would I do? I continued to hum until the words slipped out that were the refrain and my addition to Arturo’s voice while we performed. Fleur struggled between my thighs, and I slipped the guitar upward without missing a beat to allow her escape. She turned to face me immediately, as I continued to play in earnest then. She began to dance slowly, swaying side to side with her little hips, then bending her knees and finally she began to twirl, moving her arms from left to right.

  Would you stay in this place?

  Give me strength for a million days.

  Be the only one to fill the space.

  I looked up as I sang to find Lila standing in my open doorway. Her face showed her shock and I wasn’t sure if it was that Fleur was dancing around my room or that I was playing the guitar, but her eyes scanned my face and a tear escaped her. She wiped it quickly and her lips twitched into a crooked smile. I’d never seen her look so sad, and yet her smile showed she was happy. Happy for me.

  I didn’t acknowledge Lansing after seeing him outside the coffee shop days ago. I couldn’t face him. As a matter of fact, I had ignored him as much as I could over the days afterwards, except for his moment with Fleur. I didn’t have tears for anything anymore, but somehow tears had escaped my eyes. The way he held the guitar. The peaceful look on his face. Playing was what he needed, and seeing Fleur dancing to the sad melody that Lansing hummed, broke my heart a little.

  I didn’t believe what he had done with Guinie was right. It took me days to accept that it wasn’t my place to judge. I was human, too. I knew as well as anyone that we all made mistakes. Mistakes that I hadn’t learned to forgive until it was too late. Lansing was suffering in more ways than I could imagine, but most of all I sensed his heart was breaking for a girl he could never have. He saw Arturo; I knew he had. He also had to know, that Arturo saw them. Their secret would be exposed and the whole story would go up in flames.

  On Thanksgiving morning, I was surprised when Lansing entered the living room as I was buttoning up Fleur’s coat.

  “Hey,” he said sleepily, rubbing the back of his head and making his hair stand up in a fresh-fucked sort of way. I felt the bile rise in my throat thinking that Guinevere had been in the apartment and I hadn’t even known. I’d heard him come home, but I hadn’t heard any other noises, or voices.

  “Hey,” I mumbled.

  “I haven’t seen you much lately,” he said softly. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “I’ve been busy. Fleur and I have a ritual for today.”

  “You hadn’t mentioned. Do you have family, or friends, that you spend the day with?”

  “Both,” I blurted out. It was a lie of sorts, but I didn’t feel like explaining it to Lansing.

  “Plans yourself, I assume,” I said, as I pulled a hat onto Fleur’s head.

  “Actually, no,” he sighed. He slid his hands into his front jean pockets and stared in the direction of the dark television.

  I didn’t want to ask about Guinevere. It would be polite, but I just didn’t want to know. I had already caused enough damage. I didn’t want to add to their situation. Too many things had been my fault, even if I wasn’t found guilty of a crime. I needed to pay my penance on that day, of all days.

  “What time will you be back?”

  I was surprised by his question, but then I realized he was only trying to plan his day. If I was out of the house, he could have the place to himself for a little rendezvous. My thoughts flashed to Arturo King standing outside the car the other day. His clenched jaw and hurt face. I felt sorry for him and as Lansing accused, I would defend him. Arturo had done nothing wrong.

  “Later,” I said, attempting to walk past him. He stepped in front of me.

  “What time?”

  “Later,” I said, trying to pass him on the left. He blocked me again.

  “When?”

  “Look. I promise to stay away all day, so you can do whatever you want in the apartment,” I said on a deep breath.

  “So I can…,” he stoppe
d and straightened up, looking down at me. “What do you think I plan to do today?”

  “See Guinevere,” I said on a sigh. I didn’t have the energy for a fight. Not that day of all days. I had places to be. I looked at my watch. Fleur and I had fifteen minutes.

  “I’m not seeing Guinevere today,” he replied. “I’m not seeing her any day. Where are you going in such a rush?”

  “I have to…be somewhere…at nine,” I said, as I made a move to walk around him again. I bumped into him as he stopped me with the force of his body. My breasts rubbed into his chest. I hated that I reacted instantly to the contact. I couldn’t be attracted to him, especially when he was attracted to someone else. I needed some alone time, with myself, to take care of the growing ache of desire for him.

  “Where?” he said softly.

  “Church,” I blurted out. “Church, okay? Fleur and I go to mass on Thanksgiving morning and I’m going to be late.” My anger was clearly rising. I didn’t want to play games with Lansing. The day was for other things, not him.

  “I could go with you?”

  I looked at him confused.

  “What?”

  “I said, I could go with you. I’ll drive. Where do you go?”

  “Trinity Church.”

  “Be ready in five,” he said, his mouth quirking up in a smile, but my face was still stunned and I couldn’t respond.

  After mass, I was sure Lansing would part from Fleur and I. He said he wasn’t seeing Guinevere, but he must have plans of his own for the day. I hoped he had plans for the day because I didn’t want him with me. I didn’t need him to know any more of my secrets, but mass ended and he asked me where he could drive me next.