The Wild Zone

by Joy Fielding

  Kristin’s lips formed a sad little half smile. “You mad at me?”

  “Why would I be mad? It was the best night I’ve had in a long time.”

  “I’m glad. She seemed very nice.”

  “She is.”

  “Think you’ll see her again?”

  Will shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “It’s been a rough year, huh?”

  “I admire your capacity for understatement.”

  “Nice to be admired. In any capacity,” Kristin said with a laugh. “Anyway, there’s no place like Miami for smoothing over rough patches. I’d say you came to the right place.”

  “And what does my brother say?”

  “He doesn’t say much about anything. You know Jeff.”

  “That’s just the point. I don’t know him.”

  “Give him a chance, Will,” Kristin urged. Hadn’t she been saying the same thing to Jeff ever since Will’s unexpected arrival?

  “My mother didn’t want me to come, you know. She said I was just asking for trouble.”

  “Why would she say that?”

  “The Star-Spangled Banner” suddenly started to play. Will patted the sofa around him, locating Jeff’s phone and looking at Kristin expectantly.

  Her response was to take the phone from Will’s hand and flip it to mute. “Enough of that nonsense. It’s time for everybody to get some sleep.”

  Will needed no further encouragement. He lay back down and closed his eyes, curling into a tight, fetal ball. Kristin reached down and retrieved the blanket from the floor, laying it across him and stroking his back. “If you ever want to talk,” she began. “About anything . . .”

  “Thanks,” Will said, the word sliding out from between barely parted lips.

  Kristin pushed herself off the sofa, laying Jeff’s phone on the ottoman. “Sweet dreams,” she whispered before turning off the overhead light and returning the room to soft, welcoming darkness.

  SHE DREAMED ABOUT Norman.

  Kristin was five years old when her mother’s new boyfriend offered to babysit while her mother auditioned for a local TV commercial. He’d made himself comfortable on the secondhand brown velvet sofa in the living room of the run-down apartment, opened a can of beer, and put his feet up on the stained coffee table, all the while restlessly fiddling with the TV’s remote control. Kristin was on the floor, playing with the two battered Barbies she’d rescued from a neighbor’s garbage bin the previous week. Their tangled hair still smelled of rotting potato peel, even after several washings with dishwasher detergent. “Hey, kid,” Norman said, patting the cushion beside him. “You want to see something interesting?”

  Kristin had joined him on the sofa, her eyes opening wide at the sight of a man and woman kissing deeply.

  “You know what they’re doing, don’t you?” Norman asked. “They’re tasting each other’s tongues.”

  Kristin giggled. “Do they taste good?”

  “Very good. Do you want to try it?” He leaned forward, so that his face was very close to hers, and she could feel his beery breath warm against her nose. “Open wide,” he instructed before she could say no.

  Kristin did as she was told—hadn’t her mother told her she was to listen to Norman and do exactly what he said?—and Norman promptly thrust his tongue deep inside her small mouth. Saliva filled her throat, and for a moment, she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She pulled back, stifling the impulse to gag.

  “Did you like that?” he asked, seemingly oblivious to her discomfort.

  Kristin shook her head, afraid to speak, as if his tongue had robbed her of her voice.

  Norman laughed and pulled a package of Life Savers out of the back pocket of his jeans, peeling a red one off the top and handing it to her. “Think you’ll like this better?”

  Kristin nodded, popping the Life Saver quickly into her mouth. Red Life Savers were her favorite.

  “Don’t say anything to your mother about what you did,” he cautioned her as the taste of cherry died on her tongue.

  What you did, Kristin could hear him repeat now, the words jolting her awake as, once again, she stifled the impulse to gag. She checked the clock on the nightstand beside the double bed. It was a little past four, which meant she’d been asleep less than an hour. She tried to lie back down, but Jeff’s body had already shifted in his sleep, and both his right arm and leg were now stretched out onto her side of the bed.

  “What are you doing?” said the sleepy voice beside her.

  “Just trying to get comfortable.”

  Kristin felt his hand curl around her left breast. You’ve got to be kidding, she thought. “What are you doing?”

  “What do you think I’m doing?” His fingers began circling her nipple as he inched himself up on his elbows, drawing her body back down.

  “I thought you were sleeping.”

  “I was. Now I’m up. As you can see.” He grabbed her hand, positioned it on his groin.

  “Very impressive,” Kristin deadpanned as he maneuvered himself on top of her. He pushed his way inside her without further preamble, beginning a series of slow, deliberate thrusts that knocked the brass headboard repeatedly against the back wall of the bedroom.

  Kristin went where she usually went during such moments. To her safe place, a sunny field of high grass and beautiful red flowers. She’d seen such a place once in a book of impressionist paintings that her fourth-grade teacher had been kind enough to allow her to take home one night. Kristin had been leafing through the book when Ron had come home early. Ron was her mother’s new husband, a good-looking out-of-work actor with a big voice and an easy sneer, so when he’d called her into the bedroom, when he’d told her to shut the door, when he’d ordered her to come here, she did. And when he was on top of her, when he was poking at her with his fingers, when he was tearing at her and making her bleed, she’d numbed the pain by focusing all her energy on that sun-filled field and the woman in her long, flowing dress who was standing at the top of the hill, delicate white parasol in hand, watching her young daughter romp happily among the magical red flowers. And because the artist had rendered their faces so purposely hazy, it was almost possible to pretend that she was the little girl running merrily through the grass and that the woman with the parasol was her mother, watching to make sure no harm would befall her.

  It was a place Kristin returned to often.

  And then one day her mother had come home early from her shift at the International House of Pancakes, where she’d been employed for the better part of six months, and she’d found Ron on top of her now almost fifteen-year-old daughter, and she’d started screaming, except she hadn’t been screaming at Ron. “What are you doing, you little slut?” she’d cried as a hairbrush flew toward the wall, so close to Kristin’s head she actually felt a breeze disturb the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. “Get out of here. I never want to see your miserable face again.”

  Kristin hadn’t bothered trying to defend herself. What was the point? She knew her mother was right. It was her fault. She was the one responsible. If she hadn’t been so flirtatious, so seductive, as Ron never tired of telling her, he might have been able to control himself.

  Don’t say anything to your mother about what you did, she heard Norman say.

  What you did.

  First Norman. Then Ron. So clearly it was her fault and not her mother’s bad choices.

  Her fault.

  Kristin felt Jeff begin to pick up the pace of his thrusts, pushing her out of her field of red flowers. This was her cue, she understood, contributing the appropriate soundtrack of squeals and sighs, nothing too loud, nothing that would draw Will’s attention to what they were doing or arouse Jeff’s suspicion that she might be faking it. Not that he’d care one way or the other. Strangely enough, that was one of the things she liked best about him—this minimum of pretense. She grabbed his buttocks to push him even deeper inside her, feeling him shudder and release as her hands moved to his torso, absorbing the last of
his energy.

  “How was that?” he asked, his proud smile looming above her.

  “Terrific,” Kristin told him. “Suzy has no idea what she missed out on tonight.”

  Jeff’s smile grew even wider as he flipped over onto his side, pulling Kristin’s arms across his waist. “She will,” Kristin thought she heard him say just before he drifted off to sleep.

  FIVE

  “WHERE THE HELL ARE you taking me?” Tom wondered aloud, following Suzy’s car across the Venetian Causeway, suspended high over picturesque Biscayne Bay, into mainland Miami. Once across, the cars slowed to a virtual standstill at the intersection of Biscayne Boulevard and Northeast Fourteenth Street. “Shit. What now?” Where was everyone going? “Doesn’t anybody stay home anymore?” he shouted out his open window at no one in particular. It was after two in the morning, for shit’s sake. He was hot; he was tired; he was very drunk and more than a little queasy. So what was he doing running after some twat who’d rejected him once tonight already?

  A white Lexus SUV suddenly appeared from out of nowhere to cut in front of him. “Goddamn motherfucking son of a bitch,” Tom swore as the traffic began inching forward. “I’ll blow your motherfucking head off.” He reached for his gun, then quickly thought better of it, counting to ten, and then twenty, in a concerted effort to calm himself down. Much as the bastard deserved a bullet in the back of his big, fat, ugly head, Tom thought, the last thing he wanted was to create an unnecessary scene. Even honking his horn would be risky, he realized, forcing his hands into his lap. He didn’t want Suzy craning her neck around, straining to see what all the commotion was about. Besides, there were police everywhere. All he needed was for some inquisitive young cop to pull him over, smell his breath, and discover he was carrying. They’d haul his ass off to jail so fast his head would spin. Although it was already spinning pretty good, he thought, and laughed. He pictured Lainey having to come down to the station in her pajamas to bail him out, a screaming kid in each arm, her outraged parents following close behind, and the laugh quickly died in his throat.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he could hear her cry. “What are you doing chasing after some woman you saw in a bar when you have a wife and children and a houseful of responsibilities waiting for you at home?”

  Which is precisely the point, Tom thought now, and laughed again.

  “You think this is funny?” Lainey continued to berate him. “Are you insane? When are you going to grow up?”

  “When I damn well feel like it,” Tom shot back, banishing her to a far corner of his mind and shifting in his seat, trying to see over the top of the white SUV. Stupid car, he thought, imagining it taking the next corner at too high a speed, then flipping over and bursting into flames, its snot-nosed driver trapped inside, clawing at the windows as he struggled—frantically, and in vain—to escape the blaze. That’d be great, Tom thought.

  Suzy’s silver BMW turned left at the Museum of Science and the Space Transit Planetarium—whatever the hell that was—then continued southwest along the wide boulevard, before turning right onto Douglas Road. After that, Tom stopped paying attention to the signs. What difference did it make what street they were on? What was important was what happened when they got there.

  Ten minutes later, they were driving through the twisting labyrinth of streets that made up the upscale suburb of Coral Gables. “Coral Gables, shit,” Tom groaned. He hated Coral Gables.

  Lainey was always going on about moving there when they could afford it. Like that was ever going to happen. He worked at the Gap, for shit’s sake. He earned minimum wage. If it weren’t for her parents, who’d paid the down payment on their tiny house in the decidedly ungentrified section of Morningside and continued to make the monthly mortgage payments, they’d probably have been living in some crummy, cramped apartment like Jeff and Kristin. Although if he were living with Kristin, he doubted he’d mind being cramped.

  As Suzy’s car disappeared around the next corner, Tom was surprised to realize that most of the other cars, including the white Lexus SUV, had vanished somewhere along the route without his noticing. Lainey’s fault, he decided. As most things were. She was always getting in his way, distracting him from the task at hand. He had to pay attention, he understood, turning onto Granada Boulevard and spotting Suzy’s car at a stop sign several blocks ahead.

  He watched the silver BMW turn right on Alava Avenue and followed after it. Suzy quickly turned left, then right, then right again, picking up speed. What was she doing? Had she realized he was tailing her? Was she trying to lose him? And hadn’t they already driven down this same street just minutes ago? He was sure he recognized that pink stucco house on the corner. Hadn’t they just passed it? Was this some sort of joke? Had she recognized him and decided to lead him on a wild-goose chase? Had she known from the very beginning he was following her? “Stupid bitch,” he cursed under his breath, fighting a sudden surge of nausea.

  Just turn around and go home, he told himself. Yes, Lainey would be waiting up for him. Yes, she’d yell and carry on. But what the hell? He was used to her histrionics. Eventually she’d wear herself out, cry herself back to sleep. She’d forgive him in the morning, the way she always did. And if she didn’t, if she continued to give him a hard time, he’d just go over to Jeff’s place, or to the gym where Jeff worked, or to the Wild Zone. Wherever Jeff was. Wherever Lainey wasn’t.

  Damn her anyway. It was Lainey who was responsible for all his problems, Lainey who’d gotten herself pregnant, who’d pushed him into a marriage she knew he wasn’t ready for, who was so bloody fertile she’d found herself pregnant again barely a year later, saddling him with not one but two children, both of whom looked exactly like him, so there was absolutely no question as to their paternity. It was her fault he had to work at a job he hated, her fault he couldn’t just go off gallivanting with Jeff whenever he felt like it, even if Kristin let Jeff do whatever the hell he wanted. “What’s the matter with Kristin anyway?” Tom could hear Lainey shout.

  There is absolutely nothing wrong with Kristin, Tom thought silently. She was the perfect woman. She didn’t whine about responsibilities and complain if Jeff blew a few hundred bucks on a leather jacket. She never gave him grief for how late he came home, or how much he drank, or how stoned he got. Hell, she even turned a blind eye to his playing around. In fact, according to tonight’s exchange, Kristin wasn’t averse to even joining in herself on occasion.

  Sex with two women had always been a favorite fantasy of Tom’s. A big-busted blond like Kristin on one side, a willowy brunette like Suzy on the other, Tom sandwiched happily in between. He’d take turns with them, doing one from the front, the other from the back, and then flip them over, repeat the whole process again in reverse, do stuff Lainey wouldn’t even let him talk about.

  Not that he’d even want to do them with Lainey, who was short and a little on the stocky side. Unlike Kristin, who was statuesque and, in a word, stacked. Of course, Lainey always insisted Kristin’s boobs were fake, but what difference did it make what they were made of? She’d paid for them, so that made them hers, as far as he was concerned. Besides, they looked good, so who cared if they were made of plastic? When he’d suggested to Lainey (delicately, he’d thought) that she might want to ask Kristin for the name of her cosmetic surgeon—hell, he’d even offered to pay for her boob job himself—she’d responded by bursting into a flood of angry tears and stomping from the room, yelling something about how Kristin had never had to nurse two babies and he could just go to hell.

  “Already there,” Tom said now, taking a deep breath and releasing it, watching it tremble toward the car’s front window. He pulled a cigarette out of the pocket of his shirt and lit it, inhaling deeply and pretending it was a joint. He’d read somewhere that marijuana was supposed to be good for fighting nausea. “Hah!” he laughed. He’d have to remember to tell that to Lainey. She hated it when he got stoned. “It’s illegal, and it’s irresponsible,” she’d say. “Irrespon
sible”—her favorite word. “What happens if you’re stoned and one of the kids wakes up and wants their daddy?”

  As if that’s even in the realm of possibility, he thought. When was the last time either of his children had ever asked for their daddy? His three-year-old daughter, Candy, cried whenever he approached, and Cody, his two-year-old son, who everyone said was his spitting image, would recoil in genuine horror whenever Tom tried to pick him up, as if Tom was just some stranger who’d wandered into the house by mistake. Which was pretty close to the truth, Tom thought now, idling at a stop sign for several seconds before pursuing Suzy down another residential street.

  Where was she taking him?

  Despite looking like his father, Cody was actually just like his mother, Tom thought. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, nothing was ever good enough. His son would cry and carry on, his wiry little body rigid in his father’s awkward embrace, his arms extended into the air, straining for his mother’s softer, more familiar touch, his round little face getting redder and redder with each successive sob, until he looked like a ripe tomato on the verge of exploding.

  Tom shuddered. He’d actually seen a man’s head explode once when he was in Afghanistan. A girl had been lying along the side of the road. She appeared to be injured. As a young American soldier climbed out of his jeep to come to her aid, the girl had reached inside her dirt-encrusted robe. Next thing you knew, severed limbs were flying through the smoke-filled air in all directions, and the helpful young soldier was minus his head.

  Tom felt the bile rise in his throat and swallowed several times, trying to force it back down. Where the hell had that memory come from? he wondered, tossing his cigarette out the side window and trying to drag some fresh oxygen into his lungs. It didn’t help. The air was sticky and sat like an expanding clump of cellophane in his throat, threatening to cut off his air supply altogether. He had to stop the car. He needed to get out, walk around, get his circulation going, stop his head from spinning. He needed to get away from this stupid, un-air-conditioned car before he threw up all over himself.