Follow the white pebbles

by Lillian Summers

  Krissie turned crimson. “How do you know?” she asked weakly.

  “Your lips are swollen.” Lizzie shrugged. “Besides, I could’ve bet my damn life he’d do it. His eyes were poppin’ out of his head when he saw you.”

  Krissie swallowed a couple of times. “Does he do that with every woman he comes across?” she inquired, hoping that she hadn’t sounded too concerned with the matter.

  “The hell he does.” Lizzie burst out laughing. “He hasn’t been with a woman in an eternity. I mean, since he caught that slut Sharon cheatin’ on him. He was in love with her, the moron.” She snorted with indignation. “The whole neighborhood knew she was a damn whore.”

  Krissie looked at her open-mouthed, unable to comprehend how could a woman in her right mind cheat on a man like him. The touch, the feel, the scent of him, the hardness of his body pressed against her came back to send licking flames through her nerve ends, making her quiver.

  “Johnny is no damn heartbreaker,” Lizzie said. “He looks like one, and he sure acts like one, but he always lets the women break his heart. He’s as stupid as a stump when he has to pick a girl.”

  Krissie turned her head to look out the window. She had to take him out of her mind. Definitely. He was a delivery man from Southside Jamaica’s ghetto, and she was at the other end of the ladder. It wasn’t her high social position that mattered to her. It was the fact that he couldn’t belong in her world. Just as Lizzie was unable to fit. And she couldn’t fit in his world either. All that had happened in Johnny’s room today had just been random, completely insane dalliance. That was all. And it was going to stay that way.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The inside walls of the mansion started reverberating just as the noise outside became louder and louder. Lizzie rushed out of the bathroom, hastily pulling an oversized T-shirt over her head. She almost ran toward the entrance door, at times hopping on one foot trying to pull a boot on the other. A couple of butlers almost collided with her on the corridor, their arms filled with rucksacks and some strange gear.

  “Where’s my husband?” she asked one of them, secretly rejoicing at how the word sounded. Her husband… then a rush of bitterness washed over her. It was just a piece of paper that allowed her to call him so. To him, she was only the poster on the wall she had rightfully mentioned on their wedding day. Though lately there had been a thawing toward her, something she was not sure what to make of. She sighed.

  “Mr. Winters is outside, preparing to leave as we speak,” the butler replied.

  “To leave?” Lizzie stifled a gasp. This was a novelty. Justin hadn’t left during the weekend since their wedding. Not by himself, anyway. They were spending the end of the week together, although that was a gross overstatement to say the least. There were parties, then parties again, during which they were separated by an army of strumpets who fought hard to get him. Or they just stayed at home, each one keeping away from another with diligence, although for entirely different reasons. She wanted him so much, that it hurt like hell to see his indifference. He just didn’t want to have anything to do with her.

  Lizzie pulled the mansion’s entrance door open and swept the view with wild eyes, not even trying to stifle the gasp that escaped her lips. No one could hear it anyway, since the engines of two helicopters that were stationed about fifty yards ahead were making a racket that could bring the hearing back to the deaf. A group of about twelve people, two thirds of it Justin’s females, were gathered at the bottom of the stairs, all dressed in top-of-the-range mountaineering gear. Amongst them, Justin looked as beautiful as a God, the sinuous lines of his athletic body hugged by the thin microfiber of his climbing suit, and his hair tousled by the wind.

  Lizzie descended the stairs in no hurry and went to join her husband, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her jeans. “What’s goin’ on here?” she yelled out to make sure he’d hear.

  “We’re going mountain climbing,” Justin replied just as loud, busying himself to stuff a pair of gloves in his rucksack.

  “And why the hell didn’t you tell me ‘bout that yesterday?” she asked.

  A dozen pairs of avid eyes glued on them in eager expectation of the quarrel to come.

  “Too tired,” Justin said, sending a quick glance at Kate. “I was going to tell you this morning. As a matter of fact, I was going to come back inside this very moment,” he reassured his wife, a sharp pang of guilt tugging at his heart.

  Lizzie switched her gaze from him to the guests’ faces, scrutinizing them with impassive eyes. Her stare rested a little longer on Kate, who was very busy testing the endurance of her rucksack’s zipper.

  “I wanna come with you,” she drawled.

  Kate’s head snapped up. She looked at Justin and Justin looked back at her for a couple of seconds in a silent dialogue. Her green eyes borrowed a tempestuous glare as she shook her head slightly. Do something, she shot the silent command.

  Justin blinked fast a couple of times and returned his gaze to his wife. “I don’t think it would be wise, Lizzie,” he said, an odd sense of betrayal nagging him. “We all are experienced climbers. We are going to climb the Rubicon on Wallface Cliff. It’s rated a hard 5.10. Even finding the base of most climbs is difficult. You couldn’t possibly keep up.”

  “I’ll manage,” Lizzie cut over him.

  Justin’s gaze shifted once more toward Kate to meet a furious stare.

  “You are not even prepared for climbing,” he returned his attention to Lizzie. “We didn’t buy you proper gear, and you can’t possibly come dressed like that,” he persisted.

  Lizzie frowned. “I’ll come dressed any damn way I want,” she snapped.

  He ground his teeth with desperation. “All right,” he said. “Then you may want to grab a couple of extra clothes. We’ll set camp in the mountains overnight and come back tomorrow in the afternoon.”

  She swept another impassible gaze over the group and went back inside without another word.

  Kate stomped her way to Justin as soon as Lizzie was out of sight. “What do you think you’re doing?” she lashed out at him.

  “What did you expect me to do? Hit her in the head? Hurl her over my shoulder and take her back inside? Tie her to a chair and leave her there until tomorrow afternoon?” He splashed a cold stare over her.

  “No, but you could have been firmer in your refusal,” Kate countered, pushing her chin up.

  “What makes you think she would have listened to me?” Justin held his ground. “You must have noticed by now that she has a mind of her own.”

  “So do you, Justin, so do you,” Kate retorted. “But only when you really want.” With that she turned her back on him and went back to where she had dropped her rucksack to the ground.

  His gaze followed her, disconcerted, his lips slightly parted. “But only when you really want.” How true was that? He simply hadn’t wanted to reject his wife. That was, he hadn’t wanted it strong enough. Why? He couldn’t quite tell. Maybe because she deserved to have a life after being denied one for eighteen long years. Or perhaps because she talked to him openly, honestly, without flourishing tricks and stupid giggles. Not like the annoying females who were swarming around him. Whatever the reason, he had felt no remorse when he’d looked in Kate’s furious eyes.

  He remained placid and serene throughout the flight, during which Kate speared him with her glare a thousand times.

  Wallface Cliff stood proud, deep in the wilderness of the Indian Pass, a deep gash six miles south of Adirondack Lo. The group got off the helicopters and started the laborious slog along the trail through mud pits, until they finally reached the climbers’ herd path.

  Justin sent a side glance at Lizzie. Her breath was fast and shallow under the spell of exhaustion, but she was fighting hard to keep her shoulders straight and her chin high. A little warrior. He smiled inwardly as an unexplained wave of tenderness washed over him.

  “All right,” Robert said. “Let’s get ready, people.”

  Liz
zie looked up and swallowed hard. The Wallface was not a pristine cliff. Its broken face of granite was chock-full of vegetation in some areas. Loose, low-angle rocks were overhanging at other spots, completely lacking in holds. Justin had not been exaggerating. Clearly, this was no user-friendly area for climbers.

  “Do you think you’re all right to do this?” Justin’s voice made her flinch.

  “Yeah, I should be fine,” she lied.

  He scrutinized her face with a worried look. “Then let me get you ready for it,” he said, pulling some strange looking gear out of his rucksack. He fastened a harness around her and attached a Y-shaped lanyard on it, making sure that its larks foot was securely fixed.

  Then the ropes were extended and belays connected to them, flat rucksacks secured on people’s backs.

  Robert’s voice sounded again, filled with impatience and uncontained excitement. “Are we all set?”

  “Yes.”

  “All done.”

  “Ready to go.”

  The answers started flooding from everywhere, turning Lizzie’s world into a spin. Her heart began an insane stampede, just as she realized the enormity of what she had done. She had pushed herself beyond any reasonable limit in a mad fit of jealousy, and she was going to fail in the most pathetic, miserable way, not even ten feet off the ground.

  Justin looked at her pale face with renewed concern. “I’m going to stay with you, don’t worry,” he said. “It’s better that I go ahead, just a few yards above you. If you slip, the lanyard will provide for self-belay, so you’ll have both an excellent braking and an effective cushioning if you fall.” He stopped short when he saw her face turn even whiter. “When I say ‘fall’, I don’t mean off the cliff, Lizzie,” he rushed to reassure her. “It would be only a yard or two until the braking mechanism kicks in. You are safe, no matter what.”

  She nodded forcefully, her lips clamped into a thin line.

  “All right then,” he said, unconvinced. “Just look at me how I’m doing it, and if there’s something wrong yell out, okay?”

  Another nod.

  He started climbing, stealing quick glances behind him every few seconds. Lizzie was clumsily propping the tips of her boots on small rocky protrusions, pushing herself upwards with bare hands. She had no gloves, he realized with cold terror. By the time she’ll reach the summit, her palms will be raw meat. His heart constricted with pain.

  “Are you all right?” he kept asking from time to time, looking down to search for her. She had fallen behind a couple of yards, not even a quarter of the way to the Mental Blocks.

  “Yeah, I’m all right,” she panted, the drumming of her heart thumping in her ears.

  Then the hard part began. A shallow corner on the low-angled tight wall of the cliff led to cedar ledges, followed by a short crack that led to a headwall and a large flake.

  The group had already set for the next pitch when Justin fought hard to help Lizzie traverse under a rook crack then a flaring groove. Lizzie started saying her prayers.

  “Now it’s the hardest part, Lizzie,” Justin called out. “I’ll help you out, don’t worry.”

  The rock protruded in an angular position that made her climb diagonally, her back facing the ground. The excruciating claws started tearing at her chest again, trying to pry her heart out. Lizzie stopped for a moment hanging onto the handholds with bleeding hands.

  Justin waited on top of the rock, poking his head over the ledge to look down for her. “Another couple of yards, Lizzie, and it will be over,” he encouraged, his heart constricting as he saw traces of blood on the rope.

  Lizzie pushed herself up, numbness getting hold of her body, until she felt his hands grabbing her and pulling her up. She lay down on the hard rock, unable to move, unable to breathe, her mouth opening wide in search for air.

  Justin kneeled down next to her, his calves dangerously dangling in the air over the edge of the rock.

  A crashing sound made Lizzie flinch. With the corner of her eyes she saw Justin’s body slip and disappear into the abyss below.

  “Oh my God!” she yelled, springing up to her feet. Panic and desperation made her gag, and sent her knees into a furious wobble. “Oh my God!” she repeated dumbly, clasping a hand to her chest.

  “I’m fine, Lizzie,” Justin’s voice sounded from beyond the edge. “I just need a little help to get up. I don’t have any anchor points.”

  She dropped to her knees and leaned forward to look down with wild eyes. He was hanging in the air a couple of yards down, too far from the steep incline of the rock to reach anything. She had to pull him up.

  “Hey!” Faint voices echoed from the summit chimneys. “What happened down there?”

  Lizzie looked up at the group. They were all gathered in a tight cluster, watching the scene with anxious eyes.

  “It’s fine.” She gathered the strength to yell back at them. “Justin slipped. I just need to pull him up.”

  “Are you sure you can do it on your own?” Robert called out.

  “Yeah,” Lizzie replied, turning back to the matter at hand.

  She wrapped her palm around the rope, and tried to pass the tick cord over the back of her hand. The rope didn’t move, taut under the strain of Justin’s weight. She grabbed it with both hands and started pulling with desperation, oblivious to the pain that sliced at her wounds. Nothing happened.

  Justin kept a wary look on her. Lizzie’s face was becoming greyer and greyer, just as her breath was showing that she would soon drop from exhaustion. He twisted his head in all directions to search for a support point. A couple of yards on the left, the rock was pockmarked with holes that looked like coral or cooled lava, carved by tens of thousands of years of water drops streaming from the overhanging rock above.

  “Don’t worry, I got it,” he said, and started twisting until he maneuvered his body sideways, swinging steadily stronger with each move. The holes got closer and closer, yet out of reach, as the shortness of his line was making it hard to attain the needed sway. “Almost there,” he said, reassuring himself now as much as Jimmy.

  “Justin, stop swingin’,” Lizzie yelled hysterically from above.

  “I can’t.” He panted. “Because if I do I’ll never reach the crevices.”

  “Stop the damn swingin’,” she thundered.

  “Why?” Justin looked up.

  She stared in horror at him then back at the rope. “Because the damn line is tearin’, that’s why.”

  Thin strings were snapping out of the thick rope with every sway of Justin’s body. Lizzie wrapped her palms around it again just below the cutting edge of the rock and tried to bring the swinging to a halt. Justin froze in mid-air, looking up with desperate eyes. He grabbed the line with his gloved hands and pulled himself up inch by torturing inch, cautious not to scrap it too much against the razor-sharp lip of the overhanging. Another few strings gave way.

  “Justin, stop movin’!” Lizzie yelled, staring wildly at him. Her gaze swept the platform she was lying on with the desperation of a drowning woman. A deep crevice dug into the rock less than a yard away from the edge. She stuck the tips of her boots in it and pushed her body out in the open, dangling over the abyss she’d just conquered.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Justin stared at her bewildered, forgetting his own torment for a moment. “Do you want both of us to fall?”

  “Give me your hands,” she commanded, reaching down.

  “You can’t do that.” He shook his hand. “I’ll take you down with me. I’m too heavy.”

  “Give me your damn hands, or I swear to God I’ll let myself fall on top of you, dammit,” she hissed.

  Hesitant, he reached out, silently cursing his decision to take this trip, and his wife with him.

  Lizzie wrapped her hands around his lower arms and started to pull back, slowly bending her knees to turn her legs into a pulley until they began to shake under the overwhelming strain. The claws in her chest started blurring her vision, ripping at her h
eart with savage fury. She was going to pass out any minute now, she knew it.

  Justin wrapped his arms around hers and started climbing on her body, elbowing her, digging his fingers deep into her skin, at times reaching out for the edge. There was no time to wait for her to pull, she was way too exhausted. Clearly, her feet were holding onto something, but for how long they would still do it, he couldn’t tell. He knew what he was doing now was beyond cruel, but it was the only chance for both of them. At last, the edge came within grasp. One hand at first, and then the other. He rested his foot in the crook of Lizzie’s armpit and pushed himself up. A few seconds later, he was on the platform, dragging her limp body next to him.

  “Lizzie,” he squeezed her name past his lips, unable to control the sudden shivering that took hold of him.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Lizzie, I’m sorry,” he almost begged in between harsh breaths.

  She finally opened her eyes, her gaze half hidden behind her unruly fringe and thick, blurred lenses. “I’m fine,” she said weakly.

  “You’re all right, guys?” voices sounded from the top of the cliff.

  Justin lay down on his back and waved without bothering to answer. Profound exhaustion took hold of him, and with it the striking realization of what had just happened. He had been at a hair’s breadth from dying, and Lizzie had saved his life, selflessly placing hers in danger. No one from those standing on the summit would have offered themselves as climbing ladders, but they would have, without any doubt, wailed at his funeral.

  “Lizzie,” he murmured, “are you all right?”

  She nodded weakly and closed her eyes.

  He bit his upper lip. “We’ll stay here for as long as you need to rest, then we’ll start the ascent to the summit, okay?”

  She nodded again.

  His gaze lingered on her for a long time, taking in the paleness of her skin and the shaking of her body, until they slowly ebbed away and she opened her eyes.

  “Thank you for saving my life,” he said.

  Lizzie stood up wearily, averting her gaze. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. T’was nothin’. You’d have done the same I guess.” And with that she crossed the few yards of the platform until she came across the wall of stone. “Are we goin’?” she asked.