Sovereign Ground (Breaking Bonds)

by Hilarey Johnson

  I wipe my chin with the back of my hand. “No, thanks.” I push the bottle farther away from me. “I don’t drink bottled water.”

  “It just comes from the tap anyway.” Cori laughs again and starts to toss the left behind makeup samples into the trash. “I never even heard of bottled water until I came here.”

  Who hasn’t heard of bottled water? I give a generic smile and start for the door, but, I do feel better.

  “Congratulations.”

  “Huh?” I stop and look at Cori.

  “Stage dancer.”

  “Oh, thanks.”

  “What’s your act?”

  “Act?”

  “Yeah, I use fire in my act. Talia, the girl who was sitting here,” Cori points to where the girl with long brown hair sat in the group of three. “She does this ribbon twirly thing. It’s cooler than it sounds.”

  “I just dance.”

  “Oh?” She has all of the counters cleared of makeup. “Well, we should do something about that.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re pretty new. Have you ever worked burlesque?”

  “I just danced.” How many more times can I say this?

  “I get that…Baby Bird?”

  “Just Baby.”

  “I get that, Baby. It’s a little more competitive here. Everyone wants the lead dancer role.”

  “To be on stage?” It comes out more sarcastic than I intended.

  “Well, there’s quite a few perks. And some of these girls are trying to get, um—” Cori clears her throat. “discovered.” She laughs again. She laughs a lot. I like it.

  “You like dancing?” I ask.

  “Oh, yeah.” Cori smiles, and again the ocean swells in her blue eyes. “I have power when I dance.”

  I know what she means; I miss the power I felt at the Wild Lily. Men looked at me because I let them, and my goals were possible with the money. Cori grabs a purse from under the counter and a jacket from the back of a chair. As she turns, I see that the claw tattoo on her shoulder is at the end of a scaly arm disappearing down her back, into her shirt. “Can I drop you somewhere?” She smiles like she knows I was staring at her tat.

  “Is the sheriff’s station on your way?”

  Chapter 9

  The dress is even prettier on me than it was on the hanger. I guess that isn’t saying much, but I do like my curves. The midnight satin drapes in folds of shine, like a robe of magic water, as though I’m rising out of the sea with legs. I’ll be the Little Mermaid tonight.

  No, I’m not waiting for a prince. I’m in control.

  I turn to see just how far the back plunges and a thigh-high slit peels open. It covers one shoulder like a toga. Should I wear my hair up?

  “You’re breathtaking.” Brody claps his hands together; his eyes are large and deep green. I hold my arms out and give a little spin. He steps closer and leans in to kiss my cheek. His pupils seem to widen, or darken, after his hand touches my naked spine. His head drops and the next kiss lands on my neck. “I’m lookin’ forward to spending the evening with you.”

  I realize I haven’t exhaled since his lips first brushed my skin. I turn and let it out slowly so he doesn’t see how it affected me. Why do I crave touch so much? He stands behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders. There’s a full-length mirror to my left and he angles me to view it. We look like a couple. Brody wears a tux, and he stands several inches taller than me. His light brown hair is receding, but he wears it very short. He has the build of an athlete, and his shoulders extend beyond mine on both sides.

  “Sometimes I don’t think you realize how sensual you are.”

  Of all the descriptions to use. I gave myself away once to someone who called me sensual. Steve Mackenzie: basketball star, scholarship to some school in California, towered above me like a redwood. I dressed up that night too. It just made it harder to find my way home after the party. Not a glance or a word all week at school, then on the following Friday he was a drunken sweet-talker on the phone, asking me to find my way over to his house again. I hung up.

  “Go get makeup on. We’ll leave soon.”

  His smile is wide, and he looks right into my eyes until I smile back and turn. The next three hours are a blur. Cori helps with my makeup, just like a sister. Brody and I drive to the casino in his Porsche. Valets. Attendants. Shaking hands with strangers. Pictures. Brody discovers I like grape soda and pays a waitress to make sure I never have an empty glass. She is pleased at whatever bill he hands her and the grape-flavored Italian soda flows until I tell her not to bring anymore. And to think: I wanted to be a cocktail waitress in a casino once.

  Ha. That was yesterday.

  “What’s so funny?” Brody holds his elbow out, and I slide my arm into it. I shrug his question away.

  “I think we’ve put enough time in here. Do you want to go out to eat or stay longer? There will be a band and a comedian, I think.”

  “I’m not sure.” I like being paraded around, letting Brody see to my comfort.

  “How have you been?” A little woman’s arms wrap in an unbidden embrace. Leah. I look up and see Hayden, his scowl shows exactly how he feels to see me.

  “Remember me? It’s Leah.” She is exactly the kind of girl Hayden would take to a benefit for kids. They look adorable. I’m sure he must’ve pinned the corsage on her shoulder.

  “Good evening,” Hayden says.

  After Brody has introduced me a hundred times to people in the room, I fail at my one opportunity to introduce him. He takes charge and offers Hayden his hand.

  “Hi. Brody Penn.” They shake a little too long.

  “I know who you are,” Hayden replies.

  Everybody already knows me, so I keep mum. Hayden’s face is carved marble. He’s shaved his mustache, and I don’t think he could be more handsome. It is a scar on his upper lip, just as I suspected. His pinched mouth and cleft lip give him the look of someone unable to smile. It makes me feel the way I did after visiting his church, when I ran down the road.

  “Sweetheart, you should sit. Would you like something to drink?” I know “sweetheart” was more for Hayden’s benefit than mine because Brody judges Hayden’s reaction when he says it, not me. “Where is that waitress? Another soda for my Baby?”

  “No, actually. I think the problem is too much soda. I just need…” I scan the room. Bathroom or exit, either will work.

  “Follow me.” Leah grabs my arm and tugs, giving me no option but to follow. “We’ll be right back,” she says over her shoulder.

  There are several couches in the first part of the women’s restroom. Leah guides me to one. “Hayden and I were so glad to see you.”

  Hayden and I…

  I lay my head back against the couch. Everything in here is a gaudy hodgepodge of color and texture. Leah is like a daisy standing in the middle of the Vatican. She waits with a glass of water. Where could she have gotten it? She is perfect for Hayden.

  “I’m fine now.” I do feel better after the water. “Thank you, Leah.”

  We return to the guys without conversation. Brody has his arms crossed. He wears a callous smirk. Hayden’s face, well, he’s just Hayden—all emotions are controlled.

  “All-righty, Hayden. Leah, it was nice to meet you. Have a pleasant evening. Sparrow? Ready?”

  Oh, Brody. My name. It wasn’t yours to share.

  Leah’s mouth is a perfect dainty “O.” I wonder what Hayden thinks of the name my parents gave me and that I’m not just ‘Baby’ to Brody. I have no time to find out. Brody has his hand on the lower curve of my spine, it slips a little lower and then reaches and pulls my hip to his. I don’t look over my shoulder.

  I couldn’t speak to Hayden, my time ran out. Brody will take me back under the sea now. I’m the mermaid after all.

  “Can you believe that retard invited me to his church?” Brody answers himself with a chuckle.

  I have no response for him but that’s okay because he talks incessantly during the drive bac
k.

  The inside of the TorchLight is finished and looks like an oasis. Who am I fooling?

  It’s a mirage.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Brody squeezes my hand. So he did notice that I hadn’t said a word in twenty minutes.

  “Yes, fine.” I try to recapture some of the elation I’d felt before we ran into Hayden. I can’t.

  Brody takes me upstairs and I wait while he opens the door to his office. He puts something in his desk and leads me right back out. We enter another room. It looks like the bedroom of a model home, only a little shinier, sleazier. I stop and cross my arms, about to laugh that he brought me in here with so little pomp and circumstance.

  “Sometimes I stay all night. I decided I shouldn’t have to sleep on my office couch since the remodel.” He pulls me by the hand and walks backward to sit down on the side of the bed, next to the pillows. I stand in front of him, my hand still held between his fingers.

  Since the remodel. I sigh.

  “So you want a drink?”

  The decision. I know a drink means the date is not over. I know he wants the date to continue with me crawling into that bed with him. Why shouldn’t I? If stage dancing is as competitive as Cori indicated, it can’t hurt me to be dating the owner. Unless he is another Steve Mackenzie and nothing is mentioned until the next time he wants a tussle.

  Hayden said this kind of thing should be between two people, only. Special. He probably won’t be entwined with Leah later tonight. The thought comforts me; also, it somehow amplifies the fact that I have no interest in touching Brody.

  “She auditioned on silver sheets.” I remember the girls’ remarks. Maybe they think I slept with Brody to get this job. My heart starts to pick up a pace. With the hand that Brody doesn’t hold, I reach up and pull down the comforter. I have to know the color of his sheets. Brody takes my action as invitation and springs forward like a leach from some alien movie. His face burrows my breasts and both arms wind around my waist, exploring. It takes two hands and double effort to peel him off. He sits back, loving the game, with big pleading eyes.

  “What do you think…?” Something inside me says run. This won’t be a game to him. I know it like I can hear his thoughts.

  He grabs me and spins me around before I can finish speaking. He irons me to the bed. It’s funny I always think he has pleading, puppy-dog eyes, because now he’s not gentle—and he’s not asking. I finally have to pull his hair back to get him off me, and it’s so short I can barely pinch it. He starts to lurch forward again, and I slap him. He doesn’t even touch his face, though my hand stings like crazy. He just smiles.

  “You’re a dog.” I hate myself that I can’t come up with something better to say. He begins laughing and I know I better leave, or he’ll think I’m willing to play. I reach the door in only a few steps.

  “See you Monday.” He calls, still chuckling.

  I take a quick glance back. In our mêlée, we skewed the blankets. His satin sheets are indeed silver. Dog. A weekend fling would have been forgotten on Monday.

  It should mean more.

  I cross the hall and enter the costume jungle. I had placed my clothes and shoes in a corner and now I grab them to change. As I slide out of my ridiculously high heels, I hear movement out in the hall. My chest constricts. Brody will follow me.

  This is when it changes, now it won’t be a game.

  I hug my jeans and duck behind a rack of color. My heart announces where I’m hiding, even if only to me. I try to slow it as the door opens. Footsteps. Scrape of metal. A warm drop slides down the curve of my spine. This horrible satin dress is the last thing I want to be wearing at this moment.

  Who is in here? Finally, I peak around the rack, still hidden, but expecting to see Brody. No one. Two large Peacock-feather wings swing from a hook on the wall. They have eyes with blue irises, surrounded by brown and green covering the length of them. They hang like a carcass, waving in the wind. But it isn’t wind which blows through this room, it’s another presence.

  I am hunted. I am haunted. Sometimes I just know the curse is near, I feel the spirit.

  I pump my arms and feel the sensation of bare feet meeting the floor. Fortunately, the slit in my dress allows my legs freedom. I stumble at the stairs, afraid to take them at the pace I left the costume jungle. I try skipping steps. At the bottom, I grasp the handle only to realize it locks from both inside and out.

  I hear a small laugh from the top of the stairs.

  “Where will you fly Baby Bird?” Brody’s voice matches his placid face, and he holds a key chain from an extended arm. “Do you want me to call you a cab?” His tone is a little deeper than normal, like he just woke.

  Embarrassment drips like a bucket of hot sand poured over me.

  “No, I’ll …”

  The handle jiggles from the other side of the door and I turn, reluctant to have my back at Brody—even with the flight of stairs between us. Even though he offered to call me a cab.

  “Well, hullo.” A bald man gates the threshold with one hand on the side and one on the door. He is at least as tall as Brody, but not as broad. He is leaner and harder, though, and his eyebrows are a dark contrast to his pale skin. I look down quickly. He smells like the Wild Lily: a mixture of sweat, stale smoke and spirits.

  I can’t bear to study his face, but my eyes defy me and start to lift. His thin mouth smiles on only one side. His nose is large and crooked, like it was broken one too many times. I have to know…his eyes are hazel. Hard and cold, but he is not the killer.

  I duck under his arm and sprint.

  “Oh, excuse me.”

  I hear him speak but I don’t take time to analyze my rationale. Hot fingers of the presence in the costume jungle seize my stomach. I run as though I’m pursued. Always pursued, always hunted.

  I squat in the bushes outside the TorchLight until both my legs are numb. First Brody, and then the bald guy leave, but I don’t move. The perspiration on me chills, but the hedge insulates me from any breeze. There is that McDonald’s down the street—again, a cab my only option. If I had slept with Brody would I still be finding my own ride home?

  At the reservation I use the last of my car wash money to pay the cab driver. Vietnam rock muffles the car door closing. It comes from the house with torn toys all over the yard. Faint smells of charcoal and spicy meat from a barbecue arouse hunger to yawn and stretch in my stomach. All I’ve had tonight is soda. Lights illuminate Thom and Lorna’s trailer. Unfortunately, it looks like they are still up. If only I owned a watch.

  The cab drives away, and the neighbor’s music lulls between songs. I listen to the fading sound of rubber against asphalt. The seventies music returns, a song I’ve heard before, but don’t like. It makes me feel little.

  It’s mild for early spring. After the clamor from the benefit, the image of Hayden and Leah together, and the touches from Brody—I’m glad to be alone in the night. I don’t mind being outside in only an evening gown, an evening gown I don’t even own.

  The stars watch me. They show as little emotion as Hayden: untouched by my struggle, unfazed by my dilemma. It’s too much to go back and work for Brody. I haven’t thought of the man with empty eyes since right after…it happened. And tonight, I expected those eyes. I assumed I would see them. What does it mean about a person’s mind, a person’s soul—when you can look inside and see nothing?

  I need my flute, to hear the song my father taught me, to feel the music flow out of me again. I can’t be empty like this.

  I sneak to the side of our trailer. The dress slips easily over my head, and I stand in my lingerie, topless. The air is colder now, maybe because my adrenaline ceased. I lift the lid on the plastic box that holds the garden hose and delicately place the folded satin inside. No one will look for this hose for months and everything inside seems dry. I turn away from the trailer and look back at the stars. Feather light touches of goose pimples tiptoe across my naked skin.

  “Do you care now?”<
br />
  The stars don’t answer me.

  I hear a dish against the sink, behind the trailer wall. Reluctantly I slip into the clothes I left the house wearing. I’ll have to call Sir Car Wash in the morning. I can tell Cal I started my period yesterday at my lunch break. That should embarrass my sleazy ex-manager enough to avoid any other questions. He’ll accept me back.

  Thom is gone, and Lorna stands at the sink drying a dish with a bleach-spotted, pink dishtowel. She glances up, but does not speak. My stomach growls. There could be leftovers, but sometimes Lorna takes those to work. Cheez-It crackers are safer. I grab a box, open it and take a handful. I won’t bother with a bowl, since Lorna obviously just cleaned the last one.

  They taste like a feast. I try not to shove them all in at once. I take another handful, planning to finish in my room. As I start to slide the box back into the shelf, it’s snatched from my fingers.

  “Are you done?”

  I have a mouth full of dry crumbs, so I just nod. Lorna takes the bag from inside the box and holds it upside down over the sink. Orange squares tumble to their death. She flicks the faucet up and turns on the disposal.

  I try to swallow but my throat won’t obey. I’m Rapunzel, trapped in the tower of my body. Have I eaten the witch’s radishes?

  She turns her head slowly, her body still facing the sink. Her voice is low, warning.

  “You didn’t wash your hands.”

  I leave quickly, pleading the fifth.

  After I close and lock my bedroom door, I press my back to it and slide down until my seat meets the floor.

  I’ll see Brody on Monday. I’ll dance again.

  Chapter 10

  “Just bring the girls whatever they want.”

  The brown, cork-lined tray wobbles in my hands as I take it from Brody. He smiles at me, waiting for an answer.

  “Just shots? drinks?” I reposition the empty shot glasses to balance the tray.

  “Yup.” He leans over so I can hear him above the music. I wait for Brody to look down at the tiny outfit I’m wearing, shiny red boy-shorts and a little scarf held up by strings. But he doesn’t. He only looks at my face.