“Are you going to finish that?” he asked her, gazing hungrily at the nearly full cup.
“Knock yourself out.”
He was not disappointed. Bella’s soup was hearty and flavorful. “We’ll never know the whole truth, will we?” he asked, slurping up every last drop.
“We never do,” she said. “Not about anyone or anything. The best we can ever do is guess. My guess? Les and Jory were each conning the other. On top of which she was conning Jase.”
“At least Les and Jory ended up paying for it. They got punished for what they did to Norma, not to mention Jase.”
Des looked at him curiously. “Jase was in on it, Mitch. He murdered three people in cold blood—and put me in this bed.”
“All true. But I still have to cut him some slack. He was trusting and vulnerable and Jory took full advantage of him. Believe me, I’m genuinely repulsed by the intimate details of their relationship. But Jory’s love was the only anchor Jase had. She threatened to take it away from him. That was more than he could handle, and Jory knew it. I put this all on her. She was greedy. She was ruthless. And, considering how easily Les duped her into killing Norma, she was also incredibly stupid.”
“She believed in the dream. Not that I’m defending the sick bitch. I’m just saying it, is all.”
“Which dream is that?”
“The one where we all live happily ever after. She deserved to be happy. That’s what she told me.”
“She deserved to die a horrible death,” Mitch argued vehemently. He was still profoundly shaken by Jase’s taking of his own life in that rail barn. He’d felt Jase’s anguish in those final few moments before Jase pulled the trigger. Gazed right into his eyes as Jase chose death over life. And Mitch could not stop thinking about it. He kept feeling as if something truly momentous had happened to him in Choo-Choo Cholly’s house.
In the weeks and months ahead, it would finally dawn on him what that something was: He had survived.
“Could you have done it?” Des lay there limply, her eyes searching his face. “Could you have shot Jase?”
“I honestly don’t know. I’m just grateful that I didn’t have to find out.”
“So am I. If you’d killed him, you wouldn’t be the same person anymore. Killing changes you. It changes everything.”
“How?”
“I hope you never find out how,” she said heavily. “What are you doing with yourself? When you’re not fussing over me, I mean.”
“Working on a piece about Ada.”
“How about that book you’ve been trying to write?”
“You mean my major treatise on Hollywood and the unbearable lightness of contemporary being? Actually, I was giving that a lot of thought last night while I was sitting here in this chair. You may have noticed that I’ve been—how shall I say?—having a little trouble getting started on it.”
“I may have.”
“I think I’ve figured out why. See, what I’ve been trying to do is tell people what’s wrong with American culture, when what I should be doing is simply letting the story of Jory Hearn tell itself.”
“Okay, you’d better trot that one by me again.”
“You just said it yourself, Des. All of this happened because she believed in the dream. She was searching for that fairy-tale happy ending, the one that Hollywood keeps telling us will eventually come our way. All we have to do is believe. Well, Jory did believe. She thought she was going to marry Prince Charming and live happily ever after.”
“Les was no Prince Charming. Les was the frog. And all of that’s nothing but childish nonsense.”
“Which is exactly the point that Ada was making at dinner before the lights went out and people started dying one by one. Hollywood keeps treating us like little children. That’s how they rake in the big bucks—by encouraging us to choose storybook fantasy over adult reality. And we’re only too happy to comply, because life is just so much easier that way. It’s easier to believe in miracle-diet cures than it is to exercise every day and eat right. It’s easier to believe you’ll win the Powerball Lottery than it is to work hard for a living and pay your bills on time. It’s easier to dream about some fairy-tale romance than it is to apply yourself to a real relationship based on commitment and support and trust. And so we believe. That way, we’re off the hook. We never have to take any responsibility for our own lives. And this is not a healthy thing. This is how we end up with a flesh-eating mutant like Jory Hearn. Don’t misunderstand me, Jory was a genuinely evil, screwed-up person. And I’m not blaming the movies for what she did. Movies are my life. I love them. I need them. We all do. They comfort us when we need comforting. But take a good hard look at her, Des. Look at all of those people who died because she believed. And tell me that something isn’t terribly wrong somewhere.” He trailed off now, clearing his throat. “Speaking of which, Bella seems to think there’s something wrong between us.”
Des raised her chin at him, nostrils flaring. Here it was in full force—her Wary, Scary Look. “Which us would you be talking about?”
“You and me us,” Mitch replied, swallowing. “She even threatened to break my arm. She’s genuinely pissed at me.”
“Does she have any reason to be?”
“Not that I’m aware of, no.”
“I see …” Des stared and stared at him. “Well, is there?”
Mitch swallowed again, with great difficulty. “Is there wuh-what, Des?”
“Something wrong between us.”
“Actually, there has been something on my mind these past few weeks. I’ve been trying to find the right moment to talk to you about it, because these words are not exactly easy for muh-me to say out loud. Maybe you’ve … I don’t know … sensed something.”
Des said not one word. Just continued to stare and stare at him.
Mitch plowed ahead, his heart pounding. “But after everything that’s happened over the past couple of days, things have really crystallized in my mind. And so—”
“And so you want to lay it all on me now? While I’m lying here drugged and immobilized with tubes stuck in me?”
“Well, yeah. Unless, are you reasonably coherent right now?”
“Oh, I’m plenty coherent. I can’t tell you how reasonable I am.”
“You know what? You’re right. Maybe we should have this talk another time.”
“Like hell we will!” Des erupted. Her chest had begun to rise and fall, as if she was having trouble breathing. On her face was a look of total panic, just as there had been when they were in bed together at Astrid’s during the blackout.
“Des, are you okay? Want me to call the doctor?”
“No, I want you to … get this … over with! I have had it up to here with you and your Big Fat Nothing Gulps!”
“My Big Fat Nothing whats?”
“Just say what you … have to say,” she gasped, breathing harder and harder. “Say it and then get the … hell out of my room!”
“Fair enough. Des, I think something is missing in our relationship.”
“Missing,” she repeated, her voice filling with dread.
“From where I sit, we need to do something pretty radical about it. You may not like this. In fact, I’m pretty positive you won’t. But I think it’ll be the best thing for both of us in the long run, even though it means we’ll—”
“Mitch, I swear if you don’t spit this out I am going to take my external titanium whatever it is and break it over your fool—”
“I want to get married.”
She absolutely froze, her eyes widening in total shock. Clearly, this was not what she’d been expecting. Although what she had been expecting, Mitch could not fathom. And he for sure couldn’t imagine what she’d do next.
She breathed in. She breathed out. She breathed in. Out. And then Des Mitry proceeded to let loose with the single loudest hiccup that Mitch had ever witnessed. His ears popped. Medical charts flew. Furniture slammed into walls. Well, not really, but it was monumental.
She immediately clapped her left hand over her mouth, mortified beyond belief. “I haven’t done that since high school. It won’t happen again, I swear. I … I don’t know why I … Please, excuse me.”
“It’s quite all right,” Mitch assured her, floored. “Only, I don’t speak the language. Did that mean yes or did it mean no?”
For a long moment, Des didn’t answer him. When at last she did, she said, “Mitch, I thought we weren’t going to do this.” Her voice was soft and low. “We made a pact, you and I. That very first night in your living room, after you flicked off the lights. We sealed it with a kiss, remember?”
“I do.” Mitch grinned at her. “I also remember that’s not all we sealed it with.”
“Don’t you dare get all adorable on me right now. You made me a promise, sir. No dwelling on the meaning of us, or the future of us, or if there even is an us. Now did you or did you not promise me that?”
“I absolutely did. And I’m breaking my promise. And I’m sorry. No, actually, I’m not sorry at all. Because I love you, and that’s not something I ever want to feel sorry about. But what we have together just isn’t enough for me anymore. This is not a real complicated deal, Des. Either we love each other or we don’t. We’re both grown-ups. We’ve both been here before.”
“Um, okay, teensy-weensy difference,” she pointed out. “You had a good marriage. I didn’t.”
“That’s the past, Des. That’s Brandon. I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about us. I need more. I want more. The question is, what do you want?”
In response, Des Mitry stared at Mitch intently for a long, long time. Then she turned her head and gazed out the window at the winter sky. She didn’t tell him what she wanted. She didn’t say anything at all.
After that, there was only silence.
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
The Burnt Orange Sunrise Page 31
