by Theresa Weir
She turned around, grabbed the edges of the tub, and sat down, resting her shoulders against the curved back of the tub. The porcelain was cold against her skin. Under normal conditions, such a chill would have shot her back to her feet. Today it felt good.
She lay there with her eyes closed, the water from the shower hitting her full in the face, full in a forehead that had to have steam rising from it.
That was fun for a little while.
Using her big toe, she turned off the showerhead, slid the metal drain lever to the right, leaned back, and waited for the tub to fill. While she waited, she found her green mesh scrubby thing, squirted some peach-smelling soap on it, then began to drag in across her body. She paused over her breast.
Was that a whisker burn?
No, couldn't be.
But she’d had a whisker burn before, and it certainly looked like a whisker bum. She gradually became aware of other sensations in other areas of her body, sensations that the agony of her hangover had completely overshadowed. Both of her nipples were a little sore. And between her thighs there was a tenderness, a sweet reminder of something she couldn't remember.
Oh Lord.
She thought back to last night, remembering Dylan in the sauna with her, drinking the elderberry wine. She even vaguely recalled running outside and rolling around in the snow. But after that…
Total blackout. Wasn't that what it was called? When alcoholics lost hours of their lives? But she wasn't an alcoholic.
Dylan. Where was Dylan? If they'd made love, he could have at least hung around. She'd awakened by herself. Had he slept in her bed at all?
The tub was getting too full. She brought up her toe and shut off the water.
Why now? If they'd done it, why now?
The voodoo doll.
She put a hand to her mouth. Oh, my God. It couldn't be… And yet, the first time she'd stuck a pin in the doll's head Dylan had wrecked her Jeep and gotten a concussion.
She sat there until the water turned cold. Then, still moving with extreme care, she let the water out of the tub, dried off, put on her robe, and went to the kitchen to find some aspirin.
She’d just swallowed two tablets when Dylan showed up.
“How are you feeling?”
She choked down a third chalky pill and turned around.
He stood with his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, one shoulder against the doorframe.
Her hand shook as she put down the glass on the counter. “Bad.”
This was so awkward. He stayed where he was, keeping what seemed to her a wary distance. She pushed a lock of wet hair back from her face. If last night had been anything special to him, he wouldn't be hanging back like that. He'd come up to her, pull her into his arms, kiss her. Once again she thought about the fact that he hadn't slept with her.
Had it been so awful? Anton's words came back to haunt her. You were never anything special. Just another lay.
“Weren't you going to call your agent today?”
She'd completely forgotten about the contract with Cardcity. She put a hand to her head.
“When you're ready to go, I'll drive you to town. You don't look like you're in any shape to go by yourself.”
“Thanks.”
She had to get away, had to be by herself to sort things out. “I've got to go lie down for a while.” She floated past him, not looking to the left or right, just intent on getting to her bedroom.
~0~
Did she even remember what had happened last night? Dylan wondered as he watched her disappear into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. She'd really been out of it. Or did she want to forget what had happened? It was entirely possible she was ashamed and embarrassed and wanted to forget the entire episode.
Easy for her.
It was all he could think about. He’d spent the rest of last night checking on her every few minutes, making sure she was okay. When morning came and she’d begun to stir, he’d disappeared, figuring it was a good time to chop wood. Lots of wood. But when he’d come back in to see her standing there in the kitchen, looking pale and small and confused, he’d wanted to go to her. He’d wanted to hold her, kiss her. Maybe even make love again, this time with her completely sober. He’d waited for some tiny sign, some infinitesimal hint that she remembered and that she didn’t regret what had happened. But it had never come. And now he was going to have to spend the next several hours in close quarters with her. It was going to be tough.
Dylan insisted upon taking his car to Fallon, and Claire felt too horrible to argue. In fact, she felt too horrible to do much analyzing or putting of thoughts into words in order to fill the silence that followed them from her house to town.
The sun was too bright, reflecting off the snow, drilling a hole in her retina that went all the way to her brain. And his car was noisy, the way older cars were, and it smelled as if the previous owner had had a fondness for cigars.
“Here. Try these.” Dylan took off his sunglasses and tried to hand them to her.
She shook her head. “No thanks.”
“Go on. You need them more than I do.”
She couldn’t argue with that. She took them and slipped them on. Ahhh.
“Better?”
“Much.”
Dylan turned into the 7-Eleven parking lot, pulling to a stop a few yards from the pay phone.
~0~
Claire stepped into the booth and closed the door, all the while aware of Dylan watching from his car. She dug out her phone card along with her agent’s number and put the call through. It rang twice before she pushed the metal receiver down.
She couldn’t go through with this. Who was she trying to kid? She was calling from a phone booth, for chrissake. She was a nobody from nowhere. She'd never finished college. She was a failure at everything. Sure, maybe they liked the work she’d sent them, but the pictures were a fluke. Luck. She couldn’t do it again. She couldn't keep up the quality. And even if she could, maybe the person who made the decision to buy was some goofball. Somebody who didn't know the market. Somebody who didn’t know the difference between good and bad.
How awful to have her art shipped to every card store in the country, only to have people hate it, or worse yet, be indifferent. She was setting herself up for public ridicule.
She tried to visualize the sketches she'd sent them. In her mind she pictured a bunch of crude stick figures. There was the little stick froggie; the little stick turtle with his round head and dot eyes; the stick grasshopper.
Something was wrong. A terrible mistake had been made. A mistake she could fix. All she had to do was say one word: No.
The accordion door opened. Dylan squeezed himself inside, shutting the door behind him so they were smashed into the cramped glass booth. “Something wrong?” he asked.
She hung up the receiver and continued to stare at it. “I can’t do it.”
“Here.” He reached for the phone. “I'll dial for you.”
She put a hand to his arm. “No, I mean”— this time she looked up at him through the dark sunglasses, giving added emphasis to her words—“I can’t do it.”
He stared at her, comprehension seeping into his features.
“I can't go through with it.”
“Claire, don’t do this to yourself.”
She shook her head. “There’s been some horrible mistake.”
He picked up the receiver and tucked it under his chin. He dialed the phone card number. “What’s the PIN?”
She told him.
Then he dialed her agent’s number and waited.
“Claire Maxfield here to speak to John”—he lifted the paper—“Carpenter.”
He handed the phone to Claire. “Tell him yes. That's all you have to do. Just tell him yes.”
“John?” she said when she heard her agent's voice.
“Don't pass this up,” Dylan whispered. “Don't do that to yourself.”
Claire gripped the receiver with both hands, keeping he
r eyes on Dylan. “I've decided to accept Cardcity's offer.”
John said something about not accepting so easily, something about letting them stew a little to see if they would come up with something better.
“No.” She put trembling fingers to her sizzling forehead. “I want to accept their first offer.”
“Are you sure?” From the tone of his voice, she could see he didn't think it was a good idea.
“I’m sure.”
“Okay. You should see a contract in about a month. Oh, and Claire? Why don't you celebrate by getting yourself a telephone?”
She was thinking something along the lines of don't count your chickens before they hatch when she told him good-bye and hung up.
Dylan didn't move. She couldn't open the door, couldn't get out, until he moved.
“It'll be okay,” he told her.
“For years I've been told that my work stinks. How can the same stuff be bad one minute and good the next?”
“Maybe things aren't supposed to be easy. When things are too easy, we lose touch with what we feel passionate about. But when you have to fight for it, stand up for it, well, that would have to be a damn good feeling when you finally win. Where's the satisfaction in an easy win? Where’s the life in an easy win?”
She understood what he was saying, yet his words didn't make her feel any more confident. Deep down she knew it wasn't just her art that was bothering her. For the moment, it had taken a backseat to what had happened between her and Dylan.
She couldn't keep quiet any longer. “We made love last night, didn't we?” She hadn’t intended for the tone of her words to hold such accusation.
He cupped her face in both of his hands, a tender gesture. “I'm sorry, Claire.”
She pulled away from his touch. “I'm so ashamed.” Not that it had happened. Oh no. But the way it had happened. “I feel so cheap. ”
“It was my fault.” His voice was suddenly distant. Almost as if he were trying to sort something out in his head.
Someone honked.
Claire looked up through blurry eyes and dark lenses to see Libby frantically waving from her car, all smiles.
Claire attempted a feeble smile in return and a limp wave.
Oh, no. Libby was getting out of her car. She was coming over. She would be full of questions, full of curiosity.
“It's Libby,” Claire said. “A friend of mine.”
Dylan opened the door and inched his way out, with Claire following. In the glaring sunlight, Libby all smiles, Claire mechanically made introductions.
“Tell Libby your big news,” Dylan said.
Al the spirit had gone out of her, and he felt as if it was his fault. He wanted to see Claire's face light up the way it had last night when she'd gotten the letter.
He didn't know much about women. Nothing, really. There had been Olivia, of course, but that was different, and it had been years and years ago, another lifetime. There had been women in his life, but no relationships, nothing that had cracked the surface, nothing that had meant anything. He'd spent a lot of time simply existing, years spent in isolation.
He didn't want to go back there.
He noticed that Claire was still trying to figure out what he was talking about.
“Big news?” She put her fingertips to her lips, lips that were slightly swollen from kisses that he now understood had been too rough. Several times on the ride to town, he'd looked over to see her gently touching her mouth, a perplexed expression on her face.
“About your pictures,” he said gently, coaxingly, part of his mind running on a totally different track, one he didn't want to be on.
He was going to have to leave. He'd known it before, but last night had made it a reality.
“You know the proposal I was telling you about?” Claire asked her friend. “I sold the idea to Cardcity.”
Libby stared at her, the words finally sinking in. Her eyes got big. Her mouth dropped open. She shrieked in much the same way Claire had shrieked last night. Had that only been last night?
Libby grabbed Claire's hands and began jumping up and down. Then she grabbed a bewildered Claire and hugged her tight. “I'm so happy for you! So happy!”
She pulled away, finally realizing that Claire wasn't sharing her enthusiasm. “What's wrong? Is something wrong? I thought this was good news.”
Claire gave her a weak, watery smile. “I'm having cold feet.”
“What you need to do is go home, take a nice hot bath, and then come over to my place for champagne. How does that sound?”
If possible, Claire turned even paler.
“Actually,” Dylan told Libby, “Claire hasn't been feeling very well today. I think she's going to go home and go to bed.”
Claire nodded. “I'm sorry, Libby.”
Libby pulled down Claire's glasses and got a good look at her bloodshot eyes. “Oh, my. I see you've been celebrating already.” She slipped the glasses back into place.
Claire glanced over at Dylan, then gave Libby a feeble smile. “I guess you could say that.”
Chapter 21
That evening, Dylan sat staring blankly at the TV, hopefully giving the impression that he was paying attention to what was occurring on the screen, when in fact he was basking in his own misery, telling himself how much Claire hated him, and how she had every right to hate him.
He suddenly realized he was watching a mindless sitcom. He pointed the remote at the TV, switching channels. National news. Did he really want to watch the news?
He was about to click again, when the lead-in got his attention. It was about his traveling companion of a few weeks ago.
“After living in seclusion for ten years, Daniel French came out of hiding and has once again turned the chess world upside down. Since his return, he’s been undefeated. He is now scheduled to play American champion Gregory Christianson. Does Daniel French still have what it takes? The world will be watching and waiting.”
Dylan sat there, stunned. That son of a bitch. That sneaky son of a bitch.
He clicked off the television, tossed down the remote control, then headed outside to chop more wood. At this rate, Claire would have enough fuel to last her the rest of her life.
The physical labor wasn't enough to keep Dylan’s mind stagnant, to keep it from wandering, first to Claire, then to his childhood ....
There had been times at the orphanage when Dylan thought about running away. School was a bitch. He found he couldn’t relate to Americans, even though he was one. How could he care about clothing styles and hairstyles, and cars and sports? At first his teachers decided he had a learning disability. Then a behavior disorder. Then they just plain kicked him out.
He was supposed to look for a job, but instead he started hanging around the strip where he discovered the mind-numbing combination of alcohol and dope. He never got into the heavy stuff. Maybe he would have if he hadn’t met Uriah.
Uriah was an artist. He created chalk murals on the sidewalk, a boom box beside him, blasting out Leonard Cohen. It was weird, but he almost always drew pictures of people playing chess. All kinds of people of all nationalities. If he wasn’t drawing people, then he was drawing chess pieces, beautiful, ornate masterpieces that should have been in a museum or something.
Uriah was obsessed with chess. He claimed it was an intellectual game that crossed all language barriers.
“Why the sidewalk?” Dylan asked the first time he saw him. “And why chalk? Why don’t you do a mural out of paint so it doesn’t go away?”
Uriah leaned back on his heels and shoved a strand of blond hair out of his face. “Do you know what the word ‘ephemeral’ means, kid?”
Dylan shrugged, hands in the front pockets of his jeans, his back to the barred windows of a pawnshop. “Gay or something?”
The guy spelled it out in green chalk. “Go look it up and come back tomorrow and tell me why I like to put my pictures down in chalk.”
“You’re full of shit.”
Dylan
had been hanging around the street long enough to know how to beat a person at his own game.
Chalk Man didn’t act like he even noticed. That night, Dylan looked up the word. The next day he was back in front of the pawnshop. The guy had his back to him, hunched over his picture, shading in a bright umbrella that loomed above the chessboard.
“It’s something that doesn't last.”
The guy never even turned around. He just kept dragging the chalk across the rough surface of the sidewalk.
“What's your own take on that?” the man finally asked.
Dylan had spent the last several months— hell, years—trying not to think. And here was a guy asking him to figure out why the hell he was drawing a beautiful picture on a sidewalk for people to walk on and spit on, and for the rain to finally wash away.
“It makes it something spiritual. Because real beauty is fleeting,” Dylan said.
The arm with the chalk slowed.
Dylan continued. "On a large scale, it could be like life itself. If you think about how old the universe is and all, then life itself could be ephemeral.”
The arm stopped altogether. Chalk Man turned around. And now Dylan could see he wasn't really much more than a kid. He didn't look like he could have been over twenty-five.
'"Have you eaten lately?” he asked.
~0~
Uriah was just smart as hell. Maybe one of the smartest people Dylan had ever met. That's why it took Dylan by surprise to find out he was homeless.
Uriah knew everything there was to know about everything. He taught Dylan how to stack a deck of cards, he taught him how to panhandle effectively, he taught him how to survive on the street.
And he taught him how to play chess.
It was a game that Dylan's father used to play. When Dylan was four, his dad had held him on his lap at the kitchen table and had shown him how the pieces were moved.
“He's too young for that,” his mother had said, smiling.
“Never too young to learn to play chess.”
Dylan had loved the horse—not the white horse, but the black one, the dark horse.
“It's a knight,” his father had corrected.
“But it’s a horse.”
