“Anything else, Nevada?”
“Hold on. Don’t hang up…”
Her voice faded. I heard faint sounds in the background of the line. She was quickly up and walking across the linoleum in her kitchen. Barefoot, her footfalls a soft slap to my face. Then the thick carpet of the living room swallowed the noise of her steps. She rushed past the television, what sounded like a cooking show playing, and moved down the hall and stopped at the second door on the left. The Serenity Prayer, set in a gold-painted wood frame covered in layers of dust, hung on two nails embedded in the wall between the bathroom and bedroom. It took two nails to hold it straight. I’d put it up. ‘Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace’ went one of the lines. I don’t think Nevada or I ever fully understood the words. We’d certainly lived our lives as though we hadn’t.
The faint sounds weren’t so faint anymore. They moved me from my thoughts as they grew louder and stronger in my ear. Nevada’s measured breathing was a tidal wave of sound. It took me a moment to realize what was happening. Once I did, my posture changed. After a moment she came back on the line.
“That was worth the call,” I said. “Nerves getting the best of you? Or is it guilt?”
“You’re the worst of the worse, Shell,” she managed.
Then she resumed anchor there in the bathroom, kneeling by the toilet, her eyes closed, retching every so often. I know this with certainty, even though I wasn’t there with her. “The worst of the worse,” she repeated in a whisper a beat later.
“Thanks.”
“I’d curse you but that would demean me. I’ve demeaned myself enough.”
“Demeaned yourself enough? You think?”
Her vomiting intensified even more. I should’ve disconnected the call. But I didn’t. I held on and listened.
After awhile Nevada said, “I have to go, Shell.”
“Pity,” I said with some bite, embarrassed that I hadn’t ended the call myself.
“May first is in four days,” she reminded me.
“I’ve heard Miami is beautiful in May,” I said. “I plan to see for myself.”
Moisture found her gray eyes. I know this with certainty.
“Shell?”
“Yeah?”
“I do my best to focus on that day.”
“Day?”
“Farmer’s Market,” she said. “Then the park. What did you say? My relationship with Daniel was oppressive. I just knew you’d be my hero. That you’d save me from that.”
I didn’t respond, couldn’t.
“I’ve loved you despite your faults, with all my might. And I know you’ve done the same with me. The Daniel situation was beyond messy. But despite my role in that you were there for me. You were my hero. You did save me. I just want to thank you.”
Those words surprised me. I felt something shake loose inside me.
Felt weakness working into my legs.
I gripped the railing on the balcony, steeled myself.
“Love don’t last always,” I said, spinning the lyrics from a Sam Cooke song on their head.
“You can be so cruel.”
“Best compliment you’ve ever given me.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing. The mistake you’re making. You think you have something in Miami, but everything is here. Right here.” She was crying softly then. I know this with certainty.
Something tickled my throat. I wouldn’t let it conquer me.
“New Jersey?” I said, laughing. “I’ll take my chances with Miami.”
“I’ve been there for you, Shell. When the work got to be too much, too dark. When you didn’t know what was happening to your mind, started playing amateur psychologist. Borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, every day you had a new diagnosis for yourself.” She paused, sighed. “I was the rebound from Taj and yet I never once complained. Never gave up on you. Through your nightmares about JW and Veronica and Ericka. The nights you had trouble sleeping. After you took care of Daniel and grew even darker. I was there.”
We’d started out as one another’s plaything. Then Daniel discovered her duplicity and everything came to a head. She had been frightened and bullied for so long it was easier to give in to his demands. I would not let her. I took care of Daniel and offered her a part of me very few ever were afforded the opportunity to see. I’d let her in. In my head. In my heart. Something I rarely did. Clearly a mistake.
“I was there,” she repeated, firmer.
“You were,” I acknowledged. “I consider that my deal with the devil. The interest he charges is criminal.”
“Forget I called,” she said.
“I did about ten minutes ago, Nevada.”
She clicked off her line so quietly I didn’t immediately realize we were disconnected. I flipped my cell phone closed. Rubbed my temples again, almost reconsidered a bargain with the stars in the sky above me. I stood like that for some time. Cell phone clasped in my fist, looking over the balcony at all of Miami moving full-bore ahead without me. My feet were in cement. I couldn’t move. Hadn’t for a while. The seams of my relationship with Nevada had unraveled more than a year earlier. Still, it kicked at my conscience, affected me in ways I couldn’t reconcile. Not a feeling I wanted to continue.
“There you are,” I heard, from over my shoulder, almost an hour later.
The naked woman from my bed, with brown skin tinted red by Cherokee blood. She was gorgeous by any measure. She wore only a Kenneth Cole gingham dress shirt, mine, none of the buttons done. Her full breasts and bikini wax were on full display. I noticed the hearts-and-vines tattoo that encircled her navel. The sight of it made me lick my lips. No matter how I tried to spin it, though, she was forbidden. She didn’t belong in my bed. And yet, here she was, near to naked, on a hotel balcony with me in exotic Miami of all places. Her presence represented another massive failing on my part. They seemed to pile up like fallen domino pieces. And I somehow always managed to disassociate myself from them rather easily. But this latest failing was one I’d wrestle with in my dreams for a long time. The naked woman with the hearts-and-vines tattoo.
Another situation.
“You coming back inside?” she asked me. “I’m lonely in that big bed all by myself.”
“You comfortable with this? Because I’m not.”
She stepped out on the balcony, stopped a few feet from me.
“Been talking to Nevada again? You really need to stop that. She’s like your Pope, I swear. You talk like you have a mouth full of communion wafers every time you get off the phone with her.”
“Don’t make fun,” I said. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Me more than you,” she said. “I have more to lose.”
“Nevada mentioned May first.”
She nodded. “She would.”
“The day has been on my mind,” I admitted.
“Allow me to ease your mind.”
“You’re so disconnected,” I said, frowning.
A sad smile. “Learned that from you.”
“I’m not proud of that.”
“It is what it is, Shell.”
“What are we doing?”
“Whatever you want,” she said.
I looked at her, full breasts and lovely bikini wax.
Lovely.
I sighed in defeat. The art of disconnecting in full swing.
“I’m about to be your Pope,” I said.
“Gonna lay hands on me? Anoint me with oil?” Her smile made my stomach drop.
I gritted my jaw, relaxed the fist from around my cell phone, moved toward her.
THREE
I DIDN’T DREAM ABOUT Nevada anymore. Ever.
But I did that night. The dream so vivid it startled me awake.
The naked woman with the hearts-and-vines tattoo was sprawled next to me, asleep and breathing smoothly again. Satiated by sex. I stretched, focused my eyes, considered my dream. In it, I’d been sitting on the roof of some building, back in
New Jersey. A building of which I can’t claim any familiarity. Well over twenty stories high. It belonged on W. 97th Street in Manhattan, not on a quiet residential street in Jersey. I was reclined in a lawn chair on the building’s roof, looking at the sky without a care, smoking a Newport. Something I wouldn’t do. I’m not one for coating my lungs with tar. I don’t run over two miles most days to erase that work with cigarettes. I was also taking careful sips of a Long Island Iced Tea between puffs of my nicotine. Something I used to do, but didn’t anymore. Alcohol always brought out the worst in me. Then the OneRepublic ringtone chimed, and Nevada’s name lit the digital screen of my phone. I answered without answering. It took her a moment to realize the line was connected. She’d sighed and told me she’d gotten her license. I wasn’t feeling charitable. Never with her. My reply had sharp teeth. She’d already had her license. Why must she call me? Her response was swift and as unexpected as her gray eyes: not her driver’s license, but a license to fly helicopters. She told me about flying a chopper naked, then strapping on a parachute and falling to the ocean. Disengaging herself from the parachute, taking a nature’s bath. Letting the water soak her long hair. Lifting her breasts to cleanse their undersides with salt water. I hated her for that lasting image. The sudden erection growing in my pants didn’t douse my ire in the least bit. She then clicked off without a further word.
I frowned and pulled on the Newport, swallowed some Long Island Iced Tea—calm on a strange building’s roof. Then, right before my eyes, just across the highway, a large building, similar to the one I was on, sprouted toward the sky. It grew like a weed cracking through concrete. Only in a dream would this not cause me pause. And it didn’t. Lit Newport. Long Island Iced Tea. I didn’t have a worry in the world. Behind me, a helicopter made its way from the distance.
I turned and watched the helicopter charter a course. It blades left swirls of white trail in the sky as it whop-whop-whopped on its way. I watched it until it passed me to the right. Watched it tread the sky, too low. Much too low. And sure enough, I watched it turn into a fireworks display as it clipped the building across the highway. I considered dialing 911. I considered taking the steps down and rushing over to check for unlikely survivors. Instead, I took a puff of my Newport, another sip of my Long Island Iced Tea.
And I wondered.
And I hoped.
I wondered if Nevada were piloting the helicopter with her new license.
And I hoped she was.
EARLY IN THE MORNING after that dream my cell phone rang incessantly. At least six times before 6 A.M. Restricted, each call. I solve most problems logically. Like an algorithm. So I laid out all the details I knew. Early morning calls. Several of them. All blocked. I wasn’t particularly close to anyone. My Network had been disbanded after the deaths of Veronica and Ericka and I wasn’t interested in work anyway so it couldn’t be about business. I decided not to answer, believing it to be Nevada. It wasn’t that I was avoiding a possible confrontation. I could have cared less about that. Some would even say I warmed to disagreements. No, I didn’t answer the calls because they’d disturb my morning routine. And I didn’t care to deviate from it.
It was a simple routine. I always made sure I was up by 5 A.M. Ice cold shower to wake up each and every one of my muscles. I took breakfast right after. Usually something light on my stomach. A couple slices of wheat toast. A small bowl of strawberries or mandarin oranges, maybe some wedges of apple. After breakfast, I would immediately start a two-and-a-half mile run at medium pace. Years ago the run was a direct artery to the weight room. But I’d since given up on the dumbbell presses and preacher curls that were once religion for me. Instead, I used my own body weight to chisel muscle. Push-ups, pull-ups, crunches. Those were my preferences. I completed two hundred and fifty of each every morning. That left my muscles with a burn that settled deep in the tissue. All of this accomplished before 7 A.M. or I started to feel like a slacker.
By 6:56 A.M., the morning after my dream, my routine was completed.
I’d worked out on the beach by my hotel. I did push-ups and crunches in the already warm sand. I did the same for my run, along the lip of the water where the sand was cool and packed tight. I wasn’t able to do pull-ups so I added an extra fifty reps to the push-ups and crunches. A major concession, but I allowed myself the latitude to make up for the pull-ups the next day. It was a good workout regardless. I was pleased with it.
I was making my way back to my hotel, along the quiet beach, just a spattering of sunbathers, when my phone rang again. Another Restricted call. I decided to answer this one. Nevada was persistent.
“Dashiell?” An unfamiliar woman’s voice greeted me.
“Shell,” I corrected.
“Shell,” she said. “Thank God I finally got you.”
Her voice was scratchy. Tone was nasally. Allergies, I suspected.
“Okay,” I said. “And I got you, whoever you are.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is Siobhan.”
Siobhan. That didn’t ring a bell. I strained to draw a connection.
Siobhan. Shi-VAWN. Irish name.
Something finally sparked. My mind zeroed in on an image.
A redhead, about five-seven, favored heels that made her closer to six feet.
Breasts too impossibly large and perfect to even pretend they were real.
One of the many women I’d bedded to numb the pain of…
A spray of freckles in her cleavage and the inside of her thighs but nowhere else.
I recalled her in the dim light of a lounge somewhere. Music a jazz purist would scoff at was playing softly. Her laugh was infectious. High watt smile. She smelled great. A lavender scent. Cosmopolitans were her drink of choice. She had downed so many I wondered later if I had gotten her in bed or if the alcohol had. After some vacillating, I decided that I deserved the credit.
“I’ve missed you,” I said.
“Missed me?”
“We had quite a bit of fun as I recall,” I said. “Your stamina was impressive.”
“Excuse me?”
“What was the name of the lounge? I can’t remember.”
“I think you—”
“Can’t even recall what city,” I said. “Memphis, Atlanta…Houston.”
“Dashiell?”
“Shell,” I corrected once more. “I must’ve had quite a bit to drink if you know the name Dashiell. Still, I wasn’t too inebriated to remember our good time. You were more flexible than most, as I remember it.”
“I think you—”
“Can’t remember where we were,” I said. “But I can still taste you.”
“Taste me? Are you serious? You think I’m one of your women?” she asked, a disgusted tone in her voice.
“Aren’t you?”
“God no,” she said. Her sniffles grew, allergies really causing her havoc.
I switched the phone to my left ear. “Who are you then?”
Sniffles; no reply.
“Siobhan?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Who are you?”
There was another long pause. Then she said, “Nevada’s friend. She never mentioned me?”
That set my gut on fire. “I have to go,” I said. “Sorry I can’t say it was nice talking to you.”
“Wait,” she said. “Please.”
“I don’t think we have anything to speak on,” I said. “Particularly if you’re a friend of Nevada’s.”
“Wow,” she said. “You are harsh.”
“Goodbye, Siobhan.”
“Please…”
I sighed. Thought of the redhead from the lounge.
Sarai. That’s what her name was.
Not Siobhan.
“Please,” she said again.
“Do you have freckles on the inside of your thighs?” I asked. “Could I bounce a quarter off your ass?”
“Say…what?”
“Simple enough questions,” I said.
“I’m not answer
ing them.”
“How about freckles in your cleavage?” I said. “And are your breasts large?”
“You’ve lost your mind,” she said.
“Answer the questions,” I said.
“No. No way.”
“Then goodbye, Siobhan.”
“How can you be like this under these circumstances?”
“I don’t know you,” I said. “And you’ve been blowing my phone up all morning. I shouldn’t be surprised. This is just like some of Nevada’s bullshit. You are definitely her friend.”
Quiet.
A long and uncomfortable stretch. I had no desire to break through the wall of silence. But I’d give Siobhan a moment to make me reconsider our conversation. Just one moment.
“You don’t know,” she whispered.
I was a second away from disconnecting the call.
One second.
“Don’t know what,” I said.
There was a ruffling sound from her line; then the sniffles again, but more pronounced.
I realized it wasn’t sniffles from allergies. She was crying. Nevada’s friend. A woman I’d never spoken to before. One I didn’t even know about. Crying so deeply.
I stopped walking immediately and sat down hard on my ass, right there in the sand.
My heart rate ratcheted up to the level it had reached during my run.
“Don’t know what?” I repeated.
“Oh God, Shell,” she said. “This can’t be happening.”
My eyes were narrowed. My mouth as dry as C-Span. “Tell me,” I said.
She told me.
FOUR
FULL DISCLOSURE: SOME OF this is fashioned together by what Siobhan was able to tell me and by what I learned from reading online newspaper accounts, but the vast majority of it is my vivid imagination.
NEVADA PULLED INTO THE budget motel complex at an unreasonable hour in the morning. A new day’s light would color the sky in about three hours. Her tires spewed rocks as she drove over rough gravel. The gravel was the highlight of the complex. No greenery to speak of except for the overgrown grass along the fence line of the property. Crumpled napkins, foam coffee cups, used condoms, wine and beer bottles swathed in brown paper bags, that and other detritus trapped in those blades of browning grass. An overflowing Dumpster planted in the middle of all that chaos. The sign at the front of the complex didn’t make it clear, most of its letters were blown out, but the motel went by the unlikely name of The Gables. How the property owners came upon that name was a mystery Nevada didn’t care to try and solve. There was nothing architecturally distinguishing in the motel’s design. No pitched roofs, no triangular touches anywhere. It was just a grouping of four nondescript and connected two-story buildings. Rusted exterior stairways led to the second level. Stucco siding that was once white had turned the color of a heavy smoker’s ceiling. The outdoor swimming pool had a cover of leaves and other debris floating across its surface. An encyclopedic shithole from A to Z. There was no other acceptable way Nevada could describe it.
Triage: A Thriller (Shell Series) Page 4
