by Martin Clark
“I care a lot for you, Christy, probably too much, okay? That’s no secret. And I do regret my conduct at the mall. I’m sorry. I want the best for you, and I hope we can come out of this with a good long-term relationship. Maybe more than friends.” While he’d waited for her, Joel had rehearsed what he was going to say, had imagined Christy sitting in his rented car and practiced his apology aloud.
“Would you take me to the Virginia-Duke game in Charlottesville? I know a ton of people who’ll be tailgatin’, and my friend Michelle told me for sure Dave Matthews is going to be at Miller’s. How deluxe would that be? It’s not like, you know, announced, but it’s a very definite rumor.”
“When is the game?”
She pivoted and the light divided her face again. “September twenty-ninth. It’s a night game, too. We’d have a blast.” She looked directly at Joel for the first time since climbing into the car.
“It sounds fun, but I’ll be gone by then. I’ll be in Montana.”
“Could I come out there? I could fly to see you, like maybe for spring break.”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“Really?”
“We’ll see,” he said, not revealing much in his voice. “Who knows.”
“I probably could come before then, blow off class and—”
“But we need to settle everything else before we start discussing new plans.”
“Damn. So we’re back to the same old crap.” She crossed her legs and exhaled.
“Not exactly.”
“Are you taping me again?” she asked.
“No.” He elongated the reply.
“I want to see. Undo your shirt.”
“Let’s get out of the car, and I’ll be glad to show you.”
“I want to search you,” she said, suddenly flirtatious instead of sullen.
“I think I’d be more comfortable if you simply look.”
“Forget it then. What if you have a wire hidden underneath your pants?” She put her elbow on the console and hunched closer. “And I want to visit in my car, not yours. You could have this ugly-ass thing bugged. I’ve got some forties, too. In my cooler. You want to kill one with me?”
“Forties?”
“Big beers. And there’s some vodka left.”
“Oh, no. But thanks for the offer.”
She laughed and crinkled her nose. “So are you going to, like, let me investigate you and then chill in my car, or should I leave?”
“Let’s step outside and see what kind of compromise we can reach.” He opened the door and a buzzer sounded. He removed the ignition key to stay the noise but left the door swung away from the frame, the interior light burning. Christy walked behind the car and kept coming toward him without breaking her momentum, didn’t slow when she got nearer. He thought perhaps the drinking had affected her ability to judge distance and reinforced his shoulders and legs, anticipating a bump. She halted awkwardly, the last stride a childish hop, and planted herself right in front of him, so close that everything beneath her neck didn’t make it into his vision.
He retreated a step, then another. “Okay,” he said. “Stay there. Don’t move.” He unbuttoned his shirt, held it by the tail and spread it into two cloth wings, rotated in a circle. “See? No recorders.” He began fastening the shirt, got a button out of sequence, backtracked and started again. “And I give you my word there’s nothing concealed anywhere else.”
“I want to frisk you.” She made a show of shifting her weight so her knee bent and her hip jutted out. Her hands were stuck against her waist, her elbows angled and protruding, the pose reminiscent of B-movie vixens and railish magazine models. “That was the deal.”
“That was not the deal. There is no deal.”
“Then I’m gone.”
“Why do you want to complicate this for me?” he asked.
“Do I have ‘dope’ written across my forehead? You tried to trap me six hours ago and now it’s like trust me, I won’t come in your mouth? I don’t think so.”
Joel flinched, embarrassed at what he’d heard. “I’m giving you my word.”
“And we’ll both enjoy the experience.” She pronounced the final word with a lisp.
“No we won’t.” He glanced at the sky. A good portion of the moon was exposed, and stars were abundant. It was bright enough for him to distinguish the shape of a cloud immediately over them, a gauzy blemish that was easing across the heavens, scarcely moving.
“I’ll be real quick and promise not to hurt you.” She pressed closer, and Joel could smell alcohol inlaid with the sweetness of wintergreen mints.
“What if I do all the talking and you just listen? There’d be nothing for me to record.”
“Nope.”
A white Ford drove into the parking area and stopped next to the entrance of Mac and Maggie’s. A man left the car idling and tried the restaurant’s doors, discovered them locked for the night and departed the lot.
“Please don’t turn this into something inappropriate, Christy.”
She squatted slowly, all the while keeping her eyes fixed on Joel’s face. She touched his ankles, then ran her palms inside his pants along his calves and shins. When she slid her hands out, one of the trouser legs bunched above his sock, didn’t completely let down. She raised into a half crouch and felt the backs of his thighs, positioning her face directly in front of his crotch, so close that there was no space visible between her mouth and the fabric. Joel took hold of her arms, pushed her away. “Satisfied?” he said.
“I’m not through. We’re just gettin’ to the good part.” She stood upright, tugged free of Joel’s grip and launched a new adventure. Her hands started at his belly and probed erratically until they began to disappear beneath his belt line and fan across his abdomen. He clamped her wrists and removed her fingers from inside his britches, then gave her a stern, disapproving frown. “Enough,” he said.
She relaxed her arms, and Joel let her go. “You want to search me? What if I’m the one wearin’ something this time?”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Without any warning, she reached around him, wrapped her hands over his rear and shoved into him with her pelvis. She was slammed against him, her hands clasped and ringing his behind. They were coupled from knee to high stomach without any interruption. He acquiesced at first, and she tried to kiss him, canted her head and floated toward his mouth, her eyes not quite shut and her weight mostly on her toes. He allowed her to do it, let her touch his lips for a second before turning his cheek and wedging his arms between their chests and gently pushing her away.
“A little more,” she coaxed. “That was cool.”
Joel’s effort to distance himself was puny and incomplete—they remained snug at the belly, his forearm was sunk into the curve of her breast and he’d done nothing about her hands. “We can’t stand here carrying on in a public parking lot,” he said, the remark more elliptical than he’d intended. “Quit.” He stood perfectly still, realized he’d not been allowed the slightest taste of intimacy or affectionate flesh for months, felt her offer more of her breast into his arm. There was a sublime power in the way she mashed and leaned and made him aware of her breathing, a primal summons that caused his mind to riot, his physical senses to goad him.
“One good kiss, just one. We can do it in the car if you’re shy about being out here.”
“That’s not what I meant. This is wrong.” He sidestepped her and clutched the crook of her arm, managed to wrestle himself free and avoid his own base impulses. “Let’s finish our discussion—certainly it’s obvious I’m not taping you. And I’ll be glad to talk in your car.” He guided her forward, and she laid her head against his shoulder and mouthed something he couldn’t understand, a word or two barely above a whisper.
Inside Christy’s BMW, she took a beer from her cooler and stuffed it into a brown paper bag that failed to cover several inches of glass neck. She set the alcohol between her legs, and as she was screwing the top off
the oversize bottle, she asked Joel if he wanted a drink. He declined, and she never mentioned it again, didn’t nag him about it. “So what’s Montana like?” she asked.
“Nice. Beautiful, and very different from this part of the world.” She took a pull from the beer, and Joel changed the subject while the bottle was on her lips. “I know you don’t want to revisit the topic, but we need to talk about what’s happening tomorrow. I can promise you that the wise thing to do is walk away from this, just forget it. You’re an adult and you can call the shots. Tell your lawyer you want to terminate the suit, ask the Lord for forgiveness and leave with a clear conscience. Integrity and getting square with God are worth more than any amount of money.”
“Maybe. But I’d be a retard to go through all this shit and stress for nothing. This has been extremely daunting. It would be like workin’ at my horrible job in retail and then not pickin’ up my check on Friday.” The bag made a rustling, crackling noise when she jammed the bottle between her thighs.
“It’s poisonous money, Christy. Cursed. You won’t enjoy it, won’t profit from it. Sin never, ever works out in the long run. You can’t find happiness by lying and cheating.”
“How do you figure I’m doing some gigantic sin? It’s not like I’m stealing from grandmas or murderin’ people.”
“Christy, listen—”
“Let’s go to the lake, like you promised,” she interrupted. “It’s still warm enough to swim, even after dark. We can stay up all night and burn a joint. Sleep on Celeste’s dock till we have to meet the lawyers.”
“How about this? How about you agree to a fair settlement? What about that? My wrongs where you’re concerned are worth how much? Five thousand dollars? Ten? Heck, ask for twenty and leave knowing you haven’t sold your honor.”
“Shit, Joel. Right. And I do all this and come away with, like, a Yugo and an ensemble from Fashion Bug?” She snorted. “Why would I take twenty thousand dollars when I can just as easily get millions?” She reached for the switch, took hold of the key and prepared to start the engine.
“Whoa. Wait a minute. What’re you doing?”
“Traveling. We can’t have a proper party here.” The words were a little thick, a little too wet.
“Okay, listen. Don’t go anywhere yet.” He put his hand on her wrist, just laid it across her, didn’t squeeze or grab or try to pry her from the key. “Here’s another proposal, one I suspect you’ll like much more.”
“Talk talk talk talk—I’m sick of talking.” She cranked the car. Joel still had his hand draped across her wrist, and when he didn’t move it or attempt to stop her, she hesitated, kept the key between her thumb and first finger and her arm extended.
“Try this. Hear me out, and then you can leave. The best option is to completely cut this loose, just dismiss the court case and forget the whole stinking idea. You’re not planning to do that, correct?” He continued to touch her, hadn’t disturbed his hand.
“Hell no, Joel. I’m not going to forget about tons of dollars and have my parents whale on me because I dragged everybody through this nightmare and changed my mind at the last moment.”
“Right. The next best thing is to simply take a fair payment for the suit, not a ginned-up one based on lies and deceit. That’s not in the cards either, as I understand what you’re telling me?”
She placed her free hand on her temple, dropped her jaw in an idiot’s gape and feigned serious thought. “Uh, gee, let me think . . . uhhhhhh . . . No. No. Nope. But thanks for the excellent suggestion.”
“So how about this.” He rubbed the back of her wrist and beginning of her hand, felt tiny, inconsequential hairs and shoots of delicate bones underneath her skin. “Think about this.” His fingers became quiet again, stopped their soft incursion. “There’s no reason for parasites like Edmund and Sa’ad to benefit from your efforts, to ride your anguish and suffering. Why should they receive one thin dime?”
“What’re you saying?” It was dark in Christy’s BMW; none of the outside light made its way through the windows. She was a murky outline, her face rudimentary like a child’s sketch, a collection of inky, vague features that lacked color and shape and depth.
“I’m saying eliminate them. If you insist on doing this, at least don’t cut them in on it.”
She took her hand off the key and away from Joel’s mild grip. The engine was running and the dash and gauges were lit, mostly in tranquil white with occasional spots of red and green. “Edmund and Sa’ad? The lawyer Sa’ad?”
“They’re behind the whole scheme, aren’t they? This is their baby from day one.”
She didn’t say anything. She moved around without purpose—shifted her legs, tossed her hair, twisted her silver ring, bit the corner of her thumbnail.
“They set this up, didn’t they?”
She traced the circumference of the steering wheel with her index finger, staring at the windshield.
“There’s no need to deny it. I know, okay? I could tell by how you reacted at the mall.”
“So what if they did?” she said almost before he’d spoken the last word.
“Listen. You tell me the truth about Edmund, and I’ll fix it so you can be rid of him and double the money from your lawsuit.”
“You mean get paid more?”
“Exactly,” he said.
“Well, maybe I’m saying Edmund was sorta involved, okay? Why’s that do anything for me?”
“How, Christy? How could you let such a glib, seedy man talk you into this? You’re a child, and this is horrible, serious stuff. What on earth could he have told you?”
“Edmund’s just real sincere and real, like, you know, convincing. He seems totally okay.”
“Didn’t you know this would devastate me and my family? Was it worth it to destroy my marriage and bring down a church of fine, honest Christians? You had to know how ugly everything would get.”
“Edmund said a million times that things like this are always handled behind the scenes. I thought it would be kept secret, so as not to embarrass the church. I’d tell my parents, maybe hire a lawyer, and I’d get the money without anybody finding out. No matter what, we’d never go to court, the lawyers would handle the details and some big insurance corporation that ripped off sick kids would pay me beaucoup green. From what I’d heard— Edmund’s told me stories about some of the shit he’s done—this would be over in a few months and nothin’ would happen to you or anybody else. That’s one of his rules: No innocent people get screwed.”
“How could you possibly believe such nonsense?”
“ ’Cause it made sense,” she said, exasperated. “I never thought my father would go ballistic and take such an interest. He’s too busy worryin’ about his golf score and his zoning board meetings and his stupid baseball cards to even remember my name. You know ‘Big Bill Darden’—I was sure he’d be humiliated and sorta blame me and be all worried his daughter was damaged goods and try to keep the story hush-hush. And my mom—shit, she’d just buy an extra bottle of vermouth and turn up Simon and Garfunkel a few decibels louder. But before I realize it, I’m talkin’ to some dumbass policeman and nothing’s on schedule. Except, you know, I’m going to get the money. The plan was okay there.”
“Even if I do get skewered, it’s nothing to Edmund.” Joel was thinking out loud, almost mumbled. “He doesn’t care as long as you tell your lies and you guys collect the money. And you truly believed word would never get around?”
“Damn, Joel. How many times do I have to say it? The church bosses and their lawyers don’t want the bad pub, and my parents don’t want the bad pub and probably won’t give a shit, and I’m getting money—”
“That really doesn’t belong to the evil people who happen to have it. I’m acquainted with the theory.”
“Right, so don’t act like I’m stupid as a cow or somethin’. It makes good sense, every particle of it. And, screw it, the money’s coming soon, so I guess I’m not so dumb after all.” Her tone had become defian
t, her words crisper.
“You could’ve quit any time, Christy. For instance, right before I went to jail would’ve been a good point to tell the truth.”
“Well, you did make out with me, now didn’t you? Uh-huh, yes you did. You’re the one who pled guilty. And my friend Arthur—he’s in law school—he told me I ’d be charged for giving a false report to the police if I changed my story. Plus my parents would’ve absolutely slaughtered me—I was already in trouble for the DUI and some other crap. It came down to me or you, and I chose me. I could catch major wrath and get zero, or I could leave someone I like in a bind and receive huge dollars and my parents’ sympathy forever. Sorry, but that’s life.”
“So is all this infatuation part of the scam?” Joel asked.
“No, Joel. No it’s not.” Her demeanor changed again, became solicitous and girlish. “I’ve thought you were way hot since the first time I heard you preach. And then, when I had to have the meetings with you, for my punishment by the court, I thought you were such a superb person.” She seemed delighted to have the upper hand, was gratified by Joel’s uncertainty and blatant curiosity. “We could fuck right now if you wanted. Right here in the car.”
“Why do you talk like that? So foul and rude? Is it for the shock value?”
“It’s just how I talk. Some boys like it. I guess you don’t.”
“It’s pretty rough,” he said.
“What would you prefer?” she asked. “How would you say it? Seems to me I’m bein’ accurate.”
“Whatever. So your interest in me isn’t an act?”
“Of course not. Why do you think I’m even tryin’ to explain myself? I want you to see how at the same time, like simultaneously, I can be totally into you and still have gotten you caught up in all grades of trouble. I don’t want you to be completely pissed at me and, like, brand me a total bitch. I was supposed to get the money, and nothing uncool happens to you.”
