Cards of Love: The Hermit

by Cora Brent

  “Hi, Betty.”

  I’d been to Prickly Flats a few more times since arriving in the area but it was usually a quick visit, just to grab my mail and pick up a few items that I didn’t feel like driving half an hour to find.

  The woman eyed me with interest. “Special occasion? You’re all dressed up today.”

  I ran my hands over the knee length skirt I’d purchased at the mall along with the dress Jeremy was admiring yesterday. I felt myself blushing as I remembered the hungry look in his eyes as he watched me approach. My face felt even hotter as I relived the way his hands went everywhere, his mouth all over me…

  I cleared my throat to shake off the hot wave of arousal. I was finding it tough to think about anything other than Jeremy today. Last night was the culmination of what we’d been moving towards. It was more than a mind blowing sexual connection. We shared pieces of ourselves that we’d both kept locked away for years. Since I woke up this morning I’d felt free and unburdened in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. And now I knew something I wasn’t yet ready to admit to Jeremy himself. I could fall for him. I was already well on my way.

  “No special occasion,” I said to Betty. “But I was hoping to go see the museum today.”

  She looked over at the beaded curtain that covered the museum entrance and chuckled. “Be my guest. You’ll be the only one in there.”

  I started digging around in my purse. “What’s the admission fee?”

  Betty waved a hand. “It’s free for locals.”

  I didn’t know if that was true or a spontaneous policy but I liked being thought of as a local so I didn’t argue. I figured I could even out the dollar amount by purchasing a lump of fool’s gold from the souvenir shop on my way out.

  “Oh.” Betty snapped her fingers and turned around to grab something from the mounted wall of shelves at her back. “Don’t forget your mail.”

  I glanced at the pile Betty handed over. There were a handful of sales circulars and a few bills that had been forwarded here. Nothing that needed to be looked at right now. I stuck the entire stack in my purse without examining it and thanked Betty before entering the museum.

  Stepping behind the thick beaded curtain was like entering a grubby, half forgotten attic. The museum was very small and windowless and Jeremy’s description of the collection had been spot on. The walls were packed with framed photographs of early prospectors, old maps, pencil drawings of Prickly Flats, and yellowed newspaper clippings, some speculating about the lost gold, others reciting the facts surrounding this or that doomed hiker. I paused in front of a grainy black and white photo, a man and a woman posing at the foothills of the Superstitions. Their faces were far away, obscured by shadows. Their clothes were dark and appeared worn. They stood close together, his arm around her, obviously a couple. I squinted at the spidery script beneath the photo. The only piece I could make out was the year. 1898. The backdrop of the mountains looked exactly the same now as it did then. But these people who stood before it were long gone.

  I used my phone to take photos, capturing anything that might be relevant to my research. So far I’d written pages and pages of dry summaries but whenever I read over my own words they didn’t bring the events to life. I ran my fingertips over a rusted pickax and then paused again in front of the photo of the couple. Whoever they were, they would have had stories of their own. But, like the elusive hoard of gold riches that may or may not have ever existed in the mountains behind them, their story had been lost to time.

  I might have stayed inside the cave of a museum for a while longer, letting my thoughts wander and crystallize, except I heard a man’s deep voice murmuring beyond the curtain. I grinned and tossed my phone in my purse, forgetting about old photos and lost history for now. I had a date with Jeremy and I couldn’t wait to see him again.

  The second I pushed the beaded curtains aside I realized I was wrong. The man standing at Betty Grable’s counter could never be mistaken for Jeremy. He was about forty pounds overweight with greasy hair that touched the neck of his t-shirt. He was older too, probably mid thirties. There was something disreputable about his appearance and I didn’t like the interest in his eyes when they landed on me.

  “You must be the new girl,” he declared, taking a step in my direction.

  Betty’s hands were on her hips and her lips were pursed. Whoever this guy was, she didn’t like him much.

  “You need anything else right now, Buster?” she asked, a little sharply, and I got the feeling she wanted him out of her place as soon as possible.

  “Not today,” he said while continuing to stare at me. He held out a hand that had visible dirt beneath its yellow nails. “I’m Dave Carter but everyone calls me Buster.”

  I didn’t want to shake his hand but I also had no reason to be openly rude. “I’m D.C.”

  “D.C.” he said, holding onto my hand longer than necessary. “What’s that stand for?”

  There was something about the way he said it that made me feel dirty.

  “Nothing,” I lied, resisting the urge to wipe my hand on my skirt to purge the feel of his grimy touch. “It was nice to meet you.”

  I moved down the aisle and made my way to the next one just to get out of Buster’s line of sight. A family came through the doors, a man and a woman with two school age children in tow. The woman was complaining about the heat. I heard Betty greet them with enthusiasm and I checked my watch. It was ten minutes past noon. Jeremy should be here any second. A sliver of doubt crept into my thoughts. Jeremy could be unpredictable but he wouldn’t stand me up, especially not after last night.

  Would he?

  “You’re renting the O’Hara house, aren’t you?” Buster had followed me. He stood right in the way and leaned his thick, sweaty arm against a display of Prickly Flats t-shirts. Unfortunately the aisle I’d escaped to was a dead end. I pretended to examine a paperweight that contained a preserved scorpion.

  “That’s right.” I hoped my tone was dismissive enough so he’d get the hint that I didn’t want to continue the conversation.

  He didn’t. His eyes flickered over my legs.

  “Kind of a remote spot for such a good looking girl.”

  My hand closed around the paperweight in my palm. If he was trying to intimidate me I didn’t intend to let him know he’d succeeded. I looked him right in the eye.

  “I’m pretty sure I can take care of myself.” My tone was icy.

  He thought that was funny. “Is that right?” He took a step closer. “Maybe you could use a little more protection.”

  “That sounds suspiciously like a threat.”

  He shrugged. “Hey, I’m just looking out for you.”

  “You can look elsewhere. I’m not interested.”

  His hideous grin froze on his face. “Well, you’re a mouthy little thing, aren’t you?”

  I remembered something Jeremy had said, some vague warning about how some of the folks around here weren’t exactly fine upstanding citizens. Jeremy had never offered any details so I didn’t know anything about this Buster guy. But I didn’t appreciate the insult. Or the way he was looking at me.

  “Excuse me, but I’ve said all I need to say.”

  I tried to get around him but he wouldn’t step aside. I could hear Betty in the background, telling the family that the burger counter was open for business if they were hungry. I told myself there was no reason to be afraid. I was in a public place in broad daylight with a bunch of people around. But I met Buster’s cold stare and was afraid anyway.

  “Maybe I could pay you a visit sometime,” Buster drawled. His eyes were on my breasts. He licked his chapped lips.

  The paperweight was still in my hand. I clutched it like a weapon “No thank you and please get out of my way.”

  He didn’t budge and his eyes narrowed. “What’s your fucking problem? You could stand to be a little more friendly to your neighbor.” He edged closer.

  “I said get the hell out of my way!”

&nb
sp; My shout had drawn some attention and all other conversation paused.

  “I wouldn’t want to deal with a bitch like you anyway,” Buster grumbled, red-faced. To my relief he started to back off. He didn’t get very far. At first I didn’t understand what had happened. One second Buster was right in front of me and in the next he was colliding with a shelf of souvenir ashtrays.

  Then I noticed Jeremy. I’d never seen that look on his face before. Come to think of it, I’d never seen him really angry before. But as he loomed above the sprawling, struggling Buster I could understand why facing Jeremy Gannon in the boxing ring must have been a formidable task. He looked positively murderous.

  “Fucking hell, Gannon,” Buster complained, flailing around amid the broken glass.

  “You get the fuck up you son of a bitch,” Jeremy said, the words sounding so guttural and threatening that I shivered.

  “Jeremy.” Betty had moved swiftly behind the counter to step between the two men. “Calm down now.”

  Jeremy ignored her. “I said get your ass up!” he yelled.

  The man and woman who had been chatting with Betty at the counter grabbed their children and hurried for the door.

  “Jeremy,” I said but he didn’t look my way.

  Buster chuckled as he got his feet underneath him. “This guy gets a little pussy and thinks he rules the world.” Blood trailed from a cut on his hand and he wiped it absently on his pants. “She must be a pretty tasty piece of ass to get you all riled up like this so you don’t mind if the rest of the neighborhood takes a bite, do you?”

  Jeremy lunged, drawing back a fist and connecting with Buster’s face. I winced at the cracking sound and closed my eyes for a second. When I opened them I saw blood. Buster fell back on his rear end and cupped his hand over his nose as blood seeped between his fingers. Betty’s husband Sherman had emerged from the restaurant by this point and he threw a few dish towels down at Buster.

  Then he stood face to face with Jeremy and said, “Enough,” in a very parental tone.

  Jeremy had already dropped his lethal expression and was backing off. He noticed that I was staring at him and he stretched out his hand to me.

  “Are you okay?”

  I looked at his hand. The knuckles were already bruising and revealed a smear of blood, probably belonging to Buster. That hand had touched me everywhere and I’d loved every second of it but I couldn’t help feeling nauseous over the sight of it now.

  “Deirdre?” Jeremy looked worried now.

  “I’m fine,” I told him.

  “He didn’t touch you?”

  “No.”

  Jeremy relaxed and sighed. The little family of tourists had escaped into their SUV and peeled out of the gravel parking lot. Buster was spurning Sherman and Betty’s efforts to help him mop up the blood gushing from his nose.

  “Fuck all of you,” he muttered and stumbled out the door, dripping blood along the way.

  The floor was a mess of broken glass and blood. The moment of violence was over and I had little fear Buster would return anytime soon but my heart still pounded.

  “I’m sorry about this,” Jeremy said to Betty and Sherman. “I’ll clean it up. I’ll reimburse you for the damages.”

  Sherman crouched down and examined the broken ashtrays. “Nobody ever buys these anyway. It’s about time they got retired to make room for something new.”

  “Let me pay for the new merchandise then,” Jeremy offered. “And a new display shelf.”

  “No need,” Betty said. She was more cheerful now that Buster was gone. She even smiled. “It was worth it to see that slob get what’s coming to him. He and that brother of his have been canker sores on the neighborhood for years.”

  Betty noticed that I hadn’t said much and was still rooted to the same spot in the middle of the aisle. “Are you sure you’re okay, doll?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  And I was okay. Nothing had happened to me, not really. It wasn’t my first unpleasant encounter with a man. But for the first time in many years blood had been shed in my presence and I couldn’t stop the bile from rising into my throat as I sidestepped the mess on the floor. I needed some air. I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe in here.

  The heat and glare of the midday sun was a welcome change and I leaned against my car while Jeremy followed me outside. He reached for me but I couldn’t get past the sight of blood on his hands and I didn’t go to him.

  “I thought for a second that you were going to kill him,” I said.

  Jeremy crossed his arms. “If he’d hurt you then I might have.”

  “But he didn’t. He was being a disgusting creep but he didn’t hurt me.”

  “Only because he didn’t get a chance. I know a thing or two about Buster Carter. Plus he’s threatened you before.”

  “What? When? I’ve never met him before today.”

  “He stopped by my place shortly after you moved in. He said some gross things, said he was going to pay you a visit. I let him know that if he wanted to stay healthy then that was a bad idea.”

  “And you didn’t think to mention any of this to me?”

  He had the grace to look embarrassed. “I should have. That night when you found me sitting on the rock halfway between my place and yours? The night when we-“

  “Fucked for the first time,” I finished. “Yeah, I remember that night.”

  Jeremy raised an eyebrow over my choice of language. “I was keeping an eye on your place in case he got the bright idea to return.”

  “You haven’t explained why you didn’t mention any of this to me.”

  He looked down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to scare you.”

  “You scared me today.”

  His head jerked up. “I scared you?”

  “I’d just…” My voice trailed off as I tried to put my thoughts into words. “I’d never seen you like that. Never saw you react that way. And I understand why, that it had to do with protecting me, but…”

  Jeremy’s tone was stern. “I don’t hurt people for fun, Deirdre. And I’d never lay a hand on you if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I know that. I do. But I can’t stand the idea of violence happening on my behalf. I manage to do a pretty satisfactory job of taking care of myself and I had the situation under control.”

  He snorted. “Like hell you did.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I remember the day you got lost a hundred yards from your own house and almost died out there in the desert.”

  I bristled. “It’s bullshit, Jeremy, bringing that up right now.”

  He stared at me with those maddeningly unreadable green eyes. “Maybe it is. Doesn’t make it untrue.”

  I shook my head with vehemence. “You don’t get to change the subject. After everything I told you, things I’ve never told another person, you know better than anyone why I hate violence so much.”

  “That guy’s bad news, Deirdre. I don’t think you understand how dangerous he is and that you’d be no match for him. So you’re saying I don’t get to change the subject? Fine, you don’t get to use your past as a way to hide from reality.”

  Now I was angry. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You want to talk about using your past to hide from reality? Look where you are, Jeremy! The golden boy of American boxing, hiding out here in the middle of nowhere and disdaining all human contact.”

  “’Disdaining human contact?’” He chuckled and shook his head as he mimicked my words. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t being doing that at all since I got involved with you. Or did you forget what we’ve been doing every single damn night?”

  Sheldon and Betty emerged, probably wondering what we were carrying on about. Betty’s eyes were wide. Sheldon seemed embarrassed. He nudged Betty but she didn’t move. That was fine. I didn’t care if they heard, if they knew.

  “No, it hasn’t slipped my mind that we’ve been screwing nonstop. So let’s talk about that.”
>
  “You want to talk about that here and now?”

  “I don’t think there will be a better time.”

  “All right then.” Jeremy crossed his arms. “Talk about it.”

  “I promised you no complications, didn’t I?”

  He shrugged. “That seemed to be implied in your original offer.”

  “So this is feeling like one big complication now. Isn’t that right?”

  He glowered. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Damn it! What do you want, Jeremy?”

  “At the moment it would be nice if you’d stop shrieking.”

  I lowered my voice. “What do you want from me? From us?”

  “Us?” He said the word like it confused him. The concept of ‘us’ had obviously never occurred to him before.

  I turned away and opened the door to my car. This was a mistake, having this shouting match out here in front of Burgers/Souvenirs/Museum. The best idea would be to just get into my car and drive away before I said anything else. Yet I was tired of ignoring my feelings, tired of pretending I didn’t have any. I didn’t look at him when I made my confession.

  “Sometimes I think I could love you, Jeremy Gannon,” I said.

  A few seconds of stunned silence followed.

  “Deirdre,” he said but I was already closing myself into my car.

  I started the ignition and drove away without looking back. I didn’t want to drive home, not right now. Home was too close to Jeremy. I took the two lane road toward the freeway and kept driving until I reached the mall. I needed to clear my head, to think. I needed something to eat too since my planned lunch date with Jeremy had gone somewhat awry.

  Sitting down at a restaurant table all by myself wasn’t appealing so I opted for the food court. I ordered a basket of fried chicken and took a seat. There wasn’t a whole lot of activity at the mall today. Usually I would watch people, trying to imagine what their lives were like. Today I just ate my fried chicken and tried to remove the memory of Buster’s leering grin, of Jeremy’s mighty punch, of the broken glass mixed with blood all over the floor of Betty Grable’s souvenir shop. I also thought about the last thing I’d said to Jeremy. Maybe I should have regretted saying it but somehow I didn’t. It was better that he knew where I stood. If he wanted out of this then I shouldn’t let myself fall any deeper than I’d already fallen.