Terrible Praise

by Lara Hayes

  “Yes.” My lips part against hers, but she won’t let me deepen the kiss. She moves her lips along my jaw, back behind my ear as her fingers stroke the skin above my breast.

  “I could always feel you. Wherever you were, I was there. You were never alone, my darling. Not for a moment.”

  The words are comforting but also infuriating and I draw away from her, annoyed. “I couldn’t, Stela. I couldn’t feel anything but the absence of you. Not for months. Not when my mother died. Not at the funeral. Not when they entombed her ashes, or when they set her plaque.”

  She lets me take two large steps back from her, the hand that touched my heart hovering between us, palm upturned and extended. Even as I step away, fastening my buttons, I want nothing more than to reach out and take it. Her own anger burns brightly between us.

  “I gave you exactly what you wanted. Do I not always give you what you desire?”

  There’s a quick flash of something across her face, like her own words surprise her. She shoves her clenched fists into the pockets of her dark trousers. Her jaw is clenched, but her lips are soft, an almost human pout.

  “Do you?” I ask it more for myself than for her.

  Stela closes the short distance between us, keeping her hands firmly in her pockets. “Perhaps not. But I can no longer walk this line with you, Elizabeth. It is not safe. For either of us.”

  I adjust my purse strap and turn away from her “So, you’re leaving again?” I would give just about anything to sound less desperate than I feel.

  She takes my arm firmly in hers and slides up behind me. “Not this very moment. Take a walk with me.”

  As always, it isn’t a request.

  We walk for a few blocks without speaking. Several times I open my mouth to ask her where we’re going, but while a part of me thinks it doesn’t matter, another part is certain that I already know. She keeps her arm locked around mine with a worried hand clasped over my wrist. She rubs the soft white skin she finds there, stroking the thin blue veins.

  “You were out feeding tonight.”

  Stela’s fingers halt and brush lightly over the top of my forearm.

  “Yes.”

  “Why haven’t you changed your clothes?”

  She arches a bemused brow, but keeps her eyes front, scanning the vacant streets she steers us down.

  “There was no time.”

  “And the body?”

  She seeks out my face from the corner of her eye and regards me suspiciously for a second.

  “Is in capable hands.”

  “So you weren’t alone.”

  A knowing smile spreads across her lips as she tugs me around the weathered corner of a tenement. The neighborhood slips as we walk, revealing failed investment, poor planning, lack of funding and crushed unions. I can hear the rats tonight, slinking in the gutters and scurrying ahead just inches in front of my feet. They trample over each other as quickly as they can to get away from her. I should be so wise.

  “I was hunting with my brother Bård when you called out to me. I left the cleanup to him. As for my garments, I will burn them before I retire for the evening.”

  I slip my arm free from hers in search of her hand. She laces our fingers with a squeeze that is meant to be reassuring but she still hasn’t told me where we’re headed, and the side streets she so deftly navigates look like a B-rated post-apocalyptic thriller.

  “He knows you’re with me?”

  Stela walks on the balls of her boot-covered feet, skirting dark pools of stagnant, foul-smelling liquid that I don’t see until I hear it slosh around my shoes.

  “I did not seek to conceal the information, if that is what you mean.”

  An old man sleeps in the warped yellow light of a crumbling back alley stoop, bent over the paper bag tight in his hands. Sharply, I twist my fingers free of her hand and it takes a moment for my feet to stop following her, to start inching back the way we came. If I scream maybe the old man will hear me. Maybe he’s not the only person left on this forgotten block. Maybe windows will brighten and open on concerned citizens with cell phones raised. But what good would the police be?

  “Elizabeth…” It’s only my name, but the way she says it sounds like the start and end of a very long argument.

  “Why don’t you care that he knows? Where are you taking me?”

  My hand reaches out to grope the slimy brick of the building beside me. I would turn and run, but I’m certain she’s faster. My heel makes contact with something soft—something that protests with a sharp squeak—and a scream wells up in my throat. But I don’t scream. I don’t know what she would do if I did, and it’s the unknown that keeps me quiet more than any spoken threat. She stalks toward me, step for step as I stumble back. All I can see are the edges of her body, the bright halo of her hair glowing around her head.

  “Home,” she says with an easy smile. “Where else would I take you?”

  My stomach drops and I’m going to be sick. There is something terrifying about her calm, and that she hasn’t grabbed me yet, even though she could. Whether she has fed or not, I know she’s enjoying this. “Get away from me, Stela.”

  She laughs, that unsettling, girlish laugh. The sound drops between us like pennies on the pavement.

  “My darling, and leave you to what? To walk about the streets alone? To fumble your way back to the cemetery? Have you forgotten what happened the last time you ran away from me?” I can’t tell if it’s the distance between us now or the fear, but as she alludes to the night I was shot, my arm immediately begins to ache. It quickly grows into pulsating pain, and my arm drops limply to my side. Is she doing this? “Yes, you remember what happened.”

  Every word she says carries the light inflection of a joke. Tears sting my eyes, and my fear crests into vile disdain.

  “Stela. Stop.”

  My voice is louder and more forceful than I expected. She raises her hands in defeat and stops walking. The throb in my arm radiates to my teeth, but I keep shuffling backward, too afraid to take my eyes away from her. Her image shrinks, less imposing with every step. And I grow more concerned with what is, or isn’t behind me.

  “Where will you go, Elizabeth?” Her voice is level, devoid of emotion.

  My eyes scan the darkness, drifting, glancing behind me only for a moment.

  “Away from you!”

  I can barely make out her gestures beyond the shake of her head. My foot slips off the crumbling edge of the gutter, and I stall with my heart in my throat.

  “This is ridiculous. You are well aware of that, are you not?”

  She starts walking again, while I attempt to free my foot from the rusted iron teeth of a sewer grate.

  “Stay back, Stela.”

  “Enough.” She waves a hand between us like she can wipe my suspicions away “You are coming with me.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  Her head falls back and she pushes a forced, exhausted sigh into the night air. “I am taking you home.”

  “Then why are we going in the opposite direction?”

  Stela kneels in front of me and with a swift tug, she pulls my foot loose from the grate. There’s more light at this end of the alley, but not much. Shadows stripe her face as she grabs my bicep. All at once with a swoon that threatens my knees, the pain in my arm subsides.

  “Because my vehicle is parked not forty yards from here.”

  My anger simmers, but the fear begins to evaporate. I jerk my arm out of her hold. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”

  She makes a small, bemused shrug of her shoulders. “You are never frightened of me. It was rather intoxicating.”

  I’ve never struck anyone. Stela’s face remains unmoved as my palm begins to throb. I can’t stifle the short, pained breath that leaves my mouth, cupping my hand to my chest. I might as well have slapped a wall.

  “I hate you.” The words barely escape my gritted teeth.

  Stela tilts her head with a sad smile, stroking my cheek de
spite my flinch. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “But I deserved that.”

  The soft curve of her brows, and the concern etched into her forehead soften my stance. Stela leans forward and presses a light kiss to my temple. Our shared, unreconciled anger pushing our bodies apart. “I shouldn’t have said that about your mother, Stela.”

  At first, she doesn’t appear to catch my meaning. Then, as though replaying the night she nearly killed my mother and hearing my words all over again, Stela stiffens and stands tall. “Was it the truth?”

  She would know if I lied. I wonder if there’s some way to soften the blow, but I live with the same truth. My mother never wanted me either. I look her in the eyes and nod. A slow crooked smile curls the corner of her mouth and she shakes her head. Her eyes turn toward the dark alley. She seems smaller.

  “I suppose I deserved that too,” she says.

  It isn’t much in the way of an apology on either of our parts. My mother told me once that you never fight with the truth unless you are completely certain it’s a fight you can win. I’ve never really thought about it before. Truth is the one thing you can’t take back.

  I reach out and take Stela’s hand. She stares briefly down at our threaded fingers, and resumes her usual brisk pace. True to her word, not one full street over, her sleek Mercedes beams irreverently in its compromised surroundings. She leads me up to the passenger side and opens my door, but I linger with one foot inside.

  “I know why you did it.” I don’t expect to have to clarify, and Stela doesn’t press me to elaborate. She drifts nearer to me, and brushes a hair back from my face.

  “I would never ask for your forgiveness. I am not worthy of it.”

  I lean against the front of her with my hand still wrapped around the door. Every inch of me alive, and every nerve ending firing.

  “I’m not offering you forgiveness. I’m just saying I understand.”

  She runs the pad of two fingers against my bottom lip and I close my eyes, breathing into the sensation. My body drifts forward into hers only to knock flatly against the open door. She’s already opening the driver’s side door when I turn around.

  “Get in.”

  The ride is unpleasantly quiet, and heavy with emotion that can’t possibly belong solely to me. So much left unfinished and unsaid. I can’t leave things this way again, but I can’t find the words to tell her what she means to me, because I barely understand it myself. She’s my every thought. Good or bad, no matter the subject or the mood. Everything leads back to her eventually. She has to know that. But she keeps her eyes straight ahead on the road, and when I reach for her hand she tucks it in her lap.

  Halfway down my street she steers the car harshly against the curb, and I instinctively throw my hands up against the dash. Her arm darts out across my chest, keeping me back against the chair as she kills the headlights. Startled by the abrupt stop, I turn my head only to find her half over the console. I struggle with my belt and Stela brushes my hands away and releases it herself. Her impatient hands pull me by my hair, and this kiss makes anything else she’s done to me seem gentle by comparison. Rushed and forceful in a way that would be alarming if it weren’t so upsetting.

  I don’t believe she cries. I’m not sure she can. But I can taste her sorrow on my tongue. I don’t try to stop her, or talk to her. I pull her as close to me as possible in the narrow space. As soon as my hand finds the back of her head, she pulls away, straightening her shirt with her eyes fixed straight ahead, as though nothing has happened.

  “You can walk from here. I will see that you make it safely indoors.”

  I can’t help but laugh. She stares at me incredulously.

  “Stela, what the fuck was that?”

  Her jaw set, she stares back out toward the open street. I try to turn her head, but she won’t move.

  “James is waiting for you.”

  My hands drop from her face. I lean forward over the dash for a better look. His faint outline on my front step is little more than a speck. I turn back to Stela, prop my arm on the leather console between us and stroke the side of her face with the back of my fingers.

  “I’ll get rid of him.”

  Finally, she smiles but she’s still miles away. And no matter how close I press myself, I can’t seem to reach her.

  “You should go to him.”

  I scoff at first, but Stela stares at me in that earnest, beseeching way she has, willing me away from her. I shake my head and she brings my hand to her lips. She kisses my palm.

  “No. I want you to come up with me.”

  She drops her head back against the seat, staring wishfully back at me. She traces my lips with her fingers. “Elizabeth, you know that I cannot.”

  I grab hold of her jaw and draw her back into a kiss that she will not return.

  “Stay with me. Please.” I grab hold of her wrist and she hovers above the armrest, letting me pull at her while stroking my hair.

  “I do not belong here. But you do, and so does he.” Stela speaks with a softness reserved for small children.

  I lose all sense of propriety in an instant. I pull at her arms and her shirt rips in my hands. But every part of her that I grab she releases with ease. She’s slipping away without moving. She’s leaving. Everyone keeps leaving.

  “He is a good man,” she assures in her softest tone. “A bit of a cad. But he worships you. He would care for you if you would have him. He would marry, and make a mother of you.”

  I wrap her arms around my shoulders, because she won’t reach for me. She lets me press against her. She lets me sob pitifully with my cheek on her chest, her torn blouse tickling my eyelashes.

  “Sometimes I dream of that,” she says, petting the back of my head. “Of you standing at the kitchen island with a toddler on your hip. She has your eyes, and his nose. Your mother’s hair when she was still young.”

  I rub my face against her neck and all I can say is “No.”

  “Would that not be a most gratifying life, my love? After this long nightmare. Would it not be wonderful to wake up next to him? With a child curled between your bodies?”

  Finally, fitfully, I grab her face in my hands and shout my dissent in her face. Our eyes locked, I beg her to stop over and over again, until I realize she isn’t talking anymore. There is no pull, Stela’s eyes are distant and empty, and she is still as a corpse in my arms. I press my lips to hers, to her jaw, her throat, her ear, her eyelids. But she retains her marble, stunned composure.

  “Take me with you.”

  She presses her forehead to mine and our lips brush. Nothing on this earth compels me the way she does.

  “If not him, then another. This is the most I can give to you, Elizabeth. You have to see that.”

  When I kiss her she returns my affection desperately. “I want you. You’re all I want,” I whisper breathlessly into her open mouth. She turns away from me.

  “All I can give you is death. Your own, and the blood of others on your hands.”

  “How is that any different from the life I’ve been living?”

  She huffs and shakes her head as though it’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard. She must have considered this at some point. She had to know it would come to this.

  “It is entirely different to intentionally extinguish the life of a living being. You forget it now, but you felt it acutely this evening. It was the reason you were so reluctant to follow me.”

  I release Stela’s face and slide back down into my seat. James stands with a stretch and takes to pacing under my stoop light. I lock the car door and reach for the seat belt. Stela stares at me, shocked into silence. She slips the car into reverse, watching me, waiting for me to tell her that I’ve made a horrible mistake and run screaming into the night. When the car bounces down off the curb, Stela reaches for my hand, holding tight as she pulls out onto the deserted street.

  It’s not until we’ve barreled past my brownstone that the roar of the engine reaches James’s ear
s. In the rearview mirror, I see him step into the road. Then Stela turns the corner.

  * * *

  The building appears condemned, which I suppose is the point. Beside the scrolling steel door is a panel that shines like new, with blue illuminated buttons. Stela punches a short code through her rolled down window, and the overhead door rises with a stiff groan. I wrap my hand around the armrest and sweat pearls against the leather.

  There are flickering fluorescents but beyond that, the only illumination is from her headlights. The first level of the garage is nearly full. Cars from every country, some of them makes and models I can’t immediately identify.

  “This is your parking garage?”

  She kills the engine and drops her keys on the dashboard, stepping around to the passenger side to open the door for me.

  “None of this is mine, Elizabeth. The property belongs to Fane. This vehicle was a gift. They all are.”

  “Some gift.” I let my fingers brush along the body of the black MG Magnette beside us.

  “Some are spoken for,” she says, unimpressed. “Others just sit in their spaces collecting dust. You can have your pick of the lot when all is said and done.”

  When I’m dead, I mentally correct. I can have my pick when I’m dead. There’s a loud heavy pounding at the base of my skull. Stela wraps an arm around my waist and leads me to the back of the garage. The only footsteps I can hear are my own, and were it not for the weight of her arm on my hips her presence would be undetectable. My mind races with trivialities: memories of my childhood, my mother’s scent, my father’s cigars.

  She stops in front of a large concrete cylinder rising up from the floor. There is yet another heavy steel door with the same kind of keypad that guards the entrance. Her hand reaches out for the keys and the beating in my head makes it impossible for me to speak. Instead, I shakily push her hand away.

  Stela doesn’t seem surprised. She enfolds me in a tight embrace, rubbing my shoulder blades. “I can take you home, Elizabeth. Tell me now if this is your wish.”