Hallie's Comet

by Denise Dietz

  She arched toward his salute. She felt a primitive desire to scratch his back, but her wrists were still pinioned. A shivery sizzle consumed her and she truly believed she might short-circuit. Before that could happen, Gabe sheathed himself in the saturated warmth he had created.

  By the time he released her wrists, a sensual deluge had engulfed her and she was unable to flex her fingers, much less scratch. Instead, she accepted his driving thrusts passively, letting the coil of electricity inside her body build, flow, ignite, until she quivered mindlessly, embracing the bursts of pleasure as her due, knowing his pleasure duplicated hers. That knowledge released her temporary immobility and she urged him on with her voice and body until, cresting, they both achieved a climax at the same time.

  Afterwards, incapable of movement again, she said, “That was some gullywhomper.”

  “Gullywhomper?”

  “Torrent. Outpouring.” She felt a blush stain her cheekbones. “Overflow.”

  “Honey, if we live to be a hundred, and I hope we do, I’ll never get enough of your obsolete-speak.”

  “If we live to be a hundred, and I hope we do,” she said, “I’ll never get enough of our gullywhompers.”

  An hour later, clean on the outside, satiated with love, laughter and lunch on the inside, she clutched a paintbrush in her right hand.

  She never outlined her paintings. Sometimes she worked from a variety of pencil sketches and sometimes she worked from photos, but even before her Cripple Creek renderings, all her paintings had evolved from the images inside her head. She likened it to an author who didn’t write a chapter-by-chapter outline.

  In fact, a friend who wrote a successful mystery series had once confessed that she stared at her blank computer screen then filled it in with type.

  “I know what you mean,” Hallie had said. “I stare at my blank canvas then cover it with paint.”

  Now she stared at her blank canvas. Her knuckles were taut and her heart fluttered wildly, as if she’d trapped a slew of hummingbirds inside her rib cage.

  Hand suspended, she shut her eyes. When she looked again, nothing had changed. The canvas was pristine, spotless, virginal she thought without humor. Because she couldn’t conjure up one image of Cripple Creek or Knickers.

  Her paradoxical muse was on vacation.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Gabe studied the dancers, frozen in motion.

  They weren’t fleshed-out yet, but they looked as if they might soon become the chorus line for a new ballet.

  Duck Lake?

  Swan Mountain?

  Directly behind the dancers, Hallie had painted the Broadmoor Hotel’s duck pond, complete with ducks. In the distance, majestic mountains escalated, their snowy peaks cresting at the top of the canvas; waves rather than ridges. She had effectuated a fiery sunset, a superlative blend of synchronic colors, all the more startling since the pond, ducks, mountains and dancers were lackluster, badly in need of mystic shadows and vivid hues.

  “It’s not finished,” she understated.

  Art is for the birds, thought Gabe, scrutinizing one of the swan ballerinas then shifting his gaze to the ducks. But he didn’t dare say his pun out loud, especially since Hallie’s beautiful eyes brimmed over with tears.

  “I don’t get it.” Lightly, he ran his thumbs beneath her lower lashes, capturing the salty beads. “You were almost inconsolable after painting Cripple Creek. Now you’re upset because you’re normal again.”

  “I’m not normal.”

  Stepping back, away from Gabe’s thumbs, Hallie almost bumped into a rack of costumes. The alcove’s racy lingerie mocked her as she tugged at her t-shirt, decorated with the smiling face of Little Stevie Wonder. The shirt was too tight, inching above her belly-button. Why had she worn it? Why had she packed it? The tee had belonged to her mom and it was in mint condition, considering that it had survived the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties, just like Stevie Wonder.

  “I’m not normal,” she repeated. “I’m a picture puzzle that’s missing a whole bunch of pieces. I’m incomplete.”

  “Two short hours ago we indulged in a mutual sponge bath that left us both fulfilled. Why do you feel incomplete?”

  “Don’t equate sex with creativity, Gabe.”

  “Sex is creativity.”

  “Okay. You’re right. Of course you’re right.”

  “Then why the tears?”

  Facing the costume rack, she fingered a hula skirt. “I wanted to solve my Cripple Creek mystery,” she said, “but I can’t do that without painting Knickers and Gabriel.”

  “The mystery’s solved, little love. Knickers and Gabriel lived happily ever after, to quote my brother’s fairy-tale author.” Disentangling Hallie’s fingers from the Polynesian dance costume, Gabe clasped her hands in his. “Honey, listen to me. I think you began ‘trancing’ at an early age, making up imaginary playmates. You were lonely, unhap—”

  “Horsefeathers! I didn’t need imaginary playmates. My childhood was very happy. I might have been a tad shy, but I attended the requisite number of slumber parties. I belonged to the high school art squad and I was on the staff of the school magazine, art editor, and I dated, mostly double-dated. I wasn’t terribly popular because I wouldn’t go all the way…” She paused, her cheeks crimson. “My mom and dad were the best parents a girl could hope for. They didn’t spoil me or smother me. They loved me. My brother rarely teased, at least not in a nasty way.” She withdrew her hands from Gabe’s and spread her arms. “My imagination soared—”

  “That’s what I’m talking about. Your imag—”

  “Wait. Let me finish. My brother Neil followed his dream while I followed mine. An art scholarship. Paris. Success in my chosen field. I was brought up in a house filled with music. I wasn’t sad or lonely, Gabe, quite the opposite.”

  When he merely stared down at her, she said, “Maybe I painted Gabriel because I was unfulfilled, sexually unfulfilled, but my Cripple Creek scenes…” She shook her curls. “I think there’s a lesson to be learned, but I can’t figure out what the lesson is. I only know that my paintings were the start of a quest.”

  “Hallie, your lesson was love and your so-called quest was me. I’m sorry if that sounds egotistical. Usually I prefer logic, like you, and yet I truly believe that something or somebody brought us together. Call it fate or kismet or astral influences or—”

  “Death and destruction.”

  “What?”

  “Death and destruction,” she repeated, tugging at her shirt again and then thrusting her hands inside the pocket of her faded jeans. “Why did I get the blue devils when my mom mentioned Myers Avenue? Why did I feel a sorrowful ache when I stood at the intersection of Myers and Third?”

  “The fire.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay. How about Scarlet’s funeral?”

  “I’m Knickers, not Scarlet.”

  “Wouldn’t Knickers have felt a sorrowful ache at the loss of her beloved Mama Scarlet?”

  “Of course. But Knickers was fifteen or sixteen while I’m twenty-eight.”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “I’ll be twenty-eight May eighteenth, close enough.”

  “Are you saying that your ‘sorrowful aches’ were grown-up pangs?”

  She nodded. “I think my aches, or pangs if you prefer, have something to do with a runaway horse hitched to a buckboard. That’s what I pictured in New York, just before I started painting Cripple Creek. One other thing, Gabe. I didn’t mention it at the time because we had just kissed outside your friend Joe’s casino and I wanted to sustain the exquisite agony. But I… well, to be perfectly honest, I lost my breath.”

  “So did I.”

  “You did?”

  “I lose my breath every time we kiss.”

  “Damn it, Gabe, I’m serious. I didn’t lose my breath from kissing. I lost my breath from … from paranormal influences.”

  Gabe stifled his instinctive flinch by glancing around the costum
e alcove. The room was fairly large, well ventilated, but today it felt oppressive and smelled of paint. How could she work in here without becoming dispirited?

  “I think we need a change of scenery,” he said. “Follow me.”

  Hallie bird-dogged Gabe’s white T-shirt and jean-clad butt outside the house.

  Together, they climbed a rustic staircase to the redwood deck. She shut her eyes then opened them again, all but blinded by the panoramic view.

  Forget God’s feet and knees, she thought irreverently. These mountains tickle God’s belly.

  Gabe had been right about privacy. Behind the house was a wooded area. Evergreen trees spread their branches in gestures of supplication. Multi-colored oak leaves formed patchwork parasols, protecting the pointy-headed pines.

  Protecting them from what? Snow? Torrential rainstorms? Evil spirits?

  Twilight had begun to descend. The sky looked like an enormous palette, paint-streaked with pink and lilac and gold.

  Terror stabbed through her. She shuddered then silently chastised herself.

  It’s just a sunset, you silly goose. It can’t hurt you. Gabe will protect you from things that go bump in the sky.

  “But who will protect him?” she whispered.

  “What did you say, honey?”

  “The sky looks like a backdrop for a theatrical production, a brand new musical called Somewhere Over The Rainbow, starring Gabriel Q and Alice W. O’Brien. Unfortunately, Alice can’t carry a tune, even if she does carry a ghost.”

  “If my mountains can’t convince you to stay,” he said, ignoring her ghost reference, “nothing will.”

  “Colorado’s beautiful,” she acknowledged. “But I’ll make my decision tomorrow night, after we visit Cripple Creek.”

  “Your decision shouldn’t have anything to do with Cripple Creek. Why obsess over the past when we have our whole future ahead of us?”

  “I’m not obsessing.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Removing her hands from her pockets, grasping the deck’s wooden rail, she gazed toward a distant peak. “If I’m haunted—”

  “Bedeviled!”

  “—by Cripple Creek, it’s because we’re connected, you and I. Is it merely a coincidence that Knickers loved an artist named Gabriel? Is it a coincidence that he lost his leg?”

  “I didn’t lose my leg. I injured my knee. And for the record, my face isn’t scarred.” Ruefully, Gabe ran his finger across the small brand that marred his chin. “When you were sick, you said Gabriel scarred his face during a mine explosion. His face could shatter glass, you said. Remember?”

  “Yes.” Silent, she pondered for a few moments. Finally, she said, “You’re badly scarred on the inside. Gabriel’s snooty fiancé couldn’t deal with his accident, just like Jenn.”

  “That’s so farfetched, it doesn’t even deserve a comment, but I’ll make one. Jenn and I weren’t destined to spend our lives together. We’ve always been mules, hitched to a buckboard, stubborn mules, both pulling in opposite directions. No. That’s not true. I was hitched to the buckboard. Jenn prefers a shiny carriage embossed with twenty-four carat gold.”

  “How do you know I don’t prefer a shiny carriage?”

  “Do you?”

  “To be perfectly honest, yes.” She pictured Amelia Capshaw, her seat companion during her flight from New York. “I prefer first-class to coach, good wine to so-so wine, and I hate buckboards.”

  “How many buckboards have you encountered lately?”

  “Don’t change the subject!”

  He looked perplexed. “I thought Jenn and buckboards were the subject.”

  “No, Gabe. The subject is similarities.”

  “What similarities? You had a happy childhood. Knickers didn’t.”

  “Why do you say that? Because she was brought up in a parlor house?”

  “Whorehouse.”

  “You say tomato, I say tomahto. Anyway, I was talking about grown-up similarities. The Gabriel connection.”

  “Sounds like a movie,” Gabe said, striving for humor. “The Gabriel Connection, starring Johnny Depp.”

  She didn’t crack a smile. “How do you explain my paintings and dreams?”

  “You’ve probably been dreaming all along, and the paintings were inspired by your nocturnal visions.”

  “Nocturnal? Bilge water! Up until last summer, I counted maybe three sheep before conking out completely. Even my catnaps were deep and dreamless.”

  Turning away from the rail, she stared up into his eyes. “Assuming you’re right, Gabe, why did I envision Cripple Creek in the first place?”

  “Most people have paranormal dreams of one kind or another. Following my knee surgery, I was confined to a hospital bed. My roommate was addicted to TV talk shows. Our TV was suspended from the ceiling like a bloated spider. I tried to catch up on my reading, but spiders are mesmerizing. One late-afternoon guest, on Oprah, I believe, was a noted psychiatrist who talked about dreaming across space and time. He even gave examples.”

  “Such as?”

  “Let me think. There was a young, unmarried, professional woman in her late twenties.”

  “What a coincidence!”

  “She dreamed she had entered a singing contest where the first prize was five hundred dollars. But Sandi, that was her name, couldn’t decide what to sing. Jazz? Alternative rock? Country-western? Desperate, she chose an old gospel song. In her dream, she belted out the song. At the same time she saw a little Vietnamese boy, about six years old. ‘Do they really give people five hundred dollars for singing?’ he asked.”

  “Gabe, I don’t understand how—”

  “Now we get to the gist of the dream. The night before, Sandi’s father had phoned her from Chicago. He’d seen an ad for a job in South Bend, Indiana, that he thought might interest her. Her parents lived in Chicago, only a couple of hours away from South Bend, and Sandi took that as a veiled hint that she move closer to home. She lived in Boston and loved it there, so she was faced with a situation in which her father tried to influence her without really understanding her point of view. The singing contest took her back to her childhood and reminded her of the many times she had to perform in areas that met the needs of her parents. Singing was her mother’s thing. Mom even insisted that Sandi join the school glee club and church choir. The five hundred dollars had several meanings. It was the amount of money she’d once borrowed from her father and never repaid, so she felt indebted. It also brought to mind the Indianapolis 500, conjuring up images of dangerous competition and the excitement of winning. Competition and excelling were very important values in her home.”

  “What about the little boy?”

  “He reminded Sandi of her own naïve acceptance of her parents’ lifestyle. Being Vietnamese and a boy emphasized the fact that Sandi thought of herself as different.”

  “Interesting, Gabe, but what does that have to do with Knickers and Gabriel?”

  “Nothing. It has to do with you. Haven’t you been stressed lately? I don’t mean us. I’m talking in general.”

  “I suppose I have been stressed. My gallery opening and, well, everything.”

  Grasping the rail again, Hallie tried to remember what had occurred just before she’d begun painting Gabriel and Cripple Creek. First, she had moved into her own apartment, a monumental decision. Her father had objected with the usual it-isn’t-safe-for-a-single-girl admonishment.

  Second, her brother had championed a lasting relationship with Ivan, insisting that marriage would bring status, respectability and kids. Hadn’t Neil even mentioned her biological clock?

  Third, Ivan had initiated an aggressive seduction, not quite a rape. She had managed to wriggle free from his tentacles by slapping his face. Hard. Twice. Furious, he had called her a tease and accused her of being frigid. The next day he apologized. Profusely. She accepted his apology, but, in her own mind, his not-quite-a-rape had soured the relationship.

  Had she been jealous over Marianne’s preg
nancy?

  No. Yes. Despite her craving for independence, she wanted kids. Kids required a husband, at least it did for her. She didn’t love Ivan, had even begun to fear him, so that had led to her portrait of Gabriel.

  What about the parlor house paintings? Was there a sexual connotation?

  “Gabe, did the psychiatrist mention sex?”

  “Of course. What’s an afternoon talk show without sex? Ratings would be nil. The psychiatrist said that sometimes sexual imagery expressed feelings of closeness and intimacy. However, sometimes it’s a defense to ward off those feelings. Control or loss of control may be expressed in sexual images.”

  “But I was in control,” she whispered. “Wasn’t I?”

  “A person who has been excessively inhibited might express his or her sexuality in dreams,” Gabe stated, pulling the words from memory.

  Moving directly behind her, he circled her waist with his hands. “You’re not inhibited, little love,” he teased, “quite the opposite.

  She leaned back against the broad expanse of his chest, enjoying his solid strength. “Are you saying that I invented Knickers because I was exposed to sexual stimulation without consummation? Or that, feeling stressed, I traveled across time and space, encountering Scarlet? The same way Sandi encountered the little Vietnamese boy?”

  “I’m not saying anything. I’m merely paraphrasing a TV psychiatrist.” He nuzzled her neck. “I don’t have any answers, honey. Wish I did. Then we could put all this behind us and get on with our lives.”

  “I’ll try painting my primed canvas,” she stated, her voice decisive. “The one that depicted the fire. Maybe I can conjure up Knickers. Or Gabriel. Or both. What time do we leave for Cripple Creek?”

  “Noon, if you want to explore first.”

  “That gives me tonight and tomorrow morning to try and paint something other than ducks and dancers.” Making an about-face, she gazed up into his eyes. “Please don’t be mad.”