Wicked Game

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “To prove I’m not afraid.” I smile at him. “Plus, a college student never turns down free food.”

  “I remember.”

  “Where’d you go to school?”

  “Ohio U for music theory.” He points up to the left. “Turn there. And before you ask, no, I didn’t graduate.”

  I turn onto a poorly paved country lane. “What would you have done with a bachelor’s in music theory?”

  “Enjoyed it.” He looks over at me. “It’s been two decades since I asked someone this question. What’s your major?”

  “Business, with a concentration in marketing.”

  He nods without comment. Nothing like total educational incompatibility to stall a conversation.

  “Where are we going?” I ask him.

  He shifts his legs again and sighs. “Hell if I know, Ciara. I hoped we’d figure it out if we spent some time together, like normal people.”

  “No, I mean geographically, where are we going? How can we see fireworks this far out of Sherwood?”

  “It’s a different display.”

  I take my foot off the gas. “These better not be metaphorical fireworks.”

  “These are the realest fireworks of all,” he assures me.

  The car lurches as the road turns to dirt. We come out of the woods next to a huge wheat field. The stalks sway under the lingering twilight and undulate in the breeze like sheets on a clothesline. A few fireflies dot the landscape.

  “Pull over at the top of the hill,” he says.

  I ease the car to the side of the lane and turn off the ignition. “We’re alone.”

  “I wasn’t sure we would be. It’s a popular spot for fireworks.” He eyes me with regret. “We just won’t touch each other. That way we won’t do anything that will lead to screaming and piercing.”

  “You already promised you wouldn’t bite me.”

  “But you don’t really believe it yet. Pop the trunk and stay here.”

  As he busies himself with his grand setup, I check the surroundings for complications: cops, angry farmers, a posse of thirsty vampires. Everything appears copacetic, so I start to relax.

  Shane knocks on my window, and I nearly hit my head on the ceiling. Guess I’m not that relaxed after all. He beckons me out of the car into the humid summer evening.

  A large blanket lies spread on the grass, anchored at each corner with a jar candle. One half is covered with food and drink: barbecued chicken, a bread-and-cheese plate, tomato salad, chocolate-covered strawberries, and a bottle of wine.

  He bows, motioning for me to sit.

  “Shane ...” I kneel on the blanket next to the brimming containers. “You’re feeding me. No one ever feeds me.”

  His foot taps the other side of the blanket. “Sit over here.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s part of the show.”

  I do as he asks, putting my back to the wheat field. He opens the wine—red, of course—and sets it aside to breathe, then heaps a plate high with food and hands it to me.

  “You’re not eating?” I ask him.

  “It won’t taste good. Besides, I have something more important to do.” He pours two glasses of wine, then takes a long sip of one. “Soon as I get up the nerve.”

  I’m intrigued. But also hungry, so I start eating.

  He goes back to the open trunk and pulls out something long and dark. As he comes closer I realize it’s a guitar case.

  “Surprise.” He lifts the instrument out of the case and sits cross-legged with it in his lap.

  I’d guessed he played, since the fingernails of his right hand—the one that holds the strings on the fret board— are trimmed much shorter than those on the left. But instead of telling him that, I send him a smile of genuine excitement.

  His gaze goes distant as he tunes the guitar, testing each string with the pick.

  “Okay.” He clears his throat. “I’ll start with a song by this Irish guy named Luka Bloom. You’ve probably never heard—”

  “Luka Bloom, are you kidding? He opened for the Violent Femmes at my first concert.”

  “Wow, cool. My first concert was Night Ranger and .38 Special, but don’t tell the other DJs. They think it was Black Flag.”

  “Ooh, Shane McAllister’s darkest secret, revealed at last.”

  He puts a finger to his mouth with a playful warning glare. “When you saw Luka, did he play your song?”

  “My what?”

  “You’d know if you’d heard it.” He takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly. “I apologize ahead of time for fucking it up.”

  I set aside my food. When the first slow, tentative chords come, they transform the field into an arena. Instead of absorbing the sound, the landscape echoes and releases it back, as if reserving it just for me.

  Shane starts to sing, with a voice I didn’t know he had but feels like his true voice: soft, deep, and slightly tortured. His tongue curls around the R’s to create a faint Irish brogue. He doesn’t look at me; when he’s not watching his fingers on the fret board, his eyes are closed.

  I barely notice the words until he reaches the first chorus.

  It’s my name.

  My gasp is audible even over his voice, which reaches higher and sweeter now. With a name like Ciara, I never hoped to have a song of my own. As always, the sound of my name from Shane’s lips sends a warm sensation up my neck and over my ears.

  I listen closely to the lyrics of the second verse and realize I’m nothing like that Ciara. She’s virtuous, unreach-able. An “angel.”

  My eyes grow hot around the edges, and my chest feels like it’s in a vise. I cross my arms on my knees and bury my face in them. As the tears well up through my sinuses, I pinch the tender insides of my elbows to distract my mind.

  The song builds to what sounds like a final chorus, pairing my name with the word “angel.” As the last few chords march toward silence, I gulp deep breaths, struggling for control.

  Too late. The last note cuts off when Shane sees me. “Was it that bad?”

  I try to say, “No,” but it comes out as a strangled “Nyuh.” The effort to speak chokes out the first tears, and it’s all over.

  “What’s wrong? Ciara, what happened?” With blurred vision I see Shane reach for me, then change his mind. The No Contact Rule, keeping us safe and sane.

  I shake my head, but can’t speak. My breath heaves in a series of humiliating high-pitched sobs.

  “No hurry.” He tunes the instrument some more, while my tears slow to a steady drizzle.

  Finally my lungs give me a break. “My father used to call me ‘Angel.’“ Sniffle. “Some joke, huh?”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t a joke.” Shane hands me a paper napkin. It’s the soft kind, the kind you buy for fancy parties.

  “It is now.” I try to laugh as I dry my face. “You should play in bars. Drive everyone to drink more.”

  He’s silent for a moment. “Where’s your father now?”

  “In prison. With my mom. Not with my mom, obviously—they’re in separate places, but for the same thing.”

  “What thing?”

  “Guess.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  I sigh. “They were ‘faith healers.’“ I make the requisite air quotes. “They traveled all over the Midwest, turning believers into chumps. People threw money at them, money they couldn’t afford.”

  The corners of Shane’s eyes turn down. “They taught you.”

  “I played along with their routines. Sometimes I was a crippled child miraculously healed by them. Sometimes I was a shill, shouting out ‘Amen!’ or ‘Thank ya, Jesus!’ at just the right moment.”

  “You were a kid,” he whispers. “They used you.”

  “It was fun. Besides, I thought we were—” My voice cuts out. We both sit and wait a moment for it to come back. “Mom and Dad told me the scams were all part of doing God’s work.”

  He draws in a breath. “Holy shit.”

  “I believed
it. My folks didn’t smoke or drink or dance— and as far as I knew, never had sex except on their anniversary. So I thought they were good. The fakery was just a way for us to spread our goodness.” I fiddle with the toe of my sandal, where the sole is coming loose. “One day when I was fourteen—not cute anymore, just gawky—I came late to the revival tent. My parents had already started. I walked up from the side and saw the people watching, how happy they were, how much they believed.” My lips press together. “I saw them for what they were. Suckers. Clueless as cows on the way to the slaughterhouse.”

  “How’d your parents end up in jail?”

  “They were arrested for fraud when I was sixteen. I testified.” I put my face in my hands. “I betrayed them.”

  Shane is silent for a few moments. Then he says, “Hey, don’t feel bad. Every teenager dreams of sending their parents to jail. My dad could’ve been convicted as a first-degree jagoff.”

  I snort—not quite laughter, but further from crying.

  “I’m sorry I judged you.” He hands me another napkin. “Can I do anything?”

  I blow my nose. “Play a happy song.”

  A long pause. “That was the happy song.”

  I laugh, and then I can’t stop laughing, even when my belly and cheeks start to ache.

  “What’s so funny?” he says.

  “You. I like you. I like being with you.”

  “Yeah, that’s hilarious.” He points behind me. “Dry your eyes and turn around.”

  “The fireworks?” I spin on the blanket and search the skies. “I don’t see—oh my God.”

  The field is ablaze.

  Dancing, flashing fireflies cover the landscape as far as I can see. Half of them loiter within the wheat while the others swoop and dart above, creating a 3-D display, like a mile-wide Christmas tree. The field sparkles in every hue of green, from aquamarine to chartreuse.

  “It’s boy meets girl times a thousand,” Shane says. “Or ten thousand.”

  “How do they know when they’ve found the right one? Or do they just pick the first firefly they see?”

  “If it were that spontaneous, it’d all be over in five minutes. They each look for a specific signal that tells them, this could be the one.”

  “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.” I hear the goopy sincerity in my voice. “Much better than Sousa and gunpowder, at least.”

  “I thought you’d like it. Which means I’m not completely wrong about you.”

  The guitar is in his lap, but it’d be so easy to crawl around it and kiss him, to remove it so I can pin him to the ground and press every inch of my body onto his. The look in his eyes says he wouldn’t stop me.

  “Play a song for the fireflies.” I sweep my hand toward the field. “Something to get them in the mood.”

  He watches me closely for a second, probably rewinding my words to check for a double meaning, then turns back to the guitar. “I think ‘Two Hearts’ by Chris Isaak would be appropriate.”

  “Never heard that one. But Chris Isaak? A little straightforward for your tastes.”

  “You’re not the only one with layers.”

  The song starts off slow and sad, lamenting the struggle to find love in the dark night. Then it pauses, and he gives me a mischievous glance. A moment later, it bounces into a jaunty, hopeful tune about life’s burdens being too much for just one person (or insect) to carry. He hits an admirable falsetto on the chorus, and I start to realize how damn good a singer he is.

  My feet start tapping of their own will. During the brief solo, Shane gestures with his chin for me to get up and dance. I kick off my shoes and hop onto the cool, soft grass. Then it’s me and the fireflies, jamming, falling in love with the summer night.

  I look back to see Shane watching me. He misses the high note and breaks into laughter without losing the rhythm. He starts the last chorus again when it comes around on the guitar.

  When it ends, he applauds, and I bow, then clap for him with outstretched arms like a prima donna thanking her conductor.

  Shane raises his wine. “To the fireflies.” He empties the glass and tosses it aside. “Here’s one for the mosquitoes.”

  He slams into Nirvana’s “Drain You,” squashing the sentimentality like a rolled-up newspaper on a—well, a mosquito. The harsh, growly parts of his voice take center stage to sing of a love based in disease and craving. I return to sit on the blanket.

  Shane looks at home in his body as he returns to the music of his soul. With every strum, his pale brown hair swings against the sharp bones of his cheeks and jaw. I watch his fingers fly over the fret board and grow warm imagining them on my skin.

  The solo alternates between a low, steady thrumming and wild bursts of intensity. As it builds to a crescendo, he glances at the landscape around us, probably deciding whether or not to do the scream.

  Just when I think he’s going to cop out to save his voice, he lets loose with a feral howl that sends a hot electric blast to the tips of my fingers and toes. It’s all I can do not to run away, or rip off my clothes.

  He shifts to the chords of the third-verse-same-as-the-first, snarling the lyrics like it’s a personal anthem. His voice and the guitar build a noise that could tear the leaves off the trees.

  The last chord soaks into the thick, humid evening. Shane sends me a feral gaze through a curtain of tangled hair. For the first time tonight, he looks like a vampire.

  I clap slowly, though the gesture feels shallow in the face of such power. “I didn’t know that song could be done acoustically. Those years of music theory really paid off.”

  “Not years. Months.” He refills his wineglass without looking at me.

  Clearly his abbreviated college career bothers him. I change the subject. “I have a new nickname for your kind. Mosquitoes.”

  “Nice.” He takes a long sip.

  “When was the last time you drank?”

  He holds up his glass.

  “I don’t mean wine.”

  “I know.” He stares into the red liquid depths. “I’m not an animal. I can control it.”

  “But you’d rather not.”

  “I’d rather do whatever it takes to get you and keep you.” He puts down the glass and focuses on the guitar. “That’s what I’d rather do.”

  The evening progresses, through Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan and Steve Earle and The Pogues and some people I’ve never heard of. Though I started the night nursing one glass of wine, the music, food, and absence of vampire attacks have relaxed me enough to have a second, then a third.

  The fireflies wink out one by one, as they either find their mates or give up for the night. I realize that if I were one of those bugs in the field, I would have turned off my blinky butt the moment Shane struck the first chord of “Ciara.”

  Finally Shane sets the guitar back in its case and shakes out his stiff fingers. He frowns at the empty wine bottle. “How are you going to drive us home?”

  “You could drive.”

  He looks away. “My other dark secret is that I can’t drive stick.”

  “Then I’ll teach you.”

  “I can’t learn new things the way a human can.”

  “Don’t listen to that Control propaganda. You learned the ‘Ciara’ song, didn’t you? You didn’t just happen to have it in your repertoire when we met.”

  “True.” He sighs and pulls the guitar out of its case. “One last tune, a eulogy for your transmission. How about ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It’?”

  “No, play my song again. Please? I promise not to cry.”

  He shrugs. “Cry all you want. As long as I know I’m not the cause.”

  He plays “Ciara” again, his voice softer, fatigued from so many songs. It strains to hit the chorus’s higher notes, giving it a plaintive sound, as if he’ll never reach that angelic Ciara, but he’ll keep trying.

  This time, I don’t need to cry.

  16

  Twilight Zone

  I wake at 3 a.m.
Friday morning to Cake’s irony-laced “Rock ’n’ Roll Lifestyle” and decide I’m too restless to listen to Shane’s program alone.

  Soon I pull into the radio station lot, parking less than ten feet from the front door. Before getting out of the car, I check my surroundings—nothing but shifting shadows of trees and the hesitant chirps of a few early cicadas.

  I step out of the vehicle. Immediately a cold presence permeates the humid night. Its gaze on my body feels like a hand with too many fingers. As I stride toward the building—not running, no matter how much I want to—I almost wish I could wield a cross with conviction.

  Once inside, I shut and relock the front door behind me, then hurry downstairs.

  Sitting around the poker table, Regina, Jim, Noah, and Spencer greet me with varied amounts of enthusiasm.

  “Happy to take your money, honey.” Spencer pulls out a chair for me to sit in.

  Regina shakes her head at him. “Sucker.”

  I don’t sit. “Gideon lives an hour from here, right?”

  They share nervous glances. “Yeah, out in the mountains,” Regina says. “Why?”

  “Twice I’ve felt something watch me in the parking lot.” I rub my arms at the lingering chill. “Something cold.”

  “I knew it!” Regina slams the deck against the table. “Skywave didn’t make that threatening phone call after the party. It was Gideon, the skeevy son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Or one of his flunkies,” Jim adds.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Spencer says. “He’s always kept to himself.”

  “Who else is old enough to have that kind of aura?” Regina stands and stalks over to me. “When did this happen?”

  “The night I interviewed for the job, and again just now.”

  “Then he could still be outside.” She turns to the door. “If Monroe were here, the five of us could take Gideon.”

  “Wait.” Noah turns to me. “You said this happened the first time you come here.” I nod. “Then it cannot be Gideon. Before your campaign, we kept our secret. He had no reason to stalk you, or the station.”

  Regina huffs out a breath. “Then there’s another vampire besides Gideon after us?”

  “Maybe it’s Gideon now,” Jim offers, “but a different one that other night.”