by Rick Hautala
She wondered if she still had that napkin in her purse, but she doubted she would need it. She was positive Samael would be waiting for her when she got out. Her major concern was how much of a wreck she must look. Her hair was disheveled, and her makeup needed a serious touch up. Maybe she’d get a chance to fix herself up before she left the examination room. Already, she was anticipating how she would react when she saw his handsome, smiling face again. She couldn’t help but wonder if this incident had brought them close enough together so they might venture a hug and maybe even a little kiss.
Her legs were so rubbery they felt unhinged when she hopped down from the examination table and stood up for the first time in what seemed like a very long time. The sudden blood rush from her head made her dizzy, and she had to place one hand on the edge of the table to help her keep her balance.
The doctor—the name tag on his jacket read Dr. Levine—didn’t miss her momentary relapse, and he said, “You’re bound to feel a little woozy from the pain meds we gave you earlier, before we stitched the wound.”
Claire didn’t remember being given any pain meds, and she had only a vague memory of them stitching the cut on her foot, but she grunted and nodded.
She limped horribly as she walked over to the door.
“Thank you…for everything,” she said, all too aware of how lame she sounded. Doctor Levine smiled and indicated the wheelchair by the door.
“Sorry,” he said. “You’ll have to sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Begrudgingly, Claire sat down in it.
As Dr. Levine pushed her out of the room and down the corridor to the waiting room, anticipation built about what she would say or do when she saw Samael. She was frightfully aware of the ambient sounds of the hospital—the hushed voices, the beeping of medical equipment, the squeaking of a wheel on a passing gurney.
She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to compose herself as best she could for how she—and he—would react.
When the doors to the waiting room swung open with a whoosh, Claire quickly scanned the people, assured she would notice Samael in a flash. Hell, she hardly knew him, so why was she feeling so attached to him already?
Her pulse was racing as she sat there, looking around. Then her stomach dropped with a cold, nauseating rush when she realized—
No!…This can’t be!
—that he wasn’t there.
“Do you have a ride home, Ms. McMullen?”
Doctor Levine’s voice sounded like it was coming from miles away. When she looked up at him, it was like looking through the wrong end of the telescope. He appeared to be impossibly far away. A loud rushing sound filled her head as another, stronger wave of dizziness swept through her.
She nodded and said, “I’m all set,” but her voice sounded like someone else’s.
Maybe he stepped out for coffee…or went to the restroom…or went outside to bring the car around.
She wanted to—she had to believe there was a reasonable explanation for why he wasn’t there. Her expectation that they would lock eyes and rush to each other in a passionate embrace now seemed so naïve…so foolish. After sitting there gaping at the assortment of people seated and pacing back and forth in the emergency room, she had to face the cold, hard fact.
He had ditched her.
“Fuckin’ men,” she muttered.
“What’s that?” Doctor Levine asked, turning to her.
The momentary rush of disappointment quickly passed. This was so typical.
“Oh, no…nothing at all,” she said. “Thanks again for all your help.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Doctor Levine said.
Claire forced a smile as she looked. He seemed nice enough. Good looking in a plain sort of way. And a doctor, so he’s obviously doing well. Exactly the kind of prospect her mother would want her to bring home.
Safe…Sane…Ordinary…And oh, so boring…
“Don’t forget to make a follow-up appointment with your physician to have those stitches taken out in about a week.”
“Will do,” Claire said, thinking how much he sounded like her mother.
“Well then,” Dr. Levine said, and without another word, an orderly came up to them and started pushing the wheelchair toward the exit door. The doors automatically whooshed open when they got to them. A cold, damp breeze blew into her face, chilling her as she rose shakily from the wheelchair. Her left foot was pounding with pain.
“Thanks,” she said to the orderly, who spun the wheelchair around like he’d done this thousands of times and darted back into the hospital.
“Great,” Claire muttered when she realized it was drizzling. She was positive it would start raining before she got back to her apartment. The early morning air had that feeling to it. Across the parking lot, the streetlights that surrounded the perimeter glowed like huge, purple dandelion puffs against the gradually lightening sky.
While still inside the shelter of the entryway, Claire fished her cell phone from her purse and hit the speed dial for Sally’s number. After four rings, the phone went to message.
“Fuck!”
She ended the call and dialed again. This time—on the third ring—Sally picked up. She said something Claire found impossible to hear.
“Hey, Sal…You hear me?”
“Claire…?” Sally mumbled.
“Can you—?” Claire started to ask, but then she said, “Never mind,” and she cut the call.
“Screw it,” she said as she slipped her phone back into her purse. After considering calling for a cab, she decided to hell with that, too. Her apartment was halfamile away. She could make it, even with her injured foot. So what if it started to rain? She wouldn’t get all that wet before she got home. After pulling her jacket collar tight around her neck, she stuck her hands into her jacket pockets.
That’s when she felt the crumpled-up bar napkin.
A thrill went through her as she withdrew her hand from her pocket, clutching the note. That thrill, however, quickly shifted into irritation when she thought about how Samael had dumped her.
“Fuckin’ asshole,” she whispered. She was tempted to throw the napkin to the wet sidewalk where it would dissolve into pulp, but then she stuffed it back into her jacket pocket…
Why don’t you get rid of it, she asked herself.
She didn’t have a good answer, so she started walking.
Her progress was slow because of her limp. Every other step sent a hot, tingly jab of pain up through her ankle to her knee. A few late-night walkers or early risers passed by, hurrying to get wherever they were going before it started to rain, but they ignored her.
That’s a good thing, she thought.
She didn’t want some street creep to see her vulnerable like this.
Shoulders hunched and trying her best to ignore the sharp pain, she was about a hundred yards away from the hospital when the rain did, indeed, start falling. It was a cold, late March rain that bordered on snow, and with the wind blowing in off the ocean, it had—as they say—“teeth.” The pain in her foot radiated in painful throbs up her leg. Within minutes, her hair was a tangled mess of wet curls that clung to her face like slugs. The rain was coming down so hard it all but obscured the streetlights around her. A few cars passed by, their tires hissing like a nest of snakes on the wet asphalt. Their lights barely pierced the downpour, and a dense mist began to rise as the cool rain hit the warmer asphalt.
“Jesus…Christ…Just…Fucking…Great,” Claire mumbled as she walked as fast as she could.
She walked with her head down, heading toward Longfellow Square. The runoff from the sudden downpour was streaming down the sidewalk in dark, shimmering sheets. She was concerned that the bandage on her foot would get soaked through. That sure wouldn’t help with the healing. But the doctor had given her extra pads and a roll of medical tape, so she could replace it when she got home.
If I ever get home.
She was used to walking around Portland—even late
at night…or early in the morning—but her apartment building had never seemed so far away as it did right then. The chill bit through her jacket and jeans, and her teeth were chattering wildly. She didn’t notice the car that had pulled up quietly a few feet behind her. She jumped when the horn tooted three times.
At first, she ignored it, thinking some yo-yo wanted to give her a hard time.
Eyes straight ahead, she kept walking.
The car didn’t speed up and pass her by. It kept pace with her, like a hungry animal stalking wounded prey. Claire slipped her hand into her purse and gripped her cell phone, ready to call 911 if things got bad.
The driver honked his horn again, so Claire—still without looking—raised her middle finger and shouted, “Fuck off.” She wasn’t sure if the driver heard her or not. She didn’t care. All she wanted to do was get home.
But then, still keeping pace with her, he hit the horn again—longer—and she was finally forced to stop and confront this asshole before it went any further. She turned and faced the car. In the rain, all she could tell was that it was dark and kind of fancy. In the downpour, she couldn’t tell the make or model.
As she stood there with rain beating down on her, the tinted window slid down like a thin sheet of dark ice, shifting aside to reveal the darker depths below. All she could see of the driver was a dark silhouette that looked like it had been scissored out of the night.
“You look like you could use a ride.”
She hadn’t heard him speak many words since they first met last evening at Margarita’s, but the shock of recognition hit Claire hard. She had to catch her breath. After a moment, she leaned closer to the car and now saw that it was, indeed, a sleek, dark Mercedes.
It was the same one she’d noticed in the restaurant’s parking lot.
The window on the passenger’s side slid all the way down now, and by the pale green glow of the dashboard lights, she could easily make out Samael’s features. When he looked at her and smiled, his teeth caught the light just right and gleamed with a faint iridescent glow.
It was definitely Samael.
Her first impulse was to ignore him…not say a word and walk away. He’d already ditched her once tonight. She wasn’t about to be humiliated again.
Her second impulse was to turn to him, let him see what a sodden, disheveled mess she was, and tell him to go fuck himself.
But her third impulse—the one that gripped her with undeniable power and overwhelmed the first two—was to smile back at him, laugh as if this was just the silliest thing that ever happened to her, and get into the car.
Which is exactly what she did.
~ * ~
“I’ll get your car seat wet.”
“It’s seen worse.”
Claire wasn’t sure what he meant by that as she settled herself in the seat and then clicked the seatbelt around her waist and chest. It struck her as silly to belt up with less than a quarter mile to go, but so be it. The thought crossed her mind, though, that she was restraining herself, and Samael could take advantage of her if he had any bad intentions…like that man in the alley.
“So—umm, where’d you disappear to?” she asked.
She figured it was best to get it all out in the open instead of letting it fester. She told herself that this didn’t change a damned thing. It had been unreasonable of her to expect him to wait for her all night at the hospital, but that’s exactly what she had done. He had to know that even though they barely knew each other, he had let her down. Otherwise, it wasn’t a promising way to start a relationship…
She chided herself for thinking so much ahead of things.
He had been at the hospital…and now he was driving her home…a little late, maybe, but what the heck?
That’s all, though.
There’s no “relationship” here.
“I got a call I had to take,” Samael said.
He kept his eyes focused straight ahead on the road. The windshield wipers slapped back and forth, scooping fans of water to the sides of the car. Claire had the momentary sensation that they were underwater, somehow totally isolated from the rest of the world. She noted how this wasn’t the first time Samael had created the illusion that when she was with him, the rest of the world could slide into the background without notice.
“I figured you’d be in there a lot longer. You know how hospitals are. So I thought I could slip out for a few minutes.”
Claire made a harrumphing sound and told herself she was a fool for believing anything he said or for allowing herself to think there was anything special happening here. What would a guy like Samael, obviously rich and successful, be doing with a woman like her, anyway? No doubt, he had his pick of any number of gorgeous, wealthy, stylish women to function as adornments to his lavish lifestyle. While she acknowledged that she wasn’t particularly unattractive, she was also realistic enough to know she was no raving beauty, either.
Except for her blazing red hair, so maybe he had a thing for redheads.
“You didn’t have any obligation to stick around,” she finally said, once she was sure she could control the pitch of her voice. She intended to sound casual, but it came off as sounding a little desperate…especially looking like she did right now.
He drove for a while in silence, but not far because he pulled up to the curb directly in front of Claire’s apartment building. She looked at him with a mixture of suspicion and amusement.
“Wanna tell me how you know?” she asked.
He sat there with his hands draped over the steering wheel, his long fingers hanging loosely. The engine was purring, the wiper blades slapping back and forth. He stared straight ahead as if he was still driving. The reflected lights of the city played across his face, creating the illusion that his features were shifting…changing shape even as she watched him. It was both unnerving and intriguing.
“How did I know what?” he asked, turning to her. His eyes glowed like chips of ice in the darkness. He was smiling, but there was a ravenous look about his smile that for some reason made Claire think of the “Big Bad Wolf.”
Claire nodded to indicate the building they were parked in front of.
“Where I live. This is my place.”
“It is?”
He sounded surprised, but a mocking note colored his voice.
“Uh-huh.”
“I pulled over where I saw an empty parking space. I figured you couldn’t live far from here because you were walking in the rain. If you lived on the far side of town, you would have called a friend…or a cab.”
Claire nodded, still suspicious. It sounded reasonable enough, but still—she wasn’t sure. She had the sudden paranoid thought that maybe this guy had noticed her at some point and had been stalking her for…
Who knew how long?
Maybe running into her at the restaurant and then following her to the hospital had all been planned, somehow.
Not likely, she decided…I’d have noticed a guy like this right away.
“Well…thanks for the ride, such as it was,” she said with a laugh.
“The doctor must have given you a prescription. Do you want me to drive you to the Rite-Aid in the morning to fill it?”
Claire shook her head.
“I have a couple of pills to get me through until I can fill it. My roommate will run down to the pharmacy for me.”
“Ahh, yes. Sally,” he said, nodding.
Claire glanced at him, then looked over her shoulder at her building, and then back at him.
“Thanks for the ride, then,” she said.
The door latch clicked, and the car door swung open. The air had a chill, and the rain came down hard. Fitful gusts blew needle-sharp spray into her face.
I can’t look any worse than I already do, she thought bitterly.
Shivering, she cringed inside her coat, pulling the collar up around her neck as she prepared to make a dash to the front door.
But then—somehow—Samael was out of the car and stand
ing beside her on the pavement. She hadn’t even noticed him getting out and running around the car, but—somehow—he had produced an umbrella as he extended a hand to help her out of the car. The umbrella expanded, and she felt safe under its shelter. She glanced at Samael and smiled.
“Thanks,” she said, but that didn’t begin to express the amazement she was feeling, considering how fast and smooth he had moved.
“It’s the least a gentleman can do,” he said. “Is this your door?”
As if you have to ask, Claire thought wryly but didn't say.
Side by side, with rain beating a wild rhythm on the umbrella, they walked under the sheltered alcove at the front of the building. Samael collapsed the umbrella and shook it, and they stood there, looking at each other in awkward silence for a long moment. Cars passing by on the street seemed to recede into nothing. The night and everything around them seemed so distant, but Claire tensed when a low grumble of thunder sounded above the sounds of the passing traffic.
“That’s weird,” she said, leaning forward and scanning the sky.
“What is?” Samael glanced up and down the street as though expecting to see something unusual.
“You usually don’t hear thunder in March, is all.”
As soon as she said that, a faint blue glow flickered in the dark sky above the city. Seconds later, another low roll of thunder sounded above the steady downpour of the rain.
“Global climate change,” Samael said, smiling at her.
Once again, she was struck by the faint bluish glow of his teeth, like they were reflecting the flickering lightning.
Claire was tossing back and forth in her mind, wondering if she should invite him up to her place—to dry off, at least. She knew—and she knew that he knew—exactly what that would mean, and making a move like this was so uncharacteristic of her. It was something Sally did all the time. Claire couldn’t count how many times she had suggested to Sally that being so easy might be exactly why she was having so much trouble establishing a long-term, committed relationship with anyone…if that’s what she was looking for.
But then…look where it had gotten her…
“So…you—umm, wanna come up for some coffee or something?”