A Date With Fate

by Tracy Ellen

  I whistled back my admiration. What a team of competent connivers we made.

  We waited a few anxious minutes in silence. Not seeing any vans lunging out of the darkness, we decided the coast was clear around us. I texted Jack as he’d instructed.

  Tre, guided only by the light from the moon and stars overhead, slowly drove the bouncing Honda up the open, rutted lane towards the tree shrouded farmyard a hundred yards ahead of us.

  As we crept closer, I turned and grinned at Jazy in the backseat. This was fun being sneaky. I couldn’t believe I’ve never tried this before. She grinned back, a flash of white teeth in the dark interior of the car.

  We entered the inky darkness under the canopy of dense trees, and Tre J slowed to a stop until her night vision further adjusted.

  Here the road did a loop into a big, circular driveway. I recalled in the grassy center of the circle were massive groupings of huge lilac bushes. It was late autumn and they were bare of their leaves, but the tangle of thick branches still created a barrier preventing us from seeing the other side of the drive way and the whole house.

  From where we were stopped it was possible to see a front porch light was on outside. It spotlighted the cement stoop and iron railing of the mid-century style rambler. The bushes blocked a clear glimpse of the house, but enough lights could be seen twinkling through the branches that it appeared Luke was home.

  After a moment’s thought, Jazy directed Tre J to go slowly to the right. Tre J turned the wheel and crept towards the house.

  Clicking open her seatbelt again, Jazy scooted forward and softly explained her logic to me. “We need to be able to see what’s going on without committing you. It’s a rambler, so there’s probably a picture window in front, right?” She must have sensed my nod in the dark car because she went on matter-of-factly, “We can’t get out of the car here and go surveil. It’s too far away. It would be uncouth if we were caught looking in his windows.” I giggled at the term and the image. “If we can get the car close enough, then maybe we can verify Luke’s home and alone, without getting out. If we can’t, having the car close makes it acceptable to be out walking near his front window like we were going to the front door.”

  “Hot diggety, Jaz, you really know your stuff! I had no idea classic moves use so much devious strategy.” I was in awe at the unforeseen depths of my baby sister’s ninja stealth knowledge. I teased in a whisper, “Here I thought I’d just go blundering up to the door and ring the bell if he’s home.”

  Jazy and Tre J let out similar oaths of hissed surprise. “Don’t be such a stupid ass!” and “Oh, that wouldn’t be smart, Anabel!”

  Not offended by their words, I found myself smiling to be creeping up on Luke’s house. I was holding my bated breath while Tre J inched us closer to the dwelling and it became more visible.

  Tre buzzed down her window partway, head cocked and listening. We could all hear it then, the sound of loud music playing.

  Tre whispered, “He must have a window cracked somewhere.”

  Jazy murmured, “This makes life easier. You hear that song? It’s Radiohead, good choice.”

  Tre fervently agreed. “I love Radiohead.”

  She inched the car to the end of this leg of the driveway, right before it jogged left within a few feet of the foundation of the house. Tre J had hugged the left side of the lane. We were quietly idling, a dark car shadowed by the giant, looming lilac bushes.

  I was dutifully peering ahead, trying to see inside the living room through Luke’s front picture window. It was lit up like a small theatre stage. From this angle, I couldn’t see too much. An empty chair, a lamp, and an arched doorway leading into darkness were about it.

  My cell phone buzzed loudly in the quiet car. I quickly grabbed it. Using my purse as a covering, I saw a text from an unknown number. Curious, I read it quickly and blew out a surprised breath.

  I have important news. Please allow me to tell you. All I ask is 5 min. Mike McClain

  Glancing up at the sudden tenseness in the air, I heard Tre’s cautiously murmured, “Well, well, what do we have here?”

  “Tre.”

  Shoving my phone in my purse, I forgot Mike’s text to concentrate on what was happening. At my sister’s one word instruction, Tre had smoothly put the Honda in reverse and we were backing up.

  The car stopped. Jazy made her move and slipped out. She shut the car door closed with a soft click. Poised for action, Tre J was on it. She had reached up and covered the dome light with her gloves. When I glanced back in the direction Jazy had gone, there was no sight of her in the dark night around us.

  I didn’t know yet what had them curious, but I was totally impressed at their tandem movements. They worked together like a well-oiled machine. I wondered what these two were up to in their spare time. Did training horses together and being roommates explain why they’d be so in sync at covert operations, or could Jazy and Tre be a couple of female Peeping Tom’s?

  “What’s going on, Tre?”

  “Look over my way at about ten o’clock. It’s through the bushes on the side of the house. Can you see it?”

  I sat forward and strained to see where she pointed. It didn’t take me long to see it, too. Staring fixedly, I couldn’t look away from the sight of Candy’s light blue, Honda Civic parked in Luke’s driveway.

  My mind was scrambling to comprehend. I thought back quickly over the past two months for clues to understand why I was seeing Candy’s car at Luke’s. Candy had been over at Reggie’s on the Saturday morning I’d first met Luke last September. I had to assume he’d met her at least that once. I would definitely have remembered being sick if Luke had mentioned hanging out with Candy in any of our ensuing conversations. I don’t vomit frequently enough to not distinctly remember the experience when I do.

  To prove my thoughts, a sickening sensation now replaced the excited butterflies in my gut. Staring at her car, I had to conclude this meant one of two things; Luke was dating Candy, or he was friends with her. Either way, he hadn’t mentioned her name to me. I had never told him anything about my past with Candy, so he didn’t know I despised her.

  Luke and I had no agreement of exclusivity, but would he be so crass as to be with my cousin? I also realized, exclusivity clause or not, these had to be jealousy pangs twisting up my innards at the idea of Luke being with another woman. Mixed with the pangs of horror that the woman could be my cousin Candy, and I was fighting the need to hurl in disgust. Neither concept was pretty.

  I guess there was a third, remote possibility that could not be overlooked. Candy had shown up out of the blue at Luke’s house. He wasn’t seeing her, or friends with her. Maybe he’d let her in because she was selling Girl Scout cookies at ten o’clock at night and he was a good citizen.

  Did I say earlier Fate was trying to kick my ass? Obviously, I misspoke. Fate was trying to kick my ass, my gut, my head, my ankle—you name it. This was a full-body contact, slaughterama of a weekend. I am sitting here watching my past comingling with my future, and repeating itself like a remake of a cosmically bad joke.

  I fell back in my seat and muttered darkly, “Why does everybody think Radiohead’s so frickin’ great, anyway? Nothing but New Age Pink Floyders.”

  Chapter XIV

  “Rolling In The Deep” by Adele

  Saturday, 11/17/12

  10:37 PM

  Tre reprimanded me with gentle tolerance over my Radiohead comment, as if I was a cranky preschooler who knew not what she said.

  I was waiting with outward calm for Jazy’s return. Inside, I was a snake pit of seething emotions and barely hanging onto my temper. Not racing to the door and finding out for myself what was going on took every ounce of self control I possessed. I really despise waiting around.

  I practiced my yoga breathing. I came to a decision. Luke would get the benefit of my doubt unless proven untrustworthy, but not Candy. She knows exactly who she’s messing with tonight.

  Candy and Reggie were aware I had
a first date with Luke minutes after it was arranged last September. I hadn’t been very subtle grilling Reggie about Luke when he’d left. Reg had teased me unmercifully in front of Candy about Luke and me sniffing after each other like dogs in heat. There was no way Candy didn’t know I was dating Luke.

  Candy Anne MacKenzie has been living on borrowed time for the past nine years, and now she needs to die.

  Candy takes after her mother’s side of the family in looks. You would never guess we are first cousins, or even related. She is fond of informing people she resembles the celebrity, Tori Spelling. It is true Candy has bulbous, brown eyes.

  During our teens, she acted possessed over the fact that I had a larger bra cup size then she did. Candy threw tantrums and made my uncle’s life miserable over this issue. It goes without saying; Daddy soon bought her a new set of boobs. It also goes without saying; once she got her way she went big--as in ginormous. A porn star would be envious Paired up against her thin, slight frame her melon-sized breasts appear painfully huge in proportion.

  At first glance, my cousin is an attractively packaged woman complete with factory warrantee. Candy’s skin is tanned mahogany, the hair’s bleached white blonde and long with extensions, the teeth are whitened to that weird purplish-white hue, the make-up is piled on, the eyebrows are plucked to a thin, black half circle, and the eyelashes are false. She dresses and accessorizes expensively with Uncle Trevor’s credit cards, but her taste continues to be questionable. This is from years of Anna and I indirectly influencing her fashion choices, but more on that later.

  I’m sure she sees herself as a desirable, hoochie mama that every man lusts after.

  I see her as a walking, toxic dumpsite.

  Satisfying as it would be to pull Candy out of Luke’s house by the roots of her Chernobyl blonde hair to give her a dermabrasion treatment she’d never forget on the gravel drive tonight, it wasn’t going down that way. My beef with her was of long standing duration. It’s not going to be about Luke.

  As far back as I can remember, Candy has gone to extreme lengths to get whatever I have. If she can take it from me while doing so, even better.

  She’s three years older, so this caused some problems for me when we were kids. It was no fun having my G.I. Joe go disappearing from my room, only to later show up at her house, in her room. She vehemently denied taking it, of course. Since her parents bought her anything she even remotely desired; Candy had some wiggle room to smugly squirm out of trouble with the adults.

  Not with me, though. I knew every inch of that G.I. Joe. I’d paid for that man doll out of my hard earned Chore Chart money. He was mine.

  After seeing her smile of evil satisfaction at the look on my face when first seeing her completely redecorated bedroom, I had Candy’s measure. It was crammed with the entire collection of the Princess Pink Ruffles canopied bedroom set I’d drooled over endlessly.

  When I woke up from a kitten nap in my room after a big, Sunday dinner to the sight of my nuttier-than-a-fruitcake cousin about to snip off my waist-length braid, it was all out warfare.

  My age, or size, has never stopped me from scrapping when necessary. Jumping up with a shout that day, I’d tripped her to the floor and sat on her. I was planning on shearing her like a sheep in retribution. The scissors were a hairsbreadth away from taking the first hunk off her scalp when NanaBel burst into my room in response to Candy’s hysterical screams of terror. Biting her lip, our Grandmother coaxed me down from my heights of nap-groggy furor. It was later that same day NanaBel exacted my first begrudging, disgruntled promise to go easy on Candy.

  Since I gave my word not to physically take her down, Anna and I spent many constructive hours on the serviceable bunk beds in my room devising ways to watch Candy dance on our strings like a Tasmanian Devil puppet.

  The formula was laughably simple and almost always worked. I’d allow Candy to eavesdrop on Anna’s and mine private conversations. I would profess to desire something like a certain person, or a really cool sweatshirt with bejeweled cat eyes. Then we’d sit back and watch the fun. My kook of a cousin moved heaven and earth to obtain any objects of my supposed affection.

  Were Anna and I wrong to believe Candy had a moral choice? If she didn’t spy then she wouldn’t know what I wanted, and it wouldn’t work for us to be puppet masters extraordinaire.

  That’s what we thought as well.

  Candy dressed very strangely for years. We felt kind of bad for siccing the seventeen-year-old Candy on the thirteen-year-old boy with the terrible acne problem. Bur he actually dumped her first and moved on to become quite the stud.

  As we got older, I learned to virtually ignore Candy. I was busy with my own life and friends. We hung with different people, and our paths crossed only occasionally at family functions. There were enough people at these gatherings to easily avoid her, and I grew unconsciously adept at being wherever Candy wasn’t. I almost forgot she was demonic.

  Until I was nineteen.

  I was working long hours at Bel’s while my one and only boyfriend, Mike McClain, was going to school his sophomore year at the U of M. Mike and I’d been hot and heavy for over two years, wildly in love. I visited him on campus as much as I could get away, and he drove the hour commute to be with me several times a week. As far as I knew, we had no issues. Our relationship together was as close to perfection as I could imagine, and we’ve all ready established the status of my imagination.

  Mike and I were spending the upcoming weekend at a friend’s cabin up north. Our friend was leaving to spend the year in Europe and this was his big blowout of a send off. I was excited to spend three full days with Mike and really looking forward to partying with our friends.

  The day we were due to leave, NanaBel and several others of the bookstore staff came down violently ill with a nasty stomach virus. It was impossible for me to take off the time to go to the cabin. Totally bumming, I encouraged Mike to go ahead and have fun with his friends since I’d now be working all the time that weekend.

  Busy and oblivious to what was taking place three hours to the north; I was only amused on Sunday at the reports starting to trickle in from concerned friends before Bel’s closed late that afternoon. Nobody knew details, but several people I knew called or came into the store to exclaim over my break-up with Mike. Candy was boasting she had been with Mike up north for the weekend and the grapevine was working at top speed. Casual friends assumed we’d broken up and they hadn’t heard.

  It was news to me, too. Mike and I had talked briefly on Saturday afternoon and there was no talk of breaking up. It was the opposite. I had to laughingly beg him to hang up and let me get back to work while he continued to say sweet things to me. He hadn’t even mentioned Candy and my sister Kenna were up at the cabin party.

  I checked my cell repeatedly and had no calls from Mike, but I still blew off what I was hearing. I was sure he’d come over the minute he got back in town. He’d tell me what was up, if anything, in regards to Candy’s gossip. There was no way Mike would ever be seduced by Candy.

  Not too long after I was up in the apartment, my sister Kenna came over.

  “Yes, it is true.” Kenna uncomfortably confirmed for the second time. She was miserably sticking to her guns even as I accused her of bullshitting me; despite the swear to God I’d hotly demanded from her at the start of the conversation.

  I’ll always give her credit for facing me and telling me what she knew to be true regarding that weekend. She understood I’d be hearing stories and came immediately to the apartment after the store closed. I was sure Kenna wasn’t lying. There were no circumstances I could come up with that could mitigate what my sister saw with her own two eyes. Believe me, I tried.

  Yes, it was true. Mike McClain, the love of my life, screwed my cousin. The moment Kenna appeared at the top of the stairs and I saw her guilty, evasive expression, my brain knew Mike McClain was not worth another moment of my time.

  It just took a couple of years for my broken hea
rt to catch up to my brain.

  Other than briefly telling Anna what Kenna divulged to me that night, and telling my family we broke up, I never said his name again. I never spoke to him again. What was done could never be undone.

  I learned I was not a forgiving soul that bleak, Sunday evening.

  Maybe some people can truly forgive, or forget, such a personal smackdown. I’m not one of them. I’m not forgiving, but I will forget you until you cease to exist. Not like I never knew you or what you did. More like you are now a nothing to me. When Mike called several times, or came to the apartment and the store, I ignored him and walked away. He was dead to me.

  There’s a whole world out there of people willing to treat you decently, so why stay with anyone willing to betray you?

  Stay out of love? Love yourself enough to deserve better. People that love you do not betray you the first time. Unfortunately, if you stick with them the odds are they will do it again.

  Stay out of friendship? Adults that are your true friends do not betray you, or throw you under the bus. Your true friends like, even love, you enough to never want to bash you around with words or actions.

  Stay out of fear of being alone? Accept it and get over it. We are all ultimately alone.

  Stay out of pity? Don’t get me going on pity again.

  I look at the people I love in my inner circle as beautiful gifts on loan while I trek through my life. I want to treat them with affection, respect, humor, interest and understanding. They need to return the honor, or else why are they in my inner circle?

  Sure, nobody’s perfect and you don’t dump someone for quirks or minor faults if you care about them. You want to be understanding of their issues, too. The level of betrayal I was dealt from Mike McClain went far beyond a minor flaw or quirk. I proved I could forget over time he ever existed, but I’d never forgive him for having to learn that terrible lesson of personal betrayal.

  When push came to shove, Kenna came to the apartment to tell me what she knew out of loyalty as my sister, and to clear herself of any wrongdoing or involvement in my eyes. She may be buds with Candy, but she has no problems always looking out for number one.