Running From Mercy

by Terra Little

  I wanted to go and sit a while with Moira, but I didn’t want to take the chance of running into David. I definitely don’t want to see him again just yet. He really pissed me off and you know why, so I won’t get into all that again. Suffice it to say, I’m done trying to make friends for the next little while.

  Now if I could just get Nikki to stop asking all her ridiculous questions, I’d be all right. She keeps pressing me about me and her dad, wanting to know if we were really serious or not. I guess it’s a foregone conclusion that we had a thing for each other and she wants to know exactly what kind of thing it was. (Thanks a lot, Paris!) I didn’t know Paris was keeping close tabs on what Chad and I were doing the way she obviously was. Sneaky little heifer. Good thing she didn’t know the absolute truth, huh? At least not until the very end, when it was obvious that I’d been with someone and I had to tell her who.

  The in-between, before my life went to hell, was my secret. Mine and Chad’s. As small as Mercy is, we managed to keep our relationship between the two of us. And it’s a good thing too, isn’t it? Paris would’ve blabbed that too, and Nikki would really be on the scent. Not that she isn’t on the scent now, mind you. I see the way she looks at me and Chad when all of us are together, like she suspects something. Thank God she doesn’t know what we’ve done. I wouldn’t know where to begin explaining the complexities of what is happening to her. What would I say? That I can’t control myself and that he can’t, either? All she will see is that her father and her aunt are fucking. But we’ve never simply fucked. There was always love there, even in the very beginning. I think we both knew that we’d stumbled across something precious all those years ago.

  Nikki wouldn’t understand that, though. She’s not old enough to fully comprehend all that happened and why. Shit, I’m still a little shaky on the whole deal myself, to tell you the truth. But I do know one thing. It’s so good being with him again, feeling his touch and experiencing his intensity. Doesn’t matter that it’s wrong, I can’t make myself turn him away when he comes to me. Even more reason for me to get the hell out of Mercy and soon. That and the anxiety attacks. Four since I’ve been here, and that’s not good.

  It might be harder to leave this place again, but I have to do it. I won’t say that I’ll never come back this time, though. Paris is here and she will surely draw me back, whether I want to come or not.

  I feel so guilty about loving her husband, but then you know that. You know that I have always loved him, and I think it’s my curse that I always will.

  Pam

  “Pam,” Chad barked. She didn’t move, didn’t even hear him, she was sleeping so hard. He pulled the covers back and tipped the can of soda he was holding over just far enough to send a stream of liquid splashing down onto her back. She jumped like she’d been shot, then gasped as his mouth slurped at her skin, cleaning up the mess he’d made. He caught the last drop and sucked it up along with a mouthful of skin, then sank his teeth into one of her ass cheeks. “I know you ain’t sleep now, girl. Wake up. You been sleeping all day.”

  Pam cracked one eye open and peered at the alarm clock on the bedside table. “It’s just now one o’clock. That’s not all day.” She had climbed in his bed around eleven, after he’d left to go to his last two classes for the day.

  She was supposed to be in school, but instead, she’d skipped out and hopped on the early morning bus headed to Atlanta. It dropped her off right down the street from GSU, where Chad was waiting to bring her back to his dorm room. She came at least twice a month on Fridays and they had it down to a science now. He could sneak her into the dorm and into his room without being caught, with his eyes closed. She stayed all day and then returned to Mercy with him later in the evening.

  “I brought food and if you want some you better wake up and stake your claim because I’m hungry as hell.” He laughed and shook his head when she bolted upright in bed, pushing her hair out of her face and sniffing as she looked around the room.

  “What did you bring and where is it?”

  Chad sat on the side of the bed and looked into her eyes long and hard. She was buck-naked underneath the covers and sitting up, so he had a lovely unobstructed view of her breasts. They were high and tight, begging to be kissed, but he’d skipped his first two classes making love to her, so he refrained from indulging himself. Besides that, he had other things on his mind, and he needed to see her face to look into her eyes rather than stare at the body he damn near worshipped.

  “What Chad? Where’s the food?” Lines of confusion creased Pam’s forehead. There was no food in sight and he was looking at her like he didn’t know who she was. She reached out and tugged on his arm playfully.

  “I just wanted you to wake up, girl. I didn’t bring food because I’m taking you out. You thought I forgot today’s your birthday?”

  She scratched her arm, thinking. “Damn, I forgot myself. How old am I today?”

  “Eighteen,” he said.

  “Shit.” She glanced at the clock again and mentally calculated. “Paris should be off from the work-study thingamajig by now. I better call her and tell her happy birthday.” She went to climb over him and only made it to the point where she was straddling his lap before he stopped her with a hand on her waist.

  “Call her later. Talk to me now.”

  Pam reared back and searched his face, surprised by his tone. “What’s up with you?”

  “I love you,” Chad said softly.

  “And you’re mad about that?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you better love me or else I’m going to jail today.” He laid his head back and shot deep laughter toward the ceiling. Pam linked her hands around his neck and shook him. “You think I’m playing?” He fell back on the bed and took her with him, still laughing.

  “Girl, if you’re playing with me, I’m the one who’s going to jail,” he said, when he could talk. “You love me?” He watched her eyes close and listened to her purr like a contented kitten as his hands massaged a path from her waist to her shoulders. Finally, she looked down at him through slits, sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and nodded. “Say it to me, Pam. Tell me.”

  “I love you,” Pam whispered. Suddenly shy, she pushed against his chest and sat up. “You know I do. What are you doing?”

  Chad bounced her around on his lap as he pushed his hand in his front jean pocket. He sat a small box in the middle of his chest and folded his hands under his head, watching her watch the box. “You gonna stare at it all day or are you gonna open it? It’s for you. Happy birthday, Pam.”

  “What is it?” She reached for it, then snatched her hand back, reached for it again.

  “Open it and see.”

  “Chad . . .”

  “Open it, Pam.”

  She cried out and covered her face when she saw the pretty gold ring nestled inside the box, with the perfect round diamond perched on top.

  Thinking that she didn’t like it, Chad rose to his elbows and used one hand to touch her neck. “I know it’s not much, but . . .”

  “It’s perfect. Put it on, put it on,” Pam chanted, bouncing on his lap impatiently. She looked away from the ring long enough to give him a beautiful smile, then she was transfixed by the ring again.

  She held her hand out for him to slip the ring on her finger, but it was the wrong hand. Chad brought her right hand to his mouth and kissed her palm, then gently lifted her left hand. “Marry me, Pam.”

  She gasped and gave him another beautiful smile. She didn’t need to think about her answer. “Today. Right now. When?” Pam asked him, meaning every word.

  “You gotta get dressed first,” Chad laughed and sat up to kiss her lips. Not satisfied with a simple peck, he pulled her face close and buried his tongue in her mouth. “Then you gotta graduate from high school. The day after that, though, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  FIFTEEN

  Miles was lying on his hotel bed, letting the television watch him while he t
hought about his remaining options when his fax machine came to life and began spitting out papers. Three, to be exact.

  He rolled off the bed and padded across the room to retrieve them. He took note of the sender, nodded absently, and perused the second page. He wasn’t aware that he’d stopped breathing until his throat tightened and he coughed to open it back up. He felt his heartbeat accelerate, felt the familiar rush of adrenaline zing through his veins, and sank into a chair to absorb it. He stared at the application for a marriage license until his eyes damn near crossed. There at the bottom of the page were two signatures: Pam’s and Chad’s.

  Miles did the math. Chad would’ve been around twenty years old and Pam eighteen, when the form was completed and filed. He scanned the month again, just to be sure, and hissed in anticipation. The application had been submitted in March, just a few months prior to the day Pam had scurried out of Mercy, Georgia and never looked back. He felt vindicated and if nothing else, certain his innate hunches were right on the money.

  Chad and Pam had obviously been involved once upon a time. So involved that they had planned to marry. And then something happened, either to Pam or to Chad or to the both of them, and they hadn’t gone through with it. Chad had married the other sister Paris, instead.

  Why? Miles wondered.

  He paced the floor in his room like a dog on a fresh scent. Chad and Pam. And then Chad and Paris. Those kinds of situations only happened in a man’s wildest dreams or his sexiest fantasies. Or his darkest nightmares, Miles thought. He recalled everything he’d learned about Pam from the people of Mercy and realized with a start that he’d heard nothing about a relationship between Pam and Chad. Either very few people had known about it, or the town was better at keeping secrets than he’d given it credit for. Surely Paris would’ve known about her sister’s relationship with Chad. So why had she married him?

  Miles stalked over to the bed and pulled his briefcase from underneath. He found his notepad and began scribbling furiously, adding the questions that were now running through his mind to the growing list already there. Several at the top of the list had been marked off with red ink, reminding him that he’d already acquired satisfactory answers for those, but there were still more remaining than he was comfortable with. He wasn’t used to working at a snail’s pace when it came to gathering information and compiling his manuscripts. Most of the celebrities he went after were long past futile attempts to hide their pasts, and they secretly wanted to be written about and gossiped over.

  Not Pamela Mayes, though. Since beginning her career as a commercial jingle singer she’d moved on from singing background vocals for established artists to putting out solo albums that consistently went double platinum. Her concerts sold out, her voice mesmerized men, women and teenagers alike, and there was even talk of movie scripts being tossed her way. Yet she lived like a virtual hermit, and no one really knew a damn thing about her. She didn’t want to be gossiped over or written about, that much was clear. Why that was so, wasn’t.

  Miles experienced a moment of genuine regret. He’d actually grown to like Pam as a person. She was down to earth and laid back. She didn’t priss and preen like so many prima donnas he had encountered. Much of the time she didn’t even seem to be aware that people stopped to stare at her. She tossed around four thousand dollar Gucci bags like she had no idea how much she’d paid for them, dropped thousand dollar sunglasses on a table without wincing, and sat in the grass in Vera Wang like she was wearing burlap. Yes, he liked her. He really did. And he almost hated himself for what he planned to do to her. Almost.

  He already had a top-notch editor lined up to take possession of his manuscript after he was done with it, and it would be a literary masterpiece. Tongues would be wagging for a long time to come, and his would be the name everyone remembered. The man who had finally cracked the legendary Pamela Mayes’s seemingly indestructible shell. Perhaps some day she would forgive him, maybe even thank him for boosting her career even further. He reasoned that he wasn’t the only one who stood to benefit from the book.

  He smiled as he sat down in front of his laptop and accessed his personal email account. He sent two messages marked urgent, signed off the Internet, then slid the disk containing his partially completed manuscript into the drive.

  There really is no rest for the weary, he thought as his fingers began flying over the keys.

  Chad caught sight of Nate coming down the walkway toward him hoisting a camouflage knapsack almost as tall as he was, and rose to meet him. He was relieved to see his best friend whole and healthy looking after several months of sporadic contact. His smile grew wide and mocking as he took in Nate’s bushy beard, which was new, and the overgrowth of curly hair on his head. The Nate he knew was always dapper and well groomed. With the hair on his face he resembled a travel weary truck driver or a shepherd running away from his flock.

  Nate dropped his bag at his feet and Chad stepped forward to grip him in a bear hug. They stayed that way for several seconds before pulling apart and inspecting each other for obvious changes.

  “This all you got?” Chad nodded toward the bag that looked big enough to hold a human body.

  Nate shrugged and retrieved it from the floor.

  “Should I even ask what’s in it?”

  “You could, but then I’d have to kill you,” Nate chuckled. “Where’s Peachy?” He was referring to Nikki.

  “Off somewhere with Pam. Who knows where.” They walked outside and weaved through standing traffic to reach the parking lot on the other side of the driveway. Chad opened the trunk and helped Nate toss his bag inside.

  “You told her Uncle Nate was coming home and she chose Pam over me?”

  Chad grinned at the phony look of shock on Nate’s face and shook his head. “She doesn’t know you’re here yet. Feel better?”

  “A little.” He folded his tall frame into the passenger seat and sighed as the car started and ice cold air shot out of the vents into his face. “Does Pam know I’m here?”

  “If she did, she’d probably be sitting in your lap right now.”

  “And I wouldn’t be complaining one bit,” Nate quipped. “How’s she holding up?”

  “Better than I expected. Both she and Nikki are. Nikki keeps Pam from hiding in her room at the B&B all the time, and Pam keeps Nikki from moping around the house.”

  “And you.”

  Chad cruised onto the interstate and accelerated smoothly. He glanced in the rearview mirror, merged with oncoming traffic, and looked at Nate sharply. “And me what?”

  “Pam keeps you from moping around the house, too.”

  “Are you making your way around to a point?”

  Nate rested his head against the seat and laughed. “You’ve got the same expression on your face you used to get whenever I asked if something was going on between you and Pam, when we were kids. Back then I didn’t know any better, but I do now, so spit it out. You and Pam been seeing each other?”

  “Not exactly,” Chad hedged. He leaned forward and switched on the radio, filling the car with upbeat jazz music.

  Nate leaned forward and switched the radio off, filling the car with easy silence. “What is it . . . exactly?”

  “It’s complicated, Nate. The only reason Pam came back is because Paris died and because of Nikki. I’m not kidding myself about that. Whatever it is we’re doing doesn’t fit into any category that I can think of right now. Maybe I’m being selfish and greedy, maybe I need to let the past go, I don’t know.”

  “What does Pam say?”

  “Pam’s not saying too much of anything. We’ve talked about some of what happened, but I still have more questions than answers at this point. We’ve hashed the shit out as much as we can and still nothing. I’m pretty much just soaking up as much of her as I can, so I’ll at least have that after she’s gone. I told her about Seattle.”

  “Did she go ballistic?” Nate pressed the buttons on the base of his seat and situated himself so he was fully recl
ined. He spread his knees and laced his fingers low on his belly. Fatigue was creeping up on him slowly but surely, and the lulling rhythm of the car ride threatened to take him under.

  “She was worried about Paris being here alone, but other than that she basically told me to do what I felt was best. I don’t know why I thought she’d have more of an opinion where Nikki is concerned,” Chad said. The exit ramp for Mercy was just ahead, and he maneuvered the car so he could get on it, then settled back in his seat for the remainder of the ride home. They were still at least forty minutes away.

  “You’ve had Nikki all this time and you thought Pam would suddenly demand parental rights?” Nate studied Chad’s profile for several seconds and then he began to understand what his friend was alluding to. “You want to tell Nikki the truth.”

  Chad released a long, tense breath. “I don’t know what I want to do. It just seems wrong for her to go through the rest of her life believing a lie.”

  “Paris isn’t here to defend herself, Chad.”

  “Paris had no defense for the part she played in all this shit when she was here, Nate.”

  “She did what Pam asked her to do.”

  “But why did Pam ask her to do it? That’s the million-dollar question, and she had plenty of opportunities to answer it, but she didn’t. Either way, Nikki deserves to know the truth. Hell, maybe she can get some answers out of Pam where no one else can.”

  “Would it help any for me to say that things have a way of working out the way they’re supposed to in the end?” Nate ventured carefully. He scratched his beard and considered Chad. Secretly, he agreed with him. Nikki had been wronged all those years ago, and she did have a right to the truth, just as Chad was and did. They were both unwitting victims of circumstance, and as much as it hurt Nate to continue feigning innocence, he had been sworn to secrecy. He and Chad had been best friends since high school, but he and Pam had been best friends damn near since birth. He rationalized that he was doing everyone a favor by staying out of it.