by Paula Cox
“It sounds like you’re a fuckin’ fool for not killing me now.”
I step forward so that we’re staring into each other’s eyes, with me staring down at him.
I expect anger, but he grins.
“I will be seeing you, tough man.”
I want three things right now. The first is to hook the man across the jaw and fall upon him on the ground and keep hitting and spitting and fighting until he is as dead as Mountain. And I want to be back at the clubhouse with Lana and I want to just sit with her and kiss her and fuck her and be with her. The third thing I want is for Duster to be standing at my side and make a funny comment that’ll make Enrique look stupid.
But a man’s wants don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things.
Enrique walks calmly from the clearing, and after a few minutes the Italians retreat, too, a couple of them dragging Pablo’s unconscious body.
“What do we do?” Earl says.
“Nothin’ we can do,” I mutter. “Except be careful from now on. I want you to let the men know, we’re traveling in groups of two wherever we go now. And don’t take any unnecessary risks.”
“Like a buddy system?” Scud laughs.
“Nothin’ funny here.” I kneel down next to the body. “Now help me get him up.”
Chapter Nineteen
Lana
“I always forget what small town America is before I come to a town like this.”
Terry and I sit in a café, a proper café with the baristas wearing pants and T-shirts. They rush around behind the counter, steaming milk, folding napkins, doing all the things most customers won’t notice unless they, too, have been that side of the counter. Terry and I sit near the window overlooking the park and the town hall.
“It’s peaceful,” I say.
“But you want to move.”
I massage my eyelids, lean back, and then lean forward and sip my decaffeinated sugarless coffee. Terry watches the entire routine impassively, just waiting for me to talk.
“You got your notebook?” I ask, trying to change the subject.
“Yeah.” She reaches into her bag and takes it out. Terry’s wearing a flowing purple dress, the sort of fabric that both hugs and drifts around a person. She taps her pencil against a blank page and smiles a time. “Don’t you want to talk?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “It’s difficult. Life is difficult. Nothing’s simple. Nothing’s black and white. Take my mother, for example. I hate her for the way she throws herself into her headaches, desperate to be a martyr, and yet when I hear her groaning—feigned, more often than not, Terry—I feel bad for her. And then think about the Twin Peaks. I hated the way some of the guys looked at me, like Chester. But then there would be men who just smiled and looked me up and down. You know as well as I do that you get a thrill from that some days. Nothing’s as simple as it seems. And now the Tidal Knights are on high alert.”
“I can see that.”
Terry nods at the window into the street, where two Tidal Knights members sit in a pickup truck, watching the café.
“It’s serious,” I say, when Terry grins as though it isn’t.
“I’m sure it is,” she says. “But I’m not here to talk about the Tidal Knights. I’m here to talk about you.”
As she speaks, she sketches.
“I’m here to ask how you’re feeling, hon.”
“I am feeling like a woman with a baby on the way without the father knowing about it. In short, great.” I roll my eyes. “Fantastic.”
She pushes the paper across: it’s me, oversized belly, peeking over my shoulder fearfully as Kade approaches from behind. She’s drawn Kade as more beast than man, muscles ripping out of his leather.
“You’re getting quicker,” I say.
“More work.” She nods. She hands me the pencil. “But I need the speech bubbles.”
I look down at the sketch and wonder what to write. I look down at it for so long that by the time I’ve decided, my coffee is cold. I write above Kade: I’ll stand by you, Lana And above me: I know you will.
When I slide it back to Terry, she makes a vomiting noise and covers her mouth. “I’m going to—barf. Really, I am. Jesus. Ah! Help me!”
I lean across the table and punch her in the arm. “Go fuck yourself.”
“Lana! Ladies do not curse!”
“I never claimed to be a lady.”
“But seriously. What are you going to do?”
“Let’s stop talking about me!” I protest.
I stand up and go to the counter, get another sugarless decaffeinated pointless coffee, and then return to the window table.
“What do you want to talk about, then, drama queen?”
“You. How are you, Terry? How’s the work?”
“Fun but challenging.” She stares blankly at me.
“That’s all you’re going to offer. No detail?”
“We get free coffee in the kitchen at work.”
“Terry!”
She tilts her head at me, grinning. “I’m not here to talk about me. I’m here to talk about you.” Her pencil moves quickly and almost absentmindedly across the paper; she glances down at it between sentences. “How’s your book coming along?”
“It finally is. I’m ten pages in and each one is a victory.”
She pushes the paper across to me. It’s a sketch of me and Kade and a bundled baby sitting on a couch, Kade’s arm around me, my head on his chest, the baby cradled between us. She’s drawn a love heart around it and then a giant question mark.
“What do you want me to say?” I ask.
“I want to know if a scene like that appeals to you.”
“So what if it does? The way things are right now, I can’t have it.”
“Pretty soon, you’ll have to make a choice. Pretty soon, that bundle inside of you is going to start growing—growing and showing.”
“Oh, thank you, Terry. I had no clue about that. I would like to sincerely thank you for explaining to me the arcane process by which life is formed in the womb.”
“I hope you don’t use odd words like that when you write,” Terry says. “I certainly won’t be reading your book if you do.”
We meet eyes, and then giggle.
“Anyway,” Terry says, taking the paper back, “your breasts are getting ahead of your belly, hon.”
“What do you mean?” I look down at myself. I’m wearing a summer dress, flowing, the sort of dress which makes it difficult to see where flesh starts and fabric ends. “They’re fine, aren’t they?”
“How are your bras fitting?”
I blush. “Tighter,” I admit.
“You’re in denial!” Terry cries theatrically. “They’re fine, aren’t they? And then you tell me your bras are tighter!”
“I’m not in denial,” I say defensively. But she’s right, I know. I am.
Terry starts another sketch.
“Of course not,” she says. “So what do you do when you’re not writing?”
I think about that for a second, and then realize that the only things I’ve been doing these past weeks is writing, walking the town, and waiting for Kade at night—and reading now and then. When I tell Terry, she laughs. “You’re living a bohemian lifestyle. I almost feel guilty for trying to pull you away from it all. That is, if you make good on your promise and give me a firm date for when you’ll move in.”
“Sometimes Scud brings me lunch,” I add.
“Who’s Scud?”
“Kade’s VP. He’s . . . I don’t know, he’s odd. He’s friendly enough but—You know when you go to a club with your friends and you just want to hang out, get a little tipsy and dance? And then there’s this one guy who sort of lingers too long, is overfriendly, and you can tell just by looking at him that he expects something for how nice he’s being?”
“Yeah, honey. They’re the worst. Give me an outright pig any day over one of those sniveling, whining wretches.” She shivers. “The worst is when they send you tex
ts right after breakups: If you need a shoulder to cry on . . . It’s like, man, I’m not going to bounce on your pogo-stick after I’ve seen you collecting my snotty tissues.”
“Well—he’s like that.”
“But he hasn’t tried anything.”
“No. How could he? Kade would . . .”
I don’t finish. Terry nods.
“Tough man, that Kade, as tough as his name.”
“Ha-ha.”
She slides the paper across. Now she’s drawn me with a toddler behind me. I’m hiding the kid from Kade, who tries to peek over my shoulder to see the child.
“That’s cruel,” I say. “I wouldn’t let it go on that long.”
“That’s what everybody says. And then one day becomes another and another until you look back and realize that the days have become years and you’re still in the same place.”
“Are you a philosopher, or an illustrator?”
“A bit of both, maybe.” She stares at me. Staring at Terry is like staring at a teacher you respect. You want to look away and tell them they have no right to probe into your life, and yet you know they only want the best for you. “Come on, Lana. What’s going on? Why haven’t you told him?”
I sigh. I don’t answer for a long time. I sip my coffee and look out the window. “Isn’t this the sort of town which seems like it would be thousands of miles away, not right across the water? When I first came here, I felt like I’d stepped back in time. But I guess motorbike clubs often like small towns like these; it helps them have to have a secure base of operations, I suppose.”
“Lana . . .”
I take another, longer sip of my coffee and then sigh again.
“I haven’t told him because his club is under attack by a psychopath killer. I haven’t told him because he has too much on his plate.”
“No,” Terry states, resting her chin on her interlocked knuckles and staring sternly at me. “That’s not it.”
“You’re not a mind reader, Terry!”
“Can I tell you what I think, and then you can tell me if I’m wrong?”
“I certainly will.”
Terry smiles, and then grows serious. “I think you love this man, Lana. Or, at the very least, you care a great deal for him. I am sure there is lust there, too, but I think you are lying to yourself when you say lust is the main reason you enjoy being with him. I think you care about this man and I think that you think that if you tell him you are carrying his child, he will no longer be interested in you. You fear it, you fear losing him, and so you’ve created this alternate reality in which you are not pregnant. You put it out of your mind when you’re with him and pretend it doesn’t exist.”
“You’re wrong,” I mutter.
“Lana!”
“You’re wrong!” I snap, jumping to my feet. Suddenly, anger grips me. I stare down at her, cheeks trembling, lips trembling, too. Am I going to cry? These hormones are absurd. “You don’t have the right to start lecturing me about how I feel!” I scream, and the old men in the corner playing checkers, and the young teenage girls at the counter ordering, turn and gawk at me.
I step away from the table, feeling my cheeks turn red.
“Lana . . .”
“I’m leaving,” I say, and before Terry can stop me I march out of the café and into the street, and then to the pickup truck. The biker in the passenger seat steps out and holds the door open for me respectfully.
She is right, of course. That’s why I’m so angry. Everything she said is right. I have created a world within a world, a world in which I do not have to face up to the fact that I’m pregnant, a world in which I can pretend that Kade and I are just young people who fuck and have fun and hold no responsibility. And if I’ve created that world, I haven’t done it alone. Kade, too, likes to pretend when we’re together that nothing else exists; it’s just us. When he’s with me, the blood and pain of his dead friends and his threatened club do not exist.
The biker driving asks me, “Are you okay, Miss Thompson?”
His name is Noname, I think.
“Fine,” I mutter. “Just fine.”
We return to the clubhouse and I walk through to the dorm, meaning to go back to my room, but just as I’m about to open the door Scud calls from the end of the hallway. “What about sitting in the bar awhile?”
He will often ask if I want to go and sit with him and every time I will tell him no. So when I turn to him and nod, and then walk away from my dorm room and follow him into the bar, I surprise even myself.
Chapter Twenty
Lana
The bar is empty apart from a couple of pledges shooting pool. The other guys, I know, are either out on business or posted all around Evergreen watching for Italians. I don’t know why Scud is allowed to just goof around when the other men are working; I’ve never asked. But if somebody were to question me about it, I would answer that he’s not supposed to be here and that he’s abandoned his post. I have no evidence of that and yet I am sure of it.
We go to the bar and Scud takes a bottle of whisky and two glasses.
“Not for me,” I say.
He replaces one of the glasses and leads us to a corner table.
We sit down, and already I’m thinking about how this is a mistake. Scud likes me. I’m not a fool. I’m not some naïve, inexperienced girl who can’t tell when a man clearly likes her. He likes me and maybe he’ll take it the wrong way if I sit down with him. But still, shouldn’t a woman be able to sit down with a man without him expecting anything from her?
I will sit here as he drinks a single whisky, I say to myself, and then I will go.
“Are you sure you don’t want a drink?” His eyes regard me, all of me, in a roaming way. But not the roaming looks of Kade, where I feel my skin tingle wherever his gaze rests. It’s a roaming gaze that causes invisible worms to writhe across my skin.
“I’m sure,” I say. “In fact—” In fact I think I want to leave right now, even if you haven’t poured your drink yet.
“Sit down for a couple of minutes!” he snaps, in a tone of voice I’ve never heard him use before. He curls his lip as though disgusted I would try and leave. “You said you would. Just now—you said you’d sit down with me awhile.”
“I am sitting,” I say. Maybe it’s stupid, but I’m frightened. Frightened of Scud. Ludicrous. Kade would kill Scud if he laid a finger on me. But Kade’s not here right now and the pledges have disappeared somewhere, perhaps their dorm room, maybe outside. It’s just me and Scud and the clubhouse fills bigger than it has before, a large cavern with too much space and too many obstacles between me and the exit.
I’m being silly. Scud means no harm. Yes, I’m being silly.
He drains his whisky and pours another. “Don’t you want to know how I’ve been handling all this business with the Italians?” he says. “We’re sitting here and you haven’t asked me a single question.”
I want to say: “I didn’t realize it was my duty to show a sufficient amount of interest in you.” But something in the way he sits makes me bite my tongue. Leaned slightly forward, as though ready to jump across the table. It’s the same look Dad used to have sometimes when I was a kid, before he went into a rage. He never hit me, but he hit things, and before he hit things he looked exactly like Scud looks now. Like he’s waiting for me to say the wrong thing so he has an excuse.
Fear rules me. It shames me to admit it, but fear rules me right now, with Scud scowling at me like that.
“Oh, of course,” I say. No, I hear myself say. I am no longer in charge of my words. I want Kade to return, or Earl, or anybody. “How are you taking it, Scud?”
“It’s hard for me,” he says. He drains another glass of whisky and pours again. “It’s really hard for me. I’m a brave man, Lana, a very brave man. I have done lots of things in my life which prove this. I am a brave man. I am.”
He pauses, waiting, and I find myself saying, “I am sure you are.”
Where is Kade!
&
nbsp; “But even a brave man gets worried. You should have seen what Mountain let them do to him. He didn’t even put up a fight! He just let them torture and kill him. Let me tell you, that’s not what I would have done. I would have gotten out of there no matter what it took. I would’ve fought.” He pours two more glasses, draining as he goes, and then slides the glass across the table to me. “Take a drink.”