I am in that old Dodge van.
My winter coat rests on the floor at my feet. My well-worn shirt collar flutters in the rhythms of the wind. My legs stretch out comfortably in the front passenger seat, covered loosely by the “hippie skirt” that a friend of mine sewed from a fabulous mix of fabric pieces of various colors and patterns. My hair trails behind me. I am in the middle of a pleasant reverie, keen for the adventure of living.
That morning I had left New York City on an angry whim. My lover and I had quarreled and he had set off afterward in a pique, slamming the door. Not to be outdone, I had scribbled a note that I was going out also, deliberately giving him no more of a clue as to where I was headed, or for how long, than he had given me. In the back of my mind, I thought I would visit a friend who rented a sprawling Victorian house upstate and always said there was plenty of room for unexpected visitors. I would be one of them. I knew I was welcome there.
But at this point, the quarrel seemed like utter foolishness and I vowed to call my lover later from my friend’s house, just to say that I am fine and would be coming back tomorrow. It is quite nearly impossible, I thought, to bear a grudge on the first warm, beautiful day of spring.
And as only seemed fitting on such a day, luck truly had been with me. I’d made a sign with “upstate” written on one side and the name of my friend’s college town on the back. And a few minutes later I had my first ride with a pair of women who were on their way for a long weekend at a bed and breakfast in western Pennsylvania. They left me off at a gas station near the spot where highway 380 heads north. The old Dodge van was my second ride, and the two young men who were in it told me they were going right past the town where my friend worked as an English professor.
A young man, probably not twenty years old, was the driver. He had introduced himself as Donnie. His friend, Jake, sat on the open carpeted floor behind us, having given up his seat for me. He rolled a joint and handed it forward to the driver and Donnie handed it to me with a quizzical sort of look, no doubt because I was a few years older than either of them. I imagine they viewed me as a kind of older sister. I took a puff or two. I had purchased fruit, coffee, crackers and cheese at the gas station. I took them out and passed them around to share. Jake drank from a quart bottle of beer but the driver did not. I had a long sip myself and it seemed to add to the warm pleasant feeling of the lovely spring day.
In the early afternoon, we left the interstate and drove on the two lane back roads that curve along the edges of streams and sides of rising hills. In about an hour we would reach my destination, and happy with the day and my plans and my life, I began to talk to the young men of other trips like this I had taken. I would set off alone, both while I was in college and just graduated, a vagabond wandering the country with a backpack and a sleeping bag. And as I spoke, my companions grew quiet, listening with a subtly different view of me. I had been aware of a certain fondness toward them because they were young and free and the memories I had of being that young and that free had become remote to me.
Then Jake said to stop at the next gas station, and someone made a joke that there is never a gas station around when you really need one. I relaxed and sank lower in my seat, my legs stretched out before me. My bare feet stuck out the bottom of my long skirt, and I enjoyed the spring breeze pouring over me, tugging at my shirt and my flowing hair. Several minutes further on, we entered a wooded area, empty of houses, and Jake told Donnie to pull over here for a minute, and new laughter erupted as Donnie pressed the accelerator to the floor and the van shot forward instead and Jake howled in protest.
Then the van slowed down and edged onto the side of the road, and the grass and weeds scratched against the bottom of the van. Immediately, Jake opened the rear door and ran somewhat comically into the bushes and small trees by the road, disappearing behind a screen of pale green spring leaves. Donnie followed him. When they both returned, still adjusting their pants and laughing about some private joke, Donnie said to me that they might not be stopping again before they reached my destination. So, with a shrug, I also got out of the car and followed the ill-defined path at the edge of the woods where the imprints of their steps were still visible to guide me. There was a small meadow just beyond the trees. It was bathed in sunlight that made the long grass look like spun gold.
I pulled up my skirt and bunched it at my waist and squatted at the edge of the meadow, and I remember remarking to myself how warm the sun felt upon my shoulders. And then I heard a noise and looked up and the two of them were watching me. Jake had a camera. The noise I had heard was the click of the shutter.
A flush rose on my cheeks out of embarrassment and anger at my inability to do anything for the moment but let them watch the flow of my urine onto the ground.
“Very funny, boys,” I said, deliberately choosing that word because that was my reaction. They had simply revealed themselves as young and immature. And as I walked past them to the van, Jake held the camera out to me and then yanked it away and held it high above his head, as though I might jump for it, as though I might be desperate to get the picture from them. But instead, I muttered as I brushed by, “Keep it, Jake, if it turns you on.”
Donnie laughed at my insult of his friend. And I thought that when I reached the van, I would get my coat and my canvas bag of things and just start walking again. I saw the chrome bumper gleaming in the sunlight just twenty yards away when Jake’s arm tightened around my waist and I was pulled down into the dry grass of the meadow.
It happened so fast! The base of my spine hit the earth first. My head snapped backward, and I was stunned for a split second of darkness. Then Donnie was on top of me, his sour breath in my face, and he pinned my arms as Jake spread my legs, and I was fighting them both and screaming and I could feel the wet ground through my skirt and on my skin and my hair.
* * * *
Now the brush lies still on the floor, where it has fallen from my hand. A soft moan escapes my lips, a moan like that of an old woman grieving at the grave of a child. I remember a moment of utter fear when Jake’s fist crashed hard against my cheek, when Donnie grabbed my hands and pressed a cloth against my mouth so that I could not breathe; when both of their faces were inches from mine and they spewed threats and curses at me, and my naked legs were pulled apart, and I had a clear vision of my lifeless body lying amidst the new grass and the brittle brown weeds. And I was paralyzed by that fear and I wanted nothing else, cared about nothing else, but to survive, to live through the horror.
In the spring. The first warm day of spring.
I get off my bed and out of my robe and dress quickly. I shake with contempt for myself and with hatred for them and for the persistence of memory.
I leave my apartment in a long down coat and woolen hat and worn leather boots, and I begin to walk through the deserted city streets. Minutes pass before a car circles the block and reappears behind me.
I cannot see his face in the darkness as he opens the door and I climb in, but I am sure he has a self-satisfied smile on his face. I focus my thoughts on the utter surprise he will feel, and on the knowledge of the sharpened blade inside my boot, pressing against my ankle. Oh, the damage it will do—a sliver of metal creating gushing rivers of blood in the moonlight, warm as a spring day, moist as the spring earth. He will not be smiling then.
Maggie pushed herself away from the desk. Her cheeks were wet with tears.
She took a deep breath and let it out, and as she drew in another breath a smile crossed her face. It was different this time. She could feel the change deep inside, in the very core of her being, which she had long assumed was dead. She didn’t want to analyze the feeling. But hope had begun to emerge, like shoots of green through earth scorched by a fire. It was no more or less than that, she thought. After a long cold dark absence, hope had returned.
Chapter Six
“Want another beer, Jack?” the counterman asked.
“Nah, I’m good. I’ll be leaving soon.” The one calle
d Jack looked at his watch and then peered through the window into the street. It was late. The coffee shop would be closing soon. “My lady was supposed to have been here by now.”
He was not a guy anyone would have looked at twice. He was neither tall nor short, fat nor thin. He had brown hair and eyes, a straight nose, complexion that was unremarkable except for a beard that grew in a bit too fast and gave him an afternoon shadow. He had just shaved to take care of that. He was simply an average guy who didn’t stand out, and he suspected that was why she had been attracted to him. She liked it to be anonymous. “Wear blue jeans,” she’d said. “And that tan and gray flannel shirt. The brown work shoes.” Everyman. He didn’t fuckin’ care.
He shifted uneasily on the stool and looked around the restaurant. It was a small coffee shop called the Black Dish Diner. There was a row of eight stools at the counter and another eight tables around the perimeter, some meant for two people, others for four. He enjoyed the food and liked talking to the owner, who was skinny as a rail and always kept up a stream of friendly gossip. The wife who did the cooking didn’t care for him. He didn’t know what her fuckin’ problem was. Going through the changes? Who cares?
“You’re getting to be hot stuff, there, Jack. Women pickin’ you up. That’s something, heh?”
Jack just nodded. He tilted the bottle up and drained the last drop onto his tongue. He wanted another beer, but she had been pissed off at him the last time he had drunk too many beers first. He’d been cultivating her for over a month now. They’d met in a Starbucks near where he lived. She wouldn’t give him her number, but she had taken his. He’d never thought she would call, but there it is. Just goes to show you never know with a woman.
She called him from a phone booth. No caller ID. He knew what that meant before she had finally ‘confessed’. She was married. Three kids. Her husband was a freakin’ real estate lawyer whose dick was about as hard as an overcooked sausage. Jack had had to pull the sad details out of her. Like he might give a shit.
But she was very careful. Didn’t want the gravy train to end. Who cares?
“Fuck it, give me another beer,” Jack said.
“Sure.”
She said her name was Laurie, but he knew that wasn’t true either. Laurie. Fine.
Hi, I’m Joseph. I’m Jason. I’m Jimmy. Fuck it.
They’d met a few times now, at different places. In a subway station. In the park. He had been very patient because he knew she was working up to something. He thought this might be the first time she cheated on the hubby. He hoped so. That was a major turn-on—almost as good as if she was a virgin.
Last time, they’d gone to Central Park and she’d given him a taste of what to expect once they got to a warm place with a bed. Her husband was going away on a business trip for a few days, she’d said, and her kids were off with the grandparents. They’d have a fine time then, the run of her place. He’d gotten so hot with all her talking that he’d wanted to take her further into the park, find some dark secluded grassy spot and go at it. But she said she was scared. Then she’d laughed. “Aren’t you scared? Not even a little?”
Funny, the way she had said it. Like maybe there was some joke or something he was supposed to get. Fuck it.
She was smart. He could tell that. Smart enough to fool her old man. Her hubby with the soft dick.
He heard the sound of a horn. Three shorts blasts and a long one. Her signal.
“Say, you got any matches,” Jack asked the counterman. “My lighter died on me.”
“Sure, Jack. We’ve got a barrel of them. Take a couple.”
The car horn sounded again. Three shorts and a long.
“See you later,” Jack said. He went out onto the sidewalk. The car she was driving had tinted windows that made it impossible to see her. He opened the passenger door and stuck his head inside, grinning. She had on a short skirt that barely made it halfway to her knees. No stockings. A pair of cowboy boots. She was pretty damned hot for a married lady.
She smiled at him and patted the seat next to her.
“Sit here,” she said, and as he got in and slid over, her hand immediately slipped between his legs, rubbing against the growing hardness. “We’re going to have a good time tonight.”
Chapter Seven
On Saturday morning, the sound of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto had barely begun to emerge from her clock radio when Jane reached over and turned it off. David stirred in the bed beside her, but she was sure he would go back to sleep. In any event, she was not particularly concerned about disturbing him at the moment.
She had gone to bed without him the night before and hadn’t bothered either to check the time when she had finally heard his footsteps in the living room or to ask where he had been. She knew what he would say. ‘Working, Babe.’ On a photo shoot. Or some indie film set. Or, the best excuse of all, brain-storming yet another foolproof way to make money with his pal Sebastian, the genius.
As was David’s habit, he had quickly taken a hot shower and slipped in beside her, his skin soft and warm and slightly moist, the pleasant odor of an aromatic soap rising from him like an aura. She had feigned sleep, lying on her left side, facing away from him. He had persisted, fitting his body around hers with tender skill, slipping his hand beneath the long t-shirt in which she slept, ever so gently running it up the side of her chest, over her ribcage, across the fullness of her breast, ever-so-lightly over the nipple that was already signaling that she was indeed awake, and then down across her stomach and inside the elastic of her panties, tugging them over the curve of her hip.
“It’s late and we have to get up early in the morning,” she had said. “Maggie’s picking us up at 8:30.”
And still he had pressed against her, urgently, so urgently.
“C’mon, Babe,” he had whispered, his breath pleasantly warm on her ear, his lips applying kiss after kiss along the side of her neck, his manhood making a statement of its own between her legs. “I’ve been thinking about you all night.”
“Yeah, right ...”
“But it’s true, Babe. You’re the only one for me. The only one ...”
She’d felt herself weakening, wondering about her recent doubts, thinking that maybe her suspicions were unjustified or the result of simple jealousy—her own fear that she couldn’t hold onto a man as appealing as David. Like mother, like daughter.
“Please, Babe,” he repeated. “I need you. Please.”
His caress was so gentle.
* * * *
Now, Saturday morning, she was tired and annoyed with herself as she got out of bed in the dim morning light and pulled on the jogging clothes that she had placed on a nearby chair the night before. She wore a hot pink sports bra and black tights that had a pattern of pink diamonds along the side of her leg from ankle to hip. David had picked out both items. Over them she put on a pair of shorts and a baggy shirt that David hated because they “hid the most beautiful body in the world.”
Tough.
“You’re turning me on,” David said from under the covers, his voice thick with sleep.
“That would only be possible if you were ever turned off,” Jane replied.
She sat in the chair and laced her running shoes.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he murmured.
“I thought you would,” she replied.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that he was propped up by one elbow, the naked skin of his chest visible over the top of the sheet as he looked at her, his eyes twin limpid brown pools. All in all, he was a very handsome guy with a slightly round, boyish face: thick, brown, curly hair and a dimple dancing in and out of sight on his left cheek. He did need a haircut, but neither that nor his morning beard made him less attractive. Despite the amount of liquor he drank and the mild recreational drugs he used, coupled with his chronically late hours, he never showed any signs of wear and tear. Just like a man.
Without looking at him, she knew he had a half-grin on his face,
amused by her abrupt attitude this morning. He was always confident that he could seduce her.
He emitted a soft grunt and lowered himself onto his back again, his head turned to the side so that he could see her even as he reclined. He enjoyed watching her get dressed. He’d once said that he was like Degas watching the ballet dancers, captivated by the unstudied grace of the female body.
There was a time when she had enjoyed it also.
“I’m going for a quick run. But you’d better get up soon,” Jane said. “Maggie’s picking us up at 8:30 this morning.”
“Oh, Babe, I can’t,” he said.
She finished tying her shoes and sat up, trying to restrain the mounting anger she felt. Most of all she was angry because she had known this was coming, even as he caressed her last night.
“I’ve been talking about this for two days, David.”
“I’m sorry. I just can’t. Sebastian’s working on a major new account for his agency. It could mean very big bucks for him, and for me too. For us, Babe.”
“It’s so sweet that you’re concerned about us and our financial well-being, David. I’ll be sure to think about that the next time you roll in at two-thirty in the morning.”
“Hey, c’mon. I told you. It’s not my fault.”
“I know what you told me. It’s not my fault either.”
“Hey, why’re you talking like this?” He held out his arm to her. “Can’t you reschedule with Maggie for next week? I promise I’ll go then. Don’t be mad at me, Babe.”
She stood up and crossed the room, pausing by his side of the bed as his arm curled around her waist, slid down her thigh. She was thinking of how great it would be to grab a handful of his hair and shove his head through the metal bars of the brass bed where he lay. The frame was an antique from Victorian times, given to her mother by an ancient aunt. It was one of the only items in Martha’s estate that had any value at all.
Praise Her, Praise Diana Page 5