Black Eyed Susan

by Elizabeth Leiknes

  Movie posters hung on every wall, and an overall sense of adventure and story hung in the air, hidden between boxes and trinkets.

  “So is he moving, or did he never bother to unpack when he moved in?” Calliope asked.

  I picked up a stack of maps and travel brochures from his kitchen table. “Definitely on his way somewhere.”

  We unloaded William onto his couch, and I started to unbuckle his armor.

  “You’re not wasting any time, are you? Would you like me to leave you two lovebirds alone?”

  I threw a shin guard at her. “Right. He’s such a prize, I just can’t help myself,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I just don’t want to be blamed if he dies—what if this thing cuts off his circulation or something?”

  When Calliope turned her head, I put two couch pillows under William’s head so he didn’t aspirate into his lungs and drown in his own vomit. Who deserves that?

  I’d finished getting William into a position I thought wouldn’t kill him, and said, “We don’t need to stay in Wendover tonight. Let’s just keep driving until we find a motel.”

  “You’re such a rookie, Susan. We have a place to stay.” She looked at William. “I doubt he’ll even know we’re here.”

  William, eyes still closed, naked except for his striped boxers, flopped over and performed a bizarre, spastic movement with an invisible sword. It would have appeared violent if it wasn’t so embarrassing.

  “See?!” I said. “He’s waking up. Let’s go!”

  “You think he’ll be sorry he was brought home by two attractive young women?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “I’ll be right back.” She ran out to the car and came back with the two fake swords she’d purchased at the museum.

  “If you win, we leave. If I win, we stay.” She tossed me a sword and prepared for battle. “On guard!”

  Before I even had a chance to object, we were prancing around William Hudson’s living room, taking turns swinging our swords at each other, attempting to imitate the choreographed duels we’d seen in movies—until I tripped.

  Stupid box!

  I careened into the nearest wall, dislodging a hanging shelf, and when it conked me on the head, I fell forward onto the couch, facedown and lengthwise, on top of William the disrobed knight.

  Calliope shrieked something, dropped her sword, and ran toward me. My head throbbed and everything went dark. It was my chance to practice my upcoming real-life death scene, so I kept my breathing shallow and my eyes closed. His skin felt warm on my cheek, and as his chest heaved up and down, I detected a competition between his sweat and deodorant.

  Calliope kept talking at me, but all I heard was a deadened muffle and the beating of William’s heart. With my head resting on his chest, my ear a makeshift stethoscope, I put my acute sense of hearing to good use. At first, I heard a series of robust thumps, but soon I noticed that every third beat was … affected, too fully, like a waterfall after thousands of feet of momentum, exploding into a too-small pool. William Hudson, a man of excess, was overflowing.

  Lubba dubba. Lubba dubba. Lubba DUUBBBAAA.

  “I win,” Calliope chortled, “We’re staying.”

  I opened one eye just a crack and caught her smiling at the sight of me lying on top of an almost naked stranger. “You could use some free will,” she said. Three beats later, she added, “You could use some free Will.”

  A smile consumed my whole face as the unconscious knight began to react to the situation. “I can personally guarantee there’s a lot of Will to go around, if you know what I mean.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Let’s just say that the knight costume did not damage his circulation. Everything is alive and pumping.” I turned into a giggling high school girl.

  “Get off him. Let’s have a look!” Calliope slapped me right on my new goose egg.

  “Ouch,” I said, rubbing my wounded head.

  I dismounted the aroused knight, and curiosity made me turn my attention to William’s X-rated salute.

  Calliope moved in close and, as usual, showed no hesitation. “Suze, hand me that camera.”

  THIRTEEN

  Morning came, and the first thing out of William Hudson’s mouth was an insult.

  “Amateur move, beating the eggs in a heated pan instead of a bowl,” he said having shuffled into the kitchen. “Makes the eggs cook weird and taste funny.” Despite having a messy bed head and sleepy eyes, strolling around in his underwear, and seeing two strange women in his house, he seemed unalarmed.

  I’d slept in a pair of Will’s boxers and folded the waistband over several times to make them fit, exposing all of my midriff, and I was braless in my too-tight “LUCKY” T-shirt, showing more than I’d revealed on my last ten dates combined.

  Calliope had experimented with wearing more clothing, so she stood in front of the stove in what she’d slept in: a teeny half-shirt and snug, dainty underwear that one would expect a “dancer” to wear, and although they were clean, they weren’t exactly the kind of underwear a conscientious mother would recommend in case of a car accident.

  I waited for Will to ask us who we were, and why we were in his house, but he just looked up to the ceiling, put his hands together, prayer-style, and mouthed, “Please be eighteen. Please be eighteen.”

  “Um, I’m Susan. That’s Calliope.” Calliope turned her head and waved, then went back to rummaging through a cupboard for salt. My sick lungs forced out a deathly, crackling cough.

  “Will. Do you need some Robitussin or something?” he said, offering me his hand. “That’s awful.”

  I opted not to answer, because I didn’t want any attention given to my sickness.

  Unsurprisingly, Will’s handshake was bold, but the length of time he held my hand was unexpected. He was the kind of guy who appeared comfortable with awkward silences and long handshakes.

  Calliope felt the need to create tension, to keep pace with Will’s wit. “How ya feeling this morning? Everything all right, Willy?” She laughed. “And how’s Big Willy?”

  He seemed to want to smile, but it came out as a frown, and he ended up briefly clasping his hands, then folding his arms into a defensive posture before he asked, “What did I miss?” Even with a massive hangover, his gestures were rigid and exaggerated, like a lawyer making his closing argument.

  I felt left out, so I tried to be cool by joining in the banter. I looked straight into his Paul Newmans. “Actually, you missed a lot, Will. We both had our way with you, several times, and then discarded you and your predictable boxers to your unstylish couch to die a lonely and shriveled death.”

  I expected Calliope to praise my repartée, or at least laugh, but instead she gave me a look that said, “What’s wrong with you?” She peppered the eggs, and then she peppered me with some advice: “Geez, Susan, save the real compliments for someone you like.”

  Will and I exchanged an awkward glance, which turned out to be his “Game On” look. He caressed my cheek with one hand and gently tucked a small section of my hair behind my ear with his other, then said, quietly enough for only me to hear, “Definitely over eighteen—laugh lines; some crow’s feet; three sun spots, mild but noticeable; and … hmmm, I can’t quite place it. An overall tiredness, almost a malaise. Let me guess. Forty-two?”

  So that was his style. Go three steps further than he needed to, three notches meaner than he needed to be, to make sure he won. He was overflowing, all right, but with heartlessness.

  He recovered quickly from his aggressive state, which told me that switching emotional gears for him was a well-honed skill. “Did you ladies recently get immunized, or are arm bandages the latest fashion craze?”

  “Brand new tattoos, William Hudson,” Calliope said, serving us scrambled eggs and stale Pepsi at the kitchen table in the small dining area off the kitchen.

  “Sorry, I don’t have any juice,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to get to the store.”

  Wow, an apology. I had a feeling tha
t didn’t happen very often with him. “You have a special way with children,” I said, taking my turn to sound civilized, though I couldn’t contain my smirk. “They really love you.”

  He returned the smile in-between egg bites, and I could tell he was trying to piece together what had happened to him in the last twenty-four hours of drunkenness. “You were at the museum?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m fired, huh?”

  I nodded again. “Incinerated.”

  “It’s been a shitty week.” The smile left his face. “Shitty year, really.”

  The muse was back. “Seems like you need a fresh start, William Hudson,” Calliope said. “And from the looks of this place, you’re ready and willing to leave.”

  I dropped my fork, cleared my throat, and widened my eyes in hopes of averting what I knew she was going to say next.

  When Will wasn’t looking, she mouthed, “More the merrier.”

  My resistance to change usually gave me a headache, but this time it made my chest tighten. Perhaps the deadly tumor in my lungs was reminding me of its presence.

  “We don’t even know him!” I mouthed back. But that wasn’t the problem. I was dying anyway, so who cared if he was a serial killer? Besides, William Hudson was worse than a serial killer. He was … complicated. I’d resigned myself to dying in peace, and Will was going to get in the way.

  “As a matter of fact, I am ready and willing to leave. Was planning on leaving soon, actually.” He sighed when he looked around his house. “I’m finished here.”

  “You must have a ton of things to do,” I said. “We should leave and get out of your way.” Even I knew I sounded like a buzz kill.

  Calliope, dismissing my comment, said, “Nonsense. Come with us, Sir William. Up for an adventure?”

  Will leaned over to gently brush off a tiny piece of egg stuck to the corner of my mouth and, smiling, he said, “Susan here seems a bit apprehensive about my tagging along. I don’t think she likes me very much.” He looked straight into my eyes and spoke to me only. “I’m an acquired taste. Always better on the second reading.”

  This was exactly what I didn’t want to deal with. They both waited for my response. Normally, my interior monologue would’ve been repeating phrases like “Just shoot me,” or “Kill me now,” but I’d given those up since receiving my grim prognosis. Left with the unappealing notion of telling the truth, I decided to be direct.

  “I need to use the bathroom,” I muttered, scurrying away.

  “She’s got confrontation issues,” I heard Will say as I left.

  Calliope confirmed his assessment, “I’ve been trying to tell her the same thing.”

  Stopped in the middle of his hallway, I felt my chest tighten again. What the hell was my problem? Would any of this matter in three months—when I was dead? I went back to the table. “No offense, but you’re right. I don’t think I like you, Will Hudson. You’re a pompous ass, and you’re a washed-up actor living in Loserville. You frighten small children, and as far as I can tell, your only redeeming quality, besides your eyes, is dangling in your boxer shorts—and, if I’m correct, favoring the left side.”

  There was a long pause.

  “You think I have nice eyes?” Will said, as Calliope started laughing.

  “Screw you, guys” I said, beginning to gather my stuff.

  “Oh, come on now,” he said. “First of all, didn’t you really mean to say, ‘Fuck you, guys’?”

  I pretended to look for my purse.

  “Come on, say it,” he said. “It’s liberating. I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t say ‘fuck’ at least once a day.”

  He wouldn’t let me continue avoiding him, so he walked over to me as I rummaged through a junk pile by the front door and offered me his hand. “Let’s try this again.” He grinned. “I’m Will.”

  “Hello.” I gave him a smug smile. “And fuck you.”

  “Atta girl!” he said. “See how real that is?”

  I thought we’d been arguing, but he saw it as a healthy debate just getting started.

  He nodded, and in a resigned, confident assertion, said, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

  I rolled my eyes and scowled, while he continued to nod. With folded arms, he leaned against the counter and smirked. “You gonna bark all day, little doggie, or ya gonna bite?”

  Like a good dog, I licked my chops and stood my ground. “So how long you had this habit of speaking in movie lines?”

  He shrugged, threw his hands in the air, and stared into an invisible mirror. “You talkin’ to me?” I almost pulled a cheek muscle trying not to smile.

  Will unfolded his arms, reached for my hand, and brought me closer to him. Staring back, I lowered my voice, Leslie Nielson-slapstick style, and threw him a bone.

  “Surely you can’t be serious.”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, I’m serious, and don’t call me …” He refused to finish the line. “Seriously, don’t call me.”

  I smiled. “I guess it’s goodbye, then.”

  “Actually …” He paused, winked, and added a fake crack to his voice when he said, “You had me at hello.”

  Calliope looked at both of us. “You two need a referee … or a room?”

  Will and I, eyes still locked, stood in the kitchen in a stare-off.

  Calliope walked over to me. “Okay, Susan, let’s decide whether or not Will should accompany us on our trip,” she said, pointing to two metal chairs on each side of a small, round table in the corner of the living room. “Wait a minute,” Will said. “Nobody puts Baby in corner.”

  “Come on, sassy. You, too,” Calliope said to Will, and took us both by the hand. She walked us over to the quaint table for two, complete with a vintage Magic 8-Ball in its center. “It’s a sign.” She picked it up. “Okay, fate. If Susan wins, we leave. If Will wins, we all three leave together. Is it in Sir William’s destiny to accompany us on our adventure?” she said, shaking the ball.

  The floating triangle became motionless. “IT SHALL BE SO.”

  He smiled. “Smells like victory.”

  Calliope muttered something about not arguing with fate and watched to see what Will would do next.

  Will, in a smooth progression, stood up, pushed in his chair, and headed toward his bedroom. “I’ll get my bag.”

  The three of us walked out of Will’s house together. When Will saw our orange hearse parked in front of his house, he said, “Kick-ass,” under his breath. “Please tell me that car is yours.”

  Calliope explained that it was, but I was too busy trying to hide because Mono and Clyde had found me again. They’d pulled up behind our car and were both leaning against their Taurus. As we made our way across the street, I attached myself to Calliope’s hip, attempting to obscure Mono and Clyde’s view of me, but it was no good. The hairy henchmen walked toward me in stride.

  I remembered the business card they’d left me two days ago, and wondered what it meant. “Phase One: Observation.” Observe what? My slow and grueling death? Jesus, couldn’t a girl just die in peace?

  Calliope looked at me and whispered, “Aren’t those the guys we saw back in—”

  I whispered back, “Yeah,” not taking my eyes off Mono and Clyde, who were now standing between us and our car. The tall one held a videotape and a small card, and the shorter one clutched a coffee mug filled with water.

  Will stared at the tall one and said under his breath, “Soak up the beauty of the stonewash jeans, ladies. It’s an endangered species.” He deftly dug a video camera out from his bag and focused on the little one. “Hey, there’s Andrew Dice Clay’s missing parachute pants!”

  They’d exchanged their bad Bill Cosby sweaters for pastel Miami Vice blazers, and I would’ve laughed at their loose-laced high-top sneakers, but I was too busy wondering what they were going to do.

  “Clyde.” The tall one introduced himself in an Italian accent and leaned down to kiss me on both cheeks.

  The shorter
one, in the same Italian accent, said, “Mono.”

  Clyde handed me the videotape. “For joo, from Lady Abbeegail. Eees dee new kind.” He raised his eyebrows at the VHS videotape as if it were the latest technological marvel. “Beta—no more,” he said proudly.

  Calliope looked at me and mouthed, “What the—?” as Will whistled the theme from The Twilight Zone.

  Mono fidgeted with his cup, and I made out a faded Ghostbusters movie logo on the front of it.

  Will must have noticed it, too. “Who ya gonna call?” he said in his best Ray Parker, Jr., then began doing the Robot.

  Clyde handed me a new business card.

  The observation phase, whatever that had been, had clearly ended. As I pondered the possible meanings of the word “purification,” Mono blurted something in Italian and threw the entire mug of water in my face.

  “Eediot! Not in dee face, Mono,” Clyde yelled. “Pour over dee head,” he said as he patted the top of his own head, the short and spiky part of his mullet. Clyde scowled and shook his hairy finger. “No more Cagney Lacey fo joo!”

  In one swift movement, Will threw his camera down, grabbed Mono’s head, and put him in a headlock.

  Clyde apologized—I think. “Always he do this, Mono no understand, how you say? Bapteesim.”

  “Baptism? Is that what that was?” I said as not-so-holy water trickled down my neck and soaked my t-shirt. Getting baptized suddenly seemed like a great addition to my to-do list, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it. Did it count if it was involuntary?

  “Let him go, Will,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  “Okay?” Will looked dumbfounded. “These goons come out of nowhere and assault you? This is bullshit.”

  I hung my head. “I think I have some unresolved business with their … boss.”

  With Mono still in his grip, Will asked him, “What kind of unresolved business? If she owes you money, I’ll cut you a check right now and you can get the hell out of here.”