Heartbreak Highway 1

by Harper Whitmore

  “Yeah, I’d hate for me to have to do that too,” she said. The truth be told, she would have if she had to, in a heartbeat. She actually had taken care of him more than once when he’d had too much to drink. She was always the one he called if he couldn’t get a cab and she always went to get him. She never said no.

  They sipped their drinks and listened to the antics of the already drunk crowd around them. The dance floor was full of couples who looked like they were in love, or at least really horny. Eva caught Marshall watching them and wondered if it made him miss Simone. She finished her first Pink Lady and was halfway through her second one when Marshall said,

  “Let’s dance.”

  “I don’t dance,” she said. She didn’t tell Marshall, but Henry had actually started giving her lessons in ball room dancing. It had been a lot of fun, and she thought that she’d learned a lot. She still wasn’t ready to try it out in front of a live TV feed, however.

  “Tonight, you do,” he told her. “You have to, it’s in the book.”

  “It’s in the what?” she asked.

  “The guide that Granddad left us, it says that we have to share at least one dance. We’re here and you have to have a good buzz going on by now. Let’s get it over with.”

  Eva smiled, but her mind focused on the words, “Get it over with.” Her lack of self-esteem let her interpret that to mean he wasn’t going to dance with her because he wanted to, but because it was on the list of things that Granddad wanted them to do. He probably wanted to “get it over with” before Simone showed up. Eva picked up her drink and downed the last half of it,

  “Let’s go,” she said. The band was playing a slow song. Eva expected Marshall to take one hand in his. That was the way Henry had shown her. Instead, he put both of his hands on the small of her back which left her to put both of hers around his neck. As they swayed in time to the music, Eva closed her eyes and immersed herself in the feelings. As the music came to an end, she opened her eyes and found that Marshall was staring at her. She was just tipsy enough that she actually considered leaning forward slightly and pressing her lips to his. The ringing of Marshall’s phone in his pocket startled her back into reality and saved her from doing something she would definitely regret.

  They stepped apart and he fished the phone out of his pocket. He answered it as they headed back over to their table.

  “Hey baby,” he said. Eva made a face before she even realized what she was doing, it must be Simone. Marshall listened to what was being said on the other end of the line for a long time before saying, “Oh my God, that’s terrible Simone. What did the cops say?”

  Eva waved at the cocktail waitress but she was busy, so she got up and went over to the bar. Marshall glanced up at her as she left, but he was still listening to whatever Simone was saying. Eva felt a little bad about making a face; whatever Simone was telling him must be intense from the look on his face. She had already had three…or maybe four drinks though, so she didn’t really care…about anything.

  Eva stepped up to the bar and tried to get the bartender’s attention. He was at the other end of the bar and being barraged by a gang of college students. Eva turned to look back at where Marshall sat and suddenly there was a young man in her face. He had blonde hair that looked like it was bleached from hours in the sun or the ocean and a tan line on his face from either sunglasses or snowboarding goggles. He had a long, lean body, but it was muscular in places like his biceps and calves. Eva could see his calves because he was wearing a pair of long board shorts and a tank top with a surfing logo across the front. He was really good-looking and normally Eva would have been intimidated beyond her powers of speech, tonight was different though, her inhibitions had been armed with a thick coating of Pink Ladies.

  “Hi,” he said with a toothy grin.

  “Hi,” Eva said.

  “I’m Justin.”

  “Hi Justin,” she said, looking over at Marshall, still on the phone. “I’m Eva.”

  “Where are you from, Eva?” he asked.

  “Right here in North Carolina,” she told him.

  “Where are you headed?”

  “California, how about you…Justin?” she said with a look that moved from his head to his toes.

  His smile turned lustful as he returned her look. Then he said,

  “California too, I’m following the waves.”

  “You’re a surfer?” she said.

  “Yes ma’am. All the way to my soul.”

  “I thought you looked like some kind of athlete,” she told him, batting her long eyelashes. She felt silly flirting like one of the empty headed models that Marshall usually dated, but she was here to have fun and that’s what she was doing. The bartender approached then and Eva told him what she wanted. Justin gave him his order too and told the bartender,

  “I’ve got hers.”

  “Why thank you, Justin,” she said. Eva drank her drink through the straw as she and Justin talked. He told her he had borrowed his father’s RV and he was making a trek across the U.S. from New York to California. He was picking up a few friends when he got to Arizona and then they would head to their destination in California.

  “So is it surfing season in California?” she asked him.

  “California surfing season is year round, baby! We’re gonna hit the Mavericks and Encinitas’s Swami.”

  Eva laughed and said, “It sounds like you’re speaking a different language.”

  “The Mavericks are a few miles north of Half Moon Bay. It’s a natural phenomenon, dude…I mean, Eva. It’s not just a wave, it’s a perfect wave.”

  “What makes a perfect wave?” she asked.

  “It’s a 20-foot wave that breaks like a hollow 6-footer. It explodes from top to bottom so fiercely that it makes grown men shudder.”

  “It sounds fun, and dangerous,” Eva said.

  “Fun yes, but I live for danger,” he said. Even drunk, Eva wanted to roll her eyes, but she forced herself not to. She was wondering what she would say about herself that would even come close to rivaling the thrill of riding a board up a twenty-foot wave. Before she had to share her story though, a slow song came on and Justin put his beer down and said,

  “Dance with me Eva?”

  She looked back at Marshall; he was still on the phone, with his girlfriend, she reminded herself. Eva downed the rest of her drink and said,

  “I’d love to.”

  Justin took her by the hand and led her out to the dance floor. When they got there, he turned to face her and put his hands where Marshall’s were only minutes ago….before Simone called. Eva slipped her arms around Justin’s neck and they began to move slowly to the music. She suddenly felt Justin’s warm breath against her ear and she heard him say,

  “You’re really pretty, Eva.”

  She was about to thank him when she suddenly felt a hand on her arm. She looked up into Marshall’s face. He didn’t look happy.

  “Hey dude! The lady and I are dancing here,” Justin said.

  “The lady is with me,” Marshall said.

  “What?” Eva said in a drunken slur. “You were just on the phone with your girlfriend.”

  “Yeah, get your own girl preppy boy,” Justin said.

  Marshall shot Justin a warning look and said, “Come on, Eva. You’re drunk and you don’t have the capacity to make decisions like this tonight.”

  Marshall had always acted like he was her big brother, but he’d never been this over-bearing about it. He was taking Granddad’s words to the extreme.

  Eva had to think hard to put her sentence together. At last, she said, “This isn’t your business Marshall. You’re not in charge of what I do no matter how many drinks I’ve had. I’m a big girl.”

  Marshall muscled Justin back out of the way. The surfer stood there looking shocked and unsure of what to do next. Then Marshall leaned in and put his lips close to Eva’s ear. She felt his warm breath and her whole body convulsed. It was a much stronger reaction than the one she’d
had when Justin had done the same thing only moments ago.

  “Granddad said for me to look out for you, remember? Come on, Eva…you’re too good for a guy like this. He’s only looking for one thing. I know that sober you’d never even consider it.”

  “Okay, that’s it,” Justin said, pushing his way back in and looking like he was suddenly spoiling for a fight.

  “No, don’t,” Eva said. She put one hand on Justin’s chest and one on Marshall’s to separate them. Her head was starting to hurt and she was feeling sick to her stomach all of a sudden. “I’m sorry, Justin. I just don’t feel well. Another time….” She took Marshall’s arm and she thought she heard him say,

  “Don’t hold your breath, loser,” but it was loud and she wasn’t sure. The room was suddenly spinning and she felt like she couldn’t breathe.

  “I need some air,” she told him. Marshall didn’t say anything; he only nodded and led her to the door. When they hit the cool night air Eva felt better for just a second. Marshall was still holding onto her and she was grateful for that. She wasn’t sure if she could hold herself up any longer. They took a few steps away from the bar when she suddenly remembered Simone’s call and said,

  “I’m sorry; I forgot to ask you, what happened to Simone?”

  “It’s not really important right now,” Marshall said.

  “I could tell something was wrong. Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine,” he said, “Physically. Simone’s car was stolen.”

  “Really? From where?”

  “Right out of the lot where she was doing her photo shoot.”

  “That’s terrible, what did the police say?”

  He shrugged, “It’s hard to tell. She’s really pissed and she wasn’t making much sense. She’s trying to get a train to Asheville but there’s nothing that will be there before we leave. She was talking about renting a car….”

  “So, she’s still coming?” Eva asked. She was too far gone with the alcohol to remember to check the look on her face.

  “You sound disappointed. Did you not want Simone to come?” Marshall asked her.

  Damn! Eva thought. Stupid Pink Ladies! It’s like truth serum! She thought all of that, thinking that when she opened her mouth a white lie would come out, as it should. Instead, she heard herself say in slightly slurred speech,

  “Not really. I was just looking forward to it being you and me.”

  Marshall looked surprised, but there was a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he said,

  “You and me and surfer dude?”

  “Oh, him….I was just….Oh God, I think I’m going to be sick….”

  Chapter 6

  Marshall stood outside the bathroom door and listened as Eva retched and coughed. He really wanted to do something for her, but she had forbade him from coming inside. Knocking softly when the noises stopped, he said,

  “Eva, are you okay?”

  There was a long silence and then she finally said,

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll be right out. You don’t have to stay by the door.”

  Marshall smiled but he was sure not to laugh. If she heard him it would only piss her off. He had tried to stop her after the fourth pink lady. Eva wasn’t a drinker and people who didn’t drink often sometimes didn’t realize how lethal pretty, sweet drinks can be. Marshall blamed himself; at the very least he should have made sure she had food in her stomach before he took her out drinking, and he never, ever should have left her alone. That surfer creep had his hands all over her.

  He heard the water in the sink shut-off and then the door cracked open. Eva had pulled her long blonde hair away from her face and tied it in a ribbon at the nape of her neck. She’d washed off all of her make-up and her skin had that just scrubbed fresh glow about it. What Marshall loved most about her though were her hazel eyes. That first day he’d met her, fifteen years ago, her eyes were the first thing he’d noticed. They had looked brown at first but when you got close enough to her, you could see the thick, green ring around the outside of the iris. He found out that like a mood ring, the color of her eyes could change with her mood. Marshall had objected to her fishing with him and Granddad and they had turned a dark brown. When Granddad told him he was being rude, and of course she could join them, Eva had turned to him and stuck out her tongue. At that moment, her eyes had been green and it had freaked Marshall out a little bit, having never known anyone who could change the color of her eyes. For the first couple of weeks he knew her he’d wondered if she was a witch. Now that they were grown, he found it incredibly sexy. He did his best to hide that from her though. Eva was his oldest friend, and Marshall had learned a long time ago how to master his self-control around her. She had never given him any indication that she saw him as anything more than a friend and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, especially over something as insignificant as sex. If there was more between them than that maybe…..Sex he had in droves if he wanted it, best friends…he only had one.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Embarrassed,” she said.

  “Oh please, you’ve seen me drunk off my ass more than once. You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about. I shouldn’t have let you drink so much.”

  Eva smirked and said, “Right, because you’re my keeper.”

  “Well….”

  “Oh please don’t tell me it’s in the guide book that you’re my keeper?”

  “Not your keeper, per say….He just said I better keep you safe or he’d come back and haunt me later on in life.”

  Eva laughed, but she was touched. Even in death Henry was looking out for her.

  * * *

  Eva opened one eye and a sharp pain shot through her forehead. She closed it again. She was so thirsty, she felt like her mouth had been stuffed all night with cotton. Her teeth ached and she could smell the unimaginable stench that was her own breath when she opened her mouth. Her stomach felt like it was on fire and her head felt like it had been emptied of brains and stuffed with rocks. Every time she moved it, they rolled around and put an unbearable pressure against the back of her eyes. She couldn’t open them without that pain and someone was making an ungodly noise somewhere in the suite. It sounded like they’d put boulders in the blender and were trying to grind them up. Eva thought she may just be reacting a bit dramatically to her first hangover, but the truth of the matter was, she wished she were dead.

  “Good morning, sunshine.”

  “Oh no, please, no pleasantries. I can’t take it.” Her eyes were still closed tight against the offending daylight but she could feel Marshall standing close to the bed. She tried to imagine what she must look like, but her imagination must somehow be linked to her hangover center because even that, hurt.

  Marshall laughed and if any of her muscles had worked voluntarily and without coercion from her currently inoperable brain, she may have hit him, or kicked him…or shamelessly, even bit him. She finally wrenched open an eye and endured the pain long enough to look at him standing next to her bed having the audacity to look like a million bucks. He was holding some terrible looking green concoction in one hand and a bottle of Ibuprofen in the other.

  “Amused, are we?” she asked.

  “A little bit, yeah,” he admitted. “Here, I made you my sure-fire hangover remedy and brought you some Ibuprofen. You’ll be good as new in no time.”

  “Why are you yelling?” she said, the sound of her own voice an intrusion on her senses.

  He laughed again, the miserable bastard….”I’m not yelling. Drink this and take these, you’ll feel better, I promise.”

  Eva used the one open eye to shoot a dagger at him. He still looked amused. He sat the glass and the pills down and took her under the arms, helping her to sit up against the pillows behind her. Then, he handed her two of the pills and the glass. She put the Ibuprofen in her mouth and put the glass close to her lips. Whatever was in it smelled worse than her breath and that was a wretched position to be in.


  “Can’t I just have some water?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Marshall said, “As soon as you drink that up.” He was evil, that was all there was to it. Eva put the nasty stuff to her lips and sipped at it. She felt the bile rising up in her throat like it had the night before and then suddenly she had a terrible thought…what if this was her bile? What if Marshall had hidden from her all of these years that he was a serial torture-ist and he’d concocted a drink for her made of her own discarded body fluids.

  “What’s in this?” she asked in a dry, raspy voice.

  “You don’t want to know,” he said. “Just drink it.”

  Eva decided that the sweet death the drink might bring about would be preferable to the chaos the hangover was wreaking on her body. She closed her eyes and tried to hold her breath and she drank it down, emptying the glass completely.

  “Good girl,” he said.

  Eva pulled open the other eye and looked at him. “How long until I die?” she asked. Marshall laughed again,

  “You crack me up,” he said.

  “It’s what I live for,” she told him, sarcastically. “Can I have some water now?”

  Marshall handed her the bottle of water in his hand and said, “Drink it slow, I don’t want you to get sick again.”

  “Humph!” she said, “Then I might vomit out the poison you put in the drink too soon, right? Well, I have news for you; I’m looking forward to death.”

  “Shut up,” he told her. “I’m going to turn on the shower for you. Once you’ve had a shower the drink will have had time to work and you’ll feel like a new woman.” Eva only grunted at him, but once he’d helped her into the bathroom and she was standing underneath the warm soft spray of the shower she realized he was right, and she was grateful. By the time she cleaned up and stepped out she was feeling, if not human, at least closer to the species than she had before. Brushing her teeth and fixing herself up a little bit moved her along the spectrum and by the time she emerged from the bathroom she was one step above a Neanderthal.

  “Better?” Marshall said when he saw her.

  “Yes, much,” she said. Then grudgingly she added, “Thanks.”