by Kyra Davis
For a moment neither of us moves. And then slowly, with the gorgeous exhaustion of spent passion, he frees me from his grip and falls back as I fall forward. And as I lie there, my cheek to the ground, trying to stabilize my breathing, I think, this is our connection, this is our fate.
This is us.
CHAPTER 22
THE PILOT IS going to be shot in New Mexico, and the two days before Ash leaves to shoot his scenes are just sort of . . . perfect. He takes me to this awesome restaurant where we dine on crème fraîche and caviar and drink spectacular specialty cocktails with sophisticated and unique names. Afterward he gets us into Skybar at the Mondrian hotel. There are even more stars here than at Envy. I even spot Mulder! And the view; we can see the lights of the entire city beneath us, looking like scattered diamonds.
When that metaphor popped into my head . . . well, it was the only time in the evening that I felt a pang of sadness. Once, when I was a kid, I told my little sister I was going to be a jewel thief. I was going to steal diamonds, but instead of selling them I would keep them in my attic and they would all glow, and when I walked on them it would be like walking on stars.
The expression on her face when I told her that, I remember it so clearly. She was delighted, and so I kept spinning the tale until it took us into late afternoon, almost to dinnertime. It was always so nice to see Kasie light up like that, so rare. She was such a serious kid, but when she laughed . . .
The memory of that laughter hurts my heart. But then Ash puts his arms around my waist and whispers something mildly obscene in my ear, and I laugh and find a way to push the memories aside.
Ash just keeps buying me drinks—at eighteen dollars a pop. We cap off our perfect night with a stay in a suite at the Mondrian. We stand out on the balcony, smoke a little weed, and gaze out at the City of Angels as we talk and talk about how all of his dreams are coming true.
And I am part of those dreams. I am here, sharing it all with him. He wants me. He cares for me. He might even love me . . . eventually. He hasn’t said the words yet, but, well, he can’t fight fate, can he?
I am hungover but happy when I finally see him off for his month-long excursion. Everything is perfect, perfect, perfect.
Except for the band. Rehearsals become less perfect by the second. Brad is constantly trying to turn us into more serious musicians, and by serious I mean good. And I back him up, but perhaps not with the ferocity that I did before. It’s just that I’m nervous about Traci and Tonio seeing Brad and me as a team. I don’t want anyone to be confused about which man is my partner. Particularly me.
When we walk out together I keep the conversation light and casual, pretending that we are nothing but acquaintances who play music together. I don’t even ask about his daughter.
That last part is hard. I’ve been thinking about June a lot. There’s just something about her . . . She just, just worms her way into your heart without even trying. I keep flashing back to that first night I met her. The way she threw herself into her father’s arms . . . What must that be like? To be loved like that? What must it be like for Brad to know that he brought something so marvelous into the world?
But the only things I ask him about are related to our music or the weather. Do you think Tonio’s guitar solo should be longer? Will it rain tomorrow? Do you think we should cut the instrumental intro to the new song?
And every time we talk he seems . . . sad . . . or disappointed or dissatisfied. I can see that there are things he’d like to say that he won’t, and I am so profoundly grateful for his restraint. Still, it makes me feel awful. And it occurs to me that if he feels hated by Traci and Tonio and shut out by me . . . what’s left to keep him in the band?
He can’t leave. I just . . . he just . . . he can’t.
And so when we’re booked for a rare early evening private party in Silver Lake I insist that everyone in the group make themselves available for dinner and drinks afterward. I give them five days’ notice only because I want to make sure Brad can come. I even give him the latitude and longitude of the location as a goodwill gesture.
The amount of thought and time I put into picking the perfect restaurant is a little silly, but this is just so important to me. I know that if I can get all three of them in a social environment where they have to talk to one another, Tonio and Traci will come to realize that Brad isn’t the Ken doll that he appears to be. Everything will be better and he’ll stay.
He has to stay.
I select a new Mexican/Californian fusion restaurant in the neighborhood that’s been praised for its margaritas and reasonable prices. It’s a five-minute drive to Brad’s, so he won’t have to factor commute time into how long he can hang. And as soon as we all walk in I know I’ve made the right choice. It’s a sprawling place with a warehouse feel to it. The bar is separated out enough from the restaurant that it doesn’t disturb diners, but not so far away that you can’t sense the festive atmosphere. We all scoot into a U-shaped booth next to a group of about seven women of various ages, all laughing and drinking together. Traci immediately orders up a pitcher of blended, frothy sin.
“That party was whack,” Tonio complains, referring to the gig as he scans the menu. “How lame is it to have your mom throw you your twenty-first birthday party?”
“I didn’t find it so odd that she threw her daughter the party,” Brad counters, “but I did find the male stripper a little disconcerting.”
Traci giggles as she puts aside her menu. Behind me I hear the group of women toasting with their shots of tequila. “Did you see the way the mom was looking at that guy?” Traci asks. “I mean, coo, coo, ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson!”
That makes us all burst into laughter. And we haven’t even had drinks yet. This is going rather well, thank you very much!
But when the pitcher does arrive the women at the next table break into their own set of giggles and, I don’t know, the laugh of one of those women . . . it’s familiar, and although I can’t place it, it puts me a little on edge.
“Do you think we should just say no private parties going forward?” Tonio asks after the waitress has left with our orders.
“We can be discriminating, but we don’t want to have any blanket rules,” Brad reasons.
“Yeah.” Tonio nods slowly, as if Brad has just said something uncommonly wise. “Flexibility. We gotta have that.”
A woman at the other table lets some expletive fly, and again their group bursts into laughter, and again there’s that one familiar voice.
“Are you okay, Mercy?” Brad asks. Both Traci and Tonio look over at me to see what the source of Brad’s concern is.
“I’m fine,” I say lightly and lift my glass. “We should toast.”
“Right!” Traci lifts her glass high above her head so it looks more like she’s lifting a lighter at a concert than preparing to say cheers. “To Resurrection!”
We repeat the words, clink our glasses as the chips and salsa arrive. But Brad is watching me, and he’s not the only one. One of the women from that table is looking at me, too . . . I can feel it.
And for reasons I can’t even begin to explain, I suddenly feel the urge to run.
I sip the margarita and try to angle myself so that only a sliver of my profile can be seen by the people at that table. “You know what’s going to be a good gig,” I begin, reaching for a chip. “The—”
“Melody?” a woman’s voice asks.
For a second I freeze, red salsa dripping from my freshly dipped tortilla chip.
“Melody, is that you?”
And now I can place the voice.
Over nine and a half million people in LA County. Over three million in Orange County, which is where I would know this woman from. Over eighty thousand restaurants when you combine the two neighboring counties together. So no, I must be wrong about the voice. This meeting, it simply can’t be happening. “I’m sorry,” I say, recovering slightly. “You have the wrong person.”
“You’re not Melody?�
� she asks, confused. If I turn around, look at her, if I shoot her my most intimidating glare, maybe she’ll go away. But I desperately do not want to turn around.
“Her name’s Mercy,” Tonio corrects, but now from the corner of my eye I can see Traci. She has a little frown on her face, her brow creased as she stares down into her drink, deep in thought. The name Melody is clicking with her.
“Oh . . . my bad.” The woman laughs and I immediately hear the intoxication in her voice. She’s not falling-down drunk, but she’s not sober enough to pick up on the subtle or not-so-subtle clues of my protective body language. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I was so sure it was Melody! But we do know each other.” She places a hand on my shoulder and I wince. “It’s me!” she says, giving me a gentle shake. “Jessica Garcia! Jessy! We had the same OB-GYN at that clinic! You know, for our prenatal visits?”
I can feel all of their eyes on me. Traci, Tonio, Brad. They’re all watching me, every single one of them picking up on different clues, but all coming to the same conclusion that this woman isn’t mistaken.
Don’t turn around. But my mind and body aren’t really connected anymore. And I feel myself twisting, turning my head, finding the instinct too strong to resist . . .
. . . like a lemming running off a cliff.
And when I see her . . . oh God, it’s like no time has passed at all. I’m in the clinic in Fullerton. There are Latin instrumental ballads playing over the speakers. The magazines are months, sometimes years, old. The place smells like antiseptic, and every expectant mother in there seems like a child herself. There in the corner I can see the blond fifteen-year-old pregnant girl, gripping the hand of her mom like her life depends on it. And there, there’s the Mexican girl with smooth dark skin and scared eyes, clutching her belly as if she has a stomachache rather than a baby. And then there’s Jess. Jess with her flower tattoos and bright red lipstick, sitting by my side, laughing with me about the shoddy decor and the lack of decent reading material. Distracting me and helping me cope as I wait for my appointment with my doctor. Our doctor. I had seen her there three out of the nine times I went. I was there eight times in my first four months of pregnancy. But of course she didn’t know that part. She just knew that I was about her age, which made us the oldest two women in there. She knew that I had blue-green hair at the time and five piercings in each ear. She knew that I was someone she could hang with. And she knew that our doctor was always running behind, sometimes by over an hour, and that she was scared and I was scared and that maybe if we talked together, laughed together, we could help each other cope with that fear.
But what she didn’t know is that I had so much more to fear than she ever did.
“You look great!” Jessy is saying, completely oblivious to the shroud of silence that now covers our table. “You’ve totally regained your figure! Are you breast-feeding? I am. I thought I would love having boobs, but once you go dairy farm they stop being sexy, am I right? I swear, this is the first time I’ve been able to go out for a girls’ night since Jax was born! I had to pump for days just to pull it off. And now of course I’m going to have to pump and toss when I get home ’cause of the booze. Oh my God, I’m being so rude!” She laughs. “Peeps, this is Mercy,” she says, turning back to her table. “She and I were preggers at the same time in the OC. Mercy”—she turns back to me—“these chicks are from my moms’ group. We meet at—”
But before I can hear one more word I am out of my seat and running as fast as I can to the door. A waiter balancing a tray tries to dodge me but fails, and a bunch of plates go crashing to the floor. But I don’t stop to help. I don’t even acknowledge him as he yells after me. I just have to get out of there, now.
And when I’m outside and the night air is cool against my skin I just keep running. I don’t know where I’m going and I really don’t care. I must get away from that place, from that woman, from this devastating feeling of humiliation and shame and self-loathing, but most of all from this encroaching coldness that seems to be filling my gut.
So I keep running and running, crashing into pedestrians as I do, almost tripping over a small dog, never answering the curses that are thrown at me by these strangers who have been subjected to my carelessness.
And as I see a busy street up ahead I suddenly realize what I’m going to do.
I’m going to run into the traffic.
The very thought makes me pick up the pace. I didn’t even know I could run this fast. People are just getting out of the way now. I hear the alarmed voice of a stranger loudly question if I’ve stolen someone’s purse. But of course it’s so much worse than that. What I’ve stolen is someone’s life.
And there’s the Don’t Walk sign, glowing bright red. And there are the cars and the trucks, all moving along at speeds that can kill. And I’m so very close.
I widen my stride, my hair whipping behind me. I’m close enough now that people are beginning to realize that I’m not stopping. And they’re not yelling curses anymore. They’re just yelling.
And I don’t care.
Twenty feet from the curb.
I see the Corvette turn onto the street a little too fast.
Fifteen feet from the curb.
The timing is perfect. It will reach the curb at about the same time I will. It won’t be able to slow down.
Ten feet.
Will it be able to swerve in time? Will it hit me? Will I die?
Seven feet . . .
There are no cars in the lane left of the Corvette now and it’s not slowing down. It’ll be the last one to make the light. If it swerves it won’t hit anyone else. I’m the only one in danger and the danger is right there, within reach, mere seconds away . . .
Five feet from the curb.
I’m so close, it’s right there!
Three feet, two feet . . .
An arm wraps around my waist, yanking me off the ground, pulling me away from the curb at the very last second and pressing me up against my assailant even as I kick and scream.
And I know who it is.
It’s Brad. He’s saved me.
And immediately all that adrenaline that was coursing through me, making me feel completely awake and alive . . . it’s gone. Just like that.
He’s saved me. I’m safe now.
And being safe like this, it’s just enough to remind me that as far as most of the world is concerned, I’m dead.
CHAPTER 23
DURING THE SHORT drive to Brad’s house neither one of us says a word. I rest my head against the window, staring blankly at the street, practically catatonic.
He parks less than half a block away from his building, gets out, goes to my door, and leans over to unlatch my seat belt. “Do you want me to carry you?” he asks.
I consider not answering but eventually shake my head no.
“Good, you can walk then.” He pulls me out of the car, maybe a little rougher than I had expected. I keep my gaze straight ahead, my eyes unfocused as he pulls me through the entrance gate, through the courtyard, to his front door.
When he lets us in there’s Maria sitting on the couch, reading Details magazine.
“Everything go okay tonight?” he asks her.
She nods, gives her report of good behavior as Brad thanks her, gives her a few bucks, and escorts her to the door. I don’t say a word and I keep my eyes on the wall. If Maria greeted me I didn’t notice it. I sit down on the upholstered chair by the coffee table as Brad goes to peek in on June. When he comes back he stands opposite me, leaning against the wall. I know I need to look at him eventually, although I’m not sure I see the point of it. I know what I’m going to see. Unease, fear, pity, disgust—these are the universal reactions to my behavior. When I was sixteen and my father took me to the loony bin, the nurse who admitted me directed all her attention to my father, making him feel comfortable, letting him know she was going to do everything she could to make the process of getting rid of me as easy and stress free as possible. She was very s
ympathetic . . . to him. But she never looked at me.
You’d think the whole thing would have made me feel invisible. But oddly enough, that kind of extreme and purposeful avoidance doesn’t make you feel invisible at all. It makes you feel like you are the most conspicuous person in the world. You’re the sideshow freak. You’re the dead body on the side of the road after a car crash, the one that decent people won’t look at and low-class rubberneckers will gape at.
When you’re normal, people whisper about you when you leave the room. When you’re a freak, people whisper about you when you’re five feet away.
“Mercy.”
I hear myself sigh in response to my name, but it’s odd because I don’t actually feel myself breathe.
“Mercy,” he says again, a little sterner this time. Slowly, reluctantly, I direct my eyes to him, and the jolt of surprise breaks through my anesthetized state. There’s no fear there, or pity, or disgust . . . Maybe a little confusion, a little concern, a lot of frustration. “What the hell?” he snaps.
The question feels both general and specific. “What do you want to know?”
“Were you trying to kill yourself?”
“No. I just . . .” I look over at the tightrope walker between the two buildings of the World Trade Center. “I wanted to see if I would die.”
Brad takes a second to let that sink in. “I’m not sure that’s better.”
“No,” I admit, a humorless smile on my lips. “But ya gotta admit, it’s different.” I get up, walk to the poster, and put my hand on the tiny tightrope walker. “You remember the first night you brought me here? You started to tell me about June’s mom, but I wouldn’t let you.”
Brad takes a seat on the couch, leaning forward as he listens. “I remember.”
“I knew you were going to say bad things about her. That’s what people do. They talk shit about their ex . . . particularly when kids are involved. But whatever June’s mom did or didn’t do, she is still better than me.”