by Olin, Sean
“I stopped to look at the awning of this building back there,” said Jules. “And then . . .” She told him her story. How she lost him in the crowd. The panic she felt. The walking in circles as she searched for him. “Where did you go?” she said. “It was like all of a sudden you were gone.”
“I was searching for you,” he said. “I must have not noticed you’d stopped at first, and then I couldn’t find you. We must have been walking in circles around each other.”
“And . . .” She shuddered. “I keep seeing Lilah everywhere. I can’t stop. It’s stupid. I’m sure it’s just the concussion, but—”
“It’s not stupid,” Carter said. “She put you through hell. But listen to me, Jules. She can’t hurt you. I won’t let her.”
She nuzzled her head against his shoulder. It was nice to know he cared, to see his conviction and hear his valiant pledges.
“Come on, let’s go home,” he said.
“What about the Riverwalk?”
“Not tonight. Let’s take it easy. Don’t you think? Until you shake off that concussion, anyway?”
Jules knew he was right, but it stung to admit her limitations. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I ruined everything.”
“No,” Carter said, standing and pulling her up. “You didn’t ruin anything. I’m just thinking—hot tub?” A mischievous half smile floated across his face. “Whatta ya think?”
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Carter spotted Jules as she climbed the ladder up to the roof, and he adjusted the temperature and bubbles in the hot tub so that the water was just warm enough, just massaging enough, for her to feel like she was at a spa designed to fulfill her every wish. He set his iPod on the surround-sound speaker system, and conscious of the headache a bass-heavy rap beat might cause her in her current state, cued up the calming new-agey music that her mother played in the crystal shop. He slid in behind her and gave her a back rub, and they gazed out at the rooftops and the wide lanes and treetops of Oglethorpe Square below them.
It didn’t take long for Carter’s hands to slide from Jules’s shoulders, down her long back and around to her stomach, her breasts, a full-body massage that made her tremble with pleasure. Giving to her. Asking nothing in return.
That night he held her while he slept. He didn’t let go once. He nuzzled his face into the base of her neck, spooned her, and wrapped his body over hers like a shield. She really was safe here with him. She could feel it. And to her surprise, she slept like a baby.
By morning, her headache had receded a bit. She unlaced herself from his arms and turned on the bed, propped herself on an elbow, and gazed at his sleeping face. She could see the small child he used to be, and also, the old man he would one day become in the twist of his mouth and the crease of his eye. She told herself to remember this quiet, peaceful comfort. Despite the complications, this being alone with him here in Savannah was a precious experience. She had to hold on to it.
When Carter was awake, he told her that the plan had changed. They’d take it easy today. Create an optimum condition for her to recover. Then they could go out on the boat tomorrow, if they wanted. The important thing was that she felt better.
So, they lounged around the house in their pajamas, playing Scrabble and doing puzzles and gorging on streamed episodes of Glee (a show she knew Carter didn’t find all that exciting, but that she loved, and that she knew he was pretending to enjoy just to please her, just to make sure she understood that he was here to provide whatever her heart desired).
Throughout the day, Carter did everything he could to keep Jules from having to exert herself. He experimented with cooking—something he knew nothing about—serving up burnt grilled cheese for lunch, gummy pasta with sauce from the can for dinner. He hovered over her so lovingly that she felt both pampered and embarrassed. It was like she was one of the priceless sculptures his father collected, mounted under glass, there to be seen and cooed over but never touched, never played with, for fear that she might break.
By evening, when she was feeling fine—totally recovered, by her own ad-hoc diagnosis—she finally had to say to him, “Carter, it’s okay. It’s just a concussion. I’m going to survive.”
“I know,” he said, but the look on his face said that maybe he didn’t. He was sitting on an ottoman, giving her the whole kidney-shaped couch, and they had a Twilight movie going on the big-screen TV.
“You’ll see. By tomorrow, I’ll be fine.”
This got a smile from Carter, but he still seemed concerned.
“Really, Carter,” she said. “Hakuna matata.” She wobbled her hand in front of her like a surfer, her thumb and pinky outstretched. “It means no worries.”
“Yeah. I’m just not used to that,” he said. “With Lilah there was always something to worry about.”
Jules sat up. Now she feared she’d created a problem where one hadn’t existed.
“Hey, come here.” She tugged softly at his shirt, and he leaned toward her and she cradled his head in her hands and kissed him slowly, sensually. “I know you love me. I’m not going to forget it. Just treat me normal, you know what I mean?”
“M-mm. Okay. I can try to do that.” He kissed her more deeply. “How’s this?” He pressed his body forward until they both fell back on the couch, and he pressed himself against her and slid his hand under her shirt.
“Better,” she said. She kissed him again. “Much, much better.”
“Oh good,” he whispered. He slid her shirt up and ran his hands up and down her body, kissing her stomach, her rib cage, her breasts.
“I’ve been so worried, Lilah. You don’t even know.”
Jules froze. Had she heard that right? She was sure she had. Her lips tightened and her mouth clamped shut and her body went rigid.
“Get off me,” she said.
“What happened? What’s wrong?”
“I said get off me.”
Carter straightened up and retreated to the ottoman. “Okay, okay. What’s wrong, Jules?” he said.
She made him work for her forgiveness. She stared at the screen, watched as the werewolves there pranced through the woods toward their showdown with the vampires.
Finally, she said, “You really don’t know?”
He was mystified, clearly, but that just made it worse.
“You really want Lilah? Give her another shout. She’s probably here in the house somewhere.”
She watched as he put the pieces together, his face slowly dropping with each new tick of mortification.
“Did I—”
“Oh, so, now you’re going to pretend that you didn’t realize it.”
“Fuck. Really?”
Now he was up, nervously running his hand through his hair, staring at her, repelled by what he saw in her expression and how it reflected on him.
“I can’t believe I did that. I’m sorry. I’m . . . my God, Jules, I’m sorry.”
He came for her and tried to take her hand but she refused to give it to him.
“I can explain,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s the thing about guys. They can always explain.”
“No, really, I can. We were just talking about her,” he said. “She was in my mind because I was thinking about all the ways that you’re not like her.” Jules waited for the complicating but she knew was coming. “And then, okay. She used to come up here sometimes with me. Okay, once. Just one time. But—”
“Just one time, huh?”
“You have to believe me, Jules. I wish I’d met you freshman year instead of her. You don’t know how badly I wish that.”
She did believe him. Of course he was telling the truth. But still. “I wish that, too. My life would be a whole lot easier if you’d never met her. I swear to God, Carter.”
As soon as these words came out of her mouth, Jules regretted them.
She retreated into the movie again, gazing at the screen, not really seeing or hearing what was happening there, just using it as a way to avoid Carter.
“It won’t happen again, I swear to God, Jules.”
She stared at him. The whole thing made her feel insecure and rejected, and she absolutely hated that. The dreamy perfection of the day had been bitterly destroyed with just one word.
“I’m sure you didn’t mean it,” she said. “I understand. It’s just . . . after everything that’s happened in the past couple days . . . I need some space.”
His face flushed red.
Jules let him take her hand and kiss it.
“I’m still going to sleep in the other room tonight. I just . . . I need to get my head together.”
She sadly gazed at him one more time and walked slowly out of the room.
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Carterless, shut up by herself in the bedroom with the Degas hanging on the wall, Jules turned in the bed and turned again.
The ticktock, ticktock of the grandfather clock hammered at her brain.
She kicked at the sheet. She pulled it up to her chin and then threw it off again. She punched at the pillow and buried her head in it.
It was pointless. She gave up even trying to sleep.
The seconds seemed to last forever. The room seemed huge, full of nooks and crannies where Lilah could be hiding. The open French window let out creaks and moans when the wind hit it—the glass rattled in the panes. A cat mewled somewhere outside.
Every time Jules closed her eyes, the creeping, trickling sensation, like something running its sharpened fingernails down her spine, returned. Her senses were alert, speeding, delirious, letting too much in. The short huff of someone breathing in the corner. That smell—that horrendous smell—that Lilah had placed in her locker. The person in the room would take a step toward the bed, stop, listen, step again.
Then she’d pop her eyes back open and check the time and see that half an hour or so had passed. The feeling that Lilah was in the room watching her would be gone. Just a dream, a dream that wouldn’t leave her alone.
She stared at the billowing canopy over the bed, watched it ripple like the ocean as the wind blew across it. She could track the ripples from one end to the other. It should have relaxed her, but it just made her more anxious.
The sensation of being watched returned.
She was sure of it this time. She could see the contours of a human shape by the window. She could see the shadow, long and ghostly, moving slowly across the canopy above her.
Closer.
Closer.
The shadow stretched across the entire canopy, a hulking specter peering down on her.
The sounds that had been keeping her awake before had vanished. The smell. The wind had stopped blowing. She was in a void—there was nothing there but her and Lilah, creeping closer.
She held her breath and waited.
She was afraid to move—if she moved, she’d lose her advantage. Lilah would know she was awake. There’d be no way for her to surprise her when she attacked.
She could feel the body heat emanating from Lilah, four, three, two feet from the bed now.
She could feel Lilah leaning forward, stretching out her arms, her fingers spread like talons ready to tear her apart.
This was happening. This was really happening.
She could feel Lilah’s hot breath on her face.
The crazed rage of her expression.
The cold death in her eyes.
Jules, you whore. Did you really think you could live happily ever after?
The arms rose above her.
They descended. Here they came. Propelling toward her. Claws sharp as spears.
She screamed from somewhere deep in her bowels. She kicked at the air and she lunged at Lilah.
And she was awake again and there was nobody there.
The ticking of the grandfather clock.
The creak of the windows in the wind.
A slamming door downstairs, maybe in the kitchen, maybe the same door that had slammed that first day they were here. It led to the cellar. She knew that now; she’d checked, finally, in secret, yesterday. A dank, dirt-floored cavern. An easy place to hide, if you didn’t want to be seen. She still wasn’t convinced doors could slam on their own.
She couldn’t take it anymore. She ran from the room, ran to Carter, who was sitting up in bed in the room next door, awoken by her scream.
She crawled into bed with him, and he held her tight. “It’s going to be okay,” he told her. “It was just a dream.”
He willed himself to believe it, too.
She nuzzled her face in his shoulder and clung to him. She couldn’t get close enough.
For the next hour the two of them lay awake, listening to each other’s breathing, waiting, ready to defend themselves if need be. Even after Jules had fallen back to sleep, Carter could feel the anxious tension moving through every inch of her body.
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That morning, Carter woke up at ten thirty to find that Jules was clinging to him in her sleep. He understood how bad her night had been, and he could see by the way the dreams twitched behind her eyes that she wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.
Carter felt horrible. It wasn’t just the fact that he’d called Jules Lilah. That was bad, and he hated himself for having done it, but what was worse was that he couldn’t figure out why or how the word had come out of his mouth. It was a dick move. He had to admit it. The kind of thing his father would do and then laugh about later.
And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Jules put up a good front—she was really trying—but he knew the concussion was having its effect on her. And the pressure she was putting on herself to shake it off, to forge ahead, be better, be stronger, was just going to make it all that much worse.
She saw Lilah everywhere.
But Lilah wasn’t here. He refused to believe in that possibility. And it was on him to show Jules a path toward forgetting her.
He slid out from under her and tiptoed downstairs, throwing on some shorts and a T-shirt. Then he slipped out of the house and race-walked to Amelia’s, the Frenchy brunch place around the corner from the house. If he wanted to impress her, if he wanted to bring her joy, it was better not to inflict his own burned attempts at pancakes on her.
He bought her a Belgian waffle with the works—Nutella, bananas, strawberries, whipped cream—and back at the house, he slid it out of its tin to-go container and onto a plate from his father’s china set.
He broke into his father’s fancy wine-chilling cabinet and found a bottle of Dom Pérignon champagne. It must have cost at least five hundred dollars, but he didn’t care. His father probably wouldn’t even notice it was gone, and if he did, so what—Jules deserved the best.
As he was arranging everything on the TV tray, he heard Jules call out to him from the bedroom. “Carter?” He could hear her moan as she stretched. “What time is it?”
“I’ll be up in a second,” he shouted. He sped his pace. Coffee. Orange Juice. Two champagne flutes.
Balancing all the food and drink on the tray, he wobbled up the stairs and edged the door to the bedroom open with his foot.
There she was, beautiful, her hair a rumpled mess, sitting up in the bed with the sheet draped over her chest.
“Hey there,” he said, holding the tray up in front of him. “I got you a little sum-sum.”
A smile. Her face just glowed this morning. “For me?” she drawled playfully, pulling her best southern belle. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Oh, but I did.”
He almost dropped the tray right then to leap into t
he bed. Who needed breakfast when Jules was waiting there so lusciously? There’d be time for that later. He set the tray down on the bed and popped the cork on the champagne and poured two glasses.
“To morning,” said Carter. “And feeling better.”
They toasted.
“You are feeling better, right? You look better.”
She nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I think so. We’ll see.”
But the house creaked again, like it always did, and the glow of morning comfort on her face faded. The wary tension of the night before returned.
She picked at her waffle, pushed it around on her plate, politely not eating, and Carter worried that she’d begun to fixate on Lilah again. How to ask her about this, though, without exacerbating things? Better to say nothing. Change the subject. Let her find her own peace.
“I’m thinking today we should take a vacation from our vacation. What do you think? The boat. The water. The two of us, out in the bay by ourselves. Yeah?”
She shot him a look like he’d just read her mind. “Hell yeah,” she said.
They toasted again. To sailing. To rich fathers with boats they could borrow.
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They threw their bags into the trunk of the BMW, stocked up on groceries—LUNA bars and bags of pretzels and chips, peanut butter, jelly, a loaf of sliced bread, a Toblerone to go with the second bottle of champagne they’d snatched from Carter’s dad’s stock, and then they raced off across the Savannah River and onward to the Wilmington Island Yacht Club, where Carter’s dad’s sailboat was docked.
Carter checked in at the office and signed the boat out. Then they loaded up and trudged across the sun-bleached parking lot, through the maze of promenades to dock number 15-L.
In their excitement, they didn’t notice the little green Mazda with Idaho plates parked in a far corner by the utility vehicles and chain-link fence.