Necessary Detour

by Hornsby, Kim

  Her flip flops clapped noisily on the wooden stairs as the little dog shot from behind and beat her to the kitchen. Nausea lingered somewhere between reality and anticipation as she made some tea. With a steaming mug in hand, she sat at her laptop to check the online gossip columns.

  “No Goldy in Them Thar Hollywood Hills,” “Goldy Fever,” “Panning for Goldy.” The word plays were predictable and almost infinite. Goldy’s whereabouts was anyone’s guess, although several articles speculated she was at a penthouse in Nassau. She smiled to hear that her decoy’s efforts were successful. Days earlier, a bellboy had seen Goldy sneaking into the private elevator at the Atlantis Resort. Sightings of the rock star were coming in from all over America and even Europe, but Nassau ranked number one for Goldy sightings. With reason.

  The Goldy decoy was paid to sneak up to the penthouse, order room service discreetly three times a day, and wait for further instructions. “At least I’m not paying her for nothing.” Elvis wagged his curly tail and Nikki laughed as he danced around the kitchen. “I’m told she looks a lot like me in the blonde wig.”

  She grabbed her cell phone and informed her security company to go ahead with plan B—flying the decoy to a private island in the Keys with two bodyguards and a staff of four. “Tell her to pack up.”

  Staring out the kitchen window to her garage, she considered simply taking the car out for a drive. The walls were closing in around her even with her daily boat rides. The thought of the press’s possible presence in Louisa Lake seemed to lose all credibility on a glorious day at the lake. Shakespeare didn’t seem so horrid in the sunshine either. The FBI was confident he’d be in California. She hadn’t heard anything for a while. Who knew if he was obsessed with other celebrities? He might have a whole ring of famous people he was threatening.

  On impulse, Nikki called Agent Gateman at the FBI for the latest report. “Anything new?”

  “Nothing.” He sounded almost cheerful. “I’ll make an educated guess that he’s probably less motivated after the announcement of your retirement. But we haven’t closed the file.”

  Next, Nikki called her publicist, Phyllis.

  “All is well. Things are dying down already,” she said. Phyllis didn’t believe the strange neighbor was anyone threatening. “Maybe he’s a biographer, but someone’s bound to write your story eventually, darlin’.” Nikki cherished Phyllis’s casual take on catastrophes and always felt better after a conversation with her.

  A disguise would take care of any lingering fears and allow Nikki the freedom to enjoy her trip to town. After all, costumes had always allowed Nikki to attend normal events like the movies, restaurants, taking Quinn to the fair. The curly brown wig was still in the duffle bag in her bedroom. The fat suit too.

  Elvis’s reaction to the wig was comical and Nikki laughed out loud. “It’s Mommy, silly boy.” She’d been transformed into a different woman. One baggy dress later, Nikki grabbed sunglasses and headed to town before noon, before any residual September tourists hit the town for supplies. A car ride would do as much for her attitude today as summoning a personal bodyguard from her L.A. roster.

  Anyone watching the road into town would have seen a lady in a black car pull into Barney’s Gas Station shortly after nine o’clock and slide to a stop at pump number four. The other bays were empty. Nikki contemplated using her debit card to avoid having to go inside the store with cash. No, no cards, just in case they were traced. She paid in the convenience store and hurried outside to fill her tank.

  It was a postcard-perfect day in Louisa Lake and Nikki closed her eyes to let the heat of the morning bathe her face while she pumped her own gas. This was yet another simple pleasure she hadn’t done in awhile. Hearing a car pull up to the next island, Nikki first turned her back then looked over and saw the familiar blue Chevy truck. Dammit. When Pete stepped out, her first thought was that he might be following her.

  He kept his back to her and Nikki was able to stare. Jeans fit him well. He had broad shoulders, nicely muscled arms. He whistled a tune from the radio, watching the highway as he pumped his gas. This was the man who’d kissed her, his lips softer than his rough look suggested.

  Fifty dollars, sixty dollars, and finally Nikki’s pump stopped. She caught herself humming Pete’s song and stopped immediately, returning the gas nozzle to its holder. Under his scruffy hair at the back of his neck, he wore the leather string that held the small amulet.

  Jumping into the driver’s seat, Nikki realized she’d left her keys inside the store, at the cash desk. The spaced-out, red-eyed cashier was busy setting up a display, so Nikki grabbed some magazines, gum, and a few other items. Stepping up to the desk, she absently knocked a box of condoms off a display. Setting the boxes to the side, she paid and left.

  Her front window was partway down, but she felt blissfully unrecognizable as she pulled away from the gas pumps.

  Pete looked up. “Morning, Nikki,” he called and tipped an imaginary hat.

  What? Pete had said her name plain as day, even though she wore big sunglasses and a frizzy brown wig. How did he know? He wouldn’t recognize the car. She’d given Quinn the Escalade and was now driving the car they kept at the lake for when they flew in by helicopter or float plane. Glancing in the rear view mirror, she saw the problem. Elvis hung out the back window, panting and smiling at everything out there in the big wide world. He must’ve stepped on the window button and, of course, Pete recognized her dog.

  “Elvis!” she wailed. The man who kissed her had just seen her in a silly wig trying to ignore him. What would he think about her wandering around town in this ridiculous getup?

  Resisting the urge to bang her head against the steering wheel, she headed out of town. She was useless at sneaking around. Pete was everywhere she went and Elvis seemed to be on his side. Pete wasn’t a photographer. That much she knew. If he was, she’d have seen photos by now all over the internet. Those long lenses of the paparazzi could zero in on very distant objects and Nikki had been outside enough to give him plenty of fifty-thousand-dollar shots.

  “Let’s stay ahead of this guy, Elvis.” From the passenger seat, the little pooch hung on every word. She checked her rearview mirror and saw no one. “I am screwed if Pete is writing a book on me and I let him kiss me.”

  A hefty wind blew off the lake, rustling the trees and sending an abandoned piece of white paper somersaulting across her driveway. Nikki clicked the garage door closed, grabbed the paper, and looking skyward, saw clouds moving in to change the beauty of the day.

  She walked to the side of the house to rescue anything that might blow away and, stopping to watch the dance of the birches’ leaves flickering in the wind, she caught a glimpse of something at the Dickerson place. It was just a flash of color in the front window Looking closer, she saw nothing.

  The wind picked up and waves blew across the bay. The papery sounds of the flickering leaves almost drowned out Elvis’s barking and when she turned to see what he’d found, her heart jumped. The blue pickup truck was parked in her driveway. Pete stood to the side of it, his eyes on her. Realizing this was the second time she’d been caught spying, her face blazed with embarrassment, until she considered that he might think she was simply looking out at the bay.

  She toddled toward him. “We meet again.” Her attempt to be casual sounded forced and Nikki was painfully aware of how unusual she looked in the padded suit.

  Pete held up a small plastic bag. “The guy at the gas station thought these were yours.” His voice sounded like sandpaper on lava rocks.

  Seeing the Trojan logo through the thin bag, she froze. This was either creepy or amusing. “I’m not missing anything.” Nikki’s vision drifted to the scar on Pete’s chin, then to his eyes. A chill travelled up her spine when their eyes locked.

  “He said he charged you.” Pete looked genuinely confused and handed her the bag. “I told him we were neighbors.” His hands were callused. Not necessarily a writer’s hands. Or a software engineer.
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  “I went to town in a fat suit because I like anonymity.” What could she say? Even though now would be the time to peel off the suit and shed the pretense, she had only underwear beneath. Instead she chucked the bag at the trash can in an overhead throw. Landing on the grass in front of the can, the bag became a perfect retrieve for Elvis, the non-retriever, and he took off for his prey.

  “Your secret is safe with me.” The hint of a smirk passed over Pete’s lips.

  Elvis dropped the condom box on her toes and sat down obediently, waiting for Nikki to throw the box. “These aren’t mine.” What else could she say?

  Elvis’s excitement was irresistible. “He’s not usually a fetcher.” Picking up the box, she chucked it toward the garbage can again, only to have Elvis take off joyfully.

  “Your costume is…charming.”

  She was just about to ask him if he was writing about her, but stopped before the words left her lips. “Privacy is important to me.” She returned his stare but it was hard to look mean in a costume.

  “Obviously.” The wind blew his hair around his face. He needed a haircut. “Bad weather coming in.”

  “Delivery Man and Weather Man.” She smiled at him and was surprised when he blushed. This sudden show of vulnerability touched something in her. Pete had a crush on Goldy. Must’ve been a good kiss after all. “Maybe it won’t last.” Was she talking about the weather?

  Pete looked over to the trees which were jostling in the wind. “I thought you were leaving the lake.” He stepped back, put one hand in a pocket of his jeans, and grabbed the truck’s silver door handle with the other hand.

  Nikki bought herself a moment by throwing the box for Elvis again. Pete was awfully eager to know her schedule. “I don’t know.” He almost sounded like he wanted her to leave.

  “You here by yourself? It’s kind of remote location for one person.” He opened the truck door.

  “I have friends coming soon.” She looked at her watch like they might be pulling in at any moment. “And of course I have my watchdog.” They both laughed at Elvis who, by now, had torn the box apart and was scattering condoms across the yard.

  “How is he doing after getting rolled by my truck?” He dropped his hand from the truck door handle.

  “He’s a survivor.”

  “His barking is good protection. Even just for notification.”

  Elvis looked at Pete and wagged his tail, abandoning the condoms for sniffs around Pete’s jeans. Elvis jumped up to Pete’s knees. “He doesn’t usually like strangers,” she said.

  “Especially people who hit him with their truck, I bet.” Tiny lines fanned out from his turquoise eyes when he smiled, and Nikki imagined he didn’t wear colored contact lenses like celebrities. As he reached down to pet her dog, he chuckled. “I had bacon for breakfast, in town. He probably smells that.”

  “Ah, he does like bacon.” So Pete was already in town when she saw him at the gas station.

  “Let me know if you need anything, seeing you’re here by yourself and all.” He jumped inside the truck and backed away, leaving Nikki to wonder what he had that she might need. He’d write an article if she was feeling unpublicized? She couldn’t let her guard down yet.

  ****

  He’d gone too far. It wasn’t helpful to get sidetracked, but Nikki was so damned cute. She’d gone from a hot rock star to the pretty lady next door. And she was entirely someone else in that costume. Pete laughed out loud at the thought of her in that wig. He was sure she didn’t have friends coming over like she said, but understood that she didn’t want him to think she was alone. That probably worked out better for him. Her being cautious and all. Especially because he’d kissed her.

  He had thought she’d leave the lake if he came on too strong, but she was still here with no hint of going. And asking the sheriff about Goldy at the lake hadn’t flushed her out. Shit. He’d embarrassed himself by kissing her and didn’t get the end result he wanted. He’d have to stay away now. No more flirting with Goldy. Soon she’d leave and he’d become someone else.

  Scanning the perimeter, he noted that something was different but couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Everything looked the same. He left the grocery bags in the truck, and silently crept to the side door of the house. With his ear to the door, he listened.

  A faint murmur of voices came from inside. There’d been no sign of a vehicle on the property. Stealing along the side of the house, he peeked over the window ledge knowing he’d left the drapes open on this side. And there they were. Standing in the middle of the kitchen. Waiting for him. Three bodies looking drastically out of place in the rustic log house.

  When he barged through the door, they looked like cornered rabbits and he knew at that moment it would be easy. Easier than the others.

  ****

  Nikki positioned herself with a ham and cheese sandwich at her elbow and watched the scene in the film she was both looking forward to and dreading. The music she wrote for this part of the movie would determine the film’s entire score. It was the pivotal moment in the story and she hoped to draw a melody from it, a hook to haunt the entire film. The audience would walk out of the theatre humming it and when it played at the Academy Awards, the poignancy of the music would insure tears. Nikki had to make it memorable.

  She studied the scene on her computer, playing the piano as it progressed. Nothing came that reflected the emotion needed. She had to put herself in the main character’s place, to feel the horror of the woman who’d been asked to give her child to another woman to save her town’s decimation. The childless wife of the Nazi commander had made a deal with her husband to spare the people of the town if the prisoner woman gave them her baby. She had to.

  Thinking about Quinn, Nikki remembered how sweet she’d been as a baby. One of the hardest things she’d ever done in her life was to leave her child in a nanny’s care for days on end, in order to fulfill her obligations as Goldy. Poor Quinny had had such a rotten mother. No wonder her child had experimented with drugs at the age of fifteen, gone to rehab at sixteen, and had her own sponsor at AA at the age of seventeen. Thank God she’d been sober and drug-free for the last nineteen months.

  Nikki found herself sympathizing with the anguish of the heroine. From deep within, the pain of the mother’s choice gripped her heart and twisted it until notes poured out of her and filled the room with emotion. As she played, she found something lingering on the edge of her mind. She repeated it and continued, playing the eight bars over and over then built on it, filling in notes where necessary. Working it over, adding notes, slowing it down, repeating passages. Finally she hit the record button to lay down a rough track of what she hoped would be the base of the melody. After years of writing, Nikki no longer questioned how she found the music. Notes arrived from somewhere she couldn’t explain and, as they surfaced, she played them.

  Finished for now, she laid her head down on the cool, polished surface of the Steinway, her tears pooling where they fell beside her face. In her half-slump, Nikki’s hand went to her belly. She wanted this baby with everything she had in her heart. These tears had nothing to do with the music she’d just written, they were filled with the knowledge that her child would be the heart of who she was and nothing would take that away from her. Not this time. Burn had given her one child and they’d agreed that was it. Goldy’s focus on work had been necessary to too many people back then for her to have “a brood of kids running around,” he’d said.

  Nikki walked down the grassy lawn to the dock, watching the moon’s ascension from the mountain tops across the lake. Without conscious thought, she stripped down to nothing and dove into the blackness of the bay. Daily temperatures were still summery warm and the water’s contrasting coolness was blissful.

  Her legs kicked silently below the surface to take her out to the deeper water. Glancing back at the pile of clothes on the end of the dock, it looked like her body had mysteriously disintegrated to leave only a pair of shorts, a shirt and under
wear. Her hands cut the surface as she swam to the center of the bay, slightly drunk on the haunting tune that lingered in her head. Rolling onto her back, she stared at the stars, her breasts bobbing on the dark surface of the lake. They were tender now. Soon, other changes would present themselves and she’d feel more confident about the longevity of the pregnancy.

  She moved closer to shore. Her bare body felt unencumbered, rolling from front to back and around several times. Her breasts hit the cooler air on the surface and a sexual thrill shot through her body. She recalled making love with Burn near the dock. Never again. Her sex life would now only involve fantasies about men who might possibly love her, not ever knowing she was Goldy.

  “You were a singer?” they’d say. “I didn’t know.” Her fantasy man never had black hair past his shoulders, no tattoos, never wore leather and chains or heavy eye makeup. Funny thing was, without all that, Burn was actually a sweet-looking man—beautifully boyish, just out of the shower. It was his curse that he worried constantly that everyone didn’t love him enough.

  Swimming to the shallows, Nikki pondered the conundrum of Pete Bayer. Physically he was so different from Burn, more likely to know how to swing an axe, drive a racing car, rock climb, and survive in the wilderness. Pete was probably the type to sleep in the nude, enjoying the coolness of sheets on his skin, not the type to keep his clothes on during sex like her movie-star crush. Judging from the way Pete kissed her, she guessed he’d be aggressive in bed. He had those sleepy-looking blue eyes, that gravelly voice, the strong torso, and those arms that caught her before she fell at the grocery store.

  She grabbed her clothes from the dock and walked through the water toward the beach. The shirt slipped over her head easily and fell past her shoulders and down to her hips. Walking bare-assed out of the water in the dark, Nikki headed for the towel on the lounge chair but stopped when a muffled yell came from the house across the bay. Her initial thought was that Pete had climaxed during sex but realized she’d only been fantasizing about him. She wrapped the towel around her waist.