I turned to see a hand waving from a few rows down and to the left. It was Britney and a tall man in a Titans cap.
“Hey, Jenna, wait up!” she shouted.
“It’s Britney, from work,” I explained to Michael.
Britney, all rosy cheeked, shouldered her way through the crowd, finally reaching where we stood.
I stepped out of the streaming crowd. “Hi, I didn’t know you were a Hamilton Broncs’s fan.”
“Sort of. Colton’s brother—this is Colton,” she interrupted herself and pointed over her shoulder to her companion, who nodded silently. “Colton’s brother is the linebacker.”
Michael ducked around a fan carrying a cooler, a stadium seat, and a foam finger labeled, “We’re Number 1!”
“This is Michael.” I touched his arm. “Britney, Colton.”
Britney smiled pleasantly as she unabashedly assessed him from the top of his knit hat, down his leather jacket and khaki pants, all the way to his Doc Martin shoes.
Michael nodded recognition and cleared his throat, looking embarrassed.
“So, Kevin told me about the job you are taking in Hawaii,” Britney said abruptly. She quickly put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I think maybe I’m not supposed to know, but Brandon saw the fax and showed me. Oh, how can they take you away from us! I’m so upset!” she whined dramatically. “You are so great to work with and so organized. It’s actually a pleasure to go to work.” She sighed. “But what an opportunity for you! I mean, Ha-wai-i.” She drew out each syllable and added another sigh. “Probably a big pay raise—exciting, tropical night life. Wow!” She spread her gloved hands. “I suppose they want you right away too.” She shook her head. “Well, you deserve it. I just hope they don’t let Peter have your job—gag me with a spoon!” Her face registered her disdain.
“Well, I …” I faltered. I looked at Michael’s face and read volumes. Confusion and a pained expression settled on his features. What was he thinking? This is not what I had planned. What had I planned? Did I think I was going to fly away, sparing myself the inconvenience of facing him? Somehow avoiding the scorching pain of severing what we had?
The air seemed to chill as I watched the light withdraw from his eyes. He was leaving. He was standing right in front of me, but he was retreating somewhere deep inside.
“And of course, you will be on the fast track after this,” Britney rattled on. “Nowhere to go but up. I hear it’s a great location for that. I bet you’ll never come back here.” She chattered on, “There’s just less opportunity in this size of an airport, I guess.”
I looked at Michael helplessly, searching his face, but he looked away.
I opened my mouth to speak.
“Reese!” Colton suddenly bellowed. “Reese!” Colton descended across the stadium seats with great long strides of his gangly legs.
“Oh, we gotta go,” Britney said. “See you on Monday.”
Britney scrambled after him.
Michael turned to me his expression flat. He scrutinized my face.
“Is this what you want?”
“Well, I … I just got an offer and I …”
Three giggling girls burdened with stadium blankets pushed between Michael and me on their way to the bottom of the bleachers. The band struck up a last time, a ragged tune that blared in our ears, then faded away into the thudding of instruments plopped into cases and the laughter of students.
“Well, buddy,” Jack said to Michael, slapping him on the back. “What did you think of that game? Pretty exciting for small town ball, eh? I think that kicker is headed for the NFL, don’t you?”
“He’s got the talent,” Michael said without enthusiasm.
The crowd carried us down toward the parking lot where we found Jack’s van beside Michael’s Explorer. A fine rain drizzled down, flooding the asphalt with colored pools of light.
“We’re going over to Mom’s to pick up the kids,” Jack said. “You two coming over for some smoked fish and apple pie? Maybe a game of cards?”
Michael glanced at me with hesitation. “Sure,” he said slowly. “You’re going over too?”
I nodded my head.
“OK,” Jack said. He and Elizabeth got into their car.
“Michael …” I started.
A car gunned its engine nearby and peeled its tires with a screech. Horn blaring, it curved through the parking lot, hands waving banners out of its windows. A boy put his head and shoulders through the moonroof and gave what sounded like a war whoop.
“We can talk at the house,” Michael said, his lips tight, his eyes anxious. He looked around the parking lot. “Do you want me to walk you to your car? I don’t see the Mercedes.”
“No, I’m just over here.”
Jack leaned through the car over Elizabeth’s lap. “Hey, Jenna, I just remembered I’ve got to drive by and take a look at a house for a client on the way over. It will just take a minute. We’ll see you at Mom and Dad’s.”
“See you at the house,” I said.
Michael stepped toward his Explorer, then turned back, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. His blue eyes pierced mine. “We’ll talk, OK?”
I nodded, swallowing hard as rain trickled down my face. I watched him climb into his car and drive away, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Chapter 39
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The rain came in sheets, soaking my knit hat, creating rivulets that poured down my jacket. Tires splashed in the deepening pool on the pavement, fanning water behind them as sports fans rolled out of the parking lot. I shoved my hands into my pockets and moved toward my car.
A cold fear churned inside me. What I had with Michael could shimmer and vanish in a moment like the reflection of my gray form in the puddles at my feet.
I got to my car and fumbled for my keys. I dropped them on the wet asphalt and cursed as I bent to retrieve them. There was an odd smell I noticed, and a rainbow sheen around my car’s wheels. Great, I thought, I probably have an oil leak. Just what I need. I made a mental note to call V-Tec in the morning and get an appointment.
I slipped into the driver’s seat of my Taurus, shut the door with a slam, and listened for a moment to the beating of the rain on my roof and the pounding of my own heart. I gripped the wheel with both hands and stared blindly in front of me. Britney and her big mouth! Maybe I wasn’t even going to take this transfer to Hawaii. Or was I?
The job was something I wanted to bring up to Michael in my own time, I reasoned. When I was ready, when the time was right. If Brandon hadn’t been so snoopy … I heaved a sigh and hid my face in my hands. I realized it was my fault, not Brandon’s, not Britney’s. What was it inside me that made me look for a way out? For some reason, I had to keep my back to the door. I had to have that job offer just in case … just in case Michael walked away. No, it wasn’t that. I shook my head. It was in case I couldn’t stay. I just hadn’t decided for myself.
I remembered when I was a child, playing tag in the dark with Jack and Angela. Warm summer nights, stars blinking overhead, the smell of chocolate cake coming through the windows of the house, the sound of crickets singing to one another. We ran. We hid in the darkness amid the pungent scent of juniper bushes. The golden light from the porch sifted through the trees. The porch was “safe.” If you could make it to the porch without being touched you’d be safe. You wouldn’t be out. That piece of paper on my desk was a porch to me now. If Michael let me down, I could leave, go somewhere and hide my heart in the dark.
I stared through the window and imagined my life alone, completely absorbed in my own little world. No one to upset my plans. Come and go as I pleased. No one to leave me. No one to disrupt my life. But I couldn’t help but see the play in my mind interrupted by a little dark-haired girl, dancing onto the stage, holding out a book for me to read, a hand for me to kiss. Unbidden came Michael’s face smiling as he reached for me, his azure eyes, the moonlight on his hair.
I ran my fingers
through my hair and realized that a singular existence was not what I wanted. I looked at the life Michael and I could have together. I thought about Emma, saw her dark curls and sweet mouth, and my heart wrenched inside me. I gripped my jacket over my heart to make it still. I wanted to be there for her when she cried, to cut up her spaghetti noodles, read her books and sing her to sleep at night. I wanted to share her tears and her smiles. And I wanted to be there at the door when Michael came home at night. To hold him in my arms and fill my lungs with the smell of his skin. I wanted us to build something together that would last.
I hung my head and felt great drops—not rain—fall from my cheeks into my lap. I realized that somewhere deep inside my meager little brain, I couldn’t picture myself with him for the long haul. There was a great billboard in my head that said I would always be alone. I wondered how that image became glued so securely on the walls of my mind without my realizing it, without my choosing it. Now, having seen it in full light, it was as if I could reach up, finger the edges, and tear the image down. I felt it fold into a crumpled mound at my feet.
Nothing was for sure, I knew. That didn’t matter anymore. I would take the risk, knowing nothing was for sure, that there was no guarantee. A better life was there for the asking. I felt it, even though I couldn’t see it. I just had to ask. There was risk. It would take courage, but courage is a decision, I realized. I just had to decide. And it would be worth it.
Now that I had laid all my options out on the table, turned out all my dark gremlins, I felt a great peace descend on me. I knew where I was going. I knew what I would do. I had chosen love, and whether Michael wanted me or not, I had chosen him. And I would wait until he decided what he wanted. I would wait as long as it took.
I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my jacket and turned the key in the ignition. I joined the last of the throng of cars jamming the exit from the parking lot. A jagged line slowly filed out onto the street. Headlights reflected on the mirrored surface of the asphalt. Raindrops on my windshield snatched the light from streetlights, shattering it into fragments of colored light. I bumped up the speed of my windshield wipers to clear my view.
After a few blocks of idling slowly along behind the other cars, I broke free from the clot of traffic and headed north out of town toward my uncle’s house, moving along the East Side Highway. Away from town, it was as if the night had dropped a blanket of blackness, torn open by the glaring lights of occasional oncoming cars.
About a mile from the house, I saw a ghostly streak of tan moving along the right side of the road out of the corner of my eye. At that moment, a truck turned onto the road from the left, coming toward me, swinging its powerful beam of headlights into my eyes, blinding me as it passed.
Afterwards, all I could remember was a great shape, a wild eye, and flying black mane moving swiftly in from the right. I slammed my foot on the brake and felt the sole of my shoe hit the floor. Nothing. I pumped again and again, feeling no resistance at all, a sickening emptiness.
In slow motion, the car spun, tires screaming, and careened off the road, headlights reflecting against trees and poles in rapid succession, flashing like a tilt-a-wheel in a carnival. I heard a hoarse scream and realized it was my own. Then terrible noise. A tremendous thud and the sound of glass shattering. It peppered the inside of the car. I heard the blare of a horn as an oncoming car veered around me on the passenger side.
The squeal of tires gave way to the sound of rock and debris crashing underneath the floorboards. I was sliding downward, downward. There was a loud scraping of branches against metal all around me. Sliding, sliding, then an abrupt stop. My body was thrown sideways as the car yawned to the right, teetered for a long moment, and then thudded down, resting at a slant.
I gripped the steering wheel, my breath coming in irregular gasps. Fragments of the windshield hung in ragged pieces in front of me like the remains of an enormous spider web. Illuminated by patches of light, a small, leafless tree leaned crookedly across the front of my car, an eerie form shrouded in the steam rising from the battered hood of the car.
The engine still roared and a wheel on the right spun madly, throwing rock and debris. The smell of exhaust mixed with a horrible acrid smell. A terrible pain shot through my right shoulder, and I was aware of a warm, dark shape pinning my arm down. A vermillion line ran down my right hand. My leg was covered in blood.
Behind me on the road, doors opened and slammed. Frantic shouts cut the night. I heard someone crashing through the brush, making their way to my door until a man’s ashen face peered through the window.
“What do you see, Tom? Are they OK?” called a voice in the distance.
“Oh man. You better call 911 fast,” he hollered over his shoulder. “Man, oh man. You got your cell phone, Pat?” he yelled again.
The man’s face disappeared.
I tried to push away the warm dark object. I had to get out. I had to move. I fumbled at the seat belt release button and jerked frantically at the strap, but it would not budge. I tried to shift my body to the right, but my left leg was pinned beneath the dash. Rain trickled through the broken window and ran in a long, frigid stream across my thigh.
What was happening? I turned to look behind me, up toward the road. A sudden fierce pain shot up my left leg, burning like fire and ice. My head started to spin and nausea poured over me.
“Jenna! Jenna! Are you OK?”
It was Michael’s voice in the distance. Somehow, he had found me.
“Michael,” I whispered.
Brush crashed at my left until I saw his face, white with fear at the driver’s side window.
“Jenna!” he gasped.
He wrenched at the door with no success. It was smashed nearly beyond recognition.
A hand reached through the broken passenger window and pulled at the doorknob. The door creaked but would not open. The faces of two men appeared at the window as they grappled at the passenger door.
“Wait! Don’t move her! Don’t move her!” Michael warned them.
He reached over me, feeling for the ignition, and killed the engine.
“Michael, I can’t move,” I said, struggling for breath. “The seat belt is … stuck. There’s something on me. My shoulder hurts.”
“Now don’t you worry, miss. We’ll help you out,” one of the men on my right said, but his pale face and wide eyes betrayed his doubt.
“I’ll be right back,” I heard Michael say breathlessly. “I’ll be right back, Jenna.”
He disappeared.
The rain eased, but cold rivulets cascaded, dripping from the hood onto the dash, splashing onto my face. I shivered uncontrollably. I pushed again with my left hand, trying to free my arm and shoulder, and felt warm, wet fur beneath my hand.
Then Michael was on my right, working outside the car, thrusting his Irish walking stick into a crack in the unyielding doorframe and prying, leaning with all his weight, working with three other men to break open the door. It swung open with a thud. They pulled away the weight from my shoulder, dragging it out of the car through the window to the ground. I saw black matted hair and a glassy eye reflecting the light.
Michael crawled into the car beside me, leaned over me, and touched my cheek.
“Jenna! Oh, Jenna.”
He turned and yelled over his shoulder. “Get me something to stop this bleeding. Does anyone have some cloth?” Michael pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around me. He pulled off his sweatshirt and removed his T-shirt, wrapping the shirt around my head. I winced as he gently tied a crude knot.
“You’ll get cold,” I said weakly.
He pulled his sweatshirt back on, shouting orders to people outside the car. “Get a blanket. There’s one in the back of my Explorer. Did anyone call an ambulance?” he said impatiently.
Michael looked into my eyes. He swallowed hard and tried to catch his breath. “Jenna, where else are you hurt? Can you tell?”
I tried to concentrate but my head was swimming. I struggle
d to think through a thick fog. “My leg hurts so bad, my left one, and it’s stuck … and my shoulder hurts.” Tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision.
Michael gently stroked my face, his eyes desperate. “Jenna,” his voiced cracked, “just hold on.”
He brushed away fragments of glass from my jacket and cleared debris from around my legs. He dug out his pocketknife, opened it, and sawed apart the seat belt. Pulling the belt carefully away, he looked into my eyes. “Can you move your other leg?”
“I can … a little. Not much room. Michael, are you OK? You have blood on your hands.”
“I’m fine it’s just the …” his voiced trailed away, betraying his unwillingness to explain.
Suddenly, the car shifted beneath us and fell several inches. A fresh pain stabbed up my leg. I screamed, gripping Michael’s arm.
“Watch it!” someone yelled outside.
Two women came up beside the car. One of them put her hand to her mouth and let out a hollow cry.
“Get them away!” Michael shouted. He peered through the rear window, then slid across the car seat and out the door. I saw him hand his cell phone to an older man in a ball cap. “Here’s the number. Call Jack Pearson and see if he can get a volunteer fireman or someone. And call 911 again, will you?” He stared up the embankment, the smoke of his breath creating a thin cloud. “Where are they?”
I started to shiver and my throat was parched. Michael climbed back in beside me and held my hand, gently stroking my arm. “Where’s that blanket?” he said under his breath. As if in response, hands thrust in a red plaid woolen blanket from behind him. “Thanks,” Michael said and carefully tucked the blanket around me.
“How did you find me?” I asked. “I thought you were up ahead.”
“I remembered the black car and turned back to follow you. I wanted to make sure you were safe.” His voice cracked. “I pulled up behind you as your car … as your car went off the embankment. Did you see it again? The black car? What happened?”
I coughed and pain wracked my ribs. “No. The horse. My brakes. Broken.”
Heartbeat of the Bitterroot Page 28