My Deja Vu Lover

by Phoebe Matthews

  The front fender scraped along bushes and I turned my head back to the road, swung the wheel too far, skidded. He reached in front of me and caught the wheel, straightened us out. The tires did a skid on the wet road.

  “April! Get your foot off the gas!”

  “Why should I?”

  “There’s ditches on both sides! Deep ones!”

  “Why should I believe you? You lie about everything!”

  “April! Stop! Please! You’ll kill us both!” And with that, he lunged halfway across the console and I tried to grab the wheel away from him.

  There is no way to grab a steering wheel away from anyone because the thing is solidly attached, but I tried and the wheel turned sharply and he tugged back.

  I saw headlights coming toward us.

  They seemed forever away, but stood out starkly because there was no other traffic on the road. Just two headlights in the distance. I couldn’t even tell if they were moving toward us. They were headlights, white, so they weren’t going the other direction.

  Graham’s hand came down on top of mine on the wheel and I could feel the roughness of his flesh. As he leaned toward me I could smell his body, naked above his jeans, the mixed scents of male and deodorant and sex.

  And I went crazy. Right along with the car, I lost control of my mind.

  CHAPTER 39

  The sky was a dazzle of primary blue, the shade I used to color the sky when I was in first grade. Palm fronds swayed on top of trunks as tall and skinny as telephone poles. I could feel the heat, smell Laurence’s heavy cologne.

  And I heard that deep voice saying, “Silver, I can’t help it, it isn’t up to me. I know we had plans but I have to change them.”

  And I was crying and saying, “You’re dumping me for Mabel Clara. You think she’ll make you a big star.”

  “No, it’s not like that. Silver, watch the road!”

  “What is it like?” I shouted at him.

  “Slow down! You’re going to kill us!”

  “I don’t care! I’d rather be dead than lose you!”

  “Look out!”

  I saw sunlight on chrome, the glare of the oncoming automobile, the three faces behind the windshield, my brother and my friend Ruth and her boyfriend.

  Perspiration popped out on my face. My fingers cramped around the steering wheel. I peered through the sun streaked windshield. I was driving, unbelieving, numb with fear, my thoughts a mirror of their terrified expressions. There was something different about them and about the automobile but I didn’t know what it was.

  All I could see, through the turmoil of my fury and horror, were the three pale ovals of their faces, their eyes wide. I saw Dion’s arm flash in front of Ruth’s shoulders as if to hold her back, and Ruth’s mouth formed the scream, No! I saw Ruth’s boyfriend, his hands pressed against the windshield as though he could hold the two autos apart.

  Laurence tried to grab the wheel and turn it, pulling. Pain shot through my wrists as I tightened my grip. I felt his large hand close over mine on the steering wheel, felt his rough skin. He screamed a string of oaths at me, sound screeching with the tires, anger as hot as the day, my own voice ripping out of me.

  I tried to bat away his hands, stop us, and my foot jammed down hard on the gas.

  We sped toward the chrome covered convertible, with three people behind its windshield, Dion behind the wheel, Ruth in the middle, a man on the far side but I couldn’t remember his name.

  ***

  He held his hands palm out in front of himself, toward the windshield, and I heard myself screaming, “Tommy! Tommy!”

  And Graham’s voice shouted, “Look out!”

  The blue sky disappeared into darkness. Rain pelted the windshield.

  The headlights in the distance grew larger, the spears of light on the rain-slick road stretched toward us. I could hear it now, the growing whine of the engine, heard the horn ripping through the silence of the woods. Light flickered on tree branches, lit the watery glass in front of me. I couldn’t judge their speed, just the growing size of the lights, the increase of sound.

  “April! Slow down!”

  Graham could hang on the wheel, try to steer, but he couldn’t get his leg across the console. He tried, I felt his bare foot hit my leg. He kicked his heel at me. I had to keep my foot on the pedal or I would have no control of the car. Or was that right? I couldn’t remember anything any more.

  “Stop that!”

  Which was the gas pedal, which was the brake, I couldn’t remember, knew that I should know by habit but I hadn’t been driving that long. When I’d driven out here, I had automatically put my foot on the right pedal. I hadn’t had to think about it. But now all that was gone, everything I’d ever known about driving. I wanted to find the brake, wanted to slow the car.

  “Where’s the brake?” I screamed.

  Graham screamed right back, a string of invectives.

  I couldn’t see the faces in the dark but I could see the shape of the oncoming car. It was Macbeth’s car. I didn’t have to recognize the make or color or year. I knew it was his car because here I was, behind the wheel and with a cheating lover grabbing at me, trying to stop me. This wasn’t the past repeating itself. This was the present exploding, and I had to stop it, stop the repetition.

  Beyond the headlight glare I could see two people in front, maybe another in the back seat. They were dark shapes, not faces in sunlight. I didn’t need sunlight. I knew every feature of each of those three faces.

  We shot across the center line, tires shrieking, or was it me shrieking? The car I was driving swerved back to the right as Graham fought with me, pulling on the wheel. Our headlights made crazy jagged lines, catching on near tree trunks, shooting out in lightning streaks between trees.

  We spun like a top, slid sideways to the left, skidded right.

  The constant rain had washed rivers of mud across the road, left it clear in spots and slick as oil in others. The headlight beams flared in circles, or it seemed that way, so fast I lost any sense of direction.

  And all I could think was, not Tommy! Please God, not Tommy!

  CHAPTER 40

  They kept coming, those enormous headlights, straight at us. Were they speeding or was I? I tried to find the brake, felt Graham’s bare foot in the way, shoved against him, tried to pull free of his hands.

  Grasping the right side of the steering wheel with both hands, I pulled down hard, tried to force it clockwise. It seemed tight, stuck, beyond my strength.

  I froze, staring into the lights, expecting to hear metal ripping metal.

  The light beams seemed to cross and then the oncoming lights swung away to my left, caught my face in the glare, blinded me.

  We did a slow motion slide across the road. Our lights picked up the woods and we aimed straight for the wall of fir trees. My foot was on the brake, I was sure now that it was, and I threw all my strength into pushing down on it.

  In my peripheral vision I saw Graham clutching the emergency brake on the console.

  Didn’t matter. We were past stopping because the tires were floating on mud.

  We hit the edge of the paving, did a short bounce to the lower roadbed, kept going, and I had this moment of knowing I was going to die.

  We bumped down gravel and mud into the ditch, the metal sides of the car screeching. The whole car shuddered. Something ripped loose. I clung to the wheel and expected the airbag to explode in my face.

  Graham hadn’t fastened his seatbelt. He flew away, hit the passenger side door, crashed back face down on the seat. He bounced against the dashboard, then slid under it.

  The car slowed slightly before it sank into a jungle of ferns and jerked to a stop.

  That threw me against the steering wheel. I hung there in the seatbelt.

  No airbags. Or at least, wherever they were, they didn’t work.

  Dazed, I remained motionless, listening. I heard night sounds, forest sounds. No crashing metal. Nothing but us.

  Sl
owly I slid back and braced myself against the seat with my feet on the floor and my hands on the wheel, then turned and looked at Graham. He had slid down below me, his legs folded on the floor, the upper half of his body stretched across the passenger seat. Lifting his head, he looked at me, speechless for once.

  There was blood running down his face from a scrape on his scalp. But he was alert, conscious, not crying out in pain. I knew he hadn’t broken anything except maybe every promise he’d ever made to anyone.

  My breath came in gasps, too fast, and I could feel my heart pounding. Any damage beyond bruises? Slowly I tried to move, flexed joints, turned my neck. Everything seemed to be working.

  I found my voice and said, “You know what? Back there in that parking area, I thought about backing into your car, knocking it over the edge. It would have gone down the path and flattened you.”

  Graham stared, wide-eyed. Didn’t make a sound.

  “Know why I didn’t? Because you aren’t worth breaking a fingernail for,” I said.

  And then I started crying again and calling him every obscenity I could think of.

  “My God, what were you thinking?” he whispered.

  “I wasn’t. I never thought. If I could think, I’d have seen right through you the first time we met.”

  I started to say more and then I remembered the only people who mattered in all this.

  Grabbing the seat belt clasp, I punched at the release button, shook it, tore at it, screamed at it. I needed to get out right now and get up there on the road. We hadn’t collided, I’d have heard that. Mac must have steered out of the way.

  His car must have gone down the other side of the road. I didn’t know how deep the ditch was on that side or how hard they hit it. And I didn’t hear anything at all. No one calling or screaming.

  Terrified, I shrieked at the seat belt, tried to scoot down so that I could crawl out from under it.

  The door on my side opened slowly, then faster, and then hands reached in, caught me, and I burst into tears all over again.

  “I can’t get this seatbelt to open!”

  Tom leaned across me, paused, turned, so close his eyelashes brushed my face. All I could see were those large dark eyes. “You okay?”

  “Yes, get me out!”

  “Right away,” he said and I heard the snap, felt the belt drop away.

  His arms went around me, lifted me out until we were standing free of the car, knee-deep in ferns. They were all around me, Mac carrying most of my weight, Tom hanging onto my arm, Cyd pulling Tom, until we stumbled up out of the ditch and onto the road.

  Mac’s car was parked on the other side, pulled over neatly, no sign of any damage.

  Right, lucky car, it had Macbeth for a driver and whatever needed to be done to avoid a collision, he’d done it.

  We started across, everyone asking if I was all right, me saying yes, yes, between sobs and then Tom stumbled, almost fell, and I remembered his injured leg.

  “You shouldn’t be out here. You’ll wreck your knee,” I said and tried to stop crying.

  “I’m not the one driving into ditches,” Tom said and he sounded almost cheerful.

  Macbeth said, “Is there anyone else in the car?”

  I nodded and he let go of me, turned and ran back across the road. Tom hung onto me. I wasn’t sure which of us was holding us up. Cyd ran around us and grabbed my other arm and we continued to stumble toward Mac’s car.

  Macbeth caught up with us a minute later and said, “He’s out now, says he’s okay. Nothing we can do about your car tonight, Tom. We can call the wrecker in the morning.”

  “Sure, leave it,” Tom said. “Let’s head home.”

  We walked together, the four of us, back to Macbeth’s car, everyone asking if I was all right. Oh yes, I’m fine, maybe a few bruises, I kept saying, but I was shaking so hard that the only thing that kept me standing was Tom’s arm around me.

  They all must have been thinking furious thoughts and biting their tongues.

  My throat was raw from screaming at Graham.

  I rasped, “What are you doing here?”

  “We couldn’t find Graham’s address,” Cyd said.

  “You stole Tom’s car, babe,” Macbeth said.

  “She borrowed my car,” Tom said.

  Cyd said, “And then I remembered that note you left me with the address for the cottage. It was still in the kitchen junk drawer.”

  “So we came looking for Tom’s car,” Macbeth said.

  “Forget the car,” Tom said.

  He opened the door to the back seat, guided me in, shoved in beside me, his stiff right leg trailing. I scooted to the far side to give him room.

  He closed the door, reached for me and pulled me half onto his lap, wrapped his arms around me, buried his face in my hair.

  “We weren’t looking for the car. We were looking for you.”

  “I am so sorry about your car,” I sobbed.

  “Never liked that car, anyway,” he whispered, stroking my back.

  “I must have been crazy!”

  “I love you crazy.”

  “I thought I was going to hit you! With your own car! What if I’d killed you?”

  “You could have shipped my ashes back and buried me next to Millie’s parents.”

  “What!”

  Mac’s car started up, and as I glanced over Tom’s shoulder, I saw Graham standing by the edge of the road, briefly lit by the swinging light as Macbeth backed and turned. Graham was barefoot and wearing nothing but jeans. He stood with his arms wrapped around his bare chest in the steady rain. His face was a blank, no expression.

  Cyd saw him, too, and said, “How far is it back to his cottage?”

  “Who cares?” Macbeth said.

  Tom asked me softly, “Do you want us to give him a ride?”

  “For all I care, you can run over him,” I said.

  I shook with terror and Tom shook with low laughter. He finger combed the snarls out of my hair, his hands moving slowly, gently, while he gave me time to calm down. “So you’re saying you don’t love him any more?”

  “Oh Tommy.” I moved away enough to trace with my fingertips the dark eyebrows, the high cheekbones, the straight nose, the planes of his face. I pressed my forehead to his, let myself drown in those dark eyes, whispered against his mouth, “If you’d died, I would have died, too.”

  “Is that a roundabout way of saying you can’t live without me?”

  “I guess it is,” I said and then giggled. Not the time for giggling but I had no self-control left at all.

  “How about this,” he said. “Could you live with me, do you think? My folks are really sick of me underfoot. I need to find a place. And you know me, I don’t like to be alone.”

  He paused between each sentence, waiting for me to answer. I let him keep talking until finally he stopped, pushed me away enough so that we could see each other in the dim light in the back seat.

  “Is that a roundabout way of saying that you love me?” I asked.

  “I guess so. Take it as a proposal if you want to.”

  “No wonder you attract stalkers. You can be very confusing and misleading.”

  “This isn’t pillow talk. I know what I’m saying.”

  “You’re asking me to live with you. Very offhand. Three days later will you ask me to move out?”

  He stroked my hair and then held my head so that he could look me straight in the eyes. His eyes narrowed, dark slits of glitter under those thick lashes. “Okay, let me say this once. I can’t promise to be serious more than once. Seeing that car spin off the road and knowing I could lose you, that about killed me. I love you so much. Always will.”

  I started to say something smartmouth, couldn’t. He was all the world to me and I’d been so stupid, almost missed the best thing in my life. Instead, I said, “Me, too.”

  By the time the car stopped, we were so entangled, neither of us noticed that we weren’t moving any more until Mac said, “Hey, you
guys getting out or are you spending the night in the back seat?”

  “If I could move my leg, I guess I could get out,” Tom said, over my shoulder.

  “Need help?” Mac asked.

  In my ear, Tom whispered, “What I need is you.”

  “Yes,” I shouted at Mac.

  I unwound myself, got out on my side, then ran around and helped untangle Tom. It was a three person job, with Mac and Cyd and myself all hanging onto Tom, hands under his arms and at his back. We limped him up the walk and through the lobby.

  “We all need to talk about what happened tonight, so come on in, guys,” Cyd said as she fitted her key into the lock. “Frankly, I am feeling a bit traumatic and April must be ready for a total breakdown.”

  Over her bent back, the rest of us stared at each other.

  Cyd straightened up and pushed open our apartment door.

  Then Mac, without a single expression crossing that firm face, reached out, took hold of Cyd, turned her around and guided her down the sidewalk and back to his car, ignoring her stream of protests.

  Over his shoulder, he said, “I’ll pick you up in the morning, Tom, and we’ll go figure out what to do about your car.”

  “Sure, good,” Tom said, before I pulled him into the apartment and pushed the door closed.

  CHAPTER 41

  “Or I may bolt the door in the morning,” I told him. “Because you and I have a whole bunch of stuff to straighten out, way too much for one night.”

  He leaned his back against the door and looked down at me.

  “For starters, tell me this. Will you keep going back to this memory guy, life after life? So how is that going to work out? Next week will you find someone else who reminds you of a past lover?”

  I caught his hands, hung on, needed to touch him. Explanations were something he did so much better than I could. I had to make him understand.

  “Laurence may have been a past love, but he wasn’t a real love, not the kind I want. Maybe I had to remember Laurence. Millie died thinking she loved him. So maybe that’s why I had to meet Graham and figure out why I don’t want him. Don’t even like him.”

  “What do you want?” Tom’s face was quiet and I knew he was preparing to accept whatever I said, whether he liked it or not.