Running Against Traffic
Page 16
I miss you. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.
From: pscottdav@gmail.com
To: JParchPhilly@aol.com
Then see me. The sky is lightening to morning and I’m fading away. Stop me!
From: JParchPhilly@aol.com
To: pscottdav@gmail.com
I will when I can. I promise.
From: pscottdav@gmail.com
To: JParchPhilly@aol.com
That’s it? All that poetry culminates in nothing? Pathetic.
From: pscottdav@gmail.com
To: LucienWalls@gmail.com
Lucien, I’m miserable and drinking wine on my terrace again.
From: LucienWalls@gmail.com
To: pscottdav@gmail.com
Ah, my annual email session with Paige has begun again. Where does the time go. Where’s David?
From: pscottdav@gmail.com
To: LucienWalls@gmail.com
He went out somewhere. What am I doing?
From: LucienWalls@gmail.com
To: pscottdav@gmail.com
To hear your usual story, nothing. Why are you emailing me?
From: pscottdav@gmail.com
To: LucienWalls@gmail.com
I don’t know.
From: LucienWalls@gmail.com
To: pscottdav@gmail.com
Right. Here’s some advice that you didn’t ask for, before I sign off and get back to MY life. You dug this deep ditch, right? Stop digging. Leave the shovel. Climb out before the earth shifts again and you’re buried. Good luck.
From: pscottdav@gmail.com
To: LucienWalls@gmail.com
Climb out into what? It’s better in here.
From: LucienWalls@gmail.com
To: pscottdav@gmail.com
Sayonara, Paige.
March 2008
From: pscottdav@gmail.com
To: JParchPhilly@aol.com
Tonight was terrible. David planned a special dinner for my birthday, at Buddakan, of course, the trendiest, priciest of restaurants. We arrived and were sat at a table for twenty, and I knew what was coming. They were coming, the gang from the Square, and in they paraded, dressed in their finest, led by the queen, Simone herself, who quickly sat in my seat next to David at the head of the long table as soon as I rose to greet people, returning air kisses and limp hugs and I swear I could barely remember anyone’s name, I was so upset. My birthday party was not my birthday party at all, it was a Simone and David soiree, and halfway through the Asian-fusion appetizers and Gray Goose I whispered to David that I wasn’t feeling well, and he excused me home. I had been excused when the others showed up, by all, invisible. Unnecessary. I didn’t care, but you made me want something more, this year. You made me want to be seen, and necessary to someone. Just once more, I needed someone to feel that my existence was something to celebrate! I wanted to mean that much, just today. Just this night. Just once more.
I knew that I had hours of freedom ahead of me, and I went to Rembrandt’s. It was so warmly lit, inviting, familiar and friendly because it was ours, and the bartender served me a shot of tequila and a beer without my asking for it, even though you weren’t with me, and I had to risk everything and call you. I wanted you to be with me on my birthday, as you were with me last year. I wanted you to be who you were to me last year, and to feel again what I felt then. I knew you were enough of a sneaky bastard to be able to get around Cara and get out if you wanted to. Your cell phone number was no longer in service, a computerized voice told me. I went home to the computer, and knew that I had to tell you my birthday wish. You told me last year that people who never shared their birthday wishes ended up languishing in a pool of their unfulfilled desires, and so I did say it aloud, I screamed it to the walls of my empty apartment! I think my neighbors called the police! I cried it to my computer screen, my shaking fingers are typing it now. But my birthday wishes, as always, are useless! And it’s so unfair, so goddamn unfair of you to open me up like a Christmas present, delighting in my unraveling, and breaking open the box with ecstasy, and then taking what you wanted from it and leaving me, a tangled pile of ribbons and bows on the floor, and now I can’t go back to what I was, I can only try to wrap myself back up again, tape down edges, re-tie broken ribbons, but it’s not the same, it’s a messy reconstruction, and I’m used up. I’m regifted. And you, you’re a jackal. You would never have succeeded in catching and eating me if I was vibrant and whole when we met. You must have seen it in my dull eyes, in the picture that you found and were returning to me, you must have seen that I wasn’t. Not at all. You moved in when I was nearly dead, and revived me enough to make it more exciting for you to finish me off. Self righteous chickenshits, you all are, you jackals. You feel like you deserve more than was handed to you in life, as so much more is owed to you, but you can’t make it happen on your own so you subsist on playing with other people’s kills before slinking back home to lick your lips and paws.
And the only reason I am telling you all of this, is that after all of this self-inflicted drama, I think I already know what your reply will be. So I am finally free to tell you, to tell you everything. I know what’s coming next.
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem: Returned mail (See transcript for details)
To: pscottdav@gmail.com
The email account that you tried to reach does not exist.
From: pscottdav@gmail.com
To: JParchPhilly@aol.com
I was right.
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem: Returned mail (See transcript for details)
To: pscottdav@gmail.com
The email account that you tried to reach does not exist.
III. The Witch’s Hourglass
Chapter 17
“Celebrating our first date by yourself?”
Paige looked up at Al, confused. He leaned over her, one elbow on the bar.
“Our first date?” Paige repeated.
She had made a decision, earlier that day, as she tapped at her keyboard in the office, that she was going to take the afternoon off, skip her session with Dr. Hackney, go for a long run, shower, and dress herself in nice clothes.
As she slogged home through the slushy March snow, she remembered that she could not run. Shaking off this dismal thought, she had a hot bath, and found clean, wrinkle-free jeans and a v-neck cashmere sweater that was white with black piping down her sides. She glanced at herself in the standing mirror and decided that it flattered what she had. She styled her hair in long waves and applied makeup and perfume, and walked back through the snow to Darnell’s at five o’clock.
Al grinned at her and eyed her up and down. “Come on, don’t you remember when you first moved here and you got a job, for the first time in your life, and we came in here and celebrated with shots of tequila?”
Paige looked down at the tequila and bottle of beer before her. She had ordered it. She nodded and half smiled. “Right! Of course. No, nothing like that.” She threw back the shot and felt it burn it’s way down her throat. She quickly took a slug of beer to kill the taste.
Al raised his eyebrows. “You sure look like you’re celebrating something.” Paige burped. “Something big,” he added, the corners of his mouth turning down in disgust.
Paige looked down at her beer. She didn’t even like beer, or tequila. Jeremy had liked beer and tequila. Jeremy had liked Paige, at one time.
Al waved a hand in front of her face. “You in there?” He asked.
Paige pushed the beer bottle away from her. “I’m here.”
“Rethinking the beer? Good idea.” Al picked it up and took a deep swig from the bottle and snapped his fingers at Darnell, who was chatting with a customer nearby. “Bar-KEEP!”
Darnell scowled and ambled over. “Don’t call me that,” he warned.
Al ignored this. “Good sir, the lady would like a white wine. And…More tequila?”
“No, no more tequila,” Paige quickly insisted. “But, do you have any cake? I would like a piece of cake.”
; Darnell nodded. “We have cake. I’ll have to check on what kind Carmen brought in today.”
“Doesn’t matter what kind it is,” Paige said.
Al watched Darnell pour her a glass of wine and trudge away to the kitchen. Then he picked up Paige’s hand, and rubbed her fingers with his thumb. “Paige,” he said, his voice deeper and softening. “Should we be putting candles in this cake?”
Paige felt her shoulders sagging under the weight of her world. “Maybe.”
Al’s mouth twitched. “How many, exactly?”
Paige yanked her hand away. “None of your business!” She pressed her hands to her face and laughed, before dropping them to her lap. “I don’t like birthdays, Al. You can have some of my cake if you promise not to sing or carry on about it.”
He tapped his hand over his heart, gesturing his promise. “Haven’t you ever had a good birthday?”
Paige sighed. “Once. One birthday was better than good, it was…life altering.”
“Life altering?” Al leaned his other elbow on the bar and scooted closer to her.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Damn.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Did you love him?”
“Yes, I think so. But he was a jackal.”
“Damn.”
“Right.”
Bryce pushed through the bar door and made a beeline for the chair on the other side of Paige. “Anyone ordering dinner that I could share? I’m starving,” he said, sliding onto the barstool. He studied them. “What’d I miss?”
“He is always showing up at feeding time,” Paige said. “It’s like he can sense it, no matter where he is…”
Al jerked a thumb Paige’s way. “It’s her birthday.”
Bryce whistled and patted Paige on the shoulder. “Oh, you poor thing.”
“We’re not supposed to mention it,” Al said.
“Of course not,” Bryce replied, breezily. “Excuse me, kids.” He hopped up and walked behind the bar and into the kitchen.
“What is he doing?” Paige asked.
Al shrugged and adjusted his backward baseball cap. “Maybe he’s seeing if Deirdre and Darnell need any help back there.”
“Deirdre’s here?”
“Yeah, she’s usually here. Carmen pretty much runs the store, nowadays.”
The door to the kitchen burst open and Paige cowered in her seat as a congo line led by Darnell, wielding a whole cake spiked with lit candles, followed by Deirdre and Bryce, paraded toward her, singing Happy Birthday at the top of their lungs. Al quickly stood to sing along with them, adding dramatic harmony to the last line.
Darnell set the cake down and took a small stack of plates from Deirdre. “It’s chocolate today,” he told Paige.
“Well, we all know Paige loves chocolate,” Bryce said, patting Al on the back. “Oh, but we’re going to need a lot more candles.”
Al busily passed plates of cake around. He grabbed the proffered handful of forks from Deirdre and handed one to Paige.
Paige pierced her cake with her fork and brought a large piece to her lips. Happy birthday to me. Another year older, and hopefully less short-sighted. Hopefully less manipulative of the truth. Women, she thought, we have the supple ability to fool ourselves, so cleverly and intricately. We don’t want. We want, but we don’t need. We need, but we can bury it. We can’t bury it, but we can bury our hearts, and we don’t want, anyway. As a reward for our success, for fooling ourselves, we become fools.
Chloe once told her to know her own strength, as a woman, and be aware of her power. She had used it against herself.
She swept those ashes back into the hearth and tasted her cake. The first bite was sweet and rich. She sipped her pale wine, the dark and light, sweet and tart mingling. She smiled at the friends around her and decided against making any wishes.
Chapter 18
Spring crept cautiously back into Wells Lake, retreating twice after being flattened by great splats of late wet snow. Finally all that remained were small, white patches and isolated drifts, here and there. The rest of the town was sopping wet from the melting, as roads and grass appeared, glistening in the weak sunlight.
Paige was waiting impatiently with her running shoes. Hopping this way and that to avoid the last of the snow and ice, she took great gulps of the cold early Spring air as she bounded through town just before dawn, her first run in months.
She arrived back at the house wheezing and doubled over in a side stitch, the muscles in her legs burning in the best way, and she was freshly determined to get back to her former performance level. No, she would go way past it.
She sat at the Ugly Table sipping strong, steaming coffee, her toes tapping, her face still hot. The scorching shower had felt intensely satisfying on her sore body, and a giggle burbled out of her mouth. What am I laughing about, she wondered, grinning like a drunk idiot. I’ve been abandoned in a freakishly small town, to live in a shack, with no money, a horrible, soul-sucking job, and no family except for my estranged husband, who I can only stand thinking about if it involves fantasizing about his involvement in mortifying mishaps. This is not healthy, she thought, snickering.
Al moseyed into the room. “Morning,” he said, reaching into the cabinet for a cup. He began pouring his coffee, eyeing Paige suspiciously. “What’s going on now?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Paige giggled, trying to hold it in, but eventually breaking into peals of hysterical laughter. She laughed until her stomach ached, and her eyes spilled over.
Al watched her silently, sipping his coffee. She hiccupped and shook with laughter for a few more minutes and finally was able to calm down.
“Paige Scott,” Al said, somberly.
“Yes, Al M-Martin?”
“Have you been drinking?”
“No!”
“Have you been running?”
“Yup.”
“It was one or the other.”
“I’m just thinking about my life,” Paige snickered. “It’s f-funny.”
“Glad you think so,” Al said, frowning. “Listen, have you seen Bryce? He wasn’t in his room. I think he went out last night and didn’t come back.”
The front door opened and they both looked around. “Speak of the devil,” Al said as Bryce stumbled in, looking disheveled and washed out. Al held his nose as Bryce walked by and fell into a chair at the table, tipping his sunglasses from his head down over his eyes. Paige looked on, her runner’s high rapidly draining.
Bryce looked around through his shades. “What’s up? Hey, there’s a duck on the porch. At least, I think there is. Maybe I’m hallucinating…Last night was crazy.”
Paige felt her head begin to throb, as Al walked to the front door to check, and returned with a duck in tow, marching behind him with his chest jutted forward. “He wasn’t hallucinating,” Al said, hopping up onto the counter and pulling his feet up next to him.
“It’s just Dingbat,” Paige said, as the duck strutted under the table and began nibbling at Bryce’s boot laces. Paige broke up some bread and put it on a plate. She lured Dingbat out from under the table with a few crumbs and he followed her out to the porch where she put the plate down and closed the door.
Bryce was tipped back in his chair, sunglasses back on when she returned. Al was still up on the counter, but his feet were hanging over the edge.
“You fed him?” Bryce asked. “That was a mistake. Now he’ll never leave.”
“You don’t say,” Paige snapped. “I don’t suppose you want breakfast, Starfire?”
“Just coffee,” he said.
“What’s the matter with you?” Al asked. “Didn’t your date treat you nice last night?”
“Fine, just no sleep. Paige? Coffee!” Bryce picked up a cup and waggled it in the air.
“That’s it,” Paige said, her voice rising. Her neck ached. “Family meeting! Al, get down here. Bring the coffee with you. Bryce, take off the sunglasses and listen up.”
The boys
stared at her as if she had suddenly whipped off her clothes and burst into a Broadway song and dance number. Al grabbed the coffee pot and quickly topped off their mugs, then dropped into a chair. Bryce shoved his sunglasses up onto his head and batted his smudged eyelashes at her.
Paige took a sip of her coffee, and then leaned forward, clasping her hands together. “New house rule. And since I’m paying the bills around here…”
“With your husband’s money,” Bryce drawled.
“…I make the rules,” Paige continued, ignoring him. “And here is the only one I’m going to insist upon. Anyone who wants to live in this house has to get up and go running with me in the mornings. Early mornings. And don’t give me any sob stories about what you’ve been up to the night before, or how little sleep you’ve had. If I’m going, you’re going. If you don’t, pack your bags.”
The boys gaped at her, incredulously. And silently. Ha, she thought.
She held up a finger at them, warningly, Darnell-style. “You have a week to buy proper running shoes.”
The boys just sat there, staring.
Paige drooped. “Do you need me to buy the running shoes?”
Al replied, “In this economic climate…Yes.”
Of course, Paige thought. But for once, the house was quiet as they pondered their fate. Paige left them there to go and find her running catalogue, her headache lifting in the stunned silence. Maybe this will clear the place out, she thought, once again smiling to herself.