“Just a small pinprick,” I said to the boys as they passed.
“You bet!” One of them replied in a drunken slur.
“I’m just going to prick her a little. Just enough to draw a drop of red. To paint with it, you know?”
“Right on!” The other boy screamed as he shot his arms into the air, as if scoring a game-winning throw.
I couldn’t help but laugh, remembering what it was like to be twenty-one.
“I can be twenty-one tonight,” I mumbled with a hopeful swing in my voice, pulling my hair clip out to let my hair fall over my neck and face. I pushed the air from my lungs and ignored the lingering twinge in my side as I opened the topmost buttons on my blouse. I caught my reflection in a dark mirror and decided to thumb one more button down as well. I’d show a little more skin and the white lace of my bra. If this were a real hit, that is what I would have done anyway—set the bait. My reflection looked gray and sweaty, but I hoped it was just the mirror. A quick pinch of my cheeks brought some red into them, but another tick came from my stomach and I realized I felt feverish too, even a little light-headed.
“You’re just excited.”
Barn-size doors opened in front of me, and I moved inside. A rush of club air filled with booze, sweat, and disco smoke rolled over me like a storm. My eyes were closed, but I could still see the sharp lights racing from one side of the room to the next—the bluish strobes flashed in a pulse that matched the beat of the music. I began to rock my head, finding the rhythm, and entered the lair of the dance floor. Bodies swarmed around me—touching, grinding, moving as one to the music. I raised my arms high into the air and snapped my fingers. I let the seduction of the club pour into me like a magic elixir. At once I was revitalized. At once I was twenty-one again.
TWENTY
I LOST TIME. COMPLETELY lost it. I had no idea how long I’d been dancing, staying in one spot, my hands swinging, my body swaying. Once or twice the strong smell of a man’s cologne came near me, narrow hips grinding, the touch of fingers caressing, traveling up and down my sides. I’d step away from the motion, move along, but remained on the dance floor. I was baiting the trap with the patience of a seasoned hunter.
I found a young couple and slid between them, briefly entering their dance, working our hips as one before slipping out. I turned to face them, grabbing their closing bodies as they locked eyes with each other and joined lips. A shallow pang of jealousy stirred, remembering what it used to be like—to feel that young, to have that driving lust for someone else. I closed my eyes to mere slits as I left them so I could see only the flash of lights; I timed my steps to the beat.
My body felt wet, chilled with sweat and dampness even beneath my eyes. My heart galloped hard to the heavy bass, pounding beneath my breast like the cone of a speaker. I decided to stay as long as the music played, to disappear into a zone where I existed alone. But then I felt the soft touch of arms around my middle; when I peered down, I found Skank’s three-hearted hand.
“You’re here,” I said to her, but my words sounded distant and lost, as if in an echo, ringing like a warbled cry. I shook my head, trying to clear my mind as it swam in musical confusion. I wrapped her arms around my body and leaned into her, thinking I could encourage a close dance, a grind that would give me the moment I needed with Needle.
“You’re hot,” she yelled into my ear. I appreciated the compliment and pushed my ass into her, inviting her. She pulled away. “Not like that. I mean you are hot-hot! Are you feeling okay?”
I nodded, ignoring her words. I reached behind myself to pull her closer to me, to glide with her on the dance floor. Her body moved with mine, our curves forming one smooth shape, and I stepped to the left and then back, seeing if she’d stay with me, timing my opportunity. We moved in perfect harmony. I sucked in a quick breath, feeling the chance come upon me. But when I reached for Needle, reached to prepare the syringe, the stabbing pain came back instead and I clumsily slipped forward and braced my side. My insides burned like hot coal. I let out a scream and collapsed, slumping against Skank. She held me.
“Oh my God!” I yelled, dropping to my hands and knees. A fresh thrust of fire pinned me to the floor, held me prisoner. I glanced up to find Skank’s face staring back at me, her eyes sweet with concern and pity. A part of me wanted to be revolted, wanted to push her away. I was supposed to be the one with the power and control in whatever this strange relationship had become. She was a toy, someone I chose to use in an endless, sickening game of retribution.
How pathetic am I? I thought and suddenly felt shame added to the digging pain in my gut. At some point, I’d found a friend in her and had confided in her—like I used to with Katie.
“Help me, Theresa,” I begged.
When I heard my voice calling out her name, I finally realized she’d become a friend, she’d become my new Katie—another girlfriend to unfairly play an unsuspecting role in my quirky fantasy games. And, like Katie, she didn’t know she was helping me. I’d used Katie because she had been the closest person to me; now that she was gone, the woman who’d been with my husband had taken her place.
I’m pathetic.
I tried to stand. Theresa knelt down by my side, cupping her hands beneath my arms, and lifted. Violent turmoil erupted in my body, sending my insides into a tumble. I cried out, screamed, my voice lost in the throes of a song’s crashing symbols and roaring horns.
“Hold on, Amy,” Theresa said, and through the pain, I realized that I wasn’t referring to her as Skank anymore. Her name was Theresa. She was my friend. But my friend was disappearing, and the club lights and music were fading too. I saw nothing, but felt everything.
Blackness.
***
After the blackness, I saw chaos. Blue lights shuttering in and out of my eyes. The blur of masked faces, their voices clacking in my ears. I moaned, trying to tell the faceless bodies I was okay. When I tried to move, a pair of strong hands pushed me down. The music and the disco lights were gone. There was a different kind of rhythm, a different dance—with a deeper orchestration. Tubes and wires were swiftly plugged in. I heard someone yell “Vitals!” and understood that I had passed out.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, trying to move again. A jolt of lightning seared my inside, setting fire to my middle. What came next was a guttural and raw sound—I was screaming.
“Lay down, ma’am,” a young woman spoke in my ear.
“What?” I tried to ask.
“Talk to her,” the woman’s voice instructed, but not to me.
Steve was near, his fingers holding mine. And in the storm of rhythmic disorder, I heard his voice. He was talking to Theresa, asking her questions like a detective—I could tell by the tone. But then his voice broke, and I heard him cry. The emotion gave me the chills, sent pins and needles crawling across my bare skin. I cried with him, but didn’t know why. His hand clutched mine, his touch trembling, fuzzy, and numb—like my understanding of what was happening.
“I’m so sorry,” I heard Theresa say in a voice that was faint and sounded sad. “I had no idea.”
Steve said nothing more then, but wept into my hand. The wetness on his face told me what had happened.
An alarm rang out, drowning all other sounds.
I could hear a heartbeat. Just one heartbeat, my heartbeat—not two.
I’d lost our baby.
And it was then, in that moment, I wished I’d heard none.
TWENTY-ONE
I COULD SMELL A memory. Clean bedsheets and medical tape, the heavy scent of antiseptic in the air. There was more to that memory—the sound of machines and speaking to a beautiful doctor whose hands had been inside my husband. I heard her words echo in my mind and felt the desperate flood of relief all over again when she told me my husband was alive. The memory was of Steve lying in a hospital bed, his body wrapped in gauzy white bandages and my body exhausted from having waited to find out if he had survived. And in that memory’s final moment, I saw myself fall to m
y knees and take his outstretched hand in mine.
The hospital? I tried to wake myself, but couldn’t. A wave of utter exhaustion came over me like I’d never felt before. Even if I could have sat up and opened my eyes, I didn’t want to. There was safety in the darkness—safety in not knowing the truth.
It was a dream, just a dream, I thought, remembering the club and Theresa and Steve. It was just a bad dream. Our baby is fine.
I saw a cloud of fuzzy images as I peered into the unfamiliar surroundings. A plastic tube snaked up and around my elbow, a needle burrowed beneath my skin. Was that in my dream? An air bubble danced inside the tube, shaking against a flow of liquid pouring into my body.
As the dreamy confusion lingered, I felt squeamish at the sight of the bandage covering the needle—it was stained with old blood that had oozed and hardened. There was more, though. I wasn’t alone. There was activity around me. Long hospital gowns made up of pale blue and green and orange, their bodies passing in a paisley blur. I saw others too, dressed in white and wearing caps to cover their heads while plastic shields guarded their faces. I decided that these were alien beings from another planet. I strained to get up and run from whatever hell I’d dreamed up now. I only needed to get to my feet.
Violence jabbed my insides. I cried out, doubling over as burning acid rose up and spewed from my mouth in a hot, vile gush. I gagged and coughed, feeling the sting of it pass through my nose. An alien came to my side and peppered my ear with soft, comforting words while she wiped my lips dry. The sound of her voice was indeed soothing, so I laid back, bracing again as the pain held me against the bed pillows like a prisoner. I clutched the cold metal rails, straining to fend off another wave. I clenched, bit down, and screamed. I was being split in two.
The memory returned, and I graciously slipped back into the subconscious escape. I heard myself weep into the warm crook between Steve’s jaw and chest. I’d laid next to him, my body fitting his as he talked to me, consoled me, told me that he’d go to law school and that he’d never get shot again. We slept in his hospital bed together for hours, coming to terms with what had happened to him.
My eyes sprang open when a rush of heat entered my arm.
Run! I demanded of myself. But in this new nightmare, my legs were gone, disconnected, taken from me. I wasn’t in my memory anymore, and Steve disappeared from my thoughts. I was waking up. Fire coursed into my arm and traveled to my shoulder like a river of lava before finally entering my skull. Whatever they had injected set my brain ablaze with a new kind of pain.
I cringed as another alien appeared before me and hung a small, clear bag above my bed, her thumb squeezing its red lettering until it bulged like a water balloon. She nodded her blank face, assuring me the pain would go away with this medicine—her emphasis on “this medicine,” but I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe anything could take away the torture. And then I heard the faint sound of machines and the distant calls for doctors and nurses, and I realized that Steve wasn’t the patient—I was.
How long have I been in the hospital?
I spied the tiled ceiling above me as colors circled my vision, closing and opening like spring flowers. I laughed, or thought I laughed, but couldn’t be sure. The nurse at my side laughed with me, telling me everything would be all right, telling me I could cry if I wanted to.
But I’m laughing, aren’t I?
And then I heard the sound of my voice, scratchy and tinny like an old recording, carrying my sobs and calling out the name of a baby I’d never know. I found the dim reflection of lighted colors—a mural in motion like holiday lights. The nurse was gone, and I disappeared into the colorful sea. There was quiet in the collage. I decided to stay for a while. The fire in my arm cooled, and the medicine numbed my mind, blowing feathery kisses up and down my body. I swam freely in a shallow euphoria and immediately wanted to dive deeper, to get lost in an ocean of the magical formula.
“Hey,” Steve said. He was sitting next to me, holding my hand in his. “How are you feeling?”
I blinked away the haze of whatever it was the nurse had poured into me.
“Baby?” I managed to get out, seeing the outline of my husband’s beautiful face. But the sight of him became clearer, and I could see the damp tracks on his cheeks, his lower lip trembling. “All this is just a bad dream.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said. He kissed my hand as a sob stole his words.
“It was a bad dream,” I said again, trying to reason my way out of the situation. “Steve? It was a dream . . . wasn’t it?”
“No,” he managed to say, shaking his head.
“My baby!” I cried. Anguish came at me like a storm, and I rolled over to my side, curling up to face away from Steve. Guilt cut to the core of my being. I couldn’t look at my husband. As much as he wanted me to, I just couldn’t. I clutched my belly, holding a cramp instead of my baby. The pointless contraction passed, telling me what wasn’t there anymore, telling me that I’d lost the life I’d carried. Steve put his arm around me, but it didn’t help—couldn’t help. I shivered in the throes of a cry and lost his words as thunder rained into my head, splitting my mind and stealing any semblance of reason. I was empty. “God, I lost our baby!”
TWENTY-TWO
ECTOPIC PREGNANCY. THAT WAS what the doctor called it. “Mrs. Sholes, I assure you that there was nothing you could have done to prevent it . . . or to stop it.” I heard the words but didn’t hear them, didn’t want to hear them, chose instead to blame myself for losing our baby. For days I cried guiltily, thinking my visit to the disco was the cause. My head throbbed in shame to the tune of that music’s bass, to the feeling of bodies against mine, to swimming across the crowded dance floor. I should have been home. Selfish.
I did this to us, to our baby.
But everyone assured me that what had happened couldn’t possibly be my fault—my baby never had a chance.
And there were more complications too.
I pawed impatiently at an itch, scratching what would become new scars around my middle. I hadn’t found the courage yet to lift my hospital gown, to see the incisions they’d made to take my baby. But in my mind I saw a run of bloody staples, a Frankensteinish attempt to sew my body back together. My chest shuddered as I held back a cry.
Whatever horror I find, I deserve it.
“Reminders,” I said to myself. I’d been moved to a single room. And while the room smelled like medicine, it was nice to be alone. As if hearing my thoughts, a portly nurse walked through the door, interrupting my quiet. She balanced a full tray in her hands and kicked out the point of her foot, waving it until she found the leg of a rolling table. The smell of food hit me like a hot wind, instantly turning my stomach.
Is that lunch? Already? I had no idea what time it was. But I knew I couldn’t eat.
I glanced out the room’s huge window and realized I had no idea what day it was either. The first of the afternoon sunlight slipped in from above, painting bright fingers across the floor and telling me it was already past midday. Michael and Snacks would be eating lunch, restless since I hadn’t been home. I needed to see my babies.
“Could you crack that?” I asked, motioning to the window, wanting to listen to the world continuing on without me. Without a word, the nurse forced the window upward with a struggled grunt. The room filled with the low rumble of traffic and other distant city noises.
“Beautiful day,” she said, returning to finish placing my lunch on the tray.
“I like to listen,” I told her, shutting my eyes, hoping she’d take the hint. I wanted to be alone.
A minute went by yet the nurse stayed with me, chitchatting, making small talk. I wanted to scream.
“Are we hungry today?” the nurse asked, inching the tray of food toward me until it was beneath my nose. She jockeyed plastic utensils and a pair of miniature salt and pepper shakers. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the food. “No, then? Still not feeling it?”
“No,” I answered
and rolled over on my pillow. “I’m not feeling it.”
“Let me get that for you,” she said, tugging on the pillow.
“That’s better, thank you,” I offered, wanting my space. She was nearly on top of me, and I suddenly felt uncomfortable, claustrophobic even. I pushed on her chest, my hand sliding against her scrubs. I heaved and gagged suddenly.
“Okay, food is definitely out. Sometimes the smell can do that.”
I nodded and coughed, but didn’t have the heart to tell her it wasn’t the food. I quickly grabbed the Jell-O cup and bottled water, straining to reach it before she rolled the tray back from my bed. My incisions jabbed a reminder of why I was there.
“Reminders,” I repeated.
Scars are forever.
“Reminders of what, dear?” the nurse asked as she helped me settle.
I waved my hand, telling her to ignore me. If I tried to speak, tried to say a word, I knew I’d start to cry again. My cheeks were already so tight and my eyes so sore. I needed a break. I focused on the shifting sunlight, watching it like sand falling in an hourglass.
The scars were forever. We couldn’t have any more children either. When the doctor explained the surgery, explained the complications that followed, Steve had held me lovingly. But when the doctor told us the extent of the damage, Steve let out a grunt—the kind he gave when hearing bad news. I squeezed his hand and searched his face, but his fingers went loose and he turned away to hide his reaction. The doctor explained the details, but I could only think of one thing: Steve had wanted another baby. While we’d never talked about it, I saw the truth in his reaction. I knew his turning away was an involuntary flinch—a knee-jerk reaction. But it still hurt.
Affair with Murder The Complete Box Set Page 36