Chain Lightning (6 page)

Mandy tried to think, to explain, but all she could do was stare in horror at the little plane that seated eight, including the pilot. Suddenly she felt herself being boosted aboard. She tried to fight, but it was like her worst nightmares; her muscles turned to sand, every movement was in slow motion except the world around her and it was hurtling forward so fast that nothing could stop it or the lethal crash that waited for her. With the last bit of her willpower Mandy turned to Sutter, forcing herself to speak.

“S-Sutter, p-please! I’m t-terrified of f-flying!“

“Cute, real cute,“ Sutter said curtly, stuffing Mandy through the fuselage door with more muscle than ceremony. “You’re so terrified that you flew halfway around the world on one plane and then flew up the length of the Australian continent on another, right? So knock off the bad comedy and get your butt in the damn seat.“

He boosted himself in right behind Mandy, sat her firmly in her seat just behind the pilot and flopped down in the seat next to her. The sound of the engines changed in pitch to a mechanical scream. Mandy only wished she could scream, as well, but her mouth was too dry, her throat too constricted.

“S-Sutter…“

He hadn’t heard her aching whisper. She grabbed his wrist, trying to make him understand.

“Listen, honey,“ he snarled, jerking free. “I haven’t slept in three days, I haven’t bathed in a week and the last thing I ate was a lizard charred in a camp fire. I’m sure as hell in no mood for any more of your silly jokes. Give it a rest!“

Mandy tried to speak again but her mouth was too dry, the engines had become too loud, and the earth itself was hurtling away beneath her. Within minutes the plane turned and headed out over the sea. She closed her eyes and prayed that she would die in the crash rather than be trapped alive in the fuselage, sinking, drowning, no one to hear her screams but a dead man who had never loved her.

To Mandy the sound and smell and feel of the plane were part of a nightmare revisited. There were vibrations shaking her, too much noise for a scream to be heard and no voice left with which to scream, no strength, nothing but the empty sky above and the uncaring sea below.

Nightmare and memory became one and the same, hammering at her, shaking her, until all she could do was endure as the devastating past rose up and overwhelmed her….

Mandy wheeled her bike off the early-afternoon ferry to Catalina Island. She stepped onto the left pedal and swung her leg easily over the seat, feeling happy and healthy and very much alive. Early summer clouds swelled silently overhead, pushed up from the Mexican tropics by a southerly wind. The unusual humidity didn’t bother Mandy. Nothing could bother her today. Humming softly, smiling at people she passed, Mandy began pedaling toward the campground that was halfway up the island, closer to the tiny airstrip than to the small resort town of Avalon.

She pedaled faster than usual, eager to give Andrew the good news. Her husband had been unusually moody lately. His research hadn’t been going well. At least, that was what he had blamed his bleak silences and sudden outbursts on in the past. Once she had thought Andrew’s dark mood had to do more with the fact that his forty-second birthday had come and gone – placing him securely within that dread territory called middle age – with no baby in sight despite nine months of trying. But when she had mentioned his age and lack of a child as a possible source of his temper, he had stormed out of the house, leaving her to wait up until 3:00 a.m. when he had come in smelling of alcohol and smoke from nameless bars.

That had been the first time he had come home in the early hours of the morning, but not the last. It had happened more and more frequently during the past nine months. Andrew’s forty-third birthday – and their fourth wedding anniversary – was tonight. That was why Mandy had begged, wheedled and bullied the doctor to get an early answer from the lab so that she could surprise her husband by arriving early on the island that lay only twenty-six miles off the coast of California.

Mandy and Andrew had honeymooned on Catalina, diving along its steep, rocky sides, seeing ocean life that was far more varied and abundant than the marine life to be found off mainland Southern California’s heavily populated and often heavily polluted shores. The honeymoon had been one of the happiest times of Mandy’s life, despite the fact that the pleasures of marital sex hadn’t lived up to their advance billing. The ocean had more than compensated for the awkwardness she felt during her husband’s swift, turbulent lovemaking.

The novelty of her sexual inexperience had quickly worn off for both herself and her husband, leaving little to take its place but her efforts to understand what had gone wrong. The ocean’s novelty had never worn off for Mandy. The siren call of the green-shadowed depths sank more deeply into her soul with each dive.

At least we have that in common,
Mandy thought.

The insight startled her. She and Andrew had a lot more in common than diving, didn’t they? He had been her faculty adviser while she got her Ph.D. in oceanography. He had encouraged her, respected her work, tried to seduce her repeatedly and unsuccessfully and had ultimately married her on his fortieth birthday. His second marriage. Her first. The fact that there had been no children from the first marriage had reassured Mandy at first; Andrew’s demanding schedule left little enough time for a wife, much less for children.

But Andrew wanted children. Desperately. Mandy hadn’t been ready for immediate motherhood. She had wanted time to adjust to juggling marriage and her burgeoning career as an ocean resource specialist for the state of California. Yet before her marriage was more than a few months old, fights had begun over when to have children, fights that left Mandy angry and crying and confused. In all the time before their marriage, she and Andrew had talked of their joint careers, of exploring the oceans of the earth together, of teaching and dissertations and the color of the sea fifteen fathoms down on a sunny day.

Never once had Andrew mentioned wanting children at all, much less immediately after marriage. Just as Mandy had naively assumed that sex would be wonderful after marriage, she had assumed that Andrew shared her desire that she establish herself in her field before she took a leave of absence to have children. She had been wrong. Andrew had wanted her to throw away her pills the day they were married. The fact that she had just been given an important grant to study the dietary habits of the Pacific sea otter had meant nothing to Andrew. The fact that her work might ultimately be used to determine whether or not that endangered species survived had also left him unmoved. He had wanted her pregnant, period. Everything else came second.

Mandy had thrown her pills away the day her work on the otters was complete. She had assumed that her marriage would improve immediately. And it had, until her period came.

After her third period had come, she had gone in to see her doctor, received a thorough checkup and been told to come back in nine months if she hadn’t conceived. Nine months later she had returned. After an exhaustive series of tests it had been determined that her fertility was all that it should be and then some. She was told to send her husband in for tests.

Andrew had flatly refused.

It doesn’t matter now,
Mandy told herself, pedaling fiercely.
I’m almost two months pregnant and everything is all right. I can tell Andrew and see him smile at me again. He’ll be a good father
–
God knows he really wants children, which is more than you can say for a lot of men.

The thought of their future baby made Mandy smile and then laugh. She couldn’t wait to feel the baby move, to give birth and to hold the baby in her arms, to teach her child to swim and to read and to ride a bike, to share with her child the beauty and mystery of the shimmering sea. She couldn’t wait to tell Andrew, either, to see his delighted smile, to know mat she had finally given him something he desperately wanted.

Anticipation made Mandy impatient with the miles between herself and her husband. She wished that she had been able to call him, but that hadn’t been possible. She wished that she had flown over with him in their little plane a few days ago, but if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to get the lab report back until next week, and she had wanted the report in time for it to be a birthday and anniversary present in one. Besides, she really didn’t enjoy flying, especially in a small plane, which was another thing she and Andrew argued about. He took her unease as a slap at his abilities as a pilot, and nothing she had been able to say had convinced him otherwise.

That’s all in the past,
Mandy told herself firmly.
Now that I’m pregnant, he won’t be so touchy about his age,
his abilities, his career. Everything. We’ll be able to laugh together again.

Mandy’s thoughts veered back to the coming baby. Mentally she began making lists of things to do, things to put on hold for a year, people to tell, papers to be rushed before she was too big to do the research. She was still making lists when she wheeled into the campsite where Andrew had been for three days. No one was in sight She bit her lip, then sighed. He was probably out diving with one of the locals.

Deflated, Mandy parked her bike beneath a big bush at the back of the campsite and headed for the tent. The first thing she noticed was the compressed-air tanks propped against a nearby boulder. The second thing she noticed was the components of two wet suits strewn across the ground between the tanks and the tent, as though whoever had worn the suits had been in a terrible rush to get out of their neoprene prisons. The third thing she noticed was an oddly shaped scrap of fuchsia cloth dangling from a guy rope near the tent’s entrance. Puzzled, she pulled back the tent flap and stepped in.

It took a moment for Mandy’s eyes to adjust from full sun to the tent’s dim interior light. Her ears had no such problem. She heard the feminine voice with awful clarity.

“Oh…more…harder…harder…!“

Mandy barely recognized Andrew as his hips slammed rhythmically into the girl who was squirming frantically beneath him, both of them panting, her nails raking down his naked back as her body bucked and then went rigid. Mandy’s horrified cry was lost beneath the noise of her husband’s climax and that of his partner. The difference in the light level inside the tent registered on the girl, however. After a few more cries, she opened her eyes lazily.

“Oops,“ she said.

“Huh?“ he said.

“When did you say your wife was coming over?“

“Tomorrow.“

“I think she decided to come early.“

“She never comes,“ Andrew said, laughing. “That’s why I like getting off with you. You like it the same way I do, hot and fast.“

“Hon, I’m not fooling. We’ve got company.“

Andrew followed the girl’s glance, shifting onto his elbows in response to his partner’s pushes. He squinted into the light streaming through the open tent flap.

“Mandy?“ he asked.

Her only answer was a choked sound of rage and hurt and disbelief.

With a muttered obscenity, Andrew rolled off the girl. “What the hell are you doing here today?“

Mandy could hardly believe what she was hearing. “I think a better question would be what
she
is doing here.“

“What she’s doing here is fornicating, and she’s doing it a hell of a lot better than you ever do,“ he retorted, peeling off a condom and dumping it in an ashtray.

The words slid past Mandy’s anger, slicing into her until she couldn’t speak for the pain.

“Hey, hon,“ the girl said, stretching, “I think I’ll give this whole scene a pass, know what I mean? Righteous wives just aren’t my thing.“

The girl grabbed a scrap of fuchsia cloth from the foot of the sleeping bag. The cloth turned out to be a bikini bottom, which she wriggled into before brushing past Mandy on the way out. The tent shivered as the girl snapped the other scrap of fuchsia cloth off the rope.

“Thanks for the use of the diving gear,“ the girl called from outside the tent. “Catch ya later.“

Mandy looked down at her husband, who was pulling on a pair of wet swimming trunks. She wasn’t able to say anything or even think of anything to say; all she could do was try to cope with the anger, humiliation and disbelief that were shaking her.

This can’t be happening.

But it was.

“Mandy, Mandy, Mandy,“ Andrew sighed, running his hand through his thinning hair. “Well, you were bound to find out sooner or later. The miracle is that it wasn’t sooner.“

“Find out?“

The dry rasp of Mandy’s words surprised her. That couldn’t be her voice. That couldn’t be her husband, the father of her child, still slick from another woman’s body. She made a low sound of pain and wrapped her arms around herself.

“You’re so damned naive,“ Andrew said, exasperated and almost sad at the same time. “It used to fascinate me how anyone as brilliant as you could be so dense about men and sex. I kept fantasizing how great it would be to initiate you, to know I was getting something no other man had ever had. And then I thought what bright kids we’d have together. So I married you and took you to bed and – “ he shrugged “ – well, it wasn’t great and it didn’t get any better. I didn’t have the patience to teach you how to please me and you didn’t have any interest in learning.“ He sighed. “So I found my sex elsewhere. That shocks you now, but you’ll get used to it. And I’m careful, Mandy. I learned my lesson with my first wife. I don’t bring anything home but memories, and they’re not contagious.“

Mandy didn’t realize that she was shaking her head in automatic denial until Andrew cursed and came angrily to his feet.

“Grow up, Mandy! Stop looking at me like I’ve just drowned your favorite kitten. I don’t know of one man who doesn’t step out on his wife – and I know of damn few wives who don’t return the favor! But they live together in relative harmony and raise kids anyway, because nothing human is perfect and they’re grown-up enough to know it!“

For a long time Mandy looked at her husband, then asked raggedly, “What about love?“

“What about it?“

Mandy closed her eyes. “Then why did you marry me?“

“I was nearly forty and I panicked. Like every other fool since Adam, I thought an injection of young tail would make me young, too. But I couldn’t get in your pants without a ring. Then I decided, what the hell, why not? I wanted kids. I wanted them a lot. I didn’t want to grow old alone and die knowing that nothing of me lived on.“

Silence stretched, then stretched more, until Andrew asked tiredly, “Any more questions?“

Mandy shook her head.

“You sure?“

She nodded, but she felt as though she had been torn in half and was watching herself from a distance – talking, breathing, all the normal gestures and signs of life. But nothing felt real. The tent wasn’t real. She wasn’t real. The moment wasn’t real.

“Great,“ Andrew said, looking relieved. “Let’s go diving. It’s not too late to bag something for dinner.“

As though at a distance Mandy heard herself say, “I’ll eat on the ferry.“

Her husband looked at his diving watch. “No, you won’t You can’t pedal back in time to catch the last ferry. Come on, Mandy,“ he coaxed. “Suit up. The only thing we’re good at together is diving. You’ll feel better once you’re down there.“ He smiled ruefully. “You know, if you’d taken to sex with a tenth of the instinct and skill you show for diving…“ He sighed. “Well, you didn’t, and I need a lot of sex and that’s the way it is.“

“No.“

“No what?“

“If you think I’m going to crawl into my wet suit – the wet suit that your little sand bunny just peeled off – you are crazy.“