Dance of Desire (1001 Dark Nights) (11 page)

“Few minutes later, Abel got the call about my parents and he came and got us. I don’t remember much after we got back to the house. Except her holding me. I remember that. I remember lying on the bed crying my eyes out. I remember her reaching up and taking my hand. I squeezed it, I think. I squeezed it ’cause even then I wanted her to know that she still existed for me. That she would always exist for me. And then…”

One time he was horseback riding in the mountains near Proby outside Surrender. His mind had wandered as he took in the gorgeous view. At the last possible second, he’d seen the horse’s hooves perched at the edge of a hundred-foot drop. For a few minutes, he hadn’t been able to do anything except quiver and stare into those aspen-fringed jaws of death. That’s how he feels now.

“Next thing I remember, I was in the car. Abel was driving. But Amber wasn’t there. He said he was driving me to the airport. That a friend of his had a plane and was going to fly us back to Dallas. And all I could say was, Where’s Amber? I remember saying it over and over again. At first, he didn’t say anything. Then he just pulled the car over, got out, and pulled me out of the passenger seat. We were in the middle of this dark stretch of woods where there wasn’t anything for miles and he was just shaking me, shaking me and saying all kinds of angry things. He was so mad I couldn’t tell at first that they were questions he was asking me.

“Did I want a real family or did I want to end up drunken white trash, dead on the side of the road like my father? Did I want to listen to my dick the way my father had listened to the bottle? ’Cause that’s what it would mean to be with Amber. Amber was going to be my sister and if I fucked that up, I wouldn’t have nothing, he said. No family, no home.
Nothing
.”

Danny curses under his breath. Is he trying to contain his reaction because he doesn’t want Caleb to stop telling his story? Caleb's not sure, so he keeps talking.

“And I just kept yelling at him over and over again, no matter what he said. Where’s Amber? Where’s Amber? And he drew back like he was going to hit me.”

“Did he?”

“No. He drove off and left me there instead.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t have a watch on me. I thought I could find my way back to the lake house, but I was wrong and I ended up in the woods. Sun was rising by the time he found me. He was half out of his mind by then. Sobbing and crazy and begging for my forgiveness. And what choice did I have? Only other option was my aunt, and she probably would have left me on the side of the road and never come back. Or sold me to some freak for meth.”

“Jesus, Caleb.”

“He wasn’t a bad man, Danny. He lost one of his best friends that night.”

“Still.”

“He worked so hard to try to keep his men together after they came back from Iraq. But my dad, he was the one Abel couldn’t fix. It’s not like he took his hand to me. My real dad did that plenty.”

“He left you in the woods, man.”

“He came back.”

“After he scared the living shit out of you.”

“I wasn’t scared. I was something else.”

“What?”

“Lost.”

“And then you were what…found?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Bullshit. He created the situation just so he could fix it. You wouldn’t have been lost if he hadn’t thrown you out of the car.”

“He wasn’t thinking like that. He was upset.”

“You’re talking like him because you’re thinking like him, and if you’re thinking like him it means there’s a part of you that still believes what he said to you that night. You think if you go after Amber, you’re going to end up a drunk like your father, dead on the side of the road. You really believe that, Caleb? You really think everything you want is dangerous just ’cause your dad was an alcoholic?”

He can’t answer.

“How many things in life have you wanted and not gone for because of what Abel said to you that night?”

“Sometimes you decide that something else is more important.”

“Like what? Moving? Again?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Are you a drunk, Caleb? Do you wake up without knowing where you are? Do you lose track of your truck? Do you get in fights you can’t remember starting? Wake up counting the minutes until your next beer?”

“No,” Caleb whispers.

“Then you’re not your father.”

“Still…”

“Still,
what
? You’re not your father, Caleb. And Amber isn’t booze. Abel was wrong. He was wrong that night. Hell, lot of people would say what he did to you was downright abusive, but I’ll leave that for you to decide. Point is, he didn’t understand what a drunk really was, and he sure as hell didn’t understand you.”

“He was a good man who made a mistake,” Caleb says. “And God knows, he made up for it later.”

“Yeah, okay. I never met him so I can’t say. But if twelve years later, you’re not going after the love of your life because you’re still buying into the bullshit he said to you that night, then the one making the mistake is you, buddy.”

Caleb wishes he had something in front of him. If not a beer bottle, at least a glass or a bowl of chips. Something he could grip. Something that would make it easier to resist the urge to punch Danny in the face.

Danny stares right back at him. Baby-faced, for sure, but also cool as a cucumber under the pressure of Caleb’s furious, unrelenting glare. The kid’s not backing down. And so Caleb breathes through it. The anger, the desire to argue with his words and his fists. The desire to turn over the table.

Because Danny’s right.

Abel’s not standing in his way.

Amber’s not standing in his way.

He’s standing in his own way.

“It’s almost one in the morning. My room’s got two beds. You want to crash here tonight?”

“I’d like to drown you in that fountain is what I’d like to do.”

“Good. That means you know I’m telling the truth.”

8

Amber wakes from a dream of kissing Caleb to find her mouth full of bedsheets.

Her bedroom is dark save for the alarm clock, which tells her it’s only three thirty in the morning.

This was the best she could do? Two hours of fevered dreaming that left her feeling jittery and wired, as if she hadn’t slept at all and didn’t really need to?

A text or call from either Caleb or her mother would have lit up her cell phone’s display. Even though it’s a dark patch on her nightstand, she grabs for it anyway, unlocks it just to be sure.

Nothing.

 
Well, if
I
can’t sleep!

She dials her mother’s home number.

How many voicemails has she left for the woman already?

 Shouldn’t she start the clock over now that she’s had somewhat of a night’s sleep, however terrible? Fifteen unreturned voicemails the night before, which would make this current call the first official call of—

“For the love of the baby Jesus, Amber, it’s three thirty! Go to bed! You can yell at me in the morning!”

“It
is
morning!”

“Sunup, then!”

“How dare you rat me out to—”

Click.

Enraged, Amber throws the phone across the room.

For a terrifying instant, she’s afraid it’s going to smash into the opposite wall and break into several pieces. Instead, it lands on the foot of her bed with a weak
thump
, a reminder of why she never played softball.

All hopes of sleep dashed and the source of her current troubles unwilling to remain on the phone with her for longer than ten seconds, Amber sees only one option.

A brief, frenzied shower and two Diet Cokes later, she grabs the weekend bag she packed the night before and heads to her Sentra. She’s got the driver’s side door half open when she shuts it suddenly, heads back inside the house, grabs four Diet Cokes out of the fridge, gets back in her Sentra and speeds off in the direction of the freeway.

If she manages to drive straight through to Chapel Springs, she might catch her mother before her first cup of coffee. She speeds up, hoping to get there sooner. Too bad she didn’t bring a pair of cymbals with her. Maybe she can stop and pick one up along the way.

An hour south of Dallas, her eyelids start to get heavy.

Are you kidding me? Now? Now I’m tired?

It’s still dark out, which is why she doesn’t notice the approaching thunderstorm until lightning forks on the horizon. Lightning. Her least favorite thing next to menstrual cramps and snakes.

Also, I’m tired. Really tried. And getting more tired.
And even though this fact seems dramatically unfair, saying so over and over again to herself isn’t making her any less tired.

A few minutes later, sheeting rain washes the windshield. The taillights in front of her become vague, bleeding suggestions. She’s got another two and a half hours to Chapel Springs. Maybe three, if this weather keeps up.

If I were home in bed, I’d be wide awake and staring at the ceiling. But now I’m getting sleepy. So very, very sleepy.

Traffic slows to a crawl. Traffic! At four in the morning.

Unfair. All of it. So unfair. She just wants to get to her mother, that’s all. All she wants to do is rant and yell and scream at her mother for breaking her confidence, thereby blowing the lid off a potful of feelings she’s tried to keep at a low simmer for twelve years.

She’s going to get herself killed if she doesn’t pull over.

The motel she pulls into is the kind of place where people go to have one-night stands with men who love face masks and recreational chainsaws.

“Can I get a room until this storm lets up?” she asks when she goes into the front office.

The kid behind the front desk looks like a twelve-year-old playing a game of Let’s Be A Motel Clerk. He’s even slicked his hair into a perfect side part.

“We’re not that kind of place,” he says.

“Not what kind of place? Aren’t you a motel?”

“Yes, but are you in some kind of trouble? Is somebody following you?”

“What are you? Twelve years old? I just want a room. I don’t do lighting all that well, okay?” And then she catches sight of herself in the reflective glass behind the clerk and realizes she looks like she’s been struck by it.

No wonder the kid seems terrified. Apparently she started thinking about something else when she was in the middle of drying her hair after her frenzied shower, because even after getting rained on, it still looks wild and teased, like she’s a backup singer out of an 80’s music video who’s been run over by a car. Only now does she remember that she actually started to put makeup on before thinking
I don’t need to be wearing makeup to strangle my mother.
Problem is, she didn’t bother to take off any of the makeup she applied before changing her mind, and now half of her face is running with it, making her look a little like that dog that used to sell beer when she was a girl.

She’s startled back to the present by a metallic thud.

The clerk drops a key on the desk in front of her.

“You may not believe this, ma’am, but I’m a Christian and as such I kinda feel like it’s my duty to keep you off the road right now. You can have the room for free ’til sunup.”

“Thank you. I guess.”

“Also, I’m twenty-nine.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

Only when she’s almost to the room does she realize the clerk didn’t say anything about keeping her safe during a storm. He probably meant it was his duty to keep the road safe from her.

The room’s actually not as bad as she feared.

And there’s a phone.

A phone with a number her mother won’t recognize on caller ID.

“I’ve got bail money,” her mother answers, sounding bored. “Just tell me where you’re holding her.”

“How could you?” Amber cries.

“How could I what? Where are you?”

“I’m driving to Chapel Springs to murder you.”

“You’re going to murder me right now?” her mother asks.

“No, I was going to murder you once I got there.”

“Are you still drunk?”

“Stop deflecting!”

“So you are still drunk.”

“I am
not
still drunk. It’s been hours since I’ve had a drink.”

“Human hours or dog hours?”

“Now who’s being sarcastic?”

“I am! Because it’s five in the morning.”

“I called you fifteen times and you didn’t return one of my calls. Don’t act like I’m being crazy for no reason.”

“Okay. Fine. But we can agree that you’re being crazy?”

“Sure. Fine. Alright.”

There’s a silence on the other end. Thunder rolls outside. She can just make out the rustling of her mother’s comforter. She’s sitting up in bed, a sure sign she’s getting ready to talk some truth.

“So what did he do?” her mother finally asks.

“What did
who
do?”

“Caleb. What did he do when I told him?”

Amber’s so caught off guard by her mother’s directness and the resignation in her voice, she can’t manage a response at first.

“Oh my God,” she finally says. “Belinda was right. You told him for a reason. You were trying to make him jealous.”

“Pretty much, yeah. Did it work?”

“I’m not going, if that’s what you mean.”

“To the sex club place thing?”

“It has a name, but who cares? No. I’m not going. So yeah, you got your way.”

“Did
you
?”

“What does that mean, Momma?” But she knows exactly what she means, and the knowledge makes her voice sound shaky and weak.

“Honey,” her mother says. “I’m just gonna cut right to the point because it’s five in the morning and I don’t actually know where you are and I’m just hoping it’s someplace you’re not about to get murdered or washed into a ditch. But twelve years ago your father made a decision about what would be best for Caleb and what would be best for you. He made it without consulting me or anyone else, but he made it with his heart and the absolute best of intentions, I can assure you. And you know what, Amber?”

“What?” she asks.

“He was wrong. He was dead as a doornail wrong. And if you accept how wrong he was, you will not besmirch his memory or his name.”