Mad Love (21 page)

He kept staring at Tony.

“Errol? Didn’t you hear me? I don’t care about the ending. It doesn’t need to be happy. We can write it the way you want.”

He swung around. “What do you mean you don’t care? She died. They killed her.” His hands clenched into fists. “You should care. You must care.”

“I do care.” I stepped back.

He grabbed my arm, his eyes wild. “Why don’t you believe me? If you believed me, then you’d care about the ending. I’m Cupid. Why don’t you believe that? I’m Cupid and you’re—”

“I’m Alice,” I said, yanking my arm free.

“Hey, Alice,” Tony called from the picnic table. He’d pulled on a T-shirt and his bag was slung over his shoulder. He pointed to my beach bag. “This one?”

“Yes,” I yelled. Then I turned back to Errol. “Let’s go home and we’ll start chapter three. I’m ready.”

“You’re not ready,” Errol said in an angry whisper. “You don’t believe me. I want you to believe me so you’ll believe in the story. So you’ll care about what happened to the only girl I’ve ever loved.” Then his hands began to move, as if sculpting something out of air. His face contorted like a madman conjuring a mad spell. Even though I knew he was sick, knew his brain was messed up by pain and chemicals, I was fascinated—like a driver slowing to look at a car wreck. Errol extended his left arm straight out, held it rigid. Then he pulled his right hand to his right shoulder. He closed one eye, as if taking aim.

Foreboding washed over me, just as it had outside the library the moment before I’d landed flat on my back. And though I didn’t believe for one moment that Errol owned an invisible bow and arrow, I did believe that something was going to happen.

“Stop it, Errol. I hate this game. Just stop it.”

“This will make you believe.” The fingers on his right hand sprung open. I gasped as the memory surged through me—the impact to my chest, the tingling in my arms and legs, the brightness of the sky as I lay on the sidewalk. But the memory shattered, like a sheet of ice, and I was still standing on the hill at the edge of the parking lot. Nothing had happened. No impact. No tingling. Nothing.

Of course nothing had happened. This was a day at the lake, in the middle of the worst heat wave to ever hit the Seattle area. Of course nothing had happened. He wasn’t Cupid. This wasn’t a Disney movie.

“Do you believe me now?” A smile spread slowly across Errol’s pale face—a satisfied smile, a conqueror’s smile, a “you don’t have a clue” smile. But he wasn’t smiling at me.

I slowly turned around.

Tony Lee lay sprawled next to the picnic table like a rag doll.

No
way, no way, no way
. There is no such thing as an invisible arrow. And no one, even if that no one has delusions of grandeur and believes that he’s Cupid, can conjure an invisible arrow from plain old parking lot air, or from any air for that matter, then load it into an invisible bow and shoot it. No one.

Tony squinted against the sunlight. “What happened?”

I crouched next to him, my shadow falling across his dazed expression. Realm, Mrs. Bobot, and the reverend had also rushed to his side.

“Did he trip?” Mrs. Bobot asked.

“I think he fainted,” the reverend said. “He needs water. Realm, get some water.”

“Why do I have to get the water?”

The sun beat upon my shoulders and back as I tried to conjure my own magic—an explanation. Maybe he’d tripped. Maybe he’d fainted.

Or maybe he’d been hit by an invisible arrow.

No way, no way, no way
. I grabbed his shoulder. “Do you think something hit you? Did you feel something hit you?”

“Yeah. In the chest. Something hit me in the chest.” He sat up, then scratched his chest. My heartbeat rose into my throat. “What are you doing?” he asked as I grabbed the front of his T-shirt, my fingers flying across the fabric. There it was, a tiny hole.

“Alice, what are you doing?” Mrs. Bobot cried as I pulled Tony’s shirt up to his face, exposing his smooth chest. He didn’t say anything as I leaned real close, almost touching his nipple with my nose.

“Here’s the water,” Realm said. “Jeez, what is Alice doing?”

Oh God, there it was. A welt. A WELT! Right over the place where his heart beat.

I let go of the shirt and scrambled to my feet. Then I spun around and glared at Errol, who still stood at the top of the hill. “Errol!” I yelled, running toward him. “What did you do? Errol! I want the truth!”

But halfway up the hill, Tony ran up behind me and grabbed my arm. His irises swept back and forth, taking in every inch of my face. His hair stood up like it was full of static. “
Alice
,” he said, releasing the word as if he had held it inside for an eternity. “
Alice
,” he repeated, taking my hand.

Instead of holding my hand in a normal way, he caressed it, running his fingers along my fingers, squeezing and massaging as if my hand were a lump of clay and he had an art project due. I pulled away. “What are you doing?”

For a moment he furrowed his brow, puzzled by his own behavior. “I don’t know.” Then a glassy sheen fell over his eyes and he grabbed my hand again. “I’ve never felt like this before. I don’t know why but it’s like I can’t see anything but you.” He put my hand to his mouth and kissed it—not a “how do you do” kiss or a “thank you for inviting me to your picnic” kiss. He held his lips against the back of my hand, and held them there, and held them there. Then he closed his eyes and sighed. And still, he held his lips to my hand. A blush came full on, burning from the tips of my ears to my toes.

“Uh, maybe you should go sit down,” I said, slipping from his sweaty grip.

“
Alice
,” he said, reaching his hand under his T-shirt to scratch the welt. “I know this sounds crazy but I think I’m in love with you.”

“What?”

“Yes, I’m definitely in love with you. I can’t live without you. Do you love me? Tell me you love me,” he pleaded. Not an ounce of joy rang in his words. Instead, they were frantic and pained. When one declares love for another, shouldn’t there be an ounce of joy? A teaspoon of joy? A sliver of joy? “I want you to love me. Tell me you love me.”

Desperation clung to Tony’s declarations of love. I remembered feeling that way, when I’d needed to see Errol. When I’d felt as if I’d shrivel up and die if I didn’t get close to him.

I shook my head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying.” He grabbed me around the waist and pressed his lips to my ears. “
Alice
,” he whispered. “We were meant to be together. We must be together.”

The whisper sent a shiver down my arms. I might have enjoyed the attention except that he was seriously freaking me out. This transformation wasn’t natural. He’d been instantly changed. He took my hand and pressed it against his chest. “Can you feel my heart beating, Alice? It’s beating only for you. I love you. I love you with all my heart.”

When he paused to scratch his chest again, I twisted out of his grip. He grimaced, fighting against the onslaught of emotion, the way one fights against nausea as it builds. Tony Lee was sick—lovesick—and he needed help. “Errol!” I hollered.

A whizzing sound broke through my panic. I reached out my left hand and caught the can as it soared overhead.
Craig’s Clam Juice. Processed from 100 percent organic clams and organic brine. Sixteen ounces of mouthwatering goodness. Best served over ice
.

“Alice.” Tony clutched my arm. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. I don’t know why this is happening but I can’t breathe without you. Tell me you love me or I’ll die.” He squeezed my arm harder. I popped open the clam juice.

“Drink this,” I said. “Don’t ask me why. Just do it.”

I held the can to his lips. His gaze never leaving my face, he took a drink. He swallowed. His face relaxed. He took a long, deep breath. Then he looked around, as disoriented as a sleepwalker waking in the middle of an outing.

“How do you feel?”

He didn’t need to answer because I knew exactly how he felt. He would remember every embarrassing thing he’d said and done, just as I remembered. “I don’t know why I said those things,” he muttered.

“Don’t worry about it.” Perhaps if I started laughing I could pretend that it had all been a funny joke. And then he could pretend it had been a joke. I tried to force a laugh but it came out more like a grunt—because when it came right down to it, there wasn’t anything funny about the situation. I couldn’t close my eyes and make this go away. “I know you didn’t mean any of those things,” I said gently.

“I feel so confused.” He ran a hand over his hair, which was once again static free.

Errol didn’t offer an apology or explanation. He leaned against a willow tree.

A long, agonizing silence swirled around Tony and me. What does someone say after confessing passionate, all-consuming love? A bright blush broke out on Tony’s cheeks and traveled down his neck. He’d stopped scratching his chest, a very good sign—until his upper lip began to swell.

“Uh, Tony?” I pointed. “Your upper lip is swelling.”

“Wha?” He touched it. “Wha is ma whip swebbing?” Then a welt broke out on his neck. Another on his cheek. He pointed to the can in my hand and his eyes widened with fear. “Wha dib I dwink?”

“Craig’s Clam Juice,” I replied. “It’s organic.” As if that mattered in the least. “Oh my God, Tony, you’re turning purple.”

And that wasn’t the worst of it. The swelling had branched out to his cheeks and ears. Right before my eyes, he was turning into some sort of Asian version of the Elephant Man. “Tony?”

And then I remembered what Errol had asked, right after curing me of my own lovesickness. I grabbed Tony by the shoulders. “You’re not allergic to shellfish, are you?”

So
that’s how I ended up at Swedish Hospital for the second time in as many days. After an ambulance took Tony, I threw some clothes over my bathing suit and climbed into Tony’s car, an old Jeep. Reverend Ruttles drove, Errol sat in the backseat. Mrs. Bobot and Realm stayed behind to clean up the picnic.

We were mostly quiet during the drive. I chewed on my lower lip until I tasted blood. To my left sat Reverend Ruttles, who said we should have faith that God would look after Tony, but in the next breath he told us we should pray, just in case. Behind me sat Errol. He said nothing. No apology. Nothing. Gripped in my hand was the deadly weapon—Craig’s friggin’ Clam Juice. And with every mile covered I imagined that I’d killed Tony, or worse—that I’d permanently mangled his handsome face and he’d be doomed to a life hiding in the back room at the antiquities store or working for a freak show.

Errol refused to enter the hospital. He said he’d never step foot inside one again. He said he’d wait across the street, on a bus bench. The hospital lobby was quiet and gleaming. We had to wait for an hour. I replayed the lake scene a million times in my head, trying desperately to come up with an explanation that didn’t involve an invisible arrow.

Finally a nurse said we could visit. I tiptoed past a mosaic wall mural and into a white room. Tony, dressed in a cotton hospital gown, lay on an examination table. An IV hung on a metal stand, steadily dripping clear liquid into his right arm. His eyes were closed. A man sat next to the bed, Coke-bottle glasses perched on his nose, which was stuck in a
Woman’s Day
magazine, the only choice in the room. A slight man with long black hair, he was an older version of Tony in his jeans and short-sleeved shirt.

I wrung my hands nervously. “Mr. Lee?” I whispered. “I’m Alice. Is Tony okay?”

Startled, Mr. Lee bolted to his feet. Tony opened his eyes and sat up.

“Hello, Mr. Lee.” Reverend Ruttles hobbled into the room, his voice filling the sterile space with its rich baritone notes. “We’ve come to check on your son.”

Tony’s facial swelling had lessened somewhat, though his still over-plumped lips looked like bad plastic surgery. “Dad, this is Alice. And this is her neighbor …”

“Reverend William Ruttles,” the reverend said, enthusiastically shaking Mr. Lee’s hand. Then he handed over the car keys. “Tony’s Jeep is parked in the hospital lot, section A. His beach bag and towel are on the backseat.”