My Deja Vu Lover (35 page)

  
It never for one moment occurred to me to be angry with the woman, whoever she was. She might think she was stealing him from his wife but she certainly never knew she was stealing him from me. Whatever version of his unsatisfactory marriage he’d fed her, I was sure he hadn’t mentioned that he also had a current girlfriend.

  
No one to blame but myself.

  
He’d warned me, hadn’t he? Told me we had no future. But the way he said it. As though he truly loved me. The way he kept coming back. The way it was always Graham who called me, not the other way around.
 

  
Except for that one day when I went to his house, expecting to do nothing more than stand on the sidewalk and see where he lived, except for that once, I had never sought him out. But damn him, he’d tossed out the bait and then reeled me in like a fish, and I didn’t know who I hated more, him or myself.

  
Stumbling, half-blind with tears, I bent and picked up a half-brick that edged the narrow path in front of the cottage. Bricks were pushed into the soil so that they stood up like a low row of triangles. For decoration, I suppose, because they had no use. Good for tripping over, I’d done that a few times, so if I pulled them out, I’d be doing everyone a favor.

  
I pulled up another and then another, and brushed away loose mud with the side of my hand. And wondered why. Who cared if they were muddy? It wasn’t muddy I was looking for. It was hard. Sharp. Heavy. That’s what I needed.

  
I stuffed one in each jacket pocket. Then I zipped the jacket up a few inches. The hem fitted around my waist and the sides worked like pouches. I reached past the zipper and stuffed half bricks into the pouches. The first two fell out of the outside pockets. The half dozen more stayed put between my jacket and me. I picked up a couple more, held them in my fists.

  
I’d never been much of an athlete, never thought of myself as having a strong throwing arm. It must have been pure fury.

  
My eyes burned and I blinked rapidly but that didn’t stop the tears. They welled up, spilled over my eyelids. My head pounded.

  
The cottage became a blur of dark shape and yellow windows. The forest ran together in shadows. At the end of the path, where it met the trail down to the water, I stopped, stared out, saw reflections on the dark sea, smelled the water, heard a gull scream. Or maybe it was something else, some other bird, out there in the dark. It sounded the way I felt, furious, betrayed, ready to destroy the world.

  
Swinging around, I marched across the small clearing of the front yard until shrubs stopped me, then turned back toward the cottage.

  
When I reached the far corner, I threw the first brick and hit the siding with an echoing crash. I stood still, listened. No one shouted. No one came running out.

 
 
I moved a little closer, aimed a little better, put the next one through the kitchen window. Let out a sob.

  
I heard breaking glass and the echo of falling pans. I’d made coffee in that kitchen, poured wine, occasionally constructed a sandwich. I liked that kitchen, it was small and cute and woodsy. And now it probably had a glass-strewn floor.

  
Good, let him cut his damn naked feet.

  
And then I walked directly up to the living room, saw raised heads silhouetted against the fire. I stepped back and aimed two more half bricks through the windows that faced the water view. And I screamed his name. If there was anyone in the other cottages, they could have heard me because I swear I shrieked louder than the wind and rain.

  
I screamed his name and then a lot of other names and what had he said the first day I met him and called him Laurence? Oh right.

  
“I’ve been called a lot of names, but never Laurence.”

  
I could believe the ‘called a lot of names,’ which had puzzled me then. Now I knew exactly the names he had been called.

  
I hauled back and shot another brick through the window, stopped screaming long enough to hear glass crashing and someone else screaming. And then I took careful aim and took out the small window in the door.

  
My hands were covered with wet mud. I brushed them off, tucked them into my pockets. One more half brick. I didn’t want to waste that, did I? Was there a window still intact?

  
The scream was high, the woman screaming.

  
The shout was loud, deep, Graham’s voice.

 
 
I headed back up the hillside, hurrying, my feet slipping on mud and loose gravel, my vision a shimmering of tears. But tears catch light and enlarge it and there it was, that high side window above the small entry hall. I tossed the last brick through it, stopped to listen to glass burst and fall.

  
And then I climbed back up the path, grabbing at rain-soaked shrubs to steady myself, shrieking every insulting name I’d ever heard.
  

  
By the time I reached Tom’s car, I was crying so hard I couldn’t form words, only sobs. If I hadn’t left the keys in the ignition and the door unlocked, I would have had to sit on the ground and howl because I could no longer see through my tears.

  
Feeling my way into the driver’s seat, I put my head on the wheel, wept, moaned, shivered with cold and burned with fury.

  
My headache pounded.

  
“April! April!”

  
Over my own racket, I heard him calling me. I scrubbed at my eyes with the backs of my fists, knew enough to keep my muddy fingers away from my face. Lifting my head, I squinted out into the night.

  
At first all I could see was the glitter of rain on every surface. And then I saw him.

  
He was halfway up the path, a dark silhouette among watery reflections, waving his arms.

  
I turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened except that awful grinding noise. And then I remembered about gas pedal and gear and brake and finally did everything in order by luck, not skill. The engine roared in protest. I pushed the gear into reverse, yes, I could do reverse, but not too well.
 
Branches scraped loudly across the back of the car. I sniffed, sobbed, pushed the gear into drive, swung half way around, saw his car in my backup lights.

  
He stood on the far side of his car, bent forward, a hand on the
 
fender. Catching his breath, I guessed. I could hit his car, send it crashing down the hill, crush the man. For about half a minute, I seriously considered doing that.

  
For half a minute, I was truly insane.

  
And then my brain kicked in. No way was I going to get dragged off to jail for killing him. Maybe I could come back another night, when he wasn’t on the path, and see if I could total his car. I’d think about that.

  
Then I headed up the narrow drive toward the road. And realized that here I was again, driving. I’d felt considerably more safe when I was marching around his stupid cottage breaking his fucking windows.

  
I had this two miles an hour mentality going and I could barely see the side of the drive, knew it dropped off sharply into the trees at each turn.

  
There was no shoulder, just a gravel drive of two deep ruts worn along a center mound of gravel. In places the mound was so high, or the ruts so deep, the drive scraped the underside of the car.

 
 
Edging around the curves, I kept expecting to skid off into the trees. I stopped when I reached the top of the drive. There was a rough bump onto the road’s black surface. If I went the wrong way, I’d never find my way back. I peered into the dark, trying to remember which way to turn.

  
And that’s when the door flew open on the passenger side.

  
I screamed.

  
Graham stumbled into the front seat, shouted, “Stop! Stop right now!”

  
Oh sure, that was going to calm me down. I hit the gas and the car bounced up over the bump and swung out onto the road. It swerved to the far gravel shoulder, swerved back. I heard the tires slide, heard the door hinges creak, heard branches slap against the windshield and the far side of the car.

  
He slammed the passenger side door closed.

  
“Are you insane?” he screamed.

  
“Yes!” I screamed back.

  
“April, stop this, pull over!”

  
All he had on was his jeans, no shirt or shoes, bare skin slick with rain.

  
“At least you covered your ass,” I shouted.

  
The front fender scraped along bushes and I turned my head back to the road, swung the wheel too far, skidded. He reached in front of me and caught the wheel, straightened us out. The tires did a skid on the wet road.

  
“April! Get your foot off the gas!”

  
“Why should I?”

  
“There’s ditches on both sides! Deep ones!”

  
“Why should I believe you? You lie about everything!”

  
“April! Stop! Please! You’ll kill us both!” And with that, he lunged halfway across the console and I tried to grab the wheel away from him.

  
There is no way to grab a steering wheel away from anyone because the thing is solidly attached, but I tried and the wheel turned sharply and he tugged back.

  
I saw headlights coming toward us.

  
They seemed forever away, but stood out starkly because there was no other traffic on the road. Just two headlights in the distance. I couldn’t even tell if they were moving toward us. They were headlights, white, so they weren’t going the other direction.

  
Graham’s hand came down on top of mine on the wheel and I could feel the roughness of his flesh. As he leaned toward me I could smell his body, naked above his jeans, the mixed scents of male and deodorant and sex.

  
And I went crazy. Right along with the car, I lost control of my mind.

CHAPTER 39

  
The sky was a dazzle of primary blue, the shade I used to color the sky when I was in first grade. Palm fronds swayed on top of trunks as tall and skinny as telephone poles. I could feel the heat, smell Laurence’s heavy cologne.

  
And I heard that deep voice saying, “Silver, I can’t help it, it isn’t up to me. I know we had plans but I have to change them.”

  
And I was crying and saying, “You’re dumping me for Mabel Clara. You think she’ll make you a big star.”

  
“No, it’s not like that. Silver, watch the road!”

  
“What is it like?” I shouted at him.

  
“Slow down! You’re going to kill us!”

  
“I don’t care! I’d rather be dead than lose you!”

  
“Look out!”

  
I saw sunlight on chrome, the glare of the oncoming automobile, the three faces behind the windshield, my brother and my friend Ruth and her boyfriend.