The Guardian (14 page)

"Oh well, he loves it. If performing makes him happy, then I'm happy for him."

Mabel smiled. "You are truly a kind and special gal, Julie. I don't care what everyone else says about you-I like you." She held up her glass in toast.

"Likewise," Julie said, clinking cups.

"So what's up with you and Richard?" Mabel asked. "After he came by today, you hardly mentioned him at all."

"It's going okay, I guess."

Mabel's chin rose. "You guess? As in, I guess I don't see the iceberg, Captain?"

"It's going okay," she repeated.

Mabel searched Julie's face for a moment. "So why didn't you try to catch him a few minutes ago when I suggested it?"

"No reason," Julie answered. "It's just that I already saw him today."

"Ah," Mabel said, dragging the word out. "I guess that makes sense."

Julie took a drink, feeling the burn at the back of her throat. Though she couldn't talk to Mike about Richard, Mabel was different. Mabel, she thought, would help her sort through her feelings about him.

"Do you remember the locket he got me?" she asked.

"How could I forget, J.B.?"

"Well," Julie said, "the problem was that I didn't wear it today."

"So?"

"That's what I thought. But I think Richard was offended."

"If that offended him, remind me never to serve him my meat loaf." When Julie didn't respond, she waved her cup before going on. "So he got offended. So what? Men have their quirks, and maybe that's one of his. And there are worse things-believe me. But I think you have to judge what happened today against everything else. You've been on what-three dates now?"

"Four, really. If you count last weekend as two."

"And you said he's been nice, right?"

"Yeah. So far."

"Then maybe he was just having a bad day. You told me he works odd hours, right? Maybe he had to go in on Sunday and work late. Who knows?"

Julie drummed her fingers against the cup. "Maybe."

Mabel swirled the bourbon. "Don't worry about it too much," she said evenly. "As long as he didn't go overboard, it's no big deal."

"So just let it go?"

"Not exactly. You shouldn't completely ignore it, either."

Julie looked up, and Mabel met her eyes.

"Take it from a lady who's had too many dates and met too many men over the years," Mabel said. "Everyone-you included-is on her best behavior in the beginning of a relationship. Sometimes little quirks turn out to be big ones, and the big advantage that women have-sometimes the only advantage-is their intuition."

"But I thought you just said not to worry."

"I did. But never ignore your intuition, either."

"So you do think it's a problem?"

"Honey, I don't know what to think, just like you don't. There's no book of magic answers out there. I'm just telling you not to simply shrug it off it if bothered you so much, but don't let it ruin a good thing, either. That's what dating is for, you know-to find out about a person. To find out if the two of you click. I'm just throwing a little good old common sense into the mixture, that's all."

Julie was quiet for a moment. "I guess you're right," she said.

The phone started ringing, and Mabel turned toward the sound. A moment later, the answering machine picked up. After listening to see who it was, she faced Julie again.

"So, four dates, huh?"

Julie nodded.

"Will there be a fifth?"

"He hasn't asked, but I think he probably will."

"That's a strange way of answering the question."

"What do you mean?"

"You didn't say what you were going to say if he asked."

Julie glanced away.

"No," she said, "I suppose I didn't."

Richard was waiting for her when she got home.His car was parked on the street in front of her house, and he was leaning against it, his arms crossed and one leg over the other, watching as she turned into the driveway.

After pulling to a stop, Julie looked toward Singer and unhooked her seat belt.

"Just stay in the Jeep until I say so, okay?"

Singer pricked his ears up.

"And behave," she added as she stepped out. By then, Richard was standing in the drive.

"Hello, Julie," he said.

"Hi, Richard," she said neutrally. "What are you doing here?"

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I had a few minutes and thought I'd drop by. I tried to catch you at the salon, but I guess you'd taken off."

"I had to go get Singer. He was over at the garage."

Richard nodded. "That's what Mabel said. I couldn't wait, though-I had some blueprints I had to drop off before the office closed, and actually, I have to get back as soon as I'm done here. But I just wanted to say I'm sorry about this morning. I got to thinking about how I acted, and I think I went a little overboard."

He smiled, looking contrite, a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

"Well," she began, "now that you mention it . . ."

Richard held up his hands to stop her. "I know, I know. No excuses. I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

Julie brushed away a strand of hair that had fallen in her face. "Were you really that upset that I didn't wear the locket?"

"No," he said. "Trust me-it wasn't about that."

"Then what was it?"

Richard glanced away. His voice was so soft, she could barely hear it.

"It's just that I had such a good time on the weekend, and when I saw that you didn't have it on, I sort of thought that you didn't feel the same way. I guess I felt like I'd let you down somehow. I mean . . . you don't know how much I've enjoyed the time we've spent together. Can you understand what I'm trying to say?"

Julie thought for a moment before nodding.

"Yeah," she said.

"I knew you'd understand," he said. He glanced around, as if suddenly nervous in her presence. "Well, listen-like I said. I gotta head back into work."

"Okay," Julie said simply. She forced a smile.

A moment later, this time without trying to kiss her, he was gone.

In the darkness, under a sliver of moon, Richard approached the front door of the rented Victorian he temporarily called home. It was on the outskirts of town, surrounded by farmland, set a hundred yards back from the main road.The house was pale in the light, half the height of the shadowed pines that surrounded it. Though somewhat neglected, it still retained an old-fashioned charm, with trim and wainscoting that brought to mind a lace-trimmed invitation to a party at the home of the governor. The property needed attention; what had once been a well-kept garden had become overgrown with weeds and kudzu, but the overgrowth didn't bother him. There was beauty in the randomness of nature, he thought, in the curved and crooked lines of shadows at night, in the varying colors and shapes of branches and leaves in daylight.

Inside, however, he preferred order. Randomness ended at the door, and as he pushed his way inside, he flipped on the lights. The rented furniture-not much, but enough to make the home presentable-was not to his taste, but in a small town like Swansboro, choices were limited. In a world of cheap products and polyester-jacketed salesmen, he'd chosen the least offensive items he'd been able to find: tan corduroy couches and oak-laminated end tables, plastic lamps with fake brass.

Tonight, however, he didn't notice the decor. Tonight, there was only Julie. And the locket. And the way she'd looked at him only moments before.

Again, he'd pushed too hard, and again, she had called him on it. She was becoming a challenge, but he liked that. He respected that, for what he despised above all was weakness.

Why on earth was she living in a small town like this?

Julie, he thought, belonged in the city, a place of crowded sidewalks and flashing signs, quick insults and snappy comebacks. She was too sharp, too stylish, for a place like this. There was no energy here for her to draw on, nothing to sustain her in the long run. Strength, if unused, wasted away, and if Julie stayed, he knew she would grow weak, just as his mother had grown weak. And in time, there would be nothing to respect.

Just like his mother. The victim. Always the victim.

He closed his eyes, retreating to the past. It was 1974, and the image was always the same.

With her left eye swollen shut and her cheek purple, his mother was loading a suitcase into the trunk, trying to move quickly. The suitcase held clothes for both of them. In her purse, she had $37 in assorted change. It had taken almost a year to save that much; Vernon handled the finances and gave her just enough to do the shopping. She wasn't allowed to touch the checkbook and didn't even know what bank he used to cash his paychecks. The little money that she had had been collected from the sofa cushions, coins that had fallen from his pockets as he dozed in front of the television. She'd hidden the coins in a box of laundry detergent on the top shelf in the pantry, and every time he went that way, her heart had hammered in her chest.

She told herself she was leaving for good this time. This time, he wouldn't talk her into coming back. She told herself she wouldn't believe him, no matter how sweet he was to her, no matter how sincere his promises were. She told herself that if she stayed again, he would kill her. Maybe not this month or the next, but he would kill her. And then he would kill their son. She told herself all these things and repeated them almost like a mantra, as if the words would give her the strength to go.

Richard thought of his mother on that day. How she had kept him home from school, how she'd told him to run inside and grab the loaf of bread and peanut butter, because they were going on a picnic. How she'd told him that he should bring a jacket, too, in case the temperature dropped. He was six years old and did as his mother told him, even though he knew she was lying.

He'd heard his mother screaming and crying the night before as he lay in bed. Heard the sharp crack as his father's hand connected with her cheek, heard his mother crash into the thin wall that separated his room from theirs, heard her moaning and pleading for him to stop, that she was sorry, that she'd been planning to do the laundry but had to take their son to the doctor instead. He'd listened as Vernon called his mother names and made the same accusations he always did when he was drinking. "He doesn't look like me!" his father had screamed. "He's not mine!"

Lying in his bed, listening to the screams, he'd prayed that it was true. He didn't want the monster to be his father. He hated him. Hated the greasy shine in his hair when he got home from the chemical factory, the boozy way he smelled at night. Hated the fact that while other kids in the neighborhood got bikes and roller skates for Christmas, he'd been given a baseball bat with no glove or ball. Hated the way he beat his mother when the house wasn't clean enough or if he couldn't find something his mother had put away. Hated the way they always kept the curtains drawn, and how no one had ever been allowed to visit.

"Hurry," his mother said, motioning with her arm, "we want to find a good table at the park."

He ran into the house.

His father would be coming home for lunch in an hour, as he did every day. Though he walked to work, he took the car keys with him, a ringed jumble connected to his belt with a chain. His mother had removed one of the keys this morning as his father smoked and read the paper and ate the bacon and eggs that his wife had cooked.

They should have left right away, right after his father had disappeared over the hill on his way to the plant. Even at six he knew that, but instead his mother had sat at the table for hours, smoking one cigarette after the next, her hands shaking. She'd neither spoken nor moved from the seat until just a few minutes earlier.

But now they were running out of time. She was frantic at the thought that they weren't going to make it. Again.

He came bursting through the door, carrying the bread and peanut butter and his jacket, and ran toward the car. Even as he ran, he could see that the white of his mother's left eye was red with blood. He closed the door to the Pontiac with a slam, and she tried to put the key into the ignition but missed. Her hands were shaking. She took a deep breath and tried again. This time the engine turned over, and she tried to smile. Her lip was swollen and it came out crooked; with her face and bloody eye, there was something terrifying in that smile. She put the car into reverse and backed out of the garage. In the road they idled for a moment, and she glanced at the dashboard.

She gasped. The gas gauge showed that the tank was nearly empty.

So they stayed. Again. As always.

That night, he heard his mother and father in the bedroom, but they weren't sounds of anger. Instead, he heard them laughing and kissing; later he heard his mother breathing hard and calling out his father's name. When he got out of bed the next morning, his father and mother were holding each other in the kitchen. His father winked, and he watched him lower his hands until they rested on his mother's skirt.

He saw his mother blush.

Richard opened his eyes. No, he thought, Julie couldn't stay here. Not if she wanted to lead the life she was meant to, the life she deserved. He would take her away from all this.