Honey Moon (45 page)

She picked her way along the overgrown path that led to the lake and stood on the bank to gaze out over the water. The government had finally forced the Purlex Paint Company to stop its pollution, but it would be several years before the lake began to come to life again. Now, however, the darkness concealed its polluted condition, and moonlight formed silver streamers on its still surface.

She turned her back on the lake and let her eyes rise above the trees to the hills of Black Thunder, dimly visible in the moonlight. Everybody thought she was crazy to be rebuilding the coaster. How could she explain this unrelenting drive to find some sign that Dash was not lost to her? In saner moments she told herself that Black Thunder was only an amusement-park ride and that it held no mystical powers. But

her rational mind was silenced by the driving urgency that insisted she could only restore her soul by taking a ride through her nightmares on Black Thunder.

Her shoulders sagged. Maybe everybody was right. Maybe she was crazy. She could feel her eyes fill

and the wooden hills wavered before her.
You damned old cowboy. You broke
my heart, just like you said you would.

A movement in the pines distracted her. Alarmed, she saw the dark figure of a man standing there. He stepped out of the shadows, and she realized that it was Eric. She felt a jolt of panic at the idea of being alone with him.

As had become her practice when she wanted to hide her fear, she grew angry.

"I don't like being spied on. You just wore out your welcome."

His single blue eye regarded her dispassionately as he came toward her. "Why would I be spying on you? Actually, I was here first."

"It's my lake," she retorted, dismayed at her own childishness.

"And you're welcome to it. From what I can see, nobody else would want it."

Even though they were alone, she realized that he was speaking to her with the faint tinges of a Middle Eastern accent. She also realized that if she continued to snap at him, he might think last night had some real meaning to her. She took a shaky breath and attempted to regain her dignity.

"The lake's starting to come back," she said. "A paint company used it as a dumping ground for years."

"This place is too isolated for you to be living alone. I found a vagrant hanging around the Bullpen this evening. Now that your relatives are gone, maybe you should consider renting a room in town instead of staying out here by yourself."

He didn't realize that he was more dangerous to her than any vagrant, and her slim hold on composure snapped. "I don't remember asking for your opinion."

The face that was so expressive on the screen slammed shut like a screen door with a too-tight spring. "You're correct. It's not my business."

Despite the accent he had thrown up like a barrier, memories of the night before rushed over her and she struggled against her panic in the only way she knew. "You hide behind that accent, don't you?" she said contemptuously.

"And you're hiding more than your famous face. Well, you may forget who you are,

but I don't, and I'm sick of you acting like some kind of nut case."

His jaw tightened. "The accent's automatic, and I'm hardly the nut case." She sucked in her breath, waiting for him to confront her with having come to him.

But instead, he said, "I'm not the one who's building a roller coaster in the middle of nowhere. I'm not the one running around like some pint-sized version of Captain Ahab obsessed with her own goddamned Moby Dick."

"Better than Moby Dickless!" She wasn't obsessed. She wasn't! This was simply something she had to

do so she could live again.

"What does that mean?" His accent was gone, his face shadowed.

She went on the attack, trying to sink her teeth into the softest part of his flesh, trying to make the kill first. "What kind of coward are you, running away just because you lost your stupid eye?
At least you're alive, you bastard!"

"You little shit. You don't know what it looks like under here." He jabbed his fingers in the direction of the black patch. "There isn't an eye there. Just a mass of ugly red scar tissue."

"So what? You've got a spare."

For a moment he didn't say anything. Her stomach felt sick at what she was doing, but she didn't know how to take back the words.

His lips curled in mockery, and he spoke softly. "I always wondered what happened to Janie Jones, and now I know. Life threw her one too many hard knocks and now she's right back where she started—a bossy little bitch hiding behind a big mouth."

"That's not true!"

"Jesus. It's too bad Dash isn't still alive. I'd lay money he'd throw you over his knee and beat some sense into you just like he did when you were a kid."

"Don't you talk about him," she said fiercely. "Don't you even speak his name."

Tears were glistening in her eyes, but he appeared unmoved.

"What in the hell are you doing here, Honey? Why is rebuilding that coaster so important to you?"

"It just is, that's all."

"Tell me, damnit!"

"You wouldn't understand."

"You'd be surprised at how much I can understand."

"I have to do it." She looked down at the hands she was twisting in front of her and her anger faded. "When I was a child that coaster meant a lot to me."

"So did my Swiss army knife, but I wouldn't give up everything to get it back."

"It's not like that! It's about—it's about
hope."
She winced, appalled by what she had revealed.

"You can't make Dash come back," he said cruelly.

"I knew you wouldn't understand!" she exclaimed. "And when I need lectures from you, I'll let you know! You're running away just as much as I am and for a lot less reason. I read the papers. I know you have children. Two little girls, right? What kind of father are you to disappear on them like this?"

He gave her a look so taut with restrained rage that she wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

"Don't make judgments about things you don't know anything about." Without another word, he stalked away from her.

* * *

For the next few days Eric only spoke to her when the men were around, and he always used the voice

of Dev, the construction worker. The voice began to haunt her dreams and make her body ache with sensations she didn't want to acknowledge. She kept reminding herself that Eric was a gifted and disciplined actor with complete control over any character he created, but the menacing-looking construction worker was assuming an identity separate from Eric in her mind. She did everything she could to stay away from him, but in the end her escalating money problems made that impossible.

On a Tuesday afternoon, four days after their confrontation by the lake, she made up her mind to approach him. She waited until the men stopped for lunch.

Eric had been loading old sections of track

into the back of a flatbed, and he pulled off his gloves as she came near.

She held out a brown paper bag. "I noticed you haven't been eating lunch, so I fixed this for you."

He hesitated for a moment, then took it from her. He was clearly wary, and it occurred to her that he

had been avoiding her as much as she was avoiding him.

"I only brought along one thermos, though, so we'll have to share." She began to walk, hoping he'd follow. After a few seconds, she heard his footsteps.

She moved away from the men to the spot where the carousel had once stood.

Not far away an old sycamore had fallen in a storm. She sat down on it, put the thermos on the ground, and opened her

lunch sack. A moment later he straddled the trunk and pulled out the peanut butter sandwich she'd made that morning. She noticed that he bunched the plastic wrap around the bottom part to protect it from his grimy hands, and she remembered that he had grown up in a wealthy family where clean hands would have been required at the dinner table.

"I cut it into triangles instead of rectangles," she said. "It's the closest I come to gourmet cooking these days."

The corner of his mouth ticked in something that might have been his version of a smile. She felt a sharp pang as she remembered how much she and Dash used to laugh.

He gestured toward the barren circle of earth in front of them. "One of the rides must have been here."

"The carousel." The first time she had seen Eric, his eyes had reminded her of the bright blue saddles

on the horses. She opened her own lunch bag, trying to overcome her uneasiness as she pulled out her sandwich. She knew this was a bad idea, but she hadn't been able to come up with a better one.

Slipping a corner of the peanut butter sandwich in her mouth, she chewed it without tasting, swallowed, then set it in her lap. "I have something I want to talk to you about."

He waited.

"I'm going to have to call off the restoration work if I can't come up with some cash in the next few weeks."

"I'm not surprised. It's an expensive project."

"The truth of the matter is, I'm broke. What I wanted to ask you—" The chunk of sandwich seemed to be stuck in her throat. She swallowed again. "I was thinking that you . . . That is, I was hoping you might—"

"You're not going to hit me for a loan, are you?"

Her carefully planned speech vanished from her mind. "What's so horrible about that? You must have

a few million stashed away, and I only need around two hundred thousand."

"That's all? Why don't I just whip out my checkbook right now?"

"I'll pay you back."

"Sure you will. That coaster's going to be earning you a fortune. What do you figure? Maybe five bucks

a week?"

"I'm not planning on paying you back from the coaster. I know it won't make a profit. But as soon as I finish Black Thunder and it's running again, I'm—" She stumbled on her words. This was going to be even harder than she had thought.

As she spoke, she knew she was giving up the only thing she had left that was of any value to her. "I'm calling my agent this evening. I'm going back to work."

"I don't believe you."

She felt sick. "I have to. If acting is the only way I can get Black Thunder running, then I'll do it."

"Something good might come out of this after all."

"What do you mean?"

"You should never have stopped performing, Honey. You didn't even give yourself a chance to find out what you could do."

"I can do Janie Jones," she said fiercely. "That's it. I'm a personality, just like Dash. I'm not an actress."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do. I used to listen to all that talk of yours about internal technique, affective memory, the Bucharest school. I don't know anything about those things."

"That's just vocabulary. It doesn't have anything to do with talent."

"I'm not going to debate this with you, Eric. All I'm saying is that I can pay you back. I'll have my agent put together some ironclad contracts—film roles, TV

movies, commercials—anything that pays. By the time people figure out I'm not Meryl Streep and the job offers stop, you'll have your money back with interest."

He stared at her. "You'd sell your talent that cheap?"

"It's not exactly talent I'm selling, is it? Notoriety might be a better word."

His lips thinned. "Why don't you just pick up the phone and call one of the big men's magazines? They'd give you a fortune for a nude layout. Think about it.

You'd have the money you need to finish rebuilding your roller coaster, and guys all over America could jerk off to naked pictures of Janie Jones."

He had made a direct hit, but she wasn't going to let him see it. "How much do you think they'd give me?"

He balled the paper sack and, with an exclamation of disgust, threw it on the ground.

"I'm kidding," she said tightly. "You were getting so sanctimonious."

"I wonder. If nude photos were the only way you could get the money, would you do it?"

"I guess I'd have to think about it."

"I'll bet you would." He shook his head in wonder. "Damn it, I think you'd actually do it."

"So what? My body doesn't mean anything to me anymore."

A subtle tension came over him, and she suspected he was remembering the way she had offered herself to him. She seized the chance to tell him indirectly that their lovemak-ing had no significance to her.

"My body isn't important, Eric. It doesn't mean anything! Now that Dash is dead, I just don't care anymore."

"I sure as hell think he'd care."

She looked away.

"He would, wouldn't he?"

"Yes. Yes, I guess he would." She drew a shaky breath. "But he's dead, Eric, and I have to rebuild this coaster."

"Why? Why is it so important to you?"

"It's—" She remembered the night by the lake. "I tried to tell you before, and you wouldn't understand. It's just something I have to do, that's all." A long silence fell as she attempted to get herself back under control.

He studied the scuffed toe of his work boot. "Exactly how much do you need?"

She told him.

He gazed out toward the clearing that had once marked the site of Kiddieland.

"All right, Honey. I'll

make a deal with you. I'll loan you your money, but on one condition."

"What's that?"

He turned to her, his single blue eye regarding her so intently she felt burned.

"You'll have to sign

yourself over to me."

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean that I'll own your talent, Honey. Every bit of it until the loan's paid off."

"What?"

"I choose your projects. Not you and not your agent. Only me. I decide what you can and can't do."

"That's ridiculous."

"Take it or leave it."

"Why should I? You'd never hand your career over to someone else."

"Not in a million years."

"But you expect me to."

"I don't expect anything. You're the one who wants the money, not me."

"What you're talking about is slavery. You could put me in hemorrhoid commercials or make me do

auto shows at a hundred dollars a pop."