Burning for You (Blackwater) (9 page)

“You could have visited me in
Chicago,” I tell her.  “The offer was always there.  You never took me up on
it.”

Heidi shrugs.  “I’ve always been
too busy to just drop everything and go to Chicago.”  Bullshit, I think, but I
don’t say anything.  What the hell would Heidi be so busy with in Blackwater
that she couldn’t just come for a quick weekend in Chicago?  But since I
probably would have been annoyed by a visit from my less than amicable sister,
I smile and let it go.

“So when is your official due date,”
I ask, turning to Eleanor.  I came to see Heidi, but it’s a relief to have
someone I actually enjoy talking to as a buffer.

“November seventh,” Eleanor
replies.  “Though I’m hoping I go early.  I’m so tired of feeling huge.”

“You’ll never be huge,” I say to
her.  “You’re all belly.”  I watch Heidi’s face darken, knowing one of the many
reasons she won’t get pregnant on her own is because she doesn’t want to get
fat.  Not like she’d ever let that happen, but I’d worry about the health of a baby
housed in my sister’s nutritionally depraved body.

“Speaking of bellies,” Heidi cuts
in, “I heard you ran out on your dinner date with Gabe last night, Leah.”

I’m speechless, and then I recall
that Gabe had mentioned he and Jack were good friends.  “Well, something came
up, and I had to leave.”

“I heard you were very rude about
it,” Heidi points out.  “You just got up and walked out on him.”

“Did he say I was rude?” I want to
know.  I’m not sure I care how Gabe feels, but Blackwater is small enough that
news travels fast, as Heidi is clearly demonstrating.  “I had an asthma attack,
Heidi.”

“He wouldn’t say that.  Gabe isn’t
rude.”  She doesn’t have to say “rude like you” to imply what she really
means.  It’s all over her face.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.  “I do
need to call him and apologize.  I’ve barely had a chance.  I went home and
went to bed right away because I wasn’t feeling well, and then I woke up this
morning and went straight to Blackwater Memorial to apply for a job.  Now I’m
here because I hadn’t seen you yet and figured I should.”

“I appreciate that,” Heidi says,
“but do be sure and smooth everything over with Gabe.  He’s a close friend of
the family, and I’d be very uncomfortable if this was left unresolved.”  Her
cheeks are growing pink, and I can tell she’s getting flustered.

“Heidi,” Eleanor speaks very
gently.  “Should we go to lunch now?  Leah, you should join us, if you’re
free.”

“Okay,” I say tentatively, still
looking at Heidi, who looks like she’s about to burst.  “If it’s okay with Heidi.”

“It’s fine,” Heidi snaps.  “Of
course it’s fine.  Let me just freshen up and get my purse.”  She walks out of
the kitchen, leaving Eleanor and I alone.

“Leah,” Eleanor whispers in a
hushed tone.  “I don’t know what happened last night with Gabe and why exactly
you left.  I don’t care.  I’m just glad you got out of there.  You can’t be
with Gabe.”

“Why?” I ask her suspiciously. 
“Because he’s a reaper?”

Eleanor looks shocked.  “You
knew?” 

I nod.  “I only found out on the
date, when Ash Lavanne and Erika Martin came and kidnapped me.”

Eleanor bursts out laughing.  “Oh,
they would.  Good for them.”

“What’s so funny?” Heidi wants to
know, walking back in the kitchen.

“Just catching up,” Eleanor offers
quickly, casting me a glance.   I just nod and smile at Heidi.

We head over to Camille’s
Patisserie, a coffee shop that has exquisite toasted cheese sandwiches,
croissants and salads.  Eleanor and I are ravenous and both get the works –
salad, sandwich, and chocolate croissants for dessert.  Heidi nibbles on a
salad, avoiding any dressing or croutons, pretty much consuming what a rabbit
would.  The entire lunch consists of meaningless chatter, which doesn’t require
much of my focus, and I’m free to try and process what little Eleanor has told
me about Gabe.

If Eleanor knows Gabe is a reaper,
it indicates that she has some link to the crafting world.  Was my best friend
a crafter all along?  How long had she known?  She referred to Drew as her soul
mate – was I dating my best friend’s catalyst all through high school?  If so,
I feel like the biggest schmuck in the world.  Why wouldn’t anyone explain what
a reaper does?  It seems like everyone knows what’s going on in Blackwater
except for me.  I should go visit Isabel tonight.  She can always give me
answers, and I can ask questions without any restraint, without feeling like a
clueless idiot. 

I relay a few details of my life in
Chicago, mainly focusing on my job and a few of the places I lived.  Carlton
the cat gets a few highlights, and when I tell Heidi that he is staying with
Isabel, she surprises me by saying “I would have taken him in.  I love cats.” 
We were never allowed pets when we were growing up, so I never knew Heidi cared
for animals at all.  I never knew Heidi cared for anything but herself until
now.  Picturing Heidi with a baby is difficult, particularly when I watch her
arranging her croutons in a circle around the rim of her plate, followed by a
circle of olives from her salad.  Separating and arranging her food is one of
Heidi’s many quirks that can make for a really awkward lunch.  I guess Eleanor
is used to it, because she just lets it go but I’ve gone so long without seeing
it happen that it bothers me more.  Heidi hasn’t changed, I note, and I wonder
how Jack deals with her at all.

It’s a relief when lunch is over
and Heidi drives us back to her house in her dark blue Land Rover.  She is so
tiny she needs to shove the seat as far forward as it can go to reach the
pedals.  I choose not to go back in the house with Heidi and Eleanor, giving them
both hugs in the driveway and telling Eleanor that I’ll stop by.  I also agree
to have dinner with Heidi and Jack soon, which I’ll probably regret if I can’t
put it off long enough not to let it happen. 

It’s almost two in the afternoon
when I’m driving back, and I have no idea where the day went, but it’s a relief
to be heading home.  I’m hoping to go for a long run, then spend the evening in
sweatpants and give Isabel a call.  Maybe I’ll stop by her apartment and see
Carlton and ask her a few questions.  If I come armed with her favorite
dessert, mint chocolate chip ice cream, I can drag any information out of her I
need.  However, when I near the house, I see that my evening is about to take a
detour in the wrong direction.  My heart sinks deep into the pit of my stomach.

Michael’s car is parked in the
driveway.

I debate backing out of the
driveway and driving back to Heidi’s, or just the hell out of town.  That’s not
really going to accomplish anything, except for prolonging the inevitable, so I
do the mature thing and decide to face the situation.  But first I have a good panic
attack about it in my car.  When I finally compose myself, I step out of
Betsey, taking my portfolio and purse with me.  The air is chilly and starting
to get windy, almost as if a storm is coming.  The dark grey sky confirms my
thoughts, and dry, dead leaves whip around in the air.  Still, I’m in no hurry
to go inside and protect myself from the elements.  I walk slowly to the front
door, letting the wind take my hair out of the simple knot I twisted it in this
morning and feeling it whip around my face.  I let myself in and throw my purse
and portfolio down on the table in the entryway. 

My mother’s voice can be heard from
where I’m standing in the foyer, her shrill laugh pealing through the house.  She’s
entertaining him in the living room.  She’s never met Michael in person, and I
can’t imagine they have very much to say to each other, but my mother can be
charming if she needs to be.  Michael and I had a courthouse wedding, and a
weekend honeymoon that was spent in the Drake hotel in Chicago overlooking Lake
Michigan.  It was no family affair, and neither my mother nor my sister had
anything to say about it.  I just assumed they would provide the same level of interest
regarding my pending divorce, but apparently not.  I’m tempted to breeze past
them and up the stairs to my room and lock the door, but my heels clicking on
the hardwood floor give me away immediately.  “Leah, we’re in here,” my mother
says, as if it wasn’t obvious from the way I was trying to sneak past them.

“What are you doing here?” I ask
Michael.  No formalities, no bullshit.  I want him gone.

“Leah!” my mother scolds me
dramatically.  I glare at her, feeling a ball of anger building up in the pit
of my stomach.  I have quell my temptation to clench my fists and swing at
something.  “I called Michael and told him you were here.  I’m hoping you two
can work things out together.”  She sweeps her eyes over me and scowls, likely
at my windblown appearance.  “I’m going shopping for an hour or two, so you two
can discuss whatever it is you need to discuss.”  She stands up and Michael
stands with her, the putative perfect gentleman.  She turns around to smile at
him, smoothing her black silk dress around her hips.  With a strand of black
pearls, she looks like she’s dressed for a funeral.  “It was so nice to sit and
chat with you, Michael,” she says.  “I’m so glad you care enough to come when I
called.”

“Thank you Ursula,” he says.  My
jaw drops.  He’s on a first name basis with her already?  At least he didn’t
try and call her “Mom” or anything.  “I appreciate you calling.”

My mother nods and walks past me,
giving me a cold glance that indicates that she wants everything fixed and me
out.  No such luck, Mother, I think.  I wait to hear the door to the garage
slam shut before I whirl around and say “Get the fuck out of my house, Michael.”

“It’s your mother’s house, Leah,”
he snarls, “and she invited me.”   His lips curl into a sinister smile.  That
smile once won me over but now I see it for what it is – manipulative and
slimy.  His dark hair waves back naturally from his face and curls up below his
ears, and his green eyes flash hungrily in my direction.  He advances on me and
I shrink back, trying to keep my composure but shaking uncontrollably.  Michael
is a large man.  Not overweight, but heavily muscled and bulky and there isn’t
a thing I can do to physically protect myself from him.  “We have a lot to talk
about, Leah.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” I
tell him.  I stand behind a chair, using it as a buffer between us.  “I want to
talk to a lawyer and get you out of my life.”

“Leah,” he says, putting his knees
down on the cushion of the chair I’m standing behind, taking my hands in his. 
I pull my hands away quickly, feeling repulsed by his touch.  “You can’t mean
that.  We can work things out.  Come back home.”

“Are you crazy?” I yell.  “Work
things out after what you did to me?”

His lips twist into what looks like
a grimace.  “Technically I didn’t do anything.”

“No,” I say and shake my head. 
“You were there.  You saw it.  You wanted it.”

“I arranged it,” he says,
confirming my darkest suspicions.  I feel the blood rushing away from my face,
feeling sick with the room beginning to spin around me.  I grip the back of the
chair more tightly.  “And I also recorded it.”

“You WHAT?!” I scream.  I grab the
nearest thing I can find, which happens to be a book sitting on an end table
next to me and bring it down over his head.  It’s not a very big book, and Michael
only laughs.  “Fuck you,” I tell him.  “Get out.  I don’t want to see you
within fifty feet of me ever again.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” he asks, his
voice growing louder.  “I recorded it, Leah.  I can show it to anyone I want. 
I can put it up on the internet, I can send it to potential employers, and I
can ruin your life.”

“You already ruined my life,” I
say.  “How would this ruin it any more?”

“Think about it, Leah,” he growls. 
“You want a divorce?  I could use this as evidence in any divorce case.  I’m
not in the video, but you are, and so are other people who will testify against
you.  You and I may not have a lot of money, but I can see from this house that
your family does.  It would be a shame for them to lose that.”

“Get the fuck out!” I shriek.  I
push him roughly from my side of the chair.  He stands up and backs away from
me, crossing his arms and smiling cruelly.  “Ruin my life, I don’t care!  I’m
not coming back to Chicago, so you might as well go the fuck home, Michael, and
forget me.  I’ll get my divorce, I’ll get a lawyer, and I’ll-“ I’m interrupted
by the sound of shattering glass, as the chandelier in the room erupts into a
fiery explosion and crystal pieces come raining down over Michael.  He lets out
a cry and throws his arms up over his face.  Small pieces of glass embed
themselves into his arms, scratching and cutting them up into a maze of red
lines.  The smell in the air is unmistakably of smoke.  Outside, I hear thunder
rumbling.  The storm has finally hit.

“You bitch!” he screams at me,
gazing at his arms with widened eyes.  “You want me dead?  Huh?”

“I didn’t do it,” I say calmly,
completely aghast at what just happened.  I stay planted behind my chair.  “I
was standing right here.”

“You’re a fucking liar,” he says,
inspecting the damage on his arms more closely.  He nearly turns green at the
sight of his own blood.  He steps backward and the crunch of glass under his
feet makes him jump.  I’ve never seen him look so terrified.  He bolts through
the doorway and I hear the front door of the house slamming behind him.  The
entire room illuminates with lightning from outside, and the sheets of rain
that follow almost sound like falling glass.

“Holy shit,” I say to myself, and
then run out of the room to throw up.

*

“I’m sorry,” I say to my mother an
hour later.  The storm has ended and she has returned from her shopping trip to
find the disaster that occurred in her living room and me still in Blackwater. 
We’re both standing in the entrance to the living room surveying the damage. 
Her face is frozen into a look of mortification and horror.  “I have no idea
how to even begin cleaning this up.”