Cool Shade (9 page)

Bittersweet Me

Maddie didn't stop to try and find her clothes. Instead, panties clinging to her bottom, she tugged the sodden T-shirt over her head, pulling the hem down to her thighs as she ran down the steps. Barefoot, she hurried through the kitchen and out into the darkness.

Past the periphery of the house, she stumbled through the tangled overgrowth, finally coming to the curved packed dirt of the lane. She ran blindly into the night, her heart beating so wildly, her breathing so loud, that she couldn't hear whether or not she was being pursued.

Two minutes later, she had to stop. Couldn't go any farther. Hands to her knees, doubled over, she fought to catch her breath.

As her breathing slowed, she began to calm down. Enough to congratulate herself on a job well done. She put a hand to her mouth, smothering a laugh. She'd done it. She'd beaten him at his own game. And what a game it had been.

Whew!

For a while there, she'd almost forgotten it was a game. For a while there, she'd almost played it through to the end.

~0~

As she walked, she reran the last scene with Eddie over and over in her mind. Eddie. God. There should be a law against guys like him. Here, he'd been holding her hostage, and she'd still almost done it with him. Again.

Her car was where she'd left it. Had that been only twenty-four hours ago?

Groping in the dark, she found the handle, opened the door, and slipped into the driver's seat. She reached for the ignition, and her heart sank in disbelief.

No key.

The keys had been in her pants.

And her pants were back at the house.

His
house.

She banged a fist against the steering wheel. Idiot!

She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel and closed her eyes.

Now what? She could hardly walk to town the way she was. She had to go back.

No.

Yes.

I can't. I'm so tired.

She had to.

Now. Do it now.

He could still be locked in the bathroom. She might be able to get back, find her pants, find her keys, and get away.

Good thing she hadn't taken up a life of crime. She was striking out all the way around. Go rob a bank, run outside, then remember you'd left your keys at the teller window.
Whoopsie.

She opened the door and staggered out, the wet T-shirt sticking to her like a clammy second skin. She was approximately halfway back to Eddie's when it started to rain.

She didn't deserve this. She'd been stupid, sure, but not that stupid, considering the circumstances and her mental state.

The rain began as a light pitter-patter, falling gently against the canopy of leaves above her head. But then that gentle pitter-patter grew louder and stronger until it was a roar, until cold water stung her skin, until the ground under her bare feet oozed and felt like the consistency of refried beans.

Blinking through rain-swamped eyes, she spotted the lights of the house.

A palace.

The place she'd been so eager to get away from had taken on a whole new persona, as would any warm, dry port in a storm. Now, instead of being threatening, it was welcoming. A haven. A refuge.

A warm, dry viper's den.

Shivering and mud-splattered, she hurried for the protection of the porch.

Something touched her leg. The dog, she realized with relief.

"G-good d-doggy." Her lips were numb. She could hardly talk. She gave him a pat on the head. Lucky devil. He was dry and warm.

The rain was coming down in torrents. Thunder shook the rickety porch. Lightning lit the sky.

She put a hand to the door… and slowly turned the knob.

She peeked in.

Nothing looked any different.

No sign of the caveman.

She stepped inside, her feet leaving muddy puddles.

If she could find her pants, then she could find her keys. But finding the keys meant having to walk all the way back to her car.

Could she do it?

She was so cold. Her teeth were still chattering uncontrollably.

She spotted a telephone.

On the wall in the kitchen. An old yellowed rotary job.

Of course he had a phone. How else would he get supplies? How else had he called a doctor?

She was crossing the kitchen when another crash of thunder shook the house and lightning lit the room. Then the power went off, engulfing her in total darkness.

With the image of the phone still in her mind, she took three steps and found the wall. Her hands searched, fingers coming in contact with plastic.

Her fingers were so numb she could hardly make them work, hardly find the holes. She counted. She dialed. 9-1-1.

She waited.

And got a recording. "Nine-one-one is not yet available in your area."

Not available?
What kind of place was this where they didn't even have 911? That was like not having flush toilets.

Evelyn. She'd call Evelyn. What was Evelyn's number? 678? Or 687? Try them both--

Fingers curled around her wrist.

She shrieked and dropped the receiver. It hit the floor with a clatter of cheap plastic.

"Hello, Maddie."

Eddie's voice came out of the darkness, amused, irritated.

Her heart beat faster. "Hello," she croaked.

"I'll just bet you came back to see if I was okay, didn't you?"

"Y-yes. How'd you know?"

"I'm not."

"Not what?"

"Okay."

The hand left her wrist, and she took a step back.

The back of her head connected with the wall.

Two hands grasped her arms.

A strobe of lightning briefly illuminated the room, enough for her to see his glowing eyes, his wet hair, his bare chest. And then the darkness came crashing down again.

"Or did you come back to finish what we'd started?"

His body pressed up against her, hot against her cold. She wanted to curl into him, soak up his heat.

He worked his leg between hers. He was wearing jeans. She felt the roughness of the fabric against her inner thighs, felt the warmth as he worked his way to the apex of her legs. Off balance, she grabbed at his shoulders to steady herself.

At that moment, the lights came back on.

Dark, angry eyes, just inches from hers.

But then those eyes pulled back, as if to get a better look at her. And as she watched, she saw the darkness in them soften into something like puzzlement, into something like concern.

"M-my k-keys."

Her words were forced through trembling lips.

"I f-forgot m-my k-keys."

She felt his fingers caress the side of her rain-chilled face. His brows drew together as he slowly shook his head.

"You're frozen."

He looked her up and down. "Stay right here." He started to move away, then seemed to think twice about it. "Don't leave. You won't leave, will you?"

She stared at the puddle surrounding her feet, watching it grow larger, exhaustion washing over her. Leave? She couldn't move.

A moment later he was back, wrapping a blanket around her, tucking it under her chin. She grabbed at the edges with both hands and hung on tightly, her body shaking.

"Maddie." It was the regret in his voice that did it, that got to her. She didn't like to cry, and she certainly didn't like to cry in front of people. In fact, she'd always prided herself in her ability to control her tears. But suddenly her throat got that tight, awful feeling. Grief welled up inside her, and a shuddering sob escaped her. She tried to stop the next one, but it was too hard. One just followed the other.

"I'm sorry," he said.

He meant it.

He led her to the table, to the chair that he pulled out. She dropped into it, burying her face in her crossed arms, her sobbing dwindling down to sniffles.

Eddie stood over her, staring at the back of her rain-soaked head. What should he do? He wanted to comfort her, warm her, but he was the one who'd caused her distress. When the lights had come back on and he'd seen her standing there, soaked and covered with mud, he'd experienced an uncomfortable moment of self-awareness that had filled him with remorse. There was a time when he'd worried about women who were abused by men. He'd always loathed people who used their superior strength to control someone else. But wasn't that what he'd done to Maddie?

What the hell was the matter with him? Maybe Max was right. He'd been holed up too long. He was losing it.

"Maddie, we have to get you warm."

She didn't respond. At least she'd stopped crying. He couldn't handle that. The tone, the anquish, had torn him up.

She should really get into a hot bath, but that might just set her off again. Christ. "A bath. How about a hot bath?"

"Can't." It was a weak whisper.

Can't because she was afraid? Or can't because she wasn't physically able to? he wondered.

"Then dry clothes. You at least have to get into dry clothes."

She moved her head, kind of rolled it around on her arm. He didn't know if that was a yes or no. It didn't look like she'd be going anywhere, so he left her long enough to grab a flannel shirt and a pair of jogging pants. He placed them in a pile on the table in front of her.

"Dry clothes," he announced.

She lifted her head and stared blankly at the pants, the shirt.

"Dry clothes."

She continued to stare.

"Do you need help?"

Her continued silence was her answer.

He would have to help her.

It wasn't as if he'd never seen her naked, he told himself as he tried to tug the blanket from her tight grip. He finally coaxed it away from her, draping it over the chair. He tugged the T-shirt from under her bottom. "Lift your arms. There you go." He pulled it over her head. Her arms dropped to her sides. He grabbed the flannel shirt. He started with her injured arm, careful of the stitches, then her other arm. He was kneeling in front of her, ready to button the first button, when her hands came up and pulled the opening closed. And then she looked right into his eyes. And just kept looking.

"Here," he finally managed. "Let me button it." He worked her frozen hands free. Then, with trembling fingers, he buttoned the shirt. "Can you stand up? You're going to have to stand up."

Dazed, she stood, legs shaking. He slid his hands under the flannel shirt, grasped the elastic edge of her underwear, and peeled them down her legs and feet.

"Sit back down."

She did.

He put her feet into the jogging pants.

"Stand."

She did.

He pulled the pants to her waist. Then he picked up the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. "Come on. To bed."

His idea was to pick her up, but somehow she read his plan. "I can walk."

She turned, blanket edges dragging the floor. She shuffled across the kitchen to the stairs. She stopped and looked up. Then, ever so slowly, she put a hand to the rail.

One step at a time.

A full two minutes later, she fell into his bed. He slipped warm socks on her feet, then covered her with another blanket.

"Don't leave."

He paused.

"You're so warm."

He crawled in beside her. It was the least he could do.

Low

Maddie woke up to bright sunlight. The icy chill of last night's rain was already giving way to steamy humidity. While she certainly wasn't refreshed from her sleep, she felt better, well enough to get herself back to Enid's.

Next to the narrow bed were her clothes. On top of the clothes, her car keys.

A sort of apology? She'd been pretty out of it last night, but not so much that she hadn't been able to get some satisfaction from Eddie's remorse.

She got to her feet and looked out the window. There was her car, with its Arizona plates, parked in front of Eddie's house.

What a guy.

She dressed, her clothes stained with blood although it was apparent he'd made an attempt to clean them.

He was racking up points like crazy.

Every muscle in her body ached. She put a hand to her hair. The humidity had kinked it up good.

Downstairs, the house was quiet. She didn't need to look around to know Eddie wasn't there. He was such a strong presence that she could feel his absence.

In the middle of the kitchen table was an empty birdcage, the metal door ajar.

A feeling of deep melancholy washed over her, the empty cage somehow seeming symbolic of Eddie Berlin's life.

~0~

Hemingway hadn't even missed her, or at least he tried to pretend he hadn't. But it wasn't long before he was rubbing against her leg, meowing, begging for attention. Like most males, he could keep up the aloof act for only so long.

Exhausted, Maddie dropped to the floor beside him and gave him a good head scratching and belly rub. His purr rattled the windows. What a life. Lie around. Have somebody waiting on you all the time, rubbing your belly. The fatter you got, the cuter you looked.

In her next life, she hoped she came back as a cat.

She was still broke.

What did dry cat food taste like?

It would at least have protein. She'd once known a girl who claimed to eat nothing but dog food. Then again, if Maddie remembered correctly, the girl hadn't looked very healthy.

The cat food bag Hemingway had torn into—had that only been three days ago?—was still lying open on the kitchen floor. On hands and knees, Maddie crawled across the room to the bag.

Half sitting, she read the contents.

Ground corn.

Soybean meal.

Beef tallow.

Salmon meal.

Yeast.

By-products. She didn't like the sound of that.

But there were all sorts of vitamins. And minerals.

She dug a nugget from the bottom of the bag, hoping it wasn't one Hemingway had slobbered on. She sniffed it. Kind of fishy, but not too fishy. She put it to her mouth, her teeth, closed her eyes, and crunched.

Kind of like a cracker. A cracker, that took on a rotten-fish flavor as she chewed.

She was going to have to pawn Enid's VCR.

~0~

Van the pawn shop man gave her twenty bucks. Twenty measly bucks. But he was nice enough to allow her two months to buy the VCR back before he unloaded it.

Twenty bucks didn't go far. She bought eight-dollars worth of gas, a few groceries, and a newspaper. Back at Enid's, she checked the Help Wanted section. There was the envelope stuffing. There was the telemarketing.

Ah, a new ad. "Waste Management Supervisor."

She'd didn't know anything about managing waste, but she'd spent a large portion of her life mucking through the stuff.

Her gaze tracked down.

"Radio Personality Needed."

Was she hallucinating? Had there been more than cat food in that kibble?

She read on, her heart beating faster.

"Radio station KOWL looking for night-time personality—someone who can shoot the breeze, who can be spontaneous, who isn't afraid to stick his or her neck out. Someone with an attitude."

Was she in some kind of euphoric stupor? She'd heard of people fasting themselves into bliss. With paper clutched in her hand, Maddie ran for the phone, praying that it hadn't been disconnected.

Dial tone!

And then an answering machine.

An answering machine was good. If there was one thing she'd perfected while serving her sentence at KLBJ, it was her radio voice. Under ordinary circumstances, her voice was fairly average, but she'd learned to make it deeper and throatier for airplay. She'd also perfected a repertoire of accents and personalities. On more than one occasion, she'd found it handy to pretend ignorance of the English language.

Maddie poured it on for the recording, leaving her name and number and previous radio experience, omitting the part about being fired. It wasn't a lie, just an omission. A girl had to look out for herself.

Four hours later she was called in for an interview with Brian, the station manager.

He was about thirty. One of those skinny people who looked out of shape, who you knew subsisted on junk food and diet soda. It turned out that ten months ago he'd spent every dime he had and some he didn't have to buy the floundering, outdated station.

"What about format?" she asked.

Brian leaned back in his chair, tossing a jellybean in his mouth. He was kind of doing a Buddy Holly thing, with slicked-back hair. But instead of black chunky glasses, he wore wire rims. "No format."

No format?

He offered her the jar of beans.

At first, she felt it best to refuse, but then she thought, food is food. She probably wouldn't get the job so she may as well get something out of this. She took the jar, shook some beans into her palm, and handed it back to him.

"What type of music?" she ventured, picking out a red jellybean.

"No type."

"No type?" This was some kind of scam, some kind of drug front or something.

"Were going for total freedom. An environment where creativity can flourish."

She picked out a green jellybean. Yep, they still tasted like toilet bowl cleaner.

"We're looking for someone who can BS. I'm sick of this reel-to-reel crap shipped in from L.A. It's too generic. No personality. I want something local." He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. "You're voice is sexy as hell. Mysterious. Exactly what I was looking for."

She was dreaming.

"But there's a catch."

Here it comes.

Before things got kinky, she jumped to her feet. "I'm not having sex with you. I'm not going to do the program in the nude. I'm not going—"

"Would you let me talk?"

She had to catch her breath anyway.

"I don't want anybody to know who you are," he said. "It'll be part of the mystique. Kind of a Wolfman Jack thing."

Was that all?

"If you've got an ego, if you feel the need to be recognized, then take a walk."

"Anonymity. That's my middle name. It can even be my first name if you want."

She got the job.

No more quality time, sharing kibble with Hemingway.

Yes!

~0~

The box fan hummed in the window, sucking in humid night air.

Eddie kicked the tangled sheets from his legs, his naked body a furnace.

Typical July heat.

Normally he didn't mind hot weather, but when the humidity was as high as the temperature, and the temperature at midnight was in the eighties, he minded.

But it wasn't just the heat keeping him awake.

Maddie.

Of the wild hair he'd sunk his fingers into. Of the soft white skin he could almost taste. Eyes that changed color depending on the light, going from hazel to gray. Eyes that had stared into his with open, frank appraisal. Eyes that had made his heart beat fast.

Something about her felt right. And nothing had felt right to him in a long, long time.

He let out a deep, reluctant sigh.

Sleep wasn't going to happen.

He sat up, swinging his feet to the floor, his face in front of the fan, blowing back his hair, blowing in the exotic, mysterious scent of the night.

He stayed there awhile, letting the air move across his hot skin, evaporating the sweat from his body. Then he stood, the varnished floor tacky under his bare feet. He shut off the fan, the blades rhythmically slowing to a stop. He slipped on a pair of loose shorts, then made his way downstairs through the darkness, down the narrow, twisted flight of steps.

In the kitchen, he tugged open the heavy door of the ancient Frigidaire, got out the water jug, and raised it to his lips, absorbing the cool, canned air of the refrigerator.

Several swallows later, he lowered the jug, water dripping down his chest to his stomach, soaking into the waistband of his shorts. He put back the jug, metal shelf rattling, door slamming shut.

The refrigerator motor kicked on; a loud hum filled the room.

It was a little cooler downstairs, but the temperature in the kitchen still had to be in the eighties. Even though the window above the sink was open, not a breath of air stirred.

He stepped outside onto the porch.

Fifteen degrees cooler.

Damp air touched his skin, cooling him. Lightning bugs lit up the tangle of grasses and vines. Green, mysterious scents were made heady and heavy by the night.

With both hands, he tugged back his hair, tipped back his head, and looked up at the star-filled sky. Drawing in a lungful of night air, he stepped off the porch to wade through the dew-soaked grass to his broken-down Chevy.

He bent in the open window, turned the key to auxiliary, and flicked on the radio.

It wasn't that the car's radio sounded good. In fact, it sounded like shit. And it was a pain in the ass to keep the battery charged. But there was something about listening to it in the middle of the night that Eddie liked, something that made him feel better.

He turned the radio dial until he found a good song, then he climbed on the hood, the glass cold against his shoulder blades, the metal body cold against the soles of his wet feet.

The song ended. The deejay came on.

"This is Midnight Mary, voice of the night, coming to you from KOWL. Night owl radio. The station with an attitude."

Midnight Mary? Never heard her. He'd have remembered a voice like that. As sultry and hot as a southern night. He locked his hands behind his head and stared up at the stars.

"This is going to be an open format. Anything legal goes. If you feel like talking, give me a call. If you have a request, ditto. Just remember: no recipes, no politics."

Midnight Mary's voice was husky and deep. It made him think of
her
. But then, everything made him think of her.

"To get things going, how about UFOs? Anybody out there ever been abducted?"

Eddie looked a little more intently at the thick stars above him.

"Any of you ever had a close encounter of the first, second, or third kind? If so, give me a call." She gave the listeners her number. "In the meantime, let's listen to some tunes. I know it's the middle of the night. I know the rest of the world is sleeping, but at Night Owl, there will be no easy listening. Here's something from the new Sweet Relief CD. I don't know about you, but I could do with a little sweet relief right about now."

She was good. She didn't walk on the record. He hated when deejays did that. There was nothing more annoying than someone talking over the tunes.

Eddie's muscles began to relax. He closed his eyes and let the music and the night and Midnight Mary's hot, sexy voice wrap around him. Later, he went into the house to get the portable phone. He wanted to make a request, but more than that, he wanted to talk to Midnight Mary.