Last Car to Annwn Station (8 page)

Jill shook her head. “No. You need to calm down and explain. Tell me what happened, and then we’ll talk about this silly idea of yours.”

Slowly, over the course of the next half hour, Jill gently coaxed the words out of her with whispered encouragement and understanding touches. When she was done, Mae was calmer, but still determined to put as much distance as possible between the danger she was in and Jill.

Jill was quiet for several moments, digesting what Mae had said. “Bill Hodgins, huh?”

“You know him?” Mae asked.

Jill nodded. “I’ve seen him in the law library a few times. He’s done some work for my family.” Jill frowned. “Where exactly are you planning to go?”

Mae sighed and shook her head. All the bravery and recklessness she had felt during her confrontation with Hodgins was gone, washed away by the hard reality of magic that had—if only for a moment—taken control of her body. “I don’t know. I thought I’d get a room someplace for a few days. Maybe close my bank account and buy a ticket to a new city. Start over someplace where there are no impossible streetcars, no animated corpses of twelve-year-old girls, no—”

“No what?” Jill asked in a quiet voice.

“No magic,” Mae said softly. “But that’s not how it’s going to happen is it?”

Jill shrugged. “I don’t know. I said I like weird. I never claimed to be an expert at it. What I do know, or at least what I
believe,
is that you can’t run from things.”

Mae turned her head and looked at Jill. “Even when those things are trying to kill you?”

Jill frowned and nodded. “I think especially if those things are trying to kill you.”

“Well, that’s just silly,” Mae said, looking away from Jill and fixing her eyes on the wall opposite them.

“We are a silly race, we humans,” Jill said in a deadpan voice. She straightened and turned to face Mae. “If you’re running away, I’m coming with you.”

Mae exhaled a frustrated breath and looked up at the ceiling. “That would kind of defeat the purpose of me running away.”

“Safety in numbers, I say. Besides, who says I’ll be any safer with you gone? They obviously know you’re living here and we’re at least close friends.”

“Jill, I think I like you—”

“Good. I like you too. Maybe it’s time I took you home and showed you to my mother.”

“Don’t interrupt. I think I like you. In fact, I’m pretty sure I like you a lot. I don’t want you to be dead.”

“Well I don’t want to see you dead either. In fact, I vote that if anyone is going to do any dying, it be the other guys.”

Mae blew out a long breath. She sat up straight and looked at the floor. “Tell you what. I promise not to run and hide in a deep hole, if you promise to come away with me this weekend. We can go someplace out of the cities, put some space between us and Hodgins, and think about what we want to do about this mess. Maybe we can stay at a bed and breakfast in Stillwater or Red Wing. It would be a good way for both of us to fall off the radar for a couple of days.”

“Okay, it’s a deal.” Jill regarded her. “Does that mean I can change and clean up without worrying that you’re going to disappear while I’m in the shower?”

“I promise I’ll be here when you’re done.”

“Good. I was worried that I was going to need to handcuff you to the plumbing or something while I tried to talk some sense into you.”

Mae raised an eyebrow. “You have handcuffs?”

Jill stood. With a smirk on her face, she reached down to offer Mae a hand up from the floor. “That’s kind of personal for this stage in the relationship, don’t you think?”

Mae took her hand and stood. “You’re the one who brought it up.” She looked down at the mess on the floor. “Damn. I’m going to have to unpack
again.
”

“You cook dinner while I wash up, and I’ll help you with this mess later.”

Mae laughed. It caught her by surprise. She thought she would never laugh like that again after this afternoon. “You just want an excuse to paw through my underwear.”

Jill lowered her head, letting her black hair fall forward after releasing it from its ponytail. She gave Mae a come-hither smile. “Damned straight. And Mae, my handcuffs are lined with faux-leopard fur, just so you know.” She turned sharply on her heel, hair fanning out on her shoulders as she swished toward the bathroom.

Mae laughed again and walked downstairs to the kitchen.

Mae felt Jill lean over her shoulder as she loaded the last of the plates into the dishwasher. Jill’s breath was on her neck, tickling her ear and cheek. Mae smiled up at Jill.

“This is really why I want you to live here,” Jill said.

“You invited me to live with you for my mad domestic skills?”

Jill wagged her eyebrows and stood back. “You know it.”

Mae closed the dishwasher door and set it to start in four hours, long after both of them would be in bed. She followed Jill, who had picked up their wine glasses and the half-empty bottle of chardonnay from the dining table, to the living room.

“I think,” Jill said as she set the glasses and bottle down, “we should change into comfy clothes, turn on a trashy movie and ignore the world outside.”

Mae nodded. “I like it.”

“Cool. First one back to the couch picks the trashy movie.”

Mae did not bother rushing. She knew Jill, manic to pick the worst movie on-demand had to offer, would find a way to reach the couch first. In fact, Mae realized Jill might make it back to the couch before Mae made it upstairs to change.

“That was your cue to squeal and run for the stairs,” Jill called down from her room.

Mae laughed as she reached the landing. Jill was already changed into a pair of red and green tartan pajama pants and a T-shirt with the fading words “Storm Chaser” across the front.

“I concede,” Mae said.

“You’re no fun. I’m going to pick something truly awful to watch as your punishment.”

“You do that. I’ll be right down.”

Mae dug through the clothes on the floor and found her favorite sweatpants, all faded gray with the elastic at the ankles pulled out. She grabbed a white T-shirt off the floor and changed into it. The sound and smell of popcorn being prepared reached her as she started back down the stairs.

“Ready?”

“Sure. What did you pick?”

Jill nodded toward the television screen.

“You spent three ninety-five on a slasher flick with a pirate?”

“Undead, revenge-seeking, zombie pirate. Don’t worry, it will be awful. That’s the point. Get the lights.”

“Uh-huh,” Mae said, turning off the lights and settling on the couch next to Jill. She reached for the popcorn. It was hot and smothered in something resembling butter.

“Napkins?” Mae asked, looking for something to wipe her greasy hand on.

Jill raised an eyebrow. “That’s why God made cheap pajama pants.”

“Fine.” Mae reached over and cleaned her hand on Jill’s pants.

Jill laughed like a loon and pushed the button on the remote to start the movie. Mae was determined to make the best of it, no matter how bad the movie.

An hour and a half later she knew it had been a futile effort.

“The problem was,” Jill said, stretching and shifting position, “if the entire pirate ship’s crew settled down in that village and their descendants all still live there, they must have been an inbred lot. That’s why they were all too stupid to survive. No branches on the family tree.”

“The problem,” Mae corrected, “was the producers and director were just looking to make a fast buck off the pirate craze and apparently hired some random high school film class to make a movie. But you know what the real problem is?”

“What’s that?”

“Neither of us will ever get that time back. And you’re out three ninety-five.”

“Actually, half the cable bill is yours now.”

“I’m sure I shouldn’t be made to pay for that. In fact, I think I’ve already paid enough. What are you planning to do for the rest of the evening?”

Jill shrugged. “I could paint your toenails.”

Mae laughed. “Why?”

Jill wiggled her own toes with their burgundy-colored nails. “Because it would make you feel pretty, oh so pretty.”

Mae turned, pointing herself at Jill. She rested her right arm on the back of the couch and laid her head on it. “Could I ask you a personal question?”

Jill’s pale blue eyes held surprise, but she nodded. “Sure. I guess there are a lot of things you don’t know about me. Ask away.”

“Tell me about your family.”

Jill drew a deep breath. “Well. You really went for the big one, didn’t you? Is there anything left in that bottle?”

Mae lifted the wine bottle. “No. We drank it all to numb the pain of the movie. Should I open another?”

Jill smiled, all lopsided and melancholy. “Yes, please. Get the merlot out for this.”

Mae returned with an open bottle and two clean glasses. She poured for both of them and passed a glass to Jill. “You don’t have to—”

“No. It’s okay.” Jill took a long sip of her wine then began to idly play with a bit of loose thread on the back of the couch. “When I made that little comment about taking you to meet my mother, well, it would be more to horrify her than anything else. You don’t deserve that, and you never have to meet my mother or my father, unless you feel a deep burning desire to do so.”

“I take it they don’t approve of your life?”

Jill raised her eyebrows and nodded. “You could say that. My father does something in real estate. Buying. Selling. Leasing. Something. He’s been quite successful at it, as was my grandfather and, if the stories are true, my great-grandfather.”

“Your family has money?”

“My family has
a lot
of money. My family lives in one of those big houses in Edina. My parents and brother belong to the country club. They own vacation property on Lake Minnetonka and back east in the Hamptons. There’s a hunting lodge in Montana. Please don’t hate me.”

“You can’t help your upbringing,” Mae said, her face completely straight.

“No, but you can rebel against it.” Jill took another, deeper drink of her wine. “I just don’t want to come across as being all ‘oh, the poor little rich girl’ or anything, you know?”

Mae nodded and refilled Jill’s glass. Jill nodded her thanks and continued, “My mother is very active socially. She sits on the board for a major local charity. She manages fundraising events and gives generously to the local arts. She drives her Jaguar to shop at 50
^th
and France. She throws extravagant parties, and she attends all the best social events and
she
is loved by all. My mother is very conscious of her position.”

Mae took a small sip of her own wine. “I see. And she expected her daughter to follow in her footsteps?”

Jill nodded shakily and drank half her glass of wine in one gulp. “Oh, God yes. And anything I took an interest in that might not fit the little round hole I was to slip into was frowned upon. Sports of any kind. Books, music, clothes and friends of the wrong sort. As a rule, curiosity was not rewarded. I was to conform to an ideal.” Jill smiled a nasty, humorless smile. “My mother frowned a lot, at least at home.”

Mae peered at Jill over her glass. “Then you were the rebel child.”

“I had to be. My brother, you see, is the oldest. The boy. The heir to the empire. The one with the penis that will provide more little Halls to carry on the noble bloodline. Nothing but the best for him. The best tutors, the best private school, a spot at Yale waiting after graduation. Robert Coleman Hall the Stinking Third was groomed from conception to play his part.”

Jill held her glass out for a refill.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Mae asked.

“All I have to do is make it up the stairs and fall into bed.”

“As long as you don’t fall on the stairs.”

“Never. Now top me off, sister.”

Mae refilled Jill’s glass and sat back to let Jill finish her tale.

“I, being the girl, was held to a different set of obligations and expectations. My every bit of schooling was geared toward making me the perfect little upper-society trophy wife.” Jill leaned forward conspiratorially. “My sixteenth birthday was the social event of the season.”

“Like a debutante ball?”

“Exactly. Oh, it was technically an event for some charity or other of Mother’s, but everyone knew what it was in reality. It was my mother’s way of saying, ‘Here is my daughter, meticulously groomed to be a model bride and the quintessential rich man’s wife. She will be educated and ready for marriage soon, so you young gentlemen start considering the possibilities.’”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Mae noticed that Jill was starting to slur her words. She was about to suggest that they call it a night when Jill suddenly shifted position, ending up on her knees on the couch, mere inches away from Mae. Some instinct made Mae reach out and take Jill’s not-quite empty glass and set it on the table.

Jill’s eyes lit up as she leaned closer to Mae, so close that they were almost touching. “So you know what I did? I had sex with Mindy Johnson—one of the other potential young trophy wives on display—in the coat closet. Loud, vigorous, ‘everyone for two city blocks can hear it’
sex.
” Jill burst into wild laughter and fell backward. Her voice stilled suddenly.