Silly Girl (4 page)

“Mommy’s calling for dinner,” she said.

“Amanda Dear, always so
full
of life,” he said. “Do give her my best, will you? I think about her a lot, you know? Many of whom you’ve acquainted yourself with as well.”

Again, he mixed dementia with charm when he smiled. “In fact,” Satan said. “I’m supposed to be meeting her for tea in half an hour.” He looked down at his arm, and for some ridiculous reason, a cheap, digital wristwatch adorned his wrist.

The carriage stopped, and Amanda opened the door. It surprised her he was willing to consent.

“You run along now, Amanda Dear,” he said. “I have more fish to fry. We’ll see each other again, I have no doubt. I, too, can be equally patient.”

“I’m sure you can,” she said.

Amanda Dear stepped into the flames. They did not devour and consume her, of course, because she didn’t have flesh. She had a bit of merit here in the afterlife.

Behind her, the pitch black of space consumed the carriage. Satan’s tail, trailing out the window, vanished in the dark.

All she wanted was Wesley.

Wesley, darling? Where art thou? My big, beautiful lion, my protective soldier? Where hast thou gone?

They talked like Old English poets sometimes when they were together. Wesley had started it, like a game. Trying to sound like Shakespeare, she presumed. Wesley had always liked Shakespeare.

Amanda didn’t realize how much security she needed. That was what Wesley provided. She thought it ironic, too, it was what he did for a living.

*

Wesley had been a security guard. They shared an apartment together in Boulder, Colorado. Whenever Amanda thought about Wesley, she was always close, either in his arms or about to be. Why did life with him feel so different? It was as if she had another existence
besides
Amanda Dear. Did she have a twin?

Snowflakes, the size of silver dollars, fell outside the living room window, leaving a white canopy across every rooftop, lawn, tree, and automobile.

Wesley was in the kitchen making cocoa. He’d just come home from work from Detail Oriented, a warehouse specializing in auto design, airplane decal, and other artwork for various forms of transportation. He was still wearing the uniform. Wesley looked like a police officer without the gun.

“Hey, my big polar bear of a man,” Amanda said, smiling at Wesley from the couch. She was wearing the cashmere sweater Wesley had bought her for Christmas three days ago. White cotton panties were visible between her appreciable thighs. She was sitting with her legs up on the coach, feet tucked under her—also—appreciable bottom. “I’ve been a
very
bad girl. I think I need to be punished. If you lock me up, I’ll let you do what you want. Just be rough and savage. It’s the only way I can really get excited. That’s all I ask.”

Wesley took two ceramic, baby blue coffee mugs into the living room. He handed one to Amanda Dear and set the other on the coffee table. He sat on the sofa next to her. His eyes sparkled when he smiled.

“It’s not
that
kind of uniform,” Wesley said. “And I’ll do anything I want anyway. When you’re with me, sweetheart, you play by the only rulebook in the house. Mine.”

Amanda laughed and shook her head. “You get
so
many bad guys,” she played along.
“Wherever
do you put them?”

“I frisk them for devices that might later be useful to
you.
I take them anyway I can get them. I
own
them. I beat and destroy. I make sure they never forget with whom they’re dealing. I’m easy-going as long as you let me. If you cross the lines, though, you’d better understand one thing: I don’t take prisoners.”

“I love a man who knows how to get what he wants,” she said.

Wesley furrowed his brows. “I thought I was the polar bear?” he said, frowning.

“You are a brutally savage polar bear with a big, beautiful badge, and I absolutely
adore
the way you condone authority. You make me quiver. I’m helpless.
Please,
take me!”

“I don’t have any authority,” Wesley said, not playing along.

Amanda Dear was crestfallen. She pushed out her bottom lip and pouted. “But, darling angel? What on earth is your big, beautiful
badge
for?”

All she could muster from Wesley was a crooked grin. Suddenly, however, Wesley seemed to go back in time, looking—it seemed—at something far away. Seriousness came over him even Wesley, Amanda thought, was not aware of.

“Well,” Wesley started, “of course it’s for you. That’s a given. No one gets the privilege of the badge, the access, the information, the assets,
and
the contraband. No one, my sweet, my darling beauty, could gain more, knowing they were emotionally, monogamously crippled by knowing me. But you, my universal splendor, have found a treasure too far hidden for human eyes.” As if this jargon weren’t enough, he reverted to an Old English dialect: “The location, the circumstance of whence thou found me, procured a gateway for you too impeccable, impossible, and wonderful to ignore.

“I can’t say I blame you.”

Amanda’s jaw did everything but fall into her lap. Wesley continued:

“When you came across the bridge in the light of harmony, I knew my isolation had come to an end. For nine-million-years I’ve put up with it now. In the light of obsession, I began to wander. Because of my immortal greed, I lusted over every obsession. Instead, thank God—who is invisible—found you. A miracle. Not a breath elapsed, not a second eclipsed my next wonder. I faded from desolation to purpose in a flash. Nothing in my future meant anything except time spent with you. Whoever you are, whatever you do. I saw meaning. You pulled me from questioning life. You proved to me God has a beautiful face, and He is always smiling. There is a reason to suffer, to be blind. I know that now. The torture was realizing I might never find you. Yet, in truth, I found myself standing on the sun. I became something I never imagined. Possible, quoth I?

“Give me a break! It was perfection, nothing more.”

Amanda laughed at his sudden change. He was talking in one dialect, then moving into another as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Amanda loved it.

Still, however, Wesley pontificated:

“I knew painful isolation was all that was left, some kind of mystical suicide. I understood purpose, but never realized
He was
trusting me with one of His most unmentionable priorities, the thing that meant most to
Him.
If I let Him down or disappointed Him, then only I was to blame. Nothing more. The truth still goes. To this day, I’m still aware of every second—precious to us both—I must turn into months. I have gone lifetimes, Amanda Dear—hundreds, and thousands of years—waiting for you. If the best thing came only every ten-thousand years, why not wait? No matter how many years went by, I knew I was closer to our meeting—when you eventually came across the bridge in the light of harmony. Yes, the time would come. And in that moment—even if it lasted the briefest second—it was enough to keep me living in perfect, celestial freedom as an immortal.”

Wesley grabbed the cocoa, took a sip, and looked at her. He raised his dark eyebrows. The contrast between his blue eyes and the dark hair was hypnotic. “And let’s face it, my sweet, adoring Amanda. We’ve been given a lifetime of seconds, minutes toward the sun. Nothing can put a kink into the perfection we’ve created! The answers to our truths lie in each other. There is nothing left but to conquer that ever powerful, unfolding universe, that timid little runner always trying to get away.”

Wesley paused, shook his head, unable to believe what had spewed from his own mouth. He took a sip of cocoa. “Tell me if that too hot.”

Amanda’s eyes were white with shock. She had never heard anybody talk that way, even in the movies.

Wesley looked at her and smiled. “Sorry,” he said. “Sometimes, I do that. You didn’t want me to get serious, did you?”

It was
her
turn to repay the compliment. She knew just what he deserved.

Amanda Dear looked down at her cocoa, took a sip, and smiled, thinking of her reply. Looking at Wesley, her polar bear, she decided to play his game:

“I see me in you. What more do I want? I’m more unafraid now than ever. You are beauty to me. Light, glimpsing memory, making melody and harmony’s sound. The reason the bridge was created in the first place. You are the definition of all things magical. And you love
me! Me,
that silly little girl who cannot imagine life any other way but with you. Dream! Love for you and love for me in return? Do you have any idea what it means to me to give you
more
than what I have, to reach deep inside me—when I feel I’ve given all I can—only to give you more?”

“It’s for you,” Wesley said.

“Me?”

“Yeah,” Wesley said, catering to her kittenish side. “The badge. It lets
you
know—because I am the one in charge of your destiny—that
you
must submit to everything I say. You’re a little stubborn sometimes, so I have to wear it everyday, so
you,
Amanda Dear, are constantly reminded.”

She giggled. “The way you talk.
You
are in charge of
me!”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“Brutish, authoritative polar bear.”

“One for the apprentice,” Wesley said. “That’s you, the sheepish little girl who must do all the polar bear says.
I
am the polar bear. That’s this cup here,” he said, pointing to his mug. “It signifies my dominance and authority, my unruly position. It
defines
me as the polar bear.”

“And a few other things I could name,” she said, taking a sip of cocoa.

Wesley looked at her for a long time, almost wounded. It was simply part of the act.

“Oh!” she said. “Did I just hurt the big, terrible, polar bear’s feelings?”

“Not a breath of it,” he said. “I still have authority.”

“Ah, you’re just a penniless security guard. You don’t even carry a
gun.”
Amanda leaned back, cradling the mug in both hands.

“I might now,” Wesley said. “After today, I might carry a gun and a
really
big stick. But I won’t use them on the job.
If
you know what I mean.”

Amanda looked at him, surprised and a trifle stimulated. “You wouldn’t!”

“I would,” he said, confidently sipping cocoa.

“Polar bears don’t even know how to
use
guns!”

“This polar bear catches on faster than you give him credit for. He’s one of the smartest polar bears
you’ll
ever run across.”

It was Wesley’s turn to lean back and enjoy the victory. When Amanda didn’t say anything, he turned toward her. “Have I hurt the little polar bear cub?”

Amanda stuck out her bottom lip, pretending to pout.

“When I was talking about the big stick, do you want me to tell you what I
really
meant?” Wesley said.

Amanda’s eyes went wide. Her mouth dropped. “Oh my
goodness!”
she said. “I
like
the way you talk!”

“That’s what the polar bear said.”

Amanda laughed. They put their mugs on the coffee table. In seconds, they were laughing, frisky, rolling around on the floor.

Outside, snow continued to blanket the town of Boulder.

*

If she could find a way to stay with her polar bear, she could endure anything, especially this nightmare of death. Obviously, things weren’t that simple. What the hell was next, she wondered? Redemption was a permanent holiday in the arms of Wesley. Why did she deserve such perfection? And God still had yet to show His putrid face!

The snow was gone, a salacious moment drenched in cocoa, lost in the databanks of memory.

*

Still sailing through the afterlife, another horrifying memory assaulted her:

Her arms were bound, tied together, mummified by a straightjacket. Amanda Dear was a giant knot. A chain connected her to the floor, hooked to the middle of her back. She could only move so far because of the chain.

Her thoughts, however, were enormous. She was too good for them, the people in life, the everyday, average citizen. That’s why she was here. She had visions, plans, and all of them were perfect. She was about to shape the world, build a new revolution. She had grand designs, and, of course, no one understood her.

The medication made her hallucinate. Black beetles the size of skyscrapers moved over stars and space.

For a second, she was back in death. Her dead body in the alley flashed before her eyes. Partially nude, she felt humiliation thinking about it.

The world had
seen
her that way! Good God! What was the point of living?

People,
she thought.
Where was the humanity? What about helping your fellow man—or woman in need? What the hell is
wrong
with people?

For some unexplainable reason, she thought about death while in the asylum, as if given a glimpse into the future of her demise. Maybe that’s why she was here.