Some Kind of Magic (9 page)

His uncle ran a gas station, Hank's Gator Stop. SEE THE LIVE ALLIGATOR, a huge painted sign near the road shouted. The alligator was kept in a tank next to the gas station. The tank was so small that the reptile couldn't turn around. Dylan's job was to add fresh water to the tank every day. While Dylan ran the hose over the alligator's spiny back, he would imagine the alligator getting loose and taking out its revenge on Uncle Hank. One day someone turned his uncle in to the Humane Society and some people came and took the alligator away.

“There goes half my income!” Uncle Hank shouted, shaking a fist after the departing truck and gator-filled trailer. He glanced around and saw Dylan standing there.

“What are you smiling about?” He took a swing at him, but Dylan dodged his fist and ran.

Dylan and Olivia were used to new and strange places, but they'd always had their parents for support. Their father's quiet strength had always been there to back them, along with their mother's displays of affection.

There was none of that in the Leary household. After years of emotional abuse, their aunt Doris had turned into a shell of a human, a robot who simply went about her daily chores, ignoring everything that went on around her. Even at a young age, Dylan realized that her withdrawal from the world was the only way she could cope. And yet he couldn't help but resent the way she wouldn't stand up to her husband.

If not for Olivia, Dylan may have killed himself.

Two years after moving to Louisiana, Olivia died. They said it was some exotic disease she’d picked up in Africa, but in Dylan’s twelve-year-old mind he knew sorrow had killed his sister.

With Olivia gone, Dylan’s life had no direction, no purpose. She’d been by his side most of his life. He couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been there.

It didn’t seem possible for hell to get any bleaker, but then Uncle Hank died of a heart attack. Two days after the funeral, Aunt Doris left. She just tossed her bags in the trunk of her car and drove away. Dylan was never sure if she’d left him behind deliberately or not. It was just possible that she’d never known he was there.

This time he was sent to an adoption agency in New Orleans. But it seemed nobody wanted a twelve-year-old with too much history.

Dylan began wandering the streets, playing checkers with some of the old men who hung out in the French Quarter. In New Orleans, he learned to beg for money. In New Orleans, he got dark from the sun and dirty from the streets, until he didn’t look any different from the rest of the street people, although once in a while a pretty woman would comment on the intensity of his eyes.

One day, when the old men got sick of Dylan beating them at every game of checkers, they shooed him away. He wandered down an alley with the usual voodoo shops and whorehouses. A drunk American staggered out of a red door set back off the alley. Young American guys were always coming to New Orleans to get drunk, get tattoos, and screw the whores. He proudly showed Dylan the tattoo he’d just gotten. Even though Dylan was only twelve, even though he hadn’t had much of an education, he knew you didn’t spell Hell’s Angels that way.

But seeing the tattoo gave him an idea. An idea he couldn’t get out of his head. He missed Olivia terribly. But it was getting harder and harder to remember exactly what she looked like, and exactly how she sounded when she talked.

And so he got the idea to play checkers for money. It wasn’t long before he’d made enough money to get a tattoo. Until he had enough money to spell “Olivia Forever.”

Claire sat curled up on the couch in the corner of the loft, her feet tucked under her, a sketchpad across her bent knees, staring blankly at the wall. She hadn't accomplished anything since Dylan had left.

Old doubts plagued her. Were the pictures she'd done so far any good? Good enough to submit? The more she looked at them, the less confident she became. Her drawings weren't bright. Weren't eye-catching. They didn't shout at you.

Too quiet. Too soft. The voices of a million critics came back to haunt her. Maybe they were too real. Too bland.

She'd once had an art teacher who told her she'd never make it unless she changed her style.

But to change ... If she couldn't express herself in her own way, with her own talent, what was the point? Unwittingly, that teacher had helped Claire see the direction she needed to go. From that moment, she became a rebel, clinging desperately and perhaps foolishly to her own style, even if it meant never making it, even if it meant that she might eventually crash and burn. Because she would rather crash and burn than become yet another artist suppressing her talent to mimic someone else.

From outside came the sound of Hallie’s frantic barking, pulling Claire out of yet another daydream.

She noticed that the light in the room had changed, telling her evening was approaching, telling her she’d wasted one more afternoon.

From downstairs came the sound of the front door opening, then closing. A heavy footfall echoed through the house, carrying upstairs to where Claire sat still as a mouse.

Dylan?

“Claire?”

A male voice. One she thought she recognized.

Heart hammering, Claire put her tablet aside and pushed herself up from the soft depth of the couch. “Anton?"

Two weeks ago, she would have been thrilled to hear his voice. Two weeks ago, she would have hurried down the ladder to greet him. Now she hesitated.

What was he doing here? What did he want?

His footsteps moved in her direction. “Claire?"

She hung back.

She stared at the opening in the floor, watching until Anton’s dark head appeared.

“Claire!”

He was tan, very tan, as if he’d recently spent a lot of time on the ocean lounging around on somebody’s yacht. He flashed his white teeth at her and swung himself free of the ladder.

He wore a black leather jacket that he took off and tossed over the back of a chair. He stood there, smiling, waiting for her to throw herself at him.

Two weeks ago, she would have done just that.

“What are you doing here?” she asked instead.

His clothes were expensive. Dark, kind of shiny. His hair had been styled to perfection. He lifted his arms to her, his head tilted in the sweet little boy way she remembered that said, I’m so charming and handsome that you’ll surely forgive anything I’ve done. Glittering from a ring on his pinky finger was what looked like a diamond. A big one.

She saw no reason to be nice. “When you cross over, you really cross over.”

“Claire, I came to see you.”

Had he always sounded so affected? Or was it something he’d picked up recently? “Don’t you mean, you came here so I could see you?” she asked.

He didn’t get it. That was obvious from the puzzled expression on his face. But he’d never been one to linger overlong on something he didn’t understand. He simply moved on. That had been one of the things Claire found fascinating about him—his ability to shrug things off and move on. It was a handy trait.

Looking at him now, she could see that it was just selfishness on his part.

“Come on,” he said, arms still outstretched in that look-at-me pose. “No hug? No kiss?” The new affectations were getting on her nerves. His mannerisms, his way of gesturing and posturing, were enough to make her stomach churn.

“If you’ve come to get your things, then get them and go.”

“Claire, Claire.” He shook his head and smiled, as if to say he wasn’t falling for this aloof game. He moved toward her. “You want me. You know you want me.”

Had he always been such a creep? Had she never seen him for what he really was? No, surely her judgment wasn’t that bad. The old Anton had been cocky, but this person in front of her—he was like a cartoon. A caricature of the old Anton.

“Get out of here or I’ll call the police.”

“You don’t have a phone.” His
savoir-faire
was fading.

“I got one.”

“You hate phones. You would never have a phone.”

He knows me so well.

In a flash, she understood him. Completely. He hadn’t been a master at being the perfect mate. He’d been a master at reading her. And he had fed on her need of him, her adoration of him. Now that he could see she no longer adored him, he was angry. To him, she was the traitor.

“You thought you could come back here anytime and I’d be waiting for you, didn’t you?”

“Don’t play these games, Claire.” He grabbed her by both arms. He pulled her close. “You’ve been waiting for me. I know you. I know how hot you always were for me. That kind of thing doesn’t change. You want me. You’ll always want me. I’ll bet you’ve been lying in bed at night, all hot and horny, thinking about me.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I know what you like. I know everything you like. I know when to go fast, and when to go slow. I know just where to touch you to make you crazy.”

“Get out! Now!” She was outraged at him, at herself for allowing him to intrude upon her life to such a point.

In the months they’d been together, he’d never displayed violence. Now anger flared in his eyes. His fingers dug into her arms. “I didn’t think you had any surprises left in you.” He began shoving her, forcing her backward. “But I had no idea you liked it rough. No idea at all.” He turned her rejection into an open assault, one that demanded his retaliation. Claire knew she should try to placate him, knew she should back off and say the things he wanted to hear, but she had too much self-respect for that. And absolutely no respect left for him.

“Get your hands off me,” she said through gritted teeth. “You son of a bitch.” There was no fear in her, only anger.

What remained of his mask crumbled completely. There wasn’t a remnant of the person Claire had once known.

He took her by surprise, shoving her down to the floor, falling on top of her, holding her with his weight while he struggled with one hand to undo her jeans.

He never could chew gum and walk at the same time. The distraction allowed Claire to bring a hand to his face. She tried to scratch him, but she had no nails. Her pathetic attack only made him madder. He grabbed her hand. Without thought, she bit his arm. He screamed and let go, but before she could put any distance between them, he grabbed her again.

Together, they fell backward, the French easel that had been a gift from her father, slid across the floor, shattering when it hit the wall. Claire reached behind her, her hand coming in contact with the other easel. She pulled it down on top of Anton. He tossed it aside, her pictures flying, tearing. She saw his moving toward her, saw his hand. She ducked, blocking his blow with her forearm.

For a moment, she felt a sense of power. In the middle of the battle, it occurred to her that they were fairly evenly matched. She'd chopped a lot of wood in her day, and he'd spent a lot of time putting his wood to people.

She was actually thinking she had the upper hand when he tackled her, knocking the air from her lungs. With his added weight as momentum, they slid across the floor. She slammed into the wall, banging her head against the windowsill.

“No,” he said, gasping for breath. “I never knew you liked it so wild.”

She opened her eyes to see him kneeling over her, fiddling with his pants. Next to her was the dresser where she'd hidden the gun. She rolled to the side, tugged open the bottom drawer and grabbed the gun, shaking it free of the T-shirt. Without hesitation, she pointed the weapon directly at Anton's shocked face.

“You have no idea how wild,” she said calmly. It took supreme effort to keep her voice smooth. Her side hurt, her head hurt, her whole body hurt, but she didn't want Anton to know it.

He scrambled backward, both hands in the air. “Whoa. Where'd you get that?”

“Out of a box of cereal. Now get the hell out of here. I never want to see your face again.”

“Is that thing loaded?”

“Wanna find out?”

“I don't know why you're so pissed off. It's not like we’ve never done it before. What difference would one more time make?”

“The difference is that this time I don’t want to do it. Now go back to your Sugar Mama.”

He got to his feet and began backing toward the ladder. “You were never anything special, anyway,” he said. “Look at you. You look like a damn bag lady.”

That was uncalled for.

He glanced around the room. “Living here in this place like some nutty hermit. Thinking you could paint. Let me clue you in. You can’t paint, Claire. Nobody wants to buy your crappy little paintings of crappy little grasshoppers and frogs.” He pointed to himself. “I’ve been there. I’ve seen what people like. I’ve seen what they want.” He pointed around the room, from one picture to another. “And nobody wants shit like this hanging on their walls.” He swung around on his black shiny boots. He took a step toward the ladder. On the way, he swept up one of her pictures that had been knocked down in the fracas. He grabbed the ladder, swinging himself onto the rungs, her picture mashed between his palm and the side rail. He climbed down partway, then stopped.

“You wanna know something else?” he said, his head sticking out of the opening. “ You were never anything special, either. Just another lay. You thought we had good sex, but we didn’t. I’ve had a lot better.” He nodded, his mouth curled in contempt. “A lot better.”

He was almost to the front door when she grabbed his jacket and tossed it down the hole after him. “Take your fucking gigolo jacket!”

She heard his angry footfall, heard the soles of his sissy shoes as he made his way back to get his jacket. As a finale, he pulled down the ladder, dropping it on the living room floor.

She listened, finally hearing the sound of a car pulling away, finally hearing it fade into the distance.

That's when she began to shake. The gun slipped from her fingers, clattering to the floor. She put a trembling hand to her mouth.

He hadn't raped her, yet she'd been violated. Emotionally, physically. And worse, he’d attacked her art.

Darkness fell.

He'd left the front door open. She could tell because the cold found its way upstairs, and she could hear Hallie’s nails. Kind of tap-dancing across the floor, the chunks of snow and ice that always clung to the pads of her feet making the sound even more distinct.

Claire knew she should climb through the opening in the floor. The drop wouldn't be bad if she lowered herself as far as she could before letting go. But she felt sick to her stomach. Instead of getting up, she crawled into the space between the couch and the wall. Once there, she cried.