Terror (15 page)

“If you're in some kind of trouble, I want to know about it.”

There was a silent pause as Gaia sat there, mouth agape, trying to process what she'd just heard. She was torn between feeling imposed upon and touched that this strange woman cared enough to try to be a surrogate mother figure.

“Because I'm quite observant, Gaia, and I would prefer to come to conclusions about your life based on what you offer. But if you offer nothing, then, well…”

Suko let this thought hang in the air. What did
that
mean? Was it some sort of threat? Like if she didn't confess, Suko would go snooping around or something? A part of Gaia wanted to rip into Suko, but another part felt an uncanny need to vent. “Well,” Gaia started, slowly, “last night, when I came in late, my boyfriend and I had had a little fight with some street kids, which may have been nothing, but it's gotten me kind of paranoid. And then today I had a fight with my boyfriend, which was basically my fault. After that I went to visit a friend—actually, my ex-boyfriend—at St. Vincent's, and he had also been attacked in a similar way, so it's just added to my paranoia….”
Why am I saying this?
Gaia thought, forcing her lips to press shut.

“Well, I'm sorry, but there's not much I can do about your boyfriend.”

Gee, thanks.

“But as for the other attacks,” Suko said. “Do you get the sense that someone's after you? I mean, that there's some sort of concerted effort to track you down?”

“I'm starting to think—,” Gaia started. But she caught herself and stopped. It was too dangerous to discuss these matters with Suko. She didn't know her well enough, and the intelligence community was too small and incestuous. “No, I don't think so, actually.”

“Well, I'll keep my eyes open. Be careful. And if you need reinforcement, that can be arranged.”

“Okay.” Gaia loved hearing Suko use a vague term
like
reinforcement.
It reminded her of the intelligence-speak her dad and his cohorts were always using.

“Because my job here at Collingwood is to keep the boarders safe,” Suko said, interrupting Gaia's thoughts. “And by that I don't just mean you. Regardless of what your individual needs are, we cannot compromise overall security at your expense.”

“Oh.” So Suko's concern wasn't for Gaia's wellbeing, but for matters of personal liability. For some reason, this basic fact of life made Gaia feel sad.
Dad's gone. Ed's in the hospital Oliver's… Oliver. Jake hates me. There's no one left.
Gaia pressed her lips together to keep her emotions from leaking into her facial expression, but it must have been too late. Because Suko's head was cocked and she looked more sympathetic than Gaia had imagined possible.

“This must be very hard on you,” Suko said.

Gaia made sure she didn't look at Suko. She felt like something stored up inside her was about to come out, and if she caught Suko's eye, it would.

GAIA POPPED A FEW KERNELS OF popcorn into her mouth and took a sip of Coke. Bathing in the blue light
radiating from the television screen, she scooted back to rest her head on the headboard. She was over an hour into this small experiment in desensitization, and so far it had been smooth sailing. Ed had always said it was one of the best scary movies he'd ever seen, that Scorcese was such a genius and all that, and then she'd noticed the movie's title pop up several times when she'd done Web searches on the word
fear.
What better way to get over her fears than sitting through a scary movie, especially considering it was a genre she'd never been able to enjoy before?

And the film was actually succeeding in scaring her. When Robert De Niro, dressed as a woman, murdered some innocent old dude by strangling him with a metal wire, Gaia squirmed so violently, she spilled popcorn on her bedspread, leaving little grease specks everywhere. But there was something kind of fun about it. She now got the sense that since Nick Nolte and his family had been fleeing psycho De Niro for the past ten minutes, unaware that he was hiding beneath their Jeep, some heavy action was coming. The sign they had just passed on the road, which read, How Will You Spend Eternity? was a pretty good indication of imminent death.

Yup,
she thought, nodding.
Here it comes.
Nick Nolte's family was out on their little houseboat. Foreboding music was playing.
Oh, damn. Watch your ass, Nick Nolte! Get off that boat, Juliette Lewis! Don't
you realize that psycho De Niro wants you to be out on that boat? There's nothing but water between you and civilization!
Gaia crammed popcorn into her mouth but was too absorbed in the utter cluelessness of Nick Nolte's family to actually taste it. Did people this stupid actually exist, or were they manufactured by screenwriters in need of a plot device?
Oh, God. Of course it's raining. Of course there's a storm.
This was almost too much to take. A suspicious noise came from somewhere just outside the boat.
Yeah, great idea! Go outside and check on the boat, Nick! Don't worry about psycho De Niro. He's probably not out there. Damn right, you better grab your gun….

To ease her anxiety, Gaia tried to picture the camera crew and the director filming the scene.
It's just a stupid movie, just a bunch of actors on a set.
Was the rain real, or did they have some sort of rainmaking machine? Were they really in Cape Fear, North Carolina, or on some studio set in Hollywood?
Watch out, Nick Nolte, you imbecile!
But it was too late. Psycho De Niro got him with a vicious blow to the head. Gaia winced.
Nice job. Now he's got your gun and you're passed out. Your daughter and your wife are on that boat. You're so screwed.

Gaia tried to imagine Martin Scorcese yelling, “Cut!” De Niro would snap out of psycho mode and tell a joke, and everyone would laugh, especially the camera crew. That was what would happen, because this was just a movie.
Oh, God. Don't do it. He's gonna
rape the wife. I don't think I can take this. No, wait! He's gonna rape the daughter! Oh, no. Don't do it. Where the hell is Nick? I can't handle this….

Without consciously deciding to, Gaia grabbed the remote control and hit stop. The entire room went pitch black, except for a sliver of light leaking through the window shade. This was almost scarier. Gaia looked down at the remote control, suddenly desperate to turn the movie back on just to get some light in the room. But it was too dark to see.

“Unbelievable,” Gaia said aloud. “Now you're afraid of the dark.”

She started punching madly at the remote control. The television came on, just snowy fuzz, but at least there was light. Gaia checked the digital clock beside her bed. Only ten minutes were left in the movie, and she really wanted to see the end. But for some reason, she couldn't bring herself to turn it back on. Jeez, was this ever pathetic. If she couldn't sit through
Cape Fear,
how would she ever desensitize herself to legitimately scary situations in real life? Was she destined to turn into a complete and utter wussy girl, one who ran from every fight and avoided New York parks late at night? What an awful thought

Then it hit her:
Jake.
That was the solution. She could kill two birds with one stone. She had to call him eventually, to apologize for being such a freak today. Why not make it as soon as possible? If he were
sitting here next to her, she would have no trouble watching the end of the movie. That is, if he would actually pick up the phone.

Gaia grabbed the portable phone off her bed stand and dialed. It rang.
Come on, Jake. Don't shut me out.
It rang again and again.
Come on!
Just as she was about to hang up, Jake picked up the phone.

“Yeah,” Jake said.

“Hi,” Gaia said.

“Hey,” Jake said in a cold, beleaguered tone. “You need something?”

Gaia's heart sank into her stomach. Jake never talked to her that way. The possibility that she'd soiled their relationship for good with today's little schizo fest hit her with surprising magnitude. Thank God she'd called him now, before he had a whole night's worth of angry brooding.

“Jake, listen. I need to talk to you. But if you don't mind, I would rather not do it over the phone. What are you doing right now?”

“Chilling out at home.”

“Well, could we meet up somewhere?”

“Right now?” Jake asked.

“I was kind of… hoping so. I rented a movie. Have you ever seen
Cape Fear”

“Only a half-dozen times or so.”

“Oh…,” Gaia said. “Well, we don't have to watch it. I just thought it would be nice to kind of curl up with you and, you know…”

“I don't know. After that scene at Katz's, I'm not sure I'm in the mood to snuggle.”

“Oh, come on,” Gaia pleaded. “I just want to apologize to you, and I think it would be kind of cheap to do it over the phone.”

“But it's not like I can come over there anyway. You've got that whole no-male-visitors clause.”

“So I'll sneak out and come to your place,” Gaia suggested.

“It's kind of late. If you take the subway, you won't get here until almost eleven. My father might not go for that”

“Okay, Jake.” Gaia let out a dramatic, exasperated sigh. “I get the point. If you don't want to see me, you can just say it.”

“It's not that. I swear. It's just that… all right, here's the deal. I'll call a cab. It'll pick you up halfway down your block in fifteen minutes. Got it?”

Gaia's face lit up. “Got it.”

“All right,” Jake said. “See you in about twenty minutes.”

“Can't wait,” Gaia said.

Transfixed

THE DING OF THE ELEVATOR AND the subsequent tap, tap of footsteps lifted Jake's mood.
It was an effect peculiar to Gaia. With past girlfriends, he had been surprisingly persistent in holding grudges. But something about Gaia made him want to put his guard down.

“Hiiiii,” Gaia said as she approached. She was waving a plastic bag, smiling radiantly. “I'm so glad we did this.”

Jake stood there nodding, his lips pressed inscrutably together. Gaia shot him a doe-eyed, you-know-how-sorry-I-am look, but Jake didn't react. He knew better than to reach out and hug her or to echo her enthusiasm just yet. A few moments of awkward silence was a small price to pay for what she'd put him through today.

Gaia stopped in front of Jake and locked her wolfish light blue eyes with his. “Hey, listen. I just want to say up front that I am absolutely sorry for the way I acted today. I was out of line on every count. I have no reason not to trust you, and just because Melanie, the queen of shallow herself, falsely reports that you're flirting with your lab part—”

“So that's who told you,” Jake said. “You should have told me from the beginning. Melanie's been hitting on me ever since I came here.”

“I believe that.” Gaia grabbed Jake's hand and squeezed. “And I believe you. You were right that I should be extra careful from now on. You were right to take Oliver's warnings seriously. And I know that you're not in cahoots with him or anything like that. I don't
trust him as much as I do you, but I think his intentions are good. And I promise to be more careful. I may even start calling you to escort me when I leave my—”

“All right, all right,” Jake said. “That sounds better.” She was saying the right things, but he wasn't used to Gaia acting the least bit subservient like this. As annoying as she had been at Katz's, at least she had stood up for herself with that good old Gaia aggression.

“So I'm forgiven, then?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Jake said with a half smile. “We'll see.”

“Let's go to your room.” Gaia grabbed Jake's hand and pulled him inside. He half expected her to jump him the second they got in the door. But she dropped his hand, plopped down on his bed, and grabbed the remote. “You want to watch the end of
Cape Fear?”
she asked.

Jake shot her a look. “Not particularly.”

Gaia got down on her knees and put her hands in prayer position. “Please?”

He kept expecting her to snap out of this strange mode she was in. As if she was some sort of changeling who would, any minute now, resume being Gaia again. At the same time there was something charming about this updated version. She was more vulnerable. More alluring, in a feminine way. Regardless, Gaia Moore took female behavior to new heights of confusing. Without protest, Jake took a few steps and jumped on his bed. “I guess I could watch it again. The VCR's under the TV. Go ahead.”

Gaia pulled the tape out of her plastic bag. She pushed it in its little slot.

“You mind turning off that light?” Jake asked.

“Of course.” Gaia flipped off the light and jogged over. She nestled up against Jake in a coy, cozy way that didn't quite fit her. The familiar ominous theme of scary movie music started playing. Jake looked down at the profile of Gaia's chiseled face. She looked like a little girl. Her gaze was so transfixed on the screen, she didn't even seem to notice him. Was she aware that she was acting differently? Or was it him? Was it possible that Gaia had always acted this way?

“Oh my God,” Gaia said. She grabbed Jake's arm and pulled him closer. “Oh my God…” She clutched him tightly. Jake looked up at the screen for a second. It was the part where Juliette Lewis lit De Niro on fire. “Yes! Yes!” Gaia yelled out. She looked over and noticed that Jake was looking at her. “What?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing.” Jake shook his head. “Just when you think you know someone…”

“Come on, Jake. I don't care how many times you've seen this. You can't be
that
disinterested.”

“Wanna bet?” Jake asked.