To Sleep Gently (21 page)

"I thought I was staying with you," she said.

"Well, yeah, but I got no place to stay."

"Where have you been staying?"

"Somewhere I'm not staying anymore."

"Then how come I checked out of the Quality Inn?"

"Because it would be wise to stay somewhere different tonight."

"Ah, I get it." She smiled. "This is work related, isn't it?"

"Yes, but it's merely a precaution on my part. Just to keep everything on the safe side."

Sandra sipped her beer, rolled the glass in her hand, studied it with acute intrigue. Then, with her voice deep and husky, downright serious and matter-of-fact, she said, "I'm safe with you, aren't I?"

He took hold of his own beer. "Of course you are."

When he set it down, beyond Sandra, something moved within the lounge and caught his attention. It grew stronger until it dominated him, and when Sandra asked him what was wrong, all he could do was gape at what he saw behind her.

"Jack, what is it? You're freaking me out."

The longest moment of them all, trapping him where he was, pointing at him, then advancing. His toes curled up in his shoes. He stared with mistrust, watched the hips sway, waver with an air of frustration, like a snake whose strike has fallen short. He watched her cross the lounge. And then she was standing at their table. There were sparks in her eyes, and tightly pressed lips on her mouth, which opened just long enough to say, "Sometimes the world is too small, don't you think?"

Grasping for words, finding none, he looked down at the table, and tried to find his reflection, hoping it might offer up some advice. It felt as though he was walking down a dark street, a narrow street, and finally into a dead end. His mind scrambled for something to say. Anything that might prevent disaster; but all that came to him were snippets of random song lyrics, not a single one of which had even the slightest relevance to what was going on.

Carly looked him over, said, "You look like you were ravaged by dogs," then turned to Sandra. "I'm gonna take a guess that you're Sandra," she said.

"Yeah, that's right."

"Hi, I'm Carly." She extended her hand. "We spoke on the phone."

Sandra shook her hand with extreme hesitance, and cut a sudden, fuming glance across the table at Dempster, who felt his stomach constrict.

Now you've done it, he told himself. Here's where everything comes together and then falls apart before your eyes. Here's where everything crumbles.

Sandra, shoulders taut, reached for her drink. She took a contemplative sip, then set it down, and watched the bubbles in it rise. Her lips were as tight as Carly's now.

And Carly, with that calculated smirk on her face, narrowed her eyes at Dempster and said, "You two having fun?"

Dempster squirmed, like he was being called on to answer a question at school when he hadn't studied. He offered a reluctant "Yeah," then gave a nervous shrug, proving himself to be at a loss. He kicked himself and dug deeper, unable to find anything other than some lyrics from Mary Chapin Carpenter, and even they were muddled.

Before he could make a complete fool of himself, Sandra chimed in. "We're having a blast."

"I'm glad to hear it," Carly said.

"We're having such a good time," Sandra went on, "that not thirty seconds before you showed up, we were asking ourselves, 'What's the one thing in the world that could possibly ruin such a perfect night?' And you know what we concluded? We concluded that the only thing would be an insecure redhead who can only survive the world by walking around with a trashy fagade and acting like she owns it." She lifted her beer."

Carly, face as cold as winter, looked at Dempster. "What's her problem?"

"My problem," Sandra said, "is that you've interrupted a very nice, possibly romantic evening I'm having with Jack. Now, if I didn't know who you were, that might be one thing. But you say your name is Carly, and therefore, without any other consideration, you can get out of here and leave us alone."

More than taken aback, Carly narrowed her eyes at Sandra, and said, "I wasn't talking to you."

"I don't care," Sandra said. "You weren't invited over here."

"Well, do you speak for both of you? Are you the one that wears the pants? Doesn't Jack get to speak for himself?"

Both women looked at him. Both women were angry. His toes curled in his shoes again. He drank down the rest of his beer. Then in a voice that sounded vaguely like his own he said, "I'm trying to have a drink with Sandra, Carly." And he left it at that. He waited, looked for the waitress with the lazy eye so he could order another beer. So he could, even for a moment, escape the hell he found himself in. The waitress was nowhere to be seen.

Carly shifted her weight to one leg, placed a hand on her hip, and said, "I like the way you two treat people who come over to say hello."

"Get lost," Sandra said. "Go whore around on some other guy."

"Don't you talk to me that way, you bitch."

Finally, Dempster said, "As much as I love listening to the two of you tear each other new assholes, it's getting late." To Carly he said, "I would tell you that it was nice to see you, but it's not. So run along and have a good night, doing whatever it is you're going to do."

"I'm sorry, Jack."

"Okay."

"It's like I told you: sometimes when you really like someone—"

"You already told him," Sandra said. "Good night."

Without another word Carly spun on her heel and walked away, holding herself so rigid she looked like she might implode.

Dempster turned to Sandra. "Look, uh..."

"I know, shut up."

He hoped the tense silence wouldn't last, but worried that it might.

"This town is too small," he said.

She didn't say anything.

"I'll be glad when we're gone from here."

She lifted her beer and drained it.

He grasped for words, found some, and tested. "It'll be really nice—"

"Do you know how fucking embarrassing that was?" Her tone cut through him like a razor. "You couldn't say a fucking thing? I had to stand up for you? And to Carly of all people?" She shook her head in disgust. "I feel so sick right now, I.I don't know what to do." Absent-mindedly, she scratched the side of her nose. "I can't believe you didn't stand up for us."

He looked at her. It was a deep, burrowing stare as he tried to read her on a deeper level. He tried and tried, and realized he was failing. "I'm sorry," he said. "You didn't give me much choice."

"Oh, well, that makes it not terrible."

"You cut in before I could even speak."

"And what were you going to say?"

Her eyes were cold, her countenance colder.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Now
the waitress showed up. "You two want another round?"

Dempster looked at Sandra, shrugged. "You're wearing the pants right now," he said.

Sandra gave him a look that frightened him. "No," she told the waitress. "Just the check, please." When the waitress went away, with her voice calm and her breathing steady, Sandra said, "I'm sorry. It's just that, well, I just got a slap in the face, that's all."

"Really? Cause I was having a great time."

"Quit the sarcasm. I got a slap in the face because I've just seen that you're human." She looked around for the waitress but didn't seem to see her. "It wasn't fair of me, but I've had you up on a pedestal, and that's the dumbest thing I could ever do."

"I never said I was perfect," he told her.

"No," she said. "You clearly are
not
perfect. You have flaws, maybe a lot of them." She drew a breath and looked into his eyes. "But, with your flaws, I guess you could say that you're your own kind of perfect."

"So you don't hate me?"

Her eyebrows leapt up her forehead. "I'm still pissed, if that's what you're wondering. But no, I don't hate you. How could I hate you?"

"Well," he said, "I can be pretty repelling."

"Frustrating might be a better word," she told him. "You don't repel me at all."

"Really? Wow, I repel myself quite often."

"I know. I can tell."

The waitress brought the check. Sandra insisted on paying it, her argument being that she was the one wearing the pants at the moment.

When the waitress was gone, Dempster reached across the table and took Sandra's hand. "You still want a part of this?"

For a brief time she showed nothing but a cold glare. Then her lips shaped into a smile, and she squeezed his hand. "I still want this," she said. "I like the fact that you're human. It makes you real, rather than a character I've conjured in my fantasies. In spite of how screwed up that was, honestly, I might even like you more."

"I'm glad," he said.

They didn't speak much for the rest of that night.

Chapter Fourteen

"She what?"

"She wants to keep it."

Worry lines etched into every inch of Mike's face. He lipped a cigarette and watched the train tracks as they dwindled and vanished into the distance. Then his lips quivered and his face flushed. Without ever lighting it, he snatched the cigarette from his mouth and flung it onto the tracks, then dropped his arms to the rail and his head into his arms. Jack watched his friend's shoulders and upper back tremble, bounce up and down in uncontrollable little spasms. When he lifted his crumpled face and looked up to the sky, his sleeves were damp.

Jack's knees grew weak. He leaned against the rail as his stomach formed a lump of ice. He peered into the rear train car. No one gave a damn that they were out here.

"What are we going to do?" Mike asked, wiping a stream of tears from his face. He was still looking up at the sky.

Jack looked out to the farmland whipping by them. They had only left the Jefferson Depot about fifteen minutes ago on the AC&J Scenic Line and had about another forty-five minutes until they returned.

He tried to imagine what his parents would say. What their reactions would be. No matter what angle he looked at it from—long shot, close up, or rewriting the script altogether—he couldn't figure it out.

"I guess we'll never really know," Mike said, wiping his face again. "We'll never really know whose it is." Then he looked at him, his face still wrinkled, still red, still running rivers. "We're having a baby."

It was hot outside. Jack could smell the land. The earth. The air. It was bitter and caustic and as much as he hated himself for it, so was he. It took nearly all he had to keep himself from climbing up onto the rail and jumping off the train in hopes of splitting his skull wide open.

"Do you want a baby, Mike?"

Mike's head shook slowly from side to side and his eyes narrowed in disbelief. "Are you serious?"

He'd always hated when people did it to him, but now he found himself answering Mike's question with a question. "Do you think there's something funny about this?"

"No."

"Are you sure? What if I tell you our situation while I do a little dance? Would that make it funny?"

"Cut it out."

Jack steeled himself, drew a breath, then said, "There's only one thing we can do."

"What's that?"

"We can't let her."

"What'd you mean?"

Though it might have seemed like it was for effect when he paused, it wasn't. "We can't let her have that baby."

"What are we supposed to do? Tell her it's a two against one vote? It's her body and she can do whatever she wants with it."

"But there are four lives at stake here. Yours, mine, Shelley's, and a little baby boy or girl that will never know anything other than confusion and misery. That's what we're looking at, Mike. I hate it as much as you do but that's the reality of our situation. No one is doing the kid any favors by bringing it into the world. Not at this time. No way, no how."

"I'm pretty sure I know what you're saying," Mike said, "but tell me in plain English anyway."

"We have to get rid of it," Jack told him. "We have to abort it."

Mike rolled his eyes. His attention once more turned up to the sky. "What are we gonna do? Tell her we won't be friends with her anymore if she decides to go through with this?"

He grabbed Mike by the arm. "Listen, Goddammit. We're not just playing with her life and we're not just playing with an unborn child's. We're playing with our own. If she goes through with this, we got nothing. Nothing, ever again. We've cashed in our chips, and we both know what the rest of life will bring us. Are you prepared for that, Mike? Are you ready to throw away the rest of your life?"

He saw Mike searching his eyes, and the tension in his mouth as his lips pressed together.

Then, "So what do we do?"

"Simple enough," Jack said: "We get her to abort it. Then we're all friends again. We all go about our merry way."

"She wants to keep it. That's what she told you. I've never known any girl to change her mind because of a guy."

"Well, we help her change her mind. Or if we have to, we make her change her mind."

Mike pulled out another cigarette. This time he lighted it, and stared out at the fast-moving tracks whipping out and away from beneath them. The worry lines disappeared and his face became expressionless.

"How do we even know it belongs to one of us? I mean, really? How do we know for sure it isn't someone else's?"

"None of us have been with anyone else. She knows it's ours. We all know it's ours."

The train seemed to tear along with an angrier rhythm now. Mike puffed on his cigarette for a contemplative moment.

"She's too young," he said after a time. "I'm too young."

"We're all too young," Jack told him.

"We've still got two fucking years worth of high school ahead of us," Mike said. "I wanna go to the Rhode Island School of Design." He sneered. "I don't think that'll ever happen. That won't ever happen if she decides to make this decision for all of us." He looked Jack in the eye. His face had gone pale. "I'm not ready to ruin my life yet."

"Then it's settled."

Mike gave him a cigarette and the two of them smoked and watched the Ohio land recede.

Finally Mike flicked his cigarette over the rail, turned to Jack and cleared his throat. "So tell me what your plan is."