Burn 2 (8 page)

But still –

Her feet were on eggshells.

“Can we sit down?” she asked. She wasn’t usually so polite around her father, but she sensed he was extra testy today. Maybe something happened at the one of the factories. Maybe an employee set him off.

Her father’s features were strained, as if he was trying to compose them into something other than obvious animosity.

“Yes, of course.” He waved a hand. “Sit.”

A palpable frostiness permeated the atmosphere of the room. The dining room itself was charming and rustic – all polished wood on the sideboards and Welsh dressers holding more of Grandmother’s collected ceramics. Dresden dolls rubbed shoulders with Chinese porcelain from one of the ancient dynasties.

Abby sat to her father’
s right, while Ari took the seat next to hers. She could tell that her boyfriend was ill at ease. Hattie came in to serve them blackened fish and red beans with rice. Good hearty Cajun fare.

The meal was strained. For once, her father wasn’t attempting to make conversation. Abby remembered the last time
she brought someone from school home for dinner – her best friend, Leonora. Her father had been all smiles and interesting conversation. They had had crawfish etoufee and gumbo. The meal had been enjoyable and lively, with Leonora laughing all the way as Abby’s father regaled her with tall tales of the swamp.

Not this time, though. Abby wondered if it was because her father sort of
knew
that this was the boy who took her virginity. With Hattie as the predominant female presence in the house, Abby didn’t grow up with a mother’s caring hand, and her father didn’t much like to talk about relationships, including the birds and the bees and stuff.

Ari tried to make conversation.

“I hear you are into sugar, Mr. Holt.”

Her father
grunted.

Hattie’s cooking was usually a marvel to behold, but today, Abby was finding everything tasteless.

“Yes, he is,” she retorted to make up for her father’s rudeness. What was up with him? She couldn’t understand it.

Ari was hurt, and a little of it showed on his pleasant face. She reached down for his hand below the table and squeezed it.
It’s OK, she wanted him to know.

He gave her hand two reassuring squeezes back.
I’m OK.

When dinner was finally over, Abby couldn’t wait to whisk Ari away. She got up from the table, taking up her half-empty plate to the kitchen as good manners bade her do. Ari followed suit.

“Wait,” her father said. “I want to talk to you alone, baby.”

Oh, so now she was ‘baby’.
That endearment came only when her father felt terribly guilty about something.

“Go ahead,” she told Ari. “The kitchen’s that way. If you ask Hattie, she will give you some shoofly pie. Hers is the best I
’ve ever tasted.”

Ari’s face lighted up. He left while flashing her an understanding look.

Hang in there . . . he’s going to talk to you about me.

I know, she wanted to mouth to him silently.

She waited till Ari was out of sight before turning to her father. Her temper was boiling beneath the surface, but she had always been polite to her father, even though she felt like unleashing all her indignation on him now.

“What is it, Dad?” she said, with barely suppressed annoyance. “Why did you treat my friend that way?”

“He’s no friend of yours, Abby.” Her father’s usually amiable face was closed off. “I beg of you . . . stay away from that boy.”

Abby was shocked.

“Why? He didn’t do anything. You didn’t even try to get to know him.”

“Trust me on this,
baby. He’s no good for you. His genes are tainted.”

Tainted?

“How can his genes be tainted?” She whirled on her father. “Do you know something about him that you are not telling me?”

Her father raised his ashen face.
“Are you sleeping with him?”

Her cheeks heated up. “What a question to ask, Dad.”

“Well, are you?”

A choke bubbled up her throat. “I’m not going to tell you even if I was, because it’s none of your business!”

It really wasn’t! She was going to turn eighteen soon, and even if she wasn’t, what she did with her body was none of anyone’s business but her own.

Her father abruptly stood up. His chair
almost fell backward.

“You do this family shame, Abby.”

He strode off, his complexion a mottled color.

She gazed after him, bewildered, wondering what she had done that was so terrible in his eyes.

Little did she know then that she would soon discover the reason in that little log cabin.

Devon curled in bed next to Claire.

He is feeling tawdry and used, although the five hundred dollars is snug in his jeans back pocket.
His cock is spent. He has ripped the condom off and tied its neck to contain his semen. The wet little bag now nestles in the bottom of Claire’s wastebasket.

Claire is asleep. Her small naked body is tucked under the covers, and the rise and fall of her breasts
is rhythmic and steady.

He turns his head to watch her. He wonders if he can make an exit. Technically, he is being paid to spend the night
with her, but he knows he has got to be getting back to Abby.

If Abby is still there, he thinks soberly.

He groans.

I have been so stupid. Stupid.

Abby literally gave you your life back, you stupid hustler, and this is how you repay her – by storming out just because she wasn’t forthcoming to you about some painful things in her life, and because she loved you enough to be jealous of the woman who has bound and left her marks on you.

If the situation had been reversed, he would have probably done the same. If Abby was peddling her body
and she had some sugar daddy john who was beating her black and blue, he would probably be incensed enough to hunt the guy down and shell out a dose of what the guy had been giving her.

He should call her cellphone.
He should apologize before it’s too late. Funny how a bout of unsatisfactory professional sex can make him see the light.

He gingerly gets
off the bed, determined not to wake Claire. His balls wobble as he swings his long legs. He puts his feet onto the ground, careful not to depress the mattress too much. Then he pads in his bare feet to his clothes, thrown in an untidy pile on the floor. His cellphone is in his back pocket, rubbing surfaces with the five hundred tainted dollars.

He retrieves his cellphone
and goes to the adjoined bathroom. He softly closes the door.

Inside, he dials Abby’s number.

Come on, pick up, pick up,
he wills it.

But the phone keeps ringing, and after a w
hile, it goes to voicemail.

Devon frowns. He shoots off a
quick text message:
So sorry I ran out on you. Please forgive me. Coming back soon. Miss you lots.
XXX

He presses ‘SEND’, and then waits.

And waits.

OK, she’s really mad at you. It’s all your fault. What did you expect?

Or maybe she’s asleep. Or maybe she went out and left her phone behind. After all, you don’t expect her to sit around and wait for you to show up, do you now?

Sighing, he goes out of the bathroom. He dresses as silently as possible, still watching Claire as she sleeps.
He knows he has exhausted her with his merciless hammering – the way she likes it. She wanted him to go all Neanderthal on her. ‘To take her the way a woman should be taken,’ as she puts it.

Her sexual appetite was extra voracious, and he can remember her teeth sinking into his shoulder as he
grinded himself into her pussy. He chalked it down to what she said – nothing like the death of someone close to remind you that you had to live your life vigorously.

He glances at the wastebasket once again to make sure his jizz hasn’t spilled out.
Something shiny at the bottom of the bin catches his eye.

He bends down for a closer look.

It is a gold embossed card that says: JJ FLOYD. His used condom with its pale semen lies on top of it like a sad reminder of what he does for a living.

Devon dis
misses the card.

He dresses swiftly and quietly, and lets himself out of the apartment, shutting the door as he does so. He knows the door will auto-lock itself. He certainly doesn’t want any
intruders slipping into Claire’s apartment and taking her apart.

It was three months later after she had first brought Ari back for that disastrous family dinner.
Meanwhile, Ari and Abby had drifted apart. It was one of those things that might or might not have been triggered by her father.

She made the mistake of telling Ari that her father wanted her to stay away from him.

He shook his head. “They’re all the same.”

“What do you mean?”

His dark eyes held hers steadily. “I don’t think you are that naïve, Abby cakes.”

She felt her cheeks burn.
“My father is not like that.”

“Our parents are a lot of things we don’t want them to be. I don’t think you have ever noticed it because you’ve lived in
Cat’s Creek all your life, and there aren’t many Jewish people around – ”

“My father is not anti-Semitic, OK?”

To be honest, she had never registered it. Cat’s Creek was homogenous, more or less, where the population was concerned. White people, black people, Cajuns and those in between. There wasn’t a single Jewish person in the whole town.

Anyhow, the wedge was drawn between her and Ari, like a fault line in between two land masses.
It was as if an unspoken agreement had occurred.

There’s no future in us being together.
We are both too young anyway. We both need to explore. Grow up. Find out who we are and who we want to be.

She was hurt anyway, especially when Ari went off to soccer camp and Leonora told her that he was seeing some hot chick over in Texas.
It was as if she couldn’t let him out of her sight for a moment before his mind started to stray and his body started to wander.

Abby stayed back in Cat’s Creek and spent her summer being miserable and suspicious and lonely. Summer tripped into fall, and she decided to go back to the log cabin
– which she had been avoiding all this while – for closure.

She drove to the cabin.
Upon arrival, she could immediately see that something was amiss. The front door was open, and there was an old, old man standing on the porch, looking out at the bayou. No car was parked on the drive, so she figured that someone had dropped him here.

She was instantly cautious. Old or not, he was a trespasser on her father’s property. Maybe he had come here by mistake, but the open door was an indication of
ill intent. She wished she had a shotgun with her.

Should she investigate or call in reinforcements?

The old man seemed quite frightened as her car approached. His head was completely bald, and his back was bent, even though he might once have been a tall, imposing man. She decided to press ahead.

She got out of the car, never taking her eyes off him. He stood his ground. He was clad in a pair of pants and a long-sleeved shirt.

“Excuse me,” she called, “but this is private property here.”

He didn’t reply. He merely cast his old, unfocused eyes on her. She wondered if he was deaf. He could be somebody’s senile grandfather, who had wandered away on his own as some old people with dementia are wont to do. Deciding he was harmless – more or less – she approached the steps to the porch. He shrank back.

Dementia, she decided.

“Please, I mean you no harm,” she said in a gentler tone.
“Who are you?”

He still did not reply. She noticed the white ring around his iris, the mark of extreme age, and his liver-spotted hands. She was certain that if she got closer, he would smell of that fleshy, withering
scent she had come to associate with old people.

“Do you have a home?” she tried again, holding out her hand. “Who do you live with?”

The old man cleared his throat. “Who are you?”

His voice was surprisingly strong.

“My name is Abby Holt, and this is my father’s property.”

“Holt?
You are Herr Holt’s daughter? Ah . . . he did not mention you.” The old man appraised her. “Fine girl you have grown to be.”

He had a German accent. Of that she was sure. Her grandparents
originally came from Switzerland, and so maybe he knew her grandfather once. Still, everyone knew the Holts around here. This old man was not from Cat’s Creek, that much was certain.