Liberty or Death (11 page)

Cathy nodded as if she understood. Probably she thought my husband had done it. My imaginary, abusive one. While we were all relaxed and easy, I wanted to ask her about Paulette Harding, and what Lyle had said, and about Mindy, the waitress who'd abruptly disappeared. But before I could speak, she dropped her towel on the beach. "Last one in is a rotten egg," she said. She grabbed Clyde's hand and headed for the water.

I watched them go, trying not to stare too openly. Clyde in a bathing suit was a sight to behold. He was not so much fat as simply massive. His arms were as big around as most people's legs. His legs were like furry tree trunks ending in huge feet, so wide for their length they looked almost square. He was decorated with tattoos. Instead of a bathing suit, he wore a pair of cut-off jeans. Next to his bulk, Cathy, who was slight, looked like Fay Wray next to King Kong.

I dropped my own stuff and followed more slowly. I was too tired to race, too old to care about being a rotten egg. I walked slowly among the clusters of people, trying not to step on pails or shovels or toy cars or giggling toddlers, stopping once to remove a hard, sticky peach pit from the sole of my foot. People will leave anything in the sand. Out of sight, out of mind.

The first bite of the water was icy but I kept on going, striding forward as it climbed past my knees, up my thighs, and finally, just as it was about to freeze some tender spots, I dove in, immersing myself in a breathless rush. The cool touch of it was so delicious, so exhilarating that I felt somehow cleansed. I surfaced gasping, awash with pure physical joy, and took my bearings. The swimming area was separated from the rest of the lake and protected from the busy boat traffic by a line of buoys. Out by the farthest line, beyond the lifeguard's raft crowded with noisy swimmers, there were no people.

I struck out for that emptiness and began swimming laps. I was working my body but it felt different, good instead of exhausting. It was as if the water somehow flowed right through me, washing away the poisons of worry and fear and weariness, leaving me renewed and refreshed. Alive again. Back and forth from one side-line to the other. Back and forth. Occasionally doing a lap on my back, staring up at the high green hills that rose around the lake, at the hot blue dome of the sky. Out here, away from the crowd on the beach, I felt alone in the world and at peace. I closed my eyes and floated.

Suddenly, someone grabbed my legs and pulled me down under the water, holding me there, dragging me deeper and deeper. Panicked, I gasped, took a mouthful of water, and began to fight. This was a place I had been before. A terrible place. I was not going there again.

 

 

 

Chapter 7

 

I lashed out with my arms and legs, kicking at my assailant, flailing, slashing with my nails at the hands that held me. I was determined to draw blood, to inflict injury, to give as good as I got. If I was going down, so was he. My anger at him for bringing me back to this place I'd tried so hard to leave behind was like an explosion inside me. Just as suddenly as I'd been seized, I was released. I popped to the surface and struck out for shore, moving as fast as my arms and legs would let me, fueled by the surge of adrenaline that poured through me. I was moving so fast I practically walked on water.

My assailant swam after me, calling something, but I didn't care. I was heading for the safety of the beach. As I got to my feet and hurried out of the water, he came after me, yelling, "Hey, wait up. Wait up," like some pesky kid on the playground.

I sure as hell didn't wait up. I made a bee-line for my towel, picked it up, wrapped it around me, and turned to confront him, here where I was safely surrounded by a mob of people.

He came up to me with a grin on his face, saying, "Jeez, take it easy. I didn't mean to scare you. I was just having a little fun." Shameful as it was, I took pleasure in the fact that both of his hands were bleeding and there were cuts on his arms and his cheek.

With his wet hair plastered down, it took me a minute to recognize him. Roy Belcher, the asshole from the restaurant. The man who had been watching on the porch last night. What the hell was he doing here? Here, there, and everywhere. Was he following me or had he just come to the beach for a swim?

"Hey, honey," he said. "Come on. Lighten up. It's not like I was trying to drown you or anything."

When she'd just been scared to death, Honey found it hard to lighten up. "That's exactly what I thought you were trying to do."

Amazingly enough, he was still smiling. Either he was phenomenally stupid or his experiences with women had taught him that loutish behavior was attractive. "Jeez, Dora, you're a real tiger, you know that?" He looked down at his oozing cuts like he was proud of himself, then adjusted the waistband of his trunks, shifting his legs and hips with a little wriggle to settle himself back into place. His jutting belly jiggled. He slicked back his hair, running his hands through it as a woman might and carefully pushing the ends into place, then took a step closer, obviously unaware of my reaction to his little tease, still thinking this was a game for both of us. Part of the mating game, I guessed, from the expression on his face.

I took a step backward and said, in a firm, loud voice, "Don't come any closer." I hoped he couldn't see how badly I was shaking. I try to be brave about water but it hasn't been very long since I nearly drowned, since I was pulled down into a black void and woke up, sick and miserable, on a stretcher being carried to the emergency room. I lead a pretty exciting life for a consultant. In the past few years, I've spent enough time in ERs to consider them my second home. But I don't want a second home, and I've reformed. I don't take chances anymore. I'm not alone on the planet; I share body space with another person, as yet unknown, for whose welfare I'm responsible. I'm on the cusp of a formal commitment that binds my life to someone else's. I wasn't letting this asshole or any other possessive jerk come along and put me at risk.

He came closer. I stepped back. "I mean it," I said. "It's not funny, you know, what you just did. It was mean and it scared me. Now please, go away and leave me alone." Adrenaline surges make me high and wired. When they ebb, they leave me shaken and depleted. I wanted nothing more than to hurry back to my hot, ugly room where I could curl up and cry. If we left now, I'd have just enough time for a good cry before it was time to comb my hair and start serving dinner. But I didn't know where Clyde and Cathy were.

He reached out and grabbed my wrist. "Jeez," he said, "you really are sore at me, aren't you?" I wondered who wrote his dialogue. He sounded like he'd been scripted back in the fifties and was just getting performed now. When I tried to pull away, his hand tightened and he jerked me forward so that I was knocked off balance and stumbled up against him. He put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me tighter, smiling down into my cleavage. His smile was predatory, like a fox trying to charm a bunny. "There. Now that's more like it," he said.

More like nothing I wanted any part of. I tried to step away but he locked his hands together and held me there. "Let me go, Roy," I said.

"Not until you give me a kiss." His grin was loose and stupid and didn't quite square with the vicious meanness of yesterday.

I was in some crazy nightmare, thrown back into a world where the guys still talked and acted like Neanderthals. Back to the era where no didn't mean no. It meant yes, or at least, try harder and maybe you can wear her down and then she'll say yes. I knew I needed to settle down and handle this in a calm and reasonable way, but his joking attempt to drown me had thrown me off balance, my mind so filled with unwanted images from that other time I couldn't seem to pull myself together.

I struggled to get away. "I don't want to kiss you. Just let me go. Please let me go!"

"No." In that one word, yesterday's bully was back.

I was looking down at my feet, at my tightly curled toes digging into the sand, trying to avoid his face, which seemed to be seeking mine, so I didn't see Clyde arrive until he said, "You heard what she said, Roy. Let her go."

"Oh, hell, Clyde," he muttered, "what are you, her fairy godfather? What is this shit, anyway? Every time I make a move, the broad yells for help and you come running. If Cathy weren't standing right there, I'd think you had the hots for her yourself."

Clyde just folded his arms and stood there, dwarfing all of us. "I already told you the other night, Roy. She's used to her husband knockin' her around so maybe she's a little gun-shy and right now, she don't want to be touched. You want her to like you, you can't be acting this way. A woman says no, she means no. What's hard to understand about that?"

Roy dropped his arms and let me go, his breath hissing out like the steam of escaping anger. I stepped back and turned away, trying to hide my face so they wouldn't see my fear and embarrassment. I wasn't used to being bailed out by other people. I liked to take care of myself. Although Clyde was being very kind to me, I hated the whole situation. I felt alien and awkward and not myself. When I worked out, I had a wonderfully quick recovery heart rate. Normally, I was just as quick at recovering my emotional balance. In threatening situations, my mind stayed clear and calm. I didn't get scared, I got mad. But today I couldn't seem to recover my balance.

For the second time that day, I felt Clyde's warm hand on my back. Just a slight and gentle touch as he asked, in a low voice, "Are you all right?"

I was tough as nails. I could wrestle barrels full of bears and vanquish boatloads of fierce pirates. I could handle bad guys and bad gals and bad stuff. I turned around to say that I was all right and promptly dissolved in tears. American's wimpiest spy.

"Jeez, Clyde," Roy whined. "Don't look at me like that. I didn't do anything to her. I barely touched her and look what she did to me." He held out his hands and arms for inspection.

"Serves you right," Cathy said tartly. "You're old enough to know better. You ought to have learned by now that women don't like men who maul them and paw at them and shove them around. You woulda learned long before this, if your momma and daddy hadn't spoiled you so bad. Right, Clyde?" She linked her arm through Clyde's and smiled up at him. Roy made a snorting sound and muttered something rude about women's libbers.

Despite my rattled state, I was aware enough to notice that Clyde's tender attitude toward me had piqued Cathy's interest in him. Sexual politics were such a drag, all that flirting and jealousy and crap. Give me Andre Lemieux any day. Most of the time, he just says what's on his mind, no subterfuge, no game playing, no making me work for information. Give me Andre Lemieux. Please. God. Give me back Andre Lemieux. The man who is proud of me and loves me for being who I am, but doesn't hesitate to tell me to put a sock in it.

Two whole days pouring pie down hundreds of greedy gullets and I hadn't learned a damned thing. No wonder I felt like crying.

"You ready to go?" Clyde asked.

I nodded. "Unless you want to stay longer... I don't want to spoil your afternoon... I could walk back. It's not that far."

"Oh, we've got to be getting back anyway," Cathy said, looked pointedly at her watch. "Getting close to opening time again. We were lucky to get away at all. Summertime." She rolled her eyes. "Folks who live here are too busy to enjoy it."

I bent down and picked up my shorts, uncomfortably aware that Clyde and Roy Belcher were both watching my breasts as I bent. I pulled the shorts on, fastened them quickly, and pulled the T-shirt over my head. Depressed. Disappointed. Most of the restorative work of the swim had been undone again, though why I should expect to feel good about anything when the whole world sucked, I couldn't explain. In the truck on the way back, I wasn't thinking of the summers of my youth. I was thinking about dark, musty underground bunkers. The only way to get through the days was to keep believing he was alive.

I watched Clyde's hands on the wheel and thought about Andre. Andre had strong, capable hands with long, blunt-tipped fingers. Hands that could be so gentle, so erotic, so soothing. If I closed my eyes, I could see his hands a dozen different ways. Carefully, lovingly sanding the cradle he was making. Wrapped around weights. Curling in anger and frustration. Smoothing back the hair that's always straggling into my face. Straightening my arm and putting it through the motions so I'd stop throwing like a girl. I could see him doing that with his daughter. Pain at remembering spread through me. Sorrow closed my throat. I stared out the window so they couldn't see my face.

As I was getting out of the truck, Cathy put a hand on my arm. "Hold on a sec," she said. I held on, wondering what was coming. "About Roy Belcher. You don't seem interested, but just in case you're one of those girls who find outlaws attractive—don't. Roy's bad news. Most people think he's just a dumb-acting good-old-boy. He's not. He can act nice when he wants, but cross him and you'll see. He's got a mean streak goes right straight through him."

I barely had time to change and stuff my hair into a hasty braid, and I was swept back into the evening rush. Natty and the other boy were both there, working on great bowls of tossed salad and arranging fruit plates and plates of cold shrimp and avocado. Huge sagging plastic bags of frozen fried clams and french fries and breaded shrimp and breaded fish sat on the counter beside the stove, while a cauldron of spaghetti sauce bubbled and a vat of boiling water spat hissing streams of water over the side as the spaghetti rolled around inside. A man who looked like he could be Clyde's brother was already dropping hamburger patties onto the grill. Big chunks of swordfish waited on a plate.