Love and Gravity (4 page)

When they got back in the truck
Jack started it up again and they headed towards the highway on-ramp. He took
out his phone and dialed.

“Hey Frankie, it’s Jack. I’ve got
something for you. I need you to meet me so I can hand over a file and a
witness. How soon can you meet me?”

Margot could hear a thin voice on
the other end of the phone responding, but she couldn’t make out what it was
saying.

“That’s the soonest,” Jack asked?
“Alright, well if anything changes let me know. We’re heading your way in the
meantime. I’ll be in touch. Thanks Frankie.”

Jack hung up the phone.

“Damn,” he said, so quietly Margot
could barely hear him.

 “Frank can’t meet us for two
days. He’s hung up on a trial until then. In the meantime we need to stay
hidden and try to get as far out of Gravity as we can. Pop has pull all around,
but it’s not as strong outside the city. For now, we should keep heading north
and get some miles between us and them.”

“Okay,” Margot managed weakly. She
felt so tired underneath her fear. Her feet hurt from wearing heels and from
running barefoot to the cafe. She thought about the girl she saw in the flop.
That dead girl was so young. They’d been shot at that night, probably by the
same gun that killed the girl. It could just as well have been Margot if Jack
wasn’t there. Now she was looking out the window of the stolen truck, watching
the sun rise above the treetops lining the highway out of the city. She felt
empty and sad.

From the driver’s seat Jack looked
over to see a shrunken, wilted flower beside him in the passenger’s seat.
Margot was sitting in a ball on the tiny seat, hugging her knees to her elbows.
There was a dark line of mascara streaming down her cheek and the heels of her
stocking were torn open. She looked pitiful.

The protective instinct in Jack
swelled with determination. He couldn’t explain why it was so, but he was
willing to die before letting Pop get to Margot. Pop wasn’t going to get this
one from him, not this time.

He powered the tiny truck ahead,
bracing himself for a long day on the road. He planned their next moves as he
drove, silently cursing the two day wait to meet Frankie. Jack saw the sun
rising behind Margot, lighting her tousled blonde hair into a fiery golden
mass. He recalled the dream her frantic call had raised him from and gripped
the wheel tighter as the truck barreled ahead down the road. “Not this time,”
he thought to himself. Not this time.

Chapter 4
-

Sleep overtook Margot like a heavy
ocean wave. It was a thick, dreamless sleep that was finally interrupted hours
later when Jack stopped the truck at the gas station.

After he filled the tank, Jack
went into the tiny store to get some food, water, and aspirin for his arm. It
really wasn’t a bad wound considering, but the throbbing was becoming intense.
The bleeding had stopped a while before.

Margot went to the ladies room to
clean herself up a bit.  When she looked in the mirror she could hardly
recognize herself. She straightened out her hair, removing the clip from it.
She washed the makeup from her face with paper towels and straightened her
dress. She was annoyed at her dress for being so short and form fitting. She
would have to leave her stockings and garter belt on until she could find
something different to wear.

She thought about it for a moment
and took some eyeliner out of her purse. She spent a couple minutes giving herself
cat’s eyes with the eyeliner. She felt better with her eyes like that. She felt
composed and capable.

When she left the bathroom Jack
was back in the truck waiting for her. She started to walk towards the door of
the store and saw a rack with bandanas on it. She saw a blue one and picked it
up, running it through her fingers thoughtfully. She realized then that she
would never see her ratty old apartment again. Her clothes, her dishes, her
furniture. It was all lost to her. Then she realized the most painful thing.
Her paintings!

An incredible sadness filled her
as she realized that those horrible people were going to determine the fate of
her beloved paintings. They would rifle through them, maybe burn them or throw
them out like trash. The same people who did those awful things to those
beautiful, sad, young girls were going to have her paintings. Margot felt a
numbness creeping out of her heart and spreading into her limbs and mind.

She needed to buy the bandana. She
needed something familiar. She took it to the counter and paid for it, putting
it up around her head before she left the store. She realized she must look
ridiculous in her black cocktail dress and torn stockings with a blue bandana
on her head but she could hardly bring herself to care. She walked out to the
truck and got in the passenger’s seat.

Jack was nibbling out of a bag of
peanuts when she climbed in and when he turned to look at her she saw his eyes
glimmer with surprise seeing the bandana. He looked lost for words for a
moment.

“Peanut” he asked, pushing the bag
out towards her?

“No, I’m fine thanks,” said
Margot, who at the moment couldn’t imagine eating ever again.

She smiled politely, and it made
her look vulnerable to Jack. He couldn’t explain why, but he liked the bandana
on her. When he saw her at the bar, she’d had an intimidating beauty about her.
She’d looked womanly beyond her years in that tiny dress that hugged her
curves, with her hair and makeup fashioned so expertly and delicately. But
underneath the bandana, with her makeup largely removed she looked warm and
exposed. The eyeliner she’d left on struck Jack as playful.

He tried to reconcile this current
vision of her to fit the drug possession charge she’d been jailed for years
ago. It didn’t really make sense. Before he met her, when he’d known her only
on paper, he’d had a very different idea of what she must be like. From the
moment he saw her in the bar though, she had surprised him. He found her
intriguing.

“So I think we should keep driving
for a while before getting a room for the evening. We can get something to eat
and get some sleep and take some showers. We can get a change of clothes on the
way, too.”

“That sound good,” Margot said.
“Mind if I put on the radio?”

“Go ahead,” Jack replied as he
drove the truck out of the station and back onto the highway.

Margot turned on the FM radio in
the truck, scanning until she found one playing soul music. Otis Redding’s
sweet, musky voice drew itself achingly from the speakers. It was a song Margot
adored, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”. She rolled down her window and let her
arm hang out of it, letting the warm summer air roll off her fingertips. As the
song played, she looked out the window and saw a sign on the side of the road
that said “Now leaving Gravity City”.

Just two more days. She would
never see this place again. She probably wouldn’t even be Margot Kidman soon.
She noticed how immense it seemed to imagine a whole new life. It was a feeling
familiar to her from her childhood spent following her father from Army post to
Army post.

“I’m ready for this,” she thought
to herself. She breathed deeply and felt herself sink further into her seat.
Jack was going to keep her safe for now, and then she’d be off on a whole new
adventure of her own.

“What about it Lenny, what’s going
on?”

Pop was annoyed. Lenny had shot up
a cafe very publicly and still failed to take eliminate the targets. Even with
the cops in his pocket, Pop would still have to answer for the cafe. Discretion
was a part of their deal. Lenny knew one of the marks was wounded, but couldn’t
say which one or how badly. It was shoddy work. At least he’d finally managed
to shut that street walking trash up. Pop’s patience was thin though. This was
the second time Lenny had to mop up after himself in a week’s time.

“We got a lead from the cops. The
truck they stole was reported missing to the local precinct and we got the
tags. We got a flag from a friendly trooper on the highway up north. I was
going to take one of the boys and go on a little road trip.”

“I want some souvenirs Lenny. I
want proof. And take someone good with you. This is a real cluster fuck and if
I go down you better believe you’re coming down with me.”

Pop spit contemptuously. He wasn’t
going to take anyone’s word for it now. Lenny had too much to prove and Pop
knew better than to trust a man who had something to prove.

“You got it,” Lenny said. Twenty
minutes later he and another one of Pop’s boys were flying down the road
towards the last sighting of the stolen truck.

Chapter 5
-

Hours after stopping at the gas
station, Jack and Margot stopped at a hotel called The White Unicorn. It was a
middle-of-nowhere dive that cost fifty bucks a night for a single room. Jack
told the hotel receptionist that they were a newlywed couple named Sam and Gwen
Kowalski and that they’d had their luggage and IDs stolen on the way back from
their honeymoon. The receptionist said it was unusual for them to rent a room
without proof of ID, but since they were newlyweds he didn't want to make
things more difficult on them. Jack thanked him and put his arm around Margot.

"You just can't imagine how
much my wife and I appreciate this," he said.

They were about 250 miles outside
of Gravity now, but still far from the state lines. Margot was anxious about
stopping, even without giving their real names, but she was too tired to
continue. She felt dirty and hungry and the thought of a warm shower and a bed
had never sounded so fantastic to her.

They had stopped an hour earlier
at a shopping mart to find some clean clothes. Jack had gotten a striped blue
collared shirt to replace his torn, bloody suit jacket. He also got a small
bottle of whiskey and some bandages for his arm. Margot bought a thin, grey long
sleeve shirt, and black leggings. She also got a pair of light tan knitted
knee-high socks a more comfortable cotton bra to wear. They had both gone in
for some toothbrushes and toothpaste.

When they finally walked into the
hotel room, the fire alarm was dangling from the ceiling, cheeping out some
half-hearted beeps. Jack set their bags from the shopping mart down near the
door and walked over to take the battery out.

“Well, it’s not the Ritz,” he
said.

“No, it’s not. But as long as the
shower works I’ll take it,” Margot replied.

The thought of Margot taking a
shower came to Jack unbidden and sent his mind racing through a series of
possible events. He began to flush. He stopped messing with the alarm and set
the battery on the corner table.

"Let's stay away from the
windows this time, eh?" Jack said, closing the blinds as he managed a weak
smile. He walked over to the bed and grabbed a menu off the side table for a
local pizza place. "Why don't you go ahead and take a shower and I'll
order us some pizza."

"That sounds perfect,
thanks," Margot replied.

She grabbed her bags and took them
into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. She leaned against the door,
taking a few deep breaths and centering herself. She could hear Jack on the
phone in the other room, ordering the pizza.

Finally, this long awaited shower
had arrived. She began by unzipping her dress and taking the straps down off
her shoulders. She let the dress slide from her body into a pile around her
feet, then stepped out of her heels, feeling a thousand pounds lighter
immediately. She took the bandana off and shook her head side to side, tousling
her hair. She ran her fingers through it, scratching her scalp with her
fingernails slightly, sending a small shiver down her spine and giving herself goose
bumps.

She looked at herself in the
bathroom mirror in her thin black lace bra that lifted her ample breasts
capably and let the warm pink of her nipples show through. Her nipples were
firm and protruding in the chilly, tiled bathroom. Her hips protruded above a
black lace garter belt, with the straps still attached to her fraying
stockings.

Her pale skin looked luminescent
in the cheap fluorescent lighting. She unhooked her bra and let it fall from
her. Her breasts had small red marks underneath them from the underwire and
Margot massaged them gently with her palms. Her skin felt itchy and numb from
wearing the constraining bra for so long and her palms felt wonderful and
invigorating. She slid her fingers underneath her garter belt, bending over and
sliding it down her thighs, hooking her stockings in her hands and pulling them
down as well. She pulled her stockings off, and was finally naked.

She looked in the mirror again.
She thought of Jack being so close to her while she was naked like this,
separated only by a thin wall. She wondered what he would say if she simply
walked out naked into the other room. She felt seductive and vulnerable to him
at the same time. All this terror and violence, all this disorienting
uncertainty and invigorating newness was making her feel reckless.

Her eyes were wide and alert,
animal-like. Her eyeliner remained drawn on perfectly beneath her wild, haphazard
hair. Her nipples were still hard from the cold and as she thought of revealing
herself to Jack they became even more erect, contrasting exquisitely with the
soft round teardrops of her breasts. Her firm stomach segued magnificently into
the fullness of her hips. Her pubic hair was trimmed and shaved into a thin
strip leading down to her clitoris.