Sliding Past Vertical (19 page)

“It’s not about the drugs,
Em,” she said softly. “It’s not about feeling sorry for him. This is my
responsibility. I flushed the stuff. I owe him the money for it.”

“No, you don’t.” He rubbed
the back of his neck, thinking. “Okay, it’s a technicality. But morally—”

A groan came from the other
room. Emerson and Sarah froze, staring at each other. Then turned as a unit
toward the door.

“If I give him what he wants
he’ll leave me alone,” Sarah whispered.

It hurt remembering how many
times Emerson had heard that before and not just from Sarah. “Sure, that’ll
work for today,” he said. “But the next time? When he shows up again and asks
you to help him out of a jam, are we going to be having this same
conversation?”

Her mouth parted in dull
surprise. As she looked at him her eyes cleared and focused, and she smiled,
ever so slightly. “If he shows up again,” her voice was cool, resolute, “he can
take a flying leap.”

For the first time, Emerson believed
she meant it.

The groan grew louder and was
followed by a clunk, like a boot hitting the floor. Sarah and Emerson rushed
into the living room in time to see Jay rolling his head in pain, various limbs
sprawled off the edges of the sofa.

“Ohhh, shit.” Jay pressed a
hand over the eye that Sarah had clocked. “Man. Wha’ happened?”

“You’ll survive,” Sarah muttered.

Through Jay’s spider fingers
Emerson saw a bruise that would rival the first one.

“Feel like a tank ran me
over.”

Emerson gave Sarah an
admiring glance. “She did.”

Jay lolled his swollen mess
of a head toward Sarah. “Ohh, baby. Never knew you cared.”

Sarah ignored him. “I’ll make
tea,” she told Emerson, and disappeared into the kitchen.

“What’s your name?” Emerson clicked
on the lamp next to the sofa.

Jay winced. “Turn that
fucking thing off. You know my name, man. It’s tattooed on your girlfriend’s
ass.”

Emerson grabbed a handful of
Jay’s shirtfront and yanked, like he’d been grabbed on the stairs. “Just drop
the act and tell me your goddamned name.”

“It’s Jay, you pussy-whipped
porno-writing albino freak.”

He let go. Jay’s head clunked
against the arm of the sofa. “Just seeing how bad off you are.” And if he was
fit to get behind the wheel. He couldn’t handle another death on his
conscience, especially if he could have prevented it.

“Pretty fucking bad.” Rubbing
the back of his head, Jay called to Sarah. “Baby, got anything stiff to put in
that tea?”

The water was running and
Emerson doubted Sarah could hear him. “I don’t think that’s going to help you
any,” he said. “Besides, you shouldn’t be drinking and driving.”

Jay blinked, trying to focus.
“We going somewhere?”

“
We’re
not going anywhere.
You’re
going home. Or God knows what else she’ll do to you.” He held up his bandaged
hand and lowered his voice. “See this? A razor blade. Just this morning, in the
shower.”

For a moment Jay stared at
Emerson’s bandage, gape-mouthed. “Bullshit.”

“I’m serious,” Emerson said.
“It was right after I dumped her. You should have seen the look in her eyes. I
was lucky it was just my finger.” The water stopped. Emerson lowered his voice.
“Anyway, Sarah apologized, but believe me, the last thing she needs is another
guy ticking her off. And let’s see what you’ve racked up so far—you
treated her like dirt, threatened her, slept with her roommate... I really
don’t think you should be pushing your luck.”

* * * * *

Head down, Sarah sagged
against the sink. The water had boiled. There were no more dishes to wash. She’d
run out of excuses for hiding in the kitchen, although it was tempting to dream
up more.

Emerson’s voice drifting in
from the living room was a warm bath of reason, even if she couldn’t hear the
words.

She imagined the two of them:
Jay sneering with wounded male pride, stubbornly certain Sarah would still be
hoarding the imagined cocaine or its cash equivalent almost five months after
it had become one with the Charles River, Emerson appealing to logic and
futility in an attempt to convince him to leave. A little sanctimonious, maybe,
but that was his own way of lashing out.

“I don’t care,” she heard Jay
posture. “I’m not going anywhere without my stuff.”

He nattered on like a broken
record that would skip all night unless Sarah did something. Told him the truth
or offered him money or did...something.

It wasn’t Emerson’s problem. It
was hers. If she stayed in there, Emerson would think she expected him to fix
it for her. If she stayed in there, Jay would never leave.

“Know what I think?” Jay said.
The sofa creaked. The second booted foot clunked to the floor. “I think you’re
full of shit. I think I’m going to have a word with the lady alone.”

Sarah grabbed a dishtowel and
roughly dried her hands as she stormed out. “No,” she said. “I’m going to have
a word with you.”

“Baby—”

“Stop calling me that. I’m
not your baby.”

Sneering, he threw a
dismissive hand toward Emerson. “Well, you’re not his. Porn Boy here probably
uses it all up at his typewriter.”

She glared at Jay. This was
what it came down to: his castigated ego. How pathetic. How small and
desperate. His band was on the verge of signing with a label, or at least
that’s what Dee Dee had written in one of those letters she mostly ignored. His
good looks and charm and talent in bed—when sober—could squeeze
money out of any woman who could spare it. And if that failed him, he could
parlay a few grams into a roll of bills with two or three phone calls.

But that would have been too
easy for him. That would have denied him the chance to stick it to her one last
time. The one who walked away.

None of his women had walked
away, especially to someone else. Especially not Sarah, giver of sympathy and
aspirin. Cleaner of messes. Codependent doormat.

“You didn’t come here for the
coke, did you?” Sarah said.

She didn’t back down on the
tough look he gave her. She knew he could shoot daggers out of his damaged eyes
all he wanted and they weren’t going to hurt her.

Then he grinned like a
charming child caught in a lie. “Well, yeah...sure, but—” The grin
softened. His voice cracked. “Baby...Sarah, look at me.” He let his posture
relax as he held out his hands. “I’m a mess. I’m in trouble. I need help. I
need you.”

She blinked at him. A few
moments before, she would have promised him money. She would have told him what
really happened to the coke and offered to make amends. But Emerson had been
right; it wouldn’t fix anything.

Some debts were more karmic
than material. Some truths did more harm than good.

“I can’t help you,” she said.

The bruised eyes narrowed and
boiled. “Fine!” He grabbed his car keys and was about to pound out the door but
stopped, giving her one last horrible glare. “This is on your head. Whatever
happens to me—it’ll be on your head!”

Chapter 31

Sarah stood in front of her
living room window, peering through held-back curtains. Emerson was at her
shoulder, close enough so she could sense the heat of his body, the smell of
cigarette smoke on his clothing. Together they watched at the edge of a
thickening sky while Jay negotiated a U-turn on Lancaster.

Finally his car pointed in
the right direction. He floored the accelerator in one last “fuck you” as he sped
by. Then he was gone.

Sarah realized she’d been
holding her breath.

From the silence behind her,
maybe Emerson had been doing the same.

She let the curtains slip
from her fingers. But she couldn’t bear to turn around, only to hear Emerson
say he probably should be leaving, with no acknowledgment that anything had
passed between them. Without him for support, she might not have found the
strength to deny Jay the easy way out.

“I bet you could use that tea
now,” Emerson said softly.

“Yeah.” She was still looking
at the curtains and the sliver of window between them, in which she could see a
piece of his reflection: a pattern on a shirt, a lock of pale hair, a slice of
his glasses.

The reflection flickered and
disappeared. “I’ll get it.”

She heard a sharp intake of
breath and turned to see Emerson wincing, a hand on his back.

“Em, what—”

“It’s...just where he slammed
me against the handrail. It’s starting to stiffen up.”

He let her pull up his shirt.
She winced too, just from looking at the huge bruise that started below his rib
cage and disappeared into his jeans. “We’re putting ice on that. Whether you
like it or not.”

The sofa smelled like cheap cologne,
cigarettes, and bad memories, so she offered her bed. He lay on his side atop
the covers. She brought him the tea and an ice pack and sat with him a while.

She fidgeted, picking at her
nails rather than the sweater he’d given her, and she vowed to take it
somewhere on Monday and have the hole repaired. There were many things she could
say. In her mind, they sounded stupid, overly dramatic, or too glib. Finally
she settled on the simplest.

“Thank you for being here.”

His eyes blanked with
surprise and then he smiled. “Just happened to be in the neighborhood. Fighting
crime and rescuing maidens in distress. Although with that right hook I don’t
think you needed my help.” He pulled himself up enough to sip at the tea and
returned the mug to the flowered coaster on her nightstand. He looked around as
if seeing the room for the first time. “By the way. This place isn’t too bad.”

“You could come by,” she said.
“Any time you want. I could cook for you, or we could just hang out...”

He nodded as he lay back and
closed his eyes. But given the afternoon’s adventure, she doubted he’d be too
eager to come back.

A few minutes later, Emerson fell
asleep. Sarah removed his glasses, set them on the nightstand, and watched his
peaceful expression.

Again she sprouted guilty
tears, thinking about Jay’s ambushing him on the stairs.

The least she could do was
make him dinner, but first she had to exorcise her apartment of the remnants of
a certain black-and-blue-eyed rock star.

After putting a bottle of
wine in the refrigerator to chill, Sarah tidied the living room and sprayed air
freshener around the sofa. She’d been worried about what would happen if she
ever had to see Jay again, if she’d be strong enough to send him packing. And
she had, with no regrets, no lingering feelings, just an overwhelming desire to
be rid of anything he might have left behind. She also threw away most of the things
Emerson had brought back, including a broken mug filled with Jay’s cigarette
butts, a cracked callus shaver, and a crushed Rolling Stones tape.

Poor
sad thing
,
she thought, cradling the cassette in her palm.

Em must have forgotten that
it used to be his.

With Jay soon erased from her
living room, Sarah started dinner. She chopped onions, garlic, and green pepper
into a heap on the cutting board and put them aside for later, until she
decided what she would make out of them.

Then she washed her hands and
touched the liquid green silk in the Victoria’s Secret bag. She still couldn’t
believe he’d bought this with her in mind. Finally, after walking away from
them a few times to tend to other tasks, she gave in to the urge to try them
on. Sarah threw off her sweater, turtleneck, and jeans, and let the top and
bottoms float over her in a fluid caress.

She convinced herself Emerson
couldn’t hate her too much, if he’d bought her something so beautiful.

* * * * *

As Sarah fished out her
wineglasses, the doorbell rang. Surprise launched one of the glasses from her
fingers. It crashed against the counter. Swearing, she leaped backward from the
shower of glass but not before the heaviest shard, the jagged base, caught the
fragile fabric of the pajamas and bit her thigh.

Jay’s
back.

A bead of blood oozed through
the tear in the silk.

Jay’s
back.
With friends. With something more dangerous
than a nail file and his menacing looks.

Blood spread into the tender
weave.

Emerson burst out of the
bedroom. “Sarah—what’s going on, are you—”

His hair was a mess; his
shirttails were hanging out. He didn’t seem to know what to look at first: her
in his pajamas, the broken glass, or the blood. He settled on her face. She
must have looked frightened. She could see it in his eyes.

“Someone’s at the door.” Her
voice was almost a whisper.

“Get away from there, you
don’t have shoes on.”

She couldn’t seem to move. He
reached for her hand. “Sarah, honey, come on. You’re bleeding. We have to stop
that.”

The bell rang again. Their
eyes met. “He’ll go away,” Emerson said.

He took her into the bathroom
and made her sit on the toilet cover. The gash stung, even more so when he poked
at it.

“There’s no glass in here,”
he said. “And the cut’s not very deep. It looks worse than it is.”

Another ring. Emerson stood,
with a determined expression and an outthrust jaw. As if he could save her from
Jay and his imagined gang of coked-out toughs.

Sarah shook her head.

He handed her a towel. “Press
this over the cut and keep your foot up against the wall, here. Don’t move.”

She held her breath. As fast
footsteps thumped down the stairs, she began to cry. She’d run out of strength.
Jay was back and she couldn’t deal with him, and because of him she’d ruined
her beautiful pajamas and her last chance with Emerson.

The front door squeaked open
and she heard Rashid’s voice.