The Story of Lansing Lotte (22 page)

“What do you think you’re doing?” I heard the sound of Elliott’s voice yelling in my ear as if I was a deaf person.

“I’m going after her.”

“They’ve called off the search for the night.”

“I’m going out there.”

“You can’t. It’s too dangerous.” Elliott was as tall as me, with a similar build, but his hold on my arm was strong as I tried to shake him off.

“I’m not letting you go,” he growled. “My sister needs you.”

The energy deflated out of me. I yanked my arm away in a final burst before I stopped to stare in the direction of a hidden lake, covered in a dense white fog, making the world seem as if it would disappear within itself.

I didn’t move from my spot in the boathouse, watching as the fog dissipated, retreating back into the nothingness, until a glow of sunlight peeked over the eastern hills and reflected across a clear blue lake. The stillness was peaceful and disturbing at the same time. At some point, a blanket had been placed over my shoulders, but I shook it off in the growing sunlight.  I didn’t deserve warmth and comfort. I wanted to be numb.

It wasn’t that I loved Layne Ascolat. Maybe that was the problem. I hadn’t loved her and she had been a willing lover. She deserved better than me. Yet, she somehow wanted me. After all those years, she still wanted a chance with me, just like I wanted a chance with Guinevere. I wouldn’t allow myself to think of Guinie. I was more convinced than ever, that I had seen Arturo the night before and that was a sign that he was alive. That he would return. I couldn’t think of him. I didn’t deserve that, either.

It was both my guilt and my desire that haunted me. My guilt was in wanting to be with Guinevere and for not following through all those years ago with the promised phone call. I was equally taunted by my desire. My desire to still be with her, and that desire burned strong enough to overshadow my guilt. A guilt I carried because I couldn’t love a perfectly innocent, lovely young woman when I desired another.

“I’m afraid for the worst,” Guinie’s voice spoke softly from beside me. I wasn’t aware she was there, I had been so lost in my thoughts, and her tender voice was almost spooky. She sounded as haunted as I felt. 

“She wasn’t a strong girl, mentally.” Guinie spoke again.

“When she was sixteen, she claimed she was in love with someone. She was obsessed.  She was convinced that she would get him to notice her before he graduated. He was a senior.”

I swallowed the bile rising to my mouth.

“She never told me who it was, but I had my suspicions. It was obvious when he walked into a room. That night…” Guinie paused. I could feel her eyes on me, but I refused to remove my gaze from the lake.

“That night. At the party. When we kissed,” she continued, “Layne was convinced that she’d get him to notice her. She talked herself into being bold enough to approach him.” Guinevere laughed softly, recalling a memory I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to ask the question; I knew the answer to in my head, but Guinie offered.

“She didn’t get the guy. Something happened during that fateful drinking game.” She paused then offered additionally, “She tried to kill herself later that week.”

My head spun in Guinie’s direction.

“What? She told me her sister committed suicide when she was sixteen.”

“Layne didn’t have a sister,” Guinie said, no emotion in her tone as she met my stare.

“Who was the boy?” I whispered, swallowing the lump in my throat.

“Does it matter now?” she added and I knew the truth. I was that boy. While she was making eyes at me, trying to gain my attention, my eyes only had one focus. Guinevere DeGrance.

It was mid-morning when Layne was found. Her body that is. Layne Ascolat was dead.

The search and rescue began as soon as the morning light burned off the fog. The empty canoe wasn’t more than a mile out from the Corbin’s property. There was no sign of struggle on her body, but she did have a gash on her forehead. The initial report didn’t believe the head injury could have caused her death; rather Layne had fallen overboard and drowned. The sheriff broke the news to us and commented that she hadn’t been under for long as the swelling within her body was minimal. His impression, without seeing Layne’s body, was she hit her head some time close to the morning hours and slipped into the water.

The details didn’t matter to me. All I knew was that Layne Ascolat died, while I stood on the shore and watched, figuratively. She went out onto that cold fall water, thinking that she was second best, thinking that she was not important to me, and thinking that her life had no value.

I had placed that low value in her mind.

Once we had the details of Layne’s death, which was being recorded as accidental drowning and not what I felt in my gut was a suicide, I returned to the city for her funeral. I didn’t want to talk to Elaine or Guinevere, or any others who had rallied around the Corbin estate to help search for Layne and stood watch while we waited for her return. Perk tried to follow me at first, but I ignored him. I should have told the guys about seeing Arturo. I had convinced myself that it was a mirage, that I had conjured him up in my frustration with Elaine, my argument with Guinevere, and my disagreement with Layne. Seeing him was my guilty conscience playing tricks on me.

I went through the wake and funeral on auto pilot.  I didn’t respond to those who spoke to me and I didn’t return the many hugs and handshakes offered with any emotion. I was empty.  I took Layne’s death as my responsibility. My anger at her misunderstanding and my lack of being able to explain myself festered in a way that by the fourth day after her death, I was the poster child of passive aggressive. I was outwardly calm while inwardly ready to combust.

I started drinking after the funeral and had the most amazing dream. I was walking along the water’s edge, searching for something, or someone. For a moment, I feared it was Layne in the water, but a vision slowly emerged. She was glowing in shadow, luminescent like a sunny form, and the womanly figure approached me. As she drew near she reached for me and I had the warmest sensation come over my body of comfort, relief, and protection. I felt safe in the arms that wrapped around me. In another moment, I envisioned Lila who pulled back to kiss me. Within minutes we were engulfed in bodily flames of desire. I had never been so hard and it seemed mere seconds before I was buried inside her pulsing heat. Screaming out in an ecstasy I had never known, overwhelmed with a full feeling of being loved, I woke with the hardest of hard-ons.

I wasn’t sure if it was morning or night as I lay face down on my couch, arm dangling down to the floor, and pants so tight they were cutting off my circulation. I had drooled onto the pillow under my head, and my legs were spread at an odd angle, as if I was humping the cushions. I turned with a cramp in my calf to see Lila seated on the floor in front of the couch. The television was on low and she was doing schoolwork on my coffee table.

“Hey,” my groggy sounding voice surprised my own ears.

“Hey,” she said, keeping her eyes on her books.

“What time is it?”

“It’s almost ten o’clock.”

“In the morning?” I yawned.

“At night,” she sighed, continuing to work.

“It’s what, Wednesday?”

“It’s Friday.”

“What?” I said, attempting to sit up, but my head was pounding. I slid down and whacked the back of it on the arm rest of the couch. Muttering an, ‘ow,’ I rubbed the base of my skull and looked up to see Lila watching me. I had a horrible taste in my mouth and there was an odor coming from the couch that I assumed was me. My hand slid to my face and a full jaw of fuzz hit my fingers. It had been days since I shaved. I could still feel my arousal and my hands trailed down to my dick to adjust myself. I closed my eyes in personal disgust, and then reminded myself I deserved it.

Lila didn’t say anything for several minutes, but I could feel the questions rolling off of her small shoulders. My eyes peeked open to find she had returned her gaze to her books, but I doubted she was reading anything as the deep brown looked glazed over. She had a smirk on her face.

“What?” I snapped.

“Nothing,” she bit her lip, trying not to giggle.

“What?” I repeated, attempting to lift my head again.

“That must have been some dream,” she laughed.

My hands had slid into my jeans without thinking and it further emphasized that I had a problem.

“It happens,” I groaned.

“Oh, I know,” she laughed softly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, I know it happens. To you.”

I stared at her and she laughed again.

“You’re a dreamer,” she began. “And a horrible drunk. A few nights ago you came out here wasted. You cornered me in the kitchen against the stove and tried to kiss me.”

I was aghast and I prayed she was lying. I laid my head back and closed my eyes. 

“Did we…did we kiss?” I swallowed.

“No,” she said softly.

I looked over at her and her eyes were cast downward again at her books.

“I hugged you and you started crying.”

I covered my face with my hands.

“What does this have to do with my penis?” I bit, trying to refocus the conversation.

“You were excited as you pressed up against me.”

We were silent for a second.

“I don’t want to speak out of bounds,” she began, clearing her throat. Silence filled the room for several minutes before I replied.

“But?”

“You seem pretty heartbroken over that girl, but I didn’t have the impression you were into her that much.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say, Lila.”

“I know, and I apologize, but I think you could use a shower of truth, as well as a shower.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that. You need a shower.”

“No, the shower of truth?”

“You’re a mess and you need to pull it together.”

“What? What the fuck do you know?”

“I know enough about guilt. You have to let it go.”

“You don’t know fucking shit, Lila.”

“Hey, we don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. I’ll move out if you’d like, but you need to snap out of it, either way.”

I sat up, despite the headache and swung my legs over her to reach the floor. My knees were shaking uncontrollably, and I tried to flatten my feet to prevent the quivers.

“You know nothing about what happened, Lila.”

“I know plenty.”

“Like what?”

“Like she drowned. There was an argument between you and her, and it lead to Layne’s disappearance.”

“How do you know that?”

“I read the Internet,” she snapped.

“Fuck.” I ran my hands over my face and through some very greasy longish hair.

“I killed that girl,” I muttered.

“You didn't kill that girl, Lansing. She killed herself.”

“She did it because of me. You know what, Lila, maybe you should move out. I don’t need this shit, right now.”

Her brown eyes met mine. I could see the hurt from my words. I’d like to say I cared, and deep down I did, but I just couldn’t do this with Lila. Whatever it was, I couldn’t do it with her, at the moment..

“Fine,” she said, as she uncrossed her legs and stood up, bumping her knee under the coffee table and sending her books upward with a jolt. She hastily gathered her things, fumbling her papers and I noticed her hands shaking.

“Lila,” I said, reaching out for her. “I didn’t mean it.”

She moved her arm slightly, not in a flinching way, but enough to let me know I couldn’t touch her. She continued to gather her things and turned without responding to me to head for her room.

I had slept enough, so I showered, shaved, and combed my hair. That action took all my strength and I tried to remember when I last ate. I lay down on my bed, knowing I wouldn’t sleep and thought of Lila’s words. I hadn’t been into Layne all that much, but she still didn’t deserve to die thinking anything negative about herself. It had been my fault that she heard my words, so carelessly spoken, as I argued with Guinie, and again when she heard the confession of Elaine, both about our sleeping together and the baby.