Fiends

    She climbed in. The air inside was stifling. While Dan walked to the other side; she rolled down the window.

    ‘I’ll have the air-conditioning going in a minute,’ he said as he dropped into the driver’s seat.

    ‘Yeah, right. Mother Nature’s air-conditioning.’

    ‘The best kind. Doesn’t deplete the stratosphere.’

    Marty managed to smile.

    When the car was moving, a warm breeze came in through the window. Marty let her arm hang outside and leaned against the door to feel the air’s calm touch. ‘It’s a beautiful night,’ she said. ‘I love it when it’s hot like this. Makes the night seem so… friendly. Sort of friendly and quiet.’

    ‘And romantic,’ Dan suggested.

    ‘Why don’t we go somewhere?’

    ‘Do you feel up to it?’

    ‘I think so,’ she said.

    ‘Where to. My place?’

    ‘Nah.This is too beautiful a night to be cooped up.’

    ‘Cooped up?’ He put an arm around her shoulders and reached down to her breast. ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that.’

    Marty moaned at the gentle pressure of his hand.

    ‘I hate bras,’ he said.

    ‘They come off.’

    ‘I wish you wouldn’t wear them at all.’

    ‘My parents.’

    ‘I know. Your parents. Christ. You’re twenty-five.’

    ‘Am I?’

    ‘You oughta get a place of your own.’

    ‘So I hear.’

    ‘It isn’t normal.’

    ‘So you keep telling me. And like I keep telling you, I don’t see any reason to move out. I like it there. They like having me. And I don’t see any reason to find a place for myself until I’m ready to start a family of my own,’

    ‘Is that a proposal?’ Dan asked, not sounding especially amused. ‘This is my proposal - let’s go to the lake.’

    ‘Okay, okay.’

    Outside town, the road had no lights but Dan drove fast as if he knew every twist and curve and bump, and he was taking them by instinct.

    ‘The air-conditioning works really good out here,’ Marty said. ‘Open your vent?’ Dan suggested.

    Marty opened it. A warm breeze rushed suddenly up her legs and under her skirt. She kicked off her sandals. The floor mat was gritty under her bare feet.

    ‘Can I ask you something?’ Dan said.

    ‘Anything you want.’

    ‘What was bothering you at the show?’

    The question hit her like a blow to the stomach. She wanted to double over and hold herself.

    ‘You weren’t sick, were you?’

    ‘Not really.’

    ‘You were scared. That’s why you wanted to get out so fast. Something scared the hell out of you. What was it?’

    Marty turned her face away and gazed out of the open window. Her arms felt cold. She rubbed them, trying to get rid of the goosebumps.

    ‘Tell me.’

    ‘I saw this guy.’

    ‘Who?’

    ‘Someone I used to know.’

    ‘You saw him during intermission?’

    ‘He was sitting near the back.’

    ‘An old boyfriend?’

    She shook her head.

    ‘Was he an old boyfriend?’ Dan repeated.

    She looked at him. His eyes were on the road and the rearview mirror. He hadn’t seen her silent answer. ‘No’ she said. ‘Not a boyfriend. I don’t think I want to talk about it, okay?’

    ‘Fine,’ he muttered.

    ‘I’ll tell you sometime,’ she said quietly. ‘But not now, okay?’

    ‘Fine. I just wondered if it might be him in the car that’s following us.’

    Marty groaned. She twisted round and looked out of the rear window. She could see nothing except the curving two-lane road, most of it hidden in shadows cast by the tall forest on both sides. ‘Where?’ she asked.

    ‘About fifty yards back. No headlights.’

    She kept studying the road behind them. And finally she noticed a dark shape against the lighter darkness of the blacktop, moving along like a low, hunching shadow.

3

    Near Gribsby, four hundred miles above North Glen, a young man paced the end of a creaking pier.

    ‘About time, huh?’ he heard.

    He looked toward the shore and saw Tina. She stopped beneath a light, waved, and ran up the pier to meet him. ‘Whew!’ she said. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever get away. Relatives can be such a pain in the butt, you know that?’

    ‘I know that, Brad said. ‘The good Lord willing, we’ll never be relatives.’

    ‘I didn’t mean that.’

    ‘I know.’ He held out his arms. Tina stepped into them and he kissed the tip of her nose.

    ‘Lousy aim,’ she said.

    He kissed her mouth. Her lips were warm and open, dry at first, then slippery. He moved his hands on her back, feeling her ribs through the soft thickness of the old sweatshirt that was far too big for her. The sleeves were cut off. He stroked her bare upper arms and slipped his hands into the sleeve holes and rubbed her shoulders. Tina hugged him more tightly.

    ‘I could stay like this forever,’ she said.

    ‘We wouldn’t get much fishing in.’

    ‘Creep.’

    ‘Ready to go?’

    ‘Nope.’

    ‘Yep.’ He kissed her forehead, then pushed her away. ‘Climb aboard.’ Squatting, he gripped the gunwale and held the boat steady while Tina boarded.

    ‘It’s a beautiful night,’ she said. ‘Get a load of that moon.’

    He watched Tina instead. She stood on the deck with her bare feet apart, her hands on her hips, smiling as she looked from the full moon to the bright path it made on the lake.

    ‘Isn’t it something?’ she said.

    ‘You’re something.’ Brad climbed onto the deck. ‘You look like a pirate.’

    ‘Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.’

    ‘Except for your fanny.’ He patted it.