She suppressed a smile teasing at her lips.
“I might have come anyway but when I saw you at the diner, I thought there might be greater meaning in it.”
“Like what?”
“Like destiny.”
“That’s kind of heavy-handed, don’t you think?”
He paused. “When I come up here, I always find some purpose. There is always a reason I am where I end up. Like fate. And on this mountain it is so much stronger. I feel at home. When I saw you coming up here, I knew I had to come, too. I knew this mountain was telling me something, giving me grand purpose.”
“Which is?” she asked.
“I have always thought you were beautiful. At the bookstore. And when I saw you this morning, there was pain in your eyes. But you were still beautiful. This mountain has given me so much and now it has given me the chance to spend a few hours with you. I’m not trying to be weird or anything; it’s just the way I see it. My purpose today has been to spend time with you.”
It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her and she had no idea how to respond.
TWENTY-NINE
It didn’t take much to be charming. His mother had taught him all he needed to know about it. It boiled down to knowing what you wanted and telling the other person exactly what they needed to hear so you could get whatever it was you were after.
Some nights when his mother came home drunk and maybe stoned or high on some other narcotic, she would launch into long tirades about humanity. This included extended rants against the establishment, which from what the young Victor could gather, meant anyone who made more money than she. But her talks, her seated on the couch, glass overflowing with red wine in hand, inevitably came back to her strategies for success.
Her number one strategy for success? Be charming, of course.
She would wear some low-cut shirt that hugged her breasts, often going braless so while she spoke, Victor would find himself staring at her nipples. Sometimes they would stick out at him like tiny accusatory fingers.
“You can get whatever you want, honey,” she’d say. “You just gotta seduce ‘em. You gotta be charming. Cha
She would rub her legs together and yank at her skirt, which barely reached mid-thigh. If she caught him staring, she’d rub them slower as she spoke and ask him if he wanted to see her special place. Before she would, however, he had to charm her, had to practice the technique and make her proud.
Mercy Higgins said nothing for almost a minute. He had played her well. Been his charming best. Mother would be proud.
Finally, she stared at him like a love-lorn puppy and said, “Thank you.”
“It’s what the universe wants,” he said.
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Like fate, I guess. I was supposed to follow you up here. Supposed to spend time with you.”
“You think everything happens for a reason?”
He smiled. “Maybe.”
Her face darkened. “So, my mother dies of cancer--that’s for some reason?”
He felt like he had taken a wrong turn down a dead end road. “I’m sorry,” he said.
She was shaking her head and apologizing. “I’m sorry. There’s a lot on my mind right now. I didn’t mean to be so antagonistic. I want to believe everything happens for a reason. I guess I just don’t see what the reason could possibly be.”
“You need some guidance,” he said. “You need to find your purpose. What the universe wants you to do.”
“Are you going to help me do that?”
“Maybe. But it’s a solitary path. You will find it on your own.”
“I’m glad you’re so confident.”
He reached toward her, placed a hand on her bony shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. The bone would snap so easily. She glanced at his hand and then stared up into his face with that helpless puppy face again.
“I’m sorry. I get carried away with the whole ‘universe purpose’ thing. I was only trying to help. You have such a pretty smile, you ought to show it more.”
And she did.
“There it is.” He shook his head as if it were the most stunning smile he had ever seen. Her two front teeth overlapped slightly and a thin stain accentuated where they joined. His other hand was clenching the grass at his side, fighting the urge to punch her in the mouth and knock out those teeth.
They stared at each other for several seconds, his hand on her shoulder, and he knew she wanted him to kiss her, just a soft, first kiss that teased the lips more than enveloped them, but he took his hand off her shoulder and sat back, delighted at how her smile wavered. Part of seduction was always keeping the target wanting.
If he wanted, Victor could ravage Mercy right now, here on the grass with the late-afternoon sun shining on them. But there was still a chance her brain would clear and she’d tell him to back off, to take things slow.
He couldn’t go after her yet. The seduction was not complete.
She licked her top lip slowly and he wondered what sound she would make when he tore her tongue out with his fingers.
THIRTY
She was fourteen again. She saw herself sitting on a little footbridge over a small creek behind her house with Dylan Olan. He was almost sixteen, about to get his driver’s license, and had an incredible head of black hair and a smile that she often thought about before falling asleep.
She was wearing shorts that she felt were too short, would have rather been in jeans to cover her pale legs, but she stretched them out before her just the same. Two shadow legs rippled over the creek below. She caught him staring at them and smiled. She had painted her toes yesterday. They were little aqua dots she wiggled back and forth.
Dylan spoke about high school and getting a car and going to parties but she didn’t really hear him. She was only thinking about his lips and how they would feel against her own. He mentioned Megan Booth and how he thought she might be interested in him but even that didn’t diminish her hopes for a kiss. His hands were on the bridge at his sides. She touched the one closest to her, ran her finger across the top in the shape of a heart. He stared at her finger and then looked at her as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“Hi,” she said.
He thought about something. “You’re cute,” he said.
“So are you.” Her heart was racing instantly and her stomach was knotted into a not unpleasant ball.
He nodded to himself and leaned toward her and she closed her eyes and pursed her lips just slightly like she’d practiced in the mirror and waited for what felt like forever for him to get closer and closer until she could smell the light sweat on him and then his lips touched her cheek and withdrew.
“I’ll see you around,” he said and left. Like he’d said goodbye to his sister.
Mercy had cried all night.
Now here she was again, fawning over some boy and desperately hoping for a kiss only to end up with an exchange befitting siblings. She felt like crying, almost did but mentally slapped herself. Be an adult, for Christ’s sake.
“I don’t even really know you,” she said as if she had been the one to deny him.
“What would you like to know?”
“How old are you?”
