Wild in the Field

Simon stealing handfuls and throwing it in the air to catch it.

“And you thought I asked you because of something to do with your sister.” Pete came through with the tickets, and grabbed one armload, but when he caught a stranger looking at them, he used his free hand to motion to her. “Those are her children, not mine.”

“Hey.”

Inside the dark theater, the previews were already running. It wasn’t packed-not on a midweek night-but the comedy cast was big-name popular, especially with teenage boys judging from the bulk of the audience. The boys, without asking or needing permission, charged down to the front row.

“I can’t sit that close to the front,” Pete admitted quietly.

“Neither can I. I can’t see, can’t hear, can’t take the crook in the neck either.”

“So just pick your choice of seat and I’ll follow behind you.”

It was fine, she told herself again. It was embarrassing, how weird she’d become, how nervous she’d been about being in public again. She chose seats up high, where no one was blocking their view. A fat, dripping cola sat between them; their hands were filled with popcorn. Pete’s shoulder brushed hers and she could smell the soap he used, his skin, feel the nearness of him like a voltage charge in her pulse. But it was okay.

She was so sure.

And it was. For ten minutes. Maybe even fifteen.

There was no single moment when that changed. Nothing specific to mark the instant when everything started going wrong. The comedy was the usual-an urban slapstick, a pair of cops without a brain between them, tripping over criminals and apologizing, arresting the innocent, that whole yadda yadda. Almost everyone in the audience got caught in some outright belly laughs. So did she.

Or she thought she was laughing. It was just…she suddenly realized how dark the theater was. Pitch-dark. And one of the movie scenes started out on a quiet suburban street, with rain glistening on trees and making diamonds of the streetlights.

Just like that night.

Exactly like that night when she’d been walking home in her high heels with Robert. Her feet ached and she’d had too much wine but she was still laughing, laughing, high on marriage and Robert and life and her job and herself.

Camille blinked, willing herself to concentrate on the movie, only suddenly the darkness wasn’t friendly but whispering with a thousand menacing shadows. Evil. How could anyone know where it was coming from? She’d seen the three young men walking toward them quite clearly, but it didn’t mean anything. They were on a city street; lots of people walked around at all hours. But that night, of course, it did mean something. She saw a glimpse of ugliness in the one boy’s eyes-she saw, and in that instant realized that she was trapped in a living nightmare. It happened so fast it was all too late, all too late, all too late. Her pulse slammed with panic; her whole body flushed in a cold sweat.

“Cam? Camille, what’s wrong?”

She sensed Pete turning toward her, heard his immediate calming whisper, but the memories were firing at her like machine guns. She summoned the most normal voice she could. “Nothing, Pete. I just need to get up for a minute.”

Actually, she needed to get completely out of there. Now. Yesterday. Sooner than yesterday. She crawled over Pete and bolted toward the stairs. She couldn’t catch her breath, as if all the air were trapped in her lungs. She heard her heart hammering desperately in her ears, tasted the sick nausea of fear, felt a choking sensation in her throat. She tripped, almost fell on the last stair, and then hurtled on, down the aisle, then into the sudden harsh artificial light, down that hall, then through the heavy metal doors and finally out, out, into the fresh night air.

Only then did she realize that Pete was right behind her.

Six

The instant Pete realized she was upset, he took off after her, but it wasn’t that easy to catch up. She charged out of the dark theater so fast that he wasn’t positive which direction she’d gone. The rest rooms were tucked off to the left. The main lobby led to exit doors off to the right. And straight ahead was a long hall leading to other movies being shown and then a back exit.

Pete jogged forward, then spun back. Midshow, the lobbies and halls were library-quiet, so when he heard the crack of a metal door at the end of the far hall, he immediately keeled around, guessing it had to be Cam. He caught a glimpse of red-the shoulder of her red long-sleeved T-shirt-just before the door closed again.

Guilt clogged his throat. Not a little guilt. A whole steam shovelful. Maybe he’d never been the ultrasensitive type of guy, but he wasn’t usually this bad a jerk. How could he have done this to her? What was he thinking?

His palm slapped the back door open-which made his hand hurt like hell, but didn’t assuage the guilt worth beans.

And there she was.

The theater’s back door led to nothing but a parking lot and some scruffy woods. The sun was a red ball, hiding in those leafy trees, dropping fast now. The real world was only a block away-he could hear traffic sounds, even distant voices-but here, there was literally nothing and no one. A chill sneaked behind the evening sunshine, putting a brisk bite in the air.

And Camille had sunk down on the cement curb, arms wrapped around her knees, just kind of rocking herself with her eyes squeezed closed. She never opened her eyes or looked back, yet before he said a single word, she piped up, “Pete, I’m fine. Go back inside with the boys. I’ll come back in. I just needed some air.”

Okay. So Camille had easily guessed that he’d follow her-but he should have easily guessed how the movie was likely to affect her. The kids had pushed for going, said it was a comedy. But he hadn’t asked a single question-or he’d have known it was going to be about cops and city crime.

“Go back in,” she repeated, and motioned him with her hand, sounding aggravated now.

He came closer instead. In a split second-faster than a second-he realized he’d fallen so deep and so hard in love with her that he couldn’t think straight.

Of course he’d realized he was increasingly miserable around her-but not that he was hooked this hard. It was the look of her. That stupid, butchered, chopped off hair-but damn, it framed her face pixie-fashion, made her soft brown eyes look huge. Right now those eyes held an ocean of pain and her skin was whiter than chalk. Her hands were clenched in a clear effort to control their shaking, and her frail shoulders were hunched, making her look more fragile, more beaten-and it killed him. Frustrated him. Enraged him. Too see his Camille this over her head, this whipped by anything.

“You’re having an anxiety attack.”

“Yup. If you’ve never seen one before, don’t get your liver in an uproar. I do this a few times a week. Just to keep in practice. It’ll pass in a minute.”

Her effort to treat it lightly made him sick. He hunkered down on the cement stoop next to her. “This one was brought on by the movie?”

“Who knows. Anything can set one off. I hear a strange sound-even if it’d be an innocuous sound to anybody else-and shazam, just like that, I’m suddenly sweating and acting like a complete idiot. It’s really annoying. Would you just go back inside? Please. It’s embarrassing enough to be such a wuss without having someone else see it. And it’ll pass. In fact, it’ll pass faster if you leave me alone. Other people can’t help. It just takes me a few minutes of concentration to pull myself together.”

He wanted to pull her in his arms so bad he could taste it, but some internal instinct stopped him. He’d pulled her into his arms before. It hadn’t brought them closer together; it seemed to make her even warier. Camille treated concern as if it were a poison she could choke on. Still, he wanted-needed-to understand more of what she was dealing with. “The movie. I didn’t realize. I thought it was just a comedy-”

“I know. Don’t waste guilt on me, Pete. You didn’t do anything wrong. I knew better than to come into town.”

“Well, that sounds pretty unfair. Unless you were planning on staying home forever?”