Glitter Baby

Tears rolled down Fleur’s cheeks. She pushed them away and stepped backward-jerky and awkward, trying to escape the awful beast clawing at her. “Don’t touch me. Don’t either of you touch me!”

Belinda’s face twisted. “Baby…Let me explain. I had to help you. I had to…Don’t you see? You could have ruined it for us-your career, all our plans, our dreams. You’re a celebrity now. The rules are different for you. Don’t you see that?”

“Shut up!” Fleur cried. “You’re filthy. Both of you.”

“Please, baby…”

Fleur drew back her hand and slapped her mother as hard as she could. Belinda cried out and stumbled backward.

“Fleur!” Jake rushed toward her.

She clenched her teeth and let out the snarl of a feral animal. “Stay away!”

“Listen to me, Fleur.” He reached for her, and she went wild, swinging at him, screaming at him, kicking him, killing him…Oh God, kill him. He tried to catch her arms, but she broke away and ran from the room, down the stairs. Dozens of startled faces stared at her as she raced through the foyer and out the door.

A driving downpour lashed at her. She wished it were ice, hard slivers of ice that would cut her up and slice her into tiny pieces of flesh and bone small enough to be washed away. She pulled up her wet skirt and raced down the curved driveway. The straps of the sandals bit into her feet and the soles slid on the wet blacktop, but she didn’t slow down. She cut across the grass and ran for the gates.

She heard him behind her, calling her name over the rain, and she ran faster. Her hair stuck to her cheeks. He cursed, and the sound of pounding feet grew louder. He caught her by the shoulder and threw her off balance. She tripped on the wet silk, and they fell together, just as they had that very first time in front of the farmhouse.

“Stop it, Flower. Please, stop.” He pulled her to him and held her tight there on the rain-soaked ground. His fingers tangled in her wet hair, and his breathing was rough and uneven. “You can’t go off like this. Let me take you home. Let me explain.”

She’d believed he’d wanted her that night. The little oatmeal string dress and the flesh-colored slip and the shining gold hoops that had swung from her ears…All of it had been chosen by Belinda. Her mother had sent her to him in costume. “Get your hands off me!”

He tightened his grip and turned her so she was facing him. His jacket was soaked and mud-streaked. Rivulets of rainwater ran down the slopes of his face. “Listen to me. What you heard wasn’t the whole story.”

She barred her teeth. “Were you my mother’s lover?”

“No…” He dragged his thumbs over her cheeks. “She came to my room, but I stopped. I didn’t-”

“She wrote that note! She sent me to you so you could make love to me!”

“Yes. But what happened that night was only between you and me.”

“You shit!” She swung at him with her fist. “Don’t try to tell me you took me to bed because you fell in love with me!”

He caught her wrists. “Flower, there are different kinds of love. I care about you. I-”

“Shut up!” She tried to punch him again. “I loved you! I loved you with every part of me, and I don’t want to hear any of your shit. Let me go!”

Slowly his grip eased, and he released her. She stumbled to her feet. Her wet hair hung over her face, and her words came out in little gusts. “If you really want to help me…get Lynn. And then…keep Belinda away from me. For an hour. Keep her away…for an hour.”

“Flower…”

“Do it, you bastard. I deserve that much.”

They stood in the rain, their chests heaving, rain dripping from their hair. He nodded and turned back to the house.

Lynn drove Fleur home without asking questions. She didn’t want to leave her alone, but Fleur insisted she was going right to bed. As soon as Lynn drove off, however, Fleur threw some clothes into her largest suitcase, tore off her ruined dress, and stuffed her legs into jeans. Jake and Belinda had plotted over her, used her…And she’d made it so easy. She wondered if they’d talked about her when they were in bed together. Jake had said it hadn’t gone all the way, but it had gone far enough, and her stomach roiled.

She closed the suitcase, called the airline, and booked herself on the next flight to Paris. Only one more thing to do before she left…

By the time Jake let Belinda go, she was frantic. Her panic swelled when she reached the house and saw that the Porsche was gone. She ran to Fleur’s room and found the bed littered with discarded clothing. The wet Egyptian dress lay on the floor. She picked it up and pressed it to her cheek. Of course Fleur was upset, but she’d be back. She needed a little time to calm down, that was all. Belinda and Fleur were inseparable; everybody knew that. More than mother and daughter. They were best friends.

Belinda noticed the light in the bathroom. With the ruined dress still in her hands, she went over to turn it off.

She spotted the scissors first, gleaming against the white basin, and then she let out a soft, anguished cry. A great mound of wet blond hair littered the floor.

Jake drove aimlessly, trying not to think, but the icy lump wouldn’t dissolve in his chest. The day they’d passed out strength of character, he’d been at the goddamned end of the line. When Fleur had shown up at his door, he should have scared her away like he wanted to. But he hadn’t been able to resist her.

He left the suburbs behind, and soon he was driving through the wet, deserted streets that made up the heart of L.A. He shrugged out of his ruined jacket and drove in his shirtsleeves. She’d been beautiful. Sensuous, exciting…He’d hurt her that first time, but she’d still held on to him, still kept right on trusting him.

The playground was at the end of a street littered with trash and broken dreams. The jungle gym had lost its horizontal bars, and the swing set had no swings. A single floodlight shone over a backboard holding a rusted rim and the fragments of what once had been a net. He parked his car and reached in the back for his basketball. Only a kid would be dumb enough to trust as she did. A kid who hadn’t been knocked around enough by life to smarten up.

But she sure as hell had been knocked around now. He stepped through a muddy pothole on his way across the street to the empty playground. She’d been so knocked around, she’d never be dumb again.

He reached the cracked asphalt and began to dribble the ball. It hit the asphalt, slapped his hand, felt good, like something he understood. He didn’t want to remember her lying in his bathtub encircled by candles. Beautiful, wet, dreamy-eyed. He didn’t want to think about what he’d done to her.

He drove for the basket and slammed the ball home. The rim quivered and his hand stung, but the crowd began to roar. He had to pull out all the stops-show the crowd his stuff-make them scream so loud he couldn’t hear anything else, especially not the taunting voices inside him.

He spun past an opponent and took the ball to center court. He faked to the right, to the left, then came off the dribble for a quick jump shot. The crowd went wild, screaming out for him. Doc! Doc! Doc!

He grabbed the ball and spotted Kareem just ahead waiting for him, a cold killing machine. Kareem, superhuman, the face of his nightmares. Fake him. He started to swing left, but Kareem was a machine who read minds. Quick, before he sees it in your eyes, before he feels it through his pores, before he knows all your darkest secrets. Now.

He wheeled to the right lightning fast, jumped, flew through the air…Man can’t fly, but I can… Past Kareem… into the stratosphere…SLAM!

Doc! They were on their feet. Doc! They screamed.

Kareem looked at him, and they silently acknowledged each other with the perfect respect that passed between legends. Then the moment was gone and they were enemies again.

The ball was alive beneath his fingertips. He thought only of the ball. It was a perfect world. A world where a man could walk like a giant and never feel shame. A world with referees who clearly signaled right and wrong. A world without tender babies and broken hearts.

Jake Koranda. Actor. Playwright. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. He wanted to give it all up and live his fantasy. He wanted to be Julius Erving running down the court on feet with wings, leaping into the clouds, flying higher, farther, freer than any man. Slamming the ball to glory. Yes.

The screams of the crowd faded, and he stood alone in a pool of rusty light exactly at the end of nowhere.