Glitter Baby

She stood shivering in the water, the wet bra clinging to her breasts, the flower necklace stuck to her skin. Suddenly she saw it all so clearly that she wondered why she hadn’t understood it before. “This is about macho. That’s all this is. With Sunday Morning Ec1ipse, your writing had become too self- revealing, and then I came along at the same time and all your warning flashers went off. You didn’t stop writing because of me. You stopped because you were afraid to peel off any more layers. You didn’t want everybody to know that the tough guy on the screen-the tough guy you’d had to be while you were growing up-wasn’t anyplace close to the real man.”

“You sound like a shrink.”

Her teeth had begun to chatter, making her words come out in short, broken bursts. “Even when you joke about your screen image, you’re subtly winking your eye. Like you’re saying-‘Hey, everybody, sure it’s just acting, but we all know I’m still one hell of a man.’”

“That’s bull.”

“You started playing the tough guy when you were a kid. If you hadn’t, you’d have gotten swallowed up by those Cleveland streets. But after a while, you started believing that’s who you really were, this man who could handle anything. A man like Bird Dog.” She climbed up the steps, shivering as the air hit her. “Bird Dog’s exactly who you want to be-someone who’s emotionally dead. Who never feels pain. A man who’s safe.”

“You’re full of crap!” The beer bottle slammed down on the table.

Instead of accepting that he wasn’t invulnerable, he was lashing out against the closest target. Her. She gripped the railing, her shoulders hunched against the cold, her chest tight with anguish. “Bird Dog’s not half the man you are. Can’t you see that? Your breakdown is a sign of your humanity, not your weakness.”

“Bullshit!”

Her teeth were chattering so hard she could barely speak. “If you want to heal yourself, go inside and read your own damned book!”

“Fucking unbelievable, you’re so wrong.”

“Read your book and try to feel a little compassion for that poor, brave kid who’d had his nerves burned raw-”

He jumped up from his chair, his face white with fury. “You missed the whole point! You don’t get it! You didn’t see what’s right in front of you. This isn’t about pity!”

“Read your book!” she cried into the cold night. “Read about the kid who didn’t have a single person in the world who gave a damn about him!”

“Why can’t you understand?” he shouted. “This isn’t about pity! This is about disgust!” He kicked away a chair that stood in his path and sent it crashing into the pool. “I want you to feel disgust so you get out of my fucking life!”

He stormed toward the house, and the gates of the couvent slammed shut on her for the thousandth time. He walked away like they all did, leaving her stranded, cold, and alone. She sank down on the concrete, shivering and numb. The old cedars around the house groaned. She grabbed for the orange beach towel and wrapped herself in it. Then she rested her head on her pillow of ruined clothes and drew up into a ball. Finally she let herself cry until she had no tears left.

Jake stood next to the window in the dark living room and looked down on her crumpled at the side of the pool. She was a beautiful, shining creature of light and goodness, and he’d dragged her into hell. Something swift and sharp tore at the backs of his eyelids. He wanted to take on her pain as his own. But he didn’t go to her-wouldn’t let himself go. He’d given her the book. He’d written it just for her so she’d understand why he couldn’t offer her everything he wanted to, everything that exquisite creature deserved, everything he was too weak-too unworthy-to give.

He remembered the night he’d walked in on her when she and Kissy were watching Butch Cassidy. Redford wouldn’t have ended up lying on a cot curled up like a fetus. The Doc wouldn’t have cracked up. And neither would Bird Dog. How could she love a man who’d ended up as he had?

He turned away from the window. He shouldn’t have brought her here, shouldn’t have let her back into his life, shouldn’t love her so goddamned much. If he’d learned anything by now, he’d learned that he wasn’t cut out for love. Love tore down the defenses he needed to get through the day. Because she was so strong herself, she didn’t want to accept that he was weak. The other guys hadn’t cracked up, but he had.

She’d scattered the manuscript pages around the chair where she’d been reading, and in his mind he could see her sitting there, those long legs tucked up under her, that big, beautiful face creased in concentration. He walked over to the chair and knelt down to stack the pages. He was going to build a fire and burn them before he went to bed. They were like live grenades lying around, and he couldn’t sleep until he’d destroyed them, because if anyone but Flower ever found out what was in them, he might as well put a pistol to his head and blow out his brains.

He walked back over to the window. She was quiet now. Maybe she’d fallen asleep. He hoped so.

He returned to the chair where she’d been sitting, and his eyes fell on the top page. He picked it up and studied the layout, the quality of the type, the fact that he’d run the right margin too close to the edge. He took in all those separate, unimportant facts, and then he began to read.

CHAPTER ONE

Everything in ’Nam was booby-trapped. A pack of cigarettes, a lighter, a candy bar wrapper-all those things could blow up in your face. But we didn’t expect anything other than another small, dead body when we saw the baby lying at the side of the road outside Quang Tri. Who could have imagined that anyone would booby-trap the body of a baby? It was the ultimate rape of innocence…

Sometime during the night Jake carried her inside. He bumped her head trying to get her through the guest room door and cursed, but when he laid her down and whispered good night, she heard a horrible tenderness that made her pretend she’d fallen back to sleep.

Emotionally dishonest. That’s what she’d told Kissy about him, and she’d been right. She’d had enough pain in her life, and she was bailing out. Loving a man who batted around her heart like one of his basketballs had grown too awful to bear.

Early the next morning, she found him asleep on one of the couches, his mouth slightly open, his arm dipping into the puddle of manuscript pages scattered on the floor beneath him. She located the key to his Jag and threw everything into her overnight case as quietly as she could. His truck was parked in the garage, so she wasn’t leaving him stranded.

The car started right away. As she slipped it into reverse and backed around in the drive, the morning sun struck her in the eyes. They were still swollen from the night before. She reached into her purse for sunglasses. The driveway was steep and rutted. Jake and his insecurities. He’d made the approach to the house nearly impassable, all so he could guard his precious, stupid privacy.

She started to crawl down the drive. A movement in the rearview mirror caught her attention. It was Jake running toward the car. His shirttail had come undone, his hair stood up on one side of his head, and he looked as if he wanted to murder someone. She couldn’t hear what he was yelling. Probably just as well.

She hit the accelerator, took the next curve too fast, and felt the car bottom out on one of the ruts. She overcompensated by jerking the steering wheel to the right. The Jag swerved. Before she could straighten, the front wheel was hanging over a ditch.

She turned off the ignition and rested her arms on top of the steering wheel, waiting for Jake and his anger, or Jake and his wisecracks, or Jake and whatever other facade he’d decide to throw up between them. Why couldn’t he let her go? Why couldn’t they finally take the easy way out?

The driver’s door swung open, but she didn’t move. His breathing sounded as ragged as hers had on that Fourth of July night six months ago. She pushed the sunglasses higher on her nose.

“You didn’t take your necklace.” His voice was higher-pitched than normal. He cleared his throat. “I want you to have your necklace, Flower.”

The morning glory pendant slipped into her lap. She felt the warmth of the metal from where he’d clutched it in his hand. She stared straight ahead through the windshield. “Thank you.”

“I-I had it made especially for you.” He cleared his throat again. “This guy I know. I did a pencil drawing for him.”

“It’s beautiful.” She spoke politely, as if she’d just received it. Still she wouldn’t look at him.