Runaway 1
- 4 years ago
- 23
- 0
I found myself sitting alone with Jill at the hotel bar. Liz and Skye had headed to the restroom and Brian and Dom had accompanied them.
The bar wasn’t designed for a large crowd. It had a small dance area but the music came from a small band instead of a DJ’s personal mix of music. It was quiet enough we could talk without screaming at each other. I liked it.
“Uh, earlier,” I said, “sorry if I brought up something that makes you uncomfortable.”
Jill gave me a smile.
“Jesus, Travis, we’ve dissected every facet of your life for the past few weeks,” she said. “If you want to know something then you deserve to know it.”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “If I walk into something you don’t want to talk about then you tell me to mind my own business. I just ... I like you guys and I want to know you better. But not at the expense of your comfort. OK?”
“Yeah,” Jill said. “You know, we like you, too. I mean, I get a little mouthy but I do think you’re a good guy.”
“You don’t bother me,” I said. “I’ve been around Sarah Costello for years. I can usually figure out when you’re yanking my chain. You’ve only crossed me up a couple of times. I just give you crap and we go on.”
“Yeah,” Jill said again. “That’s pretty cool. You don’t ... you don’t get pissed off. Like at dinner, we couldn’t have had that conversation a month ago. Liz got pissy if someone thought she was wrong about something – even if they had facts and figures to back it up. She’d bring up some odd fact and we’d be done. You just threw different facts back at her.”
“You gotta bring your ‘A’ game if you’re going to talk politics with me,” I said, laughing.
“You are ... a lot better informed than I thought,” Jill admitted. “I ... I underestimated you. I was there when Liz popped up to give you a hug. I thought ... you were cute but probably not too smart. You looked ... vacuous.”
“Whoa,” I said.
“It was just a first impression,” Jill said quickly.
“No, I’m just shocked a bimbo would know such a big word,” I replied. “I’m betting you’ve been called that a lot so you had someone explain it to you.”
“I see why Liz calls you a dick so often,” she said.
“I always knew,” I replied.
“You did look ... a little blank at the convention center,” Jill said.
“I was distracted and I was ... uncomfortable,” I admitted. “I really didn’t expect her to remember me at all. Then she came around to hug me.”
I looked away and thought about that morning.
“I wasn’t prepared for how she looked,” I decided. “I wasn’t ready for how I felt when she hugged me.”
“You had to know what she looked like!” Jill said.
“Not really,” I said with a sigh. “I pretty much avoided anything that mentioned her or showed her. Liz Larimer was not the one from our high school that was supposed to get famous. I was. There was some bitterness, some jealousy.”
“But no longer,” Jill said.
“No,” I said. “Really, I’ve probably been over it for two or three years. It took some time to get over having my career end so ... abruptly. One minute I was a day from heading to Triple-A and the next ... I was done. I kept trying to get better and I hung around longer than I should have. So ... I didn’t acknowledge that I knew Liz or remembered her or anything. Then Susan said she heard one of her songs and ... I decided that I was really happy for her. Then Thompson got shitty with me and ... here we are.”
“Wow!” Jill said. “I didn’t know the backstory, I guess. I didn’t know there was resentment toward her.”
“Not just her,” I corrected. “It was pretty much everybody. I felt like a failure ... like I’d let a lot of people down. I didn’t have many friends at San Diego State. I lived off campus. I was older than most of them. I carried my bitterness over until ... very recently. I think Liz has helped me a lot. I’m not ... afraid ... to be honest. I can admit I’m scared. I can tell my friends and my mother how much they mean to me.
“I’ve always been standoffish around others. I don’t mean just strangers. I’ve been that way with people I’ve known well. I always kept them on the periphery. I intended to do that with her. I figured I’d drive her around while she talked to my mom about people she remembered and then...”
“No,” Jill cut in. “I already knew at the station that you were going to at least get to know her ... intimately. I didn’t figure it would be so soon but I could see that she had plans to ... find a way to get closer to you. I’m with her pretty much all the time. I’ve seen pro athletes and actors and men with a zillion dollars put the moves on her but she had always just ... brushed them off. She was never rude but she made it clear that their attention wasn’t reciprocated. Then you popped up. She was totally after you. I wasn’t surprised when she told us that she wanted to stay with you for a few days. I ... I guess I didn’t understand that you were the reluctant one. Shit, most guys would dump their wife on their wedding day to spend an afternoon licking the soles of her feet. You just...”
“It took me a bit of time to understand where she was going,” I admitted. “I was ... I was going to hit on you, actually.”
“Good thing you didn’t,” Jill said.
“Yeah, that would have been awkward,” I said.
“Shit,” Jill said, stretching the word out to five seconds. “I would have totally rocked you and ruined you for other women. I’m a wildcat in the sack!”
“You won’t even let a guy donkey punch you,” I countered. “Total tease!”
Jill laughed and pointed her finger at me. Her face changed and she glanced around me.
“Speaking of teases,” she said, “that skanky Skye is dancing with my man!”
“Skanky Skye, Luscious Liz and ... Juicy Jill?” I asked with a laugh.
Jill fished an ice cube out of her drink and tossed it at me. I caught it.
“Come on,” I said, extending a hand to her. “It looks like Dom is making a play for my woman! I’m not up for any swapping.”
“Me either,” Jill said as she took my hand. I waited until we were almost to the dance floor to slip the ice cube down the back of her shirt.
Jill jumped and then smacked me on my stomach.
“You fucking dick!” she said though her laughter.
“I was going to go for the shorts but they are way too tight,” I said.
We danced with our strange partners until a slow song came on. Then we switched to the person we’d go to sleep with later. Liz put her arms around my neck and I put my hands on her hips.
“Flirting with my friends,” she said, winking at me.
“Typical boy,” I said, winking at her.
Liz laughed and gave me a short kiss.
“Give me a minute,” she said when the song ended. The band was taking a break.
“Sure,” I told her. There were only a couple of dozen of people in the bar, the weather having kept the clientele to the people in the hotel that only had to come downstairs.
She caught up to the guitar player and talked to him for a minute. I didn’t know what she said but he was nodding eagerly. A second later, he handed his guitar to Liz. She shook her head and handed it back. He disappeared and came back with a second guitar. A moment later, she stepped up on the stage with the band.
“I just finished a song last week and I want to try it out if nobody minds,” she announced.
Pretty much everyone had turned to the stage when her voice came over the speakers – including all of us. We were close enough to get next to the stage. Almost everybody – famous and unknown alike – moved forward, too.
“OK, the music might be a little rough,” Liz said. “We’re just going to wing it.”
She played a couple of chords on the borrowed guitar and nodded. Then she started a guitar intro. The men behind her picked up on the key and the tempo and just sort of joined in as Liz nodded in appreciation.
“She saw a picture of us together, our honeymoon in sunny weather,” she sang. “She couldn’t help but sigh. You looked so refined in your black tie from your flip-flops and the tie dyes. It seemed like a different guy.
“She got the high school bleachers; I get the white doves and the preacher. She got picnics in the sand; I get the kids and the minivan. She left the boy he was; I love the man he is.”
“Wow,” Skye muttered, glancing over at me.
“Two guesses who this one is about,” Jill offered.
“No takers,” Brian answered.
“Deb Sutton,” I said.
They turned to look at me.
“She wrote most of this when she was 14 years old,” I confided.
“No shit,” Dom mumbled as he shook his head. We stopped the conversation and just listened. Liz was correct: The music was rough. At least they were smart enough to know they were just the sidelight to the vocalist. The drummer set a soft beat and didn’t launching into a stick-tossing solo act. The pianist just stayed with major chords that didn’t clash with the singer. The second guitarist seemed happy to be relegated to bass. He watched Liz’s fingers (which was a shame because her butt looked really sweet in her pink shorts) and shifted when she did. But it was evident that the quartet hadn’t performed together before.
Still, the lyrics were pretty haunting.
“‘She got the hothead with the farmer’s tan; I get the calm and steady hand. She left the boy he was; I love the man he is. She left the boy; I love the man, ‘“ she finished.
By the end, Liz had shifted until she was looking right at me. I gave her a golf clap and she smiled as the last chord still hung in the air.
After that, it got a little loud when the rest of the room started to applaud and cheer.
I think some of them thought they were going to get a free Liz Larimer concert but it wasn’t to be. She gave hugs to the three makeshift backup musicians and then came off the stage to a new set of hugs.
“God damn, Girl!” Jill said. “That’s Number One for sure!”
“I’m not going to cut it,” Liz said. “It’s a little too personal, I think. I sent it to Chelsea Rome to see if she wanted to do it. I heard she was looking for something slow to finish up her album. She’s a sweetie and I thought she’d do it justice.”
“Damn,” Skye echoed. “I ... I’m not sure I could do that. It’s like writing my thesis on my family and then letting someone else publish it under her name. Did you really write that when you were a teenager?”
“He told you?” Liz asked, looking at me. The answer had to be obvious because she and I were probably the only two that had known before she started to sing.
“I didn’t know it was a secret,” I said.
“No, it isn’t,” Liz said. “I just don’t want them to think I was an obsessive teenager. I mean, I totally was an obsessive teenager but I don’t want them thinking it.”
Our laughter was interrupted by a host of well-wishers that had heard the song (and either liked it or were really good liars).
The last was a young Hispanic girl that I’d seen handing out drinks to the customers. She barely spoke English so I translated for her.
“She recorded it and wants to know if she can post it to Facebook,” I explained.
“If you want to,” Liz said. “If you give me your screen name, I’ll send you a friend invite and then link to your page.”
The kid’s face lit up like it was Christmas. I took down the information and Liz pulled out her phone. The waitress walked around to the rest of the staff showing the friend invitation before accepting it.
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"You move pretty fast for being so small," the woman said. "I almost caught up with you in Boise." I didn't say anything, even though I had a lot of questions. It was like I couldn't settle on just one to ask, so I didn't ask any. Or maybe I was afraid of the answers. I had been running fast, very fast and even if this woman hadn't been dead, which I was pretty sure she had been, she shouldn't ever have been able to find me. Not by herself, not without help. We got back to the...
The sunlight hurt my eyes, even the very little escaping from the drawn curtains. Just a slender fissure and I turned weakly away from it. I felt tired and empty inside, not so much hungry as just ... empty. My skin was cold and clammy and the light seemed to crawl across my flesh. I trembled and wondered if this wasn't DT, the withdrawl eating away at my brain. I hadn't fixed since I'd seen Vin and I had no idea how long ago that had been. I didn't think I was really addicted to the...
We actually drove through what there was of the town of Newrock, and pulled onto a dirt road that was even worse than the one we'd been traveling. After a mile or two there was a big silver, double wide trailer ahead of us, and Angela parked next to an old pickup truck. There were no lights and if anyone was there, apparently they hadn't been woken up by our arrival. I got out of the car, following Angela as she walked to the mobile home, which had a small wooden porch up a few short...
She was weak now, but still alive four days later. I mean Audrey, of course, who'd become something of a pet to me. We'd brought her home, to our house in Klamath Falls. It was really Angela's place, but she'd made it mine as well. We were mated now, there really was nothing of mine that wasn't Angela's as well, and so the opposite was also true. And I'd been changing. Every hour, every minute, I was becoming something else. There were obvious things, like the way I talked, the way I...
I dreamt. Everyday, sleeping in the cool dark with Angela to hold me, I was dead. And yet I dreamed. And that my dreams were bad I had little doubt, but I could never remember them. They were small snippets and fragments, all jumbled together in one confused memory. And even that much was quickly forgotten as well. But just knowing that I had them troubled me greatly. I thought there must be some meaning there, as Angela had divined me from her own dreams. She'd sought and found me, guided...
I was asleep, and I knew that because my parents were still alive. We were in the car with the darkness all around, as if we'd entered a long tunnel and we had to drive through it. I didn't want to, but in my dream I didn't seem to care as I sat in the backseat, buckled up tight and holding Edgar. I smiled in my sleep I think, because I'd forgotten him completely. Edgar the Bear, soft and stuffed and in my arms. What a nice dream, except for my shoulder. It hurt and when I looked down at...
"There's someone here," I said. "I know," Angela replied from her bath as I entered the small room. I'd been resting, just being lazy really, and talking with Natalie in her bed. "Who is it?" I asked, frowning a little. My power to sense other vampires was growing, but still weak. I had no real idea how near or far this other one was, or what the creature's purpose might be. I didn't believe in coincidence though; this other vampire, whoever it was, would have come to Sacramento...
David finished the first term of Year 10 before he left Australia but the US schools start in August not February. The different start dates and the time he missed has David unsure about what level to start at in the Window Rock High School, so he arranges to be tested by the local school board. In some subjects he tests well enough to be a Junior, what they call Year 11 in the US, and in others he tests out as a Sophomore, the Year 10 equivalent. So he registers as a Sophomore, but in the...
David waits until the Walkers leave the area before he starts to ask around about someone he can talk to in law enforcement in Texas. He’s very careful about who he asks and how he asks them because of his concerns about what he suspects from the records he’s read. On a Tuesday evening in mid December Jerry Fasthorse, the police officer who lives down the street, drops in to talk to David. He says, “I found a contact for you. To talk to them we have to attend a meeting near Albuquerque on...
In the November before his high school graduation David speaks with the trustee of his US based trust about attending university and emails him a copy of what courses he’s finished with a list of what he wishes to do for the next few years. Based on the course information from the university he can start studies in the summer after high school finishes to attend the uni for two years, plus summer classes before, between, and after those two years to have degrees in both business management...
All of David’s summer semester classes are over: the last exam is done, the last assignment is handed in, the major project is finished, he’s all packed up and ready to leave. The staff check his room and sign off on it being correct so he hands in this last piece of paperwork before heading to the car park to leave the university and Albuquerque. Four weeks ago he visited Window Rock to transfer his vehicle registration and driver’s license back to Jason’s address. While there he picked up...
The plane from Auckland, New Zealand, lands at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport in Mascot just before six in the evening local time after a three and a quarter hour flight in the Emirates A380 Airbus. This isn’t the first time David has flown in an A380 but this is his first time in the Business Class of an Emirates plane, and he found it to be the most comfortable flight he’s had in Business Class of any airline he’s used. He has an easy and quick trip through immigration due to being an...
I had to depart for my afternoon workout session with Kim as soon as the call ended. We were almost to the end when Liz appeared in the room. “Come back to the office when you’re finished here, please,” she said. I grunted my assent since I was in the middle of forcing my arm outward with a stick and it wasn’t the most pleasant feeling I’d ever experienced. Liz stood and watched for a moment before smiling sadly and heading back to work. “Is she mad?” Kim asked from the...
I had almost made it to my feet but I dropped back on the couch. The fact I was wearing the soft sling didn’t do my arm any favors. “Wait!” I said. “What?” “I’m not comfortable with her working out here any longer,” Liz said. “She’s been on vacation all week!” I said. “That’s part of the problem,” Liz said. “She’s missed a lot of work recently and I ... I’m not happy with how she’s come to view her job here.” “First off, she was sick for two days,” I cut in. “The vacation has been...
Skye and Jill scattered like cockroaches when the light comes on as soon as my face appeared in the doorway. Liz looked up from her desk while I stood sheepishly in front of her. “If you want Brea gone, she’s gone,” I said. “No,” Liz said almost at once. “I was being silly.” “It’s not worth arguing with you over,” I told her. “If she’s going to be a problem then you’re right. We should let her go. But I still think we do it in a way that it doesn’t come back on her at the hospital.” “She...