Luke (26 page)

As she stood over the stove, turning slabs of meat with a three-tined fork, she thought of all the things that had happened to her in the past week and more. Glancing at Muriel, who had moved to lounge at the table with a beer in front of her that she'd taken
from an ice chest, she said, “Was that really you on the phone during my interview. Or did Frank—”

“Frank? That wuss?” Muriel leaned back in her chair and hooked a thumb in one pants pocket.

“Lord, he's such a redneck that he blushes whenever he thinks of talking to a woman, much less saying dirty things to her in public. Of course I did it, dummy, with the help of modern electronics. The deal for the phone that changes women's voices to men's was a Christmas present from my mom, bless her heart. Just like I hadn't learned enough about protection in the service to send most would-be burglars or attempted rapists to the hospital—or the morgue.”

“Is that how you know Frank, from the service?”

“Think you're smart, don't you? Yeah, we ran across each other in a beer garden in Germany, would you believe. My ears perked up when I heard he was from the place listed in your books as your hometown. I was a big fan about then, you know, wanted to know all about you. Ain't that a laugh?”

“So, he told you—”

“He was drunk. He spilled a lot of things that came in handy when I decided to make my move. You might say I couldn't have done it without him and his grudge against Benedict.”

“But you're the one who threw the acid at Luke?”

“And made off with your cat, shot up your house and all the rest. Frank wasn't in it until later. You were the one who was supposed to have your face all scarred like a freak, though. Benedict just got in the way.”

“I should have guessed, since it happened in your territory.”

“I was too smart to leave you any clues. Anyway, you might not be here if your Luke hadn't been around that weekend. It was after I missed that I decided to get you but good.” Muriel took a swig of her beer. “Well, and after I heard somebody sniggering about how you'd paid me back for that review.”

“I see. Tit for tat.” She also saw that the other woman had more than her share of ego, something that might come in handy.

“Yeah. You sent my career and my life down the toilet, so I'm returning the favor.”

April gave a slow shake of her head. “I failed to endorse your book, that's all. It was one person's opinion, not a wholesale attempt to ruin you.”

“Oh, cut the crap, will you? When you refused to endorse my book, my publisher turned down my next. My live-in boyfriend found out about that and figured my writing wasn't going to be the cash cow he'd hoped, so he skipped a week before the wedding. I had dreams, plans for babies, a family. Instead, I went from being a bride-to-be to a reject overnight, from a Wanna-be to a Has Been without stopping off at being a Somebody. Now I'm back doing shitty little reviews and teaching writing classes. And you're surprised that I'm pissed?”

For the first time, April understood the bitter disappointment etched in Muriel's face, sensed the pain behind the pseudomasculine bravado. April had always known that being a romance author wasn't all glamour and magic, that it had more frustrations and
sorrows than rewards and a failure rate that made becoming a professional football player look like a shoo-in. She'd shed her own tears at times, but hadn't been around too often for those of others. Like most successful authors, she tended to stick with her own kind at professional gatherings. It wasn't because she wanted to be exclusive but simply because she was more comfortable around people who understood the pressures of the game, and because so many beginners wanted things from her that she couldn't give and still hold on to her own creativity or integrity.

“I'm sorry,” she said abruptly. “I didn't realize.”

“No, you wouldn't, would you? You're too busy being a superstar, too wrapped up in your stories and—oh, never mind.” Muriel drank more of her beer, maybe to dissolve the sudden tightness that sounded in her voice.

Frowning, April tried again. “I mean it. I really am sorry. I know it's hard—”

“You don't know diddly.”

“What makes you think so?” she returned in a spurt of anger. “I wasn't born a romance author, you know. We all have to start somewhere. I've had my rejections and story ideas that didn't work. I've had publishers who dropped the ball on promotion or didn't do what they promised. I've felt that I can't write another word or another page, or that everything I've gained has been only because of luck. I've had agents and editors and publishers talk as if what I do or have done doesn't count, that it was all their big plans and promotions or deals or what
ever that put me where I am, and so I should be grateful that they allow me to—” April stopped herself, as Muriel had done, afraid her voice would break if she went on.

“Right, but it's all worked out for you, hasn't it?”

“So far,” April agreed, blindly turning meat with her fork. “But there's no guarantee that it always will.”

“Which doesn't mean that you'd do a damned thing different for me if you had it to do over again.”

That much was true. She wouldn't lie and say that Muriel's book was good when it had been terrible. She couldn't use the name she'd worked so hard to build to endorse a title that might make readers buy a book they thought would be great but she knew wasn't worth the money. More than that, she knew in her more upbeat moments that a lot more was required to reach the top besides luck and publisher support. It also took talent, craftsmanship, a willingness to work long, hard hours, and the ability to look beyond the first idea that came along for that fresh and unique slant. Plus something more than could only be described as heart: you had to feel it or it didn't work.

Muriel laughed with a mirthless sound, as April remained silent. “That's what I thought.”

“Why can't you do something else,” she asked. “Why does it have to be romance writing?”

“You can say that?” Muriel answered with a pitying shake of her head. “Why can't you do something else? Why do you write?”

“I write for the stories that are like carrying whole other worlds around in my head. I write for the flow of words that run through my brain like a song with flow and rhythm and sudden high notes of meaning that thrill me, if no one else. I write for the joy.”

“That's it,” the other woman said with a slow nod. “Yeah. Only now I can't have that any more because of you. Which puts us right back where we started.”

So it did. April turned the meat and potatoes and said no more.

 

Muriel was a professional. She kept her rifle near her right hand, and was aware of every move April made. She watched her as she ate, stayed close while she washed the dishes, and followed her out the back door of the rear bedroom when they both visited the outdoor toilet. Afterward, she handcuffed April's wrist to the frame of the sagging bed in the back room, then lay down on the other side of the mattress. She slept in light catnaps, but jerked awake every time April moved.

April couldn't sleep. The mattress was lumpy and sour smelling, she needed a bath, a comb to rake the tangles from her hair, and something to sleep in besides her clothes. The handcuff cut off her circulation so her fingers felt numb. It was hot and stuffy in the shanty compared to the pontoon boat, and the tin roof overhead snapped and popped as it released the broiling heat of the day.

After a while, the moon rose, shining through the dirty window in one wall. In the ambient glow,
April stared around the room at the unfinished walls with faded shirts and jackets hung on nails. She noted the complete absence of pictures or any effort to decorate that declared the place a male stronghold, and studied the back door that lead to the toilet. She let her gaze linger on the rifle Muriel had leaned in the corner on her side of the bed, then shivered a little as she looked away again.

Something else stood there next to the rifle. At first April thought it was a mop or broom, but then decided it was another weapon, a deer rifle. It made sense if the place was used for hunting.

Exhausting the possibilities of the room, she lay still while her mind moved in endless circles. She thought of Luke, wondering if he was all right, where he was, and what he might be doing. All the things they had said and done played over and over in her mind along with everything she maybe should have said or should have done. She considered her work and what it meant to her, both what she was writing and what Muriel wanted from her, and also a thousand other things.

Somewhere in the midnight hours, she came to a decision. She'd rather die, she thought, than let Muriel steal her ideas or profit from her hard labor.

She wanted very much to live, however, to have all the pleasure, and yes, the pain, that being alive might bring. She was tired of being a recluse, of hiding from responsibility to others and from her own needs and feelings. No matter what happened, she'd seen the last of that pose. She meant not merely to live, but to be wholly, vividly alive, and to know it.

Before that could happen, she must get away from Muriel. She required transportation: a boat and a supply of gas. She needed to reach Roan and convince him to take her back to Luke. She had to see if he was okay, to talk to him and discover if they had a future.

It was essential that she have a plan.

The idea came to her in the early hours of morning, not long after she heard the bass boat as Frank returned with her notebook. Those pages, along with her work in progress, were key to the whole thing. That was what she would use.

It would require a sacrifice. She hated it, felt the pain already from just the thought. It couldn't be helped. She had her priorities straight now; she knew what was important in a way she never had before. Besides, there was no other way.

Would Muriel fall for it? April didn't know. She'd have to wait and see.

The next day passed slowly while April waited for her chance. She spent it being as quiet and polite as her temper and her pride would allow and hoping that would feed Muriel's ego and lull her into carelessness. It wasn't easy. Muriel not only dragged her from bed before dawn but laughed at her request for a change of clothes, forced her to cook breakfast, then sat her down with pen in hand and refused to let her eat or drink unless she wrote a page every hour.

April kept her head down to hide the rage inside her. She worked, too, scribbling something, anything, for hour after hour. It didn't matter what she put on paper because Muriel made no effort to read
it after the first page or two. Precisely because April wasn't trying, wasn't editing her thoughts, however, the sentences came in a steady and nicely coherent progression. She thought she needed to take a lesson from that.

At first, her attention was diverted whenever she heard a boat motor out on the lake. She listened as long as it was in hearing distance, waiting to see if it was Luke coming to find her. Then she noticed Muriel watching her with narrow eyes and a small, chill smile on her mouth. After that, April kept her interest to herself.

Sweat rolled off April during the hot afternoon, dripping from the ends of her hair and dampening the paper under her hand and wrist. Flies tormented her, sticky houseflies that buzzed around her head and walked along her arms with germ-laden feet, also stinging deerflies that found her bare legs under the table. These were joined by mosquitoes, bloodthirsty little dive-bombers that whined around her head as if to tell her secrets before they chose a spot on her exposed skin to have their afternoon snack. The insects came in droves through the rusty and torn screens over the windows that, like the doors at front and rear, were thrown wide-open to catch the least hint of a lake breeze. But there was none, just the relentless, scalding heat and white-hot glare of the sun.

The sun went down like dropping the old-fashioned roller curtain of a minstrel show. As the light went with it, April closed her notebook with the pages she'd done for the day and stacked it neatly on top of the printed copy of the manuscript
that Muriel had taken from Mulberry Point. Rising from her chair, she stretched the kink out of her back with her eyes squeezed shut and her arms above her head.

“What do you think you're doing?” Muriel inquired with a whip edge to her tone from where she sat in the doorway, fanning herself with her cap bill.

“It's too dark to see. I thought…”

“You don't think here, got that? I tell you what to do and you jump.”

April clenched her jaws to keep the sharp retort at the end of her tongue from escaping. Between the heat, the uncertainty and Muriel's harassment, she wasn't sure how long she could hold on without exploding. It was possible, however, that she might use Muriel's petty vengeance to achieve what she intended.

Lifting her hair off the back of her neck, April sought for a complaining whine as she said, “It's just so hot, too hot to work, almost too hot to breathe. I hope you don't expect me to cook anything tonight, because there's just no way. I'd rather die than light that stupid stove.”

“That can be arranged,” Muriel said, putting a hand on the rifle over her lap and caressing the smooth, wooden butt.

“Oh, come on, Muriel!” April wailed. “Have a heart.”

“Steak and fries, I got me a yen for steak and fries. Hey, Frank, don't you want some steak and fries?”

Frank only grunted from where he lay on the floor of the porch with his cap over his face, rifle propped
against the porch screen beside him, and a row of empty beer bottles nearby.

April resisted an impulse to stamp her foot like some virginal heroine in an old-fashioned romance from the fifties. That would, she felt, be carrying the act a bit too far. Spinning away in a show of pique, she huffed over her shoulder, “I can't believe you! I think you enjoy watching me suffer.”