On a Night Like This (12 page)

“You still want to watch?” Blair asked.

Amanda jumped out of bed, popped in the videocassette, cuddled back next to her mom.

“I love you,” she said as the movie started again.

“My sweet girl,” Blair said.

“Shh,” Amanda said, and they leaned back against the pillows to watch the movie.

The young woman and man on the beach walked silently away from the ocean and toward the dunes. They had their arms wrapped around each other and the wind whipped at them. The dunes were shadowed by the light of the moon, ominous mountains of sand.

They climbed a dune and at the top saw a kind of sand valley below, surrounded by more dunes. They ran, laughing, down the mountain of sand, and tumbled on top of each other on the sandy bottom.

“How old are they?” Blair asked, feeling the first nudge of unease. The scene was too familiar and yet completely strange.

“Shh.”

“Are they kids? They’re in their twenties, right?” she insisted.

“I don’t know. Yeah. Stop talking.”

They watched. The couple started to make love. The woman was suddenly timid, unsure. The man coaxed her along, urging off each article of clothing, covering her exposed flesh with kisses.

“Something’s going to happen,” Blair said, and pushed herself upright against the headboard as if bracing herself. Her stomach roiled.

“Quiet!” Amanda insisted.

Finally the couple was naked, the woman now easy in the man’s embrace. The background music—a wailing electric guitar—pounded over the sound of the ocean. And on top of the dune, two men stood, watching them.

“Oh, my God,” Blair said.

“Shh,” Amanda repeated.

“Turn it off,” Blair said.

Amanda looked at her mother.

“Turn it off,” she repeated. She was looking away from the screen.

Amanda picked up the remote control and clicked—the screen turned to black.

“Mom?”

Blair pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.

“She gets raped, right? He runs away?” Blair asked, her voice tight.

“Yeah,” Amanda said. “You’ve seen it?”

Blair shook her head.

“Mom?”

Blair looked at Amanda, then down at her knees. “It happened to me.”

They were quiet a moment, and then Blair sat up taller in the bed. “I never told you. I should have. I never knew when you tell your daughter a story like that.”

“You were raped?” Amanda asked.

Blair reached out and touched her daughter’s shoulder.

“Oh, God,” Amanda said. Her eyes were full, ready to spill over.

“I never wanted you to know,” Blair said. Her chest felt constricted—she had to push her words out as she talked. She wanted to scream—at Luke, for using her story and not telling her.
Why did he write a movie about me?
There was another scream inside her that she had lived with for so long—the rage that surged to the surface of her consciousness whenever she remembered that night. And suddenly, without preparation, she had to do what she had been unprepared to do for so many years: tell her daughter.

“I wanted you to be strong and independent,” Blair finally said. “Hard to grow up that way when you know how brutal the world can be.”

“Mom, you can tell me. I’m not a baby.” Though when Blair looked at her, Amanda looked terrified, the way she did when she was very young and too scared to sleep alone in her room.

“I know that, sweetheart.”

“What happened?”

“That,” Blair said, pointing to the television. She remembered the beach, on the California coast. It was evening, the sun setting, the air getting cold, so she and her boyfriend, Wes, had wrapped themselves in a blanket she kept in the trunk of her car. She remembered the men—three of them rather than two—finding them while they were making love in the cove. She remembered the laughter of those horrible men and how she knew in that moment that something awful was going to happen.

Amanda stared at the blank screen.

“You mean, he knew? Luke Bellingham?”

Blair nodded. “The whole town knew. It wasn’t such a big town. And no one keeps secrets.”

“He used your story?” Amanda asked, stunned.

Blair shrugged, shaking her head in disbelief.
That’s why he wanted me to talk to him first,
she realized. “What’s the rest of the film about?”

“The guy,” Amanda said. “The woman dies. Not right away, but after a while. And the boyfriend blames himself. I mean, he ran away and all. Did the guy you were with run away?”

Blair nodded. He had grabbed his jeans and had run, scrambling up the path that led away from the beach, away from Blair, who was tackled by the first of the men as soon as she struggled to stand.

“My God, Mom.
Pescadero
is your story?”

Blair tried a smile. “Apparently not. In case you didn’t notice, I’m sitting here next to you.”

“Were you beat up?”

Blair nodded again. When she screamed, one of the men hit her. And kept hitting her, every time she made a sound. Until she learned to let them do what they wanted, in silence. “Pretty badly. But my body healed. I was younger than the woman in the film. I was sixteen. Your age.”

“How’d you go to school the next day? How’d you talk to your friends or your boyfriend after that?”

“I didn’t. I never talked to my boyfriend again. He ignored me. And the rest of the kids were so awful that I stopped talking to all of them. It was like I was yanked out of childhood, and I didn’t have anything in common with any of them anymore.”

“Did they catch the guys who did it?”

Blair shook her head. The police knew that she had been naked on the beach with a boy—so maybe she had been asking for it, they suggested, ready for any man who came by. Maybe she wanted to be gang-banged by three drunken guys, out looking for a good time. Maybe she was a good-time girl with her contusions and her cuts and her torn vagina.

“So, if I ever worry about you too much,” Blair said, “when it’s late and you’re not home yet, you know why.”

“I’m careful,” Amanda said.

“So was I,” Blair said.

I had been careful with my heart,
Blair thought. She had not had a boyfriend until she met Wes, and they had become friends, her first friend, another scholarship student, though one who moved well in the world of Reese Academy. When he kissed her for the first time, she let herself love him, knowing that this was so different from anything she had experienced before. They had made love twice in that cove, on other evenings, sneaking away from families and schoolwork—and Blair had thought,
Yes, this is what sex is; this is what love is.
Until the men found them, and Wes ran away.

“Is that why you never have boyfriends?”

“No. Maybe. Who knows? I don’t trust the world very much, do I? This is why I never told you. I want you to believe in a better world.”

“Are you mad at Luke Bellingham?”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

“Maybe he always liked you.”

“No. The whole town always wanted to know what happened. That’s all it is. A mystery.”

“What did happen to the guy who ran away? Your boyfriend.”

Blair shrugged. She remembered passing him in the hall at school—he’d look away, never acknowledging her. He hated her, as if it were her fault somehow. She hadn’t escaped the way he had. She could barely remember his tenderness, his sweet adolescent love that had drawn her to him from the start. “He didn’t even go for help. He told the cops he thought the guys would follow him. So he ran and hid in the bathroom at the parking lot for an hour or so. At school the story got out that he ran away. Maybe the kids gave him a hard time. I don’t know. I wasn’t paying much attention. He left the school after a year. Started over somewhere else, I guess.”

“Did you want to kill him?”

Blair shook her head. “I went numb for a long time. It’s hell, Amanda. Rape is like no other kind of violence.”

Amanda put her head down on Blair’s lap. Blair stroked her hair, and they were quiet for a while.

“If you fast-forward,” Blair said finally, “I’ll watch the rest of the movie with you.”

Amanda looked up at her mother. “Really?”

“I might not want to watch myself die, but the rest would be OK.”

And so they watched
Pescadero,
Luke’s story about a man who ran from his girlfriend’s rape and spent the rest of his life trying to find a way to live with his guilt.

“He couldn’t have saved me,” Blair said at the end. “My boyfriend. If he had stayed and fought. There were three of them and they were much bigger.”

“He could have tried,” Amanda said.

“No,” Blair said. “He saved himself. He was seventeen years old—that was as much as he could do.”

“Luke Bellingham thinks the guy should have saved you,” Amanda said.

Blair looked at her, surprised. “You’re right,” she said, thinking of Luke sitting in the chair at the hospital, waiting for her to wake up. “You’re so smart,” she said, putting her arm around her daughter and pulling her close.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Amanda said, her head on her mother’s shoulder. “And you were so young.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Blair told her, wrapping her arms around her. “I’m sorry this is happening to you.”

Chapter Six

L
uke sat down at his desk and looked at what he had written in the middle of the night. Half of a short story about a man who lives alone in the woods, sees only the regulars at the local bar, develops a friendship with the woman bartender. She wants more from him than he’s ready to give. One night her daughter, a sixteen-year-old beauty, shows up, takes a table, works on her homework, asks the man for help with her math. He helps her, leans in close and smells her coconut suntan oil—she’s a surfer and had been at the beach that day—he remembers his youth, his glory days. That night the bartender invites him home with her—he turns her down. And the next morning, the sixteen-year-old shows up at his door. He makes love with her.

Does he go back to the bar the next night? Luke would figure that out next. But he was pleased that he was writing again, for the first time in months.

Why had he written this story? Clearly, the Blair/Amanda relationship was on his mind. He didn’t find himself drawn to Amanda—unlike some guys, he had never lusted after young girls. But there she was, living in that tiny cottage with her mother, both of them alluring in their own ways. He would write the fiction instead of feeling the lust. Keep himself out of trouble.

He had all afternoon to do nothing. Maybe he should head back to the woods, where he had his workshop to play in. He was in the process of building a table—an outdoor table where he could eat alone with Sweetpea. Maybe he should get out of his haunted house and go back to the place where he was able to forget.

He thought some more about the short story. Maybe the man already has a relationship with the bartender—the daughter seduces him. Or he seduces her—make him struggle with his own demons. Make the bartender someone he cares about—then his actions matter. Who is the man who could sleep with the girl? Can he create this character, enter his skin and live there, squirming for a while?

He’d write this out as a story, see if it was a screenplay—perhaps leave it as a story. He wrote short stories years ago, before he met Emily, before he tasted the success of
Pescadero.

He tapped his fingers on his desk. He picked up the phone and called Mr. Gray Healy.

The wife picked up.

“Hello?”

“I’d like to speak with Gray.”

“Who’s calling, please?”

“This is an old high school friend. Peter. Peter Bullock.”

“I don’t know you.”

“I’ve been out of the country.”

“Right. Well, Gray’s not home. He’s away. For a while.”

“Anywhere I can reach him? It would be great to catch up after all these years.”

“No. Sorry. Can’t help you. I’ll tell him you called.”

“You’ll be seeing him then.”

“No. I mean, when he gets back. Why don’t you give me your number?”

“No. I’m moving around too much. I’ll call him. When do you think he’ll be back?”

“I can’t tell you that, Peter. Call again in another lifetime, all right?”

And she hung up.

Luke typed on his computer: Husband finds wife shacked up with guy, then kills them both. End of movie.

He pushed himself away from the desk, suddenly desperate to get away from the house.

Once in his truck, he didn’t know where to go.

Sunday afternoon. In the old days they would have gone to Dana’s house. The only two sisters in the world who lived their lives as if they were still sharing a room with two twin beds with matching comforters. Except now, Dana had a husband and a baby on the way.

Luke remembered a scene: He and Emily were in bed early one morning. They made love, taking their time, ignoring Sweetpea, who poked her nose over the side of the bed, begging to be fed. When they were done, Luke wanted to fall back to sleep in Emily’s arms, but she whispered, “Go feed Sweetpea so she leaves us alone.” Luke padded downstairs, filled the dog bowl, let Sweetpea out into the backyard to pee. He was feeling lazy, happy, ready to fall back into bed and curl himself around his sleeping wife. When he returned to the room, he saw that Emily was on the phone, talking to Dana, sitting up against the headboard with the sheet pulled high over her breasts.

He felt oddly betrayed. He watched her for a moment.
This is my time,
he thought. By the time she got off the phone, he had determined not to be jealous—Dana was her sister, not a lover, after all—but churlishly he got dressed, made coffee and took it with him into his study to get to work.

Of course his wife needed more than what he could offer. A sister. A lover.

Luke turned the truck toward Pacific Heights. He’d drop in on Dana. Perhaps the new couple was there, sharing martinis and sob stories:

“Can you believe the asshole delivered flowers to Gray’s wife?”

“Well, at least it got Gray out of the house—right, dear?”

And if she were there, what would he do? He still didn’t know—couldn’t write his own goddamn script past the first scene. Husband searches for wife.

He parked, walked up the hill to Pacific, saw Dana at her own front door, key in the lock, bag of groceries perched on one hip.

“Dana!” he called.

She looked back at him, smiled, shrugged, opened her door, entered the house, closed the door behind her.
Is Emily there?
He looked around for her car, a yellow Miata. None in sight. No black BMW parked curbside.

He marched up to Dana’s door and rang the bell.

No one answered.

“Open the goddamn door!” he shouted.

The whole neighborhood seemed to hold its breath—
God, it’s quiet out here on a Sunday,
he thought.

“Dana! Open the fucking door!”

He pressed his thumb on the bell and held it there, felt its vibration up his arm like an electric shock.

Finally the door flew open and Dana stood there, hands on hips, scowling at him.

“Go home. Go away. Leave us alone.”

“I found her,” Luke said. “In Noe Valley. Don’t do this to me, Dana. I know where she is, why she left. Tell her to talk to me. Tell her I just want to talk to her.”

Dana’s face softened. “I’ll tell her,” she said.

Luke turned and walked down the steps and along the path. He heard the door close behind him. He kept on walking, past his truck, and on down the hill toward the marina. He wished Sweetpea were at his side. He walked as far as he could, to the edge of the bay, and he sat there, watching the water, the fog, the few brave sailboats and windsurfers, until he was numb with cold.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Luke woke up, stretching his arm out toward the side of the bed as if Emily were there, just out of reach. They used to sleep curled around each other, turning over in the night and curling in the opposite direction. It had taken him so long to learn how to sleep alone. And now, he was forgetting again.

Three-twenty
A.M.
He threw on jeans and a flannel shirt and got into the truck and drove to Noe Valley. There was no parking place near the house—her house?—and so he circled, slowing as he passed the house each time. The lime curtains were closed; the lights were out. Of course.

Luke remembered a scene: Emily home from a meeting with a client, discouraged. He stood in the doorway of her studio, watching her drop her portfolio onto the floor by her drawing table. “They don’t like what I’ve done. I’ve got to start over.”

“You’re good,” Luke comforted her. “You’ll come up with the right image for them.”

“It’s so easy for you,” Emily said under her breath, as if Luke wouldn’t even hear.

“It’s not easy for me,” he told her. “I work so damn hard.”

“I can’t do it,” she finally said, beginning to cry. “I can’t get what they want.”

“Quit,” Luke told her. “Tell them you don’t want the project.”

Emily glared at him, her eyes dark. He remembered the look: It was something close to hatred. For succeeding? For creating the life they had dreamed about?

“Maybe I’m just not good enough,” she said.

“For what?”

“For you.”

“Emily.” He walked toward her, wanting to wrap her in his arms.

She turned away from him.

“I adore you,” he said, standing behind her, his arms at his sides.

“I know that,” she told him. But she kept her back to him and finally he turned and left, closing the door behind him.

Luke sat in his truck at four in the morning and wondered about the kind of love that made someone flee.

After fifteen minutes he saw the lights go on in the house next door; a face at the window was peering at him. He hauled out of there before the police got a late-night call about some deranged husband trying to lure his wife from the arms of another man.

At home he sat at his desk and opened the file of his new short story. The man makes love with the young girl. Before she leaves his cabin, she asks him to come to the bar that night. Recklessly, he goes. He’s feeling invulnerable, like a kid who can get away with anything.

The bartender knows. Her daughter has told her, has used the information to hurt her. She ignores him for a while, slamming down his drink, hurling comments about him to the other regulars. But then something happens—something to make him face her.

Luke stopped writing, stared at the screen.
I hate the bastard,
he thought.
I have to go deeper, find out what drives this man into the arms of a sixteen-year-old. Perhaps his own glory days.
The man imagines himself young, handsome, his life filled with young girls. He can forget for a moment his recent divorce, his work failures, his wish to drop out of life. He’s become someone he once was.

Do I miss my own glory days? That’s absurd,
he thought. He was supposed to be living his glory days with Emily, with his own career success. But why did he feel something with Blair that he had been missing for a long time?

Luke pushed his chair away from the computer, rubbing his eyes. Maybe he should be writing something far removed from his own life, something that didn’t demand so much from him. He’d surprise his fans with a space thriller or a born-again Western. He’d write porn films under a pseudonym. Or he’d haul his ass back to the woods and build furniture for another few years.

He slept, finally, for a couple of hours, waking with just enough time to shower, dress and dash off toward the Haight. Fresh croissants in hand, he knocked timidly on the door of the cottage. He heard Sweetpea’s bark, was glad of her presence as Blair’s protector in the cottage, a place that seemed vulnerably perched on the edge of this dangerous neighborhood.

The door opened; Sweetpea rushed out and back; Blair stood there in the doorway, an odd smile on her face.

“Good morning,” Luke said without confidence.

“You’re here,” she told him.

“You’re surprised.”

“I didn’t sleep well last night. By morning I figured I had probably just invented you.”

“Why couldn’t you sleep?”

“Bad dreams.”

Blair was looking at him, her head cocked to one side. He waited.

“I dreamed I was in a movie. On a beach. Except the things that were happening to me in the movie were really happening to me.”

Luke felt his stomach twist. He watched her face. Her eyes bore into his, watching for his reaction.

“Are you upset?” he asked.

She raised her eyebrows. “Hard to live through it again.”

“I never really knew what happened.”

“I know,” Blair said. “I didn’t die.”

“I noticed,” Luke said. “I’m sorry, Blair. Using your story was a lousy thing to do.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s interesting. You invented my life.”

“No. You’re still a mystery. I couldn’t begin to understand the hell you went through. I took the coward’s route. I could only get close to the guy who ran.”

“I don’t blame him, you know.”

“Then you’re truly a mystery.”

“I blame the guys who raped me. Wes had nothing to do with it.”

“I know.”

“Why did you choose to tell his story?”

Luke shrugged. “Guys are supposed to protect their loved ones. But I don’t know—all my life, I wasn’t very good at it. My mother fell apart after my dad left her—and I just stood by her side, doing nothing. My dad died during a sailing accident when I wasn’t there, when I couldn’t save him.” Luke paused for a moment, looking away. “I think a lot of guys think they would save their girlfriend. And a lot of guys would run.”

Blair reached out and touched Luke’s cheek softly, then let her hand drift back to her side.

“Can I come in?”

Blair stepped aside and let Luke enter. She closed the door and turned toward him.

“You feeling OK?” he asked.

“Do me one favor,” she said. She was wearing her pj’s—a pink tank top and yellow-flowered boxer shorts. Or maybe they were her real clothes—he wasn’t sure.

“Name it,” he said.

“Just for now—this morning—let’s pretend I’m not sick. I don’t have cancer. We never heard of cancer.”

He nodded.

“Thanks,” she said. She took the bag of croissants from his hand and started searching for a plate.

“Leave it,” he said, taking the bag and putting it down on the table.

He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her to him. She was hesitant, unsure. He wrapped his arms around her—she seemed so small to him—and he felt her let herself go, sinking into his chest.

He lowered his head and breathed in the smell of her hair—something fruity, perhaps orange or peach shampoo? He ran his hand through her hair and buried his face in it.

Her hands started exploring his back and he liked her touch, firm, solid—
Let me know you,
her palms seemed to say on his skin.

He pulled her back and looked at her, saw her face so open to him and he leaned down to cover her mouth with his own.

“Bed,” she murmured when he released her, and she led him there, holding his hand tightly.

“Let me undress you,” he said.

He lifted off her shirt. He lowered himself to his knees and kissed each breast. He heard her sigh.

He pulled down her boxer shorts. Her waist was small, her hips wide—she was all curves and he was delighted, expecting someone so much thinner, slighter, less womanly.