Redeem Me (3 page)

He releases my finger and pulls me to his chest. I breathe in the scent of him, compiling the pieces of me dismantled by his eyes. Jason runs his fingers through my hair. His movements are slow and calculated. He’s thinking and I’m terrified of what he’ll do. What I’ll do. He fists his hands in my hair and pulls it, tilting my face to the ceiling as he grazes my neck with his lips. I close my eyes and hear a tiny moan exhaled from my own lips.

“Come back, Annie.” His voice is harsh in my ear.

My God, what will we do?

I open my eyes and listen to the sound of Mike snoring. The streetlight shines on the ceiling. This room, and the inside of my head, and everything I’ve ever known, is foreign. My God, what will we do?

I
wake up to the morning sun and my mouth feels like I sucked on a wool sweater all night. My tongue has obviously been licking up dirt because it hurts to even try to swallow. I make my way to the bathroom and trip over my duffel bag outside the bedroom door. I brush my teeth, wash my face with the liquid hand soap, and since no one else is awake, jump into the shower for a quick rinse.

I dry off and marvel at the healing power of a shower. Of water in general. I find a bikini in my bag and put it on. A little loose, but functional. I should have eaten more yesterday.
Must eat.
I go back to Mike’s—and now my—room to store my bag. The blow-up mattress is still pristine. It whispers my name and I only had about five hours of sleep. I lie back down. This time I drift off peacefully.

The seagulls are squawking, sounding some type of bird alarm. Someone must have dropped a sandwich right outside my window. I wish I were deaf.

I wish I were dead.

I roll off the air mattress at the sound of a light tapping on the door. Margo’s eyes peer into the doorway as she opens it a slit.

“It’s all right,” I whisper. “I’m coming out.” She closes the door softly and I grab my beach towel out of my bag. Mike is still snoring, completely oblivious to the world around him. Jealousy fills me.

“What happened last night?” Margo asks as soon as I reach the living room.

“Nothing…” Nothing’s ever going to happen again. Consider me empty.

“Charlotte, it’s going to be okay.”

I watch Margo watching me, and the vision is too familiar. “I feel like you’ve said that before.”

“I’ll keep saying it as long as you need to hear it.” The corners of her lips turn up, a smile trying to penetrate my ugly reality. Jenn opens the screen door and walks in balancing coffee and bagels on a tiny cardboard drink holder.

“Did I miss something?” she asks, surveying Margo and me.

“Unfortunately, you’re all caught up,” I say, and take the bagels off the top of the tray.

We head to the beach and eat the bagels.
Must eat
. The rest of “our house” joins us and we play on the beach like children. Mike’s accepted his empty bed as a silent declaration of my disinterest and settles into a day of friendship on the beach. There’s Frisbee, football, and of course paddleball, which quickly becomes a tournament. Half of us spend most of the afternoon in the ocean. We swim out past the breakers and float over the incoming sets of waves and listen to them crash on the shore. It’s an absolutely perfect day with a bunch of people I hope to never see again.

By dinner my cheeks are pink, I’m hungry, and I think I even smiled once today. I trip on an uneven sidewalk seam as we head into a crab house on the back bay. Jenn and Margo catch me. I can’t even walk right. I thought some of our housemates were going to come with us. It’s like they’ve completely forgotten they don’t know us. They finally relented when pizzas were delivered and we promised to meet them at the Ocean Drive later. The house has been fine, but it’s nice to be just the three of us. We climb onto the benches of a picnic table near the water and order beers and crabs. That’s all we need. And each other.

“Are you coming back to Hawaii with me?” Jenn asks, as if the answer is obviously yes.

“Or Colorado with me?” Margo chimes in as our first round’s delivered.

“Yes…no…I don’t know. I just want to be home with my parents.” They both watch me apologetically, not knowing what to say. “Sad, I know.”

“Charlotte, you don’t deserve this,” Jenn says, and looks like she might punch someone. “What the hell was that whore Stephanie doing in Oklahoma anyway?”

“She goes to school there.” I hammer a crab. “She transferred in our junior year.” Again, I beat the crab. “She’s looked me in the eye a hundred times and every time Jason was holding my hand.” I pound the crab so hard a large piece flies off the table, and I take a sip of my beer. “I can’t even think about it. It makes me sick.”

Jenn and Margo seem a little frightened.

“Are you going to keep your job in New York?” Margo asks, her voice thick with sadness.

“Yes.” I take a sip of my beer and my eyes wander to the water lapping on the boards beside us. “I have to go up there next week and meet with my boss. I have to tell him how the fairy tale ends.” I pause as the thought of it makes my stomach cramp. “How long are you guys home?”

“I’m leaving Wednesday,” Margo offers.

“Next Sunday for me,” says Jenn.

“I still can’t believe you’re here. I love you guys.”

“Aah, get this girl another,” Jenn says to break the emotional moment.

We eat more crabs than I think possible and Margo tells us all the Salem County gossip. I’m thankful to hear someone else is doing something worth talking about.

“Do people know I’m home?”

“Not yet, from what I can tell. I’ll keep you posted. I’m monitoring the situation closely. Oh, and Nick Sinclair’s called me a few times asking about you,” Margo says, and orders us another round.

“Noble, huh?” I ask sadly, and hammer a crab leg. If things had been different, Noble would be with us this weekend. He loves the shore as much as I do.

“Still calling him Noble?” Margo interrupts my thoughts.

I’ve never called him anything but Noble. “That’s his name.”

“But no one else on the planet calls him that but you. I thought maybe when you guys went to Rutgers together you’d concede,” Margo says.

“I teased him with it for the first half of our lives, and now it just fits him. He’ll always be Noble to me,” I say, and the memory of a strange conversation with him in August haunts me. “I think he knew about Stephanie before I did.”

I drop my hammer on the table, disgusted. Noble was always the one to pick me up, to help me out. He’s one of my best friends. How could he have known?

“He definitely seems to know the shit hit the fan,” Margo adds.

He betrayed me, too…

Jason, the sky, the air, the entire fucking world, including Noble Sinclair.

The Ocean Drive is just short of mobbed. Is there anyone
not
at the shore this weekend? Within a half hour, the rest of the house joins us and I relax, able to blend into the anonymity of the crowd. The group blocks guys from hitting on me and is large enough that I don’t have to interact beyond simple conversations. They’re a diverse bunch from what I can gather, having invested only about six sentences in them. Each housemate was brought on board by a friend, or a friend of a friend, who had an extra share in their shore house. When I can, I lean back on the bar and attempt to smile. I quietly observe everyone around me who has apparently never lost a thing in their lives. They absently leave me alone, not realizing they’ve lost me.

Jason blares in my head, begging me to stay with him, to not leave him. What did he think I would do? Did he really believe I would ever be able to forgive him? The music, the crowd, none of it’s enough to drown him out. Not even his death would rid me of him. He’s locked in my head.
One foot in front of the other
, I think, and realize I’ve stopped smiling. I put the crazy grin back on my face and inhale deeply.

I need to go back to work. Something else to think about, something to engage some other part of me. I force a sip of my beer down my throat
. I’m going to need about twenty-six more of these.
I peel the corner of the label off the bottle. The anticipation of the coming week and the thought of talking to my boss sours my mood. This is the problem with living; you have to actually
live
your life. All of it, even the shitty parts.

I go to the bathroom and the strategic mission of maneuvering through the crowd takes my mind off Jason. There is, of course, a line and I lean up against the wall as I take a deep breath.
I can do this. I can have a fun night.
Sloppy, Too Loud, and Whiny finish in front of me and stumble out the bathroom door.

When I come out, I decide to get a beer at the nearest bar rather than fight my way back to the group. I order a Miller Lite as Clint East walks up beside me.

“Clint!” I wrap my arms around him. “It’s so good to see you.” I mean it, too. I’m actually glad to see him. I never thought I’d be happy to see someone from Salem County again, but Clint’s been pure fun since kindergarten.

“Charlotte, what are you doing here?” he asks, as high as a kite.

“Hanging.”
Surviving. Kind of
. “Margo and Jenn are here,” I say, and a huge smile anchors my face. I take it in. All of it. Clint has never been anything but a playmate and seeing him here takes me back to a time before now.

“No way. Where at?”

“They’re up by the door,” I say, pointing toward the front bar.

“Hey, Charlotte, I’m sorry about everything that happened.”

Clint’s so kind I can’t even be upset with him, but his words slap me back to reality.
Everything that happened.

“It’s okay. Really. I’m going to be okay.” Not really, but we’ll go with that. I’m not going to be okay.
Okay
is a goal for ten years from now—that is, if I’m cursed to live that long.

“Hey, I have to go. I’m working this girl over there and she’s getting mad. I have my own construction business now.” He hands me his card:
CLINT EAST CONSTRUCTION—I’LL MAKE YOUR DAY.

“Clint, it’s fantastic,” I say, still looking at the card and wishing I could run away with Clint. Just run away from all of this and smoke pot, and go to the shore for the weekend, and not be what I am right now.

“I know! It took me over a year to come up with it.” Clint kisses me on the cheek. His sweet smile warms me and I can’t help giving him a big hug before he rushes over to his now obviously irate new friend.

I take my time and wander back to the front bar. I can let this go. At least for tonight I can let it go. On my way, a guy grabs my arm and insists I answer a few questions for him and his friends.
Doesn’t anyone care about originality anymore?
I’m in such a good mood from seeing Clint that I actually consider letting him throw his line until he pulls me close and drapes his heavy, sweaty arm around my shoulders. I duck under his arm and out of his drunken reach.

I think I’m done here. I tell Margo I’m leaving, that I’m going home to bed. But when I get back to the house, I change into my bathing suit and walk to the deserted beach. The full moon won’t let me go to sleep. It hovers over the sea, spreading a faint light onto the sand, and I know I shouldn’t go in alone. But that’s what I am now…alone.

I drop my towel and dart into the water. I hurdle over the breakers and dive into the last wave before it breaks. The water crashing behind me drowns out my thoughts and leaves peace in its wake. When I surface, I swim deeper and float on my back. My toes and nose pointed to the glorious moon above me.

It’s Labor Day weekend and I’m at the Jersey Shore. There was a time in my life when this was exactly where I was supposed to be. A burgeoning wave lifts me up and over it just before breaking. I swim farther out and return to my back. I return to the moon.

I’m supposed to be in still water. Stillwater, Oklahoma, with…I close my eyes and remember the look on his face right before the wretched words came out of his mouth.

“I fucking hate you, Jason Leer.”

I roll over and swim toward the coast. A wave catches me and I ride it to shallow water.
How could he?
I scrape the wet sand beneath the water through my fingers and listen as the waves come in around me. The ocean pulls me back out as Jason begging me to stay screams through my mind. Even the ocean can’t erase him. Not without erasing me, too…

T
he morning light beams through the window, heating my face and reminding me of hell. I roll over in Mike’s absent roommate’s bed and reach for my phone. I silence it and send a text to Margo and Jenn.

Can we please go home now?

My phone vibrates twice. From Margo I get:

WHY? R U OK? I THINK WE SHOULD STAY.

And from Jenn:

NO

Seriously, it’s time to go.

Exchange the info, say your

goodbyes, and get your crap.

I’ll be at the car in 10 minutes.

I’ve been a very good girl—now

reward me.

Margo and Jenn close the car doors without a word and we head west toward Salem County. We stop at Wawa on the Route 40 circle and pick up subs to take to Sean and Michelle’s. They’re renting on North Main Street until their dream house is completed sometime next spring. It’s the perfect location, just three blocks from Sean’s physical therapy practice. I think Margo and Jenn are anxious to show off my improvements. We eat on their back deck and tell Michelle and Sean all—well, almost all—the stories from the weekend.

“It’s just good to see you eat,” Sean says, probably relaxing for the first time since he brought me home from Oklahoma. Michelle gets up from the table and runs inside. I look at Sean, concerned.

“She thinks she might have the stomach flu.”

“That’s terrible.” I watch her run toward the bathroom and feel bad for her. I wonder if the stomach flu is going around. I had it once a few years ago and it was awful. The memory of the disgusting virus comes back to me.
Poor Michelle
. I take a moment to acknowledge the long-departed feeling of concern. A genuine emotion about someone…other than pity for myself, hatred for Jason and Stephanie, or contempt for their baby. The baby part is the worst. The rest I could swallow; the baby and my feelings toward it are killing me. It’s a one-way ticket to the hot spot way down south.

The key turns in the door and I enter my parents’ house alone. Instead of craving the solitude, I feel it today. The windows are open but it’s still, the ocean breeze not reaching this far west, the absence of the waves’ melody depressing me. One bird squawks to the world, probably talking to itself, and Mr. Heitter is out plowing the back field.

I miss the shore. It was an effective diversion. It let my mind slip into the memories of how it felt to go there before my parents died. How it felt to do anything before their deaths and before…I take a deep breath and push the thought from my mind.

It’s steamy out, but I don’t turn on the air-conditioning because there is none. The Jersey humidity is far worse than the eighty-nine-degree temperature. Sean offered to install a window air-conditioning unit for me, but it’ll be cold in a few weeks, possibly much cooler than this in just a few days. I start the water for a cool bath and unpack my bag. Most of the clothes are still clean. We left the whiskey at the house as a thank-you and the Parliaments are still unopened, thank goodness. I’m looking for a drug habit, something clean like prescriptions, not cigarettes.

I find Clint’s card and pin it up on the bulletin board at the kitchen desk. If I’m going to stay here, some updating will be in order. It’s my house, after all. I can do whatever I want with it. I jam another pin into the opposite corner of the card and laugh at how Jason thought it was a crazy idea to buy Sean out of this house. I still wanted a place to call home. Jason said we were never planning on coming home.

Oh, Jason…a liar, a cheater, and an idiot.

The past few weeks’ mail is piled on the counter next to a shoebox-size package from Violet, one of my favorite college roommates. Violet has a way of making everywhere she goes feel like home. She’s traditional in an uncommon way.

I throw out the two letters addressed in Jason’s handwriting and rip open the box to find a small stuffed doll with jeans, a button-down, short black hair, and cowboy boots Violet has drawn on with a marker. The doll has a large hat pin sticking out of his stomach. There’s a card in the box that reads:

It’s completely disturbing and brings a smile to my face as I remove the pin and place it in the groin. I pull it out and shove it in the doll’s heart. I stare at it for a moment, still not satisfied. I pull it out and stick it back to the groin again. “I’m going to need another pin.” I leave the doll on the table and walk to the bathroom.

I throw my clothes on the floor and ease into the tub, still sore from last night. My aching body adjusts to the feel of the cold water as I hear the phone ring. I’m not getting it. Margo’s voice fills the air:

“Hey, Charlotte, heads-up. My cousin just told me her friend saw you in the Ocean Drive. Her friend is Janice Harding, as in Stephanie Harding’s sister.”

This town should be its own news media outlet. Margo, who now lives in Colorado but is visiting New Jersey, just heard that someone saw me ninety miles away
out in public
and might tell someone fifteen hundred miles away about it. It’s not even two o’clock the next day. I couldn’t care less what they say. Let Stephanie Harding know that this show is going to go on. It’s going to be an R-rated memoir of a defeated, downtrodden statistician who used drugs to numb the pain—I hope—but it’s going to go on.

I sink deeper in the tub and try to figure out what I’m doing to keep myself busy the next few hours. Maybe clean the house. Some exhaustion will help me sleep, too. I close my eyes and let the cool water cover me like a blanket over my aching body.

My eyes pop open; there’s no peace here.

Impatient with my convoluted relaxation, I wrap myself in a towel. The phone rings again and I almost pick it up without looking, assuming it’s Margo, but the Oklahoma number catches my eye and I drop it like a burning ember.

“I know I’m not supposed to call you.” His voice is rough and barely in control. “I’m sorry. For calling…and everything else.” There’s a pause and I close my eyes and listen to his breath on the machine. “Stephanie told me you were in Sea Isle this weekend and…” He chokes up a little. Her name from his lips rips me in half. My body trembles as I shake my head. “And…I just wanted to tell you we’re going to be together again soon. Don’t be with anyone else. Don’t meet anyone. Please, Annie.”

Un-fucking-believable. The chick he cheated on me with tells him I’m out having fun and he has the nerve to call and ask me to stop? It’s like he can’t breathe without pissing me off.

“I promise I won’t call again,” he starts as I pick up the answering machine and hurl it against the wall, smashing it into a million jagged pieces of plastic. I wish he’d been here to aim at. I take a deep breath and snort it out my nose. He’s a bigger ass than I realized. I storm back to the kitchen and tear open the silverware drawer. I yank out a fork and in one swoop of my arm spear it into the heart of the voodoo doll. I take a deep breath.

There.

That’s better.

We decide to eat in Delaware to avoid seeing people we know. Margo, Jenn, and I drive from my house to the Delaware Memorial Bridge, passing one field after the other, lined up like dominoes fitted end to end. It is, as my mother always said, God’s country.

We find street parking and a table close to the windows, and I wish they’d just move home and drive me to dinner forever.

“How was work today?” Jenn asks as our drinks are delivered. “Did you ask them about a possible bereavement leave?”

It’s not an implausible idea.
Mom’s dead, Dad’s dead, relationship’s dead, I wish Jason was dead…I feel dead. Okay, half dead.

“It was fine. It was actually good to have something to think about. I told Bruce I’d come up and meet with him on Thursday. He seemed happy to wait to bombard me with work. He did sound shocked I’m still on the East Coast.”

“What are you going to do? Are you going back to New York City?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only been with the company seven months, and four of those were an internship. I’ve been working my ass off to convince them to try a virtual work arrangement, but I just don’t care that much anymore. I’m not sure I can put the same effort into it.”

Margo, who’s still finishing her degree, and Jenn, who is currently waitressing and learning how to surf, both nod in agreement.

“I don’t know why, but I want to stay in Salem County,” I say, and as soon as it’s out of my mouth, I know it’s the truth. I need something. Something to keep me alive, and it’s not in New York and it’s not in New Brunswick. If it’s anywhere in this world, it’s in this tiny, barren county I call home.

“God help you, Charlotte. You need to get out of Salem County,” Jenn says, and looks at me like this is common knowledge. “You need to make a new home. One without all these memories. You should come to Hawaii. You’ll never be this unattached again.”

“Unattached” is a gentle word for
completely alone
. I guess not completely since I have Sean and Michelle, and these two fools with me, but it feels completely alone and will only get worse next week when they’re gone. I’ll be in a weakened state. If it can get any weaker.

“Where else can you be within twenty miles of an international airport and a rodeo?” I ask, sounding like the Salem County Bureau of Tourism.

“Who cares?” Jenn says.

“True. I’m not planning on ever going to the rodeo again.”

“What are you going to do?” Margo asks.

Do about what? I can’t let my mind consider what she might be talking about.

“Do you guys remember my parents’ funeral?” They nod. No one ever knows what to say when your parents die. “When I told you Jason was taking me for a drive?”

“Yes. It was bizarre,” Margo says.

“We had sex that day. And pretty much every day we’ve been together for the last two years. I think there’s something wrong with me.” I sigh, slightly grasping the depth of how fucked up I am.

“I think I use sex to work through grief. Or worse, I use it to not work through grief.”

Their faces display their confusion.

“I can’t even talk to him. The sound of his voice makes me physically ill. Is that normal mourning?” I ask, and they both just stare at me, still not knowing what to say. “I think I’m in such bad shape now because instead of just losing Jason, I’m dealing with the loss of my parents, too. Jason and I ran from our grief. We avoided everything with each other.”
I want him here now. I want to lie down with him and forget any of this happened.
I shake my head and look at my menu. And when the tears fill my eyes, I squeeze them shut. I lay down my menu and Margo takes my hand.

“Think about yourself right now,” Margo says. “I want you to go to church next Sunday. My mom said she’d take you if you want.”

“That’s nice of her.” I haven’t been to church in forever. “I’ll try to go. I should go. I think I’m going to hell.”

Jenn and Margo stay silent, neither one looking to go there.

I miss my mom.

We eat. Well, they mostly eat. Nothing tastes anymore. There are no smells. No cool breezes. No music I care to hear. No reason to exist. They drop me off and I curl up in my parents’ bed trying to escape the memories of Jason in mine. After hours of staring at the ceiling, I succumb to the horror I now call sleep.

Gravel spits at the undercarriage as he pulls the truck to the shoulder and turns off the ignition. We’ll make love here. Along the side of this road, at least an hour west of Stillwater. My nipples harden as the chill dances between them, and my breath deepens. The anticipation of him pulling me on top of him throbs between my legs. Jason grabs my hand and to my surprise, pulls me out of the truck.

“What are you doing?” I ask, almost laughing. He leads me at least thirty feet away from the road and then faces me. With his arms around my waist, I lean up on my toes to kiss him. Jason’s usual hunger is replaced by a gentleness that’s foreign in his body.

“Look up, Annie,” he says, but I can’t take my eyes off him. I lean back and try to concentrate on his words. “Look up.”

I let my head fall back and attempt to take it in. The black sky is teeming with stars. Millions of them, millions more than I’ve ever seen in my life. I step away from Jason. My gaze straight up, I amble in a circle, unable to fit the whole scene into one vision, one picture in my mind.

“My God, it’s raining stars here,” I say, wonder consuming me. “Jason, it’s incredible.”

“If you come to Oklahoma, you can see this every night,” he says, and I stop three feet from him and let the conniving tone of his words sink in.

“Is that why you brought me here? To convince me to come back?” He’s so beautiful in the dim moonlight. A wall of muscle beneath his cowboy hat.

“Whenever you’re…upset,” he says, seeking the right words. He’s distraught. “You search the sky for something. Something that settles you. I thought you should see an Oklahoma sky.” His eyes hold me with the same grip he has on my soul. I can’t look away any more than I can comprehend staying away.

“But I want you to stay, Annie. I want you to never go back to New Jersey without me.” The silence waits. It waits for me to relent, to say the words that will keep us together forever. A chill runs through me and a star shoots across the sky, stealing me from him.

This incredible sky.

I abandon it and drop my head, and then he’s upon me. Threading both hands in my hair and clenching them, pulling my hair down and my face toward the sky.

“Forgive me.” His words describe some perfect scenario I can’t accept. Perfect died in a car crash eight weeks ago and now shreds of hope, mixed with reminders of pain, propel me forward.

“I can’t do that,” I say, barely above a whisper, and his chest heaves with frustration. He forces me to look at him and then releases my hair. I wait for his anger, but there’s none. I lean into Jason and kiss him. It’s hunger and desperation and a thousand things other than good-bye. He lifts me and I wrap my legs around his waist, never letting my tongue leave his mouth. I could crush him with my need.