Sadie's Mountain (14 page)

“Look, that’s none of your business,” Dillon says, his voice like steel.

“Everything that happens in this town is my business.” He looks at me like I’m a delinquent child. “Everything you do comes back on me, Dillon, and I got a reputation to uphold.” Oh, so he’s making this about Dillon doing something wrong to hide the fact that he’s jealous. He’s good at this turning tables crap.

“If you’ll excuse me,” I say, and walk on wobbly legs to the restroom sign. When I turn back, the two of them look like they’re in a standoff. Donnie, obviously the bigger of the two, isn’t being too smart right now. Dillon is in his face. Donnie’s pointing a finger like a weapon. His temper is getting him in trouble. If he doesn’t want his secret out, he needs to get a hold of himself, quickly.

I push the bathroom door open and turn on the sink. I splash my face with water, and rub it on my steaming neck when the door opens. A pretty blonde is standing for a bit too long in the mirror behind me. It’s like she’s trying to place who I am. I don’t recognize her.

“Sadie Sparks?” she says, in a too sweet voice.

“Yes,” I say, as I turn around and pump out a paper towel to dab my face with. She’s a tall, leggy blonde in beige pants, a pink striped top, and pink high heeled shoes. Very pretty. Older than me—probably around Missy’s age. “Can I help you?” I ask, unsure if I’m supposed to remember her on my own.

“I’m Claire. Claire Robbins,” she says, stretching out her arm tipped with pink polished nails on the end of slender fingers.

Oh, god! Dillon’s girlfriend.

I try to feign a smile, but I’m sure it looks faker than usual. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you,” I say, grasping her soft hand before dropping it quickly. I don’t look her in the eyes. That’s a mistake. It makes me look guilty.

“Have you?” she says. “From who?” Her voice is sharp, like a teacher catching me in a lie.

“Oh, uh, Dillon and I ran into each other on the mountain yesterday. And my brother Jake told me you’re his English teacher,” I say, obviously nervous.
Why am I so nervous? I don’t owe her an explanation
.

“Yes, Jake’s a good kid...when he comes to class.”

I shake my head. What do you say to your whatever-Dillon-is-to-me’s girlfriend?

“How long are you in town?” she asks, as she moves her weight from one foot to the other making her hip stick out like girls did back in my California high school before a bitch-slap.

“Just until...well, my mom’s sick. Cancer. She has cancer. It won’t be long now,” I say looking around the bathroom. “I’m leaving after the wake.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says. I’m unsure what she’s sorry about. My mom being sick or me being here that long.

“Well, it was nice to meet you.”
I want out of here
. Is there no escape route for jealousy around here?

“So, Dillon. He knows you’re here?” she asks before I take my second step.

“Yes, he brought me to the meeting,” I say, turning back around. Let’s just get that out on the table. I’m sick of hiding. Secrets have been my life. It’s like I’ve been hauling someone else’s crime around with me in a crusty duffle bag for ten and half years.

She burns holes through me with her eyes. “Do you think it’s fair,” she fumes, “leading him on like this?”

“I’m not leading anyone on. Dillon and I are just friends. He knows that.”

“Does he?” she challenges.

“We talked about it yesterday, and this morning. That’s all we’ve ever been is friends, Claire.”

“Not to him! To him, you are  
his
ideal woman. No one will ever compare.” Her hand is on that hip now and she’s leaning forward, getting in my face.

“I know you’re upset, but this isn’t about me. This is about the fact that you’ve fallen for him and he doesn’t feel the same way about you. That’s between you and him. So if you’ll excuse me,” I say as I turn around. Before I take another step, she grabs my arm. I try to yank it away but she holds tight, her pink nails dig into my flesh.

“Did he tell you that?” She’s yelling now. Her face is bright pink like her nails.

“Not in so many words but he’s explained your...arrangement. I think he’s been honest with you about his feelings—or at least that’s the way he explained it to me. This is a conversation you two need to have together. Now let go of my fucking arm!”
Wow! where did that come from?
I don’t like to be held captive. Old wounds like that just never heal.

There’s a knock on the door. “Sadie?”

It’s Dillon.

“Are you okay in there?”

I yank my arm away and walk toward the door, but Pink Girl grabs the door first and opens it so fast the corner of the door smacks me in the face. I see Dillon, mouth gaping open, surrounded by little white sparks as I grasp my head in my hands.

“What are you doing, Claire?” Dillon yells, as he takes me into his arms, tilts my chin up and checks my forehead for a cut with the tip of his gentle thumb.

“I’m getting the hell out of here,” she screams at him.

“Yes, I think you should. You’re making a fool of yourself,” he says, as he hugs me consolingly, protectively.

“Ouch,” I whine.

“I’m not going to sit here and watch her lead you on.”

“She’s not leading me on. She’s been very honest with me about what kind of relationship she can handle.”

 “I’m the one who’s going to have to pick up the pieces when she leaves.” She’s pointing at me with that pointy pink nail.

She’s right. I’m going to go home and Dillon will be devastated. What if I don’t leave?

“No, you won’t. I think you’re confusing me with someone else,” he says, his eyes stinging into hers.

“That’s a low blow,” she whispers, tears now streaming down her face. “Bringing up my dead husband...” She’s shaking her head.

I do not want to be here. They should talk in private.
Dillon is holding me up. I feel too dizzy to walk.

“No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have said that. But I think you’ve read more into our arrangement than was actually there.” 

“So, you’re making your choice?” she fumes, tapping the tip her pink shoe on the floor.

“There’s never been a choice to make. It’s her. It’s always been her. I’m sorry if you ever thought otherwise.” His voice is clear, concise.

She turns to me, “Little girl. You’ll never be able to do the things to him in bed that I do.”

She’s right.
They are probably great together. She’s tall like him. Passionate. His equal in every way.

I look up at Dillon. He’s not looking at her anymore. He’s just staring at me with concern written in the creases in his forehead.

“He was with me three nights ago,” she says, like poison. He winces and his eyes shut. “So remember that the next time you kiss him—you’re probably tasting a little bit of me on his lips,” she says as she’s walking backwards down the hall and then turns and clicks her heels, presumably, all the way out the auditorium door. Her words stick to me like goo. I want to shake them off but they’re all clingy and heavy.

I’m not shaking anymore. I’m Numb Girl. Sometimes I’m thankful for her. Now’s one of those times. Dillon grasps me around my hips. “Sadie,” he says. He sounds like an echo. “Do you need a doctor?”

 I don’t speak.
This it too much. I. Can’t. Take. It.
I close my eyes and my knees feel weak.

“Can you walk?” he asks. I can do that. I put one foot in front of the other. He escorts me, like a protective soon-to-be father would do, through the crowd and past a metal screen that must be blocking off the lunch counter into the kitchen.

“I need some ice, please,” he says to the lady who’s putting little cookies on a large metal tray.

“In the freezer,” she says, pointing to it with her chin.

“And a towel, please,” he requests as he lifts me, effortlessly, and sets me on the counter. I cross my ankles. The lady huffs, walks over to a drawer and brings him a towel, walks slowly over to the freezer and pops a tray of ice next to me on the counter. He’s inspecting my forehead and checking my eyes for dilation.

“She shouldn’t be up there, Dillon.”
Oh my gosh, it’s the grumpy, already-old-back-then lunch lady.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Parks but she’s had a little accident. I need to take a look or she might need to go to the hospital.” She huffs and slowly walks the cookie tray out the door.

“Can you speak, darlin’?” he asks me sympathetically while he’s inspecting my head.

“Yes,” I say, finally.

“You’ve got a big red bump right here,” he says, and kisses my forehead. The tenderness in his voice and his lips snaps me out of my numbness. I shudder, and my breathing takes on a more frenetic tempo.

I watch as he uses those long fingers to retrieve ice cubes from the tray and place them on the towel. He stings my forehead with it. “Sheesh,” I say.

“That was really unacceptable,” he says. “My brother and then Claire. They’re acting like idiots.” I shake my head yes but don’t look at him. I don’t want him to see how scared I am. He reads me so well.

“I really shouldn’t have come.”

“That’s nonsense,” he says, holding the ice to my forehead. “You have every right to be here. Donnie’s just mad because I embarrassed him. He hates that, and Claire, I think I messed up with her when I didn’t catch the signs that she felt more strongly for me than I did for her.”

“Or maybe you really like her and you didn’t want to admit your feelings for her.”

“No, Sadie, it’s not like that. It was just a physical relationship. I was lonely. That’s all.”

“You really should go talk to her.”

“She left.”

“No, I mean after you take me home.”

“I might give her a call in a few days, after she’s calmed down.” I nod my head in agreement.

“She’s probably a nice lady when she’s not around me,” I say, with a little smile.

“She’s nice. She is. She’s still mourning her husband. Sometimes, she calls me Mike by accident. I don’t say anything.”

“But three nights ago, how? How do you just sleep with her and have no feelings for her. I’m so confused. That’s not like you at all.”

“I only have room in here for you,” he says, grasping my hand and placing it over his fast beating heart like he’s plugging me into an outlet.
Live wires
.  I wince from the contact. I wanted to grill him about sleeping with her, but that’s all wiped away now.

 “That’s a lot of responsibility you’re giving me,” I offer, looking up at him through my lashes.

“I give it freely,” he says, taking the ice off my forehead and running his finger along my jaw line. “I want nothing in return. Nothing you do will change how full my heart is of you.” He looks at me like I’m his most prized possession. “All I want is to know you’re happy, to be in your life in some small way.”

Again, our bodies are speaking on their own frequency. I feel pulled to him and right now I don’t care that his malevolent brother, with his promise of death, is somewhere right outside that door. I’ve let him take enough from me. He can’t have this. Not anymore.

My hand on Dillon’s heart pulls on my memories like a bobbin on the end of a line. All the good comes up to the surface. And it’s about time because it’s been held down for so many years by the weight of my attack.

Suddenly, I can hear us giggling under the low branches of our tree that he’d tied a rope to so we could fling ourselves into Rich Creek. Before that, I can hear his soft voice as he coaxed me into holding my breath underwater for the first time. “
See, it’s easy! I told you you could do it.”

I remember the way his tongue stuck out when he put the pink, plump fish egg on the bent hook for me so I could catch fish with him. I can hear him telling me stories in his young ghost-story voice and can feel the way he’d hold me when he’d done too good of a job scaring me. I remember how he was always teaching me. Always there when I needed to talk.

I remember when he promised me he’d buy me a big white house. He said it’d have a big kitchen and lots of rooms for all our babies.

I remember the cave he showed me that held the remains of some kind of animal. We used to go in there and play rock-paper-scissors. Mostly, he let me win.

I remember the scent of his skin when we’d been playing hide-and-seek in the grass—his perspiration mixed with the West Virginia dust, and his momma’s soap.

I remember riding on the back of his bike, his scent mingling with mine in the mountain air. I remember making snow angels together and then him helping me make the biggest snowman I’d ever seen—he even ripped two buttons off his coat to make the eyes. I can see the determined look on his face when I’d helped him rescue a dragon fly out of the mud behind my house.
“Look at its face. It looks like a bulldog, don’t it?”

These memories sting—but I want to remember. Just like the song asked me to in his car. I do remember—everything.

I’ve made my decision.

I love Dillon. I want him in every way he wants me. We’ll work it all out. We have to.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, holding my face in his hand, my other hand pressed up to his heart. He’s looking deep in my eyes with those Tahoe blues.

“I think I’m cured,” I say, peeking into his core, trying to see if he understands the double meaning. If he understands that I’ve made up my mind about him, about us. Even if it is only for this brief moment before the real world comes roaring back to me in a moment of lucidity. I trace his cheek with my index finger and he nuzzles me back.

“I love you,” I say, before I can become a coward.
Is that clear enough? I never stopped and I don’t want to push you away anymore—I can’t.
His eyes widen and he shudders as if a chill goes through his body that he holds in. I place both my hands on his face and pull him toward me. There is only him. There is only me. It’s as if we’re alone on this planet and we’re creating all the meaning that exists in it.

“Is this really happening?” he breathes as he leans down and easily slides me by my waist toward the edge of the counter closer to him. My legs move to either side of his hips. I take a sharp breath as my tummy clenches up. He tenderly rubs the tip of his nose the full length of mine before he grasps my chin, gently tilting it up. His chest strokes against mine.