Snow Jam (7 page)

The heat of the shower and the heat under the covers came together, enough for us to stretch out, losing our protected curls around body heat. We were face to face and mouth to mouth, hands sliding as far as they could reach along chests and sides and hips and creeping inward, in between, exploring, kissing as we went, not quite ready to meet each other's eyes, hands being enough for now.

He pulsed in my hand, hot and hard and ready, and I felt his fingers slick on me, in me, making my hips strain against his.

When finally we pressed into each other, bodies becoming one, it was sweet, two hot fires melding into one until we didn't need the blankets and the room around us seemed to heat. We rolled together, me on top, him on top, mouths coming together and moving apart, eyes on each other and eyes distant. Sometimes together, sometimes individuals seeking comfort. Strangers meeting.

Like a fire, we blazed up more than once, reigniting and settling to coals again. There were bright moments when he grated his teeth against one of my nipples, or when I raked fingernails down his spine while he sat up in bed, legs crossed tailor style, me on his lap, rocking into him. There were moments of comfort, kisses that seemed sweeter than what I'd expect for a one-night stand. There were periods when the fires banked and we lay side by side, soft blankets molding to our bodies, hands loosely linked or my head on his shoulder.

I'd expected to spend the night alone in a cheap hotel in Hanlin, worrying about my presentation, getting up so often to check everything was still in the messenger bag and the bag still in the hotel room I'd eventually take the bag to the bed with me. After all, half of the bed would be empty.

This was better. So much better. Someone else here, someone who had listened without judgment when I talked about being afraid of the interview process. That mattered. Most people seek to coddle and comfort, or bully and bluster, anything to get you to move on from the thing occupying your mind and their conversation at the moment.

This was better.

I told myself I didn't need it, wouldn't miss it. This was an aberration. Tomorrow morning real life would reestablish itself. I told myself
that
was better.

I fell asleep not believing it.

I woke before dawn in the throes of nightmare.

It wasn't anything new. Same old dream, the one I'd been having some variation of ever since my father, the embezzler, had done his thing and gotten caught. This time I'd just added the current fears about the interview for a special fillip.

In the dream, inevitably I'm somewhere I want to be, doing something I want to do. Doesn't matter what. When I was in high school it was literary magazine, and I really did end up leaving that before the end of the year, because there was too much animosity. Our little Southern California town wasn't one of the big ones. We might have been surrounded by mega-cities but Pasadena isn't. My father not only became infamous overnight with the arrest for embezzling, he had hurt people in our town.

People who were the parents of the teens I went to school with. The literary magazine adviser thought it would be a good idea for me to take a break, then never got back to me about returning. Sunny stuck by me, and our core group of friends, even Holly, whose father lost a fortune to my father's perfidy. That mattered. It mattered to other students, too, and before the year ended most of them saw me as separate from my parents, and someone who had done nothing to hurt them or their families.

But the phone calls and harassment had started, the newspaper articles and TV chat show interviews of financial spokespeople and the late night comics' jokes.

Tonight's dream featured the economic development job I was interviewing for. It showed me confident and informed, well-trained and well-prepared, setting up for the interview. Everyone in the conference room looked like one of my high school teachers, which made the dream a nightmare automatically, but the dream rolled on, finding new levels. When one of the board members stood up and questioned if I were fit. Or if I knew what I was doing.

When he stood up and said I could never be bonded, never be trusted with general fund money from the state, could never be in a position that involved any kind of fiduciary responsibility, even if that was only keeping to a budget.

Just like that I was headed back to Las Vegas and an apartment I couldn't afford. Just like that I was going to be living with my mother, a tiny apartment in Southern California full of creepy decorations like velvet paintings and those small naked children who seem to be made out of unfired clay. Just like that things that had never happened were happening
–
Sunny had lost money to my father and never told me and now she was. Telling me. And carrying a very large knife.

I woke shouting, sweating, my heart racing. The room was way too dark, I never sleep in total dark, but I could hear someone beside me, fumbling for a light and swearing, and I knew I wasn't alone.

"What happened?"

Rick's voice came out of the dark. It wasn't friendly. I felt a shiver that threatened to become uncontrollable. My skin was icy, sweat-slick from the dream.

"Nightmare," I said, and reached for the bedside light.

Rick groaned and pulled the covers up. He didn't reach for me. He didn't say anything.

"I've had them for a long time," I said, feeling a need to explain, because after all, I'd wakened him from a sound sleep. "This time it just added in the snow, the travel, the interview and the job stress."

"OK."

Apparently he didn't wake well.

"So go back to sleep."

I sat up in bed, one of the ultra soft blankets around me. He wasn't my boyfriend. I didn't get to expect anything from him. But lots of people stress traveling and probably there are more people are uncomfortable driving in the snow than those who aren't. Would it have killed him to say "It's OK" or "It was just a dream"?

"Sorry to have woke you," I said stiffly.

"Ahh, jeez," he said, and sat up. The glorious golden hair was rumpled; I could see that much by the moonlight coming through the curtains. He ran a hand through it and looked at me. I couldn't have been more than a dark shape
–
I was out of the beam of light. "Look, Princess, you've got a phobia. I get that. And you've got changes going on. I get that too. Happens to a lot of people. So suck it up, buttercup. Chances are everything is going to be fine, but you know what? I'm not your boyfriend. We're not in a relationship, and I don't deal with clingy well."

The moon moved, or set, or something. The moonlight went away and the room was dark except for the glow of a clock radio.

"I'm not clingy," I said. I have been. With every boyfriend, right up until Tony. Right up until now. "I was doing fine before you came along and I'll be fine after you're gone."

"Great. Have a good time. Have a great life. I don't remember saying I wanted anything past last night." His head turned toward me. "Neither did you. So I'll drive you to your car once the sun's up and everything's had a chance to thaw, otherwise you're just going to get stuck again. Wake me at ten."

"Right," I said and yanked the blanket closest to me around me and got up.

Rick sat up again. "I left you blankets and quilts in the living room on the futon." He sounded wide awake so what would be the problem with getting up now?

Other than it was still dark outside.

"This blanket is warm," I said, and left the bedroom, dragging my clothes with me.

I turned on the baseboard heat but left the fire alone. I don't understand fireplaces or flues or dampers and things don't burn well for me. I got dressed and made coffee, not bothering to keep quiet but the snores from the bedroom indicated Rick was unperturbed.

The sunrise sketched across the sky in colors that made it almost all right that I was up. The dream had faded. Now all my nervous energy was focused on the upcoming day
–
drive, interview, presentation. I called the hotel and told them about the storm. It didn't occur to me until partway through the conversation I had service again. I asked them to hold the room. I'd need somewhere to shower and change. I wasn't far outside of Hanlin. The interview was at two. I wanted to leave the hotel at one to make sure I was on time. Which meant showering and getting ready at noon. Which meant getting on the road at eleven.

Which wasn't a problem since it was
–
I looked at my phone again
–
just after six. In fact, Rick sleeping till ten wasn't a problem.

But I couldn't. I had to get moving. Even if it meant extra hours worrying in a hotel diner and reading the same sentences over and over in the battered novel I'd brought with me, it was better than being this far away and not knowing if it might start snowing again or Rick might take it into his head to do something unpredictable and slow me down.

I was dressed and caffeinated. The sun was out and the snow dazzling. My cell worked and I could clearly see the tracks from Rick's car. There hadn't been that many turns
–
just right into the group of cabins, right onto the very long driveway that was really a road from the interstate. We'd gone less than five miles on the highway, probably more like two. I could walk that. My boots were waterproof, my sweats had dried, and the caffeine was arcing through my system.

And Rick was snoring out of spite. So it seemed.

I rinsed my coffee cup and used the bathroom. I found a notepad and wrote him a note and, after considering, left my cell phone number. Part of me wanted to leave a nasty note, like "Money's on the dresser" like he was a gigolo, but it had taken two of us last night even if I regretted it now.

On the porch I contemplated texting Sunny. She usually gets up early. But there's early and there's just plain mean and the sun was just up. Stupid, probably, but if the rental wouldn't start or I couldn't get unstuck I could call the agency and get a ride while they reclaimed their car. If they asked why I hadn't reported it the night before, the lack of cell service helped.

The air was cold and dry, like little effervescent stings on my face. I pulled my scarf up around my face, shouldered the messenger bag, criss-crossed the carryon over my chest, and hiked up the road.

Rick had grown up in Georgia. I'd grown up in Southern California. Didn't matter. What my father had done spread to national newspapers. The financial adviser who advised some of his clients right out of their wealth.

Sunny said it didn't matter. My last name of Powers isn't that unusual. No one would know who I was. Or who my father was. Or care anymore. I was twenty-six. It had been ten years since Mr. Powers defrauded all those people.

But I'd had more than one date recognize the name until I started dating people who weren't apt to have read the papers at the time.

"They're not stupid," Sunny said one of the last times I broke up with a guy because we had nothing in common. I'd just been glad he didn't recognize my name. "It's been
ten years
, Mya."

And then the next date knew who I was. Ten years or not. It wasn't just that my father had embezzled. It was that one of his clients had committed suicide when his new business went down the drain as a result of my father's manipulations.

A man with a wife and children and a future as an entrepreneur. Gone because someone took everything he'd worked for and he couldn't bear telling his wife his new worth was now zero.

Not my fault, my friends said, but relationships were hard enough without wondering what kind of trauma could drive us apart, or whether or not they'd known who I was.

Not my fault, but I'd felt horrible when the emails and calls came, the
How can you live with yourself?
messages. I was a junior in high school.

I'd taken to economics like it was going to save my life.

Once there, I'd become a specialist, working with new and expanding businesses.

Go figure.

But self-awareness isn't the same thing as healing. Knowing how long it's been since something terrible happened isn't a cure for it having happened. Time doesn't heal everything. I was afraid to get close to anyone who might recognize me, especially when I was so close to the place where I'd interview for the job where I might make even more of a difference. Small town, new opportunities, better title, more chance to help.

I couldn't get discovered or distracted. Whatever favor Sunny thought she was doing me, I couldn't take her up on it. My father's influence had spread way beyond our own hometown.

It had spread deep into me.

I was sweating and hot under my coat, icy and chapped out of it by the time I reached the main road, but the sun was well up now and already there were large patches of asphalt steaming through the white. There was traffic, but it wasn't insane, and no one stopped me or yelled at me for being on the interstate. On the other side I saw a couple doing the same thing
–
walking back to a stranded car. If I got stopped for being on foot, maybe they'd give me a ride.