Bad Desire (33 page)

When she was nearly ready, he went around the room closing and bolting the windows. He turned off the night-light and flicked on the flashlight in his hand. In the few minutes that remained they would say very little to each other. As she turned to leave with him and he took her arm, Sheila felt unaccountably vulnerable, as if she didn't quite know where she was. He must have sensed it for he took her in his arms and kissed her, saying he was sorry that they had to go. All the things she needed to hear.

They went down the old stairway, where she waited for him to lock the steel door on the landing, and on out across the gutted parlor to the front door, which he also locked. A full moon had risen in the east; the night was bronze and black. A step or two ahead of him as they crossed the barn lot, Sheila turned, stepped quickly up to him and kissed him. “Tomorrow, then,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said.

“Where? Could we go for a moonlight swim?”

“Is that what you want to do?”

“I'd love it.”

She was still ahead of him when they entered the stable and she opened the second inside door, reaching through the beam of his flashlight and hitting the light switch. A pungent chemical odor assailed her and she turned her head, questioningly, but already Slater had pushed past her.

“My God,” she said, swallowing her voice.

They stood a few steps apart, surveying the wreckage: the hoods of their cars gaped open, bits of wire and hose were strewn about, dark liquid stains soaked the floor. “What the—” Slater said. “Who the hell did this?” For the barest instant, he stared at Sheila, jaw muscles clenched, eyes cold. “Who did this,” he kept muttering, “who did this?” There was a sudden hardness about him that made her want to back away, but just as quickly, his eyes shifted back to the room.

Someone knows
.

All at once, Slater flew past her outside. In seconds, he was back, still studying the darker corners of the stable. “They're gone,” he told her, his voice choked with tension. “Whoever it was—they're gone.”

Sheila wanted to touch him for her own reassurance, but he trailed into the room, crouched and picked up a few of the severed strands of wire. He examined the ends as he stood, then slapped them against his pant leg like a cat-o'-nine-tails. “Look at that,” he said, motioning toward their cars. “Would you look at that? Christ, look at it! Son of a bitch!”

“You're scaring me,” Sheila said. “Do you think someone did this because of me?” She could see how hard he was trying to overcome his rage. “But who?” she said. “Who would do such a thing?”

“I think you know,” he said.

“Me? Are you kidding? No, Henry, I swear … I don't …”

“That goddamned spaced-out boyfriend of yours.”

“No …
Denny?
No. He's not even around this summer. He's seventy miles away from here.”

“We'll see,” Slater said. “If it's not him, I don't know.” She could feel the anger in his voice. “But you'd better damn well believe I'm going to find out.”

“Well, it's not Denny. I can prove it; I can call him—”

“Don't you dare. Don't you even goddamned think about calling him. That's all the hell we need—”

“Why are you so mad at me?” Sheila said, aghast.

This seemed to bring him to his senses. “Christ,” he said, now angry with himself. “Christ, I'm sorry. Sheila, I'm sorry.” But even as he was comforting her, he realized the immediate danger they were in.
Someone knows!
The thought of it wouldn't let him alone.
Someone knows. Someone knows
. He was covered with sweat, a burning cold sweat. With the back of his hand he wiped his eyes clear. He had loved her too much and far too long, now, ever to give her up. “We've just got to be a thousand times more careful from now on.”

“I've wondered all along,” she said, softly, “if we could really pull this off. I've dreaded that something's going to happen every minute. Now I can't even get home.”

“We'll find a car,” he said. “I'll go find a car.”

“And leave me here? No way. I'm sorry, but Henry, there's absolutely no way I'm going to stay here by myself tonight.”

“All right,” he said, “then we'll have to walk it. It's going to take us all damned night.”

“I don't care,” Sheila said, heading out as he reached to take her arm. His fingers were hard as they pressed into the soft flesh of her underarm. “Ouch,” she protested. “That hurts. Don't do it so hard.”

Slater immediately let go of her and went about shutting up the stable and locking the outside door. Even then, as they followed the white beam of his flashlight into the darkness, he could feel it all along his spine, like ice, terrified of looking back as if a dark shape stood watching them. Not since that morning in the garden with Reeves had he felt so close to the edge.

Slater couldn't think straight. None of it was making any sense. Who would do a thing like this? If it wasn't that kid. No matter how ridiculous it seemed, only one name continued to surface, again and again, in his thoughts.
Reeves
.

But Reeves wouldn't stoop to this. Would he?

My God. Was he here? Trying to force my hand?

Does Reeves know?

22

Faith was home, in her dark bedroom.

Leaving the light off, she sat on the side of the bed, hands folded in her lap, wretchedly and convulsively crying. She had cried before but tonight the tears rose from the depths of her body, hard wracking sobs.

“Oh stop it …,” she gasped. “Oh, God, stop it … please make it stop!” Her face, her neck, her collar were all soaked with tears. Now her monstrous rage had compressed to a white burning core.

I knew it was coming, she thought. I could smell it.

Oh, grow up, she told herself, and live in the modern world.
“But I'm not modern,”
she said, weeping,
“I'm not modern.”

It hurt. Oh, God, it hurt so bad. It hurt like a son of a bitch.

He loves her
.

She simply couldn't make it stick in her mind.

Wearily, Faith sat there, shuddering, staring out at the night. With every convulsive breath, she could feel him being ripped from her insides. All the time, she was listening for the sound of his car on the drive. Everything was waiting for him, she was waiting for him, the house waited. Condor Pass was quiet and empty; no one drove by. Henry would come home that way. The clock showed a few minutes past eight-thirty. How could it be so early?

It was still some minutes before she realized he would be late coming home tonight. Very late. If at all.

“He loves her,”
she said aloud. She seemed to speak by rote, as if she had rehearsed saying those three easy words so many times that they were now stripped of all importance, devoid of all feeling.

Well, Faith, what're we going to do now?

Presently she stood and went into the bathroom. She flipped on the light. Who was that woman in the mirror with the wrecked stare? Her face was streaked with grime, her eyes so red they seemed bloody. That was when she noticed it for the first time—the cold hardness in her eyes. It made her uncomfortable; she pushed the image from her mind.

What can I do?

Faith sat on the edge of the bathtub and looked at her hands. Her palms were red, nails broken. There was a thin, brown scratch of dried blood on her left thumb. I must have done it on those wires, she thought, distractedly, but she couldn't remember. It was frightening how little she could actually remember.

Turning on the tap, she splashed handfuls of cold water on her face. “I mustn't let him see me like this,” she muttered as she undressed, dropping her clothes where she stood, stepping into the shower. The ice-cold water took her breath. Afterward, she felt refreshed but drained. With her hair in a towel, she put on a nightgown but quickly changed her mind. I can't stay here, she thought. In the dressing room, while she slipped on clean clothes, she began to actually think it through. I don't want to see him. She would give anything never to lay eyes on him again. She dried her hair, brushed it into place. He doesn't know it was me that was out there; he still may not know anyone was there at all. If he'd seen me, he would've come down. On some pretext.

She could almost hear him fabricating his lie. That's what he would do. She trimmed her broken nails and rubbed lotion onto her hands. Henry wouldn't hide. Sheila would hide, yes, but not Henry.

Going back through the bedroom, Faith turned on her bedside lamp and sat at her vanity, quickly applying the rudiments of fresh makeup. “I wish to God I'd never gone out there …” Deep in her memory, she heard her father's big, mocking voice, “If wishes were pennies, Faith, we'd all be rich.”

With an ease and control she did not feel, she painted her fingernails. Henry won't know who trashed his car. He can't. The farmhouse was dark; he was still in bed—with
her
. When could this have started? Faith remembered him looking at his watch.
We were at dinner
. And the stinking son of a bitch was fucking his brains out all along. No telling how long.

Too late, the web of his lies seemed utterly transparent. Looks Henry had given her, offhand remarks, even his impenetrable silences took on significance where none had been before. In her mind, Faith could still hear his excuses for working late or for playing poker into the night—poker games from which he had begun to return empty-handed. I should've known. I should've. “I've got to stop doing this,” she muttered to herself, “before I lose my head completely.”

Fanning her wet fingernails before her until they dried, she paced the room. If Henry thought about it, logically, he could probably figure it out—that it could only have been her. Yet she knew he seldom gave her a second thought now. Would he believe that she could do that? Not Faith! Not stylish Faith. Oh, Faith has much too much style ever to do such a thing. She drew a grim satisfaction from that.

But if he sees me now, he'll know. I can't stay here.

All at once, desperate with the thought of his coming home, Faith started throwing clothes into an overnight bag. She wondered if Henry might have somehow patched up one of the cars, if in fact he wasn't already speeding for home; she wondered if they were screwing again. She hated him for this. She ached for him.

She ran back into the bathroom, retrieved her dirty clothes, and stuffed them into a plastic bag. She'd take them along and dispose of them—wherever it was she was going. She tossed the plastic bag into her suitcase, shut the lid and snapped the latches. Then she stood in the room, unable to think, numb all the way through. She nearly wept again, because in those few seconds she realized she'd reached the end. She had nowhere to go. She had made a solid life with him here; he obviously hadn't with her.

This is
my
home, Faith thought, although she knew now she would never have the rocklike comforts of home she'd always wanted.

“Of course, I'll leave him,” she said, talking to herself. “I'll get a lawyer. I'll leave him penniless.” All at once, she spun around, staring at the windows that faced the driveway and the garage. Every little sound from outside, now, startled her. The publicity alone would destroy him. His political life, all his ambitions would be over. She knew people—lawyers—men of enormous power and finesse. “All right,” she muttered, “that's what I'll do. First thing tomorrow.”

Faith took a pencil and pad from the drawer of the nightstand and wrote,
Henry, I'm leaving you
, but just as quickly she tore it off and put it in her purse. No, it had to come without warning; he couldn't have the slightest clue as to what she was up to. See how you like it. She scratched a second note, saying matter-of-factly that she'd tried to reach him at the club and missed him, that she was driving into Santa Barbara to see Meg Winters, who was in the hospital, and if it got too late, she would find a hotel and stay over. “I'll call you in the morning,” she wrote, “one way or the other.”

You bastard.

She hesitated, then as if nothing had happened, she signed it quickly “Love, Faith,” folded it into a crisp peak and left it on his pillow.

She tidied up the side of the bed where she had been sitting. She grabbed up her bag and left the light burning on the nightstand so that it shone on the note. The hall was dim and silent. The Chinese runner sank beneath her hurrying steps, the walls shifted backward, but she felt as if she were hardly moving. It was impossible, but the air in the house seemed to tug back at her, as if it knew the depth, the limitless dimension of all she was leaving behind.

PART

THREE

23

Years had gone by since the trouble the last time—so much time that the past sometimes seemed like a long, bad dream to Faith Slater.

They hadn't been married a year when Henry lost their money, a great deal of money, including the inheritance she had received only a few months earlier from her father's Winnetka estate. “I was set up!” Henry ranted. “The bastards set me up!” But no one had set him up. “You got in too deep,” she tried to tell him again and again. But he couldn't accept it. “They're vultures, Faith. Vultures! Christ, they'd take the damned shirt off my back, they'd pick my bones if I'd let them!”

She remembered how frightened they had been, the wild paranoia of those last days in Chicago when they stayed up nights, trying to decide what to do, afraid for the phone to ring—the talk about filing for bankruptcy, the evening they returned to find their furniture and paintings gone, the foreclosure notices. Sleepless nights when it was finally decided that they would have to get away, as far away as possible, to begin again. They would go to California, he decided, and build a new life there. She remembered how Henry had pleaded with her to go when she didn't want to—“Oh, my darling, please, this is home to me. This is my home, don't you see?” she had begged him. “We can make it here. We can get by.” But he wouldn't be swayed. “I'll make it up to you, Faith—I promise. I started out with nothing when we met and I'll make it all back again. Just remember: it's you and me, Faith, no matter what happens. It's you and me.”