Forged in Grace (21 page)

“
I don’t want to,” I said.

“
Hey!” Marly suddenly snapped free of Rick, pulled her tank down over her unsnapped bra. “Did you hear her?”

“
You a couple of fucking teases?” Brady asked. “Or do I get sloppy seconds from you?”

The look in Marly’s eyes was cold and terrifying, reptilian. She was up in an instant, yanking Brady off of me with surprising strength, so that he tumbled to the floor, where he remained. Rick looked on with an amused smile. I realized in that moment how drunk these guys really were, and how lucky that we’d made it to their house in one piece.

“You think that’s funny, asshole?” she said.

It happened in a flash. She suddenly had in her hands a long brass fireplace poker. Brady laughed, and I knew before she even moved that he had sealed his fate. The poker came down on his left knee with a sickening sound, and he began to howl and curse and for one terrifying moment she pointed it at his face, as though she might ram it right through his skull. Rick’s eyes went wide, but Marly tossed the poker with a clank, grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the apartment. I was barefoot, having left the pumps, stolen out of the back of Ma’s closet, behind.

“Fuck!” Marly shouted. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

“
Why did you do that, Marly?” I shouted, panting. “Where are we? I don’t even know where we are. How are we going to get home?”

“
Well we can’t call my parents!” she cried.

“
We’re in Sausalito, Marly—we have no money, and I’m sorry, but I’m not hitchhiking back home again. It’s late. All the serial killers are probably out now.”

It began to dawn on me as we walked further from the scene of the crime what would have to happen.
“We’ll have to call my parents,” I said.

“
No!” She stopped, turned to me and grabbed me by the shoulders. “They’ll tell mine,” she said. “Don’t you get it, Grace—there is NO way my parents can know where we’ve been, what we’ve done.”

“
What about your grandma?”

She stopped, nodding up at the sky, then turned around and pulled me to her.
“You’re brilliant, Grace!” I was keenly aware of the curves of her body against mine, the smell of her, musk and sweat and alcohol mingled. I wished in that moment I could be her—bold the way she was bold, forward without fear of being rejected, powerful in her physical body, desired.

We had barely reached the Safeway, and the payphone, when a highway patrol car pulled up beside us.
“You ladies look a bit young to be out so late,” said the officer, who was himself young and handsome, and made no secret of ogling Marly.

“
We’re just headed home, officer,” Marly said.

“
Where’d you come from?”

Marly’s charm hardened into steel edges.
“Just taking a walk.”

“
A walk from a condo complex near here? Where a man says a girl took a fire-poker to his knee cap?”

I saw in her face the urge, the intent, to run, but I grabbed her arm. That would make it so much worse.

Now, the memory freed from my body, I return to the present. The waiter carrying a tray with three more shots our way breaks my reverie. “Hey, she’s pregnant!” I shout, loud enough to be heard over the music. The guy at the bar frowns in surprise, but Marly turns to glare at me. She slips out of my arm and chases after the waiter calling out “Yoo hoo!” in a silly tone.

I
’m going to need help getting her out of here. I dig into her purse for her cell-phone, where I find Drew’s number programmed. It takes a lot of fine concentration to work the damn thing with my bulky thumbs, but soon it’s ringing, and I pray that Drew can get away.

He answers.

“Hey, it’s Grace calling,” I say, talking loudly over the music. I don’t dare go outside and leave Marly.

“
Grace, is everything ok? You sound like you’re shouting in a wind tunnel.”

“
I need your help. Marly’s…not herself and I can’t control her. Can you come get us?”

“
Ohhh,” he heaves a sigh. “Give me the address. I’ll be right there.”

All I can do for the fifteen minutes before Drew arrives is stand sentinel to keep any more drinks from making their way into this crazy dancing Marly. I don
’t know what’s wrong with her.

Drew arrives in his work clothes: black suit and bright blue tie. I
’m grateful for both his height and strength, a bulwark against these forces suddenly out of my control. When Marly sees him, she pouts. “Oh no, I’m being bad again, a bad little baby in need of a beating.”

“
Come on.” He picks her up as effortlessly as if she is, in fact, a baby.

She pounds on his back lightly with her fists.
“But I’m having so much fun.”

“
Well I think you’re the only one, sweetheart.” He slides her into the backseat of his car and buckles her in. “How much did she drink?” he asks

I take the passenger seat.
“Only one shot.”

Marly mutters and swears under her breath.

“You know better than that,” Drew says over his shoulder, getting into the car himself.

“
You better, you better you bet,” she sings.

“
What’s wrong with her?”

Drew shakes his head as though it
’s nothing. “She just gets worked up from time to time. Overly-emotional. That prick didn’t contact you again, did he?”

“
Prick, ha!” she starts laughing. “This’ll only prick a bit.”

“
I’d say this is more than emotional,” I point out. “She’s acting insane.”

“
Pregnancy hormones,” he shrugs. “They do different things to different people. This is Marly’s version.”

“
This is your brain on drugs,” she says in the backseat, then cackles. “Or two shots.”

I crane back to look at her.
“You only had one.”

“
Double shot!” she crows, as though proud of herself.

Once at her apartment, Drew gets her upstairs, though she refuses to get into bed. I get the task of calling Sabrina to tell her that Marly won
’t be in to work.

“
Is she ok? It’s just pregnancy stuff?” she asks.

Her tone is so worried, it prompts me to ask,
“As opposed to other kinds of stuff?”

“
Well, you know, like when she doesn’t want to take her medications?”

“
She’s fine.” I’m unwilling to admit there’s yet another thing about my best friend that I don’t know. Marly begins to put her kitchen back in order, singing to herself as though Drew and I are not here. He sits, slumped in her soft couch, hand on his forehead. “What do you know about her medications?” I ask softly, so she won’t hear.

“
Run of the mill anti-depressants, anti-anxiety stuff. Isn’t everyone taking that shit now?”

I think of the bottles in her room, the weight of the unknown pills like a bad taste in my mouth.
“Is she supposed to be taking that stuff while pregnant?”

Drew sighs heavily,
“Grace, I’m not her doctor. In fact, I’m not even officially her boyfriend. I helped her refill her ‘scripts when her insurance was cancelled. As for the rest, you’re just going to have to ask her.”

A rush of shock.
“When did her insurance get cancelled?”

He runs his hands through the stiff landscape of his hair.
“Months, a long time—look, I’m going to get major shit for taking my break early, and twice as long, so I’m on my way.” He stands, smoothing out the creases in his pants, but those in his forehead deepen. “Be good, Marly,” he calls to her.

She raises her head from the refrigerator, where she
’s pulling out food and setting it on the floor behind her. “As if.” She waves at him.

While she
’s busy putting the kitchen back in order, or pulling the rest of it apart (I can’t tell) I walk past her room and peer in. At her bedside, where she caught me snooping in her pills, the side table is clear and empty. I want desperately to leaf through drawers, even her purse. I bet Adam would know what she’s taking. Maybe he could even help.

Chapter Nineteen

I wake to the feeling of my bed sinking down beneath the weight of a body the next morning. I peel my eyes open to see Marly sitting there.

“
I’m not…I’m not an alcoholic, Grace,” she says in a quivering voice. “And I know I shouldn’t drink, but it’s just like…it’s like the perfect medication.”

“
What is the deal, exactly, with your actual medication?”

What am I waiting for? A big confession, a diagnosis that will help me make sense of what happened? She twists her fingers together over and over—so fast and hard it looks as though she
’s chafing them.

“
When I decided to…stay pregnant, my doctor had me switch anti-depressants because it’s safer for the baby. This medication is…different. That and the hormones. And my mother. Marvelous, manipulative mother.”

“
I wondered if it had anything to do with your mother.”

“
I wish I had nothing to do with my mother. I wish I could become un-related to her. Ditch the DNA that comes from her.”

As I sit up, my body complains in its language of stiffness. My muscles feel tighter, denser, than usual. I think about Sasheen
’s saying I should recharge myself—I’ll go see her again. “I remember how uptight your mother was when we were kids.”

Marly sniffs and shrugs.
“I know I should ease up on her. I tell myself I will, and then I see her and I just go crazy, coo-coo!”

“
You want to talk about it?”

Marly shakes her head subtly, and I
’m tempted to press it. But she stands up quickly in a way that makes me wonder if my thoughts are somehow translated plainly into my face.

“
I’d like to take you somewhere,” she says. “So up and at ‘em, rise and shine!”

When we pull up to Drew
’s house I feel a little hitch in my guts.

“
Marly, I don’t feel all that social today.”

Marly bolts out of the car—still full of the springy energy that started at the diner. When we approach that jarring turquoise of Drew
’s front door, Marly lets us in.

“
Shouldn’t we knock or announce ourselves?” I hesitate just in the entry. “I don’t want to barge in.”

Marly rolls her eyes at me, and pulls me through the house then out the sliding glass door to the backyard where I healed the man named Ray. She does a Vanna White swoop of the arms in front of a big shed. It
’s painted a soft green, and baskets of philodendrons drip from its eaves.

“
Go on, open it,” Marly says. “Open sesame!”

With a deep breath I turn the brass handle, cold beneath my palm, and open the door.

Drew lies on a burgundy leather analyst’s couch reading
Fish & Game
, of all things. The legs of the couch are buried in yellow shag carpet so deep it looks capable of housing mammalian life. A sheer curtain covers the one small window, a slightly crisp ficus tree tilts slightly to one side in a floral pot. The real capper, however, are two large velvet paintings of Elvis, one of him rocking out with his guitar, and the other, a close-up of his crooning mug.

“
Love shack?” I ask.

Drew and Marly both laugh, their voices joining in a nervous symphony.

Marly takes my hand. “I wanted you to have a place all your own, a quiet place where you can heal, one-on-one, intimately. A little temple.”

It all comes clear to me. She doesn
’t want me going off to Gus’s to do my healings. She wants to keep me close. This is Marly’s version of staking a claim. Or, says the more generous part of me, maybe it’s her way of apologizing.

Frankly, it
’s the sorriest excuse for a temple I’ve ever seen, but the look in Marly’s eyes is edgy and unreadable. I know what I have to say: “I love it.”

“
You do?”

“
Yeah. The Elvises are a nice touch.”

“
I put those up as a joke,” Drew says, toeing something on the floor, not making eye contact with me. “Sort of tacky chic. Sorry, I didn’t have a lot of time to get it ready.” He shoots Marly a quick look but Marly is a blur of movement, hands whirling and mouth spinning.

“
You could put shelves here, hang something from the window here—shiny things, you know—a little mesmerizing.” She goes on about further decorating options while Drew does a poor job of pretending to smile.

“
Those are great ideas, Marly.” I hope I don’t sound patronizing. “But are you sure? I’m fine going to people’s houses and things.”

Drew opens his mouth but Marly intervenes:
“No, that’s beneath you. Maybe if you do a group thing, but people should be coming to you, and Drew’s got the perfect yard. The ambiance is right, charming, peaceful.”

Her fervor makes me feel I
’m being sold a piece of real estate I’m not sure I can afford.

Drew clears his throat after a heavy glance from Marly.
“If it’s okay with you, Grace, you could do trades on friends of mine—not that many—every month instead of paying rent.”

“
Won’t this inconvenience you, Drew?” I want to give him an out. “To have people traipsing through your yard?”

Another glance from Marly and I start to feel awkward. There
’s reluctance in Drew’s every gesture and expression.

He shakes his head.
“Oh no, you can let yourselves in around the back. Besides, it means I’ll get to see more of you lovely ladies.” He looks at Marly when he says this, but his eyes are hard.

Her eyes, in contrast, are moist, and she takes my hand for only a second.
“I know I’ve put you through a lot, Grace. I just want you to know that it a privilege for me to get to watch you do what you do. I am so lucky to have you as my friend. And with you in my life, I know that I can do things the right way.”

Drew smiles perfunctorily and claps his hands together.
“Well, there you go,” he says.

“
This is more than I could ask for,” I say, for Marly’s benefit. “I’m touched.”

Since Marly
’s attack, it’s not uncommon for Marly to glare at some poor resident in the parking garage that she doesn’t recognize, clenching her keys like little daggers between her fingers. So I am not the slightest bit surprised when she shouts, “What do you want?” to a man who’s gotten off the elevator and is walking our way.

“
Adam?” I say. I don’t quite believe it’s him. He holds a gray sweater folded over his arms, and a small backpack on his left shoulder. He’s wearing a jersey-knit cobalt blue shirt that is so different from his doctor’s coat.

“
You didn’t tell me you invited the good doctor.” Marly elbows me suggestively in the ribs.

“
She didn’t.” He gives her an assessing glance, as though she’s an ailing patient. She returns it, and I feel like joking that we need pistols so they can have an old-fashioned duel.

“
Well, I’ll give you two some time.” Marly winks at me before heading to the elevators.

When the elevator doors close on her, Adam moves closer to me but stops just shy of touching me. He is gazing down at me with such obvious and familiar tenderness, I wonder how I ever missed it in his eyes before. I relish the gasp he makes when I grab him in the kind of hug the pain made impossible for years. I never knew that he smelled like cinnamon and earth after a rain. His heart is beating almost as hard as my own.

“It doesn’t hurt, to touch?” he asks.

“
Not with you,” I whisper into his neck. The larger truth, that learning to heal has channeled the pain, I keep to myself.

“
Is it weird that I came?” he says into my shoulder.

“
No, I’m just so surprised.” I am overcome by the density of Adam in my arms. But as we hold each other, I feel a ripple of sorrow, and an image starts to form and I start to pull back. Before I can organize my thoughts, he kisses me. It’s not exactly lustful, yet definitely not the kind of kiss you give a friend.

“
Come up to the apartment,” I say, flustered.

When we make our way inside, Adam regards Marly
’s apartment with wide-eyed awe. “Is she color blind?” he whispers.

“
No, she says it keeps her head uncrowded.” For the first time I realize how odd this sounds.

Adam raises an eyebrow but says nothing.

Marly appears to have hidden herself in her room, and I am grateful. But now that we’re alone, I’m afraid of what he’ll say to me.

“
I know you called. So I thought I’d reply in person. Make a statement.”

I look down at my hands, my thumbs sitting like disobedient animals in my lap.
“I’m sorry I took the cowardly way out. I didn’t know how to tell you I was going to stay after everything you’ve done for me.”

“
I’m not mad at you; you inspire me, Grace.”

Now I look at him, surprise flapping wide wings inside me.
“That’s not what I thought you were going to say.”

“
Coming to Vegas, finding out what Marly has to offer—I know that was guts at work. I was afraid I might not see you again, and then, I realized hey, I’m a grown man, I can go visit. What have you been up to?”

His words light a sun in my heart. Then it
’s eclipsed. What have I been doing all these months? Do I tell a man who’s gone through medical school, a man who patently disapproved of “energy healing” that I’m flinging my hands at illness all over Vegas?
Don’t tell him
, says Marly’s voice in my head.

I lean to kiss him, and he kisses me back willingly, but then pulls himself away.
“I didn’t come here with any expectations, Grace. Don’t feel like you have to—”

There
’s no way I’m going to let him finish that sentence; I press myself to him, surprised at how well our bodies match in size. My breath is quick and unbidden. Then, without any warning
I
enter
him
—or so it feels. My serpent is drawn directly into the center of his chest, just beyond his heart. I gasp. This place inside Adam I’ve found is icy, literally; my whole body is chilled and numb as though I’ve been dumped into ice water. I see her so clearly for a moment that I almost wrench myself out of his arms. She died, drowned in a near-frozen lake. She was older, and everything to him, more mother than sister. Her brown hair fans out like a mermaid’s as she floats face down. Waves of tender feelings tell me she protected him and nurtured him.