Payback (23 page)

“You’re not bad either. Now come here and keep me warm.”

Marie slid into his arms and melted into his body, just as she used to when they were in Los Angeles.

As he lay there holding her, he wondered if it was too late
for them. Had been so rough on her that she would choose to leave? When given the freedom to make a choice, would she go or stay with him? He would know soon enough.

Marie woke up with a smile on her face and looked at the clock. It was already five-thirty.  Getting up, she pulled on her nightgown and made her way downstairs
, still happy, still believing that he must have forgiven her and this was the beginning of a new life.

And then she saw the whiteboard. It was blank with three words written across it, “Paid in Full.” She grinned
. He had come down to erase the board, to let her know she was free…he had forgiven her.  But then she saw something on the counter—her car keys. Under them was an envelope. She walked over to the counter, tripping over one of the bags on the way. She picked up the white envelope marked, “Marie.” Inside were five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. He was paying her five hundred dollars to get out of his life.

Her heart sank.
She had been set up. Caden had played her. All the affection, all the kindness, all the warmth…it was just a show to remind her of what she had lost, of what she would never have again.

So, he wanted her gone--out of his life. He wanted to move on without her. There was only one thing that she could do…move on too. All her dreams of one big happy family were gone. She’d have to make her own
life somewhere else.

Running up the stairs, she quickly changed into jeans, a sweater
, and tennis shoes before stuffing her nightgown into a plastic bag. Sliding one arm into a sleeve of her jacket, she paused in the kitchen, took a deep breath and then pulled the other one on too.

Swiping the
money off the counter along with her keys, she grabbed the bags and headed out to the deck. The Montana wind sliced through her.  Just ten feet from the deck was her silver Porsche, looking as good as new with brand-new tires. After pushing the bags into the back, she turned the key and listened as the car purred to life, sounding better than when she first drove down the lane. Taking off, she drove past where she had crashed, only this time she knew every curve, every dip in the road. She stopped at the junction between the drive and the highway before taking a right and out of his life.

By the time she reached Whitefish, the coffee shop where Ona worked was open
, so Marie decided to swing by to say good-bye. As she pulled in, she could see Ona behind the counter pouring a coffee for, of all people, Chris and Jason. 

Jason looked up and grinned, but then the grin dropped
, and he furrowed his brow. Marie walked over and gave him and Chris hugs. Ona asked for a few moments to talk with her, so her employee took over. Ona brought Marie a coffee, and the four of them sat down.

“I can’t stay. I’ve got to get on the road so that I can take advantage of the daylight.”

Jason shook his head. “On the road?  I thought you and Caden looked pretty cozy last night. What happened?”

She blushed and then looked down at her coffee, stirring it mechanically. “It was just an act, his way of reminding me of what I screwed up
, letting me know what we used to have, what we could have had if I hadn’t blown it. I have to admit, it was easier when he called me names and made me his slave.”

“So, where are you going?” Chris asked.

“I’m not sure where I’ll end up, but when I do, I’ll let you know.”

Jason was still shaking his head. “He had me fooled. I would have bet a million bucks that he was
still in love with you.”

Marie shrugged. “Yeah, but you forget, he won an Oscar for acting.”

Jason chuckled and nodded. “I’m sorry, Marie.  I really thought he’d come around. You’d be so good for him.”

“You’re a good friend, Jason.”

They talked for another ten minutes, drank their coffee, said their good-byes and then Marie walked out, leaving the three of them sitting at the table watching her get into the Porsche.

Chris shook her head.  “I wonder how he could just kick her out like that with no job, no place for her and the baby.”

“Baby?” Ona and Jason said in unison.

“Oh
, my God…are you two blind? Haven’t you noticed the little pooch, the bigger breasts? Maybe I just notice because I’m a nurse, but I would think it was pretty obvious.”

Jason was white. “Are you sure?”

“Well, pretty sure, but not one hundred percent.”

“Poor Marie
, to be tossed out pregnant and broke with nowhere to go,” Ona lamented.

“What about Caden?” Jason spoke up in protest. “He doesn’t know!”

“How do you know that?” Chris asked.

“Because he hasn’t said anything to me.  He would have said something to me. Christ, I guess I have to tell him.”

Chris shook her head. “That’s up to Marie, not you!  Besides, I told you, I’m not one hundred percent sure.”

Jason swallowed hard and shook his head. “But what if she is?”

“He should have thought about that before he treated her like shit,” Ona announced.

Chapter
10

A New Home

Of course
, I knew I was pregnant—had been since the first time he had unprotected sex with me on Christmas. I had gone to the clinic and spoke to the doctor, who recommended that with my past history of migraines, I should avoid birth control pills. So the physician’s assistant told me to come back the next week to be fitted with a diaphragm because they were low on diaphragms that would fit me.

When I went back
,I mentioned that I was a little late, only a few days, but the physician’s assistant decided to give me an examination anyway. According to the Filipina P.A., my cervix had turned a lovely purple-blue color and, combined with my tender breasts, the P.A. announced, “You’re probably pregnant. I’ll give you a home pregnancy test to take tomorrow morning when your hormone levels are the highest.”

I was dazed and confused.  “How many days?”

“Not many, so you’re still in the danger zone. The chance of miscarriage in the first trimester are up to twenty-five percent, so don’t get too enthusiastic.”

“How long do I have if I want to have an abortion?”

She paused, somewhat surprised at the mention of an abortion. “Well, the first ninety days are your best bet. Do you want me to set you up for a consultation?”

“No,
not yet.”

I never went for a consultation and never gave abortion a serious thought. It wasn’t as
if I was pining to be a mother; I felt I still had plenty of time to have children. It was just that this baby would be my last link with Caden, and even if I wasn’t going to share the baby with him, I wanted to have that emotional connection. I knew it was selfish to have the baby, especially considering I was broke and had nowhere to go. But, I have always believed in myself. I knew that even if I was never published again, I would survive. I was the Gloria Gaynor of Hollywood.

At first I lost weight. I never threw up, but I didn’t have an appetite
, and then the seventh week it hit me. I started eating like a trooper, and immediately my breasts grew bigger and my waist expanded. Caden had made a little jibe about my face and waist being fuller, but it was mild, and I could tell he was teasing more than criticizing. 

In the end, I could barely zip
my jeans up, let alone button them.  One of the first things I did with the five hundred Caden had given me was to stop in Kalispell at the mall and buy a pair of maternity jeans which were on sale at Penney’s. I needed something more comfortable if I was going to be driving long distances. 

Making my money last wasn’t going to be easy.  My car sucked gas like a trailer park whore. I was
going to take a chance and show up in Bakersfield and beg Joe Thompson for a job. The car would suck at least seventy-five gallons of gas, which meant that it was going to take most of my money. I called back home and asked my mom if I could get some of my royalties for
Rowhouse,
which still brought in a few hundred a month. Years ago, I had the publisher deposit the royalties directly into an account for her because social security didn’t cover all her expenses. My mom needed the money even more than I did.  When I called, she was flustered by the request and apologetic, letting me know that the money had been spent on a new wheelchair. I felt like crap just asking.

So
after my maternity jeans splurge of eighteen dollars, my stop at the grocery store for snacks and water and then my gas, I figured I had a spare sixty bucks for meals or extras that I might need. One thing for certain, I was going to be sleeping in my car for two nights.

I pulled over in Idaho Falls the first night after buying my only meal of
the day, a chicken salad from McDonalds. I had supplemented my diet with power bars. It wasn’t the best meal, but I had to get to Bakersfield somehow. 

I chose a well-lit Wal-m
art parking lot to grab my shut-eye. Wal-mart is well known for allowing RVers to stay in their lots overnight, making them the favorite store of the recreational traveler.  Pulling on several sweaters, my cap and jacket, I lowered the passenger seat back and curled up into a ball. It dropped to thirty-eight degrees and, since I didn’t have a blanket, it made sleeping difficult. At two in the morning, I started my car and let the heater run for a few minutes and then turned it off to preserve gas.

In the morning
, I purchased an egg sandwich and a hot cup of cocoa, gassed up and drove south all the way to St. George, Utah where I pulled over and parked in another Wal-mart parking lot. This time I had just crawled into the back seat to go to sleep when a bright light was shown in my eyes through the side window.

“Sorry, m
a’am, but you can’t sleep here,” the rent-a-cop said politely.

“Oh, but I thought Wal-mart—”

“Usually Wal-mart doesn’t have a problem with overnight guests, but we had some incidents with some juveniles taking advantage of that policy.  They’ve robbed a few travelers and worse.”

“Oh, I see. I’ll keep driving, then.”

“How many hours have you been driving today?”

“Only seven, but I’m so tired. I’m pregnant
, and everything seems to exhausts me.”

“Don’t you have any money for a hotel room?”

“Not really.”

“Well, for five dollars, the KOA will let you sleep on their property.”

“Where are they?”

He gave me directions
, and that night I parked on the KOA campgrounds and was once again trying to sleep when there was a knock on my window.

Crap, am I never going to get to sleep? 
I rolled down the window and was greeted by a tiny woman with a big smile.

“Honey, you can’t sleep in that tiny car!  It’s going to get down in the thirties tonight!  Come on, you can sleep in one of our cabins.”

“I don’t have the money to rent one.”

“That’s okay.  It would have gone empty anyway.  It’s got a heater inside.”

I followed her and was snug as a bug in a rug all night long. The next morning, she invited me in for coffee and breakfast. It turned out her husband was a local bigwig in the Mormon Church, and charity was a big thing in their neighborhood. The only thing she wanted to know was about my car.

“How come you have such a fancy car and no money to go with it?”

“It’s a tale of ‘how the mighty have fallen and not very flattering.”

“Ah, I thought it might be something like that.”

The kind woman packed me a lunch, gave me several bottles of water and threw in a blanket, even though I assured her I wouldn’t need it. We exchanged hugs and I was on my way.

I made it to Baker
sfield too late to talk to my friend at his place of work, so I drove around until I found the community college, snuck in, took a shower in the gym, styled my hair, brushed my teeth, and then grabbed a melted chicken and Swiss on sourdough at
Subway.
 

The following day
, I waited until I saw my friend get out of his car in the parking lot of the eco-friendly company where he worked. Running after him, I started yelling, “Joseph!  Hi, can I talk to you?”

“Marie?  Marie Morrigan?  What are you doing here?  I thought you were some big shot in Hollywood.”  It had been ten years since I had seen him
, and yet I’d recognize him anywhere. The brown hair was now mixed with gray, but he looked virtually the same. His narrow face and high forehead seemed to broadcast that the man was brilliant, but he had kind gray eyes that made him approachable. Only a few inches taller than me, we were almost eye level.

“I started out in the fast lane
, but things haven’t gone well in the last few years. I banked everything on my latest book, but no one would publish it. I’m broke and need a job. I have forty-two dollars to my name.”

“But you’re driving a Porsche.”

“An eight-year-old Porsche. I’m going to sell it and get a cheaper four door. But in the meantime, I need a job.”

“Marie, there’s nothing for someone as brilliant as you right now. The only job I have open is a graveyard lab assistant.”

“I’ll take it!” I blurted out to his surprise.

“But it only pays eighteen dollars an hour
, plus four dollars for shift differential.”

“Health care?”

“After three months. It’s a nothing job.  You just babysit the tests all night. There’s no real development work.”

“Okay, that’s wonderful.”

He looked completely shocked. “Really?”

“I’m not going to lie to you. I’m desperate. I need a job
, and I’d be grateful for anything.”

“What about your Hollywood friends?”

I unwittingly laughed out loud. “Oh, I’m sorry, but one’s friends in Hollywood change on a daily basis. The only people I could really trust in Hollywood have moved.”

“I see. Well
, you might as well come with me so I can get the paperwork started and show you the ropes.”

“When can I start?”

He shrugged. “You can start tonight, if you want.”

“I need to get settled in Bakersfield. Could I start in two days?”

“I don’t see why not.”

The massive building was non
descript with blue walls and blue-toned windows that made it look as if it had stripes—blue wall, blue windows—going up the four stories.  On the side were black letters, “Biofantastic.”

We swung through the front doors and into a sunny lobby with a cool blue indoor/outdoor carpet
and several white faux leather couches that curved to give them a modern flair. Greeted at a desk by an Hispanic security cop that carried mace on his utility belt but no gun, he signed me in, and then we went up to the fourth floor. 

“Our offices and conference rooms are on the fourth floor. The labs are on the second and third floor.  The first floor has our cafeteria and daycare.” He hit the button on the elevator to go up.

“Daycare?”

“We provide daycare at a reasonable price.”

“How many people work here?”

“Depending on what
we’re working on—anywhere from 160 to 230.  Right now we have a lot of people on the day and swing shifts.  On graveyard, we have a skeleton crew, maybe a dozen or so employees.”

I spent the first hour and a half in human resources filling out information and going through a background check. Luckily, Homeland Security didn’t have me on any lists and California confirmed that my greatest violation of the law was a speeding ticket
just after I bought the Porsche. I was sent back to Joe on the fourth floor, only to find that he was down at the third floor labs. 

Taking the stairs down,
I looked around the third floor and saw almost a hundred people. It appeared to be quartered into sections for research and development, manufacturing, packaging. There was an area for quality control, with several employees that appeared to be busy, but I wasn’t sure what it was that they did. I was surprised as to how big the building was.

Joe waved me over. As I moved through the different areas, I saw that no one looked up.  Everyone seemed so engrossed in their own worlds that they didn’t care about the newbie in their midst.  Joe was standing next to a gas chromatography machine.

“We’re just running some of these new formulas. You’ll be watching the chromatograph, checking on the autoclave, doing some spins, and marking down the results all night long. Let me show you.”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this was going to be very boring work.  Someone had to be here to do these things
, but the job would consist of waiting and then taking measurements and possibly mixing or plating biochemicals and then waiting again to do the next task. But with the graveyard differential, it paid twenty-two dollars an hour, had medical, dental and provided affordable daycare. For now, it was heaven.

I asked if I could have two days off to get settled
. Saying good bye to my Porsche was like saying good bye to my Hollywood dreams. I used the money to purchase another car, an older Escape Hybrid, for twelve thousand dollars.  Then I found a furnished studio apartment that I could rent by the month. It came with an old Trinitron television and free basic cable. I paid for the electricity, but the landlord paid for the water and trash. It took me three minutes to move into my new apartment. I spent the next day buying clothes that I could wear.  Although some were maternity clothes, I made sure that in the beginning I didn’t wear the ones that made me look pregnant. 

I started work that night at eleven
p.m. One of the swing shift workers, Paul Hamel, stayed over an extra four hours to show me what little there was to show me. After a few days, my biggest problem was keeping awake, since I’m a morning person. It was hard, even with aluminum foil over my windows, to sleep.  And because my job was boring, it was even harder. Joe took pity on me and gave me a few projects to work on at night. Since everything was organic, I didn’t worry about toxic chemicals. My job was settled, my living conditions were settled, and now I was just left with my own emotions, and that wasn’t good.