Restoration: A Novel (Contemporary / Women's Fiction) (22 page)

Through the glass, Tess saw Wright sitting at a table in
the barren room.  His cuffed hands rested on the tabletop with his fingers
folded together, twiddling his thumbs.  He still wore the same aviator-style
glasses he’d worn throughout his trial.  She remembered seeing this same
bespectacled face captured in papers and on television and wondered why her
fashion-conscious mother hadn’t updated his look with something more chic. 

Alish was so proud of how handsome he was.  Wright was ten
years her junior and her mother often commented on how lucky she was that a
good-looking younger man like him found her equally attractive. 

At his trial, Alish had made sure he looked dashing. 
She’d outfitted him in the best suits money could buy.  Now, at forty-seven, he
was still handsome.  His brown hair with strands of gray was parted in the
middle and feathered back, another time warp style that suited his glasses.

Maybe her mother hadn’t updated his look out of some
nostalgic feeling that kept this vision of him intact from the first time
they’d met.  Or maybe she realized that no matter what style glasses he wore or
how he fixed his hair, these alterations never would make the orange prison
jumpsuit he wore look any better on him.

“Are you ready for this?”  Neil put his hand on her
shoulder.

“Probably not, but I’m jumping out of the plane anyway.”

“You’ve got guts, girl.”

Neil walked through the door first, and Wright glanced up
and smiled.  When he saw Tess, his smile froze.  Slowly it grew and spread
across his face until it spilled over into a soft laugh.

Wright whistled.  “Lordy, I hardly recognized you.  My,
my, how you’ve grown, little Miss Tess.”

She lingered on the other side of the table but didn’t sit
down.  She felt like a cat trapped in a cage, afraid to put her back to the
predator across from her.  Their eyes were locked together as each wrestled for
control of the moment.  The harsher she glared, the broader his smile became. 
Finally, she flinched and turned away.

He looked up, grinning at Neil.  “Any cigarettes?  The
guards won’t mind.”

“I don’t smoke.”

“You used to have a few for me.”

“I don’t need any bribery today.  It’s her show.”

“Bribery!”  The word pushed him back against his metal
chair as he gave Neil a wounded look.  “Is that what it was to you?  All that
time together I thought we were pals.  Damn, I guess you never really can say
you know someone.  I believe I feel a bit ambushed.”

“You know all about ambushing people, don’t you?”  Tess
yielded to her anger.

“You’re feisty like your mother.”  He smiled at her
again.  “I like that, though.  I always liked my women to put up a bit of a
fight.”

She murmured, “You animal.”

Wright looked back and forth between Tess and Neil.  “So
what’s it gonna be here?  The anticipation is killing me.”

Neil turned around and gazed out the window at the guard. 
Wright smirked at his back, looked at Tess and shrugged.  “So, you came all
this way to visit me?  That’s nice.  That’s real nice.  I hope your mother is
on your list for this traveling surprise party.  You know you shouldn’t ignore
her like you do.  You were always her favorite.”

“Don’t talk to me about my mother.”

“Then I’ll talk to you about my wife.  You should call
her.”  He nodded, agreeing with his own idea.  “She’s going to be lonely
without me.  She doesn’t like to talk about that, either, but I make her.  I
worry about her.  I worry what she’ll become without me.”

“Free.”

He brought up his handcuffed hands and cradled his face in
his palms, gazing up at her.  “You think that’s how she’s gonna feel?”

“I know it.”

“No, young lady, two people don’t love like we do and feel
free when the other one dies.”

“Don’t talk to me about love!”  She raised her voice. 
“It’s not love!  It’s sickening!  It’s malignant!  It’s not love!”

“Then you tell me about love.”

She kept her eyes riveted on Wright’s, wanting to lecture
him about how his selfish possession of her mother had cost so many others her
love, but Tess was afraid of the force of her own emotions behind her words.

“Not sure what love is, young lady?  Well, let me tell
you,” he said.  “Your mother has stood by my side and believed in me when no
one else has.  She sacrificed everything and everyone for love.  She comes here
every weekend to visit me, content just to see me smile and having to satisfy herself
with only my hands holding hers.  She could’ve been with someone who could at
least bring her flowers on her birthday and candy on Valentine’s Day, but she
chooses to stay with me, a man who can’t even slip under the covers with her at
night, hold her tight and whisper in her ear what an angel she is to him. 

“She’s traded in loving someone’s body for loving my
soul.  Anyone ever love you like that, little Miss Tess?”

She wanted to spit the acid creeping up into her throat
right in his face.

“No,” he dropped his hands back onto the table.  “I didn’t
think so.”

“I want to see you die.” 

“You’ll get your wish in a few weeks.”

“Invite me.”

His lips turned up into an amused smile.  “So, you want a
front row seat?”

“It’s a hard ticket to get.  And believe me, I’ve tried.”

“So, that’s why you’re here,” he mused, and his grin
expanded.  “Seeing as how you’re wanting something, you could be a bit
friendlier to your stepfather here.”

She smirked.  “You haven’t been much of a stepfather. 
Here’s your chance to make up for it.  What do you say; give me a gift before
you go?”

“Now you’re appealing to my sentimental side.  You’re so
much like your mother.  She knows how to get to me, too.”  He brought his
cuffed hands to his head and scratched behind his ear while his one hand hung
limply next to the one doing the work.  “I’ve kind of promised those seats to
others.”

Tess leaned over the table, resting her palms on the
surface, and mimicked his grin.  “Do you want me to beg?”

He chuckled softly.  “Now you’re talking.”

“It’s been a while since a woman has had to beg you for
something, hasn’t it?”

“Too long, but that’s what prison gets you.  You lose all
of life’s perks and privileges living here.”

When she saw Wright’s eyes flicker over her shoulder she
knew Neil had turned around for this exchange. 

“For this favor I’d beg, but that might take the fun out
it, huh?”

Wright shrugged, his smile never diminishing.  “Well, you
gotta take what you can get around this place.”

“It’ll be a bit different this time, won’t it?  A woman
begging to see
your life
come to a sudden end instead of begging for her
own?”

“I like you, Tess.  There’s an honesty between us that few
people share.  It’s too bad you weren’t a few years older, I might’ve married
you instead.”

His eyes flickered between her eyes and her breasts and
she suddenly became conscious of the view he had down her blouse now that she
was leaning forward across the table.  Her mind inventoried the outfit she
wore: a simple cotton blouse and slacks, nothing that promoted her sexuality. 
She’d made sure of that just as she’d often deliberately done otherwise,
focusing men on her outward attractions, distracting them enough so they
wouldn’t look inward.

She kept her pose, not wanting to concede anything to Wright,
as if the space between them was the spoils she’d earned in a hard-fought
battle. 

“I’m glad you can be your most wretched self with me,” she
said.

“None gladder than I.”  His voice took on an uneven tone. 
“I admit you bring it out in me.  You’ve got that long, pretty hair I like and
just the right color.” 

His hands slipped beneath the table and into his lap where
she could still see them.  His eyebrows arched and his lips tightened as he
squeezed his crotch, his hand gripping himself so firmly that his jaw began
quivering as he inflicted lascivious pain on himself. 

His eyes were wild like a startled animal and his words
quaked, “And that face of yours, it’s even prettier now that it’s all grown
up.  It must turn lots of heads.  What I would’ve given to run into you out on
the road somewhere.”

“Tess.”  Neil’s hand was on her shoulder.  “Enough,” he
whispered in her ear.

Without breaking eye contact with Wright, she reached back
and pushed Neil away. 

“So, what’s it going to be, Randall?”

The tremor possessing his body ceased when he released the
grip he had on himself.  His eyes blinked rapidly and came back from wherever
he’d slipped away to.  

“Do I have to say pretty please to get you to invite me to
your going away party?” she asked again.

“I’d like it better if you screamed it.”  He sounded out
of breath.

“Like you said, you gotta take what you get here.”

He clenched and unclenched his fists, gazing at them as he
continued the repetitive exercise.

“I could’ve invited you weeks ago, but I didn’t know how
to get ahold of you.  When you moved last time, you didn’t leave a forwarding
address.”

She pushed off the table and stood up.  “I’ll leave my
address and phone number with the warden.  If you’re feeling generous, he can
reach me there.”

Looking pale and shaken, Neil touched her elbow.  “Can we
leave now?”

Tess nodded and let him lead her toward the door.

“I still have some of your pictures you made for me,”
Wright said.  “I tried mailing them to you but they came back ‘return to
sender.’  I’ll have the warden send them as well.”

She turned sharply, pulling away from Neil, and marched
back to the table.  “I’ll tell you what you can do with those.”

“Tell me, Tess.”  He rested his elbows on the table,
waiting.

“I hope you rot in hell.”

“This is kind of one-sided here.  You keep making requests
of me.  I’ve got one for you.  Consider it a dying man’s wish.”  He smiled. 
“Draw me one last picture so I can hang it in my cell and think of you.”

“You son of a bitch.”  She struck the side of his face with
her open hand.

His head snapped to the side from the force of her blow
and the momentum nearly sent him toppling from his chair.  The door burst open
and two guards came rushing in.  One threw his arms around Tess, restraining
her, while the other cornered Neil.

“This interview is over,” the guard restraining Tess
said.  He attempted to pull her toward the door, but she resisted and glared at
Wright.

He rubbed his cheek, grinning.  “Thank you.  It’s been
awhile.”

“Fuck you!” she spat just as the guard dragged her through
the doorway.

***

The road seemed to mesmerize Neil.  An uncomfortable
silence had permeated the car since they’d gotten back in it for their
three-hour drive south.  Their earlier ride, with his persistent attempts to
engage Tess in conversation, seemed like it had happened in another place and
time.

The car sped past an hour of Florida’s flat, scrubby
landscape when he finally told her, “I feel like I watched someone get raped
and didn’t do enough to stop it.”

“I had him right up to the very end, and then I let him
get away.  I shouldn’t have lost my cool at the end.”

“Tess, you were never in control back there.”  Focused on
the road, he didn’t see her questioning him with her eyes.  “He let you think
you were.  He was playing with you, sort of like a cat playing with its prey
before killing it.  Damnit!”

Neil slammed his palm hard on the steering wheel.  “I
never should’ve helped you put yourself in that position.  Why did you let him
do that to you?”

She didn’t answer.  She hadn’t even realized Wright had
orchestrated the outcome until the guard had dragged her out of the room.  But
then again, none of his victims had realized it until it was too late.  She
knew what he was capable of and yet he’d lured her to that dark place anyway.

Neil gripped the steering wheel.  “Let him die and go to
hell.  Don’t follow him there.  If he invites you to his execution, don’t go. 
Just trust that he’s going to die, and trust he’ll be scared.  Take some
satisfaction knowing that. 

“Believe me, no one stares death in the eye without
blinking.”

She gazed out the window.  It was still bright outside,
but the sun was beginning its descent down the western half of the sky.  In a
few hours, everything would go from gray to black. 

Ben was right.  Randall Wright controlled her life.  He
possessed her, just as he possessed her mother.  Tess hated herself for that. 
For a brief moment, she contemplated the appeal of hurling herself from a tall
building or bridge, something to end Wright’s hold on her. 

And although he hadn’t meant it literally, Tess decided to
heed Neil’s warning and not follow Wright into hell with her own death.

It was after midnight and officially a new day when Tess
stepped into her dark New York apartment.  Except the day didn’t feel new.  She
hadn’t slept and awakened refreshed to this day; instead, she’d struggled with
what had happened hours earlier in Florida.

Her visit to the state prison kept her mind and emotions
in the prior day with Wright, but she knew the chains holding her there went
back much further.  Leaving the front door open behind her, Tess marched to the
closet where she kept the box storing all of her mutilated pictures.  She
dragged the perverted shrine past her shoes, hoisted it into her arms and left her
apartment.

Tess carried the box through the Chelsea neighborhood
where she lived.  Streetlights cut a path through the night.  The doorways and
alleys where darkness lingered usually made her cautious and more aware as she
passed them, but tonight she didn’t notice.  Her senses were numb to potential
threats.  There were no demons hiding in those dark spaces.  They lurked in
other places much more threatening to her.