Hick - Andrea Portes [58]
And now something weird happens in my head where, despite the fact that I got dried blood between my legs and I wish Eddie would fall off the top of Chimney Rock, I’m scared he’s over with. I got this feeling like I need him to come back and make sure I don’t shrivel up and die silent somewhere in the woods of Beaumont Kluck’s Cabin Retreat. I got this feeling like I can’t be the star of this show all by myself. This is a two person cast, and without him, well, might as well just close down the set. And when I have that feeling, that feeling like I need a handout, desperate, I want to pull my skin off and turn into dust. I want to throw myself back to the angels and tell them to start over, start over without me cause you put the screws in loose, you put the hinges in all wrong. But then I remember that I put this day into the jam jar and know better than to just open it up reckless.
I pull the covers to my neck and start reading up on Libertarianism.
THIRTY
I wake up with Eddie standing over me, carrying a bouquet of wildflowers and smiling like a preacher’s son. He leans over, kisses me on the cheek and lays the wildflowers across my lap, careful. He’s looking into my eyes, gentle, like Jesus Christ himself come down to forgive the Romans for nailing him to the cross. I stare back at him, blank, trying to figure out this new angle.
He strokes my hair. “You like your new haircut?”
“No.”
“What about the color, you like the color?”
“No. I look like Elvis.”
“Well, I think you look real pretty. I fixed you up nice now and I think you look real pretty.”
He continues stroking my hair. I sit, frozen.
“That why you got these ropes on me?”
He stops stroking my hair and sits down on the side of the bed, facing me.
“Nope. I got these ropes on you because if you leave I’ll die.”
He reaches out for my hand, holding it tight and talking into my eyes, trying to make good. “Now, I know what you must be thinking.”
He’s got that wrong.
“What happened there, what happened back there was, wull, it wasn’t right.”
I am too amazed to do the screaming I had planned.
“It wasn’t right. And I know it.”
I wriggle my body in the other direction, just enough to look at the wall.
“Luli? Luli, listen to me.” He grabs my chin and tries to turn me towards him. “I promise. I promise, as God or Satan or the president is my witness, I promise that will never, ever happen again. Okay?”
He grabs my head, gentle, with both his hands and lays a kiss on my forehead.
“And besides, I think you were an angel sent to me to be mine and make things better. I think you were put on this earth to save me, Luli.”
I look up at him, smiling down at me like a goofy milkman, lost in love. I muster a smile, trying to figure out where he put the key to that padlock.
“And just to show you that I mean business, I’m gonna untie these things right now. And just so you know, for future reference, you never have to wear them again. Never. Except when I’m gone.”
He reaches round his neck and pulls out a tiny key, strung on a piece of twine. He smiles back at me, pulling off the covers and fumbling with the padlock. I notice my legs are bruised where the ropes are too tight, digging in, leaving red marks. If I hadn’t put this day in a jam jar, that might just be the kind of thing that would turn me into a blubbering milksop. But, lucky for me, I took precautions.
Eddie unhitches the lock and begins unraveling the ropes, delicate, looking up at me now and then with an embarrassed smile, like he got caught with his hands in the cookie jar. He unties the last of the ropes and puts them under the bed. When he comes up, he’s got a little red velvet box in his hands. He tucks the blanket up to my neck like he’s wrapping me up for Christmas and hands me the box, sticking his chin in, bashful. What the fuck have we got here?
I open it and, get this, it’s a gold chain with tiny gold cursive swoop letters that spell out, “Hot Stuff.”
“See, it says ‘Hot Stuff,’ like you, you’re hot stuff.”
At this point, I can’t even look at Eddie. I can’t even begin to start