Homicide My Own - Anne Argula [37]
“…I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes…and I fell out of bed, hurting my head, from things that I said…”
“So let’s see,” said Houser, “I make a run for it, and you run out to your car and get your gun, and now I’m, what, a hundred yards away…”
“I’ll catch you, I’m faster than you.”
“I’ve been sick.”
“And then I’ll shoot you.”
“…til I finally died, which started the whole world living, oh, if I’d only seen , that the joke was on me…”
“You want to shoot me? Go ahead, I don’t care. My life is ruined anyway.”
“There’s always the next one.”
I threw off the towel. I might have said something, I might have screamed, I don’t remember. My sweat shirt and t-shirt were off and flying by the time I hit the porch. I yanked off my new Wranglers. I pulled off my bra and passed it into the end zone, pulled down my panties and drop-kicked them for the extra point. Then I ran, ran through the pouring rain, over some gravel and didn’t care, and into a stand of cedars.
Odd’s voice kept calling, “Quinn, Quinn, Quinn! Wait!” I ran. Under the cedars the soil was spongy with rotting vegetation. Then I was on the muddy beach, slowed down by the mud, which was sucking down my feet. I was panting heavily. I stopped finally, spread out my arms, lifted up my face into the rain. I fell back on the mud and let the cold rain wash me down. I opened up my legs to it, I opened up Little Sahara to the downpour, but still I was arid there and on fire outside. I rolled over to my hands and knees, Connors favorite position.
I could hear Odd’s voice in the distance, “Quinn! Quinn!” Some clams just below the surface spit up arcing streams of juice, like miniature fire boats trying to put out the fire that I had become.
On my feet, I ran into the frigid salt water. I swam as far as I could, then realized I would have to swim back. I turned back to the beach and saw Odd standing there, waving my jeans and t-shirt over his head.
12.
Naked and crazy, with icy salt water over my head, I looked to the shore and my partner. I had to either swim back while I still could or drown. Odd stood at the water’s edge, not knowing where to put his eyes. I came out of the brine not knowing where to put my hands. I was too cold and exhausted to care. I pressed my nakedness against him and he gave me his warmth, rubbing my back roughly with his big warm Swedish hands, bringing back the circulation. He had my jeans draped over his shoulder. He pulled my t-shirt over my head. Then he held me by one arm and helped me step into the jeans. He wrapped himself around me again and squeezed tight, and soon the numbing cold was gone and I had some feeling again. He didn’t know what to ask and I didn’t know how to explain it, and so he kissed me, full on the mouth. It was honest and comforting and I took it all.
“I’m sorry, Quinn. I’m way out of line.”
“Forget it.”
I didn’t make a big deal of it. I made no deal at all of it.
“You ready to go back?” he asked.
I nodded. He took my arm, like I had just had four wisdom teeth removed and he was walking me to the car. I did feel something had been removed, I just didn’t know what.
We were halfway through the stand of cedars before a greater sense of reality took hold and I realized another actor should have been onstage.
“Odd…where’s our prisoner?”
“I handcuffed him to the refrigerator door. Otherwise, I could have caught you before you took the plunge. Where did you think you were going, Canada?”
“Odd…? I wouldn’t want anyone knowing about this.”
He smiled his half-crooked smile. “I wouldn’t either.”
“Let’s let it slide, all of it.”
Going back across the gravel to the cottage, I felt every pebble under my bare feet. When you walk like that you tend to look at your feet, helping them along, which is why I didn’t notice who was on the porch until I heard Odd’s hoarse whisper, “Good night…” and I looked up to see Gwen, Stacey’s mom, sitting on the step, her elbows on her knees, dragging deeply on