Beyond Blonde (17 page)

I was almost at the pool house, just about to reach for the door handle, when
he
grabbed me and spun me around with such force that I dropped my drink in the snow.

“Sophie!” His voice blistered the stone-cold air. “Sophie.” Somehow one hand was holding my head and the other was behind my back. David crushed me into him and against the outside wall. I opened my mouth to yell at him, but he covered it with his lips. “Sophie,” softer now, “Sophie.” I felt delirious in that kiss. I was stunned. Everything turned. It was like being on a free-floating carousel. I have never been held like that, felt like that. I should be furious, yet … damn. I was in love with Luke! It was
not
possible that I was feeling what I was feeling. David’s hands were at first like a vise, then
stroking, then caressing, then almost not touching me. Is
this
what
this
feels like? My body was so disloyal. How could I do this to me!? He traced my face and neck with the tips of his fingers, caressing one small part of me at a time, making the rest scream out in protest. I should resist, make more of a show, at least pretend. Then his lips were on me again.

I knew from watching him all these months that no one was stronger. He bit my lip tenderly, teasing me before forcing my mouth open again. David’s hand glided down to the small of my back. He pulled me into his body with a force that stole my breath and my brains because somewhere, somehow I was kissing him back. If that’s what we were doing. He made my body mould to his, fit into him. He was too practised, much too aware of exactly what he was doing and its effect. There wasn’t a square inch of me that wasn’t lit up. The snow sizzled around us.

David yanked my sleeve, pulling the top away from my neck and shoulder. He let go of my mouth and I reached out, wanting to grab him to me again, the shock of him detaching was so great. He looked at me and groaned. Then he licked and nipped the crook of my neck, travelling up and down from my ear to the top of my chest, my shoulder while his hands were on me.
I almost passed out
. David’s mouth crushed mine again, rough and angry. And then, just as I lost myself in him, he growled, his voice so low and gravelled, I could barely make out his words.

“So tell me, Sophie,” he whispered. “Are you tired of being Luke’s little something on the side?”

He might as well have thrown me in the snow. Without
missing a beat, I hauled off and slapped David Walter with everything I had.

It took both of us by surprise.

He let go of me, of course. A canyon opened up between us. The humiliation, the shame of it was that I wanted to pull back into him more than I wanted to breathe.

“Whoa.” David brought his hand to his face and almost smiled. “Good arm.”

I looked through the French doors into the party. Janice was combing the room for him.

“I’m … I’ve had too much to drink.” He sucked in some air, whistled. “Just too … No. I apologize, Sophie. Damn!” He looked up at the night sky. “I’m an ass and there is no excuse. God, I’m sorry.”

Fine. I lose my head to a guy who’s so plastered he doesn’t know what he’s doing. What was the matter with me? My body betrayed me! Totally. Enough already. I couldn’t count on anyone, especially me. Dear God, I wanted to hug him and hit him, hug him and hit him, hug him and forget it. I was reeling.

David reached for me and stopped. “I mean that. I sincerely and completely apologize.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I have never …”

“Ivory soap,” I said. I thought that maybe if I said stuff, I would stop swirling, stop feeling those feelings.

He exhaled. Didn’t say anything for a while. “Pardon?”

“You use Ivory soap.”

David stepped closer then stepped back again. “Damn,” he muttered. “How do you know? My mom says it isn’t supposed to smell like anything.”

His mom?
Somehow that was startling. “It doesn’t,” I said. “You just smell like you.” I was trying to cycle myself down, get control over any part of me. The scent of him wasn’t helping. I stepped back.

“God, Sophie, I’m so—”

I put up my hand. “S’okay, David, I’m not going to report you or anything.” I looked back into the party. My head spun, full as it was of brandy, or of David. “Your, um, friends, are looking for you.”

David stepped toward me and then he stepped back. He was remembering those girls in there, what they could and would do for him. He nodded, stepped back even farther. Angry? Then he turned and went back into the party. Yup, angry.

What the hell?

I left. As soon as I could walk properly that is. Holy Moses, enough was enough. I was tired. It was almost midnight. I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t even go in after my purse.

Mama was home. The door would be unlocked. I walked the whole way in some lame attempt to cool off, calm down, and stop feeling so wired. It didn’t work. I was practically levitating.

As soon as I got in, at almost one, Mama popped up from the couch, ready to pretend she was watching the test pattern for the Buffalo channel. She had done this every single night since Papa left. “Did you have lots of fun and celebrations at da party?”

“You bet, Mama.” I bit my lip.
Ow.
It was swollen. “But I’m exhausted. Good night.”

Back in my room I sat my sorry butt on the bed, didn’t move. Well, except for turning my brand-new little Buddha
statue around, so he wasn’t looking at me. I didn’t get changed, nothing. I traced the shape of my lips with my index finger over and over again. You don’t get more pathetic than me. I was angry and ashamed of myself on so many different levels, I couldn’t even begin to sort it out. Even worse, way worse, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, about him, and of course that made me mental. But still,
even worser
than any of that, was when I looked back and saw Janice Wilton jumping into his arms before he could even shut the door, followed by the picture of David Walter kissing her back like he was starving.

I checked my makeup
in between serving customers at Mike’s. My lips were swollen when I got up and they were still in full bloom at the restaurant. And that wasn’t the worst of it. David had marked me! How could he? How dare he! I had a hickey! Well, two actually, both in the crook of my neck. They stared at me accusingly when I got up and they kept staring back and shaming me every time I pulled down my turtleneck in Mike’s restroom.

“You okay, kid?” Mike asked when I returned from my 157th hickey check.

“Sure.” I nodded. “End-of-term party at Madison’s last night, you know?”

Mike grunted, reached over, and pounded the cash register. When it slid open, he reached for two packets, threw the tablets into a glass and filled it with water. “It’s our secret, kid.”

Alka-Seltzer was not going to help my hickeys any, but I
could hardly explain that to Mike. “Thanks.” I gulped down the bubbling fizz in one shot.

I was still burping on my way to the park. What was in that stuff? I checked my watch and sat on the bench, our bench. Would he come? Would he know to come? How long should I wait? What the hell was I doing? Twenty minutes passed. This was nuts. I was nuts. Well, that much was irrefutably proven last night; this was just the icing on the proof, or something.

I felt him before I could see him. It was always like that, but only when it came to Luke.

My hickeys throbbed. Okay, and David too, but only in a bad way.

Luke came up behind me and kissed the top of my head, right there, in public and in front of everyone, including his old guys three benches over. He reached around in front of me flourishing a Styrofoam coffee cup. “Double-double for my angel.”

“Goody,” I said.

“How are you?” He leapt right over the back of the bench. My heart snagged on something sharp, that careless goofy grace, showing off and not even realizing it. Doing it just because you could was so something high school boys did. Not a married man and a father.

“I’m good.” I just wanted to sit and soak him in while he smiled at me. “What’s up? You look excited.”

“I am I guess.” He shrugged. “I’ve just completed all my qualifying courses to start a part-time diploma at Ryerson in January.”

“Great!” I hugged him. A whoosh of guilt swamped me. Was that adultery? Okay, maybe not, but there was a whole other commandment about coveting and that hug definitely felt like a coveting-type thing. I let go.

“Yeah, so the marketing program is where it’s at, you know?”

I nodded. “Like advertising?”

He pulled off the lid to his coffee and raised it to the old guys. They raised theirs. Quite the little ritual. “Yeah, that’s what my old man does.”

“Advertising?”

“It’s his firm, so one day it’ll be mine, right? I’ll just get this dink certificate and onward and upward, you know?”

My neck pulsed. I could feel heat rising off my hickeys. Should I ask? No. None of my business, absolutely, none of my … “What happened between you and David Walter?” I was as surprised as he was that it came out. I was even more surprised to see him look away. He examined his running shoes for quite some time. “Why? Did he say anything?”

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s just that you two were so tight and now, well, like did he just desert you?”

Luke’s little something on the side.

My hand flew to my throat.

Luke shook his head. “Naw, it wasn’t like that.” He finished his coffee. “See, David always wanted what I had.” He looked at me. “
And
he wanted Alison, you know?”

Something unplugged in me. David and Alison Hoover? Alison double-D black-eyeliner Hoover? “But …”

“Yeah, I know you’re thinking that David has pretty much
had any girl he wanted. But thing is, he wanted Alison because she was
mine.
It was always like that between us, ever since we were kids.”

But, Alison Hoover? Okay, I thought. Maybe, yeah, sure, that might make sense.…

“David was always jealous of me. He didn’t know I was going to end it with her.” Luke reached over, stroked my cheek.

I dissolved into his fingers.

“End it and be with you.” He leaned closer. “If he knew about you, Sophie, he’d come after you just to be another notch on his belt.” Luke touched my hair, brushing it behind my shoulder, lingering. “And to get back at me. He doesn’t know about us, does he?”

Luke’s little something on the side.
I felt sick. It explained everything. Shame pitched around in me like I was a pinball machine. I shook my head.

“Good, keep it that way. Keep far away from him, Sophie. Your coach is no angel.”

Okay, right, that was for sure, but even in my re-adoration of Lucas Pearson, it hit me that he wasn’t exactly a candidate for the priesthood either.

“… and it won’t be forever. My dad’s on the case, and like I said, I’ll be at the firm in no time and cut loose. I’ll have done my time. But, meanwhile, there’s us. I can’t stand being away from you, Sophie.” He put his arm on the back of the bench and leaned in even closer. “I so want, need, to touch you again, to know if you’ll wait for me. Meet me somewhere, anywhere, more private. Meet me, Sophie, so I know I have you to keep me going. I need you. At least promise that we can meet here
again to talk about it some more.” I inhaled the scent of coffee and cream on his lips. “Please, Sophie.”

He
needed
me. Lucas Pearson needed me, needed
me.

“Just nod, and we can work it out later, Sophie. Say we’ll meet here again and that will let me get through Christmas. I won’t make it without you. That will be my present. No shopping, no gift boxes, just you.”

Shopping! I jumped. “Got to go! I’m meeting Sarah at the Bathurst subway station. We’re going to … buy stuff.”

He grabbed my wrist. “Say it, Sophie. Say we’ll meet again.”

I got up.

“Say we’ll meet!”

I slipped my hand out before turning toward the subway station. I looked back at him looking at me. “We’ll meet!”

“When?” he called.

“January, the middle of the month!”

“I’ll be here every Saturday in January, just in case. Merry Christmas! I’ll be waiting!”

I broke into a run with my heart erupting. I tried to grab hold of myself while I ran down the steps to the subway. That whole episode scared me. Hell, I scared me. What did I just agree to exactly? What in Buddha’s name was I doing? And just as bewildering, David, jealous of Luke? David wanted Alison? It didn’t make sense, but then, who cares? Not me. I had enough on my messy moral plate. So I went back to obsessing about what it was I had agreed to with Luke and how much trouble I was going to get into because I had agreed to whatever it was.

When I finally stumbled out and into the station, all that
stuff left. The Bathurst subway station! I was almost run over by the rush of memories.

“Over here!” Sarah waved by the doors. “What are you smiling at?”

“I think I used to live around here.”

“You
think
?”

“A long time ago,” I said. “We moved a million times right after Papa was sentenced. It gets confusing.”

Sarah slipped her arm through mine. “Sorry. So when was this?”

“This.” I turned and led Sarah on to one of the residential streets, Euclid Avenue. “
This
was before that. Euclid was before prison, before drinking, well, that’s not completely true, but before prison for sure. Euclid was when we were happy.” She squeezed my arm into her. “Do you mind walking a bit? I want to find my home. We’re close, I think.”