Burning September (27 page)

“Do you honestly think I’d do that?  You really think I’d lie to you about this?  I’ve never lied to you.  Why the hell would I start now?”

“I think you’re a lot like me in that you’re going to do whatever it takes to get your way.  You’re tired of all this, you’ve said it before.  You want it over with quickly.  Who cares if I have to do time, right?”

It’s just three years,
I wanted to scream. 
You
should
do time
,
you
did
it, you did it without knowing or caring if he was inside, and all because he’d had the nerve to break up with you.  That’s no reason at all.  Who do you think you are, exactly?  I don’t remember God abdicating his throne or taking an extended vacation. 

But any mentions of God would earn me nothing more than disdain. 
God’s not real, all that’s real is us, and even if he did exist, he’d probably send everyone straight on to hell anyway, find something better to do, leave all this behind to play poker or craps. There’s no job satisfaction being God, is there? Fielding prayers and counting Hail Mary’s, what a barrel of laughs. 

I pressed my eyes shut, inhaling a shuddering breath.  “You really are impossible.  You know how much I love you.  I’ve bent over backward trying to get you out of this mess.  I didn’t want to do these stupid press conferences, go on fucking Karen Stone’s show, but I did it because I wanted to help you, any way I could.  This deal is a good thing.  The best thing that’s happened in months, and you’re letting your pride ruin it.  It won’t work, you know.”

She pinched a sleek strand of hair between her lithe fingers, pulling it through to the feathery ends.  Feigning a split end check, I gathered, biding more borrowed time.  “Ah, but it’s already working.”

“A trial is the last thing you want,” I said, slashing both hands through the air.  “It could go badly.  You have no idea how much worse this can get.”

“It won’t.”

Tell me that again during your cavity search, Caroline, when they’re watching you shower and telling you what to say and do and when to say and do it.  You think they boss you around here?  You won’t want to meet any corrections officers. 

“I don’t know where you get your certainty.”  I flapped my arms around the cold, sterile lobby.  “Look around, Caroline.  Look where you are.  You’ve got it easy here, compared to being in a cell for the rest of your life, which I suspect is not something you want.  This deal gives you a light at the end of the tunnel.  A trial doesn’t come with promises.  You’re risking everything because you’re too fucking proud for your own good.  It’s going to kill you in the end.  At the very least, steal twenty-five years of your life.  You should be thanking your lucky stars this was offered at all.  Kyle’s worked his ass off to get to this point.”  I lowered my voice, sliding a quick glance the secretary’s way.  She wasn’t at her desk.  “All of us know you’re guilty as shit.  This is the equivalent of a slap on the wrist, and it’s for a murder, Caroline.  A
murder
.  Deals like this don’t come around every day, or ever, for that matter.”

“Thanks for the info, teach.”

I inhaled another deep breath, counting to ten before speaking so my words wouldn’t waver.  “If I had any self-respect, I’d walk out that door and never come back.  It’d serve you right for stomping on your only lifeline.  Who else do you have?  Any other visitors I don’t know about?  Kyle’s only bothering to come see you because Victoria Rasmussen’s footing the bill.  I’m all you’ve got, and you know it.”  I stood, swinging my purse over my shoulder.  “I wish you didn’t know beyond all doubt that I’d never leave you out in the cold.  Maybe you’d stop being such a bitch to your only friend.”

***

Jeff fell into place beside me, just as I knew he would, while I made my way through the art department and toward Professor Lawlis’s classroom an hour after leaving Caroline alone and seething in the Breakthrough lobby. I had to return his gun now that I knew I wouldn’t be needing it any longer. 

“You figure out which pieces you want to contribute for the June edition?” he asked, but I didn’t even look at him, just glared at the Vans on his feet, keeping pace with my ratty old rubber flip-flops.  “Hey, are you okay?  What’s the matter?”

I came to an abrupt halt by a patch of swaying flowers.  He didn’t notice and kept walking for a few moments, then stopped and doubled back, his face a mask of confusion.

“This is going to be the last time we have any sort of interaction, so I want to get everything out of the way quickly.”

He opened his mouth, but I held a hand up in his face as a hot gust of wind blew by.  “No, don’t talk.  I don’t want to hear it.  Just listen.  I know it’s been you stalking me all this time.  You’re probably the jackoff who called the media when I showed up at the New Artist’s Spotlight thing, too, but that doesn’t bother me.  I hope you got your fifteen minutes of fame during your little talk with the reporters, though it didn’t seem like they cared too much about your stupid magazine.  You’re officially off my bandwagon.”

Blood drained from his face and pooled around the parts of his clavicle I could see around his V-neck shirt.  I didn’t know whether it was just my imagination, but I thought I saw his pulse fluttering on the side of his throat.    

I sighed, using the side of my hand as a shield against the blinding sun rays.  “I’m not sure what the hell you were thinking, or what you could have possibly wanted, but it ends now.  Now you know I’m aware.  Don’t ask me how, I don’t want this turning into a long conversation.  Just know that I know, and if you try anything else, I’ll report you.  The only reason I haven’t already is because the evidence I’ve got doesn’t exactly hold up in court.  I do have security cameras now, for what it’s worth, before you get any ideas.”  I walked backward toward the music building.  “If you ever touch my cat again, I’ll fucking kill you.  I don’t want to hear from you ever again, and I don’t want you contacting my sister, either.  I don’t care if she reaches out to you first.  If I find out you’ve been speaking to her, I’ll tell Professor Rasmussen and anyone else who’ll listen what you’ve been doing.  They may not fire you, but it won’t endear you to them, either.”

I took a few more steps backward, until the shadow from the music building fell over me.  He still stood there, blinking through late May sunshine with his jaw hanging slack, binders pressed against his chest. 

“I’ve got a gun permit, too.  Just stay away from me, Jeff.”

***

I’d blown off the rest of my classes that day, knowing my confrontations with both Jeff and Caroline wouldn’t be conducive to concentration, but when I got home, I couldn’t even pay attention to the television. 

Which was why I found myself knocking on Kyle’s door yet again, pissed off and restless, unable to stand still, even for the few seconds it took him to answer my knock. 

“Hey.”  He leaned against the doorjamb, stuffing one hand in his pocket, looking confused but not unhappy. 

“Can I have a beer?”

He laughed, shaking his head as he stood aside.  “Yeah. Swell day, I take it.”

“As usual.”  I followed him around the corner and into his kitchen, where he motioned for me to take a seat on the stool by the counter. 

He pulled the fridge open.  “I got Corona, Blue Moon, Hangar 24, Bud Light, and…” He moved a carton aside.  “And a giant bottle of vodka.”

Well, I was Russian, right?  Weren’t my genes supposed to call out for the strong stuff?  “What do I do with the vodka, just take a shot?”

“I might have some tonic somewhere.”  He turned around, rummaging through his cabinets.

“My sister’s a bitch,” I told his back.  “Is there a special I hate my family drink?”

“That’d be three fingers of straight vodka, I think.”

“You have any cyanide to mix it with?”

When he turned around, he held a pair of bar glasses.  “Sorry.  Fresh out.”  He unscrewed the cap off the bottle, sloshed two fountains of vodka into each glass.  “What happened?”

“What I expected, that’s why I don’t even know why I’m so pissed off.  I knew talking to her wouldn’t get her to change her mind about the plea bargain.”

He took a sip of his vodka, pushing the other glass into my hands.  “So she was snotty about it?”

“You could say that.  You could also say she acted like a complete sociopath.  She hardly even reacted when I told her about Jeff.”  My face twisted as the huge slug of vodka I inhaled wove a hot trail down my throat.  He slid into the stool beside mine, smirking at my expression, but I waved him off.  “I told her it was him, that I knew it, had proof, whatever, and she just shrugs like, oh, well, shit happens. 
You’re lucky it’s just him and not a serial killer
, she said.  She seriously said that, verbatim.  Fucking M. Night Shyamalan was standing in the corner going,
I gotta write this shit down
.” Kyle choked on his vodka, but I spoke over the racket.  “It was unbelievable.  But then again, so like her.”

I closed my eyes, as if it would somehow keep my second surge of swelling anger at bay.  Just when I thought I calmed down, I’d remember that look she wore during our horrible conversation and get mad all over again.

You’re going to miss me when I’m gone, Caroline
, I thought, biting into my tongue so hard I tasted rust. 
I don’t know how much more of you I can handle.

“Did you see Jeff today?”

I nodded, running a fingertip around the rim of my glass.   

“He have any explanations?”

“I don’t know.  I didn’t let him get a word out.”  I pressed my knuckles into my forehead, exhaling loudly.  “I know it was him.  What could he possibly have to say that would justify it?”

He rubbed my shoulder, staring into the vodka he kept swirling.  I didn’t know if he could feel my eyes on his profile.  Didn’t seem like it.  Maybe the vodka vortex in his glass had hypnotized him. 

“Why do you like me?”

He gave me the side-eye, bringing the drink to his smiling lips.  “Well, I think you’re pretty.  Your winning personality and sunny outlook on life has nothing to do with it.”

I drained the contents of my glass and pushed it aside.  “And you say
I’m
the one who falls back on pithy comments.  Pot, meet kettle.  You’re black.”

He sighed, finished his vodka, turned so he looked me head-on.  It looked like he was going to say something.  I expected him to, when he cupped his palm over my knee.  But when he opened his mouth and looked at the floor, all he said was, “Do you want another one?”

I surrendered my glass with an eye roll.  “Wow.  Are you this much of a chicken in the courtroom?”

“No.  I just remember this one girl who about lost her mind and had a coronary the last time we had a conversation like this.”

I tilted my head from side to side, knocking on my temple.  “Nope.  My mind’s still sloshing around in there.”

He squinted at me over the stream he poured into my empty glass.  Usually his thoughts were easy for me to read; he didn’t always need words.  Maybe the alcohol racing through my bloodstream had removed that particular skill.  I couldn’t read them now any more than I could read Hebrew.

This is a bad fucking idea, Kat
, the voice in my head that sounded like Caroline droned.  I half-expected to turn around and find her lounging on Kyle’s sofa, swinging one leg over the other in one of her sheer dresses, an un-approving eyebrow raised over the rim of a teacup.

He pressed the glass into one of my hands, laced his fingers through my free one. 

Jesus Christ.  This is quite possibly the most idiotic thing you’ve ever done. And I’m counting that one time you asked me why it was called stainless steel. 

She couldn’t seriously be lecturing me on this shit after the fiery wreckage she’d left smoking in her wake.

“You look like you’re having an entire conversation with yourself,” he said, squeezing my hand.

“Not with myself.  With my sister.”

“What?”

I took a sip.  “What?” 

“I might have to book you a bed in Breakthrough if you keep this up.”

“Well if you make me room with Caroline, make sure they straight-jacket me.  I wouldn’t trust myself not to kill her.  Or at least pants her.”  It felt like an alien had manipulated my vocal cords, speaking for me after an enormously pregnant pause.  “I like you, too.”

“I know.”

“Ugh.”  I pushed back in my stool, trying to wrench my hand from his, but his grip just grew tighter.  “I’m over everyone’s arrogance.  You’re all exhausting.”

The faintest ghost of a smile glimmered on his lips as he watched me knock back the rest of a dizzying dose of vodka.  I hadn’t gotten the glass a millimeter from my lips when he took it from me, dropped it on the counter, and curled his hand behind my neck the same way he did back in my condo a million years ago. 

“You taste like Absolut,” he said when we broke apart, the luster of my cherry Chapstick on his lips. “Kind of reminds me of high school.” 

***