Chasing Storm (3 page)

“Tonight? Wou’ll be there?”

I kiss him again. “Of course.”

He turns and bounds out onto the street.

The fading sun lights him from the side, his scrawny frame and his cut-price clothes. The smile on his face is pure. I am all he sees.

He stands there waving like an idiot.

I wave back, body still tingling.

Tonight I am finally going to lose my virginity.

It’s going to be perfect.

And he’s still standing there as I think it, waving and smiling as the bus collides with his body, sweeping him from sight and life.

I know from the sound alone – the sheer, hollow thud – it’s bad.

Somehow, my legs move. I step forwards and stop when I see him.

I don’t stop screaming for hours.

(PRESENT DAY)

I stand at the corner where it happened. It’s funny. It hasn’t changed at all. I stare at the spot where Tim lay in a twisted pile. The blood is gone. There are no flowers any more, no signs. It’s just road now, a curb and a stop sign.

I take a deep breath and fall back against the nearest wall.

Cars rush past. They have no idea what transpired here just five years ago, the one moment that changed my life forever, that swept me up and cast me out of Rosie.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t walk past here every day knowing this is where my life had unraveled, where the best thing in it had been taken from me with such violence and speed.

“Hey!”

I turn and find a familiar face stomping towards me.

“Lisa?”

She looks exactly the same except for the uptown strapless she’s wearing. She’d be more at home in New York than Rosie, I muse.

She comes right out on the attack. “Heard you were back.”

She stops before me, hands on her hips.

“Lisa, hi,” I extend my hand, but she leaves it hanging.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” she continues.

“Lisa, I know we had our-”

“You don’t know
shit
. You think it’s okay what you did to him, to that poor boy?”

Poor boy? I want to tell her she never let a moment pass to heckle Tim, to talk down on us. Her tune changed after he was dead, of course. Everyone’s did. Funny how that works.

“You should just go back to whatever city and celebrity life you crawled away from and leave us all the hell alone.”

So that’s it – jealousy.

I step forward, “Lisa, please,” but she swats my hand away. “Stay away, bitch.”

“Oi!” Dan comes bounding over, coffee in his hand. He steps between us, pushing Lisa back. “What the hell’s going on here?”

Lisa looks at me with nothing but venom. “I was just telling this little slut here she’s not welcome.”

“Look here.” Dan steps right in front of her face and she backs up, suddenly caught off guard. “You better watch your language, you hear me? She’s got as much right as anyone else to be here.”

“But she-”

“But nothing. Be on your way now.”

Lisa gives me one final look of disapproval before turning and walking away. I watch her go, shell-shocked.

Dan turns to me, head down and hand running through his hair. “Wow, sorry about that. You know, Lisa’s had it a bit rough since you left.”

I laugh. “Lisa? Had it rough? Her family was the wealthiest in town when I left.”

“She lost a kid.”

“Oh.”

“Still,” he continues, “that gives her no right. You okay?”

I nod, hoping this god-damn pavement would just open up and swallow me already. “Yeah, I’m just not used to being attacked in the street.”

“You sure you’re a New Yorker?”

We laugh and for the first time I see something in Dan, an openness I never knew was there.

He reaches out and takes my hand, thumb running over my skin. “You’re going to have to make it up to me again, you know.”

I play innocent. “Oh?”

“This time I’m really taking you out, wherever you want to go. Eight again?”

I can’t exactly turn him down. Truthfully, I don’t want to. “Jemma’s taking me to Dixie’s tonight, but I can meet you there?”

“I’m on duty ’til eight, but sure, I can do that.”

He walks away, turning once. “If any more of your old school foes show up, just give ’em a good sock in the head. You have my permission.”

I salute. “Yes, officer.”

“Eight,” he says, unable to hide the smile lighting up his face.

“Eight,” I shout back, pausing one last time to look at the road.

*

I meet my friend Jemma at the corner coffee shop. Like most things in Rosie, she hasn’t changed at all. In fact, she still has the whole quasi-alternate thing going on complete with Doc Martins and streaks of pale pink through her hair. She might actually be fashion forward in New York.

“Dan Winter?” She goes to sip her coffee and places it back down when she realizes it’s the same temperature as the surface of the sun. “He’s a stunning specimen of the man form, yes, but he’s also, I don’t know, kind of a bore.”

“A bore?”

“You know, just kind of generic.”

“Harsh.”

“Hey, you know me. I’m just being honest. We’re good friends, Dan and I, but still, I speak only truth.”

I peck at the banana bread in front of me. “How’s your love life?”

“Same-same, guys come and go, but the relationships are, how shall I put it, casual in nature.”

“So you’re a slut?” It’s great that even after five years I can still be so natural around her.

She rolls her eyes. “Takes one to know one. What about New York? I bet you were being pumped all night, amiright?”

She sees the dark look that crosses my face as I stare down into my rapidly cooling mocha. “Hey, what is it?”

“Let’s just not talk about New York, okay?”

“Cheater?”

“Something like that.”

She nods. “Tough, but hey, I’m glad you’re here now. I’m going to find you a wholesome man if it’s the last thing I do, or at least a guy with a big cock.”

“Jemma!”

An old couple sharing a slice of carrot cake at the counter shake their heads.

We laugh together as Jemma leans over the table and lowers her voice. “Seriously, we need to get you back in the saddle – a hard, sweaty saddle with abs you could wash your laundry on.”

“You are very naughty, Jemma Grey. You should write erotic romance or something.”

She flits her hand through the air. “Everyone knows there’s no money in that.”

“E L James would disagree.”

“E L James can blow me.”

“You’re one of a kind.”

“Now,” she continues, getting back to business, “what are we going to do with that vacant vag of yours?”

It’s peak hour at Dixie’s and the place is pumping. It’s the kind of small-town bar that’s cozy and comfortable, with weathered floorboards and an oddly appealing mix of sweat and cheap cologne filtering through the air. I can’t believe I’ve been dragged out here.

Jemma swings up to the bar. The bartender clearly knows her.

“Four cowboys, please,” she smiles.

The bartender looks at her, looks at me, deduces there are just two of us and questions, “Four?”

Jemma nods and, resigned, the bartender lines up four cowboys across the bar. Before they’ve even settled Jemma picks up two and downs them. I don’t think they even touch the sides of her throat.

I pick up a shot and question why I’m here. The band’s loud and I can barely hear Jemma over the noise. “What?”

“Down it!”

I throw the shot back and scrunch up my face. Cowboys aren’t my thing. I’m more of a vodka-and-lime kind of girl.

Jemma drags me onto the dancefloor. She starts moving my arms like I’m a puppet when I refuse to dance. Reluctantly, I try to move. The more I do, the more I enjoy it. It comes back to me, the feeling, the life of movement I’ve held at bay for so long.

A couple of guys are already eyeing us off, circling around us with poor imitations of the running man or lawnmower. Thankfully, I don’t recognize them.

I look to the stage. The band is actually pretty good.

The lead singer catches my attention. His guitar is slung low against his crotch as he bends towards the mic. He wears a tattered black shirt, body toned and built, eyes gleaming blue then green in the changing light. I notice a tat on his bicep. He’s got great tone, real passion his voice.

There’s a tap on my shoulder that breaks me out of my temporary hypnosis. “Fancy some of this, baby?”

A man with an actual roadkill-on-his-head mullet is holding the seat of his pants and thrusting towards me. I back away in revulsion.

Jemma steps in between us. “Get lost, Dale. She’s way too good for the likes of you.”

Dale is clearly drunk. He stumbles in a wide arc. “Like I’d settle for your dirty cunt.”

Jemma gives him the finger and he drifts away into the thicket of people at the front of the stage. “What a cock head.”

“You know him?”

“Dale Tempest. Town idiot.”

I scan the dancefloor again but don’t see anyone that appeals. It’s the singer on the stage that’s pulling my attention, breaking into a solo with stacked arpeggios and technical proficiency far and above this backwater dive of a bar. He lands on a note, holding it with vibrato as his head lifts and our eyes meet.

Something connects us in that moment.
Do I know you?

“Get the fuck off the stage, Rainbow!”

It’s Town Idiot, hanging around the front of the stage with a beer in hand, heckling.

I pull close to Jemma’s ear. “Why did he call him Rainbow?”

“The singer?”

“Yeah.”

“I think his name is Storm or something. He’s an out-of-towner, Millertown, seen him a few times. Cute, huh? But he seems all dark and moody, you know? Too much effort.”

“Huh.”

“Go back to your fucking barn house, you over-the-tracks inbred,” the heckler continues, voice raw and loud enough for the whole bar to hear.

To his credit, this Storm guy plays on unfazed. He simply looks over the head of heckler.

He looks at me.

Out the corner of my eye I see Dale bring his arm back and launch his beer towards the stage.

The glass collects the singer in the side of the head, ricocheting off to shatter against the back wall. The lighting’s dark, but even from this distance I can already see a thin trail of blood running from a cut in the singer’s head.

The band stops.

Jemma stiffens beside me. “Holy shit.”

‘Storm’ stands there, reaching to his head and finding blood, and that’s it. He literally dives from the stage, tackling Dale to the floor. A crowd closes in and I’m unable to see what’s going on. People are shouting. Another glass breaks. There’s a sound like a gunshot from the back.

I see the two of them lift from the floor, Storm with Dale by the scruff of his shirt running him across the floor to collide with a pinball machine in the corner. Someone else picks up a bar stool, smashing it over his head. After that, all hell breaks loose.

Jemma grabs my hand. “Come on. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

We race through crashing bodies, dodging a projectile as the cacophony continues inside.

We push out into the thick of night just as sirens sound in the distance.

People are now streaming from the bar, joining us outside dazed and confused.

Blue and red lights spin around the exterior of the bar as two patrol cars come screaming to a halt in clouds of dust.

I recognize Dan as he gets out, donning his hat as he races inside, his other hand on his revolver.

“Does this happen all the time?”

Jemma kicks at a rock in the ground with her heel. She hugs herself against the cold. “People just don’t get along like they used to. When the mill closed down in Millertown a lot of people lost their jobs. It’s basically a slum out there now. Once you get over the tracks it’s a whole different world.”

“And they come here to Rosie, from Millertown?”

“Yeah. There’s nothing left over there. Every shop’s shut up, every bar and restaurant gone. They come here and trouble just happens. It’s just the way it is now.”

She can read my mind. “Al, you’re not thinking of going there, are you? Doing one of your little feel-good pieces?”

“Millertown?”

“Yes, Millertown.”

That’s exactly what I’m thinking. A town turned to ruin and urban decay in the heart of working America. It’s precisely the kind of piece that would go over well with my editor, but something about the look in Jemma’s eyes is warning me off.

“Seriously, Al, promise me you want go over there.”

I cross my fingers behind my back feeling about five years old again. “Promise.”

This seems to placate Jemma enough as a group of people burst from the doors of the bar. I recognize Dale stumbling away down the street with his friends holding him up, but I’m more surprised to see the singer of the band, that Storm guy, in handcuffs. He doesn’t even protest. He simply walks with his head down, black shirt now even blacker with blood that streams from the gash in his head. He dips his head as he’s manhandled into the back of the cruiser.

Dan emerges from the bar. I have an urge to run up to him, to tell him it wasn’t this guy’s fault, that he didn’t start it, but I think better of it.

It’s not your fight.

“Come on,” says Jemma, tugging my arm. “I’ve got a half pack of Oreos and a DVD box set starring Ryan Gosling that are going to pick this night right up.”

“Sure.”

There’s a tap on my shoulder. I turn to find Dan standing there. He tips his hat. “Ladies.”

I can’t help myself. Something about moral integrity blah-blah. “Hey, you know that guy didn’t start it, right? Dale threw the glass.”

“The boys at the station will sort it out. Don’t you worry now.”

“I’m serious, Dan. The guy, that singer, didn’t do anything.”

He places his hands on his hips. “Things have changed around here, Alice. ‘That guy’ is a troublemaker. His parents were too. If he is innocent, I promise you we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“Really?”

“Really. Worst case he spends an hour or two at the station being cleaned up before being released. No harm.”

Dan smiles. I trust him. He’s always been fair, just. I can’t imagine a world where he’d seek to deliberately do someone harm.

The cop cars leave one by one. Dan points to his cruiser. “Fancy a ride-along, little lady?”

“Your idea of a date is a ride-along?”

“Well, I had planned something a little more romantic, but duty called. Come on, how about it?”

Jemma’s prodding me in the back. “Go!” she mouths.

I give in. “Fine.”

Dan looks like he’s just won the lotto. “Great, this way, ma’am.”

“Don’t ever call me ma’am again.”

He nods. “Duly noted.”

I get into the passenger seat. The dash is clustered with police equipment, the radio buzzing a constant stream of acronyms and jargon.

In the side mirror I see Dan standing at the back of the car. He pulls off his shirt. Carved out by the neon glow of the Dixie’s sign above, you
could
wash laundry on those abs. I look away as he throws his work shirt into the boot and slings on a simple blue tee.

He slides into the driver’s seat and picks up the radio handset, relaying a series of similarly nonsensical syllables while smiling at me all the while.

I wave to Jemma as we take off down the road.

“So, officer,” I begin, “what did you pick me up for?”

“Loitering, soliciting.”

“Soliciting? Soliciting who?”

He turns sideways and smiles. “Me.”

“You’re getting a bit ahead of yourself there, buster.”

“Hey, a man can dream, can’t he?”

I take the compliment quietly watching the road stretch out before us, headlights cutting through the fog.

“Shouldn’t you be at the station sorting things out? You are the sheriff, after all.”

“The boys are more than capable. Deputy Manning will have it under control.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Being a cop?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s like any job really, but at least here there’s no one actively trying to kill you every second. You don’t have to watch the road for IEDs.”

“Just road kill.”

“Right.”

He has one hand on the steering wheel. I take in his arm and for a moment imagine it wrapped around me.

It’s not so bad. In fact, the thought lingers.

I allow it.

I wind the window down a little to let the country air stream in and freeze the side of my face. “Where are we going?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

“Where
were
you going to take me?”

“Barnies maybe.”

“For ice cream? What are we, fifteen?”

“Give me some credit, Alice. I haven’t dated in a while.”

“Not enough bad girls for you here in Rosie?”

“You think a good guy needs a bad girl? You think
I’m
a good guy?”

“You tick the appropriate boxes. Wait, you don’t have a dog, do you?”

“Actually…”

“What’s his name?”

“
Her
name is Annabelle.”

I slap the dash. “Case closed.”

“Got her from the pound.”

I slap the dash again. “God, stop!”

He lifts his hands off the steering wheel in surrender, but I can see the cheeky grin he’s trying to suppress. He
knows
he’s a catch.

I sit back a little deeper into my seat. “As far as I can assume, you’re an upstanding police officer who wouldn’t dare dream of upsetting the moral equilibrium.”

“Assuming makes an ass out of you and me.”

“Come on, tell me the last time you broke the law.”

“Why, that’s easy. It was with you.”

“With me?”

“Old Man Benbrook’s farm, the lake.” He looks at me quizzically. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”

“The time we went skinny-dipping? That was hardly trespassing. Old Man Benbrook could barely walk.”

“But he had a shotgun.”

“And one good eye.”

We both laugh freely. It feels good. I have to admit I find myself easing. A cool gust of air breezes through the open window, my hair flapping against the headrest.

Dan’s looking at me out the corner of his eye.

“What?” I question. “What is it?”

“I’ll prove to you I’m not all Mr Super Serious. He pulls the handbrake and the car goes skidding sideways down the road. I scream, clawing onto the side of the door as dust and gravel whip around us and Dan wrestles the car into a barely visible dirt road off to our left. We hit a culvert and my head almost hits the roof.

My stomach’s just returning to my body when the back of the car kicks out and we turn again.

Just when I’m about to scream for him to stop, the car slows to a crawl and Dan switches off the headlights.

“God, Dan, what now? You’re going to murder me out here in the woods?”

“You don’t come to these woods to murder someone – well, murder them with pleasure maybe.”

I’m confused. “What in holy hell are you talking about?”

“You’ll see.”

The car creeps along slowly, the engine just murmuring ahead as we come into a clearing and then turn into what appears to be a smaller road that runs along next to the river.