In This Skin (7 page)

    ”That's what he wanted, isn't it?”

    ”Yes.”Her mother's eyes glittered. ”But they're ungrateful sons of bitches, Robyn. They also passed a vote of no-confidence in Emerson.

    He's had to resign from the board.”

    ”They can't do that, surely”

    ”They can. The shareholders own a majority of Emerson Holdings' shares.”

    Robyn's stomach muscles twitched. The spasms were returning. When her mother stopped speaking, Robyn whispered, ”He's going to be all right, isn't he?”

    ”We'll survive.”

    ”They'll have to buy out his interest in the company, won't they?”

    Her mother took a steadying breath, so she could regain that glacial composure of old. ”Everything's in hock to the bank. He doesn't have one red cent that he can call his own.”Pale-faced, she let her eyes rove back down the stairs, taking in the walls and expensive rugs. ”Last year Emerson's company went through a bad patch. I mortgaged the house to get him on his feet again.” She turned around and walked swiftly downstairs with the words, ”Don't get sentimental about this place, Robyn. It belongs to the bank now.”

    The muscles jerked so painfully in Robyn's stomach it came like a blow.

    She turned away so her mother didn't notice. The pain doubled her.

    Unable to straighten, she somehow managed to reach her bedroom where she folded in on herself, lying down on the floor, her knees up to her chest. Spasms tore through her body as if the muscles fought one another, trying to tear themselves free. The pain came with such a flaming intensity she couldn't think coherently When the pain subsided at last the one word that formed clearly in her mind was: Homeless.

    Insanely, the second the word homeless formed in her mind, her stomach muscles fluttered again, threatening to spasm with that searing flash of agony. At that moment she knew a profound change had taken place inside of her. But what change? Why do I feel as if I've lost control of my body? In the distance she could hear Emerson shouting into the telephone. In another room her mother was weeping.

    

    

    Unless you plan suicide, or you've been nailed with a date for execution, you rarely know when tragedy is going to strike in your life.

    Tonight's finger of fate is going to point at these two teenagers.

    They're walking toward the haunted-looking structure known as the Luxor…

    ”You're kidding me.””No, I'm not.”

    ”You gotta be.”

    ”Have you seen the prices those old posters are fetching on eBay?”

    ”But in there? At this time of night? You don't know who's lurking-”

    ”It's deserted, Kay!”

    ”Yeah, apart from the psycho with the butcher knife.”

    ”Here's the flashlight. Wait…”He caught her by the wrist. ”Don't switch it on here.”He grinned in the gloom. ”Wait until we're inside.

    Okay?”

    ”Or the cops will see us? Right.”Uneasily she looked up at the mock-Egyptian tomb-maybe-temple facade of the Luxor. ”Knowing my luck I'll be going home in a cop car-or a casket.”

    He wasn't listening. ”Come on, there'll be a way in somewhere.”

    Kay followed. Despite her initial aversion to Leon's plan, a growing excitement tickled her veins. She'd been a tomboy as a kid. She loved these wacky stunts, sneaking into orchards to steal apples or even petty shoplifting in her local supermarket. It had only been items like candy or products she didn't even want or need, oven cleaner or dental floss.

    The buzz was the thing. The buzz. A blast of adrenaline that filled her with electricity that made her feel alive. The other great love of her life when she was twelve was to run with a gang of boys to the railway track and leap onto the coal trucks as they rumbled toward one of the power plants. They'd ride them for a mile until the train hauled by an aggregate's yard. There, they'd jump from the train onto mounds of bright yellow builder's sand. All the time yelling, laughing, waving their arms, screaming ”SHIIIIIIT!” at the tops of their voices. Then came the added rush of being chased out of the yard by the security guard who only had three speeds-tortoise, slow and waddle.

    Jeepers-creepers! He had man-tits that jiggled like a hooker's when he moved.

    Now five years later and aged seventeen, the old magic returned. That old buzz.

    ”Hey, slow down, Kay!”

    ”What's the matter?”

    ”We're supposed to be doing this quietly. You know? Surreptitiously?”

    ”Come on, Leon. No one can see us here. This place hasn't been open in years.”

    ”Well, take it nice and easy girl, OK? If I get in any more shit my probation officer's going to quit saving my ass.”

    ”Leon, you won't get jail for this. It's only a few posters.”

    ”Right.”He grinned again, and brushed a curl of hair from her cheek. A friendly gesture of affection. ”But take it easy. There might be broken glass and stuff.”

    Kay found herself smiling one of those aren't-I-pretty kind of smiles that she hated to see on a girl when they were going all drippy luvy-duvy. ”Aw, come on, Leon. Let's find those posters.”

    They walked along the Luxor, keeping close to the wall. With the time creeping toward midnight, they moved in all but total darkness. Kay felt the crap of ten years' neglect shift and crackle beneath her feet.

    Broken bottles. Cans. Fast-food clams. Discarded tires. A child's stroller even sat outside the fire exit. For one queasy moment Kay thought a baby sat in the stroller but it was only a nude plastic doll minus a head.

    ”Charming place,”Leon whispered.

    ”Yeah, reminds me of home.”

    ”Wait, wait, girl. This looks like it.”He'd noticed a loose board over the door. The panel beneath had been kicked through. ”Looks like someone's already been inside.”

    ”They might have taken the posters.”

    ”Nah, they'd have been looking for lead piping or brass fittings.”He grinned. Kay noticed for the first time what a beautiful white his teeth were. ”They won't have been interested in posters. They'd have been a pile of crap to them. Grab this. I'll go first.”He handed her his flashlight as he went down on all fours to crawl into the shadowed interior of the Luxor. With a tingle down her spine she saw how rounded his buttocks were, while the muscled thighs made her knees begin to twitch. Stop it, you idiot, she scolded herself. This is Leon. You've hung out with him since you were ten. The strongest emotion you ever felt over him was when he threw a Star Wars action figure at you and cut your lip. You kicked him between the legs so hard he'd had to sit on his rear for a full ten minutes, nursing his bruised nuts with both hands. Of course, they'd only been eleven years old then.

    They were still out enjoying adventures together, even though they'd hit seventeen. This time Leon had suggested they visit the old Luxor where his ma used to work as a waitress twenty years ago. He'd been trawling through the auction pages on eBay and found that collectors were paying hard cash (and plenty of it) for old pop and rock memorabilia. High on the list of collectibles were concert posters. A dog-eared Talking Heads poster from 1977 fetched twelve hundred bucks, while an early REM poster signed by the band brought some lucky owner more than five thousand. And if you had a poster of a pre-Army Elvis or pre-Yoko Beatles, then you had the price of a new car. Leon's idea was simple. Get into the Luxor.

    Get some posters. Auction them on eBay. ”You've gotta believe it, Kay!”he'd told her. ”There's gotta be posters in there. We'll be banking thousands, just you wait and see.”

    So she went along with it. They'd ridden out here in Leon's decrepit Honda with a pair of flashlights and high hopes. Only now she found herself taking a weird turn. She couldn't stop gazing at Leon. She found herself scanning his face as if she half expected to find something hidden there. And she kept finding reasons to touch him, whether to make a joke so she could pat his muscular arm or playfully jab him in the stomach with her fist. He took it in good fun, just like when they were kids, laughing and dancing around her. But the reasons why she patted him or play punched him were… well, they were different now. She tingled in his presence. She couldn't stop touching her hair, fluffing it, pushing it back, stroking strands down over her shoulder.

    ”Whoa. Kay. You going to stand there all night?”

    ”Uh?”

    ”Flashlight. It's black as midnight in here.”

    ”Sorry.' She handed him the flashlight, heard a click and saw the wash of radiance illuminate a red-painted concrete floor.

    ”Pass me your flashlight through first. Take it easy coming through; there's some tacks jutting out of the doorframe. There's no broken glass or nothing. You'll be okay.”

    She crawled through, then held up her hand for him to help her up. She wanted to feel that big strong hand around hers. He misinterpreted.

    Instead he gave her a flashlight.

    ”There's no windows here, so no one's gonna see lights from the road.

    Come to that,”he flashed her a beautiful neon-bright grin again, ”we could scream our heads off and no one would hear.”

    ”That doesn't fill me with confidence, Leon.”Her voice fell to a whisper. ”What if there's a bunch of crack addicts in here?”

    ”Yeah, they're having a violent offenders convention, can't you hear the music and happy laughter?”

    ”Hardy ha-ha, Leon, you big dope.”Kay wanted him to walk with his arm protectively around her, only he'd laugh like a loon if she even suggested it. She could even imagine his incredulous, ”You gone crazy, girl?”Then a booming laugh.”'Cause you walk, talk and look crazy!”

    Instead he scanned the walls, looking for posters, no doubt hoping to see them covering the building like wall57 paper. Here there was zilch. They'd come in via a door that had artistes entrance painted next to it. Here there were signs saying this way and no admittance and security and janitor. That's all. There were also wall brackets where fire extinguishers had once hung. But no posters blazing out tonite! one nite only! buddy holly and the crickets. Not even one lonesome flyer for Barry Manilow.

    Sweeping the lights through the darkened building, they ventured deeper.

    Kay glimpsed doors leading to artists' dressing rooms. She marveled at how clean the place was after all these years of abandonment. The drab green walls were unmarked. No graffiti. No sign of drunks appropriating the joint as a shelter. No urine splash marks on walls. No spider webs.

    No junk strewn on the concrete floor. Eager now, they surged down the tunnel-like corridor that (according to signs) connected with the backstage area. The place had only been stripped clean of furniture, not trashed. The air didn't even smell stale. It was as if a through draft continually refreshed the atmosphere of the Luxor.

    Kay's heart beat faster. This place excited her. She felt the old buzz come back to tingle through her blood to her fingertips. It was especially exciting to be here alone with Leon. His athletic body loped along the corridor with the grace of a panther. The shadow he cast revealed itself as a giant form that ran alongside him. She followed him through a wide pair of doors into the backstage area, then onto the stage itself. The boards creaked with mousy squeaks beneath her feet.

    She was treading in the footsteps of musical giants.

    In the middle of the stage stood a simple wooden table, perhaps from one of the back offices. Someone had brought it so far, then couldn't be bothered to heft the thing any farther.

    ”Wow, what a place,”Leon breathed, while shining the flashlight around the cavernous interior of the auditorium.

    Kay shone her flashlight onto the dance floor. In the darkness it appeared as a vast plain stretching far away to entrance doors that must lead to the box office and lobby beyond. The dance floor itself was featureless save for a single armchair dead center. She held the light on it for a moment. It was a comfortable club armchair, the kind you might have in an ordinary domestic living room. Why someone had gone to the trouble to position it there, facing the stage, as if ready for some phantom show to start, God alone knew.

    Leon whistled. ”Some place. I wonder why they don't reopen? It would make a great club.”

    ”Too far from town.”Her voice sounded small in the vastness. ”There's nothing here. All the factories have closed down.”

    ”You stay here. I'll check the lobby If there're any posters they'll be there.”

    ”Leon-”She wanted to add, Don't leave me alone here. But that would have sounded girly Instead, she added, ”If you need a hand, give me a shout.”

    Still running, he turned back. ”Sure.”A second later he vanished through the doors. There was no glass in them so she couldn't even see the flashlight anymore. Come to think of it, she couldn't hear his footsteps. The doors are soundproofed, she reassured herself. They'd have to be to stop the people in the box office from being deafened by the music that once rocked these walls all those years ago.

    Now there were no deafening guitar riffs, no bass, no drums to pound the air. A silence settled, the kind she'd never experienced before. All her life she'd lived in the shadow of an overpass that carried an eight-lane highway. Motor noise had seeped into the very molecules of her body. Now this kind of silence… Whoooo… this was something else. Sweeping the beam searchlightstyle, she scanned the void above her head, picking out the lighting gantry, and even the twinkling remnants of foil Christmas decorations from decades ago. In her imagination she could conjure the ghosts of men and women dancing out there on the floor. They danced around that solitary armchair to a fusion of funk, jazz, blues, soul, Motown, psychedelic free form, grunge,speed metal. She smiled to herself. How easy the images came to mind. This was the place to daydream, she told herself.