Loonglow (3 page)

Not fooled for an instant, the man let Clay sweat out a few long moments of inspection.

Then he spoke. “You must be referring to Mia D'Allesandro.” He put a hand over his eyes as if the thought of her exhausted his bones. “The most lethal woman this side of Gomorrah.”

Clay thanked him and went back to Charlene, beaming like a fool. She frowned in confusion, but for once it didn't even irritate him. Free, white and twenty-four, he was at last a man with a purpose.

“Help me,” called his sister. Clay dove into the water, but the farther out he swam, the farther away she seemed to be. “What's keeping you?” she cried.

Where were his parents? Clay thought, though their absence seemed familiar, even apt. He struggled through the water; still he couldn't reach her.

“I just want someone to save me,” came her plea; then, fading, she went under.

Clay woke. His sister's voice rang in his ears, echoing as if she'd only just left his bedroom. He sat up, looking at the clock next to his bed. Every time he thought about his sister's death, all he felt was his utter helplessness to have prevented it. He rose, rubbing his eyes. The night before came back to him, and then his plan.

Research bore out that Mia was a highly successful stock trader on Wall Street and that neither of her parents—an explosive Italian father and an exceedingly refined French mother—lived in the city. Clay was surprised to find how easy it was to get information on her, thanks to the questionable resources of the family firm. On the other hand, the cost had been first a conversation with his uncle and then, far worse, an invitation to the party Clayton Lee was giving for his latest bride pro-tem. Perhaps his father's lair would be a fitting backdrop for his plan, Clay told himself.

At last the day of the party arrived. It was the first time Clay had seen his father since his mother had bid her husband a stone-faced adieu shortly after their daughter's funeral. Clay would have happily forgone the privilege of seeing his father again, but there was no denying that the firm's ease at puncturing the privacy of anyone in business had proved more than handy. By all reports Mia's salary ran to six figures, and while company gossip noted with some bewilderment that she had no steady boyfriends, there was evidence of regular socializing with the other traders, Wynn had informed him. One such enterprising drinking buddy turned out to be someone Clayton had once fleetingly employed, a young man charming enough to talk any red-blooded capitalist into a date that might enrich her roster of useful contacts.

Clay didn't know quite what he was planning to accomplish by assuring Mia's presence at the party, but he could no more alter his behavior than explain it. In preparation for the evening, he and some whiskey watched the end of
Holiday
in the small room his father had set aside for him before learning of his plan to make his way in the big city unassisted. After Cary Grant somersaulted into Hepburn's arms, Clay went downstairs to survey the terrain.

Mia looked breathtaking. It was not hard to locate her in the crowd—something like brushing a hand through a pile of soot to find a diamond. Clay noted with satisfaction that she was trapped in conversation with his Aunt Celia, possibly the only one in the room who wouldn't be rendered speechless by the dress Mia was almost wearing. The skin of her bare shoulders shimmered, incandescent.

“… a new job, or they'll think you're a slut,” his aunt was saying as Clay approached. (From the sound of Celia's voice, she'd been celebrating for some time.)

“I'll bear that in mind,” Mia replied dryly. Wild hair cascaded down her back (Clay suppressed a moan). His aunt went on, oblivious, expounding on the varied outlets fear of sexual expression had taken in their family. Clay interceded, steering Celia toward John and Bettina Willington at large.

Mia tried to slip away, but Clay blocked her path, taking her hand. “Hello,” he said. “I'm Clayton Lee, the proud new stepson. And you're—”

“Lucky to meet you, I'm sure.” She smiled joylessly, slipping her hand from his and staring down into her drink.

“You'll have to be more sincere, or I'll be forced to call the bouncer.”

“Why don't you do that,” she suggested dully, throwing back her head to swallow a sizable percentage of her drink. This seemed to rouse her. “What's the matter?” she went on. “Afraid the minute your back is turned I'll start going down on the clams?”

“Pardon?” Clay glanced around.

“Silly me,” came her sly drawl, “I guess you don't get many brash Italians in the genteel neighborhoods of Tennessee—not even Italians tasteful enough to be part French. But then you already know that, Mr. Lee, the same way you know my name and no doubt my shoe size.”

Momentarily speechless, Clay stared into two emerald specters of anger. Who had told her that he'd wanted her to come—Wynn? Her date? “Clay,” he managed. She eyed him coldly, slicing a drink off a passing tray and downing it without missing a beat. “How'd you know I had you invited here, Mia?”

“Why'd you want me here”—her voice was steely—“
Clay?
” Her face was only slightly flushed from liquor.

The alcohol he had drunk earlier was starting to affect him, Clay realized. She had succeeded in unnerving him completely; beauty and angry omnipotence were an unsettling combination. None of this, however, was altering the agonizing state of arousal he'd been in since he'd first laid eyes on her in that dress—when he could so clearly have used the blood elsewhere.

The face of the girl she'd abandoned at the restaurant loomed before him for an instant. How could he explain his actions, his desire for this woman now before him? He cast about in vain for some convincing explanation. The words were out of his mouth before he realized it. “I invited you here, Mia,” he said, “to learn how you could have done it.” The slightly arched eyebrow only sped his inevitable demise. “How you could take the sweetest girl I've ever seen and just break her heart.”

He would have given anything not to have said it. All that effort to get her here and now he'd blown it completely. He was an asshole. He was king of assholes. All emotion drained from Mia's face; she stood, a perfect mannequin, staring past him out into the crowd. “Oh, I see,” she said distantly. “You're a friend of Louey's.” She put her glass down, her voice chillingly polite. “You'll forgive me if I don't stay.” Before he could respond, she strode from the apartment, leaving Clay with an open mouth and the certainty that this time he would never meet her again. The banner of her black hair against a flash of glistening white shoulder was the last thing he saw before the door closed behind her.

Monday, 5:48, Louey spotted Mia making her way through the crowd on the Seventh Avenue uptown express. She called her name.

Mia kept walking, and Louey called out “Mia!” again, louder, blushing. This time Mia had to have heard her, but she didn't answer, continuing to make her way through to the next car. The other passengers eyed Louey impassively as she hurried to catch up, her face contorted, an advertisement for stupidity and shame. All the same, she forged ahead, entering the next car just as Mia reached the halfway mark ahead of her. Despite the fact that it was both fully lit and air-conditioned, Mia continued through it, side-stepping assorted white-haired women and dark-eyed boys at the peak of their sexual potency.

A little hoarsely Louey said her name again. This time Mia was at the end of the car; she stepped into the next one, closing the door behind her. It seemed to Louey that Mia was moving even faster than before, but Louey followed without thinking. She had bellowed Mia's name in a public place; obviously all rational rules had ceased to apply. She took deep breaths; she took shallow breaths. Why she had not shriveled into a wilted mass of shame by this point was unclear. She seemed to be on some sort of automatic pilot, as on Mia went, wafting through the crowded underground of New York.

The next few cars were dim, their broken doors not quite closed; windows half open, fans stalled and silent: the external equivalent of Louey's stifling, heart-pounding, clammy self. Now she couldn't bring herself to utter a word, and they traveled together in silence through the darkened train.

Without warning, Louey found herself narrowing the distance between them at an alarming rate. They were in the last car, she realized, at the back of the train. Mia was trapped. Pressing herself against the tiny window, Mia seemed to be imagining herself far, far down the tunnel, safe, away from Louey. The back of her head made one last plea for mercy.

Louey stopped just inches from her, inhaling the scent which, long since faded from memory no matter how she'd strained to recall it, now filled her senses. Suddenly shy, she struggled for the perfect thing to say to bring Mia crashing back into her arms.

“This the Number 2?” Someone jostled her, touching her shoulder. Louey turned in panic, realizing that the doors had opened and the train had stopped inside a station. (From the corner of her eye she saw Mia's wild, dark hair, calling to be ravished.)

“I have no idea,” Louey said desperately; this was a lie, she knew, if only she could shake herself down for the information. But all she could concentrate on was Mia. She closed her eyes. Mia was wearing a fuzzy short-sleeved sweater Louey had given her, which bared her vulnerable elbows; Louey wanted nothing more than to pull them around her. Mia's skirt was white, snaked on tightly over her hips and slit up the side to bare inexcusably perfect legs. Louey was staring at her now, frozen, inhaling. If she had any sense, she'd bolt. What was she doing here? She reached out her hand to rest it on Mia's shoulder.

Mia turned. A pair of unfamiliar glasses gave Louey's heart a jolt as her eyes pored over a stranger's face. Then the woman beamed at her. Mia. Louey smiled weakly.

“Hey,” Mia said. She removed the tiny headphones which a heretofore undiagnosed mental defect had caused Louey to overlook. “How the hell are you, girl?”

“Fine,” Louey said, not mentioning that if Mia kept up that grinning Louey was going to have to get off the train. “How have you been?” The roaring in her ears prevented her from absorbing Mia's answer. After all this time, Mia? She felt feverish. Her teeth ached. Where were her knees?

“Well, see you in another twenty,” Mia was suddenly saying. Before Louey knew it, Mia was moving through the doors of the train, which (oblivious to Louey's internal combustion) had reached another station and stopped once again. Louey stood frozen as the doors closed behind Mia and the train started with a lurch.

Louey stared at the glazed windows. There was no telling where she was, or if she should have gotten off the train hours ago. She could feel the rest of the car watching her, the obvious victim, forming their own conclusions. Grabbing on to a strap, she waited to see what the next stop would be, hanging on for life.

When Louisa Mercer was six years old, her mother found her sitting among a jumble of torn papers with tears streaming from her eyes. When Meredith asked what was the matter, Louey looked up into her mother's anxious face and announced that she was going to quit drawing forever. Meredith Mercer put a hand on her daughter's heated cheek and soothed the hair off her damp forehead as she told the little girl, “You're going to make us very proud when you grow up to become famous.”

“I won't!” exploded Louey. “I'll never draw again! Karen Willoughby's better than I am.” Meredith drew back with a suppressed laugh, but her daughter's face was bitter as she explained why there was no point going on with something if she couldn't be the best. No argument could change her mind.

Louey's birth in a quiet Washington suburb so many years after her two brothers had been an unexpected blessing. Several miscarriages had led Meredith and Edward Mercer to give up hope for the little girl they'd wanted, and when Meredith discovered she was pregnant, she was filled with terrible foreboding. Yet her dread changed to elation as the little girl emerged from her body perfectly formed: tiny, scowling, and with a fine trail of sandy hair.

Within a week, Louey had stopped scowling, but she soon proved to be a cheerless baby, waking them at all hours with her cries. Her parents (who had been out of the habit of caring for an infant for quite some time) soon began to wonder if the blessing they'd awaited for so long was not in fact a curse. Edward Mercer caught himself on the verge of nodding off far too many afternoons at his laboratory; his wife began to long for the relative quiet of teaching algebra to adolescents.

At eight months Louisa spoke her first sentence, at a Passover celebration at which the entire family was gathered, Louey at the head of the table in her high chair. The boys were conducting their usual search-and-destroy mission with the floating matzoh balls, and the conversation was so lively that a baby's chirps went unnoticed. Finally, at the first pause in the conversation, Louey cried out in a loud, clear voice, “My turn!” Her family looked at her in amazement as her face dimpled in a grin and she added: “Please?”

As soon as she started speaking, Louey became a buoyant, sunny child. By six, she also displayed a talent for drawing everything around her with remarkable precision. Her parents' aspirations for the place she would have in history did not seem farfetched: such a clever, talented child could not fail to make her mark on the world. She would be the new Picasso, or perhaps merely the first Jewish President.

By the time she was twelve, however, Louey had abandoned a number of fields at which someone else had shown even a trace of superiority. Her mother couldn't understand why it was her child could not continue anything at which she'd been in any way bested; she worried that the serious little girl would lose her former delight at so many of life's pleasures. As Louey grew older, Meredith was careful to avoid placing pressure on her to succeed, but by then it was already too late. If her sons were too cavalier about the paths that lay ahead of them, her daughter could think only of the future she was obliged to transform triumphantly.