Out of Control (18 page)

“Lacrosse and Books.”

Close enough. I was infused with relief. “How do you feel?”

“Headache. Hot. So freakin’ hot.”

“I know, but night’s coming and it’ll cool off.”

“Where are we?”

“In the Empty Quarter.”

His eyes actually focused. “What the hell?”

“Long story, but the short version is that we jumped out of the plane before Tim Fresh
could throw us off.”

He stared up at me and I thought he’d ask more questions. Instead, he said, “Gotta
take a leak.”

I helped him stand, but it became evident he wasn’t going to stay vertical for long.
He leaned heavily against my shoulder while I faced the opposite direction and he
took care of business. “This sucks,” he said, clearly embarrassed and feeling emasculated.

“It beats dying.”

“I think I’m gonna hurl. So dizzy.”

“If you’re done, then lie down.” I helped him back to the chute and he closed his
eyes. “Nick?”

He didn’t answer and I shook him. “Robichaud?”

“Baby, I gotta get some sleep. You and Alex catch a few for me, willya?”

Oh, no. He was
hallucinating
? I listened to him carry on about me and Alex fishing without him while I packed
up and got ready to continue walking. He made no protest when I rolled him up in his
chute, but when I straddled him to tie off the lines and secure him inside the wrap
so he wouldn’t slide out, he laughed a little and said, “Damn, sugar, I love it when
you’re on top.”

“How would you know? We’ve never done it.”

“Aw, c’mon, we’ve done it lotsa times. Remember when we were in Idaho at that lodge,
in the snow? And what about when we went to Vegas and got a room with a private pool?”

I had a sneaking suspicion he was talking about another woman. “Did I like it?”

“Course you did. Best sex you ever had.”

“And when were we in Idaho, or Vegas?”

“Last week. We left the fire and went up there to have sex.”

Despite our situation, and my worry that he was losing his grip, I smiled a little.
“You just imagined it, Nick.” I stood and gathered the lines around my shoulders.

“No. You were beautiful, and I was incredible. Lasted all night.”

“Yeah, you definitely imagined that.” Guys and their fantasies. Sheesh.

He fell quiet again and I staggered along in the sand as night fell. The stars were
bright, and a crescent moon shed enough light for me to see the ground as I walked,
measuring my breaths, counting steps to pass the time.

After a long while, he said, “I never thought I’d get married, but I’m sure glad I
changed my mind.”

“When did you change your mind?”

He laughed. “See? That’s why I married you, because you’re damn funny. Well, and because
you’re hotter than a firecracker.”

“Most people get married because they love each other. Are you saying you married
me just for sex and a few laughs?”

“What’s love if you don’t laugh and have sex?”

“Well, there’s mutual respect, and affection, and the shark thing.”

“Sharks have nothing to do with love.”

“Do too. If you loved me, you’d save me by letting the shark eat you instead of me.”

There was a short pause, then he muttered, “Hate sharks.”

All was quiet again, and it wasn’t until the wee hours of the morning that he roused
and started talking as though he’d never drifted off. “I’d kill the fucking shark.
That’s what I’d do. Then I’d take you out for shrimp, and make love to you under a
palm tree.”

“Testosterone, sex, and food. You’re all alike.”

“I’m not like any other guy. Not to you.”

“Oh?”

“’sright, sugar. You married me, didn’t you?”

“Only because you killed the shark and lasted all night and bought me shrimp.”

Once again, he fell silent and I went back to counting steps. I think I was past two
thousand when he suddenly cried out, “
Blair!
”

I stopped immediately and turned back, hurrying to kneel beside him. “I’m here, Nick.
What’s wrong?”

He grabbed my arm and hauled me down to him, wrapping me in a hug so tight, it brought
tears to my eyes. “Nick, no,” I managed to say. “My ribs are cracked.”

His hold loosened only slightly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t go in there, or they’ll hurt you. I can’t see, can’t help. Please,
please,
don’t go in there.”

My mind was completely blown when he started to cry, great racking sobs, his arms
holding me tight, his hands moving up and down my back, his fingers squeezing my skin.
I was practically seeing stars but I wouldn’t peel him off to save my life.

“If I lose you, what’ll I do?” he cried. “You’re all I got, the only best thing ever
happened to me, and those bastards will hurt you! Do you understand what I’m saying?
Do you?
”

I didn’t really want to understand, but nevertheless, I said calmly, “Of course I
understand, and I promise I won’t go in there. I’ll stay right here with you. Now
relax and everything will be all right. Do you want some water?”

He continued to cry and clutch me close to his body. “I
can’t
lose you. I know what they’ll do to you, and it’ll never be the same. You’ll be afraid.
You’ll leave me.”

“No, I’ll never leave you.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

He relaxed a bit and kissed my chin. “I love you, Blair.”

I felt perfectly comfortable replying. After all, he was delusional. “I love you,
too, Nick. Now let me get you some water.”

Several minutes later, we were on our way again. I continued until the sun came up
and kept going until it was too hot, and I was about to drop. Robichaud was still
out of it, and I went several yards away to answer the call of nature. Naturally,
that was the time he chose to wake up and call for me. When I didn’t answer right
away, he started to get hysterical, so I hurried it up and went to assure him I was
okay.

He had some more water and complained of being hungry, so I fed him some of the jerky,
ate a bit myself, then helped him to his feet so we could repeat his embarrassment
of the night before.

Except this time he was still on the edge of his concussion-induced illusions and
thought we were married, so he didn’t appear embarrassed at all. I redressed his wound,
then settled us into the parachute taco, and he talked and talked, most of it nonsense.
I was exhausted and kept falling asleep, and at some point, I stayed asleep.

When I woke, it was late afternoon and Robichaud was gone. I panicked and threw the
chute off, looking around until I spotted him lying on the sand some twenty yards
away. I ran to him and almost cried with frustration. No telling how long he’d been
lying there, nearly naked, his skin burning in the brutal sun. When he woke up, he
was going to be in even more pain. Great.

I went back for the chutes and the pack, and dragged all of it to where he lay. After
I’d carefully wrapped him up again, I was having jerky and water when I heard a beep.
Turning, I picked up the pack and dug through the remaining water bottles and jerky,
but couldn’t see anything that might make a beeping sound.

It beeped again.

I ran my hand along the inside of the pack, reaffirming there was nothing in the zipper
pocket, then moved my fingers across the bottom. My index finger caught on a flap
of fabric and I wiggled more fingers beneath it. There was something there, a small,
flat piece of plastic, which I pulled out and inspected with interest.

It beeped at me.

I had no clue what it was, or why it beeped. A little smaller than a credit card,
but thicker, and all black, there were no buttons on it, and nothing descriptive,
except for the letters OPS.

It beeped yet again.

I decided OPS was an acronym for Obnoxious Piece of Shit.

Wishing Robichaud would wake up and be himself, I shoved the damned beeping Piece
of Shit back into the pack, stuck his T-shirt on top of it to muffle the beeps. No
way would I get back to sleep now, so I gathered up the lines of his chute and headed
off across the sand like a zombie.

The hours dragged past, the sun finally set, and I became more worried about Nick.
Why didn’t he wake up? He needed water, I was certain. Every so often I’d look over
my shoulder at him, but he was as still as death in the moonlit darkness, never moving
a muscle, not making a sound.

I have absolutely no idea how I managed to keep going. My middle was killing me, breathing
was difficult, and my feet swelled to the point that my shoes were a size too small.
My shoulders had blisters from the constant rubbing of the chute lines attached to
Robichaud’s makeshift litter, and I was exhausted and starving.

Worse than the physical discomfort, however, was the yawning loneliness I felt, the
very weird sense of being the only human being left on earth. I talked to myself,
sang snatches of old Beatles songs, counted my steps, or looked up at the stars, making
up stories about aliens and other worlds.

When the novelty of all those things wore thin, I thought about Tim and Hakeem and
their plan to blow the port at Yanbu. I was certain I was right about that. I considered
what it would mean to the rest of the world when the price of oil shot up as high
as two hundred dollars a barrel. It would kill the economies of small countries, and
break the financial backbone of the larger ones. Thousands, maybe millions, would
lose their jobs, people would starve, businesses would fold, total chaos would run
rampant.

Would anyone ever figure out who was responsible? In the bigger scheme of things,
would it really matter? With the misery of the world in the balance, did the fate
of two evil men make much difference? I thought of Hitler, and how his death didn’t
make anything better. The world had one less evil man, but it came too late. There
were millions who still suffered, long after he was gone.

If Yanbu blew, it would also be too late to prevent the ultimate disaster.

I started praying for a miracle, for Nick and me to be saved from what was becoming
a certain, if slow, death. I
had
to live. So I could stop Tim and Hakeem from destroying the world as we knew it.

The sun rose and still Robichaud didn’t wake up. I barely had the strength to lift
his head, but I did and dribbled water along his lips, begging him to drink. “Come
on, Nick, you can do this.”

He swallowed, probably a reflex, and I dribbled more water into his mouth, gratified
when he swallowed again. It took almost thirty minutes, but I managed to get over
half a bottle of water into him. Unfortunately, the other half wound up on the ground,
which was a major bummer, considering we had only two bottles left. But at least he
had some hydration.

I did the human taco drill again, but this time, I tied a length of the chute line
between his arm and mine, so if he got up and wandered off again he’d wake me up before
he got too far. When I was certain he was completely covered, I laid back with my
feet on a little mound of sand, covered my own face with the chute and, listening
to the muffled beep of the OPS, fell into a deep sleep.

It was dusk when I woke up, and I felt rested. The swelling in my feet had gone down.
Then I looked at Robichaud and sucked in a breath of anguish. He was close to death.
His ashen face had the look of a man about to die. My grandfather had looked that
way just before he passed on. Some call it the death mask.

I sat beside him and stroked his face and talked to him until the sky was dark, telling
him many things, allowing myself to cry, filled with regret that we’d never have a
chance. I always suspected I wouldn’t marry again after A.J., that it would be impossible
to find a man who could love and respect me just the way I am. A man I could love
and respect back, who’d stand up to my assertive personality, yet not be an overbearing
asshole.

Nicholas Robichaud was that man. But I was fated to lose him before I’d ever had him.
His life, one of honor and worth, would be cut short because of an evil man’s greed
and another man’s lust for power. It wasn’t fair.

I made myself not think about Tim and Hakeem, or Cole, or Dylan, or even A.J. I just
focused on Nick, kissed his face again and again, and told him I loved him, all the
while praying to God that somehow he’d pull through.

Several hours passed, and I got him to drink more water, but nothing changed. He didn’t
wake up. But he didn’t die.

Eventually, with half a bottle of water left in the pack, I forced myself to my feet
and started off into the third night in the desert of Saudi Arabia.

Long after midnight, my mind wandered and I thought of my sisters, but not as adults
with all our accumulated baggage. I remembered how we’d been as children, Wynne always
leading the way, Courtney her sidekick, Tissa the rebel, tempting us to do things
her way, and me, the baby, never voicing an opinion, but content to follow along and
play by their rules.

We had a playhouse, a largish one built to mimic our real house, with tall, white
pillars marching along the porch. We spent hours inside our little haven, staging
tea parties for the queen, who was usually Wynne, but sometimes Tissa. Once in a while,
we’d play music and have dance parties, or raid Mama’s closet and dress up, vying
for the title of Miss Alabama. Courtney always won, because she was the beautiful
sister. I wanted to win, but I was invariably deemed too young, and not nearly pretty
enough.

One day, Wynne declared herself too grown up to play in the little house, and after
that, nothing was ever the same. She was away from home more frequently, off to see
one of her school friends, or attend cotillion, or take riding lessons. One by one,
my sisters grew up and went away, until there was only me. When Tissa left for boarding
school, my parents finally noticed I wasn’t like the others—in more ways than my dark
hair and eyes.

I didn’t dance well. I wasn’t interested in riding, or the ‘right’ kind of friends,
or stylish clothes. I couldn’t play the piano, despite lessons since I was six years
old. And horror of horrors, I was an ace at math but sucked at English. My best friend
was a Korean girl named Lisa whose parents owned a landscaping business. The day my
father told me I needed to broaden my circle and stop seeing so much of Lisa was the
day we declared war.