The Remedy (7 page)

Just as she was starting to enjoy the self-assured feeling of empowerment, a flash of movement to Leigh’s left ruined the moment. She stopped, examining the endless weave of branches and tree trunks that obscured her vision. Besides the greenery, there was nothing to be seen. Perhaps it had been a deer, now perfectly still and camouflaged by the undergrowth.

Eliza, who’d been paying attention to her own feet, bumped into Leigh’s back.

“Why’d you stop? Is something wrong?”

Instead of causing alarm and making herself look just as much of a fish out of water as her friend, Leigh waved her hand and kept moving. “It was nothing, just thought I saw a squirrel or something.”

But as she picked up her pace to catch up to Sam, Leigh’s eyes kept darting to the surrounding evergreens, surprised at how shaken she was. Even if something was indeed watching them, it probably wasn’t anything to be concerned about. It was just a frightened deer or another startled animal. It had to be.

Dark clouds stretched across the afternoon sky. Had Marshall been back in San Diego, driving out to the beach for a full day of surfing, the blackening sky would’ve certainly turned his mood. But as it was, the worsening conditions were turning his previous scowl into a self-satisfied smile. By the time his friends reached the meeting point, they’d be drenched from the sudden downpour that was sure to be unleashed at any moment. Meanwhile, he’d be relaxing comfortably in the dry van, listening to the soothing sound of raindrops tapping the roof and the mellow rhythms of his Bob Marley album.

That was, of course, if they would ever find the turn they were looking for. If Sam’s directions were correct, it seemed like he and Alex had been driving for far too long.

Alex craned her neck to peer up through the windshield. “It looks like it’s going to rain. Are you sure you didn’t miss the turn?”

Marshall couldn’t help but notice her choice to say “you” instead of “we,” but he took a deep breath before replying.

“I’m sure, babe. Have you seen a Miller’s Road yet?”

“No, but it feels like we’ve been driving for way longer than we should’ve been, and I don’t want those guys to have to wait in the rain.”

Marshall turned his head away to hide his sneer.

I guess that’s where we disagree
.

“I totally agree,” he said, looking at his girlfriend. “But I guess this is what we get for taking directions from some backwoods hillbilly.”

Though he was staring straight ahead to pay strict attention to the uneven dirt road, Marshall could feel Alex’s menacing glare in response to his comment.

“Don’t call Sam a hillbilly. It makes you sound like Rob.”

Marshall nodded. She had him there.

“Just call him a…a local,” Alex said, finishing her thought.

Marshall gritted his teeth.
Yeah, just a local. As if that’s what you’d call him if he had buckteeth and a beer belly
. The thought suddenly spurred another.
As if you’d still call me your boyfriend if I had the same
.

“Well, for a local he sucks at giving directions. He made it sound so simple. But where the fuck is it?”

Alex shrugged. “You probably weren’t paying attention and missed it. I think you should turn around.”

His grip on the wheel tightened. Damn, she was pretty to look at—and incredible in bed—but it was times like these that made Marshall question if perhaps they weren’t too different after all. There was no arguing that Alex was perpetually caught up on the outer appearance of people, but was he any better? If he was, why wasn’t he chasing after girls with a little more going on upstairs? Someone who wasn’t always so quick to deny all responsibility and pass blame to anyone she could within an arm’s reach. Someone like Leigh.

Whoa. Where did that come from?

Marshall shook his shaggy head, sending the surprising thought to the back of his mind where he could ignore it for the moment. In the meantime, he had an argument to engage in.

“You want me to backtrack so we can waste time looking for a sign we both somehow missed?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I don’t think so.”

“Then maybe we should call them.”

Marshall didn’t care for the increasingly self-righteous tone of her voice. This was their first moment alone during the trip outside of a bedroom, and look at the result: his impatience versus her haughtiness. Not exactly indicative of a healthy relationship.

He sighed. “Do I really have to tell you there’s no cell service out here?”

“So then what the fuck are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know!” Marshall shouted back, surprised at the volume of his own voice. He took a breath. Moments such as this made him thankful for having been brought up by a Buddhist stepfather. He’d picked up a few techniques that came in handy when attempting to conquer a massive wave—or preventing his emotions from getting the best of him in a heated conversation such as this one.

“We’ll just keep driving, okay?” he said, as calmly as he could. And then he couldn’t help but add, “And hope that redneck was right.”

Alex fell back into her seat, arms folded across her busty chest. “What a brilliant plan.”

No mantras or breathing techniques could help him this time. Marshall exploded.

“Why, thank you! And let me just say your genius ideas are
invaluable
. Thank God I have you here to—”

“Shut up and stop the car!”

Alex’s shriek caught him completely off guard. He’d just been getting into a satisfying rant, but her sudden outburst stopped him dead.

“What?”

Craning her neck to look behind them, she hollered: “Stop the fucking car! I saw something!”

“Okay, okay.” Marshall stomped on the break, lurching both of their bodies forward. Fortunately, their seatbelts saved them from slamming into the dashboard. Marshall braced himself against the tirade that was sure to come from bringing the van to such an abrupt halt, but instead Alex ripped off her belt and bolted from the van.

“Hey!” he called after her. “Hold up! What did you see?”

When she failed to respond, Marshall reached down and unbuckled his own belt.
And to think if I hadn’t left the West Coast I could be hanging ten right now instead of wanting to hang myself
.

His door opened with a loud rusty creak, a telltale noise of Rob’s neglect for his car. Despite the darkening sky, the temperature remained high, and a wave of humid heat enveloped Marshall as he stepped out. By the time he reached where Alex was wading through the tall grass at the side of the road, tiny beads of perspiration were already rolling down the back of his neck.

He watched as his girlfriend ducked down into the sea of swaying thistles. “What the
hell
are you doing?”

A second later, Alex emerged hefting a long, wooden post. At the top of the pole, a makeshift sign spelled out
MILLER
’
S ROAD
in crude, faded handwritten letters. Marshall stared in awe as Alex proudly held up her trophy. With a hand on her hip and another wrapped around the post as if it were a strip club pole, she resembled a model for the kind of calendar you might find in the office of a seedy garage. Marshall could see it now:
Twelve Months of Back Road Girls
.

“You can start kissing my ass at anytime,” Alex said victoriously.

“Honey,” Marshall said, his voice lowering, “I’d like to do way more than that to you right now. And there isn’t a single person around to see.”

Alex returned his hungry stare with her own seductive glance. But it vanished the next instant, replaced by sobering reason. “When we get back,
maybe
I’ll let you redeem yourself. But right now we don’t have time.” She let go of the sign, returning it to the engulfing weeds. “In the meantime, be sure to get that tongue of yours ready. It has a lot of work ahead of it.”

“I’ll start on my exercises,” Marshall joked, extending a hand out to help Alex back onto the dirt road. With her palm securely in his grip, he yanked her forward, embracing her with a passionate open-mouth kiss. Alex wasted no time invading his mouth, her tongue expertly wrestling his own. His hand found its way to her left breast, kneading the lovely flesh through her 36D-sized bra. But Alex started to push herself away from Marshall just as the pressure began to build in his groin, despite how badly she clearly wanted him.

“Wait,” she whispered between gasps of pleasure, “Let’s not get into it. We have to get to the others.”

Marshall sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” It wasn’t easy releasing the girl from his fondling hands, but at least no one was around to notice the circus tent that had become of his pants. It dawned on him, however, that an embarrassing boner was the least of his concerns right now.

“So, you found the sign, that’s great. But where’s the road?”

Alex brushed her hair back, apparently not concerned. “It’s obvious the sign’s been cut down and thrown here. So that means we must have passed it.”

Marshall’s fists tightened when he realized he had to concede. “I guess without the sign we couldn’t see the road through all this tall grass.” He took a deep breath. “I guess we have to…go back.”

Alex’s hand slapped the right cheek of his ass. He flinched, feeling the sting of her hand through his jeans. “Just like I said.” She licked his earlobe. “You know, you’re lucky I don’t have a dick or you’d be sucking it right now.”

“Let’s just go, okay?”

“I thought you’d never ask!”

The couple joined hands and started to walk back toward the van, the bickering now a thing of the past. Swinging arms, Alex continued to tease him for being wrong while Marshall ignored her playful pestering and ruminated on the physically dependent state of their relationship.

We were at each other’s throats only a minute ago. But one quick round of grab-ass and look at us: right as rain
.

Was this really the extent of his capability to maintain a steady relationship? He swore he’d never end up like his parents—divorced over their mutual selfish search to find the greatest sex on earth. With his mid-twenties right around the corner, Marshall had enough experience to know that sex never differed
that
greatly. If discovering a new bedroom trick here and there was all he needed, he wouldn’t have been bothered by the one-dimensional personalities his partners always seemed to have. Moving away from home was supposed to have changed all that, a chance to find someone far from the empty-headed bimbos that followed him around the beach. But perhaps there were some things you
couldn’
t get away from. Maybe shallowness wasn’t a product of poor nurturing. It could be genetic, like when the rotten genes that caused alcoholism jumped from one generation to the next.

If that’s the case, I’m fucked. No pun intended
.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

The concern in Alex’s voice wrenched Marshall from the bowels of his grim daydream, his heart instantly warmed by the look of genuine concern on his girlfriend’s face.

“Don’t feel bad about missing the turn,” she said, her slender arm snaking its way around his. “I made you feel bad, didn’t I?” Her voice took on a babyish tone as she circled one finger across his chest.

“Nah, it’s okay.”

“I hope so. Because I’d be a mess without you. You know that, right?”

Marshall did not. In fact, this was one of the few times he’d seen her display true devotion.

“You’re more to me than just a pair of dreamy eyes and a handsome face,” she continued. “If that’s all I wanted, I’d probably be dating Rob.” She made a gagging noise. “God. Puke.”

That was all Marshall needed to hear. His folks’ marital troubles might have done a number on him, but as he lovingly stared at his girlfriend, he began to think that just maybe he had a shot at a meaningful, long-term relationship…

This feeling lasted the entire walk back to the van. Then, it disappeared, blown away by the summer breeze after one look at their lopsided vehicle.

“Alex,” he muttered, “Please. Please tell me I’m not seeing this right.”

She was silent. The van was tilted at a severe angle, the driver’s side headlight drastically lower than the rest of the car’s body. It didn’t take a mechanic to realize that one of the front tires was as flat as flat can get.

This time, Marshall didn’t bother taking a deep breath or repeating one of the soothing expressions his stepfather had passed down to him. Instead, his voice echoed against the tall trees and between the rolling green mountains.

“How the
fuck
did this happen?!”

Alex seemed to remain considerably calmer as she assessed the situation. To her, the answer seemed obvious enough. “You must have hit a sharp rock or something. These back roads are terrible.”

Marshall ignored her theory and jogged over to the damaged wheel, which was leaking the last of its remaining air with a devastating hissing sound. Marshall immediately spotted the culprit glinting in the little sunlight that remained. With one vigorous tug, but Marshall was able to remove the object, ripping away some small chunks of rubber from the tire as well.

Alex was standing a few feet away near the vehicle’s taillights.

“What is it?”

Marshall slowly stood up, eyes glued to the thing resting in his palm. He walked over to Alex, grabbed her right wrist, and gently placed the cold, metal object in her hand.

It was a circular saw blade the size of a compact disc, the points of its jagged teeth digging into her fingers.

Beneath the canopy of the interweaving leaves and evergreen needles, Leigh hadn’t noticed the rate at which the sun was fading until it had completely vanished behind an impenetrable wall of threatening gray clouds. Sam came to a dead stop ahead of her and looked up with a worried grimace.

“Uh-oh,” he said through gritted teeth. “Looks like we may get a little wet.”

Leigh looked as well. The sky had become colorless.

Leigh frowned. “I hope you’re right when you say ‘a little.’ By the looks of it, seems like may get drenched. How far do we have left to go?”