Turning on the Tide Page 3

  Janet’s eyes filled and black mascara puddled and ran down Janet’s perfect face.

  Del sat back. “Poor you, always the victim, right?”

  Janet shook her head.

  “Let’s pretend for a minute I believe you. Say these bad guys follow you to my house. They find a petite brunette. What do they do, Janet? Do they walk away? ‘Sorry for the misunderstanding, we’re not going to hurt you at all, little lady.’ Is that what they do?”

  Her voice was loud now, and Lola stifled the impulse to cover her ears, to hide under the table, to run away.

  “Oh, no. Del, I never, I swear, I didn’t think of it.” Janet looked at Lola finally, as if seeing her for the first time. “I didn’t mean to put her in danger, I swear. Oh, my God, baby, I didn’t even think about it. I was just so scared.” She sat back, shaking her head. “I just didn’t think.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “Del, I’m sorry. Lisa, I’m really, really sorry.”

  “You get why I’m pissed, right? Because you fucked me over. And now you think you have a right to come here and play games with us. And, Janet, her name is Lola. Do not get it wrong again.”

  Janet shook her hair back and glared at Del. “You act like I did something wrong! Dammit, Del, I’m a journalist!”

  “A journalist?” Del’s mocking voice seemed to fill the small kitchen, and Lola flinched against the back of the chair. “Bull. Shit. You fuck people for their secrets, then you screw them over in public and ruin their lives. Remember how we met? You got paid to seduce the first dyke cop you could find and get her to spill on the department, right? Lucky for you I was stupid enough to fall for it.”

  “That’s not—”

  Del stood, and her finger jabbed the air in front of Janet’s face. “You’re a spoiled, selfish, lying little bitch.”

  Lola couldn’t take her eyes off of Del’s finger. Beyond it, Janet’s face was a blur.

  “Right, I’m the bad guy. Yeah. Right.” Janet stormed out of the kitchen.

  Del followed, and Lola sat frozen. She listened to their voices overlapping in a discordant duet as they stomped, Del’s boots thumping and Janet’s socked feet whispering, to the front hallway. Del’s voice was a low, undulating murmur. A stringed bass, perhaps? Janet’s was a trumpet, shrill, piercing and impossible to ignore.

  “No, you’re absolutely right, Del, I shouldn’t have come to you. I thought you were a cop, not a pouting, adolescent, self-righteous ass.”

  Del said something, and Lola shuddered at her tone, almost glad she couldn’t make out the words. Then Janet’s voice cut through the wall again.

  “No, you’re right. I get it, Del. I’m just a little too much for you to handle. A little too complicated. I actually have a life besides kissing your ass and washing your dishes, and you just can’t deal with that, can you? What you want is a little wifey to follow you around and sit bitch on your fucking bike.”

  Del’s voice dropped to a low, indistinct rumble that ended in an angry question. Lola pushed her palms into the tabletop so she wouldn’t put them over her ears.

  “No, forget it, go back to wifey. She doesn’t mind you being such a fucking bully. She’ll kiss your ass all day long. And you love it. You’re the big, bad cop on top, right?”

  Del said something low and sharp, but Janet’s words flowed over the top of Del’s.

  “She’s your perfect woman, a pathetic little doormat you can walk all over. Well, fuck her and fuck you too. I’ll find somebody to help me or I’ll get killed. Who really gives a shit? Obviously not you, baby.”

  The door slammed.

  Lola sat frozen at the table. Del came in and stood next to her. They were silent for several minutes, and Lola felt Del pulling her. She wanted to resist though she couldn’t have said why. Still she let Del pull her up and into a tight embrace. She forced herself to rest her head against Del’s shoulder. She felt Del’s body shaking and she swallowed hard. There were things they needed to address, but Lola couldn’t make herself talk about any of them.

  “Why did I let her in?” Lola asked this over and over, not realizing that she did so aloud until she saw her breath blow a strand of her hair. She looked up at Del’s blank expression and had to look away. Del was unaware of her existence, let alone her words.

  Chapter Five

  The hard part was staying focused on running. Del tried to stop her mind and body from racing but failed at both. She was sprinting faster and faster, pulling a pace that would hamstring her in about two more blocks if she didn’t slow down.

  “Cool it, cool it, cool it,” she whispered. She forced her legs to slow to a more manageable speed, a racehorse reined in by an internal jockey. “Cool it, cool it.” The evening air was cool and damp on her overheated skin, and she felt the power of her legs, the strength and health of her body.

  Finally, she hit her stride and was able to let her mind go blank. Unknown minutes and miles later, she was at the moment she loved best when running: the strange, intoxicating point at which the body no longer exists. She was flying, and there was nothing and no one in the world but herself and the air bending around her and the last of the day’s light retreating before her.

  She was an animal, running for pure joy, and she was free. I am the wolf, she thought. I am the deer, I am the flying bird, I am the wind herself. I am all things wild and free. She pushed her thoughts and feelings away with each thrusting foot forward and was emptied out and made whole again by the clean, sharp air.

  As she walked the last several blocks home to cool down, Del went over the evening in her mind. She swung her arms, trying to warm them as her body cooled. What did Janet really want? Was she really in danger? Del couldn’t be sure.

  She loped into the house and headed straight to the shower, scrubbing down with practiced efficiency. Clean, warm and cursing herself for being a coward, Del rubbed her limbs with one of the new towels. Lola had at some point asked if she could donate the scratchy gray ones Del had used for nearly twenty years. She’d replaced them with soft, fluffy ones in shades of blue. Lola had taken all the hard parts, all the sharp corners and rough textures, out of Del’s life and replaced them with comforting softness. Never without asking first. Which had seemed like simple courtesy until now. Now it felt like maybe Lola had been afraid of pissing her off.

  Del slung the towel over the hook and ambled into the bedroom, unsure what she’d encounter. The unwelcome arrival of an ex was likely to inspire one of two reactions from a woman: a screaming fit or a weeping bid for reassurance. With Lola, it was hard to know. Del took in Lola’s unreadable gaze and the way she hid under the embroidered comforter, another gift from Lola, given only after permission had been obtained. Lola’s hand reached out and Del responded with urgent, rising need.

  We should talk, she wanted to say, but Lola’s lips were parted just a little, and her eyes were shadowed in the dim light. Suddenly, Lola’s lightly scented skin, hidden, was a drug Del had to take. She barely noticed the towel dropping from her own body as she reached down to pull the covers off of Lola’s. They were both naked, and Del was startled into laughter. Usually Lola had to be coaxed out of her clothes.

  “What have we here?” Del was still smiling a remnant of her laugh. It shrank when Lola’s mouth tightened into a scared, phony smile.

  “Is this for me?”

  Lola nodded. Her eyes were wide and dark, her skin pale and goose fleshed.

  Del’s breath caught, and her stomach fluttered. She let her fingers trail along Lola’s arm. Desire coursed through her, and she leaned forward. As her lips grazed Lola’s, she hesitated. She wanted to talk to Lola, not sleep with her. She knew Lola’s little surprise was not about enticing Del but about distracting her and making her forget about Janet—a pathetic ruse, one she should call Lola on. If Lola felt so insecure, they should talk about it. Del had never let a woman use sex to keep her, a thing that would degrade them both. Del shrugged and kissed Lola again.

 
“I want you.”

  Lola started to say something, but Del shook her head. What was there to say? Lola would want to talk about how much she loved Del, about how she knew it must have been hard to see Janet. She would want to be reassured and petted and told she was the most important woman in Del’s life. It was too much, all of a sudden. It was exhausting.

  “Don’t talk.”

  Lola’s eyes widened, but she obeyed, of course. She would always obey, wouldn’t she? Because she still believed that Del might turn out to be a monster.

  “I don’t want you to say anything.” She held Lola’s gaze until Lola nodded and looked away.

  Even after all these months, Del always made sure to hold back, to be gentle and patient. The first time she’d reached for Lola, she’d seen Lola steel herself to not pull away. She had known Lola would be self-conscious and nervous, but she hadn’t expected her pale, wide-eyed terror. She’d thought Lola’s fearfulness that first time might be partly because of James, because of the trauma of his violence, so fresh that bruises still covered her body.

  It had made sense that the first time would be difficult for Lola, especially after her difficult childhood and marriage and the sexual violence Del figured had been a component of both. It would also be scary, Del had reminded herself back then, being with a woman the first time. None of that was hard to understand, at the beginning. Lola would, Del had assumed, learn to trust Del, to feel safe and comfortable and enjoy their lovemaking. But this never happened. Instead her terror barely lessened as the days and weeks and months slid by.

  It was becoming increasingly clear that Lola’s fear was not a temporary thing. Del was shocked by the way Lola still watched her with wary eyes, the way she seemed to think Del might at any second turn into a violent animal. Whatever desire she felt for Del was still subsumed by her fears, and Del still wasn’t sure how to deal with that.

  “I’m damned tired of trying to figure it out.”

  Lola’s eyes looked a question and Del shook her head.

  “I told you I don’t want to have a conversation right now.” She stroked Lola’s hair, reveling in the luxurious length and thickness of it. Like the towels, like the comforter, like everything Lola brought with her, her hair was an excess of sumptuousness.

  “Mine,” Del whispered. She slid down next to Lola and smiled at her. Lola started to murmur something, and Del shushed her with a kiss that deepened before she meant for it to do so. She felt Lola startle but ignored that.

  “I’ve been babying you,” she whispered into Lola’s ear. Del kissed her again and again, her lips and fingers dancing lightly over Lola’s skin. She waited for Lola to press against her, but that didn’t happen. When Lola tried to cover her body with her hands, Del pushed them away and tried to hold her gaze. Lola looked away and said nothing.

  She would never say anything, would she? Even aside from the fact that Del had shushed her, Lola was a passive recipient of Del’s passion, not a partner. She would never be a true lover. She would never say no, even if she wanted to. Nor would she ever say yes. She would never reach for Del, the way Janet always had. And probably still would, if Del encouraged her. Irrational rage burned in Del’s gut.

  She pushed it aside. She felt Lola shiver and ran a trail of kisses down the side of Lola’s throat. She pressed her lips against the point where Lola’s pulse beat a ragged rhythm. She was so fragile, wasn’t she? One nip of a tooth, and this skin would tear like paper, that artery would give way and yield Lola’s life. This thought was disturbing and a distraction, and this too Del pushed aside.

  When Lola again started to put her hands in front of her, Del grabbed her wrists and held them. Lola gasped but didn’t resist. Her pupils were dilated, more from fear than from desire. But Del didn’t want to see Lola curl her arms around her body the way she always did, to hide. To protect herself from Del. She let go of Lola’s wrists.

  “Don’t. I already told you not to, didn’t I?”

  Lola nodded, but Del ignored her. She would do it again, even if she tried not to. She wouldn’t be able to help herself. Del pulled her gaze from Lola’s face. There was a small scar, a cigarette burn? It lay just under her left breast, an asterisk on her ribcage. Del rubbed her finger on the puckered circle, feeling Lola tense. This was an older one. Faded now. She kissed it. Lola’s breathing went shallow, and her arm started to ease forward, as if by instinct.

  “No.” Del shook her head.

  Lola’s eyes were black, the pupils huge. Was there any desire mixed in with the fear?

  “Maybe, maybe not. Hard to tell. Not sure how much it matters, really. Same effect, either way. I’m the bad guy, right? For wanting to make love to my lover?”

  Lola looked away again when Del ran her fingers down her hip. She would always look away, wouldn’t she?

  “Pretend, then, if that’s all you can do. Show me you want me.”

  Lola gaped at her, clearly unable to guess how to do that.

  Del coughed out a barking laugh and pushed Lola into what might have been a come-hither pose. It was like positioning a mannequin.

  “Or a corpse.”

  No response. Lola’s eyes were closed, her mouth a thin line. Her nostrils were flared, and she was breathing in quick, shallow puffs. Del registered this, understood what it meant and shook her head.

  Lola would never slip naked into the shower with her, never jump into her arms, never demand sex from her. Lying naked under a blanket was the very limit of her boldness, wasn’t it? Not even boldness really. She’d undressed and decided to entice Del into bed, a childish attempt to keep Del from leaving her for Janet.

  A long scar, a horizontal parenthesis, ran across Lola, almost hip to hip. It was an unusually large scar for a hysterectomy—and those, from what Del had seen, were usually vertical—and a strange shape, according to what Del had read. It was bumpy, thick. Like a rope laid across her in a smiley mouth shape. What had he used, a butter knife? From what she’d been able to dig up, Beckett had done the surgery himself. Had he felt like God, opening up the young girl, playing with her organs, holding her life in his hands? Del hadn’t shared with Lola her speculation that the operation had been unnecessary. Had it occurred to Lola?

  Del ran her finger along the scar, and Lola shuddered. There was no ambiguity this time. That was fear or shame or revulsion, absent any possibility of desire. But Del ran her finger back the other way. There was a hesitation mark just above one edge of the scar, a dot less than a centimeter in diameter. Had Beckett hesitated because he wasn’t a surgeon? Had he even questioned whether it was wrong to mutilate the girl, little more than a child? Maybe he’d worried about getting caught.

  Del had always assumed the old bastard just didn’t like the possibility that his young victim might get pregnant or have a period or something inconvenient like that. Maybe she really had been suffering from a medical problem. Maybe Beckett saved the kid’s life. Maybe back then he actually cared about Lola and was afraid of making a mistake and killing her. Del wished, not for the first time, that she could really know what had happened in Beckett’s mind and what had happened between him and Lola. Had Lola loved him? If so, for how long? Did she leave him, or did he leave her? Maybe he just got tired of her when she wasn’t a young girl anymore. Del sighed heavily.

  “Why can’t we just talk about it? Why can’t you just tell me?” She didn’t bother to look at Lola’s face. There was no point, was there? All Del would see there, all she would ever see there, were pain and shame and fear.

  “That’s all he left behind, right?”

  Running from the juncture of Lola’s left hip and thigh all the way up to the rib cage was a thin line of vivid pink that looked many years newer. It was too long to be surgical, too fine to be anything else. Del traced the bright, delicate-looking scar, trying to figure out what had caused it. She’d studied wounds and scars over the years, wanting to be able to look at a body and know what had happened without waiting for the medical examiner’s repor
t. She’d become better at decoding the scars over the years. But this scar didn’t match up with any in her internal database.

  “What’s this from, huh? Why won’t you tell me? It’s not as big and bumpy as the old one, is it?”

  Del ran her thumb over the long vertical scar again. She’d noticed it before, of course, but she’d pretended not to. Lola wanted her to pretend not to see the scars. There were so many of them! But this was the one she’d wondered about. The others, she could figure out. Gashes and slashes and bites and burns. Careless marks mostly. From spontaneous, misdirected rage or accidental excess or some sick rendition of lust. No real pattern or purpose other than to inflict pain, arouse sexual excitement or exert control. Some were old enough to have been from before Beckett, from the bastards in the foster homes. Some were only a few years old. Some overlapped each other.

  “It’s like I’m an archaeologist. This was from the Paleolithic Era. This from the Neolithic. These two crisscross but they’re from two different times. This one’s really old, but that one’s only maybe ten or fifteen years old. Beckett. A corner of a table or desk, maybe? He pushed you? Punched you, maybe, and you fell against the table. Did he sew you up himself? I bet he did. No ER visits for you, right? Somebody might start asking why Dr. Beckett’s pretty young wife had so many broken bones and black eyes and split lips, and he couldn’t have that, could he? How many times did he break your nose? How many concussions? Why are you crying? I’m not the one who hurt you. I would never hurt you. Not that you’ll ever believe that.”

  Del turned her attention back to the long, thin vivid scar, the one that was different from the others. It was like a line of pink paint drawn by a shaky hand. Had the old bastard been palsied?

  “No,” Del said aloud. “You were scared. Shaking.”

  Like she was shaking now.

  “Not like paint,” Del whispered. “Like a pen. A marker.”

  He marked her. He made her his property.

  Lola covered her mouth but a sob exploded through her hands, and Del realized she was crying because of what Del was doing—it was obvious, suddenly. Del forced herself to stop looking at the scars. She sat up and leaned over to peer into Lola’s eyes.