Текст книги "Forever Innocent"

Автор книги: Deanna Roy

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Chapter 40: Corabelle

Tina wasn’t anything like I expected. She waited in the lobby of the hotel, flipping through a magazine full of glossy images of nature photographs. Missy had told me I’d know her by her tiny pigtails, coming off either side of her head like a little girl’s.

She wore a short denim skirt, frayed at the bottom, and a crazy set of over-the-knee stockings with blue and black stripes. A couple mismatched suitcases sat by her legs. Her face was pixieish, and she lounged with her feet on a coffee table like she owned the place. By looking at her, you wouldn’t think for a minute that anything ever got to her, but as I approached, the red jagged scars up her wrists peeked out from her sweater sleeves, which were pushed up due to the oven-roasting heat that blasted across the lobby.

I came up behind her. “Tina?”

She looked up, her gray eyes merry, but still, I could see the sadness in the corners, lines around the edges from harder days. “You must be my ride.”

“I am. I’m Corabelle.” I stood awkwardly behind the sofa as she gathered up her suitcases. “I can carry one of those.”

“I’m good,” she said. “I travel light.”

We exited to the parking lot. “It’s still blistering hot in Texas,” she said. “I’m almost sad to be wrapping up this tour and going back.”

“You in college there?”

“I’m done, actually, but I haven’t found a job yet, so I kept my speaking tour going while I figure things out.”

So this girl was older than me? I opened the trunk of my car for her bags, studying her. Her petite frame didn’t seem sturdy enough to hoist even her smallish suitcase, but like most of us with baggage under our belt, she was tougher than she looked. “When did you graduate?” I asked.

“Just last spring.” She walked around to the side door. “Finished out my internship at an art gallery over the summer, but nothing permanent has turned up.”

We got inside the car. “What sort of art do you do?”

“Digital photographic manipulation. I was a black-and-white snob for the longest time, but I had to change my attitude if I wanted to get a job. I have worked for some photographers, but removing zits wasn’t my thing for the long haul.”

We headed out of the parking lot. “What is your thing?”

“Well, on the art side, I create fantastical images, mainly of night-sky scenes with mythical creatures, like Pegasus. Sometimes angels, if I’m feeling sentimental.”

I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, wondering if the doctor’s office had told her to bring up the subject of our shared history.

“I could stick my work all over the web and sell a print here and there, but I was getting nowhere.”

“What do you want to do?”

Tina settled back in her seat. “I’d love to find a sugar daddy so I could live in a mansion with a huge room full of windows and every art supply in the world, with a high-end New York gallery waiting breathlessly for my newest work.”

I laughed. “I think there are dating sites to help with that.”

“Don’t think I haven’t looked. Those millionaire types want eye candy, and these puppies take up negative space.” She pointed at her chest. “Besides, I only had money for tuition or silicone. Couldn’t have both.”

We pulled onto the freeway and immediately got waylaid by Friday afternoon traffic. “When’s your flight?” I asked.

“Not for two hours. We’ll be fine. The airport’s not far, right?”

“No, right on the water. If the freeway stays too jacked up, I’ll take side streets.”

“You must love living by the ocean,” Tina said.

I swallowed hard, remembering the images Gavin and I used to draw of our school by the sea. “Growing up in New Mexico, I can definitely appreciate it.”

“When did you move to California?”

“Just last year. I had to wait to be eligible for in-state tuition benefits, then I started up again.”

“Ah, so this is your second college.”

“Yes, I did three years at New Mexico State.”

She turned to me, her pigtail smashing into the headrest. “That’s unusual, leaving with only a year to go.”

I shrugged. “School with a view.”

We sat in silence, the knot of traffic easing forward only a few yards at a time.

“I could live here,” Tina said. “This is my third time to come to UC San Diego. It’s a cool campus.”

“I’ve liked it.”

“What do you study?”

“Literature.”

Tina shuddered. “I’m not much for reading dead white guys.”

I laughed. “It gets more diversified after high school.”

“It was all so dramatic. Heathcliff. Romeo. Gatsby. Fools for love, the whole lot of them.”

“You’re not dating anyone then?”

“Ha!” Tina said in disgust. “My high school boyfriend ditched me in the hospital when I was in labor. By the time it was all over, premature birth, baby dying, hospital stay, go home, he’d moved out!”

My knuckles were white with my death grip on the leather wheel. “I imagine that would put you off men.”

“Not right away, actually. I tried my damnedest to find a man to knock me up again.”

I whipped my head around to look at her. “Really?”

“Hell yeah. I got kicked out of the pregnant-teen school and sent back to a horrid public one. Misery. They called me baby killer. When they weren’t calling me a slut.”

“Wow. I didn’t have it nearly that bad.”

“I kinda draw the foul,” she said. “I was always pretty out there.”

“Everyone was really nice to us. We got an apartment and everyone furnished it for us. Our whole town seemed to chip in.”

She hesitated and I realized I had brought up my own pregnancy.

“Big town, small town,” Tina said. “Houston wasn’t kind.”

The cars inched forward, and it looked like we might loosen up, but then the brake lights all lit up again. I leaned back in the seat. “I’ll bail at the next exit.”

“So what was your baby’s name?” Tina asked.

“Finn.”

“We called mine Peanut.” She flipped her purse around and showed me a picture on a key chain tied to the strap. “I guess I never gave him a proper name. He was always just Peanut.”

“They do sort of look like that in those early sonograms.”

“Exactly. He lived for three hours.”

My stomach turned. “Finn lived for seven days.”

“Seven days. I can’t imagine. They didn’t try to save Peanut. He was too early. We just waited for his heart to stop.”

My eyes burned. I was sitting right next to someone who had been through exactly what I’d been through. “We did too. We had to shut off the ventilators. He had a heart defect, and they wouldn’t fix it.”

“Hell of a thing, isn’t it?” Tina said. “You think modern medicine knows everything but then these babies come, and they can’t save them.”

“I agree there.” I pictured the doctors in the conference room, telling me they wouldn’t operate. I’d never forget that scene, seared into my memory like a scar.

“Is that why you left school?” she asked. “The baby?”

“No. That was three years later.”

“But it’s related, isn’t it? I find that everything goes back to the baby. Do you?”

I had to swallow hard to reply. “Yes, it was related. I – I punched my professor.”

Tina’s eyebrows shot up. “You did what?”

“I hit her.”

“Oh my God. Why?”

“She was pregnant.”

“Jesus!”

The explanation tumbled out. “She was smoking pot behind the building. I didn’t even mean to really hit her. I was trying to knock the stupid joint out of her mouth.” I was glad traffic had stopped because I didn’t think I could navigate anymore. My vision was gray, and my head pounded with my hammering heart, thundering like a stampede.

“I assume you got arrested and expelled.”

“They suggested I leave, but they didn’t put it in my permanent record, at least not the parts I’ve seen. I had to do community service. I had to apologize.”

“Shit, Corabelle. Why did her smoking get to you so bad? I mean, stupid women do it all the time.”

I pictured the line in the sand and the waves crashing at my feet. I didn’t answer.

“Sorry, too personal. I get it,” Tina said.

“No, no. I mean, yeah. I just…” I stopped.

“So I’m guessing you feel some sort of guilt. That’s natural. But you know, women smoke crack and their babies don’t die.”

“I smoked pot.”

“I’m sure you’re not the only pregnant woman to do it. Obviously your professor did.”

“Finn had a heart defect.”

“Did anyone say it was caused by the pot?”

“No.”

“Then let it go. All the way. Otherwise you’ll end up with some beauty marks like these.” She held up her wrists.

I’d do anything to shift the conversation away from me. “So what happened there?”

“Oh, hell, I don’t know. I mean, I do this circuit, and I say a lot of things about life getting better, and feeling suicidal isn’t a failure, just a condition, one to treat and fight, not to fall prey to.” She tugged her sweater sleeves over her arms. “But honestly, I did it just because I felt like I should be scarred. This big thing had happened. My baby had died, and my boyfriend had ditched me. Those things should leave a mark.”

“So you made the mark yourself.”

“Yes. I didn’t realize at the time that these marks weren’t the ones to worry about. It’s the one in here.” She drew an “x” over her heart. “I sabotage my own happiness a lot. It’s obvious from looking at me. It’s why my talks work. I swear half the people leave thinking, ‘Hell, I’m not half as fucked up as her.’ Whatever works.”

“So you don’t date?”

She shook her head. “Nope. I’ll screw anything with a functioning dick. But they are out the door before the clock strikes one.”

“I haven’t dated either, not since Gavin left me.” I paused. “Except, he’s here. In San Diego. We ran into each other.”

“Did you know he was here?”

“No. He walked out of the funeral and I never saw him again.”

“Holy shit. I thought ditching me in the hospital was bad.”

“That’s pretty bad.”

She laughed. “We sure can pick them, can’t we? So have you talked to him?”

“He’s hell-bent on us getting back together.”

Tina frowned. “You going to do it?”

“I was. I have been. But then, God. He’s different. I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

“Did he blame you? Back then, I mean. Is that why he left?”

“He didn’t know I smoked pot.”

Her eyes grew wide, taking up so much of her doll-like face that she looked like one of those caricatures that artists draw of people at theme parks. “Does he now?”

I shook my head. “I can’t tell him now.”

“But how can you be with him if you don’t? It’s screwing you up, plain as day. Can you carry that secret to your grave? Should you?”

The exit was coming up and I started fighting my way over. Anger started to build. Who did she think she was, lecturing me about this? “We’re nearly there,” I said. “You should make the flight if security isn’t long.”

Tina reached over to touch my arm. “I’m sorry, Corabelle. I don’t mean to upset you. I’ve been in all the bad places. I remember when the blood started coming out of my arms, thinking, ‘Yes, this is the right thing. I can be with my baby and no one can take him away again.’ I’m not sure we ever fully recover from thinking that way. It’s like we always have a last resort that’s way way beyond what other people consider.”

We pulled up to a red light. The signs for the airport loomed ahead. “Gavin drew a line in the sand and said we should just step over it, and let the past be the past.”

“I think that’s a good philosophy, if you can do it. I have the bad habit of dredging up the muck, over and over again, ad infinitum.” She tugged on her stockings where they were curling at her knees. “I should stop wearing these now that I’m a proper grown-up.”

“They’re cute on you.”

“I wore them when I was pregnant. They’re like a basketball player’s lucky socks. Sometimes I think a bit of Peanut is in them, since I sweated like a pig when he was cooking.”

The light turned green. “We’re here. I’ll just pull up wherever I can find curb space. It’s pretty crazy here.”

“That’s good. Thank you, Corabelle. I know you were probably coerced into doing this for your own good. I hope I didn’t piss you off forever.”

I shook my head. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I have to own up to the past after all.”

“Each of us has to find our own way. I’m hoping to figure it out before I kick the bucket for real.”

I had to focus for a while, dodging taxis and cars pulling out. A red truck left a gap near one of the terminals and I whipped into it.

We ducked out of the car and into the mayhem of honking cars and a stern security man blowing his whistle and smacking his hands on car hoods, making them move along. “No waiting!” he shouted. “Circle back around.”

I popped the trunk so Tina could grab her bags. “Thanks again. Good luck,” she said and passed me a business card. “Feel free to look me up if you need something. Not like I’m doing anything anyway.”

The security guy started eyeing us, so she entered the fray heading into the terminal. I jumped back into my car and fought my way out of the curb lane.

Only after I’d gotten away from the melee and into the calm of the cars leaving the airport at a leisurely pace did I realize what had just happened. Tina had undone all of Gavin’s work to make me let go of the past. If I wanted to keep him, I had to tell him what I had done.

Chapter 41: Gavin

A lone couple walked along the ocean’s edge, kicking into the spray, sending water droplets flying. I banged my shoes together, knocking out the sand, wondering where Corabelle and Jenny might be. Jenny had texted me over an hour ago, simply saying, “Meet us at the end of the path between campus and the shore.”

Pretty much everyone who went to UCSD knew how to access the path that cut through a swanky neighborhood and led out to the sea. Usually it was pretty busy here, being the easiest access for students living in the dorms, but the day had dawned chilly, and the winds had been howling all day. Not beach weather by any stretch.

A few seagulls circled, then flapped away as a cluster of loud teen boys jostled each other on the path through the brush, then turned to walk along the beach.

“Tell me again how she called out your name, ‘Arnold, Arnold!’” A guy in a Chargers jersey shoved his friend, presumably Arnold, so hard that he stumbled into the foam.

“Damn it, now I’m wet. Asshole.” Arnold leaped back onto the packed sand. “I’m totally going to interrupt your next hookup.”

“You’ll be waiting a long time for your revenge, my friend, a long time,” said a third guy. Then their conversation was lost to distance and the crash of the waves.

Bud hadn’t said a word when I took off early to meet Jenny and Corabelle. He seemed to know that if he protested, I would quit. I figured Corabelle had found out that she wasn’t pregnant and was either going to blow me off or give me a friend speech. Those seemed like the only two possibilities if Jenny was coming along.

I stared at the waves and the blue-gray of the Pacific. The sand crunched behind me, and Jenny plunked down next to me, kicking her green-spandexed legs out in front of her. She looked like Kermit the frog, a fat green coat creating a bulbous torso over the spindly tights. Her hair was tied in a single pink ponytail.

“So here’s the rules,” she said. “I stay, but I go over there.” She pointed at a rock near the edge of the underbrush. “You make her cry, you die. You get upset, you die. You do anything but show her love and understanding and unconditional lifelong groveling, you die. Are we clear?”

The girl knew how to make a point. “Clear.”

She scrambled back up, and over my head she said, “Man-meat’s all yours.”

I turned to Corabelle, standing slightly behind me. Once again I thought of a fragile doll, sad and beautiful, every feature perfectly detailed on her face.

“Would you rather walk?” I asked.

She shook her head and sat beside me. Her arms were crossed tightly over her midsection as she huddled in an olive wool coat. Her hands were bare, pink, and looked cold. I wanted to hold them, to warm them up, but I suppressed the urge to reach for her.

“How did the doctor visit go?”

She shrugged. “I don’t have the blood work back, but he seemed to think I was fine.”

“Good. Do you feel better?”

“I guess so.”

The seagulls returned, circling over the water in front of us. She seemed content to just sit without talking, but my anxiety rose. I wanted this bad part over, so we could get back to where we’d been.

“Corabelle, I’m sorry you found out about – the other girls, the paid girls, the way you did. I should have told you.”

She drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. “That would have been an awkward conversation.”

“It was past, so I left it in the past. But I should have known they’d write me eventually. It’s their business.”

“A business,” she repeated, and I realized I was screwing up.

“I’ll change my number. They won’t bother me anymore. I don’t want them anymore. I want you.”

Her dark eyes watched me with measured calm. “You sure about that? You sure there isn’t something I could do or say to change your mind?”

“No way.” I gave up on resisting and moved closer, putting my arm around her shoulders.

She closed her eyes a moment. “I got arrested in New Mexico. That’s why I left school.”

A wave of shock coursed through me, but I kept my voice steady. “What happened?”

“I hit my professor. She was pregnant.”

Damn. I squeezed her shoulders. Had she been jealous? Bitter? Regret washed away the shock. I should have been there. “Did they expel you?”

“No. I had a really good relationship with the university since I worked in the main office. They let me leave quietly.”

I wanted to ask her why she’d done it, but just held on to her. She would say what she needed to say.

Corabelle looked out over the water. “She was smoking a joint behind a building on campus. I knocked it out of her mouth.”

Now this made sense. “You were protecting her baby.”

“Yes, but —” She silenced, her eyes following the flight of the gulls.

I waited, flirting with the idea of bringing up the line in the sand again. But that speech was self-serving. I didn’t want to tell her my past, but clearly she needed to tell me hers.

“I blew up because I felt like I knew the consequences of smoking pot. People say – doctors say – it’s not related, but it’s hard to separate what you’ve done with the end result when you know you shouldn’t have done it.”

My arm loosened its grip on her shoulders. “Are you saying you smoked pot? With Finn?” I washed cold. When? How? I knew her so well. It wasn’t possible.

“Katie thought it would help me on the SAT. I had no idea I was pregnant.”

I felt Jenny’s eyes on me. I kept my arm on Corabelle, trying to hold in my disbelief, my shock, my anger. I kept my voice even and steady. “So you were doing drugs while you carried my baby.”

She was shaking so hard now that I could feel the movement through her coat. I withdrew my arm. “You never told me you were smoking pot. I thought we shared everything back then.”

Something sparked in her, an electric charge so palpable that I could almost feel it flash through her body. “You know what, this is never going to work.” She stood up. “We’re both way more fucked up than we knew.”

I scrambled up after her. “Obviously. You never told me any of this. Not even when he was in the hospital. Did you at least tell the doctors? Maybe they could have done something!”

“They were never going to do anything!” Corabelle’s voice raised to a shriek, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jenny heading for us.

“You don’t know that!” I dragged my hands through my hair. “Thank God I can’t have kids anymore. This is way too fucked up.”

Her face bloomed red. “What are you talking about?”

Now I had her attention. I loomed over her, my fury peaking so hard I could barely see her through the haze. “I had a vasectomy. So no more of my kids can get fucked up.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Jenny pushed at me, trying to put space between me and Corabelle, but I didn’t budge.

“Why did you do that?” Corabelle’s doll features contorted into something so tragic, it almost made me calm down, but hell no. She’d fucked up big time. The biggest way possible.

My fists clenched. “Because I always thought it was my fault Finn died. Because I would have been a crappy father, just like mine was. Because I signed to shut off the machines – lied even, to sign to shut them off, since we weren’t married.”

Jenny gave up on trying to move me and clutched Corabelle instead. “Come on, let’s go,” she said.

But I wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. Hell, all this guilt and I wasn’t the one guilty. “All these years I’ve been fucked up over this, and it was always YOU.” My body leaned toward her, and suddenly my father flashed before me, the same pose, and now Corabelle was the young version of me, cowed, bending down to escape.

Corabelle sank back into the sand like a paper lantern collapsing. Jenny let go of her and whirled around to me. “That’s enough, Gavin. Stop it now!” Her voice was a shriek. She snatched at my arm and dragged with everything she had. This time I let her take me away. I had to back off this. I had to regroup. But this was way beyond what I expected to hear from Corabelle.

Smaller birds scattered from an abandoned picnic as Jenny jerked me along the shore. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked. “She’s trying to come clean! What happened to your unconditional love and acceptance, asshole?”

“Our kid is dead,” I said, feeling the freeze come off my words.

“She didn’t kill it,” Jenny said. “Every doctor said it was not related.”

“Then why the hell is she bringing it up?” I ran my hands through my hair and glanced down the beach. Corabelle was still huddled in the sand, rocking back and forth. I’d never seen her like that. Instantly, I wanted to go back and gather her up, hold her close, kiss it away. Damn it.

“She needed to get it out. It’s what’s kept her so screwed up for so long. This was the only way to fix things. The only way she could actually be with you.”

Shit.

“She hurt just as much as you over that baby, probably more. So get back there and fix this.” Jenny grabbed my face and made me look into her eyes. “I really couldn’t give a rat’s ass if she ends up with you. I don’t think you’re that great. But it’s what she wants. And I’m helping her get what she wants.”

Corabelle wanted me back. Or she had. I’d told her about the vasectomy now. We were done with secrets. I shook off Jenny’s hands and we turned back to Corabelle. She was gone.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Oh my God,” Jenny said and pointed at the water.

Corabelle was heading out to sea.