It’s a wonder the guy didn’t run back into the forest.
The most important thing to remember when talking to a guy was not to come on too strong. Men needed something to pursue. Some men might like a forward girl, might even love a girl who demands to be liked and worshipped and other men might relish having a weak-willed girl who needs a man and is willing to do anything to get and keep one, but those weren’t guys you wanted to date. They weren’t well-adjusted.
Mercy had come across as desperate and childish and this guy had basically told her to go back to playing in the sandbox. You were never supposed to call a man out on his interests, even if you knew beyond a doubt that he wanted you--men don’t confess emotions. She was the one who sounded like a stalker. Always watching for him to return. Like some pathetic girl working at a bookstore who was forever waiting for her Prince Charming to whisk her away.
Well, wasn’t she?
But he had said she was beautiful. It was either a genuine remark or a pity complement. She’d gotten many of those over the years. They were like old Chinese food in the back of the fridge. Not exactly worthless but something she could do just as well do without.
She wanted to ask him if he really meant it--did he really think she was beautiful?--but she couldn’t do that. Couldn’t be that pathetic, needy girl.
“How long have you been coming to Rune Books?” she asked.
“A while. I love books, of course, but I really like the feel there. It’s dark and quiet. No screaming kids. No loud colors. No cafe bar. Just books and the people who love them.”
She almost mentioned that there would be a cafe bar very soon but he had stumbled upon something so coincidental that it struck her as magical.
“I thought of opening a store with that name.”
“‘No Screaming Kids’?”
She laughed and so did he and the moment felt warmer somehow. “Just books,” she said. “It would be a simple, little store. Nothing fancy. No superstore chain madness.”
“Sounds great.”
“Probably wouldn’t last anyway. Didn’t you hear that print is dead?”
“Who actually said that?” he asked. “I mean, first? Could it have been a hundred years ago?”
“I always think of Ghostbusters.”
“Dr. Spengler?” he said.
They stared at each other as if he had said something appalling.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t collect spores, molds, or fungus.”
Her laughter was so loud and unexpected that she felt herself blush again and she covered her face like a little girl during a horror movie.
“Guess I’m funnier than I thought,” Victor said.
She was apologizing but still laughing like it really had been quite funny and not just one of those amusing things people said that deserved only a chuckle or two. It wasn’t his delivery or even the line itself but her instant remembrance of every part of that movie which made her laugh like she was stoned.
“I love how uptight he is in that movie,” Victor said.
“And how the woman, the secretary, is trying so desperately to get him to like her.”
Silence settled between them again. He was looking at her like she had just confessed.
“Who played him?” she asked quickly.
“Dr. Spengler? I think it was Harold Ramis.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Isn’t he a director or something?”
“Groundhog Day,” Victor said.
“Where Bill Murray is experiencing the same day again and again.”
“And again,” he added. “And again.”
This stab at humor got another laugh from her but she had control of herself again. In that moment, she decided that Victor was a good guy, likable, and harmless.
Only a few hours later, she would no longer believe any of those conclusions.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Victor always marveled at the complexities and interconnectedness of the universe. It was incredible how everything always came back, even obscure films from the eighties he had watched as a child. When his mother left him alone, she put Ghostbusters on and told him to stay in place. If she wasn’t back before it ended, he was instructed to rewind and watch again. One night he watched the movie five times successively.
His mother was always out looking for “a new daddy.” She found a few stand-ins for a while but they never stuck.
Even now, he played Ghostbusters at night when his heart would race so quickly he thought it might explode right out of his chest. If that didn’t work, he got in his car and came up here. He’d been doing that a lot lately. Escaping to the wild.
It would soon be time to renounce all of society’s comforts and entertainments and this mention of Ghostbusters was only further proof. The universe was bringing everything back, showing him the use of things that had seemed like only distractions. He was jettisoning his past just as he was discarding all of modern society. His rebirth was upon him. He would be whole for once and complete with righteous purpose.
Mercy and he talked more about movies and then books and then television. He wasn’t able to keep the conversation going when she talked about reality shows he had never heard of, but she liked many of the same books he had found solace in at times in his life. Books like The Collector. Books about madmen and the women they stalked.
It was like she was telling him she knew who he really was and that she was okay with that. She was ready to play her part. Ready to be his captive.
He still had to keep control. It wasn’t quite time, yet. He would know when. The universe would tell him.
Until then, he remained Victor-the-charming.
Their conversation bored him at times and annoyed him at others but he did his best to stay smiling and inserting innocuous jokes where relevant. She laughed a lot and moved closer to him. He said something that she found particularly amusing and touched his arm, a quick, gentle pat. It took all his self-control not to seize her wrist, twist her arm behind her, and bite through her sweatshirt into her breast. He saw the splotch of blood soak into her sweatshirt.
Yet, he kept smiling.
“You don’t have to wait,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“My dad will be back soon. I’ll be okay. You can keep hiking.”
“How do you know I want to?”
She smiled from the side of her mouth. “You didn’t come all the way up here just to talk to me.”
No, he wanted to say, I came up here to give you a chance to save yourself.
“I never really have a purpose when I come up here except to get away. I’ve been to the top before. It’s beautiful but going up there is never my reason for climbing this mountain.”
“You must have a lot of stress in your life.”
He thought vaguely of his life in a series of distorted mental flashes, some stained with vibrant crimson streaks. “Everyone does, right?”
She thought of something. Perhaps of her dead mother. He knew more about it than she could possibly realize. It was amazing how much you could hear if you only listened.
“I guess,” she said. “So, this place is like a retreat for you?”
“It’s paradise.”
“A lot of work to get some peace.”
“The exertion is part of it. I get drained. All the stress falls away. Everything is clearer.”
“When everything is clear, what do you find?”
“Purpose,” he said.
“Which has nothing to do with climbing to the top?”
“Not today, it doesn’t.”
The conversation wandered off into irrelevance and even politics, something Victor could not process very well and really tested his fortitude, but it always danced back to why he was up on this mountain, why he was spending so much time with her.