“Where?”
“What does it matter where? It was a party. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t remember much. I was high. We all were, I guess. The next thing I remember I was at the ER. And the doctor said I had OD’ed. And Bécquer was there. He was the one who took me to the hospital. He asked me not to tell you.”
“Great. And since when do you do what strangers ask?”
“Bécquer is not a stranger.”
“No, of course not. You have known him for how long? Five seconds?”
“He took me to NA meetings,” Ryan said, ignoring my sarcasm. “I thought you’d appreciate that.”
“He took you to … Why did you never tell me?”
“You never asked.”
I stopped arguing. I knew when I was beaten. Which was about every time I had had an argument with him since he turned five.
I got up and poured myself a cup of coffee. Caffeine was the last thing I needed at the moment, but I was not thinking straight. What other things was I not aware of that Bécquer had done for my son? Was Ryan moving in with him the previous night? Had Bécquer agreed to that, or was Ryan crashing with Matt? Probably, I would never know. I returned his duffel bag to his closet while he was sleeping and put his clothes back in the drawers. My guess was he had not noticed.
“Don’t worry,” Ryan said when I returned to the table. “I have so much homework, I won’t have time to practice with the band, so I won’t be seeing Bécquer for a while in any case.”
“You never told me you were in a band.”
“I did tell you. Shut up and listen.”
“Excuse me?”
Ryan looked up and frowned. “What did I do wrong now?”
“You just told me to shut up.”
“No, I didn’t. Shut Up and Listen is the name of the band.”
We sat in silence. The clicking of the keyboard the only sound punctuating my contradictory thoughts. After a while the sound stopped. Snapping his laptop shut, Ryan got up.
“I’ve to go. My first class starts in half an hour.”
I nodded.
Ryan bent over and kissed the top of my head. “It’s okay, Mom. Don’t worry. I still love you.”
“It’s good to know, baby, for I love you too.”
“I know,” he said.
And after hugging me with his free arm, he rushed to the door.
Chapter Eleven: Bécquer’s Request
I tried to write after Ryan left but couldn’t. The bizarre events of the last twenty-four hours continued to play in my mind — as they had through the long sleepless night I had endured — blocking my creativity. At times elated, at times overwhelmed by the memories, I found it impossible to concentrate on my writing. So, eventually I gave up and went for a ride.
That I ended up in the parking lot overlooking the dam in Lake Galena was not planned, yet it seemed inevitable. Two other cars were there when I arrived. But not Bécquer’s. My disappointment at Bécquer’s not surprising absence was all too real to ignore. Yet absurd.
I locked my car and went down the bank to the gravel strip by the water where Ryan and Bécquer had come ashore.
A heron, white and slender, walked the shore hunting for food. The heron I had described in the manuscript Bécquer had agreed to represent. Was it only the previous morning I had signed my contract with him?
But for the heron, the place was deserted. The boats and canoes that dotted the lake in summer were grounded ashore on the crescent-shaped inlet to my left. And the owners of the cars sitting by mine were nowhere in sight.
Turning my back to the lake, I walked to the bench Bécquer and I had shared the previous night and sat down.
The weather had been unusually mild this past October and the trees had just reached their full autumn colors, but the stunning beauty of my surroundings failed to impress me.
Maybe it was because the effect of Bécquer’s blood had worn off during the night, and after perceiving the world through immortal senses, it seemed dull now that I was seeing it with my human eyes. Maybe it was, plain and simply, because Bécquer was not with me and I wished he were.
Which, again, was absurd.
I barely knew Bécquer. I had met him only on three occasions and always at a professional level. Bécquer was my agent. Only as such had he invited me to his party. Yet, the intensity of his stare when he ordered me to drink his blood, back in his room was filled with the passion of a lover. Or was my memory deceiving me matching my own desires?
I got up abruptly and dashed up the path that led to the dam. The gates were closed now and, unlike the whirlwind of emotions fighting in my mind, the water was still. Neither down at ground level, nor up where I stood on the walkway, did I see any sign of Ryan’s brush with death, nor of Bécquer’s confrontation with Beatriz. As far as the world was concerned, it could all have been a dream.
But it had not been.
Ryan had almost died there the previous night, and I, after knowing Bécquer for less than a day, had become obsessed with him. How stupid could I be? Bécquer was a 200-year-old man who drank human blood and manipulated people’ wills. Yet, hard as I tried, I couldn’t keep his dark stare from my mind or his deep, beguiling voice from haunting my thoughts. And his smile kept coming back, threatening to destroy the barriers I had so carefully erected around my heart.
I had lost my heart once long ago when in my twenties. The irrational thinking that ensued had carried me into a marriage, followed by years of self-loathing, a direct result of my husband’s unrelenting mental abuse, and resulted in a bitter divorce.
I would not lose my heart again.
At least this time I knew I was not the only one to blame for my weakness. My infatuation with Bécquer was too sudden and intense to be real, which meant that, despite Federico’s reassurances to the contrary, Bécquer had charmed me. The solution to this unwanted situation was, thus obvious: I had to break all connections with him.
And the safety of my heart was not the only reason for doing so, for the more I dwelt on the events of the previous night, the more I realized that accepting Bécquer as my agent had been an invitation to disaster. What had happened with Beatriz had not been an isolated incident, an accident that would not be repeated, but a warning of worse things to come. A reminder that if you play with fire, you’re bound to be burned, or, in my case, that accepting Bécquer’s help to get my book published could get my children hurt.
And that was a price I was not willing to pay.
Bécquer, for all his charm and impeccable manners, lived on human blood. How could I ever justify this? And if I didn’t, I couldn’t justify using his non-humans abilities to my advantage, either. Federico had admitted Bécquer used his charm to push his authors. The look of adoration in Richard’s eyes the previous night at the party left me no doubt he was already half sold on buying my book. His reasons had nothing to do with the quality of my writing or the strength of my story, for he had not read my manuscript yet.
Yes, I believed my book was good and deserved to be published, but was I ready to compromise the safety of my children or my peace of mind for this to happen?
The answer was no. Absolutely no.
I had to call Bécquer and tell him I didn’t want him to be my agent, and hope he would agree to rescind our agreement on the basis that he had not played fair with me. The real me, the rational me, would have never signed, yet the previous day, I had done so, willingly, after a slight, almost nonexistent hesitation. This could only mean Bécquer had influenced my decision, and if he had, the contract was not valid.
But the logic of my reasoning was lost on Bécquer.
“I did not force you,” he told me, and, even though the phone I could sense the outrage in his voice at my suggestion. “You knew I was immortal when you signed.”