Beth didn’t say anything and so I figured I hadn’t said enough. But while I was trying to come up with more but stay along the same lines she said, “Are you in love with her?”
This took me aback. Both because she asked and because I’d never thought about it in this way. I felt like saying “not after yesterday,” but that seemed flip and hurtful – not the best thing to say.
Not saying it left me dumb and this probably left her assuming my answer and not the one I expected she wanted to hear. The answer she wanted? I feared I’d just now happened on to it. Had only just realized, or even considered it. And it seemed it would’ve been okay to tell her, tell her what she wanted to hear, if only she hadn’t needed to hear it.
So I worked on deciding she didn’t want me to say it. Did this so I’d be able to. But somehow, once I’d convinced myself I was wrong after all; that she didn’t want me to tell her I loved her instead of Ingrid. Once I’d accomplished this, it made the telling even less likely instead of possible.
All this left my head swimming. It made me want to get up and walk around. As if higher altitude would clear things a little. As if getting a little further away from Beth would. But getting up wasn’t possible. The physical motion involved wasn’t. And so instead I sat there looking at my hands, at the spine of another leaf I’d dismantled.
Beth didn’t ask me again and after a while it could be like she’d never asked in the first place, but not quite. She put her arm around me and for a moment I thought she was going to kiss me except both of us at the last minute seemed to move away from this and not toward it.
I lit a cigarette and this changed things again. Got her back to talking. Asking more questions but along a different track and so everything eased some.
“How long did you stay with them?” This was her first question.
“I don’t know,” I said. “A month, maybe two. Or maybe it was only weeks, I’m not sure.”
She looked like she didn’t understand how I couldn’t know. She looked like that was what she would ask more about but instead she asked, “Why, why did you stay?”
“Money,” I said, though if Ingrid saw the lie in this Beth no doubt would too. I told myself she hadn’t seen me with them, only with Ingrid. Told myself maybe this made a difference. Whether it did or not, Beth let this one by.
“What did you do?” she said next.
This pissed me off, so I said, “What do you think I did? I fucked them and they fucked me. Pretty thoroughly.”
I could practically feel her trying to be patient, trying to hold her temper.
“No, I mean…” But she stopped here as if that had been what she meant after all. That she’d needed to know for sure, hear me say it.
She got up, which was not something she’d done before, and it left me sitting there alone so I lit another cigarette. She ran her fingers through her hair. Pushed it out of her eyes, though it hadn’t been there to begin with, and I found myself looking at her differently.
Or maybe I was just noticing how I always looked at her. Then I was getting up too and we were walking back, though it was still quite early.
Since I’d gotten moved out of the hole and into this room, Beth didn’t usually linger. We had more of an audience here. Today, though, when she started to leave, I stopped her. Had a surge of bad feeling and wanted to help her.
“He’s the one put me in here,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“He had me picked up. Made sure they put me here. Her husband.”
She looked uncomprehending. Like this didn’t make sense at all and so I felt stupid for telling her. Figured now she’d think I was paranoid or something. Once they get you in a place like this people don’t believe you so easy. But then I guess that’s a big part of the point – making sure you’re walking uphill with each thing you say.
I could see this as good news though. My lack of credibility might make the things Ingrid said possible. Maybe her husband would move on. Maybe he only needed to be able to say I’d been here, not keep me here for ever.
As I passed this idea back and forth, Beth just stood there. Stood there with this dull look on her face and I couldn’t tell what, if anything, was going on behind it.
She’d taken my arm but I hadn’t really realized it. I’d been too lost in my own head and only felt her now because she wobbled a little. I found myself taking her hand to steady her, leading her over to sit on the bed, but once we were there she recovered herself and said, “No, wait. You’ve reminded me of something. I’ve got to go and take care of something.”
I watched her go, wondering what she could possibly mean. What it might mean for me. Whether I should worry or hope. All of this pummeled me – the things I’d told her and wished I hadn’t. But mostly it was that deadened urgency she’d had as she hurried away, rushing in some stumbling trance. And me? I was left there picking myself up. Left to consider more immediate things like would I be let alone tonight? And left knowing the chances against it since I was still the freshest thing going.
The next day Beth started jittery and kept that way. She hurried us out. Seemed all the while to be looking over her shoulder. Even once we were in the woods she still spoke in whispers. “My husband is in the DA’s office. I’m going to get you out.”
“You are or he is?”
I asked this meanly, my own sharpness surprising me and the cause of it tweaking me worse.
I knew she was married. Knew it all along. She wore a ring for chrissakes. But somehow so long as she didn’t mention him I didn’t care. It was like he didn’t exist or didn’t matter. But her saying this had me picturing someone she went home to. Someone I might soon be beholden to. No, I didn’t think so. I didn’t think that’d work real well.
“He’s going to try and find out what happened.”
“I told you what happened. You think your husband can go against this guy? He bought your husband’s boss years ago and now somehow… Tell me, by magic?”
I’d hurt her. That was clear. I only now realized I hadn’t wanted to.
She looked at her hands when she spoke next. She said, “I don’t know. He said he’d look into it. See what he could do.”
I found myself digging dirt with my heel. Making a trench through the leaves. I chewed my tongue to keep from crying because it’d come to me that my upset wasn’t really about her husband. It was about the chance she was offering. I realized it when I thought about the night before. That same bitch sitting by the door, and that same guy on top of me, and me trying to decide was he fucking me senseless or had I been there all along?
I believed if I stayed here much longer I’d go senseless for ever. Walk around speechless or with one or two favorite phrases. Wind up in that state without the aid of anyone cutting my brain or pumping anything into it. I had those constant reminders pacing the floor. All day I’d watch them because what else was there to look at?
Beth had come to be all of that – the what else. I struggled with myself, finally got so far as, “Do you think…?”
“Yes,” was what she said. And then we didn’t talk so much but just sat there and I found myself wanting all kinds of things from her. Things I couldn’t quite put words to. Or wouldn’t put words to because it all seemed too blunt for that and maybe too big. I leaned against her and she held my hand in both of hers. And this seemed like something I could count on, if that had ever been something I’d known how to do.
Thirteen
She did get me out and it didn’t even take very long. The way she explained it, her husband worked it underground, slid it by. No big fuss, which was the smart way to play it, except it left me wondering what would happen if Ingrid’s husband found out. Wondering how he hadn’t already. Though this I could chalk up to his moving on. To my never holding anyone’s notice for very long.