Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504033763 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Distribution |
| Publication date: | 03/22/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 203 |
| File size: | 325 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Eternal Bliss
By Christopher Fahy
Kensington
Copyright © 2013 Christopher FahyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3376-3
CHAPTER 1
She stood on the steps of the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library, one slim leg thrust forward, her hands on her hips. She was wearing blue shorts with white piping, blue-and-white-striped running shoes, and a white tee shirt with "Bowdoin" printed in black above her left breast. She tossed her head and brushed back her shoulder-length auburn hair and said to the man beside her, "David, I simply can't. I leave for New York this afternoon, and my first psychology paper's due Tuesday."
The man was handsome, young and rugged-looking, well over six feet tall. He smiled and said, "I'll help you with it when you finish your run."
She rolled her eyes and said, "Oh, right."
"No, seriously, Bliss. I was good at psych."
"I'm sure you were."
She had only been back to Bowdoin five days, and Dave Nichols was already driving her up the wall. Not that he compared in the least to that slime Trent Wilson who'd hounded her all through the summer, but Jesus, she needed some time to herself, some time to get into the rhythm of school again. The last two months had been truly brutal: Schroder was an absolute de Sade. She'd had to be on the set from six in the morning to eight at night every day of the week for five weeks in a row — in New Orleans, in the summer! — and then when she'd thought the shooting was finished she'd had to go back for still another week. Sixty-eight takes of one scene! With Trent Wilson, no less! She and Dodie had flown to Santa Barbara to rest and lose that awful guy — was he totally out of his mind? A man who'd been married three times and was almost fifty? Why, he had a daughter her age; he was lucky Dodie didn't paste him one. She had barely begun to unwind on the coast when she had to go back to school. Now this modeling date tomorrow. For Vanity Fair this time. At least Kurt Bostwick was decent to work for and turned out a first-rate job. That head shot on Vogue, yuk, the absolute pits.
"For Christ's sake, Bliss, loosen up." He smiled with perfect teeth and smacked his chewing gum, a preppie Prince Charming.
"If you're trying to tick me off," she said, "you're doing a real good job."
"We'll only be gone two hours. You can afford two hours."
She set her jaw in a stock expression of pique — an expression she'd honed to perfection down in New Orleans — and said: "Don't tell me what I can afford. You don't have any idea what it's like for me."
He raised his hands. "Okay, okay. But why can't you skip the jogging session and study instead?"
A silver Porsche pulled up to the Maine Street curb.
"There's Mike," she said. "I have to go."
Still smiling, the young man said, "If you change your mind, I'm here."
Shaking her head, she went to the Porsche. The door came open and she slid inside. Some students were watching; she could see them there as she yanked the door shut hard. The window was tightly closed and the air-conditioning was on full force, and Dave and the others were sealed off now. She leaned against the headrest, closing her eyes. As the driver pulled away he said, "Buckle up, sweetheart, or Mommy will execute me."
She sighed and clicked the belt across her chest. "For Christ's sake, Mike, she's in Manhattan."
"Word gets around."
She was silent, eyes closed again, the air-conditioning soothing on her cheeks.
"We leave for Portland at five-fifteen," the driver said. He was dark and muscular, his biceps tight against his black tee shirt.
"I know that, Mike."
"Just double-checking."
"Yeah."
"Something tells me you'd rather not make this trip."
"That something is truly brilliant."
"Well, this will be it till next month."
"Till fall break. Some break. Chicago, of all places."
The Porsche moved smoothly down the street and then turned right. Majestic wooden houses, brilliant white, with shutters of black and forest green. Trim spacious lawn and manicured cedar hedges. Several blocks of this, then smaller, less tidy houses, close together; a convenience store, an auto body shop. A field, then trees with houses scattered here and there. She closed her eyes again —
On a series of fleeting impressions: Paul Schroder screaming, "Give me some goddamn emotion for Jesus Christ's sake! Your father's just been shot!" (Her father probably deserved to be shot, she thought — her real one, wherever he was. And how could she ever feel for this father-fake, Trent Wilson?) She had started to cry. Then Dodie had rushed to her defense, crashing onto the set, face flushed, jaw tight, her eyes ablaze with indignation and gin. "Who the hell do you think you are? You want my daughter in your film or not? You keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak to her or get yourself somebody else!" Santa Barbara: the hills in the evening, the lights of the city far below, high stars, the fragrant warm breeze through the window beside her bed. New Orleans. Trent Wilson again and again. Then Maine. Too much. She sighed ...
She opened her eyes to see the beach road and the wide expanse of field. To her right was the ocean, dancing with light, the sun above the distant islands dazzling. She looked away from the brilliance, trying to banish the thought of a migraine. She opened her purse, put her sunglasses on, then slipped a terrycloth band around her head. That mild pressure always seemed to help.
The driver parked at the edge of the field, where the dunes began. As usual, nobody here: just fields and sand and sea and the dark curve of forest sweeping around to the south. They got out of the Porsche. The driver leaned against the roof of the car and pushed, his right leg bent at the knee, his left leg straight.
"Mike, I'm going alone again this time." She stood beside him, assuming his stance, and pushed against the roof.
He dropped his arms and looked at her. "This is getting to be a habit."
She balanced on one long leg, bent her other leg back, grabbed her foot. "Mike, for Christ's sake, relax. There's nobody here. This is Maine, it's safe, it's why I go to college here."
"If your mother finds out, she'll boil me in oil."
"She won't find out."
"When you go into those woods alone my heart stands still. I can't breathe till I see you come out again."
"You're sweet."
"Sweet has nothing to do with it, kid. I know why my bread gets buttered — and it isn't for letting you run around in the goddamn woods by yourself."
She stretched the other leg. "Mike, Monday and Tuesday were just so great." She dropped to the grass, one leg straight out, the other bent back, clasped her hands behind her head, and leaned slowly forward. "I could actually think out there. One lousy half an hour to myself, is that too much to ask?"
"It shouldn't be. But in your case, it is."
She stood abruptly, leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "You're a dear." Then she turned and started jogging along the path that led into the woods. "I'll be back in half an hour" she called to him over her shoulder. "If I'm not you can panic, okay?"
He snorted and leaned against the Porsche. "You go near the water, I'll kill you," he said. "I swear to God I will."
She laughed. "Oh Mike, you're worse than Dodie, you really are." She tossed her head and quickened her pace, and soon she had disappeared in the dense stand of trees.
Another world: of sunlight arrowing down through towering spruce and dappling the needle-strewn ground. Thick roots threading over the narrow path like petrified boa constrictors: step on one of them wrong and your ankle could snap. Mike would worry himself to death about that, of course. But they had an agreement: if she didn't show up at trail's end in half an hour, he'd start in after her.
She ran — and was feeling it now: her skin was flushed, her breathing loud. Half an hour of peace. — All the peace she would have until Sunday at the very least. She didn't want to clutter her mind with the photo session now, not here, but God, that dreadful Vogue cover. She had fought and fought with Dodie about it and Dodie, as always, had won. Had convinced her that teenage Bliss was gone. Experience, sophistication, that's what Revlon was paying thirty thousand for these next two days, the new Bliss. — New again, for the umpteenth time. And the latest New Bliss looked like ... a businesswoman. Jesus. Bostwick had more imagination than Hall, but ...
Forget it, she told herself. That's tomorrow, not now.
A break in the trees: and a wide splash of light, granite boulders, the water, dark islands against the sky. Bright yellow and orange flowers along the path. Then shadows again. No sound but her feet on the needle -dark spongy earth. Alone. No demands. Pure heaven.
She had thought of a wicked trick to play on Mike: she'd hide behind one of the boulders along the shore and make him look for her. Poor Mike, he didn't deserve to be tricked, he was so conscientious, so faithful to dear old Dodie. And to her, of course. Still ... She grinned.
Her breath was coming heavily now and her thighs were starting to hurt. It felt great. No Trent Wilson, no Dave, no Bostwick. Alone. She had given up on the jogging paths around Bowdoin her freshman year, after some local newspaper jerk had ambushed her and plastered her photo across the front of the Brunswick Times Record. She'd found this spot on one of her weekend rides with Mike last spring. The entire point was owned by a summer person from Boston who came for two weeks in August. There was almost never anyone here, and the very few people she'd come across hadn't recognized her, thank God. A half an hour running along this path was worth a week of therapy with Dr. Steinglass. She would truly go nuts without it.
She came into another open place, a beach with smooth gray rocks extending a good fifty yards to the sea. When running with Mike once she'd suddenly turned off here and walked across the rocks to the water — it was much too rough underfoot to run — and had climbed to the top of the largest boulder and stood there facing the islands, watching the dark waves crash and churn into foam below her, feeling the tang of salt spray on her cheeks. Mike had damn near died. What if she'd slipped and fallen in? He was skilled at lifesaving, yeah, but a current as fierce as this could pull anyone down. He had actually begged her to get off that rock.
The ocean flashed. She grinned. Poor Mike. She sure as hell wished she could swim, but it just wasn't in the cards. All those sessions at St. Anne's School — a total waste. She could ride a horse, play tennis, do back flips and splits, but she and water, for whatever weird reason, just didn't mix. Water skiing and sailing? Forget it. Having to use a stand -in for those swim scenes in Marooned had driven Dodie nuts, more lessons had ensued, more sessions with that therapist — that creepy Dr. Clark — and all for naught. She had tried to stop envying swimmers, but still, on hot days, to be able to dive without fear into clear cool water ... not into this water, though, this wasn't cool but downright cold even now, in September, when even the frigid Pacific had mellowed out. She couldn't even go wading in Santa Barbara, of course, without starting a goddamn riot — unless she wore a disguise.
Stands of laurel and arbor vitae, and then she was back in the trees. Soon she would come to her favorite spot, another opening, a beach of gray sand with a fallen bleached spruce near the path and a clear sweep of sea to a distant lighthouse. After that the woods were thick, the spruce trees draped with old man's beard, a gray-green Spanish-mosslike growth that — while admittedly spooky — was somehow magical, too.
She would exit those woods, pass a grove of pines; a burnt-out cottage, its chimney still standing; see the field again, and Mike. She wished she could sit in the cool dark peace of those bearded trees for just one day. No commitments. No schedules. She ran.
The sandy beach was ahead of her now. In the distance, across the water, the lighthouse stood. Two sailboats drifted in front of the islands. Tonight she would be four hundred miles south of those islands, in New York City. She loved New York, its electric excitement, but wished she didn't have to go tonight, so soon after all that New Orleans crap. By Christmas she'd be ready: for the tree in Rockefeller Center and the skaters, dinner with Dodie. And afterwards, Dodie — as always — drinking, drinking ... Right at this moment Dodie was already frantic and into the gin, ordering Sara about, changing things around. God only knew what her room would be like this time. It would reflect the new Bliss, of course, the more mature Revlon Bliss — whoever that was.
The trees thinned out again and the sun poured down, spreading across her shoulders and arms, caressing her warmly and casting a silver sheen on the poplar trees to her left. The sand beneath her feet was diamond-bright. Even the Big Sur sun was not like this; the only light like this was in St. Bart's, where they'd shot Marooned. She breathed hard, legs pumping, the distant lighthouse a slash of white suspended in water and sky.
She winced at a sudden sharp pain in the back of her neck. Reflexively, she clapped her hand to the spot: struck something sharp and cried out.
Quick giddiness in her eyes and she stopped. Something's stung me, she thought. I've been stung! Five years ago ... the allergy kit was back in the car ...
Her legs felt soft and the words in her head were warped. Her mouth fell open, her tongue went thick, something dark in the back of her mind thought: No! As the sea turned black and dissolved, she heard Dodie call ...
Mike Norris smoked and looked at his watch again. Nine minutes late! She'd sprained an ankle, torn a hamstring — or was camped on some clump of moss or boulder, watching the goddamn gulls. If that was it he'd skin her alive, he swore he would.
He sucked on the cigarette and stared at the spot in the trees where the path looped back into the field. "Come on, goddamn it, come out of there," he muttered through gritted teeth. One final deep drag, then he ground the butt under his heel and took off.
He crossed the field and entered the woods, passed the cottage's black burnt sticks. Ran into a patch of sun, and then was in darkness, thick trees hung with gray-green strands. His mind was frantic now. She wouldn't hang out in here, she knew full well he would never let her out of his sight again if she did such a thing. Goddamn it! He stopped, heart pounding.
"Bliss!" The sound echoed into the trees and was gone, replaced by the soft distant push of the sea. "Bliss!" No answer.
He ran. She wouldn't have left the path, she wouldn't have been so foolish. He thought of the time she had stood on that rock. She wouldn't do that without him, she wouldn't dare.
He came into the open sun, to the place where the fallen spruce lay next to the path. He stopped and stared down the beach. In the distance, the lighthouse and three sailboats, far off. The islands.
"Bliss!"
He ran toward the water. "Bliss, it's Mike!" Nobody either way, and he ran to the path again.
In the woods again he kept calling, called at the top of his lungs. He reached the rocky beach, hurried out to the boulder and climbed it. Nothing.
He went back to the path, his lungs burning. He ran. "Bliss! You answer me, damn it! Answer me!"
He ran into the trees, went out on the rocks again. He walked quickly along the water's edge, retracing his steps, staring hard at the glaring sea.
When the trees opened onto the field he stopped, chest heaving, his sick mind numb. He ran to the Porsche and stared through the windows. Then he banged his fist on the roof of the car so hard the metal dented.
It had happened. It had actually happened. Cursing, he got into the Porsche and raced toward town.
CHAPTER 2The ship was rocking now. Its bow plunged forward into the wave. Spray hit her like grains of ice, dissolved on her skin. She clutched herself. She was cold, so cold, and why couldn't she see? Someone beside her was saying, "You're safe now. You're all right now. You're where you were always meant to be — with me." A shiver went over her skin and she sighed. Her breath was cold dry gas. The bow plowed down. Her stomach hurt. She opened her eyes —
To white, to blinding white. The songs of angels, a crystal choir, drifted through her ears. She saw God. She felt sick. She groaned. God said: "Don't speak. Be still." He touched her arm. His touch was cold. She vomited.
The choir had stopped. It was silent now. A white sail flapped — and became a curtain. Like the one in that Wyeth painting they'd studied, The Wind from the Sea. Whose room was this? She frowned through a blur of tears — at metal shelves containing vials, bottles, books. The man in white stood next to her, his tanned face calm. He wasn't God. She heard herself start to cry.
"You'll be fine" the man said. "Please try not to sleep again. Here, let me help you up."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Eternal Bliss by Christopher Fahy. Copyright © 2013 Christopher Fahy. Excerpted by permission of Kensington.
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