deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 38: flight or fight

"Every couple that loves each other very much will fight at some point."
-my dad about 15 years ago

Sam kept the sheet of rice paper close to her as Cliff walked her across the street. Even with the closeness to the San Francisco Bay, she believed it would snow at any given moment from the heavy dark blanket of thick clouds over them; meanwhile, she held onto his hand with her free one. Every so often, she took a glimpse down at the paper and the rose scrawled in soft pencil. Even as a young guitarist, he could draw quite well, as if he had been doing it for years.
She thought about the recent drawings she had made, namely the ones she made for her first tier drawing class, and she struggled with shading with the graphite pencils. Alex filled it in even with a bit of the graphite and he was able to resemble to a genuine rose, complete with those pointed petals and a pair of fine little leaves. His penmanship was quite neat but still scratchy with the rush of an autograph.
"You with me?" Cliff called back to her as they reached the street corner. Sam lifted her head in time for the curb right before them, and they stood side by side. She kept the paper next to her chest. She wondered why Alex didn't mention the fan club given she had sent in those papers two months before and thus they could've had enough time to give her something as a member of their new club, but then again, he was in a hurry and he needed to be home.
No sooner had that thought crossed her mind when she recognized Alex himself right across the street, and with the yarmulke still upon his head as well. He stood at the curb as if he awaited a ride from someone, or the city bus back to his place. Cliff saw him as well, and even though they had no ride themselves, he waved at him to grab his attention.
"Hey, Alex!" he called after him, and his voice echoed over the pavement. "—Alex!"
But Alex kept on going towards the other side of the street, way out of earshot. He walked at a brisk pace past a small blue car parked at the curb. A little beige car rolled towards him the stoplight across the corner, and he almost broke into a run towards it. He stuck his guitar case into the back seat first and then he slipped into the actual seat itself.
"He probably didn't hear you," she assured Cliff, and she tucked the rice paper into her coat pocket. As long as she didn't forget it was there. "Anyways, where are you taking me?"
The car up ahead drove way and Cliff turned his attention to her.
"Right over here," he pointed up the block. "Alex running up there brought my attention to this restaurant here. I was willing to call them from a payphone but that little nondescript car right there at the curb beat me to it, though."
He held onto the crown of his hat as he led her into the cozy restaurant. She spotted an elderly couple and a young woman nestled in a booth on the far side of the room: the woman resembled to Cliff from the look in her eyes. She pointed them out once they made their way over to them.
The bespectacled white haired man wrapped in a heavy sweater then stood to his feet and turned around, and showed Cliff a big beaming smile.
"Hey, Dad," he greeted Ray Burton, who put his arms around Cliff.
"What a surprise!" he declared as part of his own greeting.
"I recognized Con's car at the curb," Cliff explained as he stood back a bit, "and I wanted to come on in and show you what I brought."
He turned his attention to Sam, and Ray gasped at the sight of her.
"Is this that little girl you were telling me and your mother about?" he asked his son in a broken voice.
"Darling Samantha from New York," Cliff introduced her, and Sam held out her hand for him. "The art student who already has a bit of a reputation with us, Anthrax, and also Stormtroopers." Ray put his hands on either side and then he brought her hand to his lips for a little kiss.
"A friend of Cliff's is a friend of ours," he told her with a little twinkle in his eye. He then gestured for the two kids to join them at the table in the corner.
Connie had a lovely heart shaped face and her dark hair sat flat upon her head much like with her brother. She was a bass player herself but she hadn't the same confidence as him.
"I hope you can do something with it, though," Sam assured her.
"Cliff is the true artist," she replied with a shrug of her shoulders. "There's something empowering about being his eyes and ears, though."
Jan whispered something into Cliff's ear right then and he nodded in response, complete with a lopsided little smile on his face.
"Eyes and ears but not the whole dead body, though?" Sam joked as she held her water glass close to her lips.
"Not the whole dead body, exactly!"
"If the dead body starts playing an instrument, I'll be impressed," Cliff retorted as he took a sip of his black tea.
"Like bass?" That brought a laugh out of Ray and Jan both. But Connie gasped and Cliff almost gagged on his cup of tea. Sam paused for a second. It was something meant to be innocuous but she had no idea that would bring the whole conversation to a grinding halt around her. She brought her hands to her mouth and she could feel her face growing hot.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"
But then Connie burst out laughing, albeit a nervous laugh. Ray reached across the table so as to touch her hand and Jan shook her head.
"Oh, no, it's okay, sweet heart," she assured her. "We've learned to laugh at pain! It's brought us a world of good for the better part of ten years now."
But every so often she looked over at Cliff, who showed her a look of disdain whenever he got the chance. And she knew she had to pay for that joke as it came in the form of a glass of sparkling apple cider spilled onto her jacket pocket. Frantic, she brushed off the cider with her napkin as she remembered that rice paper was inside of that pocket.
She bowed into the ladies' room to wash it off all the way with paper towels and a bit of cold water. She wadded the paper towel in her fist and then she took the paper out of her pocket and she held it up to the pale bathroom lights. Not a single blemish one, but the graphite on Alex's name began to fade, perhaps from being in her pocket for so long.
She had to better protect it as she tucked it away in her pocket for a little while longer.
Cliff was silent for the rest of the evening and their dinner with his parents and his sister. But it looked as though he had let it go given he never mentioned that joke one time, and in fact he offered to buy Sam a plate of cake for them to split after dinner. Ray and Jan both insisted on slices of cake for each of the three kids. Connie vowed to find something for Sam if not for Christmas then her birthday.
"Oh, shit, that's coming up here, isn't it?" Cliff asked her right then.
"My birthday? Yeah. The twenty first. I'm turning twenty one believe it or not."
"Good thing we got the sparkling cider then!" Ray chuckled with a raise of his crystal glass.
By seven thirty, the Burtons let Sam and Cliff loose back on the street, where they spotted Ruben and Esmé's car posted by the venue. They flashed their head lights of them and they hurried up the street together. Sam had completely forgotten about the joke as they returned home to Reno: they had had dinner already but Esmé wanted them to at least try the new cake they had brought home with them from San Francisco.
Indeed, it would be a full ten days of treats and all manner of food courtesy of the parents, but Sam didn't mind in the least. She was on vacation with her boyfriend and in what better place than the area she grew up in: if she returned home with a few extra pounds, it was all worth it.
The day after Christmas, she showed him her old school near the north side of town. They sat inside of the back seat of the car as she pointed out all those old buildings and the old courtyard in the center of it all.
"The onslaught of memories right now," Esmé remarked at one point.
"There's just so many," Sam agreed with her as they reached the far corner outside of the campus. "Almost too many memories to think about!"
A couple of days later, the four of them made another day trip over the mountains to the Bay Area, but that time it was for the first of Metallica's shows before the new year. Sam noticed the waist of her jeans and the bottom of her long sleeved shirt both fitting her a little bit more snugly than before, but at the rest stop in the mountains, she walked along the wet pavement towards Cliff with a bit of a sashay to her step, and he returned the favor with a wink and a mischievous little smile.
She also noticed Lars and Kirk both looking at her more than usual as well before the show after he had whisked the four of them backstage. Ruben made a joke about how they had the best seats in the house but it was confirmed. Given the whole set stood wide open under a series of lights, they found they sat right next to the stage with a full view of James' long blond hair as it sprawled down his shoulders; of Kirk and his long black curls in the vein of the tentacles of an octopus; of Lars and his wild jerky movements all around his drum kit; and of Cliff himself as he towered on one side of the stage, complete with those big bell bottoms over his boots. They plowed forth with the vast wall of noise, but Sam noticed something different about them.
Maybe it was the size of the stage, or maybe it was the lack of glances to each other, but they seemed a little more distant from each other in comparison to Legacy, Anthrax, and the Cherry Suicides.
She began to wonder if everything Cliff had told her about him and Lars started to ring true as he hardly looked over at the big drum kit for the entire show.
They only played a small set, but it was enough to for her to start thinking about their tour with Anthrax in a few months. The stagehands waved him off and he caught up with Sam and her parents right there. The four of them ducked out to the backstage area and ultimately, the back door.
"Cliff, that was incredible!" Esmé declared over the roar of the crowd, but then again, it might have been the leftover whirring from all the noise within Sam's ears that made her think the crowd was still going.
"I definitely wanna see you guys again," Ruben agreed as he pushed open the door.
"Wait, don't you all wanna come along backstage and meet everybody?" Cliff asked them.
"That's so lovely of you, but it looked like it was gonna snow, though," Esmé replied.
"Yeah, I'm sure you know how that road gets when it snows," Ruben added, and he held the door ajar enough to let in a sliver of a street light to the otherwise dark spot. "I mean, we've got chains once we get back into Nevada—"
"Oh, absolutely! I'll just tell the three of them that we're going, though." Cliff then hurried back to the dressing room to do just that and also to fetch his hat. Meanwhile, Ruben held the door for Esmé and Sam. The snow was upon them as they piled into the car there at the curb together: Sam shivered and rubbed her arms, even though she had on her jacket. That piece of rice paper still in her pocket.
"Yeah, we better get a move on," Ruben declared as he took a glimpse in the side mirror. "Is that him?"
"If he's got a hat on, I would think so," Sam told him. The door next to her swung open and Cliff slid into the back seat with that hat upon his head. Without another word, they drove away from there and headed on over the freeway. A four drive and the clouds over them menaced with that orange glow of snow.
"We're doing another show on New Year's Eve," he told them at one point. "But Sam's leaving tomorrow, though."
"Yeah, I am," she replied as she huddled closer to him there in the back seat.
The four of them were silent for a little while longer, at least until they reached the top of the mountain summit and the snow still hadn't begun yet. Ruben said something and Esmé chuckled at it. Cliff then turned his attention back to Sam.
"Stay with me," he begged her in a hushed voice. "Please stay with me."
"But my life is in New York!" she said: it was a bit difficult given her ears still whirred from the noise of the show and whirred even more from the noise of the road, but she managed to keep her voice down low.
"But I want you with me, though," he insisted. "Please. Sam, please, stay with me."
"You'll have to come to New York then," she pointed out.
"I don't really want to, though—as much as I love it over there and as close as it is to me."
"But you can do it, though," she insisted. "You can move across country."
"I'd think it's hard, though," he resisted.
"It is, like it take a bit of adjusting, but it also isn't, though. You get acquainted with the weather changes and the three hour time difference pretty quick if you let it."
"But I can't really leave the Bay Area, though. This is my home, and you hailing from California, it'd be like a home coming of sorts."
"Going to New York was a home coming of sorts," she continued, stubborn.
"Well, I don't know if I can keep doing this long distance thing," he confessed.
"Why?" She frowned at that.
"Because it's long distance," he explained. "I want to be closer to you."
"We can work it out, though," she consoled him.
"But how can we work it out is what I'm asking. Neither of us are willing to leave our homes for each other. I think that's fucked up."
"It is fucked up. But it's the truth about the both of us, though."
They both fell back into silence as Ruben and Esmé chatted about something in the front seat before them. Her parents had lasted that long and yet they still spoke to one another as if they were the only best friends they ever needed in life. They were the only best friends they ever needed in life.
She glanced over at Cliff and she had no idea what she was doing wrong right then.
It was a four hour drive but they managed to make it back home to Reno in time before the next snowstorm from the lake slammed into the area. A black sky and a gust of snow riddled wind later, and Sam and Cliff returned to her old bedroom for one last night before she returned home to New York City alone. Sam set down her purse and she draped her coat over the back of the chair. She began changing her clothes when Cliff took a seat on his side of the bed. It was going to be a long distance thing and she had no idea if it would last given the entirety of the distance. She hesitated for a second and she watched him take off his boots and his bell bottoms.
"I also don't know how our parents would react to one of us having a spouse from either coast, either," he confessed in order to break the silence.
"What do you mean? I thought your parents liked me."
"They do. It's just—" He hesitated as she slipped on her pajama bottoms.
"What?"
"I don't know if they like your sense of humor, though," he replied in a small voice.
"What—What you still thinking about that?" she demanded.
"Yes," he answered, nonchalant.
"I was just making a joke, though!" she declared. "I even apologized to your dad and he told me it was fine. Connie even took it in stride!"
"Yeah, it might be fine by my parents and my sister, but that doesn't mean I'm fine with it."
"Cliff, I was trying to have a laugh at that!" she said, heated. "I figure that, since it's winter time, it's a good time to laugh at things that make you feel otherwise somber. And your family is willing to remember Scott in a fond light, too. You're making a huge deal out of something that can probably help you."
"Yeah, but sometimes it can be in poor taste, though," he pointed out. "And hey, at least I didn't let my dark sense of humor out of the bag at the worst possible time over Christmas dinner."
"Oh, my god, will you let that go already?" She was scorn. "I apologized to Connie and she told me it was funny. But I didn't know it would hit a nerve like this."
"Oh, come on, you know how difficult it is for us to talk about Scott's death," he retorted.
"No, I didn't?" She had to stifle a chuckle at the sound of that. "Also—us? It's just you, Cliff!"
"And it's not funny!" he exclaimed.
"I wasn't laughing right then? Hey, you know what? I'm not the one who laughed like a maniac when I got that wine on my blouse and I was freaking out it soaked through my coat, onto that little piece of rice paper that Alex gave me."
"Yeah, but I'm not the one who pulled that kind of petty tasteless shit in front of your parents, though, Samantha," he jeered. "Petty, tasteless shit when the wound is still raw."
"Yeah, well, I'm not the one who lied about going on tour with Anthrax, Cliff!" she spat, and then she stopped herself. That took him aback at first, and then he frowned at that.
"Wait, how'd you know they were coming with us?" he demanded.
"Joey told me," she blurted out.
"Joey told you? When did he tell you?"
"Last month. We had coffee together and he told me that you guys were going on tour with them. What I want to know is why didn't you tell me you were going tour with them?"
"Because we had no idea if they actually were, Sam!" he insisted. "And that shit's confidential, too, I'm sure you know about that."
"Well, of course but—"
"But what?"
"But you still lied to me about it, though," she continued on. "You could've at least told me about it and then maybe I could work something out with my classes."
Cliff kept the frown firmly plastered across the face, and he tilted his head to the side a bit.
"Wait a minute," he started in a low voice. "Are you seeing Joey behind my back?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" she argued.
"You met up with Joey for a cup of coffee," he recalled, "are you seeing him behind my back?"
"No! Why would I do that?"
"Because he's a New Yorker! That's why you don't want to leave New York, isn't it?"
"No—Cliff, what the hell, no!" she stammered. "I told you clearly that I'm not leaving New York because I have school and I went there for a reason. It has nothing to do with you or Joey. And now, let me ask you something."
"Surprise me," he commanded with his arms folded across his chest.
"It's perfectly okay for you to lie to me but not for me to do it to you, too?" she demanded in a single breath and with her hands pressed onto her hips. Cliff nibbled on his bottom lip and he watched her with a stern look on his face. She had him right there.
"It's okay for you to lie to me and slack away, but it's not okay for me to do it back to you?" she repeated.
He never replied. Without another word, she rolled her eyes and she crawled into bed next to him. She reached up and switched off the lamp on the nightstand, and the room engulfed with tense darkness.
"Your lies are not comparable to mine," he pointed out in a low voice. Sam rolled over onto her back and she glared up at his dark silhouette, still upright before the headboard of the bed.
"When have I ever lied to you?" she demanded to him.
"No, I'm not talking about you," he clarified, "talking about my own lies."
"What the hell does that even mean? When have you lied to me about something so serious that it can compromise our relationship? Besides the fact that you don't trust me?"
"It means—it means—" He could hardly speak, and Sam rolled her eyes again and she turned back onto her side. She sighed through her nose and closed her eyes. She didn't hear Cliff's answer and she didn't care, either.
She especially didn't move a muscle when he touched her hip and whispered, "you're getting soft. I like it." right into her ear.
She fell asleep and she awoke the next morning ready for the return to New York.
She didn't even give Cliff a good morning kiss or anything of that nature upon her waking. Ruben offered to drive Cliff back home to the Bay Area given the snow had melted away enough to make that drive solo; Sam took to the back seat with her arms folded across her chest. Every so often, Ruben peered into the rear view mirror and he knitted his eyebrows at her. When they reached the airport and climbed out the cold crisp snowy morning, he turned to her with a concerned look on his face.
"Is everything okay?" he asked her in a low voice.
"We got in a big fight last night," she replied right into his face. "He's lied to me about some things and I don't know if he trusts me. Like he basically admitted to me that he doesn't trust me."
"Well, honey—every relationship has its speed bumps from time to time," Ruben explained, "like your mom and I have had our share of arguments when we first got together. But after a while, you learn from each other's mistakes. I can hope that Cliff learns his lesson and he can learn to give you what you want. My best advice is to convince him to trust you. Keep showing yourself to him. Show him how you feel when you get the chance."
Sam swallowed and then she nodded her head in response to that. Ruben put his arms around her and she lay her head against his chest for a minute, but it felt like a blink of an eye. They followed Cliff into the airport, towards her gate near the far end of the shiny white corridor. Ruben gave her one last embrace before he let her go back home to New York.
She picked up her things and she strode past Cliff towards the gate.
"Sam!" he called after her, and she turned to him with a stone cold expression on her face.
"Will you at least come back here to visit before we head out on tour with Anthrax?" he asked her.
"I'll come back when I feel like it," she scoffed at him as Ruben's words remained firmly in mind, and she turned away from him.
"Will you come to any of the shows this spring?" he called after her. She stopped right in her tracks. She had promised Joey that she would for them at the Northeastern dates, but after the night before, she had no idea if she was willing to do it for Metallica.
"I don't know. We'll see." Without another word, and without a kiss goodbye, Sam wheeled around and she headed on down the gateway to the plane, which at that moment felt as though it awaited her. She took her seat next to the window, once more behind first class. She folded her arms across her chest and sighed through her nose.
The first flurries of snow floated down from the gray sky overhead. Cliff was still in there and although she knew he couldn't see her, she couldn't help but feel that he could see her. Sam sighed through her nose as she kept on thinking about what her father told her. He needed to know the truth. He deserved the truth.
The one question that hung over her head was could she even tell him the truth once she landed back in New York.