souls of black | fever in, fever out

chapter 104: nathan

probably my favorite chapter so far. this was one of those things that i just kept picturing along the way.
"and she runs through her days,
with a smile on her face.
and she runs and she waits,
and i wait."
-"tyler", the toadies
(for some reason, that song always played in my head whenever i thought about this chapter)

Esmé had decided on Santa Catalina Island, which meant that whenever Sam wanted to visit her mother, she had to take the ferry from the very tip of San Pedro. She had made the move from Reno the day after Sam had returned to Lake Elsinore and Louie had long gone back up to the Bay Area at that point, and yet he entire move in and of itself took her a few months to carry out.
"I take the last ferry across the Channel on the twelfth and then that'll be it," she told Sam over the phone when they finally had a chance to communicate with one another in the beginning of November. "You either take a boat or a sea plane to come here."
"Oh, how fun!" Sam proclaimed.
"It's twenty two miles from the harbor in San Pedro over to Avalon—it's a little bit pricey, so save your money, baby."
"I've been saving money," she assured her.
And indeed, she had. Since she returned home from the Bay Area at the end of August, she had saved up the left over grant money and the stray change that she scoured from spending down at the market three blocks away. Whenever Bill received his final money, he gave her a small portion of it. A part of her wanted to run over to the bank and open an account for herself, but she knew that he could perhaps figure it out for himself after the fact.
When she hung up the phone, she wondered where exactly she could go from there. Matilda and Cassandra didn't celebrate Halloween: they didn't even what it was, or the fact that they had birthdays for that matter.
When that thought crossed her mind, it hit her right then.
Alex had turned twenty years old at the end of September, and Joey at twenty eight years in the couple of weeks prior to that point.
Anthrax weren't coming out to California until after Christmas, and after the struggle she had had with Testament in breaking herself out of there, she wondered if it was even worth it at that point. Testament themselves were going to be in Reseda the week before Christmas.
If only there was a way out of there. If only there was a way that she could pick up and walk away from there without any questions thrown at her.
It made sense for her to pick up and leave there at any given point whatsoever: the day before, she spoke to Marla over the phone once again.
"Bel wants me to go back to the City," she told her.
"Why's that?"
"She told me I seem more in my element there. Me and Genie both. Apparently that position at the school opened up again and so I didn't hesitate for an interview, and guess what? I start tomorrow!"
"Oh my god, that's excellent, Mar!"
"Also—get this. I just so happened to look into records there, especially those of students and faculty who've worked and attended there in the past. Your record says you're still a citizen of New York at least until the first of February. After that, you're officially a resident of California."
"Really?"
"Yeah, and apparently, ol' Billy boy hasn't been a citizen himself. Not for one second. I actually had to dig around and research his name—apparently he has never legally lived here."
"What do you think I should do?" she asked her and her heart skipped a few beats at the sound of that.
"Well—it's November, so there's still time to void it. The only drawback is I'm not sure as to how you pull it off, though, because it's a two party thing. It's like—okay, you're taking shit for it just being out there. The best way to void it is to walk away from there and go somewhere else, and never think about him again."
"There's just one problem with that," Sam pointed out.
"And what's that?"
"It's a royal pain in the ass getting out of here. The last couple of times I hung out with Testament, I literally had to bust through a window just get outside."
"Holy shit. So he's not messing around with literally keeping you locked in there forever. Okay." Marla hesitated for a second. "Yeah, I'm not sure as to how to do that..."
Sam's heart sank at the sound of that. For all she knew she would in fact be stuck there forever.
Locked up in the highest tower that overlooked the lake itself, just like Rapunzel. No way out and no way to see any of her friends again. No way out.
Over the next couple of weeks, she turned to the books that Bill had in that room, one of which she returned to quite often was Poor Folk from Dostoevsky given the main characters found themselves forgoing the arts all for the sake of living and coexisting with the rest of the world. Next to Wuthering Heights, Other Voices, Other Rooms from Truman Capote, and the compilation A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories from Flannery O'Connor, Sam found herself embedded in the pages of books he otherwise would have gotten rid of: one day he pounded on her door and demanded she hand over the books in there so he could burn them in the fire place.
She thought about one of the things that she and Louie had spoken about on the ride home from the Bay Area, and she stashed those four books in particular under her mattress so he wouldn't have to see them again anyway. She kept them with her and if she ever left that house, she would hold them dear to her as she did Siddhartha.
She thought about Joey and if he found anything good to read over in Europe or during the North American stint of their brand new tour. She hoped that he would: there had to be something else to pique his interest, besides music and playing hockey. Indeed, she was unable to find her way over to the nearest music shop for a copy of that new album; it wasn't like she could play it right away, but she figured she could find a copy for herself to take with her in the instance of her finding her way back to New York. She had no idea if she would, however: the books and her own imagination were her only friends at that point.
There came a point, right on the morning of Veteran's Day, which also happened to be a Friday, wherein Sam found herself deep within the pages of Siddhartha once again. The one thing she had at her whim that really reminded her of Cliff anymore: the scent had all but vanished from the interior of that hat, she hadn't seen any yellow tulips anywhere embedded in the bushes of oleanders all over the place in the southland, and Bill was so strict about spending money that she yearned for a new mug of Mexican hot chocolate for the last three evenings since the sun had gone down and the marine layer blanketed the entire area. She leaned back on the bed with her legs stretched out before her and the book propped open on her waist, and she wished to hear Cliff's voice again.
She wished to hear Joey's voice again.
Indeed, she pictured Joey reading aloud a passage from the current chapter. The same passage that Cliff had read to her that day in the bookstore. She yearned to hear that upstate accent again.
What she would do to hear his accent again.
She closed her eyes and she strove to hear it purely from memory, but it had felt like an eternity since she had seen him. It felt like an eternity since she had even so much as felt him against her body. She opened her eyes and she returned her attention to the book before.
Soft noises emerged from downstairs but she never stirred once. She rubbed her eyes; she was about to pick up her bookmark and make her way downstairs for a glass of water but then—
"Miss Taylor! What're you doing here?"
Sam stopped right in her tracks. A woman's voice floated upstairs. Even thirty feet below her, she knew that voice.
"Marla?" she asked aloud. Another woman said something to him.
"Are you sure about that, Miss Grimes?"
"And Belinda?"
Sam climbed to her feet and she made her way over to the doorway. She recognized those New Yorker accents anywhere.
She made her way down the stairs, down to that second landing and she peered over the railing. Sure enough, there was Marla and Belinda right before the front door with their hands pressed to their hips and their glares fixated on Bill. Belinda had cut her blonde hair up to her shoulders, but it still had that lush ribbonlike curl to it; meanwhile, Marla had dyed her hair a striking bright green with a black stripe upon one side of her head. The latter looked up at the landing and her face lit up at the sight of her.
"Sam!" she called up to her. "Get your things—Bel and I are getting you out of here."
"What? She can't leave, Miss Taylor. You know that. She's supposed to be here until at least June."
"Oh, shut the fuck up, you preachy condescending abusive fuck ass," Belinda snapped at him.
"Not in front of the children, Miss Grimes!" Bill fired back. Sam craned her neck for a glimpse into the next room: Matilda and Cassandra were in there knelt down on the floor.
"Fuck you." Belinda flashed him the finger. "They're gonna learn it anyways, especially after living with you and your sorry two faced ass. The jig is up."
"You're in a whole lot of trouble with the state, buddy boy," Marla added.
He chuckled at that. "I am so sure. And how do you know?"
"I work with the school now, you pig. I know who you are, too—William from Cleveland."
"What the—fuck, Bill, you're not even from California?" Sam demanded.
"Get your things, Sam," Belinda told her again before he could say anything in response to her.
"You're not going anywhere!" he barked and he reached for Marla's arm.
"Touch me again and I'm calling the cops on you," she warned him as she jerked her arm back from him, and he laughed at her. She then reached into her purse and pulled out a big black brick shaped phone. With two fingers, she tugged the silver antenna out from the top. "You think I'm joking?"
In the meantime, Sam hurried up the stairs for her clothes, including the Death Angel shirts, and all of her art supplies, all into her bags. The last things she took were the piece of rice paper in the desk drawer and the four books stashed under her mattress. It took a bit of time but it was all she had at the moment: she was careful to tuck the rice paper in between the compilation and her journal given its delicate nature. However, this whole entire time the graphite on there held up with the passage of time.
She set the black hat upon her head and slipped her shoes on, and she bowed out of that room right as Marla and Belinda had backed Bill up towards the doorway of the living room. The girls were still knelt down on the floor with their Bibles on their laps. It was a miracle that he had lasted that long on such an otherwise strict paycheck, but then again, she wondered if he had his ways in other places rather than a reliance on looking before he jumped.
He sneered at Marla, which only became more apparent to Sam as she descended the stairs with her things tucked underneath her arms and her purse slung over her shoulder. She hoped that he wouldn't see the tops of the four book covers as they jutted out from the inside of the purse all the way down the stairs. She adjusted her hat with one hand and Belinda backed up towards the door.
"There's no ignoring the problem you've made, buddy boy," Marla scoffed as she joined them there. "Ignore it all you want—it's not going away. If anything, you've created a shitstorm for yourself."
"I'm so sure that it's a real problem," he taunted the three of them, but Sam knew for sure that he only did it because Matilda and Cassandra were in the next room over saying their daily prayer.
"You're messin' with a couple of New York girls, asshole," Belinda scolded him.
"You're messin' with a California girl, too," Sam added.
"Which state am I in trouble with exactly?" he laughed at them.
"The ones we just said," Marla told him. "Are you really that stupid? Because the only way you're fucked from this point onward is if you are really that stupid."
"Oh, and we're still legally married," he reminded Sam in a singsong voice. "You're not leaving."
"You signed a pre-nup, dumbass," Marla snapped, "you're also bone broke now so you've got absolutely nothing now except for this house here—and I think the bank might have something to say about this, too. Yeah, Sam here doesn't, either, but she doesn't care. And she's still a citizen of New York, too—that's according to the records at the school."
"Besides, you know those guys I took a ride with a few months back?" Sam recalled for him. "And the one who gave me a ride home a few months back, too?"
"Vaguely," he replied with a little gyration of his head. "I was writing when you returned here."
"I fucked him in the back of his car," she scoffed at him. "So even if we're still married, you've got no choice but to null it now."
His face hardened and his eyes burned into her like cigarettes. Had she known better, she could have sworn that he sprouted horns upon the crown of his head.
And yet there was no way she could feel afraid of him. None whatsoever.
"Get out of here, whore," he hissed at her.
"Good!" she shouted right into his face. "I absolutely hate it here anyway. I pity Mattie and Cassie and anyone who buys into your preachy drivel—they're gonna grow up so fucked up because of you. Anyone who listens and buys into your stupidity are as fucking screwed as you and they deserve it for being so stupid. I hate this house and I hate what you preach. Do me a favor and DROP DEAD!"
He raised a hand to her face and Marla and Belinda stopped right in their tracks. She closed her eyes as she awaited impact, but it never came.
"I ought to condemn thee straight down to hell," he snarled. "I'm the righteous one. The three of you are in need of correcting, behaving in wicked ways."
"Oh, fuck off with that already—fucking piece of trash human," Belinda spat back at him. Sam opened her eyes and Marla opened the door. Sparing no expense, they ducked out of there and back out to Marla's rental car right as he chucked something at them. It missed Belinda's head by about an inch.
"What the hell was that?" Marla demanded.
Belinda scooped it off the grass.
"It's a glass," she told her.
"My gift to you!" he called after Sam, and Belinda chucked it right back at him. She aimed so far off from him that it sailed right through the living room window and shattered it into a bunch of pieces.
"Fuck!"
The three of them piled into the car and Marla fired it up right then and there. Before Sam could even so much as strap herself into the back seat, they sped away from there. They reached the corner and she straightened herself into an upright position. She strapped in and straightened out her purse and the outside of her overnight bag. All of her clothes still in there: she never took most of them out of there all the while she lived there at the house.
"Where are we going?" Sam asked them once they passed the market three blocks away.
"To a man named Dave," Marla explained, and Sam's face lit up.
"Oh! I haven't seen him in forever and a day it seems."
"Hope he's home. Megadeth are in bit of turmoil themselves right about now."
"What's going on with them?" she asked them.
"Dave's in rehab and his guitarist is way too hooked on heroin," Belinda explained, "or something like that. He told us and he said it in kind of a rushed manner, too. But it explains why they weren't able to play at Monsters of Rock."
"And why the boys were able to play there," Sam followed along.
"I mean, if nothing," Marla joined in again, "we'll just take the next flight back to New York and then come back out here in a month to see the boys."
"My mom's also moving down to Catalina," Sam told them.
"Oh, yeah?" Marla flashed her a smile in the rear view mirror.
"Yup, she's taking the next boat ride out there—tomorrow, actually."
"Wow!" Belinda declared.
"Twenty two miles over the Channel. That means we're gonna have to come back out here anyways."
"Right?"
"I'm gonna need a new desk now, too," Sam added under her breath.
"We're in L.A., and we might be going back to the Big Apple soon," Marla assured her as they reached the freeway. "There are new desks abound no matter where we go."
They rode out of Lake Elsinore and Orange County in no time: Sam thought about Chuck and Tiffany as they zipped through Corona and all the way up to Alhambra. She knew that she would see them again soon enough, and she hoped that she would get to see them in Reseda for sure.
Within time, Marla drove them to Dave's little place tucked away in the heart of the inner city itself. By a moment's glance, they could tell that he wasn't home.
"Well, I gotta turn in this rental anyway," Marla said with a tone of glee to her voice.
"Back to New York it is then!" Belinda declared and Sam clapped her hands at that.
She didn't care that it was going to be so late in the evening by the time they returned there and that she would have to stay with both Marla and Belinda for a time: she was headed back home once again. The first flight back there left at one thirty but the three of them were happy to be there in the airport in anticipation.
"By the way, I didn't give you this," Marla started.
"What's that—" Sam was cut off by her old best friend's embrace. Belinda joined in right behind them for a group hug.
"Little bit of good luck before we take off," Marla herself said and she brushed away a tear from her eye.
"I like you with green hair, too," Sam told her.
"Had a feeling you'd like it," she said as she ran her fingers through her hair. "The black stripe was Frankie's idea. He was like, 'hey, you ought to do the reverse at some point!' I was like, you want me to look like one of the negatives from my Polaroid camera don't ya?" The three of them laughed at that.
"Have you gotten their new album, by the way?" Sam asked them.
"Anthrax's new one?" Marla shook her head at that.
"Yeah, I haven't been able to get it, either," Belinda added. "We've been working and going back and forth from New York to Albany for a while now. Just haven't been able to splurge much. And we just haven't been able to see it around, either, even over in New York."
"Have you heard Metallica's new one, though?" Marla asked her with a concerned expression on her face.
"Metallica put out a new album?" Sam raised her eyebrows at that.
"Yeah. It's—It's weird. I'll show you once we get home. Yeah, we weren't able to get the new one from the local boys but we were able to get our paws on a new one from Metallica, though."
Sam chuckled at that, and soon they boarded the next flight out to New York City. A few hours time and she recognized that skyline in all its glory against the violet November sky. A month was all she needed to regain her bearings there. Marla had kept the apartment in Hell's Kitchen but most of her things weren't there given she had gone up to Albany at some point.
"Your couch is still here, though," she told Sam once they stepped in through the front door. There it was, pressed right against the wall next to the porch doors. She set her things down on the floor and scurried over to the couch, and she lay down on those soft cushions. The black hat sprawled off of her head and onto the arm over her head.
"God, I missed this thing," she declared. A soft tinkling noise caught her ear and Genie leapt up onto the couch cushion next to her hip. "And there's Genie! Hi, baby." She petted her head and the cat treated her to a loud purr. A little jingle bell dangled off of her new purple collar.
"We took good care of it," Belinda told her. "Even though Marla only lived up there for a bit, she was like 'there's no way I'm laying on this thing.' Genie took especially good care of it."
"What happened with the whole thing up there, by the way?" Sam asked her.
"What, in Albany?" Marla said.
"Yeah."
"It was either make the commute from here to Albany, or move. And I was like 'Bel, there's no way I'm moving.' I feel too at home in New York City. I lived up there for about a month—well, we spoke over the phone about it."
"Oh, yeah, yeah."
"But I moved up there for about that long. I couldn't take it. Most of my stuff is still up there, except for my clothes, my bed, and the real important things."
"Like my couch!" Sam declared.
"Like your couch, yes! Anyways—seeing as we're back in New York, how 'bout we treat ourselves to some Chinese?"
"Ooh yes please!" Belinda proclaimed with an excited tone.
Over the course of that month before they returned back out to California, Marla took good care of Sam there in that old apartment. Even though she spent whole days down at the school and Belinda had gone up to Albany, Sam herself was more than content to be back in New York City once again. There came a day close to Thanksgiving, whereby Sam cracked open that Metallica album in question and gave it a good lengthy listen.
Cold, clinical, and almost robotic in sound and with something else to it, especially at first listen. Jason was nowhere to be heard, and she wondered if there was any part of it that was intentional at all. She knew she would have to listen to it a few more times before she could even understand any of it.
But in the meantime, she had her city at the helm again.
It really was home to her as she picked up her art once more.
She had survived a strict, dry household and thus she felt so liberated, as if she could make art for the world to see from that point onward.
Indeed, when she returned to her inks and her good colorful markers, she found herself drawing herself more and more. Herself in her room. Herself busting those windows merely to escape. She survived those dastardly ways and she was there to show the world the whole story in the meantime.
All the time by herself and she was able to illustrate the story of it.
She added the final touches as she gave that new Metallica album another listen, that time with the headphones on. If she paid close attention, she could hear the ever so slight sliver of a bass guitar in there. They had turned it down all the way, or at least almost all the way, and she wondered why that was the case and why they decided on that in the first place. But then again, just like the four books she had swiped from the bedroom back in Lake Elsinore, she kept going back to it. Cliff's absence remained with them, a silence so loud that she felt a need to include a bonus drawing of her and Cliff at the back of the journal. The two of them together one last time.
By the middle of December, she felt ready to show the world the story of herself in that house, her having escaped it as if she had broken out of a prison. She wanted to show her friends in Anthrax but they were right in the thick of that strenuous tour at that point: thus, she hoped to show them when she got to see them in California for New Year's.
Another early morning flight out there for the Testament shows in Reseda and she had the journal tucked under her arm the whole way out. Los Angeles was a big city and that was a big area: no way Bill could find her or even know where to look for that matter. They landed on the opposite coast at about five in the morning, where the next rental car awaited them in the parking lot.
Two weeks there and the three of them would be in the wrong area anyway, over at Dave's house for real at that point. Two shows in Reseda and both times the three of them were about to stand in the back, far and away from all the commotion up front but she knew that those five men were going to sound so big for that little room. Chuck at the very front with that little portable microphone in hand. Alex, Eric, and Greg on either side of him, and Louie's hair flying behind that drum kit. It was that day before the first night that Sam had somewhat forgotten the outburst she had had with them, even though she would never forget it altogether.
"Gonna be quite the Christmas gift, isn't it?" Marla asked her with a grin on her face as they walked out to the airport parking lot.
"Absolutely!" Sam declared.
After those shows, the three of them planned on spending Christmas down in Long Beach, where Anthrax would be playing at next for New Year's. If Testament themselves returned to San Francisco afterwards, Sam wondered if her father was up there at that point given her mother was already moved into her new place on Santa Catalina Island.
"We've got plenty of time before the boys show up—we can go up there," Belinda suggested as they climbed into Marla's rental car.
"That's hell of a drive, though," Sam pointed out. "Louie and I took the P.C.H. from the Bay Area to the middle of L.A. this past summer. Took us all day. And that's that highway, too—if you guys are thinking of the Five, it's gonna be at least that long." She paused for a moment. "We can take the train up there."
"And shell out a couple hundred bucks for three train tickets?" Marla looked at her, horrified. "I don't think so."
"Besides, I wanna get to know the Golden State more," Belinda added. "Show us this place, Sam."
"Yeah, show us around," Marla encouraged her, "especially since it's still plenty early."
"Okay. Besides, people make this commute all the time on a regular basis, too. So you get on the Interstate—the Five—and you just go all the way up, over the Grapevine and into the Central Valley. Gonna tell you guys this right now, though—there's a reason why Louie and I took the coast instead of the valley, though. I'll show you on the way up there."
Indeed, they took to the freeway itself and they wound out of the City of Angels in no time.
Once they had cleared the Grapevine, Marla glanced about the base of the Central Valley itself.
"Yeah, you're not kidding," she remarked. They wound their way through the southern outskirts of Bakersfield until she took the first exit off at Buck Owens Boulevard.
"What's the matter?" Sam asked her.
"I don't know if I can do this, Sam," Marla confessed as they pulled up to the stoplight right there at the offramp. "This is gonna be like four commutes to and from New York City to Syracuse, up to where Joey lives. And these rental cars, they're not that hearty, either."
"Well, let's find a phone—I'll call my mom and I'll see if she's got my dad's number or if he has a new one now."
"I'll call Frankie, too, tell him we're here."
The light turned green and they rolled forward, right underneath the goldenrod Bakersfield sign and onto a narrow street; Marla turned into a parking lot on the right and, outside of the building there stood two payphones.
Sam couldn't climb out of that car faster; even though she stood right before that first phone there near the building's edge, she checked her pockets and even the little pocket of her wallet for loose change. Nothing. Even though she had plenty of dollar bills, she had spent the rest of her loose change on getting away from Bill and settling back into New York City again. Sam doubled back to the car, where Belinda rolled down the window for her.
"Hey, Bel, you got any spare change?"
"Just a bunch of pennies," she replied with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Damn it." Sam frowned and she set one hand on the edge of the rooftop. The late morning sun broke through the clouds overhead and Belinda squinted against the bright golden light. Her blonde curls glistened in the light as if they were in fact made of gold as they kissed her collar bones.
"I like you with short hair, by the way," Sam remarked.
"You do?" Belinda ran her fingers through her shoulder length hair. "I just wanted a little change. You know—new era of life, new look and whatnot. It was starting to get hot, too."
"I bet! I bet it's difficult to work with glass all around you, too."
"That's understatement—" Belinda froze and she looked right behind Sam. She turned around and Marla strode up to them with her hands tucked into her jeans pockets.
"What's going on?" Belinda asked her, concerned.
"So I just got off the phone with Frankie," Marla began; the grave look on her face was so obvious. Sam wondered if something horrible had happened again.
"And?" Sam herself shook her head.
"Not only is there a blizzard over in New York right now—and flights are getting delayed—and they don't know if they'll get home following the shows here in Cali, but I guess Joey—met someone."
Sam frowned at that. "What do you mean 'he met someone'?" she asked her.
"Holding hands with another woman," Marla clarified. "A blonde woman. Frankie said she looks older than you, too."
"What the—fuck—we just saw him!" Belinda declared, and Marla nodded her head at that. A heavy feeling sank over Sam's chest. "He was by himself, too! He was missing her!"
"Oh my god," Sam muttered.
"Yeah, I—I'm speechless right now," Marla admitted. "I don't even know what to say. I don't know—other than—I am so sorry, Sam."
"No!"
Her stomach turned and writhed, as if she was ready to throw up right then and there. Her memory went blank after that.
At least when Cliff was killed she still had a bit of clarity left. Here, she found herself in a thicker fog than that of the bank outside the San Francisco Bay Area.
She found herself somewhere outside of Bakersfield, somewhere north of there. Marla and Belinda, who were as stunned and shattered as her had gone off somewhere, thus she was left to her own whim. Her memory had left her.
All she could do was head on down to San Pedro and catch the next boat ride to Avalon.
She could barely see where she was going, even though it wasn't raining there on that road. She wiped away the tears but it was useless. More emerged with each and every step down the pavement. A long way down to San Pedro but she was willing to get there on foot regardless of anything.
Too much had happened. Too much too soon. Too much that yanked the rug out from underneath her.
"Samantha!"
That big voice. She turned her head and she gazed in the direction of the oncoming car. He slowed up right behind her: even through the glass of the windshield, she could make out the sight of him in there. She recognized those deep eyes.
He was the last person she wanted to see, however. She kept on walking and she folded her arms across her chest.
"Samantha?" he called out to her again, that big full voice laced with a little bit of pain and concern. "Samantha, are you alright?"
"What do you care?" she hit back at him with tears in her eyes. She made eye contact with him and he gaped at her.
"Samantha, what happened?"
"I don't want to talk about it," she snapped as more tears fell down her face. The sky overhead darkened even more, but she was more than willing to walk down to San Pedro from wherever she was in the Central Valley.
"God, it looks like it's about to rain," he pointed out. "What happened?"
The sound of his voice brought even more tears to her eyes.
"Wait a minute, do you need a ride home?" he offered her.
"I can get there myself..." she assured him with a break in her voice. The tires crackled on the gravel strewn about the side of the road as he pulled closer to her. He inched closer and closer to the shoulder there and she almost stumbled into the grasses there. Hundreds of miles of nothing all around them, and the rain was coming.
"Samantha, where you going?" he asked her again, that time in a more mellow tone. "I'll take you there."
She burst into tears at the sound of his voice. A gust of cold wind washed over them both, and he shivered at the feeling.
"You'll freeze before you get there!" he warned her. "Come on. Please? I'm getting cold just looking at you."
"No!" she shouted at him, such that it made him recoil back. "No, Alex, I promise—"
"Samantha, you're a long way from home," he begged her, and she could hear the teras in his voice as well, "and you've gotta be freezing right now. Please, get in."
He stopped the car and pushed open the passenger door for her. She stopped and looked down at the seat next to him: he set his hand there and his long guitar player fingers splayed out before him. She looked up at his face, which had softened at the sight of her with his dark eyebrows raised and those deep eyes big and glassy, as if he was about to cry himself.
"Come on," he begged her in a broken voice. "I have a blanket in the back seat if the heater's not enough."
She swore she saw tears brimming his eyes as well, and she peered up the road before her. Hundreds of miles back to San Pedro, and she had to cross over the Grapevine to boot as well. There was no way she could make it there, especially with the rain coming and the snow that could possibly fall on the road ahead of her. She brushed away another tear given she knew she had no other choice but to go with him. More tears followed suit as she climbed into the warm and cozy seat next to him, and she shut the door next to her. She set her handbag down on the floor between her legs and she buckled herself in.
"Okay," he gently said to her, and he switched on the dials before her. "Let's get you warmed up—I'm turning the heater on full and there is a blanket in the back if you're not warm. Okay. Now, where are you going?"
"Catalina," she replied in a broken voice and she folded her arms across her chest.
"Okay, so—uh, down to San Pedro," he clarified; he took a glimpse into the side mirror before he returned to the road. He had his right hand on the turn signal but no one rode up from behind him. Straight ahead of them was the freeway, which in turn led over to the Grapevine and then wound back down into the Los Angeles area. "Okay, that's a ways away, so take all the time you need with this. But in the meantime—what happened? Tell me everything."
She sniffled again and another tear drifted down her cheek as the reality settled over her.
"Joey loves another woman," she started in a low voice, and then she stopped, to which Alex frowned at that.
"That's it?" he asked her, and she sniffled again.
"I thought—I thought he was the one for me," she wept. The tears fell down her face as much as the torrential rain that loomed right behind them. "I thought we were going to be together for sure."
"Well... did you tell him how you feel?" he asked her in a small voice. She sniffled and she looked over at him, baffled.
"What?"
"Did you tell him how you feel about him? Because it seems to me that that's—that's something you tell somebody. That's something they need to know."
"It's so hard, though. I never could tell him, either."
"Never could tell him—not even when we were on tour together?" And she shook her head. "Not even—" He scoffed and rolled his eyes a bit. "—not even at Aurora and Emile's wedding?"
And she shook her head. "There was no way I could tell him then."
"Not even—all the times you went upstate with him? When you lived in New York?"
"I just couldn't," she whispered. "I just couldn't do it." She brushed away even more tears. "I don't know where Marla and Belinda went, either."
"What do you mean?"
"We got the news from Frankie and—my memory just went blank after that."
"Damn."
They had gotten a ways on the freeway, a few miles from the Grapevine, when he took a glimpse down at the gages behind the steering wheel.
"I have to get gas," he told her.
"You're driving down to Reseda?" she asked him.
"Yeah. Yeah, I just got my license—I might as well. Chuck and Eric were like, 'dude, let's take a bus.' And I was like 'I'm not taking a stinkin' bus all the way down to Reseda. I'd rather drive.' I took a back road because there was a bunch of traffic in the north side of town and that was when I saw you walking on the side of the road through a bunch of barren farmland no less."
"Seven hours of nothing," she echoed Louie's words.
"Seven hours of nuthin'!" Alex proclaimed. He took the next exit at Frasier Park and he was quick into the nearest station. The clouds overhead collected and blanketed the sun from their view. Rain awaited them in no time, and they said it never rained in L.A., either. He unbuckled and shivered against the wind, and then he returned to her.
"By the way, do you want anything?" he offered her in a gentle voice. "I can get you something."
"A bandage," she whispered.
"A bandage?" He gaped at her. "Are you bleeding?"
"In the heart," she bawled, and he tilted his head at that. She buried her face in her hands and wept, and he reached over the parking lever for her, and he held her as close as he could. She bawled right into his shirt: his hand rested on the back of her head and his other hand was on her back. His chest was warm and his little body was soft; some of his black curls caressed over her. He stroked her back and then she lifted her head for a glimpse into those deep eyes, the ones she knew she would always recognize regardless of anything.
"I'll be right back," he vowed to her.
She stayed there in the front seat all by herself for only a moment, but it was enough for her to try and reminisce on what happened before then. Joey found love somewhere else, and then—nothing.
A tap on the window broke her concentration. She rolled it down and he handed her a blue chocolate bar.
"Here—" he said, and he handed it to her.
"Thank you," she sniffled.
"Bought it with the last bit of spare change in my pocket."
She gaped at that and then he proceeded to fill up his tank. She looked on at the wrapper on the chocolate bar and she wanted to weep some more but she couldn't. Instead, she unraveled it and broke off a little piece off of the top. Within time, he climbed back in and gave his black curls a toss over his shoulder. The black hair dye stayed intact on his gray streak, but Sam knew it was there, however.
"Do you have a jacket on you?" he asked her. "The guy in here told me it might snow—like any minute."
"I don't."
"Okay. Well, that's what the blanket's for. I'll take care of you in the meantime." He started up the car again and without a moment's hesitation, he returned them to the road before them, almost black as it beckoned a fresh layer of snow.
"I was gonna see you guys in Reseda with Marla and Bel—but I don't know where they are, though."
"Well, if we see them—I'll tell them I picked up and took you to your mom's house. You know, you come back over to the mainland and they'll waiting for you. I can't promise a lot of things, but I can promise you that, though. Seeing them and telling them that you're alright, Samantha."
"Let me ask you something," she started again.
"Ask me anything," he told her.
"Why do you call me 'Samantha', and not 'Sam'? Everyone calls me Sam."
"Respect. I just feel better calling you Samantha, too. I mean, you were Cliff's girl."
She sniffled again and she brushed away a tear.
"I was wrong about you," she confessed in a broken voice. "I mean, I already said that that time we finally got to talking to each other, but I'm even more wrong now."
"How so?" he asked her.
"You're so sweet."
And he shook his head. "Just doing what I can," he replied.
"All you guys are, really," she continued. "Chuck gave me his number, Greg got me out of the house the first time around, Louie gave me a ride home, and Eric showed me where Cliff hailed from."
"And we took you to where Cliff's ashes are scattered, too," he added.
"I feel so dumb," she confessed with a shake of her head.
"Don't. You had your own problems to deal with. Sometimes it's hard to see what you've got when you're up to your neck in shit."
His words stayed with her as they made their way over the Grapevine and back in the Los Angeles area, where it was in fact already raining. But Alex's heater kept them both warm against it all. Cozy and safe against the cold and the rare instance of rain there. Another hundred miles along the two Interstates, they reached the harbor at San Pedro where the boat over to Avalon awaited her. All she needed was a ticket.
Those bills in her wallet proved to be enough for a round trip to her mother's house and back to the mainland. She turned Alex, who awaited next to her under the awning.
"Are you gonna be okay?" he asked her.
"I think so. Well, I'm gonna be at my mom's house over on Catalina. No idea when I'll be back here for the second night, though."
"Well, take your time with it all," he advised her. "Again—if I see Marla and Belinda, I'll tell them where you are."
"Now are you gonna be okay?" she asked him. "Because it's—twenty two miles from here to the island by the ferry ride."
He shifted his weight right in the spot there before her.
"I can't do that," he said. "Not today. Maybe another time, though?"
"Would you?"
And he nodded his head at her, and the soft expression returned to his face once again. She threw her arms around his slender body: slender and yet still very soft, still that soft teenage boy she hugged on his birthday and over in Germany.
"Thank you," she whispered right into his ear.
"Just doing what I can," he whispered back to her. "Just doing what I can." He sighed through his nose, and she was about to burst into tears if she held him for a second longer. "You might wanna get going, too. The boat's about to leave."
She let him go and turned towards the big white boat that awaited her at the dock. He bowed his head and stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets to protect himself against the cold rain.
"I'll see you tomorrow," she promised him; she remembered that that was the last thing Frank told Cliff.
"And I'll see you tomorrow."