Our Lady Chaos, page 30
part #5 of Bloodletter Series
Even though he didn’t enjoy most of his classes, Eddie still attended every scheduled meeting. The Mortons were paying for his education, and he would get their money’s worth.
Every cent.
Amanda was the icing on the cake, though. Funny and creative and sweet and smart and beautiful. And sexy. Lots and lots of sexy.
He couldn’t believe his luck.
4
1986
To his surprise, Amanda stood outside the locked glass doors as he trotted downstairs to the dorm’s lobby. She wore her thickest coat but shivered as if she were freezing. She flashed a little wave at him, and her face dimpled.
Laughing, he went to the door and opened it. “What are you doing here, crazy-girl? Don’t you know what time it is?” He waved at the dawning light breaking across the sky.
She looked him up and down, moving her head in a slow, methodical manner. “Seems to me, you are ready to go, too, crazy-boy.”
Eddie laughed and pushed his arms into his coat. “Guilty. But what are we going to do until the mall opens?”
Amanda grinned and patted her stomach. “Mama’s hungry,” she said with a saucy grin.
“Then we better get you to a Denny’s. Stat!” He threw his arm around her shoulder, and Amanda snuggled against his side.
“This will be a fun day, Eddie,” she said. “I can feel it.”
“Yeah,” he said, thinking every day had been fun since they’d met on the first day of classes. She was perfect. All except for the hair. It looked like a bunch of strawberry licorice. Why would she want hair that color? That hair confused him and made him uneasy.
But bright-red hair or not, Eddie couldn’t believe a girl as great as Amanda liked him, that she wanted to be his girlfriend. She could have any man she wanted.
She caught him staring at her and thumped him in the ribs. “What?”
“Nothing. I can’t wait to see this mall is all. Have you been there?”
“For the three thousand nine hundred and eighty-fifth time, no, Eddie, I have not been there.” She said it with a laugh and squeezed him around the waist. “You’re like a little kid about this place.”
“What can I say? Going to an antique store is just my idea of perfect fun. Going to a mall full of them with the cutest, nicest girl in the world? Nirvana.”
She squeezed him around the waist again. “Kind of a schmoopy dork, aren’t you?”
Eddie laughed. “I’m whatever you want to call me, Amanda.”
Suddenly shy, Amanda ducked her head. “What if… What if I wanted to call you my boyfriend?”
“If a girl like you wants to call a guy like me her boyfriend, it means one of two things: either you’re stark raving mad, or I am the luckiest man on Earth.”
They walked in silence for a minute, lost in mutual embarrassment at the sappy turn their conversation had taken. After a dozen steps, Amanda hugged him yet again. “Schmoopy dork.”
“As long as ‘schmoopy dork’ means ‘boyfriend,’ I’m happy to answer to it.”
“Can you hear me rolling my eyes?” Amanda said.
“I can! You’ll want to see a doctor about that. Either that or squirt a little WD-40 in there.”
The second they emerged from the walkway between two buildings into the parking lot, the full force of the frigid wind buffeted them again. It ruffled Eddie’s hair and twisted Amanda’s candy-apple-red locks around her head, covering her eyes, infiltrating her mouth.
“That’s a good look for you, but I didn’t know your middle name was Medusa.” He grinned, but something inside him twanged like an out-of-tune guitar.
She swatted his stomach. “You don’t have any idea what my middle name is, mister, and if you don’t want your middle name to be mud, you’d better straighten up and fly right.”
Eddie laughed. “Kind of weird early in the morning, know that?”
“Dork.”
“Medusa.” Eddie said it with a grin, but a dark, smoky memory lurched within him. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and practiced one of the refrains Dr. Erikson had taught him.
They reached her car, and she disengaged to unlock the door of the little silver Nissan Maxima. She sank into the driver’s seat and hit the power locks.
Eddie got in the car and whistled. “Nice wheels.” He didn’t have a car—he allowed himself to infringe on the Mortons’ generosity only so far.
Amanda laughed. “You don’t have to say that every time I give you a ride somewhere, Eddie.”
Eddie looked at her and waggled his eyebrows. “It’s not what I want to say, anyway. At least not the ‘wheels’ part.”
Amanda blushed, but her smile dazzled him. “Well what is it you want to say?”
Eddie looked out the passenger window to hide his embarrassment. “Oh, you’ll just call me a schmoopy dork.” He waved his hand in the air. “Or punch me hard.”
Amanda chuckled and rested her hand on his shoulder. “Well, now you have to tell me.”
Heat blazed in Eddie’s cheeks, and he hoped he wasn’t as red as her hair. “Well, it starts with nice…”
“Nice seats? Nice steering wheel? Nice to meet you?”
“No, no, and no.”
“Nice breath? Nice doggy?”
Eddie shook his head, a pit yawning where his stomach had been. “I don’t think I should tell you.”
Amanda dropped her hand to his side and tickled him. “Well that’s not fair, so I’m not starting this car until you tell me, mister.”
“Can we just forget I said anything?”
“Nope.”
Eddie relaxed back into the seat but kept his gaze directed out through the passenger window. “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to be mad.”
“Mad? Now you really have to tell me.”
“Nice…” He fidgeted with the zipper of his coat, looking down at his lap. “Promise not to be mad?”
“Okay, okay. I promise not to be mad at whatever schmoopy-dorky thing you’re scared to tell me.” Amanda laughed and tickled him again.
“The thing I always want to tell you every time I see you is…” His voice trembled a little, and he let the sentence linger in the air.
“Oh, come on, Eddie. Don’t be a tease!”
Eddie looked at her askance. “I want to tell you that you have nice…breasts.”
Amanda burst out laughing. “‘Nice tits?’ That’s what you want to say every time?”
It felt as if Eddie’s cheeks were on fire, but he nodded.
Her laughter slowed and ended with a grin. “Well, thank you, Eddie, but you haven’t even seen them.” She cocked one eyebrow at him. “Not yet…” She tipped him a wink and started the car.
As Amanda reversed out of the space, Eddie took a deep breath and said, “So…you still want to call me a schmoopy dork?”
“As long as it means boyfriend.” Amanda didn’t look at him. “Maybe now more than ever,” she murmured.
Eddie grinned, he couldn’t help it. “Good, because I love being your schmoopy dork.”
They split a Grand Slam breakfast and drank carafe after carafe of coffee. They sat in a Denny’s booth looking out the plate-glass window as the sun rose. Eddie insisted on paying the check when it came, even though they both knew it would cut into his food budget.
“I wish you would let me pay, Eddie.”
Eddie shook his head. “You’re paying for gas.”
“Cash, grass, or ass,” she said with a lopsided grin. “Seriously, though—”
“It’s okay.”
Amanda laughed without looking at him. “Yeah who wants to eat, right?”
Eddie patted his stomach and sat back in the booth. “After this breakfast, who needs to eat?”
The antique mall opened at nine, and they were the first ones in line as the doors opened. The place smelled like dust with a nasty odor underneath it—like cow manure or vomit.
The mall had about as much in common with a shopping mall as deer did with seaweed. More like a flea market, ramshackle stalls filled the interior instead of shops. The building itself was a giant rectangle, with steel siding like a warehouse, though there was linoleum on the floor.
“I go antiquing with my mom back home,” said Amanda. “It’s a lot of fun, though I don’t care about the antiques all that much. It’s all about the journey.”
Eddie stood inside the door, just looking around, taking it all in. “It’s wonderful. Look at all these treasures, Amanda.”
Amanda looked around as if she hadn’t noticed all the junk and then returned her gaze to his face. “Yep. That’s a lot of stuff. What do you want to start with?”
Eddie tore his gaze away from the thousands of items populating the stalls that he could see and looked at Amanda. “All of it.”
Amanda laughed and patted his arm. “Well, that is the idea of coming here.” She glanced around again. “I meant, what do you want to look at first?”
Eddie turned his head, taking in the enormous open space surrounding them. Flimsy walls or hanging banners, and in many cases by nothing at all, separated the stalls. “I… I don’t know where to start. It’s so big!”
“Yeah, thousands of vendors.” Amanda grabbed his hand and pulled him to the left. “When in doubt, follow the wall.”
“What?”
Amanda laughed again. “It’s one of my mother’s rules for antiquing. When in doubt how to get around, follow the wall.”
Eddie looked at the center of the floor. “But…but all that stuff in the middle…”
Amanda laughed all the harder. “Yeah. Follow the wall and then work your way toward the center.”
“I think I might love your mother.”
“Eww, that’s gross. Besides, you are mine.”
He snapped his gaze back to her face and arched an eyebrow at her. “Am I? It’s official?”
Amanda scoffed, but not in a mean way. “I’m not asking you, Eddie. I mean, I’ve dropped all the hints I can come up with.”
“I…”
“It’s the guy’s job to ask, the girl’s job to answer. Didn’t your high school girlfriends teach you that?”
Eddie dropped his gaze to the floor. “Only one.”
“Only one? One what? One question?”
“No. Only one high school girlfriend. And I never asked her to be my girlfriend. We just sort of…”
“Well,” said Amanda. “If you want this girl to be your college girlfriend, we’re not going to ‘just sort of.’ You will have to ask.”
“I…” Eddie shook his head, feeling helpless.
“What, you can tell me I have nice tits, but you can’t ask me to be your girlfriend?” Her eyes danced with mischief.
An old woman overheard what Amanda said, and she shook her finger at Eddie.
Eddie only grinned. “Amanda Medusa Hawthorne, a question burneth in my hearteth. Pray telleth, wouldst thou be-ist my girlfriendith?”
“Not good enough, Eddie.” She grinned at him and winked.
“Young man, it’s not a time for joking,” said the old woman. “You better get it in gear before another young man beats you to the punch and snaps this young beauty right off the market.” She looked at Amanda. “But Heavens, girl, what have you done to your hair?”
Amanda smiled at her. “My mother asks me that very question every time she sees me.”
“Okay. Amanda, I don’t want to see anyone but you. I have no interest in other girls. Do you feel the same way?”
“I don’t want to see any other girls either,” said Amanda with a grin.
“Oh, missy, if he can’t joke, neither can you,” said the old woman, though she wore a smile on her face. “Fair is fair, after all.”
Amanda shrugged. “I do feel the same way, Eddie.”
“Then would you do me the honor of going exclusive?”
The old woman rolled her eyes and turned away, flapping her hand at Eddie.
Amanda stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the lips. “We will work on the whole asking important questions thing, but my answer is yes. We are officially a couple.”
“Yes!” he shouted, but Eddie couldn’t help it. His gaze strayed over her shoulder and began to slide over the treasures in the next stall.
5
1986
John Morton laughed when he saw the amount of stuff Eddie had set out to take home over the Christmas break. Boxes and boxes of things waited arrayed on the curb, ready to load into the car.
“Did you bring this much stuff with you when you moved up last fall?”
Eddie hunched his shoulders and looked away.
Morton arched his eyebrows over a wide grin. “Let me guess, you found a place that sells…treasures.”
Glancing up at the man who had taken him in, Eddie returned his smile. “Amanda finds the best antique shops.”
“Maybe I should make Amanda haul all this stuff back to Cottonwood Vale.” Morton said it with a smile, even as he opened the trunk of his cruiser and loaded in the first box.
“She’s already gone home.” Eddie laughed and loaded another box into the trunk.
John Morton’s expression fell, giving him the look of a comically disappointed grandfather. “I was hoping to meet her this time.”
“Her grandmother was coming into town early. Her grandma’s been sick.”
“Ah.” Morton looked between the stack of boxes remaining on the curb and the full trunk. “Son, we might need to buy you a van.” He chuckled and carried the next carton to the rear door of the car and loaded it into the back seat. “See if you can get that bastard to close.”
The trunk wouldn’t close until Eddie removed one of the boxes. He took the box to the other rear door and loaded into the back seat without looking at his stepfather.
“I know you take pleasure in your treasures, son, but we might want to have a talk about restraint. That or the joys of self-storage places.”
Eddie licked his lips and kept his eyes down as he retrieved the next box.
“Now, Eddie, don’t be that way. I was just teasing you. I don’t care how many things you want, how many things you own. You know that.”
Eddie looked at the chief askance. “I just collect things—”
“Eddie,” said John softly. “I was only kidding.”
Eddie smiled, and they loaded the rest of the boxes into the cruiser. He climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door.
John sank into the driver’s seat, grunting as he did so, and Eddie noticed how stiff he was, how much effort it seemed to take him to do the simplest tasks, and his eyes began to itch and burn. He’s getting old. Mrs. Morton, too. What will I do when they… He shook his head to clear those thoughts away and shoved his emotions into that bottomless black pit at his center. Not for the first time, he wondered if everyone had such a cavity.
Morton got settled and put on his safety belt. He sighed with what sounded like relief. Then he put a smile on his face and turned toward Eddie. “Excited about being home for Christmas?”
“Yeah,” Eddie said in a near monotone.
“Well, don’t sound so enthusiastic, son. Your excitement will distract me from driving.” He rolled his head toward Eddie and gave him a look.
“Sorry, it’s just that…”
“It’s just that Amanda doesn’t live in Cottonwood Vale.” Morton chuckled as he started the cruiser’s big engine.
Eddie grinned.
“There’s plenty of time for women, son. Mrs. Morton is looking forward to seeing you. She’s missed you.”
Eddie swallowed hard. “I’ve…”
“You don’t have to say anything, Eddie. We know how you feel—even if it sticks sideways in your throat.”
“I do want you to meet Amanda. You will love her.”
“I’m sure we will, Eddie. But there’s time. You two are young yet. Enjoy your time alone together. Enjoy this time away.”
Eddie cleared his throat. “How’s the department? How’s Cottonwood?”
John grimaced and pressed his hand into his abdomen just below his ribs on the left side. “Well, son, you’ll learn this soon enough, but even a job you love can sometimes be a big pain in the ass.”
“Trouble? The City Council?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” Morton burped, and his face twisted into a tighter, meaner grimace. “You remember all that brouhaha over in Oneka Falls?”
“You mean when I was a kid?”
The chief nodded.
“Vaguely. I can’t remember any details, if I ever knew any to begin with. Gil wasn’t much for the six o’clock news.”
John stared straight ahead, and his knuckles blanched on the steering wheel. “Yeah. Well, four kids got kidnapped by this ex-Marine who went a little nuts. He was a Vietnam vet—a Force Recon sniper—and he shot up the whole damn town. One of his victims was Bobby Jefferson, the best damn Sheriff Kanowa County has ever had—they named your high school after him when he was…” He waved his hand in Eddie’s direction. “Never mind all that. You don’t need to know the details. Anyway, similar shit kicked off over to Lake Genosgwa last summer, and I’ve got to testify about one of the bodies they found the first week of the new year. The States Attorney’s been grilling me on my testimony. I’ve been in a lot of ass-numbing meetings about the damn thing.”
“Oh,” said Eddie. “That sounds like it sucks.”
“Ayup. She went missing so long ago…” Morton nodded, a faraway look in his eyes, and a silence descended on them. After a mile or two of silence, the chief forced gaiety into his voice and said, “So, this Amanda…Mrs. Morton and I are dying to hear all about her.”
Eddie blushed, but he wasn’t sure why. “She’s great. Funny, smart. Bright-red hair.”
John arched his eyebrow. “Nothing wrong with a redhead.”
“Yeah, well. It’s not the same red as a redhead. It’s red like a cherry snow cone or something.”
John chuckled. “Oh, Mrs. Morton will love that.” He reached across the seat and thumped Eddie’s shoulder without much force behind it. “It sounds as though you two have been spending a lot of time together, clown-colored hair or not.”
The night they’d spent together before Amanda had gone home for break flashed through Eddie’s mind. “Yeah.”
John laughed. “It’s only a few weeks, Eddie.”
