Page 97 of Demon Copperhead
Back in the day, we never touched each other.Ever.The rule was hard and fast. But something made me reach over and open her right hand. I drew a heart on it, closed it up, and handed the fist back to her. “I’m sorry, god-dessmaterial. There was never any confusion in my mind, after that first snafu. Just so you know.”
She called it quits on the papers and turned to a box of massively tangled resistance bands. Blew out her breath and lay back on the floor. “Fuckthis shit. I don’t guess you know anybody that could use a truckload of heavily used sports equipment.”
“I might, actually.” I was thinking of Chartrain’s teammates. Legless Lightning.
She sat up. “Then I hope you’re driving a huge motherfucking vehicle.”
“Pretty small. But she’s a cutie-pie. Want to come outside and see?”
“You and your cutie-pies.” She shoved the box at me. “Take this out to the trash pile for me. First mountain on your left, can’t miss it. I’ll be out there in a sec.”
Outside it had gotten colder, not even yet noon. I stood watching my steamy breath come out of my mouth, which I took to mean I was still alive on the inside. Snow started to fall, just a little spit here and there. I lit a cigarette. Thirty seconds later she came out, and I hid the smoking gun behind my back. She laughed and said she was telling Coach. And then we were okay. We studied the giant pile of crap she’d hauled out of there. I told her where she could get a railroad-car-size roll-off for three hundred dollars. She checked out the Beretta and saidof courseI would have a car that’s the color of the ocean. I hadn’t even thought of that.
“Did you ever get to see it? After the tragically aborted early attempt?”
Twoattempts. The school-trip rout at Christiansburg she meant. I’d never told her much about the Richmond-Mouse debacle. I finished my Camel and ground out the butt. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, that’s a no. But it’s still out there. Just so you know.”
“Do tell?”
“Yessiree Bob. You can take that one to the bank.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that. Given the college degree.”
For a minute the sun came out, while it was snowing. People say that means the devil is beating his wife. Then the snow stopped, which I took to mean she was leaving the bastard. I asked Angus what she and Coach were doing for Christmas.
She gave me a funny look, chin pulled back. “WhatChristmas. That was all your doing.”
“But you seemed so into it. Am I wrong?”
“No. But we never knew how to do it before you came, and the magic went away again after you moved out. The magic was all you, Demon.”
We were quiet for a minute. I warmed myself on a little bonfire of remembered ridiculousness, and hoped she was doing the same. “I still have that ship. In the bottle. Everything else I’ve ever owned, I’ve lost by now or thrown out. But I kept that. You thought I was going places. We just didn’t see the bottle part coming.”
She opened her mouth, then shut it. Opened her empty right hand and looked at it, like something was in there. Then put it behind her back. “I’m sorry you and Annie didn’t get your book thing put together,” she said.
“I’ll get it figured out. And I’m sure she’ll get back to me eventually. I mean, how long can one baby last?”
She laughed. But something was winding down here.
“We could give it another go,” I said. “Christmas. What do you want?”
“A big fat check for this house.”
“You know my price range. No real improvement there, sadly. I might have notched up a little on the naughty-nice scale, though.”
She leveled me with a stare that stirred something up I couldn’t name. Or was scared to admit to. “Okay. I have a present for you,” she said. “It’s not wrapped. I just thought of it.”
“Okay. Where is it?”
“Um. Five hundred miles from here. Directly adjacent to a bunch of sand.”
I laughed. “Thanks.”
“I’m serious. I’m giving you the ocean.”
“It’swinter.”
