Wild Horses Read Free Page B

made it into the ladies’ room: a spell of trembling so bad it verged on convulsion. And she hated what she saw in the mirror. That red-lipped whore’s face, not even her own idea, made up for someone else’s amusement. Just like very old times.
    She could so easily have killed that man. Hemophilia aside, she might still have killed him — hit him with the bottle, then hit him again with what remained, then gone after him with the jagged stump. He would bleed and bleed and bleed, and the worst of it…?
    It would not really have been him she was killing.
    Did Boyd have any idea what he was preventing, or had he only gotten lucky? She left the bathroom knowing it didn’t matter, and that he at least deserved a thank-you.
    Back outside, the crowd at Boyd’s table had quadrupled in size, and she was told that her services were no longer required for the night. For having done nothing? After realizing that he wouldn’t bleed to death her groper had turned vindictive; had done some talking, some finger-pointing. Already making pretzel twists out of the truth, let’s blame that low-class woman and her trailer-park morals. It was sound strategy.
    Boyd had received a similar dismissal, and the two of them left at the same time. Allison found herself feeling much younger than thirty-one; younger and ashamed. Back there? It was her fault, all of it, the blame deep as marrow. She carried guilt as she might carry an ugly, malignant child conceived by rape: hating it, knowing nevertheless that it was hers and always would be. It had suckled from her for too long to be given up now.
    It was early winter in Seattle, the city blanketed with fog and clinging mists. Corkscrews of wind whipped around corners. She couldn’t hold her coat tightly enough about her. The wind carried on it the basso drone of a ship’s horn, from another world a few blocks away, a deep and mournful sound that conjured spirits of departure, with farewells made obsolete. Sometimes you just wanted to go, and answer to no one.
    “I have this suspicion that career opportunities here just got really limited for me,” Boyd said. “But there’s always my contingency plan.” The cards were in his grip; he shuffled them with one hand. “Vive Las Vegas.”
    Before leaving, he’d taken paper towels to his scalp, scrubbing away a slick of grease and leaving wet clumps in its wake. His hair looked like roadkill in the rain.
    He lamented further: “That good old boy network, you’re not in the loop, screw up once with one of them and they’ll ream you for sure. I might as well grab my ankles right now.”
    “Don’t you think you’re exaggerating? He will live.”
    “Yeah, that’s the problem. I don’t know, maybe I should follow politics a little closer,” Boyd Dobbins sighed. “How was I supposed to know that fat chucklehead was a state senator?”
     
    *
     
    Hours after their relationship’s cactus-strewn finale, she drank sweet, syrupy Southern Comfort, alone in the apartment. Boyd at the casino, or maybe having his shoulder tended by a nurturing side of Madeline DeCarlo unglimpsed earlier. Allison held a glazed stare on the TV, some old movie hypnotic only for its presence.
    When Boyd came home after midnight she was still awake, if in bed and pretending otherwise. When he stepped into the darkened bedroom, the only sound his quiet breath, something sad rode upon it, sad and heavy and final. Then he turned away.
    She was still awake hours later when the deep breaths of his slumber reached her from the sofa, and she followed them into the living room. Anger began to surge all over again, fueled by the bourbon, while her blurry gaze settled on the dining table and the laptop computer he’d been toting around earlier. She’d completely forgotten about that.
    Havoc for havoc — just how much did she plan to wreak on his life? Did it stop at car and shoulder? Not by a long shot. A moment later the bourbon had her flipping up the computer screen,