|
May 23, 2000
She had a date with him. Not a real one. Just a dinner.
A chance to talk. Get a hug. An autograph. A photo.
It was special. She was, after all, a fan.
Not a fanatic.
She was mom. She was the housekeeper, the shopper,
the taxi service, the bank. She was busy and she dreamed.
So she had arranged to make the bid. The bid that
bought him for dinner.
Charity fundraiser. Bachelor auction.
She did not date. She had so little time.
This was to be different day. It would be fun. Break
the routine.
She would get her hair done. A new color. Or an old
one made new.
Replace the separated make up. The broken lipstick.
The barely-anything-left eye shadow and the dried mascara.
New things.
Make her feel pretty.
She was not young. She was not stupid.
She wanted to be Cinderella. She wanted to let him
see her. To talk. To touch the sky.
A memory. She just wanted to make a memory.
"He gives such good hugs," she told them.
"I need another one," she told others. "It has been
two years."
She dressed with care. A special day. A special dress.
She sewed.
No mending. No required stichery. A filmy creation.
Just for this.
New heels and a new perfume. She had no good one.
She shopped with care. Not too heavy. Not too sweet.
She was not twenty. She was not ready to go to a
home. Somewhere in between and hanging on. She liked her age.
A dream. A memory. She had always worked hard.
This would be a pleasure. A stolen moment.
She was all flutterings and nerves. Excited and controlled.
Waiting for the pumpkin. Long, lean and shiny black.
He was so stunning. He always was. A cherry-red wool
blazer, black slacks, black boots, a crisp white shirt open at the throat.
Perfection.
Tall and big. Big enough that she could feel small
for the moment.
Gracious and sweet. He knew what they wanted. What
all his fans wanted.
He greeted her - with a hug that took her breath
away. A quick kiss on the cheek for her. A squeeze back for him. Soft
lips. His mouth sweet. Soft. Gentle. Like a butterfly wing.
His hug surrounded her. It was not too hard. It was
not threatening.
He knew who he was. He was comfortable with it. She
was comfortable with him.
She knew what she was. A runaway. Stolen moments.
He was as big as she remembered. Strong arms. Barrel
chest. Narrow hips.
A romance writer's dream. The ideal hero walking
off the cover.
Tall. With flowing streaked and sun-kissed hair.
A golden tan. A ready smile. It transformed his face. It blinded her.
She basked in it. Different from her normal days. Fantasy.
And crystalline blue eyes. They drew her in. Expressive.
Elegant.
He was in a mood. His eyes sparkled. He winked at
her, led her to the limo.
Cinderella's coach.
They were to dine in splendor. So they had said.
He chose to dine where he knew the people, liked
the food.
She had expected this.
She had run away a few years before. Indulged in
this fantasy.
He had done the same.
Her dress was black and one shoulder was bare. He
asked if she had sewn this one too.
He remembered that she sewed and she was flattered
that he did.
He looked it up and down, considering.
She held her breath.
He smiled, he said he liked it.
He led her in to a quiet table. Waiters smiled.
He poured the water for he did not care for wine.
They ordered dinner. Light. Salmon for her and pasta
for him.
A big man, he could eat what she could not.
It pleased her to see him eat.
They spoke in questions.
What have you been doing? Where have you been?
What are you doing now?
Like old friends. Like strangers.
Like not.
His friends stopped by. For introductions.
Who was she? An interloper. A visitor to their space.
He laughed and talked with everyone.
She smiled and enjoyed the view.
He spoke in his native language. His English still
an accent.
She liked to listen to the deep voice, the fluid
words rolling off his tongue. Music.
She liked his smile. She liked his way with people.
She stored the scenes away in memory. Treasures.
Glimpses of another world. Different from her own.
Nice to visit. Nice to remember.
The door was filled with them. She could see them
first. Black hoods and storm coats. Automatic weapons and pistols.
She shouted to get down. "GUN!" the word she cried.
Noise and confusion followed.
She tugged at his hand. Eyes wide, she tipped her
chair and slid under the table. He slid down too.
People around them faded from her focus like wraiths.
Only he was important.
Others were hitting the floor as well. Chaos reined
and didn't. She reached for and grasped strong hands. Gripped them. Tried
to remember to breathe.
She found herself crushed to a massive chest, tightly
held, pulled flat against his lean body. Her cheek against his wool blazer,
the scent of his after shave, Mediterranean flowers, gentle, masculine
on him somehow, a clean smell she had reveled in so short a time before.
He settled her snug within his arms, pressed her
flat against the floor, yet somehow not crushing her. She kept her breathing
steady. She would not panic.
She could hear his heartbeat a sure and steady echo
in his chest, her ear against him. She took comfort that he had not panicked,
and he held her such that those massive arms and shoulders buffered her.
She could not see. Would not.
And she tried not to feel. Just endure.
He was the length of her. She knew where his hip
was, his legs, his knee.
She had seen the panic, flashed in both their faces,
then the thin line as he compressed his lips, deciding what must be done.
He had reached for her and she for him.
She flowed against him as if this was where she belonged.
She would have crawled inside him if that were possible.
She would have tucked him safe inside her.
They moved in single mind, on the floor, under the
table, length to length.
He held her. His body sheltered her.
The sound of the gun shots keeping any thoughts of
desire at bay, out of even the periphery of thought.
The sound came closer, the footsteps, the gun.
She was crushed to him, and as the steps neared,
she felt him hold her even tighter, more secure, shielded in the womb
of him.
The first bullet jerked his body, elicited a groan
from his pretty lips. His grip loosened.
She would not scream.
Thuck. Thuck,
Two more bullets tore into him.
His body jerked from the impact each time.
Each time she felt the pain of knowing he was hit.
He was a dead weight now on top of her. No sound.
Silence and not. There were other shots, other sounds of bodies being
hit.
The warm sticky liquid running down her arm and on
her leg must be his blood. But she did not move. It soaked her dress on
the way to the floor. She knew the smell of blood. She was a woman.
Did not know if he lived or not, her senses numbed.
She did not move.
The footsteps and the popping stopped and moved away.
She would not scream.
She lay there, his weight heavy on her, unmoving.
Not daring to move him.
Not until the gunfire stopped, and the screaming
began.
She rolled him over then - she was strong. She had
worked hard all her life lifting and planting her garden of roses, her
corn and her beans. She had pruned hedges and apple trees. She could pivot
and roll him, as big as he was. Part of her marveled at the sight of him.
She struggled up, the blood running down her arm,
off the shoulder bared by the one-shoulder dress, the stains on the skirt
smelling sweet and metallic. Blood. His.
She was not hurt. This registered somewhere. To consider
later.
He had saved her. Still a stranger.
Now she must look to him.
She pulled at the jacket as the owner's wife came
over, his friend, knelt and shaking, tears streaming, asked if he lived.
She knelt and put her ear back on the chest now streaked
with his blood, flowing and seeping everywhere. Thick it was.
She heard the heart beat, and let hers resume.
"He lives," was all she spoke. "Bandages?" Her only
question.
The woman returned with a pair of meat scissors,
cheesecloth and duct tape. The kitchen supplies depleted. She took the
scissors and cut away the pretty red jacket and the white shirt and even
the tank top he wore underneath.
Ruthless to what they were, she removed them. She
cut the western belt, noting as she moved how the conch on his hip was
bent now, the bullet redirected in its journey. She unzipped his pants
and pulled them open enough to see the bullet's entry and note the blood
flow there.
He was hit in the shoulder - a pass-through, she
found the entry and exit and noted the flow. He was hit in the arm - another
pass through - at an odd angle.
There was a crease on his forehead, marring that
perfect face.
A ricochet perhaps, knocking him out.
He had a strong skull, he would live to ride his
motorcycles again. She would not let other thoughts protrude.
She noted in passing that he was laying in his spagetti.
The noodles streaming on the floor beside him. Pretty patterns.
She reached for the bottle of Evian he had been drinking
and poured it over his arm and shoulder, his hip. Let the bloody water
drain away to pool beneath him.
Sirens wailed as help came but there were so many.
23 dead. 47 wounded. She must do this.
She cut cheesecloth and used it as a rude sponge
to swipe away blood and dry off his smooth skin so she could apply the
duct tape.
Cheesecloth and duct tape would be the bandage that
she would use.
A bodybuilder, she knew, he shaved his arms and chest.
She would make do.
Stop the bleeding.
She had finished his arm and shoulder, using the
woman who somehow was unable to leave her side to help her lift him, roll
him so she could apply the tape.
She put it on tightly but not too. A compression
was all it needed for now.
The hip wound was other. She worried about that.
Thought where inside that part of his abdomen would
be vulnerable. Could something be nicked? Could he be bleeding inside?
She would not know.
She cleaned the wound with water again and sponged
it dry to add a bandage.
She cut the cheesecloth with hands sticky with his
blood.
She pressed the tape against him as crystaline blue
eyes fluttered open.
He would sit up - she pushed him down.
"Do not get up," she said - she was in charge now.
"I mean it," when he would object.
She felt in the jacket. "Wallet?"
He groaned "Left inside."
She found it, well-worn leather, insurance card inside.
She found the tiny cell phone and dialed the number
of the card the limo driver had provided.
The driver was unhurt. His car unblocked.
She called him in. The woman she sent for help -
one or two men - bigger than he.
He would not walk.
She would not wait.
They left by the back door, the men carrying him
on a tablecloth like a litter, tucking him into the limo. She carried
his jacket, and her velvet stole, and walked behind them. Her camera and
purse in one hand and his things in the other.
She settled in beside him and held his good hand.
He held hers tightly.
He did not speak but a soft moan from those soft
lips escaped him when the car jarred him.
She would have kissed those lips again. But could
not.
They went for the hospital and she called 911 and
told them they were coming in.
Gunshots. MRI. They would need to find the bullet.
See the damage.
She kept her cool manner as they unloaded him - oderlies
straining to lift him to a stretcher. She directing.
She was not the fan having dinner with her idol anymore.
She was Mom and she was more than that.
She used her command voice, the one that said you
have reached the limit of what I will allow.
She ordered up the MRI.
She didn't tell them that her degree was not medical.
Let them think as they would.
She got him in, fast, and reports made to her.
He would object. He hated doctors.
He did not want to sign the release.
Crystalline blue eyes met hers, his in question,
hers blue steel. She saw fear in his, remembered that he had been very
ill as a child. Remembered that men like him did not like being out of
control. Alpha males.
He saw the power in hers.
She would not be swayed. She leaned forward, her
hands on each side of the gurney, blood-soaked dress clinging to her curves,
the metallic smell of the blood long overriding the special perfume she
had chosen. She would brook no nonsense. She argued as she would have
argued to her sons.
She was firm. He gave in. Signed the form.
Watched her as she spoke to the doctors. Made sure
she would be consulted.
He raised one elegant eyebrow in question at the
medical terms thrown at her and then was silent.
He heard her turn of voice. Knew she was now in charge.
He lay back and was quiet. He could be a child again.
They would operate. Quickly. He was expected to recover.
The police would be here soon enough.
She would wait for him to be awake.
He made her promise. Held her blood-stained hand
in his large gentle one, held her firmly until she gave her promise.
He asked that she call his manager. Hold his wallet.
Be there when he woke up. Asked again because he was afraid.
She brushed his golden hair off his forehead, the
cut ugly where the metal had cut the skin.
She crooned softly to him as the IV took affect and
he fell asleep, lulled to it by the siren call of the drugs.
She went to the waiting room, still dripping blood.
They wrapped her in a sheet, asked her if she would change. She watched
him roll into surgery, tubes in place.
She would not. She would wait to see he lived. They
handed her a coffee. She burned her tongue.
She was not aware of the smell anymore.
She was not aware of herself.
Just the beautiful blue eyes that spoke to her and
begged her to wait.
She had smiled at him in assurance.
Squeezed his hand.
Large yet gentle, strong and firm but not a threat,
she loved his hands.
Liked to feel them on her, even if in only a brief
hug in passing.
She would wait now.
|
