Wild Horses

A novel, based on a true story

by Rebecca A.

 

Chapter Eighteen.

I woke late the following day, after Dan and Cindy had both left the house and Pris and Julia were already out by the pool in the warm morning air. Pris had made me take a sleeping pill after my meeting with the lawyers, and my mouth still tasted stale even after mouthwash and toothpaste.

Etta made me go out on the patio to eat breakfast. I didn't have the presence to tell her it tasted like cardboard. Everything seemed dull and empty. Pris saw me and came up from the pool. She looked at me with concern. "How are you?"

"I'm okay, I guess. I don't think sleeping pills agree with me." I squinted in the morning sun. "How's Julia?" I had discussed the lawyer's proposals with Pris and Julia before bed, and both Julia and I had cried and cried until Pris cried too.

"She's okay," Pris said. "I think ... you know how Julia deals with things."

"Yeah."

"You going to be okay?"

"I guess so," I said.

"There was a phone call for you from Bob Douglas's office this morning. I left a note for you under your door."

"I didn't notice," I said. "I'll make the call after I've had breakfast."

"Sure thing. Emma?"

"Yes?"

"It's up to us to take care of Julia. You know that, right?"

"I thought you said she was okay."

"I did. But she's not, really. She just hides it all inside. A bit like you. But she's got the baby..."

I nodded, and Pris squeezed my hand. Months later I realized how clever Pris was. By playing on my sense of responsibility and my feelings toward Julia, she gave me something to do. Something positive: take care of Julia.

I called Bob Douglas's office, and sure enough he had arranged for me to be given paralegal credentials and regular access to Steve. The woman in his office said that I would be able to see Steve at almost any time after they finalized all the paperwork.

I wondered many times in the next few days why the Arsenault's were allowing Julia and I to intrude so much into their lives. Apart from the tension in the air because Julia and I were both prone to burst into tears, Dan had made an offer which must have been a big commitment even for a man as wealthy as he was. I wondered why Cindy was okay with us staying when we brought such gloom and despair with us, especially since we were Pris's friends and she and Pris didn't seem to get along all that well.

That was changing, I reflected. Cindy had turned out to be much more sensitive and caring than any of us might have predicted. She wasn't intrusive, which was also surprising. I had to approach her later that week to apologize for being such a burden, and she didn't pry into my thoughts or feelings. Instead she turned out to be very understanding and supportive, and I came away thinking that I had misjudged her. Even Pris seemed surprised, and I noticed that the tension between them seemed to ebb away over the next few days.

On the Thursday I took my new paralegal credentials and went to the jail in the morning, so that Julia could have the afternoon visitor's period with Steve on her own. Instead of having to use the visitor's room I was shown through another door, and asked to submit to a search. I almost panicked as I wondered what sort of search they meant. A female prison officer approached me and I raised my hands. I gave silent thanks that I had taped myself up that morning, so when she gave me a pat down between my legs she felt nothing unusual. It was a creepy experience, though. At Brand I had almost never been searched -- at least not after Dr. Blaha had wrought his madness upon me. The officer gave me instructions in a bored tone as though she recited them a hundred times a day, which I suppose was true. "You may not be alone with a prisoner unless you are in the direct sight of a guard in another room. You may not have any physical contact with a prisoner. If you need to obtain the signature of a your client you must pass the pen first to a guard, who will then pass it to the prisoner. You may not give anything to, or take anything from, a prisoner without declaring it. Do you understand?"

A guard took me down some corridors, through several sets of security doors, to a small room. He left me there alone, and shut and locked the door. The room was totally bare apart from a table and several chairs. I sat and waited. After a few minutes my heart leapt as another guard led Steve through the door. There was no glass between us! I wanted to throw myself at him and hug him and feel his touch and kiss his mouth and smell his wonderful familiar smell, but I knew that it was forbidden.

The guard motioned for Steve to sit at the opposite side of the table to me. He looked at me greasily, and then at Steve as though assessing the likelihood that Steve might try to rape me. Frankly I felt like the guard was a much bigger risk to me than any of the prisoners I had seen on my visits to see Steve. Finally the guard shrugged, and then went out of the room and closed the door. A window in the door meant that he could watch us at all times.

"This is better," Steve said with a smile.

"Much better," I agreed. My heart had lifted out of its pit of despair. Oh, we couldn't touch, but how wonderful it was to see Steve in front of me, without the glass to separate us!

"Dang, Em, you look so good!" Steve said. I shifted my chair back slightly so he could see my legs. I looked at the window, and saw that the guard wasn't looking, and so I shifted back toward him again and furtively reached my hand across the table. Our fingers touched, and it was like electricity flowed between us, so strongly that it was almost painful. Just that one touch felt almost as exquisite as some of the best sex between us. We touched again. I almost swooned. "Steady, Em. Don't get carried away. We can do this more often now. Once the guards get used to you..."

I withdrew my hand, but oh it was torture then not to be able to touch. Fortunately we were chastely separated when I saw the guard look back through the window.

Steve smiled. "It's good to know I can still have an effect like that on you."

"You have no idea," I said.

"Oh, I have some idea," he grinned.

Eventually my heart settled, and I broached the subject that had been on my mind for the past two days. "Steve, I talked with Bob Douglas," I began. "He --"

"Yes. I asked him to talk to you. He seems like he knows what he's talking about."

"Yes. I guess."

"He tell you what he thought was gonna happen?"

"Yes."

"Can't see as I think there's any point to it."

"Point to what?" I was confused.

"Pleading guilty."

"But if you don't make a bargain it will go to trial, and if it goes to trial then they can give you the death penalty."

"Yep. That's true." He stretched and settled in his seat. "I'm not worried about that, Emma."

"You're not worried about dying?"

"Well, of course I'm a little bit worried. Isn't everyone? On the other hand, there is the chance that Bob might be able to get me a lesser penalty even if it goes to trial."

"He didn't seem very optimistic the other night."

"He's not. Apparently this prosecutor feels like he has to make a big show of things... I dunno, Em. I mean, I screwed up, I figure I should take the consequences, but I don't think I should be makin' their lives any easier by pleading guilty. There's only one thing makes me think I can't get Bob Douglas as my lawyer and get him to get me the lesser shot anyway."

"The money?"

"Yep. Doesn't seem right to get Pris's Dad to pay all that money for something that I could maybe get just by pleading guilty."

"He says it's a genuine offer, Steve."

"I know. Can't figure out what I've done to deserve it. I guess you're the one who's charmed her way into his heart."

"I think maybe Pris had something to do with it too."

"Yeah. Probably. Anyway, I don't know that I can let him spend that money. On the other hand... I don't know if I can spend twenty years in here. Dyin' doesn't seem so great, but living here for the rest of my life doesn't seem like such a great idea either. It was different when you were with me, Em... "

"Steve..."

"You don't know how different. You changed my life, Em. I only wish I had realized how much before all this happened. I was such a fucking idiot."

Neither of us said anything for a few moments, and I reached across the table and took Steve's hand. I didn't care whether the guard was looking or not.

"Steve?"

"Yep?"

"I know it's a lot of money. But I've though this over, a lot. And you know, if it's the difference between living and dying, I think you should take it. I'll pay Dan Arsenault back."

"It'll take you years."

"I know. But you know I'll do it."

"I know, Em. I hope it's worth it.

 

***

 

 

Chapter Nineteen.

A few weeks later Julia was finally starting to show under her one piece swimsuit. School was due to start back in Oxford, and Pris was making preparations to head back there. Although Julia was still visiting the jail at least twice a week to see Steve, it seemed probable that she'd head back too, even though she wouldn't finish out the year there. She still hadn't told her parents about the baby. We all knew, just from her tales about her family, that all hell would break loose when she did.

I think she was torn between her loyalty to Steve and her desire to see more of Pete, who was still back in Oxford gearing up to sell fake IDs to a new batch of freshmen.

Before Julia and Pris left we had the summer's final hurrah to celebrate; Dan's birthday. Cindy had planned an extravaganza for his 50th. More than 400 people were invited for the party, to be held in the garden in exclusive Buckhead. Of course Cindy had to invite the neighbors: it wasn't just to avoid offending them with the noise -- the neighbors were among the cream of Atlanta society, so it was inconceivable that Cindy would leave them off the list.

Elroy had come through for me on the entertainment stakes. Since his outburst when he visited in July I had called him at least twice a week, and we had discussed the party in many of those calls. Elroy had taken it upon himself to coordinate the music, and had found a band out of Tennessee fronted by someone called John Davis that he seemed to think would be good. They had three albums under their belt, and weren't big enough to headline stadiums but could still manage to make money out of a national tour. Dan's would be the very first private party they'd ever played as a paying gig, and I wondered whether Elroy had called in a favor to get them to do it. I trusted his judgement, and was happy he did the negotiating. I had told him that despite Cindy's request I wasn't very happy about singing myself, so I was pleased that he'd found someone good who would entertain everyone and save me from having to make an impression on Dan.

In the days before the party Cindy went back to being her old tense, pretentious self. She was totally preoccupied with the party, and mostly ignored Pris, Julia and me while she busied herself organizing things. How she managed to keep the whole affair a secret from Dan given the small army of people involved was a mystery to me. I think it helped that he was still enmeshed in his Japanese deal, and so he was spending many evenings and the occasional Sunday at the office (Sunday in America is Monday in Japan). In the final week of preparations the thing that mostly concerned Cindy was what we would all wear to the party, and on the Wednesday before the big event she made a point of taking Pris and I aside and telling us -- in no uncertain terms -- that we would be going shopping.

If I had been overwhelmed by my experience of shopping with Julia in Oxford it was nothing compared to going hunting armed with charge card with Cindy. It might have been that Cindy, Pris and Julia together constituted possibly the most gorgeous trio of women in all the South. Everywhere we went men -- and even women -- literally stopped in their tracks to stare at such beautiful women. I didn't feel in the least bit self conscious with them, since I knew nobody was paying the slightest bit of attention to me.

Like Julia, Cindy had mastered the art of not feeling guilty about shopping. At no point did she even hint that she felt bad about consuming hours of a sales assistant's time, even if she purchased nothing. On top of that I had to admit that she had impeccable taste. I don't know whether some women grow up with that taste or have to learn it, but however that worked Cindy had an instinctive knack for knowing what combinations of clothes would work and which would be disastrous. Because we were shopping for something to wear at a garden party, but in the evening, she had a whole set of requirements about what would and wouldn't be suitable. Julia made disparaging remarks about something called 'the Junior League' which whizzed right over my head but which Pris found amusing.

At any rate Cindy directed us like a small army -- actually it was probably more like a guerilla squad. We swept down upon each unsuspecting boutique, and tried on several outfits each until Cindy declared them all unsuitable, and left the sales assistants with an inferiority complex. I think several of them may have gasped in our wake. We found a slinky black halter dress that Cindy deemed appropriate for Pris in the third store, and a beautiful loose fitting pale blue silk skirt and top for Julia in the next, but it took another three stores, and the better part of the afternoon, before we could all agree on a short white dress for me. It was very simple design, but beautifully cut, ending well above my knees in a feathery hemline without being at all trashy. At first I worried that white against my pale skin would make me look like a blimp, but after all three of the women accompanying me poo-pooed that idea I had to stop worrying about it. My objection after that was to the price, which I thought was probably marginally more than Julia had paid for the Malibu we had driven to Oxford in, but Cindy dismissed my objections as though I was a child and paid for the dress on one of Dan's cards before I even had the chance to take it off again. I wished my mother could have been in the store with me, just once, to see such beautiful clothes. I felt wonderful in the dress, but it pained me that she had lived her whole life without ever once owning anything so beautiful.

As I put my regular clothes on I mentally slapped myself for always having a painful memory at the most pleasant times. I was becoming more and more focussed on the negative, when I was consistently the beneficiary of extraordinary largesse.

After buying the clothes we -- of course -- had to find new shoes to accompany them, and that occupied the remainder of the day. Julia and Cindy managed to talk me into a pair of strappy pale blue high heeled shoes that made me feel like I would totter forward. When I protested that heels like that would almost certainly be disastrous on the lawn I was ignored, although I could see I got some sympathy from Pris. Cindy paid without a murmur, so I felt like it would be rude to seem ungrateful.

On the Friday Cindy bundled us all off to the salon to have our hair done. Once again we invaded the place like we were taking it over. Cindy and Julia were very definite about what could and could not be done to their own hair, and Julia was equally insistent about what should be done to mine. I lost about eight or nine inches off my hair at the back, which bought it up to just between my shoulder blades but made it possible for me to put it up in a chignon more easily. Julia promised to show me how to take it up and down myself.

Elroy arrived the day before Dan's birthday, and he, Pris, Julia and I hit the town on the Saturday night. Julia wasn't drinking, so she drove Elroy's Caddy and the rest of us got pleasantly tipsy in a place that had some great local music. I don't know whether it was because I was with Elroy, but nobody carded me the entire night.

The day of the party everyone was up early, but playing it cool until Dan left. His friend Bill showed up around 9.30am to take him off for a game of golf and then off to a classic car rally, and everything swung into high gear around Cindy. Within fifteen minutes of Dan's departure a team of caterers had arrived and commandeered Etta's kitchen. She seemed quite pleased to relinquish it, though, and breezed off to spend time with her sister's family. Elroy arrived soon after, slightly the worse for wear after the previous night's activities, and supervised a bunch of guys erecting a small stage at the side of the garden. He had obtained a selection of equipment, and the labor, from Denis, the guy who owned the bar where Steve had been arrested. I was out talking to Elroy as he supervised them when a guy who was delivering the P.A. turned and I caught sight of his face. He noticed me, and broke out into a broad grin. "Mighty pleased to see you, miss." he said, beaming. It was Wiley, the boy from the barbecue in Oxford all those months ago.

I smiled back. I had fond memories of Wiley, who had been a perfect gentleman. "Wiley, this is Elroy Williams. Elroy, this is Wiley -- Wiley, I'm afraid I can't remember your second name --"

"-- Kennison. At your service, ma'am."

Wiley was doing a good job of laying on the southern charm thick, I thought. It was a wonder Elroy managed to keep a straight face. I finished introducing them, and then asked the inevitable question. "Wiley, what on earth are you doing delivering a P.A.?"

"It's my uncle's business, Emma. Summer break is all."

"Are you going back to school?"

"Next week. What brings you to Atlanta, Emma?"

"You remember Pris?" I waved my hand toward the patio, where Pris was directing two young guys from the hire company who were stringing colored lights over the patio. "This is her father's place."

"Nice house," Wiley said.

"How is it you know Emma?" Elroy chimed in, for all the world like a solicitous father. I could see Wiley hesitate for a second, as a trace of nervousness crossed his face. I could see him trying to work out whether Elroy was my father or not, and I momentarily felt sympathy for him. Guys have it tough with girls' fathers. I guess it's not too tough, though, or they wouldn't grow up and do it to the next generation.

"Emma and me met at a football thing in Oxford, sir," Wiley said.

"A football thing. You play football, boy?"

"I do, sir. Yellow Jackets. Defensive end."

"That's a fine team, son." They launched into a discussion of the changing nature of college football. All this time I'd known Elroy I'd never known him to have an interest in football, but then as I gradually learned in subsequent years all Southern boys seem to love football. After a few minutes I left them to their discussion and went into the house to see if there was anything I could help Cindy with.

As I suspected, she had everything totally under control. She and Julia were sitting in the front room, what Cindy called the 'receiving room', going over a checklist of things that remained to be done. It was an incredibly short list. A couple of people had called late to say they weren't going to make it, after all, but Cindy had more than 380 acceptances out of the 400 invitees. Dan was a popular man.

The band arrived a couple of minutes later, in a van and an enormous old Lincoln. I took them out the back to meet Elroy, who was still discussing football with Wiley, and they all helped set up the PA and instruments. While I was back in the house I heard noises that sounded like the beginnings of a sound check.

I didn't venture back out into the yard for about another hour, but when I did Wiley was waiting for me out on the patio. "You should have called and told me you were in Atlanta, Emma," he said. "Or did you lose my number?"

"I didn't expect to be staying here this long, Wiley," I said, evading the question. I had lost his number. I never expected to see him again.

"You sure found a nice place to stay," he said.

We chatted for about fifteen minutes, and I remembered how charming Wiley could be. Not in quite the same way as Steve, but he had a gentle way of speaking that certainly did something to me. He lived a couple of blocks away from the Arsenaults' house, and was helping his uncle out over summer until his senior year began. But mostly we discussed music again. "This isn't your band," he said.

"No. We... we split up, I guess."

"That's too bad. I would have liked to hear you sing. But say, there's some guys I know through my uncle's business who are looking for a singer, maybe I could introduce you to them?"

"I don't know how long I'll be staying in Atlanta, Wiley. It probably wouldn't be fair to join up with someone and then leave."

"You're going to go back to Oxford?"

"I suppose so. I don't know, really. I think our household there will probably be breaking up, too. I mean, I'm not studying..." Suddenly I found myself telling Wiley about living with Pris and Julia, and about Julia's plans to move in with Pete eventually. I didn't mention the baby.

"Well, I think it would be wonderful if you stayed in Atlanta, Emma. Say, does the fact that you're here mean that you're not with that guy anymore?"

"No, he's... Steve's here in Atlanta too." His face fell almost immediately and I had to smile at how transparently his face presented his thoughts. He'd have made a terrible poker player. "So don't you go getting your hopes up again."

He smiled back. "I'm always hopeful, Emma. My mother always tells me that persistence pays off, and I pay attention to my mother. If you don't mind my asking, are you out with this fella every night of the week, or might I be able to show you the sights of my fair town sometime?"

"I don't think I can date anyone else, Wiley. Sorry. No offense, you're a lovely guy, and maybe in different circumstances..."

"Maybe we could just have coffee some time? You're an interesting girl, Emma, as well as a beautiful one. I'd just like to spend some time with you. If you're not too busy."

"Maybe..." Wiley was such a nice guy. I honestly wasn't interested in dating, but perhaps we could be friends.

His face lit up. "Great. I'll call you in a couple of days then."

"Okay. Wiley... just friends, okay? Not a date."

"Okay, Emma. No problem." He was beaming. "Say, I should probably be going now anyway. I hope this party goes well. It looks like it's going to be awesome."

"Cindy sure knows how to put on a good show," I said. "You know, just wait here a minute." I went inside to the receiving room and had spoke to Cindy for a few moments, then came back out and handed Wiley an invitation. "It's not really up to me to invite people, but they had a couple of guests couldn't make it anyway, and since this party is definitely not a date... If you wanted to come by around seven, that would be pretty cool."

"Really?"

"If you don't have anything on tonight. Besides, you can keep an eye on your uncle's P.A."

"That would be terrific, Emma." He looked at the invitation. "I guess I should be getting dressed up, though, huh?"

"Well, it's a surprise party, so Dan will probably be in jeans. But, yes, it would probably help keep Cindy happy."

***

Cindy had organized everything so well that by 1.00pm there was literally nothing for anyone to do. The caterers had taken over the kitchen and seemed to have everything well under control, and everything outside was set up correctly. Elroy and the guys in the band had gone off to see someone about a piece of equipment that wasn't working, but apparently it wasn't crucial anyway. So Pris, Julia and I sat around the house reading magazines and picking at little bits of finger food we smuggled out of the kitchen.

Around 4.00pm Elroy and two of the guys in the band returned, and the four of us sat an picked at a few tunes for a half hour until it was time for me to go get dressed. It was nice to play with people who knew what they were doing. I realized that I missed the feeling of performing with other people. Although I still couldn't imagine myself on a stage without Steve, I enjoyed the few short songs we fooled around with, and I went up to shower and get changed with a pleasant buzz from the music. It had been a long time since I'd been that relaxed and happy.

Julia and I helped each other fix our hair, so we both finished and came downstairs at the same time. Pris was already done, and I almost gasped when I saw her. She looked incredibly beautiful. She was never especially girly, and dressed up to the nines she still had a very elegant simplicity about her that had a slightly androgynous tinge, but she was gorgeous. The black halter dress showed off her athletic physique beautifully, and with her hair cut short and her cheekbones accented she looked like a goddess.

Elroy took a photograph of the three of us. I still have a copy of that photograph today; Pris in the middle, almost a full foot taller than me, looking almost supernatural while Julia, always beautiful, has a slightly knowing smile. The blue silk she was wearing hid the swelling in her belly very effectively. On the other side of Pris is me, also smiling like I hadn't a care in the world. I can't believe I ever looked so young.

The most difficult thing about surprising Dan turned out to be car parking. Cindy had organized to have two boys take guests cars and move them a few blocks away so that Dan wouldn't notice the congestion around the house when he arrived, but two of them proved inadequate to the task, so Elroy pitched in to help and as soon as Wiley arrived he also started moving cars. He was standing out the front waiting for the next guest when Dan arrived, and was about to take the car from Bill and Dan when Bill managed to flash him a quick warning glance. Fortunately Wiley was quick enough to pick up on it. Dan was certainly mystified by Wiley's presence but he didn't realize what was going on until he got inside the house. Cindy was very happy that his surprise was complete, and after Dan got over the initial shock of finding 400 of his friends scattered over the property so was he.

I spent most of the first part of the night with Wiley and Pris and Julia. At first I thought Julia was going to be mad at me for even talking to another boy while Steve was in prison, but I guess she knew I loved Steve more than anything, and anyway Wiley's charm worked just as well on Julia as it did on me, and soon she was laughing and joking with him like they were old friends. Even Pris, who usually regarded football players with disdain, seemed to warm to Wiley more than most men.

The band was great, and after a while Wiley shyly asked me whether I'd like to dance on the little wooden dance floor the guys had laid out on the lawn earlier in the day. There were two older couples shuffling around on it. I didn't want to say yes, because I still wasn't very confident about dancing even though Julia and Pris had been teaching me, so I asked him to wait a couple of songs.

Julia shook her head. "Emma, you're hopeless. Wiley, would you like to dance?" She grabbed his hand and the two of them got out there and grooved around. Julia wasn't yet pregnant enough to feel too inhibited, and Wiley moved pretty well for a white boy. A lot of people were watching them go at it, and they inspired a couple of other couples to take to the floor. When they finished the dance Julia pleaded off, so Wiley asked Pris. When he asked me to dance again after they had finished I didn't feel like I could say no, so I did.

We danced three songs, including a slow number. I was nervous about that, but once again Wiley was a perfect gentleman, and I relaxed. I had almost forgotten what it was like to dance in a man's arms, and although I felt guilty that they weren't Steve's arms I also had to admit I liked it.

When we finished the dance Julia and Pris were off somewhere else, so Wiley and I stood around the pool and talked. Mostly we talked about him, about his studies and his family. We must have talked for at least an hour, maybe more, before Elroy found us and ushered me over toward the little stage. "The band's gonna take a break soon, and Cindy asked if you and me would fill in with some music while they're gone." I looked past Elroy and saw Cindy standing at the edge of the patio, watching the two of us. I smiled, and she smiled, but I knew from her expression that she expected me to sing, as we'd discussed. I wasn't going to be able to duck out of it.

I looked at Elroy doubtfully, but he smiled and took my arm. Wiley was enthused. "I always wanted to hear you sing, Emma."

"What are we going to play?" I asked Elroy.

"I think I know your entire set by now," Elroy said. "I sure heard it enough."

So we took the stage, just Elroy and me, with an acoustic guitar each. I looked at him uncertainly, and he smiled reassurance. He picked out a couple of notes and I recognized the song as one of my favorites from our sets at Wiley's, a song Steve had written called 'Nowhere I Could Go'.

Said sorry

Said goodbye

Said it strong

But I couldn't be gone for long

Soon as I was gone

Kept thinking of you alone

Nowhere I could go but home

When we started I think we were mostly just background noise, because most of the people at the party were talking and laughing and we weren't using the amps or the mics or anything, but after we were halfway through that first song I noticed a couple of people turn to look. I hesitated for a moment, but Elroy kept up the pace. It was the first time I had sung in public since that night with Steve, and for a moment a whole flood of memories swept over me, but I focused on my guitar playing, which frankly needed improvement. Steve had written some insane chords into 'Nowhere I Could Go' so it was all I could do to keep up with Elroy, but I didn't have to think too much about my singing. That came naturally, and I think Elroy covered most of my sins with his impeccable playing, and at the end a few people applauded and I realized that I really, really missed performing. I noticed Dan watching us from the other side of the yard. He was smiling mightily, and gave me a thumbs up sign. I smiled back.

Elroy tuned up some more, and picked out a few bars of another song Steve had written, and I joined in and we flew through that one with ease. Then another, then another, and soon I had almost forgotten where I was and what I was doing. I felt safe there with Elroy, wrapped up in songs I knew well, and I threw myself into them the way I used to with Steve. It was only when I caught sight of Wiley, a few yards away, watching me with a slightly stunned expression on his face that I was reminded of the real world. When we did 'No Questions' I could see a flicker of recognition from him, and from a few other people, as he connected my voice with the voice he'd heard on the radio.

I noticed the band had come back and was milling around at the side of the garden, waiting to come back. Elroy must have seen me notice them, and he smiled and said "one last song. What do you want to do?" I thought for a moment and then I sang the opening to "Ain't no sunshine" without any accompaniment. I sang but didn't play, and Elroy didn't come in until the second verse, and although I worried that my voice might have been too thin I could tell that the audience we had now, which was at least seventy or so of the guests at the party, was right there with me.

"Ain't no sunshine when he's gone

It's not warm when he's away

Ain't no sunshine when he's gone

And he's always gone too long

Anytime he goes away."

We finished the song and walked off the stage. Wiley was still looking like he had been electrocuted or something. The band came on and John Davis shook his head and said something like "hard act to follow that', but I didn't catch all of it because I was suddenly self-conscious again, probably because of the way Wiley was looking at me, and I grabbed a drink from a passing tray and took a huge gulp. Then I gave Elroy a hug, and he wrapped me up tight and hugged me back.

"Wow," I heard Wiley say as I was still wrapped in Elroy's arms. "You guys were great. Really. Really great."

Fortunately I didn't have to feel self-conscious for very long, because John Davis and the guys blew everyone away after that, with an infectious, upbeat set that even got Dan up to dance.

After the band finished it was pretty late, and the party started to thin out a little. By that time I was sitting over at the far side of the garden, next to Wiley who had been steadily trying to inch his way closer to me as we sat on the wooden bench. He was still a perfect gentleman but I knew that my idea that we could be just friends was probably not realistic. I realized sadly that guys just don't know how to be friends with women, without wanting to ruin the friendship. He had gone on about my singing so much that I had eventually had to steer him onto other subjects that didn't involve anything personal at all, like astronomy and the civil war. Actually that's a fairly personal subject in Atlanta, since most people had ancestors who fought and died, and Wiley's family was no exception. He was very knowledgeable about it, at any rate, so I learned a lot.

We had been talking for about half an hour before were interrupted by John Davis and a tall, painfully thin guy in his thirties I hadn't met before. "Emma?" John asked, extending his hand. "I just wanted to say I thought you were great."

"Uh. Thanks," I said, shaking hands and blushing, although I'm not sure he could see the blushing in the dim light. "You guys were pretty great yourselves."

"We had a good time," John said. "Anyway, we were just about to go, but Aaron here," he motioned to the tall guy, "really wanted to meet the woman who sang 'No Questions'."

"Hi Aaron," I said, and introduced Wiley to both of them. I made a few nervous comments about some of the songs they had played, which John seemed to appreciate. Wiley said a couple of sensible things, too. I realized he was almost as much into music as I was, even though he didn't play anything. He was a surprising guy.

John and Aaron seemed like pretty nice guys, even if John did have a little too much of the 'good ol' boy' to his personality to my taste.

"Are you playing much, Emma. Recording anything new?" Aaron asked. "Elroy said you had a gig at his place for a while."

"Uh. I did, for a while," I said. "But the band... it kind of fell apart."

"Do you still have representation?" Aaron wasted no time in telling me he'd like to introduce me to a couple of people in Memphis, "if you're interested in performing again."

"I... uh... Thanks. But I'm not sure just now. Things have been kind of crazy, I don't know if I can travel much."

"Well, any time you're in Memphis, if you're ever in Memphis, you be sure to look me up." He pressed a card into my hand. It said "Aaron Carter, Management", and there were phone numbers for Memphis and Los Angeles on it.

"I'll be upset If you talk to him and don't give me a call to tell me you're in town," John smiled.

We got to talking about John's upcoming tour plans, and about music we liked, and John dragged us over to the side of the garage where a few of the band's cases were still stacked while the other guys were loading them into the Lincoln. He pulled out a guitar and handed it to me, then took out another for himself. The four of us sat down and John started picking out a couple of songs we'd been discussing, and I joined in as best I could, and together we started playing again. "You must be exhausted after playing," I said, but John smiled and took a drink of whiskey and said something about never really getting that tired. I noticed Elroy and Julia come over to join us a few minutes later when we were playing the next song. John and Aaron told the band to go on back to the motel without them, and apart from a couple of breaks for drinks I think we played for about two and a half hours, covering everything from Elvis to a half-assed version of a silly Talking Heads song called 'Psycho Killer' which John seemed to love. Aaron had a terrible voice, as did Wiley, but we all had a lot of fun anyway.

Eventually I think John really did wear himself out, and he and Aaron said their goodbyes. Julia offered to call them a cab and see them to the door, and they staggered off much the worse for the whiskey they'd been drinking, clutching the guitars as though they were life preservers.

Elroy turned to me after they'd gone. "Think you made an impression there," he said. "You want to keep in touch, I think, if you ever want to do some performin' again."

"Hah. If they remember any of tonight," I said. "I think John's pretty out of it."

"Not so out of it he'd waste his time," Elroy said. Then Wiley said something about picking talent, and for some reason that got Elroy onto some tangent about football scouts, and he started picking Wiley's brain about talent on the college circuit, and the two of them rambled on about football for about ten minutes before Elroy noticed I was totally bored.

"Well, anyway," Elroy stretched and stood up. "I'm thinking of heading off myself. I'm on the road early in the morning, so I don't know as I'll see you before then." We both stood up, and he gave me another hug, and then clasped my arms with his hands and held me in front of him. "You make sure you call me. Okay?"

Wiley and I walked Elroy out. Inside the house Pris and Dan and a few guests were sitting in the living room listening to some records. Elroy said his farewells to them, and Pris explained that Julia had gone to bed after seeing John and Aaron off. After about twenty minutes of further farewells Wiley and me walked Elroy out of the house to his car and said goodbye. He hugged me yet again before he got in.

Wiley and me stood alone together on the sidewalk after he drove off. Most of the party guests had gone and the street was quiet. I looked back at the house. I could see Cindy through the windows of the entrance hall, farewelling someone else. The house looked like something from a movie, all lit up against the dark sky. I became aware that Wiley was standing much closer to me than he had been. I sighed. It was such a beautiful night. If only Steve had been there. I looked at Wiley and judged that the moment was dangerously close to being romantic. Sighing again I leant toward him, stood on my toes, and gave him a peck on the cheek.

"Emma --" he began.

"I know, Wiley, but it's late, okay?"

"Dang. Can't fault a guy for hoping for more, can you?"

I smiled. "No, but I can fault one who doesn't know when it's time to go home."

"Oh."

"I enjoyed tonight. Thanks."

"Good." He brightened. "I'll call you during the week?"

"I'll call you, okay."

"Okay."

"Just friends, Wiley. Okay?"

He bent down and kissed me lightly on the forehead. "Whatever you want, Emma." Then he was gone, walking off toward his car which was parked a block or so away.

 

***

 

 

Chapter Twenty-one.

Cindy was a happy woman in the days after the party. It was generally agreed to have been the best one Buckhead had seen in a long time, at least so far as parties where everyone kept their clothes on were concerned.

A few days later Julia decided it was time to head back to Oxford. "If I don't go soon I'll never be able to fit into the car," she said, and as she was squeezing into the M.G. Pris and I were inclined to agree. She wasn't exactly huge yet, but the car wasn't all that big either. Pris insisted on driving. As I saw the two of them sitting in the car, about to leave without me, I began to cry, and they both got out and came over to hug me. We all hugged and cried, until I realized I wasn't going to stop crying for a while, so they got back in the car, promising to call regularly. As they drove off we were all still blubbering, and I spent most of the rest of that day crying quietly in my room, glad to be left alone.

I put off calling Wiley for a few days, afraid that if I showed too much interest I'd never be able to keep him away. He called a few times after I'd ignored him for a week, but I wasn't ready to return the calls yet. I mentioned him to Steve, since I didn't want to keep anything from Steve at all, and anyway there was nothing between Wiley and me to hide anyway. Steve seemed more amused than anything else, which at first made me kind of mad but which I later realized was a sign that he trusted me to be faithful. I also told Steve about John and Aaron, and about the band, and the fact that they had liked my singing, and he was very pleased at that. "See, what have I been telling you all these years," he said. "You should follow that up, Em."

I disagreed, because I really didn't want to have anything take me away from Atlanta and Steve, even for a few days. Plus there was the matter of a job. I was going to have to get a job if I was going to stay in Atlanta. It wasn't right for me to live off the Arsenault's generosity. If I had a job there would be no way I could travel. Steve was unconvinced. "You should go to Memphis and see if this Aaron guy can get you some work singing," he said. "Em, you're terrific, and I bet you can make much more money singing than you can waiting tables."

Our sessions together were getting much, much better. The guards had begun to get used to my face at the prison, and apart from searching me thoroughly every time I went in and out they no longer paid much attention to what went on while Steve and I were together. We managed to touch each other a lot. The sexual charge I got when Steve kissed me, or touched my thigh, or my back, or even, in our bolder moments, my breasts, was electrifying. Not being able to be naked with him was terrible, but somehow it heightened everything we did, every time we touched.

Dan made good on his promise to look into work for me, in a more roundabout way than I had imagined. A few days later I got a call from Bob Douglas. "I've been thinking about those paralegal credentials we got for you," Bob said. My spirits fell. I felt for certain that he was going to tell me it was too much trouble. But instead he continued on. "Dan was mentioning to me that you were looking for work, and I was thinking that -- since we're already employing you officially -- you might like to actually do some work for us."

Bob laid it out for me in the remainder of our phone conversation. They wouldn't expect me to do more than basic help around the office, making coffee, helping with filing, running errands downtown. I could work five days a week, but finish at 3pm Tuesday and Friday so I could spend more time with Steve. For all that they would pay me the handsome sum of $250 per week. It doesn't sound like a lot of money now, but I knew then that it was a good deal for an undereducated teenager down on her luck. I also knew that Bob was doing this as some kind of favor for Dan. I felt mildly guilty about that, because I didn't want to be even more indebted to Dan, but I accepted immediately anyway. I told myself that perhaps if I worked very hard I could begin to pay back some of the debt Dan was incurring with Steve's defense.

The following Monday I made my way downtown early, eager to make a good impression on my first day at work. Tickenor, Douglas and Bremmer was a small law firm in a large characterless office building. Inside the reception area the firm seemed more modest than the size of the building and Bob's apparent success had led me to think it would be. In fact it was quite drab, with undistinguished desk and leather chairs in the waiting area, and no decorations on the timber paneled walls apart from a few modernist paintings that seemed out of place in the otherwise conservative surrounds.

The people appeared friendly, though. After I introduced myself at the reception desk Bob himself came out to meet me. He greeted me warmly and then introduced me to everyone we passed as we walked in. I thought at the time that it could have simply been because Bob was the boss and everyone felt they had to be nice to him, but most of the smiles seemed genuine, and I found out later that Bob and the two other senior partners were pretty popular employers.

After a brief round of introductions to the partners, Bob introduced me to Elaine, a plain woman in her late twenties. "Elaine will show you what to do. You listen to her, Emma, and then at the end of the day you and I can talk and see whether this will work out for you. Is that alright?"

I nodded my thanks and Bob returned to his corner office. Elaine looked me up and down and offered me a seat on the other side of her desk. "Would you like a coffee, sugar?" She asked. At first I thought she was asking me if I wanted sugar as well as coffee, but I put two and two together and smiled and said yes. "Kitchen's down the hall then," Elaine smiled, and we walked there together.

"You're a friend of the Arsenaults?"

"Yes ma'am," I said. "I'm staying with them right now."

"Don't call me ma'am, hon, I ain't your grammy. That's right. Yes, Bob talked to me a few days ago to tell me you were coming in." She put some instant coffee into two cups and added boiling water from a small tank on the wall. Then she got the cream from the refrigerator and poured some for both of us without asking me. "So, tell me, honey, what kind of jobs have you done before?"

"Cleaning," I said.

"Cleaning?" She seemed mystified. "Like, houses and stuff?" We began to walk back down the hall to her office.

"A bar, actually. I can give you a reference --"

"I don't think you're going to need that, sugar. This is Bob's firm, all of it. I'm just surprised that Bob' even *knows* anyone who's actually done menial labor before."

"I, uh, I can do other things, though, I'm sure of it." I tasted the coffee. It was horrible, especially after the good coffee I had grown used to at the Arsenaults, but I tried not to show it.

"Can you type?"

"No, 'fraid not."

"Hmmm. That's not good. What's your education like?"

"Not good. Uh, I'm sorry, maybe this is not such a great idea."

"Oh, don't you be worried, sugar. So long as you can read and write we'll find you somethin' here, even if it's just packing boxes. You *can* read and write, can't you?" She grinned. "Just kidding. Tell you what, we'll start you off helping me this morning, and I'll call talk to a few of the other girls and we'll go from there. Everyone is always bitchin' to me that they're overworked, so there must be somewhere we can put you. That okay with you?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"Don't thank me, sugar. Thank Bob Douglas. I just work here. So do you, if you want to. In the meantime I've got a bunch of stuff for you to fill in, and I'll show you where the lunchroom and powder room are.

Elaine took me on a more extensive tour of the small office. There were three different areas of the practice: commercial, criminal and family law, each focused around one of the three founding partners and another six senior partners. Then there were the common areas like the library and the conference rooms, and accounts, where Elaine worked. Although Bob had told me the firm was quite small the offices were extensive, and Elaine told me more than sixty people worked there.

When we returned to her cubicle Elaine introduced me to Anthea, another woman who worked in accounts, who was about twenty-five by my estimates and the thinnest woman I think I had ever seen. Too thin. A few years later when Karen Carpenter died I became aware of the proper name for what was wrong with Anthea, but back then I just thought she was incredibly thin. When she smiled and said hello it was kind of eerie the way her face looked, all taut and stringy, but I kept my uneasiness to myself and smiled and said hello.

Elaine told me to sit at her desk. She gave me a computer printout, an enormous stack of files and a handful of forms. "The files are for you to go through. We're upgrading our payroll system, and I need you to check off each of these people's names against the complete corporate register to make sure there are no spelling errors or typos, and then double check the dates of birth, social security numbers and addresses to make sure we have everyone entered in the new system correctly. The woman who did the original entries wasn't too clever, and we've had a lot of trouble with the system. I've been putting off doing it because it's a pretty boring job. Sorry, but I promise you that if you can do this properly then I'll never give you anything as horrible again. Sound alright to you?" I nodded. "Good. These forms here are for you. You'll recognize them as the same ones you'll see in the file. Fill out the information they ask you for and leave them for me when I get back, okay? I'm going to be in a meeting for a couple of hours, but if you need me tell Mary -- that's the girl on reception -- to phone through for me. She knows where I'll be."

Elaine left and I looked at the forms she had given me to fill in. They were pretty simple. Name, Age, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Social Security Number. I had a twinge of panic as I remembered that my ID was fake. What had Pete said about the license? "The details are all real, only the license is fake." I supposed that meant that the date of birth for Emma Donaldson was real. I took the license out of my wallet and copied down the details with the fingers on my left hand crossed, and gave silent thanks to Pete. When it came to the social security number I just decided to wing it, so I just made one up. At the time I knew that wasn't a very smart thing to do, but I tried to shove those thoughts to the back of my brain.

Elaine was right about the work being boring. I had to open each file, and compare the details in it with the printout from the company's new system. The first ten files I opened all seemed correct, and I was starting to breeze through the eleventh more casually when I noticed a transposition of two numbers in the entry for the social security number of one of the engineers at the plant. I made a note of it on the computer print-out and then realized that I might have browsed the first ten files too casually, so I went back through them and, sure enough, found a transposition in two numbers in the date of birth of one of the employees so it read 12 instead of 21. The more I looked at the files, the more I saw transpositions of numbers, usually 1's and 2's, and a few letters like 'd' and 'f'. Whoever had input the data into the new list had typed faster than they should have. I circled the errors that I found and moved on through the files.

While I worked Anthea tried to make conversation. At first I was a little bit annoyed, because I was trying to concentrate and I found her distracting, and I was a little put off by the way she looked anyway. But I didn't want to seem rude, so I gave away as little as I could, and then she began telling me about herself. After an hour or so I realized that my hesitancy in talking to her was really just based on the way she looked, which scared me, and I was ashamed of myself for that. So I opened up a little bit more, and she kept talking in return, and pretty soon we had gotten to know one another pretty well. I finished the task Elaine had given me by 11.00am and so Andrea and I spent some time after that discussing the pros and cons of working for lawyers. I mostly just listened since I hadn't had time to form any opinions on that subject yet.

At midday Elaine reappeared in the doorway. "How you doin', sugar?" We sat together and looked through the errors and I explained how much I had done, and the errors I had found, and she seemed impressed that I had made it through so many files so quickly, and made a point of mentioning that to Anthea. After a half hour of sorting through the changes that she needed to make to the data she plucked her purse from the bottom drawer of the desk and took me down to the first floor where a small cafe was nestled at the corner of the building.

Over lunch Elaine chatted to me about working at the firm, about the house she and her husband Bill had just bought, and about her husband's family and the pressure they were putting on her to have children. I listened attentively, glad not to have to talk too much about my own life, and sympathetic to her dilemma. Elaine fancied herself a 'modern woman' who wasn't planning on having kids until she was at least thirty. That was still two years away, she said. She asked me about my own love life, and I mentioned Steve, but left out all the stuff about prison and shooting. While we were chatting two other women who worked at the firm, Linda and Paige, came by and Elaine introduced me to them and we all sat and I had to describe Steve to all of them. By the end of our lunch hour two more women had sat down, Liz and Carol, and tales of bad dates and better relationships were flying around the table with a lot of giggling. I was easily the youngest at the table by several years, but all the women accepted me as an adult and I found that I really enjoyed myself. Apart from the times I hung out with Pris and Julia, and a few experiences with Maggie, I had never spent all that much time in groups of women before, and I discovered that I liked it. I relaxed and laughed along, and listened, and everyone seemed so genuine and friendly. As Elaine and I caught the elevator back to the office I began to think I was going to like working there.

Elaine asked me to fill in for Mary, the receptionist, while she took her lunch break. After a few minutes in which Mary showed me how to work the switch and Elaine explained company policy for dealing with calls, they both watched while I took a couple of calls and managed to route them to the appropriate people without too much delay. Then Mary went off to lunch and Elaine went back to her office.

Answering phones is harder than it looks in a company of 60 people. I had to look up each name to find the extension, which took time, and calls started piling up. I'd get through the backlog only to find new ones coming in. That first day I felt like I was in panic mode the whole hour just keeping up with what Mary said later was a pretty light day for phone calls.

After Mary came back from lunch I returned to Elaine's office, expecting to continue processing the files, but instead she sent me off to the commercial department to assist there. To get to it I had to pass the open doors to a conference room where men were lounging around between meetings and as I clip-clopped across the parquetry in my low heels I became acutely aware of a sudden silence from inside the room. When I raised my eyes to look inside I saw that all the men had stopped working and were looking at me appreciatively as I passed by. I blushed, and turned my eyes away and headed for the commercial department on the other side of the building.

Eventually I found the office I was looking for, and I spent the afternoon processing paperwork on some shopping center. I was still deep into it when Elaine called me and asked me to report to Bob's office.

His assistant Debbie was just tidying up her desk and reading out a list of the next day's appointments when I entered, and Bob smiled and introduced us. Then he turned to Debbie. "Do you know if Bill is still here?" When Debbie said no, she wasn't sure, Bob ushered me out of his office toward the office next door. The ante-room to the office was empty and so he strode on through, calling ahead for Bill.

I followed, and saw a good-looking blond man in his forties with his back turned to us as he put on a suit jacket. "What's up, Bob?" he said as though he was tired.

"Bill Duffield, I'd like you to meet Emma Donaldson," Bob said. I smiled and Bill and I shook hands. Bill wasn't quite as tall as Dan Arsenault, but he still towered over me, and even though I could see that the tiredness in his face matched the tone of his voice he still emanated a sense of strength and power similar to Dan's, as though at one time he had been an athlete too.

Bob and Bill talked for a few minutes about their plans for the weekend, and then Bob mentioned that he had brought me to meet Bill because he thought that I might be able to help Bill next week. "Elaine is looking for a more permanent position, but I thought since you and Shelley were complaining."

"Well, I sure could use the help, but it's not simple work, Bob, you know that."

"Emma here's not simple, Bob, she's been dazzling Dan Arsenault with science for weeks."

"Well, maybe we could get together on Monday morning and talk, then," Bill said. "Emma, would that work for you?"

"Yes sir," I said. Bill joked later that my head was going up and down so enthusiastically he thought it would come off.

The following Monday began working as the assistant to Bill Duffield. Actually the assistant to his assistant, Shelley. The work was easy, I hardly saw Bill, and Shelley was great. She was a stunning blonde who was almost as tall as Pris, with a ready smile and a calm, no-nonsense attitude to everything around her. She'd grown up in Minnesota, and ran the office in much the same way as I imagine she'd worked the farm -- organized, neat, efficient and yet relaxed. She and Bill had an interesting relationship, which was obviously close and yet strictly business. My work mostly consisted of organizing documents related to a development project Bill was working on, something to do with compensation for the side effects of a drug that was too technical for me to absorb in much detail but easy to understand in a general sense. Apart from the documents I had to learn the systems Shelley had in place for organizing Bill's life, so that I could fill in for her on her lunch break.

Steve was doing okay. He'd settled into a routine at the prison, and I guess after all the time at Brand he probably even felt kind of comfortable in the environment. With Dan's approval I had managed to give him the Ibanez, and he had made a couple of friends on the yard, so his mood was generally brighter than it had been in the first few weeks after he was arrested. I noticed a couple of times when I visited that he seemed to be a bit out of it, and wondered whether he was still doing drugs, but I decided not to pry about that. I wasn't about to tell him how to cope with the mess that he was in.

Getting paid was good. I bought a cassette player for Steve, and some casual clothes for myself. Cindy had given me a whole bunch of clothes. I had protested, but she had said she was going to give them to goodwill if I didn't want them, and even though I didn't really believe that Cindy was so whacko about buying new clothes I didn't feel too guilty about that. Most of them fit me okay, but all her stuff was so classy it felt kind of weird to wear it. I mixed and matched some of the more casual stuff so I had things to wear to work, but I just couldn't ever imagine wearing some of the Halston and Gucci and other designer dresses.

I finally called Wiley. I felt guilty for putting it off for so long, but I was still uncertain about seeing him, despite Steve's okay. What good could come of it? I wasn't interested in him, and he was always going to want more from me than I would be prepared to offer, so wasn't it pointless to put him through any time together?

The Black Dog's bite was getting worse. Since Julia had left I didn't have anyone to be responsible for except myself, and I didn't feel much like I was a worthwhile project. I was exhausted, because I was working out at the plant five days a week, then going straight from there to see Steve most evenings, before I came home to the Arsenaults' and collapsed in a depressed heap. I knew Dan and Cindy were concerned about me, but somehow their concern only made me feel worse. The same thing was true whenever I spoke to Pris or Elroy on the phone. They all seemed so damned caring, and yet I felt that if they knew the real me, the me with the criminal record and the bizarre body, that they'd be bitterly disappointed in me. My self-esteem was shot to pieces. I missed talking to Julia, too. She was the one person who knew all about me, apart from Steve, that is. I didn't want to be a burden to Steve, considering all that he was going through. I tried calling Julia several times, but it seemed like she was always out with Pete, or down in Jackson visiting her parents.

Wiley wasn't going to let any moodiness I might have had get in the way of seeing me again. He was quietly persistent and persuasive, until I finally agreed to accompany him to a movie the following Saturday night. As the time to meet approached my doubts about going out with him increased, in spite of Steve's insistence that I should. It just didn't seem right, somehow. To his credit, Wiley was polite and low-key all through the evening, beginning with a meal before a screening of 'Ordinary People', which is not exactly the most lighthearted movie ever. During the meal I tried to keep the focus off myself by asking him questions, and that mostly seemed to work. We talked about his studies. Wiley had always wanted to be a doctor, but his parents had talked him into studying engineering because that's what the family business was based on. He had no problems with his studies, except that his heart wasn't really in it. "You could always transfer, couldn't you?" I asked. We talked about a mass of other stuff, too, including a bunch of deep stuff about cosmology and astronomy -- Wiley was pretty knowledgeable about all that. We stayed so long over dinner that we almost missed the start of the movie and had to make a mad dash to the cinema.

After the movie Wiley drove me back to the Arsenault's house. We were both pretty quiet for most of the way. He pulled up at the curb and turned to face me, as though he was waiting for me to invite him in. I didn't want to do that. But instead of saying something soppy he suddenly launched into a discussion about family, and tragedy, and a whole bunch of stuff that I guess was sparked by the movie but which I wasn't well equipped to deal with. At first he kept it very intellectual, not touching on any specifics, and I managed to hold up my end of the strange conversation for a few minutes, but of course I was reminded of Danny and Mom, and I found myself trying to hold back a few tears, not very successfully. That alarmed him and then he was all apologetic and I had to reassure him that I was okay and that I wasn't an emotional cripple or anything like that. The truth is I enjoyed discussion philosophy with Wiley. He was very smart, and although he wasn't very perceptive about people he had an encyclopedic brain and was pretty well read, for an engineering student. So I reassured him and tried to wind the evening up.

"I had a nice time tonight, Wiley," I said, and reached for the door handle.

"So did I," he said, and I saw him shift in his seat. Oh lord, I thought, he wants to kiss me.

"Wiley, we agreed that we would just be friends, right?"

"Yeah." In the light from the house I could see his disappointment. "Um, can I ask you a question?"

"Yes." I had been about to pull the handle to open the door, but I hesitated.

"This guy you're dating... "

"Steve."

"Yeah. It's serious, right?"

"Yes Wiley. Very serious."

"So how come you're not out with him on a Saturday night?"

I sighed. "It's a long, long story, Wiley, and it's not really any of your business."

He looked hurt, but he let the matter drop. "So can I see you again?"

"I'm pretty busy all through the week."

"Say, you want to go catch a band next Saturday night?"

I looked at my hands, folded in my lap. Suddenly Wiley's hand was on mine. I looked back at him. "I promise to behave, Emma. But you know, I like being with you, and tonight wasn't so bad, was it."

I shook my head. "No, it was lovely. I had a nice time, Wiley."

"So are you doing anything next Saturday?" Again I shook my head. His face lit up. "Good. Same time next week then."

I opened the car door and he got out to walk me to the door. Always the perfect gentleman, I thought. We walked together up to the front porch and then it was time to say goodnight. There was a lot of awkwardness between us -- I knew he wanted a kiss. I bent up to his face and kissed him on the cheek, but as I did so he must have thought (hoped?) II was going to do more, and he put his arms around me. We stood awkwardly for a moment after I'd pecked him on the cheek and then he let me go. We both smiled in embarrassment.

"Just friends, Wiley."

"Good night, Emma."

"Night." I opened the door and went inside. Damn. I had forgotten how nice it was to be hugged by a man. Wiley's embrace made me want more. Then I thought of how disloyal I was being to Steve. I was sure Steve would have hugged me if he could. I shook my head and went to bed.

 

****

 

 

Chapter Twenty-two.

My days were so full that they slid by one after another without me noticing. Without Pris and Julia around the house wasn't as much fun, although Dan and Cindy seemed to be doing their best to keep me cheerful. I was up early every morning to do my hair and makeup, and then caught the bus to work. Shelley and I were becoming good friends, and the other women at the office were nice as well, but sometimes I felt like I needed a few moments to myself, just to catch my thoughts. After work every evening I caught a bus out to the prison and saw Steve for about two hours, before coming back to a late dinner that Etta kept for me. I was exhausted. And depressed. I was keenly aware of the generosity that Dan and Cindy were showing me, and I felt unworthy of it, no matter what Dan said.

As he'd promised, on the Saturday night Wiley picked me up and we went out to dinner and then dancing at a little place where they played bluegrass. Despite my general depression I had a pretty good time again, and Wiley was well-behaved all night. I still wasn't sure how to handle him, because I knew that if I gave the slightest sign of approval that he'd practically ravish me on the spot, but Wiley was a fantastic dancer, at least in the traditional style, and it was easy to let go of myself and enjoy the way he guided me around the floor. I'd never met a guy who danced so well -- most of the guys back north would rather have died than be seen dead on a dance floor, and Steve had been all feet the few times we'd danced anything other than rock and roll. But Wiley was assured and stylish and gracious, and good-humored about my stumbles, and we had a wonderful time. Once again I gave him a peck on the cheek at the end of the night, and once more he hugged me. I noticed this time that he rubbed my back and that his hand moved further toward my ass than it had previously, but I didn't make anything of it.

I was so sexually frustrated after I came inside that I wanted to scream. I decided a bath might relax me, even though it was almost 1.30am, so I ran the taps and stripped off. As I clipped my hair up above my head I looked my body over in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door, which was just beginning to steam up slightly. I hadn't looked at myself in the mirror naked since several years earlier in Blaha's office. I guess I just avoided doing it because it bothered me. It bothered me that night after the date with Wiley, too. I looked pretty much like any other girl my age, apart from that one thing between my legs. I hadn't even thought about it much in the past few months since I'd been taping myself up. The taping was kind of a reflex thing now, a bit like putting makeup on in the morning, or styling my hair, and so I didn't think of my penis as really even a penis -- it was just a thing that was there. I didn't get hard any more. I hadn't in years. Sometimes I could come by rubbing myself up against a pillow in bed, but when I did that it was the same kind of feeling I got when Steve had made love to me. Kind of a warm, diffuse wonderful warmth that went through me and made my breasts tingle and my muscles turn to jelly afterward.

Standing before the mirror I looked at my strange body,. I realized that I had thought about 'other girls'. I shook my head and got into the bath, which was nearly full. After I turned the taps off I began soaping myself, and while I was running my hands over my breasts, which were still tingly after the hug with Wiley, I started to think about that phrase. 'Other girls'. I didn't think of myself as a boy any more. Sometimes I thought of myself as a freak. But while I had been with Steve I had learned to think of myself as a girl; as a woman. In most situations my identity didn't bother me. It was only when I thought too much.

I sighed and slipped back into the water, letting it come almost up to my chin.

I ran my hands over my body to get the soap off. It was hard to remember what I had been like before Blaha had started pumping me full of hormones. I couldn't imagine myself as I had been then. I could remember being a little boy, but that seemed so very long ago, in a strange city. It didn't seem like it was really me. Had I really lusted after Maria?

Maria...

I shook my head to clear it. At least with all this thinking my sexual tension had begun to dissipate. Unfortunately the questions running around me head weren't a relaxing substitute. What was I going to do with my life? What was I thinking, going out with Wiley? I didn't love Wiley I loved Steve. Steve. But he was in prison, so the idea that I was ever going to find happiness with him again was... laughable. I was going to grow old by myself; an old, freakish lonely woman.

I wondered about what Vanessa had said, months ago in Memphis. There was surgery to make me into a woman completely. Did I want that? How much did it cost? The trouble was, it wasn't complete. There would be no way I could ever have children.

Children? Where did that thought come from? I'd never really considered children before. Idly I considered that my chances of bearing a child as a man were non-existent too -- the hormones had seen to that.

Fuck. I didn't know what to think about myself, except that there wasn't any easy solution. One thing I should do, I thought to myself, was to stay the hell away from Wiley. He was getting me more confused, every time he looked at me. If I stayed away from men I wouldn't get so goddamned sexually frustrated.

Yeah. Right...

Everything felt so black, and the water was beginning to chill. I got out of the bath and patted myself dry. This time I avoided looking in the mirror.

The questions continued to run around my head until I finally went to sleep.

I spoke to Julia on the phone on Sunday night. She was home for a change, instead of at Pete's. We talked about her pregnancy, and about Pete, and what they were planning to do. Julia was working up the courage to tell her parents about the baby. She hadn't told them anything at all about Steve yet, and she figured once she had dropped the baby bombshell on them that they'd be so stunned that she could tell them about Steve then too. We discussed his forthcoming trial. Bob Douglas had asked to reschedule, and it was still three months away. Julia wanted to come back to Atlanta for it, but she would be very pregnant by then and her doctor wasn't in favor of her spending too much time away in case any complications developed with the pregnancy. She was still planning to come, but she asked me if I could ask around for the names of some good ob/gyn people in Atlanta, just in case. She hadn't dropped out of college yet, mostly because if she did her parents' insurance wouldn't cover the cost of the doctors.

I got off the phone feeling humbled. I had been so concerned about my own problems, I hadn't given much thought to Julia's situation. She was probably just as concerned about Steve as I was, and she had all the hassles of the pregnancy, and having to deal with her family, as well.

***

I think having to hide my depression from Steve was one of the few things still keeping me sane. I didn't want to worry him, and compared to his problems mine were trivial anyway. So each time I saw him I tried to be upbeat, and confident, and supportive. Most times it worked, although it was hard for me to do it those times that he was high. I couldn't believe drugs were that easy to get in prison, especially considering the way I had been searched the first few times I had visited, but it seemed like they were -- at least if the number of times I saw Steve glassy-eyed were any indication. The first few times I noticed him that way I was upset -- surely he should have learned his lesson by now? But gradually I got used to it. After all, I told myself, it wasn't as though he could get into any more trouble than he was already in.

I told Steve all about each and every time I went anywhere with Wiley. I didn't want him to think I was cheating on him. He was adamant that I should continue to see Wiley, or anyone else I wanted to go out with socially. He told me he knew I loved him, and that made me very happy, because it was true but it was beautiful to know that he was so certain of it that he would trust me that way.

Although it didn't stop me from feeling guilty about the way I felt when Wiley touched me.

Steve and I had become more daring with our contact, and the guards had obviously become so used to my visits that they no longer paid me as much attention as they had. So we were able to sneak the occasional hug, and kiss once or twice, although only furtively. Those small contacts almost made life bearable for me, and I like to think that they helped Steve, too. But as the date for his trial approached I could see that Steve was becoming less carefree about his fate. He still pretended to shrug off the consequences, but I think the idea that he might get the death penalty was beginning to hit home, and once or twice we discussed the option of a plea bargain again. Each time he was adamant that he'd rather die than spend his life in prison. I wasn't so sure. It wasn't what I wanted for him, but in my opinion it was a lot better than being dead.

I wasn't the one in prison.

I hated myself all the more whenever I thought that if it wasn't for me Steve wouldn't be there. If he'd never met me he would have served out the rest of his time at Brand and then been released. If he hadn't needed to live a fugitive life he could have been happy as himself and he never would have got started on junk...

Even as I lashed myself about that I wasn't sure it was true. I had a feeling -- that I didn't want to admit to myself -- that he probably would have got into heroin eventually. Steve was really into music, and the music scene is awash with drugs, so it was probably inevitable that he would have shot himself up eventually. But I was so depressed and black that I wouldn't admit that to myself at the time, and so I took on the burden of everything that was happening to Steve as well.

Apart from the effects of the forthcoming trial, and the drug use, I noticed some other things about Steve that concerned me. He had some severe bruising on his face for about a week, but he didn't want to talk about it. He still smiled whenever he saw me, but I could see something in his eyes that told me that being in an adult prison was a lot tougher than being in Brand. I wanted to hold him, to take care of him and sooth all the problems away, but there was no way Steve was going to admit to me that he couldn't deal with them, and no way for me to get him to open up. I worried even more.

Aaron Carter had been bugging Elroy about me, and I reluctantly agreed to appear on stage again. The first time was an informal duet with John when he played a gig in Memphis one night, but after that I did a couple of solo performances in Atlanta. I didn't think there was much spark in any of the stuff I did, but Aaron seemed pleased and there was no shortage of people wanting to book me. Two guys flew out from LA just to catch one of my shows.

Wiley insisted on taking me out at least once a week. I was too tired during the week so that usually meant Saturday nights, if I wasn't performing. He showed me around Atlanta and introduced me to his friends, and between them and the women I was friendly with from work I started to have a little social life on weekends, which partly made up for the absence of Pris and Julia. Pris came back to Atlanta for the weekend once, and we had a wild time on the town together and both drank far too much. I think Dan was mad at both of us because he hardly got to see either of us the whole weekend she was there. Pris seemed surprised that I was seeing so much of Wiley, but I reassured her that it was strictly platonic and she seemed to understand.

Wiley was still behaving like a complete gentleman, although it was always clear that he'd jump my bones in a moment if I even hinted it would be okay. I wondered why he continued to ask me out, since I wasn't his girlfriend in any way and he was an attractive guy who could have dated practically any woman he wanted. But I didn't want to ask him that in case he thought I was thinking of our relationship too seriously. I did discuss it with Pris. Her theory was that he was just biding his time.

The awful thing was that I had begun to really like him. He was a nice guy, although sometimes I thought he lacked drive. I couldn't really fault him for that, though, since my own head was so confused about what I wanted from life. He treated me like a princess, and was always attentive to me.

After the way Steve had behaved once he had started on heroin I had to admit I liked the attention.

 

(continued)

  

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