Even though it seemed like I was still too far away for him to hear me, Eric turned and watched my approach. I sucked in my stomach and tried to walk gracefully. I tried on several different expressions and then dropped each one. Every time I had walked into an audition room when I was an actor I felt this same mix of thrill, anticipation, and sheer terror—the feeling that this could be the meeting that changes your life.
I tried a trick that I had used going into auditions to calm my nerves. You are the Queen, I whispered. This man is your subject and you rule over him. He is here at your behest.
The psyching out worked, because by the time I reached Eric I’d pulled myself up to my full five-feet six-and-a-half inches, straightened my shoulders, lengthened my neck, and calmed my fluttering heart. I held my hand out to him, palm down, and he took it and bowed as if we’d rehearsed this little play. But my equilibrium faltered when he pressed his lips to my hand and little bolts of electricity raced up my arm.
He wore a gold signet ring on his pinkie finger. The ring looked old, holding a red stone so worn down it had the opacity of beach glass. His nails were perfectly manicured ovals, perhaps slightly too long for the average man, but they looked like they could give a mean back scratch.
Still holding my hand, he moved in closer and looked at my face as if he were searching for something. His eyes, that light, light blue, were glowing.
“Angela, tell me what happened.”
I stepped back, confused. “What do you mean?”
“I see it in your eyes. A tragedy has occurred.”
I blinked back sudden tears. “I went to my boss’s house today. She was there, but she was…” I swallowed hard, “…dead.”
“Ah, Lucy Weston. I am so sorry.”
“Wait a minute. How do you know her?”
“You mentioned her to me last night. I had also met her through Suleiman and Moravia. She occasionally came to the club. This is very sad.” Eric seemed distracted. He gazed out toward the ocean. A seal barked in the darkness and another one answered. “Have the police arrested anyone?”
“They might be looking for a guy from our office, Les. He was dating her, but no one in the office knew it.”
Eric was holding my hand against his chest. I could feel his heart beating, so strong it was like a fist knocking on a door. “Why do you think the police might want him?”
“He followed me to her house and he was acting really strange. He was trying to hide all the evidence that they had known each other. He also told me they had been fighting, that she had broken up with him. She told him she had met someone new.”
“And had she?”
I shrugged. “How would I know? I didn’t know about Les, and it was right under my nose.”
“These things are always difficult, no matter how many times you experience them.”
I looked up at him. “What do you mean? I’ve never experienced this before. Well, my grandmother. But that was different.”
“Yes, of course. But at least they have caught this Les, the one they suspect?”
“No, I don’t think so. He ran away from Lucy’s house when I told him I wouldn’t lie. Oh God, Eric, what if I made a mistake? What if he didn’t do it and I’ve put the police on his trail?” My body began to shake with unexpressed sobs.
Eric pulled me close and I hid my face in the shelter of his arms. There was a brisk breeze blowing off the ocean, but still his sweet fragrance overwhelmed me. I smelled sandalwood, lilies, ocean air, sugar cookies, cumin, and fresh snow. As soon as my mind identified a scent it slipped away, replaced by something richer and more evocative.
I heard his voice in my ear. “You did the right thing for your friend. Those who have committed the crime will pay the price.”
“I guess so,” I answered, thinking what an old-fashioned thing that was to say, but how much I liked the sentiment.
Eric stepped back and took my face in his hands. “Angela, I think you need some distraction.” He smiled. “Do you like to ride motorcycles?”
At the entrance to the restaurant a disheveled but stylish older couple stood in front of the menu, looking confused. When the man saw Eric he immediately began speaking to him in French. The woman chimed in, Eric answered, and they engaged in a brief conversation punctuated with lots of gesticulation. When Eric shook the woman’s hand she gazed at him like a teenager meeting her favorite movie star.
When we were a short distance away I asked, “How did they know you speak French?”
His face took on an expression (lips pursed, eyebrows knitted) that even I recognized as uniquely Gallic.
“Never mind.”
The motorcycle Eric had mentioned was parked down the hill. The silver and black chassis gleamed like it was brand new. Suddenly Eric’s black leather jacket and heavy boots made sense, just like his blue velvet suit at the House of Usher. He liked costumes. Tonight he was playing the part of a Hell’s Angel.
“Yes, it’s new,” he said. “I saw a guy riding one and I decided I just had to try it. And believe me, it’s as fun as it looks. Would you like to take a ride with me?”
Suddenly I saw my mother’s disembodied face floating above me, saying, “Are you crazy? I don’t see any helmets, the man has practically admitted he doesn’t know how to ride, it’s the middle of the night, and you’re going to get on a motorcycle with him?”
I brushed the air in front of my face like there was a mosquito bothering me. “Sure, let’s do it.”
Eric climbed on and held the bike while I slid onto the seat behind him. I put my arms around his waist and pressed my cheek against his leather-covered shoulder. My feet were barely on the footrests before the bike surged underneath us. I had a moment of raw fear as we plunged down the dark hill, like diving into hell with my arms around the Devil. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. When I didn’t die immediately I opened them and looked west. The moon was almost full and the ocean was a deep black bucket full of silver crescents. The beach gleamed silver gray.
What an intimate thing it is to ride on a motorcycle with a man. My chest was pressed against his broad back, my legs encircling his hips, my arms linked around his slim waist. The silky strands of his hair blew around my face as if it were my own. I wanted to move my hands to feel his chest, but I didn’t dare, mainly because we were driving so fast I was afraid to let go for an instant.
The road seemed to move under us, the air split open and we drove through the seam. I couldn’t look forward without the skin of my face pulling back and my eyes feeling dried out and pushed into their sockets. We passed a couple of cars in the right lane like they weren’t moving at all. One of them honked and the horn blared after us like thunder trying to catch up to its lightning bolt. I looked over Eric’s shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of the speedometer and confirm my suspicion that we were going five miles over the speed of light. That’s when I saw it.
The deer was standing in the middle of the road, transfixed by the sound and lights bearing down. We were so close I could see it was a doe, with soft white fur inside the cups of her ears and shiny black eyes. My feet pressed downwards, looking for brakes I didn’t have. My arms squeezed Eric’s waist as if I could will myself to stay on the motorcycle after the collision. I didn’t scream, just waited for the impact.
Then I heard Eric’s voice, not in my ear, but inside my head, like it was my own voice.
Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to you.
Just as the last word echoed in my brain we veered around the deer. The pull of gravity toward the ocean was irresistible. The turn was so deep that my leg actually touched the road. I imagined us spinning like a dreidel toward the sea, until the deep sand arrested our movement. But at the moment when we were almost parallel to the road, Eric pulled the bike back up. I felt like I had just witnessed a miracle.
He steered us to the side of the road and stopped. The deer unfroze and disappeared into the brush. I had never felt so alive. I was exhilarated, thrilled to my very core. This must be why people skydive, I thought. Cheating death makes you appreciate life.
Eric turned partly around and before it became a conscious thought I was kissing him on the lips. He seemed startled, but then he kissed me back. When I opened my eyes, he was smiling.
“You are brave, Angela. Just as I’d hoped.”
“Let’s keep going,” I said. “Do you feel like driving to Half Moon Bay?”
If you’ve ever driven on Highway One, California’s coastal highway, you know that it is the brainchild of a madman. The freeway is a narrow lip carved out of sheer cliffs rising hundreds of feet above the Pacific Ocean. Chunks of the road drop into the ocean with astonishing regularity during the rainy season. Highway One had always made me nail-bitingly nervous, but tonight I felt invincible, and all I could see was its beauty.
Eric stopped the motorcycle on a small gravel overlook above Half Moon Bay. Beyond the crescent-shaped beach the almost full moon cast a silver trail across the ocean that looked sturdy enough to walk on. From the horizon it would be only a little hop up to the moon.
Eric took my hands in his. “Your hands are freezing. You should have told me.”
“Oh. I didn’t even notice.” His hands weren’t doing anything to warm mine up. After twenty minutes on the handlebars of the motorcycle they were like blocks of ice.
“Is there a place around here we could go to warm up?” he asked. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with this area.”
I remembered a place my father used to take us after church on Sundays. We’d change out of our scratchy Sunday clothes in the car, go tide pooling in the shallow reefs at Moss Beach, then have hamburgers and french fries at Half Moon Brewery before heading home. Those days were some of the best of my childhood.
I directed Eric to drive down the highway another couple of miles, then squeezed his arm to indicate he should turn into the sandy parking lot. There were only two cars parked in front of the wood-and-glass building overlooking the small cove of Moss Beach. A bartender was washing glasses behind the old-fashioned wooden bar in the main room.
“Are you still open?” I asked.
“Sure, unless it’s already 2 A.M.” The bartender warily sized up Eric’s black leather outfit.
“You know, I used to come here when I was a kid, and we would sit out on a porch with swings. There were blankets that everyone would wrap up in.”
The bartender appeared to relax a little. “Yeah, we still have that downstairs. It’s closed now, but seeing as how you’re our only guests, feel free to take your drinks on down there.”
Eric picked up the menu. On the back cover was the story of the resident ghost, a woman who had died in a car accident while on a rendezvous with her lover, a piano player at the bar. Ever since then her ghostly figure had been glimpsed from time to time, usually by the restaurant’s staff after hours. I had loved the story as a child.
Eric read it and then looked at me. “Do you believe in ghosts, Angela?”
“Not even the Holy Ghost, much to my parents’ chagrin,” I answered. “If I can’t see it with my own eyes, don’t bother trying to get me to believe in it.”
Eric just nodded and put down the menu.
I ordered an Irish coffee and Eric a type of Scotch I’d never heard of. We took a winding staircase down to a terrace overlooking the beach. It was just like I remembered it, Adirondack chairs covered with thick woolen blankets. There was one wooden swing, which I remembered my sister and brother and me fighting over endlessly. I sat in it and pulled a blanket up to my shoulders, then started the swing rocking gently.
“I haven’t been here since I was ten years old. And I’ve never been here at night,” I said. “It’s magical.”
“Yes,” Eric agreed. “Magical.”
I couldn’t believe he was staring at me as he said this. With my windblown hair and chapped face, wrapped in the plaid blanket, I felt I must look like some giant newborn baby.
“You look beautiful,” Eric answered my unspoken thought and set my heart racing.
“Can you read my mind?” I asked, then realized I was only half joking.
“Only when you want me to.”
“Then I guess you know what I’m hoping for next.”
Eric came over and opened the blanket, then wrapped it around both of us. I took a deep breath of the scents of ocean, leather, and Eric that enveloped me. His lips touched mine gently, then more hungrily. My vision began to get blurry around the edges, as if the fog had suddenly come up off the ocean and surrounded us. I closed my eyes, the better to experience the swirl of sensation. I had the strangest feeling that every part of me improved under Eric’s touch. As his hand slid down my arm my skin seemed to become softer, more yielding. The hair that he stroked seemed to fall more smoothly, brushed across my cheek like silk. I was starting to feel beautiful.
Eric’s lips alighted on my neck like butterfly wings. I slipped my hands under his jacket and felt the hard muscles of his chest under crisp cotton. I undid one button and put my hand over his heart, caressing his supple skin. His arms tightened, he pulled me against his body and I melted. The normal separations that people feel, even during intimate moments, no longer existed. We were two molten metals, flowing together to create something entirely new. All I wanted was for it never to end. So when he clamped onto my neck I moved into it, like a moth flying into a flame. My blood pulsed in waves that matched the ocean pounding the beach below us.
Did I think about dying? Honestly, the thought never occurred to me, and I couldn’t tell you even now whether that was because I trusted Eric, or because I didn’t care about paltry things like life and death anymore. When he pulled away from me I clutched at him, trying to draw him back, but his hands on my shoulders were like iron.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered. I was absurdly frightened that I’d disappointed him in some way.
“No, you didn’t. But it’s enough.” He sat up straight and brushed the hair back from his shoulders. With two slender fingers he fastened the one button I’d undone on his shirt.
Tears pricked at my eyes and I turned from him to briskly rub them away. I wasn’t going to let him see me acting like a little girl. But then he gently turned me back and kissed me on the forehead. I heard his words in my head while his lips were pressed against my skin.
Be careful what you wish for, Angela, because it might come true.
Before I could ask Eric what he meant the bartender appeared at the door to announce that it was closing time.
We said our good-byes and headed out into the parking lot. By the bright light of the moon we could see a guy sitting on Eric’s motorcycle, with another man standing next to him with something in his hand, monkeying around near the handlebars. The next moment we heard the loud roar of the engine starting.
“I’d better go stop him,” Eric said.