The Secrets on Chicory Lane: A Novel(33)

“No. Fucking Mr. Alpine.”

“Let’s not talk about that, all right?”

“Sure.”

We reached the park and sat in the swings under the moonlight. Something felt different, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. For one thing, Eddie was stoned and I wasn’t. There was that.

“Too bad the yacht is gone,” he said. “We could’ve hid in there and done it.”

The thought of making love in that old yacht wasn’t appealing. “Eddie. Is that all you’re thinking about?”

“Well, hell, Shelby, I haven’t seen you in a couple of months. What’s going on? Don’t you want to?”

“Sure, but … I don’t know, I didn’t want to jump into bed as soon as I saw you.” Maybe I said it a little too sternly. He made a grunting noise and became quiet. I could tell he was sinking into a mood. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I’m upset about my mother. And I don’t really want to get stoned right now. Maybe I’m disappointed that you were high when I came over.”

“I’ll tell you something, Shelby. I’m high a lot. It’s the only way I can cope.”

“Cope? Cope with what?”

“My mother. My art. My life.”

“What are you talking about? You don’t have it so bad.”

He gave a little laugh. “Try making a living selling comics. Devil Man does okay, for an independent comic book. Did I tell you I got a distributor?”

“No. Really?”

“Yeah, it’s sold nationwide now in comic stores. That is, it’s sold in the stores that actually stock it. Not many do, ’cause I’m not with Marvel or DC. They weren’t interested in my work. They want to own everything they publish.” Back in the seventies, independent comics were rare. It wasn’t like it is now, with plenty of graphic novel and comics publishers to choose from.

“At least it’s published,” I said. “Hey, you’re talented. You’ll get more work as an artist.”

“Hasn’t happened yet.”

“Eddie, you’re in Limite. You need to get out of here. Go to a big city. Go to LA or New York.”

“I don’t like big cities.”

“Well, you’re not going to get work here.”

“I know, I know.”

We went on like this, until our conversation turned into an argument. He finally got frustrated, bolted out of the swing, and started walking back to our neighborhood.

“Eddie, stop! Where are you going?”

“How about I see you tomorrow, Shelby?” he called without looking back at me. I ran after him, caught up, and grabbed his arm. He jerked it away from me. “Go home to your crazy mother, Shelby.”

“Eddie!”

He moved on. I stood there, stunned that he would say such a thing.

Something was definitely wrong.





14


The next day I tried calling Eddie, but his mother said she hadn’t seen him. “Is he in the bomb shelter?” I asked. He wasn’t—she had just gone outside to check after making breakfast. His motorcycle was gone. She had no idea where he was.

Fine. If he was going to be that way, there was nothing I could do about it. I went about my business at home. Dad was at work, so I stayed at the house with Mom. She remained in bed all morning and didn’t come out of the bedroom. The cabin fever got to me after a while, so I decided to walk across the street to check out the shelter for myself. Maybe Eddie had left a note or some other clue as to where he was. When I arrived, I saw that the padlock was missing. Eddie usually brought it with him into the shelter, so I opened the steel door and went downstairs. The padlock lay in its spot beneath the stairs. The lights were on and the lava lamp was still bubbling. The smoke had cleared but the room still reeked of pot. Eddie’s bed was unmade and the place was a mess. His artwork, spread over his drafting table, was covered in a large black ink splotch, as if he had spilled the bottle over it. An accident, or had it been done on purpose?

I’d always known Eddie was troubled. Growing up with a father who had beat him must have screwed him up in a major way. His fascination with demonic imagery and violence wasn’t what you’d call normal. If I’d known then what I knew now, I might have run the other way and never become involved in a relationship with him. But at the time, at the age of twenty-two, I was still in something of a rebellious stage of my life, experimenting with the stimuli that made me tick. In other words, I was discovering myself. I wanted to be open to darker elements in the world. After all, I had grown up in a fairly sheltered environment in a small town. My eyes were first opened in Austin during undergraduate school, and even further in Chicagoland.

There was no question that Eddie had a powerful sexual hold on me. He was so damned attractive, so charismatic, and he did things to me in bed that no one else had ever managed to do before or since. That’s the truth. A lot of my romance novels deal with heroines who fall for the bad boy, and all that comes from my experience with Eddie.

At least during the beginning of that summer, Eddie still occupied my heart, and I wanted to correct whatever had occurred the night before. Maybe my maternal instincts—ha ha—wished to cure him of the darkness that enveloped him. Perhaps I simply wanted him to love me, which I believed he did. Whatever the motivation was, I was determined to keep the relationship alive.