Running Against Traffic Read online

  Paige shook her head.

  “Well, what did you do back in Philadelphia?” she asked. The twitter in the circle ceased, and the Wiccans all leaned in.

  “Nothing,” Paige admitted. The word dropped with a thud.

  Deirdre clapped her hands together. “Ladies, let’s get to work.” They moved the candles into the center of the circle, forming a shape that Paige couldn’t identify. She was instructed to sit quietly with her eyes closed, and to envision a warm, white light growing around her body. The front door opened and Bryce slipped into the room and took a seat with his back against a wall. As Deirdre led the group in soft chanting about reflective light and blessed this and that, Paige closed her eyes and tried to sink into a meditative state. Eventually she grew bored and peaked with one eye at Bryce, who was seated with his legs crossed in lotus position, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled low over his head, covering his eyes. His hands were palms up on his knees, forefingers circling to touch his thumbs. He was either a practicing warlock or dabbling in yoga. She closed her eyes once more and tried to rid herself of negativity. Her thoughts tumbled.

  Al opened the front door and surveyed the scene. “Merry meet, ladies,” he called, gaily. He walked over to Deirdre and stooped down to kiss her on the cheek. “Something smells delicious!”

  The Wiccans forgot about the ritual and waved and giggled greetings to Al, then went back to chatting. Deirdre pointed to the kitchen. “Go eat, there’s plenty of food in there.”

  Al smiled. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard those words uttered since I moved in here.”

  Paige opened her eyes and looked around the room. Barb pulled a long handled silver candle snuffer from her bag and began extinguishing the flames. Deirdre put her arm around Paige and smiled. “So, were you able to feel the white light? What was going through your mind?”

  Paige shrugged. “I guess…I guess I was wondering why I’m here.”

  “Here in Wells lake? Or here on Earth?”

  “Here on Earth. Well, okay, both.”

  Deirdre glanced over at Bryce.

  Paige shook her head, vehemently. “No, no, that’s why you’re here.”

  “It takes a village.” Deirdre yawned and remarked she had better get back to the store before church let out. The convivial circle clamored to their feet, stretching and exchanging last minute snippets of gossip. Paige wasn’t sure if she was allowed to stop summoning white light or if she was expected to continue for a while. Deirdre answered her question by holding out a hand to help her to her feet.

  Paige waved the group out of the house, assuring them that she would try to make it to the next meeting. She did feel different, she realized, as she added another log to the fire in the wood stove. Perhaps she had just caught the cresting wave that they had stirred up. Or maybe there was something to it, to this meditation, self-awareness, inner strength-witch-power thing. Maybe it was within everyone, lying dormant and all you had to do was tap into it. Like running, you just lace up your shoes, take a deep breath, and plunge forward; repeat the process over and over and that part of you can open up, revealing something you can feel and examine, and no one really knows about it but you, and a new, pliable skeletal support could begin to grow around it as it is nurtured and grows stronger.

  Or, maybe these women had lived for too long in a small town with nothing to do, and had gone round the bend. Perhaps that was their secret. You had to be totally insane to tap into it. Good news, Paige thought. Another year here, and she too could be a witch.

  Something had definitely shifted. Something was a hair to the left of what it had been.

  Paige knelt on the sheet and reached for the empty plates scattered about. Bryce was still there, still in lotus position, and she stood and tapped him on the head on her way to the kitchen.

  “Meeting adjourned, Starfire,” she said. He didn’t stir. She leaned down and heard his breath whistling through his nose, interrupted by a few soft, jerking snorts.

  Bryce was asleep.

  Chapter 13

  “Paige, I’m impressed,” Al said, holding out a cup of coffee as she hobbled up the front steps to the porch. He was bundled into a scarf and wool jacket, and she could see his silvery breath in the air. “That must have been your longest run ever. How many miles did you cover?”

  “It wasn’t on purpose,” Paige panted, taking the cup from him. “I got lost.”

  Al shook his head and smiled down at her. “Only you would get lost in a town this size.”

  Paige led the way back into the house and paused to stretch, bending one knee and then the other, pulling her foot up to her backside with her hand. “Where’s Bryce?” she asked. “Weren’t you guys going to get an early start today?”

  Al shrugged. “Still sleeping. What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

  Paige stood upright and froze. Her memories of Thanksgivings when her parents had been alive were blurred and strident, usually involving a catered party that would sour after cocktails. Paige would eat her turkey and escape to her room, while downstairs the recriminations flew about the room like bats between relatives who clearly didn’t enjoy each other’s company.

  Her fondest memories of the holiday were as a teenager, when she lived with her Aunt and Uncle, after bonding with Chloe over her secret business run from the attic (with the help of the gardener, Paige later discovered, and an unattended patch of wilderness on the property that was well concealed by trees.) The Thanksgiving party was always held elsewhere, far enough away that her Aunt and Uncle would make arrangements to stay the night. After declining to accompany them a few times, they stopped asking, and Paige would smoke a little holiday ganja with Chloe before Chloe headed out, and then she would order Chinese food and watch taped Masterpiece Theatre all night in her pajamas.

  “I’m asking because I have to work for Darnell that night, but I thought you should come by and hang out with us. Deirdre makes a mean turkey platter.”

  Paige dropped her foot to the floor. “I don’t do holidays,” she said.

  Everything felt bleak and wrong, suddenly. Her running high fizzled.

  Paige lay awake with her bedroom door open, listening for the front door. It was late. She knew that much. She heard every tick of her bedside clock, but she had stopped checking the actual numbers. Bryce had gone out after dinner on his bicycle, with no announcement of departure. He had been on the phone, and then he was gone. Al had checked the porch when they looked around wondering where he was, and told her that his bike was gone. He hadn’t come home by the time they had turned off the television and headed up to bed.

  Paige finally drifted off into a light sleep but was awakened at three a.m. by the front door opening and shutting. No footsteps started up the creaky stairs. Paige got out of bed, feeling sick to her stomach, and tiptoed downstairs to the living room.

  The kitchen light was on. She crept to the kitchen doorway. Bryce was pacing back and forth, blinking rapidly and muttering incoherently to himself. He looked up at her, his eyes black and rolling like marbles. Spit dried white crusted the corners of his cracked lips. A sour stench trailed after him and hung in the air.

  “Darling, do you have any Ambien, or pot, or something?” He asked, still walking from counter to table and back again.

  “No, nothing, why would I have that?”

  “Shit,” he said.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I don’t know, a few places.” He went back to rummaging through cabinets, pulling things out and knocking things over, muttering. He fidgeted with pieces of his hair, the way a monkey would pick through their hair for insects.

  “Bryce, this has got to stop,” Paige said. “I have to work in the morning. I can’t take this.”

  He paused from his twitchy foraging and slowly wagged a finger at her in the air. “Not my mother,” he said in eerie sing-song.

  “Bryce, you have to go to bed.” Paige felt the words sticking in her mouth like peanut butter. It was an effor
t to push them out. “Please, let’s go.”

  He laughed, a raspy chortle. “No can do. I need a drink. Got any of that stuff?”

  Paige shook her head. “No can do,” she said, and with everything she had she forced herself to turn and walk away, back up the stairs and to bed, where she tossed and turned miserably until her alarm went off at six.

  Bleary-eyed and bone tired, Paige stumbled to the bathroom to shower, pausing to peek past Bryce’s door, which was ajar. He was sprawled out on his back on the bed, still fully clothed, but snoring lightly. He was alive, and resting.

  After showering and dressing for work, Paige went downstairs to brew strong coffee, and found that Bryce had unscrewed the hinges of the locked liquor cabinet. The dismantled cabinet door was on the kitchen floor. The vodka bottle sat nearly empty on the table, along with a coffee cup full of cigarette butts. The house reeked of smoke, and she was dully amazed that it wasn’t burned down.

  Al appeared in the kitchen a few minutes later, sniffing the air and surveying the scene. “What the hell.”

  Paige shook her head. “I have to go.”

  Paige dragged herself through the day, twice falling asleep at her desk. She finally told Hackney that she wasn’t feeling well, and dragged herself back home and up her front steps, through the front door, and onto the couch. She lay there, unable to differentiate between emotion and physical exhaustion. She could hear someone walking around upstairs, and then Al came down the steps sat down beside her. He smiled, gently. “Girl, you look beat.”

  “I barely slept last night,” Paige croaked. “Is he awake?” She pointed her finger at the ceiling.

  Al shook his head. “I’m off,” he said, putting on his jacket. “Darnell needs me to work. I fixed the kitchen cabinet.”

  “A lot of good that lock did us,” Paige said. “Maybe we shouldn’t keep any booze in the house.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t keep Bryce in the house,” Al said. He leaned down and kissed her on the top of her head. “Good luck.”

  Paige soaked in a hot bath, put on warm, soft pajamas, and made a couple of sandwiches and brought them upstairs to Bryce’s room with a pitcher of water. He was propped up slightly and his face was shiny and gray, his hair plastered to his slick forehead. But his eyes were back to their pretty blue, and he had managed to change into sweatpants and a clean tee shirt.

  His voice was hoarse. “Is that for me,” he said, looking at the sandwich and taking the glass of water and sipping from it.

  Paige nodded, her heart twisting at the sight of him. “Can you eat?”

  Bryce picked at the corner of the bread and put a small piece into his mouth.

  “How can you do this to yourself,” Paige asked.

  Bryce pushed the plate aside and lay back against the pillow. “God, Paige, you’re so mundane. I’m an artist.”

  “What does that have to do with what you’re ingesting?”

  “You wouldn’t understand. It opens my mind. I get my best ideas…”

  “Do you even remember them? Ideas for what?”

  He tapped his head with a shaky finger. “It’s all up here.”

  “What is all up there? It’s all fried to a crisp and then drowned in booze. I don’t see anything happening out here at all!”

  “Yeah, and what have you ever done? It’s not as if you have anything going for you. You have no money, no success, no friends. Put the rocks down, bitch, you’re in a glass house!”

  “We’re not talking about me!”

  “And we’re done talking about me,” he spat, before falling back onto the pillows, wheezing.

  Paige jumped off of his bed and flew out of the room, her heart thumping and her face on fire. She darted into her own room and closed the door, crawling under her covers. She stared at the ceiling, emotionally seasick, desperately wishing she was alone again, until from pure exhaustion she dropped into a heavy, merciful sleep.

  The next morning, Paige was still too tired to run, and feeling sluggish and miserable, she slogged downstairs in her work clothes. Al and a showered and clean-clothed Bryce were sitting at the Ugly Table, appearing to be waiting for her. Color had returned to Bryce’s cheeks. The power of youth over poisoning. Paige looked them both up and down and then turned her back to pour herself a mug of coffee.

  Al cleared his throat. “Paige, Bryce has something to say to you. Would you mind sitting for a minute?”

  Bryce raised his eyes without raising his head. “Sorry.”

  Paige left her coffee on the counter and dropped into a chair. “For what?”

  Bryce chewed his flaking lip. “Waking you up. Making you worry. Yelling at you. Being a brat. All that.”

  “Good. That’s what you should be sorry for. And the worrying about you is over. I don’t care what you do to yourself. I’m calling in sick to work, so everyone either clear out or shut up today.” She pushed back from the table and walked out of the room and up the stairs. Her fatigue had taken over the nausea that she had felt leaving them there, after saying those things. She wanted to mean them. If she tried hard enough to mean it, convincing herself that it was the truth, perhaps it would be.

  It was no use. She wanted Bryce to be well, or at least, to be better. She couldn’t shake it. She sat on the edge of her bed and shook off her shoes, dialed the office to leave Hackney a message that she would not be in, then fell back still fully clothed, barely having time to pull the quilt around her before tumbling into blackness.

  That evening Paige sat on the edge of Bryce’s bed and stared at her lap.

  “How did you learn to sleep sitting up?” She finally blurted.

  “My mom used to take me with her to abandoned houses where there were a lot of derelicts living and hanging out, always high out of their minds. I thought when I was a kid that it would help keep me safe if I seemed like I might be awake.”

  “Why were you sleeping there?” Cold washed over her skin.

  “I had to sleep sometime. My mom would be…Busy most of the night.” Bryce tapped at her hand with his fingertips and twisted the silver ring on her middle finger. “Why are you always so worried about me?” he asked, finally looking her in the eye, one eyebrow cocked.

  Paige looked down at him. He looked like a little boy again, under his blankets, vulnerable, breakable. “You’re like the little brother I never had,” she said.

  Bryce dropped her hand and sat up suddenly. “Yeah, if you had gone away to university and Daddy had an affair and fathered a love-child. That would work, mathematically.”

  Paige picked up a pillow and threw it at him. He dove to one side to dodge it and popped right back up like a weeble-wobble. “OR,” he said, brightly, “At university you could have been swept up into a tragic affair with one of your professors and had your own love child. I mean, really, you’re like the mommy I never had!”

  Paige scowled. “I’m not that much older than you.”

  Bryce sucked his thumb and gazed at her gratefully. She stood and flounced from the room, his voice trailing after her. “You look it, though. Get some night cream. Get a brow lift. Do something…”

  Convinced that even her shrink was not going to believe all of this, Paige paused to scribble it all down in her journal before leaving for work the next morning. Al approached the couch, hesitated, then sat down next to her. “Paige, Hackney’s office is closed. Why don’t you get back in your PJs and take it easy today.”

  She looked up from her writing, distracted. “Hm? Why would he close the office?”

  Al took her hands in his and squeezed them. “Paige, today is Thanksgiving.”

  Hopelessness must have shown in her face. Al swiftly pulled her to him and stroked her hair. She hugged him back, and her cheek rubbed against his. She felt his chest rise and fall, and she tightened her embrace and pressed her forehead to his lips, needing him, feeling his breath catch as his lips softly kissed her there, then moved to her cheek and then his lips were on hers, and then they were kissing slowly, then mor
e deeply, pressing into each other, wrapping around each other as if they couldn’t separate their lips or limbs, and they fell back on the couch completely entwined and lost. Al had one strong arm around her and his other hand caressed her breasts as his mouth explored her lips, her neck, her earlobes, sending bolts of searing heat through her, and she pressed up against him, breathless, and ran her hands up under his shirt, trying to push it over his head.

  Suddenly he broke away, pulling his shirt back down, apologizing clumsily. “I shouldn’t have started that…I hope I didn’t offend you,” he said, hopping off the couch.

  “O-offend me?” Paige reached for him and he stepped back.

  “This was a mistake, Paige. I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry I’m such a mistake,” She yelled, pressing her hands over her eyes. She felt as if she had been thrown into a lake, and she was sinking alone, underwater without his arms around her. All she wanted was for him to come back. To have arms around her again.

  She lowered her hands and looked up at Al miserably.

  He grabbed his coat, already smoothed down. “I’m really sorry, Paige. That just shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Get away from me,” she snapped. Her own words hurt her.

  Al hesitated, then turned away and stalked out the front door.

  The only thing that Paige could do, had to do, was run. She dressed in layers of soft shirts and sweatpants, and was pulling on gloves and a knit hat when she realized that she was breathing too hard. She sat heavily on the bottom step by the front door, and willed herself to a state of calm. Another wave of hopelessness washed through her, pooling in her tightening throat, and she stood, desperate to feel brave. Pushing all thoughts from her head, she took Bryce’s bike and rode through town and to the edge of the park. She left the bike leaning on one of the benches by the lake, and followed the trail leading into the woods, picking up her pace to a jog.