Doesn't it make you want to scream, "Don't Do it!" Every time a hapless protagonist walks down that dark alley? Well try this one on for size.
And remember, love comes in many forms. Sometimes passionate, sometimes sweet - and sometimes it hurts.
In fact sometimes it can cut - like a knife.
Excerpt from Shadow of Innocence
Newport, Rhode Island Christie’s Wharf July 29, 1968 9:07 p.m.
Janet wondered if she had made another mistake, in a long line of stupid mistakes that seemed to be the story of her life. She’d gotten tired of driving her beat-up old VW around the waterfront bar area, looking for that elusive, and probably nonexistent, parking place.
So she’d said, “The hell with it,” and parked in the deserted boatyard lot halfway between the restaurant on Christie’s Wharf and the welcoming lights of the bar where she was supposed to meet Marcy and Paul and the rest of the group.
Even though it was the end of July, Janet shivered as a fog-cool wind blew in off the harbor. The dank salt wind carried the smell of low tide, old used-up fishing boats and rock-strung seaweed. Black-green seaweed. Just like the seaweed that had been covering up the beautiful, bone-white body of—Oh, God! The memory was sharp and jagged like broken glass in her stomach.
How could she have let… or gone along with…?
God, she thought, now shivering for real. I know she was a horrible bitch to me most of the time. But every once in a while, she would almost act like she liked me.
Oh, how Janet had lived for those brief, sweet moments when Blair’s cruel-cat persona would drop away, and she’d smile and put a beautiful perfumed arm around her chunky shoulders and laugh, “Oh Janet, my little pudge-bunny. I do love you so. You just crack me up.”
Then she’d kiss Janet on the cheek and giggle, “Incense and peppermints.”
And Janet’s heart would almost break with love as she whispered back, “Incense and peppermints, Blair.”
Janet stopped and leaned her forehead against the fog-slimy bricks of the alley wall that separated the boatyard parking lot from the street.
“Oh, Blair,” she murmured, the name catching in her throat, “I’m so sorry. I should have warned you. I could see it coming. I thought you knew. You always seemed to know everything and how to handle everyone. I should have said something. Oh, please believe me Blair. I never wanted… I, I just loved you.”
Almost blinded by hot, bitter tears, she stumbled down the alley toward the street. She moaned softly, “Blair, I’m sorry, so sorry. I just loved you. I’ll always love you.”
She looked up at the dim, crescent moon that poked in and out from behind wisps of fog.
“Can you hear me, Blair? Oh, Blair,” she moaned to the dank, sea-bottom wind that followed her down the alleyway. “I wish I could be with you!”
The half-prayer, half-curse froze on her lips as a hollow sounding voice answered out of the fog.
“I think that can be arranged.”
Ric
Ric Wasley - Author
·
Shadow of Innocence - Kunati - April 2007
· Acid Test - 2004
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Boomer article series:Ric Wasley has spent almost forty years wandering through corporate board rooms and honky-tonk bars. He now divides his time between writing mystery novels and observing the really ‘juicy parts’ of the human condition.
©2005 Cheryl Kaye Tardif
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