In class, she could barely keep her mind on the lecture. She kept drifting off, thinking about that long-ago night when Uncle Lestan had caught her in his arms and carried her up and up from that island. She saw him in that dim, shadowy little lawyer’s office in Athens, Texas, saying, “Make it happen!”
Well, there had to be some explanation. And then it struck her. Of course. Her uncle knew the author of these books. Her uncle had perhaps inspired them. It was so simple she almost laughed out loud. That had to be it. He and his friend Louis had inspired this fiction. And when she’d tell him she’d found the books, of course, he would laugh and explain how they’d come to be written! He’d probably say he’d been honored to be the inspiration of such bizarre and romantic ramblings.
Sitting in the back of a history class, oblivious to the teacher’s words, she slipped Interview with the Vampire out of her purse and checked the copyright: 1976. No, that couldn’t be right. If her uncle had been a grown man by that time, well, now he’d be nearly sixty. No way was Uncle Lestan that old. That was positively ridiculous. But then … how old was he? How old had he been when he’d rescued her from that island earthquake? Hmmm … this wasn’t adding up. Maybe he’d been just a boy, then, when he’d rescued her and he’d looked like a grown man to her—a boy of what, sixteen or seventeen, and now he was what, forty? Well, that was possible. But hardly likely. No, this did not add up, and overshadowing it all was her vivid conviction of his demeanor, his charm.
Class was over. Time to shuffle on, and go through the motions someplace else, to drift until she saw Murray waiting for her on some curb somewhere.… But surely there was a logical explanation.
Murray drove her away from the campus to a restaurant she particularly liked where Marge was to meet her for an early dinner.
It was getting dark. They had a regular table and she was glad that she had a little while to sit there alone, enjoy a badly needed cup of black coffee, and just think to herself.
She was looking out the window, paying very little attention to much of anything, when she realized someone had sat down opposite her.
It was Gardner.
She was badly startled.
“Rose, do you realize what you’ve done to me?” he asked. His voice was deep and tremulous.
“Look, I want you to leave,” she started. He reached across the table and tried to take hold of her hand.
Drawing it back, she stood up and stumbled away from the table, running towards the back of the restaurant. She hoped and prayed the one small ladies’ room would be empty.
Gardner came pounding after her, and when she realized her mistake, it was too late. He’d grabbed hold of her wrist and was dragging her out of the back exit into an alleyway. Murray was all the way around front, parked at the curb.
“Let go of me!” she said. “I mean it, I’ll scream,” she said. She was as angry as she had been when the book had struck her.
Without a word, he dragged her right off her feet and down the alleyway towards his car, and threw her in the passenger side, slamming the door and locking it with his remote.
When he went to open the driver’s side, he unlocked only that door. She beat on the windows. She screamed. “Let me go!” she said. “How dare you do this to me?”
He started the car, backed out of the alley, and took off down the side street, away from the main boulevard where Murray was no doubt waiting to pay for Marge’s taxi.
Down a quiet street, he drove the car at reckless speed, oblivious to the squeal of the wheels or enjoying it.
Rose beat on the windshield, on the side window, and when she could see no one anywhere around, she reached for the key in the ignition.
With a resounding blow he sent her backwards against the passenger door. For a moment she didn’t know where she was, then it came back to her completely and horribly. She struggled to sit up, reaching into her purse and quickly finding the iPhone. She sent the SOS message to Murray. Then Gardner grabbed the purse from her and, buzzing down his window, hurled it out, phone and all.
By now the car was speeding through traffic, and she was being thrown from one side to the other as it swerved around one intersection after another. It was making for old Palo Alto, the neighborhood where Gardner lived. And soon the streets would once again be deserted.
Again, Rose banged on the windows, gesturing frantically to passing cars, to people on the sidewalk. But no one seemed to notice her. Her screams filled the car. Gardner grabbed her by her hair and pulled her head away from the window. The car slammed to a stop.
They were in some side street now with big trees, those big beautiful dark green magnolias. He turned her around and held her face in the vise of his thin fingers, his thumb biting painfully into her jaw.
“Who the Hell do you think you are!” he breathed at her, his face dark with rage. “Who the Hell do you think you are to do this to me!”
These were exactly the words she wanted to speak to him, but all she could do was glare at him, her entire body soaked in sweat. She grabbed at his hair with both her hands and yanked it as he’d yanked hers. He hurled her back against the window again and slapped her repeatedly, until she was gasping uncontrollably.
The car drove on, tires screaming, and as she struggled to sit up again, her face burning, she saw the driveway in front of her, and the old Georgian house looming over her.
“You let me go!” she screamed.
He dragged her from the car, pulling her out the driver’s side, and dragging her onto her knees on the concrete.
“You don’t begin to know what you’ve done to me!” he roared. “You miserable stupid girl! You don’t begin to grasp what your fun and games have done.”
He dragged her through the door and hurled her across the dining room so that she hit the table hard and sank to the floor. When he lifted her up, she’d lost one of her shoes, and blood was pouring from her face down onto her sweater. He hit her again, and she went out. Out.
Next thing Rose knew, she was in the bedroom. She was on the bed, and he was standing over her. He had a glass in his hand.
He was talking in a low voice, saying once more how she’d broken his heart, how she’d disappointed him. “Oh, this has all been the disappointment of my life, Rose,” he said. “And I wanted it to be so different, so very different, with you, Rose, of all the flowers of the field, you were the fairest, Rose, the fairest of all.”
He came towards her as she struggled to get up.