Winter's Blade (Regret)
Alex's breathing slowed. He pushed the thought that he'd just 'done it' with a stranger out of his mind; he much preferred the feeling of connection and contentment. Em's body felt so soft and warm pressed up against his -- he didn't want to think about anything right now.
So what happened next took him a while to process.
Em straightened up and kissed him on the forehead. "Thanks," she breathed, "that was amazing."
And then she pulled away.
Alex blinked. Where did his lover go? He saw her picking something up from the floor. Her dress. She quickly stepped into it.
He looked down in his lap. Maybe he should button up.
Maybe he should change.
"Have you seen my underwear?" she asked.
Alex thought maybe there was a joke to be made there, but... why was she getting dressed already?
He looked around, then spotted a wispy something next to him on the couch. He held it out for her by one of the strings.
"Thanks."
She took them from him, not bothering to sort out which way was up, just walking off behind him. He turned around slowly, watching her kneel down, pick up her purse, then put it down and stuff the panties in her coat pocket.
Was she... leaving?
Alex didn't know what he expected to happen next, but it wasn't that.
He buttoned up as quickly as he could, but as he turned around to ask her, she was already heading for the bar. "I need another drink; you want anything?"
Alex rubbed his forehead; his hand smelled of sex. "Huh? N-No."
He heard her pour something -- a lot of something -- and then he saw her take a big swallow as she walked around the far end of the couch to stand at the window, her back turned to him.
Why was she acting this way?
"Hey."
She took another gulp of alcohol, but didn't acknowledge him.
"Hey," he said, louder.
She started to turn around, but stopped. She looked down at her feet. "I should go."
"Is something wrong?"
"I should just go." Her voice wavered.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No!" The suddenness of her answer startled them both. "No, of course not. I just..."
She bit her lower lip. "I just really need to go now."
Alex looked at her; her whole body was tense. Defensive.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Just let me change my pants." He hesitated a moment, but when she just turned back to the window, he hurried out.
Alex's gym bag looked tiny sitting alone on the floor of the empty walk-in closet. The guest bedroom was almost as big as Alex's whole apartment, and Tony was gone for a couple of weeks, but Alex wasn't packed for more than a weekend, and he'd stopped short of hanging his clothes -- he didn't want to get too comfortable. Somehow that made him feel more complicit in the way things were going with the girl in the living room.
Alex dug a pair of cargo pants out of his bag; a pair of boxer briefs extricated themselves in the process. He wondered if he should close the door... "A little late for that," he said to himself.
When he came back down the hall, he expected Em to be waiting by the door with her coat on, but... her coat was still hung, and she was still standing at the window.
"Okay, ready," he announced.
She didn't move.
He stepped closer. "I'll take you home now."
"I'm not like this," she said to the window.
"Like what?" Alex blurted, immediately regretting it. He rushed to cover his faux pas. "This... confident?"
There was enough light inside that they could see each other's reflections in the glass; she gave his a stern look. "You mean this easy?"
Her eyes broke off first, returning to the vague horizon.
He knew he'd made it worse by forcing her to articulate it.
"I'm sorry I brought you up here," he managed.
Her eyes locked back on his again; there was a spark of fierceness there. "You know, you're not helping." She looked back outside. "I'm not like this," she said again. "I don't just drop everything and run off like this. I don't invite myself over to people's houses and start drinking their liquor." It was like she'd rehearsed it. Like she was trying to get through a speech.
Or an apology.
"I don't... do that." The thought made her uncomfortable. She stepped back to break the spell, instead regarding her own reflection. "I don't dress like this." She shook her head. "I mean, what was I thinking?"
Alex answered matter-of-factly. "You were thinking, 'I'm a beautiful woman who deserves to be appreciated.'"
Emmeline rolled her eyes. "I think it was more like 'He doesn't stand a chance.'"
"He didn't."
Em gave Alex a mischevous grin.
But it didn't last.
"Neither do I," she sighed.
The sudden fatalism left Alex speechless.
Em was not so hampered.
"You know, I was wrong. I *am* easy." She headed toward the bar. "Whatever it is, I just go along with it." She stopped short, perhaps feeling the effects of the drinks she'd already downed -- or maybe it was just those high heels. "You know why I was out there in the first place?" She turned sharply on one heel and started off in the opposite direction. "My stupid *boss* found out that the centerpiece for the head table was twenty bucks *cheaper* if we rented it from this other place," she reversed direction again, "so he switched the order, *without* *telling* *me*" -- here she stopped and put her hands on her hips for a moment -- "and instead of it being delivered, I had to drive out to the boonies to pick it up myself -- only when I got there, everybody had already gone home because of the power outage." She'd reached the bar again; she stopped, realizing she was still holding a glass, and it still had something in it. "And you know how *that* turned out."
She emptied her glass, set it down rather ungently on the edge of the bar, and launched her way across the room again. "With my luck they won't even total the car. You know I didn't even *want* that thing? My *dad* talked me into it. He said it'd be more practical. *I* wanted a convertible. I shouldn't have listened... but *James*... James said it'd be cool, we could go *skiing*. But we never went skiing. Oh *he* went skiing, with his buddies, on that weekend I had to work... and I know he broke the taillight that weekend, even though he said it was probably somebody in the parking lot at Costco. God, why do men always have to be such assholes?"
Alex wasn't going to say anything. She'd built up a good head of steam and he didn't want to get burned. Besides, he was too busy watching her stalk her unseen prey, her dress swishing, her legs flexing...
She stopped suddenly, staring right at him; for a moment he thought he'd been caught staring, but: "You know he dumped me on the way to a funeral? Can you believe that? We're heading to the airport, and he pulls up right to departures, so I go, 'I'll wait for you inside,' and he's like, 'I'm not going, remember?' only he never actually *told* me." She started pacing again. There was more?
"I find out later he ditched me because my Grams basically asked him whether he was gonna pop the question. 'Shall I prepare two beds or is there a ring in my granddaughter's future?' And do you know why she did it?" Here Em stopped; Alex wondered if he was supposed to guess, but she'd just paused to seethe. "She said he wasn't right for me. In the first place, like that's any of her concern, and besides... ooh, I swear they were *this* close to needing another casket."
And then she was off and running again. "And my dad's not even there! For his own brother's funeral! They said he was in Budapest or Bucharest or Whatever-est doing some critical work for a big customer and he couldn't get away and I should try to understand. Only I know it's not all business because he left me one of his little messages like he always does when he's been with some floozy and he's feeling guilty about it."
"So when my granddad corners me after the funeral, I should know something's up, I mean, he only hints to me about joining the family business every time I'm there, but I'm so busy trying not to kill Grams, and the way some of the guys there are like leering at me -- oh, did I tell you my best friend convinced me to wear *this* for the funeral? I mean there's this other piece with sleeves and a back, but still, it's a funeral, in winter, in Wisconsin, and even though it's all indoors, just getting out of the car the wind feels like an icicle running right up my--... I can't believe she even talked me into buying it in the first place, she said I should wear something special at the company Christmas party for James -- see what I mean about just going along with everything? -- so when I find out about the funeral and I try on my nice black skirt and the zipper breaks because apparently somewhere during all of James' guilting me into always ordering the salad whenever we went out I still managed to get fat--" she looked at Alex "-- have I mentioned what an asshole he is? Anyway, I'm there in granddad's study, glad just to be away from the hovering pervs in the kitchen, and he asks me if I'll do a sad old man a favor, and like a complete idiot I say, 'sure, Granddad, anything.'"
Em stopped pacing, looked at Alex, and said, "I walked *right* into that one."
As if Alex had any idea what that meant.
"And so my uncle's dead and my dad's AWOL and my boyfriend's history and my boss is retarded and my best friend's got me dressing up like a funeral home hooker so I can throw myself at this perfect guy and there's no centerpiece and my crazy granddad has me hauling a fucking *axe* around in the trunk and the Keebler Elves run me into a telephone pole and it's raining and it's dark and the car I didn't even want is busted and then *you* come along."
Em seemed suddenly out of breath, as if she'd reached the end of her story unexpectedly.
Alex was so bewildered, he had to ask a very basic question:
"And who am I?"
Emmeline's brow furrowed. Her gaze shifted. It was a long moment before she seemed to find an answer; but the answer seemed to make her sad.
"You were the biggest mistake I could make."
Alex didn't know what he'd expected her to say -- but he'd expected it to hurt less.
"I didn't mean it like that," she said plaintively. Like what? "I just mean..." She looked at her feet. "It's like I was trapped, like anything I did just pushed me further into this hole, and I just didn't want to... I just needed to do something crazy, and you were there. And I guess I used you. And I'm sorry."
"I see." The explanation didn't exactly make him feel great -- not that in the back of his mind he didn't know she was only with him because he was convenient, and not that he hadn't been okay with that, but he'd hoped it'd been something more. Or at least, he'd hoped it could be something more.
"Well," he said slowly, "what do you need now? Because I'm still here." Afraid that sounded too earnest, he quickly added with a shrug, "It's not like I have anything better to do."
Em sighed. "Right now I just need to go home."
Alex's heart sank, but he didn't want to risk blowing whatever good impression he might have made by being pushy. "Okay."
As they drove back down the hill, the fractured details of Emmeline's high-velocity tale of woe tried to put themselves together in Alex's head. And he thought he had things mostly figured out, but there was a hole in the middle.
An axe-shaped hole.
"Em?"
"Hmm?"
"Tell me if this is none of my business, okay, but..."
"But what?"
"But there's still an axe sliding around in the trunk of my car."
"Yeah?"
"Why?"
"That's the favor my Granddad asked me for."
"Okay, but... what did he ask you to do?"
She looked at him curiously; then: "Oh! I didn't tell you?"
"Well, maybe, but you were moving pretty fast."
She gave him a sly look. "I don't know if I should tell you now. What you're thinking is probably a lot more entertaining."
"If you don't want to tell me, that's okay -- it's probably a good thing."
"What do you think it is?" she teased.
"Umm... I... your dad, umm..." Alex couldn't put anything together that didn't sound like a season of The Sopranos. "Does it involve chasing family members?"
"Is that a movie reference?"
"Yeah. 'The Shining.'"
"Oh, right. 'Here's Johnny!' Jack Nicholson with the axe. Funny."
"Well, forgive me if I don't hazard any more guesses."
She rolled her eyes. "Fine. So... it's right after the funeral service, I'm getting ogled by strange men in the kitchen, and Granddad pulls me into his study . . . "
Nicholas Winter eased himself into the great chair, and the years seemed to melt away. This was the way she remembered him: broad shoulders sunk into overstuffed cushions, head cocked to one side just enough to cancel the jaunty angle of a trademark beret, smile spreading a wiry white beard.
He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a candy dish -- the same ornate crystal he'd always had, with the same bounty of Hershey's Kisses threatening to spill over the sides. "Kiss from Granddad?" he said, smiling.
Nevermind that her nice black skirt didn't fit anymore -- she needed the endorphins.
He took one for himself, his big fingers struggling to shed the morsel of its modesty. "Your Grams won't let me keep these in here anymore," he said as the last bit of foil finally fell, "but I had Mort bring me a bag so I'd have them here for you." He popped the chocolate in his mouth. "They were Junior's favorite too." At this his smile turned wistful.
Emmeline didn't know what she could say -- she felt like the day had already worn out "sorry" -- so she just sat quietly.
This was actually not unusual -- when visiting as a little girl she'd often sat in this very chair, silently watching her Granddad work, or read, or think, sometimes for hours, fascinated by his facial expressions, by the way he used his hands -- those wide palms and those thick powerful fingers that always made indoor objects like pens and telephones seem too small, always fumbling -- and by the way he would sometimes mutter unintelligibly...
...and then occasionally, without warning, he would stop whatever he was doing, fix her with a mischevous gaze, and start to tell her a story. It usually concerned some great adventure of a long-lost relative, a trek across frozen tundra or windblown desert or storm-tossed sea, sometimes rescuing a fair maiden along the way. And he would always stop at some point during the story and start thumbing his way along the bookshelves until he found a wrinkled notebook or a collection of letters or a dusty old journal, flipping through it until the inevitable "aha! here it is" that would fuel the rest of the tale. It was just for effect, to be sure, but it worked. Often by the end of the story she'd be so wound up that she'd go barrelling out of the room, excitedly reenacting some crucial scene, usually one that involved hunting a great beast or chopping the head off some evil creature or some other act of unabashed violence.
Of course as she grew older she came to realize that the same spark which made her Granddad so interesting also made him a little obsessive... and a little crazy. The same wild embellishments that at five were so entertaining seemed creepy at fifteen, especially the way he would drop them into conversations with the kind of casual desperation that Tolkien fans and UFO conspiracy theorists employed. Maybe he was just trying to be cool, or maybe it was his attempt to make the delivery business seem exotic and exciting, but eventually she'd had to tell him to stop.
Em looked around the room, with its faded wallpaper and dark walnut shelves and antique globe in the corner, a time capsule of reminders for a childhood happiness mostly forgotten. She looked at her Granddad now and saw a sadness in his eyes. And she wondered if Nicholas Winter might need to tell his granddaughter about some fantastic adventure her uncle had had.
So when he asked if she would do an old man a favor, she said, "sure, Granddad, anything."
She was not prepared for what came next.
"I need you to take something back with you."
Em gripped the chair arms so tightly her knuckles cracked.
He picked up a pen and began writing on a notepad. "I'll have Mort fly you back, and in a couple of days, there's a building not far from where you--"
"Granddad, I'm not coming to work for you. "
"Look, Emmie dear--"
"It's Em. No one's called me Emmie since I was sixteen."
"Hush. Now I know you think your mom left your dad because of his work--"
"--because she did."
He sighed. "Be that as it may, I've never pressured you--"
"--because you and Uncle Nick and Daddy and everyone else up here going on and on about how great you're always doing and then asking me 'so where are you working now, do you think maybe this is the one?', no, that's not pressure..."
"Don't blame other people for the pressure you put on yourself. Now I'm not asking you to come to work for the company. I--"
"You're not? Because I think 'the company' delivers packages, and it sounds like you're asking me to deliver a package."
He put down the notepad and threw the pen down on it with a loud smack. "Emmeline Winter, you are not too big for me to take you over my knee."
"I'm twenty-six, and besides that being really *really* creepy, I don't think it would do your bad leg any favors."
"Then stop behaving like a petulant child and allow me to finish speaking." He stared hard at her; she shrank in her chair.
"Now I know that you have no interest in the family business, and I am not trying to make you 'get your feet wet' because I think once you try it you'll like it. This is not about you, or about the company. This is something that I need you to do for me, because my oldest son is dead and my youngest son... he can only do so much."
"Okay, Granddad. Just tell me what I have to do."
"Do you remember the family credo?"
Em rolled her eyes. "Yes." She recited it flatly. "'By Winter's hand the blade is brought; it is our blood that binds.' You only made me recite it every day. Blades and blood, pretty gruesome stuff to be teaching a four-year-old."
"It speaks to our role as protectors, and our family tradition."
"Serving in the Navy, delivering packages. At least you're not asking me to enlist."
"Emmeline, this is serious."
"I know. It's about the Smiths. Every year just before Christmas, this cult gives this thing to us and we have to take it to wherever the stars or whatever tell them they have to perform their secret ritual. And we've been doing this for them since they hired *your* granddad's granddad in 1850."
The old man began to reach over his shoulder for a particularly thick book, but then he changed his mind. He let out a heavy sigh. "I suppose that will do for now."
Em didn't remember all the details, but there wasn't *that* much to it. Then again, old people tended to be fussy about historical details. "You can tell me about it next time," she offered.
He smiled. "Yes. Next time. So... Mort will fly you back in the jet. The package needs to be at this address..." -- he scribbled it on a corner of his notebook and tore it off -- "by twenty-three fifty-nine Thursday. That's 11:59PM."
"I know, Granddad. You think my dad taught me civilian time? --So, what do I do once I'm there?"
"Someone will be there to meet you."
"And?"
The elder Winter stood up, his stout frame slowed by stiffness. He adjusted the glove on his prosthetic left hand. It had been almost twenty years since he'd lost the hand. About as long as Em's parents had been divorced. Daddy had left the Navy to join Granddad and Uncle Nick in the family business around then. She remembered something Granddad had said once, that he'd lost a hand but regained a son. Uncle Nick had always been his father's son, but Daddy had always been closer to Grams, he said.
Em knew her Granddad would gladly give up his other hand to get his eldest son back.
Nicholas Winter gave his granddaughter a stoic look. "I need you to keep this between you and me. Your Grams has enough to deal with."