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“Hang on darlin, I’ll head right back in and fetch it. Do you know where you left it? Is it in that room?”
“No…I don’t know. I haven’t seen it. I woke up in there…I don’t know what happened,” I say in a voice that’s so faint and weak I can hardly hear myself.
“You seem very, very sick princess. I’m gonna leave you out here with the heat blasting for just a minute, and then I’ll be back with your purse, okay?”
I nod a miniscule affirmation and then Bo’s gone, leaving me to wonder how he’ll extract my purse from Quade. I can’t hide my surprise when he arrives back with it in a couple of minutes.
“What happened? He just gave it to you?” I ask.
“Well did you think he was gonna say no to me?” he asks in reply, making me feel silly as it dawns on me that no man would refuse to cooperate with Bo Thompson. “Now,” he says as he restores my beloved purse, kisses me on the forehead, and moves up front to the driver’s seat, “let’s get you to Holly’s where you can get warm and rested. Why don’t you try to tell me a story about last night. You came down with a little flu, I take it?”
My first attempt to respond fails as my lips go rubbery and my mind goes blank. I only wish I knew how to answer. “I guess that’s what happened,” I eventually manage. “We ate sushi and I became very suddenly ill, right as we were leaving. Quade wanted to show me the new house and I must have passed out. I remember sitting in his car, and then I woke up…hours later, in that room. It was dark with no windows…I was alone…couldn’t find the way out. I passed out with a headache. When I woke up a while ago, Quade was there. My head’s throbbing.”
“Wow Fiona, you must have eaten somethin really off. How much did you have to drink?”
“Nothing at all. A little black tea, no sake, no alcohol,” I reply, as I limply riffle through my purse to find everything still intact.
“Has this happened to you before? Blacking out from food poisoning like that?”
“Never. It’s the strangest experience I’ve ever had… almost.”
Bo takes a heavy breath and then goes quiet for a while, during which time I begin to formulate all the questions I have for him. But somehow nothing seems pressing except the fact that I woke up in a hidden room with an ex-husband who desperately didn’t want us to be discovered.
“So, Quade got himself a new house, aye?” Bo asks with trepidation.
“Not exactly,” I respond. “He sold his old house and bought this one instead.”
“Sounds like a new house to me,” he says with a slight tone of amusement.
“Yes but, the house he sold was my house…the house I lived in. He bought the new house for me.”
“That house I just dragged you out of is yours?” Bo asks with something between surprise and alarm.
“No. Nothing is mine. This is what Quade does. He took the other house away…now he’s bought me a new house… also in his name. This is how he plans to run my life forever, Bo.” I cringe at the pathetitude of my own words as I say them.
After the appropriate social introductions, Holly hands me a glass of Alka Seltzer Plus and Bo’s warm, pulsating arms scoop me up and carry me off to my bedroom. Although I currently couldn’t detect a sexual bone in my body, I don’t want Bo to leave. I want him to tuck in behind me and wrap me up in those pythons, breathe against my neck the way he did one night so long ago. What I’d believed was a fading memory is now flooding back to me in full color.
Respectfully, Bo tucks the blankets up around me, kisses my forehead again, and pulls the curtains closed before quietly shutting the door and heading back downstairs. Too weak to protest, I close my eyes and sink into another deep sleep. Only this time when I awaken, my headache is gone and my brain seems to have been switched back on.
My eyes pop open wide, and I snap to an upright position…trying to add some chronological order to the jumble of events in my recent memory. I was with Quade, I passed out…and then I had a series of nonsensical dreams. Images of an impossibly small, black room mingle with the dark vibes of malicious intent. And then there was a most lucid series of images…Bo Thompson, the unquestionable love of my life, literally bursting through the wall of the tiny room and carrying me away. Some words exchanged that I can’t remember, and then the dream fades out.
I rise to open the curtains and let in what looks like dim, early evening light. How many hours or days have I been sleeping? When did Quade drive me back to Holly’s? Why did I pass out? That last question ricochets off the walls of my mind like an echo. I sit back on the bed and drop my head into my hands to think. Images of Quade come back to me…me and Quade, inside the tiny, dark room. And then the feeling of malicious intent again, followed by Quade’s sickening, flimsy apologies. ‘I’m sorry,’ he’d said. ‘Sorry for what?’ I remember asking in the dream. ‘Sorry for everything.’
But the oddest thing, despite the confusion of having a carousel of bizarre ‘memories’ injected into my head, is that I don’t remember ever relieving myself of whatever made me so sick. I’m quite clear that I never vomited or even visited a restroom. I simply…blacked out and ended up back at home.
Next, it occurs to me that I’m starving. I’ll go down and see what Holly and Levi are doing for dinner. I’m sure they can help to fill in some missing details of my night out with Quade. Quade. Night out with Quade. Sushi with Quade. Sushi and hot tea. Quade bought me a new house. I had sushi and tea with Quade and he bought me a new house. I was sitting in Quade’s car. Why was I sitting in Quade’s car? Why would I ever get into Quade’s car? I was going to drive my own car to the house…I’d insisted. I clearly remember insisting on driving myself that night. How did Quade get me into…I went unconscious in the front seat of Quade’s Royce. I remember his face as he opened the passenger door and guided me onto the seat…calm, unconcerned. I suddenly fell so terribly ill that I couldn’t make it to my own car and Quade didn’t even look phased? Quade didn’t ask me why I changed my mind about riding in his car? He just…opened the door…and I sat my ass down in the passenger seat and fell into a deep, black sleep?? Oh yeah…because that makes total sense that that happened. Of course that happened!
The dimness of my room lights up red, as a familiar wall of rage clouds my vision. I squeeze my eyes closed and drop my forehead into my hands again, randomly conjuring up a series of insignificant details. I see myself returning from the Shokai restroom to the sight of Quade topping off my hot tea. ‘Thank you,’ I say, ‘but I don’t need another cup of caffeine tonight. Plus, I had the sugar level just where I wanted it.’ Then I proceed to nervously demolish the tea during our meal, just for something extra to do with my hands. And I never had been able to get the sugar quite right in that second cup. It just had a bitterness that wouldn’t quit. My heartbeat pounds in my ears, as anger transmutes into total alarm, then pounds even harder when adrenaline hits me like a fist. A familiar voice rumbles deeply from the hallway, followed by heavy footsteps.
“…go check on her,” I hear just before my door cracks ever so slightly open. “Princess, you up? May I come in?”
My body turns to jelly and I melt back onto the bed, as Bo’s face appears around the edge of my bedroom door. Bo Thompson is in Iowa, in Holly’s house, in my bedroom… right now. And he’s wearing the exact shirt he wore in last night’s…dream.
I have no words. I simply extend my arms from my reclined position, and Bo Thompson is suddenly lying parallel to me…hugging me flush against him as he strokes my back and whispers my name repeatedly, like a mantra.
“Fiona…Fiona…Fiona…are you all better? I knew somethin was wrong. I knew I had to find you. Please try to tell me what’s goin on…why you were in that room. I have a real bad feelin that I just can’t shake this mornin,” he says, the bass of his voice reverberating through his chest and into mine.
A horrific idea of what really happened is gradually dawning on me, as I thaw out of my daze. But ultimately I feel safe, unmolested, and eager to put the experience to rest. If Quade was on a mission to tamper with me, I could see in his eyes this morning that he failed…shame and regret radiating from his apology. And what’s more important, my clothing’s intact and my deepest intuition tells me nothing happened.
