This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Blow the House Down
By Ciarán Llachlan Leavitt
Chapters 1 - 4 | Chapters 5 - 9 | Chapters 10 - ?
last update: 3 July 2005 - added Chapter 10
non-snail mail: llachness at gmail dot com
Chapter 10
It was dark. An empty shell. No hint of remembered pain lingered behind. That was wrong.
Outside, the moon hung deep in the sky and attempted to light the abandoned corners and edges. Surf surged on the shoreline and broke the night's stillness, robbing the house of the utter silence needed. No wood was stacked by the fireplace and no pile of tinder waited in the bucket by the hearth.
It didn't matter.
The kitchen was small, a conglomeration of furniture that was serviceable mixed with ancient appliances that were old before the war. The belly of the iron stove was cold. A trivet rested on one corner of the stovetop, partially blocking the round, iron plug that acted as burner and barrier both. The poker that did extra duty as a handle was at rest in another of the removable sections, waiting.
In a drawer, candles waited too, proof against a winter emergency or as mere indulgence.
Whim.
What right had she to indulgence? To whim?
The candle would do. It would do very well.
Down the hallway lay The Boy's room. The candle would guide the way. First came the hallway, the walls laden with evidence of excess, of indulgence. Of whim. Leaving the candle darkened made navigating the route easier. Made the calm stay.
The Boy's room was ahead on the right, the door arrogantly open. Carefully, husbanded calm threatened to recede under a wash of anger, but the sight of the room was enough to bring control. Books, a few toys; scattered remnants of presence. Candlelight flickered over the walls and shelves, over the unopened box, its brown paper covering unmolested. Wax dripped onto the paper, beading on the surface.
The gift had been rebuffed. Ignored. Forgotten. The anger came again, this time unmolested.
Wax continued to congregate on the paper, the spattered beads joined into rivulets that edged up against twine; forced to yield the conquest of the surface to the new barrier.
The candle flickered wildly, then flared, some unchinked hole admitting a persistent gust of air. Seconds later another gust caught the flame resting on the long edge of the package and ignited the paper.
There would be no rejection.
The paper smoldered, melted into itself, disappeared, leaving only curled black edges. Flame touched down on a new edge, and again the brown wrapping refused to ignite, the heat merely stripped away the veneer of promise before gutting out with lack fuel.
Again and again, the flame attacked the present. The paper yielded, and the box itself began to combust, its inflammable plastic-coating aiding in the destruction. Too slow, tendrils of flame ate at the box, and the carefully chosen presents. Paper and boxes burned easily. The book did not.
It was a sign. Carefully, the abused first edition was removed from the charred and melted remnants of cardboard. The stuffed, plush figures of Mouton and Renard reeked of smoke and were discarded. The book was enough.
Reverently, the Saint-Exupéry volume was set on the bed next to the naked pillow. Harsh breath extinguished the candle. Perversely, the room brightened, the moon's wide mantle in sole possession of the dark. The bed springs groaned, unaccustomed to the weight that now rested upon the are mattress. One hand curled reflexively around the spine of the book; the slender tome proof against the night.
Reed stretched her long legs out to the front, glad that her celebrity was good for more than gate passes and extra peanuts. Two hours into the twelve hour and forty-five minute flight and she already felt as though she had been in the air for twice that. One of the stewardesses noticed her restless shifting and looked over inquiringly. She held up her now empty glass, silently indicating her desire for a refill.
She stared out of the window, the weird shadows as fascinating as the snow on a TV screen during an acid trip: you knew you weren't watching anything real, but the plot was riveting just the same. Her refill arrived and Reed took a drink, more by reflex than intent. The scotch was cheap and tasted heavily of peat, but if it would help her sleep at least some of the flight she was willing to drink a couple of more. Except showing up drunk on the set was neither her style, nor fit repayment to Cassman for letting her make a trip to LA and disrupting his shooting schedule.
Of course, having her quit outright would have been a much larger disruption. It hadn't come to that though. Reed smiled, that was about the only ground she and Jae hadn't covered during her whirlwind visit - exactly how she'd come to be in LA when she should have been in Auckland had somehow not come up. It meant, she reflected, that Jae just assumed it was all legit. She finished her drink and leaned as far back in her seat as she could, mulling over the sensation of peace that even thinking about Jae brought. Screw the scotch.
Across the aisle, a man in a business suit eyed her, and the empty seat next to her, speculatively. Reed resisted the impulse to hold her hand up in a decisive, and bitchy, no. Instead, she reached into her laptop case for her script, determined that, if she couldn't sleep, then at least she'd arrive fully prepared. As she withdrew the battered tome, a piece of cream-colored paper snagged against the corduroy lining of the case. She unfolded the handmade paper, and luxuriated in the texture for a moment, before turning her attention to the actual message. Spidery, yet elegant, script flowed across the sheet. Think of me on page 127. And definitely on 132.
Familiar with the pacing of the plot, Reed knew exactly to which scenes Jae referred. She shut her eyes and played the lines back in her head, visualizing Jae instead of her co-star. The substitution would definitely make filming more interesting. One thing was for sure, if the images now playing in head were any indication, Jae most certainly did not want her to imagining anything other than a soundstage or thinking of anyone but her actual co-star when she filmed it.
Cait locked her car door and walked across the pale cement floor of the underground garage to the elevator. The button flashed, and the doors slid open, the car already on her level. Thom's car wasn't in its spot, and she felt guilty for feeling relieved that he wasn't home. The doors swished open. She stepped out into the hallway, and pointed her fob in the direction of the plate by her door to trigger the lock. Inside the condo, the automatic timer had already turned on light in the hall and living room.
She threw her bag on the bench next to the door and stepped out of her shoes, losing an inch of height in the process. The slate felt cool to her feet, and she stood for a moment enjoying the sensation. When her body had acclimatized and she could no longer feel the chill, she moved to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine. Glass in hand, she intended to boot up her computer but found herself staring out of the floor to ceiling window that dominated the room.
As she looked out over her end of Ocean Drive, Cait couldn't help but wonder what Becky would have thought if she had seen Jae and Reed at the studio. Reed had all but thundered into Jae's office, restrained only by the child at her side, and she had taken Riordan to see the result of some some film he had edited and Jae had scored for him. She'd half expected to come back to find that Jae had chalked up another ex, and had been more than a little surprised to find them thumb wresting over who was going to pay for Rio's skateboard.
Would Becky be indifferent to, or hurt by, the changes to Jae's life? And, Cait thought, how much was the answer to that question going to hurt?
Her glass was empty and she decided against having another. Despite her melencholy mood, she had some work to do on one of the options the production company wanted to nail down before another studio got wind of it and a bidding war erupted. She stayed at the window, inertia overcoming intent.
How had it all gotten so thoroughly screwed up? She and Thom were headed for divorce, even if neither of them had admitted it to anyone else. What would it be? Irreconcilable differences? Alienation of affection? A strangled laugh escaped her throat, the bitter irony of the plot that described her life being summed up a movie title, too ludicrous not to appreciate. That it was Jae, seemingly the unlikeliest of candidates, who was building something solid, only added to the irony.
She'd only glimpsed it before; in tiny hints gleaned from watching Reed or in unguarded words that spilled from Jae. Today it had been front and center, as easy to read in their body language as in their words. For the first time in ten years, Cait had looked at her best friend and felt envy. Mixed with that darker emotion was something tinged with awe over the risk Jae had taken.
How brave was she willing to be? Cait turned from the window. And how soon? She picked the option contract out of the teak in-basket on her desk and ignored the legal folder under it, unable to shake the fear that she might be the one who didn't know what love was.
updated July 3, 2005