Red Rain

PART TWO
17

Here he was at the Bay Street Theatre, just across from the bay in Sag Harbor, Andy Pavano and Vince’s cousin Cora, in town from Bath, a little town in Maine, where she waitressed at a barbecue restaurant and took classes at Bowdoin, studying for a degree in social work.

Andy got all that info in the first five minutes when he picked her up at Vince’s house and drove into town on a foggy, drizzly Saturday night. She talked quickly, with a slight Maine accent he hadn’t heard much before, and kept tapping his shoulder as she talked, as if trying to keep his attention.

Cora wasn’t bad-looking. She had sort of a bird-beak nose, but her eyes were round and pretty. She had the kind of smile that showed her gums, a toothy smile Andy liked. She was small and girlish-except for her truck-driver laugh, he thought. But maybe she just laughed like that because she was nervous. She said she’d never been out with a cop before.

“It’s not really a date,” he said. “Vince just thought we’d have fun together.” Then he felt like a total dork for saying that. He could feel his face grow hot, but she didn’t seem to notice.

She had to be five or ten years younger than him. Thirty maybe. She dressed young, like a college girl, in black tights and a purple square-necked top that gathered at her waist and came down low like a skirt. She didn’t have much on top, he noticed. Her dark hair was short and layered.

Andy parked on the pier and they walked past a little lobster shack, closed for the night, and B. Smith’s, a large, bustling restaurant overlooking the bay. A crowd stood at the entrance, waiting for the outdoor tables. Enormous white yachts lined the pier along the side of the restaurant.

The aroma of barbecued chicken floated out from B. Smith’s kitchen, and Cora made a face. “Don’t take me near a barbecue place. Sometimes after I’ve been at work in the restaurant, I have to shampoo three times to get the smoke out of my hair. Dogs follow me home because I smell like pulled pork.”

Andy laughed. She had a good sense of humor about herself.

“You and Cora should hit it off,” Vince had said the night before. “You’re both in-tell-ect-u-als.” That’s how he said it, pronouncing every syllable. Was he being sarcastic? Probably.

Andy had told him he liked to read mystery novels and police procedurals, and Vince had teased him ever since, calling him Sherlock and telling him he should smoke a pipe.

Vince wasn’t a Neanderthal, but he pretended to be. He thought it was part of his role as a small-town desk cop.

Cora seemed to think she had to tell everything there was to know about her before they got to the theater. Maybe she just had a thing about silences. Andy knew he wasn’t keeping up his end, but it was hard to get a word in, and he was getting to like her soft schoolgirl voice.

She’d had a long affair with a guy in Bath she met at the barbecue restaurant. He said he was in the music business and seemed to know a lot about music clubs and new acts. But it turned out he sold jukeboxes and pinball machines, and he was married.

After she broke it off with him, he stalked her for a while, sitting outside the restaurant in his car and phoning her again and again, leaving threatening messages and muttering obscenities. When she changed her phone number, he finally went away.

“Did you call the police on him?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t think they’d do anything. Usually, the police don’t do anything in stalker cases till the woman is raped or stabbed in the chest.”

“Usually,” Andy agreed. “But sometimes a couple of cops can go to the guy’s house and-you know-reason with him a little.” Andy waved a fist.

Cora stopped outside the theater. “Have you ever done that?”

Andy stared at her. “Well, no. But I saw it on Law amp; Order.”

They both laughed.

The play was called Whodunnit? Cora accused him of only having one interest in life. “Do you only go to plays about cops and crime?”

“I don’t go to many plays.”

The play wasn’t great. It was supposed to be a comedy, but people weren’t laughing. The mystery was impossible to solve. The murderer could have been any one of the six people onstage.

Andy hated stories like that where you didn’t stand a chance of figuring it out. The culprit could even be the nearsighted police inspector hamming it up on the old-fashioned living room set.

Cora seemed to be enjoying it more than he was. She kept squeezing his arm every time something surprising took place. She laughed when the police inspector stepped on his eyeglasses and stumbled blindly over the tea cozy.

At intermission, Andy led Cora through the chattering crowd, out the doors to the walled terrace in front of the theater. Horns honked as traffic rolled by. The air smelled tangy, salty as the sea. He was about to ask if she wanted to skip the second act and go get a bite to eat when he saw Sari walk out of the theater.

Something pinged in his chest. A real physical feeling. Like a hard heart thump. Or an alarm going off.

Cora was saying something, tapping his shoulder, but he didn’t hear her. He heard a rushing sound in his ears like water washing over a steep waterfall. How could Sari still have this effect on him?

She wore a short, white tank dress that clung to her body, showing off her long legs and her trim waist. Her black hair fell loosely behind her shoulders.

And who was the guy she was arm-in-arm with? Was he the guy?

That shrimp. He was at least a head shorter than Sari. Wearing a geeky black-and-white wide-striped shirt like a referee wears and white chinos torn at one knee, and a rope belt. Some kind of gold necklace hanging in front of his chest. And a tennis hat. The fucking guy wore a tennis hat with the name of his store on the front to the theater!

Andy lurched toward them. He saw Cora reach for him with both hands, startled by his sudden escape. But he wasn’t moving on brainpower. This was some kind of weird primitive force propelling him, the rushing waterfall in his ears sweeping him away.

“Andy?” Sari let go of the shrimpy guy, her dark eyes flashing surprise.

Andy nearly knocked over the tall sign announcing Whodunnit? with photos of the cast. He caught his balance and took her by the elbow.

The shrimp peered out from under his tennis cap, eyes wide with surprise. He had freckles and a wide, innocent face. Reminded Andy of someone from an Archie comic book.

“I need to speak to Sari,” Andy explained to him.

He expected more of a reaction. But the guy just shrugged and flicked his eyes toward Sari.

She didn’t resist as Andy pulled her away, to the side of the theater. A few people turned to watch. He glimpsed Cora behind him, arms crossed now, following him with her eyes till he disappeared around the corner.

Sari giggled. “Are you crazy? We have to go back.”

He backed her against the wall. Her skin felt soft and warm. Her eyes glowed even in the darkness here. He felt a rush of feeling, so powerful he had to take a deep breath.

She had hurt him so much the first time. Caused him so many feelings he didn’t know he had.

And now here they were again. Here he was, feeling this insane rush of emotion, leading him. . where?

“Andy, you look funny. What is your problem? You don’t have anything to say to me-do you? We have to-”

“I’m back,” he said.

And then he was kissing her. Kissing her. And she was kissing him back. And he felt the electric tingle of her fingers on the back of his neck. Just that light touch could make his head explode, he realized.

He kissed her harder. She wasn’t resisting.

When the kiss ended, they stared dumbly at each other. Her hands slid off his neck. With a shiver of her shoulders, she slithered out from between him and the wall.

A long silence. Yes, his heart was pounding, and yes, the blood was throbbing, pulsing in his temples. But he didn’t hear it now.

Silence. Silence.

And then she shook her head, sending her hair flying loose. She slowly rubbed a finger over her lips, as if wiping off the kiss. “That didn’t mean anything,” she murmured. “Hear me?”

Then she grabbed his head, pulled his face close, and kissed him again.