He'd pushed the patrol car up to eighty on the freeway and blown through the toll plaza to Alligator Alley, and hadn't said a word since he'd slapped her.
She didn't know where the hell he was going, but she did know that if she pushed it the wrong way it was only going to make it worse. They'd done this dark stretch of straight road before at night. She remembered the turnoff that he'd taken, up a hard-scrabbled path that was barely a road at all and ended up in some kind of woods he called a hammock.
They'd done some necking and then screwed in the backseat of the squad car. She'd thought it was actually pretty cool at the time. When they were getting dressed she clicked on the switch for the swirling blue lights and it made him yell at her at first and then he'd smiled that goddamn smile.
"You are a pistol, girl."
He wasn't smiling now and she knew she didn't have a choice.
"Come on, Kyle. What're we doing?"
Nothing.
She was using a soft voice and brushed the hair off her face.
"Look, I'm sorry. Really. I just get tired sometimes and, you know, I say stuff I don't really mean."
He was still quiet, but in the dim light from the dash she could see that his jaw was loosening, the marbles of muscle settling. At this point she didn't trust what the hell he might do. She'd witnessed that anger and speed when he'd done it to others and now it was on her and she didn't know how far he might take it. And Jesus, look where they were now, way the hell out here where nobody was going to hear her scream and no way was she going to jump out and run if he ever slowed the hell down or stopped.
She'd been out here during the daytime when they'd taken a drive to Naples on the west coast of the state. The sawgrass and open land went on like a damn meadow for miles and miles and she knew enough about the Everglades to know that most of it was hip deep in water.
But she'd also had plenty of practice getting pissed-off men to calm down. When you're in the bar you use what you've got. Sometimes it's a free drink. Sometimes a smile. Sometimes a promise of something to come later. It was a small price to pay.
"Come on, baby. I wasn't trying to order you around," she said. "I was just thinking about going home and relaxing and being with you instead of driving."
Christ, she thought. Just like her father when he'd start crying about mom and saying how it wasn't worth carrying on and where was the Lord when you were the one in need, and she'd sit down on the floor in front of his chair and take his big thick hands in hers and tell him how strong he'd always been and how much she loved him and as long as they were together they'd be a family and everything would be all right.
She hadn't believed any of those words, either. But it got both of them through. It was the same thing, she told herself now while she forced back the bile that came up while she was apologizing for nothing. But this time she was scared and only trying to get herself through.
"Kyle. Come on, baby. I can't stand it when you ignore me. It makes me feel alone and you know I need you to talk with me."
She straightened up in her seat and squared her shoulders against the seat back, still watching his face, watching that right hand on the wheel, waiting for him to slap her again.
He cocked his head and tightened his lips and she reached out, slowly, thinking she'd try to touch him.
"You don't know how close you come, Marci," he said.
Yes, she did, she thought.
"You know I try to give you everything I can. And then you turn on me like that and how the fuck do you think that makes me feel?"
You're insane, she thought.
"I know, baby. I know and I'm sorry," she said.
He was easing off the speed and she thought that was good. They'd already passed the few cars and a tractor-trailer that had probably gone through the toll before them and now there weren't any taillights out ahead of them. Across the divided highway she saw some headlights going east, but only a couple of pairs. She reached out farther and touched his thigh and forced herself not to flinch when she felt the muscle in his leg quiver.
"I really am sorry, Kyle."
This time he turned his head and looked at her. The expression on his face said "you poor pitiful little girl" and she absorbed it and bit the side of her lip and swallowed it and let him repeat himself: "You don't know how close you come sometimes."
He slowed nearly to a stop and then pulled onto what felt like that same dirt road and now they were moving into the trees and into the dark. When they came to a stop, she let him kiss her. She got out of the car with him and looked up at a smear of stars and thought "Where's my goddamn fairy godmother when I need her?" and then she let him undress her and said she was sorry again, but this time she was apologizing to herself.
She heard the leather of the gun belt creak and then drop to the ground. He pushed himself against her and she let him take her on the back bumper. She picked a spot out in the darkness and focused on it, watched it, wished she was in it. Was this her fault? she thought. Did I do this to myself again?
When he was finished he backed off and she started to relax. She could take this. She could get through this, she thought.
But then he held her by the shoulders and turned her and pushed her chest down on the trunk of the car and she let him take her again. She closed her eyes and silently vowed: Last Time.
On the ride back home he sipped at the flask and actually asked her if she had liked the movie. She forced herself to say yes, especially the part when the SWAT team came in and cleared out the room of foreign terrorists without firing a shot. He'd just nodded. She tried to concentrate on the moon and remembered a storybook from when she was a child about a boy with a purple crayon and how the moon walked with him.
When they got a block from her apartment he parked and got out and opened the door for her. She stepped out and then stood facing him, looking into his face, her eyes as dry as parchment.
"I gotta go. I'll call you," he said, and she nodded and he leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.
She watched him get back into the car and pull out onto the street and she stayed still until the red glow of the taillights disappeared around the corner. And then she turned and threw up into the gutter over and over and over until her throat was raw.