ON THE EDGE
Bougainvillea
by Heather Graham
an excerpt . . .
Prologue
It had been foolish to make threats, Marina knew.
Obviously. But, then, she'd been so angry, frustrated and powerless,
and in all honesty, her temper had always been her downfall. Well,
there was nothing she could do about it now. Her words couldn't
be taken back.
She blinked back a sudden onslaught of tears, thinking
of the people she had not meant to hurt. Including herself, she
reflected wryly. But she had been feeling weepy. Still was. But
she shouldn't have been drinking. Drinking always compounded everything.
Along with the guilt, anger, and sorrow that were going to haunt
her when she turned the world upside down tomorrow, she was going
to have a crippling hangover.
She quickened her pace along the walkway the led deeper
into the grounds of Bouganvillea, the vast Delaney estate, knowing
that she might somewhat calm her state of anguish if she could just
reach the beach, feel the soft breeze that came with the late afternoon,
and watch the sunset falling over the pond near the docks. This
is what she would miss. She loved the property as no one else did.
Unless it was…
That despicable man!
Oh, they were all despicable. Seamus, Martin, Lenore,
Josh, Kaitlin. Sometimes even David, because he could look at her
with such strange eyes…
Then, if the household wasn't enough, there were the
neighbors. Always there. Martin Callahan and his darling little
Shelley. And Eli.
The ones she needed to be thinking about were Mark.
And Kit.
Not now, she was in such a roil of anger!
She quickened her pace and reached the beach at last.
The scene before her was postcard perfect. Lazy palms, drifting
in the breeze. Golden sand, stretching out to the surf. The water,
with small whitecaps forming that just caught the dying light, and
dazzled beneath it like diamonds. A little crane strutted along
the beach, at once elegant and gawky. A gull swept down, and the
crane took flight.
"Marina!"
She heard her name called, and she knew his voice.
As she turned back, she trembled, both with fury and because she
wanted what she shouldn't have. Even when she knew better.
"Don't!" she told him as he caught up with
her on the beach. "Don't come near me…this is entirely
wrong, and I'm going to leave, do you understand?"
But he kept coming anyway, and his features carried
the same agonizing torment as her own. He reached out and pulled
her into his arms and ended her tirade with a passionate kiss. In
those first moments, she would have pulled away. But he was stronger,
and proving his force. She stiffened, willing to fight…but
for no more than embarrassingly brief seconds. Then a sense of nostalgia
seized her. She was leaving…just one last taste of everything
that was forbidden, and she would spend her life repenting her sins,
repairing the damage she had done…
With that logic and illusion, and of course, a bit
of the alcohol coursing through her bloodstream, she began kissing
him in return with equal passion. Hot, wet, greedy kisses as they
fumbled with each other's clothing. He shoved her skirt up to her
hips while she ripped his shirt from his pants, and slipped her
hand beneath his belt line, fondling his erection. Half undressed,
they tumbled to the damp sand together. They made love desperately,
like a pair of maddened animals, natural perhaps, for the lover
she had taken. For brief moments in the aftermath of their violent
mating, she was sated and satisfied, as if something had come to
completion. Yes, she'd needed this once more. A tempestuous and
dramatic goodbye. If nothing else, we've this passion, burning too
brightly perhaps, so illicitly, but precious nonetheless. Because
it's so sweet to have this power, something I can lord over one
man…
That would devastate another.
Remorse set in.
But she reminded herself once again, she was leaving.
And she would use the years ahead to atone for all that she had
done.
Tomorrow, she would become everything that she should
have been all along. A good wife. Lord knew, her husband deserved
as much. More than that, she would be a good mother. She had always
intended to be.
Tomorrow…
Tomorrow she was leaving. Before that, however, she
would see to it that she carried out her threats. She meant to tell
everything that she knew.
She meant to atone.
And so, by God, would the others.
All of them
For everything.
But that would be tomorrow! Her resolve was strong;
she could and would change. But for now, she needed to cherish these
last few precious seconds. She would first finish what she had begun,
then she would leave, and never look back.
She had just seconds left.
And then…
Tomorrow.
But for the moment, they lay side by side, both aware
that they were going to have to rise, and deal with the fact that
they'd mangled each other's clothing and that they did have to go
back to the house. But she didn't want to talk yet. She just wanted
to feel what it was like to lie beside him as if she belonged there.
The sun had now created beautiful crimson streaks across the sky.
The ocean was darkening, the whitecaps would soon have to look for
moonlight, and the color of the air was dusky and gentle and the
breeze was sweetly sensual.
"Marina-"
"Shh. Just close your eyes. Hold me, please.
Just for a minute."
Her held her. He closed his eyes, as she did. The
palms whispered softly as the breeze lifted them.
# # #
The parrots were back.
Early every evening, the little buggers escaped their
tourist-attraction home and hightailed it across town. They landed
in the trees, and they began squawking. Making tea in the little
bungalow on the Delaney property that had been her home since 1935,
old Mary O'Hara, retired now from her post as head housekeeper,
looked out her rear windows.
"Birdies!" she exclaimed with disgust. "Bloody,
wretched birdies!" she continued, raising her fist toward them.
She shook her head, wondering how any creature that screeched so
loudly and annoyingly could entice a paying audience. Ah, well.
The parrots hadn't always come here. Maybe they'd find a new place
to visit soon.
She made her tea, sat in her rocker and turned on
a repeat of Hollywood Squares. She just loved game shows. And at
her age…well, there were only so many pleasures left. She raised
the volume on her television. All right, she was nearly as old as
God himself, and maybe she was losing her hearing a bit, but it
was those bloody birds forcing her to turn the TV so high, and that
was a fact!
She paused for a moment, predicting that sometime
tonight Marina would come. Mary's hearing might be bad, but she
did still know what was going on around the place. She believed
that she had talked the girl into her senses. Marina, for all her
madness, was one of those few pleasures Mary had left, along with
her reruns. Marina always made her laugh. Mary loved the girl, and
knew for her own good, Marina had to leave. But she would come to
say goodbye. But until then…
Mary turned up the television again. The birds were
so loud! She simply wasn't able to hear any of the punch lines.
# # #
Marina had been too sated, and too wrapped up in the
drama of her own life, to notice anything else in the world. Lying
there, in his arms, on the beach, was, at least, far to perfect
an ending.
She had become too comfortable, and she had actually
dozed. So much for the great trauma of guilt and proposed redemption.
She awoke slowly, groggily, feeling as if she already
had a hangover. She thought at first that it was him tugging at
her to awaken her, that he wanted to make love again. No. She had
said her goodbyes. And there was someone else who mattered more
now, someone who mustn't pay for her sins. She opened her eyes.
Her head was foggy. She could barely move. It wasn't him…was
it? She blinked, thinking incredibly briefly that it might be good
that they had been caught together half-naked on the sand because
that could force everything out into the open. Everything. She could
just admit it all, not just this, but the entire truth of everything
at Bougainvillea, and her fellows in deception and sin would be
brought to answer for everything that they had done as well. All
the duplicity and the illicit truths. Those who were innocent could
choose whether or not to forgive…
She realized that it was not her lover trying to awaken
her. She was being…dragged. And she didn't just have a hangover;
it was something else. She could barely twitch. Barely think, function,
reason…
Then she knew. The drinks she'd had that night. They'd
seemed more potent than usual. She'd thought that it had been her
mood, her recklessness, her anger. But there was more. She should
have known. She knew it now, because this was no simple hangover
she was feeling. She had been drugged.
She tried to move, tried to understand what was happening
to her. Who was taking her…
Where.
And why.
Then she saw.
She could hardly purse her lips or even breath deeply,
and she couldn't seem to control her limbs at all.
Her throat seemed…locked.
She forced her lips to open. Forced air into her lungs.
Prayed for sound. And at last…
She started to scream.
Because although her limbs were like lead, her mind
was working. She understood then exactly what was happening. And
why.
She kept screaming. High-pitched, terrible. She knew
that she had to keep up the desperate summons for help.
Her lips wouldn't really form at all, certainly not
into words. And still, noise came from her. Shattering in the foliage.
The dense foliage.
Someone must hear. They must.
She felt her body, sliding roughly over sand and little
outcrops of vegetation. Felt the roughness, the hold on her body,
and still, she hadn't the power to move or fight.
Tomorrow, she realized desperately, might never come!
She fought…and screamed louder. And screamed…and
screamed.
Until her screams were silenced.
Forever.
# # #
Mary leaned forward, trying to catch an answer from
the pretty young starlet in the middle square. The birds had started
shrieking again, right at the most important moment of the show.
Mary missed what was said, but she saw the stars laughing, and the
contestant win the prize.
Damned parrots.
Shrieking and shrieking. They sounded just like a
woman, screaming in bloody terror.
© Heather Graham Pozzessere
2003
