The Love Sucks Club(22)

Roxanne straps herself in to the driver’s seat and reaches over to pat my leg again. “Change is the only constant in life, sweetie,” she says, smiling gently. “But you can’t change anything or anyone but yourself.”

We drop Sam off at the resort so she can pick up her car. When we get to my house, Roxanne pulls up in front of the door and turns to look at me. “Are you going to be all right?” she asks me one more time.

Leaning my head back against the seat, I look over at her. Her face, though lined, is still incredibly beautiful. Age has done nothing to diminish the beauty of her blue eyes and her smiling mouth. Aware that I’m feeling lonely and vulnerable, I think about what it would be like to go to bed with Roxanne. She’s not a casual sex kind of woman, but then, neither am I. Since neither of us is in the market for a relationship, maybe we could be lovers, just this once. A sort of easing of the loneliness for an evening. I reach out for her hand and she lets me take it.

“Roxanne?”

“Yes, Dana?”

“Do you want to come in?”

She looks at me for a long moment before taking my face in both of her hands. She leans forward and kisses me gently on the mouth.

“Go to bed, Dana,” she says softly. “You’ll feel better tomorrow.”

Sighing, I squeeze her hand and get out of the car. I’ll feel better tomorrow. I watch her until I can no longer see her taillights.





Chapter Six



The sun shining through my window is making sleep impossible. I should have closed the curtains last night before I finally fell asleep, but despite a restless night, I don’t want to sleep the day away. Lying in bed, I’m debating whether or not to call Roxanne. I wonder if she’s upset that I kind of came on to her. Probably not. She’s pretty pragmatic. I’m probably more bothered by it than she is. Rolling over to look at the clock, I groan at the creaking and cracking in my back. Frank chirps at me for disturbing his sleep, so I pet his head and get out of bed. He moves into the warm spot I left and plops his head on my pillow. He’ll probably wander out into the kitchen in a couple of hours and demand his morning meal. In the meantime, I’m going to make some coffee and get some writing done.

Rummaging around on the floor of my bedroom, I grab a pair of boxers and slip them on. I’ve never been squeamish about going topless, but even in my own home, walking around fully naked feels strange to me. I just don’t relish the idea of putting my bare butt down on certain surfaces.

There’s a shimmer hanging at the edge of my vision as I wander around the kitchen, making coffee, cleaning up last night’s dishes, and filling Frank’s bowls. Over the years, I’ve come to liken my psychic fits to a panic attack. Sometimes, I can feel it coming on and I’m able to breathe through it, or successfully distract myself in order to ward it off. Sometimes, even though I know it’s coming, there’s nothing I can do about it, and the best I can manage is to get into a safe space and hope for the best. I don’t think of myself as a standard psychic. I can’t tell you the winning lottery numbers. I’m certainly not about to have some television show where I convince a studio audience that I can communicate with their dead relatives. I sense there is someone here who died suddenly. No shit, really?

When I was five, I had a dream that I died. The next day, my grandfather died. That happened to me a lot when I was younger; I would have dreams that I died and someone I knew would die the next day. It didn’t even have to be someone I knew well or even liked. Once, I dreamed that I was hit by a car and the next day, the school crossing guard was hit by a car. It kind of sucked because it would get so that I would have these death dreams and I’d be on edge the next day, waiting to see who was going to kick the bucket.

After I hit puberty, my dreams faded a lot. I could go months or even years without having any dreams or visions. It really wasn’t until I met Fran that they started back up in earnest. While we were together, I usually felt like I was on guard. If I wasn’t, sometimes the simple act of her reaching over to touch me would send me into a fugue state. Of course, I didn’t know what they all meant back then. Hell, I’m not sure I know what they all mean now.

Throwing a muscle shirt on, I head outside. Sipping my coffee on the deck, I try to avoid the eye of my nearest neighbor. We aren’t that close, but if he stands in his backyard, he can see onto my deck. His driveway is down some other dirt road that branches off the lead in to mine. Unfortunately, because of the way the land was divided, parts of our properties are just a wee bit close for comfort. If I make eye contact with him, he’s likely to come over. It isn’t that I don’t like the guy; it’s just that Sam and I are pretty sure he’s a serial killer. He’s always walking around looking sweaty and twitchy. I had to borrow his shovel once to dig up some stubborn weeds and for weeks after, Sam would glance over at the shovel, leaning innocuously against the house, and say things like, “Course, now your prints are on it” or “We gotta get that shovel.” One time, he was digging something in the yard as Roxanne and I walked by and he about jumped out of his skin when we said hello. Roxanne is convinced that he’s just a nervous and unhappy man, but I’m not buying it. Whenever someone turns out to be a murderer, the neighbors always talk about what a quiet and unassuming person he was. Well, Shovel Guy is quiet and unassuming and my prints are on his shovel.