“What happens if I don’t complete the training? What then?”
“The Wall of Suicide. I’m afraid I don’t have time to discuss it, and hopefully you never have to experience it.”
Mr. Ghastly crossed the room to the front door and opened it. He turned to Calvin and said, “Let yourself go.” He then walked out without closing the door.
Calvin saw Celia outside, now sitting in the green plastic chair. She looked up at him.
He let himself go.
Chapter Nineteen
Ronnie pulled her Nissan Sentra along the sidewalk in front of her mother’s house. It was an old house in a fifties development. Over the years people have modified and added onto the houses, which gave the neighborhood a unique vibe for a development.
She stepped out of the car and opened the trunk to gather up her books and things. This day in age you would think she could just download half her textbooks onto a tablet, but she still had to pay exorbitant prices for hefty tomes to lug around. Should bill the damn school for future chiropractor fees.
She slung her book bag over her shoulder, grabbed her purse and then slammed the trunk.
The man standing beside her car was such a shock that Ronnie yelped.
“Oh sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I thought I recognized you.”
It took just a fraction of a moment for her to realize that it was Lance, the artist. She felt a sudden tightness in her gut. What the hell was this guy doing here?
He grinned like a lunatic, like maybe that expression was permanently affixed to his face by clever plastic surgery.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “What am I doing here, right? I was just walking by and I saw you pull up. I could tell it was you. All I had to do was see that face and I knew.” He glanced at her mother’s house. “You live here?”
Ronnie realized that she hadn’t taken a breath. Seemed like it was caught in her throat. She swallowed hard. Didn’t want to tell this guy where she lived, but how was she going to get out of this? He hadn’t really freaked her out when she met him earlier in the day, but this was weird. She knew about stalkers. Not from personal experience, but she’d watched 20/20 and Dateline. Seemed like stalkers were a dime a dozen these days.
Thinking quick, Ronnie said, “This is my friend’s house. Doing some studying before heading home for the night. Good to see you again, though.” She moved around Lance and started up the walkway. “I better get inside.”
Lance’s grin sunk just the slightest bit, hardly recognizable really, but Ronnie could tell. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked to the front door. She would have to knock on the door rather than use her key, just in case he was still watching her. Of course, her car was out front, and he would certainly recognize it in the future if he was indeed stalking her. He would see it in the morning.
She knocked. Her mother opened the door and she rushed in.
“Forget your key?” her mother asked.
“No, just…” Ronnie looked out the window but Lance was gone. “Strange guy out there. Kind of freaked me out. I told him this was a friend’s house.”
Her mother approached the window and opened the blinds wide. “He out there?”
“I don’t see him.”
“We should call the police.”
“Naw, I think he’s gone. Might have been a coincidence.”
“How so?”
“I met him at school today.”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed.
“He’s gone,” Ronnie said. “Might have just been a coincidence.”
Her mother rolled her eyes and took a drag off the cigarette she was smoking. Her mother was never far from a smoke and she would be damned before she’d try an e-cig. Ronnie left it at that and went to her room.
Ronnie was close to her mother, but sometimes that look the woman gave her was too reminiscent of how she treated her in high school. Ronnie’s mother could be strict and didn’t mind throwing around her know-it-all attitude, what came from her career as an expert psychologist for various media outlets. She had her doctorate and she once ran a successful practice. Whenever there was a tragedy involving someone with mental disorders, CNN and FOX and all the local television stations came calling, and her mother was only too happy to be held on their pedestal, if only for the duration of the tragedy. Thing is, her mother brought that attitude home, that self assured smugness that made her think she could talk down to anyone because she was an expert. It hadn’t always been this way and Ronnie was getting sick of it. The closeness they had once shared had been deteriorating. Now all it took was that condescending look her mother gave her when she sucked in a lungful of carcinogens. Ronnie could do without it.
Her thoughts quickly drifted to moving out, as they had so often lately. Easier said than done for a college girl. She would have to pull a part time job and even that wouldn’t be enough to rent a place in San Diego. The thriving market did nothing more than jack up rental prices. She’d be lucky to get a loft somewhere, if she could find one. More likely she would have to rent out a room in someone’s house, and she wouldn’t feel comfortable with that.
If only Calvin would invite her to stay with him. It would be a heck of a big move, but she thought they were ready for it, especially with a baby on the way. Or at least she had thought that. She wasn’t so sure lately, baby or not. And what would she do if she had moved in and they broke up? Her mother would take her back. She’d give Ronnie the ol’ men are from Mars speech (so astute for a psychologist), and welcome her back with an ear-load of advice.
It was almost eight at night, which meant that Calvin should be home. He rarely stayed out late considering how early he woke for work.
Ronnie called him, but his phone went straight to voicemail.
Chapter Twenty
In the past two years he’d been living there, Calvin had never had Celia in his apartment. He’d never considered the idea. What business did she have in his place anyway? Even had he been single he wouldn’t have considered her as an option. Not even for a one-nighter. A night with Venus for a lifetime with mercury, as his uncle says.
It didn’t take any coaxing at all for Calvin to convince her to come in. It was as if she had been waiting for this moment, and she probably had. She was the type of girl who never missed a sexual advance. She was like a miner of dick, making her stake on any willing man and always keeping an eye out for new prospects, and her eyes had been on Calvin for a long time—probably since he’d moved in.
“I’ve always wondered what it looked like in here,” said Celia.
She moved around like she was in a perpetual state of seduction, as if, to her, missing even a single moment to flick a guy’s switch was to miss the greatest of opportunities.
Calvin didn’t really know how to respond to just about anything she said. To her, this was going to turn into a moment of sexual exploit; to him, it was going to turn into something so much better, something he couldn’t tell her about, which made it all the more difficult for Calvin to communicate.
“Never thought about asking you in,” Calvin said. “Not until tonight.”
Celia made herself comfortable on his couch, crossing her legs in a way that revealed a heavy dose of thigh, something that might have been learned from watching Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Her lipstick was deep red and she knew how to make those lips talk without saying a word. Her eyes did the same, all decked out in black. She’d never taken the less-is-more approach when it came to makeup.