Montaine (7 page)

The next week passed in a
miserable blur. As each day shaded into the next, I resigned myself more and
more to the fact that Trent was not only ignoring me but actively avoiding me.

On Tuesday, I glimpsed
his broad-shouldered figure walking fifty paces ahead on the sidewalk and bounding
up the stairs into the magazine building. I quickened my stride, not sure what
I would say if I did manage to catch him in the lobby. He was gone by the time
I surged through the revolving door, panting and sweating from the summer heat.

Miklos led the weekly
staff meeting, remarking off-handedly that Trent was occupied on other
important matters. Kill glowered and fumed at the edge of the room.

I jumped every time my
phone buzzed. Trent’s name never appeared. I tried to steel myself against
expectation, but I proved unable to quell a surge of disappointment whenever
the message turned out to be from someone else. I invented excuses to walk past
his office during working hours. The door remained closed, no sound emanating
from within.

 “Are you alright, Kat?”
Tony asked with a hint of concern on Wednesday as we sat across a small bistro
table outside of a coffee shop on 25
^th
Street.

I didn’t respond,
absorbed in my thoughts as I stared at the foam in my steaming mug and clinked
my fingernails against the white ceramic. When I looked up, Tony eyed me with a
suspended air of anticipation.

“Hm?” I said absently.

He laughed and shook his
head. “I asked if you’re alright. You’ve been a real space cadet so far this
week. Did something happen?”

I sipped my latte while I
thought of an appropriate response. I certainly could not tell Tony about my
romantic entanglement with Trent. Aside from the fact that I had solemnly
promised to keep Trent’s secrets, which I assumed included his participation in
an underground fighting ring and his tendency to kiss hapless interns, I was
utterly embarrassed by the entire situation. At this point, I felt more like a
pathetic schoolgirl with an unrequited teacher crush than a grown woman on the
cusp of a passionate liaison. I had come to the magazine to advance my professional
career, but so far I had merely managed to turn myself into a lovesick fool.

“No, nothing at all.” I
forced a cheerful smile. “I guess I’m just preoccupied. I’ve been racking my
brain for story ideas for the cover contest, but I’m not having any luck.”

Tony knit his eyebrows
suspiciously but allowed my lie to pass unquestioned.

“I was thinking about
doing a story on this boxing gym up in the Bronx.” He leaned over the table and
spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “I heard about them through a friend. They
got priced out of their lease when the university decided to build some medical
school dorms across the street, but the neighborhood banded together and raised
the money to pay their rent for another year.”

“That sounds like a great
story,” I said weakly. I really did like his idea, but I had trouble mustering
a ton of enthusiasm for any topic at the moment.

“Yeah, I don’t know.” He
leaned back, his shoulders drooping slightly. “Maybe it’s too heartwarming, not
edgy enough.”

I sat up, my journalistic
instincts momentarily winning the battle against my sad-sack emotional state.

“You should explore it
some more. You never know. Maybe there is an edgy angle that you haven’t yet
discovered. Maybe there is more to it than just the heartwarming tale of a
small gym battling against the forces of greed. Maybe there is another side to
the story.”

He nodded, his arms crossed
over his slim chest and his lips pursed in thought.

“That’s good advice. I
knew there was a reason that I bothered hanging out with you.” He reached over
and poked my shoulder with brotherly affection. “So…uh…what’s going on with
your roommate, Marcie?” I could tell that he was trying very hard to sound
casual and detached. “Did she break up with the guitarist yet?”

Unfortunately, I was
forced to be the bearer of busted hopes, at least for the time being. On Sunday
morning, I had crawled out of bed after a late-night marathon binge of cheesy
80s sitcoms and tripped over a battered guitar case on my way to the bathroom.
Fucking
Vaughan
, I muttered under my breath. Sure enough, there was Sleeping Beauty
himself, sprawled like a snow angel across Marcie’s bed while her tiny form
huddled in a corner pocket.

Marcie looked sheepish
when I approached her later that day.

“He apologized,” she said
with a vague shrug.

I didn’t press the issue.
I was certainly in no position to dole out romantic advice.

“Not yet,” I told Tony.

“That’s a shame.” His
posture noticeably wilted. “She deserves better.”

Same here
, I thought with a flash of anger at the absent Trent.

***

Late Friday afternoon, I
sat stooped over my laptop, immersed in a research project that I’d promised to
complete by the end of the day. A shadow passed through the left side of my
vision. When I lifted my head, I was stunned to see Kill leaning on the side of
my desk, gazing down at me with a pleasant smile that lit up his normally sour
countenance.

“Hi, Kat,” he chirped.

“Um, hi, Kill,” I stammered.

I readied myself for a
turn of the tables. Surely, he was just messing with me. Any second, he would
shift into a vicious scowl and order me to perform some humiliating task.
Buy
my groceries. Shine my shoes.
A host of snarky responses bubbled into my
consciousness.

“Listen, I think you and
I got off on the wrong foot,” he said. I stared back at him in dumb shock.
“It’s my fault,” he continued. “I’m sorry. I hope that we can be friends from
now on.”

Kill seemed unaware that
I’d overheard his argument with Trent a week earlier. After automatically
assuming that Trent was the valiant hero and Kill the cowardly villain, I now
began to wonder. What if my assumptions were wrong? What if Kill wasn’t the bad
guy after all? I had to at least consider the possibility, especially given
Trent’s behavior toward me over the past week. Maybe Kill was something that I
never expected. Maybe he was an ally.

“No need to be sorry,” I
said matter-of-factly. I did not want to be overly forgiving – the guy had
acted like a huge dick so far – but I also did not want to alienate him until I
determined the real truth.

We remained awkwardly
silent for half a minute.

“Well, I’ll let you get
back to work then.” He strolled away through the wide glass doors. I watched
him, my eyebrows knit together and my forehead crinkling in confusion.

A few minutes later, I
was retrieving a snack from the breakroom fridge when Miklos appeared behind
me.

“Miss Raney!” he said in
bright welcome. “How is the world of magazine publishing treating its newest
star?”

I had to laugh despite my
pensive mood.

“I’m doing just fine,
Mister Balik.”

“Please, call me Miklos.”
He polished an apple on the sleeve of his very expensive suit jacket.

“Then you have to call me
Kat,” I returned with a wink.

“Very well, Kat.” He
leaned backwards on the counter, the round bottle cap lenses of his glasses
reflecting the harsh overhead lights. “I am happy that I ran into you here. I
have been keeping an eye on you since you started.”

“You have?” I asked in
surprise. I had no idea that Miklos had even registered my existence beyond the
few times we’d met in passing in the halls or on the street.

“I have. And don’t sound
so shocked.” He playfully wagged a finger. His expression grew suddenly
serious. He squinted at me in appraisal. “You know, I was once a wide-eyed
young journalist such as yourself. That, of course, was a long time ago.”

His voice was smooth and
gravelly. His dignified posture and sophisticated accent lent his words an air
of wisdom.

“Back in Hungary?” I ventured.

“Yes, back in Hungary.”
His voice turned wistful. “You strike me as a good soul. You have a true heart.
I was once the same.”

“Are you no longer a good
soul?” I said with a chuckle. I silenced myself when I realized that his
expression had turned even more grave and thoughtful.

“We all do things of
which we are not proud,” he said cryptically. “I was trusting. I trusted the
wrong person. You are trusting. Be careful that you do not trust the wrong
person too.”

“How do I know which
person is the wrong person?”

I recalled my brief
conversation with Kill, still fresh in my mind, and the doubts it had created.
Is
Trent the wrong person to trust? Is Kill the wrong person?

“That, my dear, I cannot
tell you,” Miklos responded. “You must discover on your own. I simply advise
you to be wary. Some people are not what they seem, and some people are exactly
what they seem.”

 I nodded as if I
understood, but my brain reeled in a confused turmoil. Miklos tossed his apple upwards
and snatched it out of mid-air, displaying the reflexes of a much younger man.

“Now I must leave you,
Kat. I am glad that we could have this talk.”

“Me too,” I responded
uncertainly.

He turned and headed for
the door.

“Have a nice weekend,” I
called weakly.

He waved a hand and
disappeared down the hall.

***

The afternoon progressed
toward evening. I kept working, intentionally stalling on a project that I could
have finished hours earlier. Though I did not want to admit it to myself, I still
clung to the vain hope that Trent would magically scoop me up like an office
Cinderella and whisk me away to another thrilling Friday night of secret
underground fights and rooftop embraces.

My heart sank when I
glanced over at the glass doors around 8:00 and saw his distinctive figure pass
by. He carried the telltale duffel and headed to the elevator.

I sent a final email and
gathered my belongings, prepared for another lonely evening of sitcom binges and
ice cream.

“Well, fuck that guy,” I
righteously declared. My words echoed in the silence of the empty room.

“Kat! Kat! Wake up, you
fool!”

Marcie vigorously shook
my shoulder. I groggily opened my eyes. An empty carton of ice cream sat on the
nightstand beside my head, a sticky spoon propped against its edge. I was quickly
becoming the cliché of a broken-hearted girl.

“What…what is it? What’s
happened?”

Marcie thrust a phone
into my face with a stern nod. It buzzed with an incoming call. The name on the
screen was Trent Montaine.

“I’ll answer it myself if
you don’t,” Marcie hissed.

I gave her a withering
glare and shooed her away with the tips of my fingers.

“Hello?” My voice
betrayed a gruff sleepiness.

Marcie split open the
bubble gum pink curtains, admitting shafts of morning sunlight that hit my eyes
with the force of a flare. I pinched my eyelids shut against the painful
brightness.

“What are you doing right
now?” Trent’s voice sounded slightly breathless, as if he were walking very
fast.

“Um, I just woke up,” I
admitted.

“It’s ten o’clock. What
are you? A lady of leisure?”

“I didn’t get to sleep until
two in the morning.”

“Pardon me, girl gone
wild. Am I disturbing your hangover?”

“Not unless a pint of
peanut butter fudge ice cream and a
Facts of Life
marathon can give
someone a hangover.”

He laughed. “I would
argue that those two things most certainly could give someone a hangover. Damn,
you’re pathetic.”

“Screw you.”

“Is that an invitation?”

Yes
, I wanted to say. I felt comforted by our easy return
to a rapid-fire banter. I wanted to stay angry at him, but his charm was
difficult to overcome. Perhaps I was simply grateful that he had once against
decided to acknowledge my existence.

“You wish,” I responded
boldly.

“Meet me downstairs in
ten minutes.” My heartbeat quickened. I looked helplessly at my pajamas.

“Give me twenty,” I said,
already leaping from the rumpled bed.

“See you then.” The line
clicked dead.

Precisely twenty minutes
later, I bounded down the steps after a hurried shower, my hair still damp at
the ends and tossed into a messy ponytail. Trent leaned backwards against a
motorcycle parked at the curb. His arms were crossed over his sculpted abdomen.
His chin tilted inward, causing a lock of black hair to flop invitingly over
his forehead. I wanted to pluck it with my fingertips and smooth it back into
place. In the instant before my feet hit the sidewalk, I caught his shining
blue eyes fixed on my bare legs.

He stepped forward. He
wore a tight army-green t-shirt that accentuated his chest muscles. His
battered jeans were worn to threads at the pockets and knees.

“Look, I know you’re
probably pissed.” He held his palms outward in a gesture of pacification.

“Yeah, a little, now that
you mention it. Thanks for noticing.” Now it was my turn to stand with my arms
crossed.

He smirked and flipped
back the errant lock of hair. “I’ve always been a sucker for a fiery redhead.”

“Don’t change the
subject, Prince Charming.” I impatiently tapped the toe of my thin canvas
sneaker into the cement.

His smirk spread into a
wide grin that threatened to melt both my heart and my panties. He opened a
compartment in the rear of the motorcycle and pulled out a helmet.

“I’ll explain everything
when we get there.”

“When we get where?”

“You’ll see.”

“You say that a lot.”

“Have I disappointed you
yet?”

He tossed the helmet to me
across the width of the sidewalk. I bobbled it, but caught it just before it
crashed to the hard ground.

“Should I change?” I
looked uncertainly from the motorcycle to my delicate flowered sundress, the
hem several inches above my knees and the bodice held in place by thin
spaghetti straps.

“No, babe. You look
perfect.” He winked. My cheeks and chest prickled pink with heat.
Damn him
,
I thought.
Why does he have to be so gorgeous?

I settled the helmet onto
my head as Trent mounted the bike. I hesitated, my toes hanging over the edge
of the curb. He hooked one finger in the air, signaling for me to come closer,
and patted the seat behind him. Trying my best not to expose my panties to the
entire street, I swung one leg over the side and positioned myself against his
back. I tucked the hem of my dress under my thighs so that it wouldn’t fly into
my face as soon as we drove away.

Trent clutched my naked
knees and pulled me forward. My breasts, in their thin casing of flowered
cotton, pressed against his brawny back. My inner thighs straddled his hips. I
wrapped my exposed arms around his midsection, my palms flattened over his rippling
six-pack.

This is no fair
.
I might orgasm any second.
I swallowed hard,
trying to steady my surging pulse.

Trent turned his helmeted
head back toward me and nodded. I gave a thumbs-up salute.

The engine growled with a
vibration that shook my spine. Then the tires squealed over the asphalt as we
sped out into the Saturday morning traffic.

***

We zoomed along the
Hudson River, leaving the bustling island of Manhattan and gliding through the
quiet suburbs north of the city. The landscape shifted from huddled brownstones
to green manicured lawns to cow-dotted farm pastures with rail-post fences. The
clouds grew thicker the farther north we progressed until the sky displayed the
bruised blue hues of an oncoming rainstorm.

Welcome to Leidensburg
. An old-fashioned stone sign announced our
destination as we exited the highway onto a winding country road that carved through
the primeval forests of upstate New York. We soon found ourselves on the quaint
main thoroughfare of a university town. The patios of small coffee shops teemed
with students. They chatted, sipped from mugs, and leaned over laptops.

We skirted the edge of a
quad surrounded by imposing columned buildings and drove slowly through streets
lined with stately colonial homes. Trent pulled up to a curb and cut the
engine. He removed his helmet and gently patted my knee.

I swung down from the
bike, my legs stiff and sore after the long drive. I slipped off my helmet,
adjusted my flattened hair, and raised my eyes to a gate of iron scrollwork.
Atop the gate was an arch with one word inscribed in curling metal.
Cemetery.
We stood at the entrance to a graveyard.

I glanced questioningly
at Trent. He looked pensive, his jaw clenched and his mouth turned downward in
a thoughtful frown. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, his chest visibly
rising and falling.

“Come on.”

He grasped my hand and
towed me along the choppy cobblestone path and onto the rolling grass. He aimed
like a laser toward a point in the distance. His legs moved in long, purposeful
strides. I struggled to keep pace, stubbing the toe of my sneaker here and
there on a hillock of unmown grass or swerving to avoid a collision with a
teetering headstone.

Some of the stones were
faded and rubbed raw by decades spent exposed to the harsh northeastern
winters. Others had the fresh sharpness of recent burials. Tiny rounded stones
marked the graves of children. Elaborate monuments of weeping angels memorialized
entire generations. Towering elms rose and spread like a cathedral ceiling,
their leaves shaking in the breeze with a whispering hush like the voices of
the dead.

Trent stopped so abruptly
that I ran into his back. I apologized softly, but he didn’t seem to notice.
His gaze was fixed on a slab of shining pink marble set into the earth. He
crouched before it, swiping it gently with his fingertips to remove a few
leaves and particles of dirt.

Rosalind Pauline Dover
.
Daughter. Friend. We love you forever. 1982-2001.
Underneath the text was a carved circle. I knelt beside Trent to get a closer
look at the detail. The circle was divided by a cross into four spaces. Within
each space was a picture. A tree, a gust of wind, a flame, and a drop of water.
The four elements.

Reluctant to intrude on
Trent’s thoughts, I waited and wondered. I knew that he was thirty-three, so
the dates on the headstone would have made Rosalind Pauline Dover his
contemporary in age. The four elements, of course, reminded me of our
conversation on the rooftop. His body was covered in tattoos of the four
elements. He had said that the meaning of those tattoos involved a girl who was
now gone. Rosalind was clearly that girl.

The sadness of the
discovery hit me with a blow that was almost physical in its violence. Trent’s
body was a monument to a ghost.

“I suppose you’ve pieced
together part of it,” he said as if reading my mind. His voice was gruff and
raw. He immediately cleared his throat, attempting to disguise his emotions,
and rose to his feet. “Want to hear the rest of it?”

I nodded. The wind kicked
up, stirring the elms and sending a chill along my naked arms. The gray,
swollen clouds moved quickly across the leaden sky.

“Rosie.” He spoke the
name with a deep sigh. “We were in college together, here in Leidensburg. We
met as freshman and formed an instant bond. I first became friends with Kill at
around the same time. The three of us were pretty much inseparable. Kill was
actually the journalism star in those days, kind of a big man on campus. Rosie was
very bohemian. She wore long patchwork skirts and crystal necklaces. I was a
bit of a hippie too.”

I couldn’t help but
laugh. “You? A hippie?”

He smiled sheepishly. “I
looked great with long hair. I think I even wore it in a braid at one point.”

This made me laugh even
harder.

“I’m sorry. I really
shouldn’t be laughing.”

“It’s alright,” he said
softly. “Rosie would have appreciated the humor in it.”

“So, she was your
girlfriend?”

He paused and gazed up at
the billowing clouds.

“No. Things never went in
that direction between us. She was my best friend, even more so than Kill. We
told each other everything, all of our secrets, our dreams and plans, our
deepest thoughts. We’d talk for hours on end and never get bored. I guess
that’s what true love is, but you don’t always realize that when you’re a nineteen-year-old
kid. You expect constant fireworks, not a slow and steady burn. Maybe real love
needs both.”

He glanced meaningfully
at me from the corner of his eye.

“I suppose that I was in
love with her without ever admitting it to myself. We might have eventually
ended up as a couple. I don’t know. Suddenly, it was too late to find out. She
was gone.”

“What happened to her?” I
asked quietly.

“Rosie was thoroughly
good. She had a purity of spirit. I felt like I needed to protect her. She was
too trusting. She trusted the wrong person. I wasn’t there to save her.”

I thought about Miklos’s
warning of a few days prior.
Be careful that you do not trust the wrong
person too
.

“She met this new guy in
her English Literature class,” he continued, still staring down at the mute
headstone. “Peter Haverford. I didn’t like him right away. Rosie said that I
was jealous because he was taking up more of her time. I
was
jealous,
but that wasn’t the problem. I didn’t like the way he treated her, like he
owned her. She started to retreat within herself. Suddenly, we were barely speaking.
I saw her on campus. She looked thin and worried. That wasn’t like Rosie. She
was always a bundle of energy, with a smile that could light up the darkest
day.”

As if on cue, thunder
rumbled from afar. A few tiny raindrops sprinkled my shoulders. I felt that I
knew where the story was headed. Trent’s pain radiated from him in waves that
shook my heart. The temperature dropped. I rubbed my arms to keep warm. The
raindrops grew heavier, landing and sliding down the sides of the pink marble
and soaking into the grass.

“One day, I noticed that
she had bruises on her arm. They looked like fingermarks, from being grabbed.
Right around here.” He reached out a hand and gently caressed the top half of
my arm. My skin tingled with goosebumps. “I tried to talk to her about it, but
she refused. She said that it was none of my business and that I should leave
her alone. So I did. And it was the worst mistake of my life, one for which
I’ll never forgive myself.”

 “He murdered her, didn’t
he? Her boyfriend, Peter Haverford?”

The booming thunder grew
closer. The rain left large wet splatters on Trent’s t-shirt, but he didn’t
appear to care. He nodded slowly.

“She disappeared. First
it was just a few days, but then that stretched into a week, and then a few
weeks. I knew Peter had done something to her. When they found her body---”