The Human Stain: Chapter 17
Hopelessly
I feel like there might be something that I'll miss
Hopelessly
I feel like the window closes oh so quick
Hopelessly
I'm taking a mental picture of you now
'Cuz hopelessly
The hope is we have so much to feel good about
OneRepublic, Good Life
Spring Valley, Las Vegas
"I must say that I absolutely love the patio."
The midday sun was relentlessly baking the southwest Las Vegas suburb of Spring Valley, bringing the heat index to a miserable 112 degrees Fahrenheit. Three people stood under the slate gray slope of a condo as they overlooked a tiny 12'x12' swatch of land that was even more pathetic than the allotment of shade they were receiving.
"It's nice, isn't it?" a woman in a smartly tailored business suit asked rhetorically. She appeared calm, almost verging on bored. A pair of aviators perched atop her head and her brown hair was slicked back into a tight chignon. Despite being Caucasian, she could have easily passed for Hispanic at a distance. Years of sun worship had created deep, thin grooves at the corners of her eyes, something she blamed on her husband and kids and not the tanning bed.
"It's just a great property," the third one of their group stated. He was a tall man of angular features and a roman nose, most likely of Greek descent. His blonde wife made a quick spin on her left heel and clapped her small hands together once in delight. "What do you think, Bo? I love the sense of community, the layout, everything!"
The olive-skinned real estate agent bit her lip and refrained from making a sarcastic quip about the "sense of community" remark. It was a condo in a gated community, near Spanish Trail Golf and Country Club. The condos were lavish but monotonous on a street that had them lined up like Spanish mausoleums. They were all adobe, all bone-white, and the occupants consisted overwhelmingly of retirees. It was like the fabled Elephant Graveyard in the movie The Lion King. People didn't move in here with families in order to live – no - they came to die.
Jennifer Bateman understood the concept of dying a little too well. She had a bad string of luck with her family passing away lately. It wasn't her immediate family, thank god – she wouldn't know what to do if she lost Ted and the kids. Her mother had finally succumbed to early Alzheimer's last January with an uncle preceding that in far too short a succession. The housing market was also sluggish, most likely vying for a dip, and she was still scrambling with her brother Michael to pay off what was owed for her mom's funeral. Her father had long ago left her life, shortly after a childhood accident that had claimed a friend's limb. There was even an old, morbid joke that still persisted amongst herself and the attack victim.
It was the day that everyone involved "jumped the shark", so to speak.
Claire lost the most, honestly, and it wasn't just her leg. She lost her drive in life, her humor, and became a darker shadow of her former self. Simon, her rescuer, entered her life and left it. Jen, as she was known then, had noticed the change first in Claire. Jen's parents' marriage had been on the rocks for some time up until then, or so her mother insisted. About a week after the attack, Jen's father split and left town for his own reasons. Jen's father had held a high profile government job and his absence put herself, her younger brother and mother into near poverty. Jen's mother found a note from her father the day he left, saying he had fallen in love with someone else. It also stressed that they not look for him.
They never saw him again.
It signaled the end of an era for two friends who had shared everything from 2nd grade on. Claire fell into her own pain and self-pity while Jen did much the same. They drew apart, talked infrequently, and then as Claire physically healed she spent most of her days with her new boyfriend, Simon. The local press followed the pair for a while, leaving Jen looking on. There was some bitterness there, perhaps, but Jen never voiced it.
Her cell cut her reverie short by buzzing in the purse at her side.
Jarred to the present, Jennifer reached into the depths of her Louis Vuitton to retrieve the offending object. She snapped it open with a flick of her perfectly manicured nails and put it to the shell of her ear. "Jennifer Bateman here."
"Jen…?" came a small voice from the other end.
One of Ms. Bateman's eyebrows arched curiously. "I'm sorry, who m am I speaking to?" Always the consummate professional, Jennifer never wavered even when a niggling sense of dread crept up her spine. The voice was familiar, and she didn't use the name Jen anymore. Not since… well. Not since jumping the shark all those years ago.
Jennifer's two clients had since lost their fascination for the sorry piece of backyard they thought so wonderful and were now eying her expectantly.
"Jen, this is Claire."
She almost dropped the phone, almost. She hadn't heard from Claire in what, 3 years? It sure was a hell of a long time. Jennifer had gone on to a respectable college, cool and confident in her determination to make a career woman out of herself. The last she heard, Claire was mixing paint for people at a nameless box store somewhere nearby. Jennifer had moved to Las Vegas a few years back after her husband found a new job. Although she was aware Claire might be in the same general vicinity, she never actually put herself in contact with her old friend.
A minute shaking shattered her resolute calm. It started in her fingers, travelled down her hand, but was squashed at the elbow as Jen set her other arm horizontally across her chest and rested the back of her freehand under the arm gripping the phone. "Well, I have to say I'm surprised to hear from you. Is something wrong?"
The couple in front of her shifted from foot to foot, looking impatiently from Jennifer to the rest of the property. When Jennifer caught the blonde woman's eye with her steely gaze – Cathy, was it? –the other female dropped her gaze and feigned an intense interest in a rough looking scrub brush bordering the edge of the condo.
"Is this a bad time?" Claire asked feebly. She sounded weak.
"I'm showing a property. Can I get back to you?" Jennifer clipped before inwardly admonishing herself for being so short.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt..."
"You never do, Claire."
The line went mute for a few seconds. Another sting.
"I mean, I didn't…"
"It's okay; I'll call you back in half an hour."
Claire hastily threw out a number that wasn't her cell phone, which Jennifer took down. She despised taking phone calls in front of clients. It threw her stride off, made her look bad, and told the people she was working with that they weren't her sole prerogative at the time. She had worked so hard to get where she was at the moment – self-sufficiency was really the only thing that helped her survive the break-up her family and the loss of her best friend all those years ago. To have Claire call her now dissolved her self-control and made her unsure. She hated being unsure.
"Looks like a storm is coming" the husband remarked appraisingly. The couple was all but looking at her.
The sun still beat down hotly, but in the distance a storm was rolling in. The heat still shimmered at the horizon line as before, breaking up the visual continuity of structures behind it. They all watched as a flash of lightning, lost and lonely, arced across the sky and blurred as it struck somewhere along the ground.
"Let's go back inside," she heard herself saying. Her voice was automatous and detached, not her own. The couple took her cue and filed in an orderly fashion behind her as she turned for the sliding doors to the condo.
If there was one thing Jen had learned all those years ago, it was that it was always safer to be inside.
Claire lowered her new phone. It was a pay-as-you-go deal, the cheap kind that was easily purchased at mobile kiosks and Best Buys nationwide. Smokescreen-as-Simon had suggested she ditch her old phone in order to keep the possibility of being tracked lower.
"She sounded surprised to hear from me," she murmured. This in turn surprised her.
Claire had since left the hospital after a day or two of rest. She had been heavily battered and bruised. Nothing was broken, thankfully, but she nearly sprained her one good ankle. Her eyes moved over her surroundings, taking in the dark 70's paneling and the mauve carpeting that hadn't been switched out in over a decade. She was currently in another old motel, a roadside rest stop dedicated to the glory days when families took road trips in wooden station wagons.
It would be nice to stay in a modern motel for once.
Musing over these wishful thoughts a few moments more, Claire couldn't keep herself from pushing herself up on her elbows. She had been laying prone on one of the double beds in the room, adjusting her eyesight to the stretching shadows that announced that dusk was near. She heard the front door to the hotel room, and suddenly Smokescreen was there. He was by her bedside faster than she could see him move. He gazed down at her, silent in his regard.
Claire stared back, mouth dry.
Thankfully, she didn't have to spend too much time pondering what she would say as a metal sound and a loud buzz that broke through the awkward silence.
"Hey!" exclaimed the woman, shocked. To her further fright, the bed began to move from under her. "…" her teeth chattered. She was uncomfortably jarred left and right as the bed vibrated like an oversized cell phone.
Casting a frenetic glance upwards and over to the autobot in sheep's clothing, Claire gritted her teeth.
Smokescreen looked at her blandly. "What are you doing?" His voice was mild, nearly impish.
"Shhhhuuttt itttttt ooofffffff….." she garbled, slapping the covers for a remote or an off switch – anything – with the flat of her hand. Failing that, she gave a great show of effort by ignoring the dull pain wracking her body and shoved off the bed entirely so that she was merely a discombobulated heap on the dingy carpet.
The bed continued its epileptic fit, heedless of its lack of occupants. Claire glanced up and over to a small, golden box mounted to the nightstand above her head.
It read: FOR YOUR COMFORT AND RELAXATION, THIS BED IS EQUIPPED WITH THE SAME MAGIC FINGERS RELAXATION SERVICE.
For 25 cents she could enjoy 15 minutes of pure, jostled bliss. Smokescreen had made sure of that.
"What. The. Hell. Was. That. For," she bit out.
"You've been lying around too much," he simply replied, cracking a smirk that was eerily familiar.
"Jerk. Don't do that again. I'm injured, remember?"
"You seem fine enough to get angry."
She shot him a withering look that clearly told him to die. Unfortunately, he just ignored it.
"We need to get move. We can't stay here." His tone had gone serious. The autobot uncrossed his arms, offering one to her.
Claire stared at the proffered limb, eyes going glassy. She had been saved by that hand more than once. She was hit again by the realization that Simon was truly gone. He wasn't always the best personality, perhaps, but he didn't deserve to die.
A phone rang then, louder than the hum of the bucking bed. It was Claire's cell phone. Jen was likely calling her back.
Shooting one last glare Smokescreen's way, she pushed aside his proffered limb and stood up herself. Turning slightly, she glanced this way and that for the cell phone. It had fallen onto the floor when the bed had started jumping about and landed somewhere in the dark space between the particleboard nightstand and bed. Groaning, the woman reached into the space while she prayed against finding old condoms and spider webs.
Luckily, the only thing her hand found was the phone. Releasing a sigh of relief that she didn't know she had been holding, Claire flicked the phone open and put it to her ear without checking the caller ID on the front as she stood up. She already knew who it might be.
"Claire?" Jen's voice floated over the distance and into her present.
"I'm here," she ascertained, glancing down the length of her body. Barely.
"Sorry, it's hard to hear you. There's a drone on your end. Here, let me turn up my speakers."
Claire made a scathing sound and shot a murderous look Smokescreen's way. He merely shrugged and turned away impatiently, marching back outside.
"It's one of those vibrating beds," Claire responded, voice raised. She scuttled over to the bathroom at the far end of the motel room and shut the thin door after her. "Can you hear me better now? I'm at a motel."
"That's better. Claire, why are you in a motel? Where are you?"
"Near Tranquility. In Nevada."
"Why did you call?"
"To tell you about Simon. Look, I'm sorry. He just showed up at my doorstep and…"
Jen's next words left her speechless. "Oh my god, are you two getting back together! "
"N-N-no!" Claire sputtered, casting a furtive glance over her shoulder. She hoped Smokescreen wasn't listening. "I'm just calling to tell you where he is. Was. I mean was."
"Why do you want to tell me this?" Jen's excitement was petering out, turning into suspicion.
"Well, since you guys were dating I thought…"
Jen's voice interrupted her flatly. "Claire, we aren't dating. We never did. I've been married for awhile now. I have two kids, for god's sake. Who told you that?"
Claire felt like someone had pulled the ground out from beneath her feet. Her face paled before her fingers found the edges of her mouth. The woman's digits flutter in front of half parted lips which are agape in bewilderment.
"Well… you did."
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. All recognizable characters are the property of HasTak. All original characters are mine.
A/N: WELL. Probably thought I died, huh? I wrote another chapter. Not as long as the others, but it's something! I have had so many messages on this story that I thought it should at least get an update. I'm getting married in a couple weeks and going on a two week vacation, so I can't believe I ever found the time to do this.
The Greatest Boba Fett Fan: Oddly enough, you posted your comment just as I was about to finish the chapter. Glad you kept up with this. I'm also happy to finally update it for you! I will keep trying to update after the wedding, most likely in October.
Shadow Dice: I didn't forget you! I just haven't checked my messages all year until the last few days. Thankyouthankyou for sending that back in May. I'm sorry I didn't reply until now. It was a very nice review and I'm glad you do not think this a Mary Sue. I'm working on keeping it as far from that as possible! I bet you and a few others thought I was going off track when I started in with Jen's piece. What, she's married! I thought she was dating Simon! Well, there goes that… nope! I have the plot to this story already planned out in my head. I just have to keep up with writing it out.
To everyone else, thank you for your support and I am sorry I have been on hiatus. I'll work on getting back to this in October. Thanks again!