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Chapter 1
In Which I Achieve
Escape Velocity
The weekend before I
walked out on Clive, I broke my mother’s favorite wine
glass. I shattered it in my hand.
Omens are so obvious in
hindsight, but rarely useful before the fact.
I stood at my mother’s
kitchen sink rinsing dishes, looking out the picture
window as the night deepened. The brick patio, the
split-rail fence, faded from sight until all I could see
was my reflection. A woman with dishwater blond hair,
all alone in a brightly lit kitchen. Then a shadow
crossed my reflection, a silhouette, deeper black than
the night.
Unease slithered up my
spine.
Was that…
My hands spasmed and the
glass broke with a sharp cry. The Black Dog from my
nightmares. There and gone. Black stars pricked the
edges of my vision, which made me think I could faint,
though I never had.
Get a grip, I told
myself. It’s a park out there after all. Lots of dogs
run past. And creatures from nightmares don’t turn up in
the waking world. Be logical: it was just a dog. It
means nothing. I turned the water to cold and rinsed the
blood from my hands. I was careful not to look out the
window again.
Since then, I had not
been sleeping well. Clive was unsympathetic. The British
Petroleum reception was really important to him and as
his fiancée – these were the big guns, since he usually
only referred to me as his girlfriend – I should be by
his side. Besides, he argued, I always found the energy
for my job and I’d been feeling good enough to go
visit my mother last weekend and if I really
loved him I would… well, you get the picture.
So, there I stood, three
hundred miles from home, in my favorite Ann Taylor
cocktail dress listening to Clive hold forth. Nothing
new. I’d heard the conversation twenty times over and
thoughts of the Black Dog filled my head. I had dreamed
of it again last night. Even the neat Jameson’s wasn’t
quite taking away that chill.
I didn’t even think I was
listening until I found myself saying, “Oh, Clive, that
statistic has been discredited ten times over!”
Clive gaped at me. The
other men looked surprised that I spoke.
Try to be softer,
my mother says. So far as I can see, soft gets you
nowhere. Soft gets you married to a man who spends his
life making up problems to solve and leaving you to
sleep alone. Besides, Clive knew I was right. I could
see it in his eyes.
He also wouldn’t forgive
me for speaking out of turn. He patted me on the hip –
the socially correct version of a pat on the bottom –
and said, “It’s okay, sweetie, I don’t think you really
understood the concept of what we were discussing. But
love ya, Babe!” And with an off-color joke, he guided
the group of men away, leaving me standing there.
What the hell was
wrong with me these days?
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