floating in Sonia’s belly

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Cynthia G.

OIL IN WATER

a novel by

PAM LAZOS

CHAPTER NINE (a)

Hart arrived home sometime before dawn. He quickly surveyed the exterior before unlocking the door. Sometime in her seventh month, Sonia developed bionic hearing; the tiniest creak of the floor boards and she bolted up in bed. Not wishing to disturb her, Hart tiptoed across the threshold and placed his bags at the foot of the stairs with painstaking slowness. As he stood, light flooded the living room.

Sonia locked him in a bear hug. “I missed you,” she cooed, kissing his face all over. She jumped down the last two steps, grabbed a suitcase in each hand. They dangled like misplaced appendages.

“Sonia! Put ‘em down,” he commanded.

Sonia dropped the suitcases to the floor with a thud and stared wide-eyed at her husband.

“What? They were too heavy.” Hart said.

“Contraction,” she replied. She wagged a finger to a ready-packed bag in the corner. Hart leapfrogged over his own felled luggage as Sonia headed up the stairs.

“You call the doctor while I put some clothes on. I’ll meet you in the car.” She leaned over the railing and blew him a kiss before ascending.

&&&

Four hours later, they were back home, the baby still cozy, floating in Sonia’s belly.

“What are you going to do now?” Sonia pouted. Please don’t go into the office.”

Hart smiled and kissed her cheek. “I’m going to take you out for breakfast and a walk along the creek. Then we’re going to take a little nap, you and I, cause we’re both way tired, and then I’m going to do right by you.” He squeezed her hand, intoning his meaning. “Then an early dinner and only after I’ve popped a movie in and propped you up in bed will I go to the office.

“After dinner?!”

“I have to go see Bicky today. He wants a debriefing. In person. But my person is going somewhere else right now.”

“Well, hey, what are we waiting for? Why don’t we just go?” he said. “Move that stuff.” He tossed her backpack to the back seat. A large manila envelope spilled out, addressed to Bicky, marked Personal and Confidential.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.” Hart said.

Sonia released a mini tornado of air. “I should have never….” She stopped and eyed Hart up, remembering Bicky’s none-too-veiled warning. “It’s Bicky’s. I was gonna to take it to the post office today.”

“Shall I take it to him tonight?”

Sonia hesitated. “Okay. I guess.” The envelope was sealed. If Hart opened the letter, Bicky would know it. And David wasn’t one to pry. She shoved the envelope into her backpack. “I’m going to go in and squirt. I’ll be right out.”

“You never can get yourself to say the word pee can you? What are you going to tell our son? C’mon, baby. Time to squirt.”

“What’s wrong with that?” She waddled off while Hart watched her go, a gleam in his travel-weary eyes.

to be continued. . .

to read what came before, scroll down. . .

a vital woman

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Cynthia G.

OIL IN WATER

a novel by

PAM LAZOS

CHAPTER EIGHT (b)

Kitty’s mother didn’t know a spoon from a spatula and as a result, passed on nothing that could pass for culinary art to her daughter. Kitty’s parents had a brutal and unforgiving marriage hidden behind congenial outward social appearances so Kitty believed her mother when she told her that in order to get and keep a man, Kitty needed to learn how to feed a man, her mother’s own marriage as evidence of not feeding a man. She long ago declared the kitchen off limits to the myriad servants that kept the Coleman household running. After years of study with some of the best chefs in the world, Kitty had become a first-rate chef herself, although apparently it had no measurable effect on the quality of her marriage. Still, even Bicky couldn’t deny that Kitty had perfected her art. Tonight the table was adorned by stuffed pheasant, prawns sauteed in avocado oil and cajun seasonings, baby potatoes baked in olive oil, lemon and oregano, snap peas, lightly steamed, and a lovely arugula and mixed greens salad.

Kitty was palpably relieved to have Sonia’s company at the dinner table and wondered, as she bit into a prawn, whether her daughter had fared any better in the marriage department. Sonia and Hart seemed to have a good marriage, but many who knew Kitty and Bicky would swear the same was true of them, since in public they demonstrated what appeared to be love for each other. Kitty was a vital woman, full of youthful efflorescence, not the sort that would be predisposed to abstinence, yet all the years without the companionship of her husband had taken their toll on her. She felt herself drying up on the inside, like ripe fruit left for days in the sun. Being distinctly southern with all its foibles and genteel sensibilities, sex was something Kitty could not bring herself to talk about, not even with her intimates, which included Sonia. She was sure Bicky blamed the end of their sex life on Kitty’s inability to forgive one unfortunate incident, but Kitty had seen worse growing up, and that wouldn’t have kept her from Bicky’s bed forever. Rather it was the lack of intimacy, or any kind of emotional connection with her husband that pushed her away. Bicky had shoved his emotions so far down, they lived in his feet. The man would not recognize love if it threw up on him.

These days, the Coleman’s maintained separate bedrooms in opposite wings of the mansion. The move occurred sometime after Sonia shipped off to Columbia and Kitty discovered that Bicky had kept mistresses for the last twenty years, usually for periods of six to eighteen months, like a prison term for a misdemeanor. Sensing her own interests would be served by the revelation, Kitty made her knowledge public, the public constituting Bicky and Sonia. She chose her words carefully paying particular attention to present tense syntax so neither one was ever really sure just how much Kitty knew and for how long she knew it.

To Bicky she simply said, “I know what you’re up to. And I’m leaving. Don’t try to stop me.” Bicky said nothing as usual, but waited on Kitty’s next move. Luckily, it was only across the foyer and down the hall.

Kitty knew that Bicky loved her to the extent he was capable. She also knew that had she even once confronted him, raised her voice, thrown a Chinese vase, shown some territorial frenzy over his nocturnal meanderings, Bicky would have ended his affairs. But recalling her mother’s misery, Kitty decided the best course of action was to remain complacent and aloof and so she allowed Bicky’s transgressions knowing it was her indifference more than anything that branded Bicky’s psyche and bound him to her. Kitty also knew that Bicky had come to interpret her attitude as one of intense loathing disguised by good southern breeding, and on that point, he wasn’t too far off the mark.

&&&

Dinner was delightful and Sonia couldn’t remember a time when Bicky was so charming. He told jokes that left both Sonia and her mother clutching their sides in laughter. For a moment, they were a family and Sonia felt an affinity for her father which left her feeling both sated and bereft. After dinner, Bicky sat by the fire sipping cognac while Sonia stretched on the couch, her grandmother’s handmade quilt, a swirling vortex of color pulled over her legs as a nascent, tentative bond was forming with her father.

“Tell me something about when you were young,” Sonia said.

A handsome man in any light, the glow of the fire gave Bicky a swarthy, Roman look. Somber, he sipped the amber liquid and gazed at the crackling fire.

“I had two shirts, two pairs of pants, three pairs of socks and a pair of shoes. My mother was constantly mending things just to keep our wardrobe together. When your grandfather struck oil, we celebrated by buying a new outfit.”

“Well, eventually he bought you more clothes.”

“Oh yeah, but that wasn’t until later. After Mason died and it was just me and him, he realized that life really wasn’t waiting for anybody.” Bicky’s voice cracked. Sonia studied him, intrigued by the uncharacteristic show of emotion.

“He was a tight-assed bastard, your grandfather. Never spent a dime. Not on us, anyway. Why do you think you have so much money?” He swirled the cognac around the tumbler.

“I don’t remember him that way,” Sonia said.

Bicky grunted and grew silent. The grandfather clock chimed ten times. Sonia yawned, stood and folded the quilt. “Thanks for a great night, Dad.” She smiled at her father, but Bicky said nothing. “I’m going to say goodbye to Mom,” she said, and left the room.

&&&

Bicky walked Sonia out to her car while Kitty stood in the archway. Sonia blew her mother a kiss and Kitty disappeared inside.

Bicky leaned in and pecked her on the cheek, flashing his perfect teeth, a smile few could resist. He patted her arm and rested it there. “Don’t forget to bring me the report tomorrow.”

“Ah, the report. I hadn’t planned on coming to town tomorrow. How about I mail it?”

“No!” Bicky’s voice was gruff and agitated. “You’re putting yourself at risk.”

“Dad, I’m not even going to be home.”

“Let me tell you, if word gets out that you have a copy of that report….”

“Is it me or you that would be in trouble?” she asked, finishing his sentence.

Bicky put his hands on the car door and straightened up. “You probably didn’t read it so you don’t understand how damaging it is.”

“I read it. And I understand. That report gets out and it could mark the beginning of World War III. That’s why you sent David to the Middle East. You want your best people surveying the world’s largest remaining oil reservoirs.”

Bicky’s face turned the color of blanched almonds; he squeezed the door frame. “Sonia…do not get messed up in this.”

“I’m already messed up in it.”

Bicky looked back at the house where Kitty had turned on the lights in her suite. His eyes wandered to his side of the house, dark and uninviting. “And he’ll be back before the sun comes up,” he said. “So let it go.”

“I would if you’d let him stay more than ten minutes before sending him off again,” she said. “Are you that desperate to have him secure your interests?”

“There are terrible people in this world, Sonia, and they do terrible things. Be happy your grandfather’s money keeps you from having to deal with them on a daily basis.”

“If you don’t want me messed up with them, why would you allow David to be?”

“Hart’s a man. And a damn good engineer.” Bicky met Sonia’s gaze at eye level. “Do you know what will happen when people realize we only have twenty or thirty years of oil reserves left? I mean, when they really stop to think about it? Pandemonium.”

“Well if it’s so precious, just charge more money and people will drive less.”

“If we charged per barrel what oil was really worth, the average consumer couldn’t afford a trip to the grocery store. Our whole economy is premised on the consumption of cheap fossil fuel, Sonia. Every aspect. It’s not just about driving your car to the movies.” He paused to let his words sink in. “Most of our products are trucked across the country. Milk and butter are cheap because oil is cheap. But higher food prices are only the beginning. The majority of our products are made from plastic, not steel, and you need oil to make it. It’s not just about baggies and milk jugs. It’s about camera bodies and television sets and lawn furniture and car parts. It’s actually a waste to burn oil as gas. It’s too valuable. Liquid gold.”

“Don’t you think you’re getting a little carried away?” she asked.

“I’m serious.” The lawn sprinkler hissed to life and Sonia jumped.

“I’m not trying to scare you, dear,” he said. “I’m trying to enlighten you.” He looked from her to Kitty’s window and said, half to himself: “So much like your mother.” His eyes softened and Sonia thought she detected a trace of fear in his unshakable demeanor.

“If you wanted to avoid it, and by you I mean the energy industry, you could. You’d be pouring money into R&D, developing a cheap way to access solar power, or hydroelectric power, or any of the myriad powers that show promise. But you don’t. Why? Because you can’t make enough money. Once the technology’s there you can’t harness it for yourself and, God forbid, you don’t want people to be self-sufficient. Then they wouldn’t need you.”

Bicky raised the corner of his mouth in a mocking smile. “Touche, my dear,” he said. “Still that doesn’t make your knowledge any less dangerous. And if not the danger, think of the resulting plight of all those poor out-of-work oil company employees.”

to be continued. . .

to read previous installments, scroll down the page

honor among thieves

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Cynthia G.

OIL IN WATER

a novel by

PAM LAZOS

CHAPTER SEVEN

Bicky rustled through stacks of reports, shoving things around his desk in haphazard fashion. He picked up the receiver and buzzed Phyllis.

“I still can’t find the yearly report.” he snapped.

“Did you look on your desk?” she asked.

Bicky snorted. “Would you come here and lay hands on it please?”

He was still holding the receiver when Phyllis materialized. He pushed his chair back, making room while the flurry of Phyllis’s hands restored order to his finite universe.

“It’s not here,” she said, straightening.

“I know that. I’m thinking that eventually you’ll tell me what you did with it.” Phyllis raised an eyebrow in response, the equivalent of a shove.

Bicky rolled back an imperceptible inch. “Well, it didn’t walk out of here by itself,” he mumbled.

Phyllis shot him another arrow which he dodged by walking to the window.

“Did you stick it in your briefcase?”

Bicky’s briefcase sat perched on the mocha leather couch, the two leathers barely distinguishable. Bicky watched Phyllis peripherally, pretending to gaze out the window as she rifled through the bag.

“If I had put it in my briefcase, I wouldn’t need you to look for it now, would I?” Bicky turned and met her gaze with the temerity of a spoiled child.

Phyllis addressed him as one: “You can get your own report if you use that tone with me again.”

He turned back to the window. From this angle, Phyllis’s slate blue eyes would do less harm, only able to bore holes into the back of his goddamn skull as opposed to his own eyes, risking his soul. He watched her reflection in the window and she watched him watching her. She snorted and he sighed, looking down at his feet, battle lost. After all these years, Phyllis Steinman had no trouble handling Bicky Coleman.

“Get me my calendar at least,” he half-pleaded.

Phyllis turned and walked out the door returning moments later with the calendar.

“Who was here today?” Phyllis scanned the calendar entries.

“Every meeting you had today was either in the conference room or away from the office. Except for the one with Graighton which was here and which you were present for, I presume.” She scanned the pages again nodding her head once to confirm.

“Graighton didn’t take the report. He’s got his own,” Bicky barked. “Nobody else was in here?”

Phyllis scanned the pages again and stopped. Her face contorted slightly and she slammed the book, regaining her composure.

“What?” Bicky asked.

“Nothing.”

Bicky opened the book and checked the entries. It was all as Phyllis had said. He sat mulling over the days events then narrowed his eyes at her. “Sonia.”

Phyllis shrugged.

“How long was she waiting?”

“I don’t know. I was away from my desk when she got here.”

“Well, find out.”

“What does it matter? You know Sonia. She probably thought she’d use it as ammunition to get her husband out of Iraq.”

“Her husband is out of Iraq.”

“He’s not home yet.”

“I need that report.”

“I’ll order another one.”

“They’re $32,000 a copy.”

“You just gave yourself a $4 million bonus. What’d you do? Spend it all?”

“Very funny, Phyllis.”

“What is it exactly, that you would like me to do?”

He turned back from the window to face her. “I want you to get the first one back. It’s dangerous for her to have it. You know that.”

“Why? Because only a select few are privy? Besides, how do you know she has it?”

“Oh, for God sakes, woman, don’t act stupid. It doesn’t suit you,” Bicky said. “Sonia was the only one in here today.”

“That fact alone does not unequivocally prove that Sonia nicked your report,” Phyllis said wryly. “For all we know, somebody off the street could’ve marched in and grabbed it.”

“Well, unless Jerry’s lying dead in the lobby, how do you think that would be possible?”

“Maybe we have poltergeist,” Phyllis sniggered.

Bicky sighed. “Just call her…please.” He said the word please under his breath.

Phyllis shook her head. “Forget it. I’m not getting involved. This is between you and your daughter,” she bristled, “and if she’s got a bone to pick, it’s with you, not me. She probably wants a little attention. Maybe she’s trying to get you to make up for the last thirty years.”

“Spare me the armchair psychology.”

“It’s tough to swallow so much crow.” Phyllis patted his hand. “But you’re a tough guy.” She said, closing the door behind her. Bicky snorted as he watched her go.

to be continued. . .

and then it begins

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Cynthia G.

OIL IN WATER

a novel by

PAM LAZOS

CHAPTER THREE (b)

Marty drove slowly down Market Street and took the on ramp for I-95 South. The lights of the Walt Whitman Bridge did little to illuminate the ghostly night sky which had assumed the pallor of the thick, stratus clouds, hovering close to the city. Pockets of swollen cumulo-nimbus clouds floated below the tight formation of stratus’ looking as if they might kiss the Delaware River.

“Looks like a storm’s coming,” Ruth said. She leaned back against the headrest as the car glided onto the highway.

Traffic was light. Ruth watched out the passenger window long after the city, vague and foggy with the inclement weather, disappeared from view. Marty pulled his wife in closer and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, moving over to the slow lane. Three cars back, a pickup did the same.

“First rate party, Ruthie.” He gave her arm a squeeze.

“It was, wasn’t it?” Ruth nuzzled into Marty’s shoulder.

“Remember when we were first married?” he asked. “I had that little English Ford. That thing took every bump like it was its last. Why did we get rid of it?”

“We had Kori. The car barely had room for two, let alone three,” Ruth laughed. “I really loved that car.”

“I wish I could have kept it for you.”

“We couldn’t afford it, remember?”

“Do you regret all the years you’ve spent with me, Ruthie. I mean, you could have married someone that had more ambition, money-wise.” Marty stroked his wife’s hair.

“We have plenty of money. We own our house, our cars….”

“I’m talking big money. The kind that lives longer than you do.”

“Marty, you’ve been married to me for twenty-five years and you still don’t know me, do you?” Ruth squeezed Marty’s thigh, sitting up to her full height. “Silly man.” She kissed him on the cheek and he turned to wrangle a full-blown kiss on the lips. She unbuckled her seat belt, and shifted to wrap her arms around his neck. Just as she kissed him, the pick up rear-ended them.

“What the….” Marty yelped.

The impact and sudden change of trajectory sent Ruth sprawling. Marty cut the wheel hard to the left to avoid driving off the road and after a few squeals, set the car right as Ruth crawled back up onto the seat. Marty checked the rear view mirror.

“Are you alright?” he barked. Ruth nodded and rubbed her arm which had taken a beating against the dash on the way down.

“Did you hit something?” Ruth asked. Marty pulled over to the side, but before he reached the shoulder, the pickup nicked them. Ruth screamed and turned in her seat to see two giant headlights barreling toward them.

“Oh my God,” Ruth yelled. The pickup made contact and Marty hit the accelerator. Ruth flew back and forward, banging her head on the dash as Marty cut the wheel.

“Get down.” Marty said. He tugged at her arm, but Ruth remained steadfast, watching as the pickup dropped back and began weaving back and forth.

“It’s a drunk driver!” Ruth said as the pickup began an erratic, dance between the lanes.

“Marty, he’s coming again!

“You bastard,” he mumbled. “What the hell does he want?”

“Ruth, get down and hold on,” Marty yelled, and pushed his wife to the floor; he veered back and forth across the lanes, trying to lose the pickup.

Ruth crawled onto the seat to look out the back window. “Marty, he must be drunk. Stop the car. Get the hell out of his way,” said Ruth. Marty checked his rearview mirror, sped up.

“Ruth,” Marty boomed. “Get down!” He shoved her onto the seat as the pickup side-swiped them. “This son-of-a-bitch doesn’t know who he’s dealing with,” Marty said through gritted teeth. He slammed down on the accelerator the pickup dropped back. Ruth peeked at the speedometer. It read ninety-two miles per hour.

“Marty, slow down. You’re going to kill us.”

“Better me than him.”

As they rounded the curve, the pickup accelerated and rammed into the back end on the driver’s side. The impact hurtled Marty’s car, already approaching 100 mph, off the road and through space. The car flew at first, then hung there for a moment, suspended between the finite and the infinite, between the possible and the impossible, between life and death, and at the exact moment when it seemed that Ruth and Marty Tirabi might float away, gravity reached out and throttled them to the ground. The car landed with an ear-splitting crash, a cacophony of steel and glass and metal. A loud hiss emanated from the interior as the air bags expanded.

The pickup switched on its turn signal and pulled to the side of the road behind the Tirabis’ car, but no one emerged from the wreckage. The driver opened a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20, unscrewed the cap and took a long draw on the bottle. He burped, said “excuse me” to himself, and sucked down another quarter. He rubbed the raspberry-colored liquid in his hair, poured some in his hand and flicked it with his fingers at his pants and shirt. He drained the bottle and threw the empty on the passenger’s side; the last few drops, like Chinese water torture, dripped with excruciating slowness onto the seat.

The driver unbuckled his seat belt, checked himself in the rearview mirror, took a deep breath, and floored it. There followed a spine-chilling scrunch of metal as the front of the pickup crumpled upon impact with Marty’s bumper. The Tirabi car lurched forward, condensing further like one last push on the accordion. The pickup’s air bag sprang to life, engulfing the driver who passed out. The right tail light of the pickup blinked inexorably in keeping with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

to be continued. . .