The box of wine sat next to a stack of plastic punch glasses next to her left hand on the much smaller prep table against the wall. She grabbed two of the glasses, turning them over. The wine still had the orange price sticker attached.
Boxed wine! Because why give Rainy the chance to hit you with a bottle or stab you with a corkscrew? She got to work, keeping her eyes off his face and her back to him, like she was afraid of him. He was gobbling this up; she didn’t have to look at him to know that. She was fidgeting with the spout on the box-of-shit-wine, trying to get it to work, trying to—when she felt him behind her. Fuck. Had he noticed anything?
“Like this,” he said, leaning into her and letting wine slosh into the plastic glass. His free hand brushed hers, the one that was holding the glass, and she dropped it. She jumped back, out of range of his hand and the splash, the prep table behind her penning her in, ramming into her waist. She kept her head down, holding her arm with one hand. The shame was real and it burned in her cheeks and in her gut: a twenty-year-old ember blown to life. Evil existed only to feed itself and here it stood in front of her. She thought she could do this, but her hands were clammy with fear, barely able to flex, let alone fight.
“Try again,” he said. “Rookie mistake.”
“Rookie mistake, Summertime...”
The rage bubbled. It was almost too hot to keep down. Rainy lifted her head; his eyes were waiting for hers. Right now, your rival is you, not him. Little girls grew into women and women grew into hunters. You are the hunter now, Rainy, she told herself.
He can’t even cook his own steak. She stepped toward the task, renewed. It’s fine, she thought; he’d seen something real in her reaction. Who she was five minutes ago was not who she was now. I will recharge, I will resurface, I will rebound.
He grinned, holding up both hands, one of them still holding the gun, and took another step back to give her space.
“When would you have seen me drink?” She picked up another glass, this time holding it with more confidence as she opened the spout.
“In the articles about you. They never showed your face, but you always had a glass in your hand. I knew it was you.”
“Props,” she said quickly. “Grape juice for wine. In the art scene, they like you to smoke and drink, or you’re not glamorous enough to hang. But you remember my father died of addiction. It’s not my thing.”
He appeared to consider this for a moment, then he nodded.
“Well, you’re having one tonight.”
“Okay,” she said, hoping she sounded bored. She poured half of what she’d put into the first cup and took a slow sip, blinking at him over the rim. “It’s terrible,” she said, frowning. “Bitter.” She feigned a sip. When he saw that she’d underpoured herself, he swapped glasses with her, handing her the full-to-the-brim cup.
“Drink,” he said.
She took two giant sips and stared at him. “Did you put something in here?” she asked, staring into the wine.
He laughed. “You saw me, just now. I was standing in front of you the whole time. Besides, you just opened the box. It was sealed.”
Rainy let her shoulders relax and she took another sip.
“I don’t want any more,” she said, putting the cup down.
“Have another sip,” he said. It wasn’t a suggestion. Rainy took another sip to satisfy him, flinching as she swallowed.
“I have to check the range,” she said. As she walked away, he took a sip from his glass. She could hear him swallow.
His eyes were all over her back. She felt as defenseless as she had at fifteen. No...no...this time it’s different. Light-headed, she picked up the raw meat with her bare hand and set it on the grill. There was a hiss, and seconds later, the aroma of charring meat filled her nose. She was hungry. He meant to get her drunk with the boxed wine, and she needed to eat something.
“Ginger put cheese and some salami in the freezer back there,” she said, jerking her head to the walk-in. It was comical, her talking about Ginger so casually as he sat propped in the freezer like a Christmas ham. Taured kept his eyes on her as he walked backward to the metal doors of the fridge and yanked them open. He reached inside, keeping his foot in the door to keep it from shutting.
He carried Ginger’s dinner party leftovers to the table.
Then, abruptly: “You’ve always thought I was responsible for your mother’s death.”
She said nothing; she couldn’t. He was responsible, and they both knew it.
“Her death was her own fault.”
Still Rainy said nothing. Careful what you do, Rainy. He thinks he knows you.
She watched him, transfixed, the heat from the range billowing around her, dampening her skin. She licked her lips, cracking her neck. He was gearing up to launch his slander campaign against her mother.
“Your mother and I were close...”
Sure, why not? Rainy nodded. They had been once.
“We had a sexual relationship—” he paused here for effect “—and she confided in me often, and when things became difficult for her, when her depression became too much to handle, she...well, the drugs started in Portland, and she didn’t want you to know that, of course.”
“What is your point here, Taured? Haven’t you told me these lies before?” It was getting so hot. But Rainy had tried hot yoga a couple times and found it cleansing. She leaned into that feeling now. Taured was sweating, patches of damp forming on his shirt under his arms.
“They’re not lies, Summer. She was willing to leave you behind if I gave her the same amount of money she arrived with. Where do you think the money came for the tickets she bought for New Mexico? That wasn’t from your grandparents. She tried to steal from me. She went back on our deal.” His teeth were getting a nice wine bath, marooning themselves around his gumline.
He drank his wine. He spoke and he drank. He was so transfixed by the sound of his own voice that he’d stopped pressing her to drink hers. Narcissists were unfailingly distracted by themselves. He wasn’t even pausing to make sure his lies made sense.
“She tried to steal what from you? Me?” She saw the look in his eyes and it almost made her go blind with rage. “I wasn’t yours. I never have been.”
“I saved your life, back then and today. You owe me.”
Rainy sighed. The thing about her rage was that it was silent. She didn’t need to cry, or become hysterical, or accuse him of things he’d done. She’d already done that: held his trial in her own mind. The screaming had been had and done and now she was resolved to end the nightmare for good. Her sigh was a little leak of insanity.
“It doesn’t matter what she did or said. My mother isn’t on trial here, you are.” When she looked back at him, she could tell he was replaying her words more slowly. Thinking on them. She was sure things were getting a little foggy for him in the thoughts department. Looking around, she saw the mess on the floor: the vomit, the blood, the spilled wine.
“What is it, Taured? Have you never thought that you might have to pay for what you’ve done? Let’s talk about what you did to those little girls at the compound...the little boy that was Ginger. Sara...Feena...me...”
Beneath the neatly trimmed beard, his full lips twitched. She liked that crack in his facade. He was not impenetrable, not the god he thought himself to be. It was just the two of them here, his disciples a hundred miles away.
“You don’t sound very grateful,” he said. “I saved your life.”
“Well, you certainly get an A-plus for following my directions well.”
He didn’t like that.
“I would have recognized him without the broken nose.”
Rainy frowned. “Maybe so, but I wanted you to recognize me.”
Rainy touched her tongue to her front teeth and shook her head from side to side. Maybe his thinking was getting slow, or maybe he was studying her, but there was something odd about the look on his face.
“You are the same, Summer. The same fire, the same defiance. You haven’t changed at all. That’s what I admired about you. I could always count on your defiance. My sweet Summertime.”