They drove in silence through a Tuesday afternoon of rainy, rivering streets and gray vapor to the beach house, during which time the reality of what she had done and what she had failed to do to Hirschfeld finally began to play its doleful tune on her shattered nerves, and play the tune to such a fever pitch Rickie found herself shaking badly.
Judy pulled into the garage and as Rickie exited the Voyager, she stepped straight into the strong, welcoming arms of Shank. He'd appeared out of nowhere. For a couple of seconds it seemed to Rickie as if time were stopped. He tilted his head down in preparation for a kiss. She closed her eyes to receive his lips ... and Shank was gone! The shock of this illusory appearance and vanishing sent her reeling backwards, footloose, out of the garage and onto the sidewalk, where she gathered speed before crashing into the hedge and collapsing into a puddle.
"Rickie!" Judy's hands found hers and pulled her up.
"I saw Shank," Rickie said. "I was in his arms and then I was falling. I'm lost, Judy. I'm really lost. I'm scared. There's nothing left inside of me. I might as well be dead."
"Hold on to me. You're wet and you're shaking like a leaf. Let's get you inside."
"No. I need some time to myself. I'm going for a walk on the beach. Alone."
"You're going no such place. You're coming inside. You're in shock. You're shaking and your face is completely white."
"No," said Rickie, and with a steely strength summoned from some hidden reservoir pried Judy's fingers from her arm.
"Owww! Rickie! You're hurting me!"
"Good-bye, Judy."
Rickie began walking down Pico towards the roaring breakers, her posture oddly straightened, her head back, as if to drink in the raw energy of the storm.
Judy yelled after her into the gathering wind. "I'm calling Dr. Black!"
Across the deep expanse of sand beyond Shutters, the huge, booming waves played their symphony to the audience of one lonely middle-aged red-haired Audrey Hepburn look-alike. The rest of the entire population of Los Angeles were apparently content to remain cooped up in their dried mud and chicken wire nests so as to avoid the storm, which, with its fresh, cold air and threatening sky, inspired uneasiness in a people more accustomed to the endless sunshine which normally favored their little corner of the world.
Rickie sat at the edge of this sunless, reverse world, searching for the markers inside her which would guide her home, a futile search at best. When she finally saw the truth about herself, she stood up, kicked off her flip-flops, and began walking out to sea, the shockingly cold surf hungrily sucking at her ankles, her calves and her legs. She stepped in a hole and fell in up to her waist, the gushing water pushing her with true violence, sweeping away the polite rustlings of thought and consciousness until there was only the power of the water, which Rickie understood to be the power of God.
She felt a terrible loneliness as the backwash swept her out of the hole and further away from the shore. It would be but a moment before she was embraced in the deadly arms of the incoming breakers. It amused her a little at how easy it was going to be. A bit sloppy perhaps, in the final moments, but a sloppiness that brought with it a sweetness and a peace. She'd but to stretch out and let it happen. Suddenly, she found herself laughing at the image of herself firing away, eyes tight shut, at a terrified Hirschfeld. Laughing at her initial horror of receiving a cat with no legs. Laughing at the recent apparition of Shank appearing in Judy's garage, his full lips descending towards hers. The image of his face remained for a moment, superimposed upon the hump of a powerful dark swell rushing and steepening in her direction.
"It's about time you kissed me back," she said, plunging herself into the power and the glory around her. The last thing she remembered was the smell of her son's hair the year he'd decided to grow it long. He'd only come in from raking the leaves and she'd stopped him to brush away an entangled leaf.
Jesse Edwin's hair smelled of autumn, and smoke, and fresh air.