Regions Of Passion novel Chapter 8

There are certain pleasures in life that occupy the flow of one's thoughts like flower petals along a rocky stream. They are cast on the twisting currents of the mind's endless passage for sensation and emotion, presenting themselves at random moments as bright slivers of color on an otherwise dreary afternoon, or as keepsakes, set adrift in another time, returned to the reaching peninsulas of memory to be picked up, examined, loved, and then, ultimately, set adrift again.

Scott Wesley Bremman loved to drive in the rain. He loved the sound of tires on wet pavement. He took comfort in the purr of an engine, well-tuned, inducting moisturized air. He was soothed and somehow reassured by the steady, mechanical sweep of windshield wipers as they cleared away the water to reveal the colorless landscape beyond.

Without color, but not without value. While the terrain beyond--the open fields between Norwalk and Sandusky--looked nothing at all the way it did in late Autumn, Scott was nevertheless reminded of the poem My November Guest by Robert Frost. My Sorrow, when she's here with me, its author had lamented at one point.

As it so happened, she was.

When the brown-haired, dark-complexioned girl sitting in the passenger seat had called him from out of nowhere, he'd been unable to speak. This was a far cry from how things used to be. Once, he had told this girl he loved her. His delivery had been far from eloquent, yet when Ingrid Semeska's voice came through the receiver, telling him hello, he wanted nothing more than to run to wherever she was at and hold on for all life was worth.

He'd stammered at first. Fumbled greetings were exchanged. Ingrid then gave him a sketchy outline of her predicament, and he drove to Norwalk to fetch her. She was waiting at Dairy Mart, across the street from the phone booth from which she'd called, soaking wet and shivering.

Those shivers, at least, had passed, what with the car's heater going. But in glancing at her from time to time, Scott could see Ingrid felt very alone and very frightened. Her eyes told the tale--they remained fixed on the lights of Sandusky, as if exhausted from too much input. There were clues in her hands as well. Her fingers kept opening and closing, opening and closing. What, Scott wondered, was she wishing she could grasp? Finally, it was in the little sighs she fetched from time to time. Of the three, these were the most heart-wrenching. They were the sighs of a girl who wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.

"I don't want to get you into trouble," she insisted for the fifth time. "I'm so sorry about this, Scott."

"I want to help," Scott managed. "Have you eaten? We could stop at any one of these places coming up on the strip."

"I haven't. But I'd like to put on some dry clothes before anything else."

"I'll order something in. Chinese. How are your chopstick skills?"

"I make my living holding long, slender objects, Scott." She paused. "Oh God, I set myself up with that line."

Scott smiled.

"Shut up," Ingrid said. "Drive."

They had reached Sandusky. Its proximity to Lake Erie made it something of a summer tourist town. They rode past a great many hotels and restaurants. There was the mall, a water park, a putt-putt golf course. There were pizza parlors and used car lots, ice cream stands and beer gardens.

Scott's apartment was off Columbus Avenue, at a house that had once been a bed and breakfast but now served as a triplex. They went inside. He showed Ingrid where the bathroom was; she thanked him and closed the door to get changed. Scott then went to the telephone. By a little after six, they were both in the kitchen eating fried rice with baby corn. Some further desultory conversation was made over the meal. Ingrid asked what the neighborhood was like--dangerous, or just vaguely unsettling? Scott allowed it was the latter, albeit most of the time it was perfectly safe.

"You're too close to Broadway," the other remarked.

"It only gets ugly at night. And even then you have to be way down by the Ford plant before you need a gun."

She chuckled. "Good to know. Are you working near here?"

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