Midwinter Night's Dream (2 page)

Smitty’s only interest in theater had to do with the dress-up end of things, thank God, and Errol almost had him convinced that the old stage could be used for an amateur theater group and that it would be profitable. Almost.

A speaking of dress-up… Taking a deep breath, Errol went to his locker in the deserted break room, grabbed his metallic gold thong, and quickly changed into it. He pulled off his thermal T and flannel shirt, exchanged them for a work shirt with the sleeves ripped out, stared at himself in the mirror.

In the past year, he’d gotten thinner, shaggier, and his wardrobe had certainly gone downhill. A year ago he was eating well, maintaining a carefully tousled haircut, and wearing stylish jeans and shirts to work, not a plaid shirt minus sleeves. A year ago he would’ve considered his current life to be the stuff of a stage production.

When Errol returned to the front carrying his own shirts and the hard hat, Smitty nodded and pulled the cigar from between his fat purple lips. “Let’s see.”

“I’m wearing it.”

“You know the rules.” Smitty circled a hand in the air. “Let’s…see.”

The man was nothing if not thorough. Errol felt like he was fifteen and in gym class.
Like what you see, Smithwick?
Holding back what he wanted to say, he unbuttoned his jeans far enough to reveal the top of the metallic gold thong and managed a tight smile.

“Good boy.” Smitty winked at him.

Good enough. At twenty-six he was nobody’s boy. Errol rebuttoned the fly, pulled on his army surplus winter coat, and checked the pockets for gloves. It was cold outside, true Colorado winter cold. He’d take the coat off at the start of his act—inside. Smitty didn’t need to know that part.

“Stop at Turner’s for the flowers and gift—they’ll be waiting,” Smitty said. He held out a piece of scrap paper with directions scrawled on it. “Do a nice job. Have fun.” Smitty put on his coat and grabbed the bank deposit bag off the counter. He looked like an older, fatter latter-day Scrooge.

“Um, Smitty? The money?” Errol shifted the hard hat under his arm.

Smitty groaned and plopped the bag on the counter, unzipped it, peeled off three twenties, a ten, and a five and held them out. “Merry Christmas, Lockhart.”

Errol stuffed the bills in the front pocket of his jeans. “Merry Christmas.” Maybe he’d treat himself to an alcoholic beverage at a bar for Christmas.

He pulled open the door and stepped into the fluff falling from the sky.

* * * *

Absolutely the worst fucking idea on the planet, taking this job. Errol white-knuckled Bessie’s steering wheel as the ’86 Volvo crawled along the deserted road, heater wheezing with the struggle to expel warm air.

There was snow everywhere, as far as the eye could see, which wasn’t very far, given the fact that the white stuff came down hard and fast in the form of a pre-Christmas blizzard. The fact that Errol had chosen to take a last-minute job in said blizzard made him question his mental health. No other nutcases were out tonight.

After he’d gotten off the highway, only the occasional metal post topped with a reflector marked the edge of the road; the gray of pavement no longer showed. For all he knew, the asphalt might’ve given way to gravel. Who could tell with this much snow?

There was only velvety blackness beyond the puny reach of the headlights, no doubt full of hazards lying in wait for the undercarriage of the car. Where was this place? If there were street signs, he sure as hell couldn’t see them.

A stuffed reindeer sat in the passenger seat along with roses and sprigs of evergreen and mistletoe. The bouquet made Bessie smell more like a Christmas sleigh than an aging Volvo. Static ran through the generic holiday music burbling from the speakers, and the radio station hadn’t paused for a weather report.

Did he really need a report?
Newsflash: Blizzard blankets Colorado
. The snow blew in a mesmerizing whirl, almost like the storm was inviting him to run off the road.

He should have told Smitty no. The money wasn’t worth it. The chance of losing control of the car and going off the road was too high. If he wrecked, he’d lose his transportation and have no way to work.

The landscape had started out vaguely familiar—in another lifetime he had headed out this way to go snowboarding. Tall grass gone pale with winter’s cold, slopes of purple granite where the road cut through the mountain. Long stretches of nothing between residences. Oversize houses on fifty-acre plots of land. Ranchettes—rich people playing at being country dwellers. He hadn’t seen a house or headlights for a good five miles, maybe more.

Wind buffeted the car. Snowflakes did a hypnotic dance in the arc of the headlights, adding to the six-plus inches already on the ground. A bad night to be out, but there were bills to pay. Errol heaved a sigh. At least it was money. The smart thing would’ve been to tell Smitty no, but what did he have to go home to? There hadn’t been anything but the tiny room at Mr. Fielding’s Boarding House for Gentlemen since Carson had told Errol to take a hike a year ago on Christmas Eve. The highlight of Christmas this year was likely to be the telegram, since Smitty was closed until December twenty-sixth. Homeless last year was definitely worse than driving to God knew where through a blizzard without a map this year.

Just get it over with, and then you’re free.

Yeah. Free to give tonight’s pay to the landlord in order to avoid eviction. Free to sit at home staring at the four walls of his rented room. Free to say he was an
artiste
, not a worker bee chained to a desk.

All his former college buddies would be out raising holiday vacation hell, drinking and dancing and getting laid. Those guys had made smart decisions, majoring in accounting, engineering, and hotel and restaurant management. Shrewd choices. Lucrative choices. They hadn’t been out of work for a year. He squeezed the steering wheel.

He sure as hell couldn’t ask family for help; they’d made that abundantly clear. Andrew would take him in, but Andrew expected…too much.

“Look at you now, Lockhart,” Errol said. “It’s come to this.”

Singing erotic telegrams for strangers. At least tonight’s “song and thong” was a birthday, not a bachelorette party. Too many people didn’t believe the “hands off” policy and tried to feel him up. One person he could handle. He’d deliver in the foyer and be done with it. A birthday message for a woman, someone who might be embarrassed and tantalized in equal measure by the telegram. Errol snorted; her friends probably thought she’d at least get a one-night stand from the messenger.

But his package wasn’t part of the…package, so to speak.

At least he hadn’t sunk that low.

Yet.

Slowing, he tried to get his bearings. Smitty’s damn directions said twelve miles, then turn right. He’d gone more than twelve and seen no turnoff of any sort. Too late to call Smitty for clarification—he would have left by now to begin his holiday weekend. If nothing showed up in the next half mile, Errol would turn around and retrace his route.

Bessie gave a groan, bogging down in the snow, and he shifted into low gear. The slower he went, the denser the snowstorm looked.

With a blink of dashboard lights, the Volvo’s motor cut out, and the car coasted to a stop.

No. No. Not tonight.

He turned the key and got no response. He counted to ten, gave it some gas, tried again. Nada. On the third try, the starter gave a soft click. The headlights dimmed, and he shut them off. “Damn it to hell!”

What was it this time? Alternator? Battery? Distributor cap? Whatever it was, it was
not
in his meager monthly budget. Hell, if he hadn’t agreed to do the strip-to-the-thong variety of singing telegram, Smitty would’ve pink-slipped him a month ago; winter was lean for rentals.

Why couldn’t he catch a break?

With a silent prayer, he pulled out his phone and checked for service. No bars. No Wi-Fi. He banged his head against the headrest. For months he’d meant to toss a blanket and some emergency supplies into the trunk, but he’d never gotten around to it. And now…

Errol peered in the rearview mirror. No headlights in sight on this miserable stretch of rural road. Not that he could afford a tow, but at least he’d get a ride into town. A three-hundred-sixty-degree recon showed surroundings as black as the coal Santa left for bad boys like Errol.
Damn.

He hit the Hazard button, and it began its rhythmic clicking. The taillights blinked, yellow reflecting off the white chaos outside. Keeping an eye on the rearview mirror for any sign of a fellow traveler, he savored the lingering warmth in the car.

No point in waiting. Time to put on every item of clothing in the car. He opened the center console, pulled out his Denver Broncos watch cap, and tugged it down over his ears. Next he pulled off his coat. Goose bumps erupted as he turned to the backseat and grabbed the long-sleeved thermal T and flannel work shirt he’d brought to put on after the telegram. As fast as possible, he shrugged on the extra shirts and then thrust his arms back into the coat, shivering.
Frickin’ A, it’s colder than a witch’s left tit out here
. His breath steamed in the frigid air.

Thank God this client had wanted him in faded button-fly jeans and work boots; he wouldn’t die of exposure, at least not right away. He wrapped his arms across his chest and shoved his hands into his armpits.

There had to be a better way to make money. After the incident with Carson, no one would take Errol on in theater. Hell, he couldn’t even get work pushing a broom at a venue. It didn’t matter that Errol had had nothing to do with the plagiarism of
Gently, Gently
. He’d never tried to pass it off as his own work. The pall of suspicion Carson had managed to cast had done its job. And the ultimate irony was he couldn’t save money to get out of here without working, the money necessary to move to a place where no one cared what Carson Malachek might say.

No, the gods were not on his side when it came to acting. Same thing with modeling: not quite tall enough, not quite muscular enough, not quite blue-eyed and blond enough. At some point he had to get real and figure out a way to make a decent living. After Christmas.

Christmas
. Bah, humbug, and all that rot.

He huffed out a breath, and it froze in the dim glow of his cell-phone screen. “Okay, Bessie. Let’s go, old girl.” Again he tried the starter; this time it didn’t tease him with a click. Flicking the switch for the headlights yielded a weak glow. A shiver went down his spine, and he swallowed hard. People froze to death in situations like this.

He needed a plan.

* * * *

The longer Joe drove, the more this seemed like a mistake of colossal proportions. Three days before Christmas, and Mother Nature had seen fit to bury everything under a blanket of white, making a mess of the roads. Mess being a relative term. As he’d driven out of Denver proper and into the foothills, the weather had gotten serious. Now the snow came down like feathers in a pillow fight, thick and dense and obscuring the view. A genuine Rocky Mountain blizzard. Once he got to the cabin, he’d be stuck there for the duration.

Alone with thoughts and feelings and emotions that he hadn’t risked examining for the past two years.

Snow packed the blacktop, muffling the tire noise. Up ahead, red and blue lights whirled and blinked. Joe slowed and downshifted. Accident. The mangled remains of a subcompact rested beneath a large SUV, and a team of firefighters worked to cut through metal, orange sparks flying in the night. Joe could almost smell the hot metal and soot and gasoline. Extrication. Possible life-threatening injuries. His heart took off beating fast and hard.

The left lane was partially blocked by an ambulance and a fire truck, and scattered patrol cars limited the way for cars to a narrow channel. A highway patrol officer in an orange vest directed cars beyond the wreckage. As he drove the ambulance, he sighed. It was a relief to get past the accident and get on down the road. The wipers beat in a frantic rhythm as they tried to clear the windshield, and he turned the defroster up another notch.

The downtown Denver condo would have been adequate—Gretchen had contacted the service to lay in food, and the neighbors didn’t know him. It was a holiday. People were focused on spending time with friends and family, and even the paparazzi were focused less on celebrities this time of year. He would’ve been fine.

But it wouldn’t have been the same as the cabin. No matter what it cost him, it was time to come to terms and determine where he was headed with his life. Tomorrow it would be two years. He needed to be somewhere he could feel, a place where he could safely pull back the lid on his carefully stored emotions. That kind of thinking couldn’t be done in the impersonal confines of the condo.

Still, throwing food into a cooler and loading it and his duffel into the Jeep for a spontaneous excursion in the middle of a snow emergency didn’t speak to his sanity.

The pull of the cabin got stronger with every mile, and the mantle of fame fell away, taking with it the weight of expectations and the cheerful false front he’d kept up for the past two years. Running away to LA hadn’t been therapeutic. It had been hiding.

* * * *

Rocking in the seat, Errol hummed “White Christmas” under his breath. Fifteen minutes had passed, and no one had come along. Didn’t anyone live out here? Time to consider his options.

Well, his options consisted of sitting and waiting, becoming a Volvo ice pop, or walking, knowing he could get frostbite or worse. Decisions, decisions. He rolled his head to the right and gazed at the reindeer in the passenger seat. “What do you think?”

Mute, the toy looked at him with glittering plastic eyes.

“You’re no help.”

Inside his rag wool gloves, his fingers felt like clumsy sausages, as if they were encased in ice. Forcing them to work, he opened the glove box and dug out the flashlight. The light came on when he flicked the switch. He balanced the lamp on the console and plucked the paper with the directions off the dusty dashboard. After a glance at the time on his phone, he scrawled,