Chapter 4 - Link to the Past

They sat next to each other on the couch in the Big House. Sometimes Marnie would pick up a controller and play a round of Goldeneye with Mark, but mostly she watched and snacked and got up to change CDs. The creaks whispering from the plaid couch when she’d sit back down were not lost on either of them. It was Saturday night, but there was no celebration. It was their routine.

Mark paused the game long enough to fill up the little glass bubbler with light green bud and take a hit. It was supposed to be from British Columbia. They both knew it was as likely to be from anywhere else in North America as it was from BC, but it was better than the usual stuff and the story helped it sell. Mark passed the small water pipe and Marnie took a hit.

“I can still smell your hair dye,” Mark said over the hum of the music, his eyes locked on the game. “It looks good. If you were wondering.” Marnie had re-dyed it that afternoon, with the box of Feria Mark picked out for her. A very light blonde, nothing like the Julia Roberts copper she asked for, but at least her dark roots were gone.

It had been months of this routine, but there were still surprises. Stepping out of the shower after rinsing the dye, wrapping the towel around herself and finding it harder and harder to close all the way around her body, then looking in the mirror. She surprised herself. Mark told her she needed to make her face look different, and it took some time, but she did. The extra weight had finally hidden some of her sharper features, changed the way shadows played on her cheeks, given her dimples, made her eyes look smaller. She was pretty sure her parents would still recognize her, and her brother. Her close friends. But they weren’t looking for her. Not here, at least. And the people who might be looking for her, who didn’t have her eyes memorized or who were just looking at a yearbook photo, she might be invisible to them, now. At least for long enough to slip away.

But Marnie never went anywhere. She stayed here, safe. That was Mark’s job, and he was good at it.

Mark looked at the clock on the VCR and paused the game. “Ice cream time, if you want some.”

Marnie nodded, and he stood up and stretched. For all of her indulgence since she moved in, all of the changes to her body, Mark looked like he had lost weight. He was wearing his suspenders on his shoulders tonight instead of leaving them hanging at his waist, and she wondered if his jeans would sag without them. Or maybe they were so dirty they’d stand on their own. But he looked thinner, his tank top loose on his chest. His face had more lines. Maybe something was keeping him up at night.

He pulled a cigarette out of the pack in his denim jacket and walked into the kitchen to assemble the nine o’clock sundae. He smoked while he piled the last of the cookie dough ice cream into Marnie’s big sundae bowl, tossing the empty in the nearly full kitchen trash.

Mark opened up a fresh carton – vanilla this time – so he could put one more scoop in the bowl. He exhaled, smoke eddied by the cool night air coming in the window over the sink. That act of One More – one more scoop, one more bite, one more before bed, one more just for me – how many times had he asked if she wanted One More? How many One More’s had she eaten without being asked? Hundreds? Thousands? His dick stirred in his jeans.

Counting Crows was playing from the living room loud, moaning about long Decembers and nights in Hollywood and the smell of hospitals. He put hot fudge and a jar of Skippy in the microwave, turning back to the naked sundae. M&M’s, walnuts, chocolate chips. The microwave went off, so he tossed his butt in a glass in the sink and grabbed the hot toppings, using a butter knife to half-pour, half-drizzle. The song ended, and then after a second, he heard it start again from the beginning.

When Mark walked out of the kitchen with the large whipped-cream covered sundae in his left hand, Marnie was standing by the TV with a gun in her hand.

“Oh shit. Oh shit.” Mark stood rigid, his breathing coming ragged as he felt a shiver take him. Marnie had dropped her eyes to his shoes, but her finger was on the trigger, the short barrel pointed to the side. He shot a look over to where his denim jacket should have been on the arm of the couch. It was on the coffee table. Marnie had his gun.

“Marnie put the fucking gun down!” he yelled, voice strong. She looked up at that, staring at him with red rimmed eyes. She wiped her nose. When she first got signed up here, he could have rushed her, knocked her down, and held her down. Overpowered her. But now he was sizing her up, and Mark wasn’t as sure anymore. Marnie was just solid all the way down – big legs, a solid trunk. And she had a gun. “Fuck.”

Mark held up his hands slowly, left hand still cradling the sundae, and he took one step towards the coffee table. “I’m going to put this down here, okay, Marnie? Don’t do anything stupid. You know what Hitch would do if something really dumb happened, right?” He babystepped to his left and put the sundae down. It was already looking melty, a lagoon of liquid around the rim. He bent up at the waist like a willow, hands in the air. “Marnie.”

“What?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, completely drowned out by the music. Her hand trembled and she started lifting the gun higher as Mark took a step forward.

“Marnie, you don’t even know how to fire that. Just – just turn the music down and talk to me.”

She stared at him, her finger timid on the trigger, scared of the weapon. “Do you even know why Hitch sent me here? What I did?” Her voice was one notch above whisper.

“I can’t hear you, Marnie. I’m going to turn the music off. Stay right where you are.” Mark sidestepped towards the stereo, never looking away from the gun. Marnie moved with him, backing away so she was standing in front of the TV, the paused video game behind her. Each step drew the gun up higher, following Mark’s chest. He put his hand out, sending a stack of CDs clattering to the floor.

Marnie screamed and stepped back again, her back against the wall. She almost fell, and that would have ended it, but she kept her feet. “Mark, I want to go home, and I know you’re not going to just give me the keys to your truck and let me drive out of here.”

“I want you to give me the gun, Marnie. But– I don’t want you to go.” He turned the volume down. A dog barked somewhere outside. “I don’t want you to go. That’s me talking. You know what I mean.”

Marnie nodded, small little movements, her lips a thin line. She nodded ‘yes.’

The shot rang out across the neighborhood.