Love Me Tender

TW: murder and suicide

The sunset was beautiful. Red as blood and just as violent. 

Strains of vermillion and iris light smeared across the black Corvette’s hood, swirling across the paint like an oil slick. One of the headlamps was shattered and the fender was dented, not to mention the bullet holes peppering the rear, but it was still the most beautiful car Jacy had ever sat in. 

And next to her, holding her hand on the gear shift, was the most beautiful woman she had ever sat beside. 

“Bella,” Jacy murmured, and those night sky eyes were upon her in an instant. “Where’s that flask of yours when a girl really needs it?” She should’ve laughed as she said it, but she didn’t. 

Bella smiled though, that queer half smirk where one side of her mouth tilted up in a way that made you want more than anything to kiss it, and pulled the dull, nicked black vessel from her breast pocket. She took her own swig before handing it to Jacy, and that was probably for the best; she wouldn’t have been able to get it open with her slick hands. 

The liquor burned going down, and she wondered if Hell would feel like whiskey. 

“What a mess I’ve made, angel eyes,” Jacy whispered, and there was a rasp in her voice that hadn’t been there when they’d met.

“No.” Bella shook her head, russet curls glowing like gold in the fading light. “No, we soiled things together. So I tell you what, babydoll,” she said, taking the flask from Jacy’s hands. “We’re gonna watch this wonderful sunset together until the stars come out, and then we’ll fix things right on up. How’s that sound?”

There was no way to fix what she’d done, of course, just like there was no way to get the blood out of the ‘Vette’s leather seats. 

“Like music to my ears,” Jacy said, and she turned up the radio. 

Love Me Tender. It was the song that had been playing when they’d met. Could it have only been a few weeks ago? Yes, it must’ve been. Christopher’s dinner party had been on the fifth. 

He’d been very specific about what he wanted prepared for the meal. 

“You remember Colby’s wife’s broiled steak, don’t you, Jacinda?” His icy eyes were pinning her to her seat from over the top of his newspaper and the grey morning light illuminated each of his short dark hairs.

Jacy combed through her memories of the endless dinners and barbecues she’d had to attend since her husband’s promotion a year prior, but could recall nothing about Colby, his wife, or her steak. 

She nodded anyway, hoping it wasn’t important. 

“I want you to head over to their house and get her recipe for the dinner we’re hosting tomorrow night. Oh,” he exclaimed, as if the thought had just occurred to him, though he was a terrible actor, “and see if you can get Noah’s girl to teach you to make that raspberry thing she’s so good at while you’re out. It’ll be good for you to make some friends.” That last part was under his breath, as though he wanted her to know it but didn’t quite have the spine to say it.  Then he was folding his newspaper and draining the last of his coffee, getting ready to leave for work as if the conversation was through. 

Wasn’t it, though? He’d given her instructions and expected her to follow them. Nevermind that she hadn’t a clue who any of the people he’d just mentioned were, let alone where they lived. 

“Walk me to the door, won’t you, Jacinda?” As always, Jacy obliged, holding his arm as the two of them breezed over the hardwood and towards the front door. She plucked his jacket, navy blue and stiff, off the coat rack, then pulled his car keys out of the pocket and dropped them in his waiting hand before opening the door and seeing him out.

It was her favorite part of the day, standing on the front porch in the morning mist and hearing that engine come alive.

He’d gotten the Corvette, shiny and brand spankin’ new, with his first paycheck after the promotion. The black paint glowed in any light that touched it, and the wheels seemed to whisper to her of freedom. From the moment she’d first laid eyes on it, she knew it was the only thing she would ever love about her husband. 

God, the things she’d do to drive that car, Jacy thought as she watched him pull out of their driveway and amble down the street, far too ginger with the majestic creature. It would never happen, though. She wasn’t sure Christopher was aware she knew how to drive, but even if he was, he’d die before he let anyone in the driver’s seat of his baby.

Jacy stood there, the cream-colored lace of her nightgown catching on the wooden banister’s splinters, until the car was out of sight and she was left alone with only her malcontentment for company.

Well, that and the predicament Christopher had dropped in her lap, Jacy realized as she retreated back inside. She had met all of her husband’s friends, of course, and their wives, but she never had the presence of mind or the motivation to remember any of them.  

No, Jacy thought, already pulling curlers from her hair as she climbed the staircase, there wasn’t a chance on earth. She would just go where she went for everything else she’d cooked her husband in the three years they’d been married: the library.

Christopher had always insisted she be the best-dressed woman in the room when she was on his arm, and that only became more apparent once he took over his father’s role at the company. Every dress in her closet was an expensive one, and while she may not have enjoyed her husband’s company, she did enjoy the luxuries he afforded her. The blue dress she decided on, with its intricate pattern and two rows of buttons down the front, was certainly a bit extravagant for a walk to the library, but if anything, that was all the more reason to wear it.

As she walked through the library’s grand wooden doors, white gloves snug against her fingers and matching heels echoing through the building to the beat of the Elvis song on the radio, she didn’t mind the eyes that turned her way. In fact, she rather enjoyed the gazes of strangers she passed on her way to the cooking section, but she wasn’t quite vain enough to acknowledge them.

Jacy’s destination was in the back of the building, near the history textbooks and almanacs. It was quiet and secluded, and she had expected to be as alone as she’d always been. Her expectations, though, had no effect on the redhead in the corner, a copy of Dante’s Inferno in one hand, a flask in the other, and a leather jacket slung across the back of her chair. 

Jacy tried to ignore her as she perused the Betty Crockers and Good Housekeepings, but she had the distinct feeling she was being watched. There were a few moments of awkward silence, filled only by the faint strains of Love Me Tender, before she decided to check. She cast a sidelong glance at the woman and her suspicions were confirmed; there she was, draped with a patch of sunshine as if it were a spotlight, cerulean eyes locked on Jacy. 

Turning her attention back to the thick spines of the cookbooks, she said brightly, “I don’t think you’re allowed to have that in here, Miss.” 

The woman, her hair like a flame against her shoulders, sat forward and held the book out in front of her. “What, this? Where else but a library should one read their books, Miss?” She had the gall to look positively scandalized about it, too. 

Jacy gritted her teeth as she forced a smile, turning to face the woman fully. “I meant the alcohol, actually,” she specified in her most saccharine tone.

“Oh. Well, in that case,” she said, leaning back and swallowing a mouthful. “I won’t tell if you won’t, babydoll.” She winked as she said it, and the gesture made her eyes glitter like stars.

Jacy felt her face get hot, though she wasn’t sure why. She dealt with frustrating people all the time and never got too flustered; Christopher’s soirees had taught her a near-limitless patience. She stared at the woman, unable to think up a retort. 

The redhead smirked, her full lips quirking to the side. “That’s what I thought,” she whispered sweetly, then set her book down on the chair and began to pull her jacket on.

“What’s your name?” Jacy wasn’t sure why she’d blurted it that way, with such urgency. All she wanted was a name to report so she wouldn’t have to deal with. . . whatever this had been again.

And suddenly the both of them were caught in a moment. The strange woman’s bright red hair was set ablaze by the sun and their eyes were locked on each other as the violins on the radio swelled. In a second, though, time had shifted and the moment was gone, replaced by reality and its swiftness. A book dropped somewhere in the building and in the echo, the music was gone. “Bella,” the woman said. “Bella Alden.”

It was an hour before Jacy came back to herself enough to find the recipes she needed, and when she brought the books up to the front desk to check them out, she asked the librarian about a tall redhead named Bella Alden. 

“Oh,” the greying woman muttered, her pencil quivering as she moved it. “She’s here most every day. She’s not discreet about that flask of hers, but so long as she’s not bothering anybody, I don’t mind.”

Jacy opened her mouth to say she’d been bothering her, in fact, but she somehow couldn’t form the words. 

Christopher, when he returned home, was disappointed to see library books on the counter instead of, she assumed, handwritten recipes that smelled of newfound friendship and the perfume of a bosom buddy, but that was fine. She was too lost in her own head to care all that much for his unmet expectations, the leftovers she’d heated up for dinner, or the warning he gave her before bed that everything had better be perfect for his dinner tomorrow, which of course it was. Jacy may not have relished housewife business the way some women did, but she hadn’t snagged herself the son of the wealthiest man in the county by not being good at it.

It wasn’t until the day after, when she came to return the cookbooks she’d borrowed, that Jacy saw Bella again. 

She didn’t need to venture back towards the cooking section again; they had plenty of leftovers from the night before, and Christopher’s favorite recipes were in a drawer at home, so she didn’t plan on checking anything out. It wasn’t necessity drawing her back, but intrigue. 

She half expected the chair to be empty, for the striking red hair and arresting eyes to have been some spectre of her imagination, but there she was, flask in hand. 

“Oh, good,” Bella said when Jacy came into view, “I was worried I’d truly annoyed you enough not to return.”

“You’d be right to worry,” Jacy cooly replied, plucking a book off the shelf and pretending to read it. “You truly are annoying.”

Bella only laughed. “Say, I never did get your name,” she remarked, fingering a page of her book. 

“It’s Jacy. Well, it’s Jacinda, but it’s Jacy.” She was tripping over her words, saying things she didn’t need to say. She bristled to think that Christopher might’ve been right about her needing more friends. 

“Jacy. Pretty name for a pretty girl,” Bella said, a smile teasing her lips. 

“Well I certainly hope so,” Jacy replied, eyes returning to the text she wasn’t reading. “This,” she said, gesturing to herself, “doesn’t just happen every morning.” 

“Hey,” Bella said, her tone sober, and Jacy met her eyes. “Do you wanna get out of here?”

And that was how it began. Innocently enough at first; just conversations in Bella’s truck about life and literature and Christopher and how much Jacy hated him. 

“I swear,” Jacy said one day, exasperation seeping from her very pores, “I let him kiss me once and I decided that was the best I was ever going to get. So I married the fool.”

Bella, her eyes luminous in the noonday sun, laughed and said, “I bet I could do better.”

She was right. 

Christopher, of course, was too wrapped up in the company and the war in Vietnam that his father had bought him out of serving in to notice that Jacy’s lips were swollen and her eyes were bright when he got home from work every day, but nothing could keep him from noticing that his dinner was never up to snuff the way it used to be. 

“Jacinda,” he called from the Corvette one morning, “be sure to make something especially scrumptious for dinner tonight. The boys and I are having a few drinks after work and I’d hate to come home to a subpar supper like I usually do.” 

“And then he drove away like he hadn’t just said the most insulting thing to me,” Jacy exclaimed, the hand not entwined with Bella’s gesturing wildly. 

“To be fair, babydoll,” Bella murmured, her voice feather-light, “you haven’t exactly been cooking these past few weeks.” She nodded to the floorboards, which proudly displayed Jacy’s nylons. 

“Now tell me how that’s fair,” Jacy said, sitting up from their horizontal position in the backseat. “You have such a sweet nickname for me and I only ever call you by your name.”

Bella laughed. “I don’t see how that’s my fault,” she replied, pulling Jacy back down on top of her. 

“I suppose it isn’t.” She paused before adding, “angel eyes.”

There was no response, but Jacy felt a sigh of contentment. 

Dinner, much like every other night for the past three weeks, was not scrumptious. Unlike the past three weeks, however, Christopher was drunk when he ate it. 

“The hell is this, Jacinda?” His voice was low, and though she’d never liked her husband, it was the first time Jacy’d ever thought to be afraid of him. 

“Dinner,” she replied tightly. “Mashed potatoes and fried chicken. Is there a problem?”

“Only that we’ve been eating these leftovers for days now and I specifically asked you for a damn good meal tonight.” 

She knew as she did it that she would regret it, but Jacy picked up his plate and took it into the kitchen. “Fine then. Go to bed and dream of a better dinner because I’m not making you one.” And then, right in front of his face, she dumped the food in the garbage. 

“Oh, like hell you aren’t, bitch,” Christopher growled as he stood, knocking his chair to the floor. 

Jacy’s heart felt like it might beat through her throat, but she carried the dish to the sink and began to wash it with the utensils and knives. “You’re drunk, Christopher. Go to bed.” 

He did not go to bed. 

Instead, he grabbed a fistful of Jacy’s curls and brought her face down hard on the edge of the counter. 

Too shocked even to scream, her breaths came in whimpers as she turned to face him, only to see red as he backhanded her hard onto the tile floor. He bent down to hit her again and she raised her hand against him, to protect herself. Again and again, she flailed her arm, hoping to keep him at bay, but--

Jacy opened her eyes to see the knife she’d been washing in her fist, a very still man slumped against the kitchen cabinets, and blood all over everything. Her husband, the floor, her dress. 

Especially her dress.

That was when she screamed, long and loud. 

She took care not to touch him, not wanting to feel the chill of his skin against her own, as she made her way to the coat rack, to his stiff blue coat, to the keys she’d always wanted to feel in the ignition.

She supposed there was nothing left to lose.

The Corvette felt just as good beneath her bloodied hands as she’d always expected it would, and the roar of the wind and the engine was almost enough to make her forget what she’d just done. 

She had the vague realization she was doubling the speed limit, but she didn’t care; there was one person she needed to find, and she knew just where that person would be. 

Rubber screeched as she braked in front of the library, and a redhead in a leather jacket looked up with questions written on her face. 

“Get in, angel eyes,” was all Jacy said, but it was all she needed to. 

And now they were here. 

Bella reached over and curled a bloodstained blonde ringlet around her finger, smiling sadly, and Jacy let herself enjoy it. 

Suddenly, the light on her face wasn’t just red and orange, but blue as well, accompanied by sirens in the distance.

“It seems we’re out of time,” and Jacy’s voice broke as she said it. 

“Nonsense,” Bella scoffed. “We’re just beginning.” 

The sirens, in their nearness, grew louder, so Bella turned the radio song up to match as she nodded forward. Jacy narrowed her eyes; she couldn’t be serious. But she was, and she said as much.

The police pulled up just a moment too late.

As the violins soared, the black Corvette rocketed off the cliff, soaring to the waters below. Time dilated as Elvis sang of tender love, and as the sun sank below the waves, so did a bloody woman and her lover.