R.E.M. Part 1

R.E.M. Part 1

Todd had been sent on some sort of warped scavenger hunt slash wild goose chase, and there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn’t going to go home and encourage the freaks who had been sending him messages to take another shot at Blair or one of the children. And he wasn’t going to ignore the messages and his only chance at finding out who was responsible for this. That left the detestable option C: dancing like their puppet on a string and trying not to walk into a trap.

The last message he’d received in Llanview had directed him to 5316 West Gladys Street. There was no Gladys Street in Llanview, but there were a handful scattered around the country. Two jumped out at him: one in Kaplan, Louisiana, not far from where he’d been held prisoner for eight years, and one in Chicago, Illinois, where he’d spent a childhood not much more enjoyable than his imprisonment.

He tried Louisiana first. Kaplan’s West Gladys Street was a dirt road crawling with small children who spoke in soft southern drawls that made him homesick for Blair. They stopped and stared when Todd approached, but politely escorted him to number 5316 when he asked. An old woman opened the door to him and handed him a card with an all-too-familiar triskelion on it.

“The man said that if a stranger came around, to give him this,” she explained.

“What man?” Todd asked eagerly.

“Just a man,” she said, and try as he might Todd couldn’t get her to elaborate.

He flipped open the card.

Try again.

It took a day to get to Chicago. Gladys Street was halfway to Oak Park, and while most of the homes were buzzing with activity, number 5316 was empty.

The door was unlocked; Todd walked in, one hand tight on his gun. The house was small and empty, but for one note left on the kitchen counter.

August 20. 10:00 p.m.

That gave him a day to wait.  

He got a room in a hotel downtown and holed up inside of it. Chicago had nothing he wanted to see. He’d been just fine with leaving it forever when L.U. had offered  him a full athletic scholarship. He’d barely been back since, and those memories weren’t good ones, either.

But it seemed that he was alone in his desire to forget. Downstairs, the hotel’s restaurant was hosting the 20^th reunion of one of the local high schools. The music drifted up to him. It hadn’t seemed so annoying in 1993.

One, two princes kneel before you

That what I said now

Princes, princes who adore you

Just go ahead now

One has diamonds in his pockets

That's some bread, now…

“You might be a prince,” Blair had said when he’d shown her the key Peter Manning had revealed on his death bed, just down the street from where Todd was now.

It might have been okay to be a prince. Being a Lord was something he could have done without. More and more he believed that everything in the mess he found himself in now went back to Lord family’s twisted wreck of a family tree.

Marry him, marry me

I'm the one that loved you baby can't you see?

Ain't got no future or family tree

But I know what a prince and lover ought to be

I know what a prince and lover ought be

He’d barely been gone for two days. It was too early to waste one of the prepaid disposable phones he and Blair had acquired in between the marriage license and the wedding bands.

But he deeply, desperately wanted to hear her voice. He wanted to bitch to her about the stupid KAD-esque soundtrack that was making him feel like Zach and Powell might walk through the door at any moment. That was safe enough, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t tell Blair where he’d been or where he was or anything that might put her in danger.

He looked at his watch. It was after one in the morning, but it was the night of the Man of the Year Ceremony back in Llanview and no doubt Blair had stayed late at Shelter making sure everything had gone smoothly. She’d be awake.

Besides, the phones weren’t going to do them any good if he got himself kidnapped tomorrow.

He had nineteen hours to wait.

He used the first of his phones to call the first of Blair’s.

“Todd?” she asked.

From that one word, he could tell that she’d been crying. She’d leaned against the door and cried when he’d left, too, and he’d stood on the outside listening to her and feeling like a piece of shit.

“It’s me,” he told her. His own eyes were starting to fill with tears. “I wanted to hear your voice. I thought you’d be up because of Clint’s big show.”

“You heard about that?” she asked.

“They set that up before I left,” he reminded her.

“Oh. No, they took the award away from Clint and gave it to Bo instead. Clint got drunk and crashed the ceremony. His acceptance speech went something like ‘from the bottom of my heart, screw y’all.’ We had to have the paramedics strap him to a gurney and get him out of—”

Whatever else Blair had meant to tell Todd was lost when Todd choked on his own laughter. The lost time with Blair and his children was the worst, but missing out on watching the Buchanans make fools of themselves sucked in its own right.

“It wasn’t funny,” Blair said lamely.

“There is no way that wasn’t funny,” Todd corrected. “You don’t have to pretend to be a pillar of polite society with me, Blair.”

Blair chuckled weakly. “It might have been a little bit funny. But never mind that. Where are you?”

“You know I’m not gonna tell you,” he pleaded. “Don’t waste the time we have asking questions I can’t answer.”

“I know. I just… I couldn’t not try. It sounds like you’re at a party. I can hear music.”

“Class reunion downstairs,” he grumbled. “It sucks. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need to relive 1993.”

“Neither do I,” Blair agreed.

“Makes me think about Kevin Buchanan.”

“Makes me think about Asa Buchanan.”

Todd winced. “You win this round of the most pathetic contest. How bad did Clint mess up Shelter? You gonna have to close for repairs?”

“Nah. No real damage done. Business as usual tomorrow.”

“I wish I could be there. Just sitting on that stool staring at you. That’s all.”

“Drinking my scotch.”

“Listening to that kid you hired sing about getting white girl wasted. Did you have her perform for Clint tonight?”

This time Blair laughed for real. “No. We should have had her write a special version.” She sang a few bars. “Dancing in my boots getting cowboy wasted.”

“I miss you,” escaped his throat without permission.

“I miss you, too.”

“Anyone else in Llanview notice I left?”

“Viki pumped me for information. She’s worried about you.”

“Did you tell her anything?”

“Of course not. Nora asked where you were. That was weird.”

“She was just hoping you’d tell her you chopped me up and left me in a freezer somewhere.”

Blair didn’t bother to comment. Instead, she continued her recitation. “Tea… Tea’s been okay. She’s really the only one who has any idea what’s going on. I—I showed her my ring. I’m sorry. I just had to tell someone. I was missing you so bad, and she can’t tell—”

“Not unless she wants to lose her best chance at ever seeing Victor again,” Todd completed bitterly. “You get a nice chain for your ring?” Blair couldn’t very well walk around Llanview with a wedding band on her finger when their marriage was a secret. She had promised to wear it on a chain around her neck, close to her heart.

“I couldn’t bring myself to take it off. I wear it behind another ring. It’s so small it’s easy to hide, and people are used to me wearing a lot of costume jewelry. No one’s gonna suspect.”

“I can see Dorian and Jack sneaking into your room at night just to make sure I’m not there and finding it.”

Blair laughed. “That’s why the door is locked. Anyway, Jack was really sweet tonight. I told him how much I love you, and I think… I think he’s coming around.”

“Dorian coming around too?” Todd asked wryly.

He could almost hear Blair roll her eyes. “Well, so far there’s only been one rant about how much she regrets not knowing about me when I was a little girl because if she’d raised me I never would have fallen for you.”

“Did you tell the head witch that she’s wrong as usual?”

“You don’t know that,” said Blair. “If we hadn’t both been so pathetic that day we met in Rodi’s, if all those pathetic, awful things hadn’t happened to us to make us who we were right at that moment—”

“No way,” Todd corrected. “It was always going to be you and me no matter wh—”

In unison, their phones beeped angrily. One use per phone, and one quick use per phone. Just like that, they were cut off.

Todd was alone with the music again.

He lay on the bed and pretended that there was an icicle’s chance in hell that he’d ever be able to fall asleep.

Oh life, it's bigger

It's bigger than you

And you are not me

The lengths that I will go to

The distance in your eyes

Oh no, I've said too much

I've said enough…

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