Excerpt from: Lazy Water
The last thing Joe expected to see when he came out of the pizza shop was a man pulling a gun on a woman in the parking lot. By any standards, buying a pizza was a non-event, innocuous, like buying paint which was his next stop. And it wasn't that Joe was a stranger to violent events, living in Toronto as he did, but the fact that this parking lot was in the small city of his childhood made him question what he'd seen.
Joe lowered his sunglasses for a clearer view and for one startled, adrenaline-spiked moment, was sure he saw a gun raised to target a young woman. When the shooter stepped back, Joe could see that the man was aiming at the woman's face with a finger pointing forward, the parody of the gun directed at her head. He squeezed the trigger action and mouthed a soft bang. There was such contempt in the action and intent to intimidate the young woman - whose small, pale face suggested vulnerability - that Joe couldn't stand still and watch as the woman panicked. He moved away from the store and towards her, ready to help.
The woman swung around - clearly as confused as Joe had been about the finger-gun - and crashed into a shopping cart, which clattered into a half-circle spin. The man's raised hand continued in an upward arc and he slicked his dark hair. He moved across the parking lot with the easy glide of a predator and stepped into a silver Lexus convertible. He saluted the woman in a mockery of good will. The engine roared to life and the tires grabbed asphalt as the car screeched into traffic.
The woman's knees buckled and she sank to the ground, grit and gravel searing her bare legs. She wrapped her arms around her head and pulled into her body as if to shield herself.
Her breaths came in rapid gasps, cleansing her body of its terror. Just as her trembling eased, Joe's hand touched her shoulder. With fear still too close to the surface, she shrieked and pulled away.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Joe withdrew his hand and stepped back. "I thought you might be hurt. I didn't mean to scare you."
"Don't … I'm … don't. I'm … all right." She struggled to stand. Joe stretched his hand to help. She waved it away, rejecting contact.
Joe's tall broad-shouldered shape blocked the late afternoon sun. It glimmered around him creating a silhouette that softened the impact of his looming presence.
"Is there anything I can do?" he said. He watched the woman, more like a girl, he thought - she was so slight - a cotton T-shirt clinging to her small breasts and outlining her slender ribcage and waist. She brushed dirt from her legs; a bead of blood swelled and leaked over her knees. Her face was sweat-streaked and she pushed limp blond hair away from her eyes. Perspiration stains circled her underarms.
She cleared her throat. "I'm okay. Thanks." Her voice was weak. "I'll be fine," she said. "It's superficial." She pulled at her cotton denim shirt, pressing it to its full length just above her knees. She scanned the parking lot, alert to the possibility that a threat still hovered there. Her eyes came back to the speaker. Close-cropped dark hair topped a square face while beads of light bounced of the edges of Serengeti sunglasses.
A blue T-shirt imprinted on the whitening sunlight. His strong legs still bore their bleached winter whiteness, stretched beneath khaki cargo shorts and ended in leather sandals.
"Damn those wobbly shopping carts, anyway," she said.
Shopping carts, be damned, Joe thought. It was the threat and it scared her wobbly. "Perhaps the store could help you. I can get someone." Lines of concern creased his brow. He made a move in the direction of the store.
"No! No. I'm fine. Don't trouble yourself." She gathered her purse and took a faltering step towards a white Echo.
"Wait," he said, startling her. Joe came out of the sun's glare and looked at her more closely. "Do I know you? Aren't you Amelia? Amelia Compton?"
She turned towards him. "Do I know you?"
"Joe Bennett. I know it goes back a few years but we did know each other. Vedder Elementary? Or was it Sardis Senior?"
Joe saw recognition in her face. Amelia Compton's wary smile quickly disappeared as memories clicked into place. Her mind was tracking what she knew about him, remembering that he'd left town quickly after graduation and hadn't been back since. Now, here he was in the Safeway parking lot.
She nodded, her mouth a hard line. "Not school. Our fathers." She attempted toughness, pulling her body straight and tight, but heat waves drifting off the asphalt and the gunman's psychic games combined to defeat her. "I don't know why you've come back," she said. "There's only wreckage left. You're much too late." She limped the short distance to her car and slammed the door. That gesture drained the last bit of anger in her and she accelerated slowly from the parking lot.