Mean Woman Blues

thing?”
    Steve said, “How about a hike?” and Dee-Dee countered, “Don’t you get enough wildlife at home?”
    But Skip pounced on it. If Steve wanted it, she wanted it. She wanted him in a good mood about Louisiana. He had moved there recently and restored a house (the one being gnawed), after months and years of thinking about it. A documentary filmmaker and film editor, he’d lived in California the entire time he and Skip had been dating. Their long-distance relationship had deepened on proximity. Skip was getting comfortable and liking it a lot. Steve had come to New Orleans for her, and his being there had enriched her life so much more than she’d anticipated that she felt responsible now. And motivated— eager to make him happy. A walk in Jean Lafitte Park, over in Jefferson Parish, ought to be wonderfully therapeutic.
    There was almost a no-go when Jimmy Dee said they’d have to leave the dogs behind— Steve’s shepherd, Napoleon, and the kids’ mutt, Angel— because they couldn’t go in the park itself and it was too hot to leave them in the car.
    But in the end the three kids— Dee-Dee’s two and Steve— rose above it.
    And to Skip, the day was so beautiful, the views so tranquil, the natural mix so seemingly harmonious that it was possible to forget unharmonious nature: weed against weed, man against bug, cop against thug. She could forget her enemy.
    Afterward, they went home and barbecued. While Layne cooked, the other grown-ups sat in the courtyard Skip shared with the Ritter-Scoggin family, drinking gin and tonics while the kids watched television, Napoleon snoozed, and Angel tried to wake him up. The air was velvety, with a little breeze, and the mosquitoes weren’t yet biting. It was absurdly familial. Skip was completely, deliciously happy, a feeling she sometimes distrusted.
    But that night she dreamed, and the dream was like life. In the dream, she had a beautiful house, and then a tiny hole appeared in the wall; out of the hole came swirling hordes of termites, traveling in vortexes like tornadoes. More and more swarmed until the air turned black, and then there was no air, only chaotic, moving, living walls, trapping her and invading her nose, her ears, smothering, strangling…
    Steve shook her awake, and she told him the dream, still moaning, shivering though it was late spring, unnerved out of all proportion.
    “They aren’t that bad,” he said. “It’ll be okay. But thank you for your empathy.”
    The dream wasn’t about his termites. Someone could have said it was about him, about her fear of their relationship, her dread of becoming engulfed. But she knew it wasn’t that. She knew what it was about, and she knew why she couldn’t stop shaking.
    It was about fear of dropping her guard, of looking away for even a second, of forgetting the danger that always lurked.
    She had been happy too long, and something was happening to wake her up, to alert her to be wary. Yet the task was impossible. She couldn’t be wary every second of the day. She couldn’t protect even herself, let alone those she loved. No wonder she had dreamed of a pulsating monster, a force of nature that overwhelmed and smothered.
    Fear was like that, a shrink might have said. But that wasn’t it. Her enemy was like that.
    Nearly two years ago, Errol Jacomine had disappeared, but he would not stay gone. She knew this; she had destroyed two of his careers, twice thwarted his attempts to win control over his fellow human beings, to gain a following, and to dominate. He would be back, and he would try to kill her sooner rather than later. To forget it for a day in the woods, for an evening in her courtyard, for a moment, for a millisecond, was dangerous and possibly deadly.
    Jacomine’s son, Daniel, had been arrested, charged with half a dozen crimes, and eventually convicted of murder as the result of one of Jacomine’s schemes. He was due to be sentenced in a couple of days.
    How that would affect his father Skip couldn’t know, but it had probably precipitated the dream. Jacomine might not even notice, perhaps having written Daniel off. He could do this; he seemed sometimes to have no feelings.
    On the other hand, he perceived himself to be at the center of the universe. He might feel proprietary toward Daniel, no matter how unlikely he was to have true paternal feelings. And if he did, he might… what?
    Surface.
    Treat it as an occasion to make himself known. Trade an eye for an eye: