though faster was never fast enough. Twenty-five years ago, he would have been tearing across farm tracks on his Kawasaki H2, a motorbike that had earned its nickname of Widowmaker. Tonight he was racing along some county road in his Alfa Romeo Spider with the top down and the Gipsy Kings blaring. He conjured up his favorite scene from Weekend at Bernie’s in which a corpse water-skied into a buoy, but couldn’t even rustle up a smile. Movie slapstick was his happy pill, although obviously not this evening.
He glimpsed his reflection in the rearview mirror. God Almighty, some stranger could zip past the Alfa right now and have no inkling of the horror festering inside its driver. At worst, he looked like a guy trapped in a killer hangover and the black-only fashion dictum of the eighties. No one would guess that he was, quite simply, a man trapped. James had read somewhere that life was about how you lived in the present moment, which might be true for millions of people without obsessive-compulsive disorder. But for James, living in the moment was hell. And he never got so much as a day pass.
Would he ever find peace, or would he always be that kid terrified of the boogeyman hiding in his own psyche?
He could feel germs mutating in the soil. Soil Tilly had transferred to him. Why, why had he shaken hands?
The Alfa screeched onto the gravel in front of an abandoned gas station and James leaped from the car, leaving the engine running. He grabbed one of six bottles of Purell from the glove compartment and emptied it over his hands, shaking out every last drop. Terrific. Now his palms were sticky as well as contaminated. Cringing, he rubbed them together until they throbbed.
A squirrel shot in front of him, rustling dried-up leaves as it disappeared into the forest, squawking. Smart little rodent. I’d run from me, too, if I could, buddy.
Shaking his hands dry, James glanced up. He needed big sky, Illinois sky, not this wimpy patch of cerulean obscured by trees. Even in Chicago, he could see more sky than he could in Chapel Hill, where the forest closed in from every angle. And at night, the roads were dark like pitch, trapping him, blind, in purgatory.
Was it too late to reconsider this whole move? Yes, it was. He had started down this path the only way he knew how—with absolute commitment. There could be no running back to Illinois. He had made sure of that by selling everything—the farm, the business, his apartment on Lake Shore Drive. Everything but the Widowmaker and the Alfa.
He had moved south with one purpose: to be part of the exposure therapy trials at Duke University, and finally, finally learn how to reclaim his life from fear.
A rusty white pickup truck lurched down the road, an animal crate on its flatbed rattling against restraints. His father had offered to cage him once—a drunken joke that wasn’t remotely funny. Regret rose in his gut, and James hardened himself against it. Back then no one, not even James, had understood that his bizarre behavior and repetitive thoughts were caused by an anxiety disorder. And his dad? His dad died believing that his only kid was damaged beyond repair. But James was going to prove him wrong. Hell, yes. He was going to prove his dad wrong. OCD had nearly destroyed James’s life once. And he would do whatever it took to become that guy, that normal guy, who could shrug and say, “You know what? Once is enough.”
The original plan had derailed, but he wouldn’t turn back. Not that he could even if he wanted to, since he’d never been able to walk away from anything. OCD was behind that, too. It was the root cause of every success, every failure, every gesture, every desire, every thought…every thought.
This was his amended plan, 1b. No! 2a. Odd numbers tingled through him like slow-working poison and jinxed everything. This plan held the promise of freedom—freedom from the nightly window and door checks, freedom to sleep past the 4:30-a.m. treadmill call. Freedom to expose himself to the minefield of unallocated time. Doing nothing was akin to unrolling the welcome mat for every funky ritual his short-circuiting brain could sling at him. It was beautifully, impossibly straightforward, his plan: face his fear. And not just any fear, but the mother lode. The biggest fucking fear of all. Dirt.
James’s pulse sped up, and his heart became a jackhammer pounding into his ribs. He swallowed hard and tasted panic, metallic as if his throat were lined with copper. The voice inside his head that wasn’t his own drowned out everything as it chanted over and over, “You’re going to die, die from disease in the soil.” He started rocking. Movement, he needed movement. The voice told him to twist his hair, told him if he didn’t, he would catch cancer from the soil and die. But he didn’t have to listen! This wasn’t a real thought. This was brain trash, right?
Or he could just twist his hair twice. Then twice again and twice again. Six was a wonderful number. Soft and round and calm. But rituals were cheap fixes. Compulsions only fed the OCD monster. It would return, stronger, unless he fought back.
He thumped his fists into his thigh. Don’t cave, don’t twist your hair. If you can fight for ten minutes, the urge will pass. He counted to forty and stopped. Ten minutes? Hell, he couldn’t make it to one.
Was he crazy to retire at forty-five and abandon work, the only distraction that restrained fear? There would be no more relabeling irrational anxiety as the stress of running a successful software company. No, those days were over. Now he was free to follow the lead of his faulty brain wherever it led.
Me and my fucked-up shadow.
James tapped his lucky watch. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap.
Now he’d contaminated his watch.
Panic gnawed at his stomach. Germs were mutating in the soil, breeding like bunny fucking rabbits, but he was not going to twist his hair. James sucked in a breath to the count of four. He held it for two seconds then exhaled. One, two, three, four. Repeat, James, repeat. Slow the breath, and the heart and mind will follow.
Everything would be okay if he could just hire a landscaper—Tilly Silverberg—under the pretext of beautifying his new ten-acre property, when really, he would watch and learn from a professional. She’d made it clear no amount of money would change her mind, which was intriguing. Not that he was cynical, but money talked. There had to be another way. Did that bring him to plan 2b?
James concentrated on slowing down his breath, winding down his fear, and reliving the moment he had seen her garden on the edge of the woods. His pulse had slowed, his thoughts had fallen silent, and he’d known, just known: whatever lay at the end of that driveway held the key to his plan.
Piedmont Perennials had been his final appointment at 6:00 p.m. Six, a sign that everything would be okay, except for that god-awful honking. James glanced up as a skein of geese flew over in textbook formation—an imperfect, imbalanced V with one side longer than the other. Symmetry soothed his fractured mind, but the lack of it….
James jerked around, searching for a focal point, a diversion, anything.
Stop. Please, just stop. And a picture of Tilly dropped into his mind. She moved with the elegance of a prima ballerina, albeit one in a scarlet top and frayed cutoffs. Scarlet, she was a woman of bright colors who could spin through life laughing, gin in hand. But there was a sadness in those huge, pale eyes. Yes, she was beautiful, but beauty held no meaning for him. He was attracted only to women who were as screwed up as he was, even if they hid it better. Fuck. Not good, not good. Eighteen months celibate and focused on one thing—fixing himself. Fighting terror sucked up enough emotional energy. How could he salvage any for the mess of love and desire? Besides, being alone was his default button. Best for others, best for him. And yet…Tilly had made him smile.
His insides were heaving with fear, and she made him smile.
Her feet, poised for a pirouette,
