Driving Reign

by TG Wolff

  At the dinner table, Rhianna scowled at her mother. She’d been punished with solitary confinement and no makeover from Tiaurora because, of course, everyone heard.

  “Your face is going to freeze like that,” Mari told her.

  “Why did I get in trouble? She’s the one whose bananas were—”

  “Stop,” his sister said, a hand to her forehead. Her husband left the table abruptly. Cruz could see him in the kitchen, doubled over in silent laughter. Mari sipped her water, closed her eyes, and tried again. “Where did you come up with bananas as a word for a woman’s breasts?”

  “Abuela.”

  A bark of laughter came from the kitchen as all eyes turned to the family matriarch. His mother, as always, was unrepentant. “A woman her age needs a good bra. She is not so young her bananas hold themselves up.”

  Gabi looked at her still flat chest. “Do you think I’ll have big bananas?”

  “I need another drink,” Cruz said, needing to be in the company of testosterone. If he had to lie to get there, he was good with it.

  Tony Moreno leaned against his sink, wiping his eyes with a dishtowel. He wore his dark hair military short; his skin was permanently tan from his work as a landscaper. He owned his own business, designing and maintaining commercial and high-end residential properties.

  Cruz went to the refrigerator for ginger ale. He handed one to Tony, then opened one for himself. “We are outnumbered, my friend.”

  “Oh yeah.” Tony took a drink and managed to swallow before another fit of laughter caught him. “Those were big bananas. Ripe.”

  “Tony, I can hear you,” his wife scolded.

  He grinned widely. “I said ‘I love hot tamales, right?’ I don’t know what you thought you heard.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Cruz tapped his brother-in-law in the stomach. “I gotcha back. Watch this.” He strode into the dining room and took Aurora’s hand in his. “We have an announcement.”

  Gasps filled the room. A fork hit the table. A prayer was offered.

  “Aurora and I are moving in together. Today.”

  And there was silence.

  “Don’t you already live together?” Gabi asked. “Tiaurora’s always at your house.”

  “Sure, but officially, she has an apartment of her own. Starting now, we’ll be living together, like you guys do, like a family.” He avoided looking at his mother. Living together didn’t fit into Vanessa De La Cruz’s nineteen fifties’ ideal of how things were done.

  “Gabi,” Aurora said, taking a pen from her purse. “Would you like my bed? It was the very first thing I bought for myself out of college.” She began to draw on a paper napkin. “It’s very special, and it would mean a lot to me if I could give it to you.” She pushed the sketch to the wide-eyed Gabi.

  Gabi looked to her mother for permission to give into the want so obvious on her face.

  “Are you sure?” Mari asked of Aurora. “This is a big thing to give.”

  “If you give your bed to Gabi,” Rhianna started, hesitating as if trying to figure out a puzzle, “where are you going to sleep?”

  “I’m going to share Zeus’s bed.” Aurora answered matter-of-factly, a woman used to answering a child’s hard questions. “Just like your mom and dad share a bed. His bed is bigger and better for two people to sleep in without waking each other.”

  “Does his squeak? Mom and Dad’s wakes me up all the time. If it squeaks, you should keep your bed.”

  Mariana turned red as a tomato. She glared at her husband who stood in the doorway with an ear-to-ear grin. “I told you. I can’t believe this.” Then those laser eyes turned on her brother. “When you lived here, did you…” She let the question hang.

  No way Cruz was answering, but he felt his face heat. He lived with Tony and Mari for more than a year after his injury and forbade himself to think about their healthy sex life.

  “Oh my God.” His sister covered her face.

  His mother stood, her hand out to Aurora. “Come,” she said in her accented English. “We need to talk. Mariana, too.”

  “No, Mama.” Cruz put his body between his mother and his love.

  “Yes. Come, Aurora.”

  “No. Nope.”

  His traitorous sister went behind his back, literally, and stole his Aurora. “We’ll be back. Eat before everything gets cold.”

  Tony retook his seat, shaking his head woefully as he filled his plate. “What were you thinking? ‘We have an announcement.’ You know their heads went straight to weddings and babies.”

  Cruz sat, pushing his half-filled plate away. “Why do they do that? Run off in some secret women’s meeting.”

  “I’m a woman,” Gabi said. She set her napkin on the table and ran down the hallway to the room of seclusion.

  “I’m a woman, too,” Rhianna said. “I wanna go.”

  Cruz grabbed her wrist before she could run off. “Rhia, baby. I’ll give you a dollar if you come back and tell me what they are saying.”

  She looked at him, his sister’s face in miniature. “Two dollars.”

  “Fine. Just go.” After she ran off, he looked to his brother-in-law. “Your daughter is a scam artist.”

  “Better you than me. Do you need help moving Aurora? My truck is clean.”

  “Appreciate it. We moved boxes yesterday, so it’s just the furniture. Yablonski is meeting us after lunch.”

  Rhianna ran back into the room, landing between her uncle’s knees. “Abuela called Tiaurora a cow and said she shouldn’t give her milk away.”

  He pushed to his feet—carefully, to avoid knocking Rhia over—but what the hell? His mother was talking his girlfriend into not moving in with him? “Mother!”

  Aurora laughed the entire drive to her apartment.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Are you kidding?” she asked, her eyes wet. “Between the bananas, frogs, and cows, this lunch rated in my top ten.”

  “My mother tried to talk you out of moving in with me. Not. Funny.”

  “Oh, but she was really sweet, you know, in her way. Don’t you realize this means she likes me? She wants to make sure there’s a future for us. One with marriage and babies and all the craziness Mari and Tony have.”

  He thought back to a year ago. What had Mari said to him? His mother equated love and happiness to marriage. She had wanted him to be happy when she was setting him up with every Latina American in Greater Cleveland. “Do you need marriage and babies to be happy?”

  She leaned into him, her head on his shoulder. “I am happy. I have my painting, a job I’m good at, and a man I love. What more could I want?”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” He kissed the top of her head. “Now, let’s get you moved in.”

  Oscar Bollier sat at the usual table, on the usual night, in the usual restaurant. Nighttown was known for its jazz as much as its food. This evening, a quartet was on the small stage, plucking out bassy rhythms that went with words like cool and cat and swing.

  Nothing felt usual as Cruz watched Bollier from the doorway, fighting the words swirling in his head. Asshole and liar and fuck your marker were among those he told himself not to use. Bollier looked up, then his gaze fell away, his hands clumsy as he cut his dinner. Satisfied with the even footing, Cruz crossed to the table.

  “I didn’t think you would come.” Those so-often cocky eyes were on the table now, examining swiss recipe bread in the white napkin-lined basket. “I assume I have Aurora to thank? Are you going to sit?”

  Cruz was not about to admit Aurora had seen through the veil and, instead, took his seat. “I have a lot to say about yesterday. Let’s start with why didn’t you just ask me for help?”

  The waiter came to the table, a welcoming smile for Cruz along with his usual coffee and glass of water. “Are you dining this evening?”

  He didn’t usually. After the family meal midday, he was more likely to just have coffee or, at most, a
n appetizer. But the hours of moving left him hungry. And he wasn’t completely over being pissed. “I am and wouldn’t you know, Dr. Bollier is buying.”

  Cruz looked at the menu and considered ordering the surf-and-turf. It was the priciest item on the menu. His stomach voted otherwise. He handed the menu back to the waiter, ordered a hot sandwich, and began to fix his coffee. Once they were alone, he offered an olive branch. “I’ll look into this, but there are a few conditions.”

  Bollier nodded, his face devoid of expression as if bracing himself.

  “First, no lying to me. I ask a question, you answer it to the best of your knowledge.”

  “Acceptable.”

  “Two, if I determine this was a suicide attempt you accept it. No strong-arming, browbeating, or blackmailing.”

  “But—”

  “No ‘buts,’ Oscar. This is my field of expertise. I will give Sophie DeMusa every benefit of the doubt. I’m even willing to begin with the premise this was attempted murder, and in return I expect you to respect my judgement.”

  “I do, you know, respect your judgement.” His voice was soft, lacking its normal vibrato. “When will you begin?”

  “Now. Tell me who she is to you.”

  “She’s nobody. Just a girl—”

  “Errr. Wrong answer. Try again.” Bollier would get the message or this was over here and now.

  “I’m telling the truth, Jesus. She isn’t anyone to me but a waitress at a restaurant. But…do you remember my mentioning Jonathan Fisher?”

  “The man who made the 911 call?” His mind raced through years of conversations and contexts. A memory flickered like a candle in a breeze. “Didn’t you go to Philadelphia with him? You were buying books, right?”

  “He was. Jonathan buys and sells books, antiques, etcetera, etcetera.” He waved his hand as though the list were endless. “He owns the building on Murray Hill. His business is in one of the storefronts. Three Witches is in the other.”

  “Jonathan was the one who found the victim.”

  “Sophie, yes. He has a soft spot for her. Almost fatherly. She is important to him…and he is important to me. He is my best and longest friend.”

  Cruz fell heavily against the back of his chair. “Why couldn’t you just tell me that yesterday?”

  Bollier took a long, deep breath. “It seems…I have issues.”

  A huff of laughter burst out at the understatement, dissipating the lingering tension. “Tell me what you know.”

  “I told you what I know about how she was found. I don’t know if it’s related to her current situation, but she was embroiled in scandal. Late October, her sorority organized a fundraiser for McDonald’s Women’s Hospital. It was a gala masquerade event. Jonathan pestered me to buy a table to support Sophie. I gave in to quiet the man. She worked the event.” He retrieved a photo from his wallet and handed it to Cruz. “Jonathan and I were Holmes and Watson. Sophie was Athena.”

  The goddess leaned in, mugging it up with a fit man in a period suit. His dark blonde hair curled on his forehead Superman style. Behind the two, Bollier was dressed as Holmes, a smile as uncharacteristic for Bollier as it was for Holmes curved around a pipe, his arms around the two showoffs. It was undoubtedly the woman in the hospital draped with the healthy glow of vitality. She wore a simple gown tied over one shoulder with gold adornment. “Greek. She’s a Greek goddess with a touch of…”

  “Japanese. Her father met her mother while he was stationed on Okinawa. He died when she was in high school. Her mother lives about an hour south. A month after the fundraiser, before the holidays, Sophie accused Andrew Posey of raping her that night.”

  “Andrew Posey is the chief of staff to Cleveland Mayor Peter Mulgrew,” he said, acknowledging he knew the man’s position and what it brought with it.

  “Chief of staff and brother-in-law.”

  Cruz whistled at what he hadn’t known.

  “To my understanding, she woke in a hotel room she hadn’t booked, unclothed, sore. She couldn’t remember much after dessert. She had been invited to sit at the mayor’s table as a reward for her dedication to the event. Posey was there. They had worked together planning the gala. She had introduced Jonathan and me to Posey. They were friendly as you tend to be at such events. They were not together. Posey was, is married.”

  Naturally, he had questions, but he held off. The accusation of rape had been investigated and closed. He agreed to look into the apparent suicide. He would look at the case files only as they fed into the current situation. “What happened after?”

  “Sophie didn’t believe she was raped. Maybe she couldn’t believe it. Who knows. Sometimes it’s easier to take responsibility for something than to be the victim.”

  “It’s about control.”

  “Or the perception of control and of choice. She wasn’t behaving like it was her choice. They—Jonathan and the women who own Three Witches—confronted her. She talked to a rape crisis center. Shortly thereafter, she was dragged through a very public exchange with Posey’s office.”

  He flipped through his memories of December. Sleeping in his own house. Too many court dates. Last-minute shopping. The bloody night that made the New Year a thirty-six-hour day. “I don’t remember it.”

  “You had just come out from undercover and, well, nobody had died. Posey lodged a complaint with her sorority, the hospital, and the university. Faster than you could say ‘something’s fishy,’ she had been expelled from the sorority and was essentially homeless. Jonathan cleaned out the basement unit and moved her in. The hospital is staying out of it. That I know. I believe the university is reviewing the case to see if Sophie violated any of their policies. She is at the top of her class, planning on going med school. If she is expelled from the university, well, it will haunt her, no matter where she goes.”

  “That’s a lot for anyone to handle, Oscar.”

  “It’s only gotten worse. That idiot of yours at The Real News somehow learned about Sophie’s condition and made a headline out of it.” The idiot’s driver’s license read Edward Lutz and the only way Cruz would claim him was with a flaming javelin. “I don’t follow all the social media, but Jonathan was righteously furious at the things he read about her being scheming, gold digging and on.”

  “Is there any evidence other than Jonathan’s assertion she wouldn’t kill herself?”

  He inhaled again, deep and slow, buying time to think. “Medically, no. Otherwise? I don’t know. Not my field of expertise, Detective.”

  Cruz had more questions to ask but they weren’t for Bollier. He had gotten what he wanted, straight answers that gave him an idea of what he was stepping into. Now, he would find the facts and let them tell their story.

  The mayor’s office. Fuck. No way this could blow up in his face.

  Bollier tore off a piece of bread and changed the subject. “How is our Aurora?”

  “She moved in with me, then she pushed me out the door to see you.” They laughed together as he recounted the bananas, the squeaky bed, and his mother trying to make sure he “bought the cow.”

  Monday morning and life was good. Aurora was in the shower, her singing replacing his alarm clock. What she lacked in talent, she made up for in enthusiasm. Today, she was Beyoncé.

  He turned on the bedside lamp, blinking at the assault of light, then opened his daily mediation. Today, the words were preaching to the choir, but then some days were easier to be sober than others.

  Aurora danced into the room in her little black robe, twirling across the wide floor. She stood in the closet he’d built, her back to him, and dropped the robe.

  His grin widened. Some days weren’t just easier, they were fucking incredible.

  “Are you perving?” She didn’t turn around. “I can feel your eyes on me.”

  “Come over here, and I’ll have more than my eyes on you.”

  She snorted as she stepped into panties, then hitched her bra. “Are you trying
to make me late, Detective?”

  “I’m offering to make you late, Mz. Williams.” He slid out of bed, naked as the day he was born. “It’s not every woman who’s lucky enough to wake up with this.” He struck a Superman pose.

  She glanced over her shoulder, then did a double take. She came to him full of laughter. “I know how lucky I am.” Her hands went to his hair and brought his face to hers for a thorough good morning. When she pulled back, she rested her forehead against his. “But while I might be lucky, I’m not rich. There are bills to pay down, so off to school I go. I have thirty six-year-olds who don’t like to be kept waiting.” She kissed him again. “Are you coming home after work?” She hesitated, smiled. “This feels different, doesn’t it? Even though I’ve slept here dozens of times.”

  “This feels just right.” Reluctantly, he let her slip from his arms. With his morning plan snuffed out, he thought through the rest of his day. Mondays were tight, with his AA meeting starting at seven in the evening. “I probably won’t be home until after.”

  “I’ll visit my parents, then. If I time it right, Dad will feed me.” She did a little jig as she finished dressing. He made a few more playful passes, just to keep her laughing. She escaped their bedroom on a giggle, then reappeared for a final kiss. “Happy hunting, Detective.”

  Damn, how his life had changed. A year ago, he was a one-man show. A recovering alcoholic, he poured himself into his work, filling his days and weekends with other people’s problems. Any spare time was spent with the family who helped him through the dark months or working on the first house he’d ever had of his own. Today, he had the respect of his department, was going to be best man to a damn good man, had a house he wanted to come home to, and a woman who shattered his concept of what a partner could be.

  After showering, he dressed in pants, shirt, and a coordinated jacket. He caught his reflection in the mirror, noticing how long his hair had grown. “Huh. What do you think about that?” For the first time since he’d gotten them, the scars dangerously close to his eye weren’t the first thing he saw. He had set up the meeting, unintentionally baiting competition in the gang he had infiltrated. His rival got the upper hand. Cruz ended up with a face so ugly it took more than a year before he could look at himself in the mirror.