At that, Eddie smiled.
Then he said, “Okay then, promise me you’ll work with Lee.”
“I’m not working with Lee but I’ll talk to him. He’s not heading this operation, I am. Lee, Marcus and Zano want in, I’m good with that. But when Ricky Balducci goes down, I want him to know I brought him down, I want him to know why and I want to make the fuck sure he stays down.”
Eddie sat back and nodded.
Then he said, “You know I’ll do –”
Hector broke in with a warning. “I don’t intend to play clean.”
Eddie’s black eyes turned glittery. “Like I was sayin’, you know I’ll do what you need me to do.”
It was Hector’s turn to smile.
Chapter Four
Hash Marks
Sadie
One month later…
“Ralphie, get away from the window,” Buddy ordered.
I lifted my head to see Ralphie holding the curtain wide and standing, bold as you please, staring out the window.
“It’s Hispanic Hottie this time,” Ralphie informed us and then Buddy and I watched him wave.
Oh my.
“Hispanic Hottie” meant Hector was sitting outside in a brown, old model Ford Bronco probably drinking coffee. I could visualize Hector lifting his chin at Ralphie’s wave. I could visualize it because I’d seen it before, several times.
Sometimes Ralphie would even make a pot of coffee and walk out to Hector’s Bronco to give him a warm up, carrying milk and sugar. Ralphie informed me Hector took a splash of milk and one sugar like this was information which I could impart on Saint Peter and he would lead me straight through the Pearly Gates to the right hand of God. I’d only watched Ralphie’s Alice, the Waitress impersonation once, doing it while peeking through the curtains. I saw Hector get out of the Bronco, close the door and lean against it while Ralphie poured him coffee and chattered away.
I also saw Hector’s amused yet glamorous smile (yes, I could see it, clear as day, from all the way across the road, it was hard to miss).
I’d never looked again.
My eyes moved to the blackboard that was on the wall by the window. Ralphie put it there weeks ago. On it was a list of names and next to the names there were hash marks. Once I started getting visitors on a regular basis, visitors that came in the evenings when I was home, stayed from thirty minutes to over a couple of hours and never came to the door, Ralphie decided it would be fun to keep track.
The list included “Hawaiian Hottie” (that was Kai Mason), “Just Plain Old Hot Hottie” (that was Luke Stark), “Alaskan Hottie” (that was some big blond guy, named thus because Ralphie said he looked like he could fell a tree by blowing on it and only men from Alaska could do that kind of thing), “Surfer Dude Hottie” (that was a smaller guy with real sun-streaked hair), “African American Hottie” (that was a black man with twists in his hair) and “Native American Hottie” (that was, well, a native American hottie or another one of Lee’s men whose romance had been reported in the papers, Vance Crowe).
By far and away, Hector had the most hash marks.
I twisted my head to look up at Buddy; he looked down at me and grinned. I shook my head.
Then I gave up on Ralphie and settled back in. I was snuggled up to Buddy on the couch, lying curled in a fetal position, my head on his thigh.
It was Saturday evening and we were in the throes of a Veronica Mars marathon (season two DVD). I decided that when I left “Ms. Townsend, Ice Princess” behind, the New Sadie was going to be like Veronica Mars. She was plucky, cute as a button and she had a smart mouth.
I figured, given some practice, I could be plucky and cute and have a smart mouth.
In life, I learned, given enough practice, I could do anything.
* * * * *
It had been one month and two days since I’d been raped by Ricky Balducci.
Never in my life had so much happened in one month and two days.
Never in my life had most of it been so good.
First of all, Ralphie and Buddy installed me in the guest bedroom of their brownstone.
When I got there, Buddy made me do three days of complete bed rest. They brought me food and fawned over me like I was a true life princess. Buddy even helped me shower and when I got embarrassed he said, “I’m gay and a nurse, I wipe people’s asses for a living. Do you think this fazes me?”
I got over being embarrassed after he said that.
I didn’t go back to work for two and a half weeks. By the time I did, the bruises and swelling had gone and most of the cuts were disappearing.
In that time Buddy and Ralphie went to my apartment. They cleaned it up and packed me up, everything I could want or need was brought to the brownstone and moved in, making the guestroom less of a guestroom and more my room. They also arranged some of my stuff around the house, making the house less Ralphie and Buddy’s house and more our house.
Everything else I owned was put in storage.
Then Buddy called a real estate agent friend of his and put my place on the market. Without asking me and without me telling them what happened they decided the memories there were too bad for me to go back. I would get a new place what they referred to as an indefinite, “Later, when you’re ready,” and I would stay with them in the meantime.
I didn’t quibble.
For starters, I didn’t particularly want to go back to my apartment. But also, it felt nice having someone take care of me. No one had taken care of me since I was eleven years old and I liked it. I liked it enough just to let it happen.
So I did.
* * * * *
About a week after I moved in with them, the doorbell went. Buddy answered it and came back with a short, heavyset lady with spiky, salt and pepper hair and clear blue eyes.
Buddy introduced her as his lesbian friend, Bex. After I shook her hand, Buddy informed me Bex was a counselor at a rape crisis center.
Then Buddy and Ralphie left me with Bex, going, they said, to get Chinese takeout.
At first I was angry. Then I was scared. But Bex talked to me about my gallery, about Buddy and Ralphie, about my shoes, about season tickets for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival in Boulder, about loads of things but not about me getting raped.
An hour slid by before Buddy and Ralphie returned and I realized, only at the end right before she left when she handed me her card and told me to call her anytime, that I liked her.
It took me another week to call her. She’s come to visit me twice. She’s lovely.
By the time Bex came around, we’d already had the parade of hotties sitting outside the brownstone guarding the door, keeping me safe and Ralphie had put up the blackboard.
I was ignoring the parade of hotties and what that might mean.
Ralphie and Buddy didn’t ignore it, they thought it was very interesting and would talk about it all the time.
I didn’t participate in their discussions. That would defeat my efforts at ignoring it which, come hell or high water, was exactly what I was going to do.
Eventually, they’d go away.
Right?
* * * * *
By the time I went back to work, Ralphie and Buddy had showed me how to check the Ice Princess at the door.
I’d never been in a house filled with love.
In the beginning it made me uncomfortable because I felt like I was weird. They were so at ease with each other, affectionate, relaxed, calling each other nicknames, doing things that showed they cared.
It was bizarre.
They also did it with me.
There was no personal space in Buddy and Ralphie’s house. You cuddled on the couch. You kissed cheeks when you walked in the door from work. You left notes when you were going out; making sure you gave details about when you’d be home.
Ralphie brought up my coffee in the morning, pushed me aside in bed, sat in it with long legs stretched out, back to the headrest and gabbed about everything while I sipped my coffee
and slowly came awake.
While I watched TV, Buddy forced me to sit on the floor between his spread legs and gave me head massages (he said he loved my hair).
They bickered about who was going to make dinner (why, I didn’t know, considering Buddy did all the cooking) and they nagged about whose turn it was to take out the garbage. I’d always thought “bickering” and “nagging” were ugly words but the way Ralphie and Buddy did them, they were sweet.
I tried to give the cold shoulder, indicate I needed my personal space (especially then) but they wore me down.
It took about five days.
* * * * *
My second day back at work, the door opened and the Rock Chicks came in.
All of them except Daisy but including Shirleen Jackson.
I stared in horror.
With no sign of an arctic glare, Ally smiled, waved and said, “Hey Sadie.”
Like I was actually A Sadie not A Ms. Townsend.
I tell you, it was bizarre.
They all introduced themselves to me and Ralphie while Ralphie stared at them like they were from another planet. He did this mainly because they were all gorgeous and they were so damned friendly it was unreal.
There was Indy, Ally and Stella but also ladies named Jet, Roxie, Ava, Annette and, of course, Shirleen.
After awhile, Ralphie started staring at me like I was from another planet because I went Queen Ice.
I didn’t know what was going on but I didn’t like it and I didn’t want any part of it but there was no way I could ignore it when it was in my own fucking gallery.
Therefore, the Ice Princess clicked into place.
The Rock Chicks were oblivious to my wintry demeanor, chatting away with Ralphie and me like we did it every day.
Eventually Shirleen broke off and wandered the gallery shouting out, “Oowee,” this and “Oowee,” that and finally stopped in front of a painting Ralphie and I’d had hanging for three months without a single nibble of interest.
“I gotta have me that!” Shirleen called across the gallery. She turned to Jet who was closest to her. “Wouldn’t that look good in my rec room?”
I looked at the painting. It was a canvass painted entirely in purple. Just purple. Most people thought it was just canvass painted purple, therefore no nibbles. It was a beautiful purple though and I loved it.
I wasn’t certain sure it was “rec room” material though.
“It’s perfect,” Jet agreed.
Shirleen looked in my direction. “I’ll take it.”
Ralphie swooped down on Shirleen in an instant and snatched her credit card out of her hand before she’d cleared it from her purse.
“I’ll get my boys, Roam and Sniff, to come and get it,” she told us, leaning against my counter.
“We have a delivery service,” Ralphie informed her while I was wondering who in their right mind would name their children Roam and Sniff.
“No, Roam’s drivin’ now, he needs practice negotiating downtown. I’ll give him the Navigator, he’ll do just about anything to drive the Navigator,” Shirleen replied.
“They’re street names,” Indy muttered to me under her breath.
I turned my eyes to her. “Sorry?”
“Roam and Sniff, they’re street names. Shirleen is their foster carer. They were runaways,” Indy explained.
Something about this hit me somewhere deep. I tried to entertain the idea of my father seeing the error of his ways, giving up the drug world, going to work for a private investigator and taking in runaways like Shirleen.
It almost made me want to laugh. I did not, of course, laugh.
Instead, my eyes went glacial like she’d imparted information on me which I found highly uninteresting and I said, “Oh.” Then I turned to Ralphie and announced, “I’m going to The Market, getting us coffees.”
Ralphie’s eyes were startled when he looked at me and I could tell he was shocked at how rude I was being.
He glanced around the girls and then said hesitantly, “Okay, sweet ‘ums.”
Without a backward glance, I left.
When I returned with the coffees, the Rock Chicks were gone and Ralphie gave me the third degree. I deflected the third degree until that evening when Ralphie enlisted Buddy and they ganged up on me. They did this with the addition of lemon drops which we drank sitting on stools around their kitchen island (they had a fabulous kitchen, all chrome and gleaming black cabinets and granite countertops, it was Buddy’s domain, he cooked like a dream).
I held out, for awhile.
But lemon drops always did me in, eventually.
After around lemon drop three, I told them about my Dad. A few sips into lemon drop four, I told them about my Mom. Sucking back lemon drop five, I told them about Hector and added on what I knew about the Rock Chicks, the Nightingale Men and the cherry on top was my history with Daisy. During lemon drop six, I shared what happened when Ricky Balducci broke into my apartment. We were all crying by this time, me uncontrollably, so it was uncertain how much they understood because I didn’t figure I was making much sense.
Ralphie slept with me in my bed that night holding me close all the night through and the next three days he didn’t leave my side.
It was somewhere at the end of day three when I was sitting in between them on the couch and Ralphie had pulled up my feet and was massaging them and Buddy had pulled my head onto his shoulder and I was super comfy that I realized I had my first, genuine friends.
They liked me, me, Sadie – whoever she was, but whoever they thought she was, they liked her.
They didn’t take; they just gave and expected nothing back.
That night they’d introduced me to plucky, cute, smart-mouthed Veronica Mars.
Veronica was in the middle of some elaborate scheme involving a wunderkind schoolmate who knew everything about computers and they were going to blow the lid off some big mystery involving mostly high school students when I whispered, “Thank you guys.”
Neither Buddy nor Ralphie responded but Ralphie gave my feet a long squeeze and Buddy sighed.
The next day Indy, Ally and Roxie came back without the rest of the Rock Chicks and they brought coffee. They told me the coffees at The Market were nothing compared to what Indy’s barista, the guy who worked the espresso machine at her bookstore (they referred to him as “Tex”) could make. They told me Ralphie and I could come to the bookstore anytime and Tex would make us the special on the house.
This time they didn’t chat or buy three hundred dollar purple paintings. They just left the coffees for me and Ralphie, smiled and left.
“I think –” Ralphie started, eyes still on the door after they left.
“Don’t start,” I interrupted him.
Ralphie snapped his mouth shut, looked peeved, took a sip of his coffee and then his eyes bugged out.
“My God. This is fab-you-las,” he exclaimed, staring at his white paper cup.
I took a sip of mine and my eyes bugged out too.
He was absolutely right.
* * * * *
Several days later, Marcus Sloan walked into Art.
Ralphie was installing a painting at someone’s house so I was, for the first time since The Ricky Incident, alone.
This stunk. I didn’t want to be alone and Ralphie really didn’t want me to be alone but I had to get on with my life eventually so I encouraged him to go.
I was doing okay until Marcus came in.
Being alone was one thing but I didn’t want to be alone with Marcus Sloan.
* * * * *
I knew that I couldn’t lean on Buddy and Ralphie forever. Eventually I had to pick up the threads of my life, find my own place and learn to take care of myself again.
I’d heard nothing from Ricky or any of his crazy brothers. I didn’t press charges because I was my father’s daughter. When you were down and you found an advantage, you didn’t squander it. You waited and used it when the time was right.
Rape was a
felony, if found guilty Ricky would go to prison. I knew I could press charges and I knew I’d win. And I had time. There was a statute of limitations but by then I was hoping the Balduccis would have moved onto new prey. In the meantime they knew I could go to the police anytime and cause Ricky, and all the Balduccis, a world of hurt.
I had one card to play and I wasn’t going to play it too soon. If I brought down Ricky, I had three more brothers who could come after me. Right now he was Top Dog. I didn’t need another Balducci dog after me, putting in his bid to make me his prize.
If I kept my card, they all had to sit back and wait for me to play it. In the meantime, they could concentrate on tearing each other apart.
At least, this was what I told myself.
However, telling Ralphie and Buddy about it and talking with Bex was one thing. Facing Ricky Balducci again was another. I wasn’t ready for that.
I knew it made me look like a wimp but I could live with that. I was holding it together, seeing Ricky might make it come flying apart.
I’d put it together once, with the help of Ralphie and Buddy, but I knew I couldn’t do it again.
* * * * *
Marcus walked up to me at the counter and smiled.
“Sadie,” he greeted me softly.
I just stopped myself from putting my hand to the bandage that, at that point, Buddy still put on my face in the mornings to hide the healing cut.
I didn’t need the bandage anymore but I wasn’t ready to go out in public with my scar on display. That would take another few days and another night of lemon drops for Buddy and Ralphie to get me to give up what they called “The Bandage Crutch”.
“Sweetheart, you’re gorgeous. You’ll always be gorgeous. Trust me,” Buddy had said.
It took awhile but I trusted him. People looked but they didn’t say anything and I knew I’d get used to it with enough practice.
Instead, I looked coolly at Marcus Sloan who I’d always thought was handsome. Daisy chose well, Marcus was a colleague of my father’s and I knew he wasn’t clean but I also knew he was nowhere near as dirty as my father.
Rock Chick Regret Page 7