by Zahra Girard
“I might have done something that I shouldn’t have. And it would be preferable for me to get out of here before anyone realizes what I did.”
“Sounds like some very un-saintly behavior.”
“Now is not the time.”
“All I’ve got is time. Time to sit here, drink my whiskey, check the game on my phone, and listen to you tell me why you so urgently need me to come pick you up.”
“Why?”
I take a sip. Think for a second. “Because I remember you as the valedictorian. The good girl with the great legs who was one of the captains of the track team. And everything you’ve shown me since we met up—”
“Met up? You mean when you took me as a hostage after you failed to rob the bank?”
“Everything you’ve shown me since then is that you’re still that same good girl. Which means that, as smart as you are — and I’m not going to lie, I know you’re as smart as hell, and it’s hot, in a sexy librarian kind of way — you don’t know jack shit about being a criminal. I do. And I know that I’ve got the cops looking for me. So, if I’m going to stick my neck out and come pick you up, I need to know what kind of mess you’ve made. That way, I know how much I have to hurry, and whether I have time to finish my whiskey or whether I should make myself a pot of coffee and sober up.”
“You’re drunk right now?”
“I’ve got a good buzz going. There ain’t much to do out here in the woods except drink and fuck and, since I’m all alone, that leaves me with just one option. Now, tell me what you did, Saint Tiffany.”
“Fine. I lied on a form.”
“Oh shit. Tiffany Santos, I am shocked and appalled. And that’s coming from someone who’s spent time in prison and has a less-than-pristine credit score.”
She huffs. Twice. I can hear her hobble-pacing on her wounded foot. “Stop teasing me.”
“I’m going to sit back, finish my glass of whiskey, take a bit of a nap, and then I’ll come pick you up. Should be just an hour or four.”
“Do you want me to help you or what?”
“I do. But lying on a form is nothing to panic about. I do it all the time.”
“It’s worse than that. It wasn’t just any form, Blaze, it was the insurance information for my hospital stay. I said I was my old boss, Anna.”
I burst out laughing. “You’re going to stick Anna with your hospital bill? Oh shit, Tiffany, that’s cold.”
“I’m not proud of it.”
“Oh, but I am. That’s some diabolical shit.”
I’m grinning. Tiffany Santos has a naughty side to her. Who would have thought? This girl gets better and better the more I find out about her.
“Look, she won’t end up getting the bill. The hospital administrators will figure it out soon enough. But it is fraud, tens of thousands of dollars in fraud — because our healthcare system is just bonkers — and that’s why I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to. So, can you please come and pick me up?”
“Will you tell me more about this fraud you committed?”
Another huff. “No. I will not. If you want me to help you fix your mom’s debt problems, you’ll stop bothering me about what I did. I’ve had enough of crime for today. And for many more days beyond that. Just come pick me up, please.”
I set my glass of whiskey down on the table, get up, and start a pot of coffee. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. I just have to figure out a ride.”
“You can’t use your motorcycle?”
“You’ve heard it. It roars like a lion with a megaphone. It’s fucking awesome and will have every man in that hospital looking at me with jealousy. There’s no way I’ll go unnoticed. Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out.”
“Fine. But no crime.”
“Excuse me?”
“If I’m going to help you out, we have to do things legally. I don’t want to be party to any more criminal acts; this one thing has me feeling sick enough as it is.”
I stare at the dripping coffee pot for a second, stunned.
“You feel sick because you filled a form out wrong?”
“I feel sick because I, for petty and selfish reasons, committed fraud and signed my boss up to receive my huge medical bill. Anna’s a bitch — she’s a horrible, disgusting, conniving bitch — but she doesn’t deserve that.”
What attraction I felt for Tiffany Santos after hearing about her bit of insurance fraud fades in the face of her overbearing morality. She’s got a great ass, incredible legs, and her face and tits aren’t too bad either, but her fucking conscience is a major turnoff.
But I need her.
Because my mom’s in trouble.
Because Tiffany Santos is smart as hell and I’m dealing with a problem that I can’t fight my way out of; the failed bank robbery earlier proves that point.
“Fine. You call the shots here, Saint Tiffany. We’ll solve this thing your way.”
“Promise me, Blaze.”
I swallow my pride; it takes a while, because I kick ass.
“I promise. I’ll be there to pick you up very soon. Crime-free.”
“Thank you. I got to go. One of the nurses is looking at me funny. Hurry, please.”
I hang up and stare at the coffeepot as it fills drip by drip.
Where the hell am I going to legally get a ride out here in the middle of nowhere?
* * * * *
In a chugging 1980 Chevy Camaro that would be a sexy car if not for the mismatched quarter panels, the dent in the front hood the size of the grand canyon, and the unspeakable smell of cat that pervades the interior, I pull up to the curb of the pickup area of Alameda General Hospital.
Tiffany is waiting for me right inside the lobby, and she exits the sliding glass doors about the same time I cut the engine and step out of the car.
“That is our ride? I thought you said you were trying to stay under the radar,” she says as she hobbles up to me on her crutches. “And what is that smell?”
“That smell is cat.”
“Cat?”
“I did the best I could. There wasn’t much to choose from.”
“And yet you chose this one.”
“Well, if you don’t like it, you can always wait here and catch a ride in a nice and clean police cruiser. The price for that clean ride is that they’ll book you for insurance fraud. Take your pick, Saint Tiffany.”
She closes her full lips and screws up her face in a cute ‘shut the fuck up’ look. “Fine. Let’s go.”
I slip an arm around her shoulders and help her around to the passenger side of the car. Then I open the door and help her lower herself into the front seat. She wrinkles her face again as soon as she makes contact with the seat.
“It’s moist. And it really smells like cat. Or cats. Plural,” she says as I settle in to the driver’s seat. “Where did you find this thing?”
“Borrowed it. If you don’t like the smell, just roll down the window.”
She cranks the window down as I turn the key in the ignition and pull us away from the curb.
“Where to first?” I say.
Her nose is still wrinkled, disgust all over her face.
“My house, first. I need to get some of my things. Then your mom’s house, so we can look at her situation, her records, all the pertinent information, and figure out an action plan to get her back on track. I will not lie to you, Blaze, this could be a complicated situation. And we might not be able to do it alone.”
I look over at her. She has her eyes out the window. Or maybe she’s just trying to keep her face as close as possible to the fresh air. This car really fucking smells.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the responsible thing to do is to be prepared to hire a lawyer.”
I lean to the side. Away from her. And put my face out the window. This car really fucking stinks.
“A lawyer? What the fuck for?”
“Well, what if there isn’t a simple, financially oriented solution for your m
other’s problem? What if we need to guide her through bankruptcy, or loan arbitration, or some other legal process? How much experience do you have with the law?”
I smirk at her.
“A fair bit.”
“OK, but other than being arrested?”
“None.”
“Which means we will need someone experienced to guide us through that process. If it comes down to it. See my point?”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“I should make a list, because there are a lot of things I will need to pick up from my place and, with that warrant you’ve got on you from the bank robbery, we shouldn’t be making any more trips out than necessary. Do you have something I could write with? Never mind, I got it.”
Before I can stop her, she opens the glove box and reaches inside, rummaging for paper and a pen. Out into her lap falls a pencil, the remains of a mouse’s nest, and the vehicle registration. Frowning, she wipes the bits of nest off her lap and picks up the registration slip.
“Who is Bert Carlisle?”
I look out the window at the passing suburbs of Torreon while my brain hunts frantically for an answer.
Either I take too long or she reads the truth on my face.
“Blaze, tell me the truth: did you steal this car?”
“You try finding a car on short notice in the middle of the fucking desert.”
“You made me a promise.”
“Did you not hear me? This was the only fucking option. Especially considering the fact that you told me to hurry because you committed fucking insurance fraud just to get back at your bitch of a boss.”
We roll to a stop at an intersection, and her face is as red as the traffic light. She glares at me in between the moments she pops her head out the window for fresh air.
“You swore: no more crime while we were figuring out your mother’s situation. And what is the first thing you do once you hang up the phone on me? You go out and steal a car. And to make things worse, you steal a car that stinks so bad that I’ll be smelling like cat for the next week. Do you think I’m stupid? That I wouldn’t figure this out? Do you respect me so little? You need my help — you’ve said that you can’t figure this mess out without me — and yet you so blatantly disrespect me?”
For a moment, I’m stunned into silence by her indignant rage while we sit idling at the traffic light. I want to answer her, to hit her with some kind of comeback that’ll silence her smart ass.
But she’s through talking.
The passenger door opens, she slides her ass out on crutches, and slams the door behind her with all the force and fury a crippled nerdy young woman can manage.
And then she sprint-hobbles away.
Chapter Seven
Tiffany
This isn’t the first time I’ve been on crutches; I’m a runner, have been for years, and that means I’ve experienced my fair share of ankle turns, knee strains, muscle pulls, and a whole litany of other injuries that’ve lead me to accumulate a considerable amount of experience bracing myself on glorified sticks.
I can be fast. Even with a foot wound. Even on crutches.
And, as soon as I slip myself out of Blaze’s stinky stolen car when we hit that intersection, I prop the crutches under my armpits and I make a mad dash down the sidewalk. I don’t know where I’m going — don’t care — I just want to get far away from here. From him.
He lied to me. Right to my face.
I’m not shocked that he did — I know he’s a criminal, I know he’s probably got a criminal record long enough to circle a full track — but I am disappointed in him; he needs my help, and yet he is so quick to denigrate who I am by immediately going out and stealing a car? What does that say about how much he thinks I’m worth? I have enough people in my life — myself included — willing to tell me I’m worthless; I don’t need to add him to the list.
I want a partner who respects me. Who makes me feel important. So that someday I’ll believe that about myself. Because right now, I don’t.
Desperate, discouraged, and doubting my self-worth, I hobble-run down the sidewalk.
He takes a second to recover. The car stays still at the stoplight behind me and I think maybe I’ll get away; I don’t have much to get back to — my life is fast turning to shambles and I’ll be in debt until the day I die — but at least I can try to put together an honest living. Maybe the Froyo place is hiring; would they even hire me?
Tears brim in the corners of my eyes. There’s a chorus of negativity in my head: worthless, helpless, hapless — Tiffany, just give up.
“Tiffany, wait,” he shouts.
I ignore him.
Keep going.
There’s a squeal of tires, a thunderous clamor of a decrepit, dirty muscle car responding to a depressed gas pedal, and then he screams by me, a furious blur that steers onto the curb just ten meters ahead.
“Go away, Blaze,” I shout. My voice is shaking. But then, my heart is shaking, too.
“Please don’t do this.”
“I asked you to do one thing, one little thing, just to make me more comfortable with what’s going on and you swore that you would. Instead, what do you do? The exact opposite of what I asked.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And that’s supposed to make it all better?”
He leaps out of the car, the engine still rumbling, the keys still in the ignition. His face is a mask I cannot read, lined with emotions I doubt he’s often felt in his life — fear, worry, uncertainty — a confident man staring down challenges he knows he can’t conquer alone.
“What more do you want from me?”
“Respect. Acknowledgment. Is that too much to ask?”
“I don’t know what to say, Tiffany.”
I stop, look at him. He looks so unsure.
“Think for a second, Declan,” I say, using his real name. The name of the cocky, charming, and too-handsome-for-his-own-good boy I remember from high school. The boy that I always took note of when he showed up to class because it was both a rare event and I couldn’t help but look at him and wonder — wish — I was the kind of girl he would pay attention to. “Think about how I feel. I have lost my job. I had to commit a crime — something that I am deeply against — just to get out of that hospital, because if I told them who I really was, I’d probably have the police asking me what I was doing there and it would put you and your mom in even more risk. I am so lost and I hate where I’m at right now. And the one thing that I felt might bring some value to my life — helping your mom — has me paired up with a partner who has so recklessly and callously demonstrated he doesn’t respect me.”
He comes closer. His approach is slow, careful, and his eyes shine bright with a compassion that stirs my emotions to crescendo.
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
But I can’t stop the pain flooding me, pain that’s been held back by a dam of denial — a fierce determination to avoid acknowledging that I hate my life, hate my job, hate that I had so much promise and gave it all up.
“Blaze, I hate myself,” I say, hitting my chest in grief. In anger at the futile failure I’ve become. “I hate where I’m at, I hate my job, I hate everything that I’ve become. Helping you was one thing I could’ve done to feel good about myself… but you’ve made me feel worse. Somehow. I don’t know how, but you did. You took something that could’ve made me feel proud for the first time in way too long and you ruined it.”
He’s right in front of me. Looking at me in a way he’s never looked at me before; looking at me in a way that would’ve made the Torreon High School version of myself so jealous. Now I’ve finally got his attention — his whole attention — and it’s when I feel the worst about myself.
Those big, powerful hands touch my arm in an impossibly gentle way.
“You’re right,” he says in a whisper. “You are so right.”
The sound of the world falls away; there’s no traffic, no barking dogs, no persistent beep from the crosswalk
signal. It’s just us.
“What?” I say, stifling the quiver in my voice.
“I disrespected you. What I did was wrong,” he says, and he takes a deep breath. “Tiffany, I’m up against something that I don’t know how to handle, and it’s got my head all messed up. I’m on edge; I’m not thinking straight because my mom and her home are at risk. I want to be strong for her, but I feel powerless. But, when it comes to this situation, you are powerful. You’re fucking brilliant — I remember the way the teachers used to talk about you. Do you know how often you were brought up as an example to everyone in detention? A fucking lot. Hell, Mr. Dale — you remember him from chemistry class? — he started a betting pool with some other teachers about which Ivy League college you would go to. He won three hundred dollars because you picked Stanford. You are so smart, worth so much more than you give yourself credit for, and I really need your help.”
I blush. A little. “They made bets about me? Really?”
He nods. “You were the example they always held up. And I don’t give a shit about where you work; you are so fucking smart — smart in ways I don’t even understand. And I need your help. I am begging you. As a man who desperately wants to protect his mom, but can’t do a damn thing because he doesn’t know the first thing to do, I am asking you to overlook how fucking stupid I am and give me another chance. Please.”
He is so earnest I can hardly take my eyes off him. There’s not an ounce of deceit in his voice and the passion in his words rolls over me, leaving warmth and confidence in its wake. “Okay.”
“You’ll help me?”
I nod, relieved. I believe him, and I’m happy he came after me, because I wasn’t looking forward to going back to my apartment to pick up the pieces of my fucked-up life. The only thing I’d have to look forward to then is sending out unanswered job applications and waiting for the police to come pick me up for insurance fraud. At least now I have him. And a project to work on. Something to give my life meaning.
“I will. Come on, let’s go. People are staring at us.”