by Penny Reid
I knew not to press her on this point or try to dissuade her from this belief, especially in relation to herself. I knew Elizabeth’s history, knew her feelings on the subject and I didn’t want to make her hash through a topic which was so painful for her.
I tried to make my argument relevant only to the present situation, “What about Jon, I loved Jon.”
“No you didn’t. You… tolerated Jon in much the same way ‘tolerance’ is taught in the workplace or at school.” Her mouth curved downward as though she were tasting something unpleasant, “I think you loved him like one loves their fellow man, but you never felt more for him than tolerance.”
“But Quinn wants- he- he’s my boss and now he’s my boyfriend? And then there is that apartment in his building. I promised him I would take you to see it.”
She shrugged, “We’ll go tomorrow afternoon, before you meet Quinn for your date.” And then she was wagging her eyebrows again.
I held my breath for a moment then sighed. My forehead landed in my palm and I directed my question to the table, “What am I going to do?”
Elizabeth cleared her throat then brushed her fingertips against my wrist, “Well, you are going to go back to work and not let Ms. Olivia Von Evilpants think she made any impact on your relationship with Quinn. Tonight you’ll go tutor down on the south side. Tomorrow we’ll go look at the swanky apartment. Then, after, when you see the man you love- aka Quinn Sullivan, aka Sir McHotpants- for your date, you’ll ask him about the email.”
She made it sound so simple, so reasonable, so possible.
I could only nod, agree, and hope she was right.
~*~
It all went according to plan, until it didn’t.
I did go back to work. I did ignore Olivia even though she seemed over eager to throw herself in my path and speak to me for the rest of the day. I did go to tutoring that night and I successfully avoided thinking about being in love- in love with Quinn- until he messaged me his nightly text, which had turned somewhat math-mushy recently: If I were a function you would be my asymptote. I always tend towards you
Then followed it with: I miss you.
I allowed myself to enjoy it and wonder that I may have fallen in the pit of love with this man. For it was, truly, a pit. It was dark and unknown. It was scary and I was surrounded on all sides by it.
Therefore, in an effort to avoid dark and definitely frightening pits, I made up my mind to make up my mind about the ‘in love’ question when I saw him next.
The next morning I was feeling better about the lawyer-speak email. I was feeling calmer and more certain. By mid-afternoon I was actually looking forward to taking Elizabeth to see the apartment and by the time I met her at the building I was trying to contain my pre-Quinn-date excitement.
It all went wrong when I inserted the key into the apartment door. Before I could turn it the door adjacent to it opened and Quinn bolted out of it, his expression thunderous, and his chest bare.
That’s right. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
Both Elizabeth and I took a startled step backward just as he, also, rocked backward on his feet, his expression instantly mirroring ours.
“Janie.” My name was a breathless whoosh, his hand reached behind him and he grabbed for the door he’d just exited.
“I-” my eyes moved to his naked chest then lower to his jeans and bare feet. I lifted my gaze to his again and I could sense Elizabeth behind me shift to the side as she tried to peer into the apartment behind him.
“What are you doing here?” Quinn asked the question without malice or accusation; he sounded genuinely astonished.
“I’m- You made me promise to show Elizabeth the apartment.”
His attention shifted from me for the first time since we almost collided in the hall and flickered to where Elizabeth was standing. He blinked at her.
“So, Quinn…” Elizabeth’s voice sounded at my shoulder and didn’t lack malice or accusation, “Who is in there with you and why the hell don’t you have a shirt on?”
“I-” Quinn visibly flinched, either surprised by Elizabeth’s words or the harsh tenor of her tone.
Before he could respond Elizabeth stepped forward and pointed to a mark on his neck, “Is that a bite mark?”
His hand automatically lifted to his neck.
Elizabeth turned to me, her voice rising, “Did you give that to him?”
I shook my head. Everything was happening so fast, there were too many data points and I couldn’t absorb any of them, they were scattered on the floor, running away from me like legless teeth. I could only look mutely between Quinn and Elizabeth and the door he was trying to close.
Elizabeth turned back to him, pointed to another mark in the middle of his chest, “And that is a cigarette burn- what the hell?” she was shrieking. “I know Janie didn’t give you that.”
His eyes found mine and I saw fear, “Listen- listen for a minute- you both need to leave- you shouldn’t even be here, where the hell are your guards-” Quinn seemed to be trying to collect his wits and his voice was laced with firm yet panicked urgency.
The door behind him swung all the way open and, in that moment, my brain and heart stopped.
Jem was behind him, dressed only in her underwear, smoking a cigarette, a hard smile curving her lips.
“Hey big sister.”
Quinn glanced over his shoulder distractedly then almost jumped into the hall, “What the hell?”
My mouth opened and I heard something break, a small snapping noise, in the back of my mind followed by an intense rush of physical pain starting behind my eyes and in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. Quinn and Elizabeth and Jem were all talking but I heard nothing.
I heard nothing.
~*~
In retrospect, dwelling upon the next several minutes in hindsight, all I remembered was blurriness. Somehow Elizabeth pulled me out of the hallway and out of the building. She shoved me in a taxi. At some point I recognized that my face was wet and I thought that I must be crying. We made it to the apartment and I followed behind her, she held my hand. Once inside she steered me to the couch and left me there for a moment, coming back almost immediately with the last of our tequila.
Setting it on the table, Elizabeth shook my shoulders and I just distinguished her voice from very far away, “Janie- Janie! Listen to me-”
I turned to her, meeting her eyes. They were large and I registered concern. She pulled me into a full body hug, held me tightly. I heard her mutter, “… that sonofabitch, I will kill him… everyone is going to want to… we’ll all take turns giving him cigarette burns… they’re coming over…”
I blinked, pulling away, “Who is coming over?”
She pushed my hair away from my face in a way that, heartbreakingly, reminded me of Quinn, “While you were sitting catatonic in the cab I texted all the ladies. We’re having an emergency meeting tonight.”
I shook my head and was surprised when a sob vacated my chest, “No- no, I don’t want to see anyone-”
“Yes, they are coming over. Yes, you will see people tonight, people who love you and want to support you. You can wallow over the weekend. Tonight you’re going to get drunk and eat too much ice-cream.”
I only half heard her. Half comprehended the words. I was crying again and everything went blurry. She pushed the bottle of tequila into my hand and encouraged me to drink.
It burned in my mouth and down my esophagus, and I held the discomfort close to me. It was a relief to feel pain from some source other than my heart. Elizabeth pulled the bottle from my hand and took a long, answering swig, before slamming it on the table with a loud thunk.
“I am so sorry, Janie.” She put an arm around my shoulders and brought my head to her chest, “I am so sorry.”
The door buzzed and Elizabeth stood to check the receiver. I heard Marie’s voice over the speaker. I mechanically reached for the tequila bottle, feeling a little disappointed when it burned with less intensity on my second s
wallow.
Nevertheless, as I took my third pull from the bottle, I welcomed the numbness.
Moments later Marie’s arms surrounded me and buried my head on her shoulder, her shampoo-commercial-ready hair smelled like lemon and lavender. Next Kat’s arms encircled me from behind. I heard Sandra’s voice some time later and she took Marie’s place on the couch.
“Come to mama, baby girl.” Sandra kissed my forehead and held me in a tight embrace; lest I forget her profession as a psychiatrist, she soothed me with a coaxing voice, “Now, you don’t need to talk about it until you’re ready. We are here to support you and love you.” She took a deep breath and then, lest I forget she was Sandra the Texan, she continued, “And when you’re ready to cut his balls off I will provide the knife.”
Dimly, I was aware that someone was laughing; I lifted my head and, with a little surprise, found that I was, in fact, laughing. I met Sandra’s green eyes, they were sparkling but were rimmed with concern, and I managed a soggy smile.
I glanced around the room; Elizabeth was hovering by the door, her hands were clasped together against her cheek; Marie was sitting in a chair by the couch giving me a sympathetic smile; Kat was behind me rubbing small circles on my back; Sandra was holding my shoulders. Their wide stares all mirrored my vulnerability back at me and to each other, as though they wanted to, expected to shoulder and share in my burden.
I really loved them.
Kat petted my hair to the side and laid her head on my shoulder, “Oh, Janie. We are all going to get so drunk.”
My eyes blurred over with new tears even as a small, involuntary laugh passed between my lips. The buzzer for the building door sounded again and Elizabeth pressed the release button without checking who was calling up.
“It must be Fiona, she said she was getting a sitter until Greg could get home. Ashley has to finish her shift but said she’ll be here by seven.” Elizabeth moved to the apartment door and left it ajar for our friend.
Sandra took the bottle of tequila from my hand and held it to Marie, “We need to get some cups. I love you girls but I have no desire to drink ya’all’s backwash all night.”
“Let’s order takeout.” Kat hugged me from behind, lifting her head from my shoulder. I placed one of my hands on her arm and returned the squeeze.
“Chinese food or pizza?” Marie stood and crossed to the kitchen, pulling takeout menus from their place on the fridge, still holding the bottle of tequila in her hand.
I wiped at my eyes, sniffing, feeling the warm numbness one associates with good friends and three rapid-fire shots of tequila. Love really was a pit and I was at rock bottom. I didn’t know how but I knew these women were going to help pull me out of it, out of the dark place. But first, I needed to order my thoughts, organize the data. I needed to process the last half hour and figure out what- precisely- I saw, felt, and believed.
However, before I could even begin to pick up the pieces of reality let alone study them with the careful attention required, the sound of Quinn’s voice, saying my name, was a proverbial chainsaw to the fragile remnants of my heart.
“Janie!”
I glanced up and towards the sound of my name- confused, eyes wide and… confused- to find Quinn hurrying toward me. He pushed the table out of the way and knelt in front of me, reaching for and sliding his arms around my waist. It took me a moment to register that he was searching me, my body, for something, as though he expected part of me to be missing or damaged.
It took me several more seconds to understand that he was there, that he was touching me, that he was speaking.
“Are you ok? Has anyone approached you? And why the hell was your door open?”
As soon as I overcame my shock I pulled away from him and held my hands up between us. My mouth opened and closed as my brain struggled to understand his abrupt presence, the anger behind his words, the relief in his eyes, as I was clearly lagging behind real-time event comprehension.
I broke the stunned silence, “Quinn- what- what are you doing here?”
As though everyone else was equally dumbfounded by his presence, and my words were the cure to their stunned silence, the room erupted in noisy feminine outrage.
“The hell-!” I registered Elizabeth’s angry growl somewhere over his shoulder.
“Listen, Mister-” Sandra tried to insert herself between us.
“I think you should leave.” Marie walked in to the living room from the kitchen, holding the bottle of tequila as though a viable weapon.
Kat squeezed my hand.
Quinn tried to talk to me, over the insistent gaggle of my friends and Sandra’s angry body barricade, “Janie, please, listen- you are not safe, your guards should have been with you today, we need to get out of here. They never would have let you come to the building-”
The buzzer sounded again and, amidst all the chaos I discerned Fiona’s voice over the speaker. Elizabeth pressed the button while continuing to shoot daggers at Quinn; “Because you were there ‘hiding the salami’ with her sister?” Elizabeth accused, pulling out her cell phone, “I’m calling the police, Quinn. You need to leave. Now!”
Quinn didn’t move from his position in front of me and met her censure with all the flexibility of granite, “I wasn’t- with Jem-”
“We saw you!”
“No- you don’t understand,” He turned to me but Sandra anticipated his movements and blocked me from view, “Janie- I wasn’t with her, we weren’t hiding salami- I was trying to help-”
“Then why was your shirt off, Quinn- if that even is your real name.” Elizabeth punched in three numbers on her cell, sounding a little like a suspicious Sherlock.
“Because Jem is bat-shit crazy and burned me with a cigarette then bit my-” he huffed, pinched his nose with his thumb and forefinger, “We don’t have time for this!”
“Seriously, big guy, you just need to make like a shepherd and get the flock out of here.” Sandra crossed her arms over her chest, her voice low with warning.
Quinn stuttered for a moment, his eyebrow lifting at Sandra’s crude dismissal, “I can’t, I can’t leave until I know she is safe.”
Marie crossed her arms over her chest, “Safe from who?”
Elizabeth spoke into the phone at her ear, giving the 911 operator our address before adding, “I need the police-”
Elizabeth didn’t finish the sentence because the phone was roughly pulled from her grip and she was knocked to the floor. A collective shocked breath fanned through the room; all eyes fitfully rested on three very large, very sinister looking skinheads- with neck tattoos- pouring into the small space, made significantly smaller by their looming thickness.
One of the men was holding Fiona around the waist. He had a gun in his hand which was currently directed at Quinn but their collective attention was rigidly affixed on me.
“Well, hell- Jem. It’s been a long time.”
The taller of the three addressed his comment to me and I recognized him as the scary stranger from the park.
“What the hell are you doing, Sam? Does Seamus know you are here?” Quinn stepped in front of me and, therefore, Sandra and Kat, hiding us from Goon# 1, Goon#2, and Sam.
I heard rather than saw Sam’s harsh reply, “You shut the fuck up, Quinn. You said you didn’t know where she was-”
“You are making a serious mistake.” Quinn’s voice made me shiver. Even though they held a gun on him, his tone made it perfectly clear he was not to be bothered with trivial things- like bullets. “Like I told Seamus, this is not Jem.”
I noticed Marie shifting on her feet, her hand still around the bottle of tequila, her eyes wide as they moved between Quinn and the skinhead called Sam.
I heard the click of something, which I guessed was the safety of a gun, because Quinn became suddenly rigid, the threatening tenor of his slowly spoken words almost tangible, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m taking that bitch, I’m taking her back to Seamus and he can decide if
she is Jem or not but I’m sick of dicking around Chicago-”
Unexpectedly, it was Marie who spoke next, “Like. Hell.”
A few things happened at once.
I didn’t really see everything as I was behind Sandra who was behind Quinn and Kat was to my right, also partially blocking my view. But, what I did see was the aftermath and was therefore able to put the pieces together.
Marie must have thrown the bottle of tequila at Goon#1, the one who had been holding Fiona, because his gun went off and the bullet hit the wall somewhere above the window. But he staggered backwards holding his head. Fiona must have been preparing for his moment because she withdrew two long Susan Bates knitting needles from her project bag, the long thick ones that beginners typically learn on with the white nobs at the end, and stabbed Goon#1 in the shoulder. Immediately the gun dropped from his hand.
Elizabeth, who had been on the floor the whole time, reached for the gun as Goon#2 tripped over her legs and fell heavily against the bookshelf.
Kat yelped when the gun went off and grabbed my hand. To my surprise she threw both of us behind the couch. I landed on the floor quite ungracefully, taking the brunt of my fall on the left side of my body.
Quinn flipped the coffee table up on its side, presumably to offer a modicum of cover against the potential impending rain of bullets, and reached for a previously hidden glock in the back of his pants, training it on the skinheads just as Sam pulled out his handgun. However, before Quinn or Skinhead-Sam could fire a round, diminutive and petite Fiona screamed and pushed Sam forward.
She was small and he was big; therefore, other than a momentary inability to balance, Sam quickly recovered and turned his rage and weapon on Fiona. At this point, Elizabeth was able to fire one round. It hit Sam in the stomach and he promptly doubled over with a gurgled curse before Goon#2 reached Elizabeth and wrestled the weapon from her grip, elbowing her roughly in the face as he did so.
“Oh, shit! Ow! That hurt!” Elizabeth cried.
Before Goon#2 could raise the weapon, however, Marie and Sandra launched themselves across the room, Sandra yodeling like Tarzan. I heard Quinn exclaim, “Damn it!” before he jumped over the coffee table a second later.