Until Love Do Us Part

by Anna Premoli

  “Looks that way,” he agreed, equally relieved.

  “Come on, Mr Assistant District Attorney, get those knees up,” urged Amalia as she raced past him. And Ryan, who didn’t like being second at anything, had to run to catch up with her.

  *

  Amalia looked at her watch for the third time in a matter of minutes. It was still only eight o’clock! How the hell could it still only be eight o’clock?!? Had time stopped or something, leaving her trapped out there in that frosty park collecting trash?

  After having eyed each other askance for several long, interminable minutes, they had joined the group of inmates who were led by a social worker called Evan. A handsome blond guy not yet in his thirties, Evan had a nice way about him, and was obviously respected and trusted by the group. And instead of being intimidated by their presence, Amalia had discovered to her surprise that it was she who frightened them. They looked at her anxiously, barely daring to speak to her.

  Evan had divided the lucky participants into pairs. It was obvious that she would end up being with Ryan, she would have bet on it, but after less than an hour of freezing half to death from the weather and from his icy glares, Amalia was almost ready to beg for a change of partner. At this point, even a serial killer would have been preferable.

  “Can you hold the damn bag straight?!” scolded the assistant district attorney, frowning as he tried to put the paper they had collected during their shift into the large trash bag Amalia was holding.

  “The bag is perfectly straight – it’s you who’s twisted,” she said with affected boredom. He had spent the whole time telling her: don’t pick it up like that, don’t keep getting up, stop moving about, look how I do it… Amalia was beginning to seethe with anger. Well, at least it kept her warm. She rubbed her hands again in an attempt to revive her frozen fingers, but it wasn’t much use. How many degrees was it that morning? A thousand below?

  “Why the hell don’t you wear the gloves they gave you?” asked Ryan, looking critically at her efforts to warm herself.

  “These are fine,” she said, indicating the ones she was wearing.

  “No, they are not. They’re handmade leather gloves without any insulation, I can see that just by looking at them. What are they, deerskin? You need proper gloves,” he pointed out, sounding like an expert on the subject.

  “Hey, what do you care what gloves I wear?” she snapped. “As long as I do the job that’s been assigned to me…”

  It was obvious that Ryan was not of the same opinion. “You’re slowing down the work because you’re cold. How the hell do you think you’re gonna make it through the morning?” he asked irritably.

  “Jeez Ryan, what’s got your panties in a bunch this morning? You’re being a royal pain, even by your standards! Did you get bitten by a spider or something?” she snapped angrily while her partner picked up large heaps of paper and dumped them into the bag. He must be trying to work off some energy, she thought as she watched him repeat the action dozens of times in a row.

  “If you don’t give it a rest we can change jobs – I’ll hold the bag and you can put the trash in,” he threatened, those annoyingly green eyes of his flashing with rage. Outdoors they became an even more intense green than usual. At this rate Amalia would end up hating the color, even though she always used to like it.

  She decided to take the bull by the horns and shrugged. “Listen, I know that it’s going to be my turn later – it never crossed my mind to let you do the harder jobs for me.”

  Although, to be honest, she actually was a bit surprised: whether he had realized it or not, the way Ryan had been working almost seemed protective of her. Which was pretty weird, if you thought about it. But no one could deny that he had taken on the more physically demanding work – complaining all the time, mind you. But working so hard seemed to have had no impact at all on his endless reproaches for her lightweight and, in his opinion, completely inappropriate clothing.

  I mean, come on! It wasn’t like she was wearing a cashmere coat and a pair of Jimmy Choos! Ryan really ought to calm down and stop treating her as though the fact that she was cold was any of his business.

  Her good intentions didn’t last long, though, because after the umpteenth criticism, Amalia lost her temper.

  “Ok, let’s swap! You take hold of this damn bag and shut the hell up for once!”

  And so saying she dumped the bag on the ground and began picking up all the litter they’d collected from around the park. Wow – all piled up like this it was actually really heavy!

  “Quit fooling around, pick up the bag,” Ryan barked, gesturing to her to carry out his order. Because there was clearly no doubt in his mind that it was an order.

  Amalia had no intention of obeying, however. As far as she was concerned, after his last digs at her Ryan could forget all about her meekly doing as she was told.

  “No way! What’s fair is fair, and now it’s my turn.”

  “Amalia…” mumbled Ryan, pronouncing her name threateningly. What a shame that her DNA made her constitutionally incapable of taking orders when she didn’t want to. It was just too bad…

  Evan turned up just in time to prevent hostilities breaking out.

  “How’s it going, guys?” he asked, giving them a searching look. “Ok, cool – you’ve nearly finished with the paper. When you’re done here we can start loading those dumped appliances onto our garbage truck.”

  “No problem,” said Amalia immediately, continuing to put paper into the bag without changing pace.

  But Ryan found something to object about with that too. Thinking about it, it was probably no coincidence that he’d chosen to become an assistant district attorney.

  “You can’t let her lift those heavy objects!” he said almost indignantly.

  Amalia raised her eyes to the sky.

  “Pay no attention to him, Evan. It’s no problem: just let us finish off here and then we’ll move on.”

  It was peculiar, but the fact that Ryan was so obviously annoyed actually made her feel pretty cheerful – cheerful enough to do pretty much any job, even lifting up washing machines – just to annoy Mr Know-it-all.

  The things you do for a good cause…

  A little over half an hour later they had finished bagging paper, and went to the place where the abandoned appliances had been collected, just as Evan told them to.

  “So how do you want to do it?” she asked, looking at the mountain of stacked junk that rose before their eyes. “Shall we start with the heavier ones that take up more space?”

  “There’s no way you can lift this stuff!” was his only response.

  Amalia laughed. “Oh yes I can. Who the hell do you take me for?”

  “Have you ever in your life tried to pick up a washing machine?” Ryan asked her, folding his arms over his chest.

  “There’s a first time for everything,” said Amalia, giving him a broad smile. It was obviously meant to be a challenge, but the result was that he stood stunned for a moment. Much more than a moment, in fact. Ryan was frozen, staring and unable to tear his eyes from her face until his penetrating gaze made her feel so uncomfortable that she eventually turned away.

  “So shall we try to lift that one, then?” she suggested, pointing to the carcass of a long defunct washing machine.

  Ryan sighed heavily and resigned himself to going along with her. “You sure you want to start with that?” he asked doubtfully. But Amalia wasn’t one to shirk a challenge.

  “Sure. Come on,” she replied with conviction. After all, how heavy could it be? It certainly couldn’t be any heavier than her suitcases, which were always way over the weight limit imposed by the airlines. Kayla was always teasing her about it, but at least it meant that she had some training when it came to weights.

  She squatted down beside the washing machine searching for a solid handhold.

  “Ok, on three – one… two… three!”

  The unexpected weight of the appliance took her breath away. In co
mparison to this heap of rust her suitcases were like bags full of feathers. Okay, she might have bitten off more than she could chew.

  Amalia took a deep breath as she struggled to keep the washing machine off the ground. Handling this kind of weight was well beyond her abilities, but she tried to bite the bullet to avoid looking a fool: she’d gotten herself into this, and now she had to get herself out of it in the most dignified manner possible. Which, however, didn’t look as though it was going to be easy…

  “Ok – slowly, slowly… let’s walk it over to the truck,” he instructed her. “That’s it, nice and slow.”

  They’d almost made it when Amalia suddenly tripped over something lying on the ground. She lost her grip on the heavy carcass and went crashing to the floor, the machine landing on the ground beside her but luckily missing her by inches.

  Ryan instantly leapt over to help her back on her feet.

  “Damn it, I told you it was too heavy!” he shouted angrily. “You could have got hurt! And badly!”

  “I just tripped over!” Amalia defended herself, “It could have happened to anyone.”

  Of course, she had ended up falling into a puddle and so now she was entirely covered in disgusting brown slime. Never mind, she had known right from the beginning that the morning would be a nightmare, and it was turning out exactly as she’d expected – if she’d been a betting person she would have put money on it going like this.

  “God, this is exactly the sort of thing that always happens to me,” she huffed as she climbed to her feet and tried to clean herself off as well as she could. Which wasn’t very well at all – wet mud isn’t known for just brushing off clothes.

  “And do you know why they happen to you? Because you never listen to anybody else. You’re as stubborn as a mule…”

  “Well I’m very sorry to inform you that I’m still here and I’m alive and kicking,” said Amalia, trying to make a joke out of the whole thing.

  Ryan, however, wasn’t in the mood for jokes.

  “Don’t you ever dare say anything that dumb ever again!” he hissed, sticking his face dangerously close to hers. “And anyway, I’ve had a bellyful of being your babysitter – Evan!” He shouted to call the social worker’s attention. “Evan! Team me up with someone else! Send over someone who can lift this heavy scrap and set Miss Mud here to picking up something harmless, ‘cause I’m afraid she might hurt herself even picking up leaves.”

  And so saying, he stalked off, fuming, in the opposite direction.

  It would have been her who got hurt – what the hell was Ryan’s problem, exactly?

  Noon arrived just in time to save Amalia from certain death by hypothermia. Never mind gym shoes and a jacket – for next time she vowed to buy a thermal ski suit. All the physical effort had only managed to warm her up briefly because her clothes got wet when she fell into the mud, so now she was tired, frozen and more dirty than she had ever been before in her entire life.

  Thanks a bunch, Judge Wyatt.

  She and Ryan kept their distance from each other after their last run in, which was a blessing, because the assistant district attorney was being a total grouch. Clearly it must be part of his character. What had happened to all those coy smiles and cryptic one-liners that he had forever been coming out with at university? With the other girls, of course – never with her, God forbid.

  Back then she had watched him for a while before she had summoned up the courage to ask him out. She wasn’t proud of the fact, but the truth was that she had found him attractive right from the start. She had sat right at the back of the lecture hall on the first day of class and glanced quickly at all those present. And her eyes had immediately fallen on Ryan.

  Damn that first look…

  During the following lectures she had tried to sit at a distance that would allow her to see how he interacted with others without having to speak to him. Because, for the first time in her life, her heart accelerated dangerously at the very idea of speaking to someone. She had spied on him for a while and come to the conclusion that he knew perfectly well what he was doing. She was so far out of whack that she had even thought he was nice. But then she had made the stupid mistake of asking him out.

  Oh yeah, he had turned out to be real nice. About as nice as a trip to the dentist.

  “Guys, I want to thank everyone for your hard work,” said Evan to the assembled group. “You have all worked hard – and Amalia, you in particular. I’m glad you didn’t give up after your little accident.”

  Give up in front of the man who stood in front of her? Not on your life!

  “Well, Evan, I can’t say it’s been fun,” she answered, “but at least the park has actually started to look like a park!”

  “What we’re hoping is that we’ll be able to raise enough money through charitable initiatives to create a playground for the neighborhood children,” said the social worker. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

  “Let me have a think about how we can help,” she said, her mind already working on how to help raise the necessary sum.

  “Ok guys, see you next time!” shouted Evan, waving goodbye to Amalia and Ryan.

  Ryan accompanied Amalia to the park entrance without a word, and even managed to flag down a taxi for her.

  “Get in, Amalia,” he said firmly, opening the door of the yellow taxi that pulled up.

  “I don’t usually take kindly to being ordered around, but in this case I’ll try and make an exception – in fact, I’ll do whatever it takes to get the hell away from you,” she answered, slamming the door shut in his face. She could have offered to share a taxi with him, but she felt like she’d done enough good deeds for one day.

  As the taxi pulled away from the curb, she turned round just long enough to see him standing immobile on the sidewalk. And even from that distance she could see the frown on his face.

  Now there was a guy who really needed to learn how to smile.

  6

  Ryan was recovering from a Saturday that had pretty much been a total nightmare: he had been knee deep in garbage hefting lumps of scrap metal all morning in a cold, damp park in the Bronx. That night, he needed a beer. Where he had arranged to meet his brother Niel wasn’t really the sort of place he usually went to, but as long as the beer was good he could live with it. The décor and clientele were a bit too trendy for his liking, but then he’d been away from New York for a few years, and in all likelihood pretty much all the clubs and bars had changed for the worse during his absence. The places where he went to drink in Chicago were much less self-consciously cool and a lot more laid back. Admittedly, though, he did seem to be getting the eye from a constant stream of pretty women. That would usually have been good news, but tonight, for some strange reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on, it was not.

  Niel found him sitting hidden away in a dark booth, enjoying his pint of Guinness – a very overpriced one, in Ryan’s humble opinion.

  “Well there he is, my big brother the assistant district attorney!” Niel greeted Ryan, sitting down opposite him.

  “Hey,” Ryan replied, a little dully.

  Niel didn’t take long to notice his brother’s drawn face and his expression of obvious discomfort.

  “Without wishing to sound like Mom, what the hell happened to you, Ryan? You look like crap…”

  “Tough day. Or rather – tough week. No, you know to tell you the truth it’s all been tough since I set foot back in New York,” he confessed in a burst of sincerity.

  Knowing Ryan was not usually one to complain, Niel scrutinised him with concern.

  “Are you wishing you hadn’t come back? What is it, Mom driving you crazy with phone calls every five minutes and giving you hell because you came to live near me in Brooklyn instead of getting an apartment over in Woodlawn near them?”

  Ryan shook his head. “Nah – Mom was expecting me to go and live as far away from them as I could,” he answered resignedly. “She says it’s just the way I’m made. It’s not th
at. It’s a pile of stuff, some of it work, some it not… And there’s this real pain in the ass I’ve been having to put up with…” His voice tailed off and he looked up at his brother with an apologetic grin. “Yeah, I know, I sound pathetic…” he admitted.

  “Hey, you said it, not me!” laughed his brother. “So are we going to get a couple more pints to try and lift the mood or what?”

  “I didn’t have you down as the type who hung around in places like this, Niel – what happened to all those ‘old-fashioned inns’ you used to like so much?”

  Niel didn’t bat an eyelid.

  “Oh, I still like them plenty. But this place is full of good-looking chicks. You know – the kind that don’t usually go to ‘old-fashioned inns’.”

  Ryan gave him a surly look.

  “Oh, what, now you’re going to tell me you’ve given up the chase? That you’re not interested in women any more?” teased Niel. “I thought I was doing you a favor bringing you here! You’ll see, we’ll be spoilt for choice…”

  “Niel, I’m sorry to have to remind you that you’re thirty-one years old. Not twenty-one. And I’m thirty-three. So as far as ‘the chase’ goes…”

  “Exactly – you’re thirty-three, not eighty-three. Come on,” Niel urged, “who do you like?”

  Ryan took a swift look around the place. Niel was right, there really were a lot of beautiful girls in there, all done up to the nines and looking great. But somehow none of them really did anything for him.

  “I don’t see anything I like,” he muttered.

  “I don’t believe it!” his brother shouted. “The place is full of hot girls! My God, is this what Chicago’s done to you?! I mean, come on – look at those two who have just walked in, for cryin’ out loud! What about the brunette?”

  Ryan forced himself to look in the direction his brother was indicating, but his attention immediately went from the brunette Niel was pointing out to her friend. Blonde, slender, tucked into a figure hugging little black dress and with her shiny curls loose again. There was no trace of the mud from that morning. “This can’t be happening,” he groaned in agony.