by Lulu Pratt
I came to a stop in front of her home. In moments, I’d fished the keys out of her coat pocket, being careful so as to not overstep boundaries. I hoisted Zoe aloft once more, her hair pooled over my arms. And in the moonlight, she did appear almost mystically beautiful.
I bore her to the entrance, where I slid the key into the lock and heard it unlatch. It occurred to me that I was quite literally carrying Zoe across a threshold. Too soon, I scolded myself internally. You can’t think about that. It’s not fair to… to her. Both hers.
Unsure of the house rules, I carefully toed my boots off, leaving them at the front entrance, and padded barefoot into the house proper.
It was dark, and I didn’t want to turn on the lights, for fear of waking her, but the house appeared cozy, well-decorated. In the dark, I could make out heavy curtains, a chunky couch, lots of bookshelves filled to the brim. My feet sunk into what felt like shag carpet. It was reminiscent of what I would expect to find in a San Francisco artist’s loft in the seventies — minimal but comfortable. You’re too cool for this town, I wanted to tell her.
But she was fast asleep in my arms and waking her to pay a small compliment seemed cruel. It was high time to put her into bed. I searched about, nudging open one door after another, and alighted on the one I assumed led to the bedroom. All these houses were built alike, so I deduced the location based on the layout of my own, slightly larger, home. Suburbia didn’t leave much space for architectural experimentation.
I wanted to peek around her bedroom, to learn about Zoe and her passions and priorities, but in the interest of respecting her privacy, I averted my eyes, making sure not to look about too much.
Though, in my defense, it was hard to miss the large vibrator that occupied the prima position. The toy was purple, ridged, about seven inches long — stop, I said to myself fiercely. Don’t look, don’t look, no matter how much you may want to. I turned my gaze away, but my mind’s eye stayed on the toy. I imagined using it on this beautiful, feisty woman under different circumstances, running it up and down the inside of her leg, brushing it over her mound, until at last resting it on her clit. Her moans rang in my ears.
I deposited her on top of flannel sheets and cast around for something to pile over her shivering form. The house was unusually chilly, definitely more than was appropriate for winter time in Wisconsin. Was it possible that her heat had been shut off? I knew she was struggling to make ends meet, but it couldn’t be that dire. Right?
In any case, no blankets presented themselves, and wary of riffling through her things, I decided to go with plan B. I took the squad jacket off my shoulders and rested it over Zoe. She immediately snuggled into it, as if viscerally embracing the scent. The notion made my heart pound.
Unsure if she was on the cusp of sleeping and waking, I elected to hedge my formalities, and made quick goodbyes.
“I’ll see you bright and early in the morning to talk about how we move forward from here.” I paused and dropped a register. “Until then… sleep tight, Zoe. Dream of me.”
Resisting the urge to plant a kiss on her forehead, I strode out of the house and into the night.
CHAPTER 10
Zoe
How had I come to be in my bed?
Who got me here?
And what was this jacket draped over me?
The journey home was clouded by sleep, but the moment I was settled firmly in my bed, I was wide awake. And once that happened, sleep never properly came, not REM sleep anyways. The events of the night became blurry as I played them over and over, until all I could remember was broken glass and Dylan’s arms. Why did I remember Dylan’s arms? I mean, they were memorable, obviously, but why did I feel like they had encircled me, as if forming a protective shield that none could pass? Was this dream or reality?
Somewhere between sleeping and waking — that cusp of lucid dreams — I saw Dylan and myself in the bakery. It was dark out, but this time, everything was in its place, nothing shattered, nothing stolen. I pulled my head up and met his eyes. Suddenly, we were in the forest, at the banks of a stream. Dream Dylan was skipping stones across the water. The stone bounced off a rock and sparked. I moved to him and sparks visibly crackled between us. His lips came close to mine, and fire bloomed.
In the fire, I saw flowing hair and furious eyes, and heard a woman’s voice shriek bloody murder.
“Sorry,” said dream Dylan. “That’s just my wife.”
I awoke with a start — so I had been asleep — damp with sweat. The green-neon clock by my bedside read three. Not good. Only a few hours until the alarm.
I sighed and rolled over, intending to make another go at sleep. With a groan, I realized that sleeping meant dreaming, and dreaming might include that horrifying, shrill cry of a scorned woman. Her burning hair, her burning eyes. I couldn’t face those once more. Getting dressed was easier than reckoning with the implications of her image in the flames.
Then there was the jacket. I pulled it up, sniffed at it, turned it around to examine its lines. Oh, shit. That was how I’d arrived home. It was Dylan’s squad-issue jacket. He’d left something here that seemed integral to his persona, to how he was envisioned by the townspeople. Why? And I wasn’t ready to answer the question.
I began getting ready for a long day. Clothes appeared on my body before I realized I’d pulled them on, my mind was distracted by thoughts of him. At the last moment, reasoning to myself that he’d want it the next day — or, shit, this morning — I tossed the jacket over my shoulders. It smelled like fresh mint and coffee, and I burrowed into its layers of downy wool.
I went to the kitchen table to grab my car keys, only to recall that I didn’t have a car.
Fine, I thought. I’ll walk. Thoughts about weather impediments didn’t materialize. I was in a bad way, as the older generation would have phrased it.
The air was below freezing, so I pulled on a light sweater. For some reason, I couldn’t quite remember what people wore in the cold. My life had spun out of control in a matter of hours and somehow, I was going to have to go on, recover and rebuild.
I stumbled out into the bitterly cold night air and began to fumble my way to Main Street. The stars shone dimly. There were no street lamps here, bedtime was pretty firmly ten at night. The only people up after that, as far as I could tell, were truckers and people stumbling back from secret rendezvouses.
God, did I have a one-track mind.
I made my way to the bakery without being really conscious of walking there. I had little to no memory of the walk, even the cold didn’t affect me. A stranger might have taken me for a ghost, pale and shivering as I was.
When I arrived, Joe was in his squad car, parked outside the shop. I saw that the window was still broken. Prior to last night, I would’ve been comfortable leaving the door wide open and turning off the alarms. The town ran on an honor code.
But that was then, and this was now. I’d seen the underbelly of the town in the past couple of hours.
Joe got out of his car and came over to me.
“Thanks so much, Officer, for guarding the shop or what’s left of it.”
“It was my pleasure, ma’am. I hope we catch the people behind this. I understand that Officers Morton and Robertson are handling this case. You are in good hands. Anyway, I should be going.”
He tipped his hat at me and I watched him pull away in his car.
A survivalist section of my brain kicked in, and I began trying to put everything back together again. In the alleyway, I recalled, there were some old pieces of plywood, left by the repair shop that used to be here before I took over the spot. I found my way to the alley, and one by one, dragged pieces of the plywood back to the shop. Using the toolkit I kept for emergencies, I spent the next few hours boarding up my once pristine window, until at last the wood was thickly layered enough to keep out some of the winter chill.
Seven came before I’d even realized that one hour, let alone four, had elapsed.
“Hey, Zoe?”
I looked up at the voice. It was Mina, wrapped in a hat and scarf. She’d walked through the door and I hadn’t even noticed. Figures.
“Babe,” she continued, her face sagging, “I heard about the robbery from a neighbor. I’m so, so sorry.” She enveloped me in a hug.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“How about we get you some coffee?”
I shrugged. What was coffee going to do? I was already wide awake, and I doubted a few steamed beans would add clarity to my world. Caffeine wasn’t that powerful.
“It’ll warm you up,” she insisted, looking around at the plywood. “You, uh, did a pretty good job with the planks, but it’s still cold as shit in here.”
Well, fuck. She was right. That meant that several of the pastries I could make with the tools I had left wouldn’t settle properly. Baked goods were tricky beasts that required perfectly balanced temperatures to reach their full potential. But I guess beggars can’t be choosers.
“Zoe?” Mina repeated. “How about it? A little mug. Some milk and sugar?”
I realized I had zoned out. I nodded, at least in part to appease my friend. “Yeah, coffee would be nice.”
“Great, okay then. I’ll get started.”
Mina walked across the room and around the counter, where she prepared the coffee in silence. Soon a steaming cup was placed in my hand. My apparently freezing fingers immediately welcomed the warmth.
“Drink,” she instructed. “You look like you tossed and turned all night.”
I nodded with a weak smile. “That’s because I did.”
Her lip curled with remorse and pity, a sympathetic twist. I assumed she was running through lists of possible cheer-me-ups in her head and finding none that fit the bill for Had Entire Life’s Work Stolen. Not that I blamed her, it was a tougher order to fill than the average friendly pep talk.
Apparently, I was right, because she took my hand in hers, squeezed it, and asked, “What can I do to make you feel better?”
“Nothing.”
I immediately regretted saying it. I should’ve lied, made something up so that she wouldn’t be confronted with my despair. Her face affirmed my thought, her eyes went wide as her mouth opened and tugged down into a frown.
I pivoted, adding, “How about if I think of something, I’ll let you know?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Please do. I’m serious, Zoe, anything I can do to help, day or night, you know where to find me.”
“Yeah, in my bakery,” I said with a laugh.
We both look surprised to hear a joyful noise come out of me.
“There’s my best friend,” Mina said, smiling. “I knew we’d get her back.”
I smiled back and was about to go in for a hug when the doorbell jingled. Was that some customer not getting the boarded-up window memo? Seemed straightforward to me.
“Yo, whaddup.” Ugh. It was just Kelly, who for what it’s worth had actually arrived on time. “Sup with the window, Zoe?”
Why was she talking like a watered-down Eminem? Ugh. Kids these days.
“What’s up with the window,” I replied, letting a little snark inflect my tone, “is that we got robbed last night, and the burglar took everything. That’s what’s up.”
“Aw shit,” she said unevenly. I tried, and failed, to get a read on her. Was she even mildly annoyed that her source of income had just been put in jeopardy? Probably not. Kelly didn’t seem like the kind of person who thought that far ahead. And by far ahead, I meant past whatever Vine compilation she watched next. Short attention spans were going to be the death of civilization.
“Yeah, so,” I continued, “you can go home.”
“Really?” she asked. “You sure?”
This girl wanted to skip out early on the best of days when she was making a good chunk of change in tips. And now she wanted to stick around? The world had turned upside-down.
“Unless you want to stay,” I replied incredulously. “In which case, you’re welcome to—”
“Nah, I think I’m good,” she blurted out. Yeah, that seemed more like her.
“All right, see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” she repeated with some disappointment.
First she wanted to stay, now she wanted to go. I couldn’t keep up with teenage mood swings, not even when I was a teenager.
“Yes, Kelly, tomorrow,” I said with obvious frustration. “Hopefully the shop will be back up and running by then.”
“And if it’s not?”
I sighed, and replied, “If it’s not, I’ll send you home again. Okay?”
“‘Kay, bye.”
With that, she ducked out the front door. I didn’t need to turn around to know that Mina was seething.
“So fucking rude,” she said.
“Typical Kelly,” I replied breezily. Actually, it was the first time I’d felt breezy in almost twenty-four hours. Maybe I needed the normalcy of Kelly’s poor manners to ground me in reality.
I could feel Mina on the brink of another tirade, probably about how Kelly’s parents needed to answer for the little asshole they’d raised, when for the second time in as many minutes, the door swung open. Did I need to a hang a “Closed for Criminal Activity” sign out front?
But in sauntered Dylan, oversized cowboy hat and all. In the absence of his jacket, he hadn’t worn any other outer gear, as if donning something different would be unfaithful to his one true top layer. Instead, he wore just a standard police shirt, with the department’s name and unit number over the left breast.
“Oh shit,” I heard Mina whisper. Yeah, girl. Damn straight.
Dylan must have missed the praise, because all he said was, “Zoe.”
I met his eyes. He’d packed so much emotion into my name that I worried it would never sound right coming out of another’s mouth.
“Hey.”
He shot a look at Mina, who was seated firmly at my right-hand side. Catching up on host responsibilities, I did quick intros.
“Mina, this is Officer Dylan Robertson, he’s… in charge of the case. Dylan, this is Mina, my best friend.”
She stood up hurriedly and rushed to shake his hand. A smile crept over my face, she appreciated a hot guy like some folks appreciated a good wine.
“Hiya there, I’m Mina,” she rambled. “I know who you are, Officer Robertson. The whole town knows you. Such a hero, wow, I can’t believe we’re like, actually meeting. Thanks so much for helping my friend. Zoe’s the best, I love her, like really love her. And she’s worked so hard for this bakery, you couldn’t even imagine, and it’s basically her biggest dream in life. So y’know like take good care of her and the shop, m’kay?”
Dylan had stood solemnly through the whole speech, listening intently to her counsel. My heart warmed — he was taking my friend seriously, even though she wasn’t a particularly serious person. That kind of respect, and generosity of spirit, was hard to find in a man.
She looked back and forth between us, sizing up the situation, and said quickly, “Think I’d better get back to the shop now.” She waggled her eyebrows in my direction. “Have oodles of fun, Zoe.”
Mina took her leave, making sure to give Officer Robertson another approving once-over. I giggled internally at how she made it clear that there was a silver lining to this awful situation.
With Mina gone, Dylan moved to the small round table at which I sat, tracing the white lines of the iron-grated pattern.
“Hero?” I questioned with a little curiosity, and a lot of glee. “Why did Mina just talk like you were some kind of local legend?”
He scratched the back of his neck and looked away bashfully. “Some of the ladies in town are rather, um… I guess you could say rather fond of me.”
“What on earth does that mean?”
“Means that earlier this year at the church charity fundraiser, a date with me was the highest bidding item.”
I couldn’t help it. I doubled over, cackling until the sides of my stomach ached.
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Dylan looked miffed. “What’s so funny about that?”
“Oh nothing, nothing at all,” I replied, comically batting my eyelashes. “Officer Robertson.”
He relented with a laugh. “Hey, you’re in the presence of a small-town celebrity. Didn’t know you were that lucky, huh?”
“I am lucky,” I said, my voice inflected with more sobriety than I’d intended. His watchful eyes caught the shift, and matched it pace for pace.
“How are you?” he asked softly, sincerely.
I reddened, embarrassed by the intimacy we’d shared, the memory of me in his arms washed out all other thoughts from my mind.
I grasped, with some surprise, just how much I’d let him in last night. He’d seen me at my worst, my absolute, bottomed-out worst, and he’d stuck through it. I wasn’t sure that I deserved it. And, unfortunately, a fucked-up part of me wondered if it was too good to be true. What can I say? I carried battle scars of other loves.
“I’m all right,” I returned honestly. “I’m hanging in there.”
He let his gaze wander through the shop, and I could see machinations whirling behind those eyes. Dylan struck me as the kind of person who always had a plan.
“Are you here to take my statement?” I inquired.
He shook his head. “I’m here to help you get all of this,” he gestured around the bakery, “cleaned up, and back to its former glory.”
“Really?”
“Yup. And,” he added with a grin, “to get my jacket back.”
“Oh, right, of course.” I lifted the jacket from off my shoulders and passed it to him. His hands bundled around it, brushing against mine in the switch.
“You’ll have to wear it some other time. Looks mighty good on ya,” he replied with a tip of his cap. “Now, the work. Can I help? Please?”
It was apparent that he’d come in his own free time to assist me with menial tasks. Was swooning still in fashion?
“Absolutely,” I agreed readily. If this is what it took to spend more time with him, so be it.