Poked

by Naomi Niles

“I don’t know. It’s just…unexpected.”

  “Yes. Yes, it was. Is.” She seemed to be lost for words.

  “Well, anyway. I had better get going.”

  I turned to leave, but I hadn’t gone more than a few paces before she grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and pulled me back. Startled, I turned around to find her staring up at me adoringly with tear-filled eyes.

  “Marshall Savery, if you really think you’re leaving after what you just told me,” she said, “then you’re in for a shock.”

  Tugging at my shirt, she led me forward back into the living room. I made no effort to resist as the door closed behind me, and we found ourselves alone in the apartment.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Lori

  I had wanted Marshall for most of the evening. Maybe it was how he had volunteered to cut up the vegetables even though I hadn’t asked him to, or the way he sat there watching me warm up the skillet with a dreamy expression, like he couldn’t believe his good fortune in having met me. More than once that night, he had insisted it was this, and not the money, that had been his true lucky break.

  “If I had to choose between you or the money,” he said as we kissed, “I would choose you in a heartbeat.”

  “Do you really mean that?” I asked with a shrewd glare. “Or are you just trying to flatter me?”

  Marshall looked stung by the accusation. “When have I ever lied to you?”

  “You haven’t lied, per se, but you did trick me that one time.” Seeing the surprise on his face, I added, “Don’t try to deny it. I heard the whole story from Sean: how you were afraid you’d never be able to talk me into going out with you, so you planned one of your famous card tricks. Somehow, you forgot to mention that you’re a sleight-of-hand master.”

  Marshall blushed slightly behind the ears but made no effort to deny it. “And aren’t you glad I did that?”

  I laughed and stroked his chest just below the collarbone, where hair fell in little curled tangles. “I am, actually. Think of how much sadder my life would be if we’d never gone out.”

  “Would you even sense the difference, though?”

  I had to think about it for a minute. As always, Marshall’s philosophical puzzles were confounding. “I suppose I would still be lonely. And I’d know there was something missing from my life, even if I didn’t know what it was.”

  “Fair enough.” He closed his eyes tight for a moment, inhaling my scent. “Do you ever think about how we could have ended up with different people and been just as happy?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “I mean, I’m glad things worked out the way they did. I just know that if you had stayed in Pittsburgh, or if I had stayed in Texas, we might have found someone else. And you’d be somewhere up north making love to them right now instead of me.”

  I nodded unhappily. The thought of all these alternate lives stressed me out. “My sister wrote a story once in college. The story was about a demonic figure who goes around ruining marriages by showing the couples a movie. The movie contains footage from an alternate world where they met and fell in love with someone else. Seeing the movie, the couples become so miserable that they end up separating. Some of them even go looking for their true soulmates—with bad results.”

  “That is quite a story,” said Marshall. “Why didn’t your sister go into writing?”

  “I don’t know; you’d have to ask her. She’s brilliant but not very ambitious. It always spooked me, though, because what if that happened?”

  “What if it did?”

  I was quiet for a moment, thinking. “I think I would still choose you.”

  “Why?”

  This time there was no hesitation. “Because you’ve been good to me, and I like you.”

  “You’ve been good to me, and I like you, too.” He wrapped his arms around my waist. His grip was warm and secure. “Let’s never separate, even if a demon-man tries to break us up.”

  “Never, never,” I said quietly and buried my face in his chest.

  ***

  That was the longest we had ever spent making love to each other. Marshall, knowing how much I enjoyed the buildup to the act of sex, devoted extra time to our foreplay that night. Eschewing the bed, we lay sprawled out on the living room floor in front of the TV. Marshall ran his hands along the strap of my bra as though debating whether or not he should take it off.

  “Why does it smell like cigarette smoke in here?” he asked, glancing around the room. It was as though he half-expected for someone to come walking around the corner waving a cigarette in one hand.

  “Um, that was me.” I lowered my head. “I had a smoke earlier out on the balcony.”

  “You smoke?” He goggled at me. “That is the last thing I ever expected from you. I figured maybe it was Sam.”

  “Everyone acts so surprised,” I replied in an annoyed tone. “I have maybe one cigarette a month, usually when I’m feeling stressed. And the last couple weeks have been really stressful. It’s honestly a wonder I held out so long.” I shrugged. “And guys always seem turned on by it, for some reason.”

  “I think it’s because you’ve so carefully cultivated this image of a buttoned-up librarian,” he explained. “So naturally people begin to wonder if there’s more to you. A wild side that you’ve done your best to hide.”

  “Is that why everyone gets so excited when I light up?”

  Marshall nodded. “I’d love to take you out drinking sometime. When we first started going out, Sean didn’t think I would ever get you in bed. To be honest, neither did I.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have done it for anyone but you. You won me over, for better or worse.”

  “Hopefully not for worse,” said Marshall. He still seemed so shy sometimes, like he had no right to be in my presence but wasn’t going to question his good fortune.

  “Anyway,” I said, “we’ll go smoke together sometime, and you’ll see it isn’t nearly as sexy as everyone thinks it is. I’m just breathing smoke into my lungs, is all.”

  “I almost want to take pictures.” I couldn’t tell whether he was being sarcastic or not.

  “If it helps, I’ll hold a bottle of Jack Daniels in my other hand.”

  “Mmm, very sexy,” said Marshall. He leaned forward and kissed me with his fuzzy face, his mustache tickling my upper lip and making me snicker.

  Afterward, we lay in my bed together; he rested his head on my chest while I combed my fingers through his hair. Somehow, he had the softness and vulnerability of a boy of nineteen or twenty, and I was enchanted by his dark eyes and long lashes. He was mine, and he always would be.

  “I feel at such a disadvantage all of a sudden,” I told him.

  “Why’s that?” He turned his face up to mine.

  “Because you just spent like a million dollars on me. A literal million, perhaps more. I don’t even want to know how much, exactly. It would just make me feel indebted to you.”

  “I’ll never tell,” said Marshall, placing a hand over his mouth.

  “See, but that’s just the thing. I feel like I owe you something for all you’ve done for me. But how could I possibly make up for that? There’s no way to balance the scales.”

  “Perhaps not.” Marshall was quiet for a minute. “I suppose you’ll just have to love me for the rest of your life.”

  “Oh, there was never any question of that.”

  “Good.”

  He smiled up at me, looking warm and contented. He was still smiling a few minutes later when he fell asleep in my arms.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Marshall

  We stayed up so late that I was still tired when I awoke the next morning. Reluctantly, I turned over, feeling a stiffness in my joints and bones, to find Lori curled up beside me resting her head on her hands with her eyes half-open. White light fell through the window blinds and pooled onto the carpet.

  “Hey, you,” she said softly. “How did you sleep last night?”

  “I could g
o for a few more hours.” I rose slowly and reached for my blue jeans. “But my mom would never forgive me if I stayed in bed any later than mid-morning.”

  Lori reached out a hand and stroked my arm. “She’d never know.”

  “She would know. Anyway, did your sister come home at all last night?”

  She shook her head. “No, Sam usually stays over at Jamal’s these days. I asked her why they don’t just move in together, but she just glared at me in annoyance. I think she’s also afraid of what our mom might say. It’s weird: Sam is sex-positive in so many ways but not in this.”

  I rose and began looking for my boots, which I found near the foot of the bed. “Well, anyway, we need to run by the store and tell her the news. How do you think she’ll react when she finds out we bought the place?”

  “Overjoyed, most likely. She’s been hoping something like this would happen.”

  “And you weren’t?”

  Lori looked hurt by the suggestion. “I told her it was wrong to expect such things and that wasn’t the reason I was dating you. I don’t know if she listened.”

  “Probably not, but that’s okay. There’s a reason I’m dating you and not her.”

  “You mean besides the fact that she was already spoken for?”

  I nodded. “I mean, yeah. You were both cute, but I found you way more endearing. I remember the first time I ever walked into the store and saw you standing behind the counter with your hair in a crown braid. I think you were talking about your favorite French films or something, and you were so passionate and animated. I loved your enthusiasm. I would’ve picked you over her every time.”

  “It’s nice to know that you wouldn’t have dated my sister,” said Lori, a little sarcastically. “I’d love to say the same, but I guess I won’t know until I’ve met your four brothers.”

  “I’m the only one worth going out with, trust me.”

  “I suppose I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

  We drove to the store together. Although summer was fast approaching, a cold front had blown in the night before, and the wind was cool on our hands and faces. When we reached the strip center, we found several movers loading sound equipment into a white van. Pastor Gustman walked among them looking unhappy.

  Inside the store, several regulars were seated at the counter watching the movers through the window.

  “I had a feeling that wasn’t going to last long,” said Cheryl darkly. “Last Thursday I had a dream in which a hurricane swept through the plaza, and a flood carried Gustman away. When I awoke, I said to Myrtle, ‘He’ll be out of there by the end of the week.’”

  “It’s too bad,” said Alvin sadly. “We were just about to have our first meeting.”

  “I’m sure he’ll find another location,” said Sam, passing a plate of pecan pie across the counter. “I wonder what compelled him to leave, anyway.”

  Marshall and I stared quietly at each other for a moment. “Yeah,” I said slowly. “About that…”

  Sam listened with a look of growing disbelief as Marshall explained about the purchase he had made the night before.

  “So you actually bought the entire strip center,” she said flatly.

  He nodded. “It wasn’t difficult once I had a few million in savings. Now that I’m the manager of this place, you won’t ever have to worry about paying rent again. If you want to turn the strip into a giant bakery, you can. If you want to branch out and put a grocery store next door, you can do that, too. I understand it used to be a grocery store, anyway, before Gustman moved in.”

  Sam turned to Lori and mouthed a few words soundlessly. “This can’t be real. Maybe I’ve died, and this is all a hallucination I’m having in my last seconds of consciousness.”

  “No, it’s very real,” said Lori. “Remember on Sunday night when you got drunk and said you hoped he would sink a few million into the bakery? Well, now you got your wish.”

  Sam blanched, as if not wanting to be reminded what she had said on Sunday night. “You know I was kidding, right?”

  “Sure, Sam,” Lori laughed.

  “I need a minute,” said Sam. Coming around from behind the counter, she sat down on a stool beside Cheryl, who offered her a bite of her pie.

  “No, thanks.” She reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out a cigarette, which she fingered with trembling hands. “You know, as bad as things are in the world right now, I really didn’t think something like this could ever happen to us.”

  “Well, the world isn’t all misery,” Lori reminded her. “I hope you’ll remember that in the future whenever you’re tempted to complain about your sad life.”

  “No, I won’t forget it now,” said Sam. She turned to me, looking shy and embarrassed. “Is there any way to repay you? Would you like my firstborn? I can give him to you.”

  I laughed and patted her reassuringly on the shoulder. “I didn’t buy this place with any expectation of reward. I just hope you and Lori will continue to bless the community with your baking for a long time to come.” With a tip of my hat, I added, “And now if you’ll excuse me, girls, I need to be getting over to the library.”

  Sam’s face went white. “Are you buying that, too?”

  I left them standing together talking and walked back out into the cool parking lot. Pastor Gustman stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, watching the movers load a piano into the back of the van. I gave him a curt nod as I climbed into my car. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, but I could’ve sworn he winked at me.

  As I was pulling out of the parking lot, Sean passed me in a tractor going about thirty miles per hour. Seeing me waiting there, he flashed his middle finger joyfully and yelled out a few words that would have horrified Gustman if he had heard them. I honked loudly in response, and together we raced down the street toward the library.

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  Lori

  Two Years Later

  It was late summer, and the air was cooling. To celebrate, Marshall had convinced me to take the day off work. Together we had gone down to the lake with Sean.

  In the two years since Marshall had bought the strip center, we had only grown closer. When the lease on my apartment had ended at the end of the previous summer, we moved in together. Most mornings were like this morning: waking up in his arms as dawn kissed the eastern sky, wishing the sun would delay rising for just a few minutes so that we wouldn’t have to get up.

  “Is it normal for two people who have been dating for this long to be this happy?” I had asked him that morning as we watched the pale, chilly light turn first gray, and then pink.

  “Probably not,” said Marshall. “But I’m not going to complain. I’ve been blessed with more than my share of good fortune.”

  “So have I.” I kissed him first once and then twice. “Sometimes I wish I could go back to that little ten-year-old girl who had locked herself in the bathroom, crying and hiding from her mom, and tell her that it’s going to be okay. That one day she’ll be happier than she ever thought possible.”

  “But you wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise,” he pointed out.

  “Yeah, probably not. But it would have been nice to have hope.”

  We dressed and ate a small breakfast of cold ham, scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage links. By the time the store would normally have been opening, we had loaded a cooler full of beers and soft drinks into the back of the truck. It was a brisk day, and the leaves on the elms that lined Lake Marion were just beginning to change color.

  By now, I had overcome my initial distrust of Sean. When Marshall informed me that he would be joining us out on the lake, I grinned eagerly.

  “I had an idea for an app today that could make us a fortune,” Sean said in a very matter-of-fact tone as we sat together in the boat.

  “What’s that?” asked Marshall in a bored tone.

  “Get this: it’s like a dating app, but it inputs your DNA, web history, and various personal characteristics
to create the most accurate profile of you. Everyone in America is entered into the database, and the app hooks you up with the three or four people who are your perfect match, thereby taking all the chance and guesswork out of finding a soul mate.”

  “I have so many questions,” I said. “So you want to make, like, Facebook, but more invasive?”

  “How does it get your DNA?” asked Marshall.

  “I think it could really work,” said Sean with the fervor of a fanatic, “if everyone signed up. Maybe there could be a law passed making it mandatory. You laugh”—for this is indeed what we were doing—“but think how many marriages end in divorce because they chose the wrong partners. This app would have a one hundred percent success rate, and divorce would become a thing of the past.”

  “I’m sure it will make a wonderful premise for that dystopian sci-fi novel you’ve been wanting to write,” said Marshall. “Also, it sounds scary as hell.”

  Sean stared glumly down at the waters like a misunderstood genius awaiting his moment of vindication. “Well, we’ll see what Google thinks about it, anyway.”

  Marshall and I might have gone on teasing him all day if my phone hadn’t buzzed at that moment. It was Sam, and she sounded panicked.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with the microwave!” she exclaimed. “It just started emitting sparks, and I saw a literal flame shoot out the back of it.”

  Terror gripped my stomach at the thought of the building catching on fire. “Did you unplug it?”

  “Yeah, and nothing was damaged, but I’m a mess. I’d really love it if you could come over.”

  I frowned dejectedly at Marshall. “We’ll be over there as soon as we can. Where’s your husband at? Have you called him?”

  “I did,” said Sam, her voice shaky. “He’s on his way.”

  “So are we. Just hang tight!”

  Setting the phone down, I explained to Marshall and Sean what had happened. To my surprise, neither of them objected to cutting our trip short.

  “I think I’m just about done here,” said Sean. “The fish aren’t biting, and at this point, I don’t think they’re going to. We might as well pack it in.”