She laughed at his phrasing. “First off, what did I just tell you about calling me Dr. Vera? And secondly, my ass is too tender to sit on a nest.”
He laughed out loud again. “I don’t know,” he said, craning his neck playfully, as if he could see her behind, “your ass seems pretty durable to me.”
“Were you peeking while I wasn’t looking?”
“Oh, I didn’t tell you? I’m an official New York City Ass Inspector.”
“Ass Inspector?”
“Yeah, we have strict standards in this city. Substandard asses are a danger to public safety.”
“Is that so?”
“Absolutely. The stability of society could be put in jeopardy if a few substandard asses were allowed to get out.”
She shook her head in bemusement, but there was a smile on her lips. “What do you do with the substandard asses?” she baited him now. “You have a detention center for them?”
“Nah, we throw them in the East River.”
“That sounds harsh.”
“It has to be done. Anytime you find yourself thinking that you haven’t seen a famous actress or singer in a while, that’s our doing. As soon as they start sagging, we get rid of them.”
Right then, while she was still giggling, she looked up and saw that they were in her neighborhood, driving down the block to her condominium. The time had flown. She giggled again, at nothing in particular: she just felt good. However, Vera had a sudden flashback of Stacy sitting on her bed, looking wretched and hopeless; she remembered the detective’s questions about Stacy’s background. All at once, Vera’s anxieties about leaving Stacy alone came back. Something had not been right there. She knew it. At the same time, she was home now, on a date with a man whom she really liked. In fact, it startled her how much she liked him. She looked over at him, suddenly amazed by the realization. He looked at her when he stopped the car in front of her building, puzzled by the intensity of her gaze.
They walked up to the building leisurely. They were side by side; without thought or calculation, she looped her arm through his. He did not say anything, but only smiled again.
She began, “Do you mind if we don’t go out?” They had reached the glass door. “Can we stay here and watch a movie…order something to eat, perhaps.”
“I don’t mind,” he said.
“Did you make restaurant reservations or anything?”
“Sure, but they’re easily broken—the manager owes me for life, since I figured out who burglarized his restaurant.”
“So!” she said accusingly, “you were trying to use your connections to get a cheap date out of me?”
“Damn,” he lamented, “I can’t catch a break from you.”
“I’ve gotta keep my eyes on you,” she said as she fished her keys out of her bag and opened the door—
“There you are!” a shrill voice cried the moment they stepped through the door. They looked up to see an old lady—late-seventies, with heavily styled greenish-grayish hair, dismaying quantities of makeup and huge jewels of dubious worth. The old lady was sitting on a side bench, wearing an over-starched crinoline dress. She leapt up from the bench and flew at Vera like some kind of demented vulture. Vera cringed. It was her so-called concierge: the building’s official busybody. Now, the old lady was standing in front of them, bobbing up and down like an excited six-year-old.
“Hello, Mrs. Moore,” Vera said in a deadpan voice; and then, gesturing to the detective: “I’m told you met my friend, Holmes—I mean, Jonathan Luckett.” Vera and the detective laughed to themselves.
“Oh, posh!” Mrs. Moore said, slapping the detective’s arm flirtatiously, “you can call me Gwyneth.”
“Nice to meet you, Gwyneth Moore,” the detective said, extending his hand. When she offered hers, he took it and pressed it to his lips. She demurred and did a girlish half-twirl in her ridiculous dress. Vera was standing to the side, with her hands on her hips, wondering how much more she could take.
“We don’t get too many gentlemen in this building anymore,” the old lady lamented now.
“I don’t see why not,” Luckett said, outraged, “—with a fine-looking woman like you on the premises!” Once again, the old lady did a half-twirl.
“Okay, okay,” Vera said, losing patience. “We’ll have to continue this another time, Mrs. Moore.” As she said this last part, she looped her hand through Luckett’s once more, and dragged him toward the elevators.
“That was mean,” he teased her when they were out of earshot.
She laughed. “I have half a mind to leave you down here with her.”
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous of a sweet, little old lady.”
“Oh yeah?” she scoffed. “Just wait until she corners you the next time and tries to tell you the latest piece of gossip that she made up, about how so-and-so in apartment 6A is cheating with the husband of so-and-so in apartment 13C. She’ll have all the details, too—what positions they used, how big the man’s thing was…”
“Everyone needs a hobby,” he said with a shrug and a chuckle. They glanced back just before the elevator opened. The old lady was still standing there, staring at them like some kind of heartbroken puppy. The detective was about to say something to her when Vera glared at him and pulled him into the elevator.
Half an hour later, Vera stepped out of the bedroom, newly dressed and refreshed. She had showered, and spent the obligatory fifteen minutes primping and getting dressed—even though they had decided to stay inside. She was in a flowing summer dress. She was not wearing underwear underneath. She had never really needed a bra. As she had come to think of it, she had been born with an A-cup. The only thing puberty had given her was bigger nipples. When her first boyfriend sucked them, they had swollen to the size of plums, momentarily giving her the hope that breasts would be in her future. Unfortunately, her nipples had returned to their previous size, and no matter how hard and long she had made her subsequent boyfriends suck on her nipples, the original miracle had never repeated itself. Now, as she walked out of the bedroom and into the living room, she found herself wondering if she was going to have sex with the detective. As always, the thought brought a feeling of panic. However, this time, she realized that that panic was not so much driven by fear, as the uncertainty that accompanied anticipation and readiness. She had not felt that way in a long time.
When she got to the living room, the television was playing lowly, and the detective was sitting on the couch, taking food out of a picnic basket and placing it on the coffee table.
“Where’d you get all that?” Vera said, amazed.
“I called in another favor,” he said with a grin.
“You got all that in less than half an hour?” she said, noticing that the food was not in cheap disposable containers, but fine china.
He shushed her and gestured for her to sit down next to him. “Eat,” he commanded, and she practically flung herself at the food. She grabbed some fried flounder and started wolfing it down. Luckett laughed at her and handed her a fork. She pushed it away, content. While she moved on to some pâté, Luckett poured her some wine. She grabbed it from him and gulped it down.
“Damn, girl! When did you eat last?” he asked.
“I’m starving!” And then, with a half-full mouth, “It’s good!”
Luckett nodded his head approvingly. Then, he fetched something else from the picnic basket: a DVD.
Vera looked over at it, her eyes growing wide. “How did you know To Kill a Mockingbird was my favorite movie!”
Luckett smiled enigmatically: “It fits your psychological profile.”
She licked her fingertips, to clean them of crumbs and grease, then she took the DVD case, staring at it with an amazed, childlike expression on her face. Her smile widened; and then, just as naturally, she leaned over and kissed him. She surprised him, leaning against him with her full weight, so that he almost lost his equilibrium. However, he soon regained his balance and pulled her to him.
Vera woke up. Sh
e was lying on top of the detective. They were both on the couch. The TV was on, but the volume was low. The clock on the VCR said that it was 12:39 A.M. The detective’s body next to hers was warm and good, providing the perfect counterbalance to the air conditioner. She realized, suddenly, that she was naked—they both were. The coffee table was pushed to the side; food containers had been thrown to the ground; as she blinked, she remembered their frantic bodies colliding with the table. The entire thing had passed in a blur of pleasure; she had felt disembodied and free, as if some other self had taken over her body. All at once, she had found herself exploring the detective with her mouth and hands—practically devouring him—as if she were somehow feasting on his energy. He, likewise, had drawn off her energy, until she had collapsed on top of him, spent, begging him for five minutes to catch her breath…but she had fallen asleep. She smiled. She felt safe and relieved. She snuggled against the detective’s body, ready to go back to sleep—
Her cell phone began to chime. She heard it faintly. It was in the bedroom. She rose from the detective; he groaned in his sleep, but did not awaken. When she was free of the couch, she jogged back to her bedroom and closed the door behind her, as to not disturb the detective. She turned on the bedroom light and squinted to mitigate the sudden glare. The phone was still in her handbag. She had only turned it on after she gave Stacy her number. The telephone number was one she did not recognize, but she expected the caller to be Stacy.
“Hello,” Vera said as she put the phone to her ear. A man yelled something almost immediately, so that she reflexively pulled the phone from her ear. “…Who is this?” Vera asked; the man continued to shout. “Stop yelling! I can’t understand anything you’re saying.”
The man stopped and took a deep breath, but his voice was uneven as he said: “It’s me—Stacy’s boyfriend. I’m at the hospital.”
It took Vera a few seconds to digest that. “Did something happen to your mother?”
“No—she’s fine. It’s Stacy. They’re saying she tried to kill herself!”
“What!”
“Why would she do it?” the boyfriend cried into the phone.
Vera was still in shock. “Is she all right?”
“Yeah, she just came out of surgery. It’s a good thing I was there, to tie her wrists up. That’s what the doctors said. If I hadn’t been there…they said she would have bled to death. Why would she have done it?” he said in the same uneven, disillusioned way.
Vera’s mind couldn’t really digest it. “She cut her wrists?”
“Yes, right there in the bed. When I woke up, there was blood everywhere!”
Vera’s mind was still sputtering along. Something new occurred to her: “How’d you know to call me here?”
“It was all she kept saying,” he went on in the same disillusioned way. “When I woke up and asked her why she had done it, she told me to call you. She had your card in her pocket.”
“She didn’t tell you why she did it?”
“She said that she hadn’t—that she had fallen asleep next to me—but who else could have done it?”
“Are you at the same hospital from Friday?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Vera went to the closet and put on some clothes—a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Her legs felt a little wobbly beneath her. She still could not bring her mind to digest what she had heard. …Vera remembered the odd way Stacy had been acting when she left her. She knew that she should have called Stacy earlier! However, as strange as Stacy’s behavior had been, Vera could not see her as suicidal. There had to be some other explanation. …She dressed quickly. She took one step from her closet, headed toward the door to the living room, when the thing happened again. …One moment, she was in her bedroom; the next moment, she was in that other place, where there was too much light. Again, she squinted to block out the glare, but she was panicking already, anticipating the huge, bloody hand. And then the hand was there again. She trembled at the sight of the blood-smeared fingers, which had already tasted death, and were reaching out to her, so that they could share what they had tasted. Again, she tried to move—to flee—but she was still frozen. She smelt her own sickly sweat again. Move! she pleaded with herself. The hand was getting bigger, blocking out some of the light. In those last few terrifying moments, she pleaded with the universe. Was this a vision of things to come, or some kind of flashback: some hidden terror from her childhood, perhaps? …But it was already too late. The hand was there, and she felt death spreading through her, killing her cell by cell. And then, after everything went black, she again found herself transported back to her bedroom. Her knees gave out, but she managed to steer her collapsing body onto the bed. She lay there for a moment, her torso on the bed, her legs still on the floor. She was trembling—overcome by some kind of mortal terror. What the hell was happening to her? She returned to her old question: was that something that was to come, or something that had already happened? Both possibilities had their unwholesome consequences—
There was a knock on her bedroom door. “Are you okay?” the detective called. He must have heard her collapse. The reality of him helped her to fight off the hopelessness. She remembered Stacy—the horrible possibilities there…but at least that was something tangible. She could deal with Stacy—she could not deal with the bloody hand and visions of death. She pushed herself from the bed. Her legs were wobbly, but she managed—
“Vera?” the detective called again. She heard him turning the door knob, and then the door was open, and he was looking at her as she wobbled up to him. He only had on his underwear. Her face was still clammy with the nervous sweat of her vision; the residual terrors of her vision must have been reflected on it, because he grimaced when he saw her. In two steps he had her in his arms. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. She was still dazed, but she was grateful for his supporting arms. She practically collapsed into them, so that he had to support most of her weight.
Vera knew she could not talk about the hand with him yet. “It’s Stacy,” she said then. “Her boyfriend called.”
“What happened?” he demanded.
“They’re saying she tried to kill herself.”
He frowned. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’s at the hospital.” Vera rushed toward thoughts of Stacy now, as to further escape the bloody hand.
He noticed that she was dressed. “You’re going to the hospital?”
She detached herself from him a little and looked up at him: “Yes—she’s been asking for me.”
“Want me to give you a ride?”
“Yeah, thanks—if you don’t mind.”
He nodded. “Can you walk?”
“Yeah,” she said shyly, realizing that he was still holding most of her weight. She stood up straighter then, taking her weight onto her legs, which seemed stronger now. He nodded again, and held her arm as they walked back to the living room. He sat her down on the couch, and then he began to get dressed. Most of his clothes were on the floor. He put on his pants and shirt, and then found his shoes behind the curtains, where he had thrown them during their foreplay. She stared at him, wishing they could return to their lovemaking, but knowing that thoughts of Stacy—and the bloody hand—would never allow her to achieve the same sense of freedom. As she was sitting there musing, he came up to her and pulled her to her feet. He held her again. His body still felt good, and she melted into it.
“She’ll be fine,” he reassured her, still thinking that Vera’s collapse had been due to hearing about Stacy.
They detached and began to walk toward the door. He had his arm around her waist. She needed the support. When they were riding down in the elevator, Vera blurted out, “She said she didn’t do it.”
“What?”
“According to her boyfriend, she said that she hadn’t done it—hadn’t cut her wrists.”
“Did she say someone attacked her?”
“I don’t know.” And then, shaking
her head: “Her boyfriend was babbling on the phone—he probably didn’t even know what he was saying.”
The detective was looking at her closely. The elevator door opened, and they walked into the lobby. Luckily, it was past Mrs. Moore’s bedtime, and the lobby was empty. They began to walk outside. The detective continued:
“What was Stacy’s mindset when you left her earlier? Was she upset?”
“I guess. She didn’t want me to leave. I thought it was a little odd, but… I simply can’t bring myself to believe that she’d do something like this. It’s not her. It’s not something she’d do.”
“There are some things about people that you just can’t know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, as if it were some kind of accusation.
He put up his hand to say he meant no offense. “I’m merely saying that sometimes you know people for years—you laugh with them and hang out with them—and then they do something that lets you know that you never knew them at all. …Like the first partner I had after coming out of the police academy. He was older—had been on the force for ten years. He showed me the ropes—brought me up. We spent practically all our free time together. One day, about two and a half years after I came out of police academy, I got a call from my sergeant in the middle of the night: my partner had put his gun to his mouth and blown his brains out. At first, I told myself that somebody must have done it to him. Maybe it was some kind of street payback for someone we had locked up. But it was all there in the note: ‘I don’t want to live anymore. I can’t deal with all the things I’ve seen and done.’ That’s all it said. Two lines. For ten years, he had been taking home all the things he had seen. I, his partner, thought he was fine, but all the while everything was gathering inside him like a poison. …You can never know what’s inside a person.”
They reached the car. He opened the door for her, and she sat down in silence.
When he got inside the vehicle, he said: “Which hospital is she in?”
“The same one from Friday.”
For whatever reason, he smiled: “Are your weekends always like this? …Multiple trips to the emergency room, almost getting arrested—”
How to Kill Your Boyfriend (in 10 Easy Steps) Page 17