“Old Maid,” Molly said, her voice still slow and tired.
Clara smiled and said, “Wanna give this old maid a hug?”
They reached forward for each other as the nightlight went from red to orange. Clara squeezed her daughter and gave her a little peck on the cheek. But Molly was quick to pull away.
“Aww, come on,” Clara said. “Getting too old for that already?”
Her faced had soured. “Mommy, you stink.”
That damned cigarette . . . It wasn’t worth it.
“I know.” Clara pulled back, her head drooping. “I totally stink.”
5
Sam
It was getting late and dark, and he’d gotten Professor Dave a little too tipsy on his reward for looking up the child support documents. Although it had taken the prof only five minutes to come up with the info, it took Sam five hours to sufficiently wine and dine and “catch up” the apparently overworked and under-appreciated law professor. He had poured out his guts about Gulf A&M, even his grandiose, yet unrealistic, idea of leaving it entirely. He’d also poured beer from numerous pitchers. This was considered as the price of his “retainer fee,” if Sam was serious about those research services. Dave had said as much through a lazy, beery mouth. He said other, more causal things, too, like how he felt lonely in a house full of wife and children. At that point, Sam decided it was time to head back to the campus.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Dave said, looking down, his hands shoved down deep into his coat pockets.
“Hey,” Sam said, pushing him a little. “I’m sick of it, too. That was the first thing I told you.”
“No, I mean . . .”
“Come on, Dave. Don’t start that again.”
“The dating part is the best,” Dave said. “Fuck like rabbits, everything’s great. Then it’s all downhill.”
“Dave . . .”
“I mean, I love her. And I fucking love my kids, man.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is this why you don’t drink? Because you get all maudlin like this? Or do you always feel like this?”
“I don’t know.”
Sam looked across the street to a row of college-kid restaurants. “You sure you ate enough, Dave?” Sam was beginning to wonder how effectively a loaf of bread would soak up the booze. Perhaps there was a hospital around where he could get his blood transfused. Saline solution. Ipecac.
Sam checked on his friend again, making sure he was keeping up with his pace, Gulf A&M still a few blocks away. He was walking fine. He didn’t even look intoxicated. But the things he was saying . . .
“I guess you can’t understand,” Dave said. “Because you never, at least when I knew you, you never really dated anyone.”
“I thought you said dating was the fun part.”
“It is, it is. That’s what I mean.”
Sam shrugged. “I dated a little. Just never got serious.”
“See?” Dave said it even louder. “That’s what I mean.”
“It wasn’t intentional. I had nothing against getting serious. Just getting serious with those specific women, I guess.”
Dave shook his head. “You don’t know what I mean.”
“Alright, Dave.”
They continued walking the next block in silence. They’d already been talking in circles, and so there was no point risking getting lost. Once they had turned the corner onto the old campus street, Sam could hear the familiar sounds of protest, beating drums, human voices collected in an indistinguishable wash of chanting, and above it all, someone with a bullhorn, yelling.
“They’re at it again,” Dave said, rubbing his head, wincing. “Every day, man. Day and night every day.”
“What do they want?”
Dave started chuckling. “Justice. When do they want it? Now.”
“No, I mean, what do they really want?”
“I don’t know. What did you really want when you did this sort of thing?”
“I never protested in college. Did you?”
He shrugged and said, “Yeah.”
“So what did you want?”
“I don’t know . . . Girls.”
Sam laughed. “That’s a noble cause.”
“Yep. Something to get behind.”
Dave was also the sort to get a little perverted at even the first drink. He liked to call it gregariousness, even back in his early years at George Washington, the frat years, before he’d climbed out of the bleary pit of adolescent debauchery. Before his father made him get serious and sober or get the fuck out of such an expensive college. Sam remembered the conversation. He could practically hear Mr. Blevins’ voice coming through the phone, and through the thin bedroom wall between them.
“I feel like I’m leading you astray again,” Sam said. “I come to town, see you for half a day, and already I’m worried I’ll get a call from your old man.”
“The old man’s dead.”
“Oh.” Sam held on to his arm. “Dude . . .”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Dave kept trudging along. “Maybe that’s where all this darkness is coming from.”
They walked in silence again, only the silence was just between them. Beyond their block was the glowing herd of student protestors, swirling around one of the monuments at the main entrance to the courtyard. Their chants were more distinguishable now, but Sam paid no attention. Instead, he directed his gaze to his friend next to him. From college, he really didn’t look like he’d changed. More gray hairs, but aside from that . . .
Had he changed? Definitely, he’d changed somehow, inside. And it was a change that had only happened a few days before.
He felt something at his back, then looked to see that it was Dave, reaching over, patting him.
“Hey,” Dave said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Sam nodded. “Me, too.”
They crossed over the busy Alcroix Boulevard and then stepped up onto the Gulf A&M sidewalk. The campus protest scene was much the same, the bucket drums, signs, millennial angst. Only now, they’d been joined by the riot police, the officers decked out in imposing black uniforms, covered head to toe in armor. Shields. Batons. Although they stood motionless in a big column, their very presence felt menacing.
Still, the protestors continued on. They were blocking the main entrance now.
“Are they gonna block us?” Sam asked.
Dave cursed under his breath. “Why the hell did we come through the front side?”
“Should we go around back?”
“No,” Dave said defiantly. “Fuck ’em.”
“What?”
“Let’s go through. Fucking plow through, like football.”
“Dave.”
“It’s our fucking school, too.”
“Dave, think about it . . .”
“I am.”
“A professor can’t break through the protest. They’d eat you alive.”
Sam chuckled. “What, these kids?”
“It would be career suicide.”
Dave hadn’t slowed down his pace. He was heading right for the main blockade, fists balled up at his sides. “Well, let’s just talk to them,” he said, an odd tension creeping into his voice. “Let’s start a discussion. That’s what they want, right? A dialogue?”
Sam pulled him back, directing him away. “I already told you about that.”
Dave swatted at his arm and struggled free. “Half of these kids are probably still virgins. Probably never even had a job, for fuck’s sake.”
“Like you?” Sam grabbed him again, harder, bear hugging him away from the protest. “When you were a student protestor?”
“I wasn’t a virgin,” Dave said, suddenly laughing, and breaking free again but walking away from the protest line.
“Good move, Professor.” Sam said. “Just get back to your ivory tower.”
Dave rubbed his face while letting o
ut a groan, a sound of an anguished professor that Sam knew all too well. “I still have some more fucking papers to grade,” he said while holding his head.
Sam laughed and said, “Maybe I can help with that.”
“No. You’ve helped me enough.”
They had avoided the protest, but now there was a new barrier to cross. A gaggle of media. From independents with live-streaming smart phones, to the wires and lights of old legacy media.
“Excuse me,” Dave said to a guy holding a boom mic. The guy moved out of the way. “No, I mean, can I ask you a question?”
“How ’bout you?” Sound Guy asked. “Can we interview you?”
“No,” Sam quickly said.
“I’m just wondering,” Dave said. “What are they protesting about?”
“The refugee crisis.”
“What about it?”
Sound Guy rolled his eyes. “They’re against a bill that might block acceptance of thousands of refugees into Louisiana. You know, human rights.”
“What? Dave said, squinting. “Human rights means just anyone can come pouring in our country?”
Sound Guy looked away and held up his mic. “Go ask them,” he finally said.
“Dave, let’s go.”
Dave turned to Sam. “I’m all for helping refuges, our country has been doing that since forever. But this is a mass influx. And they go completely unvetted, from big-time terrorist countries, even!”
“Alright, keep your voice down.”
“I’m not cold-hearted, man. I’m not. You know that.”
“I know,” Sam said softly, hoping the softer tone would be infectious. “I know.”
“But you know ISIS is loving this shit.”
Living and working in D.C., Sam had heard it all, from top to bottom, from both sides of the political aisle. And as evidenced by the protesters there, the debate had spread across the country. Would “America’s identity” really change with a million or so Muslim immigrants? He wasn’t so concerned about that as he was about terrorists piggybacking on the movement, blending in and infiltrating, and then setting up sleeper cells all across the country. It wasn’t impossible. And Sam knew that the government was broken enough to let it happen.
Still, what about the rest of the ninety-nine percent of these displaced people? He’d seen the pictures all over the news about the hardships of these migrants, the starved and trampled and drowned; that picture of a floating dead toddler. It still haunted him.
“It’s a tough situation,” Sam said when they finally cleared the noise and chaos of the protestors and the media personalities scrambling around it.
“It’s fucking scary, man.”
“I know.”
6
Clara
“Hey,” Clara said harshly. “Molly? What did I say about that?”
Molly’s hand was clumsily gripping the maple syrup bottle, both of them suspended over a double stack of French toast.
“Molly?”
She lowered the bottle to the table, and Clara swooped in and grabbed it before it touched the table mat.
“Mommy pours the syrup. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, frowning. “But you never do enough.”
“Here,” Clara said, dripping a wide swath of amber goodness across Molly’s toast. It was more than she’d normally dole out, but much smaller than what Molly would have likely tried to get away with. “How’s that?” Clara asked, capping the bottle with a quiet plastic snapping sound.
Molly picked up a fork.
“Good?”
Molly smiled and began tearing a chunk of now-soggy French toast with her fork.
“You need help with that? Want me to cut it right?”
Molly shook her head.
“Careful. It’s dripping.”
The syrup dripped off her fork and glistened down Molly’s chin. Clara shook her head and then reached for her coffee. She needed a lot more of it to deal with this morning. She took a sip and with her other hand, she adjusted her bathrobe, tightening the belt. She’d just showered, but she still felt as stale as that old cigarette from last night.
“You need anything else?” she asked. “A napkin?”
Molly giggled yes and then went back to sawing another wet chunk of French toast.
“Don’t forget your eggs,” Clara said, standing up and walking over to the counter. She grabbed a small cloth napkin from a wire basket and brought it back to the table, and to Molly’s chin, rubbing off what was left of the syrup, and then rubbing where most of it had ended up—smeared across the back of Molly’s hand.
“We’ll have to give you another bath again,” Clara teased.
“Nooooo . . .”
Back at the counter, Clara reached into her purse and pulled out that damned pack of cigarettes. Parliament menthols. Long 100s. It grossed her out, thinking of all the chemicals needed for that strange, yet so satisfying cooling effect of menthol. It grossed her out even more thinking how she’d gone back to smoking at all. She had done so well for those three years of smoke sobriety.
Worst of all, there was no real reason for her going back to the dark side. Nothing at all. If she had some sort of excuse, maybe she’d be less hard on herself. But the ridiculousness of having gone back for no real reason. It was enough to infuriate her, and to cause her hand to close and squash the thin, green cigarette-box cardboard, collapsing it and the remaining cigarettes with a shaking hand.
“Mommy, do you like Bren?”
“Huh?” Clara tossed the flattened pack into the kitchen garbage and said, “Of course. Do you?”
“I do a lot.”
“That’s good. I was hoping you would.”
“Is she coming again tonight?”
The question made Clara’s mind lurch toward Sam with an almost frightening intensity. It had been a whole two days since she’d seen or even talked with him, and she wanted nothing more than another need for Bren’s babysitting. The days apart had made her hungry for him, any piece of him. It was a reaction, she was sure, from the unsettling news of her ex. The idea of Kurt, that smiley and slithering idea of Kurt and his recent need for contact, seemed to have sped up that clock inside her body. She had a new tempo for Sam, a need to beat the deadline of his inevitable departure from New Orleans. Clara just hoped that these new impulses wouldn’t sabotage things. It was fine to be eager. But desperate?
Is that what she was?
Clara checked her phone again. Nothing but an old message from Sam after their date.
She had read it twenty times. It was a lovely message.
But she was desperate for more than just a message.
“I’m not sure if Bren can come over tonight and play,” Clara said. “But would you ever want to meet my other friends?”
“The people from the . . . the poetry thing?”
“Uh . . . Sure?”
Molly took another bite, and with a full mouth, said, “Nahhh.”
Clara laughed. She felt the same way.
“And I don’t want anyone from court,” Molly said, sounding borderline brat-like.
“Well, I was thinking the judge could come.”
“Huh?”
“Remember Judge Steinhoffer? He could come over and nab you and then sentence you to ten years supermax.”
“Huh?”
“It was a joke.” Clara took a gulp of coffee.
“Yeah, but, huh?”
“I was joking that he’d put you in jail, Sweetie.”
“For what?” Molly asked, loudly dropping her fork. She picked it up and said, “What if I put you in jail?”
“Then you wouldn’t get any more French toast.”
“Aww . . .”
“Or syrup.”
“Aww!” Molly shoved another piece of toast in her mouth.
She couldn’t take it anymore. After Clara had dropped Molly off at school, she was instantly reaching for her phone, checking, and then deliberating. Should she call him?
Clara pulled
into the narrow parking lot of a strip-mall coffee shop and then cut the engine. The radio continued playing, so she reached for it and turned the volume all the way down so that her only sounds were the muffled wash of morning commuter traffic. Sitting there with the phone, she took a deep breath and then scrolled for his name in her contacts.
What the hell was she so nervous about?
She would sound different. Clara would call him, and right away he would notice the change in her. Her voice. Her desperation, her insanity, creeping over the digital signal. He had been so good at uncovering her real intent, her real emotions. How would it end up today if she’d sounded like an over-caffeinated stalker?
Even worse, a single mom using an infatuation to help get over her nicotine withdrawals.
That’s what it was. The damn nicotine. That’s why she felt so creepy and crawly and unsettled. Nothing to do with Kurt.
In the strip mall was a small, independent smoke shop. Discount Smokes. The yellow sign was faded, and one window pane had flattened cardboard taped over it. There was a man, a street person sitting against its front wall near the doorway. And still, the place looked so damned alluring. She wanted to be inside. She wanted to open the door and get that first waft of cheap tobacco. She wanted her menthol 100s, Goddamn it.
Clara looked at her car’s door handle. She imagined her hand moving there and opening the release, and opening the door. Could she just do that?
Her arm felt light and ready for action, ready to lift up to the door handle and do her bidding. And then her phone vibrated in her lap, sending shock waves of panic through her body. But shock turned to excitement, to an opportunity. That same hand that was about to open the door was clutching the phone, turning it over and exposing the lit-up screen, and the wonderful glowing name of . . . State Corrections.
Fuck!
She let it ring and ring, her hand almost feeling sick with the vibrations. It was as if he’d been touching her, himself. Tainting her. A sick feeling. A sick man.
A sick man who wasn’t going to go away until she answered the damn phone.
“Hi,” she said coldly. There was a pause. “Hello?” This time with a little more sass. If it wasn’t Kurt, it was still someone interrupting her from her cigarettes.
Dark Threat - A DARC Ops Christmas Novel Page 4