by Nicole Fox
“I reckon I could.”
“Could. There’s a tricky word, eh, Bill? There are plenty of things I could do if the world was made different, but that I’d never do as things stand. Maybe killing me is that type of situation, eh? You could kill me if your back was to the wall, but your back ain’t to the wall. That’d be cold-blooded and you’d never be able to look your daughter in the eye again.”
He lowers the gun slowly. “Why are you here?” he asks.
“Your daughter’s missing. She ain’t at her apartment and I need to know where she’d go, or if you know if something’s happened to her, or anything. I need to know, ’cause not knowing is killing me.”
“If you cared about her so much, why didn’t you stick around?” he asks. “My daughter, with a man like you . . . I feel sick just thinking about it.” He slinks off to the couch and drops down, staring at the TV with red eyes. The place is a mess, with shit stacked everywhere, but I can’t exactly judge. My place has looked like this more times than I care to admit.
“I don’t see that this is about outlaws and innocents,” I say. “I care about your daughter, and she’s missing. I need to make sure she’s safe. It’s that simple.”
Bill doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring at the TV screen with the shotgun laid across his knees. The TV is turned off, reflecting us. I approach him slowly, waiting for him to talk. Sometimes folks just need a second, I’ve found, especially folks with guns.
After a long pause, he says, “You knocked me out cold, didn’t you? Knocked me out like it was no big thing to you. I came running at you and I was sure—I was sure I was still the man I once was. I felt young and strong. And then you stepped back and jabbed me once and—bam.” He lowers his head. “You think I give a shit if you’re an outlaw? You think that’s why I’ve had my boys hounding you? And now I can’t even call Michaels off. He’s a crazy bastard, Michaels is. I never should’ve let him loose on you.”
I realize what I did to him. I humiliated him. I forced his hand. If I’d weaved around a little, let him get a few hits on me, maybe he would never have started this vendetta. But flooring a man without even giving him a chance to defend himself is a humiliation than can’t be ignored. That’s when it hits me. I know what I have to do.
“I apologize, sir,” I say.
His gaze snaps to me. That’s how I know I’m onto something.
“What did you say?” he whispers.
“I’m sorry. I never should’ve come at you like that. It was cruel, and mean, and cheap. I should’ve made it a fair fight. I want you to know that I’m sorry for doing it that way. It was wrong.”
“Do you mean that?” he asks, with something like hope in his trembling voice.
“I mean it,” I say, and I do. If I’d handled it better, maybe all of this would have been easier.
“If Nancy’s anywhere, it’s with her mother in California. I can give you the address.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He scrawls the address down on a piece of paper and hands it to me. I tuck it into my pocket and make for the door.
“Fink,” he says, when my hand is on the handle.
“Yeah?”
“Be good to her. If you decide to go down to Cali, you be good to her. Don’t mess her around. Be the man I never could be. Don’t let the demon drink take you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter Nineteen
Nancy
“I want to be the father that kid deserves,” he says, his hand sliding up my naked thigh. “I want to be the man that kid deserves. I’m tired of running, Nancy. I’m tired of being so goddamn indecisive. You don’t deserve that, and that kid definitely doesn’t deserve it. You’re a good woman. A good person. I’m tired of making good people feel bad. Let me make you feel good.”
Mom and her boyfriend are in the next room but he doesn’t care. He pushes me back and slides his hand up my leg all the way to my hole, and then slides his finger inside of me. I’m wet for him, always wet for him, aching and ready. He pushes his finger inside of me, and then another finger, and then his whole fist, splitting me open.
“How does that feel?” he asks.
“Good,” I moan, surprised. I can feel his entire hand inside of me, each finger squirming. There’s no pain, which is strange; there should be pain.
“You’re a sexy little whore, aren’t you?”
“I’m a sexy little whore,” I agree.
“You love to be fucked like my dirty whore, don’t you? You love playing the good girl at work and then getting drilled by an outlaw biker. It makes you hot to think about me in the garage, and now I have my hand inside of you. It drives you fucking crazy.”
“Yes, yes, yes . . .”
I claw at the sheets, sunlight darting into my eyes. I groan when I sit up in Mom’s spare room, no sight of Fink. It’s my fourth morning here and I still feel like absolute crap. At first, I thought it was a cold or something like that, but there are no physical symptoms. Mom says I’m love-struck, that I’ll get over it soon, but it doesn’t feel that way. I don’t even feel like I want to get over it. I just feel like I want Fink here with me, to hold him, to be with him, to talk to him about our baby’s future.
I get up and get dressed, and even that’s a struggle. Part of me knows that I’m being melodramatic, but logic doesn’t have much say in my mood at the moment. I stand in front of the full-length mirror and try a smile, but the only thing I can muster is a pitiful half-grin which makes me look sadder than my resting face. I walk through the hallway, Andre’s dulcet voice getting louder and louder.
“My sweet Cheryl, my sweet cherry, sweeter than any fruit and more beautiful than any flower. How will I survive without you today? What will I do? How will I live? I do not know. I cannot think about it! You are the cherry of my eye and without you, I am dead. Yes, I am nothing with you and—”
“Don’t stop on my account,” I say, heading for the fridge. “I’m just grabbing a snack.”
Mom is sitting at the table with Andre on his knees next to her. He’s five years younger than her, with LA-tanned skin and a tight ponytail. He wears shorts and a tank top, ready for his yoga class. “Buongiorno, Nancy.”
“Hello, Andre.”
I open the fridge and look over the selection, my belly empty and yet no pangs of hunger hitting me. It’s almost as though I’m hungry for Fink and nothing else, and my body will only ache for him. But I didn’t eat dinner last night and I’m starting to feel lightheaded. I grab one of Mom’s ultra-healthy yogurts, take a spoon from the drawer, and walk back toward the hallway.
“No, you don’t! Young lady!” Mom springs up and intercepts me. She’s tall and skinny, with the same hair and eyes as me, but with an openness to her I’ve never been able to achieve. “I’ve taken a whole day off work to try and cheer you up, dear. I hope you’re not going to disappoint me. I can’t just let you hide in that room of yours, becoming a hermit, looking more and more disgusting every time you slink out.”
“Disgusting,” I repeat.
Mom smiles, nudging me in the shoulder. Her multicolored dress flows around her. “You heard me,” she says. “Disgusting. You smell like a trash heap. So the first order of the day is to take a shower.”
She turns away and she and Andre speak in broken Italian to each other—Mom because she can’t speak it and Andre because he has an apple in his mouth—and then she turns back to me. “Well, why are you still standing there with that silly look on your face? I won’t ask again, young lady. It’s time for a shower!”
“Mom . . .”
“Don’t Mom me!” She grabs me by the wrist and drags me to the bathroom. “In, now!”
“This is abuse,” I tell her, fleeing into the bathroom. “I just want you to know that.”
“The way you smell is abuse!” Mom exclaims. She smiles to take the sting out of her words. “I’ll leave clean clothes just outside the door. I’ve already laid out fresh towels for you.”
Maybe
the LA heat is doing more serious work on me than I realize, because as I stand under the blasting shower water I smell myself changing, from sweaty and damp to clean and fresh. I stand here and remember that last time with Fink, the time in the shower, my legs wrapped around his hips and my arms around his shoulders. I remember the way he looked at me, and how it made me feel as though this meant something, this was going somewhere. It wasn’t the same-old routine of distance and awkwardness. I felt as though I’d finally bypassed that first awkward stage of a relationship and accessed what I see so frequently in other couples: actual affection, actual love.
I shake my head as I stand in front of the mirror, looking at the dripping-wet moron in the steamed glass. “He doesn’t care,” I whisper. “He only cares about himself, and his club. He doesn’t give a shit about you.”
“Are you okay in there?” Mom calls.
“Fine!” I call back.
“Okay, well, I’ve left you a nice dress and some strappy shoes. It might be, I don’t know, nice to dress up a little and go into town. What’d’you think?”
I think it sounds horrible. I think I’d rather lie in bed watching TV and touching myself and then feeling bad for touching myself. I think I’d rather close my eyes and picture Fink, picture myself sucking him and then stabbing him, and then sucking and stabbing him at the same time. I think I’d rather let myself fall deeper into this rabbit hole. But I know Mom. She’s not really offering. If I say no, she’ll hound me all day.
“Okay.”
I get dressed in a pink-and-blue dress, the fabric so light the mildest breeze disturbs it, and then join Mom in the dining room, which leads to the front door. “Oh, how beautiful!” she cries.
“I’m not a kid, Mom, to be dressed up and gushed over.”
“I never said you were a kid, did I? But come to think of it, you are acting a little like a kid.”
“I’m just resting.”
“For three days. Four, if I let you have your way. Lying in bed and not eating for three days isn’t resting, dear. It’s being love-struck, lovesick. You’re ill, but not in here.” She waves her hand mystically over her belly. “But in here.” She waves her mystical hand over her heart.
I wince when she does it over the belly. Mom doesn’t know about the baby yet. I haven’t found the right time to tell her. Maybe I’ll tell her today; maybe that will be her reward for dragging me from my comfortable purgatory. Let her choke on that.
I smile at the grim thought, far grimmer than I usually have. I guess three days of self-isolation will do that to you.
“I don’t like that look,” Mom says. “I’m going to turn away from you now. When I turn back, you better not be looking at me like that. Alright?” She turns back with exaggerated slowness.
I stick a fake grin to my face. “Better?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“It’ll do,” Mom says. “Though you still look angry.”
I sit in the passenger seat of Mom’s hot pink Tesla, waiting as she messes around smoothing down her dress and adjusting her handbag, and then stare out the window at the beach as we make our way into town.
“I thought we’d go to this absolutely adorable gluten-free pizza place I know. What’d’you think?”
I think . . .
“Sure,” I say, knowing that, just like coming out, that phrase means I don’t have any choice at all.
“Let’s treat ourselves a little. Pig out.”
“On gluten-free pizza.”
“It’s vegan, too.”
“Okay, Mom. Let’s pig out on gluten-free vegan pizza.”
The pizza place is decorated with pictures of water creatures, seals and whales and dolphins, the seats covered in shell patterns and real shells glued to the underside of the table like chewing gum. Mom orders a large seaweed and pepper pizza and smiles at me when I make a vomiting sound.
“So,” she says, resting her chin on her hands, “just what has gotten into you, dear? I know it’s this man, but really, does he have a magic cock or something?”
“Mom!”
“What else do you expect me to think?” she says, way too loudly, impervious to embarrassment. “You can’t go around with that look on your face and expect me not to be worried. Okay, let’s lay it all out so we can get to the bottom of this.”
“You’re not my therapist.”
“Look at me.”
I do. She stares at me openly, kindly. “When have you ever known me to let something go?”
“Never. It’s one of your worst qualities.”
“Then you’ll know I’m not letting this go. I want you to tell me, Nancy, exactly what happened between the two of you. Start at the beginning and leave nothing out.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. “You really want to know.”
“Yes.” She stares at me sternly. She’s like a mountain, solid and immovable.
I take a deep breath. “Okay, then.”
I tell her about what happened between Fink and Dad, following him to The Mermaid, and everything else. I end with being pregnant and him sneaking out on me. Mom’s jaw falls more and more as I talk. She doesn’t touch her pizza when the waiter lays it before us, just keeps staring at me until her jaw looks like it might detach from her face.
“Wow.” She closes her jaw with an effort, and then drops it again to take a mammoth bite of pizza. Mom has the unique ability to talk coherently with a mouthful of food, an ability which caused me much disgust growing up. “I don’t know what to . . . just, wow, Nancy. That’s a lot to take in. You’re pregnant. You’re pregnant!” Something clicks inside of her. She leaps around the table and throws her arm over my shoulder, squealing so loud I’m sure I feel my eardrum pop. She kisses me sloppily on the cheek. “This is wonderful news!”
“Didn’t you hear the rest of it?” I say.
I’m always amazed to see Mom like this, giddy and girlish, when during my childhood she was so often downcast, mouse-like, the sort of woman to quietly scoop up shards of glass after her husband has destroyed her favorite vase. She kisses me again and then returns to her chair, ignoring the stares of the people around us.
“I heard the rest. But what of it? Can’t it be fixed? It sounds to me like a classic case of he likes you, you like him. But you’re both young and you think your little quirks are special and terrifying, like all young people do.”
“Don’t patronize me, Mom.”
“I’m not patronizing.” She takes another huge bite of pizza, swallowing a bare second after chewing. “I’m just giving you some wisdom. He walked out on you. Why do you think he did that, dear?”
“Because he’s an asshole.” I clench my fist, picturing him silently creeping around my bedroom, pulling on his clothes as I lay there oblivious.
“Come on. Think deeper than that. Do you seriously believe that he sat up and thought to himself: This is going to make her really upset? Ha, ha! This is going to drive her crazy! Why would he do that? Let me tell you something about men. They’re scared of us all the time, scared that we’ll trap them or change them in some way, and the worst part is, they want that. They want a family—what single men call being trapped—and they want to change—what single men call being boring. They don’t want to roam like wolves for the rest of their lives. But sometimes we have to, well, we have to be patient with them.”
“You were patient with Dad,” I mutter. “And that didn’t exactly go well.”
Mom flinches. I feel instantly guilty.
“Mom . . .” I touch her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “No, no, it’s fine. You’re right. I was patient with your father, too patient, but that was because I thought he loved me more than his addiction. I was wrong. I suppose that before you decide to try and get this boy back, you need to ask yourself if he cares about you, truly cares, deep down. Is he like your father, or is he a good man?
“A good man,” I answer without question. “He’s just . . . yeah, maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s
just scared. But it still pisses me off.”
“Of course, it does.” Mom takes another bite and says between mouthfuls: “Who ever said men wouldn’t piss us off? If they didn’t piss us off, they’d have nothing to do from sunrise to sunset!”
We both giggle. For the first time in years, I feel like I have my mom back.
“Did that boy really hit your father?”
“Yes,” I say. “Quite hard. He was all right, though. I think he was too drunk to really feel it.”
“Wow, poor Bill . . .”