by Tracy Ellen
“For what you just said to me,” he answered, sexy brows raised.
“I didn’t say anything,” I scoffed, laughing. I amended emphatically, “I was thinking something.”
Luke tipped back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, grinning and shaking his head at the same time. He started to reply, then stopped and laughed out loud.
Tipsily, I couldn’t turn off my delighted grin as he laughed. Luke has an excellent sense of humor, but I would never call him happy-go-lucky. As we’ve gotten closer, I’ve discovered under his amiable, calm surface he is often on the more serious side and could sometimes be dark.
His voice is naturally low and gruff, but when he laughs the sound comes from far down inside him, popping out almost against his will and he appears slightly surprised. I think Luke grins dryly at irony, snorts wryly in his own secret amusement at people, and sarcastically chuckles at life’s little foibles, but he doesn’t often genuinely laugh for the sheer, wonderful fun of it. I feel like I’ve won a prize or done something special when I’ve surprised his happy laughter this way.
Anna was noisily sucking down the last of one drink and waving enthusiastically across the room to someone she knew. Hearing Luke’s deep laughter she inquired eagerly, “What’s going on? What did I miss?” She took a big swig of her new drink. “Wuke, finish telling me about that westaurant in Chicago where your fwiend works.”
I giggled at Anna’s Elmer Fudd impersonation. It always happens when she’s getting toasted and never fails to tear me up. Luke righted his chair. He shrugged helplessly at me, as if he had no choice but to entertain, and then resumed his conversation with Anna.
I snorted in my glass for the third time. ‘Yeah, dude’s about as helpless as a King Cobra.’
Abandoned, as well as neglected, I was feeling warm. I picked up my drink and put the cold glass against each rosy cheek to cool off, and then I took a long swallow to cool me off inside. When I focused in on their conversation a while later, my mouth dropped open in shock to hear Anna seconding Luke’s every opinion like Polly the Parrot starving for a cracker.
That made me woozily realize I was hungry and that I needed to go to the bathroom.
I interrupted Luke to excuse myself. He was explaining to a bewitched, befuddled Anna either a punch line of a joke or his political viewpoint- I couldn’t be sure which- that in a perfect world we would be better off led by a triumvirate of Republican businessmen with absolute power.
Luke stood up and gallantly pulled out my chair. That caused the adoring Anna to clap and extravagantly compliment his wonderful manners.
I muttered, “Yeah, right. Thanks should go to his poor mother.”
I got up, but without making eye contact with Luke. It was to hold myself back from delivering a sucker punch to his helpless eight-pack. I’m positive he and Anna would have only added the blow to the list of my imaginary bad habits anyway. I carefully made my lonely way to the Ladies room sans best friend, an event seldom seen in my lifetime.
I did my thing, washed my hands, and swayed and grooved to a man named Marvin singing about getting it on. The music was bouncing off the tiled walls at a high volume through an unseen speaker. I patted at my hair and made sure my clothes were still on after that song was finished. I reapplied my lips gloss, not really able to see my face too clearly in the wavy mirror. They should really do something about that.
On the way back to our table, I made a detour to thank Guy at the Bar for sending me those god awful shots. Grabbing a handful of nuts from a bowl, I munched hungrily while leaning my back against the bar next to his stool. He looked like a nice guy, so I told him that. I also let him know he shouldn’t waste his money on me, that I was there with my date.
“You are?” Guy asked, confused.
“Yep, I am here with that man.” Guy at the Bar turned and followed my pointing finger towards an empty table. I closed one eye, my left, and corrected my aim to my table.
We both watched Anna take a big slug of her drink. She continued talking and making strange motions like she was sawing a piece of particularly difficult wood in half. Luke was nodding, but his eyes kept coming back to me and my friend at the bar. He was not smiling again. His face looks hard and a little cruel when he isn’t smiling.
Guy said, “Sorry, my mistake. It didn’t look like you were with him. What do you think your girlfriend is doing?”
I nodded my agreement on his first comments. “He’s a very tricky date.” I peered at Anna. “Hmm, I cannot tell a lie. I have no clue what she’s doing. Is it just me, or does it look weird?”
After some consideration, Guy at the Bar agreed, “It looks weird.”
He tapped my hand that was beating time to the music on the bar. “Your date doesn’t look very happy right now. Do I need to worry?”
I looked over at Luke. “Huh. I can’t see real well since the lights are so dim in here,” I smiled brightly at Guy, “but hey, I was just thinking to myself that he looks kind of cruel. I think it’s his mouth. What do you think? Don’t worry though, okay? I won’t let him beat up a nice guy like you.”
“Good, thanks. I don’t know about the dude’s mouth. I think he just looks pissed off.”
In considering silence, we both glanced over to study Luke.
Luke raised his right brow. For some reason, I had no problem seeing that motion. Similar to the Patellar reflex, the gesture made me want to straddle his lap every time it occurred. I snorted a giggle at the thought. Luke frowned and nodded his head slightly towards my empty chair.
I shoved off the bar. “Ah, he had me at the eyebrow move.” I patted Guy at the Bar on the shoulder. “Bye-bye, Guy, and thanks again.”
“You’re welcome. You’re nice, too.” He smiled. “If you decide you don’t like his tricks….”
I laughed and waved, saying over my shoulder, “Thanks, but so far I like his tricks just fine.”
As I sat back down, Luke reached for my hand and linked it with his. I leaned over and kissed his cheek, then slowly wiped off my lip gloss with my thumb. He smiled, but it didn’t erase all the hardness from his face. He turned back to Anna’s story.
I leaned over and kissed his cheek again, smiling big when he turned to give me a stern look for interrupting, but squeezing my hand in his. Anna also mimicked his stern look, but since she was swaying in her chair it was impossible not to giggle. I leaned her way and gave her a kiss on the cheek, too.
“That’s for being such a cute chipmunk.”
She grabbed onto my right arm and started shaking it while laughing in excitement. Anna announced loudly, “You are dwunk. Oh my God, Wuke, Junior’s dwunk. She never gets dwunk!”
“Hey, maybe you’re drunk,” I countered, pulling my arm back before she wrenched it from its socket. “Did you ever once think of that, Miss Chippie?”
Luke laughed out loud.
I grinned at him. “I’m not drunk. I just think I need glasses. Really, I swear.”
Anna bounced in her chair. “Wait! Everyone be quiet! I have to finish telling you, Wuke. Listen, now, okay? Junior, be quiet for a minute. You don’t need gwasses, okay, you are just shit-faced. Let me finish my story.”
I nodded, relieved I didn’t need glasses. I looked at Luke and saw he was giving me one of his intense stares while Anna chattered away. She was doing that peculiar sawing motion again while speaking of tree forts.
Shushing him, I gestured helplessly and mouthed, “I’m shit-faced.”
He grinned and swiftly kissed our joined hands. I glanced over at the talking Anna and then scootched my chair closer to Luke’s.
I whispered, “Don’t let me drive home.”
He whispered back, “We walked.”
I whispered back again, ‘Yeah, but I may want to drive our truck.”
“There’s no way in hell you are driving a tricycle, so don’t worry.”
“I wasn’t worried about driving a tricycle! What the…?”
Server Cindy interrupted my
snorting giggles to bring me a fifth vodka tonic, a double. I swore to her I didn’t order it. Laughing, she pointed to a nearby table of four men that I hadn’t noticed before who were playing cards. The bar had been steadily getting busier and more crowded as we drank.
These guys I knew, or at least I thought I recognized them from working over at Reggie’s place. They were sort of blurry, so it was hard to be sure. I waved my arm in their general direction with a big smile—in case they had a hard time seeing, too. They called back greetings. I spun around in my chair and chatted with them all for a few minutes. Turns out they didn’t know my brother.
I turned back to Luke and Anna. Sucking my fifth drink down through the little straw like it was water, I almost swallowed vodka down the wrong pipe when hearing what was going on right beneath my nose.
Anna was most distressingly, without caution or forethought, drunkenly answering any questions Luke idly put to her about any subject of our past. My past!
I had been dimly aware of hearing her speaking in the background, but now caught the end of her saying, “…and this was the wast guy Junior went out wiff. He bored her, too. I hope you don’t bore her, Wuke.”
I narrowed my crossing eyes suspiciously at this little development. Luke and his double gazed back at me with an amused expression on their faces and a dangerous glint in their four eyes.
We had been at Rueb’s for one hour.
I was completely trashed and Anna was firmly Luke’s new best friend. I had no idea what she had been singing to Maestro Luke this past hour, but the vault door was definitely ajar.
Anna’s head now rested on the table, she was near to passing out. I absently pulled the straw out from between her lips, needing to exert some force to get it out from between her clenched teeth.
I knew dazedly, on some level, I should be disgusted with myself for underestimating how deviously good Luke really was, but it seemed I was too happy of a drunk to care.
Luke smilingly suggested we get Anna home and then we could continue on with our date. Even in my drunken state, I felt a moment of satisfaction seeing the blank expression on Luke’s face when I told him, most regrettably, our date was over. We’d be taking Anna back to my apartment for the night. She was way too drunk to be by herself. If I brought her home this trashed, Aunt Lily would blame me and chase me with her antique sword cane set on slice and dice.
Back at my place, Luke led us like a Sherpa up the Mount Everest of a steep staircase to my apartment.
The outside air had braced me a little, but I still had problems focusing my eyesight and Anna’s legs weren’t working so well. Luckily, that didn’t stop us from singing various duets for Luke’s listening pleasure all the way home, into my building, and up the stairs. I thought our rendition of “Coming ‘Round the Mountain” was particularly fine. I did the ‘When She Comes!” and “Yee-Ha!” parts with bump and grind gusto.
At the summit of the stairs, a swaying Anna abruptly covered her mouth with her hand. Letting out a dreadful moan a zombie would be proud of, she ran stumbling towards the bathroom. Since she left the door open, violent retching was soon heard.
Luke winced at the gagging sounds, shooting me a quick, guilty look.
I spread my arms wide in answer and shrugged, laughing. “Hey, Torquemada, don’t feel too bad. You can lead the girls to the bar, but even you can’t force them to drink.”
Luke’s grin was wide, as he repeated incredulously under his breath, “Torquemada..?” while shaking his head.
He was reaching for me, and damned if I wasn’t eager, when Anna’s pitiful voice could be heard beseeching my name from the bathroom.
“Hold your horses, little doggie, I’m a comin’!” I called down the hallway.
I turned back and smiled a cheery, boozy good night. “Well then, Luke Drake, thank you so much for the dinner.”
Rubbing his forehead, he laughed and gracefully admitted defeat.
After quickly making plans with me for the next day to explore Minneapolis, Luke then paused in his descent to leave. With one foot on the stairs, he was looking on in amazement as I painstakingly made a note to myself of our date. It was on my foyer mirror with a tube of lipstick from my purse.
“Sweetheart, why don’t you let me put the time in your cell, instead of these,” he waved toward my note. Doubled over with laughter, he was barely able to get the next word out, “hieroglyphics on the mirror?”
Calling down the hall to Anna that I’d be there in a second, I walked over to Luke.
He waited for me, still chuckling. I reached up and planted a chaste kiss somewhere near the region of his dimple. “You’ll not trick me into giving you my cell phone so you can plant a bug in it. Don’t be too surprised if I wear an aluminum foil headband tomorrow to block your micromindwaves. Now, good night, My Pharaoh, unless you’d like to help with Anna in…?”
Luke made a face of mock horror and beat a hasty retreat down the stairs. He ordered up from the last stair. “Anabel, buzz me out the front and lock up right away.”
Already at the master station, I rolled my eyes at his orders. I called back down over the ledge. “You called me by my first nickname. Don’t think I didn’t notice how cutesy you really are!”
Smiling over the sound of his loud snort of male disgust as he left, I waited to see him exit the building. I verified the doors were locked and the alarm reset, and then went to see if Anna was still among the living.
Once I got Benedict Anna alone, she got a friendly reminder on the merits of remembering to keep her mouth shut, the definition of the word vault, and who was truly her best friend. She was a captive audience. She was draped over the toilet in my bathroom and still puking her guts out from all the liquor Luke had poured down her unsuspecting throat.
As I held back her hair off her face, I softly brought up the pinky swears from grade school. I gently reminded her of the painful, penknife slices of Indian Blood Brother oaths in eighth grade. Did she really forget the five beers each, tearful declarations of best friend love in high school, as we vomited in tandem? I even dredged up the sincere, if paranoid, swear to Gods to be friends forever the time that we smoked weed at eighteen and got so high. We laughed and ate until we passed out like beached whales on my bedroom floor. The deal clincher that made her beg for me to take pity; I’d tell my brother everything she’s always said about him if she opened her trap to Luke ever again about my personal business—wasted or not.
After her next bout of dry heaves was finished, and I had soothingly wiped a cold, wet cloth over her face- poking her in the eye only once- and then had given her mouthwash to rinse, she totally agreed Luke was very tricky and promised she was onto him.
A couple of hours later, I tucked her into the guest bedroom. I set a glass of ginger ale on the bedside table and a big soup pan for any further emergencies on the floor. Anna asked in a small voice if I was mad she’d ruined our date.
“Please, and miss the sight of you barfing? While trying desperately not to toss my cookies, too? Why, nothing compares.” I waved a negligent hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’m seeing Mr. Tricky tomorrow. Besides, you may have actually saved me tonight.”
Anna stopped punching her pillow into submission and frowned blearily up at me. “How did I save you?”
“Holy Hannah, I was so blasted earlier. If you weren’t here, I cringe to think what I might have said to Luke if we were alone.” I smiled wickedly. “Or what I might have done to him.”
Sighing, Anna snuggled under her covers. “Great, now I really feel crummy. Luke probably hates me knowing he missed a wild night of a trashed Anabel. You hardly ever drink like that. What if you would have started drunk crying, or blacked out after dancing nude on the dining room table? That would have been so sweet! You should call him and tell him to come over. I probably wouldn’t hear anything.”
“Huh. Appealing as that sounds, I think I’ll pass. Pass out, too. Sweet dreams, you little lightweight.”
“Thanks for
keeping your toilet clean, June.”
I was at the door when Anna called softly, “Hey...”
“Yes?”
“I like him. You need a man like him to keep you on your toes.” Anna paused. “Or do I mean on your knees?”
She was still chuckling delightedly at her own joke when I closed the guest bedroom door behind me without answering.
Anna is my best friend. We’re sisters until the end. I may have three blood sisters of my own, but there’s a universal truth known by the kind of females I like best; a woman can never have too many sisters.
Chapter VII
“Love Shack” by The B-52’S
Present Time- Saturday, 11/17/12
9:40 AM
After hearing the front door of Bel’s being unlocked, I recognized the rhythm of the heels tapping across the lobby floor. I went to the door of my office. As the overhead light fixtures hanging from the soaring, tin stamped ceiling were switched on by Stella, the store woke up, becoming bright and cheerful.
My store manager and niece walked her way towards me down the wide aisle of the huge, open room that comprises the main floor space in Bel’s Books. The central aisle flows straight down the length of the room and ends at the Laissez Fare café. Continuous, short bookcases line either side of the aisle and create wide rows, much like in a school library.
The long, wooden checkout counter where I was standing is located along the side aisle when you first enter Bel’s Books front doors. It’s basically under the hallway of the bedroom side of the layout upstairs. My office is reached by a door behind the checkout counter. The office is an odd, little room built under the stairs that lead up to my apartment. It’s a cozy place from which to rule my little empire.
With her head down and digging for something in her purse, I only got intermittent glimpses of Stella as she came forward. I did manage to notice a sparkly, yellow bag hung from her elbow. She was dressed in the uniform of the store; jeans and a T-shirt with BEL’S BOOKS spelled out across the front.
I saw she was wearing platform pumps that explained the clunky sound of her heels. They were two-toned in the colors blue and green that appears to be patent leather, but I knew differently. Being Stella, she tries to live by her ideals and convictions. At the forefront of her beliefs is the concept to harm no animals in the choice of the clothes she purchases and the food she eats. She buys nothing made of leather and is vegetarian.