by Kasey Krane
“Your friend threatened me. He made a scene,” Rocky said. He got defensive pretty quick.
“And instead of calling security on him and throwing him out, you just gave him what he wanted.”
I resented Rocky for sharing my address with Brendan. I still regretted the fact that he was at my apartment the previous night. That he had bumped into Davey. I felt guilty because I wasn’t able to resist him.
Rocky mixed a cocktail in the shaker, narrowing his eyes at me.
“Hey, it’s not my fuckin’ problem. All I’m saying is the next time you cause a scene, you’re out. You say you need this job, so act like you fuckin’ mean it.”
I was about to say something but decided against it. He was right. I needed to keep it together. With the diner cutting my hours I couldn’t afford to lose this job. I didn’t know if I’d even find another one easily. New York was filled with starry-eyed hopefuls who flocked to this city looking for work.
Right then, I felt like just another nameless face in a sea of other nameless faces.
It was pathetic that being with Brendan was the only time recently that I had felt remotely special.
I focused on working. Smiling. Bringing drinks. Laughing at the silly jokes people made when I delivered drinks to their tables. At least I made some tips tonight, which were all going to fund Davey’s dental appointment coming up.
I tried to think of my son in order to get through the night.
But soon enough, I got that feeling in my bones again—of being watched.
I told myself I was just being paranoid. That I was nervous about Brendan showing up at the bar. Whenever I looked over my shoulder or tried to find a strange face in the crowd, I couldn’t see anyone suspicious. Nobody was even looking at me particularly.
It was all in my head.
By now I was pretty sure that the guy I thought was following me down the street had been my imagination too. After all, I hadn’t seen him since.
Rocky and I were cordial for the rest of the night, and I found time to make some small talk with the other waitresses. Slowly, but surely, I could return to a sense of normalcy.
Seeing Brendan again…being with him again, had spun everything around. I didn’t even trust my own thoughts anymore.
Halfway through my shift, Rocky told me to take an order to a table at the far corner of the bar. I did as I was told, trying to force a plastic smile on my face by the time I got to the table—to encourage a tip.
I saw the man sitting by himself at the corner table. He had his face turned away from me but there was something about his demeanor that was familiar.
I was just seeing things—I said, almost out loud.
When I came up to the table, he turned to me and I saw his face.
It was the man from the street. The one who had followed me.
I gasped, stepping back in shock that I hadn’t been imagining it, and also scared.
He thought I was going to run away so he lunged forward and grabbed my wrists. He pulled me down into the chair across from him, leaning forward over the table to get closer to me.
“What do you want from me? Who are you?” I screeched.
I knew from personal experience that nobody would actually come to my rescue no matter what happened. I meant nothing to anybody at that place. Moreover, it was too loud there with the music anyway.
“Those are good questions,” the man replied with a dark ugly smile.
“Who sent you? Who do you work for? The Dohertys?”
This time he laughed wholeheartedly in response to my question. Apparently there was something about the Dohertys.
“No, I have never worked for any Doherty in my life,” he replied. It seemed like it was a matter of pride to him. So he did know the Dohertys? This was connected to Brendan somehow?
“Okay, so then tell me what you’re doing following me everywhere.”
The man let go of my hands and sat back in his chair.
“Didn’t curiosity kill the cat or something?” he said.
“Yeah, well, lucky for me I’m not a cat,” I replied.
The man had a mean smile that made my stomach churn. I wished I could have just walked away from him and found someone to help me. But I had the feeling he wasn’t going to let me go so easily. Besides, he would just find me somewhere else. Some other night. I needed to know what was going on and why I was being followed by this stranger.
So I waited for a response.
“We are interested in what you have to offer,” he began.
It was like he was talking in riddles. I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Okay, I think you just have the wrong person. I’m not who you think I am.”
“You are exactly who I know you to be. Rosalie Turner, mother of Davey Turner, three years old.”
Hearing my son’s name made me sit up straight. He must have noticed the horror on my face because he smiled.
“That got your attention enough?”
“Whatever you want from me, leave my son out of this,” I hissed.
“Sure, Rosalie. I’m not interested in your son. I’m interested in what you can do for me. For us.”
“Who are you? Who is us? What is this about?” I lost my breath as I forced the words out. By now it was clear this had nothing to do with Brendan or the Dohertys.
He opened his mouth to speak but then looked over my shoulder into the distance. The expression on his face changed. When I turned around, I saw Brendan in the crowd. He hadn’t spotted me yet, but he was looking around the crowded bar. Clearly, he was looking for me.
When I turned back the man was already leaving.
“Where are you going? What is this?”
“We’ll be in touch. In the meantime, keep this meeting to yourself. For your own good, and for the sake of your son,” he said.
He was gone before I could reply.
I stood up, staring at him as he disappeared into the crowd. My hands shook. In fact, I was shaking all over. He hadn’t given me an explanation. Why did he leave so suddenly? Because he saw Brendan? Because he knew Brendan was there to see me?
I was lost in thought as Brendan approached me. It didn’t take him long to spot me.
“Rosalie, we need to talk,” he said. There was determination marking his face.
I was annoyed with him. He’d ruined everything—once again.
“I have to get back to work. You shouldn’t be here. I don’t have time.” I made clipped remarks as I tried hurrying away from him.
“Okay, I’ll wait until your shift is over. Right here. I’m not going anywhere.” With that, he sat down in the chair that was occupied by the other man just moments ago.
I didn’t know how to get rid of Brendan, and there was a part of me that didn’t even want to be rid of him. The part of me which felt safer because he was around.
Whether Brendan was directly connected with the man who was following me, or not—his presence had driven him away and that was a relief.
Fourteen
Brendan
I waited two hours at that damn bar for Rosalie to finish her shift.
I expected more of a dramatic reaction from her. I thought she would make a scene and force me to leave. I even expected security to be called. But I was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery tonight.
I wasn’t going to be able to forget about her or move on with my daily life until she told me exactly what she had seen in me that was so revolting to her.
Maybe it was just an excuse to keep seeing her and being close to her.
If it was, I wasn’t about to admit that to myself.
I kept an eye on her as she worked. I saw the way people warmed to her. The way men looked at her. She didn’t even know she was being watched by so many people at that place.
It was pretty obvious to me that she didn’t think very highly of herself. Maybe she viewed herself as just another ordinary girl. But she was far from that.
I felt rage every ti
me she walked up to a group of rowdy drunk assholes who hit on her. I wanted to pull them off her. Hurt them and make them bleed.
But she didn’t belong to me.
She had made it very clear that she would never belong to me.
Her shift was eventually over. I thought she would make a run for the door to get away from me, but instead, she found me at the table I’d spent the night watching her.
“Wow, you’re pretty determined, aren’t you?” she said. Was this the first time I saw her smile? It sure felt like it.
“And you must be drunk because you’re not verbally assaulting me tonight,” I replied.
Rosalie chuckled, rolling her eyes.
“I guess you could say I’m glad to see you because I know you’ve got my back. I felt especially vulnerable tonight and having you here made me feel a little better.”
I wanted to pull her into my arms and kiss her.
She had no idea how badly I wanted to keep her safe, if she would just let me.
“Anyway, you said you wanted to talk to me. About what?” she asked.
“Last night things ended abruptly. I wasn’t expecting to find your son in your apartment,” I said.
“Yes, that is where he lives.”
She smiled at that and I had to smile too.
“We didn’t get a chance to finish our conversation.”
“What do you want from me, Brendan?” she asked calmly.
“The truth. I know you’re not pushing me away because you don’t want to fuck me. You want it as much as I do. So what is the real reason? You know me from somewhere, don’t you?” I said.
Rosalie looked around nervously, then drew in a deep breath.
“Will you walk me home?” she asked.
There was no way I was turning down a request like that.
Rosalie was silent for a while as we walked together, and I gave her the time she needed. It seemed like she was lost in thought over something.
“You really don’t remember me, do you?” she finally said.
Fuck. I should have known. We knew each other from somewhere. Did we fuck before? A one night stand gone sour when I kicked her out of my apartment? How was it possible that I didn’t remember her? How could I have forgotten a face and a body like hers?
“What happened?” I asked.
Rosalie brushed her hair back then tucked it behind her ear. I noticed she had a small dainty nose that matched her small heart-shaped mouth.
“We met at a house party four years ago. I guess we were both too drunk to think straight because you would never have been interested in a girl like me if you were sober.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Rosalie? I followed you into the store room literally half an hour after we met that night,” I exclaimed.
She smiled faintly then shook her head.
“But back then I was a nerd and awkward. I wasn’t expecting you to be interested in me. Nobody at that party expected you to be interested in me.”
I had been to a lot of parties, and especially four years ago—most of that time of my life had been spent through a drunken haze.
“So we banged?” I asked.
Rosalie stopped in her tracks and stared at me. I must have said the wrong thing because her cheeks flushed red. She was losing her temper with me again.
“Yeah. We did. Are you happy now? You know the truth. We had sex four years ago. A dirty one night stand after which we never saw each other again. End of story.”
I wanted to reach for her face and pull her to me—explain to her that I was a drunk idiot back then. Maybe I was still an idiot, but I wasn’t drunk. I didn’t know what I wanted from her but I knew I wanted her to keep talking.
“But that isn’t where our story ends, right? Here we are, four years later.”
She shook her head slowly like she was very disappointed in me.
“Yeah, that’s a funny joke. At least it’s funnier than that stupid joke I told you.”
“What stupid joke?” I asked.
She breathed in deeply and looked away before she spoke again.
“Michael Jackson moonwalks into a bar,” she replied.
Michael Jackson moonwalks into a bar. It was a joke I had heard before. It was a line I’d repeated to myself over and over again in the past years—and just couldn’t remember where I’d heard it first.
And now that Rosalie stood there beside me, saying it casually with a shrug of her shoulders—it all started to fall into place.
I saw her face as it was four years ago. Her hair was longer back then. She had bangs that almost covered her blue eyes. She was swaying to the music playing in the house while she stood by the pool in the backyard.
“Yeah, it’s not funny,” Rosalie said, interrupting my montage of memories.
“I thought it was the first time I heard it,” I replied.
She looked surprised.
“So you do remember me!”
“I just remembered now. I remembered the joke but somehow everything else about that night had been wiped from my memory.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her chin up.
“So my joke was more memorable than I was,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“I was drunk, Rosalie. Back then, every night of my life ended like that. Drunk and passed out somewhere.”
“In bed with some new girl,” she added.
I said nothing because it was the truth, but I didn’t think she would have wanted to hear that.
“Why did you disappear?” I asked.
Her brows furrowed in surprise.
“Excuse me?” she snapped.
“I remember leaving to go get a few drinks and when I got back, you weren’t in the room.”
“You came back?” she asked, gulping.
“I had to leave the house and go to the nearest gas station because all the alcohol at that place tasted like piss. I remember it now. When I got back to the house and went to the room, it was empty. I left after that because I figured I would never see you again. Then I pushed you out of my memory like a trauma I was trying to get over.” I spoke with a smile on my face but it wasn’t funny.
The more I thought about it, the more the pieces fell together. The more I could remember now.
Rosalie’s lower lip trembled as she stared at me.
“I went looking for you because you’d been gone for a while. Other people told me they saw you leaving. I left because I was embarrassed and insulted. I didn’t think I would ever see you again either. I thought you did a runner,” she said.
We stood in the middle of the busy sidewalk, staring at each other in surprise.
It felt a little insane that we had found our way back to each other again.
“Do you want to come back to my apartment?” she asked.
Heck yeah. That was exactly what I wanted to do.
Fifteen
Rosalie
It seemed strangely coincidental that Davey was going to spend the night with my mom. That Brendan and I were going to have the apartment to ourselves.
I wanted to believe he told the truth about that night four years ago—that he really did go back looking for me in the house. So I believed him.
We went back to the apartment and Brendan looked around, expecting Davey to appear out of his room again.
“He’s with my mom tonight,” I said, putting him at ease.
“You’ve got a good kid,” he said as he took off his jacket.
What did he know about kids? I wanted to ask him.
I didn’t ask him that because I didn’t want to think about my son. He was safe and comfortable with my mom and I wanted one night to be about me. Since Davey was born three years ago, I hadn’t taken a single night off to do something for myself.
And now that I made the decision to have Brendan Doherty in my apartment, all to myself—I wanted it to be about me.
“You should have told me the moment we met,” he said.
I took off my
shoes. My feet hurt from being overworked.
“I knew it when you ran away, that something was wrong.”
“I didn’t want to be reminded of that night, I guess,” I replied.
“Why not? We had fun. I thought.”
“Yeah, it was fun, but I was embarrassed when you disappeared. Other people at the party were having a laugh at my expense. They thought I had been so stupid for falling for you so quickly. My best friend at the time…Petra, she convinced me to never talk about you again.”
“And you forgot about me? Just like that?” he asked.
I stood in the middle of my living room as Brendan came up closer to me. He hooked a finger under my chin, lifting my face up towards him.
No. I had never forgotten him. I couldn’t—as much as I tried. I always remembered him as the guy who had changed me. In more ways than he would ever know. I wasn’t the same person after we met.
But I couldn't tell him that. I didn’t want him to know how much our chance encounter that night had meant to me.
“Life went on,” I replied, just before he kissed me.
It was a slow sinking kiss. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close to him. My hips were thrust and pinned up against his stocky muscular legs. He kissed me slowly, passionately devouring me.
He remembered me! He remembered my silly joke! That was going to be enough for me tonight. I didn’t want to think about the next day. Life would go on from there. This wasn't going to last.
This time it was going to be all about closure.
We sank down to the floor today, kissing each other all over. Simultaneously, he pulled my clothes off one by one. My jeans. My blouse. My underwear and bra. All of a sudden, I was sitting there on the floor without a stitch of clothing.
He pulled away from me and sat back, staring at me.
“Move your arms away, Rosalie. Let me look at you,” he said in a deep grumble.