Bloody Mary

by J. A. Konrath

  The hottest summer on record eventually fizzled out, easing into autumn’s first frost. One hundred and three degrees to thirty in three short months. It confirmed my belief that the Midwest would be much more hospitable if we moved it six hundred miles south.

  It was a chilly Tuesday morning, and Mr. Friskers was clawing the hide off a pumpkin Latham had bought earlier in the week. The cat hadn’t exactly cozied up to me, but he didn’t attack me constantly either. It was more an uneasy alliance than a friendship, but I was grateful for his presence.

  The twelve weeks had been tough.

  I hadn’t been back to work yet, and even though I was in love with the most patient, decent, understanding man in the northern hemisphere, I felt like I was losing my mind.

  “Want some milk, cat?”

  Mr. Friskers halted his attack on the intruder gourd and squinted at me. I went to the fridge, found the 2 percent, and poured some into his bowl. He waited until I backed away before stuffing his face.

  I yawned, and gave my head a quick shake, trying to dispel the drowsies. I’d fallen into the habit of taking a sleeping pill every night, and the grogginess took time to wear off.

  I yawned again, wondered if I was hungry, and when I’d last eaten. Dinner, last night. Two bites of pizza, with Latham. The leftovers were in the fridge, but cold pizza didn’t sound like a good breakfast. I thought about making myself eggs, dismissed it as too difficult, and plodded back into the bedroom and onto the bed.

  Picked up the remote. Put it back down. Picked it up again.

  Mistake. Channel 5 was on, covering the prelims for the Fuller trial. I switched it off and stared at the ceiling, trying to stop the thoughts from coming.

  They came anyway.

  “I know,” I said aloud. “I should have pulled the trigger sooner.”

  I would have loved to say I was talking to Holly Fuller. A large part of me wished that I would see her every time I closed my eyes, or dream about her whenever I nabbed a few precious winks.

  But the truth was, I had a hard time remembering what she looked like. Her face had been replaced with my own.

  I didn’t need a shrink degree to know what that meant. When Holly died, I not only disappointed her, but myself as well.

  It’s tough being your own worst critic.

  Someone knocked on my door, shave-and-a-haircut.

  “Can you get that?” I yelled at the cat.

  The cat didn’t respond, so I tied my bathrobe closed, forced myself out of bed, and padded to the door.

  My mother smiled at me through the peephole.

  “Mom!”

  I couldn’t open the door fast enough. When I hugged her, I felt like a little girl again, even though I was four inches taller than she was. I buried my nose in her shoulder, smelling the same detergent she’s been using for forty years. She wore a fuzzy white turtleneck and some baggy jeans, and her right hand clenched the hook of an aluminum cane.

  “Jacqueline, honey, it’s great to see you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  “We wanted it to be a surprise.”

  I blinked. “We?”

  “Hello, Jack.”

  The voice made me catch my breath. I stepped away from my mother, looking at the man next to her, holding a single red rose.

  “Hello, Alan.”

  My ex-husband smiled boyishly at me. The past ten years had been kind. He’d kept his hair, still thick and blond, and his waistline, still trim. There were more lines around his eyes and mouth than I remembered, but he looked almost exactly the same as he did the day he left me.

  “Alan was kind enough to pick me up at the airport. We’ve been planning this for about two weeks.”

  I cinched my robe tighter, and spoke to my mother while my eyes were on him.

  “Mom, maybe you should have told me first.”

  “Nonsense. You would have said no.”

  “Mom . . .”

  “You’re both adults, Jacqueline. I didn’t think it would be a problem. Now, are you going to invite us in, or are we going to have a reunion in your hallway?”

  Alan raised his eyebrows at me, still smiling. I gave him my back and walked into my apartment.

  “Do you have any coffee, Jacqueline?”

  “I’ll make some.”

  I entered the kitchen, lips pursed. Coffee used to be an important part of my day, but now that I lived without a schedule caffeine wasn’t necessary. I managed to remember how the machine worked, and got a pot going as Alan came in and leaned against the breakfast bar.

  “Is this awkward?” he asked. He wore blue Dockers, a white button-down shirt, and a familiar faded brown bomber jacket.

  “Don’t you think so?”

  “No.”

  I wanted to say something, to hurt him, but didn’t have the energy. Maybe after some coffee.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Fine. Okay. Good.”

  “I heard you got shot again.”

  “I wasn’t aware that you knew about the first time.”

  “Your mother keeps me informed.”

  I folded my arms. “Since when?”

  “Since always.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Ever since our divorce, Mary and I have been in touch.”

  I snorted. “Bullshit.”

  “Why is it bullshit? I always loved your mother.”

  I had him there. “Since when did love stop you from leaving?”

  Alan nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  “Jacqueline!” my mother called from the living room. “You didn’t tell me you had a cat!”

  “Mom, don’t!”

  I rushed past Alan, hoping to prevent the maiming, and was shocked to see Mom cradling Mr. Friskers in her arms and stroking his head.

  “He’s adorable. What’s his name?”

  “Mr. Friskers.”

  “Oh. Well, he’s adorable anyway.”

  “You should put him down, Mom. He doesn’t like people very much.”

  “Nonsense. He seems to like me just fine.”

  “Then why is he growling at you?”

  “That’s not growling, Jacqueline. That’s purring.”

  Son of a gun. Damn cat never purred for me. Not once.

  My mother made a show of looking around the apartment. She tapped her knuckles on a large cardboard box. “What’s with all the packing, dear? Putting some things into storage?”

  “Yes.” I hadn’t yet told my mother about moving in with Latham.

  “Good. I’ll need the room.”

  She beamed at me, so full of strength and life, so unlike the woman I saw in the hospital bed months before.

  I tried to sound upbeat. “You’ve decided to move in?”

  “Yes, I have. I know I’ve threatened to disown you whenever you brought it up, but I came to a different conclusion. I don’t believe I need you to look after me, but I don’t have too many years left, and I’d like to spend them in the company of my daughter.”

  I smiled, wondering how real it looked. I’d given up trying to bully my mother into living with me, which is why I finally relented with Latham.

  He would be crushed.

  And, truth be told, I was crushed too.

  “I have a buyer for the condo in Florida. I brought some papers for you to sign.”

  “Great.”

  “I should be ready to move in next week.”

  “Great.”

  Mom set down the cat and hobbled up to me, putting a wrinkled hand on my cheek.

  “We’ll talk more later, dear. We caught an early flight and I’m exhausted. Do you mind if I take a short nap here on the couch?”

  “Use my bed, Mom.”

  At least someone would be using it. For something.

  “Go grab something to eat with Alan. I know you have a lot of catching up to do.”

  She gave my face a tender pat and limped into the bedroom.

  Alan stood by the window, ha
nds in his pockets.

  “Are you up for breakfast?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Would you like me to go?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you taking anything for depression?”

  “Why would you think I was depressed?”

  He shrugged, almost imperceptibly. Much of Alan’s emotional range was imperceptible.

  “Your mother seems to think you need someone now.”

  “So you came running to the rescue? Isn’t that odd, considering the last time I needed someone, you fled like a thief in the night.”

  He smiled.

  “I didn’t leave like a thief in the night.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I left in the mid-afternoon, and I didn’t take a single thing with me.”

  “You took my jacket.”

  “What jacket?”

  “The one you’re wearing right now.”

  “This is my jacket.”

  “I’m the one who wore it all the time.”

  “Why don’t we fight about it over breakfast?”

  “I don’t want breakfast.”

  “You need to eat.”

  “How do you know what I need?”

  Alan walked past me, and I wondered if I hit a nerve. I followed him into the kitchen.

  “I said, how do you know what I need?”

  “I heard you.”

  He found a mug, poured some coffee, and handed it to me.

  “I don’t want coffee.”

  “Yes you do. You’re always pissy until you have your first cup of coffee.”

  I whined, “I am not pissy.”

  Alan started to laugh, and I had to bite my lower lip to keep from grinning.

  “Fine. Gimmee the coffee.”

  He gimmeed, and I took a sip, surprised at how good it tasted.

  “If you don’t want to go out, I can cook.” Alan opened the fridge and pulled out a single egg. “It’s your last one. We can split it.”

  “I’d like my half sunny-side up.”

  I sat at my dinette set and watched Alan search for a frying pan. It brought back memories. Fond ones. Alan made breakfast almost every morning, during the years we’d been married.

  Having found the pan, Alan searched the fridge again.

  “No butter?”

  “I haven’t been to the store in a while.”

  “I can tell. What’s this, a lime or a potato?” He held out a greenish brown thing.

  “I think it’s a tomato.”

  “There’s something growing on it.”

  “Save it. I may need it if I ever get a staph infection.”

  He tossed the tomato in the garbage, and found two red potatoes, half a green onion, and half a bottle of chardonnay. From the freezer he took a bag of mixed vegetables and a pound of bacon. Then he went through my cabinets, liberating some olive oil, several spices, and a jar of salsa.

  “This doesn’t seem like an appetizing combination of food items.”

  He winked. “I’ve got to work with what I’ve got.”

  I sipped my coffee and watched him for the twenty minutes it took to microwave, peel, and dice the potatoes, fry the bacon, and sauté the veggies, chopped onion, salsa, and assorted spices in olive oil and white wine. He added the potatoes and bacon, stirred like mad, and then dumped the contents onto two plates.

  “Hash à la Daniels.” He set the plate in front of me.

  “Smells good.”

  “If it’s lousy, there’s always pizza. Hold on.”

  The egg was still frying on the stove. He slid it out of the pan, sunny-side up, onto my pile of hash.

  “Bon appétit.”

  I took a bite, and that led to two and three, and pretty soon I was shoveling it down my throat conveyor-belt fashion.

  We didn’t speak during breakfast, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable.

  When I scooped the last bite into my mouth, Alan whisked away my plate and refilled my coffee.

  “Still angry?” Alan asked.

  “A little. I thought we had an unspoken understanding all these years.”

  “Which was?”

  “You don’t call me, I don’t call you.”

  He nodded, putting his plate into the dishwasher.

  “I never called you, Jack, because I knew it would hurt.”

  “You didn’t seem to mind hurting me when you left.”

  “I wasn’t referring to you in this case.”

  “You’re saying it would have hurt you to call me?”

  “Yes.”

  What could I say to that? I chose, “Oh.”

  Alan closed the dishwasher, then sat across from me, leaning in.

  “So, how are you?” he asked.

  “Fine.”

  “I know you’re not fine, Jack.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Still have the insomnia?”

  I looked away. “Yeah.”

  “You feel guilty about that cop’s wife.”

  “Not really. IA cleared me on the shooting. It was completely by-the-book.”

  “By-the-book isn’t enough for you. You have to be perfect, or you can’t live with yourself.”

  I felt the armor I’d built up over the last decade begin to flake away. I needed to hate Alan. That’s how I got through it.

  “You don’t know me like you think you do.”

  He shifted back in his chair, giving me room to breathe.

  “How’s the injury?”

  “Almost healed, thank God. Latham has been more than patient.”

  “Latham?”

  “My boyfriend.”

  I stared hard at Alan, but he didn’t react. I don’t know why that disappointed me.

  “That’s probably why you think I’m not fine. I just need to get laid.”

  “That did make you cranky. Remember that time I threw out my back?”

  I grinned. “The three worst weeks of our marriage. Productive, though. I doubled my arrest record during that time.”

  “Remember when I was finally healed?”

  “Yeah. We made up for lost time, didn’t we?”

  “Sure did. And I threw out my back again.”

  We both laughed, and I wondered how he turned the conversation away from Latham so quickly.

  “I love him. Latham, I mean.”

  Alan stood up and walked over to me.

  “That’s nice. You deserve it.”

  “He’s wonderful. You’d like him.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder.

  “I hope I get a chance to meet him.”

  He leaned down, getting in my personal space.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Do you think there could ever be an ‘us’ again?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Prove it to me.”

  “How?”

  “Kiss me.”

  “No. You don’t have that right.”

  “I made a mistake, leaving. I want to make it up to you. But I need to know if your feelings are still there.”

  “Alan . . .”

  “I still love you, Jack. I always have. I didn’t leave because I stopped loving you. I left because I couldn’t compete with your job. It took everything you had, and there was nothing left for me. Plus, the constant worrying you wouldn’t come home.”

  “Nothing has changed, Alan.”

  “I’ve changed. I can handle it now. And seeing you again . . .”

  I said, “Don’t,” but his lips met mine, and I didn’t stop it, I didn’t pull away, and all of our history came rushing back, all of the good times, and I closed my eyes and let my tongue find his and spent a moment wondering what might have been.

  Then I found my center and pushed him gently away.

  “I’m in love with another man.”

  “I know.”

  I traced my fingers along his jaw.

  “You hurt me, Alan.”

  “I know.”

  “I don�
��t want to do this.”

  But when he kissed me again, I knew that I did.

  CHAPTER 24

  I didn’t sleep with him, but felt so damn guilty I might as well have.

  After the kissing became light petting, I excused myself to check on Mom.

  Mom was snoring peacefully, with a silly smile on her face. I wasn’t stupid. Bringing Alan here was part of some grand plan of hers, and for all she knew, it was working out fine.

  For all I knew, she was right.

  I dragged my tired bones into the shower, a cold one, and dressed in the most unattractive outfit I had: one of Latham’s ratty football jerseys and an old pair of size ten jeans (after Alan left I briefly went from an eight to a ten, having traded the comfort of a husband for the comfort of pie).

  I was searching through my closet for my ugliest pair of shoes, when I heard the screaming.

  Alan.

  My gun was in the bedside nightstand, and I grabbed it and ran into the living room. Alan was writhing on the sofa, Mr. Friskers trying to gnaw off his ear.

  I realized I was pointing my gun, relaxed my death grip and set it on the table, and then tried to goad the cat off my ex-husband.

  “Bad kitty. Let go of his ear.”

  I tugged. Alan screamed.

  “Careful, Jack! He’s clamped down on cartilage!”

  “Hold on. I’ll be right back.”

  “Hurry! He’s chewing!”

  I found the catnip mouse under the sofa, and shoved it under Mr. Friskers’s nose.

  “Easy, cat. Let him go. Let him go.”

  The cat went limp, and I pulled him away from Alan and set him on the floor.

  “I was just sitting there, and he attacked me. How bad am I bleeding?”

  “Bad.”

  “Stitches-bad?”

  “You’re missing about half your ear.”

  Alan spun around, alarmed.

  “Really?”

  “Maybe we can pump the cat’s stomach.” I kept my voice neutral. “We might be able to sew it back on.”

  He figured out I was joshing him and threw a sofa cushion at me.

  I went to the kitchen and pulled a bunch of paper towels off the roll. Since acquiring Mr. Friskers, I always made sure I had an ample supply.

  “It hurts.” Alan had a hand clamped to his ear. He frowned, petulant.

  “Oh, quit being a baby. It’s nothing.”

  “Easy for you to say. For the rest of my life, my sunglasses will be crooked.”

  “You’ll be fine. If you want, I’ll let you borrow some of my earrings.” I dabbed at the blood. “You have enough holes for six or seven.”