Connections

by Jacqueline Wein

  “Hey, what are you so intent on in here?” She hadn’t heard Ken come into the kitchen, and his breath against the back of her neck startled her. “What that needs is some elbow grease.” He gently pushed her aside, grabbed the worn Brillo pad and started scouring. Maybe Dr. Matthews was right. She’d have to be out of her mind to give up a guy like this. She might be crazy, but she wasn’t stupid.

  She wiped her hands on a paper towel and impulsively hugged him from behind, laying her head between his shoulder blades. Louise had never had a problem with sex, only with affection. So she was very much aware that the casual squeeze she had just given him was a major emotional outburst for her.

  Ken turned around and looked down at her with that tender expression that always melted her, much as her father’s loving look used to do. His hands, still foamy with soap, flattened against hers in a patty-cake touch. Then their fingers plaited together and a current of excitement charged through them, from one to the other. Louise pressed into him, her pelvis grinding against him, bone chafing bone, honing the eroticism of devotion turned to desire. Her voice was hoarse when she said, “Let’s go inside.”

  On the way to the bedroom, they stripped off most of their clothes. Louise fell onto the bed on her stomach, her breasts rubbing the stitching of her summer quilt, the coarse thread brushing her nipples as she squirmed. Ken straddled the back of her thighs. He clutched her buttocks through the bikini panties she still had on and moved up so the tip of his penis touched the silk crotch. Her hips began to rotate slowly, and he timed his movements to pick up her rhythm and swing his erection to meet her behind as it rose up and came down. He kneaded her cheeks with his hands, pulling them apart, mesmerized by the sliver of fabric narrowing and disappearing into the widening cleavage. He stood on his knees finally and pulled her panties down to her ankles, where they bound her feet together. He pushed her up to a crouch in front of him. He held one hand across the fissure, using his fingers to spread her two fleshy halves. His other hand guided his penis from the back of her waist along the cleft to its end in the recesses of her vaginal lips, where he lubricated it, and let it slide back along the same route.

  Louise groaned and pushed her weight against his arms, flexing her elbows straighter, so they could hold her bent in position. Ken moved down to the edge of the bed and rolled her panties over her feet. When he gently held her thighs, her knees automatically moved apart, her body rocked backward, exposing the source of all her passion. Ken bent his face and saw her insides quiver from the closeness of his breath. Louise gasped, the air stopped in her chest. Ken plunged his tongue inside and drank the liquid satin.

  Chapter 112

  Laurie’s stomach twisted as she approached the cage. The thought of this adorable little creature being sent to a shelter, longing for attention and affection, only to be euthanized after a few days, made her feel like retching. Megabyte stood, her ears back, a pathetic longing in her eyes. Laurie pulled the lever back, released the lock, and picked her up. Megabyte rubbed her face into the nest between Laurie’s neck and shoulder, and whimpered. “I wouldn’t have left you here, baby,” she cooed to her. She gently pulled her away from her chest and placed her in the nylon Sherpa bag. Megabyte lay down and purred, as if she knew she was going back home.

  “They’re just going to have to suck it up and realize you’re part of the household too, and you’re not leaving,” she promised.

  When she got home and set the carrier on the floor, Felix and Oscar stopped in their tracks on the way to greet Laurie.

  “You guys are just going to have to fight it out, ’cause nobody’s leaving here. Understand?” Megabyte’s back arched into a bow when she stepped out of the carrier, staring at them. But they both just looked at her without hissing or crouching into attack mode. Until the newcomer headed for the kitchen and their water bowl. Laurie rushed to put a second water bowl in the corner of the bedroom, crossing her fingers that Megabyte would claim it without any competition. So far, there was peace and quiet.

  Laurie checked her Facebook page and saw 783 “likes.” That meant that 783 people had read her PET-ICULAR, and even though they called it a “like,” she knew they didn’t like what they read but were affected by the information. Maybe their awareness would lead them to speak out or donate or adopt or write their congressmen. Maybe, maybe…

  Chapter 113

  “Pretty good. I like how you did this—bulleting the solution points so they follow your overview.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll send a copy to Commissioner Cooker and one to the mayor, although you could probably set up most of it yourself, without the city’s help. Unless, of course, you want to get paid.” Bernie Petris took the lids off the two containers and passed one over to Ken. “Thought you were taking it black.”

  “I am.” Ken broke a packet of Sweet ’N Low over the steaming coffee. “Except when I’m out. Then I treat myself to a regular.”

  Bernie leaned all the way back in his chair and put his feet up on the edge of the desk, which was government-issue, old, and scratched. “Then how often do you actually drink it black?”

  “Hm.” Ken Hollis pretended to concentrate on his answer. “Once, maybe twice a month I make a cup at home. And it’s much easier, since I usually don’t remember to buy milk anyway.”

  “Big shot!” Bernie took a long swallow. “Ah, that hits the spot. But maybe iced woulda been better on a day like today. Boy, it’s sweltering.”

  “Yeah, but it has been all summer.”

  “Can you believe it’s almost over? Labor Day already. Weekend after this one.”

  “Yeah. Time flies when you’re having fun.”

  “Or getting old. However you look at it.”

  “Thing is, Bernie, I’d like to get this organized as soon as possible. Once school starts, I won’t have much time to give it.”

  “I realize. You know I’ll give it my best push. How much we talking about? Ballpark.”

  “Oh, not much. As you said, we can get a local school or church to give us a room. There are always volunteers around to do the typing and copying and envelopes. Stuff like that. In fact, I had a brainstorm the other night. Thought I’d run it by you.”

  “What’s that?” Bernie smacked the last of the coffee off his lips and tossed the container into the pail in the corner.

  “I was thinking of changing one of my courses, community issues and services, to what we’re talking about—growing crimes connected with the elderly. And having field-work requirements. That way, I could get the students out there for hands-on studying. Who knows? Maybe somebody can think of something better than I have so far.” Ken handed his coffee container to Bernie to throw out. “Even if it’s too late for this semester, I could certainly do it for spring. I’m sure we’ll still have a problem then. Or a worse one.”

  “Not a bad idea. Well, you have an appointment scheduled with the mayor and the whole committee right after Labor Day. Why not bring it up? By then, he will have read your report”—Bernie tapped the folder on the wood—“and he’ll be more informed. Oh, that reminds me, talking about ‘informed.’ Heard something you might wanna check. Cooker was telling me about the Central Park Precinct looking for a young boy. With a big dog. Assumed he was just another runaway. Routine investigation. Until a bum showed up in the hospital with his neck practically perforated by this dog biting him. They link it to the missing persons they have out and talk to the parents. Still routine. Until the mother and father have a big fight in front of the detectives, and something comes out about a payoff the woman made for the dog. I didn’t get the whole thing, but now they suspect maybe the kid was really kidnapped. By the people who threatened the dog. Probably nothing to it, but hey, I don’t know. I thought maybe you’d be interested in the dog thing.”

  “I’m sure it has nothing to do with my old lady.” Ken had become possessive of Eileen Hargan. “But I guess I could give them a call. Have the number?”

  “Sure, buddy.
” Bernie sifted some of his papers around and finding his notation on a scratch pad, he copied it down for Ken.

  Chapter 114

  As soon as Yolanda Santiago came home, she sat down, untied her laces, and pushed her shoes off. She stood up, reached under the white skirt, and yanked down her pantyhose. Then, with a loud “Dios,” she pulled them off and flexed her toes. Señora Sanchez offered to bring her a cold papaya juice, but Yolanda was too tired and too hot to decide if she wanted one. The overtime for doing a double-shift went right into her furniture fund for when they moved—if they moved—but it was hell on her feet. And her back, which ached constantly; the tip of her spine was sore even when she got out of bed in the morning.

  Staying for the last meal at Mount Sinai meant she got home just after her own kids’ supper, although it was a relief sometimes to miss the clamor of chattering and squabbling at the table. And the dishes. Yolanda tried to fix dinner before she left at 4:30 a.m., but it was hard to think of meat and rice before she ate breakfast. Fortunately, Señora Sanchez didn’t mind cooking and had even taken to sleeping on the couch on those nights that Yolanda was going to be late, because it was easier for her than going home and coming back.

  Yolanda finally got up and went to her bedroom. The side of the double bed that Maria shared with Elena was mussed up, but six-year-old Maria was sitting on the floor between it and the twin bed Yolanda slept in, coloring. “Mama! Mama!” She jumped up, arms open for a hug.

  Yolanda picked her up and kissed her cheek loudly. “Why aren’t you asleep, mija?”

  “I wanted to finish. Put me down.” Maria rushed to hold up her coloring book. “Look at Cinderella, Mama. Isn’t she beautiful?”

  Yolanda was hanging up her uniform but turned absently, and trying to sound enthusiastic, she complimented Maria on the colors of the gown and the neatness of the strokes inside the black outline. She put on her nightgown and slippers and asked, “Where’s everybody?”

  “They’re playing a game on the Wii.”

  “Oh, your brother’s going to kill them.”

  “Uh. Ah.” She shook her head once to each side as she enunciated two distinct words in her favorite expression.

  “How d’ya know?”

  “’Cause he’s in the bedroom too.”

  “Ricky’s home tonight?”

  “Uh-ha-ah.” Maria used her second favorite expression.

  “Okay, that’s enough for you. Into bed. Hurry.” She patted her behind and slipped on a housecoat. The buttons on the housecoat had long ago fallen off, and Yolanda held it closed with her hand. She bent to tuck in Maria, switched on the nightlight in the floor socket so she and Elena would be able to find their way to bed, turned off the overhead fixture, and blew a kiss to Maria before she slipped out.

  She hesitated outside the smaller bedroom, on the other side of the kitchen, her hand on the knob, listening. There was a lot of noise from mechanical television voices and those of children, all talking at the same time.

  “No, stop, ooh, don’t.” As soon as she heard Elena wail, her maternal instinct made her open the door quickly. Her oldest daughter was sitting on the foot of the bed, her eyes closed, rocking sideways.

  Yolanda breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever it was, it wasn’t as bad as her imagination, as her worst fear. Having a son with no father around, a teenager who was always testing his manhood and trying to prove to his friends how macho he was, as well as having a young daughter…Dios, she didn’t know how she’d survive until they were adults. When the twins were small and slept with her, there was no choice but for Elena and Ricardo Jr. to share a room. But they were much younger then, anyway. Some of her friends thought she was lucky; some of them didn’t have two bedrooms. But she thought she’d be better off if they’d all had to be in the same room. At least she’d be able to watch everything that was going on. She was so glad when the little ones were old enough and she could split them up and put the two boys together and the girls in with her. But even that didn’t stop her from worrying. Señora Sanchez was too old, too deaf, maybe even too naïve to ever be able to notice something fishy going on.

  “What’s wrong?” Yolanda asked, stepping into the room. She felt guilty at her relief, at her lack of real concern for whatever had happened, as long as it wasn’t that. God forgive her for even thinking it.

  “Hi, Mama.” Elena came over to her and stood on her toes to plant a kiss on her mother’s lips.

  “Ricky’s scaring us,” Michael said. He was on the floor in front of the TV, concentrating on a Mr. Potato Head in the circle of his crossed legs.

  “Don’t I get a kiss hello?” She smiled at Maria’s twin, knowing he couldn’t have cared less who had come in, as long as it was somebody he could report his brother to.

  “In a minute,” Michael answered. “Ricky’s trying to give us nightmares again. After you told him not to.”

  Ricky clicked the remote control and the sound abruptly stopped. “Hi, Ma. Don’t listen to them.”

  “You’re not scaring them, are you? You know how easily you frighten them with your horror stories.”

  “Yeah, he does it on purpose,” Michael reported.

  “C’mon. Nuthin’ like that.” Her firstborn lounged on his pillow in a T-shirt and jockey shorts.

  Elena shouted. “Gross! It’s worse than monsters and ghosts. He was making up these things, Mama.” She scrunched up her face in disgust.

  “I was only telling ’em about—”

  Elena covered her ears with her hands. “No, no, don’t say it again. Mama, tell him not to.”

  “Ma, honest,” Ricky insisted. “I was telling them about work—that’s all.”

  Chapter 115

  The sun squeezed through the tightly shut blinds and like a shiny scythe, it left a swatch of light in the darkness. It cut across Laurie’s face, waking her. She didn’t move, because Oscar was fast asleep, burrowed into her armpit, and half of Felix’s body was over her chest, his head just touching Oscar’s side. She tried not to disturb them as she reached her hand over and pulled the shorter cord on the blinds to angle the slats. Her bedroom brightened with morning.

  From where she lay, the branch of the tree in front of her building waved in and out of her view. A breeze. She moved gently, and the two cats did their wake-up exercises, stretching their backs and their paws to their very ends, pleasure rattling in their rib cages and echoing against her. She turned off the air conditioner and switched on the radio. She listened to the end of a song and part of the news, waiting to hear the weather forecast. The humidity had dropped to 30 percent and it was only 68 degrees outside. The forecast was for a pleasant day with a high in the eighties. Laurie nuzzled her furry friends for a few minutes and then got up. She struggled with the window and once it opened, she stuck her head out to breathe the fresh air and feel its current on her skin. Then she closed it all but a few inches so the cats couldn’t fall out.

  She quickly washed up and put on a pair of old jeans and a one-size-fits-all shirt that tented her figure. She went out to pick up a coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts and the newspaper. Once on the street, she was invigorated by the gentle wind that carried a promise of autumn. She gulped its freshness and decided the weather was too beautiful to go right back. She walked down Woodhaven to the corner where it met Queens Boulevard and, on the spur of the moment, she went into the diner to have her breakfast instead of heading to Dunkin’ Donuts. She skimmed the News, read the picture captions, and headed back to her apartment.

  As she casually strolled home, looking at seemingly abandoned apartment houses, she tried to decide what she could do with a day as perfect as this one. She wished she had a car so she could take a ride to the country and just drive on narrow roads, smell the grass, and watch the trees whiz past. She could always take a bus to the beach. But she hated the beach. She could catch up on her housework, a word she associated with her grandmother, but the weather was too wonderful to stay indoors. No matter what, she would not—absolute
ly not—go to the office. Lightning should strike her dead if she broke her oath. Laurie smiled to herself, imagining a bolt of electricity leaving the summer sky to hit her and the headlines announcing FREAK STORM IN ELMHURST KILLS 1.

  Surely she could find something to do with herself. Or with someone. She had neglected her old friends in the past few years. Except for holidays and birthdays, she hardly bothered with anyone. Maybe nobody would want to see her anymore. If she was having this much trouble deciding what to do with herself today, what would she do next weekend when she had three days off? Then everything would surely be deserted, everybody away for Labor Day. It was depressing to think of the end of summer, even though she didn’t care about it very much. It was more like she hadn’t noticed its coming. And now it was leaving, closing…her final chance to enjoy the season.

  She hadn’t even been on a real vacation in…she strained her memory…probably six or seven years. Not counting the week she took off when she moved from her last apartment in Brooklyn. Or when she flew to Scottsdale, Arizona, right after her parents retired. Before she had the fight with them. And now all the time was lost. Of course, if she really needed the time off or wanted it for a special trip, she was sure Dr. Pomalee would let her take some of it and add it on to the current three weeks she was entitled to. But she never would ask or want it.

  The sun was getting stronger and it beat on her shoulders and the back of her neck as she walked. Even with her dark glasses, she squinted against the white glare. The breeze had long since evaporated, and she was uncomfortably hot. She walked as if on an endless desert, toward a mirage. She checked her wallet, just in case a bus came along, to make sure her MetroCard was there. Her lips puckered into a scowl, and she quickened her pace, anxious now to return to…she didn’t know.