49
The restaurant was a tiny place on San Pablo Avenue. Just a few tables, all bunched a little too close together so that a person had to squeeze a bit sitting down. An open galley kitchen ran along one side, a battered and ancient gas stove topped with huge pots. The restaurant was run by a Vietnamese couple. The husband cooked and the wife, a tiny woman with black hair and wrinkled cheeks, greeted me warmly and seated me at once.
She looked at the second place setting inquiringly.
“I’m meeting someone. Also, would you mind if I used your phone?” I added, before she walked away.
“No cell phone?” She looked surprised.
“Afraid not,” I said. “No cell phone.”
For some reason, she found this very funny. She broke into peals of laughter. “I thought everyone had cell phones. My mother is ninety-two. Her village only got electricity last fifteen years, but even she has a cell phone.” Still chuckling, she led me over to the front of the little restaurant, where a cord phone was fastened to the wall.
Jess picked up on the second ring. “Who is this?”
“It’s me.”
I heard the relief fill her voice. “You’re okay? I’ve been reading the papers.”
“I’m okay, yeah. How’s he doing?”
“He’s better, now. Much better.”
“Can I have a word with him?”
“Of course.”
There was a pause and then Brandon’s voice came on. His voice sounded clearer, more alert than it had been in a long time. “Nik? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. How are you?”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” my brother answered. “Maybe it’s time I moved on from that place where I’ve been. Maybe I could move closer to you. If that’s still okay?”
I swallowed. “It’s still okay. Yeah.”
“Thanks, Nik. For everything.”
Back at the table, I took an envelope out of my jacket. I opened it and looked through the pictures inside. Faces. One, then another. A young woman with brown eyes and a resolute expression, a spray of freckles across her skin. A Middle Eastern man in his forties, smiling easily as he pointed to something out of the frame. A black woman about my age, wearing a colorful silk shawl, an infant held in her arms. People. People who were alive. People who weren’t being thrown in prison cells or being beaten or lined up and shot. I wished Karen could have been sitting with me. They were her pictures. She had gotten them. I wished that the people in the pictures could know about Karen Li.
“What are you looking at?” Ethan’s voice.
I put the photographs back in the envelope. “I’ll tell you some other time.”
I stood to kiss him and he looked at me, shocked. Between Victor and Joseph, I wasn’t going to be turning heads for a while. Not in a good way, at least.
“What happened?” he asked hesitantly, as though even asking would somehow jar me and cause new pain. “Are you okay?”
“Everyone keeps asking me that.”
“I wonder why. You look like you picked a fight with Mike Tyson.”
“Mike Tyson’s retired.”
“Maybe he’s onto something.”
I shook my head. “I don’t play golf and I don’t fish.”
“You could take up knitting, maybe. Something safe.”
The talk went on like that for a bit. Keeping it light. As though we were getting to know each other again. We ordered, and the food came out quickly. With food things felt more comfortable. Soon we were slurping rice noodles from big bowls of beef pho. I used chopsticks to dip the beef into a side plate of hot sauce and spooned up more of the hot liquid. The food felt good. Sitting there with Ethan felt good.
He finally pushed his bowl away. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“It’s going to make me sound like an eighth-grade girl.”
I pushed my own bowl away. “Exactly what I’ve always wanted in a relationship.”
He smiled at me, a noodle trailing from the corner of his mouth, and I had to laugh. He blushed and wiped his mouth. “Seriously, Nikki. The last couple of weeks, being worried, telling myself that I was overreacting. Except seeing you now … I can’t help thinking that instead of worrying too much, maybe I wasn’t worrying enough.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“I guess my question is—is this normal?”
I took a gulp of water, my mouth burning from the hot sauce. “This has been one of the least normal months of my life.”
“Oh.” He thought that over. “That’s good. Because if it was, like, an every-week thing…”
I laughed. “If this kind of thing happened every week, I really would retire.”
He insisted on paying. We walked outside and stood together, his arm in mine. The air was cool, the fall coming to an end. It had briefly rained that afternoon and a neighboring bar’s neon signs threw blue glimmers onto a sidewalk puddle. Cars drifted past, traffic sparse. “Do you have to be somewhere?” he asked.
“I don’t have anywhere to be.”
“Me neither.”
I hesitated, then spoke. “We can go for a ride. If you want.”
“A ride?”
I nodded toward the red motorcycle parked across the median on the other side of the street. “I have a second helmet. We wouldn’t be breaking any laws.”
“Where?”
“There’s a place I sometimes go. A little town up the coast. There’s a house I sometimes visit there.”
He understood immediately. “Bolinas? Where you grew up?”
“I never thought I’d bring anyone else there. But I’ve told you a little about it, and we can talk more when we’re there. Maybe sit by the ocean, watch the sun come up. If you want.”
His hand was in mine. “I’d like that.”
We crossed San Pablo and climbed onto the motorcycle. I felt his weight behind me. Felt his arms around me. I hadn’t had anyone ride with me for a long time. Two people felt different. It felt okay, though. The balance was still there, even with two. With motorcycles, balance was the important thing.
I started the engine. Nudged my left foot down, clicked the bike into gear.
We glided into the quiet street.
Soon we were on the freeway, heading north. Toward the bridge, toward the shadow of San Quentin, but beyond those forbidding walls the road continued, climbing and twisting up over Mount Tamalpais before finding, eventually, the open water. The moon above, the water of the Bay, the sprinkled lights of the homes built into the East Bay hills. I was aware of all those things. The darkness ahead of us retreated, pushed back by the headlight, as we continued on.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have tremendous gratitude to my agent, Victoria Skurnick, who decided to take a chance on a writer she’d never met and a character she barely knew. Many thanks for sharing her enthusiasm, editorial skills, vast knowledge of the publishing world, and a first-class lasagna recipe. Thanks also to James Levine and everyone at LGR Literary Agency. I’m indebted to my incredible editors Amy Einhorn and Christine Kopprasch at Flatiron Books, for believing in Nikki from day one and for challenging me with edits that left this book far stronger than when it first reached them. I’m also grateful to Bob Miller and everyone at Flatiron who worked so hard to help bring this to publication.
Many people gently advise would-be writers to consider a different career, and I’d like to thank a few in my life who didn’t. Bill Pritchard, David Sofield, and Lisa Raskin of Amherst College have all been readers, teachers, and friends long after my college years, and I am deeply grateful to Don Pease at Dartmouth College for his unflagging support. Thanks also to Dick Todd, Tom Powers, and Dan Weaver for valuable advice and feedback on my writing and to the Dartmouth MALS program for setting me on the right track. Tim Colla proved uncomplainingly willing to read everything I threw at him over the years, and thanks to Catherine Plato for offering a fresh eye whenever one was needed as I revised this
book.
My brother, Daniel, has been extraordinarily supportive of my writing throughout my life. From literally the day I began this book he was, as always, on hand to offer support, ask questions, and deliver the occasional stern pep talk whenever my progress risked flagging. More than anything, I am grateful to my parents and always my first readers, Alan and Barbara. As making any effort to tally up all they have done for me would require far more pages than I have at my disposal, suffice it to say that their belief in me has shaped me as a writer.
Recommend
Save Me from Dangerous Men
for your next book club!
Reading Group Guide available at
www.readinggroupgold.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S. A. Lelchuk holds a master’s degree from Dartmouth College and lives in Berkeley, California. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Week One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Week Two
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Week Three
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Week Four
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Week Five
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
SAVE ME FROM DANGEROUS MEN. Copyright © 2019 by S. A. Lelchuk. All rights reserved. For information, address Flatiron Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.flatironbooks.com
Cover design by Keith Hayes
Cover photograph © Sved Oliver / Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Lelchuk, S. A., author.
Title: Save me from dangerous men: a novel / S. A. Lelchuk.
Description: First edition. | New York: Flatiron Books, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018046994 | ISBN 9781250170248 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250231291 (international, sold outside the U.S., subject to rights availability) | ISBN 9781250170255 (ebook)
Subjects: | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3612.E434 S28 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046994
eISBN 9781250170255
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First U.S. Edition: March 2019
First International Edition: March 2019
Save Me from Dangerous Men--A Novel Page 35