Zwerfster Chic

by Billie Kelgren

  It could’ve been embarrassing, except that Romina then says one of the things that I’ve wanted to hear all my life…

  “Me gustaría que alguien me saludaba así.”

  I wish someone would greet me like that.

  Both she and Giuliana search around, to see who the lucky one is. I beam at Anna, falling in love with the sweet, wonderful woman as I wave in return.

  I can now die.

  I call Bergey while hiding in a bathtub.

  That is, Anna had fixed me a bath when we arrived at their place and they’ve left me alone to decompress while they’re in the kitchen preparing dinner. I haven’t had a real bath since…well, there were a couple of times when I was in rehab, but that doesn’t really count. It was therapy, but not exactly the relaxing sort you find in a spa. And we had a bathtub in our place in Boston, the first place, but it was in Mom and Dad’s bathroom and only Tonya and Naddie used it, when they were very little. Naddie was still taking baths when I first arrived there, being only two. Mom would sit and watch her, to make sure she didn’t drown or slip down the drain. She did crossword puzzles while on duty.

  We grew up with crossword puzzle books stacked under the tissue boxes on the back of the toilets. Are they still there, wherever Mom and Dad live now?

  Anyway, I was already too old for baths when I moved in. I went immediately to showers, which was okay with me because until then, I never had a shower in my life. At least, not indoors. It was kind of terrific, raining inside.

  The last “bath” bath I had, before now, was in that steel tub behind the Old Man’s.

  So you can guess how well a large, heated claw-footed tub filled with soft water and bubbles up to my chin ranks in my All-Time Best Baths list, if I had one. A pleasant, warm breeze cuts through the room, shifting the curtains, and the music from the kitchen mixes with the sound of pedestrian traffic outside to create a sense of isolation that lets me finally unclench my jaw, relax my shoulders, and melt myself into the water.

  (Okay, new number one item to put in my dream house, if I ever have millions of dollars: Heated Tub. Sorry, Panic Room, but you just don’t seem all that important to me anymore.)

  Anyway, I’m pretty sure some people would raise a brow at my calling Bergey while I’m in there. It’s just that…you know, I’m really not in the mood for explaining to Anna and Iben why I’m calling sixteen-year-old girls. I slip myself down until only my head is out of the water and delicately hold the phone as I make the call.

  Bergey gives a breathless Halló, followed by a terse discussion with someone through a muffling hand before a door closes. It was all in Icelandic, but I’m pretty sure she was telling her mother that I’m some friend from school and that she’s now retreated to her bedroom for some privacy.

  “Thank you for calling.”

  I recognize that voice. That voice was mine, when I was younger.

  Oh, bullshit! That’s still your voice now.

  “Of course I called. I said I would.”

  “Yes.”

  “Before I forget, tell Mikkel that I’ll wire him the money tomorrow.”

  “Where are you?”

  I think about it for a moment. I had been thinking about the answer to this question for many moments.

  “I’m safe. It’s better I don’t say. Not now.”

  “You’re forgetting about me. I knew it.”

  She sounds absolutely despondent. It’s heartbreaking.

  “No. No, bokkie. I just don’t want to put you into any trouble. Not until…”

  “It’s Bergey! You called me Bogey.”

  “Bokkie. It’s what my mother called me.”

  “You are not my mother.”

  She doesn’t mean for it to sound as angry as it does. I know what she’s meaning.

  “I’m calling you sweetheart.”

  “I love you.”

  Mia uses everyone. I will not become Mia.

  “I know you do. And I love you. You know I do.”

  She gives a loud sigh; she’s finally relaxing. Poor girl. She gives her heart away much too easily.

  “When can I see you again?” she asks.

  “When I’m safe. When I’m completely safe and there’s no danger to you, I’ll let you know where I am. When you’re older, you can come visit if you want, but not now. Right now, you need to finish school and grow up some more.”

  “I will not change how I feel. I know that’s what you want.”

  I laugh gently at her determination to be in love.

  “Well, you might change your mind once you realize I’m really nothing more than a tired, old scarred woman.”

  It’s the best thing for her to understand, to put distance between this infatuation she’s holding onto and the reality of how it is. I tell myself that I’m doing this for her sake, but in truth, I’m really doing it more for my own.

  This isn’t going as I had hoped.

  “Hellige vrovl! You’re a spy?”

  The trip from the ferry back to their place was around five hours, and I spent the first half hour of that ride getting Anna and Iben to understand that I didn’t want to talk about what had happened since I last saw them. Not yet, anyway. Beyond that, there was about an hour, off and on, of otherwise meaningless conversation, a short stop for lunch where they convinced me that they had, in fact, no idea where Mia was or what she’s doing, and about three and a half hours of me pretending to be asleep in the back seat. (A proper back seat. Much more comfortable than Mik’s back seat.)

  It surprises me, finding out Mia doesn’t keep these two up to date. I thought they were all such close friends, but the sisters are, in fact, more like Allie and Cerise — they’re employees. I guess Mia really doesn’t confide in anyone.

  I told them that it would have to wait until I was settled, and that’s why Anna fixed me the bath, to help me unwind as quickly as possible. Now, as she sits next to me on the couch (where Mia used to sit), she’s ready to hear all of the gory details.

  How much do I owe Mia, in terms of allegiance?

  Fuck her! She abandoned me, not the other way around.

  I come clean to the sisters about how I ended up with Mia in the first place. I then watch their reactions. Anna is, as demonstrated by her comment, more amused than anything else. Iben, on the other hand, being more reflective, listens with interest but withholds judgment.

  I talk about Getting (who they’ve heard about), Byrone and Kel (who they haven’t), Marie (they can remember someone that might’ve gone by that name, but there were so many), and Roland Park-White (they recognize the name from the news and are appropriately alarmed to hear that Mia and I were there). I tell them about when we were in Hong Kong, and how I was ditched at the airport. Both Anna and Iben are astonished to hear of Mia’s behavior. They can’t make sense of it either.

  Then comes the events that transpired on Iceland, and even Iben is sitting forward on her seat as I tell the story. Anna reaches out and places her hand on my arm, as though she’s ready to snatch me away to safety at a moment’s notice.

  “So the U.S. government has the reader, but I don’t know if they have the data yet. Mia still had her card, last I saw.”

  “What?”

  Anna and Iben look at one another, clearly confused. They then look at me and I become confused.

  “Why would anyone care about that card?” Iben asks. “It’s just old photos.”

  “What?”

  Okay, now I’m really confused.

  “Ja. Mia asked me to scan some of our old photos, from when we all lived together,” Anna tells me. She then looks at Iben again. “Remember, I told you how strange it was? How she was very particular about that card?” She turns back to me. “I offered to put them on a thumb drive.”

  What the fuck?

  Spending time with Romina and Giuliana brought back thoughts of Mateo’s mother, though she was Venezuelan, which I know is on the other end of the continent. I feel terrible, knowing that she was told that her onl
y son had been killed because he was some sort of vile criminal. He would talk about her, how she treated him as her beloved child who could do no wrong, and how it always worried him, the idea that she might one day find out about the things he had done. I mean, Mateo was, in fact, a criminal, but he was never so bad of a person that his mother should remember him as being gunned down for the brutal attack of a federal agent.

  I wish I could tell her that.

  But how could I? How could I tell her that her son saved me, but died anyway because I was frightened by the prospect of prison?

  I feel horrible about it still.

  No mother should be made to think so terribly of her own child.

  Mom must really hate me.

  27

  Antwerp — Charleroi

  I try calling Nash but end up getting lost for a while in the the bu-hell of directory services because his number was on the phone that was taken from me. I leave a message with the number of the burner I bought specifically for this call and figure I’ll never be hearing back when it rings through while I’m on the ICE somewhere between Cologne and Brussels. Of course he asks me where I am and I scoff, telling him that I’m somewhere where I don’t have my wrists zipped together. He apologizes, but adds, “You know how it goes. You’ve been in my position before.”

  Yeah, that’s true. Still doesn’t mean I have to like it.

  I ask him about the reader, the data, Getting and Roland Park-White, the connection to Byrone. He answers none of it.

  “But we’re going to get them. It’s only a matter of time. It’s just that, it would be helpful if you were here, to fill in some of the details.”

  Okay. That’s the same line of shit I used to use on all the civilians.

  I give him a way to let me know when he needs me to contact him, if he has questions. I’m not willing to offer anything more.

  “You know, we could just come after you,” he says, but even he can’t keep the bullshit grin from coming across the connection.

  “Yeah, let me know when you get budget for that, so I’ll know when I should start worrying.”

  No way in hell will anyone up-level give a shit about getting me back. Not if it requires resources.

  “What about Bouchard?” I ask. “What did you find out about him?”

  “Well, I can verify that there is a security company named CSRMi,” he tells me. “We asked Getting about him, but he’s not playing nice right now. A desperate game of flush-and-stash.”

  Flush the stash and stash the cash.

  “But no one named Bouchard ever worked at CSRMi.”

  Once again…what the fuck?

  I’m on the train because I suddenly find myself on my way back to Antwerp.

  It’d been…what? Three, four weeks since I was there, in Naddie and Robbe’s apartment? Well, apparently, two weeks is all it takes for a seemingly happy marriage to otherwise turn into a complete shitstorm of lies and deceit. After we left, Naddie could sense something was up with her husband and it finally came out — a twenty-year-old Chinese girl he met in Singapore during one of his trips. He said that he was relieved, relieved because it was really eating him up inside, lying to her for so long.

  And then he left her! He left his pregnant wife!

  Well, fuck you, Robbe! Run! Run, you fuck! Run because Big Sister is capable of doing some really stupid shit!

  Together, me and Naddie decide that the best thing to do is to get out of Antwerp, which is Robbe’s hometown. Luckily, they’re in the seventh year of their nine-year lease (Yes, really. That’s how it’s done in Belgium, apparently.) and we’re able to get out of the rest of it fairly easily. Nats finds work in Charleroi, down in French Belgium, and the trip’s not so long that we can’t move stuff over time, though we do have to leave behind some of the bigger stuff because the place we’re moving into is even smaller than the place we’re leaving.

  It’s while I’m collecting up things to take on our next haul south that I come across an old Adidas box buried underneath a bunch of junk piled inside of a cabinet. I’ve been pulling out boxes and bags and containers, asking Naddie Take or toss? as she’s sits on the bed, sorting through nearly a decade of bills and photos and all the kind of paperwork that collects over time because I don’t want her lifting anything. I mean, I know she’s probably okay — she’s not really showing yet — but I don’t care. Auntie Lissie is here to help, and she’s got some valuable life lessons for a pretty little Coloured girl — shit she won’t learn from watching Reading Rainbow or Roots or reruns of Asterix & Obelix on TV.

  “Take or toss?”

  I shake the box, expecting it contains…I don’t know…shoes, I guess, though I don’t open anything without Naddie peering at it first. She’s worried that I might inadvertently open and find something that she really doesn’t want me to see, and since mentioning this I’m worried as well. I’m downright scared, actually.

  Whatever’s in the box rattles, not like shoes, and Naddie’s eyes go wide as she makes a startled lunge across the bed.

  “No! Keep! Keep!”

  I drop the box as though she’s just told me that it contains a live scorpion.

  Or sex toys.

  The lid falls open and the contents spill across the comforter. I try to look away quickly but I’m not quick enough and I can’t help but find myself dumbstruck.

  “These are for the baby,” Naddie says as she scoops them up and places them gently back into the box one by one.

  “Jesus, I can’t believe you still have these.”

  I pick one up and look into those familiar eyes. She’s a little worse for wear — some of the paint scratched, a little more rounded along the edges — but I’d recognize you anywhere, mother tiger.

  I so badly want to call Marie because this Charleroi is the Charleroi she spoke of. But Charleroi is not Brussels. It’s not even Antwerp. It’s actually kind of a dump really.

  Sorry.

  Still, it beats East Boston. Sort of.

  “You know what we should do,” I say, drawing Naddie’s attention. We’re sitting on the tiny balcony of the tiny apartment overlooking the city, which isn’t as glamorous as it sounds. Charleroi is not Paris either. “We should invite Tonya to visit.”

  Naddie chuckles softly, shaking her head at my evil sense of humor, assuming this was the punchline.

  “Avoir une araignée au plafond,” she says, showing off her surprising skill for learning French. She had hired a private tutor to come to the apartment three days a week and we’ve been learning the language together.

  “No, I mean it. Invite her and the girls over to see Europe. Maybe take them down to Disneyland, the Eiffel Tower.”

  There’s a question in her gaze and I shrug.

  “She’s alone. Besides, I have the extra money.”

  It’s not a lot, but I managed to get access to the account set up by Bouchard — that is, the person who called himself Bouchard — with help from Anna and Iben. We know people, they told me. I didn’t ask any questions, but…could they have possibly meant Allie?

  “We can take them to Copenhagen,” I add.

  Naddie perks up. She’s always wanted to see Copenhagen but Robbe never found the time to take her. He said he traveled too much as it was.

  Fucking bastard.

  “I’ve got friends up there who have a place on the coast,” I say. “They’d love to meet you.

  “Or Malta. We can all fly to Malta.”

  Now Naddie tells me that I’m not being serious, that we can’t afford such a trip. I tell her that it isn’t expensive, flying there within Europe.

  “Yes, but what about the hotel?” she asks.

  I shake my head, shrug, and smile slyly.

  “I know this villa overlooking the Mediterranean where we can stay for free.”

  Hey, maybe I’ve learned something after all.

  It’s funny how learning French, knowing Afrikaans, me being a former Special Agent, Naddie being pregnant, and Robbe being suc
h an ass all comes together to create a credible story for my being there in Belgium. Yes, we throw Robbe under the bus, but what the hell does he expect? We hear from him only twice — the first time when he attempted to apologize, and then justify what he’d done, and the second time when he’s a whole lot less kind with his words, leaving Naddie visibly shaken.

  “What if he comes back?” Naddie says after getting off the phone. Robbe is still in Singapore. “What if he tries to take the baby away?”

  She holds her twenty-two week belly with both hands, anxious.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

  “Au Pair with a Gun.”

  She smiles at her own witticism. Then we look at one another, the idea hitting both of us at the exact same moment.

  I’m lingering in the parking lot, trying to keep out of view of the windows of the starkly white retro modern two-story building because I have the feeling that the people in there can just look at you and tell right off that you’re in their country illegally — it’s clearly marked on our foreheads, or we glow, or something. It’s taking a lot longer than I expected and I begin to worry that they’ve carted Naddie off to jail but then she comes hurriedly out of the entrance, stumbling across the terrace to the low row of hedges that line its leading edge. She leans over, takes a moment to ponder upon it, then vomits.

  At this point, I don’t care if Immigration is lying in wait for me — I rush to her side.

  “Are you okay?”

  Naddie gets herself upright, taking my arm to steady herself because she’s still a little woozy.