by Jeff Strand
The spaghetti was almost ready, so she had me go ahead and sit down at the dinner table. It would've been hard to fit more than two people at this table; fortunately, we only had two. I put the cloth napkin on my lap. She'd already filled the water glasses, but there were also wine glasses set out.
"Is red wine okay?" she asked. "That goes best with pasta."
"Of course." It occurred to me that I actually knew that red wine paired best with pasta. I wasn't sure how I acquired that information. It made me feel very cultured.
She poured our wine (I didn't recognize the brand and didn't know if it was fancy or cheap) and then took our plates into the kitchen so she could pile them high with delicious spaghetti. There was also garlic bread. I'm no gourmand but I can tell when somebody made their spaghetti sauce from scratch, and my stomach gave a loud rumble.
"I'll take that as a compliment," said Abigail as she set my plate down in front of me.
She sat across from me and we began to eat. The meal more than lived up to the aroma. When I have a meal that is prepared to perfection, I will sometimes close my eyes just to fully experience the flavors, but I wisely refrained from doing that this time.
Abigail told me about the places she'd lived, and I told her about the places I'd lived. She used to own a candy shop ("as you can see, I sampled plenty of my own wares," she said, gesturing to her body) and was doing okay until they raised her rent, making her business unsustainable. Since she couldn't really sell chocolate on the street in the summer, she switched to flowers.
She'd never been married. Didn't have kids. Regretted many things she'd done. Was proud of many others.
We didn't talk about anything too dark. I mean, losing your beloved candy shop is kind of dark, but not compared to abusive ex-boyfriends and homicidal fathers. It was an extremely pleasant dinner. She asked if I wanted a second helping, and hell yeah, I did. Honestly, I kind of wanted a third, but the first two helpings weren't exactly tiny and there's a point where you're just being a hog.
She said there was tiramisu in the refrigerator for later. So she wasn't immediately kicking me out. Nice.
"Do you want me to help with the dishes?" I asked.
"I know that was a rhetorical question, but I'm going to take you up on that offer. You wash. I'll rinse, dry, and put away, because I know where everything goes."
Though it may sound like I'm getting into "unreliable narrator" territory again, doing the dishes with Abigail was a lot of fun. Not in a "Soap fight!!!" way or anything like that; it was just enjoyable to keep talking to her.
When we were finished (which didn't take long—only two of us had eaten the meal, so it wasn't like we generated dozens of dirty plates) we gave each other a high-five for a job well done. Then Abigail gave me kind of a funny look that I couldn't quite interpret.
"Can I ask you a silly question?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Would you like to dance?"
I froze. My stomach tightened. I think my ears may have started to ring with instant tinnitus. No, I did not want to dance. I was not a dancing type of guy. I could think of few sights that would do more damage to the human eye than me trying to dance. I had no moves. I had no rhythm. My mouth remained silent but my mind said, "Noooooooooo!"
"Are you okay?" asked Abigail.
"Yeah."
"You looked like I asked if you'd help me bury a body."
(Bury a body. #28 on the list of things that I found less horrifying than the idea of dancing. Right before dental surgery without anesthetic and right after being naked in front of my entire fifth grade math class.)
"I'm not much of a dancer," I said.
"Neither am I. I'm awful. I'm really, really awful."
"We should stick to our skills."
Abigail shook her head. "We should do the opposite. I'm not saying to record it and upload it to YouTube. It's just us. You and me."
"I don't know any dances."
"All you have to do is move to the music."
"My body doesn't move like that."
"Here are the rules," Abigail said. "I promise that I will not laugh at you. No matter what. I don't care how much you thrash around, I will not crack a smile. However, you're allowed to laugh at me all you want. Sound fair?"
"I feel like there's peer pressure happening here."
"Don't worry, I won't make you smoke a cigarette. I just think we should try something that's out of both of our comfort zones. You can pick the song."
"That's even more pressure."
"All right, if you really don't want to dance, I won't make you."
I almost said, "Thank you," but I'd been infatuated with Abigail for three months. I wasn't going to screw this up just because I was scared to dance. "I'll do it," I said. "You can pick the song. You promised not to laugh."
"I won't laugh."
"And you can't recoil, either."
"I won't recoil."
We walked into her living room. It was ridiculous for me to be so stressed out over this. Her asking me to dance meant that the date was going well. You didn't ask people to dance if you were uncomfortable around them.
She picked up her cell phone and tapped the screen a few times. "Do you like The Bee-Gees?"
"Please not 'Stayin' Alive.'" I liked that song but I didn't want to have to dance to it. I couldn't let her compare me to John Travolta, or even the parody scene in Airplane.
"No, no, 'Islands in the Stream.' Do you know that one?"
"I'm not sure."
"You do. Everybody knows that one. You'll know it when you hear it."
The opening notes played as she set her phone down on the coffee table. I still didn't recognize the song.
"Sorry I don't have a disco ball," said Abigail.
The lyrics started and I thought, okay, maybe I do recognize this one. It was a good song. Catchy melody.
Abigail began to sway to the music. She was right: she couldn't dance. Not at all. I'm not saying that she was jerking around like she was having an epileptic fit or something, but there was no rhythm in that swaying. It's possible that she was faking it, dancing badly on purpose so that I'd feel less self-conscious. If that was her master plan, it worked, because she seemed to be having a perfectly good time, and I felt no desire to point at her and bray with laughter.
"Dance," she said. It was not a request.
So I danced. Like Abigail, I just kind of swayed to the music. It wasn't so bad. I knew I was sweating (not a good look on me) but dancing wasn't the hell on earth that I'd anticipated. As the song progressed, I got more comfortable. Though I wasn't quite to the level of "fun," I did successfully convince myself that Abigail was not appalled by what she saw.
I made it through the entire song. Another one began.
The tempo picked up a bit. She moved closer to me, so that we were dancing together instead of simply in the same room, though we both kept our hands to ourselves. This was edging closer and closer to being fun. Had Abigail been right to pressure me into this? Did I enjoy dancing? No scenario existed in which I would shake my booty in front of strangers, but dancing in Abigail's apartment was just about to hit the level of—there it went, I was having fun now.
She picked up her phone as the second song ended and I assumed that our dancing experience was over, but she picked a new song and set it back down. A slow song. We were going to slow dance.
Abigail walked over to me. I knew that one hand went on her hip and one hand was supposed to take her hand, though I wasn't sure which of my hands went where, but it became irrelevant because she put both arms around me in a loose hug. Her head only came up to my chest. I put my arms around her, and we slow danced for the entire song.
She smelled great; I didn't know if it was perfume or a natural scent from handling flowers all day. I didn't step on her feet a single time, and I wasn't even hyper-focused on trying not to injure her. My feet just naturally avoided crushing hers.
The song ended. This felt like a natural moment for our
first kiss. The problem was our height difference—I couldn't just gently lean forward and press my lips to hers. To kiss her, I'd have to do a pretty significant tilting of my head, which would mess with the whole "natural moment" thing.
She looked up at me. "We should kiss," she said.
I leaned down, and we kissed, gently.
Sorry to disappoint, but that didn't lead to a sloppy makeout session. (Or maybe you're relieved.) We both just kind of, I don't know, looked happy about what had happened, and then we went back into the kitchen and Abigail took the tiramisu out of the refrigerator.
Delicious.
After that, we sat on her couch and watched one of the worst horror movies I'd ever seen. It was bad on every possible level—even the font of the end credits was the wrong creative decision. I'm not going to name it because it's a fairly recent movie and as of right now everybody involved with it is still alive. Not that I think they're going to read this, but there's no reason to risk hurting somebody's feelings. The actual movie isn't important. What's important is that we sat right next to each other, legs touching, and about ten minutes into it I put my arm around her, and then she snuggled closer to me.
Her cat Queenie came out of hiding and joined us on the couch for a while, surprising Abigail, who said that the cat was terrified of strangers.
We made fun of the movie the entire time. We weren't nearly as good at it as the people who make fun of movies for a living—we mostly just pointed out the many flaws rather than making witty comments about them—but we laughed so hard that Abigail had a coughing fit and for a moment I legitimately believed she might end up in the hospital.
I haven't described my laugh. It's an awful cackle that sounds like the laugh you'd let out when you're throwing shovelfuls of dirt onto an enemy's shallow grave. Abigail didn't seem to mind it, because she kept saying things to make me laugh.
It was a weeknight and I had to work the next day, so I only stayed for the one movie. She didn't ask me to spend the night, or give any subtle hints that she wanted this to happen (unless they were so subtle that they flew right by me) but we did kiss at her doorway before I left.
That was it. I officially had a girlfriend. I was confident that my life was about to get a hell of a lot better. I was going to be so happy that my cheerful nature would annoy everybody around me.
But this is where I feel like I need to make something very clear.
This is not a love story.
seven
Abigail had made too much spaghetti sauce, so she asked if I wanted to come over the next night and have the same meal. Of course I did. This time she greeted me at the door with a kiss, and we snuggled closer during the movie (a good one this time—we didn't want to get into a rut), and we kissed when I left.
She said she wasn't a big fan of texting, but we exchanged quite a few lovey-dovey texts the next day. We probably would've exchanged more but my boss glared at me when he walked by my desk and caught me using my phone. None of these texts were "I love you" and we definitely weren't sexting, but I'm not going to lie, the word "snugglebunny" was used.
I asked if she wanted to come over to my place for pizza or Chinese take-out or something. She said she had some work to do but would take me up on that offer the following evening. That was cool. We didn't need to get together every single night.
Around six o'clock, while I was considering cleaning up my apartment but had not yet made any actual tidying progress, Abigail called.
"Hi," she said. "It's me."
We were at the point where she could say "It's me" instead of her name. I'd never been so delighted.
"How's your work going?"
"Good. So, I wasn't lying—I really do have a lot of work to do. But mostly I said no because I'm somebody who needs alone time. There are some nights when I just want to be by myself, and I thought that getting together every day would set a precedent where it was harder for me to do that. But that's stupid. I think it's just that Neal was so clingy, but you're not Neal, and, yes, I'd love to come over."
"That's great," I said, glancing around at an apartment that suddenly seemed three hundred percent messier.
"Is an hour from now okay?"
"An hour is perfect." That was a relief. I could get this place in shape in an hour.
I cleaned up some of the clutter, vacuumed, did the dishes, and was just about to head into my bedroom when there was a knock at the door. It wasn't even six-twenty. I'd assumed she'd be a little early, but I hadn't taken down the stories in the bedroom yet.
I glanced through the peephole. It was Marc.
There was blood on his face.
I hurriedly opened the door and he stepped inside. He was panting as if he'd run here, and he pushed the door closed and locked it before I could do it. The blood came from a cut on his cheek, but as his leather jacket spilled open (why was he wearing a jacket in this heat?) I could see blood all over his shirt, too.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Nothing, it's cool."
"It can't be."
"No, you're right, it's not cool. It's bad. You know what? It's not that bad. It's gonna be good. It's gonna be good." He wiped at his cheek then looked at the blood on his hand. "I didn't realize I was bleeding so much. Can I use your bathroom?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Thanks." Marc had never been in my apartment, but it was a small place and probably the same layout as his, so I didn't need to direct him. He quickly walked to the bathroom and closed the door.
There was no way in hell that him showing up here was a positive thing.
I had no idea what to do. I supposed that I just needed to wait and hear why he was here and what he wanted from me. Maybe he...no, there simply was not a scenario where a blood-covered drug dealer being in my apartment was an improvement over where I'd been before I answered the door.
I shouldn't have let him in.
Shit, shit, shit.
He was only in the bathroom for a moment. When he came out, he'd bandaged up the cut on his face (I didn't like that he'd gone through my medicine cabinet to find a Band-Aid) and was holding the wadded up bloody shirt in his hand.
"Do you have a garbage bag?" he asked.
I nodded and got him one from underneath the kitchen sink. He dropped the shirt into the bag and pulled it shut.
"It dripped on the floor," I told him.
"Oh, damn, I'm sorry."
I unspooled some toilet paper, wiped up the droplets, then flushed it.
"Thanks," Marc said. "You're a good friend."
I shook my head. "No."
"What?"
"We're not real friends. You know that."
"That's harsh. But I get it. I screwed up, okay? I'm not going to deny that I screwed up, and it's entirely my fault, and I deserve whatever happens to me. I tried to rip him off, and I knew how bad it would be if he caught me, but..."
"Wulfe?"
"Yeah."
"Whose blood is on the shirt?"
"Mine."
"No, it's not."
Marc looked like he was choking back a scream. "I got myself into some trouble and I needed cash right away. I would've made it up to him on the next delivery, I swear. I don't want to die."
"Whose blood?"
"One of Wulfe's men. I don't know his name. Nobody will miss him."
"What do you want from me?"
"Nothing. Just hide me for a little bit."
"Absolutely not."
"For tonight. Hide me for tonight."
"Not a chance."
"I don't have anywhere else to go."
"How is that possible?" I asked. "We barely know each other. How can I be your only option?"
"That's how my life is going these days. Look, dude, I would never blackmail you, but you're not all shiny and innocent. All I want is a safe place to stay for the night. I'll be gone at sunrise. You have my word."
"Are you really threatening to report me to the cops?"
"No, no, that's not what
I meant, I said I'd never blackmail you."
"Then what did you mean?"
Marc choked back another scream. "You want me to die? Is that it? You have so little compassion that you want to see me dead?"
"I don't want to get involved in you ripping off a psychopath and killing one of his men."
"He's not a psychopath."
"He acted like a psychopath when I saw him."
"And his man might've lived, I don't know."
"I can give you some cash. But I'm not going to get dragged into your mess."
Another knock at the door.
It could've been Abigail, arriving really early, but it was a violent knock. It was definitely less of a "girlfriend arriving for dinner" knock than an "angry psychopath" one.
"Hide under my bed," I told him. "Don't make a sound. I'll get rid of him, but you are gone as soon as the coast is clear, do you understand?"
Marc vigorously nodded. "Yeah, yeah. I appreciate this. You'll never know how much."
He went into the bedroom. The knocking continued. I gave him a few seconds to get underneath the bed, and then I looked through the peephole. Yep, it was Wulfe. I considered not answering, but I was pretty sure he wouldn't go away, and the longer I waited, the more difficult it would be to pretend I didn't know anything.
I could call the police and hope he didn't kick down the door before they got here...but I was involved in the criminal activity, even if all I did was act as a low-rent bodyguard. I didn't want to have to explain to the cops why Wulfe was trying to get into my apartment.
I opened the door.
Wulfe had another guy with him. It was the unfriendly looking one who'd let us into the restaurant. I guess I should've used a different adjective, since all of Wulfe's men looked unfriendly. I would've considered him a big guy if I weren't so big myself. He had a shaved head with enough stubble to show that he'd probably shaved it because he was losing his hair anyway. You could call him handsome if it weren't for the sheer meanness of his appearance.