by Ann McMan
“Byron. I’m twenty years older than you.”
“Twelve,” he corrected.
“Don’t prevaricate.”
He rolled his eyes. “Celine? Have you ever noticed how you lapse into professor-speak whenever you get uncomfortable?”
“Professor-speak?”
“Yeah. That’s what I call it.”
“I do not do that.”
“Yes, you do. Your syllables increase with your level of agitation.”
Celine drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair until she saw Byron drop his gaze to her hand. She abruptly stopped drumming and folded her hands on her lap.
He laughed. “Busted.”
“Something you’d be familiar with, of course.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I won’t deny that getting to arrest a woman of your caliber stands out as one of the high points of my career in law enforcement.”
“Women like me?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Classy types. Most of the women I’ve busted in my time have either been too drunk to stand up or too busy trying to cut their boyfriends’ throats with broken beer bottles.”
“I suppose I should be gratified for providing you with such a high-toned diversion.”
“I won’t deny that I’m happy to be diverted by you.”
She stared at him. “This is precisely what concerns me.”
“What is?”
“This. That it’s a ‘diversion.’ Something you’ll regret—something we’ll both live to regret.”
He sighed. “I don’t think so.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“How can I be sure we won’t regret it? How can you be sure we will?” He leaned forward. “Celine, I’m not naïve enough to suggest there won’t be hurdles to jump over—although I think most of them are the ones you keep throwing up in front of us. But I’m old enough to know that everything about this feels different. You feel different. I’m different with you. And it’s a difference I like. I’m not afraid of it, and I don’t think you should be afraid of it, either.”
“What if it doesn’t last?”
As soon as she said the words, she felt ridiculous. Exposed. She lowered her gaze because she was afraid to look at him—afraid to see her own fear reflected in his hazel eyes. She knew she was behaving like the scared adolescent she once had been—the shy, awkward girl who always refused to look at herself when she passed through the hall of mirrors that led to her mother’s dressing room. It was there, in the darkest recesses of their Manhattan apartment, that the ghosts and golems waited for her. “Dybbuks,” her British tanteh called them. “They haunt the dark places, ziskeit. They will trick you and lure you into things. Do not look at them for they want to steal your soul.”
Was her attraction to Byron a trick? A ruse? Did Byron want to steal her soul?
Or was she willingly offering it up to him?
“Are you a thief?” she asked. The words sounded thin and hollow—as if they had traveled for decades along the frayed cord that stretched from her childhood to this very moment. “I’m sorry,” she added quickly, before he had a chance to respond.
He blinked. “Am I a what?”
She shook her head. “Never mind.”
“Am I a thief?” he repeated. “Is that what you asked?”
“Byron. Please. I’m just rambling.”
“No,” he protested. “This is important. I can tell that it matters.”
“It doesn’t matter. I was just thinking out loud.”
“About whether I’m a thief? A thief of what?”
She didn’t reply.
“Your virtue?”
She had to laugh at that. “Hardly.”
“Your reputation?”
“Byron . . .”
He scooted his chair closer. “Tell me.”
She gave up trying to conceal her escalating consternation. “I don’t trust myself—not where you’re concerned. And that scares me. It isn’t who I am. It’s not how I live my life.”
He shrugged. “What we believe about how we live our lives can change. If it doesn’t, we won’t be living them for long.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Celine, every day I deal with the messes created when people think their choices are only about as wide as the scrap of dirt they call a lawn. So, yeah. I do believe it.”
“I’m foundering.” She shook her head. “I don’t know which end is up.”
He held out his hand. “How about you just hang on until you find some equilibrium?” When she didn’t reply, he gave her a shy smile. “I promise I won’t let you fall—not unless you ask me to.”
It was completely dark now, but she didn’t need light to see him. She knew his features by heart. Perfectly. She saw them all the time. Waking. Sleeping. Dreaming. His image was always before her.
Another firefly lit up the space between them. It danced crazily on the warm night air, flashing its tiny beacon off and on. It was like a channel marker, warning her that one side of this emotional journey offered safe passage through open water—but the other was shallow, less certain and lined with jagged rock.
But which side was which? From this vantage point, it was impossible to tell.
The firefly’s movements on the night air were ungraceful, halting and arrhythmic—just like the erratic beating of her heart. She had no idea what to do. She closed her eyes and fought to steady her breathing. Do not look at them for they want to steal your soul.
It was ridiculous. She was a woman of sense and education. A scientist. What was there for her to fear?
Nothing.
She opened her eyes and dared to look at him.
Everything . . .
It no longer mattered.
She took hold of his hand.
◊ ◊ ◊
“I’m going to do it.”
Michael didn’t look up from the pie crust he was rolling out. “You’re going to do what?”
“Hello?” David snapped his fingers. “Haven’t you been listening to me for the past fifteen minutes?”
“Of course I have. To which of the nine topics are you referring?”
David rolled his eyes. “Could you please give me your full attention?”
“Not right this second.” Michael wound the pie crust around his rolling pin and positioned it over a banged-up metal pan. “I’m at a critical stage here.”
“You’re always at a critical stage.” David dropped onto a stool. “I mean, global warming is critical. Azalea Freemantle in grillz is critical. Nuclear proliferation is critical. Pie crust? Pie crust is not critical.”
Michael looked up at him. “Azalea Freemantle wears grillz?”
“Duh.” David waved an index finger in front of his own teeth. “Big, shiny silver ones. Impossible to miss—I mean, impossible to miss for anyone who isn’t obsessed with pie crust.”
“Where the hell did she get grillz? Most people around here can’t even manage to find dentures that aren’t five sizes too big.”
“Buddy.”
Michael blinked. “Buddy?”
“Yeah. Buddy. You know, Bert’s son.” David shook his head. “That man is a genius with car tape.”
“Car tape? What the hell is car tape?”
“Do you live in this county? After pork rinds and Cheerwine, car tape is the top-selling product at Freemantle’s Market. Two-thirds of the truck windows out in Troutdale are held together with that stuff. Junior says it sticks better than shit to a blanket.”
“Buddy made grillz out of car tape?”
David nodded. “Of course. He used it to fix the bell on Nicky’s clarinet, too, after Roma Jean backed over her case with that damn bookmobile. Strange. It changed the written pitch on that thing to a flawless C. I think Buddy did that on purpose. He has an incredible ear.”
Michael didn’t comment.
“You know . . . it just occurred to me that nobody knows Junior’s last name. They say his people are from up around Stuart,
but Junior’s been out in Troutdale running that body shop since Methuselah jacked up his daddy’s Oldsmobile. And in all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never heard him called anything but ‘Junior.’ Have you?”
Michael stared at him without speaking.
David shrugged. “Oh, well. Maybe he’s just ‘Junior.’ You know? Like Cher.”
“David?”
“What?”
“You’re giving me a migraine.”
“So what else is new?” David rolled his eyes. “If you think this is bad, just wait until the campaign starts.”
“Campaign?” Michael squinted at him. “What campaign?”
“Have you not heard a word I’ve said?”
“Even though I tried to ignore you, a few words still managed to sneak through my wall of indifference.”
“That’s going to have to change. Once this campaign heats up, you’ll have to be out there doing some of the heavy lifting.”
Michael sighed. “I reiterate: what campaign?”
“Mine.”
“Yours?”
David nodded.
“What the hell are you campaigning for? And don’t tell me it’s that harebrained ‘Full Monte Carlo’ calendar idea again.”
“It’s not the calendar.”
Michael narrowed his eyes. “Is it those edible, sriracha-flavored assless chaps?”
David shook his head.
“Well, at least there is a god.
“Hey, bucko. I didn’t see you expressing umbrage the last time I wore a pair to bed.”
“True. But in fairness, I was coming off a cleanse.”
“That’s one word for it,” David snorted. “I had to boil those sheets in lye.”
“So, are you gonna tell me what you’re talking about?”
“Our dip wad mayor.”
“Gerald Watson?”
David nodded.
“What about him?”
“Oh, good god.” David threw back his head. “You couldn’t connect a row of dots with grappling hooks and six hundred feet of chain.”
Michael’s eyes grew wide. “You aren’t resurrecting that BDSM version of Twister, are you?”
“No.” David blew out a slow breath. “Let me simplify this for you. I have decided to run for mayor. Against Gerald Watson.”
Michael’s jaw dropped.
“Did you hear me?” Michael remained silent. David snapped his fingers in front of his face. “Hello? Earth to Galloping Gourmet? Anybody home in there?”
“You can’t do that.”
“It lives!” David raised his hands toward heaven.
“David? I’m not kidding. You cannot do that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing—you just won an award for translating gay German porn.”
“It’s not porn—it’s erotica.”
“A difference without distinction here in the red states.”
“Au contraire,” David wagged a finger. “Virginia voted for Hillary.”
“Not this part of Virginia.”
“Well . . .”
“David, please? Watson is already waging a campaign to have us all run out of town on a rail. Why add fuel to his fire?”
“Why? Precisely because he is waging a campaign against us. The best way to call him out is to be out. And loud. And proud.”
“It’s crazy.”
“It’s not crazy—it’s genius.”
Michael raised a hand to his forehead. “Now I really am getting a migraine.”
“You just need a little time to adjust to the idea.” David reached out and patted his arm.
“More time is not what I need. Having Maddie renew my Xanax prescription—that’s what I need.”
“You mull it over, baby cakes. I gotta scoot.” David drew a heart in the dust of flour that covered the countertop. “I’m meeting Mama at ten. She’s helping me write a campaign jingle.” He pointed down at Michael’s pie crust. “The edges on that are drying out. You might should mist it.” He hopped off his stool and headed for the door. “TTFN.”
Mist?
Michael dropped his gaze.
No amount of mist was gonna salvage this one.
He watched David leave before lifting the pie tin and dumping the dough into the trash.
◊ ◊ ◊
“C’mon. Talk to her for me.”
Syd was lining the shelves of a book truck with returned titles. She’d already organized them in tidy rows by call numbers. Not many people knew that this simple, rote task was something she looked forward to every morning. After she unlocked the small storefront library, turned on the overhead lights and started a pot of coffee, she’d grab a hefty canvas bag and trudge outside to retrieve the tumbled contents of the book return box. Back inside, while she waited for the coffee to finish brewing, she’d unpack the books, check them in, and prepare them for reshelving.
Creating order from chaos. It was delicious. Addictive. Returning things to an order that made sense had always been one of her guilty pleasures.
Intervening in her brother’s relationships, however, was not something she enjoyed.
Ever.
She looked up at him over the tower of books.
“Tom? I’m not doing your dirty work for you.”
“Dirty work?” Tom seemed offended. “I’m not asking you to do any dirty work. I just want you to talk with her and find out what’s going on.”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“I have asked her.”
“And?”
He shrugged. “She says nothing is going on.”
Syd sighed. “Here’s a radical idea: How about you believe her?”
Tom ran a hand through his wavy blonde hair. He needed a haircut. He always needed a haircut.
“You know Lizzy, Syd. The quieter she is, the more it means that something’s not right.”
“Ask. Her.”
“Why are you being so difficult about this?” He pulled a book off the truck and examined its cover.
“Do you mind?” Syd snatched the book away from him and returned it to its slot.
“Hey? Maybe I want to read that.”
“Why? Did your subscription to Mechanix Illustrated finally run out?”
“Very funny.” Tom plopped down on a stool. His expression was so morose that Syd relented.
“I’m sorry, Tom.”
He looked at her with surprise. “It’s okay. I know I act like an asshole most of the time.”
“It goes with the job description.”
“What job description?”
“Little brother.”
He smiled. It made him look just like their father—cute and engaging enough to be forgiven for his bouts of annoying behavior. How many times had she seen their mother roll her eyes and cluck her tongue at the two of them? Peas in a pod, she’d call them. The rotten kind that break your teeth.
“So.” Syd pulled a stool over and sat down, too. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” Tom waved a hand in apparent frustration. “It’s like you all speak some kind of different language. I feel like I’m always on the outside trying to operate with only half the alphabet.”
“By ‘all,’ do you mean women?”
He nodded.
“Tom. We don’t speak a different language. You just need to listen with better ears.”
“Am I supposed to know what that means?”
Syd sighed. “Probably not.”
“Great. What else you got?”
“For starters, what makes you think there’s something wrong?”
“I don’t know.” He threw up his hands. “Lately she just seems so—distant. Like she’s a zillion miles away. And . . . well . . .” He shrugged. “She’s been distant in other ways, too.”
“What other ways?”
“You know.” He made an oblique gesture. “Other ways.”
Syd narrowed her eyes. “You mean sexually distant?”
He nodded. �
�And believe me, that’s not an area where we ever had problems.”
“Yeah.” Syd held up a hand. “TMI, bro.”
“Hey, don’t act all shocked. I mean, it’s not like the whole county doesn’t know that you and Maddie hit it like rabbits.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to deny it?”
Syd was flustered. “Why on earth would I deny . . . We don’t . . . It’s not . . .” Her words trailed off.
Tom laughed at her.
“What-ever. You’re such a jerk.” She yanked the book he’d been looking at earlier from its spot on the cart. “Here. Maybe you should read this.”
Tom took it from her.
“I Used to Miss Him, But My Aim Is Improving.” He looked at her. “Is this a joke?”
“Of course not. It’s the ultimate breakup survival guide. We have six copies, and that’s just in this branch.”
Tom read over the book’s description. “‘Make an ex-boyfriend voodoo doll. Lose the guy, keep the jewelry. Stalk responsibly to keep him on his toes.’” He handed the book back to her. “Yeah. I don’t think so.”
“Hits a bit too close to home for you?”
“Not exactly. The idea is not to break up at all.”
“Is that what this is about?” Syd reshelved the book. “Do you think she wants to break up?”
He shrugged.
“Tom? Are you serious about Lizzy?”
“Define ‘serious.’”
She sighed. “Serious. Noun. Not joking or trifling. Being in earnest.”
He nodded. “I think so.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe when you know so, she’ll be a bit more receptive to your queries.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you need to make up your mind before you start worrying about hers.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Really?” Syd dropped her voice an octave. “Enlighten me.”
“I have one more year of vet school. I don’t know where I’m going after that—or even what I’ll be doing.”
“Hopefully, you’ll be fixing broken animals.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I could go into product development. Either way, I’m not likely to be around here.”
“Have you told Lizzy that?”
“She knows my plans for the future are open-ended right now.”