by JB Lynn
“I didn’t mean it. I’m just really stressed out.” Because a mob boss wants me to kill a drug dealer that I used to call Uncle.
“Youneedewetaid,” she muttered.
“What?”
She turned to look at me. “You need to get laid,” she shouted.
Our coworkers, intentionally inhaling carcinogens by the door, stopped puffing long enough to laugh at my expense.
My cheeks burned. “That’s your solution to everything.”
“It would certainly fix things with Harry.”
“Not funny.”
“But true.”
“Not happening.”
“What about the cop?”
An image of red-haired, green-eyed Patrick sprang to mind, but I knew that wasn’t who she was referring to. She meant muscle-bound Paul. “I don’t trust him.”
“News flash, Chiquita: You don’t have to trust ’em to screw ’em.”
Wise words.
AFTER WORK, A day that was mercifully Harry-free, I went to visit Katie. Before I entered her room, I knew by the telltale clicking that Aunt Susan was there, pecking away at her computer keyboard like a crazed woodpecker.
“Hello, Margaret.” She didn’t look up from her typing.
“Hi.” I bent over Katie and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Hey there, Baby Girl. Aunt Maggie is here.” I held my breath, hoping that she’d open her eyes.
She didn’t.
I sighed my disappointment, which made Susan’s fingers falter. The sudden silence echoed through the room.
Taking Katie’s tiny hand in mine, I sank into the seat beside her bed. I sang “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Even that didn’t garner a response from her. I swallowed down the painful lump that rose in my throat. The doctors had said her recovery, if she made one, would be slow, but I kept hoping for a miracle. Every day that she failed to improve, my sense of optimism wavered.
Aunt Susan cleared her throat. “You’ll never guess who Alice brought by last night.”
I looked over at her and saw that she too had unshed tears in her eyes. “Who?”
“Zeke.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I saw him last night.”
“Where?”
“At The Big Day. We were looking for a wedding dress for her and he popped up like some deranged fairy godmother, pulling out the perfect gown.”
“He’s a nice boy. He was always patient with your mother.”
I didn’t say anything. Aunt Susan had always had a soft spot for Zeke. I couldn’t expect her to understand that beneath his smooth charm lurked the heart of an evil wizard, able to cast a spell over everyone I knew.
“Alice said the dress he chose was perfect, everything she’d dreamed of finding.”
“She does look beautiful in it,” I admitted grudgingly.
“Lamont didn’t like the fact she brought Zeke home. I was afraid he was going to sit on the poor boy.”
Hope surged through me, lifting my spirits and bringing a smile to my face. Finally! Someone who saw Zeke for the conniving little weasel he is! My fondness for Alice’s fiancé tripled in that moment. “He’s not a boy. He’s my age.”
She tilted her head and considered that. “But he’s not bitter, which makes him seem younger.”
Frowning, I looked away.
“His family disowned him,” Susan reminded me quietly, before I had a chance to launch into my litany of reasons why I was bitter. “Do you remember how you begged us to take him in?”
I nodded. The anti-drug campaign had been in full swing at our high school when Zeke had called the cops on his own drug-dealing father at the end of our junior year. When his dad was sent to prison, his mother kicked Zeke out of the house for “destroying the family.”
Way back then, I’d felt a sort of kinship with Zeke since we had the most fucked-up families in the neighborhood. That and the fact I’d nursed a crush on him when we were juniors. He’d needed a place to stay until he finished high school, so I’d asked my aunts to help my friend/crush, but everything changed our senior year. That’s when I’d found out that he was gay and it was when he’d tried to steal my best friend.
I sighed. “I made a mistake.”
“You made me proud.”
I snapped my attention back to her. Her eyes were trained on her computer screen. “Really?”
“I’m constantly surprised by what you’re capable of, Margaret.”
The conversation went no further than that, because Aunt Loretta teetered in, pollinating the room with air kisses and taking over the conversation. I couldn’t tell if she was wearing even more blush than usual, or if she was hot and bothered about something.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
She frowned at me. “Are you going to wear a tuxedo?”
I looked to Aunt Susan for a clue as to what the hell her sister was talking about. She shrugged at me helplessly, her fingers hovering above her keyboard. “A tuxedo?” I asked Aunt Loretta.
“To the wedding!”
“To your wedding?” I asked, totally confused.
“Heaven help us,” Aunt Susan muttered, and began banging away on her computer with undue vigor.
“Not my wedding,” Aunt Loretta huffed. “How vulgar!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I confessed, feeling the dull throb of a headache take root behind my eyes.
“To Alice’s wedding! Are you wearing a tuxedo to Alice’s wedding?”
“I’m wearing a tutu.”
Aunt Susan’s clickety-clacking stopped long enough for her to ask, “Really? She’s having you wear a tutu?”
I shook my head. “No. It just looks like a tutu. It’s pink and frilly and has this giant crinoline skirt.”
“Ughhh,” Loretta groaned.
Apparently, in her estimation, a tutu was even more vulgar than wearing a tuxedo to her wedding. And I hadn’t even mentioned that it was cotton candy pink.
“So no tuxedos,” I told her with faux cheeriness.
“He can’t wear a tutu.” Loretta tapped her stiletto for emphasis.
“Lamont?” I asked.
She stopped tapping and looked at me as though I were even crazier than her sister, my mom, who is locked up in the nuthouse. “Why would Lamont wear a tutu?”
“Loretta!” Aunt Susan said sharply. “Why are you going on about tuxedos and tutus?”
Her sister blinked her false eyelashes, signaling she was hurt by Susan’s tone. “I wasn’t the one who brought up tutus.”
Aunt Susan glared at her. “Tuxedo?”
“What’s Zeke going to wear to the wedding?”
The throbbing behind my eyes increased to the intensity of war drums. I had a horrible feeling that I knew where this was going. “Why would it matter what Zeke wears?”
“Because,” Aunt Loretta said, “Alice asked him to be one of her bridesmaids.”
Even though I’d suspected as much, the confirmation still stung. I turned away from my aunts so they wouldn’t see the tears I was fighting. Blindly I picked up a pink teddy bear that had been sent to Katie.
“You’re a bull in a china shop, Loretta,” Aunt Susan chided.
“What?” Aunt Loretta asked. “It’s a legitimate concern.”
“She didn’t know,” Aunt Susan said gently.
“Oh. I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Margaret.”
“It’s okay,” I said, my back still to them. “One would assume that the bride would let her maid of honor in on such decisions.”
Thankfully, Aunt Leslie barged in just then, effectively ending the conversation. Hyped up from all the caffeine she was ingesting at her NA and AA meetings, she talked faster than an auctioneer about “sharing” and “steps” and “amends.” It didn’t take me long to zone out. I was preoccupied about the night’s “lesson” with Patrick. I really wasn’t up to any more surprises.
Chapter Six
I WAS STILL worrying about what the lesson would entail as I left Katie’s room, leaving behi
nd the three cackling witches.
“Miss Lee?” a man called. “Miss Lee?”
Holding my breath, I turned slowly in the direction of the unfamiliar voice. The first strange man who’d greeted me by my name here in the hospital was Delveccio. The second had been Gary the Gun. Neither of those meetings had resulted in moments that gave me the warm fuzzies. Call me superstitious, but I’m a great believer in bad things happening in threes. Unlike the mob boss and the hired gun, the man approaching me from the waiting area didn’t appear to be menacing. He looked tired and sad. I didn’t recognize him, but maybe he too had someone lying in one of these beds. Maybe, like me, he’d been ground down by the weight of the endless waiting.
“How can I help you?” I asked as kindly as I could.
“Would you mind if we sat down and talked?” He waved at the waiting area.
“Of course.”
For once the space was visitor-free. Our only company would be the television tuned to the local station. I’d learned more about my fair state because of that damn TV than I had after a childhood spent in the public school system. We sat on a pair of chairs opposite one another. Neither of us spoke. He nervously fiddled with his wedding ring, a simple band that had seen better days.
“What can I do for you?” I finally asked.
“My name is Bruce . . . Bruce Calvin.” He waited, watching my reaction as the name sank in.
A vise tightened around my chest, making it difficult to breathe.
“My wife”—he glanced down at the symbol of their love encircling his finger—“my wife was Lois Calvin. I wanted to say, I wanted to tell you, to make sure you knew, how very sorry I am . . .” he said in a rush before trailing off lamely with “for what happened.”
“For what happened?” My voice, shaking with emotion, was barely more than a growl. “You mean that your wife murdered my sister and put my niece in a coma?”
He flinched. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry won’t bring my sister or Katie back.”
He hung his head. “This was a bad idea.”
“No,” I said, jumping to my feet, “your wife getting behind the wheel while higher than the Empire State Building, that was a bad idea. This was just a colossal waste of time.” I stalked away from him, my legs shaking from the righteous anger flooding my entire body.
“I tried to stop her!” he called.
I spun back. “You didn’t try hard enough.”
He’d gotten to his feet and had followed after me. “I got my daughter, Martha, she’s four . . . I got her out of the car and brought her inside. I went back out to get the keys from Lois, but she was gone.”
We stood there, staring at one another, each reeling from our respective losses.
Finally, when I thought I could speak without screaming, I asked, “What is it you want from me, Mr. Calvin?”
“Forgiveness?”
I laughed. Or at least tried to, but the sound that came out sounded like a grunt of pain. “You’re asking the wrong person.”
“Please,” he begged. “Haven’t you ever made a wrong choice? Haven’t you ever, in the moment, gone right when you should have gone left? Don’t you have any regrets about things you could have, should have done differently?”
An image of young Marlene tugging on my arm at the carnival, while I instead focused on our mother and her outlandish behavior, flashed through my mind. All too familiar regret and self-recrimination flooded through me. Instinctively I tensed against it, balling my fists.
I looked anew at Mr. Calvin and saw again how tired and sad he looked. I understood what it was like to carry that kind of guilt around. I knew what it felt like to need to be absolved for that kind of mistake.
I closed my eyes, gathering myself. I could do this. I could offer this man, who’d inadvertently destroyed my family, the one thing he wanted most. The very thing my own family had denied me.
I opened my eyes, the words I forgive you on the tip of my tongue, but the countenance of the man I faced was no longer desperately pleading. He stared past me, as though I didn’t even exist, with a consuming hatred.
I turned to see the target of his hate and realized he was watching the TV.
I recognized the face the camera was following. Jose Garcia.
“It’s all his fault,” Calvin ground out through gritted teeth.
“How?” I asked softly.
“He’s the one who got her hooked. We met him at a party some stupid work friend of hers threw, and he gave her a ‘free sample.’ It was all downhill from there. We had a life, a family, and now . . . now I have nothing.” He collapsed into the nearest chair, burying his face in his hands.
“You have Martha,” I reminded him gently.
“But he killed her!”
“And my sister.” My anger left as quickly as it had arrived. A cold, calculating need for revenge filled the void it left.
I never even thought about the decision. In that moment, I knew I was going to tell Delveccio that I’d kill Jose Garcia.
“I’M GOING TO kill him,” I told Patrick as Doomsday clambered into the back of his truck du jour. This one was forest green and smelled . . . delish.
Patrick waited until I’d climbed inside, before inquiring mildly, “Aren’t you going to put on your seat belt?”
As soon as I’d clicked my safety belt, he handed me a brown paper bag that smelled heavenly.
“What is it?” I asked, momentarily forgetting my need for revenge as I was overcome by the aroma of fresh-cooked food that hadn’t come out of a microwave.
“Dinner.”
“Me feed. Me feed,” Doomsday whined piteously.
“Okay, okay, big fella,” Patrick said, reaching behind us and rubbing the Doberman’s snout. “I didn’t forget about you.”
“She’s a girl,” I reminded him as I opened up the bag and pulled out a sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil. Shredded lettuce and chopped tomatoes fell into my lap, but I didn’t care. I took a giant bite.
“This isn’t a burger,” I said through my mouthful of food. Aunt Susan would have been appalled by my lack of manners.
“No.” Patrick chuckled, pulling another brown bag out and rummaging in it. “It’s a falafel. It won’t kill you to eat some vegetables. Don’t you like it?”
Considering that Patrick had bought me more meals in the short time I’d known him than all the other men I knew had in the past three years, I didn’t think it was right to complain. “It’s . . . interesting.”
“Did you bring the lizard?”
“No. Should I have?”
“No, but I thought maybe you’d bring him along for luck. I mean, you did bring it to a hit.” He tossed a piece of something that looked suspiciously like steak to the dog.
She gobbled it up greedily.
“You got me vegetables and the mutt a steak?” I asked incredulously.
“It’s lamb.”
Doomsday grinned at me. “Good. Good.”
“How come she gets lamb and I get . . . this?”
“Because she’s a good dog who is stuck eating dry kibble and you’re a grown woman who seems to subsist on microwavable meals, olives, and fast food. You should take better care of yourself.”
“I—”
“You,” he interrupted, “can do whatever you choose, but that doesn’t mean that I need to enable your self-destructive habits.” He tossed another piece of lamb to Doomsday.
Scolded, I slouched in my seat and concentrated on polishing off my sandwich.
Patrick pulled the truck out of the parking space and pulled onto the road. “See that blue Camaro up there? Keep your eyes on it.”
“That’s a car, right?”
“It’s not just a car, it’s a classic.”
“So that means it’s old, right?” I leaned forward, squinting. “Why didn’t you just say, ‘See that old car up there’? Then I would have known what you were talking about.”
“So you see it?”
“Yup. Wh
at’s important about it?”
“Nothing.”
I turned to glare at him. “So why the hell are you having me watch it?”
“It’s part of a lesson.”
“What kind of lesson?”
“How to tail someone. In our business it’s helpful to know how to follow someone.”
“I think I can handle that,” I groused. “How hard can it be?”
“Where’d it go?” he asked with deceptive mildness.
I looked back at the road. We were approaching an intersection. The old blue car was nowhere in sight. My mouthful of falafel got stuck in my throat. “I don’t know.”
Patrick sighed his disappointment.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Sigh at me.”
Patrick slid a sideways glance in my direction as he pulled onto a side street. “Sighing is off limits now?”
“Sighing is the universal symbol for Maggie’s a screw-up.” The sharpness of my tone made Doomsday whine.
“Or,” he replied calmly, “it’s a sign that Patrick’s had a bad day.”
“You had a bad day too?” Here I’d been all wrapped up in my problems and the man beside me had endured an equally bad day. Maybe worse, since I’d never heard him complain before. “What happened?”
He shrugged.
I opened my mouth to ask why he’d bothered to bring it up if he didn’t want to talk about it, when I spotted the old, blue car, pulling into a driveway. “There it is! The Canary!”
“Camaro, it’s a Camaro, not a Canary.” He drove past the classic. “Nice job spotting it.”
“Nice enough that it warrants you telling me why you had a bad day?”
A faint smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “My daughter’s mother wants to move to California.”
“Oh.” I mean what do you say to a guy when he tells you that his wife, who isn’t really his wife since he’s already married to someone else, is leaving him?
“She’s found someone else. She’s been seeing an old friend from Iraq and apparently they’re going to get married.”
“Oh.” Was I supposed to say I was sorry to hear that?
“I’m happy for her. She’s never been happy here . . . or with me.”