First, Last, and in Between

by Jamie Bennett

  He took a step toward me and I made myself stay still. “I’m sorry about that,” I said, deciding to go on the offensive. If he didn’t like it when I acted scared, maybe he would appreciate the opposite. “I wish I had known about this a long time ago and maybe I could have saved your money for you.” More likely, I would have spent it, but whatever.

  “I bet it was gone the day after they brought me in,” he said.

  “You know who did it?”

  He nodded. “There was only one other person on that signature card. We got the box together, because our boss wanted both of us to be able to use it. Memphis had the other key but he never even came here, I was always the one who put…things in and took them out.”

  I imagined all the things that box had held.

  “And I didn’t think he knew about the money I had, but things are making a lot more sense to me, now.” Rory stared into the distance. “I know what I have to do.”

  That didn’t sound good. “What? What are you going to do?” I asked him. I didn’t even know if he heard me. I cleared my throat. “Rory? Do you still need a ride someplace? Do you have somewhere to go? I used to go to libraries a lot. They’ll let you stay in coffeehouses sometimes.”

  “Yeah,” he answered absently, and then focused on me. “I mean, no. I have an apartment, I just don’t like it. It reminds me of being in there,” he said, pointing at the bank. “Like a little room, trapping me.”

  “Maybe you could come over later. My place isn’t huge, but you could, if you wanted to.”

  “Yeah? Didn’t you say that you had something to do tonight?”

  “Later, but…oh, shit!” I exclaimed and dug in my purse for my phone but it wasn’t in there. “Oh, no.” I looked into the window of my car, where I could see that I had left it wedged in behind the gear shift. I yanked the door open and there were five missed calls, all from Kash, and no messages. I closed my eyes for a second. “I just have to—hold on,” I told Rory, and walked a few steps away into the parking lot to call back my boyfriend.

  “Izzie,” Kash answered, and I knew he was with people because he had that fake-calm tone that he used when he was hiding that he was furious.

  “I’m sorry,” I said immediately. “I lost track of time. I was doing a favor for a friend—”

  “Who? Which friend?”

  “Rella,” I lied. “She needed me to go to the bank for her. And it took a long time, and by mistake, I left my phone in the car.”

  “You left your phone when you knew I’d be calling,” Kash corrected me.

  “Right, that’s what I did, and I’m sorry. It was a mistake. A really dumb mistake, and I’m sorry.” There was a terrible silence. “Do you forgive me?”

  He still didn’t answer and despite the brisk spring wind, I felt myself start to sweat.

  “I forgive you,” he said. “I forgive you, but we’re going to have to talk about some issues we’re having. About how much time you’re spending with Rella, for one thing.”

  “I don’t—” I stopped.

  “What was that, Iz?” The fake-calm voice was gone and I could hear his anger.

  “Nothing,” I whispered.

  “Then I’ll see you at your apartment in…” He put his hand over the phone and I heard him talk to someone else for a moment before he returned to me. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  “Ok. Kash, I’m really sorry.” But he had already hung up, and I stared at the screen, furious with myself and quaking inside. It was so easy to do things right, like picking up my phone and bringing it with me so he could be in touch. Why had I forgotten it? Why was I always doing everything wrong? When I turned back to the car, I saw Rory leaning against it, drawing deeply from his cigarette.

  “Everything ok?” he asked, and I shrugged miserably.

  “I left my phone in the car,” I answered.

  “So?”

  “So, I missed a bunch of calls,” I said.

  “Is something wrong with your friend Rella?” he asked quickly.

  “No…no, I just have to be able to answer it,” I tried to explain. “If people need to reach me, I have to be available for them.” I got back into the car, and it creaked and quaked as Rory joined me. “I’ll drop you then I have to go home. What’s your address?” He told me and I took off. We sped on I-94 across the city.

  “You’re talking about your boyfriend,” Rory commented suddenly. “He’s the reason why you have to be available on your phone.”

  “He likes to know where I am. To make sure I’m ok, because I’m always driving all over the place for work. Last winter, my car broke down in the middle of a snowstorm and I had to walk on the shoulder of the freeway because I couldn’t get a tow truck.”

  “And he called and came to get you?”

  “Well, no,” I admitted. “He was busy.” I had called him that time, but he hadn’t been able to come. “I’m just saying, bad things can happen, so he needs to know what I’m doing.”

  “At all times,” Rory spelled out. “What keeps him so busy that he can’t come get you off the side of the freeway in a snowstorm?”

  “I think I told you that he does security. He works for a guy, a businessman, who likes to go out all the time. That’s why I don’t see him much on weekends or nights, because he always has to go out to bars and stuff.”

  “Oh, he has to,” Rory said.

  I turned to look at him for a second. “What is that supposed to mean? I’m happy that Kash has a good job. He makes really good money. He has a great car and a cool apartment. He has nice clothes so that he can go to all the clubs and keep up his image.”

  “That’s what’s important to you,” Rory remarked, and I turned again.

  “Don’t you think it’s important to be able to support yourself?” I countered. “Look how I live. Is it better to be like me, or like my boyfriend? I’d pick his life, for sure,” I answered my own question. “All I’m going to do is struggle, scrubbing out toilets in ratty jeans until I’m old and grey, and then I’ll die alone in my apartment.” I swallowed, and tried to laugh, like I was making a joke. “I’ll probably have a bunch of cats like my mom. She’s always taking in animals that I can’t afford if I don’t watch her.” I made another ha-ha noise, still trying to laugh when there was absolutely nothing funny.

  He nodded a little. “You think you and that guy will stick it out? Get married or something?”

  I shook my head. “No, of course not! But it’s nothing to do with him.”

  “What is it, then? You don’t want to get married?”

  “No. I don’t know. I don’t plan for more than a week ahead in my life,” I said. “He wouldn’t settle down, anyway, and I don’t expect that.” I looked over at Rory’s face, which was impassive, but somehow gave me the feeling that he wasn’t convinced. “Kash is great,” I told him. “He’s really great.”

  “Does he know you went to get me the other night?” The seat creaked very ominously as Rory shifted around. “Does he know that you’re with me now?”

  “No!” I actually shivered a little at the thought. “No, of course not. And I won’t ever tell him. I can be friends with you, but it’s better that he doesn’t know. He wouldn’t understand our, um, relationship.”

  “That I’m like your brother. That’s what you told him about me.”

  “Yeah.” I hesitated. “That’s ok, right? Like, we could maybe be friends.”

  “I don’t have too many.”’

  No, I didn’t either.

  “Yeah, we’re friends,” Rory said. “And if you got stuck on the side of the freeway again, I’d be someone you could call.”

  I smiled a little. “I don’t even have your real number. The one you called me from before didn’t work when I tried it.”

  He picked up my phone and typed. “Now you have it.”

  “How would you come get me? I’m the one with the tin can car.”

  “If you needed me, I’d figure out a way. I’d be there,” he answered, l
ooking right at me with his dark blue eyes. It made me swallow hard and I couldn’t keep meeting his gaze. We drove the rest of the way to his apartment without saying very much else.

  Chapter 5

  Isobel

  I kept my eyes closed the whole time, but I quickly opened them and smiled up at Kash when he finished. He took my jaw in his hand and kissed me deeply, then rolled off to go to the fridge to get a beer. “That was good,” he said over his shoulder.

  I shifted on the bed, moving from where a loose spring from the thin couch mattress was poking me hard in the back. “Really good,” I agreed. I had remembered a few things to add to Rella’s grocery list, but now was not the time to try to type them into my phone. Not after the long discussion Kash had with me the other day about how much time I was spending with her, and especially because I didn’t think he’d appreciate that I was remembering that she needed more foil and light brown sugar as we had sex. It had been fine—good, like it always was. He had liked it a lot, and I was glad that he enjoyed it. Oh, a lemon. She was still talking about making lemon bars and she liked to use fresh juice. I would add that to the list, too.

  I leaned on one elbow and watched Kash’s naked body as he drained a second beer. He scratched himself with his other hand as he put the bottle on the counter and then pulled his phone out of the jeans he had tossed on my floor. He had been in a hurry to strip them off when he’d come in—he’d barely removed his shoes by the time he put on the condom and I was still wearing my shirt and bra. He had only been interested in one particular part of me.

  He tossed the phone back down onto the pile of his clothes. “I have time. Let’s go another round,” he said, and I nodded, keeping the sigh hidden. Once had been more than enough for me, but I wouldn’t tell him no because that would lead to a lot of problems. “I like that you can’t get enough of me,” he said, grinning, and I nodded again, as if that was true. I really was glad that he was here. My studio had felt very small and sad before he arrived and I liked that he wanted me so much, that he had found the time to come over.

  My neighbor’s big dog took the opportunity to start barking and Kash frowned, because it did sound like that animal was in the room with us. He glanced around my apartment, wrinkling his nose a little like he could smell the dog, too. “I can’t believe you live in this shithole,” he remarked. He started to touch himself, getting ready for that next round.

  “It’s not that bad,” I said, my eyes on his hand as he stroked. “They got the elevator working yesterday. It doesn’t smell like it’s burning anymore.”

  He made a dismissive noise. “Shithole,” he repeated. “You should move. You’re only here because of Rella.”

  “Yeah, she was why I moved in here at first, but this is what I can afford,” I tried to explain reasonably. “She’s not keeping me here.” I hesitated. “We could go to your place sometimes, like, I could come over.” I had been there once, but just very briefly, when he’d had a stain on his rug and thought I could get it out. It was a really nice building and a great apartment.

  Kash laughed, and I smiled too, as if maybe I’d been joking. “I just meant, sometimes we could go there, to make it easier for you. And since you don’t like my place,” I quickly added. “I want you to be happy.”

  “Do you?” He rolled his neck and it cracked. “Show me.” I started to stand up from the sofa bed, but he shook his head. “Crawl.”

  I swallowed, but I got down stiffly on my hands and knees, glad that I still had my shirt on at least.

  “Strip.”

  A while later, I unpacked the last grocery bag in Rella’s apartment, putting her new box of brown sugar into the cabinet. Kash had left my apartment a few hours before, but I had taken my time getting ready, standing under the shower for a while before I came down on the elevator to drive to the store to shop for her. And for my mom, in preparation for visiting her over the weekend. She’d been sending me all kinds of special food items she wanted me to buy. “Maraschino cherries,” she had texted, without any kind of explanation, but I figured it out when she’d gone on with more unusual grocery items. “Jordan almonds. Sardines.” I had shaken my head and bought one of the fifteen things she had requested and ignored the rest.

  “What’s this?” Rella asked, shuffling into her kitchen and taking something from the counter. She seemed tired today, and had told me that she wasn’t going to the church that night for their advocacy meeting. They were always banding together to write letters to someone about something that needed improving or was unjust. Usually she loved it, but she had said she would skip, even though I could tell she felt guilty about letting down their causes.

  I turned and looked at what she had in her hands. “Oh, those are my mom’s. I put them in your bag by mistake. She wanted me to get her a jar of pimento olives for some reason. Here, Rella, please sit down.” I pulled out a chair for her, worried when I looked into her eyes. They were unfocused and drooping.

  “Just because that woman demands things of you, you don’t have to give into it,” she told me. Rella hated—hated—my mom. “Pimento olives. How much did those cost?”

  “It’s ok,” I assured her. “I’m not getting the pickled onions or the fancy crackers she requested.”

  “Pickled onions?” Rella made a terrible face which turned into a yawn that she covered with her hand.

  “Did you sleep poorly again?” I asked.

  “I just tossed and turned, thinking that Barry was coming to bed.” She took off her thick glasses and rubbed her eyes. “I’m feeling the years, I guess. I’m missing him.”

  “Yeah.” I carefully closed the cupboard door so it wouldn’t slam. “I’m going to make you some tea and a little sandwich. Did you have lunch?” I knew the answer before she turned a confused face toward me, and I was already moving to get the bread. She came back to herself as she ate, talking to me about my day and why in the Sam Hill my mom would want those olives, but she was still subdued. After she had eaten about half of the tiny amount of food I prepared, I got her to go lay down.

  “It’s the middle of the afternoon!” she protested as I propelled her gently. “I can’t go to bed now.”

  “It’s getting on dinner time,” I said. “I’ll wake you up and we can eat together late.”

  “No plans tonight?” she asked, settling back onto her pillows. “No Mr. Kash?”

  She already knew we didn’t go out very much at night, but she thought we should, and she liked to remind me of that. “I saw him earlier. He came by.” He had left right after the second round, because he didn’t want to stay in my apartment. An unwanted thought crept into my mind that he didn’t want to stay with me, either.

  “A little afternoon delight?” Rella asked archly.

  “Rella!” And “delight” would have been a bit of a stretch. I had been glad to see him, of course. Even though he had been really angry about me missing his phone calls earlier in the week when I’d been with Rory, he’d forgiven me and it had been fine. Good, I meant. “It was very nice to see him.”

  She sighed. “Honey, I worry about you with him.”

  “I know, I know,” I said, and tried not to be irritated. I knew that she meant well. It was just hard for her, after her own perfect relationship with Barry, to imagine anything less for me. Not less, I didn’t mean that. Something different from what she’d had with her husband.

  “Bring me the brown album. The one on the bottom,” she said, and I slid it out, the old plastic sticking to the shelf and to the thick photo book above it. Rella patted the equally brown bedspread. “I thought about this late last night when I couldn’t sleep and I wanted to show it to you. Sit down here so we can see together.”

  “I don’t know this one,” I said, as we opened it. “1962,” the gold writing on the cover read.

  “No, you haven’t seen it before. I don’t open this one very often.” She turned the pages, and I watched her smile as she saw her husband. “A fine figure of a man,” she murmured, and
tapped his chest gently.

  I studied the picture of the two of them, Rella so young, Barry’s arm over her shoulders and a proud smile on his face. “Rella! Were you—”

  “Yes, I was pregnant,” she said. “But we lost him. He only lived for three days. Harrison Barry Ross.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I looked at the old pictures of her smiling with Barry, her rounded stomach, and thought how much she must have loved them both. If her son were still here, would she have bothered to love me, too? I froze, shocked at my selfishness.

  “This is the shower that my friend Ethel threw. She had petit fours. Do you know what those are?” When I shook my head, Rella showed me a close-up of little cakes, the pastel pink and blue icing in the picture yellowed by time. We looked at another one of Rella with a group of smiling women under a sign that proclaimed, “Baby Joy!”

  “He would have been much older than you, of course. Old enough to be your grandfather, maybe. That would have been nice for you,” she said.

  “I wish I could have met him.”

  Rella turned another page, the old plastic crinkling. “Without Barry, I couldn’t have gotten through it. I didn’t want to, not at first. But we held each other up.” She took my hand. “Don’t you want that, too? Don’t you want more? You need someone to hold you up, Izzie. I know you get angry at me for saying it, but that person isn’t Kash.”

  I remembered how I had defended him to Rory after we went to the bank. Then Kash had come to my apartment, so, so angry. I swallowed. “You should try to sleep,” I said. “What about chicken for dinner when you get up?”

  She sighed a little and closed the photo album, then rested her head back against the pillows I’d arranged. “That would be wonderful. You do take good care of me.”

  “I know I’m not the same as having your real baby, but I love you, Rella.”

  She opened her eyes and then opened her arms to me. “I love you, too, honey.” She patted my back and I closed my eyes, resting my head on her shoulder but not squeezing her too tightly. “You are my real baby,” she told me.