First, Last, and in Between

by Jamie Bennett

  “Is it?” Ronnie asked him. “Is it over between you two?” I flicked my eyes in his direction, thinking that his voice sounded strange. No, not strange—excited. Oh, Ronnie, that was a mistake.

  Leopold just sputtered out a breath and slapped his legs again as an answer, which meant nothing to me. But my guess was, if his father had told him to do something, he was going to have to do it, so no more Jourdan. I wondered what would happen when the old man finally died. Leopold was the oldest, and from what I’d seen of his younger brother, the guy wasn’t much better. I was guessing that the business would go quickly into the shitter with the two of those losers in charge.

  I watched Ronnie as he drove and Leopold continued to talk. He told us all about Jourdan, about her body, about the things they did together. Ronnie was trying to hide it, but he was getting more and more pissed the more Leopold went on. He told us about stuff he made her do in bed and what she was good at. What she wasn’t good at.

  “Leopold, who are you meeting tonight after the warehouse?” I interrupted him, even though I already knew.

  “What? Oh, remember that guy from the dinner the other night with the great tiramisu?”

  I knew he meant the dinner after which we had been shot at, the part of the evening which had stood out more to me. “Yeah. Bernard.”

  “Sure, Bernie Tollman. We go way back together. Can you believe that little pissant went from cheating on second grade spelling tests to being a big shot attorney at Menteurs, Oszustow, and Diebe? Bernard,” he said, sniggering. “Now he’s the managing partner at the biggest firm in Detroit.” Leopold couldn’t stop himself from continuing on, and on, and on, about how Bernie had been a little shit, a little liar, a little everything, and how he’d married a girl from a nudie bar and now they lived in a big house in Grosse Pointe and acted like they’d never gotten their hands dirty.

  He also told me how dirty Bernie still was, more about what they had been discussing at the restaurant. The two of them were involved in some business ventures together that that Bernard Tollman, an upstanding member of the community who paid dues to the state bar association, shouldn’t have touched. Maybe he was a pissant and a little liar, but apparently he was also smart enough to screw over the partners at his firm out of the money they were owed, not to mention evading the notice of Michigan and federal law enforcement officials.

  But I was stuck on his last name: Tollman. I remembered it, because it was the same name as the woman who hadn’t paid Isobel what she’d been owed for cleaning her big house. The woman who treated Isobel like crap. “Tollman” wasn’t so a common name for there to be a lot of them in Grosse Pointe.

  “Bernie’s embarrassed,” Leopold mentioned, and I looked at him in the mirror because he sounded satisfied. “He’s embarrassed with me, because I knew him when. I know who he really is.”

  I was very surprised that Leopold had enough awareness to recognize that. Yeah, his pal had been ashamed to sit down at the table with his old friend Leopold, and I’d wondered at the time why Bernie and his wife had shown up for dinner at all.

  “He doesn’t want to see me, but he has to. He needs me,” Leopold announced, and when I glanced at him in the mirror again, he was smiling.

  ∞

  Isobel

  Kash’s apartment wasn’t like I remembered. I looked around the room, which seemed dark and cramped and crowded with stuff. Too much stuff, and it was everywhere. Maybe I’d been in the empty Tollman house too often, I thought, or maybe…

  Maybe you’re thinking about Rory’s apartment instead, with the bookshelves and everything squared away, my mind sang out. I had been there again after our fancy dinner. We’d sat and talked and it had been so easy, so calm and reassuring.

  But now, I was at Kash’s place, because he had called me to make up and I’d agreed to see him. “I’m sorry,” he’d told me on the phone. “You know I didn’t mean it. Come over, ok? Come on, Iz.” I hated when he called me that. I’d come anyway, and now, I was wondering why.

  I made my way over to where Kash sat on the couch, his leg up in front of him on the coffee table. I could see that there was a brace on his ankle, but it was dark in the room. I had to push aside some beer cans and dirty laundry and I tripped on an old pizza box as I walked the few steps closer. Oh, maybe that was why he had invited me to come over—he wanted me to clean up, like the other time I’d been to his apartment. I hadn’t brought my bucket, though, and if he asked me, I was going to say no. I was going to try to say no.

  He reached over and hit the light switch on the wall and I saw his face. My jaw dropped. He had told me that he’d been in a car accident, but I didn’t expect this: he had two black eyes, his nose was taped like maybe it was broken, his lip was cut, and there was a bruise all around his neck. Also, his hair was greasy and he wasn’t wearing his usual jeans and tight shirt—just an old pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that I might have used as a cleaning rag.

  “Kash!” I exclaimed, shocked, but then bit my lip and stopped. I knew how angry it would make him if I commented on the changes to his appearance.

  “What?” he growled back at me, and I knew I had been right about his reaction.

  I quickly shook my head. “Nothing,” I told him, but then couldn’t think of what else to say. What words wouldn’t upset him? It was hard to choose and it made me scared, but it made me frustrated, too. Why is it so hard to talk to your boyfriend? the little voice teased me. Why can’t you say what you want?

  “I haven’t seen you in a while,” he said. He smiled at me and I remembered finding him so handsome before when he’d done that. But now, looking at his bruises, I could only remember mine. And that he had put them there.

  “I haven’t seen you since you were at my apartment,” I said carefully. “I was in really bad shape.”

  “I told you on the phone that I was sorry about that.” Kash briefly lost the smile but then regained it. “Come sit down.” He moved a sock and a beer can from the cushion next to him and then patted it.

  I regarded the couch for a moment until his lips turned into a definite frown and then I sat, but as far away from him as I could on the leather seat. I could smell him now that I was closer, and he smelled like he hadn’t bathed in a while. “How are you feeling?” I asked. Kash never asked you that after he hurt you, the voice in my mind reminded me.

  Kash swore, angry at my question. His temper came on like lighting a match. “I’m feeling fucking great, Iz. Do you see my face?” He felt gently around his nose and I remembered one time last fall when I’d thought he’d broken mine. Yeah, that had hurt.

  “What happened, exactly?”

  “Some asshole rear-ended me, wrecked my car.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke.

  I knew how much he loved that car. “Can it be fixed?” I asked.

  “What do you think ‘wrecked’ means?” he spat out. “Of course it can’t be fixed.” He went on about how great his car had been, how special, how people knew it and when they saw him in it, they were so impressed.

  I nodded tightly, agreeing. “Um, why did you want me to come over tonight, Kash?”

  He reached and grabbed my leg, squeezing my thigh. I twisted under his hand, trying to squirm away, but he only gripped tighter. “I missed you, Izzie.” With his other hand, he rubbed over the front of his sweatpants. “I’ve been alone here and I wanted you to come and see me.”

  He wanted me to come and service him, he meant. I made myself hold very still and his fingers relaxed, not digging so hard into my muscle. “I missed you too,” I said. As I said the words, I realized that they were a lie. I had wondered about him and where he was, why he wasn’t in contact with me, but I hadn’t missed him at all. I also realized that I had been dreading seeing him, instead of looking forward to it.

  “Good.” He started to pull down his pants over his hips, which took two hands, so he let me go. I scooted away until I slid over the low arm of the couch and was standing with the side of it between us. He
turned to stare at me, his sweatpants mid-thigh. “Where are you going?”

  “I didn’t come here to—I just came here to talk to you,” I said. I took a small step back.

  Even beneath the bruises and tape, I could see his features harden again in anger. “What do you want to talk about, Iz?” he asked me, his voice very controlled.

  I could feel my heart beating, fluttering and then jumping in my chest. “I just—I don’t know,” I said. My own voice sounded weak and quivery. “I’m sorry,” I heard myself say.

  Kash stood up, yanking on the dirty sweatpants. But he had stood slowly, like it was painful. You know how that feels, my brain whispered. Remember how it hurt to move after he hit you? I shook my head, trying to stop the words.

  “If you’re sorry, come and show me. Come here, Izzie.”

  It was almost completely silent in his apartment as he waited for me. He was high up in his building and the windows were better than mine, thicker or something, so that there was no noise from the street outside. It was so quiet in the room that I could only hear my own breathing. Then I also heard myself say, “No.”

  The silence settled back over us, heavy and thick and smothering. Kash held perfectly still. “What did you say to me?”

  “No.”

  Before the word had passed my lips, he was lunging, and before I knew I was doing it, I was moving too, hurtling myself toward the exit. But as fast as I ran, he still would have caught me if he hadn’t been hurt, or if I had locked the door behind myself when I’d come in. I’d left it open just in case. His hand grabbed some of my hair but I was already stepping into the hallway and I kept running, past the elevator and to the stairs, down seven flights, and then out through his lobby, scaring a woman who was coming into the building with her dog so that she screamed, but I didn’t make a sound.

  I ran to my car and dropped the keys as I tried to open it because my hands shook so much. When I got in and locked the door, my legs were shaking too as I pressed down on the gas and took off down the street. I looked in my rearview mirror like Rory did when we drove, watching for danger coming up behind us.

  Rory. I wanted to find Rory, right now. I even turned toward his building and sped in that direction for a few blocks before I stopped myself. I didn’t need to run to Rory, and more, I didn’t want him to know that I had been over to see Kash. I didn’t want to admit to Rory that I had been in that apartment and that I had almost let Kash hurt me again, but I wouldn’t have to. After what had happened tonight, how I’d stood up to him and gotten away, I wouldn’t be able to see Kash anymore.

  No, I’d never see Kash again. I knew exactly what he would do to me if I did, because he didn’t let anger die or grudges fade away. I rocked a little in my seat, calming myself down, not wanting to think about it. I wouldn’t see Kash again because I didn’t want to end up in the hospital and I didn’t want to die. I would just have to be careful, to make sure that he didn’t see me, first.

  I turned the wheel, ignoring the screeching sound the car made, and drove over to my mom’s apartment. She hadn’t answered my texts for the last two days, which could have meant that she had lost or broken her phone (again) or it could have meant that she was ignoring me because she was up to something and she didn’t want me to find out. Or she just forgot about me (again), like she’d been doing most of my life. I sighed, thinking about the probability of cats, and how the scratches on my arms had barely healed. And I looked in the rearview mirror more, just to make sure that Kash wasn’t coming up behind me.

  “Mom? Jade?” I called as I let myself in, and then I stood totally quiet and listened. She didn’t answer and I couldn’t hear any animal movement at all, which was good, unless the cats were just being very tricky and hiding. But that smell…

  I held my nose. “Mom?” There were only so many places she could have been in an apartment this small. I walked into her tiny kitchen and that was where the smell was coming from: the trash was overflowing and there were flies buzzing around, and the sink was piled with food-encrusted dishes. The refrigerator still contained some of the stuff that I had bought for her, but the flavored cream she liked for her coffee had gone bad. I threw that out and took the garbage bag to the dumpster, and then I washed the dishes, angrily scraping and scrubbing the plates that I had bought with the sponge that I had bought, and the soap that I had also bought. “I’m going to kill you, Jade, for disappearing and leaving this mess,” I murmured into the empty apartment.

  I turned off the sink and sighed into the silence. Even my mom would have done something about the garbage, even if she had only poured perfume on it or another useless non-solution like that. The bad creamer, too—she wouldn’t have used it and she would have been calling me to come and replace it for her. Those things meant that she hadn’t been here at the apartment, maybe not since I’d last seen her over the weekend.

  I checked my texts again. The last time she’d sent me a message was on Monday when she requested a high-heeled pair of slippers and special, real-fur false eyelashes for her birthday. Since that wouldn’t be until November, I had answered, “Sure. I’m on it,” and left it at that. The rest of the screen showed how I’d written to her, asking if she was going to her appointments, asking her to respond, asking if she was ok. She hadn’t answered.

  I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. Jade had disappeared in the past, and it had never meant anything good. I started by calling the police, then hospitals, then shelters. I called Rella, too, to let her know that I’d be late for dinner.

  “I’m sure she’s with…I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Rella told me.

  I knew what she had been about to say. Mostly when Jade checked out, she was with some horrible man somewhere. But a few times, she’d gotten herself in real trouble, like when she’d overdosed, or when she’d been with people who decided that it would be really smart to build a fire in the abandoned house they were using to party in. That had almost resulted in an arson charge when she was the only one who hung around as the place burned down because she hadn’t had the sense to run like everyone else.

  “I’ll let Rory know that you’re all right,” Rella continued.

  It was only after I hung up with her that I wondered how she happened to have his number to let him know. I looked at the phone for a moment, considering again if I should call him myself.

  No, I decided. I wasn’t a helpless child, needing him to come and save me. I could take care of Rella and I could take care of Jade, and I could also take care of myself. My eyes filled up with tears suddenly as I looked at the mess of my mom’s apartment and wondered if any of that was true.

  I rubbed my eyes with my knuckles and went into the tiny, messy bedroom, looking for some clue about where Jade had gone. I didn’t find any hints to her whereabouts, but I did find a bunch of bottles strewn around, just like in Mrs. Tollman’s hoarder room. I bet that these weren’t brands and vintages that she would have touched, even when she was on a bender like the last time I’d cleaned for her. I sighed and gathered up the bottles, a giant load, and one slipped from my arms and crashed to the floor, landing in one of the few clear spaces not covered by clothes and accessories—it looked like my mom had dumped her closet and drawers out onto the ground. The glass shattered, spraying shards around the small, dirty room.

  I sighed, examining the new mess. “Damn you, Jade!” I muttered into the silence, and as I spoke, something brushed past my ankle. I screamed and dropped the rest of the bottles.

  It was a tiny cat. It darted away again but I caught it as it tried to hide under one of my mom’s discarded bras. “Hey,” I said softly as I picked it up, and its little claws dug into my hand. “Ow! Don’t do that.” I examined it and, unlike most of the animals my mom collected, it looked healthy and flea-free. It had a sweet little face, too, under its fluffy black fur.

  “I’m going to have to take you to the shelter,” I told it. “Someone will bring you home so you don’t have to stay in this dirty hole with broken gl
ass everywhere.”

  The kitten examined me evenly. It didn’t appear to think much about that idea.

  It was so small in my hand. I cuddled it under my chin, right where I had put my own face into Rory’s neck. This tiny scrap of animal reminded me of him a little, with its dark hair and the way it had stared at me so calmly, like it knew some things that it wouldn’t mention. “But Rory has blue eyes,” I told it. “Dark blue. And he’s a lot bigger than you, too.”

  It purred against my skin and I smiled a little, even though I was surrounded by broken glass and new, sticky puddles that I’d need to clean up, even with my mom missing.

  “I’ll come back and fix this,” I said aloud, and I took the kitten and left. I could drop it at the shelter along the way.

  But when I drove up, I found that the animal shelter was closed for business until the next morning. “We’ll go to my house,” I told the cat. It was curled on my front seat in a fold of my sweatshirt. “You can hang with me for the night,” I offered it. I had the kennel that I usually used to carry my mom’s strays and probably I could find something for it to eat. “Do you want to come with me?” I asked, and it closed its eyes and purred under my hand. “Ok then, cat. You can see where I live.”

  Rella was asleep in her chair when I quietly opened the door to her apartment to check on her. It was much later than I’d planned, and I wished she hadn’t tried to wait up for me. I woke her enough to tell her that I was fine and help her into bed, then I picked the plate of dinner that she’d wrapped in foil for me and tucked the cat carefully in my other hand.

  The elevator in my building was still broken, of course, and I looked nervously into the stairwell before I ran up to my floor as silently as I could, listening all the time for other footsteps. Before I went in my hallway, I peeked right and left. I didn’t think that Kash would feel well enough to come after me, but I also hadn’t thought that he would be able to move like he had when he’d chased me in his living room. I had a sore spot on my head where he’d grabbed a chunk of my hair due to that miscalculation. I peeked one more time and then ran to my apartment, skirting the wall, and slammed the door behind me.