He nods and starts wiping a glass. “Best and worst things in the fucking world.”
I raise my glass and down a double.
The tequila burn is good. Takes my mind off her for a second. But then the bartender puts a bowl of peanuts in front of me and boom, I’m thinking about her again. Her and that necklace. It looked like a Planter’s peanut. What is that shit? A peanut? Why the fuck does she have a golden peanut on her neck?
I don’t know. But I really, really fucking wish I did.
I pour another shot. Her sexy body at the end of mine, taking her with my hands on her hips, talking to her the whole time, coaxing her along. “Come hard for me. Now.” Saying shit nobody knows I like. Her talking back, nodding at me, us getting there together. Together. And then I went and told her I wanted to be an artist. Fuck it.
But the thing is, it felt great to tell her, to see her sparkling little eyes light right up. She didn’t say, “Who do you think you are?” or “You? An artist?” and giggle. Nope. Just took it right in stride. Took me dead seriously. I mean, I was having crazy, intense sex with her at the time, but still. She didn’t laugh. Didn’t even smile.
“Where you from, man?” the bartender asks me.
I look up. The answer is New Mexico, so I say, “Texas.” Pretty sure I can hear my mom roll over in her grave. “New Mexico. Too close to Texas to be heaven.”
He nods and lets overflow foam come off of a fresh tap. Just like prison guards, bartenders can make your life awesome or a living hell. I’ve learned it’s best not to say too much to either one.
There’s a menu on a chalkboard, and hamburger with fries is the first thing on the list. The way she ate that hamburger. I wish I could see her do that again. She makes me do that, wish for something else. Right now, I actually wish a million things: That Gregor Gregorovich was dead. That I had zero debts. That I was a different guy with a different life where being with her would make sense. That we were somewhere deserted, just the two of us. Two people starting over. I wish I could show her the fucking stars in that New Mexico sky.
I take another shot.
I put my elbows on the bar. I’ve never felt like this. Ever. I’m old enough to know it’s real besides.
That right there is fuck-all terrifying.
The bartender looks at the bottle of tequila. “Careful now.”
I check the bottle. When he’d handed it to me, the tequila was at the top of the label. Now, it’s halfway down. “Don’t worry, man. This is nothing.”
And the bartender goes back to dealing with the tap.
Down the bar from me, the guy in the dirty wife-beater is drinking a beer. He keeps talking to Fox News saying shit like, “Damn right!” and all that. I just focus on my tequila and think about what to do next. Forget her. Steal a car. With her or without her, I’m still free…
But fuck. Freedom doesn’t feel like freedom when you feel all torn up.
The anchor is covering different stories. Something about the elections, whatever. But then, it flashes to a new story, and the running title underneath says BURCHETT MEAT SCANDAL.
“Turn that up,” I tell the bartender. He nods and presses the button on the remote, which he’s got on a piece of Velcro in between the vodka and rum.
“A further sixteen people fell ill today in Boca Raton due to a bad batch of Burchett pastrami. In spite of the nationwide recall, many delis and sandwich shops are unaware of the E. coli…”
But then the talking goes quiet in my head because up on the screen flashes a picture of Lucy. That’s got to be her dad, there on the left. He’s wearing an American flag shirt and the stripes are tight on his gut. Lucy, though. She’s wearing this sweet little dress, a light purple, that comes to her knees. Behind them is the Grand Canyon. I can see the curve of her stomach and the line of her cleavage. I groan, and put my face in my hands.
“Fucking nice piece of ass, right?”
I lift my head. It’s the guy with the dirty wife-beater. He’s raising his glass at me and moving his eyebrows. “The daughter? Shiiiiit.”
I drain the tequila in my glass and focus on some graffiti on the bar. A sort of a jagged heart, made with a key, with some initials on either side.
“I’d like to get my hands on her, I’ll tell you what. Boy oh boy. See what the other side feels like.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I say.
He lowers his beer. “Or what?” he says. And then he adjusts his balls.
“Man, I’m telling you,” I say. I get low between my shoulders and feel the rage coming up.
“What? You got a problem with my talking about little Miss Burchett’s pussy?”
Here we go. This motherfucker is walking into the lion’s den. “I’m serious, man.” I slice my hand across my throat. “You’re out of line. Enough.”
He makes a pretend-scared sound. “Or what? She a friend of yours?”
“Drink your beer, shut your mouth.”
“So what does she feel like?” He adjusts his balls again, “What’s it feel like to fuck her? She wet? She loud?” He scratches his face.
I’m off the stool. I’m popping my knuckles into my palm.
“She like it up the ass?”
“I’m fucking warning you, buddy…”
I see the bartender make like he’s about to grab the aluminum baseball bat that places like this always have below the vodka.
Wife-Beater is right up in my face. “I’ll bet I could make her scream. Put her in her place.”
That’s does it. As my punch flies through the air, a clean, straight jab heading for his nose, everything slows down and I’m thinking, This motherfucker should really think before he speaks.
Wham. My punch connects with his right cheekbone, sending him spinning and his beer glass flying.
That’s when I feel a wave of calm come over me. The calm after a perfect punch. Fuck, yeah.
But when a punch is thrown, it’s universal bar rules to pay your tab and step outside. I turn to do that very thing, looking at the bartender like, What a bastard.
Except the bartender, he’s not looking at me. He’s gripping the tap and wincing. I turn around, gearing up for a second round.
Which is when a meaty fist makes my nose go crunch into my face.
14
With a to-go cup of my remaining milkshake in one hand and peppermint from the little bowl at the hostess’ stand in the other, I walk out into the parking lot feeling like a new woman with a plan. I’m going to get on the highway. I’m going to move on. I’m not going home, but I’m not going back for him either. We are oil and water.
We would never work. Ever.
I put the peppermint in my mouth and start to dig for my keys in my purse. Except it’s not a peppermint. It’s a spearmint, and it’s like Vince’s tongue is in my mouth all over again.
I flatten my forehead against the window glass. Inside, by the light of the blinking sign above me, I notice what I hadn’t seen earlier. The Instax photo of Peanut is sitting in my cup holder like it’s on display. And I most certainly didn’t put it there. But he did.
Him.
Body like bricks. But so soft inside.
Who gives as good as he takes.
I shake it off and keep digging. I squint and pull an Instax I didn’t take from my purse. It’s him, his face, staring back at me. The angle of the shot is his throat and jaw, an accidental shot in the daytime. A little over-exposed. A little larger than life.
I run my finger over his jaw and press the picture to my chest.
Who am I kidding?
We aren’t oil and water.
Russian mobster be damned.
We are chocolate and peanut butter. I can’t leave like this. I have to see him again.
I look down at myself. I am the epitome of a hot mess. I go around to the trunk and unzip my bag. I pick a rather lovely shorts jumper; navy blue, pink flowers, wraparound waist. Then I get back into the driver’s seat, shimmy out of my shorts and into the new outfit. I put eye drops in each
eye, plopping them in from an inch above my face. I touch up my eyeshadow. No blush needed, thanks to this somewhat alarming sunburn. Curl my eyelashes, feather on some Maybelline Great Lash—not even Chanel can compete with the old pink-and-green standby—and squirt on some perfume. Hints of citrus and peach.
“You smell so fucking good.”
And I’m off, back towards the Super 18. I don’t know how I’m going to approach this. I haven’t done a whole lot of apologizing in my life. But one thing I know for sure: I’m not following my dad’s example ever again. And from here on, it’s all just honesty. Pure, unmitigated, Lucy honesty. And the honest truth about Vince Russo is this: He scares me a little. He fascinates me a lot. I want to make sure he’s okay. I want to wake up again with that body next to mine. He pulls me to him like a tornado, and I don’t want to get down in the cellar.
But before I get half a mile back down the road, to the right, something catches my eye. There’s all kinds of chaos in the parking lot of a bar that looks like it should’ve been condemned a long, long time ago.
A row of bright security lights is shining on two guys fighting in the parking lot. The scene looks a lot like a boxing match. There are clusters of guys standing around, watching, and egging them on. Through the crowd, I spot a flash of a black T-shirt, tattooed arms, and gorgeous black hair. My stomach flips around and around, but then it freezes as a cop car skids into the lot. Two officers jump out, and one grabs him from behind, dragging him across the gravel.
Vince keeps screaming at his opponent, a big, chubby redneck guy in an undershirt and trucker’s hat. Compared to the pudgy trucker, Vince looks like some wild animal. All muscle, all brawn, and an outrageous baseline testosterone level. And sexy, oh God, so sexy.
I pull into the lot and park by the dumpsters. Through the open window I hear Vince scream, “Learn some respect for women, you motherfucker!”
I’m irresistibly drawn to that power. I’m relieved that he’s here. I want to touch his body and hear his whispers in my ears. But everything I’m feeling is pushed to the side by the reality of the situation: Vince is about to get himself locked up.
“I’d fuck her like you never could, you spic!” screams the redneck.
“Shut. The fuck. Up,” Vince snarls. His right hand is in a fist, and I hear the gravel scratching under his feet. I can see the whole perfect form of his torso through his T-shirt. This is not a guy to be trifled with.
This is the guy I had begging me for more.
Who I begged for more.
The cops have clearly had enough of this alpha nonsense that I find so sexy. Literally dragging him across the parking lot, two of them work together to haul him away. One of them cuffs him. His biceps bulge as they are pinned back behind his torso, and a moan rolls up from somewhere near my G-spot. Then the cop puts his hand on top of Vince’s head and presses him down into the back seat of a Fulton County cop car. My headlights are still on, and I see his profile in perfect detail. My heart drops. His face is caked with blood.
I clap a hand to my mouth.
The door slams. The cops get in the cruiser. Its lights flash on, and there’s one bloooooop of the siren as it rolls out of the parking lot.
Some decisions are hard. This one isn’t. I crunch down on my now paper-thin spearmint, put the BMW in drive, and follow.
15
They stick me in the drunk tank, which smells like vomit, piss, and bleach. They book me for disturbing the peace. They don’t book Wife-Beater with anything, don’t even arrest him, because of fucking course, he’s an off-duty cop. Geminis. We’ve got the shittiest luck in the zodiac.
I sit down on the cold cement bench in the corner of the holding cell and explore the damage to my face. I touch the bridge of my nose and feel a pain shoot right down into my teeth. What a fucking shitty day. Started with the best sex of my life and imploded proportionately from there.
I hang my head between my legs and feel my heartbeat in my nostrils. The thing about being a con is all the friends you thought you had want sweet fuck-all to do with you when the shit hits the fan. When jobs are going well, when the cash is coming in, everybody is your best friend. But when you’re on the fly, trying to leave it all behind, nobody’s gonna give you a hand.
The jailer slams the door. “Bail’s two grand,” he says.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I say and wince. Goddamn. Every word I say is a hammer blow to the head.
The jailer shakes his head and puts his hands in his pockets. He looks like that guy who ran the jail in Murder, She Wrote. Sheriff Amos. I used to watch it with my mom.
He hikes up his pants. “County needs new speed bumps. They’re cracking down. And the judge happens to be the brother of the man whose cheekbone you busted.”
I hang my head a little lower. Nepotism is strong as fuck in the sticks.
The jailer says, “Got anybody you want to call?”
That thing about having one phone call, that’s Hollywood bullshit. They’d give me as many calls as I needed.
But I’ve got exactly nobody to make them to.
“I could use an aspirin…” Then I hear her voice in my head, “Say ‘please,’” so I say, “Or two aspirin. Please.”
And the jailer nods, smiling sadly, and walks off.
My arrival has roused an old guy in the corner, who was sleeping with his chin on his chest. He’s maybe 70, 75, wearing a button-up flannel that’s seen better days. He wakes up rubbing his eyes and making old-man groans.
“How you doing?” I ask him.
He makes a series of hacks. He stands up, and I can hear about a dozen bones crackle. “I’m alright, son. You?” He shuffles over and looks at my face. “Got yourself in a little scuffle.”
I nod at the chipped linoleum floor and look up at him. “You could say that.”
We’re sizing each other up. There are stock characters in jail—I once read that the same damn thing happens in military deployments. There’s the joker, there’s the brooder, the homesick rookie, the Bible beater, and the guy with all the wisdom. I happen to be the brooder.
This guy clearly has the wisdom. He’s got that look in his eyes. Like he should know better, and does when he’s sober. But after a night with Jack Daniels, anything goes.
“Lemme take a look,” he says. He crouches and touches my face. The skin on his fingers is old and wrinkled and somehow tight around his fingertips. He pats around my eyes and looks at my nose from both sides.
“You some kind of doctor?” I ask him. Things are getting a little blurry because my left eye is swelling shut fast. Great.
“Used to be a vet. Animal, not military,” he says, looking down his long face at me. He presses gently on my eye. I wince and yank my head back. I can still smell the whiskey on him, but also something else. Old Spice deodorant. “Don’t think it’s broken,” he says.
“It hurts like a son of a bitch.”
He adjusts his thick glasses. “You’ll be alright. But that shiner’s gonna be a winner.”
The jailer comes back and hands me a paper cup of water through the bars, two aspirin, and then, holy shit, a bag of frozen corn. “It isn’t every guy who says please,” he says. “So put that on there. The wife says it’ll do some good.” It’s that kind of operation. Mom-and-pop jailers. Then, looking side to side, he takes two packs of peanut butter cheese crackers from his pocket and hands them through the bars. “Don’t tell the fuzz. Seems like you two could both use a little something in your stomachs.”
I take the pills and drain the water. Then I give one of the two packs of crackers to the old guy, who sits down next to me. He’s in those old-man pants, a washed-out dark green. Loafers. He’s meticulous about opening the crackers. He tears the wrapper back carefully at the top, and then opens it at the seam, so it makes a little rectangle on his knee. Neat, orderly, precise. I, on the other hand, tear the pack open with my teeth. The pain of biting down makes me open my mouth, and I drop my crackers on the floor. Fucking fuck. I pu
t the corn to my face. The sharp corner of the bag jabs me in the right eye, which wells up with tears.
Thank God she can’t see me now.
He takes a bite of the cracker nearest to him on his leg and chews thoughtfully while he watches me. Then he hands me a cracker from his pack and says, “Who is she?”
I glance around. I sniff and wince. “Who’s who?”
“The girl.”
Doesn’t even merit asking how he knows. These old guys, they just know. They’re like gypsies. Like when you get to be 70, you can see through everybody’s bullshit. Probably because you’ve been there yourself so many times you know the stink and shape from a mile off.
“Nobody,” I say. Out of habit, I rub my nostril. It makes my whole head feel like it’s going to explode. “Fuck.”
“Son.” He picks up the second cracker and offers me another, “You want to bullshit a bullshitter?”
I rub my temples. “A girl. She’s trouble.”
He slow-blinks behind his bifocals. “And you’re not?”
Touché. Toufuckingché.
“You know her pretty good?” I move the corn and the Jolly Green Giant eyes me from a centimeter away. “Not well enough.”
“She gives you the feeling?” He points at his heart. “In there? The ache?”
The ache. The fucking ache. That would be the word.
“Yeah. She does.”
He nods. “Kind of woman who makes you want to be a better man?”
That makes me laugh for some reason, so damned cliché, but the laugh makes my nose explode again and brings tears to my eyes. I grit my teeth. “I wouldn’t say that exactly.”
He narrows his old, milky eyes. “Wouldn’t you?”
There’s a sub-type of the guy with the wisdom. The Rhetorical Questioner.
Problem is, I think he’s right. Exactly fucking right. Wouldn’t you?
I lean back on the cinderblock wall. I rub my shoulder and glance down. Just below the edge of my shirt collar, right where my traps meet my neck, I see something. I pull back my collar with my finger. A hickey. A motherfucking hickey? I was so gone inside her I didn’t even realize she did it.
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