by E. M. Parker
Irritation became anxiety as Fiona looked over Melinda’s shoulder to see others from the group approaching cars that were parked near hers. “No, it’s fine. I am in kind of a rush, but I do appreciate what you did in there. It was very helpful.”
A man waved to them as he got in the car parked next to Fiona’s. “Have a good one, Melinda.”
She answered with a warm smile. “You too, Darren. See you next Tuesday.”
“I’ll be there.” Then he cast a glance at Fiona. “Your story was very inspiring. Thank you for sharing. Good luck with your son.”
Fiona wanted to feel the gratitude that this moment should have inspired, but she was preoccupied with what she saw as she looked over Melinda’s shoulder a second time.
Noah stood outside his oversized truck, chatting idly with a woman from the group. The instant Fiona spotted him, he looked back, his face expressionless, his body completely still, as the woman beside him kept talking.
“Thank you for the kind words,” Fiona said absently as the man parked beside her got into his car. “Good luck to you as well.”
He waved and drove away.
Melinda promptly re-engaged Fiona. “We’ll be meeting again at the same time next week. You are a wonderful addition to our group and I would love to hear more of your story. I’ve gone through something very similar.”
With that, she finally commanded Fiona’s full attention. “You did?”
“Yes. Five years ago, my two children were taken from me by Child Protective Services and put in a foster home. I’d been a heavy cocaine user for most of my adult life, getting clean just long enough to deliver healthy children. But once it truly got hold of me, nothing else mattered, not even my girls. I always say that it takes an act of God to get someone clean who has been using for a long time. My act of God came in the form of men with badges barging into my home and leaving with my children. I was never the same after that. It took a long time and a lot of work, but my girls are with me now. You will never do anything more important than what you’re doing right now. I know how hard the journey can be. But I also know it will end happily for you and your son.”
Tears were streaming down Fiona’s cheek before she had the chance to stop them. For a moment, her anxiety went away. Her desire to forget about Sunrise Serenity and everyone in it went away. For a moment, she felt strong, she felt whole, she felt assurance that the fight would be won. Most of all, she felt gratitude.
“I appreciate that, Melinda. More than you realize.”
“It’s the truth.”
As if both were summoned to do so at the same time, the two embraced. When they let go, Fiona was certain of one thing: she would not be looking for another group.
“See you next Tuesday,” she said, meaning it.
“See you then.”
Fiona watched Melinda as she walked back to her car, not noticing until she got in her own that Noah’s truck was no longer in its parking spot.
She quickly scanned the rest of the lot and the surrounding street. Thankfully there was no sign of him.
Dodged your second bullet, she thought as she blew out another deep sigh of relief, started her car, and drove away.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WITH MOST OF THE DAY STILL AHEAD OF HER, Fiona decided to capitalize on the success of her A.A. meeting by implementing the next phase of Operation Jacob: the long overdue job search.
Years ago, in what seemed like another existence entirely, Fiona held a position on the editorial board of the Seattle Times. She was well-respected in the city’s journalism and media circles, and was on the fast track to becoming the publication’s youngest-ever managing editor. From the beginning of her time at the paper there were whispers about her issues with alcohol, but Fiona went out of her way to keep the depth of those issues hidden. For the most part, she succeeded, until the night of her car accident and subsequent arrest. Then, in one terrifyingly dark moment, everything she had worked so hard for was gone.
Prior to her move, she had sent her resume to a variety of local newspapers and online publications, including The Denver Post, The Mile-High Dispatch, and 5280 magazine. When it became clear that not one of them planned to respond, Fiona was saddled with the realization that finding gainful employment would require a broadening of her search to depths which she would have previously never considered.
And today she planned to do just that, starting with the coffee shop three blocks from her apartment. She had first visited the City Perk Café the morning she signed her apartment lease. Coming from Seattle, she had frequented more than her fair share of quaint, neighborhood coffee shops. The City Perk certainly fit the bill, with its rustic bistro feel, homemade French pastries, and classical music soundtrack. The Help Wanted sign had caught her attention the moment she walked in, and she had considered asking for an application right then. But the prideful notion that the job was beneath her ultimately won out.
Today, she had a much different notion.
She was worried that the position had been filled in the four days since she’d seen the posting, and braced for disappointment as she approached the café. She joyously exhaled when she saw that the posting was still there, taking it as a sign that her job search may have finally ended.
Gotta start somewhere kiddo.
The City Perk was largely empty of customers, save for the gruff-looking character in the back with a half-eaten Danish in one hand and a pencil in the other. The first time Fiona was in here, the man, who she assumed was a regular, grunted and groaned his way through a crossword puzzle for the entire time she sat next to him. Based on the gloomy bewilderment that flooded his face today, she had guessed that he was undertaking the task again.
The girl behind the counter smiled brightly as Fiona approached.
“Hi there, welcome to City Perk.”
The chipper blond immediately walked up to the register, eager to help her new customer. Chipper did not come easy to Fiona, and she hoped that it wasn’t a necessary function of the job. If so, her employment here would be brief.
“What sounds good today?” The girl’s nametag said her name was Heather.
Fiona dug deep but managed a smile equal to the barista’s. “I’ll take a large coffee please.”
“Sounds perfect. Anything else?”
“Yes, I noticed the job posting in your window. Is the position still available?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.” She reached under the counter and pulled out an application. “Here you go. There’s a pen right next to you.”
“Thank you,” Fiona said as she took the application. “When are you looking to hire?”
“Immediately. Do you have barista experience?”
“I was born and raised in Seattle, so…”
“Enough said,” Heather replied with a knowing smile. “If you want to fill out the application now, go ahead and grab a table and I’ll bring over your coffee. It’s on the house today.”
Fiona nodded her thanks and took a seat at a nearby table. She studied the application closely before filling it out, searching for the question. It was the sixth item down, right there in bold, black letters.
Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
She didn’t have a choice but to answer the question truthfully, even though she knew it could be the death-blow to her chances of landing this, or any other position.
Yes.
What crime were you convicted of?
Driving under the influence and child endangerment.
Yeah, the City Perk was surely chomping at the bit to hire someone with that kind of blot on their record.
Fiona hadn’t worked steadily since the incident, choosing instead to go about the business of healing herself. Absent a regular income, the only thing that kept her afloat was a once sizable life insurance policy left behind after her mother’s death, and a 401K that she was forced to cash out to help pay for her legal expenses. She got nothing in the divorce settlement aside from the assets she had
acquired on her own. The house was in Kirk’s name, so when he sold it, she received nothing. Not that Fiona cared anything about his money. She only wanted what she believed to be rightfully hers: the title of fit mother.
When she was finished with the application, she took it up to the counter where Heather was standing by.
“All finished?”
“All finished,” Fiona replied with a forced enthusiasm. “So I should expect to hear something soon?”
Heather gave the application a once-over before answering. “I’ll pass this on to Brian the owner when he comes in this evening. I’m sure he’ll be in touch soon.”
“Thank you, Heather. I appreciate your help.”
“You’re more than welcome,” Heather paused to look at the top of the application. “Fiona. If you want to hang out a little longer, I can get you a refill on that coffee.”
She looked around the café. Not another soul in sight. She certainly welcomed the quiet after everything that had transpired in the past day and a half. “I’d love that.”
When Fiona received her refilled mug and sat back down at her table, she took a moment to breathe in as much of the calm, comforting atmosphere as her chest would allow.
She imagined being in a place far from here; someplace warm, perhaps tropical, with sand stretching as far as her eye could see, and a sky as royally blue as the ocean waves below it. There was no stress there. There was no pain, or regret, or lost time. This place wasn’t cold and foreign like her new apartment had become. This was home.
Kirk was there; the Kirk who still revered her more than anything else on the planet. Jacob was also there; the happy child who never spent more than a day away from his mother, always looking forward to seeing her, laughing with her, and eating her less-than-perfect meals. And never, ever, did this Jacob have to wonder if his mother would be there for him, because in this place, she always had been.
This place had joy. This place had laughter; the kind that she hadn’t heard in a very long time. She could hear it in her mind now. It called to her; pointing the way to that warm, sandy, happy place in the sun where life existed as it always should have; that place so dismally far from here.
Thankfully she had found a way to get there, even if ‘there’ was only a momentary pit-stop in her mind. The laughter. It continued to point the way, beckoning her to close her eyes and trust that it would take her where she needed to go. Fiona trusted. She believed. She let go. When she closed her eyes, the laughter drew closer. She was almost there. All she needed now was the courage to go forward.
She eventually found that courage, and was finally prepared to take her first step onto that warm, sunbaked sand, when the gentle chime of a bell suddenly brought her back.
Fiona opened her eyes to the sight of someone walking through the café door. Straining to adjust to the sunlight, she could make out only a silhouette. The first thing she saw when her vision finally returned was the thick black sole of his working boots, then the blue jeans that were rolled up to the top of the boots, then the bright orange dragon tattoo that stood out against the crisp white of his t-shirt. The bearded face was the last part of Noah that she saw, but she didn’t need to see his face to know who he was. The chill that tore through her body had already announced it.
As she had done at Fiona’s arrival, Heather perked up as he approached. If she was as put off by Noah’s presence as Fiona was, she didn’t show it.
“Welcome to City Perk. What sounds good today?”
“I’ll get a large coffee to go, same as always.” The smile on Noah’s face belied his joyless tone.”
“Sounds perfect. Anything else?”
“Nope.”
As Noah reached for his wallet, Fiona thought about getting up from the table as quietly as she could and slipping out the door, but her proximity to the counter made such a move impossible.
Her only hope was that Noah would take his coffee and walk out the door without noticing anything else around him.
Those hopes were dashed with the next words that Heather spoke.
“If you need cream, it’s right behind you.” She pointed over Noah’s shoulder to the condiment station right next to Fiona.
When Noah turned around, the smile that he had put on for Heather went away. “No thanks. I take it black.”
Fiona looked down at her phone as Noah approached, hoping that he would take it as a sign to keep walking.
“I recognize you.”
She closed her eyes at the sound of his voice, offering yet another cue that she prayed he would take. It didn’t work.
“From Sunrise Serenity. You were there, right?”
Resigned to her fate of no escape, Fiona opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Yes.”
“I thought so. I popped in a little late so I didn’t get the chance to hear your story. You a first-timer?”
“No.”
“Me neither, as you probably gathered from my testimonial. I had four months sober before last night. Crazy how those urges can just sneak right up on you, isn’t it? It always hits when you least expect it.”
The churning inside Fiona’s stomach caused her to clutch it.
Noah, seeming oblivious to her discomfort, took another step toward the table. “Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. I’ll get my shit together one of these days.” His joyless smile returned. Fiona had seen that same smile in herself. It was always designed to hide something. In Fiona’s case, it was her pain. She wasn’t sure what Noah was hiding, but it certainly did not look like pain. “How many years sober for you?”
He asked the question loud enough to attract Heather’s attention. She looked embarrassed to have overheard it and promptly found something to do in another area of the café. But in Fiona’s mind, the damage had already been done. When she looked back at Noah, the anxiety in her eyes had been replaced with ire.
“Not to be rude, but I don’t know you.”
He appeared slightly taken aback by Fiona’s shift in tone, but recovered quickly enough to allow his so-called smile to return. “I’m Noah.”
“I’m sorry, Noah, but this isn’t a conversation I really want to have right now.”
“You got it all out in group. I get it, I totally get it. I guess next time I shouldn’t be late if I want to hear your story, huh?”
Fiona shrugged and looked down at her phone, hoping that her cavalier response, forced as it was, would finally cause Noah’s exit. When it became clear that it wouldn’t, she looked up.
Noah wasn’t smiling anymore.
“I get that you don’t want to talk about the A.A. stuff. I don’t like talking about how much I still want to drink either. But don’t act like you don’t know who I am.”
Fiona sat stone-faced, even as she could feel everything else in her body breaking down.
“Even if I hadn’t recognized you the second I walked into the meeting, which I did,” Noah continued, “the way you looked at me would have told me that you were someone I should recognize. If that was your poker face, it definitely needs work.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Fiona declared without an ounce of resolve in her voice.
“Yes you do.”
As Noah moved closer, Fiona slid back in her chair. Her worst fears about her second night in Corona Heights were coming true. Noah did see her lingering outside his apartment. He had even referenced it in the meeting, though she wanted to dismiss it at the time. There would be no dismissing it this time.
Still, she tried. “What are you talking about?”
“We share the same struggle. It’s unique to a handful of people, so when you see it in someone else, you connect with them right away. I saw it in you, and I think you saw it in me too.”
“I’m sorry, but I still have no idea what that mean–”
Noah interrupted her by helping himself to a seat at the table.
“You don’t mind, right?” he asked only after he sat down. Unfazed by her silent response, No
ah continued. “I don’t think it’s an accident that we’re sitting together at this table right now. Just like it wasn’t an accident that we saw each other at Sunrise Serenity.” He leaned in closer. “Just like it’s not an accident that you moved in next door to me.” He moved even closer. “I really think we can help each other, Fiona.”
“How do you know my name?”
“The building always buzzes when somebody new moves in. People talk. More than they need to most times. Our little Corona Heights is nothing if not active.”
“You still haven’t answered my question. How do you know my name?”
“The same way you probably know mine.”
“I didn’t know your name before you told me.”
“Of course you did. The walls told you. Just like they told me.”
Fiona began to gather her things. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re seriously creeping me out. If you don’t want to leave, I will.”
“There isn’t a single word spoken in Corona Heights that those walls will protect. It doesn’t matter if you yell or if you whisper. That bitch can’t keep a secret to save her dark, twisted life.”
“Okay, it looks like I’m the one leaving.” Fiona had stood up when Noah spoke again, stopping her in her tracks.
“You heard my name when Natalie yelled it for the millionth goddamn time, I heard yours when you whispered it to Olivia.”
Fiona shuddered as a violent wave of fear washed over her body.
“I heard you talking to her. So did Natalie. Just like we hear you knocking on the walls. Why do you do that?”
“Because your loud music disturbs me.” The words were forceful and bold in her head, but fell apart as they came out of her mouth.
“Is that why you stood in front of our door? To tell us that our loud music was disturbing you? Because if that really was your intention, it occurs to me that you would have knocked. Instead, you just stood there, listening. What were you trying to hear?”
“I didn’t…” The words completely failed her this time.