Romeo Fails

by Amy Briant

  “I wish I knew,” he said.

  * * *

  The next seven days were the happiest week of Dorsey’s life. She and Sarah found many opportunities to spend time together, both with and without Maggie, who’d been reluctantly pulled into teaching a few days of summer school classes for a sick colleague. On one of those days, Sarah joined Dorsey out at the Bartholomews’ place, where the deck was nearing completion. The freedom of knowing they were alone and no one else was around for miles was exhilarating. They made love in the hayloft above the barn as an afternoon rain shower softly fell.

  “Is that big goofy grin all for me?” Sarah teased her as they lay in each other’s arms afterward, contentedly spooning on a blanket and listening to the raindrops on the roof. She was propped up on one elbow, gazing down at Dorsey’s face.

  Dorsey turned to her. “It’s for you,” she agreed. “And for me too. I just feel so happy when I’m with you.”

  Sarah charmingly blushed and pulled Dorsey in close. “You make me happy too,” she said, making Dorsey’s heart skip a beat.

  “Tell me something about yourself that I don’t know,” Sarah said impulsively.

  “Like what?”

  “Like…I don’t know…tell me about your first time.”

  “Oh my God,” Dorsey said, laying back and putting both hands behind her head. “Do we really have to go there?” But she was laughing.

  “Come on,” Sarah said persuasively. “You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.”

  “Well…all right,” Dorsey said. “When I was in high school, I used to go to this swim camp in the summer. The summer I was seventeen, I was a junior camp counselor. And there was this older girl—”

  “Let me guess,” Sarah interrupted. “She wasn’t the head counselor, by any chance, now was she?”

  “Hey, whose story is this?” Dorsey objected, laughing. “Well, long story short, she was a college girl, one of the senior counselors and…well, let’s just say she greatly improved my stroke technique.”

  “I’ll bet,” Sarah said dryly. “Did Maggie go to this camp with you?”

  “No, Maggie’s not much of a swimmer. Plus, she hates being seen in a bathing suit, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

  The mention of Maggie seemed to cast a bit of a pall over their golden afternoon. Sarah tried to gloss over it with another breezy comment.

  “Just think, Dorse, if I’d come here when I was a kid, then I could have been your older woman instead of that hussy at the swim camp.”

  She’d meant it as a joke, but Dorsey looked back at her seriously. “And if you had,” she said, “then Maggie would know you’re gay.”

  Sarah looked away, the smile on her lips fading.

  “I just hate keeping this secret from her,” Dorsey said, wanting Sarah to understand. Wanting her to come out to Maggie, so there’d be no more lying, no more deception. If they could just work it out with her, how perfect would that be, Dorsey thought. She and Maggie could be almost like sisters-in-law, she thought dreamily…

  But Sarah sat up and started to get dressed. “I know,” she said to Dorsey. “And I want to tell her—but when the moment is right, you know? I just…can’t we just take a little time for ourselves to be happy? Is that so selfish?” She looked pleadingly at Dorsey. “Just give me some time, Dorsey. Give us some time.”

  “Okay,” Dorsey said, relenting. What else could she do?

  Chapter Nine

  Luke sat at his desk in the police station, reviewing some of the never-ending paperwork that was almost a bigger part of his job than the actual crime-stopping. Fortunately, it had been a slow week for crime, even by Romeo Falls’ standards: a couple of domestic spats, a non-injury car wreck and some teenagers trying to inveigle their elders into buying them beer at the liquor store.

  No vandalism. Luke grunted to himself and shifted in his chair. He wished he felt easier in his mind about that. His gut told him the string of malicious incidents wasn’t over yet, despite the lack of activity on that front the past week. Frustratingly, they were no closer to capturing the miscreant, whoever he or she might be. From the lack of fingerprints or other giveaway clues, it almost seemed like the perpetrator was familiar with police procedure. Of course, that was true of just about anybody who turned on a TV these days. An eyewitness would be helpful, but the perp had been smart enough, or lucky enough, to avoid that so far too. The smear of blood on the church sign was the most promising potential link so far, but without someone to compare it to, it was useless for the moment.

  It wasn’t like any of the incidents was that big a crime, in and of itself. A little graffiti. Some beheaded flowers. A vandalized church sign. The gutted possum on the squad car was the nastiest, no doubt about it. Still, they all added up to not much more than petty high school level bullshit, really. He had his eye on various local punks and punkettes, but the creep had managed to stay just out of his reach. Even if it was just a string of dirty tricks, Luke hated the idea of somebody getting away with it in his town. He could feel whoever it was laughing at him and it pissed him off.

  And was it someone local? At this point, he didn’t know. Maggie’s cousin Sarah was still a question mark in his mind. But that was because of what he didn’t know about her, not what he did. Based on what he’d personally observed, she was an intelligent, attractive young woman who was in town to visit her relatives, just like she had told him. The information he’d gotten from his buddy in Chicago he categorized more as a rumor than solid fact. A rumor of an unstable love affair that ended badly, a mere hint of a suggestion about drug use… As a cop, he was used to sorting rumor from fact. The jury was still out on Sarah, he’d decided.

  The only other stranger in town, so to speak, was the new doctor, Melba Porter, although she’d been there six months already. After their old doctor finally retired, the town had been grateful to find a new, not to mention young, physician willing to move to Romeo Falls and treat their various ills. Of course, there were questions, as always, when a newcomer arrived. Why had she chosen their tiny town? She wasn’t even from the same state. Why not stay in Chicago where she’d gone to school and go for the big bucks?

  As he mulled the possibilities, Officer Gargoyle appeared in his office doorway. “Fax for you, Chief,” she said, handing him some sheets of paper. “From Chicago PD.”

  “Thanks,” he told her. He viewed the fax with interest. It was a response to an inquiry he’d initiated a few days earlier. The confidential document was copies of pages from a closed case file which was several years old. The subject of the fax was not the person whose name appeared on that case file, but a peripheral player in the story it described.

  “…a twenty-seven-year-old white female intern at Queen of the Plains Medical Center in Chicago…”

  Luke skimmed the fax, looking for the information he specifically sought.

  “…after further investigation, it appears the intern, Melba Desiree (Desiree? thought Luke) Porter was under severe financial and emotional stress at the time she was approached by the subject in an attempt to illegally procure prescription narcotics with her assistance. Subject is a friend of her brother who is well known to this investigator. Porter met with the subject on two occasions, but refused his requests, eventually breaking off all contact with him after their second meeting…”

  “Way to go, Dr. Melba,” Luke murmured under his breath. He flipped to the next page of the fax.

  “…during that interrogation, subject admitted he had attempted to blackmail Dr. Porter by threatening to make public her brother’s involvement in various illegal activities…”

  Luke turned to the final page, which was dated some months later than the other ones.

  “...the possible extortion charge was dropped, however, when Dr. Porter was unavailable to testify against the subject…on extended and indefinite leave of absence from Queen of the Plains…inpatient treatment at a private psychiatric facility for wh
at was described as ‘mental and physical exhaustion’…”

  And that was it. There was no further mention of Dr. Melba (or of any other Romeo Falls resident) in the fax. She obviously had returned to her job and completed her residency, or she wouldn’t be practicing in Romeo Falls now. Luke made a mental note to double-check on that. If nothing else, the fax shed some light, perhaps, on why she had left Chicago for a much smaller and slower paced community. But did it have any relevance to the events taking place now in his town? Probably not, he thought, as he filed the fax away in a locked cabinet in his office.

  Patience, he told himself, patience. Sometimes his job reminded him of a football game. Waiting for the offense to hike the ball, so he and the rest of the defense could react. He didn’t know who was calling the plays this time, so all he could do was wait. And hope he’d be ready for his opponent’s next move.

  * * *

  On Thursday afternoon, Dorsey was at work when the phone rang.

  “Larue’s Swingtime Hardware, Dorsey speaking,” she answered cheerfully. Even if she hadn’t been feeling cheerful already, she would have answered that way since Good was standing right there. Outstanding customer service, one hundred percent of the time, whether on the phone or in person, was high on Goodman’s list of priorities.

  “I’ve got two hours,” Sarah’s voice said conspiratorially in her ear.

  Dorsey looked at her watch: fifteen minutes before five. Almost closing time. She glanced at her brother, who was behind the counter with her, sitting on the stool and filling out some paperwork for a vendor.

  “Yes, ma’am, we close at five,” she said with a smile into the phone, “but I can arrange for a delivery to your home if that’s more convenient.”

  “Not here,” Sarah replied.

  Dorsey could hear the grin in her voice, could feel the kick she was getting out of their little game. Much like the excitement Dorsey felt building inside herself. “Tell you what—I’ll meet you behind the store in half an hour. Does that work for you?”

  Goodman glanced at her incuriously, probably wondering who was on the phone, then went back to his paperwork.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Dorsey said again. “I’ll be happy to help you out with that. And thank you for calling Larues!”

  There was a slight pause on the other end. Dorsey could picture Sarah on the wall-mounted phone in the Bigelow kitchen, hands cupped around the receiver, eyes aglow and darting around to make sure she was alone for the moment.

  “I can’t wait to taste you,” she said in her huskiest whisper.

  “Yes, I believe I have what you need,” Dorsey replied with a poker face. “Whether it’s inside or out.”

  She wasn’t sure if that last line actually made any sense, but it had sounded good in her head. And had made Sarah laugh, which always filled her with a warm glow.

  “See you in thirty,” Sarah said and hung up.

  It didn’t take much convincing to get Good to let her close up the store. He grunted a surprised thanks, then took his paperwork with him, saying he wanted nothing more than to go home, relax and watch the ball game. She knew he would work on the paperwork while he watched. After he left, she finished closing up and set the alarm, then went out the back door into the alley where she’d parked that morning.

  Sarah was sitting on the hood of Dorsey’s little pickup truck, smiling at her in a way that made her feel almost dizzy with happiness. Happy that someone else was actually happy to see her. Happy to see the woman who had taken over her dreams and most of her waking thoughts as well.

  The object of her adoration was looking pretty damn adorable, as a matter of fact. Her outfit was simple—jeans, sneakers and a tight-fitting, hot pink T-shirt—but showed off her body in a way that had Dorsey’s heart hammering. She took Sarah’s outstretched hand and pulled her off the truck and into her arms in one quick fluid motion. She wanted nothing more than to kiss her, but it wasn’t safe even in the shelter of the alley. Someone might walk by at any moment. Even a hug in broad daylight was risky, she knew, but she couldn’t resist. As she reveled in the sweet sensation of Sarah’s body against hers, she held onto her for an extra moment or two, savoring the intensity of her feelings, waiting for the overpowering hunger in her to almost—almost—crest.

  “I want to be alone with you,” Sarah whispered in her ear.

  Dorsey took a deep breath and released her.

  “Me, too,” she said. “But—can we maybe walk around the square or something? I’ve been cooped up in the store all day and I feel like I need a breath of fresh air before I go back indoors.”

  “Okay, Nature Girl,” Sarah said laughingly. She entwined her arm in Dorsey’s and they walked down the alley to the street. As they rounded the corner, Dorsey slipped her arm out of Sarah’s and made sure they were walking at least six inches apart.

  “Hey,” Sarah complained and reached for her hand.

  “We can’t,” Dorsey reminded her in an undertone. “Not here, not in the daylight.”

  “Come on, who’s going to see us?”

  She was right, in that there were very few people either walking or driving around the square at that moment. The stores and offices all closed at five. Just about everybody was home for dinner already or on their way. Dorsey wondered again at Sarah’s sometimes conflicting behavior. She still hadn’t found a way to come out to Maggie—but here she was, practically ready to make out on Main Street. Dorsey shook her head in confusion as they passed the movie theater, which was dark and shuttered on a weekday evening. Matinees were Saturdays only. They’d open up later for the seven o’clock weeknight show.

  Sarah drew her into the shadows of the entryway, ostensibly to look at the posters for the upcoming flicks. She paused by one advertising a steamy jungle epic with a bare-chested hero and scantily clad girl clinging together as a tiger, a variety of snakes and some annoyed-looking natives menaced them.

  “Wow, and I thought I had problems,” Sarah laughed as they looked at it. Dorsey turned to smile at her and that was it—their eyes met and Sarah leaned in close, her hand on Dorsey’s forearm, her lips just brushing Dorsey’s…

  The half-full beer can smacked against the wall above their heads, then ricocheted into a corner. The squealing of truck tires, braying, drunken laughter and a shouted “Burn in hell, you bulldykes!” echoed about them in the entryway. They heard the truck speed away without ever getting a look at their attackers. Dorsey ran her hands down her shirt in disgust to wipe off a few drops of beer.

  “Are you all right?” she said to Sarah, who was pale and shaking, more from fury than fright.

  “Son of a bitch,” she snarled. “Did you see who threw it?”

  “No,” Dorsey said. “It doesn’t matter. Look, we better get moving before they come back again.”

  “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” Sarah demanded heatedly as they eased their way past the box office and back into the open. Dorsey made sure the coast was clear before they proceeded. Sarah was still venting her rage. “That was an assault, Dorsey. If you know who it was, then I’m calling the cops.”

  “No need,” Dorsey said with a sinking heart. “She’s already here.”

  Officer Gargoyle braked her patrol car to an abrupt stop at the curb in front of them, with a chirp of the tires and an entirely unnecessary whoop from the siren as well. She turned on the blue lights—again unnecessarily, Dorsey thought, as she was parked in a space, not blocking traffic. Gargoyle ponderously removed herself from her vehicle, adjusting her gun belt as she swaggered toward them.

  “What’s going on here?” she said loudly and officiously.

  A merchant sweeping the sidewalk in front of his store on the opposite side of the square stopped to watch. A car waiting at the stoplight didn’t move although the light was green, its driver and passengers gawking at them. Gargoyle spotted the beer can in the corner beneath the movie poster.

  “It’s illegal to have an open container in public,” she told them, whippin
g out her little citation notebook.

  Sarah said angrily, “Are you crazy? That’s not ours. Some goddamn redneck just threw that at us. They’re the ones you need to be talking to.”

  Gargoyle paused in the act of flipping open her notebook and stared at Sarah, her mean little eyes narrowed as she considered her next move.

  “Now why would someone do that?” she asked. “Just what were you two doing in there anyhow?”

  “Looking at the movie posters,” Sarah replied, outraged. “What do you think we were doing?”

  Dorsey touched Sarah’s wrist, trying to get her attention and make her stop talking. There was no way Gargoyle was going to help them, she knew. She felt embarrassed—not for herself or Sarah, but for her town. If Sarah kept talking, she might find herself on the wrong end of a ticket or worse.

  Sarah stared at her furiously when she felt her touch on her wrist. “What?” she demanded.

  And Gargoyle was looking at her, too, with a look that Dorsey knew all too well. A look of revulsion, of hatred, of fear and ignorance…no doubt the same look as on the faces of the people in the pickup truck who’d thrown the beer at them.

  Speaking of which, the sound of a big engine accelerating came to Dorsey’s ears. She turned toward the direction it was coming from, but the early evening sun was shining right in her eyes. She saw a late-model full-size pickup, maybe black or dark blue, careen around the corner back into the square, music blaring out its open windows, a flannel-sleeved arm protruding from the passenger side window, beer can at the ready. Dorsey grabbed Sarah and ducked back into the marginal shelter of the theater entryway, but the thrower’s aim was off. The beer can—an almost full one by the sound of it—bounced off the back of Officer Gargoyle’s patrol car and rolled harmlessly into the gutter, where it lay sputtering and foaming.

  “Fuckin’ lezzie perverts!” was the curse screamed at them this time. The pickup truck sped off.

  “Oh HELL no,” Gargoyle said, more to herself than to them and obviously referring to the insult to her car, not the enmity aimed at them. She hitched up her belt and headed for her car at speed, pausing only to point two fingers back at Sarah and Dorsey. “I’ve got my eyes on you, missy,” she said to Sarah, then crammed herself back under the wheel, and set off with the siren shrieking and lights a-flashing.