Ten Below Zero

by Whitney Barbetti

  “I’m fine,” I said, my finger nails being picked clean underneath the harsh fluorescent lighting. The detective with the brown eyes looked at me with a sort of weary hope. As if I was his last obligation before he could go home and crawl into bed with his wife and wake up with his kids to cartoons. One last thing to cross off his list before he could go back to his life, crushed with the safety of it.

  The social worker looked at me like I was out of my mind. Which, really, I was. I had no idea what had actually happened, so I knew I couldn’t provide the sort of details the detectives would want to know. But I wanted nothing more than to be gone from here, gone from the eyes that stared at me either dispassionately or sympathetically.

  The detectives moved around the still shocked social worker and took my answers. They took photos of my arm, my face, my hands, and my back. I gave them clothes I’d been wearing when I was brought to the hospital and then I asked to be released on my own, wearing sterile scrubs. When I walked out of the emergency entrance, I turned the corner around the building and stopped short.

  There was a small woman leaned against the wall, only visible with the parking lot lights that shined on the area around us. I knew she was the woman who had saved me, who had brought me to the hospital and called the police.

  She blew out the smoke she’d just sucked in from her cigarette, tossed it on the ground and stomped out the lit end before walking towards me. The air around her smelled of smoke, which I normally detested, but the smell was safe to me. It was the smell that roused me from consciousness on the asphalt.

  “They let you out?” Her voice was deep, smooth, sexy. Red wine. She dyed her hair bright red and lined her green eyes with thick kohl liner. She wore an oversized leather jacket, white jean shorts that were ripped at the hem, and ass-kicking knee-high black boots.

  I nodded, my eyes traveling her. She was a few years older than me, and had the overall impression of a total hard ass.

  “You hungry?” she asked without waiting for me to answer, walking across the parking lot and whipping out a key from her pocket. A small sports car parked illegally flashed its lights and she wrenched the passenger door open.

  She didn’t look at me for confirmation and really, she was my best bet. I had left the hospital intending to get a cab, but arriving at my apartment alone was not appealing to me. So I followed, climbing into the seat next to her as she fiddled with her phone before tossing it on the console. Every movement of hers was graceful, but violently so. She was a small package of smoke and mystery and currently the only person in the world who knew what happened to me. And with that, a thought occurred to me.

  “Did the police question you?” I asked as she whipped out of the makeshift parking spot and flipped on her headlights.

  She shook her head and glanced at me as she looked at the side mirrors. “I don’t talk to cops.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they want to know my business.” She exited the hospital parking lot and shifted the vehicle, increasing the speed on the main road. “I have to deal enough with them in my line of work, so I heartily avoid them when I’m not working.” The keys hanging from her keychain jingled, the various items hanging from it glittered from the car’s interior lights.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Parker.”

  “Do you want to die tonight, Parker?” she asked, shifting into a higher gear.

  I didn’t know what to say, but fear seized my muscles, and I stared at her, terrified.

  She looked over at me and muttered, “Jesus. Your seatbelt.” She inclined her head towards the buckle that lay empty. “Buckle up.”

  As quickly as it had come up on me, fear left me just as fast, though a little bit sat stubbornly there, not trusting this woman. I buckled my belt in haste just as she whipped around a corner, not bothering to stop for the light. Granted, it was just a couple hours before dawn and there was little actual traffic, so I didn’t feel terror like I would have if it had been rush hour.

  A few minutes later, we pulled up in front of a twenty-four hour department store. I looked out the window, confused.

  She was already out of the car, walking towards the entrance, so I had nothing else to do but clumsily follow after, in through the automatic doors and into the air conditioning. Summer was unbearably hot in California, even in the early hours of the morning.

  I followed her into the women’s clothing section while she rifled through a pile of jeans. “What size are you, Parker?”

  “Eight,” I instinctively said. “Why? Wait, I have clothes at my apartment.”

  She looked at me beneath brows that were dark like her eye makeup, impatience simmering just beneath the surface. “Yeah, and you live forty miles from here. I’m hungry. And your hospital attire is going to kill my appetite.” She tossed a pair of jeans over her shoulder before walking purposefully towards the tank tops.

  “I don’t even know your name,” I protested, though that seemed like something I should have asked before climbing into her car in the first place.

  “Mira,” she mumbled, holding a tank top in front of me to check the size.

  “How do you know I live forty miles away?”

  “I checked your wallet while you were unconscious.” She spun around and pushed her way through the racks of clothes to the check out.

  “But you didn’t remember my name?” I asked, blindly following behind.

  “I wasn’t looking for your name when I found you, I was trying to figure out where you lived,” Mira replied as she tossed the clothes on to the checkout belt.

  “Why?” It seemed like an odd thing to worry about.

  “I told you, I don’t like cops. If we’d been close to your address, I would have called an ambulance and waited, figuring you would get a ride home from a cop or something.” The cashier stared at us as we spoke. Mira spoke with truth, but with a heavy hand of impatience too.

  When the total rang up on the register, Mira whipped out some cash and paid for the new clothing.

  “I could have paid,” I protested meekly. It was futile. Mira was a hurricane and I was along for the ride.

  Mira took the change from the cashier and walked towards the exit, once again not waiting to see if I was following. She stopped at the restrooms and pushed the bag of clothing into my hands. “Get dressed. I’m hungry.”

  I walked into the restroom with my bag of clothing and took a second to breathe. This had been the most traumatic and also the craziest night I’d had in my entire life. Five hours earlier I had awoken to a woman’s smooth voice, my head resting on warm pavement. I remembered little of what had transpired, except that I’d hurt, everywhere.

  I opened my eyes and turned towards the bathroom mirror. It was my first time seeing my face. I walked a few steps closer to the mirror and turned my face to get a better look.

  The scar on my cheek cut into my hairline. A nurse had shaved part of my head to make the gash easier to sew back together. The skin around the cut was red, angry, and bruised too. There was a bandage over the stitches. I had to keep the area dry for a week. One of my eyelids was raw from road rash, and the eye itself was swelling quickly. I was a mess.

  It was then that I remembered the reason I was in the bathroom and I quickly changed while in one of the stalls, sliding on the jeans that were looser than I expected. I winced while pulling the tank top over my head, feeling the material gently brush the wounds on my back.

  On my way out of the restroom, I tossed my scrubs into the garbage and looked for Mira outside of the restroom. She was no longer there. Instantly, disappointment and loneliness bloomed in my heart. I quickly shut it down and strode towards the exit, not sure what to do or where to go, but knowing that I was on my own.

  Except I wasn’t. Just outside the entrance was a waft of smoke and sure enough, Mira was there smoking a cigarette and running her fingers over her phone. I watched her for a moment, watched how she sucked in the smoke from the cigarette before she blew
it out in a small stream. Her eyes caught mine and she pocketed the phone before striding over to me. “Let’s eat,” she said before taking two long pulls from the cigarette. She dropped it and stomped out the lit end before stalking back to her sports car.

  Twenty minutes later, she pulled into a diner just off the interstate. Before she could open her door, her phone rang. I sat in my seat, unsure of what to do as she answered.

  “Yeah,” she said. It was an unusual way to answer.

  After a moment she said, “I’m at Paulie’s.” She glanced at me for a minute. “I have a mouse.” I trained my eyes to look out the windshield, feeling embarrassment at being privy to her conversation. I quickly looked at the dash, noting it was nearly five in the morning. “Not sure what I’m gonna do yet, Six.”

  Six? Was that someone’s name?

  “Hey, chill out. It’s fine.” A second later, I heard a loud voice on the other end of the phone. “God damn Six, I just want a fucking cheeseburger. How about you take a nap, shower off your shit mood and then call me, okay?” And with that, she hung up. She pocketed the phone and exited the car, so I followed as was usual for us.

  As we were being seated, all I could think about was Mira, the mystery she was. Who was Six? And why would going to sleep at 5 AM be considered a nap? It was a relief to have something else to think about other than what had happened to me seven hours earlier.

  When the waitress came over to take our orders, Mira took the menu from my hand and shushed me when I tried to protest. “Two cheeseburgers and fries. Extra cheese on the burgers. And a couple Cokes.”

  The waitress sauntered away and Mira turned her attention to me. It was the first time she’d really looked at me, to my knowledge, and I squirmed a little in my seat. “Okay mouse. I have a feeling you’re gonna argue, so this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to eat a burger and fries so that I can give you something for the pain you’re going to feel tenfold when you wake up. You’re going to crash on my couch and then once we’ve both had a good bout of sleep, we’ll go from there.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think arguing would make a difference, except further annoy her. “Can I ask you a couple questions?”

  She narrowed her eyes, turning the whites into slits. “Depends.” She shrugged off her leather jacket and then waved a hand at me. “Go ahead then, I can see the wheels turning in your head already.”

  “Where do you live?”

  Her eyebrows raised at that. “In a house. Next question.”

  We both knew she evaded my real question. But I continued. “What did you see when you found me?”

  Mira’s head fell back to the booth behind her. “I was waiting for you to ask this one. I saw a car fishtailing down the road. Don’t know why I bothered to follow it. And then I saw a door open and saw you tuck and roll out of the car. I had to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting you myself. The other car stopped, a man got out and I got a shot off before he decided not to stick around.”

  “What? You have a gun?” I’m sure my eyes were wide with shock. Mira rolled her eyes.

  “Keep your voice down, won’t you? Yes. I carry.” Mira looked around and seemed satisfied that the diner was mostly empty. She stood up and turned around, lifting her tank top up a few inches to expose the holster that sat against her lower back. A black revolver rested, snug in the holster. She pulled the tank top back down and sat in the seat again before continuing. “After that, I checked your wallet and then checked you for injuries. You were mumbling and whimpering, kind of squeaky like. Then I poured you into my vehicle and dropped you off in a wheelchair at the ER.”

  I had remembered that. I remembered looking at her, shocking red hair. Feeling the heat of her leather jacket against my skin while she repositioned me in the wheelchair. And then she was gone.

  The waitress dropped off our sodas before returning to the kitchen. I sipped mine as I contemplated my next question.

  “Why are you helping me?”

  I knew instantly the question made Mira uncomfortable. She scratched the skin at her wrists, not looking at me at all. I took two long sips of my soda, not expecting an answer, until she spoke. “Because I’ve been you before. A mouse.”

  “I don’t want you to feel like I’m an obligation.”

  “But that’s exactly what you are,” she insisted. “Don’t feel shame for it. If I didn’t want to help you, I wouldn’t have stuck around after dropping you off at the ER.”

  It annoyed me that I was this stranger’s obligation, that I would owe her something. But, before I could protest, she interrupted me yet again. “Parker, listen. I’m not good at…” she paused. “Talking. I’m shit at it. You heard me on the phone with my boyfriend. When I don’t want to talk, I hang up or I just stop. I don’t waste words. I don’t hold hands or braid hair or anything a normal woman would probably do for you. I’m a fighter. I’m better with fists than with words and I want to help you. Because I’ve been where you are, and someone picked me up and showed me how to fight. You’re a fighter too. I saw it on the pavement, when you were covered in blood that wasn’t all yours.” She took a sip of her soda, not bothering to use the straw. “I need to give it some more thought,” she started. “But you’re alone and there’s nothing worse than that.”

  That stung a bit, but it was the truth. I guess I was more transparent than I thought.

  “You walked out of the hospital alone. You didn’t call anyone to come rescue you. So I’m not here to rescue you. I’m here to rehabilitate you.”

  After that, our food arrived and we spent the meal in silence. Cheeseburgers with extra cheese turned out to be just what I needed.

  Present

  After paying my bills, I slipped into some running shorts and a tank top. I was out the door a minute later, headed down the sidewalk towards my school.

  I was never a runner before I met Mira. My idea of working out had been dancing at the club or raising my hand for another drink. But Mira had pushed me, pissed me off, and forced me to be strong. So now I ran almost every day. I ran the four miles to campus, grabbed lunch from a food cart and ate in the park nearby so I could indulge in my favorite pastime: people-watching.

  When I made it to campus, I heard my phone go off. I plopped onto a bench and pulled it out of the pocket it was strapped to on my arm.

  Everett: You never answered my question about lunch. That was rude of you.

  My lips twitched.

  Me: I never claimed to be anything else.

  Everett: And now you’re stealing my words. You definitely owe me lunch.

  I hesitated. Yes, for some strange reason, I wanted to see him again. There was something really peculiar about him, and his scars had piqued my interest. But it was completely unlike me to engage with someone, least of all a man, in a one-on-one setting.

  Me: Okay fine.

  Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in a booth, waiting for Everett to show up. I was still wearing my workout clothing, soaked in sweat from the run to the apartment to grab my car.

  I was finishing my second glass of water when the door to the restaurant jingled. I lifted my eyes and saw Everett striding towards the table.

  He slid into the seat across from me before signaling for the waitress to come around. Our eyes met and my chest tightened. It’d only been a few hours since I had last seen him, and yet seeing him again was feeding an ache that squeezed in my chest.

  “Is it safe to assume you’re wearing running shoes now?” he asked.

  “I am.”

  “So I better be careful of what I say, so you don’t run again?”

  I shrugged and sipped my water. “I’ll probably run anyways.”

  Everett leaned on the table. I inhaled his scent, which I could only describe as cool water, though in theory, water didn’t have a scent. “Do I intimidate you?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

  I was sure I frowned slightly. “Not exactly. I just don’t make a habit of talking to people.”

/>   Everett stared at me until the waitress came around. “A cheeseburger. With extra cheese.”

  I lifted my eyes to his. He was watching me for a reaction. I controlled my features to stay calm. When the waitress walked away, I spoke again, “They don’t make it as good as Paulie’s does.”

  “Paulie’s?” he asked.

  I shook my head, signaling that I didn’t intend to speak that aloud. “Why did you want to meet up again?”

  “I was bored.”

  I glared at him. “That’s…”

  He smiled, his first real grin. “Let me guess what you were going to say: Rude. Yes, Parker, I am in fact very rude. And unless you’ve already forgotten, you said the same thing to me last night.”

  My mind flipped back like a book to when I admitted I’d come along to the bar to meet him out of boredom.

  “Sorry I ruined your date last night.”

  Everett cocked his head to the side and eyed me curiously. “It wasn’t a date. And even if it was, you didn’t ‘ruin’ it.”

  “Your text message made it sound like a date.”

  “Did it?” he asked, running his fingers over the scruff on his chin. “Well, it wasn’t.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  My eyes snapped from watching his fingers on his chin to his eyes. “It was just a question.”

  “And you don’t answer all of mine. So why should I answer yours?”

  I sat back in the booth and crossed my arms over my chest. “What questions?”

  “Why did you really come to the bar? It would have been easier to just reply, ‘wrong number.’”

  I blew out a frustrated breath. “I had nothing else to do. And I wanted to change things up a little bit.”

  “You were right when you said to look for the girl who doesn’t belong. You couldn’t have looked more out of your element.”