Red Light

by J. D. Glass

  “Mr. Scanlon,” I held out my hand, “I’m Tori Scotts, and I’m glad to finally meet you.”

  He smiled, a huge smile, and instead of shaking my hand, he pulled me into a bear hug.

  “We’re all family here, all nine-one-one, and I’m glad to meet you, too. Pat, where’s her beer?” he asked as he released me and tucked my hand in his arm.

  “I was just getting her coat and—”

  “Beer, man! Get her a beer! What the hell kind of host are you to your sister’s”—he gave me a sidelong glance and the tiniest of grins—“friend?”

  I grinned back. I didn’t know what Jean and I were, either, but I knew that friend was somewhere in there.

  “I’m all right,” I told him, “fine. But,” and I craned my head about, “where’s Jean?”

  Mr. Scanlon led me through the hallway. “Come meet Mrs. Scanlon before I let you go into the living room. One drink and they’re all happy, two drinks and they’re deaf, three and they’re all the lord of the dance in there. It’s frightening, I tell you,” he said with a grin and patted my hand as we walked into what was clearly the dining area.

  Pat shoved a large mug into my free hand. “It’s Guinness, not that crap stuff, so no complaints and drink it all—it’s my job to see your mug doesn’t run dry.”

  “It’ll be slow going for you, then, buddy. I’m driving tonight.” I grinned at him as we all neared what I assumed under all that food was a dining table. A group of nine or so had set up a circle of chairs before it and were chatting animatedly over the music.

  “Megs!” Mr. Scanlon called above the din. “Tori’s here!”

  When she turned her head and smiled, I recognized Jean, what Jean would be in another twenty years. Beautiful. Her mother was beautiful, and Jean had her coloring, her smile, and even her tilt of head, though Mrs. Scanlon had a few streaks of silver in her short hair.

  “So,” Mrs. Scanlon said as she stood and kissed my cheek, “you’re Tori. Jean’s told us a bit about you—”

  “About twenty thousand things, twenty thousand times, Jean has,” her brother quipped from my elbow where he refilled my mug.

  “Hey, who’s taking my name in vain?”

  My head snapped at the recognition of that voice, and nothing could have stopped the smile I felt spread across my face. I watched what must have been a mirror expression grow on Jean’s as I handed my mug back to Pat.

  “You’re here,” she said simply and the next second was in my arms, a warm and solid presence.

  “Told you I would be,” I answered and breathed in everything about her: the fresh-soap smell of her hair and its silken glide across my cheek, the strength in the arms that surrounded me and the comforting spread of her hands across my back, and the very welcome feeling of her chest pressed against mine, the thud like it was my own.

  “You look great,” she said quietly.

  “Thanks, you too,” I answered just as softly. “Can I kiss you now or do I have to wait and find a quiet space outside?” I murmured into her ear after pressing my lips to her neck. I felt the pulse jump under her skin.

  Her hands smoothed down my spine. “Only if you want to make that sort of declaration in front of my entire family. Not that I’d mind, but I warn you, my mom and aunts will be planning the wedding, naming our kids, and picking the wallpaper.”

  “Really? Will it be plaid?”

  “Is what plaid?”

  “The wallpaper. I can’t live with plaid wallpaper, and I’m dying to kiss you.”

  “We’ll paint, I promise.” Her lips were a soft brush against my ear before they became a gentle fit on mine.

  “Oh, great, now she’ll never dance with me!”

  We both laughed as we broke apart, and Pat shoved my beer right back at me as one of the guys from out front saluted us with his.

  I spent the rest of the night meeting aunts and uncles and cousins, husbands, wives, partners, boyfriends and girlfriends of aunts, uncles, and cousins, as well as friends and friends of friends, and I was thankful for the varying tribal insignia people wore; otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to keep track of anyone.

  I learned to recognize not only the PD and FDNY tartans that I already knew, but the Scanlon tartan, which more than half of those in attendance wore, and the McCabe attire, which identified Jean’s mother’s side of the family.

  “They were originally from Scotland too,” Mrs. Scanlon told me with a twinkle in her eye as I met her brother and her nephew, Shaun.

  “Too bad Shannon won’t be back from Ireland for another few weeks,” Pat turned and said to Jean with an unmistakably evil grin. “She’d love Tori.”

  “Shut up,” Jean said with a scowl as she elbowed him.

  I gave her a questioning look, which Pat answered instead.

  “Ah, Shannon, Shaun’s sister and our cousin…she has a thing for Jean’s—”

  Jean clapped her hand over his mouth and wrestled him into a headlock. “He’s had way too much to drink, and I think it’s time for cake.”

  He waggled his eyebrows at me from under Jean’s arm, but I got the picture: watch out for Shannon. I gave him the okay sign to let him know I’d been duly warned, but I wasn’t really worried about it.

  Once Pat had been pardoned and paroled after Jean extracted his mute promise of no further outbursts, we admired the cake, complete with a reproduction of Jean’s new city-issue shield and her new badge numbers on it. After that, we had more beer, more food, and more music.

  Mr. Scanlon had been right: everyone thought they were lord of the dance, including Mr. Scanlon, who taught me the steps to a reel and made sure to take me on a tour around the living room where I ended up dancing with everyone.

  “You know what they say, don’t you?” one of Pat’s friends asked with a laugh as we tried not to collide with innocent bystanders.

  “What’s that?”

  “A man in a kilt is a man and a half!”

  I chuckled as we went through the next step in the reel; it hadn’t been hard to learn. I just had to remember to take one large, turning step every fourth.

  “Ah, you’re a nice guy, but I’m not interested in any of your parts,” I said with a grin.

  “And that’s because she likes her men with boobs like mine,” Jean added as she and Pat whirled behind me.

  “Yeah, and she doesn’t want any of your half, either,” Pat added.

  The two of them, combined with the friend’s mock wounded expression, made me laugh so hard I almost spilled the beer.

  “Now that’s alcohol abuse,” Pat cautioned as he saved my glass, “and it can’t be tolerated.”

  I turned to Jean. “What say you help me find a safe place for me and my beer?”

  “Hmm…” She tapped her chin. “I know just the spot—c’mon.” She took my hand.

  Although we barely let go of each other the rest of the night, her mom presented me with a plate that seemed to never empty because everyone kept trying to feed me, while every time I put that mug down, true to his word, Pat kept it filled, no matter how much I protested. After a while, I stopped protesting, only because I was sitting on the sofa with Jean and we didn’t notice much else but each other.

  It was really late: the revelry had died down, the music had softened, and Jean and I were the only two people not in the kitchen or the dining room.

  “I should get going,” I said finally. It had been difficult to simply sit there and hold hands, to give her occasional little kisses, when what I really wanted to do was…anything, everything. I wanted her so badly my stomach hurt and my skin felt numb from the overload. And it wasn’t just sex, either, because I wanted to feel her skin against mine, just to hold her, close and warm, feel the whisper glide of her hair against my cheek when I pressed my mouth to her neck.

  “Do you have to? Are you all right to drive?” Jean asked, her breath almost as much a distraction as the tender lips that brushed my skin.

  “I’m fine,” I said, feeling very regretfu
l as I untangled from our embrace and stood, “and it’s getting very late.”

  Jean stood with me, her hands gentle on my arms. “You can stay, you know.”

  I smiled at her. I wanted to stay, I wanted to stay with her, but for once in my life, I didn’t want to rush…I wanted to take the time to explore whatever this was, this growing thing between us that had such strength, that felt so important and yet so fragile. Besides, this was her parents’ house, and I couldn’t stay that close to her and not touch her, and just the wanting seemed disrespectful somehow. And…I had to talk with Trace; I owed her that.

  “I can’t,” I said instead, “but thank you.”

  Jean caught my hand up in hers as we walked toward the front hallway to get my coat and kissed my fingers. “Can I see you tomorrow?” She nibbled slowly against the skin, a move that nearly weakened my resolve to go home with my dignity intact as I dug with my free hand along the hooks on the wall for my coat.

  “Please…” I cupped her cheek in my hand. “I don’t…” Her lips moved so invitingly over my skin I needed to…I needed to think. I couldn’t think at all, because all I wanted was to feel her skin against mine.

  “Call me tomorrow, okay?”

  “That, I can do.” Her words were a low burr in my ear as we caught each other up again because I was leaving, I was really and truly going to leave this time.

  Mr. Scanlon stood at the top of the steps as I stepped out the front door, waving off the other departing revelers.

  “I had a great time, Mr. Scanlon, and please tell Mrs. Scanlon thanks for having me.”

  “Will do. Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”

  “Yes, absolutely. I’ve managed to pretend not to see Pat’s refill attempts for the past hour or so.”

  “Are you sure? You’re welcome to stay, you know.” He smiled at me as his hands engulfed mine.

  All I could think as I gazed at that kind man was that I couldn’t stay, I simply couldn’t look into his eyes, stay in his home, when the only thing that echoed in my head was how much I wanted, I needed to love his daughter—now, later, for as long as she wanted me to, and maybe even if she didn’t.

  I repeated those words in my head. I loved her. God help me, that’s what this had to be, because the thought of Jean drove me to distraction, her proximity made me shake, and leaving her now made me feel physically ill.

  I either loved her, or I had the flu. The recognition of that probability caught me up short as I gaped at Mr. Scanlon, not knowing what to say. Holy shit…I loved his daughter.

  “I love your…house,” was all I could manage to blurt out, catching myself before I said anything else, now that I had the words to match my feelings. My scalp felt numb.

  “Well, you’re welcome here anytime, young Scotty, anytime,” he said, and gave me another hug. “Hope we’ll see you soon.”

  I don’t know what I said as I extricated myself and said my final good-byes, but I was very focused on trying not to fall down the steps as I walked to my car.

  As I drove home, I wondered at myself, at the strange, new sensation that filled my chest. This was so…different, different than anything or anyone.

  Kerry and I had dated about four months before we’d lived together. After a couple of nights of running into each other at the same bar and some heated flirting, we had sex before we’d even gotten halfway through our first official date—but we did at least date. We fucked a lot, but we went out and did things too. I’d already been taking the EMT class by that time, and living together, well, it had seemed like the next logical step: we really liked and cared for each other, we got along well, and the sex was great. It was too bad we hadn’t had much besides that.

  Trace and I, well, we’d never dated at all; we didn’t live together either, and the sex, well, that simply had to end—completely. Things had already slowed down considerably, but still, it wasn’t fair, not to anyone, and especially not with the way I felt about Jean.

  I pulled into the driveway at exactly midnight, and the phone rang in my back pocket as I fumbled for the keys.

  “Scotty,” I answered as I managed to grab the right one and fit it to the lock.

  “Hey there,” Jean’s voice cheered in my ear, “it’s tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, it certainly is that.” I laughed.

  “So…you still want to do something?”

  “Sure,” I answered, glad to know she was interested. “Got anything in mind?”

  “How about…since you came out to Brooklyn, I’ll come over to Staten Island?”

  “Sounds great. What do you think about noon?”

  “What do you think about five minutes?”

  “What?”

  “Well, I’m just about to pull through the toll plaza. What’s your cross street?”

  I laughed again and gave her the address. I knew she wouldn’t really need directions, since she’d worked on the Island, but I did have to explain how to reach my place behind the house. I checked my watch when we hung up: I had about ten minutes before she arrived.

  A quick apartment inspection revealed it as pretty neat, probably since all I’d been really doing lately was studying, and I figured a cup of coffee or two couldn’t hurt so I put some on.

  The idle of her vehicle sounded through the quiet street as she parked outside and the engine cut to silence just as the brew cycle started. I was glad I’d shoveled the walk after yesterday’s light snow. “Hey,” I said from the open door as she came up the walk. “You know you’re out of you’re fucking mind, right?” I couldn’t help smiling as I said it.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she agreed when I folded my arms around her. “I’m psycho, but you’re the one driving me there.”

  I kissed her exactly the way I’d wanted to through the long hours of the party, an agonizing blend of sweet sensuality and shyness with a growing undercurrent of need as we stepped in and I managed to close the door behind her.

  “Mmm…wanted to do that all night.”

  “I wanted you too,” she admitted, her tongue and voice a low buzz in my ear.

  “There’s fresh coffee,” I stuttered out finally, because between the way I felt and the way she held me, I could see this going in only one direction, and I had to slow it down before it raced away from me, out of control, without my knowing or understanding what it was or where it came from.

  “Sure, yeah. Coffee sounds good,” Jean agreed, her words almost faint, her breath as ragged as mine.

  As we got caffeinated, we sat and did our best to talk about the station and battalion Jean had been assigned to. I had difficulty focusing: I couldn’t stop admiring the graceful line of her neck, or the way a tendril of hair curved just so over the sharply defined tendon there and ended over what I knew were probably the most magnificent breasts I’d ever seen.

  I did manage to understand that she had been put into B Company and would start on Tuesday as vacation relief, meaning that she would fill in for absent members or work at the station itself, from two p.m. to ten p.m., until she was assigned to a regular unit.

  “Are you happy with those hours?” I asked as I shifted closer to her along the sofa. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized that Jean was gracefully allowing me to set the pace and tone, and I appreciated that. I’d already done the let’s-not-talk, let’s-get-right-to-the-fuck thing, as well as the oh-baby, I-want-to-do-whatever sex talk. I wasn’t sure of what I did want, but whatever happened between us, I knew I didn’t want that; I wanted this to be…right.

  “Well…it was actually my second choice, stationwise,” she admitted, “but the other available choices would have brought me to the Bronx, and that would have been a crazy commute, and Brooklyn would have ended up in an overnight rotation.”

  I caught the slightest shake in her hand when she put her mug down.

  “I’m a little tired of those overnights,” she continued, then grinned at me. Her gaze moved from my eyes to my mouth, and the shift of her grin, from humor to a frank sensual
ity, made my heart stop for one painful second before it throbbed back to life, a heavy beat in my ears. “There’s this girl I really like—she prefers a three-to-eleven shift.”

  “Funnily enough,” I said, hardly able to hear myself past the beat in my head, “that station was my first choice. And I did, in fact, request a three-to-eleven shift.”

  “I know.” Her voice was barely audible. “I remembered.”

  I was stunned. Jean had based a major career decision on my preferences, on the chance that I would get both the station and the shift I wanted. Granted, she could always transfer, but we’d been repeatedly warned at the academy that transfers were hard to get, especially as newbies. “Depends on the needs of the service,” our instructor had said. “You could get one right away, but you’re more likely to wait anywhere from one to fifteen years.”

  I put my cup down. “Jean, you didn’t do that, you didn’t throw away a chance at a station you want for a girl.”

  “I didn’t throw anything away.” She brushed the hair away from my forehead. “I’m taking a chance on something I really want.”

  I forced the air and the words out past the knot in my chest and the tightening of my throat. “So tell me more about this girl you like.”

  “She’s beautiful,” Jean whispered. Her eyes were the color of burnt sugar as she carefully cradled my face in her hands, then stroked my cheeks. “She’s break-my-heart beautiful.”

  I’d been told I was cute, and I’d been told more times than I could remember that I was pretty in so many ways, by so many people, I even knew it in an objective, almost logical way, the same way I knew my hair or eye color. But in the same way those other things were simply embedded facts I never consciously thought about, so was the idea of being “pretty.” It was a concept that had no real meaning for me, just another fact among so many others—until I heard Jean put it that way. Her words…they meant something to me, because the way she said them had meaning, more meaning than just my face.