Next To You

by Sandra Antonelli

  He wanted to forget that he’d climbed into Quincy’s silver Jag and simply waved back.

  ‘How does she feel?’ Quincy had asked.

  ‘She feels wonderful.’

  ‘That’s not exactly what I was asking.’

  ‘No you weren’t, were you?’ Will sighed. ‘You know this trip was poorly timed.’

  ‘You can only blame yourself for that. You want me to turn around so you can have a bit more morning glory before you fly off for the rest of the week?’

  ‘We haven’t exactly reached that stage yet. I’m not so sure we will. I never told you she comes with baggage.’

  ‘She has a child?’

  ‘No, she had a child. What remains is an unstable estranged husband.’

  Quincy snorted. ‘You sure you want to have a thing going on with this Mrs. Jones? I like Caroline. I really do, she’s sweet, but a husband? When did she drop this bombshell on you?’

  ‘I’ve always known. The day we met I saw him push her around in a café, and lately he’s taken to stalking her, but I don’t think he’ll be doing that again anytime soon.’

  ‘Why, did she take out a restraining order?’

  ‘Not one she knows about.’

  ‘How can she not know about a restraining order?’

  ‘Because I had a word to him.’

  ‘You had a word to him?’ Quincy looked away from the road and gawked at him, mouth open.

  ‘You’ve got a red light coming up. I got straight to the point.’

  ‘You got straight to the point?’

  ‘Are you just going to repeat everything I say?’

  Quincy stopped the Jag at the lights. ‘You got straight to the point? What the hell does that mean? What did you do?’

  ‘I was … quietly menacing.’

  ‘You threatened someone?’

  ‘I suppose I did.’

  ‘Did you hit him?’

  ‘Not quite. I persuaded him to think twice and it felt great.’

  ‘You’re taking this last birthday pretty hard, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t think I’m taking anything hard.’

  Quincy tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Well, let’s recap. You’re a man with a gentle disposition, despite being built like a side of beef. You have this birthday, one that isn’t particularly a milestone, and the next thing I know you’re in la-la land over your new blonde neighbor who’s half your age—’

  ‘She’s not half my age.’

  ‘At any rate, you’re contemplating embarking on an adulterous affair and threatening her husband, which could lead to some kind of criminal charges, the kind you always comment could get you disbarred.’ Quincy shook his head. ‘Murph, you don’t muck with another man’s wife, estranged or not. That’ll wind up causing more damage than even you can fix. You want my advice? You need to step back a little and think things over.’

  That conversation did make Will think. His fondness of uncomplicated and his laziness meant he’d become complacent; he’d stopped thinking, but over the last few days he’d done nothing but think. With his scoured-clean naked body lying in between crisp, white heavy cotton sheets in his hotel room, the inside shades drawn against the Mumbai city lights, Will was thinking again.

  It had been some time since he’d been so enthralled thinking about a woman that it kept him awake for hours. He was smiling, thinking about how the curve of her neck looked as she held her head over the side of the In-As-Free.

  He liked how Caroline laughed like Betty Rubble. He liked how she was quick and thoughtful, and the way her hazel eyes crinkled when she smiled. He thought about her verbena fragrance and how her small hands had fluttered before resting against his chest as he kissed her.

  He knew he had a silly grin plastered to his lips when he reached for his phone.

  ***

  Batman growled when they approached the apartment front, his hackles rose like tufts of black spun sugar on his neck. Caroline thought it was odd that the dog bristled at Dennis who was crouched on the front stoop beside the doorbells, scribbling something on a scrap of paper.

  Barking, Batman lunged forward and Caroline pulled him back. ‘I’m sorry Batman’s so nuts, Dennis. Something’s set him off. Maybe it’s a cat or raccoon. Are you and Arch gearing up for Halloween?’

  Dennis’ red head bobbed up. Batman jerked hard on his lead, yanking it from Caroline’s grip. The dog leapt, snarling fiercely. His little razor teeth snapped at Dennis and the man rolled sideways, a flailing hand bashing against the row of doorbells.

  ‘What the fuck!’ Dennis shouted, but Dennis wasn’t Dennis at all.

  Dennis was clean-shaven Alex.

  Before she grabbed the dog, Batman went for Alex’s beardless face. ‘Get him the fuck off me!’ Alex yelped.

  Caroline grabbed Batman around the middle, lifted his squirming, growling body and tucked his head under her left arm to calm him. Struggling with the wriggling, snapping dog, she watched Alex rock in pain. In the dim early evening light, what looked like motor oil trickled from between the fingers he’d clamped over the center of his face.

  ‘Shit stupid dog! First your boyfriend threatens to serve me my fingers for lunch, now your shitty stray mutt wants my nose for dinner!’ Alex pulled a white hankie from his coat pocket and covered his bleeding nose. ‘Christ, Can’t we be civil to each other? Do we have to be locked in battle all the time?’

  She shifted Batman to her other elbow. ‘I’m not locked in battle with you.’

  ‘Come on, Caroline! You sicced your dog and Walking Dead boyfriend on me. What the hell do you expect me to do?’

  Her brow furrowed deeply. ‘What do you mean I sicced my boyfriend on you?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know.’ Alex adjusted the hankie at his nose. ‘He was in my face, telling me to leave you alone, or else I was gonna eat my fingers. Friend, my ass. I see him with you everywhere, I saw him kiss you, and you two look pretty intimate …’

  ‘You saw him … Have you been following me?’

  He waved the bloodied handkerchief. ‘No! No. I’ve happened across you making deliveries to some of my restaurant clients. There are a couple of places we supply around here, but a few times I have come to see you at work, to talk, and you weren’t there. There are things you need to know, things I need to tell you.’

  ‘Like what? Is it about whatever Gus left me in his will? Do you want to know if I expected that? No. No I didn’t.’

  Alex shuffled his feet and tipped his head back, pinching his nose.

  Batman growled. Caroline shifted his weight. ‘If you have a problem with what your dad did then have your lawyer take it up with my lawyer, William. He lives in this building too. Is this because you want to know if I still think about Drew? Every single damn day, Alex. I think of him every day. You think I’ve forgotten about him or is it just that you want to hurt me more? You want to see what new way you can find to torture me because it makes you feel better? Well, go ahead and take your best shot, Alex. Knock me down, stomp on me if it makes you feel good or at least alive! Go ahead. I’m giving you free rein.’

  His head snapped forward. ‘Fucking hell, Caroline. Look at me! This is making me sick! I can’t live this way!’

  ‘Newsflash you two, I can’t live like this way either!’ Bonnie Chesterman shouted from the open security door, her glare as brutal as her clinging chartreuse blouse. Bright pink sponge rollers in her hair bounced like sausages above her forehead when she put her hands on her hip. ‘Well, missy, I certainly hope you and Dennis are done bickering. The last we thing we need in this building is a feud between neighbors … hey, you’re not Dennis … You’re that guy, the man Mr. Murphy upstairs told me to look out for. He is, isn’t he, sweetie?’ Bonnie moved down a step. ‘Well, now aren’t you a sight! She hit you! Good for you, honey. Get him before he gets you. Mr. Murphy said this one’s been sniffing around after you. I saw you around here last week. You were across the street.’ Bonnie looked at Caroline.
‘Should I call the cops? You want me to call the cops, sweetie? Cuz I’ll call ’em.’

  ‘Yes, I think it’s a good idea to call the police, Bonnie.’ Caroline squeezed Batman, and started to climb the short flight of steps. Bonnie held the door open wider to let her pass inside.

  ‘Wait, Caroline! Please. Please wait.’

  She turned, jaw set.

  ‘I swear.’ He held up his hands in surrender, waving the darkly stained hanky, blood glistening as it trickled from his wounded nose. ‘I’m not stalking you. I swear to Jesus I’m not. Maybe I did follow you a few times, but I came here to give you your book. I was here outside, in plain sight waiting for you! I was where people could see me. I wasn’t hiding behind trees, or tracking your every move. I brought back your book, the one you dropped a couple of weeks back. It’s about Mabel somebody confessing. I was writing you a note! You saw me!’

  ‘Fuck,’ she said. He had been writing before Batman pounced. The book and wrinkled note were on the step, droplets of blood spattered on all three, and Caroline relented. She relented because it was the only way to get him to go away. She glanced at Bonnie and shook her head.

  Bonnie folded her arms across her chest. ‘Are you sure, sweetie?’

  ‘No, but …’ Caroline hugged Batman close. He licked her chin.

  ‘Well, hurry up then. He’s bleeding everywhere!’ Bonnie shook her finger at Alex. ‘Look you, hold your nose and stop bleeding all over the steps. Blood is near impossible to wash from cement. I don’t care what you read, Coca Cola does not get rid of blood on cement, and I’m not going to be the one to try to clean it up! You need to stop bleeding and see a doctor.’

  ‘Oh, ya think?’

  Caroline picked up the book. As much as she did not want to acknowledge it, she knew she had a slightly moldy, partly spongy slice left on the bottommost edge of her heart for Alex. It had been there, even while he had vilified her and screamed at her after Drew died. All the time she’d been at Linden Oaks, and every time she’d seen him since coming back to the city, that bit had always been there.

  Maybe all it was simple compassion, maybe it was remembering Drew or Gus, maybe it was sheer stupidity, but she said, ‘Bonnie, I know it’s dumb, but I’m taking him upstairs so he can clean himself up.’

  Batman gave up wiggling. Head tucked beneath Caroline’s elbow meant he was submissive to a point, but he growled as Alex followed them up the stairs and into the kitchen. She took the dog to the bedroom and closed the door, leaving him in the room to bark. She went back to the kitchen.

  The blood on his face had begun to dry. Alex sat at the breakfast bar scratching at the cracking crust on his chin. ‘Come with me to the bathroom,’ she said.

  Alex followed, leaving the blood-soaked handkerchief on the breakfast bar. He leaned over the sink as she bathed his nose with warm water, wincing and swearing. ‘Stupid, fucking dumbass dog.’

  ‘He remembers you kicking him when he was a puppy.’ Caroline said. ‘You brought him home with a bow around his neck, and then you kicked him.’

  ‘I didn’t kick him. I tripped over the damn, shit-for-brains mongrel.’

  ‘You kicked him.’

  ‘I’ve never known a stupider dog. You had him with you in the nuthouse, didn’t you? They let you keep him with you in the psycho ward the way they let cons and people in rehab have cigarettes.’

  ‘One more word, Alex, and I’ll kick you.’

  ‘Look, I know that was cruel. It hurts, my nose hurts.’

  ‘It all hurts.’

  Alex smelled the summery perfume coming from the scooped neckline of her sports shirt. Bent over the way she was, he got a hearty glimpse of her breasts. They’d been full and rounded in her pregnancy. Now they were smaller, just the size to fit into his palm. He wanted to reach over, slide his hand inside and touch them. Get a grip on yourself, Alexander, what the fuck is wrong with you?

  ‘It’s always going to hurt. And stop looking down my shirt.’ She unscrewed the top from a bottle she took from the medicine chest above his head. ‘This is going to sting. A lot.’

  Alex straightened, pink-tinted water dripped off his chin and splashed into the sink. ‘Why? What is that?’

  ‘Alcohol.’

  ‘Are you fucking crazy? Oh, that’s an idiotic question for me to ask you.’ He shooed her away. ‘Haven’t you got any hydrogen peroxide or Bactine?’

  ‘Whatever I put on your nose is going to hurt.’

  ‘Peroxide hurts the least. Can’t you use that?’

  ‘I don’t have any. I used it all on my knee when I fell a few weeks ago.’ Setting her jaw, nearly ready to bite him, Caroline looked at him, and decided it would be easier to humor him. He’d be gone quicker if she did. She huffed noisily. ‘I’ll see if William has any.’

  ‘That big old biker next door is your lawyer—holy shit, that guy that albino boyfriend of yours, and he lives next door? Oh, how convenient. None of that whose house do we screw at tonight bullshit. He must be loving that.’

  ‘Shut up and don’t you dare move from in here.’ She left Alex sitting on the edge of the toilet seat, found the key to Will’s place, and let herself inside. She went down the hall, to the master bathroom off his bedroom instead of the bathroom in the hallway.

  It only took a second to locate the peroxide, but Caroline lingered in Will’s bedroom, thinking it odd a man so big would only have a double bed. Did he sleep on the right side, the left, or in the middle?

  She sank down on the mattress and ran her hand over the dark green brocade duvet. It was down-filled. She trailed her fingers over the cloth that covered him as he slept. The room smelled faintly of his aftershave. Dear God, he’d been gone three days and she missed him more than she could have ever imagined.

  His voice had been low before he’d kissed her, low and confident, and he’d said, ‘Actually it’s pretty straightforward.’

  And maybe it was.

  Maybe it could be.

  Except, over the last few years nothing in her life had been straightforward. It had been a three-hankie weepie melodrama deep from Joan Crawford country. What Caroline preferred was a classic Rosalind Russell comedy, like His Girl Friday, with snappy dialog and laughs, but she didn’t need a perfectly mapped-out life or things tied up in a pretty romantic happily ever after bow. The life she was trying to grab by the balls was ordinary, unpredictable, the life most people had, the life that was full of mundane and exciting, joyful and wretched. The life she wanted was one where she had a past and a future, where she knew how she felt, without questions or second-guesses. She didn’t know how she felt about William, and she needed to.

  ***

  The dog barked intermittently from his bedroom prison. Alex held a folded square of gauze to his throbbing nose as he wandered down the hallway to the living room, inspecting the new furniture and pictures of her parents. Annoyed there wasn’t a single photo of Drew anywhere, he rifled through the few pieces of mail Caroline had left sitting on a side table—bills, domestic abuse flyers, junk mail. He flipped through her nearly empty address book, and rifled through her collection of DVDs.

  Caroline and her goddamn movies.

  Her phone rang. She’d left it beside her purse on the striped couch. Gauze pinching his nose, Alex answered the call, lifting the device to his ear. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Pardon me. I must have misdialed,’ a man said politely before hanging up.

  That polite voice was one he’d heard before, whispering beside his ear. Alex knew the phone would ring again in a moment or two. So, she’s giving it to that genetic fluke. The phone let out an electronic jangle. ‘Hello?’ Alex said in a sleepy voice.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m not sure I have the right number. May I speak with Caroline Jones, please?’

  ‘You’ve got the right number.’ Alex said quietly. ‘She’s sleeping right now.’

  ‘May I ask with whom I’m speaking?’

  ‘This is Alex.’

  ‘Alex. I see.’


  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘I think you know who it is.’

  ‘Could it be the circus attraction, Mr. Casper?’ Alex sniffed. ‘Well, sorry Mister Casper, we’re still in bed and she’s still asleep.’ He ended the call. His smug smile made him wince.

  Grinning and wincing, he walked back to the bathroom. He was examining his nose in the mirror when Caroline returned with the peroxide. ‘It stopped bleeding,’ he said.

  ‘You still need to see a doctor, maybe get a tetanus shot,’ she said.

  Although it had stopped bleeding profusely, blood still oozed from the tip of Alex’s nose. The dog’s bite hadn’t punctured the nostrils, but the skin below the bridge of his nose and the rounded tip had been lacerated. He leaned over the sink again. She poured a slow trickle of peroxide over the wound. Alex sucked air between his teeth as liquid and flesh bubbled. He fought the urge to screw up his face because it would crinkle up his smarting nose. Instead, he straightened stiffly, turned in a half circle, reached for Caroline’s wrist, and squeezed.

  When he looked up, she’d backed into the basin, making the face he wished he could. The pit of his stomach twirled in on itself. She set the peroxide on the edge of the sink and the monstrous things he’d spent time contemplating seemed hallucinatory, feverishly unreal and so very distant, though it had only been five days since he’d stood outside the diner and deliberated murder. He ached and that ache astounded him. He needed her and that hadn’t changed. That wasn’t ever going to change.

  ‘Alex you’re hurting me.’ Caroline tugged against his hold.

  ‘I’m sorry for that.’

  ‘I bet you are.’

  His hand slid from her wrist to separate her fingers between his, and he looked into those funny grayish-green, blue-flecked eyes of hers. ‘I am. More than you know. More than I can say.’ For a moment it was as if nothing had ever changed between them. He saw that flicker through her eyes as well, and he leaned towards her, the sink behind her, with a familiar heat traveling up his neck, his bloodied face descending closer to hers.

  ‘Alex, don’t.’

  His lips touched hers.

  She jerked back, shoving him away. ‘I said don’t!’