by Amy Faye
“Not even a little bit, Tom. Go on. Go watch a football game or something.”
“Yeah, when this all blows up in your face, just give me a call, will you?”
Mary could see the lines of Roman’s jaw tightening. He worked them loose again, only for his jaw to tighten again all on its own an instant later.
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Your friend’s not particularly charitable.”
“No,” Roman said. His jaw was still at the tightening phase of the cycle, and his teeth barely came enough apart to fit a toothpick as he ground the words out. “He isn’t.”
“I’m sorry if I’m asking too much. I just…”
“Look, I told you. I’ve been in this sort of stuff since I was a kid. You need someone to come along, I can come along. You sure she’s receptive to the talk, though? You can’t change somebody. Not if they don’t want to change.”
Mary’s chest tightened at the question. That had been her experience the past week. She didn’t know anything. And as she was getting closer to Roman, the thing she knew least of all was when to mention how closely related Pete was to their first meeting. It wasn’t right to keep him in the dark. Not forever. But before two nights ago, it hadn’t seemed important to mention.
Now it seemed like she’d put it off too far, like she should have come into his room with nothing but a trench coat on and then cried out, just as he pulled her in for a kiss, that Pete was his son.
When was she supposed to have mentioned it?
She sucked in a deep breath. Whatever. It was a problem, but it was one that she would solve. One that hopefully could wait until she was done with the latest in a long series of calamities that she couldn’t bring herself to ignore.
“I don’t know.”
“So maybe?”
“More than maybe. She was clean for years. She was married, for Christ’s sake.”
Roman nodded and a line furrowed between his eyebrows. “Yeah. Okay. Then we’d better at least try, right? You know what happened with her?”
“I had stuff going on. She had stuff going on. I think it’s been, I don’t know… two months since I called her?”
He pursed his lips. “Yeah. Okay. So if we’re lucky, she’s not long on the stuff.”
“If we’re lucky.”
“But we’ve got to assume we’re not. So come on, I guess. Let’s go find your friend. You know where she’ll be?”
“No,” Mary said. “But I know where she was.”
“Then that’s going to have to be good enough.”
Twenty
Roman’s chest expanded as he sucked in a breath. This wasn’t his usual bag. His whole image relied on being a “bad boy,” and that meant that not only did he not want to get involved to save that image, he didn’t want to get involved in that world if he could avoid it.
But he wanted Mary, and he wanted to make sure that she had what she needed. He’d already stuck both hands into the water, and at that point anything she wanted to drag out with her was coming, or he was going to leave her behind. There was no alternative. He already knew all that.
But there was plenty about it not to like, regardless.
There were a thousand things wrong with Tommy’s approach in trying to turn Mary down. First, because he wasn’t going to turn her down. But he could have made the effort to be a little less of a complete prick about it, for one thing. Maybe if he had, there would have been room for some kind of discussion. But that was how Tommy always was. Just one of the many, many reasons that nobody could stand the man.
“This is the place?”
“This is the place.”
“Did you see her on the drive over?”
Mary closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. “No, I didn’t.”
“Then I guess there’s no guarantees that she’s even here. Is that alright?”
“It’s going to have to be, isn’t it?”
“I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.”
“I know.”
“Alright then. I believe you.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t think me yet, we haven’t done anything.”
Mary looked like she was surprised and thankful that we’d even gone this far. Like she expected me to bail on her the second we left the house. Maybe Tommy had her more rattled than I thought. Or maybe she was always this jittery when someone she knows and trusts falls off the wagon.
“Hey.”
She looked up, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. It was an obvious nervous gesture.
“Everything’s going to be fine, okay?”
“If you say so.”
“I say so. Now, calm down, okay?”
“I’m calm.”
“Good. Take a breath.”
She breathed in.
“Now. We’re going to go find your friend. You said her name was Cara?”
“Cara White.”
“Okay. Cara White. Let’s go ask around, I guess. How long since you were here? Twenty minutes?”
“If that.”
“Then someone might be around who saw her. We’ll make the effort. If we don’t find her in a few minutes, we can always try her house and see if we find out the story there.”
“Okay.”
Roman stepped out of the car. Mary stepped out on the other side. They’d talked the plan over three separate times now, and it still seemed like it was a bad idea. But at the very least, she could try to stay safe. He could take the risks.
She was going to stay on the main streets, ask folks who looked like they were loitering if they’d seen a woman of Cara’s description. Roman would take the back streets, look for people who might stay around here longer-term than a couple of hours out of the day. Together, they’d find her somehow.
“Hey, boss,” he said to a man who sat on the street with his legs splayed out. He was only a little ways into the alley at that point. But in a big city, you don’t have to go that far to find people hanging out. “You been here long?”
“Little while,” the guy said. “You got any spare change? For the bus.”
“The bus, huh?”
The guy shrugged. “Yeah.”
Roman reached into his pocket, pressed his back against the far wall, and pulled out a folded stack of bills. He peeled a twenty off.
“You seen a girl? About yea high, light-colored hair? Hanging out around here, maybe twenty minutes ago?”
“Maybe I seen her, maybe I ain’t.”
“I think I got a buck fifty here, sure,” Roman said. He put the wad away and scrounged in his pocket.
“Wait a minute.”
“What? You got something for me?”
“I might know your girl.”
“That’s an amazing recovery.”
“She might be down there, a ways. She goes down there to, you know…”
“What?”
“Her stuff. Whatever, man. None of my business. I don’t get involved in that stuff.”
“Drug stuff?”
The guy shrugged, but his expression was as clear as could be. Yes.
“She down there now?”
“Sure.”
Roman handed the guy the bill. “Get yourself something to eat, boss.”
“Thank you kindly,” the guy said. He didn’t move to get up. Roman hoped dimly that he was serious about not getting involved in that stuff.
Then he made his way over in the direction the guy had indicated. He made no effort to walk quietly. Someone who was high, he figured, might be dangerous. More dangerous if they’re spooked. He’d be better off if they heard him coming.
The big risk there was, she bolted when she heard him. Or bolted when she saw him, or he saw her. But she didn’t. None of those things happened.
A woman looked up at him with a glassy-eyed expression like she was about to burst into tears. Or like she was high. Or both.
“You Cara?”
“She sent you, didn’t sh
e?”
“She’s looking for you. She’s worried.”
“She’s too nosy.”
“She says you’re married.”
“Yeah, well, she shouldn’t be giving relationship advice.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re him, aren’t you?”
“I’m who?”
“The guy.” She started to laugh, a thick belly laugh. “You’re the guy she was worrying about.”
“What’s so funny?”
“You don’t get it at all, do you?”
“Don’t get what?”
“You’re the guy from before, too. The rock star guy.” She reached into her coat and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She dug around inside the pack with a finger and pulled out a single smoke, put it to her lips. “Damn.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You got her all fucked up, man. That kid and everything? Damn. That’s cold.”
“What are you talking about?”
She took three attempts to flick the lighter on before it lit. But eventually it did light, and she set her cigarette burning.
“What, you don’t know?” Cara laughed again. “Whatever, man. Your kid, your business. not mine, right?”
He looked over. He must have misheard. His heart thumped hard in his chest. Mary had caught sight of him from the street.
“I found her,” he said, loud enough to be heard from the distance, even over the din of the street.
“Uh-oh. Here comes the drug police.”
“You don’t look great,” Roman said. “You feeling alright?”
Cara let out a long breath. “No.”
“That shit helping?”
“No,” she said.
“Then why?”
She sucked hard on the cigarette. “Why not?”
Mary’s jaw tightened looking at her friend. Roman watched her with a vague sense of disaffection.
Twenty-One
Mary saw something in Roman’s eyes. Something she chose to ignore. There were more important things in her life right now.
“Oh, hey. It’s Captain Killjoy. Here to join the party, Mary?”
“What’s that supposed to even mean? Cara, what’s going on with you?”
“You got all fucked up, you know.”
“What?”
“Everything. Maybe it feels like you dragged yourself out of it, but… but I know better. Can’t lie to me. Not to me.”
“Cara, you’re not making any sense.”
“Sure I am.”
Mary sucked a breath in through her nose and closed her eyes for a second. Long enough to breathe out a silent prayer.
“How long?”
“How long what?”
The way she said it was less a question as much as a challenge. Would Mary dare to push it further? The answer was obvious. It ought to have been obvious to Cara, as well.
“How long since you fell off?”
Cara shrugged. “Are you going to help me up or not?”
“Is this some kind of cry for help? Because if you wanted me to be worried, you could have just called me.”
Cara’s eyes sunk. “I wasn’t ready to tell anyone.”
“Tell anyone what?”
“It’s not important any more.”
“What’s not important? How is Roy? Did you two have a fight or something?”
“No,” Cara said. Her chest fell as she let out a long sigh. “He’s been great through the whole thing. From the first minute.”
“Cara, you’re not making any sense.”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Too early. And now it’s… well, whatever. I just wanted to go away for a little while. So I went away. It was easy.”
“We need to get you help.”
“You want to help, fine. Give me help.”
Roman looked hard at her. Then he looked hard at Mary. She noticed his lips pinch together.
“You’re not doing anyone any good with this,” he said. “You want to grieve, nobody blames you for that. But you’ve got a husband at home, no doubt worried sick about you.”
“He’ll get over it eventually. It’s better for him if I just disappeared.”
Roman’s face tightened up. “Get up.”
Cara reached up. He didn’t take her hand. She reached to Mary. Mary looked over at Roman. He looked angry. Angrier than he’d looked over anything else that she’d seen in the short time she knew him.
“Help me up.”
“You can try by yourself,” Roman said. “You try and you fail, and I’ll help. You don’t get to rely on your friend to keep you on your feet.”
Mary kept her hands at her sides. It was a struggle. When she saw a hand reaching out, she wanted to take it. A horror story played out in her head, a guess at what had happened. Cara had never said she wanted kids. It hadn’t ever been in the cards for her.
But what if it happened? What if it almost happened? Mary lost her nerve and abandoned the thought before it could hit home.
Cara looked up at them pathetically. Like she wasn’t sure she could handle the effort. She reached up again. Mary grit her teeth and waited. He was right. She had to fight for it. Just a little. Just show that she was ready to try. It felt harsh. And it felt fair.
The woman lying on the ground looked like it was going to take everything that she had just to coordinate the movement to pick herself up.
And then, to her own apparent surprise, she did it. Her body turned and shifted, and she pushed with her hands on the ground. She made it to her knees, then set one foot on the ground and tried to stand. Which was where things all started going wrong.
Cara’s weight shifted hard as she tried to straighten on her feet, and her body tipped off to the side and she started to fall. A pair of arms caught her. Roman stood her up straight.
“Can you walk?”
“I don’t know,” Cara answered. Mary watched the whole thing with an awful pit in her stomach.
“You should have called me.”
“I didn’t want to bother you,” Cara said. And then she started stumbling back towards the alley, guided by the people on both her flanks. They walked out onto the street. By that point, Cara’s legs moved in vague approximations of steps as she was mostly carried between them. It was fine either way. Mary kept telling herself over and over again.
It was all going to be fine, because they’d at least come close, they’d at least given her a chance, to get better from all this. And that was all that anyone could hope for. At that point, they just had to try to put her in a good position to succeed, and hope that it took. If they were lucky, maybe it would. If they weren’t…
Mary kept moving and closed her eyes, moved her lips in the words of another prayer. They would be. Because Cara’s life likely depended on it.
Twenty-Two
Roman had been inside plenty of hospitals. There was something about them that made him sick. From the talk, everyone else ended up feeling the same way, sooner or later. Which suited him just fine. The fewer people who wanted him stopping by hospitals without a reason, the better.
There had been one or two Make A Wish kids over the years. Not many. He wasn’t their bag. And of course, for those days, he swallowed his dislike for hospitals and put on a grin and went in to see them. He wasn’t necessarily a good guy, but he wasn’t a psychopath.
And that was precisely what he was doing at that point, because there were too many problems for Mary, and too many questions to put to her when there was time. It wasn’t time now. That much, at least, he knew with absolute certainty.
His kid, his business. Maybe she meant that it was Mary’s kid, and Mary’s business. But something told him that wasn’t remotely what the girl had meant. A sick feeling in the pit of his stomach twisted. What was he thinking? What were any of them thinking? He couldn’t be the father. He’d been told, point blank, that it wasn’t his. He’d been sure to ask. And she denied it.
&nbs
p; Which meant that one of them was lying. He had a very good idea, an almost startlingly good idea, which it was. Cara was an addict. They lied. It was what they did.
But there was no angle for her to profit from lying. Even if all she wanted was to see him squirm, she hadn’t been crowing about Peter being his, she was crowing about how badly he’d handled it afterward. But there hadn’t been anything to handle. He looked for her. Looked pretty hard, short of spending several thousand dollars hiring someone to find her.
He sucked in a breath and looked at Mary. She looked like she was miserable. Ready to pass out. She wasn’t in a position to be asked tough questions. And she wasn’t in a position to lie if he did ask.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you into bed. Your son’s going to be waiting for you.”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
He took her hand and led her out. Maybe he walked a little fast. Maybe he shouldn’t have. But she didn’t complain about it.
“Did the hospital get ahold of her husband?”
“Yeah,” Mary said. “He’ll be here after work.”
“Good. They’ve got some stuff to work out between them.”
“You’re right.”
He opened her door for him and crossed around the hood of the car. Maybe he shouldn’t be mad. Maybe he should just calm down and get everything figured out in a calm and rational way. But he wasn’t calm, and he was being as rational as he could, which was to say, not particularly.
“And apparently,” he said, trying to keep his voice level as he pulled on his seat belt and loosened the handbrake, “so do we.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She seemed to think that there were things you weren’t telling me.”
“She told you, huh?”
“What? That you had my child? Yeah. She seemed to suggest something about it.”
Mary’s eyes closed and she laid her head back. “Fuck.”
“I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you curse.”
“I meant to tell you.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“There wasn’t a good time. You said yourself. It’s not like I’m in a good position to know who you really are. I wasn’t then, either. So I’m not interested in being some kind of gold-digger. I didn’t want a check, and I didn’t want to seem like I did. And I didn’t want some drunk or junkie messing with my kid.”