by Dan Taylor
She looks down at her body. “Don’t you like me?”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t want to complicate matters.”
“Let me guess. It’s you not me.”
She storms over to my chest of drawers and starts going through my clothes. She’s still wearing that lonely sock. Has she forgotten about it?
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m looking for a bra or panties, any sign that you have a vagina.”
I go over to her to stop her, but she finds them before I can. “Aha! I’ve found evidence.”
She’s holding up panties. The particular ones she’s holding up are from Megan Books, an actress who hired me to investigate who her biological father is.
I say, “They were a present from a former client.”
She frowns. “A present?”
“Yeah, like a parting gift.”
“Eww.” She carries on looking. “There are like six or seven pairs in here. Are they all ‘parting gifts’?”
“Most of them.”
“Most?”
All. Should have said all.
I take them from her and shove them back into the drawer. I can fold them later. Now’s not the time.
“Who are the others from?”
Grace goes on like this, asking for details, firing questions at me, until I grab her by the elbows and stop her.
I say, “Listen, Grace. There’s nothing I’d like more than to…well, get prepped for surgery and go to the operating room. But I was being honest. I really don’t want to complicate matters.”
“I’m a waitress with an eating disorder who you helped knockout my abusive husband before locking him in his walk-in refrigerator. Not finished there, you dragged me along to investigate what’s happened to you in the last week, as you don’t remember. And on top of all that, you may or may not be suffering from a life-threatening illness. Jake, I don’t think you can complicate matters any further.”
“Good point.”
With that said, Grace unbuckles my belt and whips it across the room. “Now let’s get those God-awful pants off, Dr. Hancock.”
“Oh, boy.”
28.
GRACE NEVER DID take off that lonely sock. And who knows what happened to that bit of vomit in her hair, and believe me, I couldn’t help but keep an eye out for that thing the whole time.
We’re lying in bed now, side by side, and there’s a question hanging in the air potently like a fart in a hot shower.
Grace asks, “Has it been a while, Jake?”
I sigh. “It has. At least I think it has. Who knows if I had sex last week.”
“We can safely assume you didn’t. I’m not used to men telling me to slow down. I was barely moving at one point, and, well, you looked like if I put it in first gear you might explode.”
“First gear? If you weren’t in first, what gear were you in?”
“Reverse.”
“Slow down with the compliments. You’ll give Old Hancock here an even bigger head than he already has.”
Not finished, she does an impression of me: “‘Softer, Grace, please, softer.’”
“To be fair to me, I said slower.”
“Slower, softer. Potato, tomato.”
“I’m not sure you’re saying that correctly.”
“Sure I am. It’s something you say that means one thing is only slightly different from the other.”
“I know what it means. And it’s potato, potata.”
“What’s a potata?”
“It’s…never mind. Let’s call the whole thing off.”
“Huh?”
“Anyway, I didn’t hear you complaining.”
“Oh, that. I had to concentrate really hard.”
“Again, slow down with the compliments.”
“I haven’t concentrated that hard since my eighth grade algebra exam.” She giggles. “Only this time I was able to work out what X stood for.”
“It’s nice to know this has been an educational experience for you.”
“If you’re wondering, X stood for three. Three out of ten.”
“Sounds like you did really well on your algebra exam.”
She rolls over and drapes an arm over my chest, initiating an awkward cuddle. The way her neck’s bent, it can’t be comfortable. “Just teasing, silly dummy. I actually quite enjoyed it.”
“You can go back to lying side by side if you want.”
“Thanks. What now?”
Talk with a girl after sex long enough and it inevitably leads to that question. Like how any discussion in a YouTube video comments section inevitably ends up with two commenters insulting each other’s ethnicity. “Grace, I like you—”
“Great. I like you too.”
“I wasn’t finished.”
“Oh.”
“I like you, and in our futures I see…more sex. Maybe even great friendship.”
She props herself up on an elbow and looks at me with her eyebrows straining to reach the top of her forehead. “Why are you talking like a fairground fortune teller?”
“I was addressing the ‘what now’ question.”
“I meant do you want to eat or go at it again before we go to the hospital.”
I too prop myself up on an elbow, so that we’re face to face. A fly on the wall might think it’s witnessing a married couple discuss how they’re going to deal with their son Tommy’s worsening truancy after ten minutes of grueling missionary-style sex.
I say, “So you weren’t asking how the sex is going to affect our relationship from here on out?”
“Why would I want to discuss that?” Genuine surprise.
I feel like pinching myself. I’m lost for words.
Grace continues, “It hasn’t, has it? At least I hope it hasn’t.”
“I don’t see why it has to affect our relationship, no.”
“Great. Now what’ll it be, food or sex?”
“You’ll make someone a great married-for-the-second-time wife in the future, you know that?”
“I kinda do.”
I think a second. “I am hungry, but then again, I don’t want you going away from the operating room thinking that Dr. Hancock hasn’t got a ten-hour operation in him.”
“Ten hours? Like Sting?”
“The ten hours in the metaphor translates to, like, ten minutes in sex time.”
She sighs theatrically. “Don’t go getting my hopes up like that.”
We kiss.
Then she says, “And you can drop the surgery thing. It’s not sexy in the slightest.”
“Shut up and hand me the scalpel.”
This time I do much better. At least I think I do. Like magic mushrooms, sex distorts time. I know this for sure, I at least did ten minutes.
“Nope,” Grace says between breaths. “Eight minutes”—she nods her head while looking at something on the wall—“now.”
I look in the direction she’s looking. On my wall is a clock. Huh, I can’t remember putting that up there. Taking it down goes on to my to-do list.
She pats me on the head. “You did much better that time. In our futures…I see great improvement. Maybe even an orgasm I don’t have to concentrate really hard to achieve.”
“Now if fortune tellers spoke like that, they’d be the most popular attraction at the fairground.”
We get out of bed.
Grace says, “Look at that. I forgot to take off one of my socks.”
“Weird. I didn’t notice.”
We get dressed. I choose tea green pants and a white and blue checkered shirt. My choice meets Grace’s approval.
Then we go through to the living room and sit and talk for a while. To my surprise, Grace addresses the elephant in the room: her eating disorder. She promises to keep her next meal down, even if it’s something that I cook. Not that she’s tasted my cooking. In her words, she’s extrapolating her expectation from my performance in bed. I have no id
ea what extrapolates means, but I get the insult nonetheless.
I get up and go over to the kitchen and start making sandwiches. Grace’s will have extra mayo, and not the light stuff. When done—they’re pastrami on rye, if you were wondering—I notice that there’s a message on my answering machine as I’m carrying the plates to the living room.
“There’s a new message on my machine,” I say.
“Exciting. It might be a clue.”
I put them down on the coffee table and go back over. I’m just about to press play when the intercom buzzes.
28.
“WHO IS IT?” Grace asks.
The video feed’s in black and white, and the angle of the camera doesn’t help: looking down on the person who pressed the button for my apartment. It shows a woman in a shawl and wearing vintage sunglasses. Not the good kind of vintage, but the so-out-of-fashion-you-should-probably-not-wear-them-in-L.A. kind.
I haven’t pressed the button to speak to the visitor, so what I say isn’t heard by her. “A Jehovah’s Witness?”
“Let me take a look.” Grace comes and stands by me. She takes a couple seconds to look at the video image. “Either that or a lady who’s ridden a dinosaur here.”
I press the button to speak. “Hello?”
“Jake, it’s Gerry. And why did you ask hello?”
“Gerry, hi. I was just unsure who it was, that’s all.”
“Are you going to let me in or do I have to bribe one of your neighbors?”
“I’ll let you in, I suppose.” I buzz her in. After the third attempt, we manage to coordinate my pressing the button with her opening the door.
Grace has many questions while we wait for her to come up, the most pertinent of which is “have you slept with this woman?” I won’t fill you in on the rest.
I fill Grace in on who she is, before she goes and sits on the sofa, sulking a little. Then there’s a knock at the door.
I let Gerry in.
She says, “You look like shit. Are you sleeping okay?” Same old Gerry. Then she looks over my shoulder at Grace. “Have I come at a bad time?”
“It’s never a bad time to be told you look like shit by your former boss.”
Gerry ignores me and pushes past and goes up to Grace and holds out her hand to introduce herself. Despite my curiosity about what Gerry’s doing here, I can’t help but fret about what Gerry’s stiletto heels are doing to my wood floor.
Gerry sits and I go over and join them. I’m sitting by Grace, opposite Gerry. We sit in a silence ten seconds or so. Gerry has never been one for small talk, so it surprises me when she asks, “So, how have you been since Wednesday?”
“Since Wednesday?” I ask.
“Yeah, Wednesday.”
“What happened Wednesday?”
“You know…” Gerry’s still wearing her glasses, so she can’t give much away, but she nods towards the bedroom door.
I look at Grace, a dumb look on my face. She looks pissed.
Gerry continues, “Never mind. Now’s not the time.” A nod again, in Grace’s direction. Subtle, Gerry.
This one causes Grace to fold her arms across her chest. Have I slept with Gerry? Is that what she’s implying? I’ve had the hots for Gerry ever since I met her years ago, but I’ve always repulsed her. Or maybe she was just pretending to be repulsed by me. That fits. It would certainly explain her coming over here incognito.
I try to steer the conversation away from where it’s leading. “So, how’s life treating you?”
Gerry giggles. “Oh, I think you already know that, Jake.”
I play even dumber. “Gerry, as far as I know I haven’t seen you in six months. And you’re acting like, well, like we’ve become friends or something.”
That giggle again. Playful, catfight bait. “Or something. No truer words have been spoken.”
Grace interjects, “What did you mean by ‘Or something’?”
“Oh I think you know what I mean by that, sweetheart.”
I wince. Sweetheart? She didn’t just drop the S-bomb.
It’s time to play diplomat. I stand up, say, “Now, now, ladies. Let’s just sit and talk about this like adults.”
Grace ignores me. Says, “Bitch!”
Or not.
Gerry starts doing that thing ladies do best: ignoring the other lady in the room while letting her know she’s ignoring said lady. It’s all in the demeanor. Quite the skill. Then she says, “Jake, honey, I just came around to see if you wanted to pick up where we left off on Wednesday.”
Grace interrupts, “You can stop saying Wednesday now, you obvious bitch.”
Gerry says to me, “Is there a concealed parrot in the room that you’ve trained to say bitch?”
I say, “Ladies, please!”
Grace, in that dumb southern accent again, says, “What’s Wedensday? Is that the day that comes after Thursday?”
I do the thing my dad used to do when Mary, my sister, and I had arguments: whistle.
Gerry and Grace look at me, confused. Turns out that skill isn’t hereditary.
It had the desired effect nonetheless. They both turn to look at me, silent. I pick up one of the pillows on my sofa and say, “Okay, this is the talking pillow. Whoever has this pillow can talk. And whoever doesn’t have the pillow has to listen. You got that, ladies?”
They both say nothing and refuse to look at each other.
I continue, “It’s my turn to have the pillow first.” I turn to Gerry. “Gerry, I don’t know what happened between us, and I don’t think now’s the time to talk about it. If that something happened that I don’t want us to talk about, I’m sorry. I wasn’t myself last week and I don’t have feelings for you. Now it’s your turn, Gerry.”
I wait for her to speak. She doesn’t. Then she says, “You have to throw me the pillow first.”
“Oh, sorry.”
I do.
Then Gerry says, “Well that isn’t how you felt on Wednesday—”
I start to say, “Wednesday, we got it—”
But Gerry silences me by holding up the pillow. “After we did the thing that you don’t want us to talk about—which was mind-blowing, by the way—you told me you loved me.”
Grace has had enough. She stands up. Says, “Have a nice life, Jake Hancock.”
Gerry holds up the pillow, but surprisingly it doesn’t have the same effect on Grace.
Grace continues, “Good luck in your investigation, and I think I know what’s wrong with your heart. You don’t have one.”
I try to stop her, but she pushes past me, goes and puts on her shoes. Before she disappears through the door, I say, “But you haven’t had your turn with the pillow yet.”
It only takes a second or two for me to realize I should go after her. A personal record. But Gerry has other plans. She stands up and starts getting undressed. “How about a glass of champagne with your former boss, who’ll be in her underwear?”
Distracted, looking around her at the door, I say, “I don’t have any champagne.”
“Well how about having a look at these while you drink one of those Belgian beers you love so much?”
That gets my attention. I look at her chest and find out it isn’t a collection of Pokémon cards she wants to show me. Despite my concern for Grace, those things have me mesmerized. “Gee, Gerry, look at those…” My voice trails off. I shake my head, snapping out of it.
I say, “No, I need to go after Grace.”
It’s my turn to push past a lady for once. I put on my shoes and have the door open, ready to go through it, when Gerry says the last thing I expect her to say: “Sit down, Jake, or I’ll paint your wood floor with your brains.”
I turn around to find Gerry has a gun trained on me.
29.
“WHOA, GERRY. I can sit and look at them if it means that much to you.”
She shakes her head, and her tits shake at the same time, not helping my confusion any. “Just sit down, you dumb prick.”
I
raise my hands and walk slowly towards her. “Whatever you say, Gerry. Do you want me on the sofa or recliner?”
“On the sofa.”
I sit and Gerry remains standing. She still has her nipples and the gun pointing at me. I don’t know which is more threatening.
She sighs, then says, “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, Jake.”
“Come to what, Gerry? And can I lower my hands? I haven’t lifted dumbbells in months.”
“No.”
“Does that answer both questions? Because it’s kind of an illogical answer for the first question.”
“Just shut up while I shoot you.”
I’m an investigator by nature. So I spend the last second of my life putting the pieces of the puzzle together: the mystery lady at the heart of this investigation and Gerry pointing the gun at me. I’m sharp like that.
I go to say the name, but I’m interrupted by someone coming rushing through the door.
When she’s made it into the living room I see it’s Grace, who says, “Hayley Toothridge!”
Gerry turns and points the gun at her. Now’s my chance. I stand up and rush at Gerry, hoping to tackle her to the ground, but she turns at the last moment and shoots me.
I go sprawling back and the sofa catches me.
“Jesus, Gerry. You shot me in the thigh!” I reconsider that assessment. “Wait, is that the thigh or the hip?”
“You’re lucky I missed.”
“Where were you aiming?”
“Your left nut.” Ms. Specific. What’s so special about that one?
Gerry backs away from the sofa and turns so that she can keep an eye on both Grace and me. Any chance I had to tackle this super bitch has gone. Not that I’d be able to, given a second chance: sitting is painful enough, never mind being fast enough to tackle Quick Draw Mary McGraw here. I mean, come on.
Gerry says, “Go and take a seat next to your boyfriend, Mr. Anatomically Challenged.”
Grace does as she says. Gerry takes a seat opposite us.
Now I’ve had a taste of what eating a bullet feels like, I’ll do anything to save my and Grace’s lives. Including giving up the one thing that means the world to me. “Take my apartment, if you’re so upset. Wait a minute, what is it that I’ve done to piss you off so badly anyway, Gerry?”