by Paul Neuhaus
As Molly parked her car and the two women got out, Kiki came to them across the front lawn, arms held wide. They were barely within grasping range when Kiki seized them one at a time and gave them heartfelt hugs. Kiki—who was six feet tall, gangly, yellow-haired and looked nothing like her cousin—said to Blank, “Remember when I moved out here and you were all like, ‘I can’t wait to come out and see you! We’ll have cookouts and go shopping and I can sleep over!’ How many times’ve you been here, Molly? Tell me that why don’t you?”
The brunette’s head shrank into her shoulders. A tic she displayed more and more. “This is the second time,” she said, just at the level of audibility.
Kiki made a show of leaning into Molly and cupping a hand to her ear. “What was that? I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that.”
Blank said, “This is the second time!”
“So it is, so it is,” Kiki said with affected melodrama. She then turned to Quinn. “So, this is your old lady? Ain’t she a little young?” She put a hand to her mouth and faux-whispered to Henaghan, “Molly’s a cradle robber from way back.” Molly kicked Kiki in her lengthy shin. Despite this, she said to Blank, “She’s beautiful—and I can tell she’s got a kind heart.” Then she turned to Quinn. “You shoulda heard her when I called to tell her I was moving. It was Quinn this, and Quinn that. I think—and this is not an expert opinion by any means—that my cousin is a smitten kitten.”
The redhead looked over at her girlfriend and her girlfriend was looking down. Molly was trying to hide her face which had turned a bright shade of crimson.
“Anyway,” Kiki said, pivoting one hundred and eighty degrees. “This is the house.” She spread her arms wide to make it more of an unveiling.
Quinn couldn’t deny that it was a beautiful home, well-maintained and tastefully appointed. It was a navy blue one-story with a bright red door. A huge tree in the front yard kept the dwelling in shade.
The gangly woman dropped her arms and looked back at them over her shoulder. “I’ve lived here for six years and, mostly, I’ve loved it. I’m not going to lie and say it’s been a three hundred and sixty-five, twenty-four, seven dream. It hasn’t. Y’all are apartment dwellers so you may not know this: Owning a home is a big responsibility. And, by that, I mean it’s a pain in the ass. If you need something done, you gotta do it yourself. You can’t call the landlord and dump it on him.”
For some reason, Henaghan said, “I blew up my toilet once.”
Rather than being stymied by the comment, Kiki was both intrigued and amused. She dropped her arms. “Get out. How’d you do that?”
Molly ahemed and took Quinn by the arm. “It’s a long story,” she said to her cousin. “Can we see the inside?”
“Fuck yeah you can see the inside,” Kiki said, and she took the lead.
The inside of Kiki’s house was even more charming than the outside. Despite being named “Kiki” (which, in Quinn’s mind, had amusing if not flattering connotations), Blank’s cousin was amazingly tasteful. At one point, before she realized she was showing her cards too soon, Quinn said, “When we move in, can we have all your stuff?”
Kiki looked at the younger woman conspiratorially. “You think I wanna pack all this shit up and truck it across the country? If you take it all off my hands, I might give you a better deal.”
They were standing in the living room following a full tour and Molly was still looking around, obviously in love. She didn’t need to, but she said, “God, I love it.”
“Easy there, Trigger,” Kiki said with a benign smile. “Why don’t you talk it over with your little friend here. I need to be on the road by the fifteenth of next month. I realize it’s kinda short notice, but so was my mom’s illness. Anyway, you got a little bit of time to mull it over. I’d rather the house go to someone who’s gonna treat it with T.L.C.—but no harm, no foul if it’s not in the cards for you guys.”
Molly and Quinn thanked Kiki and told her they’d get back to her soon. As soon as the Cooper was a few houses down the road, Blank, beaming, turned to her girlfriend. “So… What’d ya think?”
Quinn sighed. “I thought it was gorgeous,” she said. “It’s absolutely everything anyone could want in a house.”
“Does that mean you’ll consider it?”
“Yeah, of course I’ll consider it. I just have… reservations.”
“I know you do, and, believe me, I realize this is a huge ask. You’d be doing a lot of the financial heavy lifting. I always said I wanted to be the girlie-girl in this relationship and now I’m feeling it. It’s like I’m in the early fifties. You’re the breadwinner and my main skills are I’m cute and I bake a mean pie.”
Henaghan nodded. “It’s true. You do bake a mean pie.”
Blank furrowed her brow. “I’m being serious here. It gets back to my loadliness thing. I don’t wanna be a dependent. I don’t wanna be a burden, but that’s where we’re at right now. I also don’t wanna foist this on you if you’re not a hundred percent on the whole Molly-Quinn thing. I mean this is a tangible commitment. It’s practically a betrothal with a deed and regular lawn care.”
The redhead opened her mouth to speak then closed it again. “I know,” she said finally. “Could we… not talk about it right now?”
Molly felt shut-down, but she said, “Yeah, of course we can.”
Quinn slid under Molly’s right arm and laid her head down on the brunette’s lap. “Is this okay?” she said.
Blank said, “Yeah, it’s okay. But no sexy stuff while I’m driving.”
“Mmm,” Quinn said and then, overwhelmed by the events of the last two days, she went to sleep.
When they were near their place on Gower Street, Molly pulled the Cooper into a Starbucks drive-thru. Smacking her lips, Quinn rose from Molly’s lap and looked around, bleary-eyed. “Where are we?” she said.
“Starbucks,” Blank said, reaching around her seat to collect her purse. “You want the usual?”
“Uh-huh,” Henaghan replied, wiping her mouth.
“Just so you know,” Molly said. “You drooled all over my groinal region.”
“That is so fucking hot,” Quinn said, her voice still tinged with sleep. Sitting up in her chair, she looked around. It was mid-afternoon and, as per usual in Southern California, there were no clouds to block the sun. She was about to make a derogatory Georgia versus Cali statement when something caught her eye. Two figures coming out of the Starbucks. Two figures she recognized. It was Simone Gros and Pietro Laskov, each with a white cup. They were talking in an animated way but Quinn, of course, couldn’t hear anything they were saying. “Fuck!” Henaghan blurted, and she dropped down into her seat. “Hunch down!” she said to Molly.
Blank was confused. “What? I can’t hunch down. I’m driving.” With that said, she inched the car forward and reached the menu and speaker. Without paying Quinn any further attention, she ordered their beverages.
The younger woman inched her head up so that she could peek through the driver’s side window. Gros and Laskov were walking down the sidewalk toward the street. Their conversation was in no way adversarial. It appeared very matter-of-fact. Even businesslike. Well, that’s just fucking swell, she thought. “Look behind us. At the sidewalk,” she hissed to Molly. “But don’t look like you’re looking behind us.”
Molly had ordered by then and closed her window. “Oh, fer crissakes. What is this, an episode of Three’s Company?” She turned, looking not at all like she was looking (she was a former actress, after all) and peered out the back window. When she saw what she was supposed to see, she stopped short. “Huh,” she said. “Is that Simone?”
“It is.”
“And that’s the little guy that broke into our apartment…”
“It is.”
“The guy you dropped into the middle of the 101.”
Quinn didn’t say anything that time.
“They’re not supposed to know each other.”
“That’s a fair statement,” Quinn
said.
By then, it was time to pull forward and collect their order. When she handed Quinn her cup, Blank said, “Being with you is complicated as fuck.”
Henaghan could not disagree.
Molly and Quinn sat in silence during the short drive from Starbucks to their apartment. When they reached their place, Molly did something unexpected. She started to turn in and then she said, “Oh, shit!” and accelerated back into traffic.
“What? What? What?” Quinn said, spilling some of her coffee down the front of her dress.
“Hold on,” Blank said, pulling a U-turn and heading them back the other way. When she reached the light, it was green, so she made a left turn and hooked the car into the gas station across the street from where they lived. The same gas station from which Henaghan watched the authorities take Annabelle Grindle’s body away six months earlier. “Hunch down,” Molly said. “Look over the dash.”
Quinn started to comment on how their roles had reversed, but she did what she was told. In the parking lot of their apartment, stood two men. She watched them through the intermittent traffic flow. It was Arnold Ristich, Simone’s Man Friday, and Matt Abrigo, Quinn’s recent captor.
“That’s the fake cop from the other day,” Molly said. “The guy that shanghaied you.”
“Matt, yes.”
The two women watched as Abrigo and Ristich had a jaunty conversation. Both men laughed at several points. They knew each other well. At the end of the encounter, Matt handed the older fellow a metal attache case. That done, Matt got into a car and pulled out and Ristich climbed the stairs to Simone’s apartment.
Blank scratched her nose. “They’re not supposed to know each other either, right?”
Before she responded, Henaghan fished around in her purse and found the bottle of clove oil. She looked at it before lowering her window and casting the container out. Before she closed her window again, she heard the bottle shatter. “Suddenly, I’m feeling crowded,” she said, her mood darkening.
Feeling knocked around, the girls climbed the steps to their place. Standing in front of their door was Cam Blank holding a box from Krispy Kreme. When he saw them, he commented on their paper cups. “You didn’t get me a coffee?” he said.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” Molly said.
Cam pouted. “I texted you. ‘Need someone to eat doughnuts with. Be there soon.’”
The younger Blank took her phone out of her purse and looked at the screen. The text was right there. “I’m sorry, daddy. It’s been kind of weird afternoon.”
Quinn brushed past Cam, key poised to unlock the front door. “C’mon,” she said. “I’ll make you some real coffee. You don’t want this froufrou shit anyway.”
“Thank you,” Cam said. “You’re my favorite semi-daughter-in-law.”
They went inside and Henaghan said. “I haven’t made Molly an honest woman yet.”
“Good luck with that,” Cam said, earning himself a swat from Molly. “That’s allowed though now, right? You guys could marry each other if you wanted to.”
The younger Blank took the box away from her father and put it on the table. “Don’t pressure Quinn right now, daddy. She’s got a lot of crazy shit on her plate.”
Cam turned his attention to Quinn who was in the kitchen starting the coffeemaker. “That true?” he said, concerned.
“‘Fraid so,” Henaghan replied. She came back into the living room while the coffeemaker did its job. Without checking with the others, she plopped down and got a chocolate glazed from the box.
Cam sat down next to her. “Would this be trouble of a legal kind?”
Quinn shook her head. “Believe me… You don’t wanna know.”
Molly sat down too, grabbing a doughnut of her own. “You really don’t,” she said.
The elder Blank nodded. “Okay, I’m not gonna pry, but I will give you one piece of advice…”
The redhead perked up. “Please do,” she said.
“You gotta helicopter it.”
Molly and Quinn looked at one another, confused. “You’re gonna need to run that by me again,” Quinn said.
“I used to train guys,” Cam said. “I was a Denzel Washington scary motherfucker. Anyway, I’d tell these kids, ‘Look, if you take one thing from me and one thing only it’s that you gotta helicopter it.’ You gotta rise up above a situation and take the long view. Look at all the pieces, coldly, analytically. You can’t go throwing emotion into it. Emotion’ll get you killed. I used to say to them, ‘Most everything is only as hard as you make it.’”
“Huh,” Henaghan said, sitting back in her chair, doughnut in hand. “Someone else gave me that advice recently. My sister.”
Cam took a cinnamon and sugar out of the box. “Smart girl,” he said.
“Actually, she’s an idiot.”
Cam looked at his daughter. Molly took a bite out of her own doughnut and said, “It’s true. She is.”
After Cam left, Molly dealt with the empty doughnut box and the cups. As she worked, she said, “Okay, it’s Circle the Wagons Time. What do you need from me?”
Quinn smiled and felt a surge of love. No matter what happened in the near future, there was no getting around the fact that Molly Blank was the absolute shit. “I’ll let you know,” she said. “For now, don’t do anything. You’re not getting hurt on my watch.”
Blank rubbed her hands together, signaling a job well-done. She sat down where her father’d been sitting. “Can you draw any conclusions based on what we saw today?”
“Well,” the younger woman said. “It was a beautiful fucking house. But I gotta work on the finances. I’m not sure—”
Molly kicked Quinn’s shin. “Not the house, dummy. I’m not even thinking about the house right now. I’m talking about Simone and the little guy. And Ristich and the handsome guy.”
Quinn nodded. “He is handsome, isn’t he?”
“If you go in for the tall, dark and completely amoral type, yeah.”
Henaghan laid both of her hands on the table and said. “I just need to ask myself W.W.B.D.?”
“‘W.W.B.D.’?”
“‘What Would Batman Do’? I have an idea—it’s probably stupid—but it’s all I’ve got right now.”
Blank raised one eyebrow. “Why don’t you tell me what it is…”
“No,” Quinn said. “I don’t think I should. It goes against the whole clandestine superhero thing.” She pushed her chair back and stood. “Give me your hand,” she said to the older woman.
“I don’t wanna do it right now.” Molly folded her arms over her chest and stuck out her chin.
Henaghan laughed. “I don’t wanna do it right now either. I was gonna—”
“Was Batman ever married?” Molly interrupted. “Did he have a significant other?”
“You mean apart from Robin?”
“Ew. You know what I mean.”
The redhead sat back down.
“I don’t guess so. I mean probably, but I’m not enough of a nerd to know about it.”
“Okay, so let’s suppose—just for the sake of argument—that Clark Kent married Thelma from Scooby-doo.”
Quinn’s grin nearly split her face. She understood the problem even before she asked, but she asked anyway. “How does Clark Kent enter into it?”
“Isn’t he Batman?”
“No, he’s Superman. Bruce Wayne is Batman.”
“Whatever. Just imagine if—”
“Why Thelma from Scooby-doo?”
“I had a crush on Thelma when I was a little girl.”
“On Thelma? Why not Daphne? Daphne was hot.”
“I dunno. It was something about that orange sweater. Although, now that I think of it, you look like a miniature Daphne.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
Molly sighed and redoubled her efforts. “Okay. So. Bruce Wayne. Married. To either Thelma or Daphne from Scooby-doo. Take your pick. He decides, in the form of his alter-ego Batm
an, to do something, well, bat-shit crazy. Some kind of suicide mission. Since Batman is the strong, silent type, he elects not to tell Thelma and or Daphne. Dissolve to Thelma and or Daphne weeping over Bruce slash Batman’s grave.”
“That was a helluva pitch,” Henaghan said. “You should maybe write it up.”
“I maybe should, but that’s not on-topic. We are now in a position where I—being, in this case Thelma and or Daphne—”
“Thelma. That’s my new pet name for you.”
“I can roll with that. But back to the hypothetical… I, in my role as Thelma, already know that you, in your role as Batman, plan to storm… the Joker cave, and I’m not going to sit back and let you do it. What I’m saying is, Thelma—as Mrs. Batman—has certain rights that shouldn’t be disregarded.”
The younger woman sat back in her chair. “Jesus,” she said. “That was impressive. Fuck writing. Maybe you should be a lawyer.”
Blank shook her head. “I’m the daughter of a cop. I picked up a dim view of lawyers by osmosis.”