These have to last each of you a month. If you run out don’t come crying to me.
Charlie was staring at the two cartons of cigarettes when her brother came upstairs from his basement bedroom. His eye was swollen shut and his lip was split. “Cool!” he said after reading the note. Charlie just looked at him, her mouth agape. Cool? Inside her head she was screaming. This is not cool! Doesn’t anybody care about us? Doesn’t anyone give a shit if we do right? I’m twelve years old! She turned away from her brother as her eyes pooled with tears and started making their lunches for school.
“What are you doing, dumb-ass? I can’t go to school looking like this! They’ll lock Dad up. Then where will we be?”
Where indeed? Life gets very scary when you’re a child and you get down to one parent. What if their father got sick? Died? Left like their mother? Charlie was forever pushing these thoughts from her head. She decided that if her brother wasn’t going to school she wouldn’t go either—and so it began. These were the days of TV, smoking, and Pop Tarts. When you are a budding teen that actually sounds like a pretty good day and Charlie and her brother had no real grasp on just how bad things were. By age fourteen and sixteen, they saw even less of their father. He would come home most nights but it became later and later in the evening. His only stop, once inside the house, was to throw some processed food into the freezer for his children before heading to his bedroom. It didn’t take long before the Cavanaugh house became the dark, scary, and foreboding house all neighborhoods dread. Teens hung out at all hours, the barely teen girl could be seen sitting on the front porch smoking a cigarette, surrounded by teenage boys without a parent in sight. The neighbors knew of the divorce but were too busy with their own dysfunctional lives to take on the burden of another family’s dysfunction. It was weed, nicotine, music, and mayhem. The furniture got trashed pretty early on and their father refused to replace it since his children were “behaving like animals,” so they went without.
Charlie was blossoming into a young woman and her brother’s friends were noticing. A friend of Tom’s once made the mistake of grabbing Charlie’s butt when she walked through the living room and Tom beat him unconscious.
Tom Cavanaugh was one crazy son of bitch, especially when it came to protecting his younger sister. If anyone touched her, hurt her, or made her unhappy in any way, he would make sure that they were motivated to never do it again. Tom was prone to unprovoked flashes of anger and violence. He wasn’t particularly large in stature but he was huge in crazy and his friends were resolute in their effort not to piss him off.
Teachers, neighbors, and old family friends wrote she and her brother off as those “dreadful Cavanaugh children” followed by, “poor things.” Charlie and her brother attended just enough school to keep from being expelled.
One day Tom went to school and fourteen-year-old Charlie stayed home without her brother, which was unusual. Tom’s friend Kip came by and walked right into the house through the unlocked door, as her brother’s friends often did. Charlie was sitting on a tattered couch her brother had “tactically acquired” from an eviction in the neighborhood. She was in her underwear and a t-shirt and she quickly pulled her knees up to cover herself.
“Hey kid. Where’s your brother?” Kip said with a look in his eye that made Charlie nervous.
“He went to school Kip. Now get out of here. I’m not dressed.”
“You look okay to me,” he smirked. “How about I just hang out until he gets home? I got some good shit.”
“I don’t want any weed you moron, and no you can’t stay, get out. He’ll be home at two-thirty.” Charlie stood her ground.
“And if I don’t?”
“If you don’t then I’ll tell my brother you attacked me and he’ll kill you, you shithead,” she said matter-of-factly. Kip moved toward the couch and Charlie’s eyes widened. She tried to look aloof but there was fear in her large brown eyes and the predator easily sensed it, as all predators do.
“What if I did attack you, Charlie? It could end up being the greatest day of your life,” he said as he stood in front of her, his crotch level with her face.
“Fuck you Kip. You’re way too old for me and you stink. Now I mean it, get out,” she said, setting her jaw and looking up at him defiantly. She flinched when he reached for her and hated herself for doing so. Then Kip did something unexpected—he started softly stroking her hair.
Charlie hesitated for a moment. Touch. She barely remembered what it felt like. Then she quickly shook her head clear and pulled away. Kip grabbed a handful of hair and drew her head back causing her to gasp.
“Easy little girl,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. Everybody has to start some time. Don’t you want to know what it feels like to be a woman? Maybe you should let an older guy show you how it’s done,” he leered.
She really did want to know, especially if it involved physical contact with another person, which she desperately needed, but as always Charlie was in defense mode. She was always on guard, always ready for a fight, and always masking whatever she was truly feeling. At age fourteen, Charlie had become a master of disguise. She didn’t know how to respond to her feelings and desire was a new feeling she hadn’t quite learned how to process. Charlie could feel her stomach tighten and she could hear the blood pounding in her ears. The sensation of Kip holding her by her hair and controlling her was exciting her. She just didn’t know what to do about it. “You’ve got five seconds to let go and get out or I am telling Tom,” she growled.
“Okay, little girl, but don’t say I didn’t offer,” he said, turning her loose. Charlie was breathless and shaking when he left, relieved, but not as much as she should have been. Maybe I should let Kip teach me, she pondered. He was a burn-out from smoking too much weed, but he was cute, with long hair, a faint mustache, and a long lean body. He was older than her brother by two years, making him eighteen to her fourteen. Was that even legal? Did she care?
After Kip left, Charlie’s thoughts drifted to the sex novels she and her friend Laura once found in Laura’s parents’ room. Stews Layover was their favorite. It was a very detailed book about the sexual escapades of a team of stewardesses and the passengers and crew they seduced. She knew a lot more than Kip thought she did. Maybe she would teach him a few things. Humph! Her friend Laura was also still a virgin but she was a master of oral sex. Laura loved oral sex and would explain to Charlie, in great detail, the power that came from controlling a man with her mouth. It used to sound gross, but more and more Charlie was intrigued by Laura’s escapades.
Kip stayed away for almost two weeks following the hair-pulling encounter. She guessed he was probably worried that Charlie had told her brother on him. When Kip finally returned, he did so with a new girlfriend in tow; a burn-out like him. She had wild blond hair and was a good twenty pounds overweight. Charlie had been fantasizing about telling her friends about her eighteen-year-old boyfriend. When she realized he had given up after only one attempt and moved on, she was crushed. When Kip showed up with the chubby blond, Charlie’s fourteen-year-old world came crashing down. Again.
Charlie couldn’t believe how she was opening up to Jake. She never liked to talk about her childhood. Jake already knew more about her in four hours than her ex had ever known. Was that her ex-husband’s fault or hers? She wondered.
Jake reached for Charlie’s hand when she teared up talking about her mother leaving and Charlie didn’t pull away. She knew she should, but she didn’t.
“I think maybe yours was worse than mine,” Jake said compassionately after a long period of silence between them. “I mean, my parents, when they left, they had no choice, but your mom, she had a choice and she chose to leave you. I think it’s worse.”
Charlie stared blankly and nodded in understanding, touched by his empathy. He got it. Someone actually got it. “I’m sorry Charlie,” he said squeezing her small hand tightly. “I’
m sorry she left you,” he clarified and though the tears pooled in her eyes, she willed them not to fall. I’m at work. This is work. You don’t do this at work, Charlie.
Charlie desperately wanted to tell Jake about her childhood neighbor and her strange introduction to sex—what had been done to her; but how could she? She barely knew Jake Adams and she had never told anyone about her neighbor, Mr. Daley, and the effect he had had on her and continued to have on her throughout her adult life. She was sure it played into the failure of her marriage though she wasn’t sure how. She couldn’t tell Jake. He would never understand. He would judge her. No one would ever understand the impact the thirty-two-year-old man had had on her when she was just fifteen years old, effectively ruining her for every man that would follow.
Jake saw Charlie on the verge and saved her. “Favorite movie?” he prompted, quickly changing the subject.
“You first,” she said, as she gathered her emotions.
“Ewww,” he winced. “I spend a lot of time with my movies,” he said a little embarrassed, and she smacked his arm with each word as she said, “So. Do. I!”
Jake laughed, “Oh no my dear Sergeant Cavanaugh, I mean I spend a lot of time with my favorite movies. I watch them over and over and over. It drove my last girlfriend crazy.”
Charlie looked at him with an impish grin. Did he mean that that girlfriend was his last girlfriend and Charlie might be his new girlfriend? Jesus! What was it about this man that made her feel like a teenager? Of course that’s not what he meant. He meant his last girlfriend you idiot, she scolded herself. Jake found himself laughing at the ridiculous look on Charlie’s face. “You okay Sarge?” he chuckled to mask his concern.
“Oh, yea yea, I just, yea me too. I mean I watch movies over and over too,” she blushed.
“Okay, let me see, my top movies . . . My Cousin Vinny,” Jake started.
“Of course.” Charlie high-fived him.
“We have a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.”
“Blues Brothers.”
“Yes!” Charlie approved.
“Hey Wang, it’s a parking lot,” Charlie said raising her eyebrow to him and Jake looked puzzled for a second before recognition came over him. “I’ll bet if you buy a hat like that you get a free bowl of soup.” Charlie thought she might jump into his arms.
“A Few Good Men,” he countered and they both said in unison, “You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall!” Both of them laughing hysterically.
Jake launched into the full monologue as Charlie nearly melted into her seat.
“Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to!”
“Shhhh,” she admonished him, “We are supposed to be on a stakeout. Stealth! Stealth!” she said laughing and gasping for breath, completely impressed by his skill.
“Christ Charlie, it’s four a.m. Who the hell is listening?” he laughed.
How could the night be over so fast? It was like the laws of time and space ceased to exist when she was with him. It felt like their shift had started only an hour ago.
“When Harry Met Sally?” Jake rolled his eyes. “Chick Flick!” he proclaimed, looking away.
“Holy shit Adams,” she said accusingly. “Seriously?”
Jake shrugged.
“Busted. You are so busted. You homo!” Charlie doubled over in laughter.
Jake interrupted her laughter by grabbing her by the hair and pulling her close to his face. “I thought we were supposed to be stealth, Sarge?” Jake said breathing quietly and controlled as his eyes melted into hers. Forgetting where she was, who she was, and completely lost in the moment, she closed her eyes and leaned in to kiss him. Charlie could already taste his breath on her lips when she felt his grip tighten on her hair just before he jerked her head away from him and held her in place just inches from his face and whispered, “If and when we kiss Charlotte, it will be my decision, not yours. Do you understand?”
Chapter 13
The Train
“Do you understand?” Jake repeated, releasing her hair and pushing her back to her side of the vehicle. Holy shit. Charlie nodded and damn near climaxed. Jake reached for his coffee.
Charlie remained completely unnerved for the final hour of the stakeout while Jake appeared completely unaffected and rambled on about living like a penniless beach bum in Malibu with a bank account full of cash he kept as his deepest secret. Well, almost his deepest secret, but he felt instinctively that she wasn’t giving up everything so why should he?
The sun started to glow in the morning sky, making them both sleepy and their position obvious as the commuters started to come out to start their cars. They packed it in and headed for her apartment. She didn’t want it to end. She knew she would see him again in just fifteen more hours but now, that sounded like an eternity.
“Do you want to come up for some coffee?” she asked casually.
“I’ve had enough coffee and so have you, young lady. Bed. Now,” he ordered.
She nodded nervously and climbed out of the SUV. “Eight forty-five?” she asked, realizing that the balance of power had completely shifted to him.
“Eight forty-five, Sarge. Sweet dreams, Charlotte,” he grinned, as if he already had been given a peek into the dreams that lay waiting for her. Anything but the train, she hoped.
“Hey Moses,” Charlie nodded to her parrot before covering his cage.
“Hey Moses,” the bird squawked. He started banging around inside his covered cage.
“I know, I know, Moses but when I sleep, you sleep, that’s the deal. Otherwise you’ll be in here running your bird beak all day.”
“Hey Moses,” the bird squawked again, loudly. “Can’t pour piss out of a boot.”
“Zip it, bird,” she grouched at the agitated bird. She was too tired for pajamas so she peeled off her clothes and walked to the window to close up the curtains to her bedroom, pausing momentarily in the window to drink in the sun before closing them. She was unaware that Jake Adams had not yet left the parking lot and was watching her. Charlie crawled into bed exhausted, aroused, and swimming in an ocean of emotions and memories.
September 1996 Sterling, Virginia
“Where you going?” Charlie’s brother Tom asked as fourteen-year-old Charlie put on her coat.
“I’m babysitting for the Daley’s down the street.”
Tom shook his head, amazed that anyone in their neighborhood would trust either one of them with anything, let alone a child, but he had learned early that girls were victims and boys were punks. Kip piped up, “Anything good over there we can steal?”
“You’re an asshole, Kip,” she said, ignoring Kip’s girlfriend and turning on her heel and leaving. I handled that well, Charlie thought. She got the last word in, ignored the girlfriend, and made it very clear that she had no interest in him. Fuck you and your offer to teach me, Kip. I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody, she thought resolutely as she walked the ten houses to the Daley’s.
Mr. Daley was a good-looking man for an old guy. He had a Robert Redford rugged kind of face, but he was at least thirty. Ancient. He was actually thirty-two. Mr. Daley had to take Mrs. Daley to the airport so she could visit her “bitch of a mother,” who was in a hospital in Boston, and they didn’t want to drag their toddler along to the airport past his bedtime. Charlie had babysat a dozen times or so since Dillon was born. He used to be sweet but now he was a brat. It was going to be easy money however, as the brat was already asleep.
After the Daley’s left, Charlie settled in on the couch with her best friend—the TV remote—and began looking for a movie to keep her company. She eventually got bored and took a stroll around the tastefully decorated home.
Charlie surveyed the furniture, the family pictu
res, and the well-stocked refrigerator, and started to get that feeling in her chest; that tightening that came whenever she was faced with the reality that she so often avoided. She didn’t have a normal life or a good life. With the exception of her brother Tom, she was truly alone in this world. Nobody, especially her parents, gave a shit about her. This made her want a joint and she wished she had hit Kip up for some weed before she left, but she was worried Mr. Daley might smell it on her.
Mr. Daley was cool, but probably not that cool. He often told Charlie if she wanted to sneak a beer while she was babysitting she could, but to just make sure that she pushed the evidence down deep into the trashcan so that his “bitch of a wife” wouldn’t see it.
Charlie opened the one can of Miller beer in the fridge and quickly drank it down. She didn’t like the taste of beer but she liked that it was alcohol. It made her feel grown up. Then she looked around in the cupboard and found a bottle of rum. She hadn’t tried rum before and didn’t notice the 151 on the label as she poured it into a glass. If she had noticed, she wouldn’t have known what 151 meant. Figuring that if vodka went with orange juice, rum must go with it too. She checked the fridge. The refrigerator was stocked with things that were never evident in Charlie’s house—milk, fruit, vegetables, no OJ though.
Not such a perfect little household after all, she judged.
The brat’s apple juice would have to do. After two glasses of apple juice and 151 she was really feeling it and that started her thinking about Kip. As the liquor warmed her from the inside, she thought about how he had grabbed her hair, how he had whispered to her, and how her stomach felt. She wanted to touch herself. The last thing Charlie needed was to be walked in on by Mr. Daley so she stumbled up the stairs. She listened at the brat’s door . . . all quiet. Thank God for small favors. She shuffled through the hallway to the Daley’s neatly made bed, leaving the lights off. She put her drink on the nightstand and slid her jeans down to her ankles. With her knees bent and off the end of the bed and her long shiny hair sprawled across the bedspread, she slid her hand inside her panties. Charlie’s mind was fuzzy as she thought about Kip. She was apple juice/151 fuzzy and it felt good to slide her fingers in and out. That’s when she heard him. He was standing in the barely lit door way.
The Hooker, the Handyman and What the Parrot Saw Page 7