by Gail Dayton
He met her gaze in the mirror's reflection and touched his swollen eye. "Look godawful, don't I?"
Marilyn had to agree. With one eye swollen shut, his mouth battered and bruised, more bruises marking his cheeks and jaw, he looked terrible. Nothing like the sharp-featured man who'd rescued her first. She wished kisses really could make it all better, because then she could do something to heal him. But only time would help.
"Come on." She put her arm around him, trying not to notice the smooth warmth of his skin. "Your bed awaits."
She put him on the right side of the bed so his good leg could swing out first. He was sleeping in the sling, so surely his broken arm wouldn't bump against anything. She brought him one of the pain pill samples he'd been given to last until they could get to a pharmacy and fill the prescription. He lay back after he swallowed it, watching her.
"Go to sleep," she said, pulling the sleeping bag out of the closet. She used it watching TV on cold nights. She wished for one of those instant inflatable mattresses, but the area rug would have to do. "I'm just puttering around."
"This is all there is, isn't it," Eli said. "I thought there was a bedroom behind one of those doors, but there's not."
"No, there's not." Marilyn turned on the light over the stove and turned off the rest of them, transforming the room into dim shadows.
"This is your bed. You're giving me your bed, aren't you? That's not right." He struggled to sit up and Marilyn pushed him back down.
"Of course it's right. You're hurt. You've got a broken leg, for heaven's sake, not to mention a broken arm. If you slept on the floor, how in the world would I ever get you back up off it?"
He shook his head, stubborn as ever. "It's not right, to put you out of your bed."
"Eli--" Marilyn sighed, exasperated, as his good leg came sliding out of the covers heading for the floor. She shoved it back where it belonged, not noticing the hard muscle under the crisp hair dusting his skin. Much. She sat down, pinning the covers in place to prevent him from trying it again. "You are sleeping right here. No more arguments."
"I'm not taking your bed," he repeated.
"This is getting us nowhere. I'm not arguing with you, Eli. You are sleeping in the bed and that's final."
"Then you sleep here too."
She blinked at him. Did he really just suggest that they share the bed? Eli looked a little surprised by what he'd said too, before that mule-stubborn expression came back.
"Why not?" he said. "It's a big bed. What is it--queen size? Plenty of room."
Marilyn frowned. Something had to be wrong with the idea. "Eli, I don't think-- It's not--"
"Proper? Who the hell cares? Like you told your mom, you're a grown woman."
"And you're a grown man." A young one, but a man nonetheless.
"So? Look, with me staying here, people are going to think what they're going to think, no matter what really happens. Do you honestly care what they think?"
"I--" Did she? The old Marilyn would have, because she was supposed to care. But did she really? "No, I guess not."
"So, where's the problem? I know you're not going to try anything, and I can't. Hell, I probably can't even turn over without help." Eli reached out with his good hand and flipped the covers back on the empty side of the bed, then patted it. "Whattaya say, Marilyn?"
"My mother really will have a heart attack." Was she crazy? She was actually considering it, sleeping in the same bed beside this leather-wearing, body-pierced man.
Eli grinned, as much as he could. "It'll be good for her."
"I have to--" She pointed vaguely in the direction of the bathroom. "Brush my teeth. And stuff."
"Okay. But you're coming back here. I got your word on it."
When did her life spin out of control? But wasn't this the way she wanted it? Interesting? "You have my word."
Marilyn dawdled in the bathroom as long as she could, breaking out the dental floss she hadn't used since she moved in, opening the moisturizer she got for Christmas. She put on her nightgown and wished for flannel, something that would cover her from ears to wrists to toes, but she'd never liked the way sleeves twisted around her arms. She wore sleeveless cotton year round and piled on more blankets. Finally, she stared at herself in the mirror. She couldn't stall any longer. Maybe Eli had fallen asleep and wouldn't notice if she slept on the floor.
She turned off the light before she tiptoed out. As she passed the kitchen, she turned the stove light down to "nightlight." She'd need to see, if Eli needed something in what was left of the night. He was quiet, unmoving. Asleep?
"Come to bed, Marilyn." Eli's voice out of the shadows made her jump.
"You should be asleep," she whispered, moving toward him, hands out in front of her to ward off wandering furniture. She shoved a chair in deep under the table.
"I almost was, but I was afraid you'd get out that damn sleeping bag."
"I would have."
"I know. That's why I stayed awake. That, and I really wanted to say 'Come to bed, Marilyn.'"
She laughed, as he intended. "You are so bad."
"Yeah, but isn't that why you like me?"
She could see him now as more than just a dark shape in the shadows. He lay propped up against the back of the couch, his eye reflecting the nightlight as he watched her approach the bed. It made her nervous, embarrassed, because it was ridiculous, being attracted to a man his age at her age. Did it show? Lord, she hoped not.
"What if I hurt you? Bump against your leg in the night?"
"It can't hurt much worse than I hurt already. Besides, I know you'll probably hug the edge all night."
"Oh, wait." A forgotten instruction for Eli's care had Marilyn looking frantically around the room.
"What? What's wrong?" He struggled to sit up straighter.
"Nothing." Marilyn waved him back down. "I just remembered I'm supposed to wake you every so often to make sure you can wake up. And I don't know where the alarm clock is."
"Don't bother." He slid lower into the bed. "If you wake up on your own, then okay, wake me. But I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea of having my sleep disturbed all night. Besides, I figure if I don't wake up, no big loss."
His self-deriding words disturbed Marilyn more than they should. She'd known him less than twelve hours. What kind of hold did he have on her?
"Well, you can scrap that idea right now, buster." She had to keep things light, the way he seemed to want them. "If there's going to be a man in my bed in the morning, he'd better be alive."
Eli chuckled, sounding sleepy. "Yes, ma'am, Boss Lady." He yawned. "So, are you getting in bed or what?"
"I'm getting." She sat down and swung her legs up on the bed. Maybe she should sleep on top of the covers, use the sleeping bag for her blanket.
"Marilyn, get in the bed already." His voice rumbled up from beside her, wrapping her in its deep warmth.
With a sigh, she slid her feet under the covers and lay down. She had to raise up again and arrange her pillows. Then, she had to sit up and straighten the blanket.
"Done?" Eli asked when she lay down again.
"I'm sorry. Did I hurt you? I'll be still."
"Don't worry about it. No problem."
"I'm nervous, I guess. It feels so strange, having you there. Julie shared with me when she was home Christmas, but--"
"Marilyn?"
"Yes, Eli?"
"Stop talking."
She clamped her teeth together, then pulled her lip out of the way. She usually didn't babble when she was nervous, but she didn't remember ever being this nervous before. There was a man lying beside her in her bed. A young, good-looking man she'd met mere hours before. "Sorry."
"No problem."
Marilyn lay on her back and relaxed her muscles one at a time. Eli's stillness and quiet breathing helped. If he could go to sleep in the weird situation, surely she could too.
She went back over the events of the evening, trying to find a place where she could have done thing
s differently. There were dozens. She could have left him in the alley, or any number of times at the hospital. Except she could never have done it.
Even if he hadn't rescued her from the muggers, she couldn't have left him to get beat up. Though if he hadn't rescued her first, she might have been in the hospital and he'd have had no one to help him. This was the way it was, as if it were fated.
If she believed in fate. She'd just done what she had to do, what was in her nature to do. Maybe that was the definition of fate, people following their nature wherever it took them. So if she kept on doing what she had to do, would she find her soul at the end of the path?
Marilyn turned onto her side, toward Eli, and her hand brushed his. She started to pull back, but his hand turned. His fingers tangled with hers, and held on.
"'Night, Marilyn," he mumbled, mostly asleep.
"Good night, Eli. Sweet dreams."
He was still holding her hand, or maybe holding it again when dim daylight glowing through the mini-blinds woke her. Marilyn pushed her hair out of her eyes and peered at the clock.
"Lord, what time is it?" She sat up so she could see over Eli and looked again. Nine-ish. Late, if she'd had anywhere to go. "Eli, wake up."
"Why?" He opened his eyes--they both opened--and looked at her.
"So I know you can."
"I can. I woke up every hour on the hour last night." He closed his eyes again.
"Were you hurting bad? Do you want a pill?"
"I could take one." He talked with his eyes closed. He was probably afraid to look again. Marilyn knew she looked pretty scary first thing in the morning.
"It wasn't too bad, last night," he said, "except when I tried to turn over, which I did every time I got good asleep, and woke myself up again."
Marilyn brought him another pain pill and slid her arm under his shoulder to help him drink the water to wash it down. "You look a little better. Some of the swelling's gone down. Why don't you go back to sleep for a while?"
"Sounds like a plan." He turned his head to the side and let his eyes drift closed. He'd had to open them for the pill taking.
Marilyn looked at the phone as she passed, recalling that she'd disconnected it. She'd wait to plug it back in till after she got out of the shower. She didn't want the ringing to bother Eli, and she was sure Mom would already be trying to call again.
She dried her hair and dressed, even put on makeup before emerging from the bathroom, instead of wandering out to eat breakfast with wet hair as usual. And instead of dragging on her ratty, gray "at-home" sweats, she got out the red cowl-neck sweater she'd bought at the after-Christmas sales, the one that made her skin look so clear, and her second-best black pants.
She rationalized her wardrobe choice by telling herself she had errands to run and needed to look presentable for the public. But herself knew better. Even if she had nowhere to go, she would be dressed exactly the same.
Not that it would make a lick of difference. At her best, Marilyn couldn't compete with women Eli's age. And he'd seen her at her worst, straight out of bed in the morning complete with pillow face and rat's nest hair. She sighed.
Well, so what if she was dressing for Eli? It didn't mean she wanted to date him or anything. Any woman would want to look her best for an attractive man. That's all there was to it. All.
Eli was still asleep when she emerged, his good arm thrown up over his eyes. She plugged the phone wire back in and carried the phone with her to the refrigerator.
"Hey." Eli's sleep-slurred voice brought Marilyn around to see him sitting up on the bed, his leg already on the floor. He rubbed his face and ran his hand back over his hair, leaving it sticking straight up. He was too adorable for words, all rumpled up and sleepy, even with all the bruises.
"Hey, yourself." Marilyn smiled. "Hungry?"
"I could eat." He rubbed a hand over his chest and Marilyn had to look away. "I could stand to clean up a little, too."
"We probably ought to wait another day or two before we try the plastic-bag-over-the-cast bath thing, like it says in your instruction sheet, but there's washcloths and soap if you want to try a spit bath."
"A what?" Eli looked as if he thought she meant actual spit.
"You know, fill the sink with hot water, get the washcloth all wet and soapy, and wash. Mom always called that a spit bath." Marilyn came and leaned down so Eli could hook his arm around her shoulders.
She supported him as he hitched his slow way past the kitchen and into the bathroom. When the door was shut, she decided to make up the bed before starting breakfast. With only one good hand and one good leg, it could take Eli some while.
She'd just put the last cushion in place when her buzzer rang. She sighed and walked to the intercom. "Good morning, Mother."
"It's your lucky day." Her brother's voice was tinny but recognizable. "I didn't have time to bring Mom, so she made me come see 'what the hell's going on over here.' And I quote."
Marilyn laughed. "Mom did not say hell."
"She sure as hell did. Come on, Mare, let me in. I'm freezing my ass off out here."
For a minute, she considered letting him freeze, but Joey was her only brother and favorite sibling. Besides, if she didn't let him up, Mom would be her next visitor, and Marilyn wanted to avoid that if at all possible. Mom had been in the apartment once, right after Marilyn moved in, and her goal was to keep that from happening ever again.
"Okay, you can come up, but you can only tell Mom what I say you can tell her."
"Deal."
She hit the buzzer that would unlock the door. Joey would keep his end of the deal. They'd been keeping secrets for each other since Joey turned six and spilled red Kool-Aid on Gramma's oriental rug. She had the coffee on by the time he reached her apartment. She opened the door and bowed him in.
"So, spill," he said, heading straight for the coffeepot. "What's this? No coffee? It's after ten and you have no coffee?"
"I gave it up for Lent." Marilyn shut the door behind him and followed him back to the kitchen area.
"Newsflash, Big Sister. We're not Catholic. We don't do Lent." He paused in his snooping through her cabinets to cock his head in thought. "Doesn't Lent come after Mardi Gras? We haven't had Mardi Gras yet, have we? I don't want to miss any parties."
"Okay, will you accept that I'm doing brunch today? I slept late. Sue me." She handed Joey a mug and he substituted it for the coffee-maker carafe without spilling any of the dripping coffee on the hot plate.
Though only three years separated them, Joey had always seemed decades younger than Marilyn. Until lately. She wondered a minute whether he was growing up or she was reverting. Then she decided it didn't matter.
He pushed up the black "geek" glasses he wore mostly for effect and put the carafe back before turning around. "So?"
"So--what?" Marilyn got out sausage, eggs and onions, then a skillet, rattling the stack of pots more than necessary to hide bathroom noises. Joey probably could hear them, but he might not notice. That was a good thing about geeks.
"Mom said you had some guy in the apartment last night." He took a sip of coffee and held up a finger. "Correction, this morning. At two o'clock in the morning, to be precise. So now tell me she was hallucinating when she thinks she talked to him and I'll get out of your way."
"She wasn't hallucinating." She dumped the whole pound of sausage in the skillet and chopped it apart with a spatula.
Joey's eyebrows lifted above the heavy rim of his glasses. "There really was a guy here?"
"Mm-hmm."
"So show me your tattoo. Mom said you got a snake tattoo."
Marilyn laughed. "No tattoo. Eli was giving her a hard time because she wouldn't believe he was real."
"Maybe I should get a snake tattoo. Whattaya think? A little serpent wrapped around my wrist?" Joey pulled back his coat sleeve to study his wrist. His coat was black leather too, but somehow didn't have quite the same panache as Eli's.
"Are you trying to take back your title a
s most delinquent child?"
"Okay. No tattoo." He took another sip of his coffee, watching Marilyn stir onions into the crumbled sausage. "I think it was easier being the black sheep. I only had to receive visitations, not make them. Then again, Mom complains about you when she calls now, instead of lecturing me, so I guess overall it's a bonus. I don't get near as many phone calls, either."
She cracked eggs in a bowl, wondering if and how she could ask Eli to stall till Joey left. But Joey wouldn't leave if there was a chance for food, and Eli couldn't stay stuck in the bathroom forever.
"Tell me about Eli," Joey said. "Is he really a teenager?"
"No." Marilyn shook her head over Mom's talent for exaggeration.
"Is he a biker with enough pierced body parts to set off a metal detector?"
"I don't think so."
"Is he a serial killer who's going to murder you in your sleep and sever all your body parts?"
She had to laugh. "No." She handed Joey the bowl of eggs and a fork. "Scramble these. And don't spill any."
Marilyn went to the bathroom door and tapped. "You about done? Brunch will be ready in another minute."
"Yeah. Thanks." The door muffled Eli's voice.
Joey stared, his mouth open far enough to catch not only flies, but giant Luna moths in full wingspread. "He's still here?"
Four
***
Joey set the mixing bowl on the cabinet and met Marilyn halfway, putting his hand to her forehead.
She pushed him away, laughing. "I do not have a fever."
"Well, something's got to be wrong with you. My sisters do not have men for sleepovers."
Marilyn stirred the eggs into the cooked sausage and onions. "Maybe we should. Might get our blood to moving again. Put some bread in the toaster, will you?"
He did as she asked, even pushed the lever down. "Is that it? You're having a midlife crisis?"
She shrugged. "Why not? It's never seemed quite fair to me that men get to have them and women don't."
"That's because women have better sense."
"I do have better sense. Most men screw up their lives with their crises. My life is already screwed up. The way I see it, I can mess up all I want and be no worse off than I am now." She took up the eggs and handed the serving bowl to Joey. "Put this on the table and make some more toast. I'll go get Eli."
