by Julia Kent
My composure disappears. “I don't think I'll be making that.”
“No kidding. Me, either. After my shift, I'm spending my time with Mattie and Candi.” He grabs my hand, the feeling white-hot lightning. “You did a good thing.”
“Did I?” A shiver ripples through me as the danger sinks in.
And then I just tremble, unable to control it, my abs tightening without end.
“Of course! All those kids, Feisty–”
“You know my name is Fiona,” I bite.
“Yeah. I know. But damned if you didn't turn into the girl who kicked my ass in seventh grade. Rico got what he deserved. And you deserve a goddamned medal.”
The back of my hand buzzes as he kisses it, so soft and gentle, it's almost not there.
And then his arms are wrapped around me, his lips on my ear as he whispers, “Thank you.”
The back doors of the ambulance slam open just as he pulls back and grabs a chart, reciting my vitals as if the last thirty seconds didn't happen.
Now I'm trembling for completely different reasons.
The gurney is moved forward, then released so the wheels hit the ground, every face a blur as I clutch my purse.
Fletch's face isn't one of the blurs.
“Fi! Fiona!” Perky screams, her voice distinct, my eyes unable to focus as various medical personnel ask me questions, orienting me in space and time, my friend's voice a comfort until I'm taken back behind a curtain.
“Dr. Chan,” a doctor younger than me says, shaking my hand, his skin smooth and hot. “Looks like you had two episodes of syncope. Any history of–”
“FEE-OH-NAH!”
“Uh, excuse me, doctor, could my friend come back here with us?” I ask.
“You want her here?” The way he says want makes me smile.
And shake.
“Yes. Please.” Finally, the tears start, bubbling up like hot springs, like an overflowing bathtub, like a tsunami wave that just keeps coming. “Please. Please,” I beg.
“Of course,” he says gently, surprising me with wise compassion, his youth triggering assumptions in me that aren't fair.
Perky barrels in, all long, honey hair and wide-mouthed grimaces as she takes me in, squeezing me in a hug. The tiny, curtained-off area has a television in it, the channel turned to a news station that suddenly cuts to a news report about Rico's attack at the preschool.
And then, video of me fighting Rico.
The doctor's eyes flick up, following our gaze. He crosses his arms over his white coat, eyes intrigued, bouncing from the television to me. I'm riveted, and horrified that someone gave the news stations the footage from our password-protected webcam system at the school.
I relive what happened to me just an hour ago.
Rico banging on the door, Michelle herding the kids into the other room. The door opening. My conversation with an angry Rico, his body language dangerous, frightening. Rico charging me. As we watch, I feel my blood pressure rise, my brain reliving it biochemically, pulse racing, chest tightening.
And then I do the roundhouse kick and Rico goes down.
My foot. His neck.
Perky shouts, “YES!”
“Shhhh,” the doctor chides, turning it off.
Perk turns to me, her eyebrows tight with concern, mouth twitching with mixed emotions.
Then she sighs, her hands cradling my face, eyes tightly locked with mine as she says:
“The roar was just showing off. You're so extra, Fi.”
I can't laugh.
“What are you doing here? I thought you and Parker were on a flight.”
“He is. I'm not. We saw the breaking news coverage of what happened while we were grabbing a final coffee at Beanerino, before our flight, and suddenly, my best friend is Wonder Woman and I shooed Parker off to Texas.”
“But Perky, you were – ”
“Hush. Parker will be there forever. You need me more right now.” Her hug makes me cry.
“Thank you.”
“And he said your roundhouse kick was exquisite in its simplicity, whatever the hell that means.”
I sputter-snort through the hug. I guess I can laugh.
A little.
The next few minutes are a blur. Perky is forced to go to the waiting room while the doctor examines me. Dr. Chan has short, black hair cut tight at the neck and ears, longer on top, with straight, angled bangs that cover one eyebrow. The hair bounces as he checks my heart rate, eye tracking, and other basic vitals.
I assume he's an intern. A dawning horror fills me as I realize he's much younger than I am.
How can I be older than the real adults, like doctors, lawyers, and engineers?
“You seem perfectly fine other than this long scratch on your arm,” he says with a puzzled look. “Is your tetanus shot up to date?”
“I'm a preschool teacher,” I explain.
“And?”
“Yes. It is.”
His eyes cloud as someone raps hard on the wall next to the curtain exactly twice, the sound more a command than a request.
Dr. Chan gives me an apologetic look as he goes to answer. Someone in a suit, another in a cop uniform, and Perky's bouncing head behind them are all I need to see.
It's interrogation time.
“Hey!” a low voice says in the hall. “Quit jumping like that. You'll take out someone's foot.”
“I'm worried about Fi.”
I realize Perky's arguing with Fletch out there. Why did he come back?
“We need to question her,” the suit says to the doctor. The uniform looks bored, cocking one eyebrow at Perky and Fletch, eyelashes flicking up and down as he surveys them. His hands are on his belt, arms akimbo, biceps straining against the sleeves of his uniform.
Fletch's arms are bigger.
Why did that thought pop into my head now, of all times?
“ … kick isn't something you just learn in a cheesy gym–” someone out there says.
“Hold on!” Fletch says loudly, turning away from Perk, standing right next to the uniform, who I realize is Officer Capobeira. “Did you just say 'cheesy'?”
“People don't just bust out moves like that unless they have training,” a deep male voice says.
“Or if you're Feisty!” Perky adds.
What the heck is going on out there? I sit up, my head spinning.
I sit back.
A hiss, a rumble of low voices in the hall, and some kind of reprimand for Dr. Chan by a nurse who looks like she eats interns for lunch lead to everyone suddenly coming into my little area. Two cops, one best friend, one middle-school nemesis, and a student doctor all crowd my little curtained area.
“You two.” The suit looks at Perky and Fletch. “Out.”
The last thing you want to do with Persephone Tsongas is issue a direct order that contravenes her need to protect a bestie. Detective Suit just made a grave error.
“Make me,” she challenges.
“You realize I can do that whenever I want, miss.”
“My boyfriend is a congressman.”
“And me mum's the queen of England,” he mocks. The suit is a tall dude, lanky and weathered, with thick wrinkles that run in vertical lines along his cheekbones. I get a deep vibe off him, one that makes me feel safe yet puts me on edge.
He trafficks in sarcasm and uses it to filter the world.
“I'm staying.” Perky crosses her arms over her chest, which is currently covered in a t-shirt with a message about the ratio of blood in her caffeine stream.
“Then you're being cuffed.”
“Hold on,” Fletch says calmly, like he's placating someone dialing 911. “She's Fiona's friend.”
“Next of kin, practically,” Perky persists. “Fiona's parents are out of town, so I'm it.” She doesn't mention my older brothers, Dale and Tim. They both live in the midwest, so I really don't have any family nearby, and if anyone's my next of kin now, it's Perky and Mallory.
“I'm here for her, too,” Fletch
tells the suit, his words making me freeze, my skin taking on a fire-like quality it really shouldn't.
Certainly not over Fletch.
Seventeen years ago, when we were in seventh grade, Chris Fletcher tried to kiss me. I didn't want to be kissed, but he persisted.
So I dropkicked him.
My real name, Fiona, became the basis for my nickname, Feisty. The word became a taunt, uttered in over-the-top hisses from popular boys who banded together to tease and torment me.
But no one ever tried to kiss me again without my permission.
By high school, the nickname stuck, as did the hardass reputation, which meant I was labeled. Stereotyped.
Contained.
When someone else decides your identity out of spite, it sucks.
When that same someone turns out to be your source of help in your greatest time of need, it rocks your world to the core.
“We need to question her without you here.” The Suit's words shake me out of the memory as Fletch gives me a funny look.
“Especially if this involves the feds,” Capobeira adds.
“Feds?” I ask.
Capobeira gives me a flat look. He makes eye contact with the suit. “She's good.”
“Good?”
“No one takes a perp down like that without some serious training,” he says. Suit shoots him a STFU look, but Capobeira goes on.
“I trained when I was younger. Kickboxing,” I try to explain.
Fletch reflexively massages his neck.
“Not that kind of training. You know,” Capobeira challenges.
“I... don't know.”
“That's how you're trained. To pretend you don't know. I got it.”
“Cap, this isn't the way to go,” the suit says to him.
“I got this, Moe.”
“Got what?” I ask as Dr. Chan slips out of the area, avoiding my gaze. I hear him in the hallway, a flash of a security guard's uniform, the words “private room” and “media” floating into my hearing range.
“Which alphabet soup you with?” Capobeira asks me. Suit cringes, fingers twitching like he needs a smoke.
“Alphabet soup?”
“You know. FBI. CIA. NSA.”
“You think I'm–you think I'm an agent? A federal agent?” I look down at my dress, a torn series of pastel shreds of diaphanous cloth that make me look more like a human maypole than a CIA operative.
Fletch and Perky start laughing.
Hard.
“Hey! I could be,” I snap at them before realizing that's the worst thing I could say right now.
Capobeira's eyes narrow. “That's right. You could.”
“But I'm not! I'm just a preschool teacher.”
“You're not just anything,” Perky says, suddenly serious. “How many times have Mallory and I stood behind you when people say you're just–”
“That's it. Get out,” the suit orders her.
“You two Keystone Kops seriously think that Fiona Gaskill, the woman who uses a divining rod to find free parking wherever we go, is a CIA agent? What's next? Is she a vampire slayer, too?”
Fletch snorts. The suit's mouth purses, like he's taking a drag on an imaginary cigarette. Perky, who is keenly attuned to All Things Nicotine, catches his energy and starts chewing on her lower lip, a telltale sign she wants a ciggy, too.
“Vampires are vastly underrated and extremely misunderstood spirit beings,” I protest, shaking off the ex-smoker vibe.
“How did you do it so gracefully?” Capobeira asks.
“Kill a vampire?”
He rolls his eyes. “Take down the perp. With a Muay Thai te tat roundhouse kick. The economy of movement is the tipoff,” Capobeira persists. “You even got the hair-combing movement. The clips of you fighting Lingoni are all over social media now. I reviewed the tape a few times. You know what you're doing. Trained so well, it's in muscle memory, but plenty of guys train like crazy and never accomplish what you did. Your body has the mark of an experienced operative,” he emphasizes, eyes on my chest and legs as he says body.
My dress is in shreds from Rico tearing it, though it still covers the important parts. A few spots of blood from Rico's injured mouth have started to dry, the burgundy like wine stains, which seems more possible than what it really is: a result of violence.
Violence I enacted.
Fletch tenses, taking a step toward me, his energy loud and clear, pulsing with a blue light that my skin drinks in like I'm parched.
Before Capobeira can say more, Perky adds, “Fiona's always been like that. Remember when you took Fletch down in seventh grade? Fi just does shit without thinking and it works. Some asshole threatened her kids. She acted. That's more than you cops do half the time here in Anderhill.”
A bright red flush starts along Fletch's neck line, his hands curling into fists, eyes shifting.
I wince. It's not from physical pain.
The suit sucks in air past his back teeth. “That congressman boyfriend of yours better have bail money at the rate you're going.”
“Money means nothing in the face of principles,” she counters.
“Ah, God. We got ourselves a live one here.”
“You have no idea,” I mutter.
“Tell us what happened today. We got your other two teachers' statements. Now we need yours.” Suit stares hard at Fletch and Perky, then turns to me. “You want them present?”
“Do they have to leave?” I ask.
“No. You're not being interrogated. Just making a statement.”
“Then I want them to stay.”
As if they synchronized it, Perky and Fletch both have notifications buzz on their phones. Heads tipping down, hands in pockets, they extract their phones and look.
Fletch's mouth tightens. “My sister's down the hall with Mattie. He's having an asthma attack. Gotta go.”
“Is he–tell him I’m thinking about him and what a brave boy he was today.” Some piece of my heart seizes as I imagine the terror and elation he felt today, seeing his dad at school.
And then...
“I will.” Fletch's eyes go soft. “I'll tell him what a brave teacher he has, too.”
With that, he disappears.
Perky looks at her phone. “Huh. My text wasn't nearly as dramatic. Just my mom's app-based litter box telling me it needs to be cleaned. I really need to delete that.”
Fletch's words linger in me, piercing the protective shell of energy I keep trying to weave around myself.
Brave.
What does that word really mean?
“Was I brave?” I blurt out, startling Suit and Capobeira, who turns to Perky in a near panic, as if my emotional question is out of his range of training. “Was it brave to do that? In the moment, it seemed so clear. He was going after Mattie.”
“Tell us what happened,” Suit says, his voice soft but eyes blank.
So I do.
And then the tears start and don't stop until he puts his pad of paper away and leads Capobeira out the door, Perky's arms around me, my body shaking with an uncontrolled frenzy that is more biological than emotional.
But there's a surplus of those, too.
Getting the whole story out takes time, but it's all on tape, so this is a formality. By the time I'm done, the two men put to rest the idea that I'm some kind of superspy, the Suit muttering in a curmudgeonly tone to Capobeira, who defends himself with the sagging confidence of someone who knows they've made the wrong assumption but can't let it go.
I'm just a preschool teacher.
Just.
But today, that just meant something so much more.
Chapter 3
“I'm sorry.”
“Quit apologizing.”
“I'm sorry for apologizing so much,” I reply.
“God, Fiona. STOP IT.”
We're pulling into Perky's driveway, a long, rambling path that takes us to her parents' mansion and her two-bedroom cottage, which is a large pool house behind the main house. My ER
trip turned out to be short on the medical side and long on the police side.
I'm drained.
I need to soak in her parents' hot springs mineral bath. I need to recharge, and what better way to do that than to have every square inch of my body covered by hydrogen and oxygen galore?
“Where's Mallory?” I ask.
“On her way. She was working on one of Will's properties to turn it into a destination event house for twenty-five people. It's on the water, in Salem. Gorgeous place she's considering for the wedding shower or bachelorette party.” Perky turns off the car and stops, hands on the wheel, eyes widening as she stares ahead. “God. Who cares about all that now? I can't believe the last few hours.”
“Same.”
I see the silver side strip of my phone in my purse. Perky turned it off in the ER. Before she did, there were hundreds of notifications, most of them news stations, lots of them offers for money. Jobs. Dates.
Marriage proposals.
But not a single one is a message from Fletch. I'm really worried about Mattie.
We climb out of Perky's car and walk into her little house, an adorable place that is decorated like someone just threw fingerpaint all over the place and then brought in cloth furnishings in the same colors. “Mal can meet us here and we'll go over to the big house together,” she explains. “Want a sparkling water? A coffee? Cookies? A half gallon of vodka?”
“You're getting closer.” I plop down on a purple beanbag chair, a four-foot-wide hug in furniture form.
“Weed's legal in Massachusetts now. We can get some special brownies and you can access all those past selves Jolene tells you are guiding you via divining rod to the free parking spaces you find.”
“Don't mock my energy healer.” My voice is muffled by the gooshy goodness of the purple embrace. The long scratch on my arm where Rico did something with the pick throbs. I know it'll sting going in the hot springs, but I don't care. In a way, it'll cleanse the wound.
Exorcise this day in a ritual bath.
“Not mocking. Trying to find a way to get you to eat the magic brownies.”
“You don't need me to do that.”
“Good point.” She reaches for a bottle of white wine and holds it up, shaking slightly. “This work?”
“Yes.”
Two glasses are poured, one handed to me as I sit up. I sip slowly, moving carefully to a standing position at the small granite island that bisects her kitchen. Sighing heavily, I lean into the cool stone, willing it to anchor me.
