That Was Before

by Dan Lawton

  He grabbed a hand of bananas and walked up to her line, placed it on the conveyor belt. She smiled at him and grabbed the bananas by the tops and entered a code into her computer.

  “How are you today?” she asked him.

  That was the first time she spoke to him. And it was the first time anyone had asked him that in a very long time.

  “I’m...I’m good.”—he smiled—”Really good.” And he was.

  After, he spent the next few days pondering if he should talk to her—really talk—and what to say to her if he did. It took two more trips through her line on consecutive days before he opened his mouth and asked for what he wanted on the third. The rest, they say, was history.

  Randolph looked up. Janet’s eyes were filled with tears, Sheila’s sorrow. Bruce was still, in a state of shock.

  “You have cancer?” Bruce said. “You’ve had it and didn’t tell anyone?”

  “It’s under control. It hasn’t grown. My doctor’s monitoring it.”

  Bruce jumped up and threw his hands on his head. “Jesus Christ, Dad! Cancer! You have cancer.”

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds. Prostate cancer is one of the most curable forms of cancer in the world. Did you know eight out of ten men will have cancerous cells in their prostate by the time they’re eighty?”

  “What the hell, Dad? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “Oh, come on, stop with that. That’s bullshit and you know it.”

  Randolph did not respond. Instead, he let his son blow off steam. He understood his frustration about everything; it was hard not to. And he understood why he was upset, why he must have felt out of the loop. But in fairness, no one knew. Just him and his doctor. And Sheila.

  Sheila.

  It took a minute, but Bruce eventually calmed down and sat next to his wife. Janet put her arm around him and massaged his shoulder. Max was enthralled by the television, oblivious to the commotion behind him.

  “What does any of this have to do with Mom robbing you?” Bruce said.

  “What!” Janet said as if she had been personally wounded by the words her husband spoke. “Robbing you? Patricia?”

  “Yes,” Randolph said. “Patricia.”

  Janet shook her head as in disbelief. “My goodness.”

  “Well?” Bruce said. “What’s the deal?”

  Randolph told him. Everything. About the explosion and the hospital and meeting O’Reilly. Then about hitting the road with Sheila without a plan and about the phone call from Patricia about the tapes. Then about Herm’s discovery, and Larry’s, then Herm again. Janet shook her head the entire time he spoke while the disbelief on Bruce’s face broke Randolph’s heart. But he had to hear it if he wanted the whole truth.

  “I don’t even know what to say,” Bruce said.

  “Join the club.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Silence fell. What now? There was not much left to be said. Thankfully, a distraction came. Randolph’s phone—it rang again.

  “Speak of the devil,” he said as he retrieved it. “It’s Patricia.”

  The room collectively gasped. Randolph put a finger to his mouth to signify quiet.

  “Patricia,” he said. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “Why are my credit cards turned off? And why are the accounts frozen?”

  “I know what you’re up to. I know about the withdrawals.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Typical response. He knew she would lie about it.

  “Are you going to answer my question?” she said.

  “To protect myself.”

  She did not respond, which told him everything he needed to know.

  “And I’d also like to remove you as the beneficiary on my life insurance policy. For the same reason.”

  Silence.

  “Patricia?”

  “I’m here. I heard you. We’ll discuss it when I get there.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Pulling in now, see you in a minute.”

  She hung up.

  “What’s wrong?” Janet said. His expression must have told quite the tale.

  He pocketed the phone and tried to swallow, though his throat was parched. His hand shook. “Patricia,” he said. “She’s here.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Cheyenne hung up the phone and pointed to the driveway on the right. Benji rolled into it without flipping the directional. The street was void of other vehicles or people. One of the neighbors had a basketball hoop set up on the street. The rental was ordinary—mid-size with low performance output and high mileage. Entirely forgettable, not at all exciting, but it sufficed. After a three-hour flight and three more hours on the road, he was exhausted and grumpy and ready for it to all be over. And it was about to be.

  “This it?” he asked.

  Cheyenne nodded.

  He parked behind the massive truck with the Iowa plates to make a barricade should things go south. Rain showered down and smeared the glass as the old wipers failed to efficiently do their job.

  “You’re sure about this?” he said. But Cheyenne’s door was already opened, and she was gone. He jammed the transmission into park and stepped on the parking brake, then joined her in the rain.

  By now, he knew Shay was with another man—but not just any man; the man. Willingly or not, he could not say yet. Though he was about to find out. The man from the airport called to check in during the drive, and Benji told him what he wanted to know; prison was not something he was interested in inviting into his life. The man had been tracking them and knew where they were and would not be far behind, he said, so it was about to be a party. The mysteries of his existence would soon be solved. He did not even care that the man had tracked him somehow; they were beyond that.

  He lingered a step behind Cheyenne as she pounded her heels into the stairs and ascended toward the door. She rapped it twice and rang the doorbell and impatiently waited with her hands on her hips. The door opened and a man appeared. The man? He could not remember what his face looked like.

  “What are you doing here?” the man said.

  “We have to talk.”

  The man looked at Benji and pointed. “Who the hell is this guy?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  The man grunted and turned and disappeared into the house. Cheyenne followed but did not motion for Benji to do the same, but he did anyway. Like a roach sneaking under the door, ready to lurk. Unwelcomed. A crowd awaited inside—two men plus him, three women, and of all things, a baby. It was a circus. Madness. Almost humorous.

  The tall, thin, motherly looking woman bent down and scooped up the baby, held him tight against her chest as if he were in danger. One of the men said nothing, though he shielded what Benji assumed was his wife and baby with his body as if the cockroach would infect them if they were not careful. The other man—the older, grumpy one who opened the door—engaged in an argument with Cheyenne about something Benji could not maintain focus on. He kept his eyes on him, tried to place the face. It was the man, he was almost certain. Shit was about to go down. The third woman in the room creeped behind the old guy and hid, her fiery red hair like a flame at his back.

  Was it Shay? He stepped to the right but still could not see her face.

  “What are you doing here?” the old man said.

  “We need to talk,” Cheyenne said.

  “I’ve heard about what you’ve be
en up to, thieving from Dad,” the protector said. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Oh, please. You don’t know the half of it.”

  The third woman continued to hide.

  “Well tell me, then,” the protector said. “What’s going on here?”

  “Who’s this guy?” the old guy said, pointing to Benji. It was the second time he asked.

  Everyone looked at him. Except for the hidden woman.

  “Who’s this?” Cheyenne said, motioning to the hidden woman.

  “Her name is Sheila,” the old man said.

  Benji got a good look at the older man’s face. His features were weathered—thin wrinkles on his cheeks, bags under his eyes, unnatural bleach blond hair on his head. It was indisputably the man, though something about him was different. He could not place what it was. The redhead behind him finally stepped out and showed herself, and Benji gasped.

  Shay!

  “Shay!” he said as he stepped toward her. But he stopped himself after a step and retreated, unsure of his next move. She looked stunning with the red.

  “Shay?” the protector said. “Who’s Shay?”

  Everyone looked at each other. When Cheyenne met Shay’s gaze, they locked. Awestruck. Shock? What was happening?

  “It’s you,” Cheyenne said.

  “It’s you,” Shay said back.

  They know each other?

  “You know each other?” Benji said.

  “How do you two know each other?” the old blonde guy added.

  Silence. The two women continued to stare at one another.

  “Earth to Mom,” the protector said. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Benji wondered the same thing.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  One year ago. A woman walked into a dark room. Her skirt was short and her stockings were lacy and patterned with hearts, and she was on the prowl. Music thumped around her, rumbled through her heels and up between her legs, and she shivered. Her senses were heightened.

  The perimeter of the room was lined with sofas occupied by men and women, men and men, and women and women—sometimes two of one, one of another, sometimes more. Martini glasses were handed out like candy by women with skirts as short as her own, and with blouses with an extra button undone to help encourage better tips. Sex was everywhere. She smelled it, tasted it. Lusted for it.

  It was the first party of this type she had attended. She heard from a friend of a friend about a group of swingers who gathered in the basement of a rundown club every Thursday. Entry required a verbal passcode which she gave the bouncer outside the entry of the main club above. The muscle man whistled and a modestly attractive woman with black leather pants and six-inch heels came out and motioned for the new guest to follow. The entrance to the basement was at the back of the club, behind a curtain manned by another bouncer and a velvet rope. The leather woman whispered something to the bouncer and he moved aside and let the women pass. They descended a set of creaky stairs toward a locked door. The weight of the damp foundation pinched her lungs as she inhaled, but she felt whatever it was on the other side of the door rush through her. Leather woman keyed the lock, pulled the door open, and let the guest in. The door locked behind her.

  She stood alone in a sea of lovers. Her eyes scanned her surroundings. A small bar in the corner was manned by a flamboyant bartender with hair that stood on end and shined as if gelled by a hose. The waitresses bounced around from group to group, sofa to sofa, trays elevated above their heads, their busts exploding. A dance floor lit up the center of the room. People partied hard.

  The woman watched the most freeing, most scandalous dancer she had ever seen—the only person on the dance floor at the time. Strobe lights flashed green and blue and red and bounced around the room, but always returned to the solo dancer as if she were the spotlight of the party. To the nervous newbie, the iridescence was mesmerizing. Her heart thumped. A waitress approached her and offered a martini which she accepted without acknowledgment. She fingered the stem and breathed in the fire of the gin. She sipped to calm her anxiousness.

  As if on cue, the solo dancer spotted her and their eyes locked. Her dancing slowed, the focus of her movements sharpened. Arms went above her head then slowly lowered and massaged her body—first her neck, then her chest, then her hips. Her eyes closed as the rhythm of the thumping shrouded her.

  The newbie put the martini to her mouth and trembled as the gin penetrated her lips. Her tongue numbed and her cheeks burned, only then did she swallow and let the flame flood her throat. The dancer opened her eyes and locked them back on hers, kept swaying. The newbie downed the rest of the liquid and handed off the glass to a passing tray, kept her eyes straight ahead. A trio of olives stuck to a toothpick, which she held onto. She ate them slowly, with more tongue than necessary, as she watched the dancer. The gin that soaked them rushed to her head.

  The song ended. Another one started, but she hardly noticed. The solo dancer gleamed with sweat in all the right places. Her top was cut so low she was close to popping out; the gin woman wanted nothing more. Two olives down and as moist as a towelette, the gin heavy on her breath, she worked up the courage to approach the dancer. The other patrons disappeared in her periphery as she strode while the butterflies spun beneath her blouse.

  Instead of speaking to the magnetic dancer, she invaded her space and swayed her hips and danced with her. An inferno of desire swelled between them, aided by the gin that had her feeling loopy. Their bodies touched—first over their garments, platonic; then under, far from it. Skin upon skin. Before long, the dancer was inside her on the dance floor, and it took all she had to not scream out in ecstasy in front of everyone. She came quickly and completely. After, she grabbed the dancer’s hand and pulled her toward one of the sofas, which she fell onto and struggled to find her wind. She felt incredible, high on life. Her thighs trembled, but not because of the bass that rattled the floor.

  The dancer continued to sway while she sat, and the two women smiled at one another as if they were old friends. They still had not spoken. Once her breath returned, she sucked the remaining olive off the toothpick and discarded the wooden spear on the floor. The gin squelched against the back of her throat as she chewed.

  “Gin?” the dancer finally said.

  “Yep.”

  “I thought so. I can smell it.”

  She could smell the dancer too, and herself.

  “I prefer vodka myself,” the dancer said.

  “I prefer anything that gets me drunk.”

  The women laughed.

  “You’re a great dancer,” the gin woman said.

  “Thanks. I find it so freeing. Clears my mind.”

  “What else clears your mind?”

  “What clears yours?”

  Before she could answer, a man approached. The dancer seemed to know the man but did not greet him by name. He was tall and gangly but very handsome with one strand of hair that fell out of place and bounced across his face as he moved. The dancer excused herself from their conversation and retreated with the man, who spoke into her ear. Gin woman watched intently, desperate for another drink to maintain her buzz, more so for the dancer to return before long.

  The dancer approached the exit. Gin woman stood up and raised her hand to steal her attention, which worked. The dancer, now alone, stared at the gin woman for a long while, but she did not turn back. Her lips pursed and dimples formed on her cheeks, then she turned and walked out the open door.

  Gin woman returned to the underground club every Thursday night for a month, hoping to run into the dancer again. On the fifth Thursday, she finally did. There she was, front and center on the dance f
loor with that all too familiar casual deliberateness that attracted the gin woman that first night. Her heart sped up when she saw her.

  Unlike the first time, the gin woman walked with purpose—a famished cheetah encroaching upon a feeble gazelle—toward the woman she could not stop thinking about and had to have. “It’s you,” she said when she neared her. Other dancers filled in around them.

  “It’s you,” the dancer said back.

  “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”

  “Did you want to?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  The dancer smiled. “Dance with me.”

  They danced. For hours. Sweat drenched the gin woman’s back, and her calves ached. Her feet too. When they could not stand it anymore, they locked themselves in a stall in the bathroom and teased one another with their lips, then their tongues. Then they left—to the gazelle’s place, not the cheetah’s—and they fucked. It was the cheetah’s first time with a woman, if she excluded the finger-fucking from five weeks prior. The gazelle showed her tricks no man ever could or would ever dream of. It was, unquestionably, the hottest, most satisfying experience of her life.

  “What’s your name?” the cheetah asked afterward.

  “What’s yours?”

  “Cheyenne.”

  “Is that your real name?”

  “Nope.”

  The gazelle nodded, smiled.

  “Yours?”

  “Shay.”

  “Is that your real name?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re great with your body,” Cheyenne said.

  “Thanks.”

  “I like you.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “I still like you. There’s something about you.”

  Shay leaned back and covered herself with the bedsheet. Cheyenne breathed heavily, tried to analyze her new friend’s thoughts. Shay was magnetic, and Cheyenne could not keep her eyes off her.