I Love You Like That

by Heather Cumiskey

  “We’re bringing them in . . . giving people their sugar rush 24-7,” she slung back.

  “They let you eat candy all day?”

  “We’re supposed to be familiar with all the candies as far as ingredients and flavors so we can answer customer questions. If it’s a dark chocolate with a more bitter cocoa taste, some people prefer that . . . or if it’s on the mild side and maybe mixed with something salty . . . you get the idea. Our manager wants us to be able to make recommendations, especially when we’re featuring new candy clusters. Sometimes customers will try something different . . . others just stick to what they know they like.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of getting fat working there?”

  “No, never. At first you want to try everything. After a while it gets old.”

  “Still,” he said eyeing her like she had a weight problem.

  Hannah’s ears flushed. In that moment, she realized that Bryan reminded her of her dad.

  “You two ready to order?” Miss Perky Big-Tooth twirled back around. She pulled a pen from behind her ear and tapped the tip against her pad. Hannah could almost hear her cheer: Are you ready? Let’s go!

  Bryan gestured for her to order first.

  “I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries,” she said, raising an eyebrow, waiting for him to say something. He probably wants me to order a salad.

  “Thanks for dinner,” Hannah smiled. “Next time, I’ll pay.”

  He waved her off like it was no big deal. “What do you want to do now?”

  They strolled outside. It was a beautiful summer evening; the scorching temperatures had cooled some. He tilted his head in the direction of the benches in front of the restaurant. “Want to hang out for a bit?”

  “Let’s go somewhere else,” she said. “I’m kind of sick of the mall. Been here all day.”

  They cut across the parking lot. She hesitated when she realized they were walking to his car. She didn’t know him that well.

  “Like my wheels?” he said after he closed her door and climbed into the driver’s side. “Gotta love a VW Rabbit, circa ’75.”

  “Hey, it’s a car—more than I can say.”

  He smiled at her answer. His car smelled like Polo cologne. Compared to Peter’s, Bryan kept his immaculate. The surfaces gleamed, the seats and floorboards looked freshly vacuumed.

  “You take really good care of your car.”

  “Aesthetics are important to me.”

  “So where are we going?” she said sliding her hands under her thighs. The car’s warm seats were a welcome change from the mall’s chilly air conditioning.

  His face looked thoughtful, as if he were going through a list of places in his head.

  “First . . . I’d like to do this,” he said, and leaned over to kiss her.

  Hannah lifted her face to his, anticipating fireworks. All at once, his teeth clinked with hers and his lips felt altogether wrong. She jerked back, not sure what to do. He leaned in more and pushed his tongue into her mouth. Saliva streamed everywhere. She started to gag.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing,” she said quickly, trying to figure out what was going on with her. She knew she liked him, especially the attention he gave her. What’s my problem?

  “What, you tell all of your white friends that you’re stepping out with a black dude . . . and now you’ve changed your mind?”

  Yeah, all of my friends. Right. “What? No, it’s not like that. Why would you even say that?”

  “I know how it goes.”

  “I didn’t agree to go out with you because you were black. I thought you were funny and cute. And nice.”

  He didn’t look at her.

  “Guess I’m still getting over someone.”

  “That guy who broke up with you?”

  “No, not him. Someone else.” Hannah took a big breath and let it spill. “My boyfriend was killed. Shot at Gossamer Park just before Christmas.”

  Bryan’s head jerked back. He sat up straighter. “Deacon Giroux was your boyfriend?” His mouth sprang open like an aluminum can.

  Hannah’s eyes widened. “Geez, you knew him?”

  “Sure. Me and my friends scored some blow from him a few times. Had the guy’s beeper on speed dial . . . he was cold. Real cold.”

  “Cold?”

  “All business . . . never cracked a smile.”

  “Guess you didn’t know him like I did.” She sighed, her thoughts floating out over the front of the car.

  “That’s a trip . . . Giroux’s girlfriend in my car. You deal?”

  Hannah’s eyes hardened. She shook her head.

  “Why would you date a dealer, then?”

  “I wasn’t looking to . . . it’s more complicated than that.”

  He didn’t listen to her response. From the way his eyes were dancing, she could tell that all sorts of ideas were flashing through his brain.

  “I’m not sure how I feel about this.”

  “About what, that I dated Deacon? Why does that matter?”

  “It just does.”

  “You’re all about aesthetics, so you don’t like how this will look?”

  He ignored her question and ran his fingertips up her leg. “Are you what they call a little coke whore?” He laughed sinisterly, his eyes bending into slits, his lips gleaming with more saliva.

  “Hey!” She shoved his hand away and waited a beat to see if he was joking. He wasn’t. “That’s so uncool. What a sick thing to say.”

  He threw up his hands. “How should I know what you’re into when you go with a guy like that?”

  “I’m not a cokehead . . . and you’re really full of yourself! So it’s cool for you and your friends to use him to ‘score some blow,’ but God forbid someone else sees that he’s more than that?”

  “I have a pretty good sense of these things,” he said, shifting in his seat, refusing to make eye contact with her.

  “I think you’re quick to judge someone . . . and you’ve got it all wrong. We weren’t like that!”

  She flung the car door open, leapt out of her seat, and took off through the parking lot toward her neighborhood. She looked back as she exited the lot, just in time to see his car speeding away in the opposite direction.

  CHAPTER 34

  South beach, Miami

  DEACON WAS LOSING IT. I CAN’T, I CAN’T. I HAVE TO GET OUT. Those little girls! So small and innocent. What was their crime? Having a criminal for a father who messed with the wrong cartel?

  He couldn’t shake the way the older girl had looked at him, her eyes begging for his help, so scared, or the way the younger one had kept patting her mother’s cheek, trying to wake her up.

  Luis would give them a warm drink to make them drowsy and fall asleep. Their little bodies would be wrapped tightly together in an icebox on wheels, until . . . my God, my God. He ran to the payphone. He had only minutes. Come on, pick up, pick up, fucking pricks.

  “It’s me. I need your help . . . someone shot Thompson. Luis killed his wife and finished Thompson off. His little girls appeared out of nowhere . . . no, he didn’t . . . no, they didn’t run. He’s putting them in a Wendy’s cold truck around the corner from Lummus Park near 11th. He may have already pulled away. Hurry. He’s going to sell them . . . no, no . . . for their organs.”

  He’d just sealed his fate. Calling the Feds meant Eastman and Kodak’s people would show up and Luis would connect the dots. He was a dead man.

  CHAPTER 35

  darien, Connecticut

  “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” HANNAH’S DAD SCOWLED and stomped the floor in front of his recliner all the way to the front door when she arrived home. “It’s nearly ten, where were you?”

  Hannah shrugged. “You’re never here when I come home. I didn’t think I had to call you.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since Mom’s been back . . . since you guys aren’t around anymore.”

  “That doesn’t mean, young lady, that you can come and go as you
please!”

  “Okay, got it,” she said not wanting to fight and still reeling from her whiplash of a date with Bryan.

  “Where are Mom and Kerry?”

  “In bed.”

  Hannah bit her lip. It’s now or never. She lowered her voice. “Dad, you’ve got to listen to me. It’s Mom. She’s drinking and still taking those pills.”

  His face went blank. “What?” Then as her words sank in, his cheeks turned a bright shade of red.

  Oh-oh. Here we go.

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Come here,” she told him. He followed her to the kitchen. She glanced back at him before yanking the top freezer open.

  “You’ll break the handle doing that,” he scolded.

  “Dad, I found this the other day—” She reached behind the frozen dinners into the ice trays and came up empty. She unloaded all of the boxes onto the counter.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Mom stashed a large peanut butter jar back here the other day filled with yellow and blue pills.” Hannah sighed exasperated. “She must have moved it.”

  He studied the contents of the freezer, his face unreadable.

  “I’m not making this up. She’s taking pills again. And worse, she’s been leaving Kerry alone in the car when she’s out shopping. It was over 90 degrees yesterday, the poor kid could have died.”

  “Your mom’s been distracted. She must have forgotten she had Kerry with her.”

  “No, this was on purpose. She told her if she unlocked the door and got out, someone could steal her. That’s playing with her head. Not an accident. Kerry says she hid because she was afraid they’d put Mom away again or they’d take her.”

  Her father pressed his lips together. No matter what she said, would he ever believe her? She spun back toward the sink and yanked on the dishwasher handle.

  “Again, Hannah, you’re going to break the appliances!”

  Steam rose up and swarmed her face. “Someone ran this . . . I wanted to show you what’s really in her mugs . . . listen, Dad, she’s worse now than before. You’ve got to see that . . . do you? It’s like she’s not even here. She barely speaks to me or Kerry.”

  “Your mom’s been under a lot of stress. We both are.”

  “What stress? She doesn’t do anything except sleep.”

  “Now I know you’re exaggerating. She takes care of Kerry.”

  “Dad, the TV takes care of Kerry. Mom’s never around or she’s upstairs in her bedroom.”

  “You shouldn’t talk about your mother like this.”

  “If I don’t, who will? It’s time we stop pretending everything’s okay, because it’s so not. Dad, you have to do something. If you won’t do it for me, do it for Kerry.”

  CHAPTER 36

  South beach, Miami

  DEACON’S EYES FLEW OPEN AT THE SOUND OF THE morning’s first cars driving past his latest lodgings—behind the dumpster of a local chicken shack on Miami’s west side. Paul once told him it was Ida’s favorite place because of their famous cornbread. They met their friends there once a week. He hoped Paul would show up soon. He could really use his help after he came clean about everything—starting with his real name.

  He rolled out from under his blanket of newspapers, noticing for the first time traces of yellow paint that speckled the stained cement around him, along with a purple spray-painted pledge of love: SUSIE + GIAN 4-EVER!

  The amenities were a crude departure from the Leslie, let alone his parents’ mansion in Darien. Though Deacon was not a stranger to hiding behind dumpsters, things had escalated considerably from his days of running from park bullies.

  He was certain that Chalfont and his henchmen had been watching every hotel, street, and inch of Miami since he took off that night. He was delaying contacting the Feds again, not trusting that they wouldn’t return him to the drug lord to resume the mission. He needed time to figure his escape from this hellish place before either side got to him first.

  He rubbed the city’s grime from his face, feeling wrecked after a restless night on the street and his recurring nightmare of Thompson’s daughters pleading for him to save them. Their desperate sobs infiltrated his psyche. He shut his eyes and pressed his fingers against his eyelids, trying to erase the girls’ watery doe eyes and trembling lips.

  Stop crying, he ordered the voice in his head. He was becoming delusional. Then he heard it again. He stuck his head out, trying to locate the source of the noise, and saw an elderly man pitifully wailing alone in his car.

  A strange feeling tightened in his chest, turning to a sharpness that grabbed at his sides. He propped himself onto his elbows, waiting for the old man to stop. He didn’t.

  Man up. Deacon heard the words his father told him as a little boy. Men don’t cry. The private moment was none of his business, and yet he found himself unable to ignore the man’s pain.

  Anger rose inside of him like a flash flood. He didn’t have the energy for this; his own problems were wringing his gut out like a wet rag.

  Still, something pushed Deacon to his feet. He marched up to the car. The old man looked up and then away, signaling with his hand that it was nothing, move along.

  Deacon stood his ground. “You okay?” he shouted into the man’s window. The guy nodded and waved him away again. Deacon stepped back. He paced in a small circle and came back again. “I can help.”

  The man rolled down his window an inch and tilted his mouth toward the opening. “I don’t want any. Go away.”

  “I’m not selling. Can I call anybody? Do you need help or something?”

  The old man shook his head and cried harder, folding his arms over the steering wheel.

  Deacon waited. He leaned against the guy’s car, knowing he was probably pissing him off in doing so. He needed the man to stop, to suck it up, whatever “it” was. He didn’t know why he cared so much.

  “Were you robbed? Do you need the police?”

  The man shook his head and relented. “I’m going to die. Die alone.”

  “Aren’t we all, buddy?” Deacon said bitterly. He’d seen too many heads blown off to count. The next one would surely be his.

  “No, not like this. They’re going to kill me . . . it’s only a matter of time.”

  “Who are they? Tell me what happened.”

  “My best friend was stabbed yesterday. These streets have gotten so bad. They prey on the elderly. We come here to retire and they rob and kill us. We fought wars for these kids, preserved their freedom, and still they aim their knives and guns at us.”

  Halfheartedly, Deacon said, “Man, sorry about your friend . . . how did he die?”

  “He’d gotten a young man’s car detailed as a thank you for helping him with some gang members who were trying to rob him . . . you know, in that drug store up there on the corner.” The man pointed over his dashboard.

  A coldness spread up Deacon’s spine. His mouth went dry.

  “It was a black Camaro with custom rims, a gorgeous car. The kid never locked it. And Paul . . . oh Paul, he just wanted . . . he wanted to do something for him . . . to thank him . . . for everything.”

  The blood rushed to Deacon’s feet. “The hooligan even etched his name in the side of the car . . . proud of what he’d done . . . murdering my best friend!”

  Shaking Deacon asked, “W-what did it say?”

  “Larga vida a Pedro.”

  CHAPTER 37

  darien, Connecticut

  STILL IN HER PAJAMAS, HANNAH HEADED TO THE KITCHEN for some water when she saw her mother sitting on the corduroy couch alone in the living room sipping from one of her mugs. The end of her mother’s nose was red, like she’d recently been crying.

  This is early even for you, Mom.

  Hannah crossed her arms and held on to her shoulders as she leaned against the doorway. “Um, see Kerry anywhere?”

  “Your father drove her up to Gamma Mimi’s. There’s more for her to do there, living near that Girl Scout camp in Mancheste
r.”

  “You sent her away?”

  “She was bored here. I thought your dad’s idea was a terrific solution.”

  “For whom, you? Finally get that nuisance out of your way?”

  “Watch it.”

  Watch what, So-Called Mom? Stop lying to yourself . . . and us.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Hannah answered, her eyes flicking away.

  “Say it.”

  “When are you going to start acting like a mother for once?”

  “I will. I . . . I am.” Her mother sighed. “Just need to rest, that’s all. You and your sister are a lot of work.”

  “Mom, I told Dad about the peanut butter jar in the freezer . . .”

  Her mom’s face fell rigid. Her lips stretched into a tight line silencing her for several seconds. “He didn’t say a thing to me. That was probably one I had before I went to the hospital.”

  “No, it was last week.”

  “Guess I forgot about it.”

  “Why was it in the freezer?”

  “Keeps the pills fresher . . . these doctors give you so many at one time.”

  “Why are you still taking them if they weren’t good for you before?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Mom, the jar.”

  “Oh that, I threw it out. That was one from before.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “Don’t you want to get better?”

  “I told you, I am,” she said and took a swig from her cup.

  Hannah glared at her.

  “What now?” her mom said like she was being inconvenienced.

  Hannah’s eyes dropped to the floor. “The day I found you . . . when you overdosed . . . I thought you were dead.”

  “I think I’ve repented enough for that . . . I don’t need to apologize to you or to anyone, for that matter . . . it was an accident, Hannah.”

  “Was it? Or did you want to leave us for good?” Hannah choked on the last word.

  “What a thing to say! It’s not about you. Or your father, or Kerry.”

  “Who, then? Baby Michael? The one you lost?”