Confined

by Barbi Barnard

  In my room, I dump the quilt on the bed, reach for a pillow, and rip the case off it, sliding it into the clean one. When I am done, I pick up the quilt and pillow and carry them down the stairs.

  I linger for a moment in the doorway to the living room, watching Steve. He is kneeling in front of the fireplace, carefully arranging logs and muttering to himself. I bite my lip in a vain attempt to keep from laughing.

  He picks up the box of matches and lights one, the smell of sulfur fills the room before briefly vanishing as the smell of wood smoke overtakes it. “Nice fire,” I say from my post in the entryway.

  Steve flashes a smile at me over his shoulder. “I figured it’d be a nice contrast to the phone call, you know, something warm to chase away the nasty.”

  Again, the sensation of normalcy washes over me, once again making me long for a life I could probably never have. How much longer could I, would I, go on like this, always wishing and waiting for things I could never have. Suddenly longing turned to anger.

  I drop the quilt on the couch and stare out the window. “It’s nice, thank you.”

  Steve picks up the poker and pushes a log further back in the fireplace then sets the poker back down in the holder and stands up, brushing the bits of bark and dirt off his hands. “Are you okay?” he asks as he crosses the living room to stand in front of me.

  I nod, flopping down into the old La-Z-boy closet to the fireplace. I turn my face toward the warmth and let it wash over me. “It’s not fair,” I whisper.

  Steve sits down on the end of the couch closest to me. “What’s not?”

  “Life,” I reply. “Life is not fair.” I turn to face him, tears threatening to spill. “Whenever I’m around you, I feel normal even though I know I’m not. I feel like I could have a normal life with you, even though I can’t. I want to give you more than just dinner and casual hand holding, but I can’t.”

  “JoJo, I don’t want anything more than what you can give. Please don’t ever feel like I’m pressuring you to do anything you aren’t comfortable doing.”

  “I don’t feel that way, Steve, but you don’t understand, this,” I motion to the space between us, “This will always be there. There’s no cuddling on the couch in front of the fire, there’s no comfortable first kiss or even a casual sex. I’m incapable of intimacy.”

  “How do you know?” he challenges. “How do you know that anything bad will happen if you come over here and sit down next to me?”

  “Because it’s inevitable. It always happens.”

  “Try,” he implored. “Just try.”

  I shake my head no and turn my face back to the fire.

  “Chicken,” he calls softly. I ignore him as he begins making clucking sounds.

  Don’t get me wrong, I want to push myself off the recliner and snuggle up next to him. I do, but my brain refuses to be swayed. No matter what argument it came up with, we both know that Steve is different.

  With Kyle, I never had the urge to be extremely close to him, never wanted to sleep with him or kiss him until we were both dizzy with lust and longing. I loved him, but it was in the way a person loves a friend for saving them from a spider. I loved Kyle because he saved me from, well, from myself. He put a roof over my head and took care of my daughter and me. He loved Emma as if she was his own and he never asked for anything in return.

  But Steve, well I want to be extremely close to him. I want him to kiss me until my head spins like the earth around the sun. I want to love him recklessly and with abandon. I want to love him because he makes me feel, not because he saved me.

  As I stare into the fire, a war raging inside me, I wonder if maybe it was time to go back to therapy and really try to put the pieces of my life back together.

  Chapter Seven

  Steve

  In my head, there’s a list. On it are different things I’d love to know about JoJo. One of them was to find out what kind of shampoo she uses. Stalkerish, yes, maybe just a little, but after spending the night letting the intoxicating smell drill itself into my brain, well, what can I say. I am, after all, a man and a man can only take so much.

  The sun couldn’t rise fast enough in my opinion, and when it peeked through the eastern most windows, motes of dust danced in the light, twinkling like the lights on a Christmas tree in the early evening. I dropped a hand over my eyes, blocking the invasive light.

  I sat up, my back groaning in protest. I patted the cushion next to me and sighed. I hope the Creepy McCall’s-a-Lot had finally gotten harassment out of his system because I don’t think my back could take another night sleeping on that couch.

  All around me, the house was quiet. I stood up and went into the kitchen, searching for a piece of paper and a pen. Speaking of JoJo’s mystery caller, I needed to get on the horn with the phone company and figure out if the number could be traced. I wanted to take a trip into Sappho as well. There was someone there I wanted to see, and it wasn’t going to be a social call. I found a small pad of paper in the drawer closet to the fridge. I pulled a sheet off and scribbled a quick note for JoJo, propping it against the coffee pot where I was sure she would see it when I was done.

  The trip into the city took a little over an hour and shortly after nine a.m. I was pulling into the crowded parking lot of the very busy Coffee Shoppe.

  The aroma of freshly brewed coffee and still warm bagels hit me as I pulled the door open. I pushed past the patrons in line, scanning the counter for the one person I was looking for. Overhead, some whiney guy with an acoustic guitar sang about wondering where his girl’s always been. I tuned the annoying song out and approached the counter.

  From behind the espresso machine, Curtis Duggar, owner and shop operator, looked up with a smile. “Coffee?” he asked, motioning a percolating pot of coffee.

  “No thanks,” I replied. “You got a minute though; I need to talk to you.”

  Curtis finished with the fancy drink he was making and handed it to a petite red head. She then took the cup and handed it to a woman in a pink miniskirt. Curtis wiped his hands on his apron and turned to the red head. “Can you take over?”

  She nodded and began making some kind of drink. Curtis moved toward the opposite end of the counter and motioned for me to follow him. I bobbed and weaved between the crowds until I’d made it across the open room. I followed Curtis down the hall, past the storeroom and bathroom into his office. I shut the door behind me and sat down on the opposite end of the desk.

  “So my friend,” he said with an easy going smile. “What’s up?”

  I felt bad for what I was about to do. Curtis was my friend. We had Seahawks season tickets, and went to almost every home game together. This, however, wasn’t personal and it had to be done. I folded my hands and said, “JoJo Weston, well JoJo Reeves when you knew her, is back in Mora-“

  “She came back?” he interrupted; face white as the pure driven snow. “When, I mean how long has she been back?”

  “Since the beginning of the summer.”

  “Oh wow,” Curtis murmured. “I never thought – I mean, she left so suddenly-“

  “Because three assholes you went to school with raped her, but you knew that already.” I bit my seething tongue and fought to keep my grip on my rapidly dissipating self-control, the fact that Curtis Duggar was a friend was quickly forgotten. “Someone’s making threatening phone calls, and parking outside of her house, among other things. Where were you last night?”

  Curtis’s jaw dropped. “Steve,” he stammered, “you can’t possibly think that I’m the one doing that. I didn’t even know she was back until thirty seconds ago.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “I was at home with Bonnie and the kids,” he said, face still white as Casper the Friendly Ghost’s. “And shit, if you’re looking to point fingers at someone, how about one of those douche bags who raped her, you talked to them yet?”

  I shook my head no. “One step at a time Curtis. You have a
ny idea where they are?”

  Curtis shrugged. “No. We didn’t necessarily run in the same circles. I think one went to school in New York, last I heard Rodger and Tyler went to school in Seattle. Start there.”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a notebook, scribbling Seattle on the first blank page before flipping it shut again. I stood up and slid the book back into my shirt pocket. “One more thing,” I said reaching for the doorknob, “Stay the hell away from JoJo. She has enough going on in her life. She doesn’t need you coming around.” I wanted to throw in, “especially since it was your fault she was attacked and your fault she went to California in the first place rather than telling her father what happened to her.” However, I didn’t. I yanked the door open and pushed my way through the throng of people all trying to get their daily dose of caffeine.

  When I got back to the station I pulled up the National Database and typed in Rodger’s name into the search and tapped a pen against the desktop as I waited for the results. When the search finished, I scribbled information down on a notebook. He lived in Mora until the fall of 2010, then an address in Seattle for six months then after that, there was nothing. No driver’s license or tickets, no bank account information, no address, no nothing. It was as if he ceased to exist. I checked for a death certificate, however there wasn’t one.

  I typed in Arnold Ames’s name next and found out he was dead. I was secretly glad to read that he died in New York of what the coroner’s report said was a fatal drug overdose. The police suspected foul play; however, no charges were ever pressed.

  After I finished reading Ames’s report I typed in Tyler Crow’s name and found out he was currently living in Tacoma, married with two kids. An arrest a few years back for battery and a bench warrant for unpaid parking tickets, but nothing that screamed he was the mysterious caller.

  With two out of the three mysteries solved, I wondered what happened to Rodger Byers. Where did he go after spring of 2011? No one can just drop off the radar like that. He had to be somewhere. I spent the better half of the morning plugging his name into a variety of databases, coming up empty each time. The longer I looked at it, the longer I liked him for JoJo’s caller.

  Nevertheless, before I could come out and tell her it was him; I needed to find out if Tyler Crow was still in Tacoma, and whether or not he – as well as Curtis – had alibis for last night. But for now, I wanted to talk to someone at the phone company to see if they could tell me the number the calls were coming from. As I was dialing the number, I had a thought. What if the person calling JoJo wasn’t one of her attackers? What if it was her ex-husband? It wouldn’t be the first time I’d seen an ex go postal and threaten his wife. In a town the size of Mora, it was common – almost weekly – occurrence.

  When I reached a manager at the phone company, I explained the situation and waited patiently as he pulled up the records. “Chief Jamison?” he said after about five minutes of the worst music in the world.

  “Still here,” I said stifling a yawn.

  “The calls are coming from a prepaid cell phone. There’s no way to trace it.”

  I groaned and shoved my hand into my hair. “Is there a way to block the number?”

  “Sure, hang on for a minute.” There was a brief silence before I heard the manager say, “Okay, the number is blocked. The calls should stop now. If the woman is still having problems just have her, or even you can give me a call and we’ll explore alternative options.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

  Once I was done on the phone with the phone company, I called a contact I had in Los Angeles police department who agreed to drop by the esteemed Dr. Weston’s home to find out if he had an alibi for the previous evening.

  Then JoJo called and offered lunch, which was where I was headed now. When I pulled into my own driveway, she opened the door and stepped onto the porch, a blue gingham apron tied around her waist, her curly brown hair pulled into a low ponytail.

  My heart sighed, that was a sight I could definitely get used to seeing every day. As I approached, I noticed the flour smeared across her nose. “What are you making?” I asked as I climbed the stairs.

  “Pie,” she replied. “Baking helps me think.”

  Oh, I thought. Wonder what we’re thinking about? Aloud I said, “I like pie.”

  “Well, come on in then. It’s cold out here.”

  I followed her into the house, the scent of pumpkin spice and apple pie greeted me. In the living room a fire crackled in the fireplace, pools of orange candle light danced on the mantle, some kind of acoustic music played softly on the radio in the kitchen.

  “Come on,” she said making her way into the kitchen.

  I followed her and looked around at the mess. It looked like a bag of flour exploded everywhere. “What happened?” I asked.

  JoJo shrugged. “I told you, when I bake it helps me think. I had a lot of thinking to do.”

  “Anything you care to talk about?” I asked carefully.

  JoJo glanced at me. “I think,” she said tridatiously, “that its time I go back to counseling. I hate being scared all the time.” She paused, picking up a cookbook from under a discarded bag of flour. “It’s exhausting.”

  I nodded. “I can imagine,” I said. “So what are you going to do?”

  “Well,” she said, dumping cup after cup of flour into a bowl without so much as counting or paying attention to what she was doing. “I tried to talk to someone this morning on this hotline type thingy, but then the damn site basically told me they were too busy to talk to me, so then I got to thinking that there’s really no point. I mean, I’m already screwed up beyond repair, so what the hell, why not keep being screwed up.”

  She turned to the sugar and began pouring into the bowl. I had a momentary flash to that Alice in Wonderland movie. I was half waiting for her to turn and scream that I was late to tea. However, she didn’t, she did, though, pick up a couple of eggs and begin cracking them on the edge of the bowl.

  “But then I thought about, aw shit, I thought about everything. I thought about you and Emma Grace and the asshole who keeps calling me and I want so much more than to be scared. I thought about our date and how life feels right with you. I mean really. I don’t know if you noticed it, but we, God I don’t even know. It’s like we click or fit, or whatever. Like you and I were meant to be.” She stopped and looked down at the cookbook on the counter, blowing at a strand of hair that escaped from her pony tail.

  “But I can’t be with you if I don’t get help.” She stopped for a second then muttered, “Listen to me, rambling about wanting to be with you. God only knows if you even want to be with me. I feel thirteen all over again.”

  “I want to be here,” I said, she glanced up at me, her expression confused. “I’m here, now and last night, because I want to be here. If you need somebody to protect you from creepy callers, I’m your guy. If you need someone to hang out and watch cheesy chick flicks with, I’m your guy. If you need someone to love you, who loves you unconditionally in return, well then, I’m your guy.

  “If you need someone to drive you to see the department shrink, then I’m your guy, you name it, and I’ll be it. All you have to do is say the words.” I put the ball in her court because I suspected that her ex-husband did everything for her. He never made her do anything; never put the control in her hands. He coddled her and that’s part of the reason why see never got the help she needed. On the other hand, perhaps he forced her to get help and it backfired. Who knows? Either way, she needed to figure out what she was going to do with her emotional state. I could take her to a doctor, but I couldn’t make her get better, that was something she had to start on her own.

  JoJo wiped a flour coated hand across her cheeks, powder smeared across the tears leaking from her eyes. “I’m so scared,” she silently cried.

  “What are you afraid of?” I asked.