by Strong, Mimi
“You don't know what you're talking about, do you?”
I shrugged. “You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.”
Bruce said, “Hey now.”
Sawyer was already moving back toward the door, so I grabbed my things and followed him in a daze. I didn't like Bruce cutting my hours, because I needed the money, but I had a feeling that when he'd hired me, he hadn't actually needed another server. Most of my part-time shifts were weekdays, and never the closing shift. That way I could still get up to get Bell ready in the morning for school without too much pain, though there was always some pain, since I never was a morning person.
The sunshine outside the bar was painfully bright and sent me sneezing.
“Two helmets,” Sawyer said. “You'll notice I have a spare one now.”
This time, even in my state, I remembered to move my purse cross-wise before doing the helmet. My head was even bigger than usual that day, but I got it on, and in a moment I was on the back of the bike, my arms wrapped around Sawyer like this was just a regular routine thing I did.
The vibrations of the bike combined with his body next to mine awoke a yearning in me. I didn't want my real life anymore, with all the lies and stories and fear I'd be caught any day. I wanted to be a regular girl who got dressed up to go clubbing with her friends, or took rides on motorcycles with boys.
We drove through traffic, getting caught in rush hour and breathing exhaust at every intersection.
The City of Surrey wasn't like any place I'd lived before. The strip malls and squat industrial offices weren't tall or dense, but they stretched out forever, and everything looked the same no matter where you looked. People drove vehicles there, everywhere, and not many people walked.
The people you did see out for strolls were usually older men with long beards and different-colored turbans. I'd never seen so many people from India before. I hadn't been out much beyond Surrey, but I'd heard some areas of the Lower Mainland had a big Chinese population, and nearby Richmond had a mall where you'd swear you were in China once you were inside.
We pulled into a strip mall, and I saw why Sawyer had chosen that place. The burger diner was right next to a pool hall. He grinned at me as we took off our helmets.
“First a burger, then a lesson,” he said.
“But I haven't even seen your piece of art,” I said. “I'm supposed to be helping you, trading, not just taking.”
“In time. No need to rush.”
I wiped out getting off the bike, twisting funny on my foot and landing on my ass.
“Had a few drinks,” I said from the ground.
“You don't say.”
I yelled, “Stop looking at me.”
He turned his back and waited patiently as I got back up. A wave of nausea passed over me, making my eyes water, then passed on.
I breathed a sign of relief and said, “Maybe I should eat something.”
He turned back, grinning, and offered me his elbow in a cute, old-fashioned sort of way.
I nearly took it, but remembered the wedding ring on my finger. As far as he knew, I was married. So what did that say about him?
He held the door to the burger place open for me.
I stopped and stayed on the sidewalk, still in the bright sun. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“I'm seeing someone.”
“Is it serious?”
“It's not fatal.”
“Do you ever give a straight answer?”
“Do you ever just relax and stop clutching your day in a tight little fist? Let it unfurl. Shake out your hands and see what comes to you.”
He let the glass door shut and took a step back into the sunshine to stand before me.
“Like this.” He clenched his fists at chest-level and then released them, shaking out his long fingers. I'd seen him do this after drawing, but just with one hand.
I made the fists and then shook them out. I felt self-conscious, like people were staring at me, but we were on our own, on the concrete in the middle of a city that sprawled out forever. We were two dots on a map, and I shook out my hands. He clenched his fists, blew air on them, and shook them out again. I did the same. Two dots on a map, surrounded by other dots.
“Now we can get some burgers,” he said.
I nodded and followed him, feeling obedient.
Inside the restaurant, the smell of food woke up my hunger, the way putting my arms around him on the motorcycle had awoken other desires.
He announced he was hungry and ordered a double cheeseburger with the works.
“Single cheeseburger, no fries,” I said when I placed my order.
“Two orders of fries for me,” he said to the pretty girl at the counter. She wore enormous hoop earrings and dark red lipstick. She looked about my age, but I could tell by her face we had nothing in common. She thought she was too good to work there, too good to be serving someone like me.
I tried to pay for our meal, but Sawyer wouldn't let me. “I'm not a starving artist,” he said. “I play bass for a friend's band when their regular guy is off the grid, and I get paid cash for that. Plus I deal drugs.”
The cashier coughed in alarm.
“Kidding,” he said, chuckling. “No drugs, but I did pimp booze once upon a time. I used to work for your uncle, did you know that?”
“I did not.”
“That was before I got my current thing. The thing that actually pays—not that working at the bar wasn't decent, but you girls make way more tips than an ugly guy like me.”
The girl with the hoop earrings handed him his change, a sly grin on her face. “Don't be crazy. You're not ugly,” she said.
He handed her back a five-dollar bill and winked at her. “Keep the change.” To me, he said, “That's how it's done.”
We took a seat in the half-full restaurant. There were only a dozen tables, and they were an unappealing, acid-yellow color. The lights overhead were fluorescent tubes, and extension cords and Christmas tree lights were strung along one wall as decoration.
The food was ready almost immediately, and we took our first bites in silence. Sawyer picked up a handful of his double-order of fries and tossed them on my plate.
“Try them with the malt vinegar,” he said, pointing to a square-shaped glass bottle with a metal cap.
“Isn't that soy sauce?”
“Nope.” He held his fists up and unfurled them with a shake before grabbing the bottle and shaking the brown liquid onto his fries and on a portion of mine.
Tentatively, I tried a fry with the glistening vinegar melting the visible granules of salt. It tasted hot and salty, like a good fry, but also sweet and sour.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“I don't know.” I stuffed a few more in my mouth. “I may need to eat all of them to decide.”
He grinned, then leaned back and rubbed his right bicep, where the tentacles of his octopus tattoo wrapped around.
“Why an octopus? Is there some meaning or significance?”
“Show me a person whose tattoo doesn't have meaning to them and I'll show you a person with a temporary peel-and-stick tattoo.”
“So you're not going to tell me?”
“The octopus is a mystery. It can shift its colors and markings to blend in with any background. The octopus can disappear, right before your eyes.”
“And is that you? You're a master of disguise?”
“If something grabs onto the octopus, it can let go of a limb.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. But the limb grows back. Regeneration.”
I opened my hamburger bun and pulled out the pickles to eat them separately, like I always do. “So, to you, the octopus is like your tough-ass totem creature?”
“Don't make fun.” He scowled at his own burger, which was already half-eaten thanks to his big bites.
“I wasn't making fun. I'm being an active listener. Don't they do that here in Canada?”
He quirked one eyebrow up. “You're kind
of a smartass when you're drunk.”
“I'm not drunk. Maybe there's something weird about my voice, because my uncle always thinks I'm being sarcastic when I'm not.”
“Do you ever get so drunk you can't feel your face?”
“I don't think so.”
“You have mustard all over your chin. You're so drunk you didn't feel it dribbling out of your mouth.”
Mortified, I grabbed a napkin from the chrome dispenser and wiped the yellow off my chin.
Sawyer chuckled and took another huge bite of his burger. He chewed for a minute, then said, “How old is your kid?”
“Who told you I have a kid?”
“Those lollipops and granola bars in your giant mom purse told me you have a kid.”
“Her name's Annabell. We call her Bell. She's in school now, so I mostly work during the day when she's at school. Her grandmother helps out a lot, which is just… too good to be true.”
“Her grandmother?”
“Bruce's mother.”
His bright green eyes darted back and forth, like he was working out a math problem in his head.
“You mean her great-grandmother. Mrs. Braun is your grandmother.”
I grabbed my Diet Coke and swirled the ice, sending up fizz. “Yeah. That's what I meant. It's just kind of long and awkward to say great-grandmother all the time. I slipped up.”
He nodded and stared down at the octopus. The master of disguise and escape. “Yeah, you slipped up,” he said.
Adrenaline flooded my system. He's onto you, my brain yelled. Run. My heart raced as I nudged the straw back down into my Diet Coke and took a sip, slowly so I didn't choke.
He was going to press me for her age, and my age, and he was going to call me on my lies.
I wanted to run, just like I had earlier in the day, from the grocery store. I wanted to hear my shoes slapping against the concrete, feel the wind in my hair and my old life at my back.
“Thirsty,” he said.
I sat back and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. He gave me an odd look, so I grabbed another napkin and dabbed my mouth with that. “Sorry, no manners,” I said. “I was basically raised by wolves.”
He watched me warily for the rest of the meal, and I tried to remember my manners. I really hadn't been brought up with much awareness about table manners and the basic hygiene stuff other people took for granted. My mother never once had us wash our hands before eating a meal or after using the washroom. In junior high, when the girls started using the washroom at school in packs, that was when my friends chided me for not washing up. To fit in, I started copying what they did, soaping my hands with the thin drizzly stuff that came from the dispenser, and using my elbows to push open the door so my fingers didn't touch the handle.
After Sawyer and I finished eating, he led me next door to the pool hall. Everyone in the place turned to stare. The place had nine pool tables, and though it wasn't full to capacity, nearly everyone in there was male. Their combined stares unsettled me.
“Don't worry,” Sawyer murmured, as though he could read my discomfort. “They're just curious because they don't see a lot of girls in here.”
I followed him to the counter, where he paid up front for an hour and was given the pool balls by a man who either know no English or chose not to speak.
As he racked up the balls for our first game, I could feel the eyes of the men on me. I zipped up my hoodie even though the pool hall was warm enough I could have taken it off. My skin got that itchy feeling I get when I've been away from home too long—like my own skin was exhausted from keeping up the cover of hiding me. Thinking about the dirty dishes in the sink and the laundry that needed folding didn't make my skin feel any less tense.
Someone touched me on the small of my back, and I jerked upright, clutching my arms to my chest.
“Sorry,” Sawyer murmured, coming to stand right in front of me. “What's wrong? I can take you home if you want. We don't have to play a game if you're not in the mood.”
“Of course we'll play.” I gazed up into his eyes, though seeing his worry was almost unbearable. Why did he care so much? He was far too good to be true, and way too good for a girl like me.
“You have to drop your shoulders away from your ears. You're too tense. Here, watch me.” He rolled his big shoulders back, elongating his neck and stretching his head from side to side, an expression of peace on his face.
I rolled my shoulders once, twice, three times.
Around us, the other men lost interest in the newcomers and returned to their games. They were lit by their individual hanging lamps, wrapped up in their own competition. Maybe they'd never been interested in me. Maybe it was just my constant companion: my paranoia.
My first break was easy. Already I'd made progress as a pool player, and Sawyer's face beamed with pride, which made my heart squeeze inside my chest. I wanted him to be proud of me.
He showed me a few more tips, and soon he was nodding with approval at how I was doing.
An hour went by like the blink of an eye, and I said I'd buy the next hour.
“Sure, I'll let you pay with this,” Sawyer said, handing me some bills from his pocket.
“I'm not a princess who expects the guy to pay for everything.”
“And I'm not the pauper I appear to be.” He grinned. “Princess, pauper, nice symmetry, eh?”
Shaking my head, I walked over to pay for the second hour, using Sawyer's money.
The man at the counter didn't say a word to me, either. He barely took his eyes off the TV sitting at the side of the counter.
When I got back to our pool table, Sawyer was using the Lady Helper to make a shot.
“No way,” I said. “You're using the Lady Helper? I wanted to use that five shots ago, but I thought you'd make fun of me.”
He tapped the cue ball gracefully, sending it arcing around one ball and gently into another, which ricocheted into the pocket as if programmed.
He said, “No shame in using the tools you have, or taking assistance.”
“How zen.”
“And this isn't a Lady Helper.” The stick had a metal waving bit at the end, and Sawyer held it up proudly, like a trident.
“What do you call it?”
He grinned. “I call it The Fucking Thing. As in, hand me The Fucking Thing already, so I don't bend over and give all you perverts a good view of my ass.”
I laughed into my hand.
“So that's what it takes to get you to laugh. A couple of swear words, and the mental image of my ass on display.”
“Gimme the stick. I paid for an hour and I want my money's worth.”
As I reached for the cue, he jerked his hand back. “Gimme?”
“Please and thank you.”
“That's better.” He turned around and pointed to the purple ball. “Now sink that in the corner pocket.”
“I'm still solids? Because I see at least three shots that are easier.”
“I know. But you won't get any better taking the easy shots. You may as well be at home baking cookies for your daughter.”
I inhaled sharply. My daughter. My lies sounded so much worse on someone else's lips.
Getting in position for the shot, I realized I had to bank the ball, so I moved around the table. As I shifted past Sawyer, the back of my legs brushed against his. We'd only touched when riding the motorcycle, and the brief contact made me keenly aware of his body. His energy. The mass of him, tall and masculine, inches away from me.
His voice low and husky, he said, “I know I promised not to do this, but I have to. Do I have your permission to get in here and help you.”
“Yes.”
Slowly, he positioned himself just behind me and reached his arms around me. I wasn't scared or upset, because it was Sawyer, and I trusted him. His hot hands looped over mine on the cue, and his heat radiated into my side. His breath hot on my ear, he murmured, “Easy.”
I swallowed and tried to focus on the shot, and not the feeli
ngs bubbling up inside me.
“Easy,” he repeated.
“Easy peasy,” I said.
“More like easy does it.” He moved the cue back and forth with authority. He was so good, it made me appreciate the frustration Bell had when I helped with her hand-lettering. Of course writing letters came easily to me; I'd had years of practice and muscle memory.
“Okay, I got it,” I said. “You can let go.”
He gripped my hand tighter. “No, I can't.”
I turned to look at him, our faces so close, our noses were nearly touching. I lost myself in those green eyes, unable to breathe. My pulse thrummed in my ears.
He said, “I can't let go, because I'm going to help you make the shot. Focus on the feeling, and I'll set it up again for you to make on your own.”
“Okay, do it.”
He chuckled. “You have to open your eyes.”
“Right.” My eyes flew open. What the hell was wrong with me?
“Easy.” He leaned in closer, his legs on either side of my bent leg, his body contacting my buttocks lightly, and he made the shot with my hands inside his. The ball banked and sunk obediently, and I saw why he'd chosen that shot. The leave was attractive, with a series of easy shots all lined up.
He pulled away and I straightened up quickly, my head light and woozy.
With the ball put back on the table, I tried the shot again on my own.
It took me seven tries to sink the ball, but when I did, it seemed like the weight on my shoulders got a little lighter.
“You did it!” Sawyer cheered, and he grabbed me in a hug.
I grunted as he squeezed me, my arms limp at my sides.
The next part happened both slowly and quickly. I looked up and he looked down. His eyes widened, then narrowed, and he moved in to kiss me.
Chapter Nine
As Sawyer leaned in to kiss me, I turned my head to the side, and he connected with my cheek, his lips sliding across to my ear as I continued to turn.
“No,” I said, backing away.
He winced. “I'm sorry, Aubrey. I got carried away. I was caught in the moment, and it was the most beautiful moment, where you had faith in yourself, and I had you, and you weren't married.”
