by A W Hartoin
“This is on the internet?”
“Duh. It’s everywhere. You’re trending on Twitter,” said Stevie.
I braced myself on the counter and started to have what I’d diagnosed in others, a panic attack. I couldn’t breathe. My heart pounded.
Stevie took back his phone. “What’s up with you?”
“Pete,” I whispered. “I have a boyfriend.”
He snorted. “Not anymore.”
“I’m going to be sick.”
“It’s the wine.”
“It’s not the wine,” I said.
“What about me?” bellowed Uncle Morty out of my phone. I’d forgotten he was there, the bearer of bad news and inventive cursing.
I put my shaking hand over my eyes and asked, “What about you? I’ve just ruined my life, not yours.”
“I beg to differ. You broke up the perfect Dungeons and Dragons team. Pete’s going to dump us.”
“Why?” I asked, not caring one bit.
“Because we belong to you, idiot. You could’ve dumped him like a decent chick, but, oh no, you had to do it on the freaking internet.”
“I’m not breaking up with him.”
“Well, what the hell was that? A proposal of marriage?”
“I don’t know what it was. Alcohol. Stupidity.”
“It was lust, you common hussy.”
“Did you just call me a hussy?” I asked.
“Would you prefer slut?”
“I would not, and nothing happened.”
Uncle Morty snorted and cleared his throat, very phlegmy. “You can’t sell that. Least of all to Pete.”
“How is he?” I asked, wincing.
“Fuck if I know. The poor kid took off after three guys in Iron Man costumes showed him the video. Aaron followed him.”
“Good. Aaron’ll make it better.”
“Hell, no, he won’t. You can’t make this better. The bastard’s humiliated, Humiliated! And after all the time I put into breaking him in, molding him. Why I oughta—”
I hung up on him. There was only so much I could take. Not that I didn’t deserve it. I was a terrible person. The worst person. Certainly the worst girlfriend. I put my head down on the counter and counted to ten. It didn’t help. Why did I tell people to do that when they were panicking? It didn’t help. I checked my messages on the off-chance Pete had called. He hadn’t, of course. Mickey Stix of DBD called three times to tell me how he loved the video, their message boards were on fire, and he was putting the video in the headliner position on the website. Mickey thought this was good news. His news made me heave into the sink. The smell was atrocious, just like my behavior.
I drank water out of the tap and Stevie handed me a paper towel. I swallowed a considerable amount of bile and dialed Pete. I got his voicemail and, after a shuddering breath, left him a message.
“I am so sorry, Pete. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I really didn’t. There were all these glasses of wine and drinks and that’s no excuse, but it didn’t mean anything. Nothing happened. Chuck was just there and it happened. I’m so sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me, although I know I don’t deserve it.” I wiped my face with the paper towel and turned to Stevie, but it wasn’t Stevie. It was Chuck, looking at me like he’d never seen my face before in his life.
“It didn’t mean anything,” he said, flatly.
“I didn’t know you were standing there,” I said.
“Clearly.”
“I had to apologize. What I did was horrible. Everyone knows or will shortly.”
“Was it horrible?” he asked, stepping close and leaning over me and not in a good way.
“No. I mean, yes. It was horrible. I have a boyfriend. I did stuff I’m not supposed to do.”
“With me.”
“It’s got nothing to do with you. This is about Pete, what I did to Pete,” I said.
“With me.”
“Why do you keep saying that? Yes, with you. You of all people. You. My sleazy, horny, has dated half the female population of Missouri and Illinois, cousin. You!” I yelled.
“We’re not actually related!” he yelled back. “I thought you finally figured it out!”
“What? That I’m an idiot? I’ve known that since I set fire to the Bleds’ garage. You don’t need to remind me”
He slapped his hand down on the counter so hard the dishes in the rack rattled. “I’ve been waiting for you to see me the way you’re supposed to see me.”
I slapped the counter. Nothing rattled and it hurt my hand. “Who are you to tell me how I’m supposed to see you?”
“Because I love you!”
I sucked in a breath and stared up into his glaring eyes. That was not the look of love. That was more like the look of, I could kill you and make it look like an accident.
“No, you don’t. I’m just the one you can’t have,” I said.
“If that’s what you think, I’m done,” he said between clenched teeth and went for the door.
“Done with what?”
“You.” He banged through the kitchen door and I heard him go up the stairs, taking three at a time.
Stevie handed me my coffee cup. “Well, you screwed that up royally.”
“Oh, yeah? What did I screw up? There’s nothing between us. We’re like cousins. It’s practically creepy,” I said.
“Except it’s not.”
I banged my cup down on the counter, sloshing burning hot liquid over my fingers. “Yes, it is. Everybody’s going to think I humped my cousin. Oh my god. Mom is going to kill me. And don’t forget about Aunt Miriam. She thought my modeling shamed the family. This looks like we’re incest people. Welcome to Deliverance, it’s the Watts clan.”
“Except it’s not.”
“Argh! I’m going out,” I said in a rush.
“Where?” Stevie asked.
“I don’t know. I’m going to where people don’t have the internet.”
“1965?”
“Shut up!” I grabbed my purse and bolted out the back door.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I DIDN’T GO to 1965. No one would sell me a ticket. I ended up at Wink’s again, and Phoebe was there with new jazzy purple gauges in her ears. I walked up to the counter, trying to look like a girl who didn’t make out with her cousin by marriage or sleep in her clothes or forget to brush her nasty teeth before storming out of the house. Phoebe wasn’t buying it. She smiled so wide her blue lipstick cracked.
“You look familiar,” she said. “Latte?”
“Yes and a bunch of stuff with fat in it, like triple fat. Got any of that?” I asked.
“Cinnamon roll?”
“Sure.”
Phoebe went into the back and emerged a few minutes later with a celery-filled tall glass. “You need this more than a latte.”
“Bloody marys are on the menu?”
“Only for special customers.”
“Oh, I’m special alright. Specially screwed.”
She grinned. “I hope so.”
“That’s the kicker. The clothes stayed on.”
“It can be done that way.”
“Not well.”
Phoebe filled a bag with buttermilk drops and a cinnamon roll. “I’ll give you that.”
I paid her and then looked around at the half-filled little café, wishing there was a place to hide.
“Come this way.” She pointed to a door to the back.
I picked up my bag and my hangover cure and obeyed. Phoebe led me out to a little courtyard filled with rustic lawn furniture. “You can hide out for a while until things calm down.”
“That’ll take a couple of months, but thanks.” I sat on a rickety lounge chair and sipped the fiery bloody mary. Wow. That was hot.
“You know what? You look just like my bulldog after he ate an entire box of pralines and barfed in my closet,” said Phoebe.
“That’s how I feel.”
“Tall, dark, and built, not the one for you?”
“Well…�
�
“Oh, you have a boyfriend,” she said.
“Had a boyfriend would probably be more accurate,” I said.
She nodded and crossed her tattooed arms. “He sure looked like the one. That boyfriend must be uber hot.”
I screwed up my mouth and had to admit, “Not really. He’s more nerdy, but a great guy. I really screwed up.”
“So, he’s boring,” she said.
“Not boring. He’s normal, calm, trouble free,” I said.
“Give me trouble any day.”
“You don’t understand. Chuck bothers me.”
Phoebe nodded and stepped back into the building. “Stay as long as you want.” She went inside and then popped back out. “My parents have been married for thirty years. My dad bothers my mom every day. He says it’s his job.”
She closed the door and I stared after her. My dad bothered my mom senseless, too. Maybe it was a thing, but it wasn’t my thing. Pete was nice. He was…well…he was something. I couldn’t put my finger on it. No, it wasn’t boring. He had lightsabers, for crying out loud.
I choked down my drink and ate my cinnamon roll to ease the burning and then lay back to study the clouds. I’d lost Pete, that was certain, but a strange feeling settled in my chest, a familiar feeling and an uncomfortable one. I didn’t care. No. I cared that he was hurt and that I was the one who hurt him. But Pete wasn’t forever. He never was supposed to be forever. What did Uncle Morty say? That everybody knew this would happen. I sure didn’t. How did they? When I thought of Pete, I felt so sad, but not the right sad. Not like I’d lost the love of my life. Did I love him? If I did, shouldn’t it hurt more?
Chuck kept infiltrating my mind, the way he infiltrated my life, bothersome, sleazy, and forever there in the background. Could he possibly love me for real? It didn’t seem likely, but the thought kept coming back. I sat there for a couple of hours, snoozing and thinking. I hadn’t picked up my phone when I left, so I was blissfully unconnected. No one could get to me and it felt great. Eventually, a nagging thought settled into my mind. Chuck was upset and I’d upset him. I touched my lips, all bruised and raw from his beard, and my face got hot. My stomach twisted.
I went inside, gave Phoebe back her glass, and she smiled knowingly. “So you’ve decided it’s not so bad.”
“Oh, it’s plenty bad. Just not in the way I thought.” I headed out the glass door and down the street. It was a leisurely walk home. I stopped to pick up a good Irish whiskey for Chuck, a little peace offering. He’d be surprised after all the yelling, but I was the one who was surprised. I opened the back door and was met by silence.
“Chuck! Stevie!” I called out, going from room to room, but they were gone. Cleared out. All their clothes, everything. I checked the bathtub. Stevie wasn’t in it. My phone was on the counter where I’d left it. I called Chuck over and over. He didn’t answer. I left messages. Good ones, I think, but he didn’t call back. It was all silence. I usually wanted to be alone when I was off on one of Dad’s cases, but now that was the last thing I wanted.
I called Stevie and then I called Chuck. I repeated the process until I thought I’d go crazy. Then I set down the phone and turned on the TV. I don’t even know what was on. My mind couldn’t settle. Mostly, I stared out the windows or at my phone sitting on the sofa table and I remembered the picture we’d found of my great grandparents and Stella and Nicky Bled. That was something I’d done right. But then I remembered that Chuck was the only one besides Spidermonkey that knew what I was up to with the Klinefeld Group and I felt lonelier than I ever had. We were supposed to be in it together and I screwed it up. Royally, as Stevie rightfully pointed out.
Then my phone rang. I dove for it, but it was a number I didn’t recognize and had no name attached. Usually that meant some sort of sleazy prank caller. I got those all the time and, with the new video, it was to be expected. But I was desperate and hoping I was wrong, so I answered.
“Hello?” I said, trying to sound as un-sexy as possible.
“Miss Watts?” said a deep voice with a Southern accent.
“Yes.”
“It’s me, Tiny.”
Huh?
“From the airport,” he said with a hint of worry.
“Oh, right. I’m sorry.”
“You wrote your number on your dad’s card. Is this okay?”
“Of course. What can I do for you?” I asked.
“I googled you and it said your people are from N’awlins.”
“My mother’s people are. I’m at my nana’s house right now.”
Tiny’s voice went up an octave. “You ever hear the name Robard Boulard?”
Where’s this going?
I turned from the window and looked at the framed family tree. “Yes. He’s an ancestor of mine.”
“You ever hear of Josephine Plaskett?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, softly. “There’s a tomb with her name on it near my family’s tomb.”
“I’m looking at it,” said Tiny.
“Why?”
“Cause my name is Tiny Plaskett. You’re my people, Miss Watts.”
I stared at the family tree and instantly pictured another beside it. “You’re a Plaskett? For real?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He laughed, a great warm jolly laugh. “Can you believe it?”
“It’s true then. Robard and Josephine?” I asked.
“You didn’t know for sure?”
My heart was beating hard. Nana would freak out. She loved family history stuff. “It was a family legend. You’re not…angry with me, are you?”
“About what?”
“Well, my ancestor sort of purchased yours. It’s not exactly the decent thing to do,” I said.
“Plaçage was okay then. Josephine was free and it was a contract, not a purchase.”
“But still…”
“We’ve got the deed,” he said.
“The deed to what?”
“Robard gave Josephine a house in the contract. My Aunt Willasteen lives there.”
I could hear a woman’s voice tittering away in the background. “That is so crazy. I’m in Robard’s house right now. You have to come over.” I gave him the address and Tiny said he was going to bring his aunt with him. He started naming Josephine’s children as they walked out of the cemetery in case I recognized the names. I walked around the sofa table to get a better look at the family tree and Blackie stalked out of the kitchen and hissed. A great big hiss, showing all his very pointy white teeth. This from the cat who never blinked. He went up in a stiff arch, but he wasn’t looking at me. I turned and froze. Outside Pop Pop’s bank of windows was man wearing a dark grey hoodie. A thrill of recognition went down my arms. He’d been in the parking garage at St. John’s. The confidence was the same. It was him. The man stared at me from the depths of the hood with malicious dark eyes and raised a brick.
I screamed and the window shattered.
“Mercy!” yelled Tiny.
I dropped the phone and scrambled backwards, hitting the sofa as he walked in through the still falling shards of glass. “Where is he?”
I went over the back of the sofa and fell painfully on my rump. He was on the sofa, looking down at me. “Where is he?”
“Who?” I asked, my mind a blank.
“Stevie.”
“Gone. I don’t know where. He left.” I scuttled back, hit the wall, and the family tree came off its nail and cracked me in the head. Dazed, I stared at him.
“Where is he?” He held up a knife, a small one with a four-inch blade.
“I don’t know!” I screamed.
He started over the sofa. I grabbed the heavy picture frame to shield myself, but Blackie launched himself at the man’s face. His claws were full out and struck him high on the cheeks. The man flipped back out of sight behind the sofa and I scrambled to my feet, looking for a weapon. There was nothing but sports magazines and furniture. I couldn’t paper cut him to death. Real weapon needed.
I dashed p
ast the sofa. It was either the stairs or the kitchen.
Knife or gun. Knife or gun. Gun.
I juked to the left and ran up the stairs, two at a time. Three million of my dad’s lessons went through my head. Don’t get yourself cornered was in there and repeated. No, I wasn’t cornered. I had a plan. My Mauser was still in my side table drawer. I hammered in the clip, racked the slide, and flipped off the safety in a half second, the way Dad forced me to practice it. Thank god I had the Mauser. It was so easy to arm. I ran back onto the landing, grabbed the bannister with my left hand and swung myself around to the stairs. I was down two before he appeared at the base.
“Stop!” I yelled, assuming the proper position, so well practiced.
Blood was streaming down his face in long gashes, but he smiled, reached down, and pulled a blue and silver hilt out of his pocket. A long stiletto ratcheted out with a mechanical snap and his smile widened.
“Stop now!” I screamed.
“You’re going to tell me where he is.”
“I don’t know!”
“You’re his best friend. You know.”
Best friend? Damnit, Stevie!
“But I’m not his best friend. I’m nothing to him.”
“Stevie came to you and now you’re going to tell me where he is.”
He ran up the stairs, his blade extended, and I shot him in the face. Very Scarlett O’Hara, except the movie got it all wrong, as usual. He kept coming for another three steps and I fired a second shot, missing him completely. Then his body stopped, frozen in the moment before he arched his spine and flipped backwards. He went ass over tea kettle, striking his head on the wooden stairs twice before landing at the foot of the stairs in a heap on Nana’s silk rug. It happened very fast and very slowly all at the same time. I remember it in great detail, the explosion of his facial features as my bullet struck, the blood spatter as it hit the wall, and smell of powder harsh and acidic in my nose as I watched him fall. My gun hand stayed out and I braced myself against the wooden bannister. My gun hand began to shake, but I didn’t feel it. I could only see the vibration, like the hand was attached to someone else entirely. If I dropped it, my weapon would roll down the stairs to my assailant. He looked quite dead, but you never know. I pressed the hot Mauser to my chest and stepped back up the stairs to grab onto the newel post. I clung to it, trying to think of what to do. I’d just killed someone. Dad never covered that at the gun range.
