“Can you pretend to be someone else?”
“Yes.” This all sounds like something I can do.
His hand drops from the top of my head down to the back of my neck where I’m sure he can feel the tension, pulled tight. I don’t know why I argued with him before, challenged him. He’s right. Messengers are like children—to be seen and not heard. I open my mouth to apologize but before I can say the words, he forces my fingers to close around the documents.
“I’m sorry, Victoria.”
“OK.” I can’t spend another minute here and retain any dignity—not that I have a lot of it left, but since it’s such a precious commodity, I want to keep what I have.
I try very hard to keep my steps even as I walk out of there despite wanting to run. I take each step down the stairs slowly and behind me I can feel his eyes all over my back, my ass, everywhere. This time it is his regret that weighs me down as I ride back to Queens.
CHAPTER 4
The breeze from the East River stinks as I bike across the Queensboro Bridge. But it feels good, and I still have the scent from Bruce Wayne lingering in my nose. I know that’s kind of illogical—that it’s not really his scent, only a memory of it—but it’s still there and I suck it in, holding my breath as if I can swallow it and make it part of me.
Then it hits me that I’m mooning over a guy who insulted me, apologized, and is involved in some fashion with my criminal-ass stepbrother. If anything belongs in the East River, it’s Malcolm and all his associates.
But shit, I don’t even have the right to be mad about this because I’m benefiting from all the illegal crap he’s involved with. Deciding I need to drown my thoughts, I crank up AWOLNATION and let the heavy metal guitar riffs occupy my attention as I bike the fifteen miles to the apartment.
I punch the button next to Malcolm’s name and he buzzes me up. This fourteen-story building is slightly run-down and in a not-so-great neighborhood, but you have to be where your customers are, says Malcolm. Given the number of times I have made deliveries to individuals living in apartments overlooking Central Park, I think he should move his offices into the city. But then I’m not part of the executive team. I’m merely the delivery girl.
“No go.” I slap the package into his chest when he opens the door. A quick glance inside the room reveals that his flunkies are gone. I turn to leave but he grabs my shirt and drags me inside.
“Not so fast. What do you mean, ‘no go’?”
“He said he couldn’t work with me, but he did write something on the papers.”
Malcolm keeps one hand on my shirt and drops the contract out onto the table with the other. Picking up the signature page, he curses. “Fuck you.”
“Hey,” I protest, finally wiggling out of his grip. “I delivered it. That was my only job. You’re the one who made the deal.”
He turns the contract to me and holds the paper up two inches from my eyes. “See this? Even you can read this. I know it.”
Like I told Bruce Wayne, I have a learning disability, but I’m not illiterate. I can read some, but it takes me a while, so I avoid it whenever possible.
“So he wrote ‘Fuck you.’ I assume that’s a message for you and not me.” But I’m dying inside because I know this means that Malcolm won’t help me. I wonder if he’ll even allow me to deliver for him.
He mashes the paper in my face a little too hard to be a joke. “Goddammit. I gave you one fucking job and you managed to fuck it up. It’s a wonder you could get a job even delivering packages, you stupid fuck.”
When I say I’m not ashamed of my learning disability, it doesn’t mean I’m immune to insults. Malcolm’s words sting badly, but I cover that pain by pretending he hurt my nose. He tosses the papers aside, and they flutter to the ground.
I don’t use Google because stuff is even harder to read on the computer than on paper. The letters don’t just swim on the page, they leap at me in 3-D, and it’s a real headache trying to figure out what their correct order is. Since I have a decent paying job, I’ve given up on trying to learn how to read. The only reason I even have a smartphone is that dispatch uses it to convey instructions, orally, to me.
I have a good memory, can read most street signs with practice, and can locate the majority of businesses by landmarks. I watch television, everything from comedies to documentaries, but I’m not a reader and never will be. I refuse to be ashamed about this, but I’m not dumb, which is the quality most people associate with the inability to read.
“I couldn’t force him to sign it,” I protest.
“Goddammit!” Stomping off into one of the two bedrooms, he releases a few more curses and then yells at me. “Don’t fucking leave. I’ve got another delivery for you.”
“Jesus. Fine.” Because I’m well acquainted with Malcolm’s hair-trigger temper being expressed primarily through slammed doors and shouts but no real violence, I take the opportunity to rifle through his refrigerator, which is surprisingly well stocked for a bachelor’s. He has cold pizza, cold Chinese food, and sandwich makings. “Can I have the leftover shrimp fried rice?” I yell.
He mumbles something that I assume is agreement. After the contents of the box are heated, I unhook the sides and lay the cardboard flat on the table. Malcolm and I discovered the magic of the Chinese takeout box when we were teens and have never eaten leftovers any other way.
He must have heard the completion ding of the microwave because he stomps out of the bedroom he uses as an office. Jerking out a drawer and grabbing another fork, he huffs onto a stool next to me and starts eating the leftovers. It’s like we are twelve and fourteen again, back before testosterone overtook Malcolm and turned him into an asshole.
Before then he was a Skylanders-playing, Pokémon-loving goofball. Somewhere around the end of fifteen, on the cusp of sixteen, he left it all behind to become this woman-hating, amoral jerk. Twelve years later, he’s perfected what he started—only now he’s a criminal, woman-hating, amoral jerk. I wonder idly whether Malcolm fits the profile of a sociopath.
“How’s Sophie?”
“She’s . . .” I start to say “fine,” but she’s not and I don’t know why I would pretend with him. “She’s hanging in there.” I push the food around.
“I can get Sophie some good weed. I’ve got a nice shipment in,” he offers. At my raised eyebrows, he shrugs. “I don’t hate her. Not anymore, I guess.”
Malcolm’s dad left his mom for my mom. If I’m objective, I can understand his dislike for us. But who the hell is rational when it comes to someone you love? Not me and not Malcolm either. Neither of us pays much attention to Mitch Hedder anymore. He walked out on my mom when I was sixteen and Malcolm was eighteen. The old man is a shiftless piece of work who inveigles his way into women’s lives and then ruins them.
I guess Malcolm thinks relationships are for suckers. He might be right. I’ve never been able to keep a man in my life.
“I found a place, but I need a cosigner for the apartment application. The on-the-books money I make isn’t enough to convince the landlord I can make rent, and I won’t make rent without the job.”
“Should’ve thought of that before you left Kerr’s, Tiny.”
I shift uncomfortably on my stool. I don’t want to go back to see Ian and not for any reasons associated with Malcolm’s situation. Ian Kerr is a danger to me. The only way I will stay safe is to maintain distance. In a city this big, with our massive economic differences, that should be pretty easy so long as my mother’s health doesn’t rest on a return visit.
“Sophie’s pretty sick,” I tell him. “She wants to stop the chemo and just . . .” I can’t say it. These last four weeks have been rough. “I need that money, Malcolm. If we had an elevator and she could go outside for a few minutes, it would make all the difference in the world.”
“Get Kerr to sign the papers then.”
“He
said you’ve sent three others to him and he’s turned them away.”
“Did he?” He shovels more food into his mouth.
I’m getting frustrated. “What is the big deal?”
“Don’t know,” Malcolm mumbles around some food. “But I figure if I had his signature on something, I could blackmail him in the future.”
“Jesus, Malcolm.” I hiss an indrawn breath. “What the hell? That sounds like a quick way to get yourself dumped in the East River.”
“Back at ya, sis. You’re a fucking hypocrite. You’re always busting my chops like working for me is totally beneath you, but you sure like the dough.” He pushes me another padded envelope and a wad of cash wrapped in a rubber band.
“It’s for my mom,” I protest.
“Please, save your situational morality for someone else. We all got mommy problems.” Malcolm scoffs bitterly. “Get Kerr’s signature and I’ll get you any damn apartment you want.”
There’s nothing else for me to say. I choke down the rest of the food even though I’m not hungry anymore. Returning to Ian’s place after he wrote “Fuck you” on the papers seems like a lost cause.
Malcolm’s other packages need to be delivered to the Upper East Side, and it’ll take me a while to get there. I pause for a moment to appreciate that my last delivery for Malcolm is close to home. He’s not always bad, I guess.
I drop off the package at a million-dollar townhouse two blocks off Fifth Avenue near the Guggenheim. The guy who accepts it comes out with mussed hair and lipstick all over his collar. I didn’t even know that happened in real life. Thought it was an old wives’ tale, used to scare men away from cheating on their partners—although from the looks of this guy, not an effective one. He empties the package right in front of me, shaking out a vial containing six pills and a sleeve of condoms. Ecstasy. I shake my head. Talk about stupid fucks. You start having sex on Ecstasy and it’s hard to back off.
“Tell Malcolm thanks,” the customer says.
“Will do.”
He slips me a ten-dollar bill and winks. “You ever get bored, come on back and try these out with me. I’m always up for new blood.”
I try to keep my lip from curling because this is one of Malcolm’s customers, and I’m being paid to overlook lewd come-ons along with the illegality of the packages.
“Thanks, but I’m taken,” I lie. “My boyfriend’s kind of a Neanderthal.” I glance furtively around as if I’m being followed. “He doesn’t even like when I talk to other dick.”
The customer leans out and looks around as well and then, after a moment of indecision, scurries back into his townhouse and shuts the door.
I head home. My feet feel more leaden the closer I get to my apartment. Every day, I dread coming home. Seeing her in pain is excruciating, but there’s always the possibility that the good-bye kiss I received that morning was the last one I’ll ever get.
When I walk into the apartment, there’s no sound but the soft snores of my mom and I breathe a sigh of relief as I set my bike down in the hallway. Then I feel guilty. I should want Mom to be awake so that we can talk about how our days went and what we’re going to do this weekend. Monday’s her chemo day, so by Saturday, she’s usually up on her feet and ready for an outing.
I’m thinking we should go to the Central Park Zoo and eat some ice cream. I duck into the bedroom and see that she’s fast asleep, a book spread across her chest. Quietly, I tiptoe over to her and lift the book off her chest. I tuck a bookmark into the page to save her place and then flick off the lamp. Leaning down, I give her a kiss.
The role reversal is striking. At twenty-five, I’m tucking my mom into bed and kissing her sleeping forehead. My throat tightens as I think about this bed being empty and me being alone in the world. Not yet though, I tell myself. She’s still with me.
I set aside the worry of the apartment situation and just try to hug that thought close.
CHAPTER 5
On my lunch break, I find myself in SoHo. I meant to go straight to Hudson to Ian’s place, but as I biked down Eighth Avenue my front wheel ended up in SoHo, in front of my favorite block of shops. In one store, the Bondoir, they sell handmade lace lingerie, the likes of which I will never be able to own. Next to it is Urban Adventures, where they sell the Dutch road bike I would sell my left arm to ride, although I’m not sure my arm would cover even the front tire.
I should be back at Ian’s place instead of here, one neighborhood over, mooning over stuff I won’t ever be able to afford. Every day that Mom is stuck in that damn apartment, she retreats deeper into herself. This morning she refused to get out of bed. But I can’t come up with a reason why he should hire me because I don’t even know what the stupid project is—other than that it requires a good memory and pretending to be someone else.
Do I need to dress up in a clown suit? Deliver a singing telegram? I’ll do almost anything. This morning was full of bad behavior. In addition to avoidance, I played a game of dodge with the cars. My mother would kill me if she knew I spent fifteen minutes seeing how many intersections I could beat the lights. Maybe I’ll tell her when I get home just to see if I can rile her up.
Hey Mom, almost got doored by three cars, and I lane split between a Mercedes and Bentley today, and I almost took the mirror off of three cabs. Saw my life flash before my eyes and . . .
God, what a shithead idea this is. To tell my cancer-stricken mother that I intentionally rode like a reckless fool down Manhattan? If she didn’t haul off and slap me, I’d be disappointed.
Rubbing a hand over my eyes, I try to calm myself. The stuff in the window looks gorgeous—all lace and silk. One of the ladies on the Real Housewives of New York name-dropped it, and now every time I’m down here, I stare at the goods through the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows. Don’t know why I torture myself like this; I couldn’t have afforded even a thong from this place when I didn’t have medical bills piling up like a plowed snowbank, but I like to look. Nothing wrong with looking.
I swing my bike helmet by its strap, and I’m so wrapped up in my shopping lust that I don’t even notice there’s someone beside me until his shadow looms over me.
“You have good taste.”
“Oh my god.” I hold my hand to my swiftly beating heart. It’s Ian. I’d recognize that smell, that voice anywhere. Today his superhero abs are covered in a light-gray T-shirt and jeans. He has some heavy brown boots on his feet and a big watch on his wrist. His brown hair is rumpled, like he just rolled out of bed. I bite down on my molars to keep from leaning forward and sniffing him.
“What are you doing here, stalker?” I sound shrill.
He’s amused. Again. Goddammit. Maybe his amused face is his pissed-off face. Or maybe he has only one expression. I don’t really know. I’m not like a body language expert. I’m a bike courier. I refuse to refer to myself as a drug mule.
“I’m here to buy a gift. Want to help me pick it out? I usually give the sales associate a tip, but that money can be yours.” His hand is on the door and I’m tempted.
“How much?” I’m swallowing back bile at the thought of some woman in his life getting lingerie picked out by him, but he’s offering me two things I want: time with him and money. I wonder if the gift is for the redheaded wig shop owner. Jealousy is a terrible taste.
He looks inside for a minute and then back at me. “Twenty percent of the gross receipts.”
Holy crap. Twenty percent of just one item could pay for dinner for a week if I was careful. I push down the jealousy and grab hold of opportunity. I gesture for him to open the door. “After you.”
A sales associate comes over before the door shuts behind us. She was probably watching the whole thing play out in front of the plate glass windows. “Can I help you?” She looks from him to me and back again, unsure of who she should suck up to.
“No thanks,” he says. Then he gives he
r that glorious smile, and she almost takes a step back under the power of it. It’s obvious he uses it as a weapon. He’s too knowing. I don’t like that about him at all. Knowing, arrogant, and engaged in criminal activities. All bad qualities.
“Pick anything you think she’d like.” He waves expansively at the walls. Bras and bralettes are hanging in a multitude of spring colors. All made of lace. There’s a ramp that leads downward to another section. I head back there just to get away from all the sales associates.
“What’s she like?”
“Hmm?” He sounds distracted, and I realize it’s because he’s looking at my ass. I clear my throat. So he’s knowing, arrogant, and unfaithful. He grins at me unrepentantly, and I mentally slot him right next to Malcolm in the jerk column. No wonder they are going to do business with each other.
“B cup,” he says, narrowing his eyes slightly.
“I asked what she is like, not her size.”
“Don’t you need to know her size?” His eyebrow is raised and it makes me feel stupid, which I hate.
“Do you want my help or do you just want to argue?” I snap.
His grin gets wider, if that was even possible, and his eyes are twinkling. Or it could just be the glint of the sun through the windows because eyes can’t really twinkle or dance. I move farther into the store so that I can get out of the sunlight, which is apparently so bright it’s causing me to see things. He follows me closely, as if he’s my loyal Labrador. As if.
“I want both,” he whispers behind me. When I whirl on him, he reels off a bunch of things in rapid fire. “I want colorful things, very sexy things, and also a few comfortable things. A whole wardrobe. I’m getting to know her, so I’m hopeful that something I buy will strike her fancy.”
Losing Control (Kerr Chronicles #1) Page 4
