by Maggie Way
“That’s just what I need you to understand. You won't always be here, but I will. I'll take care of myself and my friends will always help me.”
“You won't be here, baby, you’ll be in San Diego.”
She started to object, but I cut her short. “I realize you'll make new friends, because you're good to people. Because you believe in them and because they believe in you.”
She shook her head, drew in a deep breath and expelled it slowly.
“I know all that. But, Con, I also hear what you're not saying. Deep down you think you're the one who can keep me safe, who can keep us safe.”
No way to deny that. She knew me too well.
“You’re partially right. You’re more than capable of knocking down the bad guys and taking away any of my pain… of course you are. But there’s one problem. Your job, it’s important and you won't always be with me.”
“Yeah, but –”
Her soft, warm fingertip blocked my objection. She took a long, bracing breath.
“You know I've always been alone. Sure, my mom was there, physically anyway. But when Dad left, maybe even before he left, she spiraled down. She drank to forget and she drank to be numb.”
I nodded. She was on a role, and the vehemence in her tone kept me from interrupting. My fingers wandered while I took in her words. They slid across her collarbone, and brushed her hair back so I could see her birthmark, a tiny moon shape, just hugging the curve of her shoulder.
Instead I saw bruising, deep purple marks that stoked up my desire to kill the punk who’d hurt her.
“Then there’s Lexi. Most people think having a twin would be great. Not always. Her acting out took a toll. All the hooking up with guys and the bouncing from job to job because she was too busy partying, it was hard. She forced responsibility on me by her refusal to stick with anything to make it work.”
She lifted my hand away and wrapped it in her own.
“But I did, Con. I do. I stick, and I'm strong. I dragged Lexi and I though grade school, then high school, then college. I did it alone, and I can do it again. At least now I’ll have you, helping where you can, calling when you can’t, and loving me throughout.”
I kissed her then, a real kiss, long and lingering, and full of love and hope for our future. We were quiet after that, neither of us sleeping. Her heartbeat synchronized with mine as if we were two parts of one whole. Our connection and the natural harmony of our bodies was surreal and perfect. I’d never felt anything like it.
She reached up and stroked one hand down the stubble on my jaw, her gaze lingering over my every feature.
“You can go wherever your job demands,” she promised. I'll be right there waiting when you come home. I need you to understand I'm strong.”
The crease between her eyes and the pinched look around her mouth were at odds with her gentle touch. She was asking for more.
So I dug deeper.
“Baby, sometimes I just get, I don't know, crazy. The need to keep you safe — it overwhelms me.”
Her light laugh unwound something tight in my chest and fresh oxygen rushed into my lungs, cool and crisp and invigorating.
“I’m sure that happens to most of the married guys.”
“Maybe it’s just this week, because of the crime and the crazy. But I doubt it. It feels bigger, more menacing. Like this worry will chase me, a hungry shark stalking me across the globe.”
Her eyes glistened and threatened tears, but I muddled on. She wants to know.
“Right now at least, I need to know everything is okay with you. Even when I can’t be here. The urge to protect, that fear for your safety… Honestly I'm not sure what to do with those emotions. Before I met you, I didn't have to worry about what could happen while I was gone. Now I wonder if I should fight so far away.”
“I understand what you're saying. But for me, your need to protect, your belief that you're the only one who can… It hurts me. It says you don't trust me. You don't believe in me. You don’t have faith that I can make good decisions, or take care of myself.” Her voice broke and she pushed her hand over her mouth, blocking her feelings inside.
Regret punched me in the gut.
“Baby, I know you’re strong.”
I almost missed her soft whisper. “You aren’t acting like it.”
I stroked my finger over her worry-frown and up across the arch of one eyebrow. Long lashes blinked slowly as she stared through my pupils and into my soul.
In that moment I wanted to give her anything, everything. “I love you so much.”
“And I love you, but you're not going to be with me – not every day, and certainly not every month.” My gut twisted and I squirmed before I realized it wasn’t about my comfort. She needed something from me, and I wasn’t sure how to give it to her.
“I need you to find a way to trust me, because without that, we have no foundation on which to build. I won’t become my mother. I refuse to turn inward and focus on everything I can't control and nothing I can. I won't become my sister, flitting from one distraction to the next. I need to stand strong, both with you and on my own.”
“And you will, you do.”
Her shoulders slumped and her face blanked.
She isn’t buying it.
“Most of all, I don't want to cut myself off from other people. All around us there are helpers. People who will toss in and pull their fair share or more, just because it's the right thing to do. People like you, and different, the ones who chose to fight their battles at home.”
People like Diaz?
“I have those people and I have you and one does not exclude the other. You’ll be in my heart through it all, keeping me strong until we're together again.”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” My words came out sharper than I intended.
She pushed up to sit and glared down at me. “Don’t just give this lip service. You need to really think about this. If you can't come to terms with this overbearing desire to protect, if you can't understand my viewpoint, we’re not going to make it as a married couple.”
The jab of her warning hit me as hard as if she’d actually bloodied my nose.
“When things get hard, it'll fall apart.”
No, no way.
“And I love you too much to do that to either of us.”
I reached for her hands, but she pulled away and stood beside the bed. Her back was to me, her voice was low, but I heard the shout in her demand. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before we make this thing between us permanent. I’m only marrying once, and I love you, but I need you to knuckle down and be in this with me figuring this out.”
Shock froze my words as I processed what she meant.
She turned to face me. “I can't change this alone, and I don't want to. Promise me you'll spend every day of the next five months working with me on this. Because when I walk down that aisle and commit myself to you for the rest of our lives, we both need to be sure. We have to know that we're better together, that we make each other stronger. Right now I can’t say that.”
Tears trickled down her face as she uttered her last words. “If this was the weekend of our wedding, I’d be walking away, because love shouldn’t ever cause pain and worry and fear.”
Without knowing it, she’d just called “fire in the hole” and tossed a grenade into my plan, into my heart — Bu-Bam.
Chapter Six
Vivi
Powdered sugar was the devil. Its glistening white sparkle made it virtually irresistible, especially when sprinkled across the golden pillows of beignet goodness, which would go straight to my hips. Evil or not, that's how Marianna and I started the day. We lounged on the steps of the St. Louis Cathedral at the top of Jackson Square, watching artists peddle their wares and street dancers entertain the crowd.
“Check her out.” I turned towards where Marianna pointed just in time to see a tourist slap her husband's face at a tarot card reading table.
“I wonder what she found out.”<
br />
I giggled.
We’d started shopping early today, having only a few hours before our final dress fittings for my gown and her maid of honor dress. Final unless the beignets and goodness knows what other goodies we’d have this weekend went straight to our hips. Better ask Anna to leave a healthy seam allowance. A seamstress in Houston would have been more convenient for me, but we both liked the lady we’d always used in New Orleans, so we stuck with her.
“Finish it up, girl, the shops are calling.” She stood and a dust cloud of powdered sugar followed her. Carelessly, she swept it away, wiped her mouth with the back of one hand, and grinned down at me. I loved her.
“Come on, I’ve got an experience like no other for you. We’re going to that shoe store I told you about. The high-end one. Remember the picture I sent you of the multi-colored beaded pumps? Pure brilliance. Sure, they cost $2,000, but wait until you see them. They have other brands too, not just the really high-end stuff. Last time I walked by they had these stunning purple and green sling-backs in the window.”
She held her palm up to halt any objections. As if I could get a word in.
“I know it sounds crazy, but those shoes are awesome. I think I'm going to purchase them today.”
“You waited? Since when do you wait to buy shoes?”
“I know, right? I was having an off day, I guess. But I’m not kidding, you’re going to die when you see them. There's also this great new knitting shop.”
I coughed on the café au lait I was sipping. “Knitting?”
She was two paces ahead of me, and I swear she looked like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada at that moment.
“You don't need yarn, I know, but just come with me. You’ll see. The skeins of yarn with all those beautiful colors and the textures, well it's almost orgasmic. I swear when I'm eighty-five, I’m going to learn to knit and it’s going to be because of that store. Mark my words.”
Soon, we were inside the shoe shop, trying on just about everything in our size. Marianna stood in front of a floor length mirror, inspecting the purple sling-backs.
While I watched her, my mind drifted. I needed another opinion — one to help me clarify my thoughts and separate them from the swirl of emotions threatening to implode.
“Do you think I’m being unreasonable in wanting Con to acknowledge I’ll be okay even when he’s not around? I mean, it's probably some kind of genetic trait making him think there can only be one protector.”
“Probably, but you can't let him get away with that shit. He has to know you can stand on your own two feet. It’s all well and… well, sexy as hell for you to let him be the big, bad Navy SEAL, but, honestly, he won't always be there. What I know is you're one of the most capable women around. Look what you've already gone through with your mom and Lexi. Not everyone can come out of that family history as balanced and sane as you have.”
“I know.” My friend was a bona fide truth-talker.
“Right. Well, when you marry someone they should know you. I mean really know all the parts of you, or at least have a start on it. Let's face it, you also learn over time and have years together to figure each other out completely. But the big stuff, you need to know that now. Like right now — today.”
She squeaked and turned away.
“Did you just squeak?”
She waved me off and picked up some cotton candy peep toes, which sparkled with thousands of tiny star shaped rhinestones. “Frankly, with him traveling all those missions, his time away is going to put a strain on things. You two need to be rock solid on the basics and extra committed. The love part, you've already got that, but the work, from what I hear, that takes time and it takes both of you pitching in wanting the same outcomes. Stick to your guns, girl.”
I leaned in and hugged her. There was just something about a best friend that made the hard conversations easy. It wasn't always that way with Con, but in other ways it was so much better. We just needed practice and we needed to communicate. We have time.
Marianna and I spent the morning walking along the sidewalk of The Quarter, under the iron galleys and the balconies above. We laughed and shopped and I even let her convince me to try a yard of chocolate banana daiquiri. “It’s five o’clock somewhere,” and, “it’s so gloriously long and hard,” from her were all it took to set me off, and soon we were giggling and acting like tipsy teenagers.
Until we heard the shout.
It came from an alley just up ahead. “Dial 911,” I hollered, and she scrambled for her phone while I ran to the corner to see what was happening. A young girl was pressed up against the back of the alley, blocked in by two straggly haired men in dirty jeans and torn t-shirts. One of them loomed over her and had her pinned against the brick wall. The other was cheering him on. The pale coed was clearly terrified, and there was no way I could leave her there alone.
I could hear Marianna behind me. “Get them here NOW. This thing is going south.”
I ran down the alley and yelled, “Let her go!”
The bystander turned to face me, and he wasn't right. I could see in his eyes he was high on something. A shiver of fear raced down my spine, but I was committed. No way was I letting the girl get raped or robbed or whatever the hell they had planned. The small blonde struggled against the much bigger man, but couldn't get a hold on him. I couldn’t get to the two of them, not with the other man blocking my way.
He stepped towards me, spreading his arms out by his side and stopped as if certain he could take me down easily, but he was wrong. I still remembered one or two things from and informal self-defense forum I’d followed in college. As he approached, I bolted towards him and slid to the ground – slide tackling I’d heard it called on televised soccer matches. My body weight knocked his feet out from under him and momentum kept me moving towards the back of the alley.
I hit the pavement hard going down, but bounced back up. I was cornered now, but one was down, at least temporarily. The other guy glanced over his shoulder, distracted by the noise and commotion behind him.
“Stop. Don’t hurt her!” I yelled as loud as possible as I ran towards the bigger guy who was holding the girl.
I swung my purse up over my head and around like a mace before whacking him in the ear. He went down sideways to one knee, and the girl found her feet and scrambled away from under the man’s beefy arms. She should’ve run, but to her credit she reached down to grab a brick she must've already spotted. She picked it up and slammed it into the back of the guy’s head. A glancing blow, but it was better than nothing.
I was already moving towards the other attacker. No way were these guys going to hurt either her or me or any other woman today. I’d had about enough of these bastards in the French Quarter. I loved this town, and guys like this… they were screwing it up for everyone. But not today.
The first guy was on his feet heading towards me again, more prepared than before, but still off-balance. His thinking appeared muddled by whatever drug concoction he was on, but then I saw the knife.
“He’s got a knife, Vivi!” Marianna was still on the phone and was cussing someone. If I knew my girl, she’d throw herself into the fray at any second. She screamed something at me, but I couldn't answer.
He charged me, swinging that six inch blade like it was a battle axe, but I was faster. I feigned left just as he came slamming towards me, and he couldn't stop. He hit the wall and the knife clattered from his hand, skidding across the cobblestone alley. I scrambled over to it, kicking it farther away, down the alley towards Marianna. I hoped she’d pick it up so he couldn’t recover it.
I turned back to the girl. The man who was built like a truck had ahold of her again. He was on his knees, pulling her down by the waist of her jeans while she kicked him and pounded on his head and shoulders. She wasn't making a dent because he was in blood rage.
I had to help. I ran towards him with my arms out to one side, fingers clasped together. I caught him off guard, slamming his head like a baseball, r
ight on his ear. He roared but he didn't get up, not right away. I grabbed the girl by the hand and she managed to dislodge herself from his fist.
We ran, but the wiry one was staggering in the center of the alley again, trying to block us. “Hunch down, like a football tackle,” I commanded. “Stay against that wall.” I pointed left.
We charged together, her to the left and me to his right. Our shoulders hit him simultaneously. The combination of our dual hit and his confusion over which of us to confront allowed us to make it by him and out to the street.
Just then, two cops rolled around the corner on bicycles already halfway out of the saddle running towards us. They shouted, “Stay back,” as they turned sharply into the ally. Shouts of “Get down,” and, “Stay down,” told me they’d caught their prey. The first cop came back out of the alley and waved us over to stand along the wall and bring them up to speed.
I could tell the girl wanted nothing but to escape, so I took her hand.
“It'll be okay. It's going to be okay now.”
She looked at me with huge, watering eyes, one of which was already turning black and blue, clutching her ripped blouse to cover one breast. I saw the fear then, as it crashed over her, a tsunami of emotion. She leaned into me and sobbed.
Con
I pushed my way through the double glass doors into Spiriteaux and found Gil sitting in his normal seat at the bar. This time an enormous club sandwich sat half eaten in front of him.
“You just missed them.”
I grabbed the seat next to him, looking around for the bartender.
“Who?”
“Marianna and Vivi.”
I snagged his pickle and crunched down the snack, which was as sour as my mood. “Were they loaded with boxes and bags and packages? They’ve been out shopping since eight in the morning.”
“That's not all they’ve been doing. Your girl, she's a regular crime magnet.”
“Explain.”
“You didn't hear? I thought she'd called you.”
