by TM Frazier
I did what she said and realized what she had me looking at was two documents. A power of attorney and a last will and testament. Leaving every decision and every possession of Mirna’s to me. “What is all this?” I asked.
“You’ve given me so much, Samuel. This is me giving you the only things in this world I have left to give. I’d give everything to my Andrea, but it’s too much for her to handle right now on her own. There are some stipulations, but you don’t have to decide on them now. Not right away, anyway. Those copies are for you. Take them. Look them over.”
“Mirna, this isn’t why I…”
“I know. I know,” she said, opening the refrigerator. She cleared her throat, “Doesn’t Andrea look beautiful? The dress she was wearing today. That was mine you know.”
I stood up and rounded the counter planting a kiss on the top of her head. “She doesn’t hold a candle to you.”
She blushed and busied herself pulling plastic covered plates from the fridge and handing them to me. “Can you set these on the coffee table? The ladies from the church are on their way over for tea.”
I did what she asked and was about to go find Dre when Mirna handed me a clear syringe. “Do me a favor, Samuel, and give Andrea her vitamin shot for me? I need to go freshen up.”
“She can’t do it herself? Insert joke about her already knowing how to use a needle?”
She frowned. “That’s precisely why she SHOULDN’T be handling one.”
“Okay, you’re the boss, Mirna. One shot coming right up.” I had an idea. “Where do I give her this?”
“Any muscle, dear. It’s a bigger gauge then the one I’ve been using, so anything fleshy will work,” Mirna answered, flitting about the kitchen with a knowing smile on her face. She wiped her hands on a towel and tossed it into the sink. She patted my cheek as she passed me and went into her room.
I didn’t know what Mirna was up to, but I didn’t have time to think about that or the now overflowing file weighing me down, in more ways than one.
I held up the needle and smiled. I had a motherfucking job to do. I pushed open Dre’s door, without knocking. “Paging Dr. Clearwater.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DRE
“Where’s Mirna? Why isn’t she giving this to me?” I asked. I’d been lying on my stomach on the bed, flipping through the brochure for the assisted living facility Mirna was on the waiting list for, when Preppy barged in. It looked like a nice place but it wasn’t somewhere I thought she belonged.
Not yet, anyway.
“She’s getting ready for some ladies from church to come over, so she asked me to do it. Now, come on. Time to strip. You need some music? Make sure you start slow. Teasing is key,” he rambled.
“I don’t have to be naked to get a shot,” I argued.
“Well aren’t you just a fun-sucker.” Preppy held up the needle, smiling confidently. “Don’t worry, Doc. I’ve seen like three episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, so I’m practically a licensed doctor. Now, be a good girl and bend over, show Dr. Preppy that ass.”
“Mirna gives it to me in my arm.”
“This is a new one. Different needle gauge or some shit,” Preppy answered.
Reluctantly, I did what I was told, but only because I wasn’t feeling all that well and I knew the shot would make me feel better, regardless of where it was shot into.
I bent over the bed and hiked up my dress, dramatically. “You’re a horrible junkie and an even worse stripper,” Preppy commented. I felt his heat as he approached the bed. My lower spine tingled as his legs brushed up against mine. I held my breath and started counting in my head, when the sudden need to push back against him surged through me. My nipples tightened, and I was glad he couldn’t see my face because I was sure I was flushed. “Why does it have to be administered this way again?” I managed to choke out.
Preppy chuckled. “It doesn’t.”
Before I could push off the bed, he pulled the cotton of my panties over into my crack and plunged the needle deep into my skin. It burned, but only for a second. When he pulled it back out I went to get up, but he pushed me back down onto the mattress. “Got to make sure it goes into the muscle,” he said, his voice a deep rasp as he expertly massaged the injection site with his fingers in a circular motion that had me moaning inwardly, and even more mad at him all at the same time.
My breath caught in my throat when his hand started roaming over my ass cheek, slowly tracing circles on my skin, nowhere near the injection site, heading further and further toward the place between my legs that was suddenly tingling with awareness. “I love those fucking heels,” he said, his voice lower than I’d heard it before. Raspy.
Fucking heels. That could be taken so many different ways, but my mind couldn’t process any of them because his fingertips grazed the trim of my panties, just as Mirna walked in the room. I jumped up, covering myself again with the skirt of my dress. Where I was frantic and looked guilty, although I didn’t know what I felt guilty about, technically nothing happened, Preppy smiled and plopped down on the bed, bouncing on the mattress like a little kid.
“It’s not what it looks…” I started, but stopped when I noticed there was something different about Mirna, about the way she kept glancing from me to Preppy with her eyebrows drawn tightly together. The doorbell rang. “Samuel, when did you get here?” she asked. “And who’s your friend?”
* * *
PREPPY
Mirna sat with three ladies from her church in the living room. I stood behind Dre, who leaned up against the wall of the hallway just out of sight, listening to Mirna tell stories about her past as if they’d happened that very day and not decades before. With each passing minute Dre’s shoulders fell further and further as she watched her grandmother, in the grips of her dementia, introduce herself to women she’d known for decades.
“Why does she always remember you?” Dre asked, without turning around, a hint of jealousy in her voice.
I scratched my head. “Fuck if I know. When she’s like this she’ll forget an entire week’s worth of our interactions, people she’s known for fifty years, but she usually knows who I am. Your guess as to why is as good as mine.”
I came up to stand next to her, she brushed her hair from her eyes. “Come on,” I said, grabbing her hand. “I want to show you something.”
“But,” Dre glanced back at Mirna.
“Ladies,” I announced. “We are going to step out for a moment. You cool here for a bit?”
Hilda, a woman bigger than Bear, turned around and nodded. “Take your time. We’ll be fine.”
“Hear that? They’re having a lovely tea.” I grabbed Dre by the hand and pulled her out the front door to my car. I opened the door and gestured for her to get in, but she stood there staring at the passenger seat. “It’s not going to bite you,” I informed her.
Dre looked back at the house. “What if she needs me in there?”
“She’ll be fine. Get in, I have something I want to run by you.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
I was growing irritated. “Don’t pretend like you’re the doting grandchild now. You kind of missed the boat on that one.”
“Pretending?” she said, pointing at herself. “You’re the one who puts on this fucking act so you can get elderly women to do your bidding. You’re the one who’s pretending. Not me!”
“Careful,” I warned. “You don’t know a god damn thing about me, Doc.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I know you’ve got Mirna fooled into thinking that you’re some great guy she thinks is her savior, when you’re just using her to get what you want.”
“Guess you got me all figured out then,” I said sarcastically, rounding the car to the passenger side and closing the space between us. “Now get in the fucking car.”
She took a step back, as if she had to prove her defiance. “Does she really even know who you really are? And I’m not talking about the guy who makes her laugh and listens to her storie
s, I’m talking about the other side. The side I caught a glimpse of on the water tower.”
“You don’t know shit about me, and now you’ve just proved you don’t know shit about Mirna, either. Your grandmother’s got dementia, she’s not fucking stupid.”
“Does she know you killed Eric?” she asked, staring me right in the eyes, challenging me. Fully expecting me to tell her no.
I put on my shit eating grin. “She sure as fuck does, Doc.”
“Bullshit.” She put her hands on her hips.
“Mirna not only knows, but it’s been Granny approved, Doc. I have a feeling I could have taken out half of Logan’s Beach and she wouldn’t give a flying fuck as long as you were still alive, because unlike you, Mirna knows what family and loyalty is all about.” Dre’s eyes widened at my admission and her shoulders fell, but just for a second, before straightening again and assuming a defensive stance. “Wait, never mind, you do know something about loyalty if you count giving that shit-bag Conner a pass for some obscure reason you refuse to share. I mean, I could say you were loyal to heroin too, but here you are two whole weeks sober, one conscious, so I guess you fucked that bitch over, too.”
Dre drilled me with her eyes, her plump red lips a hard line. We were standing so close I could feel the warmth radiating off of her skin and smell her light flowery shampoo. “And you know so much about being loyal?”
“Fuck of a lot more than you do.”
“I don’t have to listen to this!” Dre shook her head. “You don’t know a fucking thing about me!” She turned back toward the house. I grabbed her wrist, digging my fingers into her flesh.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I said, spinning her back around.
“Let me go!” she said, arching her back and planting her feet for leverage, but it didn’t matter how hard she was pulling, I wasn’t letting go.
“No! Not until you tell me why you’re being such a fucking cunt right now.”
“Fuck you!” she spat, her face reddening as she pulled harder and harder.
“Always a possibility, Doc, but stay on the fucking subject.”
“You want to know why I’m being this way?” She stopped struggling and stepped up to me, so close she had to crane her neck. “You!” She jabbed her finger into my chest. “My problem is you! You grow your plants and make your confusing sarcastic remarks and think that because you’ve got this unique beautiful charm thing going on, and you smile a lot, that you can do whatever you want. Well, newsflash. You can’t. You got the old ladies fooled but you aren’t fooling me. You don’t own me.” She tried to wedge her fingers under my arms to loosen my grip.
I pulled her against me, roughly. I leaned down, my lips at her ear. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
“You think you’re better than me,” she said. “But you’re not.” Her voice took on a serious tone. She lowered her head and stepped back. I allowed her the space but didn’t let go of her. “When you’ve gotten what you want from Mirna, you’re gonna pack up and go without another thought for her or her feelings, and she’s going to worry about you when you’re gone. She’s going to hurt when she doesn’t know where you are.” Her step faltered. She dropped to the ground and looked up at me with glassy eyes. “And it’s all because you caused her a kind of hurt that you can’t take back.” I released her wrist, and she rubbed the red mark on her arm and looked to the ground, shuffling her feet.
“I don’t think we’re talking about me anymore, Doc.”
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about anymore,” she said, running her fingertips over the marks on her arms. “I did things. More than leading Conner and Eric here, knowing what they…what we intended to do. To my dad. To Mirna. I can’t erase what I put her through, but that’s all I think about.” She bit her bottom lip and shoved her hands into the pockets of her skirt, bringing the neckline down lower, exposing more of the top, rounded part of her tits.
“You’re talking about the checks?”
Her lips parted in surprise.
“Mirna told me,” I said, before she could ask. I purposely left out the other part Mirna had told me she knew. “I told you, she’s not stupid.”
Dre dropped her head to her knees. “What the fuck am I going to do now? I have to apologize.” She looked up to the house where Mirna was sitting by the window laughing with her friends, that glazed look easily noticeable even from the frontyard. “But I can’t.”
“Doc?”
She spun her head around and quirked a brow at my outstretched hand. I held the file in the other. “I think I know how we can help each other.”
“How?”
I crouched down in front of her. I tapped her on the forehead with the file. I flashed her my best reassuring smile. “First…” I brushed a curl off her shoulder, and she stiffened at my touch, “…you need to get your ass in the motherfucking car.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PREPPY
“Why is it so important to you to get King’s kid out of the system?” Dre asked after I explained to her the situation with King and Max.
“Because he can’t do shit while he’s locked up, and because he’s not just my best friend. He’s family, and family fights for one another,” I said, turning onto a dirt road. It was pitch-black out, and where we were at there was no such thing as streetlights. Thankfully, I could find the place we were going drunk, high, and naked.
And I have.
“You make it sound so simple,” she said.
“It is. When I was a kid there wasn’t anyone around to fight for me. My mom was a piece of shit and so was every single man who found their way into her fucking bedroom.” I shrugged like it was nothing, but I’d rather take a spike to the eye than talk about my childhood, but I needed Dre to understand the situation. “She was a junkie, a loser, a deplorable human being. I learned from her. She was a walking ‘what not to do’ guide to family.”
“A junkie loser,” Dre repeated softly, looking out the window.
“Ain’t no other way to describe her because that’s exactly what she was,” I said.
“Go on.”
I tapped my fingers to the beat of the Kane Brown song playing on the radio. “Mommy dearest was the worst of the worst, and not like she outright beat me or anything, but she wasn’t exactly a member of the PTA. There was this one guy that she married, well maybe she married him, she called him my stepdad, but I don’t remember a wedding or anything. Anyway, his name was Tim, he was the worst of them all.”
“What did he do?” she asked, hesitantly, no longer looking out the window but at me.
I cracked my jaw as I recalled the day King walked in and found Tim rutting into me like a fucking barnyard pig. “He beat the living shit out of me…amongst other things.”
I heard her sharp intake of breath.
“Don’t pity me.” I glanced over at Dre, who was picking at her nails and looking down at her lap. “I sure as shit don’t. Listen, life isn’t about what happened to you in your past, it’s about where you are now and where you’re going. Onward and upward and all that jazz.”
“That’s very poetic,” Dre said. “But I’m surprised you moved on without seeking justice or revenge.”
I smirked. “Oh, I got revenge. That fucker is very VERY…let’s just say what he is rhymes with, shed.”
“How?” She shifted so she was sitting sideways. I leaned into her as well, until I was only inches from her face.
“That’s not important,” I said, not able to help my smile as I recalled a teenaged King taking that fucker out of this world, like the fucking trash he was.
“That’s actually kind of extraordinary,” Dre said after a long pause, her words taking me by surprise.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because, most people wouldn’t be able to recover from something that crippling.” And again, I didn’t know if she was talking about me or herself.
I scoffed. “Nah, I just don’t let what that cocksucker did di
ctate my life. If I do, then he wins. Besides, him and my mom made my life so fucking miserable that now I appreciate every damn good thing that comes my way, and even some of the bad. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have recognized King as my brother that first day on the playground at school, or taken to Grace when she showed a kid wearing wrinkled pants a bit of kindness.”
“WRINKLED pants?” Dre asked, dramatically opening her mouth in mock surprise, and my mind immediately went to something else she could do with those lips that could make her gasp.
Or gag.
I cleared my throat and looked away. “Yeah, now THAT would probably go down as the biggest tragedy of my childhood. By far.”
Dre giggled, and the sound did something to suck the heaviness from the air like a vacuum.
I pulled in between two pine trees and killed the engine, leaving the radio on. I flipped off my headlights and the still waters of the Caloosahatchee appeared spread out in front of us. To the right was the causeway, its high back out of the water like the Loch Ness monster doing stretches. The shore, on the other side of the river, twinkled with lights from hotels and condos. Occasionally, a set of headlights would appear from the other side and travel over the causeway like a slow moving shooting star over the beasts back.
“It’s beautiful here,” Dre said, leaning over the dashboard and looking out over the water. “I forgot how much I love it here. My summers here with Mirna were the best of my life.”
“Me too,” I admitted.
She sighed and sat back against the seat. “So you need to get Max out of the system. How exactly can I help with that?”
I picked the file up from my center console and set it on her lap. I leaned over to her with my chin resting just above her shoulder. I wet my thumb on my tongue when a few of the pages wanted to be assholes and stick together. When I got them separated I plucked the paper I needed out of the file and held it up, only to find Dre staring at my mouth when I handed it to her. “What?”
She put her hands on the seat and shifted like she couldn’t get comfortable. “Nothing,” she said, pointing down to the file again. “What is all this?”
