by Beth Yarnall
There must be something seriously wrong with me.
She pulls up in what my dad would call a reliable sedan. The kind of car he gets for my mom. It doesn’t fit what I’d pictured Lila driving and yet it does. No nonsense. Dependable. Stable. That’s her. I wonder what she’d look like in my truck. She’d probably take one look at my jacked up truck and make some comment about how I was compensating for something. I like big trucks with maxed out rims and big, fat tires. Sitting up high above the rest of traffic with my wrist slung over the top of the steering wheel, gives me an indescribably high. I bought one of my mom’s cast-off cars for surveillance to help me blend in, but it’s boring to drive.
I climb in the passenger seat and look over at Lila. She’s got tight jeans on with boots and a sweater that is doing amazing things for her tits. Damn. I hadn’t realized how stacked she was. Her long black hair is down. Double damn. It’s shiny and thick and I have to shove my hand under my thigh to keep from reaching over to touch it. She smells good too. Spicy. Sexy. Mouthwatering. I didn’t notice that yesterday. I want to lean over and nuzzle her neck just under her ear where the scent will probably be strongest.
This is going to be a long ass car ride.
“Hey,” I say, thankful it didn’t come out as an embarrassing squeak, and praying my deodorant is doing its job.
“Hey.” She gives me a cursory once over and I can’t tell a damn thing from her expression. “I passed a Starbucks a block or so back. That okay?”
“Sure.”
She waits until I’ve buckled my seatbelt before checking her mirror and pulling back out onto the street. I direct her to Starbucks and we place our individual orders. She gets one of those sweet coffee drinks with about twelve kinds of syrups pumped into it and sauces zigzagged up the side of the cup. It’s topped with whipped cream and sprinkles. Just looking at it makes the roof of my mouth itch. I get my usual Café Americano and we’re back on the road again. I point her toward the freeway and join the scant few folks who didn’t get to sleep in on a Saturday.
Her radio’s tuned to some classical music station. Not too loud. Between that and the hum of the tires on the road I’m glad we stopped for coffee or else I’d be nodding off. I stayed up late last night pouring over Carla’s case and making a list of questions I want to ask her. I secretly hope all of my work will impress Lila. Dumb, huh?
“Have you met Carla before?” I ask, needing the conversation to keep myself awake.
“No. This will be the first time. I spoke to her on the phone right after I got assigned her case, but we didn’t get into any more than the barest introductions.” There’s a pause. “She cried.”
Lila’s profile is partially obscured by her hair, but the slight tremor on the word cried lets me know how affected she was by that one, brief phone call. It’s clear this case has some kind of special meaning for her. If I can crack what that is I might have a shot at cracking the mystery that is Lila. World-class poker players have nothing on her. She’s stone-faced and placid as calm water. Is she really that composed or is it a well-honed façade?
“I hope we find a way to get her released. The sooner the better. She really got screwed over by the system.”
She flickers a glance my direction like something I said surprised her. “Yeah. She did.”
“I made an appointment at four o’clock today with Debbie Martin, the defense attorney’s wife. She’s still living in their house. I’m hoping she’ll let us go through his home office. There might be a duplicate copy of the work he did on Carla’s case. Or maybe some notes or something. I hope that’s okay. I wasn’t sure if you had plans…”
“You could’ve texted and asked. But no, I don’t.”
“I wasn’t sure of the protocol here.” God I sound lame. Like a giant doofus.
“If it’s about the case you can text me anytime, okay?”
I nod which is dumb because her eyes are on the road so she can’t see me. She looks over at me again a little longer this time. I wish she’d turn the AC on. It’s freakin’ hot in here. Every time I inhale I take her in scent, which is damn distracting. Her hands rest lightly on the wheel at ten and two just like she was probably taught in driver’s ed. She checks her mirrors at regular intervals and signals every lane change. She’s the poster child for proper driving. A rule follower to the max.
She’s short so her seat is pulled all the way forward, practically cramming her up against the wheel. Her breasts brush it every time she looks over her shoulder to make a lane change. I wonder if it’s the friction that made her nipples hard or something else. It sure as heck isn’t the temperature in here. Is it getting hotter? I could swear the heat just went up a couple of degrees. I rub my sweaty palms on my jeans. She notices the movement.
“Do you mind if I crack the window?” I ask.
She hits the buttons and both of our windows go down a couple inches.
“Thanks.”
“Sure.”
I resist the urge to sniff myself because I know she didn’t roll hers down because she’s hot. Damn. I probably stink. We ride in silence for a while. The cool air is helping. I can’t smell her as much anymore and I finally stop sweating like beast. To refocus my mind I take out the list of questions I have for Carla. One of the biggest is what was she doing when her son died? Why didn’t she notice he had the elastic cord around his neck and was slowly suffocating to death?
I’m not sure how to present the question without accusation. Because there’s a big truckload of blame to lay at her feet. She was the adult in charge. She should’ve noticed something. At least the silence. Kids are loud. I know that from spending five minutes with my cousin’s kids at Christmas. What was she doing that she didn’t realize that her kid was unusually quiet? Why did it take her so long to reach him that the paramedics couldn’t revive him either at the scene or in route to the hospital? The doctors didn’t have any better luck. They called his death shortly after he arrived at the hospital.
Diego died in the same small, crappy apartment in the next room from where his mother supposedly was. It was too early for him to have been in bed. Why was he in that room alone with the door closed? It just doesn’t add up for me. How do I get answers to my questions without sounding like one of the cops who coerced her into confessing? And how do I do it in front of Lila? Especially given how close she seems to be to this case.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and Lila will ask them for me. Ha. I wish.
“Are those your notes on the case?”
I look up to find Lila glancing back and forth between the road and the notebook resting on my thighs. I know she’s trying to get a peek at my notes, but the thought that she’s interested in anything in and around my lap has me shifting in my seat.
“Ah, yeah,” I say.
“Tell me about them.”
“They’re questions really. That I was thinking about asking Carla.”
She makes a motion with one of her hands, taking it off the wheel momentarily, that invites me to elaborate. Here goes nothing.
“I was wondering what Carla was doing when Diego died.” There. It’s out. I wait for what comes next—censure, anger, annoyance. I just don’t know.
“I have the same question myself. Since Carla didn’t testify at trial no one asked her that.”
I relax a little in my seat. “Why was Diego in a closed room alone? It was too late for a nap and too early for bed. Not that I know much about kids, but nine o’clock in the morning seems like a strange time to put a kid down. Why didn’t she check on him until it was too late to save him?”
She nods, her lips pressed into a grim line. “Yeah. I had the same thoughts.”
“Any guesses?”
“One or two, but I’d prefer to hear it from Carla.”
I want to ask her what her guesses are, but if she were going to share she already would’ve.
She gives my notes another look. “What other questions do you have?”
“I was wondering why
her kid wasn’t in school. I mean, aren’t most four year olds in preschool or something?”
“That’s a very privileged thing to say.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that most immigrants don’t make enough to pay for preschool. They’re too busy trying to feed their kids.”
“You’re twisting my words, making me sound like a racist.”
“Which is exactly the kind of thing a racist says.”
I shift toward her in my seat. Is she serious? “Are you serious? Is that what you assume about me from the what? two hours we’ve known each other?”
“No. I got it from the racist thing you just said.”
“I was in no way being a racist. Ignorant of immigrant issues, yes. But not a racist.” Now I’m getting hot for a whole other reason. “You’ve got a chip on your shoulder the size of Texas, you know that? Don’t project your issues onto me. You don’t know anything about me.”
“My issues?”
“Your issues. Maybe you’re the racist here.”
She jerks the wheel changing lanes so suddenly I have to grip the door handle to keep from tipping over into her lap. We swerve across the three lanes to the shoulder where she brings the car to an abrupt stop, making my seatbelt tighten as I jerk forward then back in my seat.
“What the hell was that?” I demand.
“Where do you get off calling me a racist?”
“Where do you get off calling me a racist?”
She twists in her seat. Air puffs in and out between her lips as her chest rises and falls, making her breasts swell up and down. Her cheeks are red and her dark eyes narrow at me. Whoa is she hot.
“Don’t say racist things if you don’t want to be called a racist,” she grinds out.
“I’ll take my licks when I deserve them, but you’re way out of line here. I don’t know who screwed you over or how, but don’t take it out on me. It was an honest, if ignorant, question. We’re not going to get anywhere on this case if you turn on me every time I say something stupid. Because I can guarantee that I’m going to say a lot of stupid things by the time we’re done here.”
Her lips part in surprise. A truck honks its horn at us as it passes. Several beats go by with us glaring at each other. We’re close enough that I can smell the sweet coffee drink on her breath and see myself in her dark, reflective eyes. There’s a lot going on behind them. What is she thinking?
I don’t have to wait long to find out.
“You’re honest.” A corner of her lips tilts up. “I like that.”
“Are we good now?”
“Good enough.” She sits back in her seat and pulls the car back onto the freeway.
I have no idea what just happened or why, but I think I passed some kind of test with her. Which is pretty dang ironic since I’ve never been very good at tests. Especially given by a woman I’m interested in.
Hmm. Okay. I’m interested interested in her. Weird. I’m not sure I even like her. Especially after what just happened. She might be slightly insane. Which is probably why I’m attracted to her. I’ve been known to date women who are somewhat unstable. It’s a thing with me. Which is why I haven’t dated much lately.
My last girlfriend showed up at my apartment and asked if her boyfriend could stay at my place while he visited her because she lived with her parents and they still thought she was a virgin. Yeah. That’s right. My girlfriend’s boyfriend. She stopped being my girlfriend the second I slammed my front door in their faces. Unbalanced. Unpredictable. Unsuitable. Unattainable. Unyeilding. And all of the other un adjectives. The more un-y they are the more I seem to like them. Lila may as well be wearing a big giant UN on her forehead.
Man she’s pretty though.
A short time later we pull up the prison and park. Lila gets out of the car without a word, goes around to the trunk, and opens it. I follow her not knowing what else to do.
“Empty your pockets and put everything inside,” she says as she powers off her phone. “We can’t take anything into the prison so we may as well leave everything here. Shut your phone off so it doesn’t ring and announce to would-be thieves that there’s something more than the spare in here.”
I do as she says, digging everything out of my pockets. I’m in the process of turning my phone off when something moves out of the corner of my eye.
“Plan on getting lucky some time today?” Lila twirls a condom between her fingers, flashing it back and forth.
I snatch it out of her hand. “A scout is always prepared.” I drop it back into the pile with the rest of my stuff and slam the trunk closed.
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“The car key is in the trunk. How are we going to get out of here?”
“Call Triple—shit! Our cell phones.”
She drops her head back and stares up at the sky. “What did I do? What could I possibly have done to deserve this?”
“It was an accident. And who leaves the keys to the car in the trunk?”
She glares at me. “The person with the keyless remote in her purse. That’s who.”
“I’m sure there’s a phone we can use to call roadside assistance.”
“That would be fine except they usually want the card number when you call. Mine’s in my purse in the trunk. Where’s yours?”
I close my eyes and lower my head. “In my wallet. In the trunk.”
“Yup.”
I mentioned that I’m kind of a fuck up, didn’t I?
4
Lila
I felt really bad about the stupid fight I had with Nolan on the way out to the prison right up until he locked the keys in the trunk of the car. I’m kind of sensitive to subversive racism. The overt stuff I can handle. It’s the double-meaning comments, the subtle injustice of being treated slightly differently that drives me nuts. It happens so down low that most people don’t even know it’s happening.
Like the time when my grocery store had a vodka tasting. The sign clearly indicated that they would card everyone who tasted. I was standing close by trying to choose a wine for a dinner party. A blond woman came up for a taste. The woman giving out the samples was very chatty with her. Then a black woman who was clearly older than the blond woman approached the table. The sample lady carded the black woman. She never carded the white woman. See what I mean? Subtle. Subversive. But there all the same.
That’s the kind of discrimination I can’t abide. It’s what keeps minorities like me—like Carla—on the other side of the line. Most people will probably think I’m being overly sensitive, looking for something that’s just not there. But it’s there. It’s always there.
I know Nolan didn’t mean his comment the way I took it. He’s not a bad guy. A little goofy. Maybe a little absent-minded. I can tell he wants to be helpful. He’s driven in a way he doesn’t have to be. After all, there’s no money in this case for him. He’s not getting paid a cent to be here with me today or for any of the work he’ll do. I need to remember that and stop being so hard on him. He doesn’t deserve it. It doesn’t hurt that he’s earnest and cute. Not really my type physically, but there’s something about him that seems to light a fire in me. Maybe that’s why I’ve been such a bitch to him. Distance. That’s what I’m trying to get here. Distance and perspective.
I sigh inwardly and vow to not be so rigid and quick to draw the wrong conclusions with him. It’s not really his fault about the key in the trunk either. I embarrassed him. What was that thing he said about it? Oh, yeah.
“You were a boy scout?” I ask, trying not to check out his ass as he bends over to see if there’s anyway he can open the trunk.
“Mmm. Eagle Scout.”
“So you know how to do stuff like start a fire and pitch a tent.”
He glances up at me and I realize the double meaning in my words. My whole face goes hot.
“I didn’t mean… I mean you can do survival stuff,” I stammer.
“Yeah.” He strai
ghtens, leaning a hand on the trunk. “If we’re ever stranded in the woods I gotchya. What I don’t have is a way to open the car.”
“If we can borrow a phone I can see if my sister can drive up with the spare key.”
“You don’t have that service where they can unlock your car by satellite, do you?”
“No. I didn’t want to pay extra for that.”
He nods. “I’m sorry I got us stranded here.”
“I’m sorry I teased you about the condom.”
“I carry it more out of habit than a necessity. Especially lately.”
It’s the second time he’s mentioned being unattached since I met him. I’m not sure what to make of it except I’m happier about the reminder than I should be. He’s interested and not being very subtle about it.
“I know what you mean,” I say quietly.
“Yeah?”
I nod. My gaze catches on his lips, which are unexpectedly fuller than most guy’s. There’s a pull between us, an invisible thread that seems to connect us. I can feel it getting tighter and shorter as he leans in. Or is that me? I put a hand on his chest to steady myself. Beneath my hand his body is hot, far hotter than the weather would explain. But I’m not thinking about anything except how close he is now. He smells like a man in an earthy, essential way.
I look up into his eyes. He’s watching, waiting, drawing me in without moving an inch. His focus shifts to my mouth and fixes there. And then he leans down, moving so slowly it seems to take forever for our lips to meet. They brush together once, twice. A pause. He shifts closer and comes at me again this time with more purpose. His mouth is hot on mine. I tease the seam of his lips and taste coffee. His body is flush against me, but his hands stay where they are. Mine snake around his neck and pull him in.
It’s like he suddenly woke up and realized we were kissing because without warning his arms are around me. One hand plunges into my hair. His other arm bands around my waist, hauling me up fully against him. I groan into his mouth at the feel of him. He tilts his head, taking the kiss deeper. Oh, man it’s good. There’s nothing but him and me and the way our bodies press together in all the right places. The kiss winds down slowly from an all out assault to barely there brushes. We part and stare in shock at each other.
