Rocket Man

by Melanie Greene

  “Rachel!” Serena shook her head. “Dillon is not a serial killer.”

  “Ha, got you to laugh.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Bet I’m right though. Bet he’s secretly one of those really really creepy guys, you know, ‘he was always so quiet’ and then they find the S&M cage in the basement?”

  Serena paused in the middle of restarting her car. “We live at sea level. No one here has a basement.”

  “Forty-three feet above sea level, Serena.”

  “Thank you, Wikipedia. The point still stands.”

  “As does mine. Something about this guy has, like, triggered your fear reflex, something you can’t put your finger on, and your instincts are kicking in to warn you.”

  “That makes no sense. I’ve known him for weeks now, I’ve seen his resume, and he’s perfectly normal. And why would my fear reflex kick in at work, where I’m perfectly safe?” And, she wondered, why would my sex reflex kick in at the same time?

  “We can’t control our instincts, Serena. That’s why they’re instincts. It’s our job to heed their warnings.”

  “You really think it could be something like that?”

  Rachel made sympathy noises. “I know you don’t like it, but, well, honestly? Do you have a better explanation?”

  She sighed and put the car in drive. “Not currently.”

  “Okay, then. Until you do, you stay away from him. Or risk ending up chained up in his garage.”

  “Nice image.”

  “He does have a garage, doesn’t he?”

  She sighed again. “Yes.”

  “Well, then.”

  She’d barely gotten her laundry sorted when the doorbell rang. Gillian gave her a finger wave through the peephole. She stepped in and hugged Serena in the same motion. “Heya! Rachel's right behind me. She’s got to ease Hannah out of her car seat. Fortunately it’s nap time, so she was able to tell me all about the Dillon and his basement sex dungeon on the way over.”

  “Gill—”

  “I know, she explained, no basement. Natalie had to show single family homes in Montrose all afternoon, but she says to tell you you’re just afraid of commitment and to get over yourself and jump the guy already.”

  “Well, that’s nice.”

  “Yep,” said Gillian, dropping her bag on the coffee table. “I’m more moderate, as you know.” Serena nodded, almost sincerely. “So I say just heavy petting for now, plus, let us meet him and then we’ll tell you what to do.”

  “Oh, laundry day, fun,” Rachel whispered, nudging the door back open with her shoulder and heading straight for the bedroom. “Make Hannah a pillow fort and I’ll get her down.”

  Outnumbered and evicted by a one-year-old, Serena sent Gillian to the kitchen for the pitcher of sage iced tea she’d brewed that morning, switched off her music, and stashed her laundry basket by the front door. She’d planned to be efficient all afternoon, cleaning and packing and taking a walk in the park to enjoy the bright afternoon. But Serena wanted nothing more than to curl up in the dark and brood over what had happened at Dillon's that afternoon.

  Or relive it. The good parts.

  And imagine what could have come next.

  But Rachel bundled Hannah into the room just then (“She’s not in the mood to nap more”) and Gillian pushed aside the table to make room on the floor for baby and toys. Serena glanced through the bedroom door at the pillows Rachel had left jumbled on her bed, and willed herself to leave it and pay attention to her friends. Gill was intent on her campaign to persuade Rachel to let her spike the iced tea. “You know you want it.”

  “Yeah, well you know I’m nursing. So.”

  “She’s one now! You said you were only freaking nursing her for a year.”

  “What I said, and thanks for cursing in front of my baby by the way, is that I would nurse her for at least her first year. The American Academy of Pediatrics....”

  “Right, so ‘freaking’ is a curse word now?”

  “Serena, I sent you that link about infant language development, right?”

  “Serena, I sent you that link about the longevity of maternal friendships being a good foundation for the next generation, right?”

  “Okay, time out.” Serena made a ‘t’ of her hands, which stopped both Gillian and Rachel in their tracks. Because they were laughing at her.

  “Um, Serena?” Gill got out.

  “What?” She was not in the mood for this.

  “It’s supposed to be a capital ‘T.’” Rachel demonstrated as best she could with Hannah curled up in her lap. Then she gasped—actually gasped!—and covered Hannah’s eyes when Serena showed her the only hand signal she knew by rote.

  “Oh, calm down, Mama Bear,” Gillian said, handing her an unadulterated tea and popping Hannah into her own arms. “It’s not like she said ‘freaking.’ Probably Hannah Banana here doesn’t even have the fine motor skills to point properly, never mind give Auntie Serena the finger. Do you, Smoochums?” She helped Hannah clap her hands a couple of times before manipulating her fingers into various signals. Rachel growled a little, but to be fair, Hannah really did seem uninterested in even the most basic of gestures. “Show Auntie Serena how awesome your walking is,” Gillian said. She stood the toddler on the floor and pointed her towards the kitchen where Serena stood, smirking at Gillian’s tendency to get completely riled up by Rachel's motherhood-induced dictates. But Gill had been more smitten by Hannah than any of them—well, except Rachel—and went out of her way to hang out with them as often as possible.

  Not that the baby wasn’t perfectly adorable. She had Rachel's giant blue eyes, and Sergei’s Mediterranean skin and dark curly hair. Although Sergei had turned out to be a rat-bastard who’d left Rachel with sporadic child support and an ex-mother-in-law who sent lacy black dresses too big or too small every two months like the most steampunk clockwork ever, at least he’d given the child good genes.

  Hannah stumble-stepped her way across the rug towards her, grinning a giant proud baby grin. Serena stooped and caught her up, handing her a wooden spoon. And then preemptively defended herself against both her friends. “It’s unbleached wood, so don’t worry about it.”

  “She’ll get a splinter from chewing on it.”

  “She will not get a splinter.”

  “It’s got a chokable diameter.”

  “Fine,” Serena did not snap. Snapping would be snappish, and they were just concerned for the baby; that was sane. She took the spoon away, and put Hannah down to make her own way back to Mama and Aunt Gillian. There were chores to be done, and Serena hadn’t asked for their company to begin with.

  She wrapped and boxed the platters set out on her counter and ignored the tension in her shoulders and the tickling on her nape that assured her that her friends were engaged in non-verbal communication about her attitude. Well, tried to ignore it.

  “Serena,” Rachel sing-songed. “Oh, Serena Colby!”

  “Serena,” Gillian harmonized, badly, with Rachel's chant.

  Serena rolled her head on her neck, expelled a quick gust of air, and closed up the box. Behind her, Gillian added the shaking of ice cubes in her glass to the cacophonous rendition of Serena’s name. Finally Serena sighed and turned around. “Y’all need to stop it.”

  “Stop what?” Rachel pretended innocence. “We’re just enjoying the day with our sweet pal Serena.”

  “Stop singing my name. My name is not a song. Also, y’all are bad singers.”

  Rachel laughed. “I knew it would bug you. Now you’d better sit and drink this tea before we start again.” She took the tea glass from Gillian, thrust it into Serena’s hands, and pulled her down onto a chair.

  “You’ve gotten a lot bossier since you had the baby, you know.”

  “Stop blaming Hannah for your problems. As far as I can tell, everything is this Dillon's fault. And what the hell with the not telling us about him before now?”

  “What the hell with you cursing in front of your impress
ionable child?” Serena retorted. “Besides, I’ve told y’all about Dillon.”

  “Oh, sure,” Gill said, nudging her under the table with her sandaled foot. “Dillon is a person. Dillon likes basketball. Dillon met a deadline with minutes to spare. Boring.”

  “He’s not boring,” she grumbled.

  Rachel pounced. “No, he’s terrifying. He makes you break out into a sweat, and not in a good way. You had an obligation to tell us what a monster he is before now.”

  “What, like you told us about Sergei and the bullying and that BS of his about Hannah’s sleep schedule?” He’d been adamant that the colicky two-month-old should go into her crib at seven each evening, not to be touched again until seven in the morning. It was not a pretty time for any of them.

  “Hey!” Gillian outright kicked her shin then. “Ix-nay on that astard-bay, Serena. Rachel got out, and we are proud of her, and we don’t blame her for how it all went down.”

  “Oh, God, sorry, Rachel.”

  Rachel had her head buried in Hannah’s riot of curls. “It’s okay.”

  “Rach—seriously. I’m sorry.”

  She rested her head atop the baby’s and met Serena’s eyes. “I know, Serena. It’s not like I haven’t second-guessed myself a billion times already. Second-billion-guessed. But don’t you get it? That’s why I want you to pay attention to your instincts with Dillon. I justified stuff you’d never believe with Sergei. Because he was charming every time he went too far. Because he explained himself, even if I replay those explanations now and see how much he was just manipulating me. Because I knew his behavior was bad enough that I wanted to hide it from you three, from my folks, from myself even, but I still wouldn’t face the fact that if I wanted to hide his crap from you it meant it wasn’t crap I should be willing to live with.” She released her tight hold on her daughter and set her back on the rug to toddle around some more. “You think I’m kidding about Dillon, but I’m honestly not. It’s the Gift of Fear thing, okay? You’ve heard of this? It’s about honoring your gut reactions and the physical signals your body sends when something’s not right. You know, the creepy neighbor whose house you never wanted to walk past when you were ten, or the friend of a friend who asks you out but there’s something you just can’t put your finger on telling you not to accept? Dillon is clearly that guy for you. I’m not saying he can’t be okay as a co-worker or even a work buddy, but if you’re reacting like that to him—hives, for God’s sake!—then you clearly need to not be alone with him.”

  “Much less in his house when no one knows where you are and you have your tongue down his throat,” added Gillian.

  “Much less that,” Rachel nodded.

  “But he’s not like that.”

  “Not like what?”

  “Not a jerk, not a bully. He’s nice—he’s extraordinarily nice, actually. Everyone on the team likes him. He’s even been the peacemaker when a couple of the guys have had problems with each other.”

  Rachel shook her head. “There’s nothing to say he can’t be nice and also a bully or a pervert. People have different facets. Are you telling me you didn’t think Sergei was nice when you met him? Don’t you think his friends thought he was the absolute bee’s bloody knees, the charismatic one they all listened to? He still is, for all I know, and I’m sure they’ve all listened to all kinds of crap about how evil I am, keeping Hannah away unfairly, I don’t know what-all. I don’t want to know. I don’t need to. But I bet it’s happening, and I bet as Hannah gets older she’ll hear it directly from him, and from Yia Yia Depy, and I’ll be navigating those waters forever.”

  Gillian and Serena both reached out to stroke Rachel's arm, give her hand a squeeze.

  “Okay, okay, you’re right to warn me. I do hear you. And you know I appreciate what you’re saying.”

  “Do you?”

  “Rachel. Yes. I do. I admit I’m not convinced that’s what is happening with Dillon—don’t scold!—but I’m not discounting it out of hand, not by a long shot.”

  Gillian nodded at her. “Good girl. See, Rachel, she’s listening.”

  “But only to appease me.”

  Serena threw up her hands. “That’s not true! I can’t figure out why my lungs seized up today, and so far yours is the most valid option. But honestly, guys, I have met that guy you were talking about—remember Mike, in college, I think it was junior year? And this is different. That was more like goosebumps and a kind of cramping stomach. I’ve never had that with Dillon. Even when we first met, when he started at Lanigan, all I thought was how gorgeous he was. Young, but yummy.”

  Serena trailed off, remembering. Remembering how their first eye contact had been a punch in the gut. How, several times as they’d gotten to know each other over the work days, she’d felt a brief shiver across her skin when he’d walked into a room without her seeing him. She’d put all that down to an attraction she had no plans to investigate, but had she been wrong? Was it this fear-gut thing Rachel was talking about?

  But no. Dillon was no Mike or Sergei. Not that she’d ever told Rachel, but her friend’s ex-husband had indeed given her an uneasy feeling when they’d met. Long before Rachel's pretty blue eyes had grown shadowed and her skin wan, Serena had suspected that the man wasn’t nearly what Rachel was cracking him up to be. True, she hadn’t known the extent of the problem, or how far Rachel had sublimated herself to him, but the divorce had come as no surprise.

  She squeezed Rachel's hand again and turned to look at the good that had come from the marriage. Single parenting an active toddler was a lot to handle, but Hannah was a sweetheart.

  Usually.

  When she wasn’t pulling Serena’s thyme plant up by the roots and crunching it in her tiny fists before dropping it from the flower pot to the floor.

  Gillian got there first. “Oh, Smoochums, oh, no!” She scooped her up and pried the last stem out of her hand, brushing bits of dirt from her cheeks and shirt.

  “What is it? What did my baby eat? Call Poison Control!” Rachel joined the fussing, grabbing a bottle of hand sanitizer and container of baby wipes from her diaper bag.

  “It’s okay, it’s just thyme. You don’t need that.” Serena took the sanitizer from Rachel. “They make hand sanitizer from thyme. Well, the natural people do. You should get some; you don’t want to keep rubbing alcohol on Hannah’s skin. Thyme is a good mouthwash, too,” she laughed stopping Gillian from wiping too ferociously at the baby’s mouth. “She couldn’t have picked a better plant to rip up.”

  They all turned to look at the leaves scattered across the floor.

  “Is it ruined?” Rachel asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. Don’t worry.” She gave the wriggly Hannah a hug. “You, little Green Thumb, are a quick mover these days. Remind me to have you over when I’m planting at my new house, you’ll have a blast.”

  Hannah giggled, but Rachel was still fretting over the dirt and possible ingestion. “I’d better call the nurse practitioner. Here, Gillian, would you take her in and change her? Thanks.”

  Gill stacked the pitcher of sweating tea and the empty glasses on a tray before lifting baby and diaper bag to her other hip and carrying all towards the kitchen and bathroom area of Serena’s scummy-butt apartment.

  “I’ll never understand how she does that,” muttered Rachel, scrolling through her contact list for the off-hours number of her pediatrician.

  “Too many years of waiting tables,” Serena replied, then, with a sigh, fetched her broom and dustpan to take care of the mess. It wasn’t like the thyme wouldn’t grow back; it was a pretty hardy varietal. And she’d be moving all of her herb and veggie pots out of her one sunny window to spread across the entire width of her patio soon. And Hannah was just being Hannah, and none of them had stopped her in time, which was the grown-ups’ job.

  But between Rachel's lecture and Hannah’s destruction, Serena was more than ready to be alone in her empty apartment, the floor plan to Hakeem spread across her little table and sketch p
ad open beside her, planning layouts and making lists and listening to her music and not hardly at all thinking about Dillon’s chest or arms or back or butt or anything else that would disturb her peace.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Shannon answered the door, Toby screeching and back-arching in her arms, Dillon cracked his first smile since his walk with Serena to his house the day before. Little guy was all red in the face, but Shannon was cool as a cucumber and managed to kiss him, pass the baby to him, take the casserole from his arm, and call over her shoulder to Justin at the same time.

  “Is it cousin Annie’s chicken and stuffing?”

  “No, it’s my chicken and stuffing. It’s better. Hey, Justin,” he added, giving his brother-in-law a half-hug, half-shoulder bump. “Maisy is on the porch there behind me. Her stuff, too.” Juggling the box and bowls and carrier and baking dish while trying to ring the doorbell had been a challenge, but it didn’t hold a candle to the frustration of Saturday’s door-related escapade.

  His smile had gone awry, but he flat-out laughed when Shannon shoved the casserole into Justin’s chest and dropped to the ground outside the front door, actually cooing. “Ohhh, Maisy-kittie, come here, baby, Mama’s missed you!” She had the carrier inside and unlatched in seconds. Dillon was impressed—it had taken him a good fifteen minutes to get Maisy in there and the door locked. No matter how often he told the darn cat that she was on her way home, she wouldn’t cooperate. He’d almost overcooked the chicken, before figuring out that if he put some of the casserole in the carrier, Maisy would stay put. Sure, it made a bit of a mess, but Shannon had a surfeit of baby wipes at home now.

  “Yo, Tobias,” Dillon spoke low into his nephew’s ear. “Your mom’s gone nuts over a creature with fur and a tail. You’d best to stop that crying and start meowing if you want to compete.” Though to be fair to the little bundle, he’d pretty much quieted as Dillon stood there bouncing him up and down on his shoulder.

  Justin returned from the kitchen. “Hey, take a burp cloth. He’s spat all down your shoulder.” He grabbed a square of fabric from the stack of laundry on the back of the sofa and wiped at Dillon's t-shirt.