by A. J. Downey
He turned the lock in the doorknob and left and I sighed, getting up and padding over to flip the rest into place before scurrying across the cold, cracked linoleum back to the area rug with my bed on it. No heated floors here, I thought to myself.
I fell back asleep in no time. The next time I woke up, was to the melody of Damien’s ringtone. It took me a minute to find my phone. I picked it up on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Hey Bright Eyes, how you holding up?”
“I just woke up,” I said blearily and he sighed.
“I’ll be there in just a few minutes, can you be ready?”
“What time is it?”
“After seven,” he said softly.
“At night?” I pushed myself up, muscles protesting.
“Yeah.”
“Oh my god, I don’t ever remember sleeping so long in my life!”
“Ten minutes, Ally. Open the door for me.”
“Yes, sir,” I said sheepishly, in response to his cold blue command, ringing even through the phone line.
I got off the phone and quickly went to the bathroom. That done, and feeling a little lighter, I opened drawers and rummaged quickly through them looking for things to pack. I straightened and looked around and sighed.
This wasn’t home… this was just the place where I lived. I hadn’t had a home since my grandmother went into that place. I felt tears mist my eyes and sat heavily on the edge of my lumpy mattress for a minute. I struggled to pull it together and managed, but just barely.
A knock fell at my door and I rushed to it calling, “That wasn’t ten minutes!” I opened it to Dawnie standing there.
“Are you okay?” she demanded by way of greeting. “I came down here like three times today and you wouldn’t answer the door.”
“Yeah, I was sleeping, I guess.”
“You guess?” She pushed past me and I let her, sighing.
“I was out cold; I didn’t hear you knocking.”
“That’s weird for you.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
It was her turn to sigh, “No, I am. What was that about ten minutes? Lover boy on his way to come get you?” She felt her way to my sewing table and made a face when her foot nudged one of the boxes and she nearly tripped.
“Shit, I’m sorry, Dawnie. I don’t have any place else to put them. The bed was occupied.”
“So is the chair, apparently,” she said dryly, but she was smiling.
“Yeah, it is, and I need to pack.”
“Ah, ten minutes… so lover boy is coming to get you.”
“Please don’t be disappointed,” I said miserably.
“I like him, actually. He’s hard to get a read on, even for me. I just wish that I could be with my best friend right now who’s hurting.”
“I know,” I said softly, moving around the room quickly, finding clothes and getting dressed. I threw other clothes into one of my totes.
A light knock fell at the door and we fell silent. I went over to it and checked the hall this time, and sure enough, it was Damien. I let him in quickly and he pulled me to him, covering my mouth with his in a swift but sweet kiss.
“Hey, Romeo,” Dawnie said glumly, and he turned.
“Hey,” he greeted back. “How are you doing?”
“Wishing you weren’t taking my bestie away just yet.”
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Thought I was hanging with her.”
“Well, you’re welcome to come, too, for a few hours. I can send you back here in a cab later tonight.”
“Really?” she asked, perking up.
“Really.”
“Can I go get some things?”
“Sure, hurry up. I drove the Escalade.”
I cringed. “Was your car okay?”
“Just fine,” he said. “I just haven’t driven the Escalade in a minute.”
“Wow, I’m impressed. You left an expensive car out there overnight, and no one took it or stripped it?” Dawnie asked.
“Probably thought it was someone’s that they shouldn’t be messing with,” he answered. “They were right.”
“Escalade isn’t quite so flashy, so it’s probably in more danger,” I remarked.
“True.”
“Right, I’m gone. Back in a flash.” Dawnie said, and her cane unfolded with its rattling snap.
“While she’s gone,” he said, when a moment or two had passed, “I don’t want to upset anyone further, but I got in touch with the funeral home. There are some things we will need to go over.”
“Okay,” I said, morosely. I didn’t want to go over anything. I didn’t want any of this to be real.
He gripped my elbow and gave it a light squeeze, and said, “Do you want me to just take care of it for you?”
I rolled my lips and thought, Yes; out loud I said, “No, I need to do it. I just…”
“I know you don’t want to, Bright Eyes.” He pulled me against his chest and sighed, a heavy thing that told me just how much he wished he could take the pain away. I swallowed hard and cuddled into him, letting go only when he did.
“Let’s get your stuff together; I want you to stay with me for the next few days. What do you want to bring?”
I sighed and said, “I wish we could bring the sewing machine.”
He eyed the table and asked, “Is it all one piece?”
I laughed, “No, it lifts out.”
“Okay, then bring it.”
“You’re serious,” I said, wide-eyed.
“Dining room table will have to do, but why not? You’re going to have to have something to do.”
“No, really. It’s okay,” I said but he wouldn’t hear anything of it. He helped me pack my sewing machine and extra bits and bobbins up in its case. By the time Dawnie had returned, he had already been out to his Escalade with it and was about to take the rest of my things. It honestly felt unnervingly like I was moving out. Not unnerving because I felt like I was moving out, that wasn’t right. More of, it was unnerving how much I ached for that to be precisely what I was doing.
I didn’t want to be alone, and I knew that I wasn’t, that I had Dawnie and that Damien and I were solid, but I don’t know, everything was tossed in the air and still falling for me, and I didn’t know where things were going to land. It was awful and confusing, and I felt like I was being pulled and pushed and I just needed something to grab onto to pull myself up.
“Okay, that’s it,” Damien said, returning from a second trip out to his car. “Got your keys?” he asked me, and I nodded and held them up. We went out into the hallway and I locked my door behind us. He took my hand, twining his fingers between mine and I blinked, realization coming a bit late to the party.
“I thought you were coming from work,” I said, frowning.
“What’s that, now?” Dawnie asked me.
“He’s wearing jeans and a tee shirt.”
“So? Oh, wait. Never mind.” She turned in the general direction of Damien and said, “Yeah!” like she was agreeing with a much stronger point than what I was trying to make. Damien’s lips twitched in amusement and I laughed lightly.
“I went home and changed first, is that a crime?”
Then brought the Escalade and practically half moved me out of my apartment. I kept mum about it for now, though. I didn’t want to upset Dawnie. Still, it was something to think about and I needed to talk to him. I mean, really talk to him. I didn’t want to do anything for the wrong reasons when it came to our relationship. Gran’s death rocked me. I felt like I was going to second-guess everything and that I should. You know? I didn’t have my guiding star anymore. I was on my own.
We took the stairs silently, and I was glad he didn’t try to make me take the elevator. We came out the stairwell and drifted up the hall and I frowned slightly when I realized that it should be dark, but there was light coming through the front windows to the building’s little vestibule. I mean, it wasn’t big enough to be considere
d a lobby and I couldn’t think of another word for it.
My mouth dropped open when we rounded the corner in front of the glass doors with chicken wire in them. My grandmother’s garden, the converted fountain, was aglow with hundreds of white candles. I let Damien hold the door for me as I stepped out into the Point Side’s courtyard.
“Hey Ally,” I turned to see Julio, one of the Point Side kids like me, step on the end of his skateboard. It popped up and he grabbed it by the wheel’s base and came over.
“Hi,” I murmured.
“Real sorry to hear about Ms. Sylvia.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, you that prosecutor, right?” he asked, jerking his chin up at Damien.
Damien cleared his throat. “That’s right.”
“He with you?” he asked me.
“Yeah,” I said softly. “He’s with me. He paid for my grandma’s stay in that place.”
Julio nodded and said, “That’s what’s up.” He looked around to make sure no one else was out here with us, and said, “You might wanna bounce. Not everybody around here is gonna be so understanding; you know what I’m sayin’?”
“Read you loud and clear, man. Just give my girl a minute. K?”
Julio nodded and said, “Y’all should keep better company. I worry about you girls.”
Dawnie snorted, “Right, thanks for the pro-tip, Julio. Now stop actin’ like you all hard.” You could hear the eyeroll in Dawnie’s voice. Julio’s lips peeled back from his teeth, and he made a derisive noise, almost a hiss, at her.
I mouthed an apology to him and Dawnie jerked on my arm, crying “Don’t apologize to him!” What had she heard? Jesus! It was creepy how she did that.
“Man, you just pissed I hurt your feelings. All one of ‘em, you stupid bitch!”
I closed my eyes and asked for strength, but Damien was there, right in front of Julio, looking up at him. The lanky skater sneered down at my boyfriend and my heart was in my throat.
“One, apologize to the lady,” Damien said, his voice a creeping cold I had only heard once or twice before and hoped would never be directed at me. Even Dawnie shivered, despite the warmth coming from the tiny flickering mass of candles.
Julio looked like he was going to be tough for a minute, but something in Damien’s eyes made him back down, but only halfway. “Man, whatever, you all better get the fuck up out of here before shit gets real.”
“Damien, let it go…” I begged softly and he did, but he only backed down halfway, too. His posture relaxed marginally, but he didn’t budge; he made Julio go around him. I felt the tension in my own body ease when Julio slammed through the Point Side’s front doors and disappeared around the corner opposite of the direction we had come from.
“Come on; we’d better go,” Damien said, and I nodded.
“Yah think?” Dawnie asked, and let me go. I reached into my pocket for my phone.
“Go, I want to take a couple of pictures.”
Damien nodded and went to collect Dawnie and guide her to the car. “Come on, let’s get you squared away, Trouble.”
“Peachy,” she said, but let him guide her around the fountain-turned-memorial to his waiting SUV at the curb.
I got my pictures and a little clip of video and trotted after my two favorite people left in this world. He started the Escalade as I shut the door. It was quiet out here. I was pretty sure Julio was just grandstanding, but when it came to the people of the Point Side, you never could tell. I turned my head to stare as long as possible at the beautiful flickering memorial to my grandmother and felt tears wet my cheeks.
I knew she was a special lady here, but I don’t think I realized just how many other people she touched, you know?
31
Yale…
She was quiet on the drive over. I kissed her inside the door and let her set up the dining room how she would like it. When I came back from the second trip, she was guiding Dawnie around the apartment, helping her get used to things. I watched the blind woman a moment and I think I caught a glimpse of what Ally loved in her. She walked around, her cane preceding her, Ally at her hip.
With her other hand, however, she touched. With every light graze of her fingertips against a new texture, the wood of my table, the grain of the leather of my favorite chair, the plaid throw on the back of my couch, a slight smile shaped her lips and I realized it wasn’t often she had the time or ability to explore a new space so thoroughly.
“Nice place, Lover Boy,” she said to me with a crooked smile, and I felt an answering one touch my lips.
“If you’re going to call me something obnoxious, might as well streamline it. Call me Yale.” I set down Ally’s totes by the door and Dawnie paused from lightly touching the back of one of my dining room chairs, gauging distance between them.
“Is that where you went to school?” she asked.
“No, he went to Columbia,” Ally said and turned with the cord to her sewing machine to find a nearby wall socket for it.
“Then why do they call you Yale?” Dawnie had one eyebrow raised, and I realized how different she looked without her glasses, staring at something fixed in front of her, without seeing a thing.
“Because I had every opportunity to go and I didn’t.”
“Why?” she asked like it was crazy, and for a lot of people, it was.
“Because it pissed off my mother,” I said honestly.
She laughed, “Oh, my God! You’re serious.”
“Yes, he is,” Ally declared, straightening.
“Not something I am especially proud of in hindsight, but yeah.”
“Holy crap, okay. Your mom a piece of work or something?”
“Dawnie!” Ally barked, exasperated.
“What? I thought we were getting to know each other, here.”
“Enough sharing-is-caring for now,” I said. “I have some things to do over here in the home office. You girls do whatever it is you do, okay?”
“What, just like that?” Dawnie asked.
“Yes, Dawnie! Just like that!” Ally cried and I chuckled, letting them bicker.
I think Dawnie and I understood each other a little better in that unspoken way. She smiled at me and schooled her face into one of a petulant teenager before she turned to argue with her best friend. Intentionally aggravating Ally mildly was a bit manipulative, but, any port in a storm. Anything that could distract her from her grief for even a short while would be a welcome distraction indeed.
I worked late, Ally sewed, and Dawnie sat curled on one of my two couches, her back to me as she crocheted, with the hook and yarn right in front of her eyes as if she could see it. Ally had told me that something about the accident had severed Dawnie’s optic nerves, plunging her into total darkness. It had a tendency to affect her sleep and other things about her life, but for the most part, she had adapted remarkably well.
“Sorry, girls,” I said softly, when I just couldn’t tolerate reading another single brief. “I do still have to get through my day tomorrow before the weekend.” I stretched and said, “I’ll order you an Uber and get you home, Dawnie.”
“Thanks, I’ll call my dad and have him meet me at the curb there.”
I pulled up the app on my phone and Ally hugged her best friend at the door. “I’m going to clean up, up here.”
“Okay, call me tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.”
“Come any time you’d like,” I told her, and Dawnie smiled in my general direction.
“Thanks.”
I walked her down and helped her into the back of the car, as she called her dad. She waved and I smiled, not bothering to wave back. Back in the apartment, I found Ally neatly piling and laying aside strips of material. The skirt she was working on looked like it was nearly completed.
“Looks nice,” I murmured, and she smiled.
“Thanks.”
“Come here,” I ordered softly, and she came to me.
I kissed her and let it linger probably a little
longer than would be considered appropriate, given the circumstances.
“You said there were paperwork and things I had to do…” She trailed off unhappily and I sighed.
“Tomorrow morning. I’m going to work from home.”
“You can do that?”
I nodded, “I have a login; I can prepare briefs just as easily here as I can at the office. I don’t have court tomorrow and no meetings with any opposition that I know of. I may get called in, but we’ll see.”
“Okay.”
She looked up at me, eyes glassy with tears, and said, “I’m going to miss her so much.”
“I know, baby. I know.” I held her tightly, but she didn’t dissolve immediately like she had yesterday. She held it together quite admirably.
“I feel like I’m drowning,” she said, and her voice was hollow, drained, and I understood perfectly well how much it cost her to make the admission. How much she trusted me to make such a confession. We had grown up worlds apart, but one thing we had in common was the knowledge that you couldn’t tell anyone anything personal. To do so meant trust on a monumental scale.
“Trust me to take care of you?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said dully, her emotional exhaustion coloring her voice in muted tones.
“Come into the bedroom with me. Strip. I need to gather a few things,” I said to her, and she looked up at me, drawing back to do so.
“Okay,” she agreed, and I kissed her forehead and let her go.
She moved past me for the hall and I watched her go, before pinching the bridge of my nose. I was tired, but she needed an escape, one that only I could provide, so it would be coffee tomorrow ‒ copious amounts of coffee. I pulled my shirt over my head with a sigh and went after her. She stood at the foot of my bed, mutely taking off her clothes, her long tee falling to the floor, her leggings peeling down her legs. I went into my walk-in closet and discarded my own tee in the laundry basket.
I kicked off my boots and put them back where they belonged. Socks to the laundry hamper as well. I left my jeans on for now and went into one of the drawers in the wall unit, sorting through the rope I had there. I skipped the hemp rope and went with the softer bamboo, pulling out two thirty-foot lengths. The rope I had chosen was a beautiful cobalt blue. I selected a black satin sleep mask out of another drawer and returned to the bedroom.
