by Strong, Mimi
She danced, and even though there were no words, I watched her tell a story, a story about a girl who got knocked down, and kept getting up. Each time she dropped to the ground, it took longer to rise up again. She went down a fourth time, and didn’t move. The music kept playing.
I couldn’t take it. I walked over to her and crouched down, my hand on her back. She wilted under the weight of my palm.
I pulled my hand away from her back and slipped it under her palm. She didn’t move, so I lay down next to her, on the floor.
After a few breaths, she raised her head and looked me in the eyes. Her face was flushed, her dark hair stuck to her damp face in strands. I wanted to sweep her hair from her eyes, but I kept my arms calm at my sides, still lying on my back.
Slowly, using her arms, she crawled over to me and swung her leg over my body. I grinned. I liked that.
She hovered over me, her hair tickling my face, but none of her body touching mine. I could feel the heat radiating from her, onto my bare skin.
The song finished and another one began.
She lowered herself slowly, almost touching my body, and then she pulled away, until she was standing over me. She stepped backward, motioning for me to sit up.
I sat up, and I reached for her, wanting to pull her down into my lap, but she got away. She traversed the room, whirling and twirling, finally finishing the dance with a demure pose.
“Beautiful,” I said, clapping my hands.
She came over to me and sat cross-legged in front of me. “Sure, but you’d probably prefer a lap dance.”
“It’s all inter-related, though, isn’t it? The dancing tells a story, and it makes people feel things, but without words.”
She blew her breath up her face, moving the wet hair sticking to her eyebrow. “Modern dance doesn’t give guys boners, though.”
I looked her straight in the eyes. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Come over here.”
She giggled. “Yucky! I’m all sweaty and wet.”
“Let me be the judge of yucky.”
She leaned forward and gave me a very chaste kiss on the lips. “I set up everything for your coffee. You just have to pour the water. Let me take a quick shower. I won’t be long. I promise.”
~
I got dressed, wearing the same jeans for the fourth day in a row. At least they were clean, and I could wear my own shirt that day. We’d done a couple of loads of laundry down in the basement of the house the night before, laughing over what a hot, sexy date it was to wash and fold clothes together.
The intercom buzzed, and I went to answer the door, expecting it to be Duncan, annoyed that I hadn’t been returning his calls for the last day.
To my surprise, the person identified himself as a police officer, who had some questions for Skye. I knocked on the bathroom door and asked if I could let them in.
She didn’t even ask me what they wanted.
She just said, “Sure.”
I walked down to the common area door and let them in. It was two officers, one man and one woman, neither of them looking much older than me. I asked what they wanted, but they wouldn’t talk to me. Just Skye.
She was dressed already and sitting at the table, her wet hair dripping down her pink shirt in dark streaks. She looked guilty, and scared.
The police officers introduced themselves and showed her their badges.
The man nodded for the woman to go ahead, and she began questioning Skye. “Were you at the community center yesterday at one o’clock?”
Skye nodded.
“You were meeting with Mr. Howard Carey?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe the altercation that took place?”
Skye looked over at me.
“You don’t have to say anything,” I said. “I’ll call our family lawyer. Don’t say anything.”
Skye nodded.
Ignoring me, the police officer said, “Mr. Carey required six stitches. I understand you might have been upset with him? You were meeting about getting a suspension lifted?”
“He grabbed me,” Skye said.
“During an argument?”
“No,” she said coldly. “He asked me to suck his dick, and when I wouldn’t, he tried to make me.”
The two police officers looked at each other, neither looking surprised.
“Would you like to press charges against him?” the woman asked.
My head was spinning. “Yes, we would,” I said.
The three of them looked up at me.
“Damn right we’ll press charges,” I said.
Skye shook her head at me. “Charlie, just drop it. There was no one else there, no witnesses. It’s just my word against his. I’m the former stripper with a criminal record for assault.”
“I don’t understand. I thought…” I looked over at the cops. There was no need to censor myself, since they had access to all the records. “I thought you had a record for possession.”
Skye twitched like a cornered wild animal. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Charlie.”
The male police officer spoke. “Ma’am, because you have a prior record for assaulting an employer, this might be one of those situations where it’s difficult for people to see the truth.”
“He didn’t grab me,” Skye said softly. “He just… said those things. He kept saying such awful things.”
Two phones started ringing, and both of the police officers reached for their phones.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my address book, looking for the name of the lawyer. My head was all jumbled, and I could barely read the words on the screen.
“Don’t say anything else,” I told Skye.
“Ma’am,” the female officer said softly, setting down her phone. “Mr. Carey is dropping the charges. What happens next is up to you.”
Skye shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing happens.”
The cops exchanged another look. The woman handed a business card to Skye. “This is my direct phone number. Thank you for answering our questions honestly today. Please call me if there’s anything we can do for you. That is, anything I can do for you.”
They pushed back their chairs, got up, and left the apartment, barely acknowledging me.
Once they were gone, I said, “You asked me to take you to the movies after that happened?”
She got up and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
I tried the handle and found it locked. I knocked on the door. “What’s going on?”
“Charlie, just go home. I don’t need you.”
“I’m calling our lawyer. You need to talk to somebody about this. The guy had six stitches. This is the kind of thing that can come back to haunt you if you don’t deal with it right away.”
She yanked open the bedroom door. “Deal with it? Why do you have a lawyer, Charlie? Regular people don’t have lawyers.”
“We have one for the club, for various things.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Are you in trouble?”
I took a deep breath. This wasn’t the perfect time or place to finally admit to Skye I was one of those “rich assholes” she hated, but I could only evade the topic so long.
“My last name is Ward.”
“So?”
“I own The Cedars. Well, my family does.”
She blinked up at me, her lips working for a moment before words came out.
“You’re rich?”
“Not as rich as Duncan. Therefore, I’m not nearly as much of an asshole as him.”
She closed the door between us and clicked the lock.
I knocked again. “I need to see your face.”
“Go away.”
“I need to know why you’re reacting this way. Is it because you’re really that prejudiced against rich people? Or is there some other reason?”
She yanked open the door, her face flushed red.
“What other reason is there?”
I braced myself inside
the bedroom’s doorway, so she’d have to push me out if she wanted to shut the door again.
“My father cheats on my stepmother,” I said. “You’re probably going to think this is hilarious, but he was screwing someone in the steam room, and I saw a red dress and matching jacket in the change room.”
She turned and looked at her open closet, the red dress and jacket visible and incriminating.
“I was wearing that red dress the night we met,” she said.
“Yes. So, you can imagine, I was a little… conflicted.”
She went to the closet, pulled out the dress, and held it in front of her.
Her eyes blazing with anger, she said, “You thought I was your father’s whore.”
“I didn’t know what to think.”
Her voice deep and eerily calm, she said, “Was that before or after you fucked me in the swimming pool? Wait. Don’t tell me. It was during. You couldn’t keep your hands off me, because you thought I was your father’s whore.”
“I didn’t know.”
She bobbed her head. “But you thought I was, or could be. And now is when you finally ask me about it? Today?”
“I wouldn’t ask, but… I think we can both agree that you haven’t been entirely honest with me. I’m still not sure what happened yesterday. I mean, did the guy grab you, or not grab you? Did you maybe just lose your temper?”
She spat out, “How dare you?”
“Whatever you say happened, I believe you. It’s just that you told the cops two different things. And you told me your record was for possession, not for assault.”
She dropped the red dress on the floor and shoved me back with both hands.
“Fuck you. My life is none of your business.”
“That’s not true. If you’re my girlfriend, it is my business.”
“Ask me what you want to know.”
I started to ask, but she put her hand over my mouth.
“Think carefully,” she said. “You get one question. One.”
I pushed her hand away from my mouth. After everything I’d done for her, how could she treat me like that?
“Fine,” I said. “Were you having an affair with my father?”
Her gaze dropped down to the floor in disgust. Her upper lip curling, she said, “I first saw your father at the Open House, in March. We never actually met. In April, I made an appointment to talk to him about the dance program at the club, and how it would affect my dance program.” She looked up at me, her blue eyes flashing like sapphires in her flushed face. “I get it, now. That’s why you busted into his office like that. You thought you’d catch us in the act.”
“I didn’t know.”
Her lip curled again. “Then you took me for lunch. We sat in the dining room, and you didn’t tell me who you were, and you let me think you were a groundskeeper. Then you took me out to the golf course, and you fucked me.”
“That was about us. Not him.”
She held out her hand, palm up. “Keys.”
I reached into my pocket, grabbed the house keys I’d playfully stolen two days earlier, and handed them to her. My mouth was dry, my heart pounding.
“Go,” she said.
Hanging my head, I said, “I fucked up, didn’t I?”
“People don’t fuck up. They just reveal themselves.”
“Skye.”
“Just go. Leave your number on the notepad on the fridge, and I’ll call you about picking up your furniture.”
I turned and walked to the kitchen, in a daze. I’d really fucked up, and I would do anything to win her back, even if it meant giving her some space. I wrote my phone number on the notepad, along with my full name, and the number of the club.
A door clicked shut.
I turned to say something, but she was gone, locked in the bedroom again.
Slowly, I walked out the apartment door and down the steps, past stacks of mail that had arrived that day. I looked down at an envelope with her name: Skylar Evans.
I stepped out onto the porch, and then walked down the street to Duncan’s car.
I drove.
As I pulled into the driveway of my house, I realized what I’d done.
Skye had given me one question.
I could have asked about what had happened at her suspension meeting.
Instead, I fucked up.
I fucked up real bad.
Chapter 24
Skye
JUNE
June wasn’t great, but I got through it.
JULY
Arizona is hot as fuck in July. “But it’s a dry heat,” people say, cracking open one bottle of water after another.
I missed my old apartment and my former city, going online sometimes to check the temperature for the day, like a jealous former lover.
I promised Gloria I’d keep in touch, but with each passing day, we had less and less in common, and she didn’t approve of what I was doing with my life, anyway.
Not that I cared about Gloria’s approval, or anyone else’s. Approval doesn’t pay the rent.
~
My mother stood at the kitchen window, exhaling smoke at the bug screen.
“You’re letting out the cool,” I told her. The air conditioner was running at maximum capacity, and still my clothes clung to me most of the day.
“Am I?” she asked, trying to start a fight. “Am I letting out the cool, or am I letting in the heat?”
I sighed, letting her win that one. It takes two to tango, and I wasn’t going to fight with her over something so trivial as word choice. At least she wasn’t doing tricks.
It’s funny that you can cheer yourself up by reminding yourself that in spite of everything, at least your mother is no longer giving long-haul truckers sexual favors at truck stops for money.
She’d been working for the last three months as a bookkeeper, for a local bar and motel. There was a certain irony to that—a woman who could never manage or hold onto money was now watching the dollars and cents for a business.
The greatest thing about this, though, was how competent she was at the job. It was as though all the frustration she’d felt over money her entire life suddenly sharpened into something useful, thanks to a night school course in accounting. Her pain became a knife, and she wielded it like a woman bent on revenge. Now she controlled the money, and not the other way around. Pennies. Fractions of pennies. Spreadsheets. Formulas. Who knew my mother was some sort of math genius? As long as they didn’t give her the bank card and send her shopping, she was the ideal accountant.
“I thought you quit smoking,” I said.
“I quit every day.” She crushed out the butt in the aluminum track of the window frame. “That’s what I told your father, at least.”
“Don’t talk about him like he’s a person.”
She looked down at her bare toes, sparkling with a fresh pedicure. “Skylar. My house, my rules. If you’ve nothing nice to say, pick up a broom and start cleaning.”
“Why did he die?”
Her eyes flicked up. They were the same blue as mine, a mirror image with foreshadowing crow’s feet wrinkles.
“Because life isn’t fair,” she said.
“But it was a heart attack, right? I’ll turn thirty next January, and I should know if I might have some genetic thing wrong with me.”
“You’re fine. They figured it all out when they did the autopsy.”
“They did an autopsy?”
She nodded. “To make sure neither one of us wives was poisoning him. Obviously, we weren’t. You know, if he were still alive right now, he might be like one of those old codgers in an old folks’ home. Can you imagine?” She shook her head. “I’m never getting old.”
“Mom, what did he die of?”
“Loving too much,” she said with a wistful smile. “And also he had this flaw in his heart, where it filled with fluid. Do you know, I think about it all the time? Especially when I buy plastic-wrapped meat at the grocery store. I don’t know why, but half th
e time I reach for a roast, or a good ribeye steak, and for a second, it’s your father’s heart, suffocating itself.”
The hair on my arms pulled up on goosebumps, despite the heat in the room.
“You see his heart, like a hallucination,” I said.
She nodded in agreement, gazing off into the distance out the window. She tapped the cigarette box until one slid out. She held it between her lips for a long time before lighting the end.
I’d also been hallucinating, and it chilled me to imagine it might go on for twenty years or more.
When I was dancing, and the lights were in my eyes, every man who walked into the lounge was Charlie. He was Charlie, coming to save me from myself, until he got closer, and he wasn’t. He was just some guy, with a wallet full of bills.
I was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to find the motivation to start the day. My mother stretched one long leg out and gave me a playful shove on the shoulder. “You know I love you, right?”
Smiling, I wiped the imaginary dirt of my shoulder. “I love you too, Mom. Why are you so mushy today? New batch of anti-anxiety pills?”
She snorted and shoved me again. “He wants to move in here with me, and take care of me.”
“Lance? He’s okay, I guess.” Lance was more than just okay. He and I had been getting along well. I’d been the one who told him to go ahead and date my mother, regardless of her being his employee.
“But he wants to bring his little girl, and she’s only twelve.”
I pushed away the bowl of granola cereal I’d been slowly eating. “Let me guess. You want to give her my bedroom.”
“I thought maybe you two could share a room, but the social worker would be checking in, on account of all the custody problems with his wife, and I don’t think they’d approve of a little girl sharing a bedroom with…”
“With a stripper?”
“With a grown woman.”
I got up and dumped the rest of my cereal down the sink. “I can take a hint. That’s fine. We said this was temporary, and I don’t want to get in the way of your new fresh start. How many times is this now, Mom? Fresh start number thirteen? Maybe thirteen’s the charm.”
“Don’t be pissy. You’ll meet someone and settle down, and it won’t be like when I was your age. People google each other now when they start seeing each other. First name and last name, and you can check them out on Facebook.”
