by Sin
“Shit, Maxim, I was just playin’ with her, and she knows it, don’t ya’ honey?”
Maxim, the hella-hunk, continued to stare at me. “Was he bothering you ... Ms.?”
“Rayme … just Rayme, and,” I turned towards the weasel--his gray eyes dared me to contradict him. “I … umm … no … he’s fine … umm....”
I turned and walked away, completely disgusted with myself for succumbing to Dag’s show of power. I’d had enough of this shit for one night. If they wanted to order, they could do it at the bar. I wasn’t paid enough to stand around and feel threatened by some wanna-be hardasses.
Heading towards another table, I caught my foot on the corner of one of the newly moved chairs. I staggered forward, my long black hair spilled down and around me, acting as a curtain, and rendering me temporarily blind. As I put my arms out to try to break my fall, two large hands grab my shoulders, and yanked me upwards.
“There you go,” Maxim said as he steadied me. Our eyes locked, but neither of us spoke. I thought I saw little specks of blue and gold rising up through his brown irises, but he blinked and looked away. It took me a minute to realize that he was still holding onto my shoulders. I looked down at his large hands--tiny white scars covered the back of them. They seemed so out of place on a man so perfect. I touched one lightly. He jerked his hands away and looked at me with wide eyes.
“Sorry … umm … sorry,” he stuttered.
“I … err … thanks,” I mumbled equally as tongue-tied. I wanted to say more to him. I wanted to run my fingers over his hands. Hell, I wanted to run my fingers over him, I wasn’t picky. Hard up was hard up, regardless of which way you looked at it.
Without warning, Maxim turned and headed out of the bar, followed closely by several of the men from the booth. I had to stand firm for a minute to keep from running after him. He’d managed to stir things deep within me that hadn’t been stirred for years, and he’d done it all by just standing near me. I closed my eyes and tried to push the strange meeting out of my head. Gathering myself up again, I headed towards the bar, and someone grabbed my backside. Turning around, I found Dag standing dangerously close to me with his hand planted firmly on my rear. I wanted to bash him in the face with my elbow and watch the blood gush from his narrow nose. I didn’t, that was his one freebie.
“Let’s go, we do not need any trouble here,” Terrance said, his voice polished and having a bit of an old world feel to it. He put his hand on Dag’s shoulder and led him towards the exit. Dag turned and winked at me. I shuddered.
Chapter Two
“Rayme, you ready to go?” Angie asked.
I put the last tray of clean glasses away, and looked over at the stack of plates. I’d promised Jimmy, our bus boy, I’d help him out tonight. He had to be up early to take his mother in for more tests at the hospital, and working until three a.m. would make it hard for him to function. I had agreed to stay after and make sure all his work was done. I still had a few more things to take care of before I could go.
“No, go ahead … I’ll lock up.”
Angie poked her head back into the kitchen. “You’re joking right?”
“Angie, it takes me less than a minute to get home.” I laughed. She always worried about me. There was no point. Vinnie owned the surrounding four buildings, and had rented an apartment to me shortly after I started working for him. My walk home consisted of leaving the bar, and walking across the parking lot. It was hardly life threatening.
“No way am I leaving you in here alone. Move over, I’ll help.”
I stepped aside and let her help me put the remainder of the clean dishes away. The two of us finished the job in half of the time it’d have taken me to do it. I hit the light switch, grabbed my jacket, and followed her out the door.
I gave a little tug to make sure the door had locked, and moved up close to Angie. “It’s freezing out here.”
She pulled a pair of mittens out of her coat pocket. “I know, we’re two days into October and already it feels like it might snow. If this keeps up, we’ll have a blizzard for sure by November. You’re one minute walk home will be pretty hard through eight feet of snow. I can just picture you trying to hike your way to work. Maybe you could get a bobsled? I think your cat would love a team of dogs hanging around the place.”
“I don’t doubt that you’ll want to stand by and supervise me the whole way. You could carry my flag and cheer for me. No, wait, you’d be there with a med kit to patch me up when I fell on my ass.”
“You know it.”
I laughed and walked with her over to her beat-up old blue sedan. I was impressed that it started on the first try. Normally, the thing needed at least three tries before it even thought of clicking over. Many a nights, Angie ended up sleeping on my couch because her car wouldn’t start. It didn’t bother me. I always crossed my fingers that the thing would give out. I liked the company.
“See ya tomorrow,” she called out as I walked towards my building.
This was our normal routine. The two of us walked out to her car together every night, she started it up, and then sat to make sure I made it home all right. Once inside, I’d look out the window to watch her drive away. It’d been working out great for us for the past two years. It was always nice to know that you had an extra set of eyes, just in case.
Fishing my keys out of my coat pocket, I put them into the old brown door. I turned and made sure to lock it up again, and headed down the hall to my apartment door. I pulled out another key and used it in my very blue front door. After my ordeal in the alley two years ago, I’d taken to having multiple locks on all my doors.
A girl can never be too safe.
I flicked the stairway light on and headed up. When I got to the top I opened the third and final door to my home. Vin had been a stickler on getting all new locks and extra doors. When I had first looked at the place, the only door it had was the exterior door to the parking lot. Vin had the other two installed right before I moved in. He knew about my past and worried about me.
The lower portion of the building was a Laundromat. Vin owned that as well. That was handy for me, I didn’t complain. I knew that he only charged me a third of the apartment’s worth, he acted like a father to me, and I knew why. His daughter, Maria, would have been about my age, and Vin had always told me how much I looked like her. I took that as a complement because from the photos I’d seen of Maria, she was beautiful. She had been murdered ten years ago. No arrests were ever made in the case. Needless to say, Vin had a soft spot for me, as I had for him.
Tossing my keys on the table next to the door, I glanced out the window and watched Angie drive off. I put my coat up on the hook. I heard my cat, Henry, meowing. I bent down and stroked his black coat.
“Did you miss mommy?”
He purred as I picked him up and carried him out into the kitchen. I set him down on the floor and filled his bowl up with food. Not that he needed fed again. I’d done it before I went to work. Henry was grossly over weight, and I knew that it wasn’t healthy for him, but he was my buddy, and he liked to eat, so I gave in.
Call me a sucker, but a man totally devoted to me got whatever he wanted and Henry knew that.
I headed back to the bathroom to get cleaned up. Normally I took a shower after I got off work, but tonight I felt like a bath. I’d worked an hour past my normal time, and the tension from the weasel Dag still hadn’t left my shoulders.
Chapter Three
I heard the phone ringing and ran out to get it. Sliding across the floor in my purple fuzzy slippers, I damn near hit the wall. Sometimes, I wondered how I used to be so graceful. Now, I was lucky not to break my neck answering the phone.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think he’s going to leave her. He told me that he was going to for sure this time, but I don’t know....” Fawn continued on her with her sob story. I would have paid more attention to it, but I’d been listening to the same story for the last eight months. I had no idea why she
seemed to latch on to unavailable men, but she did. Fawn’s House of the Other Woman seemed to be open twenty-four hours a day. Somehow, I’d managed to pull clean-up duty with her--again.
I tried to dodge talking to her about her love life, but she worked with me at the bar, and that made it almost impossible not to discuss it with her. I did my best to calm her down, which was good considering that all I wanted to do was hang up on her. Needy people bothered me and Fawn was their poster child.
“What happened with Peter now?” I asked.
“Sam, not Peter, I haven’t been dating Peter for awhile now.”
“Right, sorry … okay, what did Sam do?”
“It’s not so much that he did anything, but when I discussed having a baby with him, he got all weird, and then when I got up this morning he was gone, can you believe that? He was gone! I drove past his house a few times and his car was there. I can’t believe that he’d go back to her.”
I listened to her whine some more before I finally broke in. “Fawn, the man’s been married for over ten years. He has four kids. Leave it alone. You don’t want him--if you had him, you wouldn’t trust him. You’re a fad, a phase, he’ll be done with you soon and back with his wife before you know it.… And, why in the hell would you start talking about babies with the guy? Is your new goal in life to be a single mother? With your salary from the bar, I’m sure you’d do just great.”
She cried harder. I didn’t really care. My sympathies didn’t extend to husband-stealing home wreckers. I counted to ten, and then hung up. She’d call me back later. She always called back. She was like a telemarketer, if she had your number, you could expect at least three calls a week from her. I wondered if it’d be possible to get my number removed from her list too--probably not.
The phone rang again. The machine picked it up. I heard my voice greeting the caller and then Angie talking. I picked it up. She’d called to confirm that I’d heard the latest saga in Fawn’s life. She shared my opinion that the girl was a co-dependant loser. Problem was, she was also our friend on some weird level. I wasn’t proud of the fact, but it was still true all the same.
“So, what time do you have to be in?” Angie asked.
“I’m not going in till’ ten tonight, and then I’m off for a few days.”
“That’s right. Are you really going to go see your mother, or are you planning on pulling another one of your famous ‘visit the cabin’ and call it good routines?”
I didn’t answer right away. I wasn’t sure what I’d do. I’d been planning to head out and see my mother for several months now, but each time I decided to go, I chickened out. The last time I’d seen my mom, I was in the hospital recovering from the attack. My stepfather hadn’t come. I didn’t expect he would. My mom had stopped in, brought me some flowers, and made sure she said ‘I told you so’, about moving to the city.
They called once a week, and kept asking me to come out and see them. I was sure that it was so they could rub it in some more about me working as a waitress. My mother would never be caught dead in a bar, let alone work in one. No, she was a model upper class socialite, who was embarrassed to have such a free spirited daughter. How easily she liked to forget that I was conceived after a night of heavy drinking in New Mexico.
Vinnie had insisted I take a couple of weeks off to go visit them. He was a strong believer in keeping families together. We had argued back and forth for several days before I gave in and decided to take a week off. If all else failed, the family cabin was only about two hours away and it’d be nice to just go there and relax a bit. My mother had been generous enough to furnish me with a set of keys, although I was betting that it was Bill’s idea to give them to me.
“So, what’s the plan for today?” Angie asked.
“Ah, well since its almost noon, I’m going to head down to the Diner and get some lunch, then I might go shopping. I feel like spoiling myself, and spending money I shouldn’t. Want to come?”
“I’d love to … tell you what, I’ll meet ya’ down at the Diner, give me about thirty minutes to get there.”
I went into my room to get dressed. I didn’t actually have a closet. I had another small room off mine that had my dresser and a wardrobe in it. The place was huge and since I was the only occupant, I had free reign over the entire level. It worked out nice. I walked over and opened the walnut wardrobe and looked around. I decided on a white blouse, a pair of faded blue jeans, a dark gray wool sweater, and a light gray newsboy cap. I loved to wear hats. It sometimes took some coaxing to get my all my hair to stay put long enough to get one on, but I managed.
I had to dig around to find a matching pair of black boots. Owning so many, they tended to get jumbled up in the basket I kept them in. I did a quick check in the mirror, and headed out towards the door.
Henry waited for me by the front door. He hated to be left alone. I couldn’t say I blamed him. I made sure to turn the radio on low for him, and grabbed my purse. On my way out the exterior door I noticed something was different with it when I went to lock it. Something had scraped the heck out of it. Running my fingers over the gauged wood, I tried to reason what could have done it. The marks were too deep to be a rat, but not deep enough to be a knife. My guess was it was a dog. I hadn’t seen any strays running around lately, but the evidence was clear on my door, and I was beginning to think I could smell urine.
Great, just what I needed, a rabid dog, marking its territory.
I shook my head and headed down the street towards the Diner. Shopping would make it all go away--it always made everything better.
Chapter Four
I pushed the door open and walked in to find a table. Melvin waved at me from behind the counter. I’d been coming in long enough for him to know me, making him extended family now, whether he liked it or not. He was a sweet older man in his early sixties. The Diner was his pride and joy and had been in his family now for two generations.
“What can I get you today, Rayme?” he asked, his New York accent prevalent.
I found a spot near the window, and sat down. “Only coffee, I’m waiting for Angie.”
He nodded and brought a cup over to me. I thanked him, and began making my cup of coffee into a caffeinated liquid dessert. I added three creams, and four packs of sugar. It now officially fell in the realm of a baked good. It was perfect, just the way I liked it.
I watched out the window for a sign of Angie’s car. She wasn’t one to be late. I sat quietly and worked on my second cup of coffee. Melvin kept a steady stream coming my way. That’s why I loved him. But, I had to be careful or I’d end up bouncing off the wall from a sugar overdose. Better yet, I’d end up having to stop and pee at every shop we stopped at. That’d be just great.
I looked out at the people of the city, going about their day. The number of people in the city always amazed me. Everyday I struggled to find familiar faces. I watched as the red-haired old woman with the little white dog walked past. She came by everyday before two o’clock. I always wanted to go out and ask where it was she was going, but I didn’t. It was more fun to guess.
I saw the ‘weird guy’ with the bald head and army coat. He normally stood on the sidewalk for a while mumbling to himself before he continued down the street. He seemed harmless enough, but every now and then, some testosterone ridden young punk would push him or take a swing at him. I found myself secretly hoping the crazy vet would knock them on their ass.
Was it wrong to root for the weird guy?
I looked up and saw a man wearing blue jeans, a white shirt, and a black leather jacket standing half way down the street. His brown hair was pulled back from his face, and his brown eyes were looking in my direction. It took me a minute to recognize him in the daylight, it was Maxim, the man from the bar last night. He caught me staring at him, and I looked away quickly. My face flushed. Suddenly, I felt like I was twelve again and embarrassed to be caught looking at a cute guy. I did my best to look like I was busy, and then thought I’d be sly and g
lance in his direction. He was gone.
I was seriously bummed out to not find him there. This was new to me. I hadn’t looked forward to seeing a man in nearly two years. I should have been elated by this newfound feeling, instead I was confused. His friend, Dag, had managed to creep me out, but Maxim hadn’t. In fact, I was the one who did the freaking out with him. That was a first for me.
My cell phone rang, and I fished it out of my purse to answer it. It was Angie calling to let me know that her car wouldn’t start. She was having her boyfriend come over and take a look at it. She offered to take a cab to come shopping with me. That seemed silly to bother with, so I made her promise not to. She agreed and I told her that I’d talk to her later at work. I didn’t mention seeing the hot guy from the bar last night, although I’m sure Angie would have been all ears for that.
I walked up to the counter to order something to eat. Melvin turned, saw me, and gave me a nod. “Hey, I guess Angie’s not going to make it,” I said, leaning over to look at the specials board. Not that I needed to, I knew his specials by heart now. It was just habit that kept me looking at them. “I’ll take the pancakes and sausage.” I think he left the breakfast ones up just for me. I was a late riser because of my work schedule and I loved breakfast.
“What about your friend?” Melvin asked, looking behind me. I turned around and glanced at my table. Maxim, the hella-hunk, was sitting there smiling at me. I blinked twice to make sure I wasn’t dreaming and then turned back to Melvin.
