“Eddie?”
“Yeah?”
His arms tightened and I came closer. I slid my hands around his middle and put my head on his shoulder.
“Yesterday, nothing happened. No one shot at me and I didn’t wrestle with anyone and my stun gun stayed in my purse the whole day. Except for seeing Shirleen tell Darius to whack Vince, yesterday was a good day.”
Eddie’s body grew still when I talked about Shirleen and Darius.
“Don’t worry, I told Hank about it. He made some calls,” I assured him.
“Lee told me last night. That why you left me a message?”
I nodded against his shoulder.
His body relaxed.
“I think we should celebrate,” I decided, lifting my head to look at him, “Not about Darius whacking Vince but for a day with no hair-raising experiences. I’ll make you dinner tonight.”
He ran a hand through the side of my hair and then rested it against my neck.
“Dinner would be good,” he said in a soft voice.
My belly did a curl.
“Maybe Mom and Lottie will come over. And Tex.”
“I thought your sister was moving to Denver?” he asked.
“She is.”
“They can come over another night.”
My belly curl graduated to a doo-da spasm.
“Okay,” I agreed.
He touched his lips to mine.
“Why are you leaving so early?” I asked when he was done.
“Got shit to do.”
“My shit?”
“Your shit.”
Wonderful.
I really was a pain in the ass.
I tucked my head into his throat.
“I’m sorry,” I said against his skin, “I hate this.”
“Mi amor, it’ll be over soon.”
“I hope so, who would have thought it but I want my boring, old, normal life back.”
His body shook with soft laughter.
“Chiquita, I’m not sure you’re capable of boring and normal.”
I wished he was right.
“Just you wait,” I mumbled.
He didn’t say anything but I could tell, even in his silence, he didn’t believe me.
“I’ve set the alarm so you can get up later, Bobby’ll be here at 7:30 to take you to Fortnum’s.”
Bobby was another of Lee’s men and I was guessing Bobby pulled Jet Duty that morning.
I sighed.
“All right.”
He kissed me, the touch-on-the-lips, touch-the-tips-of-the-tongue kiss. It was one of my favorites.
Who was I kidding? They were all my favorites.
“Be good,” he said against my mouth.
I sighed again.
“I’ll try.”
He was laughing when he put me back into bed.
It was only when he was gone that I realized I still had fear lodged in my throat. It wasn’t fear of men with guns and knives and rape on their mind, it was a whole other kind of fear that, call me crazy, was far worse.
* * * * *
The alarm went off and I hit the snooze, thanking God for one small favor, that the snooze button was always the biggest one.
The alarm went off again, and again I hit the snooze.
This happened two more times.
At 7:15, I stared bleary-eyed at the clock, let out a little scream and jumped from the bed.
I was in my underwear and one of Eddie’s flannel shirts, hair wet from a fast shower and in a complete tizzy, when there came a pounding at the door.
It was Bobby.
Bobby was built like a tree and he looked like a member of the Tex Family, except younger and before the crazy kicked in. Just before.
He did a body scan and his eyebrows went up.
“I’m running late, can you wait?” I said to him.
He shrugged, sat down on the couch, grabbed a remote and found a ballgame.
“How can there be a ballgame on at 7:30?” I said, exasperated, staring at the screen.
“English football, it’s later there. Man U vs. Arsenal, a friendly.”
It was like he was speaking in code but I wasn’t really listening, I was staring at the screen.
These guys didn’t wear pads and helmets that hid their faces, these guys didn’t wear silly pants with gathers at the ankles.
These guys wore shorts and shirts, no hats or helmets and you could see, straight out, they were hot.
I sat down on the arm of the couch and watched.
Some official looking guy threw a yellow flag.
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
Bobby explained someone did something bad but I wasn’t listening, all the players were pissed off and getting in each other’s faces.
I pushed Bobby over and sat down fully on the couch.
Twenty minutes later, Bobby looked at me. “Don’t you need to get to work?” he asked.
Shit!
“Shit!” I said, jumped up and ran to the coffeepot. I made Bobby a coffee, made one for me and did the getting ready business.
It was nippy and not the normal, bright, sunshiny Colorado day. I put on a fitted heathered gray t-shirt, a wool, aubergine, ribbon cardigan, jeans and my high-heeled black boots. Hair back in a ponytail, minimum makeup, spritz of fancy perfume and ready to roll.
We swung into Fortnum’s way late.
No one noticed.
Mom was on the couch, Lottie next to her and I gave them both a kiss and went behind the espresso counter to help Duke and Tex with the line of customers.
“I see you’re still alive,” Duke said, obviously still feeling crotchety about my recent troubles and deciding to blame it on me.
I felt the best course of action was not to answer.
It proved not to be the best course of action.
Duke stared at me a beat, then turned to the CD player, yanked out Tex’s Steppenwolf and put in Charlie Daniels.
Normally, this was indication of a throw down. Once a CD was on, it was on and the only reason you were allowed to turn it off was if it wasn’t some of Duke’s country or some of Ally, Indy and Tex’s rock ‘n’ roll.
I held my breath waiting for Tex to react.
Tex wasn’t biting.
This was weird, Tex always bit.
Both Duke and I stared at him.
“Are you okay?” I asked Tex.
He turned to me, “Gonna ask your mother to dinner and I want your blessing.”
My mouth dropped open.
Duke made a sound like someone punched him in the gut.
“Well?” Tex asked me.
I struggled to find my voice.
“Um… you two are consenting adults, you don’t need my blessing.”
“Don’t want you and your sister playin’ snotty tricks on me like those brats on TV,” Tex said.
I blinked.
“The brats on TV are usually kids, not adults approaching thirty like Lottie and me.”
His bushy eyebrows hit his hairline.
“Wasn’t very adult, pullin’ each other’s hair and having a fuckin’ catfight on the floor, Loopy Loo.”
He had a point.
“You have my blessing,” I said.
Then I smiled liking the idea of Tex dating my Mom.
He scowled.
“What? I said you have my blessing,” I told him.
“Now I gotta ask her.”
I looked at Mom, she was watching us. Or more likely, watching Tex. She looked away the minute she saw me looking at her.
I looked back at Tex. “I think she’ll say yes.”
“Yeah?” he looked uncertain.
I did my best not to laugh.
It didn’t work.
“Shee-it,” Tex said, turning away from me.
The door opened and Daisy strolled in, her hair barely tamed by two pigtails sticking out the sides of her neck. I left Tex to his worried thoughts and Duke to his pissed off state of mind and walked out from behind
the counter.
Daisy waved to me and then looked to Lottie.
“You ready, Sugar?” she said to Lottie.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“Daisy’s going to take me to Smithie’s, show me some moves, make sure I get my Porsche,” Lottie explained. “Mom’s gonna come with us.”
I thought about Mom hanging out at Smithie’s watching her daughter practice strip routines.
My family.
Then I turned to Daisy.
“Would you mind swinging by our apartment building? Ada might want to come. With Mom out of the house, she doesn’t have much company and she might be bored. She’d probably like to see your moves.”
This was weird, but this was true.
“No problem, darlin’,” she said to me then looked to Tex and called, “Tex, you playin’ bodyguard?”
“Fuck yeah,” Tex said.
“Let’s go,” Daisy ordered and off they trotted.
Jane came in ten minutes later, Ally ten minutes after that.
Ten minutes after that, my cell rang and I flipped it open because it said, “Eddie calling.”
“Hey,” I said.
“You okay?” he asked.
Uh-oh.
“Should I not be?”
“With you, Chiquita, it’s a crap shoot.”
Wonderful.
I strolled from behind the counter, letting Ally deal with the customer there so I could deal with Eddie. He took my full attention at the best of times.
I stood at the window, looking out.
“How’s your day?” Eddie asked.
“I hit the snooze button, like, ten times, then Bobby introduced me to soccer and I got to work way late. Now, I’m at Fortnum’s, Tex asked for my blessing to date Mom and then Daisy came in and gathered up Mom, Lottie and Tex to go to Smithie’s so she could teach Lottie how to strip. They’re swinging by to pick up Ada, just in case she wants to go.”
Silence.
“Smithie says Lottie’ll be driving a Porsche in a week,” I told him.
More silence.
I kept going; it was like I couldn’t stop, even if I tried.
“Smithie says, if I make it a sister act, he’ll put me in his will.”
Now, there was Spanish.
This made me smile.
“What’s happening with you?” I asked, starting to feel funny and the smile died away.
This was a strange conversation because it was a normal conversation. This was the kind of conversation normal, average, everyday g-words had with their b-words, or worse, w-words had with their m-words.
He answered, but I didn’t hear him. I noticed a car braking funny in the middle of Broadway, directly across from where I was standing. The car didn’t come to a complete stop, but the backdoor opened and a body was flung out.
A body that looked like my Dad’s body.
“Dad,” I whispered into the phone and watched as Dad tumbled, limbs jiggling uselessly, not trying to break or control his roll.
“Dad!” I shouted as I watched him roll, the door to the car closed and the car sped away.
I had the cell away from my face, flipped it shut and shoved it into my jeans, running outside.
“Get her!” Duke shouted but I was gone, out the door, running into traffic, straight to my Dad’s prone body.
Cars swerved and honked and I went down on my knees in the middle of the left lane, next to Dad’s body.
He was on his side and there was blood everywhere. On his clothes, in his hair, the blood was wet and dry, new and old.
I gently rolled him over and what I saw caused a wave of nausea to roll up my throat. Frantically, I swallowed it down. His face was beaten to a bloody pulp. He was barely recognizable. Eyes swollen shut. Lips cracked and ripped. Nose smushed flat. The flesh of his cheeks cut and mangled. Most of his clothes were ripped and cut and blood was flowing freely from the holes.
I bent low, putting my cheek to his and listened for his breathing while my hand went to feel for his pulse.
I heard Bobby issuing orders, “Call 911.” and “Control traffic.”
I felt Dad’s pulse, I didn’t know anything about pulses but I figured him having one at all meant God had finally come through in a clinch.
I sat up, pulled off my cardigan and bunched it under his head.
“Jet,” Bobby said, hand on my shoulder.
I pulled my shoulder from his hand and carefully ripped Dad’s shirt down his chest, seeing what looked like knife wounds and bullet wounds, old and new, all over, blood seeping from them, some maroon, some red, too much of it. No one could lose that much blood and survive.
“Jet,” Bobby said again, crouching down beside me.
I heard sirens and sat down, pulling Dad’s dead weight up to a sitting position using all my strength, pressing his torso to me, wrapping my arms tight around him and putting my mouth to his ear.
Not knowing what else to do, I started to sing softly Paul McCartney’s “Jet”.
“Get her outta there,” Duke growled from somewhere close.
I skipped a bit of the song and went to the good part about wanting Jet to always love him.
It was then, Dad was gently pulled away from my arms by a uniformed officer and I was helped to my feet by another. I was turned and Duke’s arms were there, going round me tight.
We watched as the police worked, then the ambulance was there, then Duke helped me into Bobby’s SUV and Bobby took off behind the ambulance, following close.
He was on his cell, listening to someone, then he said, “It’s bad.”
Yes, he was right, it was bad. It was very, very, very bad.
Bobby angled into an illegal spot outside Denver Health but I was out of the truck before he came to a full stop. He caught up to me and we entered the emergency room together.
The receptionist stared at me, her eyes rounding with horror and she began to stand.
“She’s unhurt, it’s someone else’s blood,” Bobby took over, talking to reception.
I pulled my cell out of my back pocket and scrolled down to Daisy and hit the button.
Daisy answered on the second ring.
“Hey, Sugar. We just picked up Ada and we’re headin’—”
I interrupted her.
“Fifteen minutes ago, Dad was flung out of a moving car on Broadway. He’s been beaten, stabbed and shot. I’m at Denver Health. Can you find a good way to break it to Mom and Lottie and get over here?”
Silence for a beat, then, quietly, “You betcha, darlin’.”
I flipped the phone shut and saw Bobby take a piece of fabric from the receptionist, then he grabbed my arm and pulled me in the direction where she was pointing. We went into the emergency ward, he opened a door and we went into an empty room with an exam table, a bunch of medical stuff and a sink. He took me to the sink.
“Shirt off,” he said.
“What?”
His hands went to my t-shirt at my hips and he whipped it over my head. I stood frozen and stared at the t-shirt in his hand. It was covered in blood.
“You don’t want your mother seeing you in that shirt. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He handed me the fabric, it was a green scrubs top. I put it on while he walked to a biohazard bag, opened the top and shoved my shirt in. He grabbed some gauze on the way back, shoved it under the tap, switched it on, wet the gauze and turned back to me.
“You’re fuckin’ covered,” he muttered, wiping at my neck, eyes on his task, face set like it was carved from stone.
I looked down. He was right, the shirt was gone but there was blood all over my arms, neck and jeans.
“Bobby…” I said and my voice broke on his name.
His eyes came to me.
“Don’t. Don’t do it, Jet. You’re hangin’ in there. Don’t break now.”
I nodded and swallowed.
Bobby’s eyes dropped to my neck and he started wiping, the door opened and Eddie was there.
&nbs
p; I looked at him. Bobby looked at him. Eddie looked at us.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Eddie whispered but I could hear it from across the room.
“It’s not my blood,” I told him.
He came forward, Bobby gave him the gauze and vanished.
Eddie didn’t hesitate and he didn’t look at me, he just started wiping.
Then he tossed the bloody gauze in the sink and went to get more.
When he’d wiped off all the blood, I said, “There was a lot of blood.”
His eyes came to mine.
“I could see.”
“No, I mean, on Dad.”
His hand came to my jaw. “I know what you mean.”
I stared at him. “I want to cry.”
His eyes went from carefully blank to warm.
“Have at it, Chiquita.”
“Bobby told me not to break.”
“Bobby’s a macho idiot.”
His hand moved from my jaw, slid into my hair and he pulled my head to his chest. I wrapped my arms around his middle and he moved his arm around my waist, the other hand stayed in my hair.
I took a deep breath. It broke in the middle a couple of times but I didn’t cry.
We stood there, holding on to each other for a good long while.
Then I realized something, something tremendously good and something frighteningly bad.
Eddie was my anchor. I was a boat, tossed on the seas in an ugly storm that wanted to engulf me and Eddie was keeping me tethered and safe.
How did that happen?
I’d been tossing on the seas for twenty-eight years, I was used to flipping around on the waves by myself, bailing out the water like a mad fool.
How did I get used to an anchor?
What if that anchor broke off?
Shit and damn.
Bobby was right, I couldn’t break.
I had to keep bailing, I couldn’t get used to an anchor.
“Mom and Lottie might be here,” I said to Eddie’s chest.
“Cariña…”
I lifted my head, put my hands to his waist, pushed away a bit and looked at him.
“I have to go out there and talk to them. See if the doctors have anything to say yet.”
He stared at me a beat and then, finally, he said, “You aren’t in this alone.”
I tried to pull away but he brought me back with his arms tightening.
“Jet, you aren’t alone.”
I nodded and tried to smile.
It didn’t work.