Cornered (3 page)

              Brooke wrestled with wanting to call the police, call Michelle’s parents, or just put on her shoes and go looking for her on her own. Angela, sitting on the sleeper sofa and casually eating ice cream while flipping channels, wasn’t letting on that she was worried, too, but Brooke could tell Michelle’s disappearance was bothering her. Between horrendous-sized bites of caramel praline ice cream, Angela kept taking alternating looks between the apartment door and the tiny window to the street below.

             
Just as she was about to look up the Vane’s number in New Jersey, Brooke heard voices in the stairwell and charged to the door. She threw it open and pulled Michelle into a tight hug, immediately bursting into tears.

             
“Where have you been? You didn’t call or anything!” she started to yell, but stopped, speechless, when she saw the bandage on Michelle’s face, the deep purple bits of the surrounding bruise visible around its edges. “Oh my god! What happened to your face?”

             
Those words brought Angela, who dropped the ice cream carton on the floor and led Michelle tenderly to the sofa. The three didn’t even notice the driver who had seen her to her door.

             
“I’m going to go now, if you’re okay here?” Lars asked uncertainly, peeking into the apartment without actually stepping inside.

             
“Yes, thank you, Lars. You were so kind,” Michelle said quietly. Brooke and Angela gave Michelle’s arms a simultaneous squeeze when they saw the dark-haired man standing in their doorway. He reached for the doorknob and pulled it shut, reminding them before he closed it to lock up once he left.

             
“WHO was that?” Brooke managed to gasp as she flipped both deadbolts and fastened the chain lock. “He was absolutely god-like! Did he drive you home?”

             
“Um, can we back up and talk about my face first?” Michelle asked with a tired smile, gesturing with her hands to her ripped, dirty work dress and her hair unraveling from the bun Mr. Phan insisted she wear.

             
“Of course, honey,” Angela said, smoothing the escaped tendrils of hair out of Michelle’s face. “Tell us everything that happened so we can hurry up and get to the part about the gorgeous guy.” Michelle laughed genuinely at the joke, knowing that her roommates really did care. The motion made her face hurt again and she grabbed her cheek, causing Brooke to spring from the arm of the couch to bring her some ice.

             
Michelle took a deep breath to start at the beginning, but then the full force of the evening hit her hard. She burst into tears instead, sobbing as her roommates exchanged frightened looks. The whole story poured out, ending with losing her job and having to get a ride home, all because of Daniel.

             
“I’m sorry, but did this girl just sit here and cry about losing her job?” Angela asked Brooke sarcastically. “How about, ‘I’m crying because my loser boyfriend attacked me’? Maybe something like that?”

             
Brooke rolled her eyes and shrugged at Michelle’s practical, walled-off nature. “Angela’s right, sweetie, you just need to worry about you. Don’t worry about anything else.”

             
“Hell, now that it’s over, I’d say we can look on the bright side of things. You lost a job that barely paid you anything and you lost a boyfriend who wasn’t worth anything, plus you got a ride home from an actual member of the Greek gods. I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but this is the best night you’ve had in a long time.”

             
Michelle couldn’t help but laugh, right in the middle of another bout of crying. The worst feeling was thinking about what could have happened, now that she had the luxury of knowing it was over. She could still see Binh laying on the ground, curled tightly trying to protect himself.
 

             
The next morning, there was only one thing to do. She rallied the troops—well, the roommates—and went to Daniel’s apartment to get the few items she’d left there, a jacket, a DVD, stuff like that. He was still down at the police station, luckily, but she used the extra key he kept above the doorframe to let herself in. Michelle snagged anything that would have made her ever have to come back here then closed the door firmly on Daniel.

             
Next stop, The Painted Phan to beg for her job back. Michelle had even been a little bit optimistic that in the bright light of day, the Phans would be willing to overlook the fact that her boyfriend was the one who’d assaulted their son, especially since she was innocent of the entire mess and practically a victim herself. The angry bruise on her face demonstrated that. But when she pulled on the heavy wooden door and stepped into the entryway, her heart sank. The podium where she greeted customers and got their menus was gone, shoved off in the corner with a potted plant resting on top of it. Nothing says permanent like a potted plant.

             
Even with her newly crushed spirits, the least she could do was check on Binh. She was appalled to see him running the vacuum in between the empty tables, one arm cradled against his side and a row of black-threaded stitches running from his hairline to the outer edge of his eyebrow. Michelle raced over and gestured to him since he couldn’t hear her over the vacuum cleaner. She pulled out a chair and pointed to it, then took the handle of the vacuum from him.

             
She smiled when he sank into a chair, exhausted and wincing, letting her take over the floor. So what if she didn’t work here anymore? This was the least she could do. Binh leaned his aching head on his one good arm, propping his elbow on a nearby table and resting his forehead on his hand. Michelle pulled chairs back from each table to get the crumbs underneath each one, carefully pulling the oversized cord so it didn’t snag on the chair legs. Mrs. Phan’s worried face appeared in the small, square window of the swinging kitchen door, frowning at the girl who just wouldn’t take the hint.

             
Mrs. Phan raced from the kitchen and pulled the vacuum cord out of the wall, waiting for the loud whirring sound to die down before speaking.

             
“Michelle? Why you here?” she asked not too unkindly, especially after her eyes travelled the damage Daniel had done to Michelle’s face as well. She put an arm around her son’s shoulders, looking up at Michelle with half-accusation, half-confusion. “My husband said you no can be here. So why you cleaning?”

             
“I just feel really bad, Mrs. Phan. You’re completely right. This is my fault. If not for me, Binh wouldn’t be hurt. I just came in to check on him and this is the least I could do.” She smiled and plugged the cord back in the wall, leaving mother and son watching her in surprise.

             
Mrs. Phan shook her head before standing up and turning off the vacuum cleaner. She pulled Michelle into an awkward hug, made all the harder by the older woman’s four-and-a-half foot tall stature. She patted Michelle lovingly on the back for a moment before taking her by both shoulders and looking up at her tearfully.

             
“No! This not your fault! He’s a bad man. You did nothing. No man ever supposed to hit girl or young boy. You did nothing wrong!” She pulled Michelle to her one last time and squeezed her tightly. “And you come back to work tomorrow. This your family.”

             
“Really? But what about Mr. Phan? He’s not too happy with me right now.”

             
“I handle Mr. Phan. You protect my son in the middle of the night. You are my family now. You come to work tomorrow.” She patted Michelle brusquely on the arm and switched the vacuum cleaner back on. Michelle laughed to herself when Mrs. Phan thrust the handle into her hand and swung her arm wildly around the dining room, telling Michelle to finish before she herself headed back into the kitchen to work on preparing lunch.

              Lars slammed the back of his head into the hood of the car he was working on when his boss yelled his name across the loud garage. He wiped the grease off his hands and looked up, catching Dante’s pissed off expression and crossed arms, which was no small feat considering his boss could barely reach around his huge frame to clap his hands together, let alone cross his arms. The older man jerked his head, letting Lars know to join him in the office.

             
Uh-oh
, he thought. He’d known Dante all of four years and no one had ever been called into the office because there was a cake waiting for him. A couple of the other mechanics looked up and met Lars’ eye as he passed, but he could only shrug.

             
“Get in here and close the door,” Dante said gruffly around the cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. “You wanna tell me what kinda sneaky hijinks you been up to in one of my vehicles?”

             
“I don’t know what you mean, boss,” Lars said plainly, lowering himself into an armchair whose upholstery had cracked three Presidents ago. “What kinda sneaky hijinks are we talking about, specifically?”

             
“Don’t get cute with me, the only thing I wanna hear outta you is a good explanation about why I shouldn’t send you walkin’ right now. I’ve fired better mechanics than you for less shit than this.” Dante reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a small, rectangular tan purse.

             
“I don’t think that one matches your shoes, boss,” Lars said, smiling.

             
“You think this is some kinda joke?” Dante snarled, slamming the metal desk drawer with a loud bang.

             
“Well, I did. But then you asked me that, and now I’m kinda thinking you’re seriously pissed.” Lars looked worried, trying to figure out what his place was in all the boss’ anger.

             
“I go to check the mileage on the tow truck this morning for the insurance report, and there’s a girlie purse in the floorboard. So unless it happens to go with
your
shoes, you took my truck out on some kinda date last night. I tell ya, I fired Mack after I found a condom in the truck cab. He swore it had just fallen outta his pocket since it was still in the wrapper and all, but too bad. I don’t take chances on this kinda stuff. I can’t afford the hit on my insurance. So you get two seconds to tell me somethin’ I wanna hear, or you’re out the door.”

             
Lars looked down at his hands for a minute, seeing the permanent grease stains for what they really were: a tattoo that told the rest of the world he was just an underling, one who could be replaced at that. “I gotta level with you, Dante. I took a girl home when I went out on the 35
th
Street job last night.”

             
“What the hell were you thinkin’? We got a rule about passengers in the truck! It’s an insurance thing! You coulda gotten me shut down if you so much as scratched a door while you got some slut in the cab!” Dante’s face turned five different shades of red before settling on purple as its final choice.

             
“It’s not like that, boss! She wasn’t a slut, either. I was sitting here in the office last night and I heard some screaming. She was in the alley across the street getting the shit beat outta her by a drunk, she and some barely teenaged boy. The cops were there and everything, you can check it out. But they were gonna make her wait in the alley by herself until they could send a car to take her home, since they were busy wrestling with the drunk. I didn’t even say anything at first, but when the call came in about 35
th
Street, I walked over and told her I’d drop her off on the way. And it was on the way, I didn’t even have to turn the wheel. Straight up this street right here,” Lars argued, pointing out the window.

             
Dante’s color improved slightly, only to turn back to red when he took a long drag off his cigarette.

             
“C’mon, boss, what would you really have had me do? She was bleeding on her face and everything where that asshole did a number on her. And she’s supposed to sit there in the dark? Check the log, the 35
th
Street job was almost at three am. And the cops had to ask me questions, too, so you can even check it out with them.”

             
Dante didn’t say anything, pausing so long that Lars knew any hope of keeping his job was over. What Lars couldn’t have known was the memories Dante kept tucked away of a childhood spent trying to step in front of his own mother’s tiny frame every time his dad made it home from his nightly visit to the bar.

             
“You say one word about me letting you get away with this, and you’re out the door,” Dante finally said quietly. “For now, you’re off the truck for the rest of the month. Don’t even ask me to let you fill in for somebody. You wanna keep making overtime for sitting around one night a week, you’re gonna follow the rules.”

             
Lars dropped his head for only a minute, calculating how much losing that overtime and the fill-in shifts would cost him. He sighed, standing up to leave before turning his attention back to Dante. “I understand. Thanks. It won’t happen again.”

             
  “And could you do something about this thing? Like you said, it don’t match my shoes.” He held out the purse by hooking one finger through the thin strap. “Oh, and next time you use a wrench to take down a shit head, do me a favor. Don’t block the view of the security camera. I couldn’t get a good look at his face when you got him in the knee.”

             
Lars smiled and nodded, praying there wouldn’t be any future need to take out a kneecap with a wrench. He laughed out loud when he heard Dante call through the door, “And next time use a metric wrench, they’re heavier and they don’t get as much use!”

             
On his lunch break, Lars raced to his car with the purse tucked football-style under his arm, tossing it in the passenger seat of his old car before realizing it might have valuables in it. He set it up more firmly against the seat back and headed in the direction he’d taken the waitress less than twelve hours before. It had been dark, but he thought he would recognize the building since its bottom floor had been taken up by a homey-looking Irish bar.

             
Once inside, finding the right door was no problem since the third floor only had three apartment doors on it. He knocked on the door he’d escorted Michelle to and waited, hoping she was home to take her purse off his hands. It made him nervous just to know that there could be money or an expensive phone in it and he would have been the last person with it in his possession.

             
Lars’ face brightened into a smile when he heard the sound of several locks turning, but his expression fell when it was the dark-skinned friend who answered the door instead of Michelle. Whereas their other roommate had seemed a lot more welcoming, this one had been kind of frosty about his appearance at their apartment last night. Of course, it had been way past appropriate visiting hours...

             
“Can I help you?” Angela asked, keeping the door wedged with her foot so it couldn’t open further without a serious fight.

             
“Uh, yeah. I came by here last night with your roommate? Michelle? I was wondering if she was home,” he began, suddenly feeling like a little boy for the first time in many years.

             
“No,” Angela replied with a slight sneer. “That jerk boyfriend of hers cost her that waitressing job, so she’s gone back to the restaurant to beg for her crappy job back. I can tell her you stopped by though.” Her tone softened a little bit when Angela remembered that Lars was the one who had saved Michelle, not hurt her.

             
“Oh, no, that’s okay. She left her purse in the truck when I drove her home. Um, here.” He stepped towards her just long enough to push Michelle’s purse into her hands before stepping back away from the door. “If you could just give it to her...”

             
Lars waved awkwardly before turning and heading back down the stairs. Angela couldn’t help but stare after him, appreciative of what mechanics’ coveralls did for his frame.. She closed the door on the view, the wheels in her brain already in motion.