Cornered (5 page)

“Well, hi!” Brooke called excitedly as she headed up the stairs. “Did you forget something?”

Lars blinked at her for a moment, not recognizing her now that she wasn’t wearing a bathrobe and her hair in a ponytail. “Have we met?”

“I’m Brooke, Michelle’s roommate. You brought her home last night.”

“Oh, yeah! Sorry, I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on. No, I mean...”

“That’s okay, I get it,” she laughed, enjoying the opportunity to make a gorgeous guy stumble over himself. “You know, we were so worried about Michelle and then relieved that she was finally home, I’m not sure any of us really thanked you. It was really decent of you to make sure she got home safely. It wasn’t your problem, and you certainly could have just walked the other way.”

“Not if I wanted my mom not to kill me, I couldn’t!” Lars said, grinning and revealing a slightly crooked but very charming white smile. “I’d never hear the end of it from her! Of course, my boss was a different matter. I’m lucky I still have a job, and if I hadn’t told him about that creep knocking Michelle around, I
wouldn’t
still have a job. He just happens to have a soft spot for these kinds of situations.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s awful. Sorry you got the hammer dropped on you.”

“It’s no big thing. But I actually have to get back, I’m on my lunch break. Michelle left her purse in the cab of the truck last night, so I left it upstairs with your other roommate.”

“You are simply amazing,” Brooke gushed. “She’s been worried sick. She thought she dropped it on the street in all the scuffling, and she went to look for it.”

Brooke eyed him for only a second before deciding that Lars was the answer to about eighty percent of Michelle’s problems. He was thoughtful, good-looking, and employed. Make that ninety percent.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and ask you something embarrassing. Are you seeing anyone?” she asked, leaning her head to the side and letting her plan fall into place.

“Um, well, no...and that’s flattering, but...”

“Oh, I didn’t mean I was asking for me! I have a boyfriend. I meant Michelle. That guy ‘knocking her around’ last night was her boyfriend, but they’ve been on the outs for some time. I think she knew ages ago he wasn’t right for her, but Michelle has a serious problem with making people upset. Can you believe she went back to that restaurant this morning to beg for her job back? After what she did for them and their son, she’s the one who’s gonna beg? See what I mean?”

Lars looked down at his feet uncomfortably. “Girls like Michelle don’t usually go for guys like me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Girls like Michelle don’t like a guy who sees them home and then thinks to return their belongings?”

“No, I mean, guys who didn’t even finish high school and work with their faces planted in car engines all day long.”

“Oh, really. Tell me, do you punch women in the face while you’re working on that car? Do you get drunk and forget that you were their ride home from work? No, I didn’t think so. I’d love to give you her number, and I think she’d love it if you called her.” Brooke may have been stretching the truth a little bit on that last part, but what Michelle didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. There’d be time for Brooke to confess after those two were happily married. And expecting a few kids. Then she’d tell.

Lars never got the chance to answer. The outside door opened with a loud click of the lock before Michelle closed it behind her, rattling the knob to make sure it caught the latch. She turned to head upstairs and was startled by the reunion on the stairs. She stood speechless before smiling and trying to excuse herself, sidling past Brooke to leave those two to their conversation.

“See what I mean?” Brooke whispered close to Lars’ ear. “She has no idea that you’re here to bring her purse. She doesn’t think enough of herself to think that you would bother!”

Lars stared after her for a second before deciding that would never do. “Michelle?” he asked, awed when she actually turned around and stepped back down the few steps to talk to him.

“Yes?” she answered, a pleasant, unassuming expression on her face.

“I, uh, I brought your purse. You left it in the truck last night.”

Relief and thanks plastered her voice as she spoke. “Oh, you don’t know how good it is to hear that!”

“I think I left something burning on the stove,” Brooke began, taking the stairs two at a time.

“No, you didn’t, you haven’t been to your apartment yet! You just got here!” Lars called after her, teasing her for attempts at setting them up.

“It’s been burning for a really long time!” she yelled, leaning over the bannister to shout down to them before disappearing up the stairs, leaving Lars and Michelle to stand alone in the entryway.

“That was...awkward,” Michelle said with a quiet giggle.

“You should have seen it before you showed up. It was downright circus freak-weird,” Lars agreed. He brushed his hands nervously at his sleeve before looking to the doorway. “Well, I gotta get back to work now. Anyway, your purse is upstairs, so just...call if you need anything, I guess.” He turned and bolted straight out the door and into the haze from rain evaporating off the blacktop city streets. Michelle looked after him before shrugging to herself and walking up the stairs.

“Well?” Brooke demanded as soon as Michelle got inside. She went immediately to the small table in the kitchen alcove and began checking the contents of her purse, one item at a time.

“Well what?” she asked, confused, as she took her phone straight over to the charger plugged in behind a low bookcase, leaving it to recharge.

“Did he ask you out?” Brooke demanded, actually going so far as to stomp her foot in frustration. Match making was hard work, especially when the subjects didn’t appreciate the effort.

“Of course not! Why would he ask me out? He was just doing a good deed, returning my purse.” Michelle looked at her roommate like she had lost her mind.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Angela interrupted. “Maybe because Brookie here told him to!”

“Hey! I only beat you to it; you were planning the same thing! But my way takes less time than your way,” Brooke answered, sticking her tongue out at Angela who returned by throwing a couch pillow at her.

“WHAT?!” Michelle screamed, whirling around to face a very triumphant-looking roommate. “Why would you tell him to do that? I’ve finally managed to get rid of one pain-in-the-ass boyfriend, and even that only happened because the cops took him away! What on earth would I do with another one just like him?”

“Wow, judgmental, are we? You don’t know that he’s anything like Daniel,” Brooke said in a huff.

“And YOU don’t even know his name! You have no proof at all that he’s any improvement over the last piece of scum that I got stuck with. So, NO. No boyfriend! No fixing us up! No!” Michelle stomped off to the bedroom and threw herself on the bed before remembering that she was actually on a mission to make sure she had something suitable to wear to her new job. She pulled herself off the bed and began rifling through hangers, hoping to put together at least a week’s worth of outfits without having to dip into her savings or use any of Mr. Phan’s money. Her closet reorganization started to go really well until Brooke interrupted.

“Psst...are you still mad?” Brooke said, peeking her head around the door with a forced sad face.

“Of course I’m still mad. I’m furious. I’m enraged. I’m murderous. Why do you ask?” Michelle replied, making just as silly a face back at her oldest friend.

“I just wanted to get a feel for how high the body count might be.”

“Well, right now I’m limiting the victims to two,” she said menacingly, but playing along.

“Oh. Good.” Brooke paused. She made an apprehensive face, cringing before speaking again. “So there’s no chance of you losing control of yourself and going on a complete and total killing spree if I told you that Lars is standing in the living room?”

“Only if he’s standing there because you called him,” Michelle said with fake brightness.

“Well, not entirely,” she said quietly.

Michelle groaned. “How much money would it take for you to make him go away?”

“Why? How much ya got?” Brooke teased, holding out her hand and wagging her fingers for some cash. “No dice. You need this. Now get up and straighten your hair before going out there.”

“How do you know that he’s the answer to my prayers and not the source of my migraines?” Michelle argued while Brooke tried to shove her out the door. Brooke stopped.

“Let’s take a quick inventory. His name is Lars, which is an incredible Viking name and you could use a good Viking these days, if you know what I mean,” she said, looking Michelle up and down with a mischievous leer. “He has a job, one which he takes very seriously and one which you’re probably making him late for right now. And finally, he’s a knight in shining armor who beats up bad guys and rescues damsels in distress, then doesn’t steal their wallets even though he certainly could have. Honey, he’s got the goods, and you’re 0 for 1 on finding an even remotely decent guy. Give him a chance.”

She turned Michelle around to face the little mirror that hung over their dressers, fluffing out her brown wavy hair a little bit and pinching her good cheek for a little color. Brooke smiled at her and hugged her, leaning her head on Michelle’s shoulder, still talking to their reflections.

“You deserve something good for once. You’ve had a lot of suck lately. It’s your turn, and I think this guy might be something good. So go after him!”

Michelle slumped her shoulders in defeat, but nodded. Everything Brooke said was true. Her soul had really taken a beating during the last three years, first in college, then after she quit, all the way through last night. Who knew? Maybe Brooke was right about the timing. Damn it, it was her turn for something good.

“That was Michelle on the phone,” Mrs. Vane called from the kitchen. Her husband lounged on the couch with the sound muted, the Knicks playing quietly on the screen while he recovered from work. “She can’t come to dinner this Sunday after all. She started a new job, and has to spend Sunday doing some kind of computer program, some tutorial or something.” She went back to stirring a pot of seasoned cabbage over the stove, the dough for her pirogue resting in a bowl nearby.

“She’s not working at that restaurant anymore?” Frank called from the couch without lifting his head off the pillow where it rested.

             
“No. She’s gonna work at some book shop. She has to do some computer work for the owner.”

             
“What does she know about computers?”

             
“She knows lots of stuff about them, everything’s computers these days. She took a lot of computer classes in college, remember?” Mrs. Vane raised her voice over the sound of her food processor, whirring together the ingredients for her famous dish.

             
“No, I remember her dropping out of college, though! Maybe all that computer stuff was too intense for her to handle!” He shifted on the couch so he could check out the score and stretch out his bad leg.

             
“Oh, stop it, Frank, give her a break. She went through a lot of struggles and she just needed to get away from that whole situation for a while. You watch, she’s gonna go back and finish, she just needs some time.”

             
“Oh, goodie. She needs ‘time.’” Mr. Vane answered back loudly with a sneer. “And during the ‘time’ that she’s not in college, I got bills to pay back from the amount of ‘time’ she wasted there.”

             
“You said you weren’t gonna bring that up again, Francis Vane,” Mrs. Vane said sternly, coming out of the kitchen and wiping her hands on a towel. She flicked the edge of it at her husband’s shoulder before going back to her cooking.

             
“How am I not supposed to bring it up? She’s supposed to be so smart, but she goes off to school and quits when she’s more than halfway through! How is that good sense?”

             
“You don’t know everything, Frank. And then sometimes, you don’t know anything. Now stop talking about Michelle behind her back and go wash your hands.” She set a small casserole dish on a hot pad in the middle of the vinyl tablecloth-covered dinette, quickly said grace, and served up two plates of food. Frank came out of the bathroom and joined her.

             
“What’s eating you now, Annie?” he asked between bites, looking over at where his wife picked at her food.

             
“Nothing.” Pick.

             
“It’s obviously not nothing since you’re sitting there poking the food around right in the middle. Look, is it because of what I said about Michelle? Tell me this. Am I wrong? The girl goes off to a fancy college in the city, gets really great grades, makes everybody proud...then bam. She’s out. She just gets tired of making something of herself and goes to be a waitress for some foreign guy. And I’m not supposed to be mad? Meanwhile, you and I are paying off her college bills so she can just take noodle orders all day long. Nobody ever gave you or me the chance to go to school, but I tell ya, if they had? I’d make sure I saw it through.”

             
Annie kept moving the food around her plate on the end of her fork, waiting for Frank to stop talking. He took a bite of his roll, letting her know she had at least a few seconds to say her peace.

             
“I already said it, Frank. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

             
“Oh, I don’t? Then why don’t you enlighten me. Tell me where I’m wrong. Because I sure as hell would love to know that there’s some point to this story. Huh? C’mon, tell me,” he pressed, growing angry at not having anyone back him up on one of the greatest mistakes he’d witnessed in his family.

             
“Everything isn’t always what you think it is. Sometimes, there’s more to the story, but you wouldn’t know about that, you’re just so busy knocking her down when she’s not here to defend herself. But don’t you talk about Michelle like she’s lazy or a loser. That girl has worked harder than any of us, and she’s got less to show for it than we do. I won’t listen to you talk bad about her again.” She stabbed a chunk of food with her fork and bit down on the metal tines with so much force that Frank flinched, shocked into silence. Neither of them spoke for the rest of the meal.