Fresh Kills (29 page)
Authors: Bill Loehfelm
“Adding them up?” Virginia asked, when I still hadn’t answered.
I looked at her, gazing back at me with a decent impression of cautious anticipation on her face. I considered how much of Molly and me to reveal, whether to play it up and dig the needle in deeper, or play it down and let Virginia’s own imagination do my dirty work for me. Then I noticed that old sparkle in her eye, the false bemusement that hid the killer instinct. I knew her asking about my love life was only baiting the snare. She was hoping I’d say yes. She was counting on it.
She’d tell me how happy she was for me, how healthy it was, how glad she was that someone was helping me through this difficult time. She’d ask all kinds of questions about this mystery woman that she had no interest in knowing about. There’d be the fake jealousy questions:
Is she prettier than me, smarter than me
. Loyalty-testing questions where she’d tell herself yes was a lie and no assuaged any twinge she felt in her ego.
Is she prettier than me, smarter than me
. Loyalty-testing questions where she’d tell herself yes was a lie and no assuaged any twinge she felt in her ego.
But then, and this was what it was really all about, this meeting, this stupid fucking conversation, she’d tell me about the fabulous new man she was with. And her questions would give her license to tell me all about him, all kinds of things she knew I wouldn’t want to know, all the things she knew would hurt the most. She’d watch me like a hawk for any revealing flinch or any flare of temper that would tell her she’d hit the mark. She didn’t want to get me back; she just wanted to make sure she could. She just wanted now what she’d wanted when we compared scars and tattoos. The same thing she wanted when she went down on me to get me hard for the third time at four in the morning. She wanted what she thought she’d lost when she couldn’t endure the brutal collision of ecstasy and agony our life together had become. She just wanted to show she was tougher than me.
She was, but I wouldn’t give it up easy.
“No,” I said. “I’m actually enjoying being single.”
She set her jaw. “That’s good. I feel better about this knowing we’re both moving on.”
“Better about what?” I asked, though I knew the question should’ve been “better about who?” I steeled myself.
“I’m leaving town,” she said, and my spine turned to water. I knew she’d seen it happen and I hated myself for letting it show. My face went hot; I felt like a complete fool.
“Manhattan?” I asked.
“West,” she said.
I drew away from her, horrified. “Jersey?”
She rolled her eyes. “Texas. Austin.”
I stopped walking. We stood at a bend in the trail, at the end of the lake. Across the water, I could see the bridge. A couple jogged by with their dog, huffing at us for being in their way. I wanted to run them down and break their legs. It wasn’t a big dog, I could take it. I took a deep breath, figured I might as well go right for the heart of it.
“Who with?” I asked.
“Sandra. She’s been there six months already, getting things ready.”
“Sandra Castronova?” I asked. “From the tattoo shop?”
“The very one.”
I should’ve fucking known. They always were touchy with each other. I’d seen more than a few mysterious glances cross the room between them. Well, and there was that time Sandra was spending the night at the apartment and we invited her into the bedroom . . . Well, it was best not to think about that now. I’d always felt I was more in the way that night than anything else.
“You two should be very happy together,” I said.
“God, will you ever grow up? Sandra’s down there with her fiancée. They’ve been apartment hunting for me for two weeks.”
“Well, fuck, what for? I mean, fucking
Texas
? What the fuck is there in Texas?”
Texas
? What the fuck is there in Texas?”
“A coffee shop. It’s—”
“Coffee? Whadda you know about coffee?” I looked at the cup in my hand, threw it into the lake. “You’re moving halfway across the country to serve fucking coffee?”
I was furious, absolutely enraged, that there wasn’t another man in this somewhere. That she was moving half a country away from me over coffee. It wasn’t a good enough reason. I had no fucking clue why I cared about the reason at all.
“If you’d let me finish talking,” she said. She waited for another outburst, but I didn’t have one ready just yet. “It’s our coffee shop. Mine and Sandra’s and Devin’s. I’m part owner and I’m going to be handling the books, just like in the City. Sandra’s been planning this for a year. She knows plenty about coffee, and about owning a business. And she’s going to teach me.”
“And Devin’s daddy has plenty of money,” I said. “Just like in the City.”
“Maybe he does,” Virginia said. “But Sandra owns twenty percent, and I own twenty.”
I wasn’t buying it. “Six months. You’ll last six months out there.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she said. “I should’ve known you’d be a prick about this.”
“I’m being realistic,” I said. “What happened to playing lawyer? There’s better money in decaf lattes? What happens when that gets boring, too?”
She stepped between me and the briefcase. “They’re a firm specializing in small business, I’ll have you know. I took some temp work there. I thought I might learn a few things. In fact, I did.” She crossed her arms. “Learn any new drink recipes in the past six months?”
“You cut your hair for temp work?”
She ran her hand through it. I don’t think she even knew she was doing it. It may have been the only unself-conscious move I’d ever seen her make. “I cut my hair because I felt like it.”
“It was beautiful. I loved it.”
“It was in the way.”
We started walking again, a guarded distance between us. My temper subsided, and a few things started to add up. “We broke up six months ago.” I looked at her. “Which would be when Sandra left. Where
did
you get the money to buy into a business?”
did
you get the money to buy into a business?”
“I’d been saving it,” she said, “for a while.”
“While we were living together?”
“Yes,” she said. She stopped walking.
I continued a few steps ahead then stopped, hands in my pockets. I could feel her eyes on my back. Fuck the walk. We should’ve gone down to the dock by the bridge, rented one of those little rowboats, and rowed out through the beer cans and oil swirls to the middle of that fake little lake. Then, when we got to this point in the conversation, I could’ve just slipped over the side and down to the lightless bottom. Could’ve just disappeared. I could do that now. I should just keep walking, through the trees. That wouldn’t work, though. I’d pop out onto the hospital parking lot in five minutes. Still, it had to be better than this. Then I heard her say my name. She was closer to me.
“You started this coffee shop shit before you and I ever even broke up,” I said.
I felt like such a dope. When she’d suddenly started letting me pick up the tab all the time, when she let me pick up a larger slice of the utilities, let me work extra shifts to do it, about a year before the end, I’d taken it to mean she was settling in, letting me look after her. Shit, I’d never looked after anyone but myself before her, and I’d considered the change progress. “How long before?” I asked.
“About a year.”
I turned on her. “What the fuck, Virginia? You were planning on leaving for a year and you didn’t have the spine to tell me? I’m not rich, it’s not much of an apartment.” I held out my hands, just in case she wanted to drop an answer into them.
“Exactly.” she said. “It wasn’t money, it wasn’t the apartment. I probably could’ve saved more, faster, on my own.” She blushed. She actually fucking blushed. “Without having to hide it from you.”
“You apparently had no fucking problem hiding things from me,” I said. “Did you, at any point, have any intention of asking me to go with you?”
“All the time. But something always held me back.”
“What?”
“The same thing that kept me there. The same thing that kept me from doing anything, going anywhere I talked about. You.”
“Me? I could’ve helped you,” I said, throwing my hands up. “Fuck, I did help you. I would’ve gone with you. I would’ve followed you anywhere.”
“Exactly.”
I took a step toward her. If she said that one more time, I was gonna lose my shit. Nothing about this was exact, no matter how neat and clean she had it all added up and justified in her head. It was a big fucking mess.
“You would’ve followed me,” she said, “eventually, maybe. If I did all the work, found the apartment, set it up, scoped out places for you to work. How often did we talk about getting a new apartment? How many times did you say you were sick of bartending? How often did we talk about getting married? And what happened? Nothing.”
“So I was supposed to do everything?” I asked. “You talked as much as I did. Things come up. We just never found the time. You gave up before we did.”
“I gave up,” she said, “because we were never going to find the time. I know I didn’t do anything, either. I know I never followed through. There was always something else to do. Another shift to work, another party to go to, another bunch of friends to catch up to. For a long time, that was enough. I never thought I’d find a man that could keep up with me. We always had so much fun. But we weren’t going anywhere together, we were just getting older.”
“Austin would’ve been different.”
“For a month,” she said. “If you ever got there. Think about it realistically. You would’ve just picked up and moved with me? No, you’d have to give Brian your two weeks, which would’ve turned into two months, then six months. I would’ve been stuck waiting for you, either here or there. I was sick of waiting.”
“So I’m loyal. You run out on me because I’m loyal?”
“You’re stuck,” she said. “There’s a difference.”
“You did this whole thing behind my back, for a whole year,” I said. “You never gave me a chance.”
“I gave you a year’s worth of chances. A year to start coming home from work before dawn. To save some money. A year to call your sister and treat her like a brother should. Did you know, at one point, you didn’t fuck me sober for three months? Three goddamn months. What do you think that was like?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said, “because you never told me. That’s so you, Virginia. You’d always rather keep score than speak up. You’d rather win than be happy. How can I know you’re unhappy if you don’t tell me?”
“If you loved me, really loved me like you said you did, you would’ve known.”
“That’s bullshit. How can I know what you’re feeling when you’re always hiding it? You put me through a test I didn’t even know I was taking, and then you leave me when I fail. It’s fucking cruel. It’s fucking cruel like this conversation. Why do I need to know all this? You could’ve told me yesterday on the phone you got a job in Austin. And I would’ve said good luck and that would’ve been that. But no, the whole world always has to know what Virginia feels, unless it might actually serve some fucking purpose.”
“I never told you the truth about why I left you,” she said.
“I figured that out.”
“I thought you might want to know,” she said. “I thought you might want to know that it wasn’t because I didn’t love you. In a way, I always will.”
“That’s rich. So this is all some big sacrifice for you. Is that how I’m supposed to feel about it now?” I snapped my fingers. “Just like that. Just because you say so. I should give you a big hug and wish you well and send you a Christmas card every year? Fuck that. Fuck you. You love me but you’re gonna do fuck all about it. What good does that do me?”
She tilted her head back in defiance but it didn’t hold. Her mouth worked on words, but they didn’t come out. Her head dropped and her shoulders shook with her refusal to cry. Even now, with absolutely nothing at stake, she held back. She seemed small, like a girl playing dress-up in mommy’s clothes. She looked like just another girl. I realized I’d gotten what I’d always wanted. I’d won, but all I felt was sick and ashamed. For me, for her. I would rather have lost. What did winning get me? She was still going. She had still left me behind, and conspired to do it. She’d go on to Austin and I’d still be here, here with all the rest of the trash.
She looked up at me, and I hated her. Hated her for losing. For not being tougher. I hated her for not staying the girl I remembered, for falling from the pedestal before I could push her off.
I stepped to her, took her chin in my hand. With all I had boiling inside me, I still couldn’t resist the urge to finish her off. “Austin’s not far enough. You’ll never be far enough away from me.”
Then I walked away, completing the circle around the lake, heading for the bridge and the exit from the park, leaving her where she stood.
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