The Duet (5 page)

“Don’t fall in!” I heard Cooper yell as I headed to the back of the club. I flipped him the bird over my shoulder.

When I got back to the table, my face back to its usual pallor, Jay was there alone. I hesitated only a moment before sliding in across from him. I shredded a cocktail napkin into strips to keep my hands busy, my eyes searching the room for salvation in the form of Cooper.

“I need to ask you a favor,” Jay said, startling me. He so rarely initiated any communication between us. I looked at him long and hard to see if maybe he was kidding around, but his face was as it normally looked – stony and somber. I leaned across the table a little and nodded, indicating that he should continue. He shocked me by getting up and sliding into the seat beside me.

“I check into rehab Sunday.”

“Uh, yes I know. Hence this fabulous celebration Cooper and I are throwing for you right now.” I gestured toward the empty bar, then thumbed the general area where Cooper was now necking with Trisha openly.

He glanced over, then his eyes came back to me, and he smiled. My heart may have stopped for a moment. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen him smile – at least not at me. And though the expression was brief, and didn’t reach all the way to his eyes, it was definitely something that I would like to see again. And often. The realization of that made me uneasy.

“What kind of favor? You want to get in one last romp in the hay before you go in the joint?” I was teasing, of course, but my chest felt heavy. I was anticipating his response, as if there was a chance he’d take me up on my offer.

He rubbed his hand down his stubbly cheek, and looked down at his hands on the table. “Um, no. Nothing like that.” He cleared his throat. “I was wondering if I could write to you.”

I won’t lie. For a moment, my mind was filled with X-rated visions of me giving Jay a nice parting gift before he got shipped out. I zoned out, and barely heard what he said.

“I’m sorry, what? I thought you said you wanted to write to me.”

“Yes. Like letters. We’re not allowed to use the internet or text or anything, but we’re supposed to write every day to someone we trust. It’s part of the treatment, I guess.”

I was honestly speechless. And for me to not find my words… well, that was a pretty big deal. It almost never happened.

“Never mind,” he said, starting to stand up. “It’s dumb, I’m sorry I asked.”

“No! It’s not dumb.” I put my hand on his arm to stop him from leaving. Oh, snap. He really had nice arms. “Sit, please. It’s just… you took me by surprise is all. I… I mean… you trust me?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

He leaned back against the seat cushion and rubbed his cheek again, something I was starting to think was a nervous gesture. “I don’t know. I think it’s just because we’re both friends with Cooper, and even though I don’t really know you that well, I feel like I do by extension of him.”

I nodded. “Okay, I guess that makes sense.”

“Anyway, I have no one else to ask, and it would be weird writing to Cooper. We’re not really the ‘share your deepest feelings’ kind of friends.”

“So you’re gonna share all your deep feelings with me? In the letters?”

“No! I mean, they don’t read them or anything. We can write whatever. Just as long as we do it every day, and to the same person.”

“Can I write back? We can be like pen pals! It’ll be like Girl Scouts… I think. Well, I might’ve seen that in a movie or something. I never actually was in Girl Scouts, and I don’t think I’ve ever written anyone a letter. And mailed it. Huh.” I scratched my chin, suddenly very caught up in the thought that I had never written a letter. Weird.

“You can’t write back.”

I shook my head to clear it. “What?”

“They don’t want anyone getting any negative influence from outside, and since they don’t monitor the content of the mail, they just don’t let us receive any.”

“Oh.” My shoulders slumped. I was actually disappointed. “Well, sure. Yes, I’ll be your writ-ee or recipient or whatever you want to call it.”

“Thanks, Izzy.”

The sound of my name in his voice did funny things to my insides. I looked down and was surprised to see that my hand had never moved off his arm. I looked up hesitantly, kind of scared of what was waiting for me on his face, and when my eyes locked on his I knew I was right to be afraid.

This boy was gonna crush my heart someday. I just had a feeling.

6

Dear Izzy,

I’ve never written for anyone but myself before now. I’m supposed to write “with raw honesty”, but who is really capable of that? Besides, you’d probably never speak to me again if you know what was really inside my head.

Anyway, the place is okay. I’ve only been here for one night, but it’ll be tolerable for six weeks. I guess it beats the alternative.

I’ll write every day, but you don’t have to read these. I’m kind of glad you aren’t allowed to write back. It takes some of the pressure off. This way I can pretend to know your reaction.

The assignment for today is to pick one thing we would change about ourselves going forward. It could be as obvious as laying off the drugs (you seriously wouldn’t believe some of the stories I’ve already heard in here), or not drinking anymore. Or it could be a little more intangible of a goal.

Mine’s pretty simple. I’m gonna stop blaming my parents for all my shit. If I don’t, I will end up to be one miserable bastard. (okay, well more of a miserable bastard than I already am)

Dr. Phil would be damn proud, don’t you think?

Jay

The warehouse job was going well. A month in and I didn’t have any complaints. Okay, maybe just one small complaint.

“Izzy, get your sweet little ass over here!” Wayne yelled, from his position at the desk in front of all the security monitors.

Wayne was my boss, and I had never seen another person get away with doing less work. I was also quite certain he had broken every sexual harassment law since I’d started. But he was relatively harmless, and I needed this job.

I finished up the pallet I was shrink-wrapping and sauntered over; although saunter was a bit optimistic, since it was impossible to walk in a smooth manner while wearing the ridiculously starchy, polyester-type uniform we were required to wear. I never thought I’d see the day when steel-toed boots were the most comfy apparel on my body. It seemed to me that warehouse work should involve a broken-in pair of jeans, cotton t-shirt and hair pulled back out of your eyes. We weren’t exactly on display back here, and a happy employee that didn’t have to scratch her crotch or check that her boobs were still under the burlap sack called a shirt, was a productive employee.

Yeah, well, I may have had two small complaints about the job.

“Yes, Wayne,” I said like an obedient child. I was doing so much better with the eye-rolling thing. I felt a twitch in my brow as I struggled to control myself now. He was checking me over from head to foot. Nothing made a girl feel sexier than these uniforms. Team that up with your middle-aged, chain smoking, showers-once-a-week boss who likely still lives with his mother, and leers at you as if you were tonight’s dinner, and voila! I was so hot.

I removed my hat, (oh, hadn’t I mentioned the cardboard-ish hat with the rubber band-like torture device to hold it in place?) reassembled my hair in a haphazard bun, and tucked it back under its hiding place.

Wayne’s eyes popped wider. “Your hair is blue.”

“You’re very observant.” Now I was bored. I’d rather shrink-wrap ten thousand pallets than have a conversation with this degenerate.

He ducked his head and looked up at me from where he was sitting through thin, matted eyelashes. “I bet you’re a dynamo in the sack,” he said in a low voice.

I smiled even as I swallowed back the bile in my throat. Being one of only three or four women in this job, I expected comments like this. But words weren’t the same as hands, and when his shot out and rested on my hip, I jerked back.

“Hands off, Wayne,” I muttered so that only he could hear. There was no need to make a scene. As long as I made it clear that this wouldn’t be tolerated, he wouldn’t try to touch me again.

“What did you want, Wayne?” I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “My eyes are up here.”

He tipped his head to one side and smiled a toothy grin, and when I say toothy, I mean he was only missing two teeth. That I could notice. Oh, wait, no he was only missing one tooth. That other one was just so black, I didn’t see it at first.

Wayne leaned back in his chair and stuck a toothpick in his mouth. I tried the power of positive thinking as I imagined him leaning too far back, toppling over and splitting his head  open like a watermelon. I vaguely wondered if someone as dumb as Wayne would have visible signs of stupidity inside their head – like giant tattoos of question marks on their brain matter, or cockroaches in their skull.

He stared at me for a minute longer, and just as I was beginning to squirm, he handed me a pile of pick tickets without a word. I snatched them from his hand and got back to work.

Normally, Wayne just made a few off-color remarks and let me go about my business. But that afternoon, he was dogging me, and I could feel my self-control begin to slip as the day wore on. Twice he accidentally on purpose, brushed by me too close and jabbed a boob. Or maybe he hoped it was a boob, but he’d only gotten my sternum once and my ribcage the next.

The man had probably never actually touched a real boob, so uniform aside, he wouldn’t know the difference.

It was getting close to quitting time when the straw broke the camel’s back; or maybe I should say the steel toe broke the weasel’s face.

I was standing up on the ladder, reaching for a box, when I felt something stirring down there in my nether region. And I don’t mean the good kind of stirring; more like I was camping and a filthy garden snake had crawled up my pant leg. I glanced down and realized that Wayne had climbed up behind me – an absolute safety no-no, two people on a ladder – and had attached that claw he called a hand, right to my crotch. It was clamped on there good and tight, although thank the stars that fabric was so thick and unyielding, I could barely feel it.

I saw a burst of fiery red and orange before my eyeballs. I even managed one good deep breath before I reacted, so you can’t say I didn’t think it through first.

My left foot came deliberately off the rung of the ladder and I lifted it as far up as my position would allow. He never even saw it coming. That steel-toed boot came down so hard on his forehead, I felt the vibration in my leg. Fortunately for Wayne, my trajectory was off, or he might have ended up in the morgue instead of just on short-term disability. And I guess that was fortunate for me as well. Despite the fact that I had not been able to rid the world of such a worthless piece of shit as Wayne, I was not going to jail. In fact, the entire matter was quietly swept under the rug with the understanding that I would not sue the shit out of the conglomerate warehouse company for sexual battery.

What a strange world.

Anyway, I watched as Wayne floated down off the ladder – he was only three rungs up, so relax – and landed with a satisfying thud on the cold concrete floor. His forehead instantly knotted up and grew a softball sized lump.

I hopped off the ladder, stripped off my uniform and hat, tossing them on the floor as I went. I may have even been humming a little as I sauntered – truly sauntered this time – right through that warehouse and out to my car. I was wearing nothing but a sports bra, boxer shorts and those ultra-comfort steel toed boots.

7

Dear Izzy,

I remember one night listening to my father begging my mother to forgive him. I don’t just mean a simple, ‘Please forgive me’, I mean downright groveling, on his knees outside her locked bedroom door, whimpering. I can’t explain the shame I felt listening to a grown man that I had once looked up to, behaving like such a pussy.

For a long while, even though I knew that the way they treated each other wasn’t healthy, I kept on telling myself that it was because they loved each other so much. Then I would swear on my life that I would never ever let anyone penetrate my heart that way. If love was like that, than I wanted no part of it. But now I realize that what my parents had wasn’t love at all. It was something ugly, maybe fear or even hate, but love does not ruin people like it did my parents. If it does, then we are all in big trouble.

Jay

I showed up at my new job feeling both superior for landing a job in a law firm, and wary of being hired by a law firm.

I had spoken to the female half of the husband and wife legal team quite extensively over the last few days. The interviews were thorough, to say the least, but when she’d hired me sight unseen, I began to question the legal genius behind this particular outfit. As much as I needed to start working, I had asked her several times if she wanted to meet me in person. Not that I couldn’t do the work, but yuppie types like these tended to be uptight, and my aqua hair (I’d added a bit of green – too much free time on my hands between gigs) and my fashion choices could be a speed bump.