Vows, Vendettas and a Little Black Dress Read online

  Jason burst into laughter. It had a dark, hysterical quality to it and I saw Mary Ann instinctively pull closer to Monty.

  “All this time I thought I was jaded and fucking cynical,” he gasped. “I thought I saw through all the phony middle-class idealism. I thought I understood brutality!”

  I studied him quietly from my place in Anatoly’s arms. Jason’s jeans were torn and his T-shirt depicted a pre-World War II campy B-movie poster with the words Assassin of Youth printed in bold white letters. The slightly smaller print and pictures made it clear that the phrase was a reference to the dangers of marijuana (which Jason wore sardonically) but still the words made me cringe.

  “But now I know I was as delusional as any of the fucking suburbanites I condescend to.” He wasn’t laughing anymore. He looked frightened. Maybe even terrified. “I thought…I thought…”

  “What did you think?” Mary Ann asked, her voice hoarse.

  “I thought this couldn’t happen. I thought some things just didn’t happen. I’m not cynical at all. I’m fucking naive. Even now I can’t accept this. I don’t understand brutality at all!”

  Mary Ann pulled away from Monty and offered Jason a shaky hand. “We have to pray.”

  “I don’t believe in God,” Jason choked out.

  There was a moment of quiet as we all paused to take inventory of our own personal beliefs.

  “I believe in God,” Anatoly said slowly, “but not divine intervention. I’ve seen too many good people suffer to believe in that.”

  “So what do we do?” The note of desperation in Jason’s voice was harsh and unsettling. “Shit, I always thought my atheism was so fucking liberating but now…who do I pray to? Who can I rail against? What am I supposed to do?”

  “What you do,” Anatoly said thoughtfully, “is believe in Dena.”

  “Yes,” Monty said, finally joining in the conversation. “Like Tinker Bell.”

  Jason did a quick double take. “What?”

  Monty drew himself to his full height. He had the black hair and coloring of his Mexican father, the delicate, almost aristocratic features of his French Canadian mother and the blindingly bright, optimistic energy that could only be cultivated in America. “We all remember Peter Pan, don’t we?” he asked. “Tinker Bell came back to life because those who loved her believed in her.”

  “Dena,” Jason said between clenched teeth, “is not some kind of insipid, weak-ass little fairy! Dena is…”

  “A fighter,” Monty finished. “Tinker Bell drank poison to protect Peter Pan and then right before collapsing she called him an ass for not taking care of himself. That’s not Dena?”

  Jason hesitated a moment before looking away. “I didn’t realize that Tink was so cool.”

  “Well, she is,” Monty said determinedly. “And Dena’s cooler and I do believe in her so…” He raised his hands in the air and clapped.

  Anatoly’s grip tightened around my waist as he saw my hands clench into fists. “You are not seriously clapping because you believe in fairies!” I hissed. “Not while a team of people are working on my best friend’s spine in the next friggin’ room!”

  “I believe that the magic of positive thinking can help,” he said as his open palms continued to slam into each other. “At least it can’t hurt.”

  Jason shook his head like a wet dog and walked to the other side of the room. “This is insane.”

  “Exactly!” I said, finally pulling away from Anatoly.

  “If only I was a vampire,” Jason moaned. “Then I could give her the gift of eternal life.”

  I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Dena didn’t like normal guys. She liked kindhearted freaks like Jason. For her sake I had to suppress the urge to whack him upside the head.

  “Monty,” Mary Ann said softly, quieting his hands by taking them into hers. “I love Tinker Bell, too, but right now I need someone to pray with me.”

  Monty sighed in what sounded like mild disappointment and kissed Mary Ann on the forehead. “Of course I’ll pray with you, sweetie. It’s just that Tink is so much less complicated than God. I thought it would be easier to appeal to her spirit than that of the Holy Ghost.”

  I sat down on one of the unsightly chairs. “I’ll pray with you, Mary Ann.”

  Mary Ann whispered her words of entreaty to God, each one coming out with more force and urgency. And then, when she could think of nothing else to say she whispered, “Amen,” and leaned her full weight against Monty. “I have to call her parents.”

  I looked up at the ceiling and tried to imagine how this call was going to go. Dena’s parents had retired to Arizona almost ten years ago. They were both very active in their church. Dena’s mother, Isa, was once a nurse practitioner but now toured the high schools and various junior colleges in her personal mission to preach abstinence for unmarried people. And Dena owned a sex shop. It was unclear if Dena’s need to make a career out of the oddities of human sexuality was an act of rebellion or if Dena’s parents’ escalating crusade against immorality was a reaction to their daughter’s eccentricities. Either way it made for a contentious relationship.

  But still, Dena was their daughter. They had the right to a phone call.

  Mary Ann took her cell phone out of her purse and stared at it for a beat. “I think I’m going to take this outside. I’m going to need the fresh air.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Monty said, wrapping his coat over her shoulders and leading her out of the room.

  Anatoly sat down beside me. “Sophie, can you tell me exactly what happened?”

  I shook my head. “God, I wish I could but I don’t really know. Everything was fine. We were all fine and then Mary Ann went in her room for a few minutes to get something and I went to the bathroom. There was a sort of a high pinging noise I think…I can’t even be sure of that, it happened so fast and it wasn’t very loud…then there was the sound of Dena falling….” I shook my head fiercely. I couldn’t repeat it again. The words were like small fish bones scratching against my throat.

  “Yes, you told me that much over the phone,” Anatoly said. “Whoever shot her must have used a silencer. Do you need a key to get into the building or just the apartment?”

  “Both the building and the apartment…but I guess it’s possible that we didn’t lock the apartment door. Mary Ann was kind of distracted…. Did I tell you that she just got engaged to Monty?” It seemed like such a stupid thing to say, so totally out of place with what was going on at that moment.

  Anatoly only gave a nod of acknowledgment and pressed his hand against my knee. “Dena was shot in the back so I’m assuming she was facing away from the door, right?”

  I shrugged. It was one of the million things I didn’t know.

  “Is there any chance that it came through a window?”

  “I would have heard the glass shatter.”

  Anatoly shook his head. “One bullet wouldn’t break a window, just make a hole in it, and you probably wouldn’t have heard it.”

  I tried to think. Had the police looked at the windows? The windows facing the street couldn’t be opened so the shot would have gone through the glass. Plus we had been on the third floor, so the shooter would have been in the building across the street.

  But most importantly, the door had been open when I found Dena. Someone had opened the door, stepped into Mary Ann’s living room and with one tiny move of their finger shattered my world.

  “It came from the doorway,” I said definitively. “I’m sure of it.”

  Jason scanned the beige windowless walls. “Whoever did this isn’t going to get away with it. The police are going to catch this fucker and put him away.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. Jason had considerably more faith in the police than I did, which was surprising since he was the one who claimed to be an anarchist.

  But if Jason saw the irony of his statement he made no indication of it. I watched him as he ran his hands through his hair and then used his jeans to dry them. “I�
��m going to get some water. Anyone else want water?”

  Both Anatoly and I shook our heads so Jason just left the room, leaving us alone.

  I shifted in my seat so I could look Anatoly in the eyes. “You know,” I said slowly, “I can’t just sit on my ass and pray that the police make this case a priority.”

  “Sophie, I’m going to look into this and find out what I can, but Jason’s right. The police are likely to catch this guy and make an arrest.”

  “We don’t know that. And besides I want to find him first. I want him to try to hurt me. I want him to give me an excuse to give him what he really deserves.”

  “You do understand that you can’t hunt down and kill the person who did this?” Anatoly asked.

  I didn’t answer right away. I turned away from him and took a fresh look at the room. Why were we the only ones in the waiting room? Was Dena really the only person with loved ones to get hurt tonight?

  Then again, the room wasn’t really empty. My anger was making good use of the space. It was seeping out of every pore, crawling up the walls, its vengeful energy mingled with the hum of the florescent lights. My anger owned that room.

  In fact, it was taking up way too much space to make room for Anatoly’s logic. “Prison,” I said stiffly, “isn’t enough. This SOB shot Dena in the back! He could have killed her! Or ruined her life!”

  “Sophie, have you ever visited a maximum security prison? That ruins people’s lives. And considering the crime the shooter isn’t going to get away with a couple of years. Even if this is his first offence he’s still looking at ten years minimum.”

  “Ten years?” I whispered. And then, as if propelled by an outside force I shot out of my seat, my feet pounding into the thin gray carpet. “You think ten years are going to make up for this? Ten years can go by like that!” I snapped my fingers in his face. “Hell, I was graduating high school ten years ago and it feels like yesterday!”

  “Sophie, you graduated high school over ten years—”

  “Shut up! My alternative-reality high school will always be ten years ago. Don’t think you’re going to trick me into acknowledging my age just because I’m flipped out over what happened to my friend!”

  “I see,” Anatoly said slowly. “Then, by your reasoning, ten years is an eternity.”

  I hesitated and felt my lips coming close to what could have been considered a smile. “She’s my best friend, Anatoly,” I said, a slight quiver returning to my voice.

  “I know.” He stood up and took my face in his hands. Anatoly had wonderful hands, big, strong, and a little rough. I wanted those hands to hold me. I wanted them to rub up and down my back over and over again until my shivers finally went away.

  And then I wanted those hands to crush the shooter’s skull.

  “You want me to help you find this guy, am I right?”

  I nodded.

  “Fine. We’ll find him together. And when we do I will investigate every moment of his life. I’ll make sure the police not only have evidence enough to convict him of this crime but any other crime he’s even thought of doing since he reached adulthood. I’ll give the D.A. what they need to put this guy away for as long as possible, but that’s it, Sophie. There isn’t going to be any vigilante justice.”

  “But you will help me find out who did this and catch him, right?” I pressed. “We’re not just going to leave this up to the police?”

  “Yes, but I want to hear you say it, Sophie.”

  “Say what?”

  “You know what.”

  “Nope,” I said, casually looking down at my gladiator sandals. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “No vigilante justice, Sophie.”

  “You know, Robin Hood was a vigilante and everybody loves him.”

  “Robin Hood was a communist.”

  “Not in the Disney version of the story. Ask Monty, he’ll tell you.”

  Anatoly tightened his grip on my hands. “Sophie. Will you just promise not to kill anyone?”

  “I promise not to kill anyone…unless they try to kill me first.”

  “Everybody tries to kill you.”

  “Well, that’s not my fault, is it?”

  Anatoly groaned and turned away from me.

  I hesitated a moment and then sighed and rested my head against the back of his neck. “I’m not going to do anything illegal…at least not anything that’s likely to get me thrown in jail for more than a couple weeks.”

  Anatoly groaned again but I remained undeterred. “I know my being put away won’t do anyone any good, least of all Dena. If you promise to help me find out who did this then I promise to…well, to behave as well as I normally do.”

  Anatoly turned back to me. “That’s not saying a lot.”

  “It’s the best I can do.”

  “Sophie,” he said sharply. “You have to control your anger.”

  I opened my mouth to respond but as I did a middle-aged couple came into the room. They glanced in our direction and then found a place for themselves in the far corner of the room. We weren’t alone anymore.

  Anatoly and I sat down again. I squeezed my eyes closed and wrapped my arms around my chest. He was right of course. I did need to control my anger. But not get rid of it. I needed a controlled rage to get me through to the next day. And I needed it to drown out the screaming memory of Dena’s silence.

  CHAPTER 3

  Men are like rose stems in that rose stems of considerable length are nice but, ultimately, their size is not their most important attribute. What’s important is that the stem stays stiff long enough for your flower to hit full bloom.

  –Fatally Yours

  That night I dreamed of monsters. Before we had left the hospital the doctor had come out and told us that it appeared Dena’s surgery had been successful. That she should be able to walk again and that perhaps she eventually wouldn’t need a walker or braces in order to do it. He gave us a lot more details, but I didn’t hear them. All I heard were the lack of assurances. Their absence became a tangible thing that twisted itself into a multitude of awful images. Those images curled up in my mind only to uncoil in my sleep and attack my dreams. I hadn’t been able to see Dena either. Only blood relatives had been allowed admittance into her room. The rest of us had to wait for daylight hours.

  Anatoly had held me all night but for once his embrace didn’t lead to sex. Having sex while Dena was unable to felt wrong. Like starting a rock band on the eve of Elvis’s death.

  And now morning was here. My kitty, Mr. Katz, was rolled up in a ball by my feet and Anatoly still slept, understandable since it was only a little after 8:00 a.m. Last night we hadn’t even gotten home until almost 3:00 a.m. It was too early to go to the hospital; I certainly didn’t want to risk waking Dena. So where should I go? I couldn’t go back to sleep. There would be more monsters there.

  As if he sensed the question, Anatoly’s eyes flickered open and glided over to me. “What time is it?” he muttered.

  “Too early,” I answered.

  Anatoly turned to check the clock and then paused as he tried to figure out the significance of my being conscious at such an obscene hour.

  “I’m getting up,” I said.

  “I’ll cook you breakfast,” Anatoly offered. He pushed the covers off himself, revealing his state of undress. Nothing but his fitted Calvin Klein boxers. Normally that would be enough to get my endorphins moving, but not this morning.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry, particularly if I’m cooking.”

  “Today’s different.”

  We lay there in silence for a few moments as Mr. Katz stretched his legs and abandoned us in search of a more peaceful resting spot, neither of us wanting to be the first to name the tragedy that had taken away my appetite for sex and food.

  He sighed and pulled me into the crook of his arm. “Let’s stay here. We didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

  I smiled and kissed his chin.
“Sleep then,” I whispered before freeing myself and getting to my feet.

  “Sophie—”

  “No, I mean it. Stay here. I need to…think. To drive and think.”

  “You’re sure you can’t think here in bed?” The red veins of exhaustion drew ragged lines across his eyes, making him look stoned and uncharacteristically vulnerable.

  I leaned down and gave him another kiss, this time on the mouth. I let my tongue dance across his lower lip as I savored the taste of him. “Sleep,” I said when I finally pulled away. “We’ll talk later.”

  Anatoly didn’t say anything as I pulled on my jeans and a T-shirt and brushed a thin golden layer of Bare Escentuals mineral powder across my face. I could feel him watching me as I left the room.

  Outside the rising sun cast an eerie pale pink light across the sky. The fog that usually owned the mornings of San Francisco wasn’t there today. Without its insulation, the air had a harsh quality that felt out of place for May.

  Of course, driving without coffee is almost as irresponsible as driving drunk, so my first stop was Starbucks. The barista recognized me and prepared my usual light mint mocha chip Frappuccino with a floating shot and extra whipped cream before I had the chance to order it. When tormented, always turn to your comfort foods.

  I drove for over an hour and eventually I found myself in the South of Market district, only blocks away from O’Keefe’s, the nursery and flower boutique where Amelia worked. Of course she wouldn’t be there today. She and Kim were probably sleeping off a marijuana-induced high in some small corner of Nicaragua, blissfully unaware that here, in the highly developed city of San Francisco, the sky was falling.

  But Dena liked the bouquets they made here…what was her favorite…did they call it the Aphrodisiac? Or maybe it was O’Keefe’s Pleasure? Whoever was working would know what I was talking about. I found a parking spot right in front and checked to make sure I had some cash on me before stepping inside.

  South of Market was incredibly industrial but when you walked into O’Keefe’s it was as if you were entering a manicured jungle. Ivy and ferns dangled from the ceiling, forcing anyone above the height of five foot six to zigzag their way through the shop in order to avoid being smacked in the face by a leaf. Then there were the buckets of roses, the small potted plants, the ficus trees and the musty smell of damp soil. It was such a tangle of sensory delights that it took me a moment to identify what was wrong with the picture.