Chapter 27 ~ Misfire
July 13, 2010
Turned out it wasn’t the kid’s mother. Some woman down in Washington trying to secure her future reality television career by accusing a congressman of sharing pillow talk secrets. The second oldest profession: making a name off the oldest.
I breathed.
For what felt like the first time since I’d driven away from the gas station the night before I breathed.
A shuddering, shaking, tremulous breath deep into my lungs.
I picked up the phone.
An ad for Larry King cycled across the screen; a cadaverous relic of the eighties, replayed every weeknight, nine to ten p.m. for almost twenty years.
I dialled Ivvy’s number.
* * *
She didn’t answer for the longest time. Time enough for me to watch the end of the ads, to get my breathing under control.
When she spoke, it was clear I’d woken her.
“Yeah?” she grated in my ear.
I almost put the phone down but spoke before I could deliver on that impulse.
“Ivvy, I…”
“What the fuck do you want, asshole?” Now she was alert, fully awake, ready to bring me down.
“I need to…”
“Shut up and listen! What the fuck was that last night? One minute we’re looking at that fucking book and then you’re storming out and I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing or what I’ve don…”
“Ivvy.”
“I mean what the fuck were you thinking about? Huh? Assh…”
“Shut up.”
“What?” She was incandescent. But I couldn’t let her have this moment. I needed it.
“Shut up. I need you to listen.”
She must have heard it in my voice.
“OK?”
“OK?”
“OK.”
“I need your help. Something really… Really… Can you get over here?”
“What, now?”
“Yeah, now.”
“This had better be good,” she said and put the phone down.
Leaving me to wait for the delivery of baby supplies.
Watching CNN for reports on the kid.
* * *
It was only when the buzzer sounded and I had to get up to release the door that I realized I hadn’t moved for almost twenty minutes.
Hadn’t moved.
Hadn’t spoken.
Hadn’t listened.
Hadn’t thought of checking on the kid because my thoughts had been filled with the kid.
Filled with ideas and plans that verged on fantasy.
I’d decided that I didn’t want Ivvy to know after all.
I buzzed the delivery guy into the building and went to check on the girl.
* * *
More questions.
“Is that OK?”
“It’s not too tight?”
“Do you want to put your pants on?”
“What’s your name?”
* * *
I called Ivvy on her cell-phone – she answered on the second tone.
“What?” she said, traffic roaring in the background.
“Don’t bother,” I replied, “it’s all right now.”
I lied.
“Huh?” I knew that, wherever she was, she’d just stopped dead in her tracks.
My brain scrambled for some reason, some excuse, some something to try to ease her down from the inevitable rage. My mouth didn’t seem to realize this was happening and forged on regardless.
“I thought I needed you.”
And this time it was my turn to stop breathing. The living room swam about me for a moment.
I ended the call without another word, dropping the handset on the couch.
My hand rubbed the twenty year old scar that sits beneath my eyebrow.
In my head, the chair flying through the air.
In my ears, the words I’d just spoken.
I thought I needed you.
I stared at CNN and waited for the inevitable.
The kid was quiet in my room.
My hand rubbed the scar beneath my eyebrow.
I thought I needed you.
