April & Oliver (6 page)

“It’s not like that. He says I’m too young. All he wants is the smell on his hands so he can finish the job alone. But sometimes
he can’t wait. The line keeps changing. He says he hates himself. He says he’s not the kind of guy who goes around sticking
his hand up kids’ skirts. He says if I were his daughter, he’d put a bag over my head and lock me in the basement. He tells
me what a great guy my father is, and what a shit
he
is. Then he pours me another shot and tells me I’m fucking beautiful.”

Oliver shook his head miserably.

“See,” she said. “You thought I was someone better.”

He dragged his fingers down his face. “You are.”

“I shouldn’t have told you.”

“What kind of man would do this?”

“You act like I have nothing to do with it.”

“Do you love him?”

She looked away.

“What happened to
Don’t kiss if you don’t mean it
?”

“We don’t kiss.”

“Ah, a great romance.”

“I never said it was that.”

“What, then?”

She continued to stare at the blackened house. “I’m drunk,” she said. “You should tell me to go in.”

“You don’t need him,” he said. “Walk away.”

She turned to look him in the eye, her expression grave and uncertain. “One of these days I’m going to get fucked,” she said.
“All I want is for someone to kiss me first.”

He looked at her blankly.

“Just once.” Her voice wavered. “To know what it’s like.”

“What are you talking about?” he said harshly.

Her eyes brimmed. Oliver felt a stab of fear. He had never seen her cry, not when her dog died, not when she broke her arm.
He was on the brink of a realization that refused to surface.

“You’re right,” she said. “It was a stupid idea.” She hurried up the walk and disappeared into the darkened house.

T
.J.’s
POWDER-BLUE PICKUP SITS ALONE
in a far corner of the electronics shop parking lot. April gets in, knowing he always leaves the cab open, and settles into
the passenger seat. The interior smells of cigarettes. She doesn’t know what brought her here, except that it’s the only place
she can think of to clear her mind.

She sees one of her lipsticks on the dashboard, and feels comforted that he hasn’t thrown it out. It’s a familiar spot, this
passenger seat, a place to let herself be idle, staring out the window while T.J. takes the turns. She likes to let her mind
wander. He won’t have his lunch break for another hour or two, so she’s safe here, where no one can find her.

Nearly a year has passed since they first hooked up. He had been a regular at the bar for months before that, but they never
spoke beyond what was necessary, Seagram’s straight up. Always in Western boots and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he
was a loner who disliked it when people sat next to him. April knew better than to try to make conversation. But she also
knew that he watched her, pretending to stare at whatever game was on the tube while stealing glances in the mirror. She never
let on that she saw. He looked like someone who had lived through more than the average person. For one thing, he had scars
along one side of his face and down his neck. Also, he carried himself as though he bore more than his own weight— unlike
the five o’clock suits who breezed in with their briefcases and big talk, bragging about contracts and closed deals. Those
were the men, with their wedding bands and manicures, who usually hit on her. April was never interested in men who came on
to her. It just wasn’t attractive. She preferred the quiet ones who obviously had a story to tell, but who weren’t about to
tell it.

One night when she saw T.J. glancing at her in the mirror, she stopped what she was doing and stared back until he realized
he’d been caught. He visibly tensed, bringing his shot glass up to his mouth and staring back at the game. She poured another
and put it in front of him. “This one’s on the house,” she said.

He didn’t thank her, but he looked her dead in the eye for the first time. She was right about the pain in his eyes.

He stayed until everyone else had gone.

She wiped down the bar until she reached the spot in front of him. “Nowhere to be?” she asked.

“No,” he said steadily.

“Me, neither.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

She shrugged. “My name’s April.”

“I know your name. I know lots of stuff about you.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Such as?”

“You call cabs for your drunks. You feed a stray cat in the alley, and you’ve got a brother who adores you.”

She hesitated.

“I’ve seen him come in.”

“He’s a good kid,” she said uncertainly. “What else do you know?”

“You don’t like men who piss in the corners. And this place is full of them.”

“It’s a commuter bar,” she said. “We get all the hotshots and wannabes. Plus a few normal guys, like you.”

He laughed. It was an odd laugh, more like a chortle; he wasn’t used to humor. “I been called a lot of things, but I’m pretty
sure that’s the first time I ever been called normal.”

“Sorry,” she smirked. “I didn’t mean to insult.”

She closed out the register, turned out all the lights except the one behind the bar, and sat next to him on a stool.

“Ain’t there some rule about mixing with the customers?” he said.

“Who says I’m mixing?”

He was well built, with a blunt, angular face and a dimpled chin, late thirties or early forties. He would have been routinely
good looking if not for the pearly, translucent skin on the right side of his chin, cheek, and neck. She felt a desire to
touch the milky, pellucid scar, but knew enough not to. She didn’t ask about the fire. Instead, she let her knee graze his
on the bar stool.

April saw herself, a twenty-six-year-old, weary-looking bartender, flirting with a forty-something man with broad, slumping
shoulders and a wary eye. What was the point? She’d been through this before. It never ended well.

He stopped her abruptly, his massive hand encircling her knee. She felt a stab of fear, that old rush. And curiosity, too.
If she waited long enough, what might he reveal to her? He touched her face, drawing his thumb firmly down along her jawbone,
causing her to tremble. She shut her eyes and felt his lips press against hers, brief and tentative; nothing like what she
had imagined. “Better for you if you don’t mess with me,” he said softly, and turned to leave. She didn’t argue.

It was two weeks before she saw him again. She was unlocking her car in the parking lot, feeling for the keyhole, when someone
appeared beside her. She gasped then, seeing it was him, laughed. “Hey,” she said. “You scared me.”

It was 3 am, the lot empty. Only the neon light of a storefront across the street enabled her to see his face, the good side,
which appeared in blinking reds and greens. He was perspiring despite the cold, a camera over his shoulder. “You remind me
of someone,” he said, his breath rising.

“Want to go for a cup of coffee?” she said, seeing the glaze in his eyes. “There’s an all-night diner . . .”

He touched her hair, his breath warm and damp, saccharine with liquor.

“Do you need help getting home?” she said. “I can drive you.”

“My wife, Denise,” he said.

April hesitated.

“She died,” he said. “She’s dead. She looks like you. My wife.”

He stared for a moment longer. April touched his face, the dark half, feeling the silkiness of the burnished skin. He closed
his eyes, leaning his face against her hand, then turned away. He walked back to his pickup, head bowed, hands in his pockets.
As he pulled away, a gust lifted an empty carton off the back of the truck. It rolled across the icy lot. April picked it
up and saw the label: pulsar camera & video.

The following day when she stopped by, the store had just closed. She saw him through the glass sitting at a worktable behind
the counter, patiently dismantling the electronic heart of someone’s boom box. He arranged the components meticulously on
the table. He knew how to be careful when he wanted to. He was wearing glasses and a shirt with tommy embroidered above the
pocket.

April saw herself staring in through the shop window. It occurred to her that they’d all been in their forties, every one
of them, since she was a teenager. Was it her fault she wasn’t attracted to men her own age?
Attraction
wasn’t the right word. It was more like curiosity. But she was getting tired of it. The script had grown stale. Maybe this
time she would walk away. Maybe she didn’t need it anymore.

At that moment, he looked up and saw her. He took off his glasses and hesitated before rising to let her in.
What the hell,
she told herself
. You’re here, aren’t you?

“Your place?” she said, looking around.

“No,” he said. “I’m just the repairman.”

“At least now I know your name,” she said, glancing at his shirt.

“No, no one calls me that. It’s T.J.”

“T.J.,” she repeated. She leaned on the counter, picked up a screwdriver, and twirled it in her hand. “So,” she said. “How
did she die?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She sat down. “What time do you get off?”

“I’m off.”

“Hungry?”

“Listen,” he said. “There are some things you should know. First of all, there hasn’t been anyone since my wife.”

“Second?”

He leaned back in his chair, observing her. Under fluorescent light, his scars looked more severe, the type children might
run from. “She cheated on me.”

April nodded slowly. “So,” she said. “Pizza?”

“There’s more,” he said. “You won’t like it.” He shifted in his seat. “I’ve been following you.”

April pursed her lips. “How long?”

“Long enough to know you work a lot, don’t go out much, and help your little brother shop for clothes.”

“He’s color-blind.”

“He’s crazy about you.”

She leaned back. “So, why me?”

“I told you,” he said. “You’re a ghost.”

April got up and stood behind him. She touched his shoulder, sliding her fingers inside his shirt until she felt the waxiness
of his collarbone, the ancient, indelible scars. “I think I can prove you wrong,” she said.

“April.”

She awakens with a jolt, her head thumping the window behind her. T.J. is standing with one hand on the open driver’s door.
“Get out.”

“Huh?” She looks around, confused.

“God help you if someone sees us. What do you think you’re doing?”

“I—”

“They served me the goddamn papers, all right? Right here in front of my boss. I’m lucky I still have a job. And now you’re
here, what, as a ploy to get me locked up?”

“I took it back.”

“What?”

“I went to the police station this morning and rescinded the order. It’s gone.”

He shifts his jaw from one side of his mouth to the other, staring. “I see. So we’re pals again, is that it?”

She looks out the window.

He gets in and slams the door. He rubs his hand over his mouth. “I’ll drop you off,” he says. “Where you headed?”

“Forget it,” she says. “I’ll walk.”

“Not from here,” he says. “Not looking like that. My boss gets one look at those red eyes and he’ll only think one thing.
Rescinding won’t undo that.”

“Buddy’s dead,” she says.

He looks at her. She feels uneasiness in her body, a hollow disequilibrium, because now that she has said it, it must be true.

He waits a moment. “Your brother?”

She snaps a stray string off her jacket and winds it tightly around her finger.

“How? When?”

She waves a hand, signaling that she doesn’t want to say.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he says. “Never mind. That was a stupid question.”

“I’m sorry about the protection order.” She wipes her nose. “I got carried away.”

He bristles. “Well, maybe I did, too. But if you would’ve just been straight with me . . .”

“I told you, T.J., there’s nothing to be straight about. I was at a Knicks game with my cousin, we went out for a drink afterward,
end of story.”

“Right. You and Mr. Sportswriter. And don’t call him your cousin. You’re not related.”

“I’m not getting into this again.”

She starts to open her door, but he reaches across and holds it closed. “Why are you here?”

“I just want everything back the way it was. I want all this to go away.”

He looks doubtfully across the empty parking lot. “I know what it’s like to bury someone, April, and it don’t happen that
way.”

“Just come home,” she says, “and we’ll figure everything out from there.”

“It doesn’t change things just because you took back some papers. I’m sorry about Buddy, I really am. But I got to tell you,
April, I’d still like to tear your heart out. You’ll have to give me some time on that one.”

Before he can take his next breath, April kisses him, sinking her fingers into his neck and pulling him over to her side of
the cab. “Go ahead,” she says. “Tear it out.” She smells the familiar scent of his skin, Marlboro and motor oil, like the
first smoldering of an electrical fire.