Look How You Turned Out (2 page)

He is shocked to see me come out the door in the faint morning light. I'm shocked too. It's freaking cold as Polar Bear teats out here. But I don't show it, I just start moving my feet like I'm jogging as I softly shut the door and give Marcus a little wave and jog down the three little stoop stairs and the walkway to the street.

I take off, and I am miserable, and everything is stiff and achy, and I am smiling as he comes up behind me. Naked, so naked, so naked. He says this good morning, breath puffing in front of his face and I swear my nipples rip through my bra, and I keep going, and my ankle hurts, but I refuse to limp until I have to.

He asks if I'm alright, and I laugh, I laugh. I'm great, I say.

"It's nice you've come home. He's missed you like crazy. All he's talked about," he says.

Okay. He needs to stop. I'm like…guilty. I'm deceiving Artie right now, and I don't need to be reminded how much he believes in me. Tear his heart out just like Mom why don't I?

But I smile. Or maybe it's a grimace. I'm dying here. He can't stand going so slow, and he takes off. Now I see the whole deal, all of him from the back and holy moly.

Come back here Marcus Stover. I'm singing that old song Ruby only I'm replacing Ruby's name with Marcus's. "Oh Marcus…don't take your love to town. Oh, Marcus…for God sake turn around."

Two blocks out I'm walking and holding my side, and he passes me again. So he had the last half block, at least, to stare at my booty, to come up behind me and be…dazzled? The sun is rising in his eyes. There's hope.

But he is not so eager to leave me in his dust this time. He slows down now that he's established how much better shape he's in than me.

I don't care. This isn't about athletics. Well…not really.

"Slow and steady…," I pant, unable to finish the sentence.

He is running before me, backward, and tsking. I didn't know mockery was one of his talents. I'm shocked. But he's so beautiful it's almost an honor to know his disdain. It beats say…being ignored.

And his eyes go there. Yes, they do. He picks them right back up, his eyes, but I saw it. He's looking at those two bouncing handfuls this bra can't corral. Yee-hi.

"How was the big city really?" he asks still mocking.

I want to say big, but that's lame. Or orgasmic, but that's lamer. "Great," I say in a fit of inspiration.

Then more inspired still I say, "Miss me?"

He coughs some, his eyes shiny when he chokes out, "Of course."

He coughs some more, hands on knees and I pass him.

I jog around him, which is a waste of energy because I need to make every step count, but the view from every possible angle is…fantastic.

He laughs a little because I've circled him, then he takes off again, goes about half a block and circles back just in case I thought I could keep up.

"Bragger," I say.

He just smiles and falls in beside me. "Bedilia…is everything okay for you?"

"Why?" I ask, too loudly.

His hands go up, like 'don't shoot.' "Just wondering. Sorry."

I don't want him to apologize. I want him to keep going…drag it out of me.

"I don't know if you heard," he said. "I ah…I'm leaving the department first of the year."

I stop. He stops. This pain goes through me…for Artie.

"Don't look at me like that," he says.

I blink, but my face stays the same. Even my labia are slowing down.

"He's okay with it," he says.

How is that possible? Marcus is like…a son. A brother/son. How is this okay?

"Jessica thinks…."

"Who?" I ask.

"Jessica. She's…she's really great. You'd…like…um…."

I hate her. I don't even know her, just by sight. Yeah, I hate her.

"Junior….," I say.

"He likes her. He really does."

"Dad said you were the only one he could imagine filling his shoes," I say.

"I know. I know that. But he understands, he does. Bedilia I never meant to make police work my career…the lousy hours and pay…phone calls all hours of the day and night…anything from a possum in the trash cans…to a husband and wife married fifty years just another traffic fatality. The…I'm burned out. Hell, I'm ashes."

"Bull," I say, and we immediately drop through the floor onto another level entirely. One we've never gotten to…like honesty maybe. I'm already running, and he doesn't catch up. He doesn't try.

Jessica…hairdresser Jessica?

Wait, I'm upset about him leaving Artie, not Jessica.

Hairdresser Jessica? Isn't she like…forty?

I round the block, a couple of them actually, and reach our door and creep inside. Upstairs I detour to the front room that used to be Mom and Artie's before she left and he moved downstairs. I look out the front window, and Marcus is just getting home, and his beauty hits me again, like always, a rock in a pillow. He makes my thighs twitch.

Once he's in, I go to my room like the bad girl I am.

He doesn't know I'm alive. Sure he glanced at my boobs, but it's not enough…they aren't enough…I can never be. I'm a perpetual kid in his eyes, daughter of his best friend, the babysitter, the little neighbor girl. 

After I shower and fall back into bed wearing underwear and one of Artie's big old soft t-shirts, I go into a coma, I dream. I'm in the GS uniform…but it's a big ugly uniform, and I'm trying to fix that, to cinch in the big dowdy waist so Marcus will see my hourglass figure, but he doesn't, he's with someone else, and I'm insisting she's me and Marcus says, "She's not you," and he goes ahead and makes out with her and I'm standing there watching reaching behind and feeling my big old cottage cheese behind I just grew for this dream, I hope, and I'm saying, "No, it's me." But he's looking at me shaking his head a little as he feeds this infinite tongue down her throat. There are cookies too, and tea cups…I'm eating the whole time trying to console myself, and I wake up, and it was so real I'm still whimpering, a total passive victim. But I'd kill for a Thin Mint.

My God, Marcus Stover is calling me, his voice flying right up the stairs. I sit up and grab my forehead. I'm staring at my open door. Dad never comes up here. But Marcus is saying, "Rise and shine Clementine!" and Dad is laughing and I smell the pancakes.

"Oh Lord," I whisper. I'm exhausted. I went running. Me? Yes, in the cold. I push back the covers. My thighs are chapped.

They're talking, Dad's saying, "She won't hear you, she's not a morning person," Marcus saying how I was out jogging at sun-up. Dad saying he was lying. Marcus saying he was telling the truth. Dad saying how city life and the demands of my new job may be changing me, and Marcus coming half-way up the stairs, I can tell by his voice, and calling my name a couple more times. And someone closing the front door. Then it is quiet.

I don't answer, I'm just waiting. I don't know how I know, but I know he's standing on the stairs, and he wants to come all the way up. He wants to look at me. He wants to see me lying in my bed. He'd been preening around for me. I saw it.

I groan cause I'm such a liar. To myself. I lie to myself, protecting my inner motherless child and all. I just lie and lie and lie.

I hear the stairs creak, then his slow steps in the hallway.

“Bedilia?” He's peeking around my doorway, his bright green eyes, a face that never loses its ability to make me gasp and howl…inside.

"Marcus?" I say like he might be…say…Steven or Enrico. I pull up the covers.

He's put his hand over his eyes. "I'm sorry Bedilia. I just…Artie got a call…nothing big…drunk Joe fell asleep in the street again. He said we should go ahead…I was…well, we got off rough this morning. I know you took it hard…about me leaving the force. I should have explained. I really thought your door was closed and when it wasn't…you were upset…I got this…crazy idea that what if…you did something. I'm sorry."

I am well covered now. He'd gotten an eye-full, like underwear and legs bare and no bra. An eyeful.

"I'm sorry," he repeats like he's trying to be…sorry. He looks at me and swallows a mouthful of lust. I think.

"You…didn't ask me where I'm going," he says.

I just keep staring. Well so does he. I might be a sexy sight or something. Hope so. He is, all showered and flannel shirt over white t-shirt and jeans perfectly worn and formed, not sagging like a rodeo clown, but relaxed and…just right.

This not talking thing is working for me, so I just keep staring.

"I wanted to explain…and when you didn't answer…I jumped the gun. I told you I've seen too much. I didn't mean…your privacy," sweep of his hand. "Hey, we're going fishing…pancakes."

Stare. Stare.

"Junior will be glad to see you, though, and Artie will be back soon. Get dressed, Artie's got your waders packed. Come on down."

I move my legs over the side of the bed, and I'm sitting there. "What are you doing?"

"What…are you doing?" He keeps his eyes on my face, and I let him wonder a minute…what I'm asking about. I'm not sure either…what I mean.

"Leaving the force? You love that job."

"I already told you," he says. But his face…he drops his eyes a second and swallows. I've got him now.

"What would you do?" I say.

"Billy's selling his place."

"My old job?" I worked at Billy's all through high school, then summers during college. It kept me from being available to babysit Junior. Most of the time.

"I'm buying it…with Artie. Artie is going to retire in a couple of years and help me run it. By then I'll be ready to take the bar…practice law I mean."

Oh. "Who's going to have Dad's back?"

"He's fine," Marcus scoffed. He's leaning his shoulder on the doorframe now, ankles and arms crossed. "Something happened. You're worried. You're…different. How you doing in the big city?"

"Great," I say, chin up. "Yeah Capone and I have conquered that city." I hold those green cop eyes. I can do it…practiced on Artie. I'm uncrackable.

But I feel some tears building.

"You can tell me…right?" he says his arms uncrossing.

"What?" I take a corner of the sheet and dab at my face. His chest…it's calling to me like a nice memory foam pillow…that talks and…snuggles you.

"Well…I think of you like that…Artie's daughter. Artie, Bedilia."

I keep wiping.

"Here," he says taking a few steps in and grabbing a couple of Kleenexes from the box on my dresser. He brings them to me.

It's like I'm designing my personal rom-com.

"I know how hard change can be," he says. "You're upset. You need to get a pole in the water so things can get straightened out again. Get…dressed. Your pancakes are getting cold."

I take the Kleenexes, and he turns a bright red, looking down at me with that fatherly smile and this not fatherly look in his eyes. It's perverted, him speaking about a pole and pancakes.

He does that crackly swallow again. "Wait until you see Juney. All he's talked about for a week is seeing Miss Bedilia again."

Oh, smooth. Bring up the kid. My eyes are really leaking now. He gets me more Kleenexes. I should ask how the little turd is doing, but I don't. Lord knows Artie keeps me informed of his every move. I've got sibling rivalry there. I'm conflicted between loving the little grunt and wanting to destroy him.

He hands me the tissues, and I look up at him, and he gets this sappy look like he's found himself after teetering for a minute and thinking something less than stellar, but now he's back on track, and he's looking sympathetic and dad-like.

He smiles encouragingly, but he's still here…in my freaking room.

I wipe my eyes on my sleeve bringing my arm up for a minute and putting it down quick effectively knocking the stretched collar of the old shirt off my shoulder. Yeah, that shoulder has a match on the other side. Two of them. See what you're missing?

He was a regular at Billy's. Lunch crowd. He used to watch me. Not all the time or even most of the time, but sometimes.

I haven't got anything he hasn't considered…a lot. But the Artie thing…and he doesn't sleep around. He's got Juney.

He's a good guy. But he needs to see me without the Artie fence…moat…walls…guards on the walls…hot boiling vats of oil on the walls.

I've let down the drawbridge.

Jessica? For real?

No and no. Even if it wasn't me…not her. He doesn't know what he needs. He never has. He thinks of Juney and he floats along. His hair looks great, I'll give her that…but no I won't. His hair always looks great.

I wipe my nose and sigh and give him the doe eyes like he's made me see the light. I rub the bare shoulder and yeah his hungry starving eyes lose their righteous glint for a few flickering seconds, and he clears his throat and tells me to get downstairs, and he gets out of there and the film on my potential blockbuster snaps off the reel.

I've got a lot of fishing to do.