Not Looking for Love: Episode 7 (A New Adult Contemporary Romance Novel) (4 page)

I tell the cab driver to drop me off about five blocks from my house. It's like seven AM, but it's already humid as fuck, the smell of dirt, piss, tar and puke mixing in the air. I'd almost forgotten how nasty summer in the city really is.

I stop by a deli and pick up some breakfast before heading home, since I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday. I'd fully planned on ordering some room service at Gail's hotel room, but somehow we never got around to it. Somehow I also never got around to making her understand her predicament…our predicament…in all it's fucked up glory. Maybe it's the cool and collected way she views things now, not a tear in sight. A few months ago she couldn't stop crying, and even though I always understood why, I like this Gail so much better.
 

I guess she wouldn't have dropped me when she got better. I had that figured all wrong. However much it would've been better for her if she had. But that's a distant thought now. Something done and passed. Now if only I could see a future for the two of us together.

This selfishness and weakness of mine have got to go. She's strong. She would get over me eventually. Not that I can even imagine leaving her again. The mere thought sends acid shooting up into my throat.

I'm still hungry when I finish the bagel and coffee, but unfortunately everything in my fridge is so past the expiration date, I can't even pretend it might still be edible. I end up spending the next hour clearing the fridge and cupboards of food too old to eat, then get started on all the dirty dishes piled everywhere, and all my clothes lying all over the apartment.
 

I'm usually pretty good at keeping the places I live at least sanitary, if not clean, but in the last few months I've gotten worse. At least now it's useful that I have so much to clean up, since it keeps my mind off other things, stuff I can't even begin clearing up.

Letting Gail go again is not an option. Every time I even think of leaving her my whole body freezes, hurts like I'll break.

Mike calls at about noon, and I just stare at his name flashing on the screen, stuck trying to decide what would be better, to ignore his call, or pick up. It's a toss up really, both options are shit.

"Yeah," I say as I pick up, scrubbing at a strange black stain on the coffee table so hard my fingers hurt.
 

"Do you still have the keys to Mom's place?" Mike asks, and it takes me a few seconds for the words to register, they're so far from anything I'd expected him to say.

"Sure, why?" I finally manage.
 

"The attic too? There's something I want to look for," he elaborates.
 

Gail's suggestion to just be nicer to him is floating at the forefront of my mind, sticking to anything I might otherwise want to say. Like, 'Fuck you, go ask dad', or 'Why are you really calling, Mike?'

"Yeah, the attic too," I say instead. "Do you want to go there now? You can help me move some of my shit upstairs."

He actually gasps, as though I surprised him, but I don't think I deviated so far from what I would normally say.

"Sure, OK, why not?" he says, drawing out each word. "I'll pick you up."

He arrives less than twenty minutes later like he's just been waiting for me to invite him over. His cheeks are pretty gaunt, I notice, when I take a good look at him for the first time in months, and his eyes are rimmed in bright red. He fidgets a lot on the way, drives too fast, and doesn't say much. Though he relaxes a little once we're almost there.

"What do you want from the attic anyway?" I ask again, since he's been dodging the question, but it's still the safest one I can ask.

"Do you remember that painting Mom did of the sailboat gliding into the sunset?"
 

"Which one?" I ask. "She must’ve done hundreds of those. I always thought they were rather empty. Like they needed a dolphin, or a shark fin sticking out of the water."

I actually laugh at the memory. I haven't thought about Mom's paintings in years.

"Maybe someone swimming, or something," Mike adds. "I remember she got pretty upset at you criticizing her paintings."

"No, she just thought I was childish," I say, though maybe he's right. I'm pretty incapable of remembering the bad things when it comes to Mom.

Dad has one of those paintings in his bedroom, I suddenly remember, but I don't say it. Talking about one long gone parent is probably already more than Mike and me can take. I do get the strongest urge to go see Dad as soon as we're parked in front of the apartment, but I ignore it. I'm still too mad at him to be forgiving.

The bulb pops and hisses out as I turn the light on in the attic.
 

Mike shines the flashlight on his phone at the mass of boxes, dust floating in the beam. "Why are half of these open?"
 

"I was looking for something the last time I was up here," I mutter, the memory of that day so clear in my mind it might as well have happened this morning.

"For what?" Mike asks.

"One of those message in a bottle magnets," I say instead of just claiming to have forgotten, which would have been better, adding, "To give to Gail," since I might as well go all the way now.

He turns to look at me, his face mostly in shadow, though illuminated from below by the flashlight. Things are going through his mind, but I have no idea what they are. Likely I've just proven to him once again how good a hold he has on me by threatening Gail. So much for her plan. But I couldn't have just discounted it without at least trying.

"Then you know where the paintings are?" he asks looking at the boxes again.
 

I point to the larger ones in the corner. "I think that's them."

I let him search on his own, holding the flashlight so he can get the boxes open and sift through them. He doesn't say anything, and neither do I. All I want to do is go back to the apartment, sit there alone and plan this shit. Hell, Gail and me can just pack up and leave the country tonight. Go stay with her dad in Syria, or wherever the fuck he is, live in some mud hut with no running water or electricity. Wait for all this to blow over. Eventually it has to. Maybe this last job will get them all arrested, and then we can come back.
 

Mike has three of the sailboat paintings lined up against the wall. He's rubbing his chin as he studies them.
 

"Which one do you think?" he asks.
 

I hold the flashlight higher, but I hardly see any difference. I point to the rightmost painting, since in that one the sailboat’s the largest so the scene doesn't look as empty. On top of everything else, I now feel guilty for criticizing Mom's work, and she's not even here to defend it. She'd deserve better from me. From life in general. But she got what she got, and it makes no fucking sense. This trip down memory lane with Mike makes no fucking sense either. I should be packing right now.
 

"Yeah, I think you're right," Mike says and stuffs the other two back in the box. "We can carry your stuff up here now."

I see no way to refuse, so that's what we do for the next hour or so, until all my stuff is with Mom's, which is kinda fitting, since I'm most likely going away for a long time. Soon. One way or another.

"Shit's really tense with Vlado at the moment," Mike says as we get back to the car. "Wanna get some dinner?"

I'm trying to figure out how those two statements are in any way connected, but fail.
 

"Sure. What's this about Valdo?"

"He thinks someone is deliberately sabotaging him," Mike explains, and drives off too fast, the painting slamming into the back seat. I'm hoping he won't destroy it before he even manages to get it back to his apartment.

"Well, he has a lot of competition," I offer. "I assume he's right to worry."

"No. This is from the inside. Someone close to him."

My airway snaps shut, and my heart starts racing so fast I might actually faint. Vlado's mentioned none of this to me. Does he suspect me?

Mike looks at me and cringes. "Relax, he loves you. But he's still a little insecure about whether you feel the same way. Probably why he hasn't told you. He didn't actually tell me either. I heard it through other channels."

He parks by the beach, and then we're sitting in the same restaurant me and Gail once ate at. Now all those memories are mixing with Mike's ominous news, and I'm not even sure what to think anymore.

"What other channels do you have?" I ask. "And why do you need them?"

"Never trust anyone completely," Mike says, quoting Derek. It used to be his favorite phrase. In the end it turned out I was the one he shouldn't have trusted, and I hate the reminder.

"No, the point is, what do we do about it?" Mike continues, since I'm not saying anything.

"Well, it's not me, and it's not you, so what do we have to worry about?" I manage to choke out.

"Vlado's not exactly a trustworthy guy, and he doesn't need a lot of proof," Mike says. "He's kinda impulsive, if you haven't noticed yet. Even when it comes to the business."

Our burgers arrive, and I take a bite too fast, the meat burning my tongue. That too reminds me of Gail, but I chase the thought away. I swallow the bite unchewed, and drink about half my beer over it to get rid of the sting.
 

"Seems to me there's nothing to worry about until there is, if you know what I'm saying," I manage finally. But right in the middle of speaking, it dawns on me what he's actually saying. This is more of that brothers helping each other shit he's been peddling. Gail’s insistence that I go along with it is so loud in my ears it's like she's actually saying it now.

"I don't agree. This is something we should be worrying about right now," Mike says, his eyes so wide they're bulging. The crisscrossing of tiny red veins inside them is nauseating. Maybe Gail's right. Maybe I can kill two birds with one stone here.
 

"OK," I offer. "But what do we do?"

His eyes actually light up like a full set of Christmas decorations, though maybe that's just what I want to see.

"First we need to find out all we can about this," Mike says breathlessly. "You ask Greg about it, he seems to know a lot, and I'll ask around too. Then, maybe tomorrow night, we get together, at my place or something, and talk about it some more."

I nod along at his speech, try not to look too excited, or disinterested.
 

"Greg thinks this hit on the Albanians is a very bad idea," I say, since that's one of the few things Greg and me talked about when it comes to the jobs.
 

Mike waves his hand through the air dismissively. "Greg thinks most of the jobs are a bad idea from what I understand. No, Vlado has this one planned out very well."

I never got that impression from Greg, more like that he doesn’t actually want to do any of the jobs, which is why I've been able to trust him. But I don't say it. I'm not quite there yet with trusting Mike again.

He gets up, fishing some money from his pocket. "Let's go now."

His burger is practically untouched, and I still have most of mine left, but I just take it along and eat it on the way to the car. The sun's setting in the distance, and the sooner I get back to the city the sooner I see Gail. And given all that Mike's told me now, I think moving to Syria might still be the better option.

It's not even fully dark by the time I get back home, but Gail's already called five times. My heart clenches at the thought that maybe she spent the last few hours wondering if I've abandoned her again. I call her back right away, and just the sound of her voice makes my heart beat normally again.

"When are you coming?" she asks. "I thought we could have some dinner together. But that was like two hours ago."

"I'll come at eleven," I say. Wishing it was like ten to already, and not just half past nine.

"That late?" she asks, and I really wish I could say ‘No, I'll come now’. But the less suspicious I seem, the better. I usually go to the gym at eleven. I've been doing that almost every night for months. So whatever channels Mike has focused on me are probably well aware of it.