“It’s not like that anymore, darlin’. We’re upmarket now. Cloisters is a fashionable satellite town. Property prices have barely dipped here at all.”
This argument is too boring to survive in a room with Sofia Delano.
“Oh my God, lighten up, Danny. Let’s watch a couple episodes of that cowboy crap you like and have a beer.”
“It’s Deadwood. And you shouldn’t drink too much on lithium. It affects your levels.”
Sofia is already halfway to the fridge. “Beer ain’t drinking, Dan. I thought you were Irish.”
Beer and Deadwood, with Sofia snuggled into my chest. That sounds pretty idyllic, or as Zeb would say, sweeter than a honey-coated hooker, which may be offensive but makes a lot more sense than most of his chestnuts. I could sure do with an early night, with the grand reopening of Slotz coming up tomorrow.
“All right, darlin’. One beer.”
“Maybe two,” she calls from the kitchen. “And turn off your phone. I don’t want your doctor boyfriend calling up.”
I put the phone on silent, telling myself to savor this interlude of sanity.
Sofia delivers my beer, clinks me with her own, then veers toward the bedroom.
“I’m gonna blast the worst of the wet out of my hair. Why don’t you get working on that bottle and I’ll come back with another?”
I sink into the sofa and I’m hunting between cushions for the remote control when the hair dryer whooshes into life.
I’m searching for a remote on a sofa. That’s pretty normal. Sofia is drying her hair like a real person. Girlfriend material.
One night. Let me have one night.
I take a long pull on the beer, feeling its coldness spread calm down my chest and I must nod off for a minute because the next thing that happens is Sofia’s hair tickles my nose as she lays her head on my chest.
“This is nice,” I say.
“Yeah,” she answers. “I wish it could be like this all the time.”
It’s like she plucks the wishes from the air over my head.
I can feel her heart beating through my shirt, like a bird’s wings against the cage bars. Sofia is nervous.
“Something bothering you?”
“I should tell you about Carmine,” she says, and there is a tremor in her voice.
Generally I would be thrilled to finally engage in that conversation, but right now I am tired and selfish and all I want to do is appreciate this beautiful woman and keep her pressed against my chest for as long as possible.
“There’s no need,” I say. “Not right now.”
“I gotta tell you, Dan. If we’re ever going to . . .”
Move on? Have a chance? One of those probably.
“Okay, but don’t upset yourself. Just the bullet points.”
Sofia latches herself to my chest like a limpet. “I was all alone, that’s what it was. A silly teenager still listening to her Blondie records and wearing cheap makeup. My parents died and I was all alone in this house.”
I knew Sofia owned the building. She lives on the income from the four apartments. She would live a lot better if she had some guy doing a bit of janitoring instead of letting the residents DIY in lieu of rent.
“When I met Carmine, he seemed so exciting. He had a Mustang, you know, and he was like the opposite of my dad. We were engaged in six months. Married in a year. He was my first.”
I could cry, this story is so mundane. Seems like somebody like Sofia Delano would have a more dramatic downfall, not this everyday tale of woe.
“I don’t know what went wrong. Maybe the sex, you know, I was pretty new to it. I did whatever Carmine wanted but he was never happy. Started drinking earlier in the day. He would take all the rent money and go out drinking for days.”
I pat her shoulder. It’s a pretty pathetic gesture, but I’m a bit out of my depth.
“Carmine never let me out of the house and he wouldn’t let anyone in. One day he kicked the postman down the street for saying hi. Poor guy said hi, that was it.”
I know all about that sort of insane, controlling jealousy. In my mind’s eye Carmine is starting to look a little like my dear old dad.
That’s why you love Sofia, dope. You’re protecting your own mother.
This is hardly a revelation. Anyone who saw a couple episodes of In Therapy would pick up on that. Simon Moriarty threw that psycho-dart at me months ago. Still, I am struck by how true it is.
Maybe that’s why you are reluctant to get under the duvet.
That’s the downside of having a shrink: afterward everything is distilled to burying Pops in the yard and copulating with Mom. Here’s a little hint for you: you ever get sent to therapy, just admit to the Oedipus thing at the end of session two, and you’ll shave six months off your sentence.
“He went away for longer and longer. Came back with tattoos and stinking of other women. Often when Carmine would call to make sure I was home and tell me to fix dinner and then show up three weeks later, if his food wasn’t ready, he would hit the roof. It was terrible, Dan, awful. I was a wreck.”
You’re still a wreck, I think, but there’s no kind way to put this so I keep it to myself.
“Then one Christmas we had a big bust-up over the turkey. Too dry or not dry enough, I can’t remember. He hit me with a spatula, Dan, a goddamn spatula. So I grabbed the meat thermometer and told him he was a dead man if he touched me again. I meant it, God help me, that man brought out the killer in me, but I still loved him.”
I know all about the killer inside. My mother never got the chance to kill my father. Perhaps I would have done it for her.
“So he left. Just went. For months he would call and tell me to get his food on the table. He never came back but for years he called. The bastard. Every time the phone rings I jump, and I always keep a plate of salad in the fridge, you know, in case.”
Bastard. Yep, that’s one word for him.
“I burnt all the photos, Dan. Every one I could find, but I still see his face every damn place, every minute of every day.”
Sofia cries for a while and I feel like joining her, might be cathartic, but I think maybe Sofia needs a rock to lean on right now, so I pat her shoulder and keep a stiff upper lip.
“Total bastard,” I say sympathetically. “Asshole.”
But a tiny craven part of me wonders what kind of salad and I hate myself for it and pray my stomach doesn’t rumble now. Could be awkward.
Sofia cries for must be an hour, her small frame jerking against mine like a wounded animal and I know we have reached a turning point.
“I’m going to stay on the medication,” she says finally, the words hitching out of her. “I want a life, Dan. I want us to go out, to dinner or something. Maybe a movie.”
I’d like to stroke her hair but my arm is dead from the weight of Sofia’s head. “Baby, I would like that. Sincerely. I would love that.”
And I would. Sincerely. A movie theater with those double seats, how great would that be? Jason tells me they tilt backward. I’ve never seen an Imax movie because experiencing awe alone seems indulgent, now there’s a whole world of shared experiences that could open up to us.
Sofia sits up and sniffles. “Oh my God. I must look like a panda. I’m gonna clean up a little, okay? And get you another beer. A cold one.”
“Okay,” I say, but I would have preferred to stay like this all night, dead arm or not.
I watch Sofia pad into the bedroom and it occurs to me that she is more miserable sane than insane.
I can change that. Just give me a month. Just let me have tonight for heaven’s sake.
I have just cued up an episode of Deadwood, the one where Al passes the kidney stone, when someone knocks at the door. Three sharp regulation police raps.
Balls.
Ronelle Deacon is outside all cocked hip and coptitude, which is not a word but should be.
“Old guy buzzed me up,” she explains because Hong must have made an impression. “The balls guy, you
know him?”
“Yep. Mr. Hong. He’s been cutting off the circulation for years.”
I must be squarely in the frame for something for Ronelle to track me down, and I’m hoping the preamble will give me a clue.
She throws me with: “Remember when we went at it downstairs? That was some freaky stuff.”
I glance nervously over my shoulder. Sofia does not need to hear this. Maybe I should do a cowboy accent so she’ll think the voices are coming from Deadwood.
Yeah, that’s exactly what you should do. Let your psychotic girlfriend think the TV is talking about her.
So instead I step into the hallway.
“Ronnie, what’s the deal? Did you get something on Edit? You didn’t come looking for me to reminisce. Shit, you barely spoke to me on the freaky night in question when I saved your life a couple of times.”
I figure it’s worth tossing the life-saving factoid into the mix. You never know, Detective Deacon might have a tender spot that I haven’t found yet.
Ronnie is leaning against the wall, navy raincoat hanging like a cape. She’s so casual that I’m getting seriously worried.