“Nah,” he replied. “I’m just hanging out, shootin’ the shit with some buddies. What’s up with you?”
“Just wondering…” I paused, suddenly unsure how to even ask.
“You still there?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “I was just wondering…what’s the best way to apologize to a chick?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Nick replied. “You gotta go down on her.”
“Don’t I have to get her to speak to me first?”
“It helps!” Nick laughed.
“So, how do I get her to talk to me again?”
“Just do something nice for her,” Nick replied. “It doesn’t even matter what, ‘cause guys never do anything nice for chicks, so anything works. That’s why the flower business is so good.”
“So, buy her fucking flowers? That’s it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Or one of those fancy vibrators.”
Yeah – not gonna happen.
“I dunno.” I leaned back and stared up at the cloudy sky. “Flowers seem kind of…cliché.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Nick said. “They work.”
I couldn’t argue with him, so I stopped at a florist shop and wondered what kind of flowers said whatever it was I wanted to say. There were too many varieties – too many colors to choose from to actually come up with something that looked right. They all looked right. They all looked wrong, too. I couldn’t think of any words to put on the card, either. Maybe the basics were best.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I’m just a fucked up hit man,
And nothing rhymes with that.
It was entirely possible that poetry was not my strong point.
Whatever I did, I’m sorry.
Sorry.
SORRY.
The ridiculously simplistic note I left on top of the skewed sheets covering the worn out, twin-sized bed in Arizona fluttered down and landed at
the forefront of my mind, mocking me. If there was anything I knew, I knew that I wasn’t any good at this kind of shit.
I left the flower shop, ripped four daffodils out of the window box on someone’s deck, and drove myself over to Bridgett’s corner. Traffic was heavy since it was still the tail end of rush hour, but I was patient as I crawled along with the other travelers. I still wasn’t sure what I should say, so I let different scenarios clamber around in my head while I waited for people and cars to get the fuck out of the way.
Once I reached the right corner, I saw Melvin, the pimp, leaning over the car in front of mine. My eyes scanned the area, but there wasn’t any sign of Bridgett.
“Hey, baby. How about some sweet stuff?”
I recognized Candy as she swayed around from the back of my car and up to my window. She leaned over enough to put her tits in my face and asked what all she could do for me. She didn’t seem to know where Bridgett was, though.
“Haven’t seen her since the day before yesterday,” the girl said. “She’s got a regular john, so that’s not so unusual.”