Physical Therapy (7 page)

“There were other reasons I liked having your hands on me.” He looked nervous and younger than he really was.

Suddenly, I wanted two things: I wanted to put my hand on his to reassure him, and I wanted out of that car as fast as I could get. “Well, Izzie will set up massages, and I"ll be there for you whenever—”

He shook his head and grabbed for my hand with both of his. “Why is that when you touch me I feel so…?”

“Whoa!” I said. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

“No, listen to me. I tried to talk to Izzie, but she wouldn"t answer my questions.”

“Oh, hey!” I was trying to push out of the door, and he was pulling me back.

“You have to listen to me.” His voice was on the edge of something I couldn"t name, something that spoke to me of late nights, coffee, cigarettes, and people who were there for me when I needed them. People who helped me navigate the more troubling waters of my own life. People I owed a lifetime of gratitude to. “When you touched me, something happened. I felt so
right
. I"ve been living on the edge of angry and afraid for a long time, and when you touched me it was like…” I sat back down, half in and half out of the SUV. “What?”

“Close the door; you"re letting the rain in.”

Heaven help me, I did what he asked.

“I didn"t want you to stop.
Touch me
.”

I shook my head. “No.”

He took my hand and put it on his face. “Can"t you feel it?”

“No.”

“You do,” he said. He turned his face into my palm and pressed his lips to it. “I can feel it. You do.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but just at that moment his lips came down on mine and stopped me. They were so full and soft, so tentative, so delicate on mine that I wanted to prolong the moment. I wanted to keep him right there so there"d be no chance that I"d forget what it felt like to get a kiss like that. An innocent kiss.

He broke away first, pulling back with a start and then pressing his fingers to his own lips, as if he was surprised by what they"d done.

“I—”

“No, I—” I got a grip. “I"m sorry.”

He raised one perfectly neat eyebrow. He still looked…surprised, but maybe he was looking at me like something he hadn"t quite seen before. “What are you sorry for?”

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“I probably… I have no clue.” Suddenly, I couldn"t get away fast enough. I reached down with my free hand, caught the handle of the door, and spilled out of the car in seconds, backing away. The rain wet my skin and darkened my clothes. I heard the
thunk
that indicated the back door of his SUV was opening for me to remove my grocery sack.

I leaned in to get it and saw him looking back at me, his arm stretched around the seat of his car so he could twist. “Let me come in.”

“I don"t think that"s a good idea.”

“Just to talk.”

Like I hadn"t heard that before. Probably, though, he meant it. “No.”

“I don"t think it"s a good idea for me to go home and sit in the bedroom where I grew up, thinking about everything that has gone wrong in my life.”

“Then don"t. Rent a movie. Watch porn.” I reached up to shut the rear door.

“People are never the answer. The only thing that helps is—” He started the car up again and gunned the engine. I slammed the door shut and got out of the way as he pulled out of the parking space and drove off, his taillights winking red in the puddles left behind by the rain. I guess he didn"t figure he needed another lecture.

When I pulled the old-fashioned motel key out of my pocket and opened the door, I realized my olives had rolled out of the bag and into the back of his SUV. I half expected him to return with them. I might have done just that when I was younger and a little more audacious.

I didn"t know what game he was playing. People with girlfriends aren"t usually my type.
I’m not usually their type
. I didn"t know what he wanted, and I was afraid to find out.

I dried off and put on old sweats to warm up, getting into bed without even turning on the television. As I drifted off, the sky opened up and it rained like it rains back home. I could hear thunder and lightning. I was tired and cold, and I fell asleep between the thin white linens, under the nasty blanket and bedspread, without any trouble at all.

I dreamed that Ken was standing on the playing field where we"d watched his brother play soccer, surrounded by Mark"s teammates. All of a sudden, Ken took off, running and playing with them, his feet flying, every bit as subtle and coordinated as his brother"s. I dreamed Mark looked at me like a kid watching a magic act and I was the magician. He was laughing and crying at the same time, pumping his fist in the air, before he took off after his brother like a puppy.

I"d never seen such joy, or felt happiness like that in my heart, before that dream.

I woke up crying and got the pillow wet and stained with spit and tears.

36

Z. A. Maxfield

Chapter Six

I was at Day-Use in the morning before Izzie even pulled up. She drove a tiny car, smaller even than mine, and seemed to take up the whole thing all by herself. She got out and stood up, and it made me think of clowns.

“You"re here early.” She unlocked the front door of the gym with a rattle of keys.

“I"ll get you a key; remind me. Then you can open and close if I"m not here.” I thought it was interesting that she"d trust me, an ex-con, with keys. A lot of people wouldn"t. Even if I"d never stolen a thing in my life, and my prison stay hadn"t been for theft, lots of people didn"t think I was trustworthy enough to wash their cars.

“Thank you.”

“Thank
you
,” she said. “It"ll be good to take a morning off here and there.” She walked to the switches and started turning on the lights. “You can begin with the men"s locker room, and I"ll touch up the women"s.” She wandered off, and we both worked in silence until the first members started coming in. Izzie made a point of introducing me to clients as they came in, reassuring each one that I was competent to answer their questions. She"d adopted me quickly, I thought, almost ruthlessly, as her chief of staff and spokesperson. I actually hoped she knew what she was doing, because I wasn"t nearly as certain as she was that I"d fit in.

At one point, a group of three men came in. All of them were bearlike. They had dark, bristly hair and big, stocky bodies. They didn"t look related, but looked alike.

They each had a thick mustache. Izzie came over, and one of them gave her a hard squeeze, his hands just a little south of what I"d consider a friendly hug.

“Jordan.” She called me over. “These are three of St. Nacho"s finest. Officer Jim Lundgren, Officer Anthony Brios, and Officer Andrew Callahan. Jordan came in yesterday and I hired him on the spot.”

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They looked me over as only cops can. I felt like they could read my rap sheet, like it was hanging in the air over my head in a thought balloon. I held out my hand to shake. The squeezer, Andrew, was the first to take it. “Nice to meet you, Jordan.”

“Andrew,” I said, giving his hand what I thought was a manly sort of pump.

“Andy,” Izzie corrected, putting an arm around him and giving him a peck on the cheek. The others shook my hand and were polite but distant.

“Jordan is a massage therapist and he specializes in therapeutic massage. I think you all ought to give him a try. Work out some of that tight-ass cop tension.” She grinned at them cheekily while I waited for her to be struck by lightning. I never, ever would have talked to one of River Falls"s officers like that. Not even Bill Leviton, who had married Cooper"s sister, and considered me part of his extended family.

“I have
you
for that,” Andy told her, and I finally figured out that there was more to their situation than met the casual eye. I watched them banter for a minute while I pretended to be looking over a leg press machine. They were…adorable. Izzie, who normally moved like a force of nature, went all soft and feminine around Andy, and even though she still looked like nothing so much as a big drag queen, it suited her.

Andy was letting her spot him while he did presses, and he smiled up at her like she was a goddess. Which, really, looking at her, I guess she was. She wore her unnaturally tinted blonde hair in a halo around her head. Her skin was so tanned it was as if she were the negative of a photograph. She had a lovely face and knew how to enhance it using makeup that was shiny and bronzed-looking. I couldn"t fault Andy at all. She was a hell of a woman. And she obviously made him feel like one hell of a man.

I was sort of watching and shaking my head when Brios came up behind me.

“She"s something, isn"t she?” he remarked.

“Yes.” I didn"t want to talk about my boss behind her back. “Do you work with free weights or the machines?”

“I like the free weights,” he said. “But I"m going to run on the treadmill for a while first today.” I expected him to move off, but he didn"t. I was trying to think of something else to say, but he stopped me.

“Mind if I have a word?” He jerked his head toward the treadmills, and I followed him with a sinking heart. It"s not like I don"t have a healthy respect for law enforcement and a genuine desire to see the police as a force for good, but I had been a big shit-heel growing up and I had done so many stupid, stupid things. I expected the worst. I expected that he"d run the plates of my car while it was sitting out in the motel parking lot and he was going to tell me I had to leave town.

When we got to the other side of the gym where the treadmills were all lined up facing a television set tuned to CNN, he cleared his throat.
Oh boy, here it comes
.

He looked both ways and licked his lips nervously. “I"d like to get a massage,” he admitted. Like it was something clandestine.

“What?”

38

Z. A. Maxfield

“I get massages sometimes with the wife; I like it. I like to take a sauna afterward, and my muscles always feel less tight the next day. I find it very refreshing.” He looked at me as though daring me to say something. I nodded, silently urging him to go on.

“The thing is, the guys… They like to rib me about it.” I leaned forward. “You want it to be a secret?”

“Yeah,” he sighed, and I thought I saw his whole bearlike body relax. I tried not to crack a smile.

“That"s fine. How do you want to do this to keep it a secret?”

“Could I come in sometime at night maybe? Not when I"m here with them?” He nodded toward Andy and Jim.

“Sure,” I said. “How about you come in tonight whenever it"s convenient? I"ll be here.”

“Seven?”

“Fine, I"ll see you then. Can I help you with anything else?” I asked. We"d caught Jim"s eye, and Anthony cleared his throat.

“No, thank you,” he said in what I guessed was his Officer Anthony voice. “That"s fine.” I lowered my eyes and went back to free weights to make myself available to spot Jim, if he needed it.

“Son?” Jim asked as I walked past. “Can I talk to you?”

“Yes.” I still felt that sense of dread. He jerked his head so I"d follow him. We stood at the side of the room where Izzie kept the free weights in racks.

Jim came right to the point. “I want to get a massage, but I don"t want the guys to know about it.”

I hid a smile. “I"m here in the evenings.”

“I work the night shift. What if I came back by myself in the afternoon?

Maybe…four?”

“That"s fine,” I told him. “But aren"t you worried that someone will see you and talk?”

“We could make it look like I was here for something else. I just don"t want those two giving me a hard time.”

“It"s very private. I"d use the therapy room, or—” I wondered if the therapy room would be in use. Maybe Ken would be in there. Clearly, I hadn"t given a lot of thought to the details. “Can I get back to you?” I asked him. “There are some things I haven"t worked out with Izzie yet.”

“Sure, she has my cell number; just call.”

“Fine,” I told him. I was going to talk to Izzie anyway, but she preempted me by motioning me over to the front where no one could hear us.

“Andy wants a massage, but he"s too shy to ask. He wants to know if you"ll do it sometime when his friends won"t be here.”

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I laughed out loud.

* * * * *

By lunchtime, Izzie and I had worked out a schedule of sorts, printing out a daily appointment list where we could each put our names in blocks of time to use the therapy room. I noticed that Izzie placed my name after hers every time Ken was due to come in. I sat at the front counter, frowning down at the paper, wondering how to tell her that maybe it wasn"t such a good idea for me to work with Ken when the very man in question set my jar of olives down on the worktop in front of me.

“Hi,” I said, putting the paper down.

“Hi.” He waited for a minute, and then we both spoke at once.

“Ken—”

“Look, Jordan—”

I nodded to indicate that he should go first.

“Maybe…I thought I should apologize for last night.”

“It"s fine, Ken. I enjoyed meeting your brother,” I told him. That was true, anyway. The dream was still stuck in my head, Mark"s joy at having his brother back, my pride at having helped, the happiness at seeing Ken well and happy.

“Then I went and left in a huff.” He looked down. “That wasn"t right.”

“That kind of emotional meltdown doesn"t just come and go like a headache, Ken.

It still reverberates through your body for a while. You might find that you"re sensitive for some time.”

“A headache.”

“Pardon me?”

Ken was staring at his own hand on the counter, and then he smiled. I could get used to that smile. He had even, white teeth and a dimple that made an appearance on one side of his full lips. His whole face smiled, his eyes crinkled at the corners, and I swear even his ears moved a little in the webs of dark hair that half hid them from view.

“It just struck me funny when you said „headache." That"s the mother of all understatements. I"m fucking falling apart.”