Steel Me Away (5 page)

Emmy

A morning spent tiptoeing between J.'s and Case's temper had me exhausted before the day had barely begun.  I wanted to stand under the stream of the shower for as long as I could.  Unfortunately the water was barely hot enough to stand under comfortably, much less be able to melt away the tension in my shoulders.

The shower at the clubhouse was a stall built into the wall of the bathroom and afforded little privacy.  I was surprised they had bothered with a curtain, but I guessed it was for when they had girls sleep over. 

The hot water had barely recovered between Case's shower and mine, so I had to move fast.  Dancing through the lukewarm spray, I soaped up as quickly as I could.

My knuckles cramped slightly, the dull ache there still remained.  I flexed my fingers under the spray, relishing the pain. I hoped it would never stop hurting.  I wanted to always be reminded of what I had done.  Of the impact as my fist collided with Robert's jaw. Of sending him backwards onto the lobby floor while his hired goon of a guard watched open mouthed.  I hope he was humiliated.  I hope he had a huge bruise.  I hoped it hurt to talk, hurt to eat.  I hoped it was a pointed reminder never to fuck with me again.

I hoped he knew it meant it was over.

I had to believe that, but something inside of me still fretted that it wasn't enough.  Robert didn't love me, of that I was completely certain.  But for some reason he wanted to have me.  For too long I had mistaken that possessiveness for real love.  It wasn't until I met J. that I learned what love really was.

And he and I needed to have a talk. 

His mother's dinner was at three.  I had plenty of time to get ready, but my clothes situation was giving me problems.  I thought wistfully of the huge, walk-in closet in the penthouse crammed with a million outfits.  Then I shuddered when I remembered the cost behind them. 

I'd rather have nothing than pay that price.

"I'm ready, J.!" I announced as I emerged from the bathroom.

"Why do girls take forever?" Crash asked the room as he hurried past me towards the toilet, where he unleashed a mighty stream and a sigh.

"He's been waiting for you," Case noted.  "Bein' all gentlemanly and shit."

I looked down.  This was the first time he had said anything to me since yesterday.  I chose my words very carefully. "You're all being gentlemanly and shit." I sighed.  "Thank you."  Then I took a deep breath and looked around. "Where's J.?"

"Gone for a ride," Case said, flicking though a parts catalog and making notes on a scrap of paper.

What the hell?

"Did he say for how long?"

Case raised a sharp eyebrow at me. "Um, no.  He didn't seem in the mood to chat." I felt my cheeks flush red at my faux pas.

Crash emerged from the bathroom and humped past me with a muffled, "Scuse me," as he brushed my shoulder.  Mac was slumped brooding over his beer, three cans already gathered at his feet.  I couldn't see either Teach or the Doctor, but I could hear voices from outside.

"Anything I can do?" I chirped to the air. 

"Make more coffee," Crash muttered grumpily.  "Please," he added when Case shot him a look.

I opened my mouth to ask where it was, then thought better of it and turned on my heel.  Without J. here I felt lost and awkward.  I hoped it didn't show.

A childhood spent fetching coffee for my hungover father served me well when faced with the complicated machine in front of me.  I located a half empty container of ground coffee in the freezer and measured out enough to make a potent brew.  I worked as slowly as I could.  As long as I was getting the coffee, I was being useful. Once this task was finished, I was going to be back to waiting for J.

Where the heck was he, anyway?

When I brought the steaming mug out to Crash, he reacted as a drowning man being tossed a life preserver.  "Dang, that's strong," he muttered over the brim.

"Too strong?" I asked.  "I can make another pot."

He pulled the mug out of my reach and growled in an imitation of a dog with a juicy bone.  Bonnie the guard dog looked up from her corner and cocked a quizzical head, then flopped back to the ground with a snuffle, already bored.  Crash slurped his coffee without looking at me. 

I felt like an intruder.

"Anything else you need?"  I heard the hopeful note of subservience in my voice that I had hoped I had left along with Robert. 

Crash fixed his eyes on my chest for a moment.  "Nah," he said, more to himself than me.

"Stop waiting on that asshole," Case called from the corner.

"I don't mind," I answered.  But I did.  Where was J.?

The lush memories of our night in the country took on a bitter flavor.  We had run away.  And today, with the looming challenge of dinner at his mother's to contend with, he had run away again.  But this time he had left me behind

With nothing else to do, I retreated to a workbench and stared at the tools like they meant something to me.  I was feeling familiar feelings, and I didn't like it.

I had gone from being completely dependent on Robert right to being completely dependent on J. All of the turmoil of the past two weeks hadn't changed anything about me.  I was still a charity case, adrift, bouncing from bed to bed like a cheap gold-digger.

I wondered what time it was.  I was hungry but I didn't feel entitled to eat their food without J. there.   I swallowed my self-loathing and stared fiercely at a wrench.  As if it was the tool's fault I was still a mess.

The noise of an approaching motorcycle broke through my thoughts.  J.'s custom chopper roared passed the rolltop doors of the garage and my heart leaped into my throat to see him.  He moved the huge machine as if it were part of him, with a mixture of calm relaxation and authoritative power.  I realized that I had never seen him ride, I had always ridden with him.

He swung around in one wide, lazy arc across the huge parking lot.  I couldn't help but swallow hard when I saw how his strong hands gripped the handlebars and his stronger thighs clenched the heavy metal between them.  The power in how he moved had me breathless.

He idled into the garage and cut the motor.  There was an echoing silence.

I didn't want to be the first to speak, because I was afraid of what I might say.  My desire for him fought viciously with my anger at him, robbing me entirely of the power of coherent speech. He swung his long leg over the back of the bike and shrugged off his leather jacket, hanging it carefully on a hook on the wall.  His face was calm, blissful even.  He brushed something off of his shoulder and looked out of the garage doors for a moment, watching the traffic race by on the highway above us.

Then he finally turned and noticed me.

"Hey babe," he said softly, striding towards me.  His boots echoed on the cement floor of the garage.  They were much louder in the silence that preceded him.

I shot a look over my shoulder and saw that Case was watching us closely, tension radiating from his body in almost visible waves. 

I looked back at J. He looked calm and centered.  I felt another wash of irrational anger at him for having left me. It was hard to imitate calm when I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin.

"Hey, you're back?" I said.  My voice sounded high and tight to my ears.

"I'm back," he replied, smearing a hasty kiss across my lips.  He strode to the kitchen and downed a bottle of water.  "You ready to go?"

"To your mom's?"

He blinked at me as if I wasn't making sense.  "Yeah.  I told them three."

"But you just got back."

He continued looking at me.  The silence that I had so cherished in him was starting to irk me.  "Yeah, I'm back now.  You ready?"

I was confused and I didn't know why.  I felt like something had flown past me without me catching hold of it.  Like there was a valuable piece of information about J. that I should really know before I headed out to meet the specters of his past.

I couldn't put those feelings into words.  Instead I looked down at my T-shirt and jeans.  "Am I dressed okay? I'm only wearing jeans."

He was at my side in an instant, his hands cupping my waist, pulling me in to him.  "I like the way your ass looks in those jeans," he whispered throatily.

His sudden ardor didn't feel right.  I felt like he was using me as a distraction. Like how Robert would nuzzle me at charity dinners, putting on a show for all his admirers.

I could feel Case's eyes on us, watching for J.'s reaction.  I felt deeply uneasy. "Let's just go."  I said, "The sooner we go, the sooner we can come back."

"Good luck," Case called out to us, with more sincerity than I had ever heard from him.

Emmy

Settling into the seat behind him felt more awkward than it ever had before.  I kept thinking of how he had left without telling me and then returned with no explanation.  Leaving me floating aimless and alone. 

I wasn't so much mad at him as I was mad at myself. 

I settled my arms around his waist as he kicked the bike to life.  He shot a look over his shoulder and then nodded.  I nodded back and he launched us forward with a throaty roar. 

He took the narrow street slowly, wending us north and west, past the trendy bars of Northern Liberties and up past the crumbling factories of Kensington.  I saw more abandoned lots, more trash in the street.  He made a left, going so slowly down one road that I was afraid we'd lose momentum and fall over.  Then he forced the bike up onto the sidewalk and cut the motor.

"Is this it?"  I looked alone the crowded block.  Two story rowhomes crowded the sidewalk, while cars were parked at crazy angles all along the street.  The sun baked down on the shimmering pavement.  A hot breeze stirred up an errant plastic bag and lifted it high over our heads, sending it down to the empty lot at the end of the block to join the rest of the trash caught in the fence.

I had never been in a rowhome before, in spite of having lived in Philadelphia for over two years now.  I marveled at how they were all exactly the same, but for the little touches added by the homeowner.  The one right in front of us was tidy and neat, the covered porch carefully set with patio furniture and the flowerboxes blooming and well cared for.  But the one right next door had the porch roof sagging dangerously overhead and bars set menacingly in the windows.

"Over there." He pointed to the house three doors down from where we stood. It looked tired, but clean at least.  J.'s eyes crinkled slightly when he saw it.

"Does it look the same?" I asked.

He inhaled a little.  "Actually, it kind of looks better." There was a note in his voice I couldn't place, though I tried hard to identify it.  Was it sadness?  Wistfulness?  Was he wondering what had happened while he was gone?  I thought about my parents' house, the narrow, green painted Victorian sitting hunkered in a hollow.  It couldn't be more different from J.'s childhood home, but I knew I would approach it with the same trepidation if I saw it. 

I tried to slip my hand into his, but he either didn't notice my attempt, or didn't want my touch.  Instead he started walking, striding forward on his long legs.  After a moment's hesitation, I followed, my uneasiness growing with each step.

They must have heard his heavy footfalls on the porch through the open window, because a tall woman with a closely cropped haircut threw open the door at once.  I saw the same angled cheekbones and the same curved up eyes, and recognized her immediately.  Janelle.  J.'s younger sister.

She opened her arms, her face flooded with so much emotion that she couldn't speak.  J. stood stiffly, allowing himself to be hugged and clutched.  "It's really you," she babbled into his black T-shirt.  I tried to look anywhere but at the two of them.  This seemed too private for me to witness.

I was starting to wonder why I was here.

"Is that my baby boy?" A short woman, nearly as wide as she was tall, hauled herself painfully before us.  Her thin hair was done up in tight curls that only added to the general roundness of her face.  While her children were made of angles, she was all curves, a short neck that sloped gently into soft shoulders which curved down into the wide expanse of her bosom and the even wider expanse of her waist.  She raised her short, round arms and hauled J. downward, bending him almost double to kiss his expressionless face.

I really wondered why I was here.

"Hi Mama." J. said the words so softly I almost missed them.  He pulled himself back upright and out of her grasp.  Her arms flopped back down to her sides in a way that made me sad.

"This is Emmy," he stepped back and gestured to me.  The two women finally registered my presence, their faces inscrutable.

"Emmy, welcome," Janelle said, an odd tightness in her voice.

"Thank you for having me."  I extended my hand.  She grasped it limply and let it fall away.

"You two together?" his mother asked pointedly.  I could see her taking in my pale skin and white-blond hair. 

"Emmy, this is my mother, Meryl Johnson," J. cut in before I could answer.  There was tightness around his jaw.

"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Johnson," I replied, extending my hand.  Janelle visibly winced.

"It's Ms.," she barked back to me.  "If he doesn't want to be a husband, then I don't want to be a wife.  I only keep the name so's it's the same as my kids'."

"And how the fuck was Emmy supposed to know that, Ma?" J. barked right back. 

"Dunno, thought you might have told her before you brought her into my house." Ms. Johnson's eyes blazed fiercely and I saw the same emerald fire that burned in J.'s gaze.

"It's my house too, Ma," J. choked in a strangled sigh.

"How you figure that?"

"
Stop."
Janelle raised a warning hand.  "Both of you stop right now.  We are having dinner as a family for the first time in six years.  Just stop this right now."

J. cast his eyes to the ground, but Ms. Johnson flared her nostrils up at her daughter.  "I'm not in the business of being told off by my own daughter."

Janelle cast her eyes heavenward.  "Mama, I'm not telling you off.  Let's just go inside.  Please."

They trooped inside, leaving me on the porch.  I shifted back and forth, wanting to flee.  But where would I go? 

The dull ache of my dependency sharpened as I unwillingly stepped through the door and entered the house, unwelcome and unnoticed.