She loved to listen to Sean talk. She loved it when he kissed her. She loved the way he made her feel like a—well, like a woman who was good in bed. And she loved the way he handled her when they were dancing, the respect in which he seemed to hold her. How had this happened over the past few months? When had he become so important to her?
Now, walking beside him, she was content. Though her life had just been shaken to pieces and her body was sore from a beating, she was calm and steady, because she had Sean. She loved every freckle on his race, his white strong body, his quirky mouth, and his dancing talent.
He'd done wonderful things for her. But he hadn't said he loved her. His blue eyes fixed on her face as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world, and that should be enough. The way he made love to her told her that he thought she was wonderful. That should be enough. She had a strong suspicion any man would laugh at her for wondering, but she wasn't a man, and she needed to hear the words—without having asked for them.
The next second she was yanked from her brooding by an unexpected sight. She'd glanced up at her apartment windows automatically, from half a block away, and she'd gotten a nasty shock.
"The light in my apartment is on," she said, stopping in her tracks. "The overhead light."
"You didn't leave it on last night?"
"No. The ceilings are high, and it's hard for me to change the bulbs in that fixture. I leave on the little lamp by my bed."
"I'll see," Sean said, pulling away from her grasp gently. She hadn't realized she'd been gripping his arm.
"Oh, please, don't go to the door," she said. "He might be waiting for you."
"I'm stronger than he is," Sean said, a little impatiently.
"Please, at least go up the fire escape, the one on the side of the building."
Sean shrugged. "If it'll make you happy."
She crept closer to the building and watched Sean approach the fire escape. He decided to show off at the last minute and scaled the brick wall, using the tiny spaces between bricks as hand- and toeholds. Rue was impressed, sure enough, but she was also disconcerted. It was unpleasantly like watching a giant insect climb. In a very short time, Sean had reached the level of the window and swung onto the fire escape. He peered inside. Rue could tell nothing from his stance, and she couldn't manage to see his face.
"Hey, Rue." Startled, she turned to see that her next-door neighbor, a part-time performance artist who called herself Kinshasa, had come up beside her. "What's that guy up to?"
"Looking into my apartment," she said simply.
"What were you doing last night? Sounded like you decided to rearrange the whole place."
"Kinshasa, I wasn't at home last night."
Kinshasa was tall and dreadlocked, and she wore big red-rimmed glasses. She wasn't someone you overlooked, and she wasn't someone who shrank from unpleasant truths. "Then someone else was in your place," she said. "And your friend's checking to see what happened?"
Rue nodded.
"I guess I should've called the cops last night when I heard all that noise," the tall woman said unhappily. "I thought I was doing you a favor by not calling the police or the super, but instead I was just being a typical big-city neighbor. I'm sorry."
"It's good for you that you didn't go knock on my door," Rue said.
"Oh. Like that, huh?"
The two stood watching as Sean came back down the fire escape in a very mundane way. He looked unhappy, so far as Rue could tell.
Sean, though not chatty or outgoing, was always polite, so Rue knew he had bad news when he ignored Kinshasa.
"You don't want to go back up there," he said. "Tell me what you need and I'll get it for you."
Suddenly Rue knew what had happened. "He got Martha," she said, the words coming out in a little spurt of horror. "He got her?"
"Yes."
"But I have to—" She started for the door of the building, thinking of all the things she needed, the fact that she had to find a box for the furry body, the grief washing over her in a wave.
"No," Sean said. "You will not go back in there."
"I have to bury her," Rue said, trying to pull away from his hand on her arm.
"No."
Rue stared up at him uncomprehendingly. "But, Sean, I have to."
Kinshasa said, "Baby, there's not enough left to bury, your friend is saying."
Rue could hardly accept that, but her mind skipped on to other worries. "My books? My notes?" she asked, trying to absorb the magnitude of the damage.
"Not usable."
"But it's four weeks into the semester! There's no way—I'll have to drop out!" The books alone had cost almost six hundred dollars. She'd gotten as many as she could secondhand, of course, but this late in the term, could she find more?
At least she had her dancing shoes. Some of them were in a corner at Blue Moon Entertainment, and the rest were in the bag she'd taken to Sean's. Rue's mind scurried from thought to thought like a mouse trapped in a cage.
"Clothes?" she mumbled, before her knees collapsed.
"Some of them may be salvageable," Sean murmured, but without great conviction. He crouched beside her.
"I know some people who can clean the apartment," Kinshasa said. "They just came over from Africa. They need the money."
This was an unexpected help. "But it's so awful in there, Sean says." Tears began to stream down Rue's face.
"Honey, compared to the mass graves and the slaughter they've had to clean up in their own country, this will be a piece of cafes to them."
"You're right to give me some perspective," Rue said, her spine stiffening. Kinshasa looked as if she'd intended no such thing, but she bit her lip and kept silent. "I'm being ridiculous. I didn't get caught in that apartment, or I would've ended up like poor Martha." Rue managed to stand and look proud for all of ten seconds, before the thought of her beloved cat made her collapse.
"I'll kill him for you, honey," Sean said, holding her close.
"No, Sean," she said. "Let the law do it."
"You want to call the police?"
"Don't we have to? He'll have left fingerprints."
"What if he wore gloves the whole time?"
"I let him get away with hitting me last night, and what does he do? He comes here and kills my cat and ruins, all my stuff. I should've called the police last night."
"You're right," Kinshasa said. "I'll call from my place right now."
Sean said nothing, but he looked skeptical.
The police were better, kinder, than Rue expected. She knew what that meant. Her apartment must be utterly gory. Sean told the detective, Wallingford, that he'd be able to tell what was missing. "You don't need to go up there," Wallingford told Rue, "if this guy can do it for you." Sean and Wallingford went up to the apartment, and Rue drank a cup of hot chocolate that Kinshasa brought her. Rue found herself thinking, I've had friends around me all the time, if I'd just looked.
When Sean reappeared with a garbage bag full of salvaged clothes, he told Rue the only thing he knew for sure was missing was her address book. "Was my address in it?" he asked her quietly.
"No," she said. "Maybe your phone number. But I didn't even know where you lived until last night"
"The police say you can go now. Let's go back to my place." After an uneasy pause, he continued. "Do you think you can dance tonight? It's almost too late to call Sylvia to get a replacement team."