Ringing pulls me from my pity parade down memory lane and snaps me back to the here and now. I drop my phone in my haste to answer, and it bounces unceremoniously off the corner of the table. The crackling noise of my screen as it splinters fuels my theory that I must have been a terrible person in a former life; why else would the Powers That Be dole out blow after blow on me? I scoop it from the floor and see the crack only spans the width of a quarter—not so bad. The positioning seems almost cathartic. My screen saver is a picture of Danny and me murdering Bennie and The Jets in drunken karaoke. I’m wearing a rainbow-colored afro, and he has on a pair of giant heart sunglasses. The crack covers all of Danny’s face. I smile.
“Hello, Tweet? Tweet, you there? Hello?”
“Sorry, dropped the phone,” I tell Callum.
“I’m downstairs now if you’re ready to go?”
I quickly check my reflection in the mirror over the mantle.
“Be right down.”
I slide my cell into the back pocket of my ripped jeans, smooth out my tank top and grab my purse and keys. I twist my hair into a messy knot and hastily smear on a little lip gloss as I descend the stairs to the bar. It’s only because my lips are dry, it has nothing to do with wanting to look pretty for my boss, I tell myself.
There are two kinds of people in this world, those who love motorcycles, and those who don’t. I’m undecided. I did belong to the latter, but as I cling to Callum, my arms circling his waist, and my face pushed into the hard ridge of his shoulder, I’m beginning to change my mind. We’re weaving through traffic, and although I don’t like the vulnerability I feel on his bike, I do like the closeness it forces as we ride it. There’s something comforting about being pressed up against his back, breathing in the smell of soap mixed with his cologne. I’m not thinking about Danny or Carter, and it’s a welcomed respite. If I have to ride on the back of a potential deathtrap to satisfy my need for a sense of peace, no matter how fleeting, I’ll take it.
We pull up outside of my apartment building, and I throw my leg over the bike, pulling the helmet off and handing it to Cal. Mrs. Heckles is sitting by the entrance on a rickety old wooden lawn chair, wrestling with a bag of chips almost as big as she is, as I make my way across the sidewalk.
“She’s been on the pot again,” I whisper to Cal as he jogs to catch up. His eyes flick from mine over to Mrs. Heckles and back again. His brows are furrowed like he thinks he must have misheard me, but we’re right in front of her now, so he doesn’t ask for clarification.
I smile and take the bag of chips from her, then open them and pass them back. “Here you go, Mrs. Heckles.”
“Ah, thank you, sweetheart,” she says, shoving one into her mouth and talking around it. “I’ve been struggling with them for the last five minutes…damn arthritis. Hands are riddled with it, makes it hard to open things, packets especially. The marijuana makes it hard not to want to eat everything in sight, and it’s all in packets. Vicious circle, I tell ya.”
I laugh, and Cal stands slack-jawed and disbelieving that the sweet old lady in front of us is complaining about the munchies. It’s written clear as day all over his face that he can’t quite comprehend that she just said that out loud.
“You know you shouldn’t really smoke this stuff in plain sight of everyone, right?” I ask her. “It’s illegal; if a cop walks by, you’d be in trouble.”
Mrs. Heckles looks at me with a grin that tells me she’s not worried.
“Please child, what policeman is going to come over here and question what I’m smoking? I could be stark naked and dancing around wielding a gun and nobody in this city would pay a blind bit of notice. People these days are far too preoccupied. Always busy, walking around with their heads down as they’re surfing on the line, updating their face tubes with pictures of what they just ate for lunch.”
Cal’s laughter interrupts her train of words and her eyes sparkle as she looks him over. She stuffs a few more chips into her mouth and munches on them loudly before asking, “Now, now, whom do we have here?”
She smiles at me then looks back over at Callum, her approval etched just as deeply as the wrinkled folds of skin around her eyes and mouth.
“Mrs. Heckles, this is my boss, Callum Speight. Cal, this is Mrs. Heckles, my neighbor.”
Cal’s hand darts out to take hers, but she has different ideas. Her frail hand swats his away as she reaches up and pulls him down, planting a wet kiss to his cheek. Their height difference is significant; he’s folded in the middle and bending like he’s cuddling with a small child.
“None of that formal stuff where I come from, boy. I much prefer a little sugar with my hello’s.”
“I don’t have a problem with that, ma’am,” he answers. Amusement is clear in his tone. My eyes drift over to his as he dazzles her with a gleaming bright smile. Damn he’s pretty when he does that.
“We’ll catch you on our way out,” I tell Mrs. Heckles as I make my way past her to the stairwell, waving for Callum to follow.
“It was lovely to meet you, Mrs. Heckles,” he says.
“Please, call me Mary. Nice to have met you, too,” she tells him. The dirty little old flirt, I think as Cal follows me up the stairs. I’ve known her for years and she’s never once asked me to call her Mary.
“I think I love your neighbor,” he whispers.
“She’d eat you alive,” I reply. He grins, and I smile to myself because I’m not joking.
There’s a note sitting prominently on my kitchen countertop, folded and placed like a tent, waiting for me to find it.
I look over to the door; it doesn’t look like anyone forced their way in here. My skin prickles. They either had a key to get in, or the locks are so useless they were able to pick them. I’m not sure which scenario scares me more; they’re both equally disturbing. I show Callum the note, and he assures me not to worry. It’s easy for him to say, he’s not the one who’ll suffer the consequences of not paying. I busy myself gathering up what I came back for. I can’t help but think back to Athena and her predictions as I’m folding clean underwear into my bag. That damn Death card, and the explanations she spouted At the time I had told myself I was looking for scenarios to match up what she’d said to me. Now I’m becoming more and more convinced she was spot-on. Everything she said fits.
Annie had fixed me a sweet tea when I’d gone backstage, visibly shaken and more than a little perturbed by my encounter with Athena. She’d laughed at first, thinking that I was over-dramatizing the whole confrontation. When she’d realized that I wasn’t putting on a show—that what she’d said had genuinely worried me, she swiftly told me that Athena was hired from an agency. She explained she had been booked out from the same company that offered flab-a-grams, middle-aged men with swollen beer bellies in rhinestone jumpsuits who, for a modest fee, would marry you and your partner, thanks to their online ordainment certificates. As an extra, they could even serenade you with a slightly off-key rendition of I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You. The chances of her knowing anything about the future were as likely as stepping outside the club and being hit by a meteorite. I’d laughed, but it would be just my luck. I played along, agreeing that she made a valid point, but inside I was still very much freaking the hell out. I still am.