She watches his hands tighten slightly on the wheel.
“Probably not,” he says.
“You were in the wood shaft,” Ronnie says, flinching at her own voice.
He nods.
“I was in the wood shaft. I was in that little bin. Every time. I was sitting on top of the pile of wood. Really down in it. Kind of blanketed with scrap wood. It’d be covering my legs.”
She gives him a few seconds to go on and when he doesn’t, she pushes. “Why were you there?”
“I just wanted to be there. I just wanted to be alone. In the dark.”
“What would you do?”
“I’d just sit. And then I’d listen to my own breath. And then I’d catch myself praying.”
“Praying?”
“Act of Contrition.” His voice breaks a little. She can hear stress in the short phrasing. Something’s happening in his throat.
“You thought you’d done something wrong?”
“I must have. To be there. To have no one.”
She brings her hand up to the side of his face, touches his cheek, and lets her fingers go into the hair above his ears. She’s acting on instinct. She doesn’t know what to say.
“That was a long time ago, Flynn,” she tries.
His hand goes from the steering wheel to the shift. He pops the car into gear, lets out a staggered breath, and whispers, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
21
Hazel is walking south on Rimbaud headed for the Rib Room. Hannah lets the Mustang hang a good two car lengths back, keeps her foot off the gas, and pulls to the curb whenever a car comes into the rearview. She takes a full block to study Hazel’s walk and decides the girl has a genuine confidence, something innate, beyond a cultivated act. Beyond the sarcastic and impatient lip she uses on all her camp followers.
As they approach the diner, Hannah finds an open meter and parks. She has to jog to reach Hazel before she enters the Rib Room, but she manages to come up. beside her and link their arms, just one more pair of lesbian artist punks out for coffee and small talk on a beautiful fall day.
Hazel freezes in place, gives away nothing in the second it takes her to get clear on who’s latched onto her arm. Then her eyes tighten and her teeth clench and Hannah can almost hear her brain grinding for the most vicious greeting on file.
Hannah beats her to the punch, leans in and kisses her on the cheek with a rough, wet move, nods her head and puts on a mock smile and says, “Honey, why won’t you return my calls?”
Hazel looks over her shoulder to the street and says, “You’ve just gotten too old for me, you narco bitch. You’re really starting to look like that hag you used to hang with.”
Hannah grabs some flesh between her thumb and forefinger, gives a pinch and a bruise that will be purple for weeks, and reaches with her free hand for the door. “You’ll never change, you little brat. Let’s have some espresso. You can show me your new tattoos.”
Technically, the Rib Room does not serve lunch. The doors do not officially open until five. But for the past few years, Elmore Orsi has been brewing coffee for the select few who know enough to ignore the pulled shades and Closed sign. Usually a half dozen hung-over regulars will huddle in booths and silently browse the morning edition of the Spy until the aspirin kicks in and they can stand the thought of heading back out to the studios and clubs.
Hannah marches Hazel down the center aisle, holding her close, even at one point, as they pass Elmore at the cashier’s station, pressing her head against Hazel’s shoulder. Orsi gives a confused half-laugh, half-cough, and Hannah slides Hazel into a rear booth, then moves in on the same side.
“Jesus, have you gotten pushy,” Hazel says, moving away from Hannah, leaning her back against the wall until she’s sideways in the booth.
“I’ve been hearing the same thing about you, love,” Hannah says, shrugging out of her suede jacket, exposing her holster and her Magnum.
“You wanted to talk to me, you could’ve just called.”
Hannah gives her a long look through squinted eyes. “You don’t have a goddamn residence, Hazel. You live out of a freaking car half the time.”
Hazel looks down the aisle to Elmore, motions with her head, and says, “You could’ve called here.”
Hannah reaches past her and takes a plastic menu from a metal-pronged salt and pepper holder.
“What happened to Wireless?” she asks. “They’re not taking your calls anymore? You and the radio freaks have a falling-out?”
Before Hazel can answer, Hannah yells out, too loud, “Can we get two coffees down here, please?”
Hazel rubs a hand hard over her left eye, which Hannah gets a kick out of.
“What is it in me,” Hannah says, pretending to study the menu, “that gets such a big kick out of embarrassing you in front of the ultra-hip?”
Hazel doesn’t say a word, just gives a bored, unblinking stare. Elmore comes down the aisle carrying two huge white porcelain mugs and a mini silver creamer, all atop a Day-Gloorange serving tray. He holds the tray up on his fingertips, higher than his shoulders, performing, indulging Hannah with a mime’s rendition of stiff, four-star service. He places the mugs in front of the women, positions the creamer between them, adjusts a bar towel over a rigid arm, and gives a solemn, theatrical waist-bow.
Hannah pushes the cream away and says, “You got to love that guy. He could charm the wallet off a dead man.”
She takes a sip of the steaming coffee and adds, “So what’s good in here? I haven’t had Orsi’s cooking in ages.”
Hazel knows Hannah could hold out all day, keep her penned in the booth and numb her with hours of insulting small talk. So, she breaks easy, gives Hannah her full attention, and says, “Okay, what did I do?”
Hannah matches her new serious tone and says, “You tell me, little sister.”
“I’m not your sister, Hannah. I honestly don’t know what the Christ you want. Why don’t you tell me and we can both get on with the day.”
“Why don’t you relax?” Hannah says, her voice slowing down and lowering to a level that makes Hazel buck a little. “If I want to sit here with you from now until summer, honey, that’s exactly what we’ll fucking do. And if I want to talk about goddamn makeup tips, that’s exactly what we’ll fucking discuss.”
She reaches over, puts a hand on Hazel’s leg just above the kneecap, and gives a long, hard squeeze. Hazel stays silent and motionless, but an ache starts up, not in her leg, but at the very back of her throat, a childhood kind of burning ache, more a prelude to tears than pain. Finally, she blinks a few times, looks into Hannah’s eyes, and nods slightly.
Hannah lets go of her leg and shifts herself closer to Hazel. She starts to talk in a whisper, so intense and heavy with breath that Hazel starts to think she’s going to draw the gun and pull back the hammer.
Instead she says, “Don’t you ever, ever give me any attitude, Hazel.”
Hazel nods again.
Hannah’s nostrils expand as she exhales and she repeats, “I mean fucking never.”
Hazel’s nod increases in speed and Hannah continues.
“I’ve been hearing that you’ve been growing some balls since the last time we spoke. And that’s fine. That’s great. I kind of get a kick out of it, the thought of you putting some fear into the dorkwhites down here in the Zone. You want to terrorize your radio dinks, I think it’s a riot.”
She picks up Hazel’s mug and takes a sip.
“But you never forget, from now till the day you fucking die, sister, that it was Lenore who hauled your seventeen-year-old ass out of Bangkok Park—”