Love Me Not (8 page)

Maybe I should just leave, move away. All this shit was too hard. I hated not being in control.

I paced the room for a while. Then I sat in the armchair in the corner. Then I stared out the window. Eventually, the sun fell, and the Christmas lights came back on. The cars that zipped up and down the road thinned, as did the parking lots.

I wished Santa Claus existed. Penny had helped me believe for a long time, even though she could never afford lots of gifts. That never mattered to me.

Life was simpler when I just wrote a letter to a jolly old man in the North Pole when I wanted something. Whether I received it or not wasn’t even the point, not really. It was simply that I asked, and then it was out of my hands. I could relax.

Maybe that’s why people were drawn to prayer.

I’d never been in church, had never even prayed. I knew Penny didn’t, either. I asked one time when I was little why we didn’t go to church, and she said she didn’t like the idea of someone else being in charge of her life. I didn’t understand at the time. Now I thought maybe I did. She equated giving up control to giving into mental instability. Like driving a car—if you don’t actively control it every second, you crash.

Penny had lived with our mother, just the two of them, until Penny was nine, old enough to understand much of what went on. Then our mother was institutionalized, where she remained until her death. Penny spent the next nine years in foster homes. I was born in a mental hospital, and no one knew who my father was.

I refocused on the view and realized almost all the cars were gone, except a few puttering along the road, surely headed toward holiday parties. I was suddenly incredibly lonely.

Penny and I didn’t spend Christmas Eve together anymore—she always closed the shop late, usually having let the employees go early, and went home to crash.

But I wasn’t usually alone tonight. Single women were lonely on Christmas Eve. Last year I was sort of a party favor. A group of four women took turns with me. By morning, I was so exhausted I slept through most of Christmas Day.

I felt lost without my time being scheduled, without a woman near to arouse me and cloud my thoughts. I was thinking entirely too damn much today, about all the things I didn’t want to acknowledge, kind of like a leak. The more you ignore it, the worse it gets, until your house is flooded.

What to do with myself? I didn’t want to bother Penny, and my regulars were busy with their families.

Then an idea hit me—something that made the most sense to do tonight. There was a reason why I brought the book with me.

I’d role-played before—I’d been a policeman, a fireman, even a prison guard. Tonight I was going to be Santa Claus.

Chapter 13

Kathy

I grabbed the book from my backpack and walked down the hall to the elevators. The hotel was unsettlingly quiet. Perhaps it only seemed so because I felt so nakedly alone. Whatever. Santa Claus was alone on his big night, and he was still jolly.

From the elevator, I walked through the lobby. The same girl who checked me in was at the front desk.

“Holiday party?” she said.

I smiled, my charming though not wholly genuine smile.

“Your name’s Heath, right?”

My steps paused. I didn’t want to stop. I realized how excited I was about my impending adventure. “Yeah.”

“I’m Kathy,” she said. “If you, um, get lonely tonight, I’m here until six a.m.”

Damn could I attract them?
It used to piss off Cassie.

I grinned, still not genuine. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Then I kept walking, out the door and down the street toward the mall. Before I could play Santa, I had to figure out where I was going.

The mall was deserted. I went in the shop through the front simply because the route was more direct, and I knew everyone was gone. I went down the hall and into Penny’s office. The ring and note were gone off the desk. Finally, a genuine smile curved over my lips.

I turned and opened the file cabinet. Shit. I didn’t know Kimber’s last name. I looked through the tabs one at a time, all the past and current employees. Baker, Blanchard, Carpenter…

Finally…West, Kimber. Of course, she’d have to be at the end. At least her first name was unique enough that I didn’t doubt I had the right file.

The address didn’t ring a bell. Though, admittedly, I hadn’t been away from this small area in a few years. The zip code was the Southside, not far from here, though certainly not within walking distance, not if I wanted to get there before morning.

I pulled the phonebook out of Penny’s bottom desk drawer and slapped it down on the desk. Hopefully, cab companies still ran on Christmas Eve.

They did. A very somber cabby pulled up to the shop a little while later.

“Sorry, man,” I said as he turned onto the main road. “I’ll give you a great tip.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror, and the caterpillars that were his eyebrows rose a bit.

He took the short jump onto 202 over to Southside Boulevard. Then he made the turn onto the access road. This area was a muddle of classes and cultures. On the east side of the road was Deerwood, an upper class yuppyish community, and on the west side of the road was a line of apartment complexes, all using the access road. Some of the apartments looked nice enough, not new but remodeled and well maintained, and then there were those that were not remodeled. That was where the cabby turned.

The entry to the complex was neat but no flowers or palms, only a wooden sign planted in mulch.

“What apartment again?” the driver said.

“209.”

A few seconds later, the cab stopped. I glanced around to make sure no one was around.

“Wait here,” I said.

“How long you gonna be?”

“About twenty seconds.”

He shifted into park. “Meter’s running.”

I opened the door and then paused and looked back at the driver. “Do you have a pen?”

“Twenty seconds?”

“Great tip,” I countered.

He produced a pen with a chewed-up end, and I jotted a note on the inside front cover of the book, without taking the time to make my handwriting nice. She got the same scrawl I used to write in my notebooks.
Be lost in the pages. Never underestimate the value of allowing yourself to be lost for a while.

I handed back the pen, stuffed the book back in its Barnes and Noble bag, and then hopped out of the car.

Quietly, I took the wooden steps up to the second level exterior walkway. I walked past number 207 and then 208. I almost missed 209 because the doors were so close together. The apartments couldn’t be more than a couple rooms large.

On her door hung a small wreath, which looked to be homemade out of pinecones. I wanted to look around a little more, see if I could spy any more of her personality, but I stuck with my plan and hung the handle of the bag off her doorknob and then returned to the cab.

“What are you, Santa Claus?” the driver said.

I rubbed my bristly chin. “Don’t you see the whiskers?”

He actually smiled a little.

At a puttering speed, he drove back up Southside Boulevard and across 202 toward the mall. I knew he was taking his time for the sake of running the meter, but I didn’t care. I felt high, like when I’d write love letters for Cassie and she’d cry.

I imagined what Kimber’s reaction would be—hopefully not creeped out that someone knew where she lived. No, she’d just assume it was from one of her neighbors.

She’d wake in the morning and open her door, on her way to some family event, and see the bag. She’d think the inscription was cute and hopefully smile about someone caring about her. Maybe I could help make her feel good for the rest of the day. Maybe that would help atone for my behavior, at least in God’s eyes.

“Nice tip, huh?”

I looked at the driver.

“You don’t look like you can afford the fare, let alone a tip,” he said.

I pulled my wallet from my back pocket and counted out hundred dollar bills. “Will three hundred do?”

At the stoplight to get onto the main road past the mall, he turned in his seat and stared at the cash.

“Drop me at the hotel up the street,” I said.

“Sure.” He drove more quickly up Town Center Parkway and pulled to a stop outside the hotel.

I handed him the cash and he fanned the bills out like a hand of poker as I stepped from the car.

“Merry Christmas,” I said.

He kept staring at the money. “Merry Christmas.”

I closed the car door, and he pulled away.

Then I remembered Kathy at the front desk. I was still feeling high off my adventure. I wanted to enjoy that for a while longer, not muddle it. Pleasures didn’t always mix well, like champagne and the sun.

I walked around the building and went in the back way, nearer the elevators. I hoped Kathy wasn’t offended.

Chapter 14

Poisonous Women

I decided I still needed to keep my distance from Kimber. She was intoxicating and also poisonous, and frankly, she scared the hell out of me.

But I didn’t want to be harsh with her, either. Seeing her cry, the tears I’d caused, made me feel like my mind would spiral out of control if I wasn’t very careful, if I didn’t hold tightly onto my thoughts and environment. That was why I’d refused to see anyone but my clients for the last several days.

I got out of bed early and shaved and showered. Being ratty-ass was a nice vacation. Now I was ready to go back to normal.

After my shower, I stood in the middle of my hotel room, wondering what I was supposed to do now—on Christmas Day. I had nothing to do, no one to visit. Penny was surely still exhausted—I didn’t want to bother her. And there was no one else.

I sat on the end of the bed. Where was I even going to eat?

The day passed slowly. That movie with Ralphie and the BB gun was on TV. It played over and over. The convenience store down the road was open. Christmas dinner consisted of Reese’s trees, chips, and a six-pack of Sam Adams.

Thankfully, I fell asleep early.

My thoughts flew around in my head while I slept. When I woke in the early morning, I was ready to be awake, to be more in control of my thoughts.

I was ready to go home.

My mind was too freaking active. I needed my routine, something to occupy me.

I shaved and showered and then threw my crap into my bag and went downstairs to check out. On my way through the lobby, I grabbed a bagel from the breakfast spread. I ate during my walk back to the mall. It was still pretty quiet. Only the big department stores were open.

Penny and Kimber were behind the counter organizing receipts when I walked in. Penny’s eyes were down in obvious concentration. Christmas Eve was insane at the shop, and she always had a hell of a time sorting the mess on the twenty-sixth.

“Sounds like you have a secret admirer,” Penny said to Kimber.

“It was so weird. I was just looking at it—” Kimber glanced up, stopped talking, and looked back down at what she was doing.

Penny looked at her as if waiting for her to finish her thought. Then she looked over at me.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Heath.” She came around the counter and ran to me.

I caught her, wondering what in the world was up. Penny had never been a touchy type person. She rested her head on my shoulder and clung to me.

“Is everything all right?” I said.

She took a few deep breaths.

“I thought,” she said. “The note. I thought maybe…you weren’t coming back.”

The note—I realized with what I’d written and my recent behavior, coupled with my request that she not schedule appointments, what she’d think.

“No, Penny,” I said as I held her tightly. “I’m sorry.” I wished she’d let me hug her more often, not just when she was upset. And even then, I knew the hug wouldn’t last long.

Slowly, she stepped back and wiped her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. Then I noticed her right hand. I took her hand in mine and touched the ring.

Her lips curved a little. “I saw one just like it once—”

“I know.”

“You remember that?”

“You said if a guy wants to marry you, he’d have to give you a ring like that. I wanted to show you I’m just as committed.”

Her smile slowly spread.

Then Kimber caught my attention, the fact that she was watching us. She looked away. A few seconds later, she went down the back hall, surely to get more product to fill the empty shelves. Penny must trust her. She allowed very few people in the back hall, employee or not. Usually, only Penny or I brought boxes out from the storage room.

“Oh, crap,” Penny said as if she just realized she’d stopped working. “I have so much to do.” She walked back toward the counter.

I followed. “Sorry I left you to fend for yourself on Christmas Eve.”

“This place is my job, not yours.” She gathered the receipts, stuffed them in an envelope, and threw them in a drawer. “Where’d you go anyway?”

“The hotel down the street.”

“I thought you didn’t want any appointments.”

Right, of course she’d make assumptions. “I was alone.”

She looked at me as if I was barking, not speaking.

“Sex isn’t the
only
thing I’m capable of.” Though sometimes I had a hard time remembering any of the things I’d ever been good at.

I picked up a price gun and a bottle of lotion from the box on the counter and continued where Kimber had left off. Penny didn’t ask any more about the hotel. I doubted she fully believed me, but I knew she didn’t want to know anyway.

“I’m not going to ask how much your gift cost,” she said.

“Good, because I’m not going to tell you.”

She grinned and walked over to one of the shelves at the front of the store. She began restocking lavender bath beads.

Kimber came back out, carting a box. She set it down at the other side of the counter, as far from me as possible.

The morning light fell through the window. Her hair glowed. The light seemed to pull the red out. It looked like fire, like volcanic rock flowing down a hillside. It curved smoothly down her back and over her shoulders.