The Amateurs (17 page)

“You need a lift?” Ian asked.

“I’m going to stay in case Alex calls,” Mitch said. “If that’s OK, I mean.” He looked at her questioningly.

“Sure,” she said, realizing she was glad of it.

“All right. See you tomorrow.” Ian started down the steps. Jenn watched him go, Mitch beside her, the two of them standing like the hosts of a dinner party waving farewell to the last guests. When Ian was out of sight, she said, “What was all that about?”

“What?”

“You telling him not to do anything stupid.”

“Oh.” Mitch looked pained for a moment, then shrugged. “I guess you should know. He was high.”

“High? When?
Tonight?
”

“Yeah. Cocaine. That’s why he was so twitchy.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He shook his head. “He told me he did it sometimes. I think that’s what his bathroom breaks are about. But I never thought he’d do it tonight. I about killed him.”

“High. Jesus.” She closed the door. They looked at each other for an awkward moment. “We aren’t very good at this, are we?”

“At being criminals? No. But cut us some slack. It’s our first time.”

Their eyes met and held for a second, and then she started laughing, and he joined in. He had a good laugh, one of those that came deep and unself-conscious. His fed hers, and they kept at it longer than the joke deserved. It felt good. Pushed away the weight of what they had done, reminded her that no matter what, she was alive. That, in fact, she felt more than she could remember feeling in the last ten years. Like her father always said, any day above-ground counted as a good one. She said, “Vodka?”

“Oh
God
yes.”

She led the way to the kitchen, flipped on the overheads, then pulled Smirnoff from the freezer, the bottle frosted white. Took down two glasses, dropped an ice cube in each, and poured generous doubles. “Cheers.” The first swallow was sharp and cold and real, a pure physical sensation.

The air-conditioning was on, and she was chilly in the dress, her flesh tight with goose bumps. Shopping for it had been fun. Playing the part in advance, life coming into focus, seeming to matter. Earlier in the afternoon, when she’d gotten dolled up, she’d stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom and liked what she saw. Not a woman in her thirties with a shit job and no plans. A heartbreaker femme fatale in a dress cut too low for a bra, gearing up for a robbery. She’d stood and stared, and then hiked the edge of the skirt up, hooked her thumbs in the waist of her panties and pulled them off. The feeling of air at the hinge of her thighs had been electric. Hundred-proof life.

“I like your place,” Mitch said.

“Thanks.” She took another sip of vodka. “Me too.”

He nodded, looked around. She could see him struggling for something to say. “Been here long?”

“About five years. Before I moved here I’d been living with Brian—you never met him, did you?—and before that with some girlfriends. When things fell apart with Bry, I decided, enough; time to have my own space. Do things my way. You know?”

“I guess.”

“You don’t like living alone?”

“It’s OK.” He paused, shrugged. “Lonely sometimes.”

“I know. But there’s a good kind of loneliness too. Where you realize that maybe you are alone, but that it’s better than being someone you’re not.” Thinking back to Brian’s old apartment, the smell of cigarettes, him on the couch on weekend afternoons, goofy-haired, watching football. Something sweet in it at first. But somewhere along the line she’d realized that their present was their future, that Brian, nice as he was, would never change, never be anything else. That he didn’t want to. If he had his choice, it would be fifty more years of football Saturdays and Sunday-morning sex, of workday weeks and frozen pizza. Dropping dead within days of each other, shortly after a visit from the grandkids. It wasn’t long after that she started picking fights.

For no reason but to have something to say, she said, “You know one of my favorite things? Some days I’ll come home, pour a drink, and climb into bed with a couple of magazines. Not real magazines,
Newsweek
or anything. I mean junk. Celebrity baby magazines. And I’ll lay there in bed and drink and catch up on what crazy thing Britney Spears has done lately.”

He laughed. “Really?”

“Yeah. I don’t take it seriously. I mean, I like to check out the clothes and stuff, but that’s sort of an excuse. I know it’s silly, looking at the lives of these people I’ll never meet, don’t even want to. I just kind of get a kick out of being a voyeur.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” He took a swallow. “I actually know what you mean. Sometimes when I’m on break at the hotel, I’ll go up to the second floor of the lobby, where there’s this big balcony. Lean over and watch people.”

“Watch them what?”

“Just . . . watch them. Twice-divorced sales executives hitting on each other in the lounge. Tourists with cameras asking directions to Navy Pier. Couples that have been together so long they don’t talk, don’t seem to need to. If you watch long enough, you start to see that everybody looks like they’re missing something. Like we all lost something and we’re all looking for it.”

“True love?”

He laughed. “I read a poem once, had a line that went something like, ‘the heart asks more than life can give.’ I think it’s that, really. We all want everything. But we’d settle for a sense that things matter. That there’s more to it than just getting up in the morning and making it through a day.”

“Do you see anybody who has that?”

“Not very many.”

“But some.”

“Yeah. Some.”

Their eyes met and then slid apart. Without warning, an image hit, the blast of light spitting from Mitch’s hand, the way it seemed like it was the light that hit the man on the ground, that punched him in the heart and brought a dark circle to blossom on his shirt.

She set her drink down, covered her face with her hands. Her heart ached like something was trying to push it through her ribs. She pressed her palms against her cheeks, dug her nails into her forehead.

“Hey,” he said, his voice soft. She heard the click of his glass against the counter, and then he had his hands on her shoulders. The warmth felt good.

“Oh God.” She opened her hands, was surprised to see him close, ducking his head down to look up at her, concern on his face. Her voice came out tremulous. “What did we do?”

“What we had to.”

“How are you able to stand there and say that? I mean, you . . . you . . .”

Something happened in his eyes, a withdrawal and then a return, like a sea creature nearly surfacing before vanishing into the dark. He breathed through his nostrils. “I did it for you.”

“We can’t take this back. We did this, and we can’t take it back.”

“It’s what we wanted.”

“Not this.” Even as she said it, she heard a voice inside her, asking,
Are you sure? If you could go back a week, to the life before, the one where nothing really mattered, where you kept everything at a distance—would you?

Yes,
she thought.
I would. I think.

“Come here,” he said. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. She stood stiff at first, but it felt really good to have someone holding her. There was a comfort that drove away part of the horror. Jenn slid her arms under his, around his back, and buried her face in his chest. Her eyes were closed, and she could smell him, a faint hint of sweat. Her nose was running and her eyes were wet.

“It’s OK.” His voice was soft. “We’ll make it OK. I promise.”

She gave a hollow half laugh, then sniffed, stepped back. Wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “God, I feel like such an idiot. Some adventuress I turned out to be.”

“Don’t.”

“I just”—she picked her drink up, took a long pull—“I didn’t tell you this before, but when I was in the alley, that guy, he and I talked for a couple of minutes.”

“You talked? What did you say?” The fluorescent lights heightened the contrast between his pale skin and dark hair.

“I was trying to get rid of him. At first I just figured he was a normal person, and asked him to move his car. But when I realized who he was . . . My mind was just . . . I was trying to figure out what to do, how to get rid of him. Finally I threatened to scream rape, and that started to work, but you guys came out.” She shook her head. “I screwed up.”

“It sounds like you did fine. It was us that screwed things up.”

“No, but see, I had the chance. If I’d thought faster, he wouldn’t have been there. I mean, my part in this whole thing was small, and I should have been able to handle—I should have been able to
help
. But when it came down to it, I didn’t do anything.”

“Wait a second. You stood there and talked to this guy, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Knowing that he was a drug dealer with a gun. You managed to stand straight, talk to him, and cover our backs. Try to get rid of him. In an alley. Looking”—he gestured up and down her body—“like that.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Sounds to me like you were pretty brave.”

The words caught her by surprise. She raised her head to look at him, expecting a teasing smile, the kind of look Alex might wear, playful from a distance. Instead Mitch looked back with perfect sincerity, his eyes wide and steady.

Without thinking, she went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. His skin was rough with blue-black stubble, and she could smell the remnants of his aftershave. She felt him tense, even though she was barely touching him, like every muscle in his body clenched at once. She froze, then started to lean back. “I’m sorry.”

“No.” He put a hand on her arm, his touch gentle. His face was inches from hers, close enough that it was hard to focus. She could see him wrestling with something. In a bare whisper, he said, “Jenn . . .”

No one had ever put so much weight into her name. Coming from his lips the single syllable seemed like sweet sad music, something lonely and haunting that she wanted to have, to be, and then he put his other hand on the side of her head, the palm against her cheek, fingers in her hair, and he kissed her lips.

For a moment she stood too stunned to react. A thousand thoughts flickered and danced across her mind, a collection of do’s and don’ts, worry and excitement and fear and the lingering adrenaline of what they had done, that pounding sense of living on the ragged edge of now. And with it the pain of that existence, the fear of it, and the thought that distraction was fine, was what she needed. Then the simplest thought in the world hit, an old and familiar one that said simply, a boy you care about is kissing you. Kiss back.

So she did.

It was awkward for a moment, that first-kiss sensation stronger than usual, but then their tongues touched, gently, tentative, his fingers moving in her hair, and it felt good, so good, to be in the moment, to not feel anything but this. She slid her arms to his side, his back, feeling his body beneath, and suddenly they were locked hard, their bodies thrust together, his belt buckle jamming into her stomach, his hand moving from her hair to her neck. Trailing down her back, fingers touching lightly. Reaching the small of her back and then hesitating, like he was asking permission.

She broke the kiss, a little dizzy. Paused. Asked herself what she was doing, if this was wise. Then remembered the version of herself she’d seen in the mirror that afternoon, the woman who wasn’t afraid of anything, the one who would take the world for all it could give her. How free that had felt. How much better than the standard, everyday Jennifer.

She slid her hand on top of his. Then, looking him in the eyes, slowly pushed his hand down to her ass.

He moaned, almost a whimper, and squeezed, fingers gripping her flesh, digging in, and then it was happening, the two of them tearing into each other, ravenous, electric. She had a faint flash of surprise as she realized that he was a good kisser, soft and firm at once. His beard stubble ground against her upper lip. He stepped into her and she moved with him like they were dancing, let him guide her back against the refrigerator, never breaking the kiss.

His hands found the straps of her dress and slid them down her shoulders. Her nipples hardened in the cold air as the fabric eased past her breasts, her stomach. Caught at the swell of her hips for a breathless moment, and then slipped to pool at her feet. It was intoxicating, the surprise and heat of it, standing naked in her kitchen with this friend, this stranger, pressing against her.

He broke the kiss slowly, letting her lip slide from his mouth, and stepped back. His eyes drank her, top to bottom to top. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said. “You’re so beautiful.”

She raised her lips as he leaned in to kiss her, only he moved lower, his breath hot against the skin of her neck, his tongue darting and quick. He kissed the hollow of her throat, and then the space between her breasts. Ran his tongue down the flat of her belly, lower and lower, until he knelt in front of her on the tile floor. Like an act of worship, she thought, and then his tongue moved lower still, and she stopped thinking.

“
I
’M TELLING YOU, the only language these people understand is force. I’m sorry if that’s not polite, but it’s true. Iran, Iraq, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, they’re all the same. They still kill people by stoning them. They behead journalists and post the video on the Internet. When the going gets tough, they hide in
caves.
They’re barbarians, and barbarians only understand one thing. The sword. Or these days, the airstrike.” That got a laugh, and the man played to it, pausing to finish his single malt. He had the gentle pudginess of the very wealthy, not a beer belly but a general swelling, like he was entitled to more space in the world. “We did it right in Afghanistan. Daisy cutter bombs first, questions later. See fifty men carrying AKs and riding camels, assume they’re the enemy. The media loves to make fun of Bush, to question his intelligence, but I’ve met the man, and I stand by him. His policy worked in Afghanistan, and it’s working in Iraq, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t let Iran know that if they want to tangle, we’re more than happy to oblige.”