Unzipped? (10 page)

S
HANNON LOOKED
into those blue eyes of his and searched for her recklessness. She delved deep for the characteristics that allowed her to throw back her head and laugh at Cabela’s assumption that she was a hooker. Where had her impulsiveness gone hiding? What had she done with her brazen side? When had her moxie evaporated?

Why did revealing a simple fact to this man seem dangerous?

It’s not the fact itself. It’s what he’ll do with it. How much he’ll see behind it.

Hal pushed back from the table and stood up, obviously disappointed in her. “My apologies,” he said. “I forgot that you’re all about image. We should stay on the surface and avoid any topic of depth.”

“Don’t sneer at me, Hal.” She said it quietly, with a pleading note that she despised.

“You can take off your clothes for me, but you can’t share something that upsets you. Explain that, why don’t you? I really want to understand. Because I know you’re not just a garden-variety slut.”

Anger ignited deep within her. “No, I’m a hot-house slut, honey. Rare and expensive and complicated to take care of. So you keep that in mind before you go reaching for any more nectar.” She stared him down until he finally looked away.

“I shouldn’t have— I didn’t mean—” Hal threw up his hands.

“Don’t apologize now, Hal. You threw it out there. I did sleep with you after knowing you only six hours. Or somebody with the name Shannon Shane slept with you.” She started to collect her things: legal pad, pen, take-out coffee cup.

“What the hell does that mean? And where do you think you’re going?”

She finally dredged up a scrap, a torn edge, of recklessness and threw the information out there. “It means that the day before I met you I found out that I’m adopted! And touching you, sleeping with you, was a reminder that I was alive and could feel sensation, even though I was numb. I needed to know that even though my whole identity had just been ripped away, there was still somebody
there,
somebody for you to get inside.”

She found her bag and tossed the pad and pen into it, then hitched the handles over her shoulder. “You want to call me a slut for that, you go right ahead. But you participated, too, buddy! And that means you wear the same label, because I’m not allowing any double standards.”

She headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Hal repeated, starting after her.

“Around the goddamned bend.”

He caught her arm. “I didn’t call you any names, okay? I said I knew you
weren’t
a slut. You heard an accusation instead. I’m not judging you, Shannon. I’m just trying to understand you.”

“Good luck,” she muttered. “I don’t understand myself.”

“Do any of us understand ourselves? Really and truly?” His eyes reflected compassion. They were the blue of logic, but also the blue of soul. The blue of stability. And the blue of hope.

He smiled at her, and she realized she’d been staring for some time. “What do you see in there, Shan? In my eyes?”

She blinked, hesitated. “I don’t have a name for it…other than…you. I just see you.”

He nodded and cupped her chin. “And who am I?”

The warmth of his hand, the simple affection, the way he looked at her—all of it undid her.
“You,”
she repeated. “You’re just you.”

“Exactly.” He said the word as if complimenting her for the most brilliant deduction ever made. Clearly the man was mad. A mad genius.

“Hal, are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, tugging her over to the polished boardroom table. He pushed her in the small of the back so she bent over it.

“Hal,
no.
I am not getting naked with you on this particular flat surface!”

“Shh. Just look.”

She saw her reflection mirrored in the glossy finish. “Yeah, so? What are we doing, playing Narcissus?”

“What do you see, Shannon?”

“Me,” she said impatiently. “Now, can I—”

“Aha! You see
you.
”

Nuts. The man is stark-raving nuts.

He gazed at her expectantly.

“Yes? I. See. Me.” She used the tolerant tone one might employ with a toddler.

“Then it doesn’t matter who your biological parents are,” Hal said triumphantly. “You are yourself, no matter what.”

She chewed on his statement for a minute, then shook her head. “That’s very New Age, but it’s a meaningless truism. And it’s way too simplistic for the way I feel.”

He sighed. “I don’t know dick about New Age. But if something is true, then it’s not meaningless. And the way you feel is, in actuality, very simple.”

“How do you know that?” Shan was starting to get annoyed.

“You feel that your identity is gone. Right?”

“In a nutshell.”

“Well, it’s not. Whether your father’s name is Joe or Bob, you’re still you. Whether your mother’s name is Twinkie or Sue, you’re still you. It doesn’t change anything.”

“Bullshit!”
Shannon exclaimed. “Different parents would make me look different, change my characteristics, even my personality. My age. My health.”

“Yes, they would. But you
don’t
have any other parents.”

“Yes, I do,” she said with heavy patience. “The point is that I’ve just discovered them.”

“You still have the same parents you’ve always had. The ones who conceived you, whether you knew about them or not.”

“But—”

“You are still you.”

“Yes, but—I am so confused! The issue here is that I was deceived, all my life, until now.”

“I thought you said the issue was your identity,” Hal reminded her.

Furious, she stamped her foot. “It
is!
”

He shook his head. “Nope. For the last time, let me point out that
you are still you.
”

She let out a primal scream. “But I could have turned out differently, don’t you see?”

“You could have. But you didn’t. So you know who you are. Clearly. Therefore, you have no identity crisis.”

Shannon said something very rude to him.

“I’m just being logical,” he said, the picture of calm.

“Stuff your logic! It doesn’t make sense!”

“It’s inherent in logic to make sense.”

She wanted to hit him.

“Look, if you
want
to have an identity crisis, then
you go ahead and have one,” Hal said, in long-suffering, indulgent tones. “I’m just telling you that there’s no basis for it. You’re being a drama queen.”

Her mouth dropped open.
Drama queen?
How could he say such a thing to her, given the circumstances? Shannon itched to beat on him, strangle him, Bobbit him. She struggled mightily with her urge for violence. At last she shrieked, “I hate men!” She whacked him in the chest with her bag and flew for the door.

“This is why I don’t like to tell guys anything,” she yelled, wrenching it open.

“What?” Hal stood mystified. “I solved your problem!”

“You did
not
solve it. You negated it. And then you insulted me, too! I am
not
a drama queen. And if I want my identity crisis, then I’ll goddamned well have it!”

“I told you to go ahead!”

“I don’t need your permission,” she screamed.

“I give up,” said Hal, as she slammed the door.

“I
T’S PENIS LOGIC
,” was Jane’s evaluation. Shannon had spilled her annoyance to her friends over cosmopolitans later. They sat in the bar at Bricco, a cozy little restaurant in nearby West Hartford. Outside there were patches of a late spring snow on the ground, and lots of people heading home after work.

Lilia almost spit out her drink at the word
penis,
but recovered with her characteristic grace. Nobody
passing by the big plate-glass window behind them would have noticed a thing.

“Yes, penis logic!” Shannon agreed. “What is
up
with that? Uh, no pun intended.”

Lil choked again, but Jane laughed. “You shared a problem with him. He’s a man. He felt that he had to solve it for you.”

“But I didn’t ask him to solve it! All I wanted to do was talk about it. He pressured me to talk about it. Then he tells me there’s no problem, because my issue isn’t logical!”

“Are you sleeping with Hal Underwood?”

Ugh.
Okay, she’d dug around and found some leftover recklessness for Hal. Now she needed to find the dregs of some brazenness for Jane. She drew on her years of acting classes and produced a casually dismissive expression. “He’s a client, Jane. I’ve only known him a week.”

“I didn’t ask you how long you’d known him.” Jane pulled the slice of lime off her cosmo glass and squeezed more of its tart juice into the drink. “What I’m asking you is whether or not that was his butt-print on our reception desk.”

Lilia’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

“I disinfected the entire thing,” Shannon announced. “The butt-print is gone.”

“You didn’t?” asked Lil.

“She did,” said Jane.

“
Eeeeeuuuuuwww.
That’s a little skanky, don’t you think?” Lilia pursed her lips.

“I am not skanky. Jane and Dominic have boinked in the office. You don’t look at them like that! Besides, Lil, you should try it sometime.”

Poor Lilia had blushed to the roots of her hair. She was the same color as her cosmopolitan. “How do you know I haven’t…had relations…on a desk?” she asked, raising her little chin.

Shannon exchanged a glance with Jane and they both died laughing. Jane finally caught her breath and said, “Because I’m sure it’s a social faux pas, and your granny panties would catch on the antique hardware.”

Lil couldn’t help but laugh, too, even though she looked perturbed. “Just because I won’t wear thongs does not mean I wear grannies!”

“I’ll bet they’re down to your knees,” teased Jane.

“No! You know about the panty hose thing.”

That’s right, Shannon remembered, she wore the control tops instead of panties for a smooth line under her clothes. “Lil, nobody wears panty hose anymore. Except for you.”

“That’s not true. And I am not continuing this discussion, not even with my two best friends. It’s not proper.”

“Can we discuss sex, politics and religion, then? All at once? Just to make you crazy?” Shannon winked at her.

“No.”

“Wanna wear a pair of my leather pants?”

“Definitely not. Would you like me to hem them eight inches in order to wear them?”

“Definitely not.”

“We agree, then,” Lil told her, with a serene smile.

“Back to my original question,” Jane said, without subtlety. “Are you seeing Underwood’s wood?”

“Would that I were.” Shannon grinned and tried to avoid the topic yet again. But Jane was like a rottweiler.

“How much wood would an Underwood sport, if an Underwood could sport wood?” she quipped.

“He can. And a lot. Can we leave it at that?”

“If you insist. It’s not much fun, though.”

“Pardon me if I don’t want my love life to be a source of entertainment for you, Jane.”

“Well, I enjoy it, too,” admitted Lil. She turned pink again when Shannon glared at her. “Don’t shoot me! Your love life
is
a soap opera. I like to live vicariously.”

“
Was
a soap opera. And not really—I always ditch the guy before things get truly soapy. It might surprise you to know that I’ve been celibate for a year until recently.”

“Wait a minute…” Lil’s brow wrinkled. “Isn’t Hal Underwood that guy who looks like a serial killer? The hairy one? I met him.”

Jane smirked.

“Again, past tense. He
was
hairy. He is now clean-shaven and bears a striking resemblance to Viggo Mortensen. His eyes are spectacular.” Shannon looked longingly at a pack of Marlboro Lights lying on the bar and felt the old familiar craving for nicotine, even though it had been six years since she’d quit.

She picked up her drink instead. There was some
thing about a cosmopolitan that suited her: the color made it all-girl, but the martini glass added sophistication while the vodka gave it bite. The lime was an accessory, like a great necklace or the perfect pair of stilettos.

Jane’s personality was more red wine or beer, but she didn’t look completely out of place with liquor.

Lilia just wasn’t a hard-alcohol girl. She looked most comfortable with a cup of hot tea, of course. But if Shan had to assign her a drink it would have to be sherry, in a tiny cut-crystal glass. On a wild night, perhaps white wine. Two cosmopolitans rendered Lil completely unable to drive, which was why she’d been nursing hers for a good hour.

“Back to penis logic,” Jane said. “I think it’s sweet that he wanted to help you solve your problem, even if he went about it in a very male way. He can’t really help being a man.”

“True,” Shannon admitted.

“So are you going to track down your birth parents?” Lil asked.

“I don’t know. I’m afraid to hurt my…my adoptive parents by doing that, even though I’m angry with them. I’m also afraid of what I’ll find out. And my biological parents may not want to hear from me. It’s possible that they just closed that chapter of their lives and moved on.”

Jane put her hand on Shannon’s arm. “But they might be thrilled to hear from you. They may have
wondered all of their lives what happened to you and how you turned out. What you’re like as a person.”

Lil nodded. “There could be a letter in your file right now from one of them, just waiting to be discovered by you.”

Shan took a large swallow of her drink and a deep breath. “Yes.” She pressed her fingertips together, hard, to try to release some of the tension in her body. “I’m not ready to contact anyone,” she said slowly. “But I am going to see if there’s any communication from one or both of them in my file.”

“That’s a good, concrete step,” Jane told her, and Lil nodded. “It will help you to make the next one, too.”

The bartender cast a glance in their direction, to see if they needed another round. Shannon hesitated, torn by the desire to just let a fog of alcohol close her mind down. She shook her head and signaled for the tab. Neither Jane nor Lil would have another drink, and she herself didn’t need one.