“Okay,” I whispered back, because I was a total, complete idiot.
Then, just like Mike, he gave it to me honest.
“You don’t get this, Vi, so I’ll tell you. I’m fallin’ for you.” I closed my eyes. Mike kissed them in turn and I opened them again. “I know you don’t need that, sweetheart, but then again, you need it all the same.”
This didn’t make sense but it totally did.
I gave it back to him, just as honest.
“Mike, you deserve the best and I’m not sure that’s me.”
He just grinned, gave me a squeeze, kissed my forehead and repeated, “Six o’clock, door’ll be open.”
Then he let me go, turned and left.
I stared at the door.
Then I walked to it and armed the alarm.
Then I went to my cold cup of coffee, nuked it and stood in my kitchen, staring out my kitchen window, watching three men now carrying out to the dumpster what seemed to be Joe’s entire freaking kitchen and while I did this I drank my coffee.
*
After I had a shower, I spritzed with my perfume, put on light makeup, my Lucky jeans and a blouse I always liked. The cotton looked almost tie-dyed, all in deep shades of grape, the split at the neckline was embroidered with green, lilac, lavender and blue flowers and there were braided strings hanging down from the top sides of the split, their weight holding it open. It fit loose but had an elastic waistband and elastic at the cap sleeves. It was kinda Heidi and kinda rock ‘n’ roll. I loved it, it made me feel good and I needed that in a big, honking way.
Then I picked up my phone, scrolled down to “Joe’s cell” and hit go.
He picked up on ring two.
“Yo.”
“It’s Violet. We need to talk. Come over.”
“Buddy, I’m in the middle of something.”
“You come over here or I come over there and we do it in front of all the boys who’re demolishing your house.”
He was silent then he sighed and said, “Give me ten.”
“You got ten then I’m headin’ over.”
“All right, baby, cool it. I said I’d be over.”
“Right,” I said into the phone then slid it shut.
I had ten minutes and I knew what I’d do with them.
I limped out the front door, walked across my yard, cautiously jumped the split rail fence that separated the front of Tina and my yards then walked right up to her door and pounded on it.
She made me do this awhile then opened it, her face a smirk, she knew this was coming and she wanted it, the bitch.
“Hey Violet.”
I didn’t greet her, I said, “I hear you spread my business around again, we got problems.”
She put her hand to her chest and said with totally fake innocence, “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Donuts for our boys in blue, tellin’ Mike shit you have no idea what you’re talkin’ about, that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” I unnecessarily reminded her.
The fake innocence melted away and her eyes narrowed. “Know you walked out Cal’s backdoor wearin’ his shirt. Know you’re stringin’ along a good man like Mike. Know that’s fucked.”
“You’re standin’ there throwin’ stones when you regularly screw a married man,” I fired back, watched her sneer even as she flinched and continued. “You don’t know shit, Tina, but even if you did, it isn’t your business so keep your mouth shut.”
“You gonna make me?” she asked, like we were eight and having a verbal tussle at recess during grade school.
“Yeah,” I answered, not in the mood to be mature. “I got way too much fucked up crap happening in my life, I don’t need to deal with you.”
She leaned back and sneered, “What can you do to me?”
I decided to steal Joe’s line. “Don’t know, but you force it, I’ll get creative.”
“Bring it on,” she snapped.
I shrugged and replied, “You got it.”
Then I turned and limped away to see Joe standing in my yard, feet planted, arms crossed on his chest, his eyes aimed beyond me to Tina’s house.
“What was that?” he asked when I’d jumped the fence again and got close.
“Nothin’,” I replied, limped passed him to my front door and I stepped through.
Joe followed me and closed the door.
“Vi, what was that?” he repeated.
“You and me, we’re over,” I announced again.
He crossed his arms on his chest, stared down at me and I forgot how scary he could look. He’d never done the arm crossing thing and that was super scary.
“I asked twice and I’ll do it one last time, what the fuck was that with Tina?”
I noticed he ignored my announcement so I decided to answer him so we could get to what I wanted to get straight, something that Joe wouldn’t let me do if he was stuck on Tina.
“She saw you drive us away yesterday, she saw you leave the house this morning. She decided to bring donuts to the Station and, while spreading her sugar cheer, share all that shit with the guys, Mike bein’ one of them.”