I was a little shocked he called me a bitch but by the way he spoke I didn’t think he meant anything bad by it.
Then he leaned back in and proved me right when he went on, “It’s too fuckin’ bad they don’t fry men for what Ricky Balducci did to you. He got the chair, I’d be happy to flip the fuckin’ switch.”
My eyes got big at what he said but not the part about him obviously knowing I’d been raped. I’d realized by that time the Rock Chicks didn’t keep secrets, not even personal ones. He pulled away again, dropped my hand and looked at Hector.
“You stayin’?” he asked Hector.
“Nope. Lenny on tonight?” Hector replied.
Smithie nodded, said (bizarrely), “He’s on her,” then he left.
Hector curled me into his heat with an arm around my neck and I looked up at him.
“Boys’re busy but you’ll have rides home,” he told me. “Lenny is one of Smithie’s bouncers. He’s good. Lee tried to recruit him but he couldn’t work for Lee and study for his Master’s at DU at the same time. Even though he’s good, he’s untrained so don’t make it tough on him, keep him in sight at all times and don’t let the girls talk you into anything stupid.”
I nodded. Hector kept talking.
“I get done before you leave, I’ll come get you, we’ll sleep at my place. You get done before I get here, you go home with Ralphie and Buddy and I’ll be there later.”
I tilted my head to the side and asked, “Do you want me to wait up for you?”
He shook his head and answered with a demand, “Give me your keys.”
I gave him my brownstone keys and the alarm code. He kissed me quick and hard and he was gone, leaving me swaying.
Then we sat. Lenny, a huge, tall, muscular, midnight-skinned black man materialized and positioned himself behind my chair. Shirleen talked me into trying appletinis (they were fab). We gossiped, giggled and sometimes watched the strippers.
I sat there thinking it was definitely my second best day ever.
Not just my friends and the Balducci Blowout party but also because, that afternoon, Vance took me to my father’s storage locker. Hector was busy but at his arrangement (which, personally, I thought was ultra-sweet and super thoughtful and worth some sort of payback but I’d have to think of something other than a building or an island, maybe something that involved lingerie), Daisy and Kitty Sue met us there.
Vance opened the locker and, with a hand on the small of my back, pushed me in walking in behind me. He turned on the light but it hit me before the unit was illuminated.
The smell.
My mother’s perfume, White Shoulders.
I hadn’t smelled that smell in years.
I took a step back and my shoulder ran into Vance’s hard body.
I stopped, frozen for a moment then twisted my head to look up at Vance.
“Her perfume,” I whispered, tears stinging the backs of my eyes.
His hand slid up my back to my neck and his fingers curled there, giving me a squeeze.
“We can come back,” he told me, his voice and eyes soft.
I took in a deep breath, shook my head and Vance and I walked in, the weird, warm, reassurance of Vance’s hand didn’t leave my neck until I dropped to my knees at the first box.
We stayed there an hour, all of us going through boxes (except Vance who, after helping me through my initial weird out, stood outside). I cried a little bit and Daisy held me. Kitty Sue cried a little bit and I held her.
When we left, I had a list in my purse of the things I’d come back and get later but there were two things I took then.
I’d uncovered a framed photo, a photo I’d forgotten existed but it used to sit, pride of place, on our mantel. It was a picture unlike anything the Seth Townsend of now would allow. It was taken when I was six, out in our backyard, by a professional photographer. However the setting was casual, my Mom’s flower-filled garden in the background, and the pose was natural. My father sat in a garden chair and had Mom in his lap, his arm around her waist, his fingers curled at her hip. Both her arms were around his shoulders and she had her cheek against his. I was standing, pressed into his other side, his other arm wrapped around my little kid body, my head leaning into his chest. Mom and I were laughing at the camera, I didn’t remember why. My father wasn’t laughing but he was smiling, not like something amused him but like he was happy and precisely where he wanted to be.
I couldn’t believe I forgot that photo.
Then, forcing myself to get over it, I vowed I’d never forget it again.
I also found something else I forgot. The necklace Mom used to wear all of the time. My faded memory banks were uncertain but I thought she’d stopped wearing it a year or so before she disappeared.
It was a thin gold chain which hung to the dip in the throat and linked on either side to a pendant that was a connected, scrolled, elegant “E” and “S” the top curve of the “E” and the bottom curve of the “S” each had a diamond in it.