Chapter 2 #3
No, I knew how Dax and his friends felt about law enforcement.
“I didn’t do those things,” I insisted, waving my hands for emphasis.
“I earned the money our joint account, and he kept his finances separate.” He’d said that it was because of running his own business, but he hadn’t minded charging business expenses on our joint credit card…
“I, personally, knew that he was lying about some of that shit because I, personally, carried seventy pairs of his shoes down three flights of stairs and then shoved them in his dirty trunk. Lucky they were so small, or they wouldn’t all have fit,” the bouncer guy noted.
“You threw one ring back, but did you keep the rest of what he gave you?”
“He only gave me a bracelet and a pair of earrings, and I left it all in his car with his other belongings. The bracelet wasn’t real gold and the rubies were some kind of glass. The earrings were diamond simulants, the same as my ring.”
“Simulants,” he repeated. “Sounds like an alien movie.”
“I thought the same thing,” I agreed. “But it just means ‘imitation.’”
“I know what it means. That shit-brained pinstripe gave you a fake engagement ring,” he told me, and now he sounded amused when it wasn’t funny. Not at all. “How’d you find out?”
“Another woman in my office is getting married soon. She started talking about all the things they’d done to make sure that her diamond was real,” I said. “I had never even thought about that. But I started to wonder how Dax had paid for it.”
“That fake ring was massive. When it hit me—”
“It hit you when I threw it?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He rubbed a spot on his chest. “Right there and you threw it hard.”
“I played softball. Shortstop,” I added. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
“Your coach probably would have been mad about your shitty aim but there was a lot of power behind it. It bounced off me and flew somewhere. I heard that your boyfriend, daddy shortlegs, had them turn on the house lights to find it because he said it was worth more than the building.”
“No, it wasn’t! Those stones weren’t even the expensive kind of fake ones,” I told him.
“I did all the diamond verification tests that they recommend online and I started to see that something was wrong, but I told myself that I was being silly. I decided that I would go to an expert and that would settle the issue and prove that it was real. But when the jeweler looked through her magnifying glass and before she did anything else, before she even said anything, I could tell by the expression on her face. It was fake. And what did that mean about everything else in our relationship? What did that say about Dax?”
“Probably that he’s a cheap liar with the judgement and reasoning of a fruit fly,” the bouncer suggested.
“But I always thought that. The reason I’m here now is because I wanted to warn you.
I’ve never seen him get physical, because as I think I told you, he’s worried about marking up his pretty face.
But you embarrassed him in front of his crew, and even with how moronic they are, he cares about their opinions. ”
“How do you know all this?”
“I have eyes, sweetheart. I have ears.” He pointed to where they were visible, because his thick, blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, a long one. “I watch all those chuckleheads trying to act big, and you could be an easy way for him to prove that he really is.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s a weak piece of shit but he could overpower you. Even with your softball muscles.”
“I go to the gym regularly,” I told him, but he seemed less than impressed. “Dax is actually really strong.”
“Your boyfriend may lift weights but he doesn’t know how to handle himself.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
“Yeah, believe me. If he got into trouble, he’d depend on his crew and his gun to get him out of it. He couldn’t count on his speed or his fists.”
“What gun?”
The bouncer stared at me like I was an idiot, but then he shrugged. “Your dental floss boyfriend may or may not be armed.”
“You keep calling him that, but he isn’t.
He’s not my boyfriend anymore—but I have known him for nine years.
However mad he may be, I don’t think that he’d do anything to me.
” Also, I’d asked him before if he carried a weapon, and he’d always sworn that he didn’t.
I looked down at the white line around my finger and remembered that he had lied about other things, too.
The bouncer guy was nodding, though. “Yeah, he may be too big of a chicken shit to come after you, no matter how much he shoots off his mouth. But as I said, I thought I should tell you and since I didn’t know your real name, I came here.”
“My real name is Camille Carpenter,” I told him. “Camille Ursula Carpenter. I said it before, too.”
He nodded and started humming—I remembered him doing that the first time I’d promised him that it was my real name, when we’d met at Chateau Moderne.
“All right,” he stated. It must have been how he said goodbye, because he walked away from the window and straight to the door, where he started to unfasten all the locks.
“Um, wait,” I said, and he paused halfway into the hall. “How do I contact you? In case I need to get in touch.”
“Why would you need to get in touch with me?”
“Um…well, I guess that I don’t. I don’t know that many people here in Detroit,” I explained.
Both his eyebrows climbed. Like his hair, they were blonde, and his whole effect was kind of Scandinavian Hulk. “You want to get to know me better? Really, sweetheart?”
“Don’t call me that. Never mind.” I started to close the door, but he didn’t move and blocked it. “Thanks for coming to warn me and I’ll be careful. Goodbye,” I hinted, and pushed it gently against him.
“Sure. Stone.” He pointed at his chest again. “That’s my name.”
“Really? Just ‘Stone?’”
“That’s my last name,” he qualified. “Get out your phone and call this number.” He recited ten digits that started with the three-one-three area code, and I did dial it. He took an ancient flip phone from his pocket and answered. “Hello, Camille,” he said. “This is your new buddy.”
Despite everything else he’d said tonight, I laughed.
“You can call me again if Dax comes by and tries anything.”
I stopped laughing and swallowed. “Ok. I appreciate that.”
“All right.” Now he did leave, and the floors and walls trembled slightly as he stalked toward the stairs.
I watched him go and then went to the window, where I also watched him emerge onto the street.
He walked directly to another guy who had been loitering across from my building and next to my car, and they had a short conversation before the other man held up his hands and nodded, and then both of them went in opposite directions.
I wondered where the bouncer—Stone—had left his own car and I hoped it was still there, tires and all. It really wasn’t a great neighborhood.
That made me nervous and what he’d said had made me feel worse.
What if Dax did come over here? He had never, in the nine years of our relationship, been violent with me, but I also knew that he had a temper.
He had thrown things and broken them, yelled really loudly, and sometimes threatened to do terrible things to other people in the club world.
Once, during a bad argument, he’d even threatened me…
but he really hadn’t ever been violent, and I told myself again that he wouldn’t start acting that way now.
I knew my ex-fiancé better than some giant bouncer guy did.
Stone, Mr. Flip Phone. I had eaten an energy bar hours ago at my desk but it wasn’t holding me now, so I got a few cookies and sat on the couch as I thought more about what he’d said.
Then I put down the cookies and got back up, and I dragged a table in front of the door.
I looked at that for a moment and before I sat again, I piled two chairs on top of it.
I knew how important Dax’s image was and how he was trying to build his brand, and I could imagine that it had taken a hit…
But there was no need to imagine, because I could look at his social media.
Since the scene at Chateau Moderne, I had avoided that, but now I eagerly re-downloaded the apps and opened them.
I saw that he was at a different club tonight, one that I had visited with him.
I had thought it was kind of sleezy, but I’d also known that he had to start somewhere and again, it was really hard to break into his business.
He had posted the usual videos for promotion and underneath one of them, a few comments caught my eye.
“LOL heard about your girl” and “bro going out tonight but bigger fish to fry at home” were at the top, and those had gotten reactions.
So had other comments mentioning rings and diamonds.
This was definitely the most attention he’d ever attracted about an event, except it wasn’t the kind he wanted.
I wondered if I should text him. We needed to discuss what he thought I’d taken so we could straighten it out, and I wanted to understand why he seemed to be making threats.
When people had been gossiping about me at work a few months before, I had told him how upset I’d been, and I thought about writing now to remind him of that.
I didn’t want him to go around the city talking badly about me, even to strangers.
It was so easy for arguments to go in circles without resolution when you sent messages, though, and I really preferred to speak to him face to face…
I had actually gotten up and off the couch before I knew what I was doing.
Yes, this was a good idea. Rather than sit in fear and worry in my apartment, I would discuss things with the man I’d known for nine years.
I had ignored all his messages and voicemails, but why was I taking the coward’s route?
It wasn’t how I’d gotten myself to where I was today, an attorney and—
I stopped midway through zipping up my dress.
Thinking about those messages and voicemails had led to another memory, this one of Stone, Mr. Flip Phone.
When I’d first seen him at Chateau Moderne, he’d been looking at a totally different device.
He’d pretended to hunt up the list of guests for the VIP area on a normal and modern phone, while he’d actually checked the weather forecast. So he was even weirder than I’d thought, him with his “sweetheart” and reading my actions the wrong way.
He had said that I’d wanted him to come back here to guard the door because I’d known that I’d cave and forgive Dax! What a load of crud!
Ok, no. Maybe he’d been right about that.
And maybe he had been right about Dax’s anger, so I shouldn’t go see my ex right now.
He wouldn’t be happy to talk to me. In fact, he had never been glad when I’d shown up at one of his nights at a club, not unless he had asked me to come for a specific purpose, such as when I’d gone to meet his new friends.
He was always too busy to hang out with me.
..he had been busy when I’d gone to Chateau Moderne the other night, although he hadn’t been working.
I remembered his satisfied smile when he’d walked out of the closet and the woman he was with had spat on the floor.
I had to stop crying. He wasn’t worth it.
I took off the dress and put on a T-shirt and shorts.
Then I went back into the living room, pulled a side table in front of the door, got the box of cookies, and went back to the couch with them.
I had never slept too well with Dax, because he wasn’t very quiet when he came in from work.
He had also sometimes woken me up to give him the same satisfied smile that he’d had at Chateau Moderne, after he’d been with that woman named Deb.
But I hadn’t been sleeping well with him gone, either.
I kept jerking awake again and again, thinking I heard weird things, but it was only somebody yelling in the street, a big fight, a party in the unit below mine, or more police cars racing to another crime.
It all made me tired. Now I turned on the TV and cued up a good movie, and then I settled in with my cookies.
I had to stop crying, and this was going to be another long night.