December 15
Armand Finds the Sticking Place
“That’s the thing about shame,” I huffed into the microphone, wincing at the feedback.
“It’s got that plastic-y good oily taste at the bottom of a dodgy sausage roll.
The bit you can feel making you sick, but you keep eating it ’cause there’s got to be a point when it gets good again.
I like to curl up in mine and thrash around a bit until I can’t tell what’s my fault and what’s just the shite everyone deals with.
” I squinted out over the crowd of cameras and microphones and, occasionally, nestled among them like a secret frog amongst lily pads, a human face.
But no Lucas.
“It’s so much less terrifying to pretend everything’s my own doing—that had I done this instead of that, I wouldn’t be hurting the way I am now—but that’s the long way ’round to letting myself off the hook. If everything’s my fault, nothing is, really.”
I soldiered on, glaring at my friends at the very back of the activity room.
Belle was busy finding a chair for Auntie Abeni, while Hettie Marks, Winnie, and Abigay were having a whispered conversation, and Sam and Craig appeared to be simultaneously trying to chat up Lakshmi, who didn’t seem to mind.
There was something horribly comforting about the fact that I was up here, baring my arse before the world, and my people were treating it like a Tuesday. I kept talking.
“But the real trick of it is to figure out what’s actually my fault and bloody apologize for it, or at least name it—haul it out into the light and get a good look at it—so you can recognize which bits of the sausage roll are making you sick.
” Oh god, this metaphor was eating me. “What I mean is, if you’re too ashamed to look at your past, you can’t identify your triggers, so you pretend they aren’t there.
” You end up letting your boyfriend hang around a bloody nonce. “And that’s self-sabotage, innit?”
From the back of the room, Lakshmi gave me the sign that meant wrap it up or more likely Demetrio, you are rambling far afield.
“So. Er. That’s why we’re here today, asking you to give what you can to the Innana Alcohol and Drug Recovery Center,” to save people from the sausage roll of shame.
No, say literally anything else. “To help people find the balance between control and helplessness. Courage and acceptance.” Quality save.
“’Cause all we got to hold on to in this world is one another. ”
Karim wasn’t present to hear me plagiarize him; he was outside doing the actual work of the center, leading a basketball match for the poor sods whose activity room was taken over by nobs with television cameras.
There followed a Question and Answer session, which I quickly handed over to the head of the center, Dr. Mariam, and finally got away from the microphone.
Dr. Mariam stepped aside for a youth counselor who had a lot of energy and reminded me a bit of Finch, starting the charity auction Lucas had planned.
Lakshmi called me over with a jab of her chin, one long-nailed hand poking at her phone. “Right. You’re a free man, Demetrio.”
I sagged in relief and loosened the tie Lucas had picked out over video call. “Ta.” I simpered at Sam and Craig hopefully. “Chips?”
“Nah, you fandan, I’m getting one of them hackit pages.” Sam grinned. “Been saving up for the one with the picnic basket what looks like a wee tumorous brain.”
Drawing was hard. Showing the world how hard appeared to be worse. I scowled, but before I could complain, Craig added, “I like the one where Jack Horner has six fingers. Probably can’t afford it, though. Seems to be a favorite.”
Lakshmi didn’t look up from her phone. “Doesn’t mean you can’t drive up the bid, pet.”
I left them to it and stepped out into the alleyway for a smoke. I watched a group of teenagers wander by, give me a brief, dark glance, and head toward the ball court. As they did, they nudged each other and pointed at a flash black Porsche parked on the corner—
I went cold.
The cigarette fell from my numb fingers, and I stamped it out before it could roll away. My heart vibrated in my throat as I strode across the street and rapped my knuckles against the tinted glass of the driver’s-side window. The kids gathered at the fence to watch.
With a soft whirring sound, the window cracked open, and Jean’s silvery eyes glinted at me.
“Darling—” he began.
“No, you don’t talk.” The last time we’d been this close, I’d barely been able to get a word out, but now I didn’t even sound weak. Though I was shaking.
“I only wished to express—”
“I said you don’t talk.”
“Darling—”
“Shut it!” I slammed the heel of my hand against the windowsill, and he leaned away, eyes widening. Then narrowing.
“I can imagine the lurid story you’ve been telling.” His voice was the familiar dangerous purr. “But we both know what really happened between us. What always happens.”
I blinked at him, realizing it was time to take a leaf out of Finch and Skyler’s playbook.
I fished my phone from my suit pocket and aimed it at him, holding his window open as he desperately tried to close it.
The flash reflected off the cream interior of the car and Jean’s pale skin, causing him to wince and cower like the subterranean creature he was.
“You tell him, bruv!” one of the youths shouted, and I turned to see our adolescent audience in rapt attention. The same pimple-faced hoodlum turned on Jean. “Stay out these ends, ya neek!”
“Yeah, or we’ll call the feds on you!” another added.
“Your face’ll be up in there by end of day,” I told Jean, and inclined my head back toward the center. “There’s a pedo board.”
A chorus of OHHHs went up.
I let go of his window, and it whirred shut immediately. I stepped back as the Porsche squealed and nearly dinged a skip on its way out of the narrow alleyway. The teenagers whooped and jeered at it as it sped by. They turned on me next.
“You told him, innit? He was bare buki,” one said.
“Mad par. You’re well shot of him, still,” added yet another.
“Oi,” I said affectionately to children I didn’t know. “Bugger off.”
They shouted a few more friendly threats and moved on.
“Aw.” Lakshmi’s voice sounded near me, and I jumped. “Such cheeky ickle sprogs.” She walked toward me down the alley, unlit slim dangling from her lips.
“Bloody hell—” I coughed “—I thought you were still inside.” I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “Sorry about Sam and Craig, by the way.”
She shook her head and lit up, face briefly gilded. “Don’t be, I quite like them. We’ve got a date next week.”
I stared. “With which one?”
“Both.” She offered me a cigarette, and I stepped closer, allowing her to light it for me. As our heads bent together, she asked softly, “Was that who I think it was?”
I didn’t answer and took a long drag of the unfamiliar, somehow harsher menthol. I coughed again; it started out noncommittal but ended up generally affirmative.
I was still shaking, but for once it wasn’t from fear or anger.
I wanted more than anything to rush home to Lucas .
. . but he wasn’t there. We were scheduled for a conversation later in the evening when Lucas took his lunch break—he’d been right about the time difference working in our favor—but I didn’t want to talk to him.
I wanted him to hold me.
“You’re all right,” Lakshmi said simply. Then, as if she’d read my mind, “He’ll be proud of you.”
I fought the rise of tears in my throat and tossed my half-smoked slim toward the skip, trying not to meet her searching, narrowed eyes.
“You know,” she said after a few moments, “I didn’t come out here just to tell you I plan to date your friends and to witness you tell off your abusive ex.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Nah, I came to tell you about an email I got a while back.” She handed me her phone. “Didn’t think you’d be interested, initially. But now . . .”
I had to blink several times before I could trust my own eyes. “Is this legit? Are they serious?”
“As a heart attack, pet.” She gave me a rare, full-toothed, non-sardonic grin. “It’s a two-year appointment with a stipend and benefits.”
“How? I haven’t— I didn’t—”
“You know how this works.” She shrugged. “They like it when we come in the back door.” She held her hand out for her phone. “So, I’ll say yes, shall I?”
“Wait, does that mean I can’t keep working for the center?”
“Nah, magic of the internet, my love.” She tapped away, nails glinting. “Got a load of spots lined up for the next few weeks, but then, as I said, you’re a free man.”
I gnawed on a knuckle and searched her face for any sign of deceit or mischief. That this was all one long horrible joke at my expense.
“It’s real, Demetrio.” She sighed. “I know you’re scared, but you’ve got to—”
“Do it anyway,” I mumbled around my own fist.
“Achcha.”
“There he is!” That decibel level could only come from Florabelle. She, Abigay, Winnie, Auntie Abeni, and Hettie were all bustling toward us down the alleyway. Sam and Craig were likely still inside pretending they had money.
“For a man what likes his privacy, you sure spend an awful lot of time in front of cameras, don’t you?” Hettie chortled. “Can’t wait to watch this on the custard.”
“It’s a good thing he’s handsome, innit?” Winnie fiddled with my suit lapel. “Though I daresay you’d have looked just as fit in one of our Les’s old suits.”
“But why do you run off without saying hello?” Auntie sulked. I apologized and started to prostrate, but she stopped me with a laugh. “You’re a good boy.”
“Thank you, Auntie. And thank you all for coming. I’ve, er—” I glanced over at Lakshmi, then swallowed and kept going “—got some news.”