9. Azalea
9
Azalea
My car wouldn’t start.
Roman had always handled the maintenance on my seven-year-old Altima, which I named Pearl, but clearly he hadn’t been doing a good enough job with her.
I stepped out to look under Pearl’s hood before remembering I had no idea what to even look for.
I returned to my seat and called Amina, but it went straight to voicemail.
Hey, my car’s acting up. Are you or Pat available to give me a ride?
We’re at the movies, but we can come now. Where are you?
Ridgely, but that’s ok. I’m safe where I am. Just come after.
Are you sure?
Yes. Enjoy yourselves
Okay but if there’s any problem, text me and we’ll be there
Ok. Love you
Love you too
I set my phone in my lap and thought about what had just transpired…namely, Mr. Jackson’s dismissal of me. My questions had offended him, that was obvious, but it was literally my job to ask them. He didn’t have to be so rude about it.
But the longer I sat there, the more I came around to the idea that maybe I wasn’t entitled to know about his art, or his sleeping habits, or any other personal details he didn’t feel like sharing. That information is helpful for me, but it’s possible I get so caught up in the helping part of my job that I sometimes forget to listen. And not just to what people say.
It’s the social worker in me. We try our hardest to approach people from a place of empathy and understanding, because we’re all just a collection of our experiences. Some of us were lucky enough to have been born into favorable circumstances. Many of us were not.
So, I don’t judge.
But how would Mr. Jackson know that? He’d spent time in the system, and unfortunately, many of my colleagues in corrections had lost their empathy long ago, if they ever had it to begin with.
I exited Pearl and hurried back to the museum. I entered the gallery for the second time tonight, but this time, I was there to see a different man.
Mr. Jackson was deep in conversation with two women. Two attractive women. The sight of it slowed my approach. Curiosity, or nosiness, got the better of me, so I watched the interaction.
He had a certain charm with them that I’d never experienced—but then, why would I have experienced it? It was a silly thought. He wasn’t smiling, something else I’d never seen, but his handsome face bore other signs of happiness. His angular features relaxed and shifted in response to whatever they were saying. It was a far cry from the tension they seemed to hold whenever he talked to me.
Speaking of.
As soon as he saw me, the tension returned. I felt a tiny prick at the sight of it, but I brushed it away.
“Mr. Jackson, can I speak to you for a second?”
He nodded at his little friends before walking a few feet away with me.
“What do you need, Officer?”
Once again, agitation flared at the sound of my title coming out of his mouth, but I brushed that away, too.
“My car’s acting up, and I have no idea what’s wrong with it.”
His brow furrowed. “You want me to run you home?”
“Well, no. I was hoping you could look at it and see what’s going on.”
“I’m not a mechanic.”
“Okay. Well, thanks anyway.”
I turned to walk away, stopping when his hand closed gently around my arm. Heat seemed to radiate from his fingers. My blood rushed. I stared at his hand, then up into his eyes.
He let me go, then set his drink on the hi-top. “I’ll come take a look, but I can’t make any promises.”
Outside in the darkness, I stood next to him while he poked around under my hood using his phone as a flashlight. If he didn’t know what he was doing, it was hard to tell. Maybe all men know how to act like they’re in the know in front of women.
“Alright, well, my uneducated guess is that you probably need a new spark plug.”
“Yikes. How much is that?”
He stood and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. “Again, I’m not a mechanic, but—“
“You’re determined to be grouchy, aren’t you?”
“I’m just me, Officer. Take it or leave it.”
He closed my hood, jiggling the edge to make sure it locked into place.
“You sure you don’t need a ride?”
“My sister and her fiancé are on the way.”
His eyes swept the surrounding area before he brought them back to mine. “Either I can sit out here with you, or you can come back inside. I’m not leaving you out here by yourself.”
“I think I’ll be okay.”
He walked around to the driver’s side door and opened it. “I’ma wait with you, and I don’t want any arguments.”
Okay, then.
After I settled into the seat, quietly and without argument, Mr. Jackson rounded the back of the car and got in on the other side. His presence in my vehicle was disorienting for a few reasons.
The last man who’d been in my car was the man I thought I would marry. The man with whom I thought I could mimic my parents’ thirty-six-year marriage.
But also? Mr. Jackson was my client. I was arm’s length away from a client in my personal vehicle, at night, wearing a cleavage-bearing dress, and I wasn’t talking to him about work.
But I could remedy that. I would remedy that.
“So, tell me about your day at work,” I said quietly.
He looked over at me and shook his head. “You want me in a worse mood?”
I studied his face. Taut with irritation, it bore the chiseled lines of experience, each crease telling me a story about how much he’d been through. I wondered what had hardened him to the world. He said his father died when he was younger. That could do it, for sure. But he had more stories to tell, and I wanted him to hear them. I wanted to listen, and soothe him, and direct him toward better days. Not because I was attracted to him, but because it was my job.
As mean as he was, or tried to be, I wasn’t afraid of him. I wasn’t intimidated. It was the opposite, actually. He struck me as a man with, well, passion, and passion can be confused with anger and aggression.
The man sitting quietly beside me probably loved hard. I imagined he was a fierce protector of the ones he loved.
Or even the ones he could take or leave. Like me, right now.
Roman was protective of me, but it didn’t come from a good place, which is something I only realized in hindsight. Most times, it was to make himself look like a hero, but he also saw me as a lost little lamb who couldn’t think for herself. Mr. Jackson seemed protective at the cellular level. It felt different.
“What would put you in a good mood, Mr. Jackson?”
His mouth twitched at the corners. “You don’t wanna know.”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“Let’s just say it’s not something you could do without losing your job.”
The desire to encourage that was almost as strong as the desire to rebuke it. I gulped both down and pressed on.
“Well, there has to be something el—“
“There isn’t,” he snapped. “Any other questions?”
“Actually, yes. What’s the deal with the marijuana?”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “It’s my preferred way to self-medicate. Some people drink, some people gamble. Some people fuck.” He let that hang in the air for a minute before finishing with, “I smoke weed.”
I’d heard it a million times.
“What are you treating? Depression?”
“I’m not a psychologist. If I could diagnose myself, I would. All I can say is that I know something ain’t right.”
“When did this start? The not rightness?”
He turned his head to stare out the window. “Probably after my father died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all good.” He brought his attention back to me again. “Why do you ask so many fucking questions?”
“About that…I’m sorry. Earlier, you got upset—“
“I wasn’t upset.”
“Okay, offended, then. When I asked about your drawings. Obviously, I hit a nerve, and I just want you to know I’ll try to be more mindful of that in the future.”
He stared at me with a stern curiosity that reminded me of my father those times he used to try to get inside my head.
“Are you like this with all your clients?” he finally said.
“Yes.”
I knew it was a lie as soon as it left my lips.
His eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“Yes, really. Why?”
“Sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether you’re working, or choosing.”
“Choosing?” I sucked in a quick breath and swallowed it down. “Choosing what?”
He shook his head as a smirk formed on his lips. “Come on, Officer. You ain’t that naive.”
I went to speak but changed my mind. There was no rebuttal, really. We both knew I knew what he meant, but it seemed to me I was the only one who was uncomfortable with it. His face relaxed. His posture changed. The charming man I saw with his little friends in the gallery was spawning before my eyes.
“You got a lot to say when you can hide behind that badge embroidered on your shirt, but I guess you’re shy when the conversation turns to you.”
“It’s not that, it’s just…all of our interactions have been in a professional context. This feels more personal.”
“Oh, this ain’t nowhere near personal, Officer. I’m holding back for your sake.”
A warm feeling settled between my legs, making me avert my eyes. “Holding back what?”
“There you go acting naive again.”
“I’m not.”
Those two meaningless words came quick, but I should have told him this was inappropriate, and that he should exit Pearl and be on his way, and that if he continued flirting with me, I would document it and write him a warning.
But I didn’t.
“So, this is really how you are?” His eyes raked over my face, searching for understanding. “You really don’t know?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Or maybe you do know, and you’re just fighting it.”
His perceptiveness was irritating.
I busied myself with the darkness outside my window. Its inky blackness hid things the moon tried to lay bare, cloaking the world in shadows. I wanted to run to safety and use them for cover. Anything was better than facing the truth.
“Look at me.”
His words were like a lasso, harnessing my attention and calling it back to him.
I didn’t fight it.
His smoldering eyes lingered on me, tracing every curve on my body from my head to my toes. His hunger was unmistakable. Mine was impossible to ignore.
I shifted in my seat, squeezing my thighs together to quell the ache.
“Seeing you tonight, in that dress, was a real nice surprise.”
I blinked slowly. “You like my dress?”
“You’re wearing the hell out of it.”
“Wow. Um…”
“You fine as fuck, Officer. Respectfully.”
I opened my mouth to speak again but stopped when headlights flashed in my eyes.
“That’s, um, my sister and brother-in-law.”
I straightened my dress and sat up ramrod straight, feeling like my mother had just come home from work and caught me with the boyfriend I snuck in the house.
Mr. Jackson watched this in silence with a tiny hint of a smile.
I rolled down the window as Amina approached. Her eyes went straight to my passenger, lingering for a moment before focusing on me.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” I smiled to put her at ease. “Just been sitting here waiting. It’s nice out.”
“Okay, and who is this?”
He leaned in our direction. “Isaac. And you are?”
“Amina. Her sister.”
“Nice to meet you.”
My brother-in-law walked up and stood next to Amina. “I’m Patrick.”
“Good meeting you, bruh.”
Mina raised her eyebrows as a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
Mr. Jackson opened his door. “I see she’s in good hands, so I’ll leave y’all to it.” He turned to me. “Goodnight, Officer.”
“Goodnight.”
I didn’t even need to look at my sister to know. I felt the shift immediately, and when my eyes found her face, it only confirmed that she had, in fact, caught that and was very much displeased.
“Why did he call you Officer?”
Patrick looked between the two of us, muttering, “Shit,” under his breath.
“He’s a client.”
“A client? As in, a former prisoner?!”
“Yes, Mina.”
She stared in the direction he walked off to. “You’ve been sitting in a locked car with him, by yourself, for an hour? And he’s a client ? What the fuck were you thinking?”
“Okay, okay.” Patrick put a meaty arm around my sister. “Let’s calm down a little.”
“I will not! Once again, she—“
“Not too much on the again ,” I warned. “I’ve never done this before. Besides, Isaac isn’t a violent criminal.”
“What did he do?”
“How is that your business?”
“You’re my sister, that’s how.” She snatched away from Patrick and crossed her arms in front of her. “I need to know what kind of people you’re hanging around in your spare time.”
“Like I said, this was the first time, and it was only because my car is acting up. It’s not like I had him drive me home.”
“Well, at least there’s a little bit of sense left in that head.”
I looked at Patrick. “I’m ready to go.”
He sighed and put on his best big brother face. It was the one I saw when I broke up with Roman. “To be honest, I’m not crazy about you being alone in a car with old boy, either.”
“Well, as y’all can see, I’m all in one piece. Can we go?”
They exchanged a glance as I gathered my things and exited Pearl. While Patrick checked to make sure nothing valuable was visible, Amina side-eyed me hard, which I did my best to ignore.
Because honestly? While her tone was irritating, she wasn’t wrong to feel a way. I knew Mr. Jackson was harmless, but she had a different perspective as my sister and as an outsider to my work.
Harmless in the sense that he wouldn’t hurt me.
My instincts were telling me he would wreck my shit, though.
Sometimes you can tell.
“I’ll come back by tomorrow after work and tow it to the shop,” Patrick said as he handed me the rest of my keys. “Where do you normally take it?”
“I don’t know. Roman did all that.”
“Cool. I’ll ask him. No worries. We’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you, Pat.”
I didn’t exactly want Rome involved, but I didn’t have a choice at this point. That’s one of the hard parts of a breakup—learning to do without the good things they did, however sporadic they may have been.
But I would learn, because new beginnings always bring a learning curve.
I would be fine.
But a small part of me did miss having a man look after me.