Chapter 43 #2
I examine some old children’s books, and that’s when it comes to me. I turn to Luka. “I thought of the proof-of-life question. My sister had this doll named Brittany, and the only food Brittany would eat was chocolate chip pancakes.”
“You think she’d remember that?”
“A hundred percent. It was a constant theme. Mom would be angry about it, which was so weird since it was completely imaginary. Mom would randomly add her two cents about eating healthy when she decided to give a shit about us. Which made us embrace Brittany’s love of chocolate chip pancakes.”
“Perfect. Text him that you have what he wants.”
“Right now?”
“You want to move fast on these things—it gives you the advantage. Want me to?” He puts his hand out for my phone.
“No, I’ll write it. I just need to think how to put it.”
“I’ll draft it.”
“Shouldn’t it be in my voice?”
“The man’s not a forensic linguist.”
“Fine.” I hand over my phone.
He types a while and shows it to me.
Luka found me somehow. I have his story—it’s a shocker—and I have the hair. Ready to meet. But I need proof of life. Ask my sister what Brittany’s favorite food was and text me the answer.
“I can’t order him around like that! He’ll freak out!”
“This is how you do it.”
“Maybe how you do it, but nobody my age would call something a shocker.”
“What would you say?”
“Probably just WTF.”
“As an adjective?”
I grin, surprised. “Yeah.”
“What?” he says, typing. “Is it such a WTF thing for me to know what an adjective is?”
“Kind of.”
“I attended a harshly regimented school run by priests and sadists, princess,” he says as he types. “Check it out.”
He found me somehow. I have his WTF story and the hair. Ready to meet. But I need proof of life. Ask my sister what Brittany’s favorite food is and text me the answer.
“You don’t want him to know your story, though, right?”
“If we have to tell him, we have to tell him. Not much he can do with it.”
“Here. Let me.” I take the phone back and fix it:
I have his story WTF!!!! And the hair I’m ready to meet but need proof of life please understand I need to know! ask my sister what Brittanys favorite food is and text me the answer
“Did you just fuck up the punctuation on purpose? ”
“Nobody punctuates texts except exclamation points, and periods come off too stern. It’s perfect.”
“Periods are stern now? Jesus Christ,” he says. “Also, you don’t say please to a man like that.”
“I do.”
“Fine. Go ahead and send it.”
“Right now?”
“What’s there to think about?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I want to sit with it.”
“You have to get in front of him. Acting first lets you set the terms.”
“Maybe I want to think about it, though.”
“Don’t you want to set the terms?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“There’s no other way.” He takes the phone and hits send.
My jaw drops nearly to the floor. “What did you just do?”
“I sent the text.”
“I wasn’t ready!”
“Won’t improve this situation. You have to start managing this guy before he starts managing you.”
“Sending the text was my call to make—mine. This is my sister we’re talking about!”
“All the more reason to be fast and firm. That’s how we keep her safe.”
“I’m not one of your mafia underlings you can order around. I need to trust you to respect my wishes, and you knew I wasn’t ready. Did we not just talk about that?”
“I was sure.”
“Do you hear yourself? And now he’s gonna be mad as a hornet when we meet. Mary is my sister. You can’t just take over and decide things.”
“There are only two ways this can go. Either Bender will text you with proof of life, in which case I’ll scoop him up and make him tell me where she is. Or, if he doesn’t have proof of life... ”
He doesn’t bother to finish the sentence. He doesn’t need to. They find him and kill him.
I sit there hating everything.
“This is my world, Edie,” he says softly.
“I get it, but let me tell you about my world. I grew up with my mom getting jerked around by a string of guys. I watched my sister get jerked around by all kinds of guys, too. I vowed not to let that happen, but I ended up in this Bender situation with another man jerking me around and making me feel like I didn’t control things.
And I hated it. And I thought you were gonna be different. Like, on my team.”
“I am on your team. We created a plan that needed to be executed. I’ve dealt with a million Benders; I know how those motherfuckers think.”
“Maybe so, but you needed to get me there. I get a say. Didn’t you promise that I didn’t have to live by your mafia rules? It means that this thing we have can’t be a dictatorship with you as the all-powerful king. It needs to be a democracy.”
He stares out the ancient-looking window. You can see bricks and the corner of a pizza place sign, lit in red and green neon.
I wait, holding my breath. I need him to get my point of view. I need it more than most things I needed lately.
He finally speaks. “You’re right. What the fuck. I just said I wouldn’t do that kind of thing, and then I went and did it.”
“I mean, I get that you’re invested,” I say. “So am I.”
“It was a fuckup, Edie. Other people having a say... it’s not natural for me.”
I slide my finger over his. “We both count. Our opinions both count.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “You are not going to make this easy.”
“I’m not.”
“Nothing good is easy, though.” He comes to me. “We both count. Maybe I’ll tattoo it on my hand or something. ”
“I think that would be weird? And open to a lot of weird interpretations?” I say.
“We both count,” he says in a really serious tone. “Except when it comes to coming. You come first, and you count more.”
“I’ll allow that exception.”
I check my phone constantly on the way back to his place with our haul of books.
“He’s not going to get back to you for a while,” Luka says, setting the box on the kitchen island. “He wants you to sweat now. He wants you to feel nervous, but I promise you, if he has her or has any kind of line on her, he’s finding the answer to that question.”
“How long do you think he’ll try and make me sweat? Because I’m already sweating.”
“And he knows it.”
“I’m not made for this.”
He comes to me. “It’s alright. I am. I got you.”
“While also soliciting my buy-in on important decisions.”
He snorts softly into my hair. “Yes.”
I pull away. “It’s almost dinnertime now, and I have a major paper due that I’m wildly behind on.”
“You’ll do it here.”
“No, I’ll do it at my place. I’ll hole up in the study commons.”
I can see him really, really wanting to order me to be at his place.
“I have to write this paper, or I’m so screwed. The worst thing that could possibly happen to me is the vending machines running out of corn nuts.”
“Bender’s dangerous.”
“I’ll promise to contact you the instant I hear anything from him if you promise to think things through like what we talked about.”
He comes to me. “In my all-powerful kyre brain, you mean?”
I kiss him on his whiskery cheek. “Yes, please.”