All Things Pretty (7 page)

She comes around to the driver’s side and
leans against the door, her unique scent filling up the cabin of my
truck. She stretches one slim arm in front of me, teasing my nose
with the plate of food. I inhale, my mouth watering reflexively.
She grins, but it’s a tired grin. “Go home. I’m in for the night.”
I say nothing as she walks off, my eyes glued to her perfectly
rounded ass. I’m distractedly wondering about the absence of a
panty line when she calls back over her shoulder. “I hope you like
lasagna.”

I tip my head at her and she shakes her hair
down her back as she continues on across the street. Actually, I
love lasagna. And this one smells delicious. Tommi, with the body
of a porn star and the name of a tomboy, just might be the perfect
woman.

If only she wasn’t dating a damn
criminal.

Starting up the truck, I drive the two
minute trek to my new home. It’s a shoebox of a house, kinda
shitty, but not as bad after I hired a maid service to come and
clean it. Now it’s just full of boxes, like it would be if I
recently moved across the country.

I grab a beer from the fridge and plunk down
at the small table in the kitchen. After grabbing a plastic fork
from the box of utensils I bought, I dig in, looking around the
barren living room as I think about my new life.

My undercover identity includes a fake name,
of course, with an alias of just Sig. Since I’d already introduced
myself to Tommi, I had to work that in somehow. The truck, too,
since she’d seen it. The department reassigned the VIN number and
the license plates in the DMV database. While they were at it, they
gave me a nice long history of traffic violations as well as a
couple of minor arrests tied to my fingerprint. Mostly for violent
crimes, as one would expect of a cartel fist.

I could unpack a few things tonight, but I’m
much more interested in going back to Tommi’s to see if she really
is in for the night or if she’s up to something else. I can’t
really get anyone from the station to find out what she was looking
at online. Since she was at a public hotspot, it would be
impossible to tell, which is probably exactly why she did it. The
question is: Why? Why go to so much trouble? What is she
hiding?

After I dump the paper plate and empty
Heineken bottle in the trash, I lock up. As I walk through the
neighborhood, I remind myself that while she
is
my way in,
my source for information, she
isn’t
my priority. I can’t
let my curiosity cloud my purpose. I can’t let
Tommi
cloud
my purpose. But still, I go to her house. Because it’s my job.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

********

For two weeks, I shadow Tommi. Sometimes she
knows I’m close. Other times she doesn’t. I follow her to drop her
brother off at school. I follow her to Tonin’s. Sometimes she comes
back out and runs a few errands, sometimes she doesn’t come out for
hours. I can only imagine what they’re doing in there those days.
Actually, I can imagine quite well. Parts of those mental pictures
are delicious as hell. Parts of them are downright slimy. Always,
though, I’m left with the same kinds of wonderings–what the hell is
a girl like
her
doing with a guy like
him?

Day after day, I watch them together. She
never looks happy or engaged. At least not beyond this superficial
smile that she wears. If I hadn’t met her that one time before, I
might not know the difference. But I can tell. And I remember how
nervous she was about being late and showing up in her “street”
clothes. It’s little things like that, things I’m starting to see
more of, that make me wonder what he’s doing to keep her. And why
she goes to such lengths to stay.

He hasn’t totally possessed her, though. At
least three days a week, I follow Tommi to some location that she
says would make me uncomfortable to go into or to a building that’s
locked for one reason or another. It’s always near a public place,
one that’s fairly easy to hide and remain anonymous in, and one
that has Wi-Fi. On each of those days, she carries a snazzy purse
that will allow for her iPad, to hide whatever it is that she’s
doing.

Beyond the scope of my real job
and
my Tonin job, sometimes I wait outside, watching her place on
nights when she doesn’t have plans with her disgusting boyfriend.
Her brother goes out on those nights and she stays inside
doing…whatever. I’ve thought several times of going to the door, of
knocking and giving some excuse to be here or to stop by, but she’s
not to a place where she’s open to trusting me yet. And I can’t
afford to lose her this early on. So I wait. And I watch.

On nights that she’s
with
Lance, I
watch her climb into his car, I watch her look stunning for him, I
watch him parade her around like a prize bull. That shit’s getting
harder and harder to see. She’s better than that. Better than
him.
I’m just not sure she knows it. But I do. It doesn’t
take a rocket scientist to see that this woman is something
special. And that she’s withering away here with Tonin.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN- TOMMI

As they do every morning after I lock my
front door and turn toward the driveway, my eyes go straight to the
spot across the street from my house. Sig is there, in his truck,
window rolled down, waiting for me as he always is. I smile at him,
a natural, truly pleased gesture that’s getting easier and easier
to conjure. Alarmingly so, even. He gives me a salute with the
fingers of one hand. I shake my head wryly. He grins at me
mischievously.

As promised, he keeps his distance, never
interfering, never becoming a burden or a bother. I find myself
wishing that he would have to drive me again, rather than just
follow me. I watch him in my rearview mirror for hours each day
and, more and more lately, I find that I think of him the rest of
the time, wondering what we might talk about if we spent those
hours together again.

I can’t ask that he drive me, of course. I
think that would seem too suspicious. However, as the person in
charge of my security, if
he
suggested it, that would be a
different animal altogether. He hasn’t, and I wonder if he ever
will. At present, he seems content only to watch. And wait. And
drive me mad.

I wonder if he feels the same way I do. I
can actually feel his eyes on me sometimes. I mean, he watches me
often, as his job suggests that he might. But there are times when
his gaze is different. Hungry. Wanting. Or maybe that’s just me,
coloring it with my own increasing feelings of restlessness and
unmet needs.

He intrigues me on many levels. He’s so
strong and capable-looking, yet he’s so willing to smile and flirt.
He doesn’t seem to fear Lance like the others do, which makes me
curious about him, about who he is and what he’s been through.
Possibly the most worrisome thing of all is how much I
want
to
know him. He occupies far too many of my thoughts and if I
knew more about him, it would probably only get worse. Besides,
there are other issues to consider.

No matter how much I’d like to have him
around, though, there are things I have to hide from him. Will
always have to hide from him. There are boundaries that he cannot
cross which makes our current arrangement ideal. The more familiar
we become, the more risk there is to me, to my plan. So really, as
much as parts of me are dying to know more, aching to feel more,
this is for the best.

If only it
felt
like it was for the
best.

It’s another of my fewer and fewer nights
in. I’ve checked the curtains as surreptitiously as I could,
waiting for Sig to leave. Even though he can’t see in, at least not
very well and not at all in the bedrooms, I don’t ever dare make a
move to finish my nightly duties until he is gone. So, as soon as I
hear his engine rumble to life and fade down the street, I jump up
to start gathering supplies.

This is the only part that I really don’t
like. In the evenings, when I’m home, I’m always afraid that Sig
will show up at my door, asking to come in. What can I possibly
say? No? But if I let him in…

No, that just can’t happen.

I push the thought far from my mind. I don’t
need to borrow trouble. I’m surrounded by enough hurdles without
dreaming up more.

I exhale the breath I’ve been holding
practically the whole day, as I do every day that I don’t have
dinner plans with Lance, and I head for the back bedroom. Gently, I
open the door and flick on the overhead light.

Some days, days when I’ve been with Lance
too much (and, again, been with Sig too little), this is my
favorite part. Even though the roles have reversed and I’m now the
caregiver, being with my mother, no matter how one-sided our time
spent is, reminds me of better days. Long, long ago. It’s some
variation of that “better” that I’m now fighting mercilessly to
regain. For Travis’s sake.

“Momma, it’s supper time,” I tell her softly
as I walk in. “After that, I’ll give you a bath.”

I get no response as I cart in her dinner
tray and bath pan, nothing except the same odd gurgling I’ve heard
for years. My mother has no idea that she’s in the world, but I
tend her like she does. I worry that there might come a day when I
won’t be able to do this, when I’ll have to turn her care over to
someone else. I try not to think about it. It makes me feel both
incredibly sad and guilty. Despite the way things were when she was
“alive,” I love her and I don’t want to lose her. And it would kill
Travis. But at the same time, she is an enormous responsibility,
both her presence and the circumstances surrounding it, that I
sometimes feel I can’t carry. The weight is unbearable. But then
there are other times when being with her is soothing, comforting
somehow, even though she never says a word.

I hit the button that raises the head of her
bed, the expensive adjustable memory foam bed that Lance thought he
was buying for me. I spread a napkin across her thin chest before I
perch beside her, plate in hand. My mother’s eyes, the same green
that all her children inherited, stare blankly at the wall opposite
her as I spoon mashed potatoes into her open mouth. She smacks her
trembling lips and then swallows clumsily. I wipe gravy off her
chin before I give her a second bite.

“Travis went to Trip’s again tonight,” I
tell her with a concerned sigh. She grunts. Or moans. I’m not sure
which. And I don’t know what it means, or if it means anything at
all. She does it at random times. “I worry about him when he’s over
there. He says they’re just playing video games, but with
Trip...”

I give my mother another bite of dinner and
then I hold a straw to her lips. “Take a drink, momma.” I tickle
her lower lip with the straw and she finally latches on, sucking
thirstily.

I feel another pang of guilt. With a shadow
following me everywhere I go now, I can’t come home as easily to
check on her throughout the day. Since it looks like Sig isn’t
going anywhere, in the future, I’ll have to think of excuses to
stop by my house for a few minutes here and there.

She grunts again, pushing the straw out of
her mouth with her tongue. I smile down into her familiar yet oddly
blank face. “I guess that means you’re ready for some more food,
huh, Momma?”

After my mother is finished eating, I set
about giving her a bath before I brush her teeth and change her
bed. As I smooth lotion on her skin, I check for red spots that
might indicate bed sores. It’s a constant worry with her lying in
bed all the time, but at least she can shift around a little bit by
herself. Enough to keep her skin from breaking down, obviously.

When I do to slip a fresh gown down over her
head, she holds her arms up like a small child might. The action is
small yet poignant, and a well-hidden part of me cries on the
inside for all the losses that my family has suffered over the
years. Before closing my mind to it, I let the pain rocket through
me, tearing away little bits and pieces of scar tissue. It’s a
painful reminder, but a reminder nonetheless. And reminders can be
good tools in keeping me focused.

Before the tears welling in my eyes can
fall, I think of Travis and my insides quiet. He
has to be
my first priority. Everything I do, I do for him. And one day, it
will all work out like I’ve planned. And then it’ll be worth it.
All this will be worth it. Until then, I suck it up and press on.
It’s the only choice I have.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN- SIG

It’s dark out so I cut across one street and
two yards to end up at the back of Tommi’s little house. It’s
getting harder and harder to leave her. Whether at night or
dropping her off with Lance for the day, I’m getting greedy.
I
want to spend time with her.
I
want to get to know
her, the real her. The her that smiles with her eyes, the her that
watches me from her rearview mirror, the her that looks at me with
longing when she thinks I can’t see.

I’ve wondered so many nights what she does
when she’s home alone, after her brother leaves. It’s always
shortly after that when she’ll bring me a plate for supper or a tin
of cookies or some other kind of treat and wish me a goodnight,
basically dismissing me for the day. Like a good employee, I go on
back to my new “home” and pretend that my duty for the day is over,
until the next morning when I wake up to do it all over again.

But not this time. Not tonight. I want to
know how she fills her time, what she has in her life besides Lance
and her brother.

It’s quiet and I can see that there’s a
light on in the kitchen. The only other light is in what appears to
be a bedroom. The curtains are closed, but I can see shadows
shifting inside. Probably Tommi, judging by the height and build,
and the fluid way she moves.