Over. (This. Is. Not. Over. #2) (21 page)

A car park and a few steps later, I’m standing in the doorway of Sands Bar. I see him at the bar, already drowning himself in dark l
iquor. His eyes are narrowed onto a spot just beyond the bartender, chances are he’s not looking at anything, just thinking. Zoning out. Concentrating. He’s trying to figure this shit out. He’s known for fixing shit. Both The Globe and Boston news like to remind its followers of that every day. I’d love for them to see him now. He’s wearing a wrinkled light blue button up and has that white boy after-five shadow. He’s scruffy. He’s dazed. He’s lost. He has no idea how to make this work in his favor. It’s because he can’t. This is the one thing in his life that he can’t seem to fix. He’s baffled.
Why can’t I fix this?
Why can’t I make this go away?
Because you’re not that good. I decide to head over to him and remind him of that.

I walk through the bar, with its candlelight, dim overhead lights, and handful of couples seated at tables. I then slide myself onto a stool next to Blair.

             
“Tell me Blair,” he eases his head around and locks his eyes with me. Damn, he looks exhausted, “are you sad for Danny or are you sad because your dick isn’t as big as everyone thinks it is?” He stares at me for a second and then looks away. Nothing, huh? Let’s dig deeper. “Funny, when I was married to Danny, the worst thing she ever had to worry about was a work assignment keeping me away. She never had to worry about another woman.” I say as the bartender comes over to me. “Captain Morgan.” I say to him. He nods and walks away. “See with me, the only thing she ever had to worry about was me working hard. I worked like hell to make sure she and our son were comfortable. If she had one of those Creole crystal balls, I doubt she’d have been so quick to have you draw up divorce papers. You did that rather quickly might I add.” I smile and look at him. Nothing. His eyes are still staring beyond the bar at nothing in particular. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting silence. I was at least expecting him to give his signature smirk and one-line quips. “So where is your mistress now?” I make a show of looking around the bar. “Are you meeting her here for drinks or is she back at the house waiting for you?” The bartender comes with my glass of Captain Morgan. I take a sip before I go in on Blair again. “Tell me, how does it feel to fuck a Senator’s daughter
and
a Boston feminist?” He takes a sip of his drink but doesn’t take the bait. That just means that I have to dig deeper.

             
“See you can keep a different woman in your bed every night because in the end, you can easily move on. Rumor has it you may be packing your bags soon and heading to Washington. That is, if you can get your mistress’s father into the White House.” I laugh. He’ll never get Rossi into the White House, but I’ll flatter him. “In DC you’ll get the national press that you Blairs need. Your pool of women will be larger, you’ll be in a new town, you’ll have new bars to try out, politicians to shake hands with, cigars to smoke. You get to move on from the fire, from Danny, from Laura … You’re just leaving behind a trail of bodies in your sick pursuit of power. After this week, you’ll head back to Boston and be seen as a playboy. Danny’s an adulterer, Laura’s a mistress but Malcolm, well, boys will be boys.” I take a long sip of my Captain Morgan. “Never mind that you leave behind a two year old little boy. You do remember Nicky, don’t you,
Mac
.” He gives a long blink and then looks at me. His eyelids are rimmed red, and his eyes look … damn … they look hurt? Is that the word? Sick? No, that’s not it. Exhausted? Maybe. I don’t know, his eyes look … desperate. Yeah, that’s the word. He looks desperate. But he still says nothing. He looks away. I guess I have to try harder.

“Or do I have it all wrong? Are you
not
trying to fix this? Did you purposely try to ruin my wife’s life? Are you really sitting here exhausted from five months’ worth of planning and now finally you can sit back and take a breather? Damn, all that fucking you had to do, all that sushi you had to eat, all that Coldplay you had to listen to, just to lure Danny into your foxhole.” I smile and nod my head in understanding. Yeah, I’ve found my answer. “But don’t worry, it paid off, she’s in your foxhole and she has no way out.” Yeah, I’ve finally got this shit figured out. “I can tell you exactly what happened. You planned that fire, knowing that it would have a domino effect. See, you’re a republican and it’s a well-known fact that the republicans hate the feminists. Those women are your worst enemies come election time, since they can see right through all of your bullshit. Rossi is rumored to be entering the GOP race this week; the feminists are completely against conservatives which means they’re completely against Rossi. Makes sense for you to make a mockery out of one of Boston’s leading feminists. You discredit Danny right along with her values and morals, then you make her friends and followers and the entire feminist movement look like a band of fools. You open the door to discredit one well-known feminist, you can discredit others like her.
How can someone’s life be in utter disarray and still be fit to be a role model? And still be taken seriously? Look at these fucking feminists, they talk about not needing a man but look at their lives; everything begins and ends with men: divorces, adultery, love triangles, crimes of passion.
Looks to me like you were trying to weaken Danielle, steal her glory, discredit her, shame her, take her power away. In essence, you saw her strength, you robbed her of it, you disgraced her and now she’s left alone to deal with the dishonor.” I shrug. “Basically, you raped her. Viking; isn’t that what Cadence called you last summer? Isn’t that what they do? Pillage and rape?” And that does it. Though he’s not looking at me, even from the side, I can see his eyes come back to life. The drowsy gaze that he once had appears to have focused. He blinks as if he’s reentering the earth’s realm. He squares his shoulders.

             
“Jon,” he says calmly without looking at me, “you’re Nicky’s father. And Nicky deserves a father,” he looks at me and the red rim his eyes once had is gone, “but I won’t hesitate to send you back to your God,” he takes a sip of his scotch, “and make your boy a Blair.” He gives me a nod. “Try me on this.”

“Another?” The bartender asks as he takes my glass.

              “No.” I answer quickly, too quickly. Shit.

             
“Another?” He says to Malcolm. Malcolm nods his head
yes
as he keeps his eyes on me.

             
And then the opening of a door rushes in freezing air from outside. It sends a chill through me but I stop it before it has a chance to shake my body. I fight it back as the breeze nearly rocks my bones. Damn, it’s cold in here. The wind feels like its brushing over my back and neck. Now I’m glancing around, feeling like someone is behind me. I swear I just saw something dark out of the corner of my eye. I look. Nothing. I glance around at the tables. The few people that are here are all sitting in relative silence, sipping drinks, whispering and listening to each other. I see the bar door ease close and then once again it’s calm and warm. I look back to Blair and he’s still looking at me. Ominous. That’s what he looks like right now.

The bartender places another drink in fr
ont of him and he grabs hold of it without looking. He’s waiting. He’s challenging me. I’m not a pussy, I’m really not. I don’t back down to threats. I can hold my own. It’s not that I’m nervous, I’m just … taken off guard, that’s all. For the first time, I’m seeing that the normally breezy, shit talking Malcolm Blair has a heavy side. A dark side. An unsettling side. Yeah, it’s just unsettling that’s all. I’m not nervous, it’s just that I wasn’t expecting this unsettling side of him. Usually he’s filled with energy; either smiling in your face or trying to knock you the fuck out. He’s never slow, methodical, dark or troubling. He takes a sip of his drink, his eyes still on me.

Fuck this. I have a son to think about. Let him and Danny destroy each other. Let her deal with this crazy muthafucka. Let him ruin her life, destroy her business, collapse her reputation. I’ve got Nicky to think of.
Someone
has to think about Nicky in all of this.

             
I get up from my stool, grab my wallet out of my pocket and throw a few bills on the counter. I take one last look at Blair, Danny’s devil, and shake my head. So this is who she has to deal with? She left my bed to crawl into his? She wanted the devil, with his scruffy face and homicidal intimidations? She wanted the devil with his burning houses and missing mistresses? Yeah, Danny’s in deep shit here. Fuck this.

             
I walk away.

Danielle

2:30 p.m.

             
I wake up alone.

That’s the song
the cabbie and I are listening to on his iPod. Currently, the cabbie and I are both bobbing our heads as we watch Malcolm get out of his cab and close the door.

“Give me a minute,” I say to the cabbie as I step out.
“
I’ve come to talk.” I say loud enough so that Malcolm can hear me from across the street. He turns around, adjusts his eyes to see my face and then gives me a lazy smile. He’s drunk. Not white boy wasted, but just regular people drunk. He grins at me as his cab drives away. Walking across the street to me, he reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out his wallet, looks at my cab’s meter and pulls out some bills. He looks dark and big, broad and wide.

             
“Here you go.” Malcolm says to my cabbie as he hands him the bills. He puts his wallet back in his pocket and the cabbie eases away.

             
And then we’re alone.

No friends.

No blond guy.

Just us.

              “Just left the bar?” He asks in that low voice of his as he steps closer to me. He’s aiming to seduce, I can already see it all over his face.

             
“I was lying in bed and then decided to come out for a stroll.” I’m trying to make that sound sexy. The truth is that I snuck out of my bedroom window when we all came in from Oyster Bar and pulled a Marion Jones all the way to the cab. I’m a divorced twenty-eight year old with a child and I’m still sneaking out of my bedroom window to see a man whose home I just burned down, while his former fiancé was still in it. I’m at a really low point in my life right now.

             
“Hmm.” He walks closer to me and purposely looms over me, forcing me to look up at him. Now I know that I’m a feminist, I know that I believe the sexes are equal and I know I believe that strength is no longer an indicator of a man’s power. Yes, back in those caveman days when a strong man could protect an entire clan, it was de riguer to choose a man who was the biggest, the tallest, the strongest. Today, in the information age, it’s de riguer to choose a man who’s the smartest, the sharpest, the quickest. So imagine me in my current predicament, when both my animalistic caveman urges and my deeper intellectual desires are satisfied by one man. Big. Tall. Strong. Smart. Sharp. Quick. Malcolm. “So let’s talk upstairs.” He nods towards the house.

             
“I don’t think so.”

             
I won’t let the scotch running through my blood shade my mind, I won’t let it overpower my own intellect. Malcolm Blair has been keeping another woman, while he’s been wooing me. Let’s not forget that.

“Just for a minute.” He says to me.

No. I’m angry. I’m not sleeping with Malcolm tonight; I’ve just come to talk. I’m standing my ground here.

Danielle

2:40 a.m.

“How many different ways can I say ‘I’m sorry’?” Malcolm whispers to me as he steps up to me, invades my space, and tries his best to use his chest to nudge me backwards.

“Not happening Attorney Blair.” I whisper as I stand my ground in his bedroom.

“I’ve tried it all Red.” He says with that smirk of his. “I can only think of one more way to say it.”

“Which way is that?” I say while looking up at him through my lashes. Okay, I’m flirting. Shut up. I can flirt if I want to; I don’t have to sleep with him to flirt. And just because I’m in his room, that doesn’t mean that I’ve come up here to sleep him. I just came up here to talk in private. I can talk in private in a man’s room if I want to. I can talk in private, in a man’s room, and not sleep with him. I swear I can. And trust me, my word is as good as gold. Everyone knows that about me.

“You smell good.” He
whispers as he leans over and brushes his lips against mine. Damn … I was just thinking the same thing. No, wait. No I wasn’t. I wasn’t just thinking that.

“Oh yeah?” I shrug. He smiles.

“I like that.”