Complete Submission: (The Submission Series, Books 1-8) (45 page)

“Fine,” I said. “It was a freak accident. I’m still sorry.”

“Me too.”

Agreeing on everything and nothing, we looked through the envelopes as if we were doing more than touching what she’d touched so we could commune with our memories.

“I can take it all back to my place,” he said. “Clear out this room. You need a new roommate.”

I hadn’t given that a moment’s thought. I’d paid bills like a robot. Since they always came out of my checking account anyway, it didn’t feel like anything had changed. But that account wouldn’t make it another month without help.

I realized I didn’t want the room cleaned. I didn’t want anyone else living there. No one else was family. I didn’t want a stitch removed until I was good and ready, which I wasn’t yet. “How much are you paying for that place around the corner?”

“Not too much. Why? You want to move in?”

“Live here. With me.”

“Here? In this room?”

“You can have my room. Or the living room. I can clean out the garage.” It seemed like the most sensible thing in the world. We would stay together, which I wanted so much a knife of anxiety went through my chest.

He sorted through files as if he didn’t want to look at me. “What would your new boyfriend say?”

“I don’t care.”

“Ask first.”

“I don’t have to ask permission to live my life, Darren.”

“It’s not permission. It’s courtesy. Seriously.” He glanced at me. “You and I were intimate, in case you forgot. Guys have a problem with stuff like that. Trust me. I’d like to move in, but not at the expense of whatever you have with him. Not that I understand it.”

“Fine.” I held my hand out, realizing too late my wrists were black and blue from straining against plastic bags tied to my kitchen cabinets.

“Jesus, Monica,” he whispered.

Before I could even think about it, I hid them behind my back. Stupid. I was the cause of my own shame. “It’s not a big deal.”

He held out his hands. “Can I see?”

“No.”

“Please? I won’t give you a hard time.” When I didn’t move, he said, “Promise.”

I put my hands in his. He turned my hands over, assessing the damage. I couldn’t look at him. I knew what was on his face and what was in his head. It wouldn’t be too far off from the truth. Me, naked on the floor. Knees up. Hands tied, straining. Add whatever darkness lay in Darren’s imagination, and I’m getting choked, slapped, fisted… whatever act he decided was too sick to perform, too deranged to even think about, had a shape and a voice and they looked and sounded like me.

“Do we have a problem?” I asked.

He let go of my hands. “It’s not a problem for me if it’s not for you.”

“You sure?”

“Sure? No. But close enough.”

I put my arms around his shoulders and held on for dear life. He rocked me back and forth and gave me a big, hard kiss on the cheek. I heard another knock on the door and pulled away to go answer. I checked out the window and saw a rock-solid woman in her fifties carrying a beat-up leather case.

“Hi,” I said when I opened the door. “You must be the locksmith.”

“Sure am. Benita’s the name.”

I let her in. “Okay, well, this deadbolt isn’t set in right, so if you could fix that.”

She fiddled with the lock. “Uh, I was told to replace all the locks with Kleigs.”

My face hardened. I couldn’t afford Kleigs, naturally, but I’d agreed. “I have three doors. Back, front, and side.”

“Done. Checking the windows, too.”

Was there any use arguing? She was just doing her job.

“Fine. I’m going to work. You don’t need me here, do you?”

“Nope, just your key. I’ll leave it and the new ones in a box in the front. Code’s 987. All you need to know.” She handed me her card, and I saw her eyes widen when she saw my wrists.

I thanked her and ran back to my room. I caught sight of my wrists as I put rings on. That wouldn’t work. I looked as though I’d been in a hostage situation. I put bracelets on to cover the bruises. I needed a more solid pair that didn’t slide around so much. Whenever I lifted a tray, the bracelets would slip and reveal my weekend’s activities.

Which was exactly what happened. I’d been at work thirty minutes when Debbie noticed. She flicked the bracelets, then looked at me when I got back to the service bar.

“How are you doing?” she asked. I knew exactly what she meant.

“Very well, thank you.” I was pretty sure I blushed as I put empty glasses in the bus tray. She smiled at me then disappeared downstairs.

I serviced some tables, threw snide comments back and forth with Robert, and wore a ridiculous smile that was probably the exact opposite of the customer service smile I usually used. Debbie caught me on a bathroom run and handed me a black velvet bag with a drawstring.

“Put these on.” She took off as if she had more important things to do than explain.

When I got to the bathroom, I opened the bag. Inside were two bracelets that were more like metal cuffs in hammered silver. Two inches wide, with red stones set into them, they looked heavy but weren’t. When I put them on, they stayed put as I moved my arm.

“Well, there’s a hint I can take,” I said to Debbie when I saw her.

“I can’t have customers thinking we tie you up in the basement.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you happy?” She indicated the bracelets, but I knew she meant the bruises underneath them. “This is good for you?”

Debbie knew Jonathan, and her voice often told me she was some sort of dominant. I knew she knew, if not the details, the broad strokes. “Inappropriate” was too mild a word to describe talking to her about my relationship with Jonathan.

“When I’m in the middle of it, it’s very comfortable. But if I think of it any other time, I start to feel like I should be ashamed. As a woman. I’m sorry I’m…” I’d gone too far.

“Don’t be sorry. You are what you are. You don’t have to apologize for it to me or anyone. Especially yourself. And not feminism either. It’ll get along fine with you doing what you want in private. Now, get to the floor.”

“Okay.” I ran back out to do my job.

When I got home that afternoon, the street was crowded with parked cars, and the foundation guy was still in my drive. I was stuck. I found a spot down the block and walked up the hill, wishing I’d worn sneakers. I crossed the street to my house next to a green minivan. I lived on a small block and knew most of the cars, but sometimes the odd car parked nearby when the lot at the coffee shop got too crowded. The minivan shouldn’t have raised an eyebrow or a hackle. I looked at it anyway. Just a glance. I saw a glass circle enclosed in a larger black one tucked behind the driver-side window, near the side mirror. Must be a trick of the evening light. Why would a camera lens be pointed at my front door?

I peered into the car. A cord went to the eye of the camera, which looked like a webcam, and a red light blinked at the bottom of the cable.

That was not okay.

What was he trying to do? Make sure I didn’t fuck the foundation guy? Check to see if Kevin came around? I stormed across the street, getting madder with each step. A camera was not protecting my health and happiness. It was creepy, stalker bullshit. I got my new keys out of the lockbox, then I remembered who paid for them.

Fucking great. He would have gotten the keys from Benita. I’d have to call her so she could take things out so I could have another locksmith, who I hired, put in new tumblers. Pain in the ass.

I took the whipped cream out of my fridge.

Asshole.

I couldn’t even think straight. I was full on white hot rage from my core to my fingertips as I stomped back across the street and sprayed whipped cream all over the minivan’s driver’s side window.

Let’s see what he saw through that. Motherfucker.

As I crossed back to my house, I texted him.

—WTF did you think you were doing with the stalker bullshit—

Dave, the foundation guy, stopped me at the sidewalk, wielding a clipboard. “Miss Faulkner? I have an estimate.” I took the clipboard. The number was insane. “Your house is falling down the hill. We need to jack it up and shift it. The whole thing. Then it’s gotta be bolted. It’s a big job.”

I scanned the work list, then the line at the bottom for a signature. “I’m not the homeowner. It’s my mother’s house.”

“Oh.”

“I assume you can’t continue without the homeowner’s signature?”

He looked disappointed. The guy needed work, and I didn’t want to screw him out of it. I read the estimate again. I couldn’t afford the work, but since I found out Dr. Thorensen’s house would meet my house on the day of “the big one,” not getting it fixed was irresponsible.

“I’ll bring this to my mom to sign and let you know.”

He brightened. I didn’t know if I was lying or not. Maybe my mother would shell out the money to protect her property. I could mail her the permits to sign. Or fax them. Or carrier pigeon. Anything to avoid Castaic.

But as God was my witness, I would not let some guy who couldn’t trust me, and who put cameras on me, pay to fix my foundation or change my locks. Oh, fuck no.

My phone rang. Jonathan. I waved to Dave, and he walked to his truck. I answered the phone in a white heat. “I can’t do this,” I said.

“What happened? What are you talking about?” He was in a crowded place full of voices shouting. In my mind, I saw him pressing his finger to his other ear.

“I do not need to be watched. I don’t need you if you can’t trust me.” He didn’t answer. “Say something.”

“I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

“I’m. All. Right.” My voice was tight and firm, pure intention in every syllable.

“I didn’t think it was that big a deal.”

“Fuck? What? You don’t think it’s that big… Are you from another planet?” I paced my living room as Dave pulled his truck out of my driveway.

“Monica, calm down.”

“Calm… What? No! I will not calm down. This is serious. This is a problem. And you know what? I don’t have time for it. I don’t have time to describe to you proper boundaries outside the bedroom.”

“You’re out of line.”

“Don’t you use that voice with me now.
You’re
out of line.”

“Monica.”

“Jonathan.”

“I’m coming over there.”

“Don’t bother.”

I hung up.

MONICA

I
wanted to run. I wanted to somehow foil his stupid fucking plan to come over and soothe the common sense right out of me. But I had to shower and change to play at Frontage. Rhee and I had agreed to continue on a trial run, and I wanted to be my best, not all screwed up. When I got out of the shower, my phone was ringing. I picked it up without looking, thinking it was Jonathan.

“My doors are locked.”

“Okay?”

Fuck, not Jonathan. The caller ID identified the caller as Jerry, the producer I’d done a scratch cut with two weeks earlier.

“Hi, sorry. Thought you were someone else. How’s it going?”

“Good, I’m having drinks with Eddie Milpas tonight. He’s one of our acquisitions guys. You playing that dinner club?”

“Frontage, yeah.”

“You playing the song we cut?”

“I don’t usually play my own stuff. I can ask.”

“Do it. He’s looking for something, and I think you have it.”

My heart raced. “Thanks. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Great. Keep the doors locked.”

I hung up. It had been twenty minutes since Jonathan called. I stuffed my crap in a bag and ran out with my hair still wet.

JONATHAN

“L
il.” I knocked on the window. “Forget Sheila. Take me to Echo Park.”

“Yes, sir.”

Turning around was no small feat. She had to crawl off the exit of the 134, crawl back on, and sit in rush hour traffic. Dinner with my favorite sister and attendant children was officially cancelled.

When I got to Monica’s house, she and her car were gone. I stood on the porch calculating my next move. She’d said something about a gig at Frontage, and I was tempted to go over there. I saw Dave pulling up the hill in his dually.

“Hey, Jon. The lady of the house home? I had a few more permits to pull.”

“Nope. What happened today?”

He leaned out his window and offered me a fry from a McDonald’s bag, which I refused. “What do you mean?”

“Did you say something about watching her?”

“No, man, I was watching, not telling.”

“When I said to keep an eye on her, it was a casual keeping an eye. Because she knows, and she’s pissed.”

“Sorry. I didn’t say anything. She did tag up that car with whipped cream. Don’t know what that was about.” He craned his neck to see the other side of the street. “Right there.”

I followed his gaze to a green minivan. I got a sinking feeling as I walked toward it. The whipped cream wasn’t just whipped cream. It was the kind from a can, and Monica was sending me a message.

I used my hankie to wipe the whipped cream away and saw a camera behind the glass.

Ah. She thought I did that. The thought had crossed my mind, but I did have boundaries.

And then the other question: who did it? Who wanted her watched?

I said good-bye to Dave and crawled back into the Bentley. “Lil, take me home.” I needed my car, and Lil had been driving all day. Monica would be trapped behind that piano. I could still make it.

MONICA

“O
ne song,” I said to Rhee. “The rest can be the same as we’ve always done.”

She chewed the inside of her lip, glancing around the room. It was already getting crowded. “What’s it sound like?”

“Like a woman on the piano,” I said. “Here are the lyrics.”

Asking permission to sing my own songs wasn’t something I would have accepted a month ago, but so much had happened, and I depended on the job at Frontage to keep Gabby’s memory alive.

The lyrics made me nervous, but I had to do it, just once. If I didn’t take opportunities when they presented themselves, they’d dry up.

“Little hardcore, sugar,” Rhee said. “Collar? Licking the floor?”

“It’s metaphorical.”

“I figured that.”

Of course she did. What woman would have to lay that out for a man literally?