“I’VE HAD BETTER DAYS,” I told Trixie, who’d just been foolish enough to ask me how things were going. So I told her.
“Have you talked to Sarah since this morning?” Trixie asked.
“No,” I said. “She tried me on my cell but I didn’t answer it.”
“That’s mature.”
“I’m just pissed, okay? And I know it’s not her fault. It was Magnuson’s call. He put her in an impossible spot.” I shook my head, looked into my crème caramel decaf lattacino thingie. I had no idea what it was. Trixie offered to buy when we met at the Starbucks, and I’d told her to surprise me. We’d grabbed a small table in the back corner and had snared a couple of comfy, leather-covered chairs.
“And we had such a nice time last night,” I said, more to myself than Trixie.
“What, did you go out or something?”
“No, no, we stayed in. Cost me twenty bucks, though.”
“Really? Sarah makes you pay for it? That’s actually a very reasonable price, you know, and if there were any extras, it was a real bargain.” She grinned slyly at me. She was looking particularly fetching today, in a black cowl-neck sweater, black jeans and boots, her black hair pulled back into a ponytail.
I ignored all that and said, “She’s got this interview coming up, for foreign editor, and it’s Magnuson’s decision, so she probably didn’t feel she could come to my defense. Figured Magnuson would accuse her of not being objective.”
“Because she sleeps with the reporter in question. For twenty bucks.”
“The money actually went to Paul,” I said.
Trixie raised an eyebrow. “Now that’s too kinky, even for me.”
I took a sip of my drink. I didn’t know what it was, but it was sweet, and pretty good. “Anyway, look, these are my problems, not yours. When we spoke on the phone, you said you were in some kind of trouble.”
“Yeah, well, I did, didn’t I.”
“Sarah was wondering what kind of trouble you could be in that would bring you to call me. You need more chaos in your life? If that’s what you want, then I’m definitely your guy.”
Trixie smiled. “Sarah’s tough on you, you know.”
I went into self-deprecation mode and shrugged. “Look at what she has to put up with,” I said.
“I could put up with you,” she said, without a hint of sarcasm.
“So come on,” I said. “What’s up?”
She took a breath. “I figure, what with you being the only person I know who works in journalism, that maybe you could advise me on how to proceed.”
“How to proceed with what?”
“How to proceed with keeping some asshole from writing a story about me.”
“What asshole would that be?”
Trixie hauled her purse, a good-sized one, onto her lap and started rooting around. First, she pulled out a stack of mail and put it on our table so that she could better see what she had in there. “Just give me a minute,” she said. “I have a post office box, get as little mail as possible delivered to my home.” I noticed what looked like a Visa bill, possibly a property tax notice from the town of Oakwood, something from a car company labeled “Important: Recall Notice,” and a number of what appeared to be personal letters, none with return addresses.
I lightly thumbed them. “Fan mail?”
“Hmm?” Trixie said. “Oh, sometimes men write to me ahead of time, tell me what they want. They don’t want anything showing up in the ‘sent messages’ in their Outlook Express, if you know what I mean, in case the wife happens to read it.”
“Sure.”
She saw the recall envelope for, it seemed, the first time. “Oh shit, not another. Never buy a German luxury car, at least not a GF300. I thought the GF stood for ‘goes fast.’ Now I think it’s for ‘get fixed.’ It’s been recalled for the fuel injection, a power seat, cruise control glitches. Who’s got time to get all those things fixed? Open that, see what it’s for while I try to find this thing.”
I opened the envelope, pulled out the paperwork. “Let me see here. Uh, okay, you’ve got extra-sensitive air bag sensors. Slightest hit on the front bumper can set them-”
“Here it is.” Trixie slapped a newspaper clipping onto the table, then scooped all her mail back into the purse. I picked up the clipping. It was a column, with a guy’s head shot, and a name in bold caps: “MARTIN BENSON.”
The headline read, “Council Misses Boat on Harbor Review.”
“Something about the Oakwood harbor? What do you have to do with that?” I asked.
“Nothing. I don’t care about the story. I just wanted you to see who the asshole was.”
“Martin Benson.”
“Yeah.”
“What paper is this from?”
“The Suburban.”
Oakwood’s local, community newspaper. Light on news but heavy on inserted ads, it was delivered free to most of the town’s households.
“I don’t remember this guy from when we lived there,” I said. When we had a house in Oakwood, I’d at least turn the pages of the Suburban before dropping it into the recycling bin.
“He’s a new guy. Trying to make a name for himself. By fucking me over.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning.”
“Okay, this Benson guy, he hears through the grapevine what kind of business I might be operating in my home.”
“You mean, like, a house of pleasure and pain.”
“I offer pain. But some people do find that pleasing.”
“Where do you think he heard about it?”
Trixie shrugged. “Any number of people know. Clients. Former neighbors.” She gave me a look.
“Not guilty,” I said.
“He did a piece on Roger Carpington. He’s already out, you know. Maybe he told him something off the record, like, ‘Hey, you know what goes on in your supposedly respectable neighborhood?’”
Carpington was a former Oakwood town councillor who’d lost his position after being convicted of accepting money to vote the right way on a housing development. Carpington had never been a client of Trixie’s, as far as I knew, but the man who’d been paying him off had been. He might have told Carpington about his recreational activities before having the life squeezed out of him by a python. (Hey, it’s a long story.)
“But the thing is,” Trixie went on, “it doesn’t fucking much matter where he found out. The fact is, he suspects something.”
“Okay, so how do you know that?”
“He called me, says he wants to interview me. I say, what about? He says he’s doing a column about Oakwood’s kinkier side, thinks I might be able to help him out with that.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to write about you. Maybe he just wants a freebie.”
“Yeah, well, if I thought strapping him down and giving him forty whacks would keep him quiet, I’d do it. But I think he’s the real deal. He wants to do a story.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I had no idea what he was talking about and hung up.”
I had some more latte-thingy. “So did that take care of it?”
Trixie shook her head. “He calls again, says he’d like to do the story even if I remained anonymous. So he can still do his story about kinky suburbanites. So I tell him again, I’ve got nothing to say. Then, after that, there’s a car hanging around the street, a little Corolla or something, the sort of car a guy working for a paper like the Suburban could afford. I see it enough times that I start to get suspicious, so I decide to go out there, see who it is, ask him what he’s doing. As I get close to the car, I recognize him from his picture in the paper.”
She displayed the clipping, pointed to Benson’s face.
“I’m about to ask him what the fuck he’s up to, and he starts to hold up his phone, and I’m sure it’s one of those goddamn camera phones, so I put my hands up over my face and run back inside the house.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m sure that didn’t look suspicious.”
“So I’ve had to cancel all my appointments. I can’t have clients coming to the house, having their picture taken, running the risk of it showing up in the paper. I haven’t spanked a guy in over a week.” She spoke like someone who’d recently given up smoking.
I shook my head. “So just lay low for a while, then. He can’t spend all his time parked out front of your house. He’ll give up after a while, go on to something else.”
“I’m not so sure. I wish I knew someone who could scare the shit out of him, but you never know with journalists.” She looked at me and smiled. “Sometimes, when they’re threatened, they’re more determined than ever to write their story. It’s like the only way to stop them is to kill them.”
I guess I was supposed to laugh at that, but when I didn’t, Trixie said, “That was a joke.”
“I know. It’s just, I don’t really know what you want me to do, Trixie. Maybe you’ll actually have to make a respectable living for a while as an accountant. I mean, you are good at it. You know everything there is to know about balancing the books.”
“Or making them appear to balance even if they don’t,” Trixie said, like she was remembering something that happened a long time ago. “And by the way,” she said, “thanks for not judging.”
“Huh?”
“‘A respectable living,’ I believe you said. That I might want to consider one, for a while.”
“Trixie, don’t try to guilt-trip me. You operate outside the law. Like most places, Oakwood has laws against prostitu-”
Trixie jabbed a finger at me. “I am not a hooker, Zack. I do not fuck these men. They don’t get so much as a handjob from me.” She became very serious. “I do not cross that line. I provide them an entertaining, fantasy-like environment.”
“Okay, but you might have a difficult time persuading the authorities of that.”
Trixie shook her head in frustration, then leaned forward in her leather chair, which drew me in as well.
“What I was thinking,” she said, “was that you could talk to him.”
“What?”
“Just, you know, have a little conversation with him. You’re a reporter with a big city newspaper. He probably wants to get on at a place like the Metropolitan. You could tell him no one gives a shit about two-bit stories like this, that if he really wants to make the jump to the big time, he needs to go after city hall. Politicians on the take, bad cops, that kind of thing. Not some woman trying to make a living.”
“Trixie,” I said. “Look, you’re my friend. I’d help you any way I can. But you can’t ask me to do this. I can’t, as a reporter for one paper, try to talk a reporter for another paper out of doing his job. I can’t begin to count the number of ethical violations. There’s just no way, I can’t, I’m sorry, I really am.”
She looked into my eyes. “I thought you’d be willing to help me.”
“I don’t want you to be in trouble, but what you’re asking me to do could get me in trouble at the Metropolitan, where, evidently, the boss already has it in for me. Imagine if he heard I was trying to persuade some community newspaper columnist not to write about a dominatrix.”
Trixie said nothing. Something caught her eye, and she looked to the front of the Starbucks. A leather-jacketed guy with a heavy beard and sunglasses strolled in. Outside, I could see a big motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson or something like that with raised handlebars, parked up close to the door.
Trixie shrunk back into the chair, turned and looked away.
“What?” I said. “What is it? You know that guy.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then what’s the problem? It’s just some biker or biker wannabe. He’s not bothering anyone.”
“It’s nothing. You know what, Zack, don’t worry about anything.” Her voice had turned snippy. “I’ll just handle my own problems myself.”
She was trying to make me feel guilty, so I decided to repeat what I thought was sound advice.
“Really, just lay low,” I said. “This Martin Benson guy will finally go on to something else, and then you can get back to doing what it is that you do.”
Trixie, her shoulder still turned to the front of the coffee shop, folded up the clipping and shoved it down into her purse. The biker already had his coffee in hand and was heading out the front door. “There, he’s gone,” I said.
Trixie relaxed, but only slightly. She slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder.
“You do not understand, Zack. I cannot have my picture in the newspaper. Not any newspaper. Not even a piece of asswipe like the Suburban. They may be small, but they still have an online edition too, you know. They run my picture and it’s all over the Internet.”
“I can’t imagine anyone outside of Oakwood is reading the Suburban online,” I said, trying to calm her.
“I can’t take that chance. I can’t have my mug shot showing up anyplace.”
“Mug shot?” I said. “Why do you call your own picture a mug shot?”
Trixie blinked. “Figure of speech,” she said.
He would come in to see her at night, supposedly to tuck her in.
But Miranda, with some tips from her older sister, Claire, figured out a way to deal with this. She would tuck the covers in as tightly as possible on both sides, then crawl atop the bed and slide under the sheet and bedspread from the top.
Once she was there, she felt trapped, like a leftover sandwich Saran-Wrapped to a plate, but secure as well, because any attempts her father might make to touch his fifteen-year-old girl could not be disguised as inadvertent. He was very good at accidentally brushing his hand across her private places when getting her ready for bed. But those supposedly innocent touches weren’t possible when she had herself so tightly cocooned. That, and pretending to already be asleep, tended to thwart his efforts, most of the time.
Sometimes Miranda almost wished he’d be more blatant. She wished he could be as direct with his perversions as he was with his violence. He made no attempt at excuses when he took out his belt to punish her or her sister for some perceived misbehavior. At those moments, she could scream back, run out of the house.
But when he slunk into her room at night, he would hide behind pitiful slyness. He’d camouflage baser motives with apologies about losing his temper. But she knew he felt no regrets over that. If only he’d just admit that he’d come in to check on her progress at turning into a woman, that he wanted a form of intimacy he knew to be inappropriate. Then maybe she could react, holler at him to leave her alone. But his feigned innocence always gave him an excuse. “You’re just sensitive,” he’d say. “What, a father can’t give his little girl a hug?”
And there was no use trying to talk to her mother about this. She numbed herself with scotch, cigarettes, and television, but mostly scotch. What chance was there that she would come to the defense of her daughters when she wouldn’t defend herself against her husband’s bursts of outrage and backhanded slaps?
It was older sister Claire she turned to. It was Claire with whom she shared her secrets. It was Claire who told her how to cope.
And it was Claire who begged her to leave with her. But Miranda said, “You’re eighteen. If you go, they can’t make you come back. I’m just fifteen. He’d call the police. They’d bring me back.”
“I wouldn’t let them,” Claire said.
But as much as Miranda admired, worshipped, her sister, she didn’t believe she had those powers. She wasn’t strong enough to protect her against her father and the authorities.
One night, it was Claire who came in to see her. Miranda pulled the sheets about her tightly, but when she heard her sister whisper her name, she relaxed.
“I’m going.” Claire said.
“Where? What do you mean?” Miranda asked.
“I’m leaving. Now. I’m not coming back.”
Miranda felt her heart in her throat. “Don’t go,” she whispered.
“I can’t stay here another night.” There were tears in Claire’s eyes. “Come with us.”
“I have a math test tomorrow,” Miranda said. Math was probably the only thing that gave her any sense of accomplishment, the only thing she was really good at. Her father was good at telling her she was pretty much useless, and it rankled him when she came home with perfect math marks, proving him wrong. “It’s worth fifteen percent,” she protested.
“Jesus, forget your math test. I’m talking about getting out of here!”
“Shhh!” Miranda said. She didn’t want her father coming in, taking the belt to the both of them.
“They’re asleep,” Claire said. “He’s passed out, they’re both passed out.”
“Where’s your stuff? How can you just leave?”
Claire’s bags-and that’s what they were, bags-were all packed. They were already at the end of the drive. Her boyfriend, Don, was going to pick her up.
“Where will you go?” Miranda asked.
“Anywhere. Any place that’s not here,” Claire said. “If I stay here any longer, I’ll kill him. Please come. Don says it’s okay.”
Miranda liked Don. He was a nice boy. Not like most of the others. Claire was lucky to have found someone like that.
Miranda sat up in bed. She looked at her dresser, wondered what she would use to carry her clothes. She didn’t even have a suitcase. They had never gone on a vacation. They’d never been anywhere. She could put some clothes in some paper bags. Two or three would probably do it. A couple pairs of jeans, a couple of tops, some underwear. She could get a job, make money, and buy some other clothes, maybe from a secondhand shop, maybe-
No, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t run away. She was only fifteen. As horrible as home was, it was still a haven. She knew bad things happened here, but she knew what the bad things were. If she ran off with Claire, what different bad things might happen? Would they be worse than the things she had to deal with now?
“I can’t do it,” Miranda said.
“I can’t just leave you here,” Claire said. Her eyes were moist with tears.
“Just go.”
Outside, they could hear a car coming to a stop. Claire glanced out the window, and the tears running down her cheeks glistened in the moonlight. It was Don. He was putting Claire’s paper bags of belongings into the trunk.
Claire threw her arms around her sister, and they were both crying now.
“Soon,” Miranda said. “I’ll try to leave soon.”
Claire sniffed, wiped her nose with her sleeve. “I’ll help you. Whatever you need, anything, I’ll help you. I will always help you, no matter what.”
“I love you,” Miranda said.
“I love you too,” Claire said, and then she slipped out of the room.
Miranda watched from the window as Claire ran down to the road. Don threw his arms around her, opened the passenger door of his old Camaro for her, and then they drove off into the night.
Miranda did not cry long. You’re on your own, she told herself. Start getting used to it.