Chapters 1-3, The Abduction Myth

Chapter One

I could blame it on Daisy, my bullmastiff.  Or I could blame it on my sister Christine for giving me Daisy as a birthday present.  But Daisy couldn’t help being huge, and Christine knew how much I wanted a dog.  “God knows you could use the company,” she snorted, with a sideways glance at Ethan.  He muttered something under his breath, but Christine just smiled; she loved to annoy him.  Only later would that more innocent dislike turn to hate.  “He started it,” she would tell me.  “If it weren’t for that lying piece of shit none of this would have happened.” 

Her logic held a certain appeal.  If Ethan hadn’t ended our engagement, and thus our living arrangement, I wouldn’t have been desperate to find a place that accepted giant-sized dogs.  I could have lived forever in the house his parents bought him, looking the other way whenever he came home late, with the quiet belief that no one’s life was perfect.  I’d never expected perfect.  Good enough suited me just fine.

Except that interpretation of events wouldn’t have been fair.  Yes, Ethan had cheated.  Yes, he said that he couldn’t spend the rest of his life with a “doormat” like me.  But when I became homeless, Christine did offer me and Daisy temporary shelter at her condo.  She even insisted she’d be happy for us to stay indefinitely.  And L.A., she argued, was far more exciting than the quiet college town I’d never left, to be with the boyfriend who couldn’t let his university lifestyle go.  Christine presented me with the perfect solution until I figured out just how, at the age of 32, to rebuild my life.  After all, I worked from home, so I could live wherever I wanted.  There was no need to feel chained to my dwindling life in El Prado.

Yet despite all of these good reasons to say yes to Christine’s offer, I said no.  I said no, because I hated L.A.  I said no because while I adored Christine, we were too different to make good roommates.  And I said no because I still loved Ethan.  We’d been together for eleven years—I didn’t know how to live without him.  Besides, I genuinely believed that once I was gone, he would miss our life together; I needed to be nearby for when that moment of clarity came.  Ethan did not force me to stay loyal to him.  He didn’t even ask.  I made that mistake all by myself.

My mother never let me forget that, because she’d warned me against Ethan from the start.  Of course, she’d despaired over pretty much everything I did—my family’s favourite label for me was naive.  But eventually she too found someone else to blame.  Not my late father, who had walked out on us when I was a baby.  Nor did she blame the one who nearly killed me thirty years later, in every sense of the word.  Even this monster my mother considered just a symptom, rather than the disease itself.

Instead, she focused all of her wrath on the man she loathed at first sight.  The man, she said, who made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up every time he looked at me.  He had brought me to the brink of despair, she insisted, and then gave me a gentle push just as she and Christine meant to save me.  “You must see, darling,” she wept to me, during that last conversation, “how he is responsible for everything that’s gone wrong in your life.”

I didn’t see.  I couldn’t see anything at all, no matter how hard I tried.  All I wanted was one incorruptible truth to call my own.  But truth is organic, like a strand of DNA.  It can mutate, or combine with other strands of truth, until it evolves into something that no longer bears any resemblance to its previous self.  For too long my truth did just that—twisting and changing, attaching itself to others, until it became unrecognizable.  But the monster was not built to survive.  Nothing really is.

That left just me.  Just me, and every stupid decision I ever made.

Except that this isn’t a story about blame, or about truth.  

This is a story about him.

Chapter Two

The apartment was listed in one of those independent newspapers found in every college town—the type known for its anti-establishment bent and pornographic personals.  Normally I was too embarrassed to read anything with half-page ads for the local “adult” toy store, but desperate times called for desperate measures.  I had run out of time. 

When Ethan said he needed to talk to me a week earlier, I’d thought he was going to surprise me with a romantic trip to Hawaii.  While cleaning out his coat pockets at the dry cleaners, I’d found some glossy brochures from a travel agent featuring some of the most beautiful beaches I’d ever seen.  Filled with love and gratitude, I returned home to discover I’d only got it half right.  Ethan meant to go to Hawaii, all right—just not with me.  

Instead, he announced, he had a new girlfriend and that they, not us, would be island hopping for the next 10 days.   “That gives you plenty of time to be out of the house by the time I get back,” Ethan said.   He then launched into a catalogue of reasons why it would be impossible to marry me, most of which involved my “doormat” personality.  “You just can’t marry someone you have zero respect for,” he told me, and folded his arms across his chest, as if daring me to defend myself. 

But the defense never came.  I could only sit there, shocked into dumbness.  Yes, I’d known from the start that charming, outgoing Ethan wasn’t the type to be faithful.  I guess I just assumed no man was, so I didn’t expect it.  That he needed me—and, after eleven years together, I flattered myself that he did—mattered far more than sexual fidelity.  Although Ethan became somewhat distant once my career took off, I never believed that would permanently chase him into the arms of another woman.

 

So despite the cruelty of Ethan’s rejection, it took three days of increasingly desperate phone calls with my sister Christine for me to believe a 21 year old student named Suzy had just ushered in my own personal Apocalypse.   Ethan was gone, and the house I’d lived in for the last eight years, no longer my home.  Of course, Christine immediately suggested I move in with her, but I couldn’t contemplate it, even temporarily.  When she then offered to make the two-hour drive to El Prado to help me look for an apartment, I said no to this as well.  She was a little too happy about the break up for my current emotional state.  

Besides, El Prado was chock full of apartment complexes—I could find a place easily enough on my own.  “No one is going to allow a dog like Daisy,” Christine insisted, and after two days of useless grovelling with real estate agents I realized she was right.  “What’s the big deal?” Christine demanded on the phone, Thursday night.  “Just come live with me!”  In desperation I made some lame excuse about my connections to the university art department.  How could I tell her that as much as I loved her, she would drive me crazy?  I might have been three years older, but by the time Christine was ten she’d decided I was a hopeless case and had begun a relentless campaign to run my life.  Only maintaining a certain distance between us at all times allowed me anything resembling autonomy.

So after I crossed the last apartment complex off my list on Friday morning I picked up The People’s Voice at a campus sandwich shop.  Private rentals had officially become my last hope for remaining in El Prado.  “I’ve cleaned out the extra room for you,” Christine told me on the phone that morning, but I’d argued that landlords who listed their properties in such a liberal publication would be more open to animal tenants.  “You’re so sweet and naive,” she laughed, and once again she was right, at least about the naive part.  Hope soon morphed into despair, as listing after listing specifically rejected pets.   I started to wonder if communists hated dogs, too, when I came across the following ad:

One bedroom unfurnished flat above bookstore. Immediate availability.  If interested ask for Rick at the Sword & Pen.

The words “immediate availability” set my pulse racing—as did the absence of the usual emphatic declaration NO PETS.   Had I found the one apartment in all of El Prado that would allow a bullmastiff?  I placed the address in an older part of town that bordered the campus and was not, to my knowledge, a hotbed of crime.  That a potentially nice, quiet bookstore would be my downstairs neighbour felt like an almost stupidly wonderful bonus thrown into the bargain.  Of course, I would have preferred a two-bedroom, but I also would have preferred to be with Ethan.  The luxury of choice no longer belonged to me.

Had the neighborhood degenerated into one massive crack den since my last visit I probably wouldn’t have cared, but when I turned onto the poetically named Prosperina Avenue fifteen minutes later, I found only a tired neighborhood more suited for student living than thug life.  One shop sold Birkenstocks, another served noodles all night long, and an ancient launderette overflowed with students.  In the midst of this, like a sort of community centre, stood a dilapidated but noble building in the style of old-school California architecture: the Sword & Pen.

I didn’t have much experience with communists, so I didn’t entirely know what to expect.  What I found wasn’t it.  A buzz of voices greeted me the moment I stepped inside the shop.  Beatles’ songs played gently in the background, while a cross-section of humanity, from students to guys in golf shirts, perused the stacks.  The smell of freshly-brewed coffee wafted over from a charming cafe area that boasted all sorts of delicious-looking baked goods.  If I hadn’t been on an urgent mission I would have plonked myself down in one of the mismatched chairs and treated myself to a scone.  I’d had no idea those plotting revolution could be so welcoming.

As if proving this point, a young man clearing the table next to me gave me a big smile.  “Something I can help you with?” he asked.

“Um, yes, please.  I’m looking for Rick—about the apartment upstairs.”

“Oh, right.  He’s over there, at the information desk.” 

The server gestured with a coffee mug past a cluster of worn armchairs, to an enormous oak desk covered with books.  “You can’t miss him,” he told me.  “All of the girls say he’s a dead ringer for Brad Pitt.”

Excited all over again—a landlord who resembled Brad Pitt would compensate for so many ills—I strained to see past the piles of books to the person behind them.  At first all I could make out was some dark blond hair sticking out over the top of a computer notebook.  But then the person using the notebook straightened up, and I saw Rick Smith.

If I squinted hard enough, I might have mistaken him for a relative of Brad Pitt’s.  And he was certainly blond and handsome in a way most women would admire.  For me, however, all interest ended there. 

I’d never been one of those girls who liked grungy guys.  Nothing appealed to me more than a clean-shaven man in a suit and a crisp white shirt, with his hair neatly trimmed.  In this way, at least, Ethan had been my ideal.  Christine mocked him endlessly over his collection of hair and skin care products—and this, coming from a high-end hairdresser—but it didn’t bother me that he took longer to get ready in the morning than I did.  While Christine might have preferred a “real” man, she’d had more than one boyfriend whose body odor made breathing around them extremely difficult.

 From where I stood I couldn’t tell if Rick smelled or not, but I could see that he hadn’t shaved in days.  He also didn’t seem to own a comb, judging from how his hair stuck up in random places.   As for his clothes, his black print t-shirt looked as if it had been washed dozens of times, and beat-up athletic sandals stuck out underneath khaki cargos that verged on threadbare.   If I’d had to guess what he did for a living, I would have pegged him as a retired, middle-aged skate punk—certainly not a book store owner. 

I could have forgiven most of that, however, were it not for the tattoos.  From the back of Rick Smith’s hands to where the sleeves of his t-shirt began I couldn’t see one clear bit of skin.  No doubt his torso and other areas of his body hidden by his clothing were also covered in ink, if only because he’d run out of room elsewhere.  Not all of his tattoos were exactly pleasant to look at, either; from where I stood I could make out disturbingly realistic serpents coiled around both of his arms.  The thought of getting a closer look at them made me shudder. 

But what truly alarmed me about Rick Smith was neither his lack of grooming nor his love of body art.  It was the shrewdness of expression that no amount of stubble could hide.  Maybe I should have known by the name of his bookstore, but the air of intellectual cynicism wafting off of him was worse than any professor I’d ever come across.  I’d never been proud of my intelligence, so I usually tried to avoid people who made me feel even dumber than I was.  Rick Smith seemed exactly like the type of person who could reduce me into a gibbering idiot within seconds. 

“Um, is Rick just the building manager?” I asked the server.   “Nah, he owns the whole building,” he answered, and gave me an encouraging smile.  “Go on.  You’ll be fine.  He might look tough, but he’s a pussycat.”

That was almost impossible to believe.  Unfortunately, it was either the tattooed intellectual skate punk, or my sister’s horrible L.A. friends who considered anyone over a size two obese.  And I didn’t have to like him.  If the apartment worked out, I could just hand him a check once a month and then hide behind Daisy whenever I saw him coming.  Daisy was very useful for situations like that.  I therefore rearranged my features into a mask of cool and approached the information desk, hoping that Rick Smith might prove me wrong and greet me with a cheery hello.  Instead he seemed perfectly content to ignore me and read whatever he found so engrossing on his computer.   “Um...hello,” I said tentatively.

With a faint air of annoyance Rick Smith raised his eyes from his computer screen.  “Do you need something?”

“Um, yes.  I saw a notice about an apartment...?”

He arched an eyebrow.  When I just gazed at him, helpless, he prompted, “Do you want to see it?”

“Yes, please.”

“All right, then.  Let’s go.”

“Right now?” I asked.  “No time like the present,” Rick Smith answered, and closed his notebook.  As he unfurled to his full height—6’2, at least—I couldn’t help but recoil.  “Come on,” he said, so I jogged after him, to the back of the store.  At the glass doors that led to the parking lot Rick said, “After you,” and held the door open for me.  For some reason this act of chivalry only made me more nervous.  But steadying my nerves, I followed him outside to yet another door alongside the building, a few feet from the bookstore doors.  

"This is the entrance for the apartments,” he told me.  “Only people who live upstairs use it.”

I looked up at the massive, battered door, the kind one might expect to see at a maximum security prison.  “How many apartments are there?” I asked him.  Out of the corner of my eye I could see my car, about 25 yards away—probably too far for me to make a break for it.   “Three,” Rick answered.  He then produced a key ring from the pocket of his frayed combats.   “The one you’re looking at, a studio one of my employees lives in, and mine.”

I bit my lower lip so hard that it should have bled.  For the first time since Ethan broke up with me, I almost hated him for what he’d done to my life. 

Rick shook the keys impatiently.  “Shall we go up?”

“Huh?  Oh.  Um, I’m not-”

“As we say in the trade, don’t judge a book by its cover,” he told me—either as a joke or in admonishment—and unlocked the door.  Chastised, I entered the dark passageway behind him.  A cramped, worn set of stairs led upstairs to an equally cramped, worn hallway.  In the sunlight streaming through the cobwebbed window at the end of the hall, I could see dust particles flying through the air.  “You’ll have to forgive the lack of housekeeping in the communal areas,” Rick said, once again reading my thoughts.  “This place has lacked a woman’s touch for a while now.”

I wasn’t surprised.  It would take a desperate woman to put up with such conditions—one, I suspected, even more desperate than me.  When Rick unlocked a door and gestured me inside I hesitated.  Did I really want to be alone with him in an empty apartment?  He was not only tall, but also no weakling; I would have to kick his knee extremely hard to get away.  But then he made an impatient noise, and I jumped through the doorway like a scared rabbit.  “You know, I just remembered I have an appointment,” I began, only for my lame excuse to die in my throat. 

The apartment was nice.  

In fact, it was more than nice—it was fantastic.  The living area I now gaped at practically belonged in the pages of some architectural digest, it had been so skillfully restored.  The hardwood floor shone.  Large windows framed by exquisite moulding allowed sunshine to bathe pools of light on the spotless walls.  The galley kitchen featured newish appliances that somehow blended in with the vintage feel to the apartment.  A tiny utility room, complete with a stacking washer and dryer, included a sturdy set of shelves for tidy storage.  It was all so functional, and yet so beautifully presented at the same time.

This can’t be true, I thought to myself.   Rick remained in the living room with a bored look on his face as I headed for the bathroom, prepared to be appalled.  Yet instead of lime scale and mildew, a pristine white bathroom suite graced the black-and-white tiled room.  I then charged into the bedroom, but like the living room it was big and airy, and the walk-in closet provided passage to the bathroom.  What on earth was going on here?

When I rejoined Rick in the living room, he said, “You look bemused.”

“Oh!  Um, not really.  So how much is the rent?”

He quoted me a surprisingly low figure.  I took another look around me, but could see nothing wrong with the place.  “It’s available right away?”  I asked him.

“As you can see.”

The knot in my stomach loosened ever so slightly.  Intimidating landlord or not, the apartment was clean, and for a one bedroom very spacious.  It wouldn’t be forever—just a stop gap, until I found my bearings again.  And if Rick remained such a daunting presence, I would just cover the door in locks.  So I said, “Can I fill out an application?”

“There is no application.  Do you pay your rent on time?”

“Yes.”

“Do you play loud music or grow marijuana in the bathroom?”

“Absolutely not,” I returned, shocked by the question. 

“What do you do for a living?”

“I illustrate children’s books.”

“And is it just you who’d be living here?”

I nodded, hoping he didn’t notice the spasm of pain this question caused me.

“When would you be moving in?”

“Well—this weekend, if that’s okay.  I’m sort of in a bind.”

“Fine with me.  You want it?”

Relief nearly setting me off into another round of tears, I nodded again.

"Then it’s yours.  Here are the keys—rent’s due the day you move in, along with another half month for a security deposit,” Rick told me.  As I stood there, working hard to control my emotions, he headed for the door.  “I live across the hall,” he said over his shoulder, “so let me know if you need anything.”

“But I didn’t tell you, I have a dog.  She’s big, but she never barks-”

“No problem,” he answered, now in the hallway.

“You don’t even know my name-”

 “I’ll find it out soon enough.  Lock the door on your way out.” 

A few moments later I heard the heavy door at the bottom of the stairs open, and then slam shut again.

I stared down at the keys in my hand.  Welcome home, I thought to myself.  Welcome home indeed.

Chapter Three

I spent all of Saturday packing my things.  Ethan hated clutter—his decorating style was minimalist in the extreme—which meant I hadn’t accrued as much as I might have on my own.  It disturbed me to realize that almost nothing belonged to me.  His doting mother, always polite to me but never warm, had bought him the type of modern furniture he adored but that I could never figure out how to make comfortable.  When I viewed all of my worldly goods stacked in the little trailer I’d rented, I felt like a failure.  My life hadn’t amounted to very much in any sense of the phrase.

As I pulled out of the driveway the next morning, though, I told myself to stay strong.  Once Ethan got that waitress out of his system I might be back—a mantra I kept repeating to myself at a local futon shop, where I’d gone to address my bed situation.  Until I was able to sort out a real bed (if that became necessary), a futon would have to serve as both my living room couch and sleeping accommodation.  It was a practical solution, but also an embarrassing one.  I mean, there I was, past thirty and buying the student special.  How could I be this old and starting all over again?

Daisy waited for me in the car, with all of the windows rolled down.  She took up the entire backseat, but ever mellow, she didn’t mind the cramped conditions.  If anything she seemed quite cheerful, not that I could blame her.  Ethan, who thought all dogs had fleas or rabies or both, nearly lost his cool when Christine gave me the adorable brindle puppy for my 28th birthday.  Of course, even a fish would have annoyed him—he just wasn’t into the concept of pets.  It hardly helped matters when Daisy chewed up his favorite pair of shoes, and then the arm of his designer couch.  For a few hours after the couch incident Ethan insisted we re-home her; only my floods of tears wore him down.  After that he and my dog settled into an uneasy detente.   Daisy learned to go to him for nothing, and Ethan learned to pretend Daisy wasn’t there—quite a feat given her eventual size.  Unlike me, she would have no regrets at leaving our old life behind.

After two employees loaded the futon and mattress into the trailer for me I set off, like some 19-year-old about to move into her first campus apartment.  The urge to sob was so strong that I needed to take several deep breaths at a stoplight to calm myself down, but I felt even more disheartened when I pulled into the bookstore parking lot.  The neighborhood looked far tattier than I remembered.  As I let Daisy out of the backseat my new landlord emerged from the back entrance and he too seemed scruffier, like he’d just rolled out of bed after a week-long bender.  I was hoping he’d just come out for a cigarette break, but he strolled over to me.  “That’s quite a mutt you have there,” he said.

“I told you she was big,” I fretted.  With a dismissive wave Rick replied, “It’s fine,” and gave Daisy a friendly pat on the head.  Unusually for her, she seemed to appreciate this act of affection, judging from how vigorously she wagged her tail.  She never bit anyone, but like all bullmastiffs, she took her role as guard dog very seriously.   “What’s her name?” Rick asked me.

“Daisy.”

“And yours?”

“Oh, it’s Stevie.  Stevie Callaghan.”

Rick raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask the usual question about whether I was named after Stevie Nicks.  My Fleetwood Mac-obsessed mother still listened to Rumours at least once a day; while other kids learned nursery rhymes, I’d been taught all of the lyrics to “Dreams” by the time I started kindergarten.  “Who’s helping you move in?” Rick asked, now looking past me into the trailer.

“Oh.  Well, no one.  But it’s mostly boxes, so I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t have any furniture?”

“Um, just a futon frame and a mattress, and work table and chair.  But I’m sure I’ll be able to get them up the stairs by myself.”

This was a lie.  One of Ethan’s neighbors had seen me struggling with the table and promptly come over to help me load it.  I had no idea how I would now drag it or the futon up the stairs but I would have rather broken all my limbs than ask Rick for help.  “It will be fine,” I said, in as brave a voice as I could muster.

“Right,” Rick scoffed.  “I’ll send a couple of my guys to help you.”

“You don’t have to,” I protested.  Snorting, he headed back to the bookstore.  A few minutes later two guys appeared, one looking somewhat managerial, and the other, like a bored college student.  They waved off my frantic apologies—“It all pays the same,” the cheerful manager-type told me—and within fifteen minutes they’d emptied the trailer.  Forgetting that my refrigerator was empty, I offered them something to drink, but they said they needed to get back to work and that was that. 

Alone with Daisy again, I took a look around me.  Unlike the neighborhood and my new landlord, the apartment still seemed just as good as it had upon initial inspection.  It was woefully bare, however, even with my stuff in it.  Still, I refused to go on a mad household shopping spree—that just felt like admitting defeat.  The night before, Christine had told me to leave Ethan “with yesterday’s trash,” but she didn’t know him the way I did.  He’d gone through a difficult time recently, what with losing his university lab job (Ethan’s casual attitude toward punctuality hadn’t impressed the professor).  Once things started going his way again, he would stop resenting me and remember all of the reasons we’d been together for so long.  There was even the possibility that upon returning to our empty house, he might regret what he’d done. 

But that first night in my apartment, even though I made sure to keep my phone on at all times, Ethan never called.  I occupied myself by installing the three new locks on the door that I’d bought right after taking the place—and then sniffling into Daisy’s neck until I fell asleep.

***

The next morning I took Daisy for a brisk walk.  She could have done without it, but I needed to wake up after a rough night’s sleep on my new futon.  We were in the hallway when a young man exited the apartment next to mine—the same one who’d pointed Rick out to me, on my first visit to the bookstore.  He bounced over, like an excited Labrador puppy.  “Hi there!” he said, pumping my hand.  “It’s Stevie, right?  I’m Trevor!  Nice to meet you!”

Charmed by his warmth, I answered, “It’s nice to meet you, too,” and went on to chat with him for a few minutes about Daisy (“I’m too skinny to eat,” he joked to her).  “If I ever annoy you for any reason, just say so, okay?" he told me. "But I’m usually really quiet because I’m studying for my GED when I’m not at work.  I’m the weekday barista for the cafe downstairs.”

“So Rick is your boss and your landlord?”

“Yeah, but I worked here first, and then I got the apartment.  Usually his employees live in both of these places but the guy who lived here before you, Jose, had to go home to help his parents,” Trevor explained.  “There was no one else to take it.  Malik has a place of his own now, since he’s married, and Mike lives across the street because he said being around Rick all the time made him mental.  And then there’s Leon who goes to college so he moved closer to campus.  Jimmy lives with his mom.  I think you met Malik and Mike yesterday, they said they helped you unload your stuff.  Anyway, Rick will have to hire someone else to cover Jose’s shifts but who knows when that will be, so that’s why you got this place.”

Confused and intrigued all at the same time, I asked him, “Rick only hires men?”

“Yeah, but not because he hates women or anything.  We all came here through the young offenders program.”

The young offenders program? I might have been naive, and not always the sharpest tool in the shed, but even I knew that could mean only one thing.  Trevor confirmed this with, “We were all in jail for one thing or another.  I got busted for dealing drugs to college students.  But don’t worry,” he added, no doubt noticing the look on my face, “no one’s done anything violent.  Rick wouldn’t take someone like that.  He’s into the whole rehabilitation thing, but he is trying to run a business.”

“...Okay.”

“No, seriously.  You know Malik, the assistant manager?  He was in for stealing cars, but now you should see him when someone shoplifts a pen—he goes mental.”  Trevor enjoyed a good laugh at this.  I tried to join in, but it rang hollow.   “Is, um, Rick a...former offender?” I asked Trevor.

“Hell, no, although if you ask me he looks more like an ex-con than the rest of us.  Anyway, let me know if you ever need anything,” Trevor said.  “I gotta go—my shift starts in a few minutes.”

“Right.  Okay.  See you later,” I answered.  Trevor the former drug dealer gave me a cheerful salute and then loped down the stairs.  Once I heard the downstairs door close behind him I slammed my own door shut, and with shaking hands did up every single lock.  At least now I knew why the rent was so low.

I was staring at the boxes in my living room, wondering if I should even bother to unpack, when a brisk knock on my door made me jump.  I huddled behind Daisy, too afraid to answer.  “Stevie, it’s Rick,” an authoritative voice said.  “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

I thought about pretending I wasn’t home, but forced myself to get up and undo the locks.  As this was quite a process, Rick was huffing impatiently by the time I opened the door.  “Is something wrong?” I asked him, prepared to hear that one of his employees had stripped my car, or was holding all of the customers hostage.  “Not on my end,” he replied.  “But Trevor told me he mentioned the young offenders program to you.”

“Oh.  Um, yeah, he did.”

“He thought you were worried about it,” Rick said.  When I just frowned, he went on, “I suppose I should have told you myself, but I wouldn’t have rented this place to you if I didn’t believe that you’d be completely safe here.  All right?”

“...Okay.”

“I’m serious—these guys are all okay.  But if one of them harasses you for any reason, let me know and I’ll straighten him out.”

“Great.”

Rick rolled his eyes.  “Relax.  My current group are all good eggs who just got a bit confused in their youth.  They wouldn’t hurt a fly.  I mean, come on—you met Trevor.  Can you imagine him doing something violent?”

“No,” I admitted, because I couldn’t.  Then again, I never would have thought he was a former drug dealer, either.

“And, yeah, you’re the only woman,” Rick continued, huffing some more, “but if anything that will make them more protective of you.  The worst thing that will probably happen is you’ll end up feeling like you have a bunch of annoying little brothers.”

I managed a faint smile, trying to ignore his sadly correct assessment of my age.

“You’ll feel better once you get to know them,” he said.  “Come on downstairs and spend some time in the cafe.  You’ll soon see how harmless they are.  Besides, you said you worked from home—it will give you a break from staring at the same four walls all day long.”

I didn’t remember telling him I worked from home, although I supposed he could have inferred that from my career.  And he was also right that sometimes sitting in my living room did get a tad boring.  Even when I lived with Ethan, there were times when I nearly went stir crazy.  So I answered, “Yeah, I’ll do that,” because what other choice did I have?  If this place didn’t work out I really would have to live with Christine—a prospect that made even felons seem like the better end of the bargain.  “Oh, um, by the way,” I forced myself to add, “I haven’t signed a lease yet.”

“There is no lease.  I think you can figure out what is and isn’t allowed.”

“I’m sure I can,” I agreed, because let’s face it, Rick was the last person I wanted to annoy.  I would hardly need the threat of eviction or the loss of my security deposit to behave like the ideal tenant—especially not with all of those criminals downstairs, willing to back him up on a moment’s notice.

***

During what had become my daily phone call with Christine I didn’t mention the young offenders program.  She would have thought it was hysterical, terrifying, or both—all reactions I couldn’t handle.  Instead I just listened to her rattle off some celebrity gossip she’d heard from one of her Beverly Hills clients at the ultra trendy hair salon where she worked as a top stylist.  “Now that you’ve dumped that loser,” Christine said, conveniently forgetting the fact that Ethan had dumped me, “can I cut your hair?  I’m dying to have a go at it.  All you ever do is put it in a ponytail, anyway, so let’s get rid of it!”

She referred to how Ethan had always insisted I keep my wispy silvery blonde hair long.  Christine liked to say that it made me look like I might sprout wings and fly around an enchanted forest, but her more modern ideas alarmed me—Ethan wasn’t the only one with conservative tastes.  “I don’t know,” I hedged.  “I’m already weird looking enough.  Long hair makes me look more normal.”

Christine sighed loudly.  “You are not weird looking, you just need to lose the fairy vibe you have going.  And you are not getting back together with him, so quit hoping,” she added, correctly identifying the main reason behind my reluctance.  “Even if he called tomorrow, declaring his undying love for you, I wouldn’t let you go back to that shithead.  Honestly, I’m beginning to think we’re going to have to send you in for deprogramming.”

A hollow laugh emerged from the abyss that was my soul.  “I’ll think about it,” I told her.  “A haircut, I mean.”

“Yeah, right.  When are you going to tell Mom about Ethan?”

This was a cruel question, because Christine knew my mother would gleefully torture me about the debacle that was my love life.   Not only had she never liked Ethan, but she also thought I was the village idiot, even if like Christine she couched this judgment in loving terms such as “sweet” and “naive.”  I half-suspected that she wanted to take over management of my life, which was why I’d attended college out of comfortable driving range.  She meant well, but her level of bossiness made Christine seem meek, and even Third World dictators easy to please.

Yet by Wednesday, with no word from Ethan, I couldn’t put it off any longer—I had to make the dreaded phone call.  As expected, my mother’s sympathy took the form of a long lecture on how stupid I’d been to throw away my best years “on a good-for-nothing car salesman type” like Ethan.  “It’s just that you’re such a catch, dear,” she told me.  “But you aren’t getting any younger, are you?  And the kind of man I want for you is usually married by now.  I suppose you’ll simply have to wait for the first round of divorces to find your Mr. Right.”

That was just great.  I tried to change the subject by waxing enthusiastic about my apartment, but she managed to bring the conversation back to my “eleven wasted years” and rattle on about it for another half an hour.  No matter how annoyed I got, though, never once did I consider telling her about the young offenders program, or my colorful new landlord.  I could only hope her dislike of car journeys over 20 minutes meant she would never come to visit, and so find out what a horrible liar I was.

“You shouldn’t take it so personally,” Christine told me, when I complained to her about our mother’s delight at my failure.  “You know you’re Mom’s favorite.”

“Yeah, right.  Her favorite loser, maybe.”

“Oh, come on—I could go on a mission to Mars and she wouldn’t bat an eyelash.  ‘I’m sure you’ll be just fine, dear,’” Christine said, in a perfect imitation of my mother’s voice.  “Besides, you’re her blessed child with what’s-his-name.”

Christine meant my father, who I’d lost to cancer four years earlier.  It infuriated her that our mother still mourned him, despite his lack of qualities as a husband and parent—particularly compared to Christine’s dull but dependable father Dennis, who’d been married to my mom since I was a toddler.  “She wouldn’t even let Dad adopt you,” Christine sniffed, “after what’s-his-name got all upset about it.  You only saw that deadbeat twice a year, if you were lucky.  I’ll bet he never paid a cent in child support.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“Oh, yes it was.  You just don’t want to remember.”

“I remember it all just fine,” I demurred.  None of the kids at school believed Christine was my sister.  Not only did we have different last names, but we also just looked so different: Christine, the classic tanned California blonde, and me, the silver-haired sprite who had somehow escaped from the pages of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Eventually the rumour took hold that I was a foster child.  I kept waiting for my dad to star in some really big, popular T.V. show or movie so that I could say to my tormentors, See, that’s my dad.  But he never did.  “He tried so hard,” I said out loud.  “You know how tough it is to break into acting.  He had to go where the work took him.”

“You are so stupidly forgiving,” Christine scoffed.  “It’s a pathological condition.  You need help for it.”

“I’ll look into it,” I answered, causing Christine to laugh, just as I’d hoped. 

By the next morning, however, I felt even worse.  I was a failure and a fool.  I thought I’d been realistic to put up with Ethan’s cheating, but I should have known I couldn’t hold his interest forever.  The idea that I could keep anyone’s interest seemed ridiculous, never mind someone like him.  At college I’d been just one of many girls with a crush on him—when he chose me, it felt like a miracle.  Even my friends could hardly believe it.  Perhaps that should have been my first warning...but like so many others, I missed it.  Somehow I had missed everything.

In this grim state of mind I grabbed my sketchpad and headed for the cafe downstairs, desperate to distract myself from the mental self-flagellation that seemed impossible to stop.   In the dingy communal hall the sunlight that streamed through dirty windows formed strange geometric shapes against the walls.  How did I end up here?  Everything in my life had been so perfect: the career of my dreams, the dog of my dreams, the man of my dreams.  But that was the problems with dreams.  They so rarely survived the intrusion of reality.

The career and the dog remained, though, so I tried to scold myself into gratitude as I pushed open the glass doors leading into the bookstore.  At least my positive impression of the cafe proved accurate, because glorious life bustled all around me.  A group of students argued politics over cups of coffee, while nearby business types furiously tapped away on their tablets or cell phones.  Trevor the former drug dealer chatted with his customers, and another one of Rick’s ex-cons stacked the shelves, as he whistled softly to himself.  A few tables were still open but I opted for a rickety chair stationed next to the Philosophy & Religion section.  Although the chair rattled a bit underneath my weight I felt unseen—like an ornithologist holed up in a woodland hide.

Trevor gave me a wave whenever he cleaned a nearby table, but otherwise I was able to sketch out some ideas for my new project about an animal Olympics blissfully undisturbed.  Rick proved to be the only distraction.  Half-expecting him to swear at anyone who interrupted his work, I would listen to his exchanges with the customers, sometimes peering through the leaves of a dusty palm to watch.  His brief, business-like manner varied just once, when an elderly man approached him to ask about a World War II book.  While I still wouldn’t call it friendly, Rick’s tone at least bordered on the courteous.  Wondering why on earth he’d chosen a people-oriented business when he clearly hated people, I caught myself drawing little doodles of him on the margins of my paper.  I enjoyed a quiet snicker at the one of him dressed in green tights with a bow in his hand, surrounded by his merry band of criminals.    

All in all it was a successful visit, so I repeated it every morning for the rest of the week.  My feelings for Rick suffered no revolution—the less contact between us, the better—but I soon warmed to his staff, just as he predicted.  Trevor, with his puppy dog ways, inevitably became my favorite, and Malik, the wise-cracking assistant manager, a close second.  Even Jimmy the resident grump managed to make me laugh with the barbed witticisms he lobbed at Rick on a regular basis.  Not that Rick minded.  He’d just grin before going back to his computer, apparently confident in the fact that he was still the alpha dog.

Maybe it was that confidence that made him so oddly compelling, because I found him fascinating for reasons I couldn’t understand.  He never did much more than tap away at his computer, or help customers in that unfriendly way of his...yet something about him kept me waiting, as if any moment he might justify my interest.  In the meantime I amused myself by keeping track of his t-shirts, which wasn’t hard.  He never wore the same one two days in a row, and the few times he walked past me he smelled pleasant enough, other than immediately after his cigarette breaks in the parking lot.  But he wasn’t going to win any sartorial awards, that was for sure.  I had to stop myself from offering to stitch up the seams on a couple of them.

Happily, he didn’t seem to notice my fascination with him or his wardrobe.  The few times we made eye contact he barely managed to even nod at me, a social slight I found comforting; he would just pretend I didn’t exist as long as I paid my rent on time.  As for me, I could carry on my visits, joining in the only way I knew how.

Or so I thought.  The Monday after my first post-separation visit to Christine (a disaster in and of itself, thanks to the guy she set me up with behind my back) I came to an undignified halt in front of the spot where I usually sat.

My chair was gone.  In its place stood the dusty potted palm.

I was frowning at the palm, baffled by its presence, when a voice said from behind me, “Ah, you’re here.”  Rick floated into my peripheral vision, a book with a battered cover in his hand.  “The chair is gone,” he told me.  “It was falling apart.  I couldn’t take the risk of you hurting yourself and suing me for damages, so I had to get rid of it.  Sorry.”

I just stood there, too embarrassed to respond. 

“Let me find another table for you,” Rick said.

“I just—I think—I have to go anyway.”

When I started to move toward the door, he stepped in front of me.  “Now hold on,” he returned, “is that really necessary?  I would hate to think that I chased you away by insisting you sit in a functional chair.  You don’t want me to feel guilty, do you?”

That Rick might feel any emotion even resembling guilt seemed absurd.  Even so, I began, “No, but-”

“Then let’s see what else we can find you.  I know it’s crowded today, but I think I have the perfect spot for you,” Rick said, and taking me by the elbow he led me over to a table near the information desk.  He swiftly removed the Reserved sign on it, as he said, “This is just the ticket.  It’s tucked away against the wall, yet you’ll still have a good view of everything going on.  Plus, you’ll have enough light to do your drawing.”  He pried the mug out of my hand and set it on the table.  “Your new spot,” he announced.  “Enjoy.”

Well, with Rick watching I had no choice but to do his bidding.  I made myself drink my tea and stay for almost an entire hour before I crept back upstairs.  As I slunk past his desk my face burned with shame.  He obviously thought I was an idiot.  Sadly, I had a horrible feeling he might just be right. 

In retaliation I considered never visiting the cafe again, but my boycott lasted a mere two days.  Boredom and misery proved a formidable one-two punch I could not withstand.  Telling myself a little humiliation wouldn’t kill me—my life had been full of it, after all—I surrendered to the need for people interaction and braved another visit.  Trevor beamed at me from behind the counter as I scanned the store like a hunted animal.  Only when I couldn’t see Rick anywhere did I feel my shoulders relax.  “Hi there, Stevie,” Trevor said.  “You look kind of sick.  Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” 

“Great!  Will it be your usual, or are you trying something different today?”  

   

“The usual, please.”

“Excellent.  Have a seat and I’ll bring it out to you.”

“Oh!  Thank you,” I said, touched by the gesture, but when I reached into my purse Trevor told me, “It’s on the house.”

“Why?”

“Boss’s orders—you’ll have to ask him.  I just do what I’m told,” Trevor said cheerfully, and set about making my tea.  I retreated to the table that Rick had earmarked for me on my last visit, more miserable than ever.  Things were descending into the absurd.  I hated receiving so much special treatment, just because Rick now considered me the worst kind of social misfit.  All I’d really wanted was not to be noticed, but somehow I had become the bookstore’s adopted pet instead.  Well, I told myself, after today I would find another cafe to visit.  It might not be as convenient or as interesting, but hey, at least the people who worked there would ignore me.

So resolved, I had just opened my sketchbook when the cup of tea I ordered appeared on my table.  I looked up, ready to thank Trevor—only to find myself face to face with Rick, gazing down on me with his usual expression of disapproval.  “Stevie,” my nemesis said.  He was wearing his faded navy blue t-shirt, the one with the ripped seam on the lower right side.  “You finally came.”

I don’t know why I was surprised that he had noticed my brief boycott.   Nothing seemed to escape his critical eye.  “I was on a tight deadline,” I lied.

“All done now?”

I nodded morosely.

“Good,” Rick replied, and treated me to that peculiar, piercing expression of his that so stymied me during our many difficult silences.  If only I could understand why he kept trying!  “Well, I’ll let you get to it,” he said at last.  “I’m sure you have things to do.”

“Wait!” I blurted out.

Rick stopped.

“The free drinks,” I said.  “It’s a one-time thing, right?”

“No.”

“But-”

“We’re not going to argue about that, too, are we?”

“But-”

“What a shame,” Rick interrupted.  “And just when we were starting to get along.  Do you know how much one cup of herbal tea costs me?  Almost nothing.  Consider it a perk for paying your rent on time.  And having someone associated with the publishing industry come in here gives the place some class, so don’t worry.  I’m not the nice guy you seem to think I am.”

Something in my expression must have amused him, because he chuckled.  “Okay, then.  I have to go out, but I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow, since your schedule has cleared up now.”

I sighed.  Apparently satisfied with this response, Rick gave me a small wave and sauntered off, whistling a little tune to himself.

That pretty much settled it. Unwilling to risk free muffins delivered to my apartment door, I conceded defeat and decided against further boycotts—without, I must admit, too much bitterness.  Even with Rick lurking about, threatening to talk to me, I figured I’d be able to relax enough for the people-watching sessions that I found so stimulating.  And so what if Rick thought I was an idiot.  I was starting to get used to it.

When I went to bed that night I was still a bit unsettled, however.  I always needed ages to get over a confrontation, even the type that most people would classify as only a mild misunderstanding.  I lay awake for what felt like hours, but just when I thought I would never sleep suddenly I was standing in an enormous elevator.  Puzzled, I looked around me.  That was when I saw it.

A dragon.  A big red dragon.

He stood on the other side of the elevator, watching me through narrowed, yellow eyes.

Although he seemed dangerous in a quiet sort of way, I didn’t feel in fear of my life.  Nor did it seem all that surprising when he said to me, “Hello,” and thus proved himself to also be a talking dragon.

“Hello,” I answered.  When I tried to smile this made him eye me with yet more suspicion, so I stopped.  “Um, are we going somewhere?” I asked him.

“No.  At least, not yet.”

“But we might?”

The dragon clearly didn’t want to answer this question.  When the silence seemed like it might stretch into eternity, I told him, “I don’t understand why I’m here.”

“Because I wanted to know something,” the dragon replied.  He gave me a speculative look.  “Do you know who I am?”

“No.”

“Hmmmn,” he said. 

“Aren’t you going to tell me?”

“No.”

“Okay,” I answered, relieved for some reason.  “But what is it you want to know?”

“Your secrets.”

“I don’t have any—at least, I don’t think I do.  Other than the boring kind, I mean.”

Amused, the dragon replied, “That’s where you’re wrong.  Your secrets are the type I find most interesting.”

“Why?” I asked.  “Because,” the dragon said, “they aren’t the kind you keep from others—they’re the kind you keep from yourself.”

“And what are those, exactly?”

“That you don’t love them.”

“Don’t love who?”

The dragon shook his giant, scaly head.  “You’ll have to answer that question for yourself.  But when you do, remember this: love is a gift.  Not a right.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded, only to find myself in a field of flowers.  The dragon had gone.  When I looked up into the sky the sun nearly blinded me.

In the morning I didn’t remember this dream until I was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee.  What had gotten into my psyche, I couldn’t say, but I hoped my subconscious had worked through whatever issue was bothering it, because I didn’t want to see that dragon again.  Ever.     

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