Brief Encounters With Che Guevara_ Stories - Ben Fountain [28]
A sigh like dust drifted through her boss’s door.
For the next two hours Melissa answered the phone, typed letters and motions, juggled the walk-ins, and tracked down shifty witnesses. If she didn’t singlehandedly run the criminal justice system she kept her end of it from clogging up altogether, this in spite of feeling slightly homicidal this morning. Her emotions were skidding around on a sheet of ice, a big jackknifed trailerful of ire and angst careening through the traffic of a normal day. Dirk had still been asleep when she’d left for work, so their argument was technically still in play; time out! she said to herself when James called, feeling something like relief. They made small talk for a while. He called her “angel.” His voice was smooth and sweet as hot buttered rum.
“What say you and me grab some lunch today?”
She hesitated.
“It’s just lunch, babe, come on. I want to take you someplace special.”
Melissa sighed. Mainly it made her sad, what he was offering.
“I don’t think I can.”
“Don’t think you can!” he cried, still cheerful, still glib, but she could feel his anger rising. “You have to eat, don’t you?”
“Yes, but James…” She lowered her voice. “I just don’t think I should see you anymore.”
“Melissa.”
She swallowed.
“We need to talk. That’s why I’m asking you out, we need to talk about that night. Outside the bar, when we—”
“I know what we did.”
“These aren’t casual feelings I have for you. I think we had something special going on.”
“Oh James. What we had was a makeout session in a parking lot.”
“You know it was more than that. You know where it was heading, if the car alarm hadn’t gone off we’d of—”
“But it did. That’s life. And my husband’s back and I’m in a different place now.”
He sucked in a breath. “All right. All right. But I heard about you, I know some people you used to party with. They told me what a little wild-ass you were—”
Her eyes burned. Dammitdammitdammit…
“—you may be acting the good little wife now but I know what a whore you are, you cocksucking little cunt—”
She slammed down the phone and kicked back from her desk. She would not, repeat, NOT cry, but with this macho bastard stalking her and two sex-crazed goddesses swarming her husband, maybe she was allowed—or maybe she was just getting what she deserved, an evil she’d brought on Dirk and her both. Some dark, avid thing spilling out of herself. Lay DOWN that sin! the radio had howled this morning. WARNING, the sign at Calvary Baptist read today, EXPOSURE TO THE SON MAY PREVENT BURNING. Twenty thousand American soldiers had invaded Haiti, and this creature, this succubus, had singled out Dirk as the chosen one. Melissa knew there was someone she could call for help, someone she’d been aware of all along, but this was family, which usually made everything worse. She managed to stall for most of the rest of the morning, then finally plunked the phone book down on her desk. Dialing the number she considered the pause-giving fact that PSYCHICS was right next to PSYCHOLOGISTS in the Yellow Pages.
“Hello?” Her cousin Rhee picked up on the first ring. Melissa launched into an explanation of who she was, Margaret Poole’s youngest daughter and thus Rhee’s second cousin once removed—
“I know who you are,” Rhee interrupted, laughing—she couldn’t have been less fazed if they talked twice a day.
Melissa asked if they might meet. To discuss a small, uh, personal matter—
“How about for lunch?” Rhee suggested.
“You mean today?”
“Sure, why not?”
Melissa resisted the thought that Rhee had been expecting her call. They made plans, then Melissa asked how she would know Rhee at the restaurant. She hadn’t seen her older cousin in years, and had a fuzzy recollection at best.
“Oh,” Rhee laughed,