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“Something’s teetering her over the edge…” Mitch gazed out the window. The rain had eased for a moment, but the fog that rolled through San Francisco that morning had never burned off. One could hardly see the building across the street. Headlights flashed on the street. “Which means she’s exposing a big weakness… and is probably the most dangerous she’s been yet.”
“Not a good time to be her character witness. She might explode.”
“You know that type of woman better than me. Inside the head, that is…” Mitch thanked their server for her iced coffee. “Do you think she’ll hurt Thalia?”
Vanessa shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. That trail of thinking confounds me. Even when I knew little about my partners and saw them as nothing more than a temporary companion… I would have neverhurtthem. Not because I couldn’t control myself. You’re really worried about this girl, huh?”
Mitch sighed. “She’s not like me. She wants to be like me, but she’s made of different stuff. She’s very… you know. Sensitive. Emotional. Two things that make a particular kind of lifestyler, but not the kind who can be with a woman like Candace. And live through it.”
“Here’s hoping she responds to you, then.”
Mitch checked her phone. Her shoulders slumped. “Guess I’ll know more this weekend.”
Vanessa finally convinced Mitch to take her hand. “You’re a good friend.”
“I could be better. I could find a way to stop this.”
Although Vanessa didn’t like the way her partner said that, she let it go.
When Mitch finally responded to Vanessa’s delicate advances that night, the woman on top knew better than to expect anything beyond vanilla.Delicatewas exactly what Mitch needed the whole way through.
Honestly, they both did.
Yet when Mitch was halfway to forgetting the worst of her worries, Vanessa doing what she did best with two fingers, one of their phones rang loudly on the nightstand.
Any other night and Vanessa would have ignored it. Maybe she would have insisted that Mitch ignore it, too, a command added as extra flavoring to the moment. Yet she knew it was fruitless now. Mitch was snapped out of everything they did. Only her phone existed.
Vanessa went to the bathroom. Her partner’s voice drifted through the open door.
“No, it’s okay.” Mitch ran her hand through her mussed hair as she sat on the bed with her back toward Vanessa. “Of course I can. Tell me where to go.”
Vanessa almost insisted that Mitch take her gun. That was how little she trusted anything anyone on the phone had to say to the woman with too much justice simmering in her heart.
Thalia asked to meet Mitch at her apartment near Parkside. Her voice was not as chipper as before, but she remarked that she was there to gather some of her things but wanted to speak with Mitch first. Confidentlyandconfidentially.
“She won’t know you’re there,”Thalia said.“Ms. Lister, I mean.”
After quickly freshening up, Mitch threw on her jeans and hoodie before driving up to Parkside, a neighborhood not too far from the San Francisco Zoo and hovering near Merced Park. Mitch had driven through here a hundred times before, but this was the first time she visited someone in their home. In Thalia’s case, it was a small 350sqft studio on the second floor overlooking an alley.
Affordable enough for someone making Thalia’s wages, Mitch supposed.
Thalia peered through the crack in her door before letting Mitch in. For the first time since meeting each other, Thalia wore a sweatshirt like Mitch’s, the hood drawn tight.
“Everything okay?” Mitch asked while taking stock of the small apartment. From the state of things, Thalia was either getting ready to move… or someone had ransacked her place while she was out of the country. “You didn’t sound great on the phone.”
Thalia stood in front of her efficiency kitchen, dithering between two novelty glasses that were still marked with the remnants of thrift store stickers. “Ms. Lister asked me to move into her house. Have you ever been there? It’s so big… you can fit like a hundred people in there and hardly see anyone else. She’s got a dungeon in the basement and everything.”
“So I’ve heard.”
While she moved through her apartment, Thalia kept her back to Mitch, who sat in a plastic chair by the only surface suitable for eating off of.Can’t afford anything in this city, even if you’re working an under-the-table job for Candace Lister.Mitch had seen Thalia’s wardrobe, though. She probably ate well, too.
Thalia went through some of those clothes now as she pulled a suitcase out from underneath her bed and rooted through it like a drawer. “Everything’s happened so fast. It’s like she suddenly noticed me.” Thalia sniffed. “Fairy-tale come true.” She didn’t sound convincing.
“Everything okay?” Mitch asked again.
Finally, Thalia stood up and turned around. Mitch couldn’t see it while standing on her friend’s doorstep, but now she beheld the makeup barely covering some mark on Thalia’s face. It wasn’t a black eye, nor was it a cut. Candace wouldn’t operate like that.
Mitch didn’t mention it. Thalia sat on her twin bed, scratching her cheek.
