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No onewants to go to jail. I may like my life to follow a predictable routine, one that stops me from feeling everything is spinning out of control, but that doesn’t mean I want to experience life only in single-size helpings. The way I’m drawn to Mira—who feels like life itself, like fire wrapped in flesh, like a revelation that dawns on me every time I see her—is proof of that.
Mira squeezes my hand, and I make a note to myself to get her some gloves. I haven’t seen any sitting around the apartment, and her hands are cold. I layer my other hand over hers, trying to give her my heat.
“What are we going to do?” she asks.
The way she says it, so easily, as if it’s a given we’ll be dealing with this together, warms something inside of me. I wasn’t totally honest with her earlier. While I did tell Dunkins that she was my girlfriend because I was hoping he’d lay off, I also did it because I wanted to say the word, to let it flow out of my mouth and enter the world. Like a wish I was freeing. Like a balloon flying out of a child’s hand—although this wish will hopefully not strangle a marine animal.
Maybe I’m a sentimental fool, an idiot, no good with women, but I’d like to be a ‘we’ with her. It’s felt like we were one over the past couple of weeks. Spending time with her is more sustaining to me than food. Than water. Than work. And being inside of her, claiming her…it felt right in a deep, aching way. I know, in a way that guarantees I’m a sentimental fool, that she was right. Iwaswaiting for her. If she were to leave—
The void would feel like a gaping black hole, the quiet, deafening.
But I don’t want her to stay, or to help me, if she’s going to get pulled into trouble on my account. I’ve knowingly done something that could get me into deep shit. She doesn’t have to get caught up in that. She shouldn’t.
And if the woman across the way really is watching us, then there are two people who have me on their radar. Two people who could hurt Mira. If Big Mike’s a cop, interested in me because of the Burkes or maybe because I’m Bo Peep, then who the fuck is the woman across the street?”
Her lips firm. “You can stop looking at me like that because I’m not going anywhere. Not happening.”
My heart beats faster, because I want her to stay…even if it’s the last thing she should do. “What about the blonde woman?”
“What about her? We still haven’t established which one of us is actually the weirdo pervert. I’ve used those binoculars you let me borrowveryliberally. Most of the time she’s just knitting.”
“What color yarn?”
She gives me a weird look. “White, I think.”
Bo Peep. Sheep. It’s a stretch, but it could be a message. I say as much, and her lips firm.
“You said there was only a folding chair and desk in there. Is that still true?”
“Yes.”
“You were right. It is weird.” Another puzzle to be solved. I have to find out who rents or owns that unit. “Did Big Mike notice you noticing him at the station?”
“I don’t think so,” she says, her brow furrowed. “He ducked into that office pretty quickly. If he knew he’d been seen, it seems like he would have handled it differently.”
She’s right, which is a relief. I can try dealing with him differently now that I know. Maybe I’ll have to make an invitation of my own.
“Your friend,” Mira says, and I stir, glancing in front of us. Shane is striding up the green in big steps, a smirk on his face as he takes us in on the bench. It’s Saturday, a day off, but I’m not surprised to see him in his suit, as if he just headed over from the office. As always, he seems to notice everything—my hand covering hers, the way we’re sitting close together.
I lift Mira up, then help her with her crutches. We’re standing by the time Shane reaches us.
“They sprung you?” he asks. “Do I even want to know what you were doing? I figured it might have something to do with that peroxide guy.”
Knowing Mira, I’m not surprised when she says, “Indecent exposure, but there’s something else we need to talk to you about. In private. While you drive us back to Danny’s car.” She pauses a second before adding, “Please.”
He gives me an ‘are you serious about this’ look, and I nod, because yes, it’s a serious situation, and yes, Iamserious about her.
“Okay,” he says, nodding slowly. “I’ll need to make some calls if I’m not going back in today.”
He does that as we walk back to his car. Once we’re inside and on our way up to the mountain spot, which he knows as well as I do, I tell him everything. When I get to the part about working under the name Bo Peep, he squeezes the wheel hard. I don’t have to ask whether he’s pissed. I know he is. He’s mad that I didn’t tell him—and madder that I did something stupid that could get me into the kind of trouble he might not be able to pull me back from. We’ll be talking about that later, I’m sure, and not in front of Mira. Then I tell him about Big Mike’s weird behavior and how Mira saw him at the station. I also tell him about the mystery woman in the apartment across the way.
“You were watching her with binoculars?” Shane asks, glancing at Mira in the rearview mirror.
“Binoculars aren’t illegal,” she insists.
“Depends on what you’re watching,” he says with an almost smile.
“I didn’t see anything fun, just an empty apartment with a folding chair and table. She’s always by the table, sometimes knitting, sometimes not. We figured that could be a sign. The wool. Bo Peep.”
