Wrapped in my towel, I went to the living area and grabbed my phone. I opened my music and hit shuffle. LP’s “Tightrope” came on, like some sort of gift.
I stood in the middle of my little studio, listening to her achingly beautiful voice that said, with every soaring syllable, that she knew exactly what longing was.
Just look out into forever.
My hands balled into fists and tears stung my eyes.
Don’t look down, not ever.
“Don’t look down,” I said. “Just keep going.”
I sucked in deep breaths. My hands unclenched.
And when the song ended, I put on some clothes and went into the kitchen to make a tuna casserole.
Sawyer
I set down my pen and bent my fingers back to stretch the stiffness out of them. My latest notebook was nearly full, every page covered in my ‘translations’ of California Family Law code. I felt pretty confident about the final next week. Not so confident about Judge Miller’s latest assignment.
Beside me, my trashcan was brimming with snowballs of paper. Rough drafts of the brief I’d started and stopped a dozen times when the pain threatened to bubble up and spill out onto the page. He wanted life and I saw only death.
Red and blue flashing lights colored my memory and I blinked them away.
I stretched and rubbed my aching neck. The clock read eleven-thirty. Above me, a floorboard creaked.
Darlene.
I wondered what she was doing tonight. Earlier, I’d heard the faint sounds of a song she was listening to. Did she dance to it? Was she wearing that tight black dance top with the crisscrossing straps? The top that accentuated the lean muscle of her arms and shoulders in the back, and highlighted the small perfection of her breasts in the front. Was she smiling that smile of hers that made it seem like nothing in the entire fucking world could possibly be bad?
You’re getting loopy. Time to call it.
I started to pack up my materials into my briefcase. A soft knock came at the door.
I opened it to Darlene.
She wasn’t wearing that dance top, but a peach-colored sundress, no shoes. The dress skimmed her breasts and flared out at her narrow waist. Her hair fell over shoulders, dark with dampness from a recent shower. Oven mitts covered her hands to protect them from the glass pan she held. The delicious scent of tuna casserole wafted up from underneath the tinfoil. It smelled warm and good in a way my TV dinners never did.
“I know it’s late, but I took a chance that you were up,” she said. “I made another casserole. Mostly because it’s the only thing I know how to make. And to keep myself out of trouble.”
She seemed on the verge of tears for a second, but blinked them away to smile brightly. “Anyway this is for you. Can I just drop it off? Then I’ll go.”
“Uh, sure,” I said, opening the door for her. “Thanks.”
“I don’t want it to go to waste.” She breezed past me and set it on the kitchen counter. “You can return the pan whenever.”
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Sure. Great. I don’t want to bother you. I should go back…” She headed for the door, head down and her voice thick. “Livvie’s asleep? Of course, it’s late…”
“Darlene, what’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing. Stupid, really.” At my door, she took off the oven mitts and tucked them under her arm. “I just had some kind of good news today and I wanted to tell somebody. At 11:30 at night,” she said with a small laugh. “Sorry, never mind. I don’t want to bother you.”
She turned to leave and I knew I’d never sleep that night if I let her.
“Don’t go,” I said. “I could really use some good news right about now.”
“Oh, did you have a bad day?” Darlene said softly. Her beautiful face that had been wrought with inward pain, instantly opened with outward concern. For me. “You can talk about it. If you want.”