I stop cold in my tracks.
“What did you just say?”
“She’s probably at Margaret’s,” he repeats again tiredly. Fuck. How much did Lacy tell Charlie about her life? This doesn’t make any sense.
But suddenly, the clouds part and I have a flash of insight. Holy shit, they know each other from before. Somehow my girl and this loser artist were entangled in some manner. Shit. Fuck. Shit.
“What the hell Charlie?”
“I’m just telling the truth. That’s where she always went when we had fights.”
“What the fuck Charlie. What the FUCK is going on here?”
“Nothing,” he shakes his head sadly. “I’m just a painter now.”
I hurl my fist at a lamp, which falls to the floor and breaks. I’m sorely tempted to punch the wall except that these walls have aluminum plate behind the woodwork.
“Are you two sleeping together? Tell me right now you mother fucker!”
“No.”
“Say it again! Did you put your cock in her mouth? Her pussy? You tell me.”
“No, we were waiting until marriage.”
That makes me even angrier, my temperature shooting through the roof.
“What the fuck Charlie! Don’t fuck with me!”
I’m fuming. I see my old squad mate sit
ting there in front of me, still as a rock. There’s no light in his eyes whatsoever. Fuck, I can’t think about this right now because all I can see in my mind’s eye is Lacy. Lacy is somewhere far from me. The pain shoots a knife through my heart. My heart is all hers.
Fuck, Charlie’s right anyway. She is probably at Margaret’s. I throw a glass cup on the marble and storm out of the living room. I’m on a mission now. I haven’t felt this much urgency since my days overseas. So without any hesitation, I hop into my Maserati and speed through New York City like the world was about to end. When I see Aunt Margaret’s apartment, I’m amazed. She’s had the whole front of it painted like a rainbow. There are whimsical flowers and animals dancing over the brick in a glorious mural. It should look awful, but it’s actually quite charming.
But I’m not in the mood for charming. I’m in the mood for answers.
I burst through the front doors, and run up the stairs as if my life depended on it. The air in my chest is tight, and I feel like I’m about to lose someone again. I’m transported back to that day when I carried my dead mother to the hospital on quaking knees. Before I enter Margaret’s flat, a prayer escapes my lips.
Please God. Don’t let it be too late this time.
I open the door. There, on the Victorian tapestry couch is Aunt Margaret, and she’s holding my Lacy in her arms. The blonde girl is crying, absolutely sobbing into her aunt’s breast.
“Lacy,” I say, my heart thumping like a drum. I come down next to her and kneel. I look up in Margaret’s eyes. She nods to me.
“Lacy baby. Tell me what’s wrong. Was it Charlie Baker? Did he scare you?”
“Howie darling,” says Margaret gently. “Charlie Baker is the man Lacy has been running from. That’s her ex-boyfriend.”
The words cut me like a thousand tiny knives. Oh my god.
“But- but- Lacy? Oh my god. It all makes sense. Lacy, how did he come into our home?”
Lacy heaves a sob onto her aunt’s velvet coated chest, and it’s Margaret who answers instead.
“Your butler hired him Howie. It’s nobody’s fault. It was an honest mistake. Lacy feels terrible about it.”
Lacy lifts up her eyes and meets mine.