Chapter 2
Dante, forcing himself to resist his first instinct, turned to walk back up the stairs. The cacophony of the rolling, thudding, squeaking baggage wheels was punctuated by muffled cursing.
"Goddamn piece of shit luggage," mumbled the woman behind her curtain of black hair.
Dante put his hand on the stair rail, inhaled deeply and rolled his eyes upward. All right, one last time, he thought. I'll be the hero one last fucking time. He turned to walk back down the stairs.
"Hey, you need help with that?" he asked.
"No, I'm fine," huffed the woman, as she heaved the load over a hole decayed into the pier. "You'd think they would have redone this goddamn deck in all these years."
"I don't think it's meant for rolling luggage on."
"Thanks, that's very helpful. The boat shuttle from JFK drops off here. You'd think they would make the surface amenable to luggage. People coming from airports usually have luggage. You know?"
Mildly impressed by the fact that anyone would ride a boat all the way from JFK in Brooklyn to upstate New York, Dante ventured again, "Look, can I help you carry that? Which way are you going? I could take it up the stairs for you."
The bag the woman was dragging looked like it had seen better days. Ragged, carpetbag looking piece for crap, reminding Dante of the luggage his mom used to have in the early 90's. The woman, ignoring Dante, momentarily stopped dragging the bag, took a phone out of her pocket, and pried it open. She held it up at various angles and muttered, "Most reliable network, my ass."
She snapped the phone shut and returned it to her pocket. Pulling her hair back behind one ear, she said, "Okay, maybe you can help me. My phone's dead. This is going to sound strange but would you happen to know a Robin Scorpio?"
"Dr. Scorpio? Yeah, I've run into her a couple times."
"Would you happen to know where she's living these days? I know, it's not like this town is so small that everyone knows everyone's address. It's just that my phone…I need to reach her."
"Uh, no, I don' t know where she lives, but I can maybe call someone who might," Dante took his phone out of his pocket and flipped it open, "Her ex, as a matter of fact. He may know."
Dante started to dial Jason's number and stopped, staring at the phone. No, Jason was another one. Another person in this town who Dante couldn't reach out to anymore. Sonny's right hand man wasn't about to offer driving directions to Sonny's new bastard son. What had he been thinking? The impulse to call Jason had come so naturally. He was Sonny's go-to guy and had served the same role for Dante many times. Jason, with that deceptively vacant look like nothing at all was going on his head at all, crickets chirping, and yet still miraculously being able to see two weeks into the future. It was a rare gift. A gift no longer available for Dante to tap.
Meanwhile the woman had started harping, "Her ex? You mean Jason?" The frustration on the woman's face had suddenly turned to anger. "You know Jason? Okay, so you must be one of the mob contingent in this town. It figures. You've got the look," she said derisively.
"And what look is that?" Dante also started to grow angry. All he wanted was to get this woman on her way so he could be alone and figure shit out. What was with all the chirping? "Look, I'm kind of new to this town too. I'm sorry I don't have Dr. Scorpio's number on speed dial. I'd like to help you, but if I can't then, so be it. Good luck!" Dante gave a cursory salute and started to walk away.
The woman breathed in and scrambled to stop him. "Okay, I'm sorry. It's just that the shuttle dropped me off at the wrong spot. I was supposed to go straight to Harborview Road, to the Quartermaine dock. And this luggage is heavy and broken and old." She lifted the bag up and threw it down roughly. "I can't believe I've been carrying this shit around for the last fifteen years. You know how some people hold on to stuff for good luck? Well, this bag here, it's brought me nothing but bad luck. And here I am still holding on to it."
All right, Dante thought, that was the last straw. Here he had Lulu on the one hand, a tease of a girl who wouldn't divulge so much as the time that she was getting off of work let alone her feelings about anything, unless he harangued her for it, relentlessly making him feel like a pushy, desperate jerk. And now, here was this woman spilling her guts, telling him her life story, the first five seconds after meeting him. Too much information, lady, he wanted to say.
Maybe Spinelli had it right after all. Get you rocks off in front of a computer monitor, in front of some role-playing game where you can play hero to the lady of your choosing and have her love you and have virtual sex with you forever, and leave these living, breathing, whack-job women to take care of their own damn selves. Dante was sick of being kind. He was sick of being a gentleman. Sonny was a gentleman. And look how he'd treated the women in his life. To women like the one standing in front of him, men like Dante were deemed obsolete. All right, then, let him be obsolete. Fuck if he cared anymore.
He sighed and said, "Okay, let me just help you get this bag up the stairs and then you can take it from there, does that work for you?"
Dante bent down to pick up the suitcase. At the same time, the woman bent down to shove the suitcase closer to Dante. Their heads bumped, releasing her hair from behind her ear in a cascading waterfall, brushing his face. Goddamn, son of a bitch, he thought, as the sensation swept over him, like a raging assault. Black velvet against his face. And the scent of her: Jeez fucking Louise. Dante let out a bark of a cough to release the impending stiffening. He stretched out his hand. "Dante Falconeri. Welcome to Port Charles."
The woman cocked her head to one side, threw out her hand to meet his, and said, "Falconeri? Hm. I'm Brenda. Brenda Barrett."
Dante pointed to the suitcase to assure he had the all clear. Brenda nodded and he picked up the bag and carried it up the stairs, with her following behind him. He set the suitcase down and lingered, noticing her stare. "What? Is there something else I can help you with?" he asked.
"No, no, that's fine. You've been very kind." She smiled and kept gazing at him, her head again cocked to one side. Wide brown eyes with tiny lines around them at each side. He knew better than to ever call attention to those little lines out loud to any woman, but, right now, to him, they looked like rays of light shooting out of her eyes. A smile and rays of light, but, still, the saddest eyes he had ever seen.
The woman shook off her gaze and said, "Sorry, I don't mean to be a freak. You just remind me a little. Of someone I used to know a long time ago."
