"He hit on me."
That was a head turner, and not just because Emily these days mostly sat quietly listening to others; which was a polite way of saying she was always somewhere else. Like a quieter Janine of old.
"I'd not remembered, not until seeing him in the forest." She recounted that her life while trapped in Gilead had been 'rather chaotic', as she euphemistically called it. Formally charged and convicted of gender treachery, witnessing her martha-lover being executed, being herself mutilated, being sent to the Colonies…. you get the idea. She'd once made a joke, 'It was hard to put down roots'. Emily had had a lot on her mind to remember one obscure Guardian like Nick, out of the many who had dragged her to and fro.
That evening with the other survivors of Gilead - as well as Sylvia her wife - Emily remembered.
It was no surprise that June was the one to break Emily's silence. "Nick? Nick Blaine? Nick Blaine hit on you?"
Both June and Emily were wearing ankle-monitors, a condition from the fall-out following Commander Fred Waterford's murder. Whereas no criminal jurisdiction advanced any criminal charges against them - Quebec's jurisdiction was 20 feet north of where Waterford had been found - both Emily and June were now having their refugee status 'reviewed'. Canada's Minister of Refugees and Immigration had personally ordered the bracelets.
Part of that review was that the two be monitored 24/7. That meant the inability to go anywhere. For the duration. While Commander Nick Blaine himself sat in the ITWC Detention Centre, just a few cell-doors down from where Serena Joy Waterford and her baby were.
As Emily sat in silence, Rita spoke, "June, you weren't Emily's first shopping partner."
June turned to Rita, "Ya, someone no one seems to want to talk about. I had to come to Canada to find out what had happened back there at the Waterford's."
Rita continued, "I once called out Nick for it. But truly, what could I do? Nick was involved with the first Offred. Nick and Fred were essentially, competing for the same woman. Those were the days when I kept my head down and tried to blend in with the walls. Keep to my own business." She muttered, adding, 'unlike the Deeds martha'.
This time it was Sylvia who spoke, "You know what? We should probably let Em continue." Looking at her wife she added with a sarcastic tone, "if she wants to, that is. Em is quite content letting others do the talking."
"No, I'm good," Emily said.
After a moment she began, "I'd not even known her name. We were shopping partners, that was it. Hell, I'd not known June's name until returning from the Colonies."
"Not to put a damper on it, or anything," Rita interjected, "should we be talking this way? Are we supposed to refrain from comparing notes about Nick, at least until after any trial?"
June said sharply, "they can bite me." Rubbing her ankle she added, "I've got my own issues."
Sylvia added, "if you want my opinion, you people let yourselves be pushed around way, way, too much. Why don't we just let Em decide…"
OFGLEN'S TALE
Ofglen had just dropped Offred #1 off at the Waterford gate and was on the sidewalk towards the Deeds almost past the property line, when her shopping bag split. It didn't take much to throw Ofglen into one of her 'spells' as she called them. She'd only once had them back in Montana, but no one back there ever whipped her for breaking eggs. Just bigger stuff.
There didn't seem any point in picking up the broken shells, now that the eggs' contents were on the pavement. 'Nutrition for birds, I guess, and a beating for me' she thought.
Then again, she had obviously lost track of the aura clouding her vision - her panic attacks now always included that fog.
Which this time had been interrupted. By the Waterford driver. Nick.
There he was in their Commander's Mercedes SUV at the curb beside her, he on the driver's side with the passenger window open.
"Hey Ofglen," he said invitingly. "Look, get in. I can get you to Loaves and Fishes and back, and you won't even be late getting home to the Deeds." Emily stood there frozen, so Nick added, "Hey, it's no sweat, our martha, Rita, knows I'm doing this."
Memories of Emily's High School grad back in Shelby welled up, replaced the groceries as a source of immobilizing panic. Where the guy from the football team, the Montana State Champion team, had taken her parking. Where he had figured out that she 'preferred girls'. As a result, her last few months in the town had been a hell. It had meant she'd come East to the Ivy league, rather than to Missoula for college. Her parents had wanted Missoula.
After the eggs had been secured - no problem at Loaves and Fishes extra eggs for the Deeds - Emily noted that Nick was not taking a direct route home. High School welled a second time, this is what the football guy had done on grad night. Gone parking way outside of Shelby. He'd wanted a blow-job when Emily had refused sex.
The SUV pulled over in that secluded place and Nick stopped the engine.
"Ofglen, you and I need to talk." Nick never got out of the driver's seat, but he did turn to fully face her in the back. "Ofglen, I need to ask about Offred." He proceeded to gently probe as to what Ofglen knew about her. About if Offred had ever mentioned him.
Emily had heard from Ofrobert about 'Eyes', which she had called, 'Eyes of God'. 'Don't be a dummy about it,' Ofrobert had said, 'they have fifteen-ways-to-Wednesday to get info out of you. Don't get sucked in. Just agree and apologize, they like being forgiving.'
BACK AT THE DEEDS
Honestly, Emily had not remembered how the blow-job came to be. Back in her room at the Deeds, the taste was one that grossed her out. She was a married woman for God's sake, and not even Glen Deeds forced her to do what other Handmaids like Ofwarren had to endure.
If you ignored the monthly State-sanctioned, mandatory rapes, that is.
The Deeds' martha had noted that Ofglen had been dropped off by the Waterford driver, she had got the whole story from Rita over at the Waterfords, so was on the lookout.
Still, Ofglen, alone on her room, felt in a vise. There was no question that Nick had been quizzing her about the Waterfords, but had also asked about the Deeds' household.
If only she could remember. Had he forced the blow-job on to her, or had she volunteered one as a way to stop the questioning?
The only thing missing from this and High School? Back in Shelby the police had questioned her about the football player, too. It wasn't so much what they said, but how they asked. They may as well have asked outright, "Since when did you become such a carpet-munching, slut?"
Ok, maybe Gilead DID resemble Shelby.
BACK IN ANKLE-BRACELETS
"Syl," Emily said, "thanks for all that, but I can speak for myself. Really, I can."
The room went silent, waiting. Emily noted that rooms like these rarely waited long enough for her. Her loved-one, Sylvia, did not rise to the bait of Emily's small rebuke. Sylvia, too, just waited for Emily to begin.
Once the words had been formed, that was what Emily did.
Begin.
"Ok, Nick. He hit on me, or so it seemed. It was all a blur with June's predecessor. I never knew her name, but I knew Nick had been involved with her."
Rita said silently, "I never knew her name, either. I was such a bitch to her." Then Syl glowered at Rita, forcing Rita to concede, "Sorry. Emily, please keep going."
"Ofrobert, she was Alma. She was schooling me on Gilead, had been the one to warn that Eyes had been planted in homes, even Commanders homes. The way Nick questioned me - he was either investigating Offred, or he was doing what teenage boys did with their girlfriend's BFF's, quizzing them for info."
Emily looked at the carpet in front of her. "But Jesus, this was not Shelby, this was fucking Gilead."
She turned to look at June, who coincidentally and right on cue was rubbing her ankle where the bracelet chaffed. "I tried to warn you, June. You and me, we'd only been at one particicution together, that time that that Mayday guy had been ripped apart by Handmaids. Ofrobert was mad as a hatter about that one, but what could anyone do?"
THE IMPENDING TRIAL
June asked, "Emily, if you're called to Nick's trial, what are you going to say?"
Emily said, "you mean if I'm asked if I have direct knowledge that Nick had had something to do with Offred #1's death? If I'm asked that, I now know to say, 'ask Rita that one'."
"But June, there's you." Few actually took on June about anything 'Nick'." Luke was now long-gone, and had been granted temporary custody of Nichole, along with Moira Strand - herself noticeably missing from this current conflab with the other ex-pat Gilead women.
Emily repeated, "there's you, June. I mean, I'd known about you and Nick and Nichole. Still, it was a shock to see Fred Waterford with Nick in the forest that night. That's when it became real - honestly, my rage against Waterford took precedence, though." Emily leaned down and massaged her own ankle. "If it had been Nick we were chasing, that would have been fine with me."
"So you tell me, June, you tell me," Emily said softly but accusingly. "Is Nick guilty? Of everything they're saying? He'd hit on me, June, he really had. As my love Syl here tells me, regardless of anything I'd said in that Mercedes SUV that afternoon, Nick was all coercion. He was grooming me. It actually didn't matter whose idea the blow-job was, it was an impossible situation."
Rita drew this session to a close. "I'll tell you what I'm having trouble with." She turned to Emily and said, "Nick was my salvation. He never once laid a hand on me. I would have been salvaged at the Martha Center if it had not been for him."
She paused. "Then Offred hanged herself. Me, I have no idea Nick's role in that, except that I found her, and Nick took over. Even Commander Waterford commented on that, that Nick was a natural field commander, the way he took charge."
"Then this lady showed up," Rita continued. "Yes, he laid hands on you, my sister. He also went to the wall many times trying to get you out - I'd even heard him once petitioning High Commander Pryce. That went nowhere, because Ofglen #2 was outfitted with explosives by my other sister - the Deeds' Martha.
The last thing she said to me before the Rachel and Leah thing, was, 'we need to do this now, because the Eyes, they're closing in'."
LILLIE FULLER
Rita back-filled her story. "I knew it was going to be trouble when Lillie Fuller was rushed into replace you, Emily." Ofglen #2 had been an oxycontin addict in the before times. As she had confessed to June on one of their shopping-walks, 'Compared to giving blow-jobs behind dumpsters at Macdonalds, a Handmaid is a breeze'.
Rita continued, "In court, I would not volunteer my suspicions about Nick on that regard." She looked back and forth between June and Emily. "I don't blame Nick," Rita finally said, "he protected June. Aunt Irene, she was the one who turned you in, you and Martha #6715301. Nick just made sure that June did not bear the full brunt of not having turned you in herself, Emily."
It was Sylvia who looked angry, looked like she was about to spit nails. Rita concluded, "I'm sorry, I am. Emily, you were done - but it was Aunt Irene, not Nick."
Emily looked devastated, a faithful companion to Sylvia's contained rage.
Finally Emily said, "Nick, he scared me. The Deeds martha, even more so. If I'd not been caught out, if it hadn't have been for Aunt Irene, the Deeds martha would have fitted me out for an explosive vest."
Rita said, "The Deeds martha, she took all our secrets with her when they hanged her. She'd not given any of us up, no one in the network."
June asked, "And Nick?"
Rita said, "by then, June, it was you. That's what Nick wanted. He wanted you to survive."
Emily snorted, "Ya, she was carrying his kid!"
The gathering sat in silence and one by one, people quietly got up and went home.