A/N: Well. I didn't expect to post another chapter so soon, but since COVID-19 has us self-isolating and production of SVU is shut down, I figured why the hell not? (The irony that this chapter takes place in a grocery store is not lost on me.) I hope you are all staying safe and healthy. Happy Friday the 13th, I guess?
Chapter 2: Every Move You Make
. . .
"Turn around, bright eyes . . . turn around," I find myself murmuring along under my breath as I drift down one aisle and up the next. I'm going to have this song stuck in my head for at least a week now, but I can't complain. I was fourteen or fifteen when it came out, and though those weren't really simpler times—thirteen and up was its own special hell, living with Serena—I still remember bits and pieces with nostalgia. Like Bonnie Tyler and her "Total Eclipse of the Heart."
Actually, the song reminds me of Amanda, or at least the "bright eyes" part does. Most ballads make me think of her, though. (She would be rolling her pretty bright eyes at me if I told her so, but it's the truth.) Before she came strutting into my life with her sassy little cowgirl swing and those ridiculously tiny jeans she favors, I was beginning to question whether or not love was meant for me at all. It only took me eight and a half years to figure out that it had been staring me in the face, with eyes as deep and blue as the ocean, all along.
I can't be right about everything—there, I said it. And sometimes, especially in matters of the heart, sometimes I get it very, very wrong. But with her, I finally feel like I've figured it out.
Though the eclipse has ended, replaced by a pop tune I vaguely recall despising in the nineties, I continue humming the lyrics as I remember them (I don't know what to do, I'm hmhmhm the dark . . . We're living in a powder keg and hmmhmm sparks . . .), sidling up to the packaged mac and cheese dinners. I prefer feeding the kids something a little more nutritious than microwaved noodles and cheese powder, but Noah loves getting to heat up his own meals like a big boy, and Jesse would eat an entire horse if it were comprised of anything that remotely resembled cheese. I grab two packs of the microwaveable cups, and I'm contemplating a block of Velveeta when an odd feeling strikes. Someone is watching me.
Now, I've felt this before. Often without cause, or so I believed until I found out that Calvin Arliss had tailed me for years, photographing me, observing even my most intimate moments, and waiting patiently as a spider to spin me up in his web. I would notice the feeling while I was at the park with my son, waiting in line for coffee, or strolling through the grocery store—like now—and I'd look up in time to catch a glint of light from the bushes or a slender figure retreating around the corner. I told myself I was being paranoid, that my years as a cop (and those four days with Lewis, which seemed to go on for years; our last day together, in the granary, my entire life passing by in a blink, a click) had finally pushed me to the edge. Occasionally, I still think it might be true.
But I am definitely being watched at the moment, and when I glance up quickly to spot the culprit, I almost laugh out loud to see who it is. She's about two feet tall, maybe twenty pounds on a fat day, and she's wearing pink footie pajamas with mermaids on them. I think I can take her.
Her pudgy legs dangle from the child's seat of the shopping cart, and she kicks them excitedly, giggling, when I wave at her with just my index finger, crooking it several times. I'd guess her around a year old, give or take. My babies are well past that age now, and though I enjoy every stage of their development—except the mouthy ones—I miss this. Being the center of someone's universe is an intoxicating drug while it lasts. I check out the mother, a habit I've acquired from dealing with parents who are often the perps (from even before that, I suppose, dating back to my own mother and her . . . troubles), and she smiles at me.
Then she notices the gun on my hip and the badge on my belt, and her smile fades. I'm used to this as well. People get very nervous around cops, and they really don't know what to make of a woman in law enforcement. It's better than it was when I first started out, back during the dark ages when a girl in uniform was something to snicker about, but I still get some stares.
"Cute," I comment, with a nod to the baby and a reassuring smile at mom. She glances down at the Velveeta box in my hands and it seems to put her at ease. I must be a decent person if I buy this junk, which is good for exactly two things: homemade queso and grilled cheese sandwiches. She's picturing me fixing the latter for my kids—her features soften noticeably—and somehow that makes me less of a threat. I want to tell her not to fall for it, that predators pull those tricks all the time. Ted Bundy wore a cast on his arm to appear more harmless, his victims never suspecting there was a metal rod concealed inside the plaster. Calvin Arliss lured me in with his teenaged girlfriend and infant daughter.
But I can't just walk up to a woman alone in the grocery aisle and start lecturing on the modus operandi of serial killers. Not unless I really want to freak her out. Besides, she's not wrong about the grilled cheese, except it will be Amanda who makes the sandwiches. Jesse complains that I always burn the bread, but Mama fixes it just right (AKA so goopy the whole thing has to be eaten with a spoon).
I consider calling Amanda to double-check our Velveeta stock at home, then it occurs to me she's not there. She left work claiming she was going to Daphne's apartment to watch some game or another. Thing is, I'm pretty sure she was lying to me. Her leg was jiggling nonstop, she practically fled my office, and I know for a fact that Daphne hates sports as much as I do. It would be easy to catch her in the lie just by calling up Daphne and asking to speak with Amanda, but I don't want to be that girlfriend, nor do I want to put our friend in the middle. I'm trying to trust that she has a reason for making up the story. And perhaps I am wrong and she really is watching football or basketball or whatever's currently in season. I hope I'm wrong.
In spite of the outrageous price tag—$8.00, are you kidding me?—I put the imitation cheese into my cart, with a little sigh. I suppose I'll buy it, if it humanizes me and wins me cool mom/girlfriend points at home. The dogs love it too, so I'll be everyone's favorite for at least a couple days. And I have to admit, the stuff does taste pretty good on crackers.
"Bye bye," I whisper to the baby, cupping my hand into a child-sized wave as I pass her and the mother, whose entire demeanor has changed into one of admiration and, if I'm not mistaken, a bit of flirtation. The badge and gun have that effect too.
That's why I'm not at all surprised to find the guy in the frozen foods section eyeing me while I peruse the vegetables, wondering which bags of Birds Eye Steamfresh will least demote my rank as cool mom. At first it's just a glimpse of his reflection in the freezer glass when he skirts by me on his way to the Marie Callender meals. I would have expected Hungry-Man, based on his age (mid thirties), marital status (no ring), and size (bulky, though not overweight), but it just goes to show, you never can tell. He notices my sidelong glance and mistakes it for interest, not realizing I'm assessing the danger he poses. Men never do.
"These any good?" he asks, brandishing a pot pie at me. He's sort of nice-looking, in a young Brando kind of way. I can picture him rending his shirt in desperation and bellowing up to Stella in the streetlights.
I'm tempted to ask him what about my physique gives the impression I eat enough frozen pot pies to have an opinion, but I bite my tongue. The less you engage, the better. Most men take my smart-ass replies one of two ways: as a come on, like I'm going to exchange witticisms over a bag of frozen broccoli, then immediately fall into bed with them; or as a challenge to their masculinity, therefore bestowing on them the sacred task of shutting me up. I'm not in the mood for either right now. I just want to make it home in time to hug my kids before bed.
"Couldn't tell ya," I reply, chucking the broccoli and a couple extra bags of mixed veggies into my cart. In my eagerness to escape, I almost forget Matilda's brussels sprouts. My youngest and I are the only ones in our apartment who will touch the cabbagelike vegetables, while our ultra sensitive and respectful housemates pretend to retch every time we take a bite. (That was Miss Amanda's doing, as are most of the rotten habits our kids know they can get away with because it makes me laugh, including armpit farts and blowing on window-panes to inflate their cheeks to monstrous proportions.)
I grab some sprouts and coast on by the pot pie guy before he can rope me into a meaningful conversation about Swedish meatballs. I toss a parting, "Good luck," over my shoulder as I turn the corner and nearly ram into another guy with my cart. This one is young, not much more than a boy, really. Eighteen at best, with drowsy eyes, big childish teeth—as if the permanents have yet to arrive—and the affected suaveness I remember well from avoiding the pretty boys who populated my high school. In those days, I went for the college pretty boys.
"Sorry!" I practically leap out of my skin and jerk back the cart (it's inches from his crotch), blushing a little at the close call. My reflexes are usually a lot sharper than that. Or they used to be. Detective Benson would have sidestepped this kid and whipped around to the frozen pizzas and ice cream without missing a beat; Captain Benson is trying to recover from her mini stroke. "Sorry," I say again as he casually reroutes like he didn't just narrowly miss a critical injury to his manhood.
"No worries, Captain," he says, a crooked smile on his full, girlish lips. He's small for a man, or even a boy, standing no more than five-five and weighing about as much as Amanda. The chill of fear that snakes down my spine doesn't make sense to me. I could pick him up and throw him, so why do I suddenly feel threatened?
(Because Calvin was small too, I remember. And Amelia was this boy's size . . . )
"Take care now," he adds, sauntering by with his hands in the pockets of his baggy jeans. If he is trying to intimidate me, he's being very subtle about it. He doesn't even glance back when I turn and call out to him:
"I'm sorry, do I know you?"
"You've seen me around." He disappears down the cereal aisle without any further explanation, leaving me to wonder at the encounter—wonder if I'm losing it again, like I did with those prank calls a few weeks ago; wonder if I've finally crossed some invisible line and can no longer view men as anything but predators—and try to place where I've seen him before. He did seem familiar, but my look at him was so brief and clouded by embarrassment, I can barely picture his face. Take care now. Why had that sounded so ominous?
I'm tempted to backtrack and follow him for a better glimpse, but my phone rings at that exact moment and the compulsion fades. I meet an endless stream of people in my line of work, and I frequent this grocery store, which is only blocks from my apartment. In all likelihood, the kid is just someone I've crossed paths with along the way. He's not old enough to have done significant hard time
(neither were Calvin and Amelia, and look what they—)
and I'm probably being paranoid. Besides, I've still got my service weapon on.
"Hey, Rafa," I say in my brightest voice, after checking the display to be sure for whom I'm picking up. I do that now. "Don't tell me you're here already. You always snag the best flights, you lucky bastard."
"Well, you've cursed me with your mediocre airline juju, you naughty witch. My flight's delayed. I might not get in till morning." Rafael sighs petulantly into the phone, and I can visualize his pouty little boy expression so clearly, he could be standing right next to me, instead of thousands of miles away in Iowa or Idaho or wherever. One of those "I" states. "What the hell are you doing? You sound winded."
He's right, I am. I didn't even notice I was breathing heavily, and I'm not sure whether it's from the run-in with the kid or from receiving an unexpected phone call. You see, earlier today I got another one of those calls, dead silence on the other end, except a moment before I hung up an unidentifiable voice whispered my name. Ohh-liv-ee-ahhh . . .
"I didn't catch you in the middle of fisting your girlfriend or something, did I?"
When the question sinks in, I almost drop my phone inside the freezer, along with the jumbo bag of Totino's pizza rolls I'm excavating from the bottom shelf. "Rafa!" I practically shriek, hitting a high note I couldn't replicate if I tried and shooting up straight like I just got goosed from behind. Farther up the aisle, a group of teenage girls deliberating ice cream flavors look my way, look back at each other, and burst into giggles. Great, I have become the laughingstock of Morton Williams Supermarkets. It's like high school all over again.
"What?" he asks innocently, and I can picture the smug little grin that goes with that one too. If I could see it around the beard, that is. "I don't know what you lesbians do in your spare time."
"Well, we don't . . . do that," I reply in a scandalized whisper, transferring a stack of party pizzas from freezer to cart. After a brief internal debate, I throw in a DiGiorno for Amanda. It won't get me fisted, but it will definitely earn me a good feeling-up, at the very least.
"Pity."
"Can we please stop talking about my sex life while I'm buying food for my children?" I'm only half-serious, my amusement at his candid, if somewhat vulgar, suggestion outweighing my discretion. I never got the sibling experience growing up (I used to pray for a brother or sister, someone to take Serena's focus off of me, someone she might love and, in so doing, relieve some of her hatred for her eldest child), and Simon . . . that road led to nothing but heartbreak. Rafael Barba is the sharp, funny, adorably obnoxious little brother I always longed for, and I'm suddenly so excited for his visit, I could skip over to the Ben & Jerry's section—I don't, but I could.
"You're shopping? Aww, little Suzy Homemaker," he gibes.
"That's rich, coming from you, Grizzly Adams."
"I am rather popular with the bears around here, now that you mention it . . . "
We're still laughing and trading barbs by the time I make it through the self-checkout lane, and his sign-off leaves me chuckling, even as I wrestle with the five bags of groceries I'm determined to carry so I can ditch the cart: "All right, go finish giving that blonde of yours her happy ending. See you tomorrow, Suze."
I'm halfway across the parking lot when I hear heavy footsteps jogging up behind me. It takes all my self-control not to drop the bags and go for my Glock; the reflex isn't quite as strong as it used to be, but it's there. I still flinch when something clicks next to my ear or I hear a voice like his. Theirs.
This guy sounds nothing like any of them—the men and women who haunt me so completely, I actually thought they might be calling from beyond the grave—as he trots up beside me and asks, "Need some help with those, hon?" It's Mr. Marie Callender of the Pot Pies, and he's carrying one dainty sack to my bulky armload of five. It almost makes me laugh out loud. Except he called me "hon," and that just pisses me off.
"No. I'm right up here," I say, punching the unlock button on my key fob until the tail lights flash on my SUV, and I hear the reassuring cha-chunk of the automatic locks. I can't wait to be tucked in safely behind the wheel, the doors bolted tight around me. I have had my fill of male interaction for the day.
"Hey, where's the fire?" he asks, turning around and jogging backwards a few paces ahead of me. I have to stop short so we don't collide, and each time I start to walk around him, he dodges in front of me again. "Don't I at least get a 'Thanks, Tim. My name is . . .'? Tell you what, gimme a little smile and we'll call it even."
"Go to hell, Tim. Sincerely, Olivia," I say, keeping a straight face as I watch him approaching the back of a parked van. When he's too close to avoid plowing right into it, I finally point to the vehicle and issue a warning. "Uh, you might wanna . . . "
Too late. He manages a half twist at the very last second, succeeding only in slamming shoulder-first into the van doors, rather than ass-first. I swear there's a loud crunch, but whether it's his bones or the van, I couldn't say. What a shame.
"Night, Tim." I continue on without breaking my stride, while he groans and rotates his arm, trying to pop his shoulder back into place.
"Bitch," he mutters, and stalks off as I'm loading the groceries into the rear hatch of my vehicle. I keep a close eye on him, making sure he doesn't double back around. He folds himself into a comically small red car—a Fiat, I think—two rows up, and slams the door shut with a huff of air that's muted by the inner rubber lining.
I almost feel bad for the poor guy, doomed to a life of anticlimactic hissy fits and lonely pot pie dinners, but climbing into my roomy SUV that has plenty of space for my long legs and a heavy door that closes behind me with a satisfying whoompf, my sympathy fades. It disappears altogether when I pause at the parking lot exit, obeying the stop sign that gives oncoming traffic the right of way, and the red Fiat zips around me in a cacophony of blaring horn and screeching tires. "Asshole," I announce to the windshield, and consider following after him to get his plates. But he's already long gone, and it's past 7:30 P.M.
I turn towards home instead—and I nearly make it there. Less than five minutes away, as I'm waiting through a stoplight and wishing left turns weren't prohibited on red, the cabin of my SUV is suddenly awash with blinding light. I'd think it was an alien abduction, if I believed in such things and if I didn't look up at the rearview in time to see the headlights bearing down on me. They're so bright I can barely make out the vehicle they belong to, but a second before impact, I catch a flash of silver (big truck, I tell myself for later, if there is one) and a young driver with drowsy eyes and a crooked, toothy grin.
Why is that little boy driving? I wonder, jamming my foot down uselessly on the brake as he rams me from behind, forcing me into the intersection. The last thing I see is another pair of headlights careening towards my driver's side window.
. . .