I want to go to work.” I think I do, anyway. “It’s been two months and I’m feeling better about the idea. It’s just that… you know…” I turn around and fill a glass of water. “… my head.”
“Kari said it takes time. Are you still having the dreams? Last time I came over you were shouting in your sleep. Scared me half to death.”
“It was pretty intense on my end, too.” I pick up a chicken leg, look at it for a moment and drop it back into the bowl. Sometimes it’s hard to get food down, which is why I’ve lost weight. “The dream always starts out the same… first it’s his face, then it changes to mine. To my face. I’m shooting… my friggin’ face. Can you believe that?”
Tiff shakes her head without comment. I can’t tell if the gesture is out of empathy or disgust. The couple of times I’ve brought up the shooting during her sleepovers, she’s never said anything, which is more annoying than if she’d shout her disapproval that I killed someone.
I turn back to the sink and begin washing my hands again. “I’ll get through it.”
“You will, Sam,” she says, stepping up along side me and frowning as she watches me rinse off the soap. “I know you and I know you will.” Her attempt at being supportive is almost funny; I give her props for faking it. Actually, we’re both continuing to fake it. Oh man, I don’t want to get back doing that again.
I pick up the towel and rub at my hands. “Thank you,” I mumble. “You hearing anything new at the defender’s office?”
Tiff shrugs. “My friends always ask me how you’re doing.”
Suuuure they do.
“I heard some cops in the courthouse a couple of days ago talking about you. They said it was a ‘clean shoot.’”
Clean shoot. Man, she had to struggle to utter those words. If the cops had said “righteous shoot” she would have probably needed the Heimlich maneuver.
“That’s nice,” I grunt. I turn back to the sink and twist on the faucet.
“Your hands are clean!” Tiff snaps, reaching around me to turn off the spigot. She tugs my arm to turn me toward her. “They—Are—Clean.”
I look at her for a long moment. Where did that come from? Why does she care? Or is she just irritated?
Her face relaxes, looking like it was a struggle to do so. “You know, I’m tough enough to kick your butt all the way to Fifth Avenue.”
I widen my eyes in mock fear, happy that she brought us back to the task at hand.
“So you want any chicken or not?”
“How about I take a quick shower first then I’ll have a couple of pieces?”
Thirty minutes later, Tiff ’s in the bathroom and I’m sitting on the edge of the bed freshly cleaned, wearing black boxers and a red T-shirt. I’m looking at a page in my checkbook, though I’m not seeing the numbers. Can’t concentrate. If I could just get a good night’s sleep, I’d feel like a million bucks. Well, maybe a hundred bucks. I do feel a little better after the scalding shower, a fresh shave, and some chicken.
As good as Tiff looked in her tank top a while ago, I’m not sure if I’m in the mood. We’ve done this booty call thing about three times over the past month or so and while it’s been a nice distraction during my so-called recovery, the irony of it isn’t lost on me. Tiff hates what I represent and what I did that day. In turn, it angers me that she can’t see that the tweaker decided his fate. She argued early in our dating about the police and their use of deadly force. She believed, absurdly so, that officers should never use it. She said that shooting someone is always a choice and that too many cops choose to shoot. I argued that perps put officers into grave situations that compel them to respond with deadly force. She wouldn’t buy it. After a while, we agreed to disagree and the elephant in the room grew larger and larger until it began knocking things down.
A few days after we ended whatever we had, I got into the shooting. Two days later, she called. She said she’d been out of town, and then she asked if it was necessary to shoot the man. I started to snap the lid shut on my phone but her fast apology stopped me. “That was out of line, Sam,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” She sounded legit but who knows. “I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.” That was about it. It could have been worse, I guess.
Three weeks later she called again, to see how I was doing. After I lied that I was doing fine and she pretended to believe me, we had an animosity-free talk about how each of us was feeling about our failed relationship. When it looked as if we had exhausted the subject, she said quietly, as if feeling me out, “The sex was good. In fact, it was great.” I affected an official tone and concurred with her assessment, which made us both laugh. We talked another half hour about sex until I couldn’t stand it any longer and asked her how long it would take her to come over. She said ten minutes if she didn’t stop for traffic signals.
Three weeks earlier, I sent a guy to hell and three weeks later I had sex that nearly blew my head off. I even had to take an Excedrin after. “Where did that come from?” Tiff asked breathlessly, looking at me as if I were from outer space. I decided it was best not to mention that I had been thinking about the shooting the whole time.
So here we are again. I have no idea if this is good for me, or us, but for now my inner caveman says to go with the flow and I’m guessing Tiff’s inner cavewoman is thinking the same thing.
I listen to her doing whatever women do in the bathroom. I liked those sounds when we were together and she would stay over on weekends. Then it gave me a sense of togetherness and stability. Now the sounds make me feel uncomfortable and unsure about what the hell I’m doing.
Tiff walks into the room, my pale blue terrycloth robe cinched tight around her waist. Even in an oversized, bulky robe, there is no hiding those dangerous curves, scrumptious peaks, and ultra-hot valleys. That’s what I’m talking about.
“What are you lookin’ at?” she says with a grin, moving over to where I’m sitting. She stops by my knee, looking down at me.
“You know what I’m lookin’ at.”
“Yeah? You just a looker or are you a doer?”
The phone rings.
“It’s Kari,” she says, looking down at the ID screen.
“Nine at night?” I pick up the receiver. “Hi Kari.”
“Sam. You doing okay?” Kari is the shrink I’ve been seeing since the shooting. A tough woman who never wastes words.
“Doing pretty good.”
“Got a conflict at noon tomorrow. Let’s meet at one-thirty instead.”
“Yes, sure.”
“One-thirty it is. See you.”
“Good bye,” I say, wasting my breath since she’s already hung up. I turn toward Tiff. “Kari’s got a conflict and we’re changing the appointment to…”
She’s rummaging through her overnight bag on the end of the bed. The bathrobe has fallen
