Grab a cuppa or an adult beverage and (I hope you'll) enjoy. Warning: Foul Language, pejoratives in context with the story.
THE SHOP
Almost closing time. Nancy thought to herself while she smiled meaninglessly at the couple across the counter from her. "There's your change, sir."
She deposited the bills and coins into the man's hand, glancing up as another customer came into the shop. Outside, two boys on skateboards raced past, their wheels rattling against the expansion cracks in the sidewalk. The man, intent on looking down at his girlfriend who stood at his side, her eyes closed in blissful appreciation of the nosegay her beau had just bought her, nodded absently. The girl's face appeared, glowing with delight.
"Oh, Danny." She breathed, "They're beautiful."
Danny smiled self-consciously, murmured, "Thank you" to Nancy, and then guided his girl toward the sidewalk beyond the front door.
"Hello," she said without moving, noting this new patron and, from habit, taking in his appearance as though describing him to her Daddy, the local police sergeant: Hispanic male, short hair, 5'-6" or 5'-7", 200 to 220 pounds, muscular, green t-shirt, black vest, blue jeans, boots, black mole next to his left nostril, another above his right eyebrow, tattoo. Daddy had made this her habit since he'd first let her work in his mother's shop.
"If you're robbed," he'd said solemnly to her more than once, "we can't catch 'im if we don't know what we're looking for so your job is to tell us what he looks and sounds like." Every time he'd told her, she'd dutifully nodded and had nurtured the habit until it had become more of a natural reaction.
"Can I help you?"
"Dunno." The man said, glancing sharply around the shop.
Uh oh. Nancy's instinct stirred. She looked more closely at him.
He was nervous. The short, jerky movements of his eyes, his head and his hands showed it. His shoulders were tight, too. She licked her lips, butterflies suddenly tickling her insides. She twisted her lips into something that she hoped looked like a casual smile.
"We're closing in a couple of minutes." She didn't move, praying he'd leave.
His head came around and he looked directly at her. The brown eyes flicked toward the back of the store and then back to her.
"Someone else here?' He asked, sliding a bit closer to the doorway that separated the front of the shop from the work areas at the back.
Instantly she thought about lying and just as quickly chose not to. Her throat was so dry it clicked when she said, "No."
Cautiously she sidled down the counter in the direction of the open front door. From outside she could hear the passing of a car, slamming doors of other cars, laughter and the faint murmur of people talking. All the sounds she'd heard all summer long but hadn't really noticed before. What had been ordinary now seemed extraordinary, and oh so far away!
The man's head moved sharply and his piercing look pinned her feet to the floor.
"Don't think about it, bitch." He said quietly. The hand farthest from the door, hidden from anyone who might look or come into the shop, appeared.
She sighed in resignation and moved to open the register, assuming he'd come to rob her. He didn't say anything, just watched as she meekly took all of the money out of the drawer and laid it on the counter.
"That's everything I've got."
Shockingly the man's face lightened for a moment and then a sardonic smirk appeared. He laughed as he stepped forward and began tucking bills and funneling coins into his pockets. There wasn't much, really, only a few hundred dollars, and she became afraid that he'd demand more, money she simply didn't have.
"That's all there is, really. I don't even have any money in my purse."
"Stupid bitch, that's not what I come for."
Surprised, she met his gaze across the counter, "What do you want, then?"
The smirk reappeared, accompanied by a chuckle. "Comp'ny." He gestured, "Close the door and act like you're closing up the store, but don't do nuthin' stupid, 'kay?"
Wordlessly she nodded as she cautiously, much more slowly than usual, started doing as she'd been told. Her mind had already started to tick over at a furious pace.
Nancy might not be pretty and she might not be popular with any of her peers, but she wasn't stupid. Out of nowhere had come a plan, an idea that would at least draw attention to the unusual ending to her workday. Casually, as though it were perfectly normal, she closed and locked the front door, turned the cheap OPEN sign to CLOSED and pulled down shades. Breathing again, afraid the man had noticed, she went through the process of closing up everything else, only leaving the empty register untouched. When she finished 15 minutes later she was breathing again. The man hadn't noticed but she was sure the neighboring shopkeepers had. Daddy would certainly notice when he drove by in a few more minutes. She just prayed he wouldn't come to the door.
Suddenly fearful again she stiffened and jerked her head – first toward the door and then to the man.
"I … I forgot something."
"What?" He asked sharply, the gun he'd held casually on his thigh suddenly moving.
She gestured, "The display racks outside. I'm supposed to bring them in. I …" she licked her lips, "you've frightened me so much I forgot."
He nodded as he stood up from the chair he'd brought from the back room. "Bring 'em in but don't do nuthin'. I'm gonna be standin' right here and I'll shoot your fat ass off if you do."
Her heart pounding again, she nodded and nervously opened the front door. Beyond the angled entry way she could all but feel his eyes on her. Already a cluster neighboring shop workers had gathered. They'd begun to wonder but hadn't gotten to the point of coming to ask why Nancy hadn't cleared up the sidewalk. On the other side of the parked cars her Daddy's police cruiser slowly slid by and she saw him looking curiously at her through the passenger side window. She waved.
"Everything okay, Nancy?" Bill Evans came a few paces along the sidewalk, not quite into view of the man inside. His eyes were intent, his face a bit screwed up with consternation tinged with curiosity mixed with worry that his normally punctilious neighbor had forgotten something so rudimentary.
Praying he'd understand, she lied to him, "Just fine, Bill. Got to woolgathering and forgot about these."
Trying not to appear hasty, terrified that something bad would happen, she went about her business of bringing the rolling racks through the front door, closing it behind her.
She'd thought about running, about grabbing two of the people who'd stood on the sidewalk wondering at her forgetfulness and using them as a ram to force the others back, away from the danger that hid inside her shop. She'd also thought about the others, the ones on the opposite end who'd no doubt surge forward, wondering what was wrong without knowing how bad things were. If anyone got hurt because she did something dumb and she made it through the next few hours, she'd have to live with it and she wasn't sure she could.
With the racks inside the shop, she hesitated, not knowing what to do next.
"Can I sit down?" She asked cautiously, gesturing at the narrow stool that stood next to the back counter.
He glanced at it and smirked, "Sure, it won't break?"
She didn't even blink. She was used to it. "No." Retrieving the stool, she set it down behind the long wooden service counter and hitched herself onto it.
Silence swelled up through the floorboards. Little sounds she'd never or rarely noticed before emerged from the quiet: the soft ticking of the clock over the door, the whir of a refrigerator motor coming on. All of the familiar, comforting background noises she'd always seemed to take for granted. The building settled with a creak causing the man to jump from his chair, pointing his gun at the doorway into the back room.
He's scared, too. She realized, somehow taking comfort from that small fact.
"Come 'ere." He said with a gesture. The gun was still pointing at the doorway.
Frightened again, she hesitated and then moved. He took her arm and shoved her toward the curtain. She pushed the drape aside revealing the large room with its long worktable down the middle. She hadn't thoroughly cleared it after the last order and stem clippings, scissors, twine and cellophane scraps were scattered across part of it. To the left was another long bench interrupted by a deep basin. Above the table were two windows sealed with what Nancy thought of as 'chicken wire glass' through which the faint shadows of the heavy metal bars that further protected the shop from intrusion could be seen. Similar windows gave light on the other side of the room from above the several refrigerated cases. The combined scent of many flowers hung heavy in the air. A series of shelves, each with their groupings of materials for various purposes, filled the empty spaces. Across from where they stood two other doors opened off the room.
"What're those?" He gestured.
"Bathroom and office," she said, pointing at each in turn.
He shoved her toward the office door. "Open it."
Inside, immediately to the right under a hanging set of shelves was the small safe where she would have put the register receipts for the day if this man hadn't changed her life so drastically. Across from the door was the battered old metal desk and almost as decrepit swivel chair her father had resurrected from some auction he'd gone to many years before. A variety of papers, catalogs and magazines lay scattered across the desk's surface below the arc of the articulated lamp. Beyond the desk was another door – solid metal in a metal frame with a heavy padlock. Obviously, it was the service door and just as obviously it wasn't going to open from the outside.
Satisfied, he tugged her arm, dragging her back into the work area. Letting her go he stepped across and opened the door to the tiny bathroom. Satisfied that they were alone, he wagged the gun toward the front of the shop in silent command. Obediently, she walked ahead of him, taking her place back on the stool.
The interior of the shop was getting dim. Outside in the fading light the late summer crowds had dispersed. Where there'd been a beehive of activity just half-an-hour before the square was quieting. There were a few couples and families still meandering through it, but the band that had occupied their little stage in one corner was long gone. The play area was empty and dinnertime was fast approaching. Nancy looked over at the man who could kill her if he chose to.
"What do you want?"
She'd startled him. His shoulders tensed and his head spun around as he squinted at her in the dim light.
"What do you want?" She repeated when he didn't answer.
"Nuthin'. Nuthin' but a place to siddown for a while."
She shook her head and shifted. That stool really was uncomfortable. "I'm going to get the other chair, okay?"
Deciding that he probably wouldn't shoot her, that he'd come for something other than simple robbery or murder and that he was waiting for something to happen, she went through the store and into the office. Naturally, he followed her, just to make sure she didn't do anything like pick up the phone to call 9-1-1. What he couldn't know is that she wouldn't have to.
Nancy was going to be late for dinner. Because she'd never been late for the evening meal with the family, Mama would naturally call Daddy because in all the 23-years of her life Nancy was not allowed to be late for dinner. Being late was a crime in Mama's world. It was disrespectful of her table companions and, more importantly, it was insulting to the cook who'd gone to all that trouble to fix their food.
Thinking about that, about the fact that Mama would notice and call Daddy, Nancy began to worry. When Daddy heard that Nancy hadn't come home for dinner, he'd naturally come to the shop. The man, startled by a police officer showing up and coming in, would probably shoot Daddy. Nancy shifted anxiously.
"My Daddy's a cop." She said.
That got the man's attention. Suddenly his rather bored expression was gone and he was looking at her intently. "What?"
"My Daddy. He's a police officer. He's going to know that something's wrong when I don't come home. Mama, my Mama will call and tell him when I don't come home for dinner."
The man's look deepened in thought. A hand came up and swiped across the lower half of his face. "Shit." He breathed, his brain obviously clicking over at a furious pace. She saw when it stopped, when resolution replaced uncertainty.
"Well, you call your Mama. Tell her something's come up, you're gonna be late, but don't say nuthin' else." His voice firmed as his gaze scathingly swept her up and down, "Tell her …" he laughed, "tell her you met a cute guy and he's offered to buy you dinner."
Ordinarily, the shocking cruelty of it would have cut her feelings very deeply. Nancy was not a thin slip of a girl. She was 23 and, as her mother put it with massive exaggeration on the kind side, 'overweight'. The nearly 300 pounds Nancy carried on her 5'-4" frame very nearly gave truth to the foul nursery rhyme, 'fatty, fatty two by four'.
Now though, in the room with a stranger holding a gun, it didn't even faze her. She looked at him condescendingly.
"She'll know I'm lying. No guy is going to look at me once, let alone twice and he's certainly not going to ask me out to dinner."
"Well think of something, then. I'm not gonna tell you what to say but if you don't convince her and your Daddy shows up here, both him and you are gonna end up dead, okay you fat ugly bitch?"
Her throat was dry again. He wasn't kidding. She could see it. She nodded, her mind scrambling for something believable she could tell Mama. She lifted the phone from its cradle. He came to stand next to her, the muzzle of the gun shoved painfully into her side.
"I wanna hear both of you, got it?"
The line was ringing when Nancy shifted the earpiece.
"Hello, Mama?" Her voice sounded thick, scared. She cleared her throat, "Mama, something's come up. I'm gonna be late tonight."
Mama did as she always did. With quite tones implying icy fury she denied that anything could be more important than having dinner with the family and demanded that Nancy come home immediately.
"I can't, Mama."
"Why can't you? What's so very important you can't come home?"
Frantically Nancy scrambled for the lie, "There's a big order the funeral home wants to pick up early tomorrow morning. There's a lot to do …"
"Then come home and have dinner with us and then you can go back and finish up."
"I … I'm right in the middle of it. If … if I keep working I can be done in a couple of hours."
"Nancy?" Her mother's tone was sharp, as though she suddenly sensed that something was very wrong. "What's going on there? What's happened?"
"Nuh … nothing, Mama, nothing's wrong. I … I cut myself and I'm trying to put a bandage on my finger." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, blocking out knowledge of the man holding a gun on her and focusing on talking to her Mama, "There, I'm sorry I was distracted. I'll be home later and I'll apologize to Mrs. Humphries, okay?"
"No, Nancy, that is not acceptable." Mama's voice was firm, taking on the tone of 'if you don't come home right this instant, I'm coming down there to bring you home!'
Desperate and resigned, knowing by the tone of her voice that Mama wouldn't relent, knowing there was no way out for her anyway she looked at the man who pressed the gun against her ribs, she said, "Okay, Mama. Good-bye."
Fully expecting the searing flash of burning gunpowder and the instantaneous shock of a projectile piercing her flesh, she slowly lowered the phone to the cradle, numb with astonishment when it didn't come.
Time drew out like a rubber band – stretched tight and lengthening. She watched the man's face slowly tighten in shock and disbelief while the muzzle of the gun threatened to break through the skin over her ribs.
"You stupid bitch." He breathed in disbelief, his eyes wide as he stared at her. The gun shifted as his finger tightened on the trigger, "You stupid motherfucking bitch!" His free hand moved in a blur as he backhanded her across the face, whipping her head to the side. "What the fuck was that?" He screamed as he backhanded her again, shoving her backward with the pressure of the gun. As she moved, he followed her and she was still astonished that he hadn't shot her.
"You think your clever, bitch?" He was still shouting, pressing her back against the hard rounded edge of the counter, "You think you're fucking clever?" The gun moved again. He stepped back, "Yeah, you're so fucking smart."
The flash, burn and pain she'd feared blew up in her side, just above her waist where the fat rolls were thickest. He'd aimed deliberately, keeping away from the internal organs that could kill her. She cried out in shock, curling over the wound, clutching her abruptly screaming flesh while her brain attempted to understand what had just happened.
"I wanna kill you, you're dead. When your Daddy shows up here, he's gonna be dead and it's cuz of you, what you did, you stupid fucking ugly moron." The cold scorn in his voice was endless and she knew it was earned, that she deserved it because she hadn't been able to say 'no' to Mama.
She began to weep, turning away from the man, leaning her head on one arm while the fingers of her other hand held her burning, throbbing wound closed on itself.
"Stupid bitch." He said again as he moved.
She'd felt rather than heard him move away but she didn't care. Daddy would come and the man would kill him. Then he'd kill her. But that thought brought her mind to a stop and she began to wonder. After a moment she sniffled, wiped her face on her arm and dared to look up. The man was by the window, looking out through the slit along the edge of the shade. The clock above the door showed it was only a few minutes after 6:00 – only an hour since this whole mess had begun and just a bit less than half-an-hour before Mama would know that Nancy wasn't going to be coming home for dinner.
"You heard her." She said quietly, resentfully, "You heard everything. What was I supposed to do?"
He didn't even turn to look at her, his contempt absolute in his stillness.
She moved, ignoring the pain in her side, the tear in her blouse and the blood that was still seeping from the wound.
"You don't understand anything, do you, you dumb fucking Spic."
She was furious. Accepting that he was going to kill her anyway, why not say what was on her mind. She had nothing to lose and she was going to say what she wanted to using words she'd never used before, swear words, horrible foul words, disgusting words that she knew but had never before uttered. That had gotten his attention but she ignored the hot look of fury in his eyes. Instead, she met it with her own.
"I know you're gonna kill me anyway so I don't care. I'm fat. I'm ugly. I'm useless. I know all that." She took another step forward, hoping he would kill her, just to get it over with but determined to say what she wanted to say before he did. "My Mama made me this way. She doesn't want boys to like me. She never did. She doesn't want me to be pretty or get married or anything because it would mean that she'd be alone. Her little girl, her crutch, her toy would grow up and be independent, able to think, to do for herself.
"Ever since I was a little girl I was put where she wanted me, made to stay like some fucking toy doll. She'd dress me up, tell me what to wear, what to eat," a bitter laugh, "how much to eat, who to be friends with. If I was late for dinner she'd pull down my pants and paddle me, right there at the table in front of everyone."
She'd caught his attention, his interest, perhaps, because he still stood by the window, fingers on the shade, but they were still. He was still as he stood there watching her, his mind hearing what she was saying to him.
"How do you say no to someone like that? How do you get it to stick?
"My Mama doesn't love me. She never has. She's never once, in all of my life, been a mother to me." Tears were streaking Nancy's cheeks, sliding from her lids, but neither of them knew it, neither were aware. "She's never once held me like a mother holds a child. She's never cuddled with me or played with me or read to me like I wanted her to. She never once said 'I love you' or 'I'm proud of you'."
She wiped some of the tears away with the back of her hand. Her side didn't hurt quite so badly but the hand holding her side was stuck to the wound by the dried blood.
"You heard what I said, what she said. It's like talking to a fucking wall.
"All of my life I've been told 'do this', 'go there', 'wear this or that' and it's always what she's wanted." She straightened and looked directly into his eyes, "So if you want to kill me you go right ahead because I'm dead anyway. I don't have a life. But I'm asking you, I'm begging you, please don't kill my Daddy." The tone of pleading at the end was deeper by contrast with the starkness of what had come before.
They stood like that, still as statues, staring at one another across an old creaky wooden floor while the darkness of evening enfolded them. Her words, although quietly spoken, resounded through the space. The words drifted down, seeped through the boards and time resumed. He shifted, shook his head, sighed and looked down.
Surprising them both, words fell from his lips, "Sorry I shot you. I'm … sorry."
He looked up her, something new between them. He gestured with the gun, "You wanna go wash that, put something on it, go ahead."
She didn't move, a bare flare of hope flicking up inside, "What about my Daddy? Could you … could you let me bring him in, take him hostage or something, but not hurt him?"
Surprised again he looked at her searchingly. "You love him, huh?"
Her throat was suddenly thick as she nodded, "Yeah. Yeah, I do because he loves me back."
"You poor stupid bitch." He sighed and stepped away from the shade, shaking his head. After a moment he looked at her again, "I'll try, okay? I'll try but if he does anything stupid …"
He didn't have to say anything more. She got it and she smiled. "I'll help. I'll make sure he doesn't, okay?"
"When's dinner?"
She glanced at the clock, "10 minutes, 6:30." And then, shockingly, Nancy laughed, suddenly realizing that no matter what happened – whether she lived or died – that night, she'd been freed by this man with his gun. "At about 6:31 she'll get mad and she'll call Daddy." She sobered again and came to a decision. "Go in the back room. You can stand just inside the door, behind the curtain. I'm gonna call Daddy first, before Mama does, and let him in. Once he's inside I'll figure out how to get him to cooperate, okay?"
"What about his partner?"
"He doesn't have one. He's a sergeant so he doesn't need one."
The man hesitated, looked closely at her, his face hard and cold again, "Remember, I ain't fuckin' around. He does anything stupid, anything … heroic, I'm gonna shoot his ass and then I'll shoot yours. You got that?"
Nervous but not truly frightened, Nancy nodded. "I understand and I'll do my best."
"Do better than your best if you want him to live."
The clock had just ticked to 6:30 when she picked up the phone. Praying that Mama hadn't gotten through first she called the police department.
"Hi, Thelma. This is Nancy. I'm still at the shop and was wondering if you could ask my Daddy to come by. No, nothing's wrong but … no I'm fine, really. I just need to talk to him for a sec, okay?" Relief swamped her and, with a genuine smile she finished the call, "Thanks, Thelma. Yeah, you do too. Will you say hi to Ed for me? Thanks. Okay, bye."
Her relief was short-lived because as soon as she'd set the phone down she started to think again. How was she going to convince Daddy not to do something that would get them both hurt? How would he feel about her betrayal of him?
That's what it is, her conscience assured her, it's a betrayal. You're going to ask Daddy not to do his job and he won't like you for that.
Anxious, restless, caught between what she perceived as two right courses of action, she moved, fidgeting in the space behind the counter. The man was watching her, weighing her state of mind, her behavior.
"You know if he showed up here and you weren't cooperating I'd kill him, don't you?"
The fidgeting stopped and she looked over to where he'd sat down again. "I know. I just don't know if he'll know, if he'll believe me."
The man gestured, "Show him your side. He'll believe you. If he loves you, that is."
Just then the sound of a car door closing pierced the quiet. Nancy hurried to the door, opening just as Daddy was about to knock.
"Hi, Daddy." She stepped back, letting him inside.
Daddy wasn't a particularly tall man, but he was rock solid. In his early sixties his entire being absolutely shouted 'cop' from the shaved head, to the hard, steel-gray eyes, strong, broad shoulders and burly torso.
"What's up, Punkin?" He asked, his eyes flicking around the shop, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. Satisfied he stopped to look at his daughter, the little girl he'd always wanted but the one his wife never had.
"There's …" She stopped, hesitating, unsure how to tell her father what she'd done to him. She took a deep breath and, looking directly into his face, told him the truth. "There's a man in the back room. He's pointing a gun at us and if you do anything, anything at all, he's going to shoot us." She turned slightly, revealing the burn mark, the large splotch and streaks of blood on her blouse. "I made him mad when I talked to Mama, telling her I couldn't be home for dinner, and he shot me." She faced him again, meeting his stunned disbelieving look as she quietly said, "He's not kidding, Dad."
The curtain moved, the man appeared, his face covered by a bandana he'd not been wearing before, a soft knit hat covering his hair. He was holding the gun rock steady as he pointed it at Nancy's father. That and the fact that Nancy had, for the first time in her life called him 'Dad' instead of 'Daddy' got through to him. Heroics were not an option. His hands moved, lifted away from the belt on which they'd been resting, the fingers open, palms up.
"What do you want?"
"Your gun, the belt, your ankle holster, your radio and anything else you could use as a weapon." The gun waved, "Nancy, you take 'em off. Don't get between us or I'll shoot you again. Put 'em on the counter."
She did as she'd been told. Standing behind her father, reaching around him to unfasten the heavy belt, she could feel his muscles clenching, demanding action when nothing could be done.
"I'm sorry, Daddy." She whispered hoarsely, "I'm so sorry but I didn't know what else to do. He said he'd kill you if you showed up here to check on me. I'm sorry but I didn't know what I should do." Her voice broke over the sobs she was holding back.
He looked down at her, seeing her fear, appreciating her predicament. "It's okay, Punkin. You did the right thing."
He looked up at the man, the pistol held steady, its black opening threatening inspite of its being quiet. The man spoke.
"Take off yer shirt, then the vest. I wanna make sure you ain't got nothin' else."
Daddy did as directed, moving slowly and deliberately. When he'd gotten down to his undershirt and had pulled it up, turning in a slow circle to show there was nothing hidden underneath, he slowly lowered his arms.
"Can I put my shirt on?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Can my daughter leave?"
The man startled, thrown for a momentary loop by the quiet request, shifted and then stilled. "No. No, I want her here." A smirk appeared, "I like her."
Daddy shrugged, "Can I sit down, here on the floor?"
"Yeah, yeah you can do that."
Quiet settled over the room. The lights hadn't been turned on and the room gradually got dark. Over the front door and from the work room at the back, the exit lights emitted their pale Martian green glow. They waited.
Sonia looked up from her laptop, across the table to the man who sat there, his hand resting on the gun. From behind her, through the open door to the business office of the little bookstore, came the banging and thumps that she'd grown accustomed to over the past hours. An instant later, with a final loud crash abruptly followed by the clanging of the alarm klaxon in the goldsmith's shop next door, three men all dressed in black fatigues raced through her stop, heading for the street door.
The man she'd been reading to for the past two hours, since he'd burst in on her while she'd been doing her books late that night, stood up.
"That's pretty good stuff, Sonia." He raised the .45 caliber pistol and gave Sonia her final acknowledgement.