“Benches don’t go with round tables.”
“That’s why I’m having a hard time finding the set.”
“You won’t find a set.”
“Then I’ll eat from the bar for the rest of my life.”
Silence and then, “A curved wooden bench on one side of the table. Two chairs on the other would go with the round shape.”
“It really would.”
“You’ll need a custom order.”
“Probably for the best. I should custom order my entire life. Write it down on paper so I can remember what I want when the going gets hard and I want to settle for buying just any kind of chairs for my table. I settled for Sergei when I got pregnant with Chi-chi, and look where that got me. It’s a four-day weekend andI’m sitting on the couch with a homeless man who has thirty-five grand to burn.”
He finishes his meal and sits back. “Thank you.” He wipes his mouth with a tissue from the box on the table. “I’m not homeless.”
I pick at the rest of my steak. “It’s okay if you are, you know. It’s okay if you stole from Crossbow and ran away and right into my car.” I look up, seeking his eyes to see if I hit close to the truth.
“I’m not homeless” is all he says before retreating to the bathroom. He never returns. I go to bed and lock my door. Before sleep, I get on my knees and pray that taking in this man instead of turning him over to Martin was what I was supposed to do. He needed help. I helped him. Bought him ice so he could cool the swelling and get better faster.
If he’s not homeless, as soon as he’s better, he’ll return home.
Chapter 8
He gets worse, not better
Dina
Ithought he would be an early riser.
Not sure if there’s a type of person who rises early, but if there is, he struck me as such. I’m somewhere in the middle. I don’t rise too early, like at the crack of dawn, but I don’t get out of bed too late either.
My salon operates from nine to nine, so I often work twelve-hour days on my feet for six days a week. Sunday is a day off. Unless I take a special call, I don’t work on that day. And today is a holiday which is both good and bad.
Good because I get to rest.
Not good because I can’t rest with a man in my house. A man I hit with my car. A man who gave me the thirty-five grand neatly stacked on my nightstand. I pick up a wad of cash and sniff it. Smells real. Looks real. Must be real. Right?
We’ll find out soon enough when I take it to the bank.
Wait, can I take this money to the bank? What if they ask me where it came from?
Shit.
I haven’t thought about what I’d do with it.
Maybe I can ask him. A man who carries cash and crashes at the house of a stranger might know how I could handle this sudden influx of cash. He strikes me as a confident, comfortable-in-his-skin type of a man who’s calm and moves on his own dime. The kind of man who, despite his age, doesn’t need a wife to parent him.
He can take care of himself. Sergei couldn’t take care of himself, and as he aged, he became more aware of all the other things he couldn’t do well, and I became the person he despised for doing what he couldn’t.
After I dropped out of law school, which was when Chi-chi was in third grade, I spent a year trying and failing at different online businesses. Then I remembered something silly. I remembered how much I loved dolls and doing their hair. The next thing I knew, I was enrolled in cosmetology school.
After I graduated, I started working for someone who then moved their business to a different part of the city, leaving me in charge of the salon here. I took over the rent and changed the name of the salon, and now I own my own business. It’s not much, but it pays all the regular bills. The debts and lawyers get paid by income from part-time jobs I take here and there.
I make my way into the kitchen and turn on the news to hear the developments from yesterday’s Crossbow shootout. While I make coffee, I wonder if I should make one for the man in the spare bedroom. A mug in hand, I walk to the terrace and open the doors for fresh air, then sit outside and listen to the news.
Police apprehended dozens of people, and they’re questioning them about the murder of Massio Crossbow. There’s talk about women with matching clown tattoos. Branding. Human trafficking. It wouldn’t shock me if Massio trafficked women. Or men. I’m not crying over his demise, that’s for sure.
