Below The Fold

A lot can happen in Two Weeks

It had been two weeks since Marin left.

The house still smelled like her perfume, a subtle blend of lilacs and oranges and cinnamon. Or maybe it was the scented candles. Over the years, I lost track of which smelled like which. She was always so concerned with the way everything smelled. Like those damned Narcissus flowers she drags in every Christmas. I mean dragged. I hate the way those things smelled. So insistently pungent—always demanding my attention.

I smiled at the irony of the thought.

So she was gone. Fuck her. I decided long ago that I had changed enough. I’d compromised enough. I’d bent far enough. I’d given up enough. I was done. I remembered the day I snapped—it was only about a week before she moved out—over lunch. She never had a clue how far it had gone, only that she couldn’t believe a salad bar had ended a 5-year relationship. She couldn’t see past the sneeze guard for the all the salad bars… all the lunches…

I shook my head and downed another gulp of Corona. I looked at the golden bottle, so long since I’d held one. Aside from wine, I hadn’t had a drink in ages, and the only wine we ever drank was too expensive to get drunk on. The first thing I’d done when she moved out was buy a case of Corona and every T-Bone Ree’s Market had that Saturday.

“You have pah-tee?” he asked when I emptied the basket on his checkout stand.

“Yes, Mr. Ree. I’m having a party. For me. And I’m the only one invited.” He smiled and nodded and had no idea what I was saying, but I paid over $100 and filled my entire freezer with beef and my refrigerator with beer. Life was starting over again, and the least I could do was celebrate like a man.

I spent a week puttering after that, trying to keep busy while I waited for another case. I checked my messages about 20 times a day, spent as much time staring out the window as I did staring at the idiot box. I worked the heavy bag and hit the range on Saturday, and finally decided to go out that night.

I headed down to Sam’s. I wasn’t there half an hour when Shea sauntered up.

“I heard you ‘n Marin are splitsville,” she said. I took a long look at her before I answered.

“Yup.”

Shea still looked exactly liked she probably did in high school, only 20 years older. Nothing else had changed, not her impossibly tight Jordache jeans, not her frizzy blonde hair with the bangs that spiked out of her forehead like some sort of Reagan-era stegosaurus, not her loose blouse with no collar that seemed about a split second from falling off. Not her heavy eyeshadow, not her leather biker jacket with all the snaps, not her neon pink lipstick that seemed to get on anything within 10 feet of her face.

“You wanna dance?” She smiled at me, nodding at the worn carpet directly in front of the Jukebox, which was blaring Duran Duran’s “Hungry like the Wolf.” Something told me it was her pick.

“No thanks.”

“Wanna go home with me?” She said, sliding her hand underneath the back of my shirt and leaning in, pressing her breasts against my arm. I looked at her again and hesitated too long. She scratched my back—hard—as she leaned in and kissed me. She tasted like cigarettes and quinine, but it wasn’t altogether unpleasant. She smelled like smoke and strawberries, and we made out for a few minutes before she grabbed me by the hand and led me out to my jeep.

I left while she slept, as I’m sure she knew I would. Shea used to piss Marin off so much, always flirting with me right in front of her, whenever we crossed paths. She used to work with Marin—I remembered suddenly that it was Marin who introduced us, and I felt a little guilty. But not too much. I figured I’d needed the catharsis, so to speak. Marin wasn’t coming back, and I was cool with that.

The phone rang just then, startling me out of my reverie.

“Quinn? It’s Galvin.” My ex-partner was on the line. He never called with good news.

“What’s up, Gal?”

“I heard about you and Marin. Sorry, man. She was a looker.” Always the sensitive sort.

“Yeah.” I stopped talking. Gal’s like I am. Let ‘em talk themselves to the chair.

“Listen, Quinn, I need you to come in.” My heart skipped a beat. That’s cop-talk for, “you’re a suspect.”

“Why?” I asked, straining to keep the tension out of my voice.

“We found a body yesterday, Quinn. You’ve been reported as the last to see her alive. It’s Shea Rivers, Quinn.

“She’s dead.”