Page 6 of Gypsy's Lady
“You could star in a porno.”
“What?”
Claudia rolled her eyes as she dished potato salad onto both of their plates. “Big guy like you, handsome, all that hair?Totalpornomaterial when you moan like that.”
“I didn’t moan.”
“Yousomoaned.” She stabbed a chunkof potato and shoved it in her mouth, shifting it to one cheek before continuing, “Bigtimeporno.”
“Tell me about today.”
She laughed at his obvious conversation change, then went with it without argument. “It was a day. There was a wreck down by the convention center entrance. I…” She paused,andhe watched her hand begin to tremble, fork shaking in her grip.
“Claudia?”
She pushed out ahard breath and looked at him. “I was a doctor, did you know that?”
Doug shook his head. He’d asked a dozen different ways, trying to figure out how she came to live on the streets, but no matter the angle he’d used, she’d been relentlessly silent on the subject.
Claudia’s pupils dilated, her eye movement erratic as she breathed in shakily. “I was. Damn good.The militarywasn’t happy when Ishifted out, but I’d done enough…seen enough to last a lifetime. Done with the navy, I settledherebecause the weather is…” She stopped again, and he watched her work to collect herself. “I like the four seasons, you know? Not just heat and cold. I like all the in between, too.” He nodded,butshe was no longer looking at him, gaze fixed on the fork in her hand, apparently studying the unsteadymetal utensil. “I…the non-technical term is burnout. Where you’re just done, ready to throw in the towel. But I loved what I did, so I kept on. Figured it would get better, as long as I just kept on. Civvie versus military, at least that way I had more of a say in what I did, you know? Then one night there was an accident just outside my neighborhood. I was headed back from the north end, wherewe’d been blowing off steam. Heard the crash. The screams.” Claudia’s voice broke,andhe swallowed around the pain in his throat at how tormented she sounded. “She was so small, tiny. I tried.” Her focus snapped to him,andwith anearnesturgency,she told him, “I did, you know?I tried. Three years, four months, and thirteen days old. I tried.” Her gaze was watery, wide pupils lost behind thetears. “I’d been drinking. Just blowing off steam, dancing the alcohol out of my system almost as fast as I poured it in. But, I’d been drinking.” Gaze distant, she stared past him, not even aware he’d reached out and plucked the fork from herfingers,and was now holding her hand. “I shouldn’t have put my hands on her. The board relieved me of any culpability, but I couldn’t. After that, I justcouldn’t. I was done. When her family sued in civilcourt,I didn’t fight anything. Signed it all over. Everything I had. I knew it wasn’t enough. Would never be enough. She died in my arms, with my hands trying to hold her little body together. Nothing I could give them would be enough. I walked away. Took the coward’s way out.”
She straightened and stared at him for a moment before she yankedher hand out of his grip, and began to push back from the table, movements tense with sudden urgency. “I need to go.”
Doug was out of his chair and had rounded the table before she’d fully risen to her feet. He reached out and gathered her into his arms. “You need to stay.” Her forehead settled against his chest. She didn’t return the hug, but she didn’t shove him away, either. Trembling, shewas shaking so hard the top of her head thudded against his chin with enough force to hurt. “Stay,Clauds.” He tightened his arms, holding her rigid frame close. A minute passed, then another and she finally sucked in a hard breath, the angle of her shoulders softening slightly. “You need to stay,” he told her again. Maybe if he repeated the words enough times, they could silence whatever demonswere tearing her apart inside.
He heard a tiny mumble against his chest and gave her a squeeze. The rough clearing of her throat preceded a question spokenina voice so small it was nearly lost in the room. “I’m crazy, you know right? Certifiable. You sure I can stay?”
“I’m certain.” He gave her another squeeze as she shifted, resting her cheek against his chest. “You need to stay.”
“I’llstay.”
***
Claudia had been living with him for several months, and Doug found he enjoyed not just the idea of thecompany, but her companionship. Quick-witted and smart, she was loud and quiet by turns,andDoug lookedforwardsto coming home at the end of the day. He’d never had a friend like her, not family with different ties of loyalty than his brothers in blue, and not a colleague, either.Just a friend with nojudgmentor demands, taking everything as it came, offeringhimpearls of wisdom as they moved through their days. Accepting his help when she neededitwhile taking nothing for granted. He liked the satisfaction gained by taking care of her, making certain she was well, without expectation of payback. Doing it because it was what friends did.
“Hope you’re hungry. I madesupper,” Claudia called from the kitchenandDoug glanced at the clock. He was late, having covered a murder on the city’s southeast side. Unable to leave the scene until the lab boys were done, he’d called and left her avoice mailon the apartment phone.
“Did you get my message?” He locked the door and walked to the kitchen. Doug stopped in his tracks at what greeted him and laughed, unableto stop himself, the tension of the day rolling away in the form of gut-wrenching whoops of hilarity. She twisted and glared at him, which didn’t make the scene any less comical.
Claudia stood there with her hair twisted up in what looked like a tiny terrycloth towel, giant oven mitts on both hands, an apron featuring the torso of a male bodybuilder on her body, and something closely resemblingthe Abominable Snowman’s feet completing the ensemble. She glared at him and propped fisted mitts on either hip, which made it look like the bodybuilder was throwing sass, and made him laugh louder.
“No food for you.” She whirled, tripped over her house shoes and stumbled, slapping the countertop with one palm. It didn’t make him laugh any less, because the leggings she had on under the apronwere covered in emoji, with one smiling face strategically placed at the top of her butt. At his renewed howls of laughter, she scowled over her shoulder, fighting the grin trying to curl the corners of her mouth. “I’m not kidding, Dougie, no food for you.”
“Clauds, you’re my best friend, you know that?”
“And that, Dougie, is possibly the saddest thing you’ve ever told me.” He sobered as hewatched pain flicker across her face, features rearranging themselves from sorrow into a pleasant expression that was a bigger lie than she’d ever told him before. “I miss your hair.” He’d finally had to cut the locks grown in Californiatofit back into the ranks at the precinct. Doug had been surprised when he’d missed it, too. “Go change. Then, come and eat.”
“Clauds?” He took a step in herdirection but stopped when she lifted a hand. “You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”
“Sure, Dougie. I’d tell you. Now shoo. Sooner you get ready, sooner we can eat.”
They spent the evening on the couch, as they’d done so many times. Taking turns channel surfing until they found something worth their time, trading barbs about the characters on the shows, throwing jokes back and forthin a way that was easy and comfortable. Maybe their friendship wasn’t conventional, but it was real and something Doug wanted to hold on to. He reached out and traced a finger up the back of her hand, pulling her attention away from the TV.
“You’d tell me if something was wrong?” He repeated his question from before, studying her face as she gave it thought. He saw the change when she decidedto lie to him again and forestalled it with a shake of his head. “No bullshit,Clauds. You got something going on in your head, you tell me. No longer a request.”
In hereyes,he recognized a flash of the pain she’d offered once before.“She was so small, tiny. I tried.”Instead of thosewords,she gave him a truth he hadn’t expected. “If therewereanyone I could tell, it would be you, Dougie.”She shook her head. “Sometimes we have to soldier on alone to get to the other side.”
“As long as you make it to the other side, does it matter if you’ve had help?” He covered her hand with his. She made no move to join their hands, didn’t grab hold. “There’s only one wrong road here,Clauds. That’s the one where you don’t talk to me, tell me what you need. I’m here for you.”
“I know, Doug.You’ve helped me so much already.” She pulled away and reached for the remote. The TV clicked and went dark as silence filled the room. She broke it with a softly spoken, “All you’ve ever done was try to help.”
“Keep that door open, let me in.” She held his gaze for a moment then she bent double, hands on her knees as she pushed to her feet. “Claudia, talk to me.”
“Tired, Dougie. Just tired.”She turned, the smiley face on her ass such a contrast to the emotions running through him it wasasdissonant as a sharp slapinthe face. Sheshuffled step by step as she walked away,and the plastic soles of her furry house shoes were loud in the silence. “Night.”
