Willa
I wake up with my head feeling like it’s trapped between two rocks, my ears pushing into my skull, a band of tension all around my head. Opening and closing my eyes causes invisible jagged spikes to lance into my brain. I lean up and rub my eyes, looking around the room. Diesel snores next to me, lying on his front, half of his body almost falling from the bed. I look at him for a few moments before I remember what we did last night, the ache in my pussy bringing the memory home. We had sex, finally, at last … I look around the rest of the room. Three, no—four wine bottles lie scattered about the place, as well as a half-full bottle of vodka.
It’s half past seven which means I need to be out of here and on my way in forty minutes. I drag myself into the shower, remembering how I bent over last night, how wildly we fucked, wondering what the hell got into me. I was drunk, I guess, drunker than drunk. But is that any excuse? And yet I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. I can’t say I would take it back, even if I wouldn’t have done it sober. As I brush my teeth, trying to get rid of the stale alcohol taste, I try not to think about fires, arson, outlaws, bikers, violence. I try to just think about me and Diesel, what we shared, the pleasure between us.
But when I’m dressed and Diesel is still snoring in bed, I look down at him and I can’t disconnect the flames from the man, no matter how badly I want to. I remember what he told me about his childhood, and then I leave the apartment. I need to think today. I need to sort things out.
“Willa!” Peter almost explodes out of his office door when he sees me emerge from the elevator.
Rubbing my head, trying to look like I don’t want to lie down and never get up, I drag my hungover carcass across the office. He sits behind his desk, steepling his fingers. He nods at the chair across from him. I sit down, glad to be off my feet. My ankles throb from the position they were in yesterday with Diesel.
“Rough night?” he asks, smiling, taking way too much enjoyment from the state I’m in. That’s my opinion of his smile, anyway.
“No,” I lie. “I had an early night.”
“Okay … right, fine, well. I need you to interview a family who’re coming in—” He cuts off, checking his watch. It’s new, I notice, silver. “They should be here in about twenty minutes.”
“Okay, great.” I sit up straighter. This is good. This is better than copy. “What am I interviewing them about?”
“They were made homeless yesterday when a laundromat caught fire. It’s a human interest piece, an emotional piece. It’s for the paper and the website, so we want as much detail as we can get.”
He watches me closely. Maybe he’s hoping for a sign of my distress. But I keep that buried, deep inside of me, as deep as Diesel was last night. A family, made homeless, by a fire … I resist the urge to clench my fists, to groan, to close my eyes, to do anything which would give Peter an indication of what I’m feeling. If this is hell, it’s my personal hell. He has no business here.
“I’ll go and get ready,” I say.
He nods. “Yes, you better. Preliminary reports indicate arson, and a witness says he heard a motorcycle engine.”
I sit in my cubicle and get my notepad and pen. I’ve done a few pieces for the sister paper before, mainly fluff pieces, and most of my mind-numbing copy is for the sister paper or the website, but this is something else. This is a story which relates to me directly. I try and tell myself that there’s no way of knowing if Diesel was responsible for this fire. But he came home smelling of smoke last night. It’s too much of a coincidence. And there are Peter’s final words. Arson, motorcycle.
The African American couple comes into the station looking lost. The woman is tall and thin, with a wide smile and dark brown eyes. She wears her hair in a bunch on top of her head, some of it spilling down her back. The man is fat around the middle, wearing a faded baseball cap and holding a briefcase. “I didn’t know if I’d need our insurance papers,” he says. He looks slightly tragic as he presents the briefcase.
“We’re just going to have a conversation today,” I say, smiling, though I want to weep and beg for their forgiveness.
I get Kendrick and Lisa a couple of coffees and then sit with them in the conference room.
“Our son is with my mother,” Lisa says, reading my face.
“He didn’t need to be here, did he?” Kendrick asks, glancing around nervously.
Lisa rolls her eyes. I get the sense she’s used to him being too nervous, used to taking the lead.
“No,” I say, swallowing dryly. The AC is on but it’s far too hot in here. I flip open my notepad. I just need to do my job. That’s all. Nothing else. “This is what we call a human interest piece,” I tell them. “That means I want to know how things happened from your perspective, so if you could start by telling me how you first became aware of the fire.” My voice threatens to break at several points, but somehow I manage to keep it under control.
“Of course,” Lisa says. “That’s why we agreed to come down.”
“And we’re hoping the insurance companies might see the story and not mess us around,” Kendrick adds. “You know how they can be.” He stares down at the table.
“I know,” I assure him.
“Will you tell it, or shall I?” Lisa asks.
“You,” Kendrick says.
“Okay, then.” She takes a deep breath. “It was like this.”
I do my job as best as I can, but the combination of the hangover, the look of sadness on Kendrick’s face as his wife speaks, and the knowledge that I most likely know the person responsible is driving me crazy. The pen scratches too loudly against the paper. Lisa and Kendrick were able to secure a mortgage on their two-bedroom apartment just three months ago. The fact that it was next to a laundromat annoyed them, since it woke the baby, but Kendrick is a builder and Lisa is a hairdresser, so they couldn’t afford anywhere else. They had just finished decorating it when a knock came at the door. They answered it and found a note telling them to get out. They ignored it. There was another knock and this time a bullet was in its place. Off to the east, they heard a gunshot into the air. They fled the house, calling the police out of fear, but by the time the police came it was too late. The damage was done.
Lisa shakes her head slowly. “What kind of a person would do that?” she asks. “We are private people. We don’t go around causing trouble or making enemies. I can’t think of anybody who would do such a thing.”
“It was the laundromat,” Kendrick says quietly. “I am convinced of that. They wanted to burn down the laundromat and we just happened to be there.”
“But why burn down a laundromat?” Lisa demands.
Kendrick’s shoulders sag. “I don’t know. I have no idea.”
I lick my lips. They’re so dry. My head feels like it’s going to implode. I want to cry but then that would lead to awkward questions. Outside, I am ice. Inside, I am the fire which tore through their home, decimating me.
“And how does this make you feel?” I ask.
“How does it make us feel?” Lisa snaps, thumping the table. “How do you think it makes us feel? We have a baby. That was our home. How would you feel?”
I say goodbye to them and then join Peter in his office, feeling stunned, numb, and guilty all at once. The worst part about this medley of feelings is that I still don’t hate Diesel. I can’t stop thinking about what he told me about his dad. I can’t stop thinking about the pain in his eyes. The memory of his cock aches between my legs.
“Did you get everything you need?” Peter watches me closely.
“Yes,” I say. “I’ll write it up now.”
“My offer’s still open,” he says, as I leave his office.
I finish the write-up a couple of hours after lunchtime, and then I come to my decision. I want Diesel. I love being with him; I love being close to him and the feel of him. But I have to let him go. I can’t go on being with a man who’s going to cause this much pain. Even if he isn’t physically hurting anybody, I can’t let myself fall for a man like this. I have to make a change. It’s daylight now. I can’t pretend, not like last night.
I ask Brittany to join me in the hallway. She peers at me over her chunky red glasses, sighs, and then gets up to follow me.
“Is something wrong?” she says, using one fingernail to pick at the red paint of another. We stand around the corner from the elevator, near the storage cupboard where people rarely come. She gestures at its door. “I hope you’re not coming onto me, Willa.”
“I need to ask you something,” I say. My heart is thumping loudly in my ears. My belly aches. For the umpteenth time, I wonder how much Diesel and I drank last night.
“Okay, what?” She folds her arms. I wonder if she’s always been this short with me.
I just come out with it. “I need a place to stay. I’ve been living with a man since my building burned down, and the insurance company is still messing me around. Next month, they say … but until then, Brittany, I really, really need a place to stay. I can’t stay where I am. I just can’t. It’s too complicated. I won’t be with you for very long.”
“You just said a month.” She pushes her glasses up her nose. “A month. Doesn’t that seem like a long time to you?”
“I won’t stay with you the whole month.” I hate the note of pleading in my voice. “Just until I figure out something else.”
“And what if you don’t?” She smiles awkwardly, flashing whitened teeth. “Then what happens? I like my apartment, Willa. I like being able to relax there. You know?”
“I know. I get that.”
“I don’t have two beds in my apartment. I have one bed and one office, and a couch. But I use the couch for sitting on. I don’t sleep on the couch.”
“You don’t have to talk to me like I’m twelve!” I snap.
She takes a step back. “That was completely uncalled for,” she says, head held high. “I was simply explaining.”
“And I was simply asking. I thought we were friends.”
“Friends! Friends! This isn’t TV, Willa. Grow up. How many times do I have to tell you? We’re work friends.”
I feel like raking my fingernails down her face. I need somewhere to stay. I can’t be with Diesel anymore. Not because I don’t want to, but because I want to too much. I’m afraid we’ll end up screwing every night for the next month if I stay with him, and then what does that say about me?
“Fine,” I mutter, pushing past her. “You’ve made yourself clear.”
“Don’t be upset with me!” she calls. “Don’t be like that!”
Peter starts when I push open his office door. He stands up, and then when he sees it’s me he drops back into his seat. “Willa,” he says.
“Do you have a spare room?” I ask. My voice sounds frantic. I need to calm down. But I know if I don’t sort this out now, I never will. I’ll stay with Diesel. Even if that would feel incredible, it would also mean I’m admitting I’m an arsonist’s woman, and I can’t be that. I drop into the seat opposite Peter.
“A spare room … oh, yes. I have a spare room.” He rests his elbows on the desk. “Why, have you given my proposal some consideration?”
“Yes,” I say, “but I want to lay out some ground rules. We’re just friends, right?”
He lifts his hands, trying his best to look innocent. “Of course,” he says. “Just friends.”
I wish I had money. I wish I had parents or family. I wish I had close friends. But since I have none of those things, I’ll have to go with the next best thing.
“Then yeah, I think I want to take you up on your offer.”
He nods, smiling. “That’s fantastic news!”
I find it difficult to return the smile. All I can think of is Diesel, and his scars, and all the horrible stuff that happened to him as a kid. But that’s not my responsibility, I tell myself. It’s not my job to fix him.
I force myself to think of Lisa and Kendrick instead.