Zelda
December 1st
“I have to say, Copeland,” I said as we descended the two flights of stairs down, our footsteps echoing in the dingy corridors. “This feels like I’m going to meet your parents.”
“They’re not my parents,” he said. The cold tinge to his voice gave me a shiver, but he looked apologetic when we arrived at the door to the street. “Roy and Mary are good people. I’m sure you’ll love them.”
I nodded and kept my smartass remarks to myself. He obviously didn’t want to talk about parents or family either. I could appreciate that. Holy hell, could I ever.
Roy and Mary Goodwin stood outside, next to the cab. All beaming smiles, like proud, emotional parents on prom night, despite Beckett’s words to the contrary. Mary, a somewhat plump woman with brown hair that brushed her shoulders, greeted Beckett with a hug, then held his face in her gloved hands to look at him.
“How are you, sweetheart? It’s been too long.” She kissed him on the cheek, then turned to me. “And you must be Zelda? I’m Mary. So happy to meet you, darling.”
“Thanks. You too,” I said.
“Roy Goodwin, young lady,” Roy said, giving my hand a fatherly squeeze. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“You too, Mr. Goodwin,” I said. “Or is it Officer?”
“No formalities here,” he said. “Just Roy. I hope you’re hungry. I thought we’d head to a joint on 3rd Avenue. You build your own hamburgers. Ain’t that something? Sound good?”
“Sounds great,” I said.
Roy Goodwin had to be the most cheerful human I’d met in a long time. Apparently the ills of society he dealt with every day in his occupation were unimportant when compared to building one’s own burger. I couldn’t help smiling, but Beckett looked stoic, as if hardening himself against some ordeal.
I elbowed him in the side as we shuffled around the cab to determine who would sit where. “He’s your parole officer?” I whispered. “He’s great. They both are.”
He nodded and made a noncommittal sound.
There’s a story here, I thought, realizing how little I actually knew of Beckett Copeland. Things were happening so fast—moving in, then going to dinner with the Goodwins. I had a sense of being dropped straight into the middle of a book without having read the early chapters.
But not bad, I thought. I’d read more.
Beckett sat in the front seat of the cab and because I was small, I sat wedged between the Goodwins in the back. They chatted and bickered, both with each other and with Beckett. Their manner was so casual and familiar, so unconscious, I couldn’t shake the impression they were family.
Maybe they are. Or as close to it as he has. I could ask him—later, privately. But then again, questions about his family would only beget questions in return.
Forget it, I thought, enjoying Beckett’s irritated grimace when Mary reached over the seat to smooth down the collar of his jacket and pestered him about getting a haircut.
The Burger Bistro had polished wood floors and brick walls. A huge serving bar ran down its middle, where patrons could choose their own burger fixings and fries. The place was packed, loud with conversation. After loading up our plates, we spied people vacating a table for four and grabbed it.
“Isn’t this great?” Roy said. “It’s always this packed, because it’s just that good.”
“How do you like it, Zelda?” Mary asked, just as I took a monster bite out of my Jack cheeseburger with extra pickles.
I nodded and tried to smile through cheeks full of food. I’d hardly eaten in the last few days—having given up two meals to Mrs. Santino. I was ravenous, and burning with embarrassment for pigging out. I swallowed my half-chewed bite and washed it down with soda. “Really good,” I finally managed.
“I’m so glad.”
She released me from her spotlight smile but before I could sink my teeth again, Roy asked, “So tell us, Zelda, where did you and Beckett meet?”
“At Giovanni’s, two nights ago,” I said. “I needed a place to live, kind of on the fly. Beckett took pity on me.”
“We worked out a mutually-beneficial agreement,” Beckett said. “Just for a month or two.”
A look passed between him and Roy, then Roy turned a smile on me. “Well, I think it’s wonderfully smart to combine forces like that. Teaming up with someone else makes things like rent and utilities that much easier to tackle, right?”
Beckett concentrated on his food, swirling a French fry in a little paper cup of ketchup. “It’s a good arrangement.”
His voice wasn’t hard, just indifferent, but I didn’t miss the glance he shot me. As usual, his face and voice were holding the table at arm’s length, but his eyes… The vulnerable softness there he couldn’t conceal.
Under Mary’s direction, the conversation roamed all over easily. Eventually Beckett’s nonchalance loosened up and he laughed at Roy’s bad jokes. I almost made it out of the dinner un-interrogated, but as we sat back to let our food settle, Mary put her hand on mine.
“Zelda, sweetheart, tell us about yourself. Are you from New York originally?”
“No,” I said, avoiding Beckett’s eyes. “I’m from Las Vegas.”
“And do you have family there?”
I took a sip of soda to buy some time but there was no sense in lying. “No, they’re here on the East Coast. Philadelphia, actually.”
“Oh, that’s close,” Mary exclaimed. “How nice for you. Will you be visiting them during the holidays?” She leaned over and gave a nod of her head Beckett’s way. “We’d love to have this one over but he always plays hard to get.”
“Mary,” Roy said in a mildly warning tone.
“I know, I know, but a gal can hope, can’t she?” Mary smiled at me. “But what were we saying? Do you have plans for the holidays?”
I shifted in my seat. “I’m not sure yet.”
That was a version of the truth. My parents understood how hard it was for me to visit them. I’d only seen them a handful of times in the six years since I’d moved out. I wanted to go. I missed them horribly, but it was physically torturous. My body always protested a trip home in a variety of terrible ways…
Panic began to edge its way under my skin.
Oh shit, no…Not now. Why now?
I hadn’t had a full-blown attack in a year, but I recognized the symptoms. Usually the anxiety was a slow build; a thermostat’s red mercury climbing to the top. This felt like it was starting at the top and straining to explode out. My heart began to pound and my brow broke out in a sweat as everyone at the table watched me.
“I…” I swallowed. “I don’t…”
Roy and Mary exchanged looks and Beckett’s brows furrowed.
I struggled to inhale as the scene around me started to morph slowly, a photograph emerging in a dark room, to Handy’s Grocery, with rows and rows of colorful cans, and my sister at the end of the aisle.
Mary’s voice came from far away. “Are you alright, dear?”
Where’s your sister?
Beckett shoved his chair back, and the scraping sound jolted me a little. But not enough. My throat was closing and it felt as if every nerve ending had been set on fire. A hand closed around my arm and Beckett gently pulled me to my feet.
“She told me she has…um…a phobia,” he said, his voice muffled against the thrashing of my pulse in my ears. “Busy, enclosed spaces. Isn’t that right?”
I stared up at him through a terrible, fuzzy haze of memory that tried to swamp me, and nodded.
Roy started to rise from his chair. “Should I call someone…?”
“No, no, she needs some air,” Beckett said, grabbing my jacket off the back of my chair. “Meet us outside in five, okay?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but helped me through the small maze of tables and chairs, to the sidewalk outside and around the corner. The cold, night air was like a slap to the face—one that I desperately needed—and I sucked in air, leaning heavily on Beckett who had me securely by the arm and back.
“You okay?” he asked, studying me intently. “Or should I call someone after all?”
I shook my head, remembering what a therapist told me when I was sixteen. Deep breath in…deep breath out, I thought, envisioning the air—tinted blue for the cold—pass smoothly into my lungs and back out again. The memory of the grocery store aisle retreated, like a movie fading to black, then fading in on a new scene—a burger joint parking lot and Beckett holding my hand. My pulse slowed and quieted.
“I’m okay,” I said, exhaling.
“You sure?”
I nodded again. “I’m good. Thanks.”
Beckett let me go slowly, then helped me into my coat. “Panic attack, right?” he asked.
“How did you know?”
His coat was still in the restaurant. He jammed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, his breath pluming in the air. “Buddy of mine had them in high school,” he said. “Does this happen a lot?”
“Not a lot,” I said. Too much. Even once is too much.
“But there’s a trigger?”
“Yeah,” I said, and huddled into my coat. “Family stuff. This one took me by surprise.”
Beckett nodded. “Maybe talk about it later?” he asked in a low voice. His gaze followed a car leaving the parking lot. “In case it happens again so I know what to do.”
“You knew exactly what to do,” I said, humiliation turning my cheeks ruddy faster than the cold air. “I’m sorry I made a scene.”
“You didn’t,” Beckett said with a small grin. “But Mary might just take you home with her now. I’ll have to find a new roommate.”
Somehow, a smile spread over my lips when minutes ago I felt like I was being strangled by memories.
Roy and Mary came out of the restaurant wearing identical expressions of concern.
“Zelda, are you alright, dear?” Mary asked.
I noticed Roy’s glance danced between Beckett and me.
“She’s fine,” Beckett said.
“She can also speak for herself,” I said lightly.
Beckett shook his head with a small smile and held up his hands in surrender.
I turned to Mary. “I’m really sorry about that. It came on me so fast, I got a little…overwhelmed. It hasn’t happened in awhile so I wasn’t prepared. Although I guess I never am.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” she said, looking at Beckett fondly. “And I’m so happy that Beckett knew exactly what to do for you.”
I glanced up at him. Yeah, he did. I’d never had a panic attack come on so quickly, so strongly and then fade away almost as fast.
Roy handed Beckett his coat. “I’ve called a taxi. Should be here any minute.”
“You don’t have to wait out here in the cold with me,” I said.
“We’re happy to,” Roy said.
Together, we huddled under the bright yellow fluorescents of the Burger Bistro until the cab arrived, my shoulder touching Beckett’s the whole time.
The taxi pulled to the curb.
“I’ll take the front,” Roy said when Beckett moved for that door. “How do you young people say? I’m calling shotgun?”
His smile was bright but I sensed a sharp intelligence under all the joviality. Roy didn’t miss a thing. Beckett didn’t argue, just opened the back door. I slid to the middle, next to Mary, and Beckett folded himself in beside me. His legs were so long, his thigh rested against my knee.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“No worries,” I replied.
Mary filled the cab with pleasant chatter the whole way back to Beckett’s place. “Thanks so much for dinner,” I said as I got out. “It was nice to meet you.”
“A pleasure, sweetheart,” Mary said. “I hope I see you again soon.”
“Most assuredly,” Roy said. He exited the car to join his wife in the back. He stopped to briefly touch my shoulder. “Take care,” he said, with an undertone of thank you.
We went upstairs, an evening’s worth of mysteries and unspoken personal history lagging behind. Beckett said nothing, but his deep blue eyes were full of concern.
Goddamn panic attacks. Each time I had one, another piece of myself broke away, leaving me less whole and weaker than before.
I’m not weak. I’m fine. I’m doing just fine.
“Uh, so it’s hard to imagine Roy as a parole officer,” I said.
“Try imagining him as an FBI agent,” he said.
“What? No way.”
“I know. Can you picture Roy, armed with his service weapon and wearing a bullet-proof vest, busting some perp’s door down?”
“Does not compute,” I said.
We reached the door and Beckett pulled a set of keys from his jacket pocket.
“I don’t think he was in the field much, but even so. He looks more like a social studies teacher than a parole officer.”
“He’s great,” I said. “He and Mary both. And they obviously like you a lot. Do they treat all of his parolees the same way?”
“I’m sure they do,” Beckett said, though he didn’t sound sure at all. He unlocked the door and held it open for me. “We’re going to need to get a key made for you,” he said.
“I can do it tomorrow,” I said, shrugging out of my jacket. “I have to go out and pick up a few things, namely new art supplies. Oh, and a job.”
Beckett took my jacket and hung it for me. Utterly casual, as if he’d been doing it every day for years. “Okay, I’ll leave it with you.”
“Thanks.”
We took turns in the bathroom, changing, washing up and brushing teeth. I laid the air mattress on the floor and settled Beckett’s big blue comforter over it.
“Sheets,” I said, making a burrito out of the blanket rather than sleep directly on cold rubber. “My shopping list for tomorrow: sheets, art supplies, a job.”
Beckett frowned, eyed the air mattress with a sour curve to his lip. “You sure you’re okay on that thing?”
“Snug as a bug.” I glanced at my phone beside me on the floor. “It’s only nine o’clock,” I said. “Please don’t call it a night on my account. I get tired after…an episode. But you go ahead. Watch TV or whatever.”
Beckett rubbed his stubble, the dark look still on his face. “I have to be up at five to catch the train. I’ll just make sure the radiator doesn’t quit. I don’t want you to be cold.”
“I’m fine. Really.”
Beckett banged on the radiator, and cursed under his breath. It gave a small whine and a hiss that seemed to satisfy him. He hit the lights and climbed into bed.
“Goodnight, Zelda,” he said.
“Goodnight, Beckett.” I’d almost said ‘Copeland’ but after he’d helped me through the panic attack, it didn’t feel right in that moment. Despite my best effort, my almost-breakdown had pulled us a tiny bit closer together.
Focus, Rossi, I thought. Tomorrow I would buy new art supplies and get to work on my graphic novel. That’s what I was there for, and nothing more.
The air mattress was cold and smelled like a tire, but I fell asleep quickly. I dreamt of standing on a storm-swept island. A monsoon tore across the sky and ripped the water into monstrous waves that roared and tried to devour me. Beckett was there, standing between me and the white-foamed water that churned and boiled, his back to the danger. In his hands was my pea coat, of all things.
I don’t want you to be cold, he said, helping me slip it on. He smiled a sad, wistful kind of smile as the tidal wave crashed around us, around him.
I stood in the shelter of his tall, strong body and the water never touched me at all.