Chapter 7:

Pepper Spray

Sera stabbed an olive with a toothpick, dropped it into the martini she had just shaken, and handed it to the James Bond wannabe across from her. His name was Will Sidney, 22, according to his ID, with bleach blonde hair and contact-altered blue eyes. He was a regular at Harley’s, American born but loved to talk with a British accent.

“It helps to draw the chicks,” he had told her.

It also made him sound like a prick.

It was almost 2am, and the pub was empty except for Will sitting at the bar slurping his fifth martini. Sera switched off the friendly Michelob and Margarita neon signs in the window. She hated being alone with Will, mostly because when she was, it meant he had a bad night with the ladies and he wanted to try his luck with her. Denise worried about Sera being alone with him and told her not to hesitate to call the police, but Will never threatened her. He just threw his stolen pick-up lines at her and whined about feeling neglected. He was not an amusing drunk.

“You know,” he slurred Britishly. “I always wanted to have Christmas in Russia.”

Sera set down the mixer she was drying. “I don’t think that one works outside of a Bond movie.”

Will pushed the empty glass toward her. “Nah, things like that drive chicks wild.”

“Maybe to get away.” She took the glass.

“No. Really. I have chicks crawl nall over me.”

“Are they pink and shimmery?”

“What?” Will squinted at her.

“I said are they—never mind.”

“Can I have another martini, shaken, not shtirred?” He sat up a little straighter and flashed her a smile that stretched almost to his left eye.

“Nope, sorry. Bar’s closed for the night. Should I call a cab for you?”

“Or you could take me home.”

“I don’t take strays home.”

“Oh, I won’t stray, I promise.”

“Applicable, but I’d still work on it.” She dialed the number to the nearest cab service.

“I’d rather work on you.”

“Yes, I need—”

Will reached across the bar and grabbed Sera’s wrist. “You mean it?”

“Let go! I need a cab at Harley’s on 9th. Thanks.” She hung up the phone and yanked her hand free. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“You said yes.”

“Yes to what?”

“I said, I said...”

“It doesn’t matter what you said. I wasn’t talking to you. I phoned you a cab. It will be here in a couple of minutes.”

Will sunk his head in his hands, his voice forgoing the fake accent. “Why doesn’t anyone like me? It’s not like I’m ugly, right? Do you think I’m ugly?”

“No, I think your drunk.”

“Then why’d that chick shoot me down tonight, huh? Did you see her? I sat down beside her and tried to ask her out, and she laughed at me. Why would she do that?”

“She was from London, Will.”

“Really? Then she should’ve totally fallen for me, right? Being a stranger and all. She should’ve found comfort in my heart.”

“She’s lived here for two years. I think you mean ‘arms.’”

“Oh.” Will locked his hands over his head, which fell against the counter. “Ma uck’s in off a nigh.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand counter.”

He raised his head. “What? I said my luck’s been off all night.” It wasn’t any more articulated, but at least it wasn’t muffled.

Sera reached across the bar and patted him on the head. “It’ll get better.”

Headlights scraped the window, and a horn beeped twice.

“Your cab’s here. Can you make it outside by yourself?”

“Ah, yeah. I can make it.” He stood, swaying slightly to the right. “You’re a nice lady, and I have a nice body. I think we deserve each other.”

Sera shook her head as he staggered to the door and pulled. “Push, Will.”

“Hey, babe, that I can do.” And out the door he tottered.

“I hate his kind of drunk,” Sera grumbled.

“Whose kind of drunk?” Denise asked, emerging from her office down the hall. Despite being big-boned and in her late 50s, she was a proportional woman with full, hourglass curves. She had dark skin and orangish-brown hair, the roots of which had returned to their natural black. She was an odd sort to look at, but Sera always thought of her as strangely pretty.

“Will Sidney’s.”

“Oh, him? Is he bothering you, hon?”

Sera examined her wrist, on which red fingers lingered. If Denise found out he had grabbed her, she’d go after him with a broom like she had the last customer who reached across the counter. Bond-boy was a whiny, drunken fraud, but he didn’t deserve to be walloped with a broom. Not yet, anyway.

“No, I’m fine.”

“I’m telling you if he starts anything, the police will finish it. And if they don’t, I will. Are you about done?”

“Yes, everything is washed except for his glass, and I haven’t swept yet.”

“Oh, leave the glass for tomorrow. I’ll take care of the sweeping.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, hon, go on.”

“Thanks, Denise. See you tomorrow.” She grabbed her purse, a small blue cloth bag, from a cabinet beneath the bar and headed out the door toward her car, the bottom of her khaki pants scraping along the concrete. She dropped into the driver’s seat and stuffed the key into the ignition.

Will’s slurred speech sat like a mud puddle in her temporal lobes. “Do you think I’m ugly?” Most women would not consider him ugly, with his Californian surfer image. Maybe fake, but not ugly. He was a lot like Sera’s ex, actually, except Justin was not composed of hair dye and contacts. His features were real: tan body, long brown curls, green eyes, muscles to drool over. Their horny personalities, however, matched exactly, after whatever bit of tail they can grab.

It felt great, like a bursting bubble of energy, an exploding bottle of Pepsi mixed with Mentos, to tell her ex he would have to find some other clueless “babe” to mutilate psychologically because it wasn’t going to be her. Furthermore, she hoped he contracted AIDS from that lady of the evening entertained the night before.

I don’t need men like that, Sera thought as she turned off 9th onto Pauletta. She clicked on the radio, cringed as Pearl Jam droned from the speakers, and clicked it off again. And I don’t need that either.

She pulled onto Greenview and into the parking lot for Greenview Apartment Housing. Scuffing up the stairwell to the second floor, she turned left and stopped. A man sat on the bench beside her apartment door. His shoulders were hunched, head bent, staring down at a dark, limp form in his hands.

At first, Sera pictured her ex, sitting there, waiting for her, but his shoulders were too broad to belong to Justin. She cautiously approached the door, her hands roaming over the contents of her purse for the pepper spray. Brush, chap stick, wallet, ow, fingernail file, pepper spray.

“Excuse me, are you okay,” she asked.

“Yeah, I just got locked out of my apartment.” He gestured to the corner apartment a few doors down. The window gleamed with light. A shadowy outline of a lamp squatted to one side.

That apartment had been empty for months. When had he moved in?

“Will no one answer the door?”

He looked up from the dark lump in his hands. The lamppost in the courtyard cast orange shadows on the man’s softly squared face. His eyes were pale, his hair thick, loose curls that soaked up the orange. Small freckles dotted his cheeks where the shadows were not. He wore a light-colored muscle shirt, dark pajama pants, and what looked like moccasins.

His fair, heavy brows crinkled then relaxed. His voice was like a deep pool of water. He smiled. “I live alone. I just came outside to put my trash in the dumpster, and as soon as I shut the door I realized I hadn’t brought my key.”

Not like Justin at all. Sera shook her head to clear her head, checking to make sure she wasn’t drooling. She tightened her grip on the pepper spray. “You were taking out the trash at 2:30 in the morning?”

“Yeah, I guess that does sound odd, but I couldn’t sleep so I thought I would clean while I was up.”

“Most people take a sleeping aid.”

“I don’t like to take pills unless I have no other choice.” He stood, setting the dark form on the bench. His height challenged that of her door.

He definitely didn’t look like an addict.

“Have you tried waking the landlord?”

“Yeah, I did that the first time I locked myself out. It was only 1:00 in the morning then, but I thought she was going to scratch my eyes out.”

Sera nodded. She had locked herself out once, heading for her car until she realized she hadn’t brought her keys. She could picture Ms. Garrett opening the door in her robe and curlers.

She glanced down the walkway at his apartment again. Curiosity clawed at her mind. Relenting, she asked when he had moved in.

“Two weeks ago,” he answered. “I just got my MBA from the University of Kentucky and moved here to Dannersby. I want to open up my own business.”

“Doing what?”

“Selling pianos and piano parts. I’d also like to hire a repair man...or woman.”

That wasn’t the strangest reply she had ever received. She had asked one customer the same question. “A Buddha shop,” the woman replied. Sera was baffled. “You mean stone replicas, and that sort of thing?” The woman bunched her eyebrows. “No, the spirit of Buddha.” “In little golden lamps?” Sera grinned impishly. “Like a genie? Isn’t it unethical to sell something that people can’t really own?” The woman retorted that she didn’t like Sera’s attitude, slammed a few dollars down on the bar, and stormed out of the pub.

“Why pianos?”

“I’ve been playing the piano since I was four. It’s a beautiful instrument. Can you play?”

“No.” She shivered, looked down at her goose-bump-ridden arms sticking out from the gray puffy sleeves around her shoulders. As much as she was enjoying this conversation, which she should not be doing with a complete stranger, she wanted out of the cool, damp air. “So I guess you’re stuck out here tonight then?”

“Well, I definitely wasn’t counting on having a nocturnal neighbor. Why are you out so late, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I work the 10 to close at Harley’s on 9th.”

He smiled, the right corner reaching slightly higher than his left.

“But, I guess you wouldn’t know what that is.”

He continued to smile.

Sera looked into her purse for her keys. “It’s a pub. I’m a bartender there.”

He did not move, but she suddenly felt the urge to run. She stepped toward the door, her feet tangling in her long pants, and she fell...into his arms. Panicked, she pulled the pepper spray from her purse and sprayed at the man’s face. He released her to hold his face as he yelled, and she hit the ground.

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry!” Her hands shook as she grabbed her keys from her purse, “I’ve never used that before,” and unlocked the door.

“Damn good aim,” he muttered through his hands.

She took his elbow, and led him inside her apartment through the living room and bedroom into the bathroom. She wandered back into the living room, flipped on a light, and sat down on the couch. Now that her pulse had returned to normal, a knot of worms wriggled in her stomach. She felt terrible for spraying the guy, but the sudden contact with him terrified her. Now he was in her apartment, and that terrified her even more. She was not afraid of him, exactly, just the thought of him, in her bathroom.

She turned to see him clutching the door frame. He held a wet rag to his face. His hair was a yellow-orange, even without the aid of the lamppost. She rose and led him to the couch.

“I can’t apologize enough,” Sera said, sitting beside him. “How bad is it?”

He lifted the rag. His right eye was swollen shut, and the same side of his face burned bright red. His left eye was a green-yellow. She stood. “I’m so sorry.”

He reached out for her hand, pulling her back down onto the couch. “Don’t apologize. I shouldn’t have caught you.”

Sera could feel the muscles in his hand as it cradled her own. He withdrew it. “Then I would be the one hurting,” she said, frowning, though she couldn’t select a reason.

“Exactly.”

She had to laugh at that. “Do I need to take you to the Emergency Room? How much of it did I get in your eye?”

He recovered his face with the rag. “I turned my head when I saw the can and shut my eyes. I think you just got skin. It should go down by morning.”

“Keep that rag on it. You can sleep in my bed tonight.” She paused. The words had come out without her permission. “With me sleeping on the couch, of course.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Well, I can’t throw you back outside. Not after nearly blinding you for catching my fall.”

He chuckled. “Then you can let me sleep on the couch. I won’t sleep in a lady’s bed on the first date.”

“Are you sure?” That’s not at all what she meant. “I mean, I don’t mind sleeping on the couch. You’re already in enough pain without having to curl up out here.” She was glad he had the rag over his eyes and couldn’t see her blushing.

He leaned back onto the pillows. Sera stood, and he stretched his feet out over the arm of the couch. His moccasin-looking house shoes dropped onto the floor. The hair on his large feet was almost transparent. “See, I fit,” he said through the rag.

She smiled and imagined him smiling back. She stamped on her own foot. It was bad enough having a strange guy in the house. She didn’t need to fantasize about him, too. No need to act like Will or her ex. “Well, if you're sure, then I will leave you two to get acquainted.”

“Before you go, I’d like to know whose couch it is. It’s easier to introduce yourself when you have mutual friends.”

She slapped her forehead. “You must think I’m the rudest person in the world. I’m sorry, my name’s Sera. Wallace.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Sera; although, I will be perfectly frank with you and say I wish it were in better circumstances. My name is Ress Bradley.”

She laughed. “Good night, Ress. Please don’t die on the couch during the night. I’ll make it up to you.”

Sera bit her tongue and fled to her bedroom. Ress chuckled from the couch. She closed the door behind her. Why did she just say that?