most of her accent gone.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Zeke held out his hand to my mother. In an instant, her face changed and she started smiling. Suddenly, I wanted to be as far away from the store as possible.
“Melina,” my mother shook Zeke’s hand. “Buy an extra microwave or two while you’re here, it will save you a trip later.” She whispered conspiratorially with Zeke, but not quite low enough that I couldn’t hear her. Zeke’s smile never faltered. “So, how did you two meet?”
“I work for Nadine, I’m only staying with her temporarily, since I’m divorced and trying to sort out my life.”
“Divorced,” my mother said this like it had meaning. She gave me a quick look that meant something, but I didn’t know what. My urge to run was getting stronger. There was something going on, something I didn’t understand, but knew was about to make my life more stressful. “Well, I’ll let you two get back to it. I hope to see you again, soon.” She emphasized the soon, and it dawned on me. I put my head against the display rack of towels. Zeke looked at me.
“Did I miss something?” He asked.
“My mother thinks we’re a couple,” I told him.
“A simple misunderstanding,” he answered.
“You think that only because you don’t know my mother,” I told him. I didn’t tell him that one of my brothers had gotten married because of a simple misunderstanding. Or that my other three brothers did not live in Kansas City or Missouri or Kansas because it made their lives easier.
“Are you going to cry?”
“Maybe,” I answered. Actually, I would wait until she broke out the color wheel of bridesmaids’ dresses before I started crying.
“Don’t cry, I don’t know what to do about crying.”
“Stick around and my mom will make you cry too. Trust me, bigger men than you have fallen prey to her.” I thought about Anthony. He understood. “When you have free time, talk to Anthony about Melina Daniels.”
“Why do we need extra microwaves?” He changed the subject.
“They have a tendency to die around me for no reason. You should look in the utility room when we get back,” I sighed. “It isn’t a bad idea. I need a blender too.”
“Interesting and unsettling,” Zeke answered. I grabbed a stack of black towels. They wouldn’t show blood like the others, I’d put them in the master bath. I shoved them in the cart. I had two more bathrooms. I grabbed a set of dark green towels because they looked masculine and shoved them in the cart. “Where are you putting those?” Zeke asked.
“The spare bathroom upstairs, which you will be using from now on. I don’t know what sort of idiot built two entrances to the master bathroom, but it was obviously not a good idea,” I scowled. In reality, I was the idiot that had asked for two entrances, just in case, I didn’t want to be trapped and murdered in my own bathroom.
For the downstairs bathroom, I grabbed some bright purple ones. I had no idea what color the bathroom was, I wasn’t that observant. However, I liked the look of them and they were just as soft and fluffy as the others. Besides, Alex’s favorite color was purple, so she’d get a kick out of them.
“Where are those going?” Zeke asked.
“Downstairs,” I answered.
“The downstairs bathroom is blue.”
“How would you know?” I snipped at him.
“Because I’ve used it.” Zeke replaced the purple with the blue. I replaced the blue with the purple. He grabbed the blue again. I took half the purple out of the cart and put them back. I grabbed half the blue stack from him and put them in the cart. See, I could compromise.
“Well, keep using it. If you use the one upstairs, it will probably just fuel the fantasies in my mother’s head.
“Um, do you…” he started.
“Don’t go there,” I didn’t look at him. “My mother has become involved. I must do everything possible to stop this freight train before it runs away.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Oh yes, yes it can. My mother is a force of nature.”
“So is mine, but she’s still a wonderful mother.” There was a tone to his sentence. I wanted to pry, but I didn’t.
“Let’s just get microwaves and get the hell out of here, before she comes back.”
“We need more carts to get microwaves.”
“Fine, you get the cart, I’ll check out with these. Pick up a microwave and a blender.” I told him.
“Okay,” he gave me a strange look. I found the nearest register. The clerk told me the total and I stared at her for a moment. She said it again. “For towels and pans?” I asked, disbelieving. I could make a down payment on a car for that price.
“And the knives and sheets,” she smiled at me. I swiped my debit card and shook my head. It was a small price to pay to help convince my mother that Zeke and I were not a couple.
Still shaking my head, I went outdoors and started packing the car. I was expecting my mother to show up and interrogate me about Zeke. I was in my thirties and unmarried. I might as well be an alien. Her goal in life was to see me married, which was why I had stopped dating. The last time I’d gone on a date, she had shown up at the restaurant and told him about how much money I made as an incentive for marriage. It had only been our second date. He had seemed interested, I had lost mine. The boyfriend before that had been subjected to her wedding planning skills after two months of dating. He had moved out of state when we broke up.
“Ms. Daniels?” A voice behind me said. I turned to answer and felt my body go rigid. Being stun gunned hurt like hell.
Kidnapped
“Ah, good you’re awake.” A voice floated to me through the dark. I struggled to open my eyes.
“Well, if that’s what you want to call it.” My voice was soft, my throat scratchy. I thought back to what had happened. I’d been packing stuff into my car and then, something. It was there, just around the edge of my memory. I tried to rub my eyes, but my arms wouldn’t move.
“Ms. Daniels, I’m going to make myself very clear. You have information I want. Now we can do it the easy way, you answer my questions and I’ll kill you quick or we can do it the hard way, I torture the information out of you.” I still couldn’t see the speaker, my eyelids felt glued to my cheeks.
“That’s really lame. You should have rehearsed it before saying it.” I muttered. My throat was starting to feel better. The heavy scratchy feeling was retreating. I really needed a drink. “May I have a drink of water?”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s a really cheesy way to put it. You could have said something more original like ‘tell me what I want to know or I’ll slowly cut away chunks of your hair.’ I don’t know, just something more original.” It was stupid to argue with him, but I couldn’t really do anything else at the moment. “Water?”
“I don’t think you are in a position to make jokes, Ms. Daniels.” He was at least nice enough to put something to my lips. I drank it down. It was warm and definitely water. I hated water; it had a funny metallic taste to it.
“And haven’t you ever heard torture isn’t a very good way to get information.” I continued after he’d pulled the glass away. “Under torture, you can get people to confess to just about anything; the information is usually whatever the torturer wants to hear. It’s much more effective to schmooze a person, kiss a bit of behind, be their friend.”
“Ms. Daniels, you are about to have the worst day of your life, maybe you should take it more seriously.”
“Actually, the worst day of my life was June 20, 1999. I don’t think torture and death can top even that day.” I briefly wondered if I was dreaming as the words drifted from me. “See, that day, my first serious boyfriend dumped me, then I went to my best friend’s house for comfort, but I was speeding and got pulled over. The ticket was almost $300! Anyway, I get there, she wasn’t there, so
I let myself in to wait for her, and some idiot neighbor thinks I broke in. The same officer that wrote the ticket, responded to the breaking and entering call. We had to track down my friend and wait for her to show up before someone would believe that I had permission to be there. We went out for lunch, because food is comforting, a little Italian place with some of the best ravioli in the world. I got food poisoning and now, I can’t even smell pasta without feeling a little ill. On my way home, I pulled over to throw up and some idiot smashes into my car while I’m yakking in the grassy ditch. When I finally get home, my parents think I’ve been drinking and ground me for two weeks. Then as I’m walking up the stairs to my bedroom I lose my balance, fall all the way to the bottom, break my arm and dislocate my knee. If that wasn’t bad enough already, it was my 18th birthday. I was leaving for college in two months, it should have been a really happy day, but no. Oh no, I can’t have good birthdays. I haven’t had a good…”
“Shut up! Do you always ramble when you’re scared?”
“I’m not scared, I’m not even nervous at this point. I figure if you torture and kill me, my friends will have a nice big wake for me, and it still won’t have been the worst day of my life. Besides, if you kill me I can come back and haunt you. That could be fun.”
“My God!” He mumbled.
“What can I say, I’m an optimist.” I tried to shrug and couldn’t. “My dogs will probably miss me. But I can come visit them