Chapter 15: Lunch, Dinner, and Dessert

A warm and pleasant jolt burst inside Karen at the sight of Gail. Her friend's face lit up with genuine delight when she saw Karen. Gail stood up, her arms open, and a strange thrill zinged inside Karen.

"Hey girl," Gail said, and when they embraced it was a full on hug.

"Hey yourself," Karen said, squeezing Gail in return. "Finally, I get to see you as my Gail, not the lawyer."

Gail released Karen and smiled. "Oh yeah, it's been a long time, sunshine."

Karen shrugged off her coat and draped it over the chair next to her before stamping snow off her booted feet and sitting down. She briefly looked the place over. It was decorated to look like a cross between a Parisian cafe and a deli. The air was redolent of garlic and coffee, a strange but not unpleasant mix.

Situated, Karen turned her attention back to Gail. It always struck her that her friend and former lover bore a striking resemblance to the singer Shania Twain. "So," she said. "I've been dying to hear about how it went in court Friday." A young waitress appeared and gave Karen a menu, and took her order for a large coffee with cream only.

Gail sipped her own coffee, her eyes bright and dancing. "Oh my god, Karen, you would have shit your pants! That woman is a hideous hag, just repulsive," Gail said with exaggerated disgust. "I have no idea how a woman so disgusting could produce Laci. It just does not compute. Emaciated, pale skin, no teeth, stringy hair, and that's after being sober for a while, eating three squares a day, and getting showers. I can't imagine how she looked that night."

"Luckily, I don't have a clear memory, I was a little too keyed up to notice details like that, just her eyes, like two burnt holes in a blanket."

"Trust me sunshine, the thought of being between those legs makes me want to puke. And Laci! My god, one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen, her father must be an Adonis, or she's one of Darwin's genetic mutations."

"The hearing, babe, how did the hearing go?"

Gail almost choked on her coffee before she burst out laughing. "Oh my god! The judge was Mary Beth Kennedy, I've had a couple romps with her over the last few years -- yes, Her Honor is a discreet connoisseur of lovely women."

Gail paused when the waitress came with Karen's coffee and her order pad. Gail ordered a small taco salad, and Karen a grilled cheese with bacon.

"OK," Karen said when the waitress left, "So you fucked the judge, any woman so inclined would be stupid to pass up that opportunity with you, and judges aren't stupid. What happened?"

"Mary Beth can be a hard-ass bitch, she does not tolerate bullshit. Being a fuck buddy of hers does not grant special privileges. So Sandra's case was called, and she's up there in shackles, and I stepped up to the bar next to the ADA, and Mary Beth noticed me. So she says, 'Ms Wright, what's your interest here, ' and I said, 'I'm representing the interests of the defendant's daughter, Laci Harper.' And as soon as I said that, Sandra's head snaps up, her eyes on fire, and she yells – yells! – 'My daughter? Is that fucking bitch' – only she used the C word, not bitch-- 'is that fucking bitch here? It's all her damned fault!'

"Oh my god, I deal with some scummy people at times, but I have never seen anyone do that in court." Gail's face was alight at the memory of the episode. "Mary Beth bellows, 'What did you say? Contempt, thirty days, bailiff, remove this prisoner from my courtroom!' And the bailiff and the CO, a big, bruising butch, they had her in cuffs and out the door in thirty seconds flat! Oh Karen, it was priceless!"

Karen chuckled at the image, but underneath there was a little worm of anxiety. "What about bail? How did that go?"

"The ADA tried for fifty grand, the defense ten grand, so Mary Beth split the difference and stayed with twenty-five grand. Plus no contact with Laci stipulations."

The waitress delivered their lunches. Karen separated her sandwich into halves, strings of melted cheese keeping them connected. "Yeah well, that's pointless," she said, her disappointment evident. "It's not worth the paper it's written on." She took a bite of her sandwich.

Gail poked at her salad. "Yeah, I know, but don't worry babe. She's not gonna make a twenty-five thousand dollar bail. No bail bondsman in the country would touch that with a ten foot pole, and if it looks like she might, I'll file a motion to have the bail condition stipulate it come directly from Sandra, no third party allowed. And even if she did bail, you'd be informed."

"Gail," Karen said solemnly, "If that woman gets out and comes anywhere near Laci, I will kill her, I shit you not, I will kill her. I'll buy a handgun and put a bullet between her eyes if she so much as shows her face anywhere near Laci. I will not! Let. That. Girl. Be. Harmed," Karen growled, each word a complete sentence, a Mama Bear inspecting her claws. "I don't care what I have to do."

"I know, babe, I do. But it's not gonna happen, she isn't getting out on bail no matter how you slice it. She has a public defender for a lawyer, and they don't like to do trials because they can't win them, and they don't get paid enough to waste their time with pointless trials. I know her lawyer, Denise Ashton, she's sweet – has a crush on me," and Gail grinned devilishly. "But she's also very smart, and she's going to get the best deal she can."

"And what might that be, Oh Wise One with the ego as big as the moon? Crush on you my ass."

"Hey," Gail said, putting up her hands, "I admit it, what can I say."

"None of them would know what to do with you if they got the chance, you'd leave them in ruins."

A romp with Gail was an amazing thing. It was usually raw, growling, rutting sex. Gail was very aggressive in bed, and she liked to talk, and not sweet girl talk, either. Most of the time Gail fucked, pure and simple. It was like a wrestling match, and nothing was off limits, though she didn't believe in toys. Who needs fuck toys, she'd growl. I'm not good enough that you need a fucking piece of rubber? I'll fuck your ass and your pussy at the same time with my goddamned fingers, and lick and suck your clit while I'm at it, and if you need a cock, tough shit, go find a man.

"Alright," Karen continued. "Back to Sandra and what she's looking at."

Gail munched her salad, looking pensively at the plate. "OK, realistic, no extremes either side -- right now, this is being handled state level by the Attorney General's office, rather than by the DA on county level. At first, it makes you think they're playing hardball, but it's the boyfriend they want. My guess is they've had their eye on him for a long time. Sandra is just collateral damage, caught up with the wrong guy and the wrong time – apropos of nothing, but who'd fuck a woman like that? I know a woody is just looking for a wet hole, bag the face, but come on, bring a little dignity to the show."

Karen looked at Gail with a wry smile playing around her eyes. "You amaze me with your genteel, lady-like way of putting things."

"Hey, I call 'em as I see 'em, and that is seriously gross. Anyway, she's small potatoes. My guess is the AG will offer her a plea of a lesser felony with some prison time, if she cooperates and helps bag the boyfriend. If she flat out refuses – a distinct possibility given how dangerous he is. Hanging his ass out to dry might be the more dangerous option. She isn't the sharpest crayon in the box, but she is street smart, and she's not going to jump from the frying pan to the fire. The state can't kill her, boyfriend can. If she refuses a plea, I'd guess the state would punt her back to the DA while they concentrate on building a case against the boyfriend. The DA would probably be less inclined to be generous. My guess, when it's all said and done, if she agrees to drug and alcohol rehab and cops a plea, five years with two suspended, long term probation, which means two years in real time."

Karen closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. The math was clear. "Shit, that would put Laci at sixteen." When Karen looked up, there was a hard glint in her eyes. "Gail, if that woman walks at any time before I can get Laci and me out of town for good... " Karen left it at that.

"OK Bette Davis, relax. It isn't coming to that."

"Yeah, well if it does, I'll be ready."

"From the lasers shooting from your eyes, I'd say I don't doubt it."

Karen smiled ruefully. Did it really show? If anyone could read her like a book, it was Gail. "OK Cap'n, my feet are back on the ground."

"Good. I've been talking with our criminal guy, he's handled a lot of drug cases, and I may have you sit down with him at some point. Before the week is out, you're going to be contacted by someone from the state -- DEA agent, state police, assistant AG, someone. They're going to want to talk to you -- and Laci. Especially Laci. That's fine, they're the good guys, we all want the same thing, but when it comes to drug cases these people tend to get tunnel vision. They're not past some less than honorable tricks to get what they want. I wouldn't put it past them to show up at the house while you're at work, and try to get Laci to talk to them while she's by herself, like the cops did when they corralled her at school."

Gail took a bite of salad then continued, "They won't have to read her her rights because she's not a suspect, she's a victim, a witness. They'd be hoping she'd say things she wouldn't if you or I were there. The problem here is whatever she says becomes evidence, and if it comes to a trial, she may have to testify about the casual remarks she made because she was intimidated and alone. It's sneaky and underhanded, but effective and perfectly legal. She must – must – understand that if the cops come a-knocking when she's alone, she is not to say anything – anything – to them except, 'Excuse me while I call my foster mother.' She's a tough girl from a tough world, so she might be somewhat immune to prosecutorial intimidation, but you have to pound it into her."

Karen savored a sip of her coffee. "What if I bring her with me to work for the time being?"

"That might not be a bad idea, or something to get her out of the house so she's not home alone."

"Would they really do something like that?"

"Absolutely. They dragged her fanny out of class to interview her without you there. They'd show up, knock on the door, flash badges, and say they want to speak with her about that night and other things she might have seen. Even if she was able to say, 'No, not without Karen or Gail here, ' and stood her ground, they'd say, 'Fine, we'll even call Karen for you, do you mind if we come inside and wait?' She'd think, "Harmless enough." and let them in. She's not a suspect so there would be no need to Mirandize her. Then, while everyone was waiting for you to come home, they'd try engaging her in non-threatening, but very leading conversation, never telling her that everything she said was potentially evidentiary.

"In the long run, we all want the same thing, we want that ugly bitch and her cocksucker boyfriend in jail, and anything that helps is great, but we need it done on our terms. I don't have to tell you how important that is."

"No dear, you do not. You know, sometimes in the dead of night, I ask myself how the hell I got myself into this mess, but then, I turn and look at her, and..." Karen trailed off and simply shrugged.

"I'm not one to believe in God or Fate or whatever you want to call it, but if anything was going to make me a believer, it would be that – kid, that little gem. It's like she was the kid in the manure pile, you know, the one who was digging in the pile of manure because with so much horse shit, she figured there had to be a pony in there somewhere."

Karen laughed. "You certainly have a way with images, m'love. But I get your point. I have her, and I have to make sure she comes out of this in one piece -- and better than when I found her by an order of magnitude."

"You got it. So we need to do whatever we can to get through the frigging mine field we're in."

It wasn't lost on Karen how Gail used the collective pronoun "we" in talking about the situation. Any lingering doubts about Gail's involvement were disappearing fast.

"So," Gail continued after a sip of coffee, "everything else notwithstanding, we have a girl who is clearly gifted, and we can't ever lose sight of that."

"Which leads up very nicely to my visit with her art teacher, Jay Belden, earlier this morning."

"Art teachers in the morning," Gail said with a grin, "attorney and old flame over lunch, bunch of city and business Pooh-Bah types in the afternoon, you're all over the place with important meetings. How'd that go?"

"Good, really good. He's not at all what I expected. He's obviously gay, very good looking, and he clearly knows all about showers and dressing sharp. No bohemian starving artist. He's also almost as smitten with Laci as she is with him. I tried to get him to explain what it is that makes everybody stop dead in their tracks when they see a drawing she's done. I mean sure, they're really awesome, especially for a girl who's had no training at all, and comes from a living cesspool, but I'm sure there are plenty of kids who can draw really good pictures. All he could say was, sure she draws pretty pictures, but they also captured 'the essence, the heart' – his words, not mine – of the subject. Subtle but very apparent to people trained to notice such things.

"And she does it unconsciously. He brought in three roses in a vase to use as props in a class on still life art. He said she drew those roses while carrying on a conversation with classmates about things that had nothing to do with art class as she was sketching, and when it was done, her roses looked as if they were living, breathing souls. Christ, I can't even begin to fathom how you see something like that in a drawing of three roses and a vase, but he saw it.

"He asked me what was the difference between a Stradivarius violin, and the one the first violin for the BSO used. I told him damned if I know, and he said he didn't know either. However, real musicians, people born with brains wired for music, have no trouble telling the difference. That's how it is with Laci's artistic ability."

"That's an interesting way of looking at it."

"That's what I said. So, basically we have girl who has an artistic talent that goes way beyond being able to draw pretty pictures, you just have to be artistically wired to really pick up on it. He told me he's believed she's special right from day one, but he thought maybe he was making more of her in his mind because most of the time his job felt so meaningless, and he needed something to keep his enthusiasm up. Meg's take validated his thinking."

"Wow!" Gail listened raptly, her chin propped in the heel of her hand. "So, our little refugee from the sewers of this godforsaken mill town is maybe a Renoir waiting to be rescued."

"Yeah," Karen said, nodding solemnly. "So it seems. As if this relationship needs to be more complicated."

"Who knows. Maybe there's something to this Fate shit after all. So, on a practical level, what does all of this mean?"

"Well, the consensus is, first and foremost, she needs private lessons – and not just any lessons, but with someone who can really get the most from her. Belden's partner – soon to be husband, apparently – is the head of the art department at Bentley."

"Wow, really? It isn't Ivy League, but even tucked away in this shitty little city, it's a helluva school, it's actually turned out Nobel prize winners, so that's a pretty good thing to have on your CV."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Anyway, Belden is going to ask his hubby for the names of good art teachers in the area, and we'll see if we can find one for her. Next, he said I should let her decide for herself what medium she's most drawn to: painting, photography, sculpting – somehow I can't see Laci chiseling away at rocks, but hey," Karen said with a shrug. "Whatever. Right now, she seems most set on painting, so he's going to draw me up a list of basic stuff she'll need, you know, brushes, easels, canvas, paints, whatever, it might as well be the stuff every carpenter needs to build a house for all I know."

"Gotta start somewhere, babe."

Karen stared into her coffee cup. Without much warning, the feelings which flowed just beneath the surface like an undertow at the seashore, bubbled up and left Karen inwardly trembling. She suddenly felt very alone, naked, and incredibly vulnerable, so much so that she felt the hot surge of tears begin to swell inside. She swallowed hard to keep them at bay. A single crack in the stout facade was all it took. Try as she might to hide it, she clearly failed on that count, because when she looked up, Gail's smile morphed into a frown of concern, and she said, "Hey, you OK sweetie?"

Karen took a deep breath. "Shit. I thought I could hide it."

"What? Hide what?"

"Oh Christ, Gail. Now I know how it must feel to win the half a billion dollar Powerball lottery, and go overnight from one step ahead of the debt collectors to being rich enough to buy a third world country. All of sudden, everything, every frame of reference I had to make sense of life, to let me function as a reasonably normal person, is gone. Minefield? Yeah, I'll say. Dropped in the middle of a minefield with a bag holding the Crown Jewels, and I have to get them to the other side without blowing everything to Kingdom Come. Every time I turn around, there's someone throwing lighted torches and running chainsaws at me, and I have to juggle them all, and still get the fucking Crown Jewels out, and who the frig knows how many more chainsaws are going to be thrown at me while I'm doing it. I got myself in deep, all because I fell ass over tea kettle in love with a teenage girl. Am I going to be able to do it? If I fuck up, it isn't just me who's going down. Do I have it in me to get that girl to the other side, in better shape than I found her, without killing myself in the process? Aw, shit, I have to get hold of myself, this is not a path I can afford to wander down today."

Gail reached over and took Karen's trembling hand in both of hers. She lifted Karen's hand and, her eyes sparkling, she kissed it. "I can't make it all better love, but I can offer you one thing, for what it's worth."

Karen picked up a napkin with her free hand and dabbed at her eyes. So far, the crack in the facade was just that – a crack. The wall hadn't been breached yet. She struggled to compose herself. "And just what might that be, Oh Wise One," she said weakly, trying a little wry humor in the process.

"Me. You won't be totally alone. I'll be there with you. If you go down, I go with you."

Both hands freed, Karen wiped her face. She looked at Gail through the filmy haze of the tears still trying to well out of her eyes. Gail's smile was almost serene, and it said she was sincere. "That's a biggie," Karen said before blowing her nose. "More than you know. But why? Why put your life on the line?"

"Oh you silly goose! Isn't it obvious? Because I love you. I have my middle of the night ruminations too, you know. I keep trying to tell myself you were just a damned good fuck, but it always comes back as, 'Sorry, wrong answer.' I did pretty good until you staggered back into the picture. I'm not going into all the metaphysical details of those midnight ruminations, just know they always come back to the undeniable fact that I love you, and – do you remember that stupid Hippie era peace-love-drugs bit of wisdom? If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it's yours, if it doesn't it never was yours. I've loved you and let you go, and you half-assed came back, so I guess that's something. I can still love you, and if you love someone, well it isn't love if you aren't willing to back it up with everything you have. I will do whatever I need to do to get us through this. And get your filthy mind out of the gutter, I won't be asking to rock n roll with the two of you. I do have some class, y'know."

Karen couldn't help laughing. "I don't know how you do it, but goddamned girl, you know how to keep me from going over the deep end."

"Your problem is, you feel like you can't let yourself show even a hint of vulnerability for fear people – even the people you love – will think you aren't strong enough to deal with things. But you can't hide it from me girlie, I know you too well."

"You do Gail, you do, and I forget that at my own risk."

"So, let's get you put back together so you can go to that meeting and make some money."

"Is my mascara running?"

"Nope, you're as beautiful as ever."

Laci scanned the pantry shelves looking for something for lunch. The thought occurred to her that it might be nice if she made dinner for them tonight so Karen didn't have to cook after working all day.

There must be something I can make for us that isn't too hard, I've been watching her cook and paying attention, but what? I could maybe make it all romantic, with candles in the dining room, and wearing something I know she'd think was sexy, she works so hard while I just hang out being lazy, and maybe we could love after supper, that would be awesome, cause I'm already feeling super sexy. But what can I make?

Thoughts of lunch vanished, replaced by her fresh vision of a romantic dinner. Karen had already taken out a pound of hamburger, saying she'd figure out what to do with it by the time she got home. What could she do with hamburger? Laci wondered.

Laci's notions of romantic dinners were hazy at best, framed mostly by movies she's seen along the way. It didn't seem likely that hamburger was a component of many fancy romantic dinners. They more likely involved ritzy foods not unlike the stuff they had for dinner over the weekend, but she had to work with what she had on hand, and it needed to be relatively simple.

Laci started her search by looking in the freezer, and almost immediately, she spied something that got her attention: a bag of frozen cheese raviolis. She took the bag out and inspected it, wondering if she might be able to work with it. The directions on how to prepare them were simple, not much more than adding them to boiling water, and cooking them for five minutes. The picture on the front of the bag – "Serving Suggestion" – showed a plate of steaming raviolis covered with a swath of some sort of tomato sauce.

That's an idea, she thought. Karen has, like, a gazillion jars of homemade spaghetti sauce in the pantry – she calls it marinara, but same difference, we've had it a couple of times and she says it's good on any pasta, not just spaghetti, so why not on these cheese raviolis? The only raviolis I ever had is the kind in a can, but those are nasty, it's probably a lot better this way. So yeah, why not? Maybe cook the hamburger and mix it into a jar of the sauce? I can do it.

Images and thoughts of how she might carry out her idea began to unfold in her head. It particularly pleased her to imagine how Karen would respond to her efforts. Surely she would be delighted to find dinner, a candlelit dinner prepared by Laci at that, waiting for her when she got home.

She would embrace Laci and the delight in her voice would be unmistakable, and her praise would be genuine. Perhaps Laci would be modest and say something like, I did the best I could, I just don't think it's fair you should work all day and have to cook when you come home. Of course, a candlelit dinner being by nature romantic, Laci would have to dress up in something especially nice, something Karen would find sexy. Karen's embrace and her happiness would leave Laci warm and excited and wet. Just thinking about it was making her muffin thump deliciously and grow juicy.

Before they came back home from Boston, they stopped at a shop in the train terminal which sold such things as coffee, cheese, pastries, and assorted breads. Karen bought several different kinds of coffee, assorted cheeses – most of which Laci never heard of – and a couple of different loaves of bread, one of which Karen said was a crusty Italian bread (the other was something she called a boule, which Karen wrapped up and put in the freezer). Karen said they'd find a way to use the Italian bread this week. Why not now? Laci reasoned.

Ohmygod! I can do this! Laci thought. I can do this, I can make a fancy romantic dinner for Karen and me, I can surprise her and show her I'm not some little kid, and she'll be so surprised, I can start showing her how much I love her, how I can do things for us. This is such an awesome idea, and I thought of it on my own!

Laci glided into living room, hardly aware of her surroundings. She instinctively understood that the term, the concept "romantic dinner" was really just a euphemism. You didn't do romantic, candlelit dinners as a prelude to an evening of sitting on the sofa watching movies. They were meant to be a way of signaling your interest in sex, and there was no escaping the fact right then, her sleek young body hummed with lust.

The heat kindling in her tummy was going to be a bonfire before long. She laughed when an adult and very crude thought popped into her head: sometimes you just wanna fuck!

She chided herself for getting too worked up just yet. It was another six hours before Karen would be home, and it would take no more than a couple of hours to get everything ready. It didn't matter though. Once the fire caught, it couldn't be snuffed out. It could only grow. Convenient or not, her insides hummed like a smartly struck low pitch tuning fork, and her muffin grew swollen and wet. Boys get hard, girls get wet, I'm a girl and I'm seriously wet.

Her leggings were suddenly maddeningly tight and chafing. Raw, vivid sexual images pranced in her mind. Oh shit, I gotta calm down or I'm going to go freakin' crazy, but that's what thinking of Karen does to me.

Karen. Right from the day Laci met her, Karen provoked strange and wonderful feelings, feelings that came from some secret place deep in her body. About a year after that first meeting, Laci discovered masturbation, which brought her infatuation to a whole new level.

What am I gonna do before she gets home, I'm already all hot and sexy. Maybe I'll go upstairs and listen to some love music and draw, yeah, that's a good idea.

Laci went to the room that would soon be her studio to gather up her sketchbook and box of colored drawing pencils. Before long she hoped there would be an easel, canvases, palettes, tubes of paint, brushes, knives in the room. She'd have the easel over by the fireplace in the winter, maybe by the windows in the summer.

Suddenly the very idea made her smile both inside and out. My Studio, she thought. Yeah, a studio, just like a real artist, my own place to draw and think and dream, and pretty soon, paint, and who knows what else. She stopped and looked around, and an odd but an exhilarating idea came to her.

This is my home, this is where I live now, not some shitty, disgusting, filthy apartment with roaches and dirty dishes and junkies and bums all around. I live here with Karen, it's our home, we sleep in the same bed and snuggle together and keep each other warm and make love and bring each other to places that are like heaven, and we love each other, I love her, she loves me, and this is our home!

Laci bent her head back, flung her arms out, and pirouetted with singular elation. It's all true, it's not a fairy tale, it's real, Karen could love almost anyone in the world, but it's me she loves, and she is the most beautiful and sexy woman ever, and I would do anything for her, and we are going to be so happy together!

Exhilarated, she gathered her drawing supplies and ran up the stairs and into the bedroom. She tossed everything on the vast king-sized bed, and flopped down face first, her arms out as if she was flying. She laid like that, sprawled out on her tummy, for perhaps a minute. Even though the bed was made, and it had been a few days since they'd made love in it, her nose found and homed in on the faint but unmistakable fragrance of their love nectars. It wafted like a faint puff of smoke up her nose, and thence to her brain where it was mixed into the pot of the amorous stew already simmering inside her.

Laci closed her eyes, hoping she could come up with an idea of what to draw. It pretty much had to be something sexy – sensual, she reminded herself, Karen said 'sensual' is a better word than 'sexy' – and the thought made her smile.

Without consciously thinking about it, she let the sound of the music flowing from the array of hidden speakers slide in and join the stewpot. She barely realized she was actually listening to the music, letting it pick her up and carry her, as opposed to simply hearing. She didn't recognize the piece, but it had an odd familiarity. It's that Mozart guy, it has to be, it's such a happy song, I can hear the piano, and the violins, and I'm starting to get how each one sounds now, and I can hardly believe that Beethoven guy wrote that music at the symphony the other night when he was mostly deaf. That is just un-fricken-real, but I guess I can kinda get it, he must see and hear it in his head, like I did, that was so weird. But this has to be that Mozart, Karen says he's the warm and fuzzy one, and Beethoven is like volcanoes and thunderstorms. This is so gentle, and...