“That would put a dampener on things,” I said.
She got a laugh out of that. “Yes, it certainly would,” she agreed.
“How come a beautiful girl like you doesn’t have someone to share breakfast with?” I asked.
She smiled at that. It was a sad, almost tragic smile, and it made me think again about my original thought of her having done time in prison, and I couldn’t help feeling that that was probably what had happened, and maybe it was only recently that she had gotten out. It would explain a lot, especially the connection I knew we had.
“Leonard,” she said softly, but with a heavy breath, “that would be a long and complicated story, one I could write a book on. And I have to thank you for the ‘beautiful’ compliment, although I certainly don’t deserve it. Also for thinking that I could be young enough to be thought of as a ‘girl’. How old do you think I am?”
“Twenty-five,” I lied.
“You’re ten years off, my friend.”
“You’re only fifteen?” I said, raising an eyebrow in mock surprise. “Chrissakes, I could get myself thrown back into prison for corrupting a minor.”
The word “prison” put a dampener on her mood, and for a few seconds a darkness clouded her face to a color that came close to matching the skies. Then just as quickly it was gone. I couldn’t help feeling something bad had happened to her when she was young, and I wanted to ask her about it but I didn’t want to hear what I knew she would tell me: that she had been abused at one time in her life and ended up serving time for manslaughter or maybe even second-degree murder. Instead I sat there tongue-tied, feeling an awkward silence between us.
She reached over and took hold of my hand and squeezed it, the way a friend would, and just like that, knocked away any of the awkwardness that we had started to feel.
“You’re a charmer, Leonard,” she said. “But as you well know, I’m thirty-five, and it hasn’t been the easiest thirty-five years so far. Not exactly the fairy-tale princess life I’d dreamed about when I was a very young child.”
“The next thirty-five then,” I said.
She nodded solemnly at that. “The next thirty-five it will be,” she agreed.
“If you want to tell me anything, feel free,” I said. I forced a rigid smile. “I’m not exactly someone who could hold you or anyone else in judgment.”
“There’s not much to tell,” she said. “Bad stuff happened to me as a child, I ended up in foster homes, then much worse stuff happened. Now I’m in Waltham trying to figure out what to do with my life, and I meet you.” She paused for a moment, then asked, “Leonard what were your parents like? Were they the reason you ended up working for the mob?”
From her tone and the hopefulness in her eyes, she was really searching for why her own life had taken the course that it did, because if I had made my wrong turn due to environmental factors maybe she had also. Maybe there wasn’t something seriously broken in either of us. It would’ve been easy to lie to her; instead, though, I shook my head.
“My parents? No. Hardly. My pop was what you’d call a salt o’the earth type. As honest and decent as the day is long. A good man who never had a harsh word for anyone, and sweated blood every day as he worked his way to an early grave.” “Your mom, then?”
“My mom and I never got along,” I admitted. “She had a hard life herself, lots of tragedies and losses, but she had nothing to do with me working for the mob either. They gave me a good home. Whatever happened was my doing.”
The skies opened up then, the rain coming down hard and suddenly as if a faucet had been turned on full. I took my jacket off so Sophie could use it to shield herself. We ran the two blocks back to Moody Street, stopping only when we were under an awning. Even with my jacket sheltering her Sophie had still gotten soaked and was looking a bit like a drowned rat. I was so winded I had a hard time breathing, and thought at first that I might be having a heart attack, but the moment passed and my breathing became less ragged.
Sophie handed me back my jacket. With a heartbreaking smile, she said, “What a mess we are, huh? Leonard, dear, I’m sorry you got so wet, but it was very chivalrous of you. I thank you.”
She looked so miserable standing there with her hair hanging down in wet tangled clumps and her threadbare jacket and jeans soaked through. She had also started to shiver. I ignored her protests and draped my leather jacket around her thin shoulders, then told her there was a store a block over where I was going to buy her a new jacket.
“I can’t let you do that,” she said.
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Think of it as a gift from the Waltham Police.”
That got her curious, and I explained how the police had first tried to tie me up with an assault charge after I had broken up the attempted liquor store robbery, and later how I squeezed a hundred and fifty dollars out of them. Even with the way she was shivering I could tell that she enjoyed the story.
“I can’t think of a better way of spending that money,” I told her.
She didn’t put up a fight over it, and we made our way through the rain to the next block by darting in and out of doorways and under awnings for protection. When we got to the department store, I first bought a beach towel, which we used to dry ourselves off, then I helped Sophie pick out a ski jacket. It was bulky on her and hid her curves, which was a shame, but it was waterproof, had a hood, and offered much better protection from the cold than what she’d been wearing. When she put it on she gave me one of the brightest smiles I’d ever seen. Yeah, it was going to cost me a hundred and seventy dollars and my funds were dwindling, but it was worth the price. And besides, if I got ten grand for that interview, money wasn’t going to be much of an issue, at least not for a while.
The rain was still coming down in sheets and Sophie insisted that I also buy an umbrella for myself. When I took the jacket and umbrella to the cash register, the cashier gave us a puzzled look as he tried to figure out whether we were father and daughter, and if not, what the possible attraction might’ve been. I couldn’t blame him. Based purely on our appearances we were as mismatched a couple as you could’ve found. After he handed me my change and we had him cut the tags off the jacket, we left him still trying to solve the mystery.
Once we were back outside and under the store’s awning, Sophie put her new jacket on, including the hood, and zipped up, and we both stood quietly for a long moment watching the rain beating down even harder than before. Sophie spoke first, asking how she looked in her jacket.
“Like a million bucks,” I told her.
She rolled her eyes at that. “Yeah, right.” Her expression turned pensive, and she added, “Leonard, we never did talk about the two of us writing a book together.”
I hesitated. I had planned to lie and keep my own little con going as long as Sophie was keeping hers, but I couldn’t do it any more; besides, hers was no longer as much of a con as she probably thought it was.
I looked away from her. “I don’t think us writing a book is possible,” I said, my voice barely audible over the rain. “Monday I’m going to court for wrongful death suits that have been filed against me. Any money that we’d get on a book deal would end up getting attacked by the relatives behind these lawsuits. We wouldn’t make any money off of it.”
I couldn’t look at her, nor could I move. My jaw clamped shut, and as I stood there, I felt a hollowness expanding throughout my chest, making me feel as if I could be crumpled as easily as a piece of tinfoil. I dreaded what I was about to lose. Seeing Sophie, even if it was only a game on her part, and even if it was only for a few spare minutes every couple of days, was one of the few things that allowed me to feel human.
I waited for her to leave me, but instead her hand found mine. The warmth and feel of it were dizzying.