“It wasn’t a job.” I pause to watch a tarot reader new to the street. There are several who set up here, but she’s not the regular girl. I watch her light her incense stick, listen to the jangle of her many bracelets.
“So . . .” He clears his throat. “Do you mean—”
“I know what you want.” I step in front of him. “I knew when you walked in. I probably knew years ago when I fucked you after a signing in Savannah.”
“No. We didn't . . . we couldn't. I’d have remembered you, your tattoos. That tattoo especially.” He frowns and motions to my back.
“Of your words? I got that one after we fucked.” I look past him to where a drunk is hassling one of the guys whose stoop I’ve shared. I realize that it was Richmond, not Savannah where I met Michael the first time. Or maybe it was neither. Facts are fluid. I know Michael was in my bed before New Orleans. The rest is fluid.
“Stay here.” I wade into the street where the drunk has just knocked over the man whose name I can’t recall.
I force myself to pretend I can’t see Michael watching me.
“Back up.” I hold my hand out to the drunk. He smells like piss.
The two men both look at me. The one I know is higher than anyone ought to be. Whatever he’s on right now has him unable to defend himself. I don’t ask. I don’t care. He’s rescued me. Names aren’t what matter sometimes. Actions are.
He still remembers my name, though. “Tessie!”
“Tess,” I correct. “I’m Tess now.”
He grins. “I’m always Lucas.”
I see Michael still standing in the street watching us. He’s not with me. He’s not a part of this place or moment, but I know he’ll steal it for his book. He’ll offer the shell of it, the pieces from the outside. That’s all his sort can do. It sparks the edge of the anger I was already feeling, anger that the drunk hassling Lucas provoked first.
I step between the two men. “You need to back off.”
The drunk laughs, but Lucas steps onto the sidewalk.
“Don’t laugh at Tessie,” Lucas warns. I hear fear in here, but he smiles a drunken smile at me. “It’s okay, Tessie. He don’t mean me no harm.” He glances at the other drunk. “Right, man?”
“You spilled my whole fucking cup of beer. You owe me a drink.” The man reaches past me and shoves his palm into Lucas' shoulder.
I slap his hand away and glance at Lucas, who shrugs.
“Plenty of bars.” I gesture to Frenchman Street, a mass of bars, not neon nightmares like Bourbon Street but plenty of options for both a broke drunk and a discerning one.
The drunk folds his arms in the way of the belligerent and stupid. “Who the fuck are—”
“It’s okay,” Lucas steps back and drops his arm around my shoulder. “It’s okay, Tessie.”
“Well, Tessie can butt the fuck out or buy me a beer.”
“Tess,” I repeat, but I’m not feeling so much like Tess right now.
Tessie is caged. The Klonapin helps, but I don’t remember how many I’ve had today. I try to do better at that, at keeping track of my pills now, but Michael’s attempts to stare into the parts of me underneath the now unravel me more than I like. Tessie is in there, under the layers that I’ve added to become Tess.
I reach into my bag for the bottle of Klonopin.
Lucas reaches into his pockets too, pulling out a few crumpled bills and coins. “I’ll buy him one. It’s okay.” He sounds more nervous by the moment. “You don’t have to do anything. It’s okay. It’s okay.” He starts crooning the words. “It’s all okay here, Tessie.”
I realize that he knows more than either of us want him to. He didn’t think I was reaching for pills; he thought I was going for a weapon. He knows what I am, knows things that aren’t okay to speak.
Would he tell? Is he a threat? No one believes people like Lucas. Still, it’s one thing for me to tell Michael bits and pieces of what I am, who I once was, but I control my story. I define myself. No one, no man, will ever define me again.
“I’m Tess.”
“Don’t mean no thing, girl.” Lucas straightens up, sounding clearer for a moment.
Strangers, drunk tourists who’ve found their way down here and locals who know me, are taking notice. Attention isn’t good.
“Lucas don’t share no ghosts.” He pats his chest, over his heart, twice.
I nod. I want to believe him. I want to apologize.
And I want to slit his throat. I want to feel safe, but the answer isn’t Klonapin tonight. There are things that a woman does to keep safe, things that maybe aren’t right, but they still need to be done.
I let go of the pill bottle and pull a twenty out of my wallet. I hand it to Lucas. “Go. Get of here.”
It’s enough money for both of them to get drunker--or it’s enough to take a bus. I’m guessing that Lucas will use it to buy beer, but he could run if he wanted.
“It’s not your fault, Tessie,” Lucas says.
They walk away, and I have to tell myself that no one listens to the mad and drunk. No one would listen to Lucas. Plus, he shared his stoop with we. I shouldn’t hurt a man who shared his stoop.
He knows things though. Knowing means talking, and talking means he’s choosing whether or not I’m not safe. It gives him power over me.
I hope he takes the money and buys a bus ticket. I want to be okay. I want to be Tess now.
I’m still standing in the street when Michael joins me.
“What was that?”
I shake my head.
“Tess?”
“He spilled his beer,” I manage to say. It’s all I can say. There are too many other words twisting in my throat. I feel like I’m choking on them.
“Okay . . .”
“Sometimes I need to do things,” I offer. It’s truth. It’s been a truth for a long time. It is now and always true. “I want to be safe, Michael. Sometimes that’s everything.”
And I see the flicker of something far from monstrous in his expression. He might want my story. He might want my body. Right now, though, in this instant, Michael cares.
If he knew the things that Lucas knew, would he still look at me like I was a lost girl in need of a hero? If he knew that I wanted to find Lucas' stoop tonight to make sure he didn’t spill my secrets, would he still pull me into his arms as he just did?
The questions are unanswered, and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.
“Come on.” He leads me to music, puts a drink in my hand, and wraps his arms around me.
I dance in the frame of Michael’s arms. His idea of dancing is the occasional sway of the perpetually awkward upper-class man. He can’t let go of his boundaries, even here, even in a city with sin in her very bones and beams.
“Are you okay?” he asks between sets. “Earlier in the street . . .”
“Lucas let me share his stoop.”
“The bum?”
“I was having a bad time. He watched me so I could sleep.”
“At your house?”
“No, on his porch, Michael. I don’t let people into my house.”
Letting strangers into the space where you bed down is asking for trouble. Letting people carry your secrets is asking for exposure.