“Not really,” he scowled, shaking his head. He paused, then looked her up and down and smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with a ponytail. Not since we were kids, anyway.”
She blushed a little, her small mouth drawing up in a smile. “Don’t try and weasel out of the subject. Who are you all dressed up for?”
“You caught me,” he said with fake exasperation, letting his hands fall to his sides in defeat. “There’s another woman. She’s much better than you. I have to dress up around her to fit in.”
“Nobody better than me would take you,” she giggled, moving in close to him and giving his bottom lip a kiss. “I shouldn’t even have.”
He laughed again, kissing her back. “You’re probably right.”
“Always am.”
He moved her gently to one side, then stepped past her and scooped up his sneakers off the floor and began to slide them on.
She watched him for a moment, unsure of what to say for one of the first times in their relationship. “Seriously Mike, where are you going?”
He stopped tying immediately, turning around to face her. “I’ve just got somewhere I got to be. It’s nothing to be worried about.”
Cathy forced herself to smile. “Any room for me?” she chimed innocently.
He sighed, tilting his head to one side.
“Guess not,” she said in response to her own question, casting her eyes downward.
He took two steps to close the distance between them, resting a hand on each shoulder and kissing her softly on the head.
When she looked up again, he was gone.
Frowning, she walked over to the phone next to the bed and picked it up. She let it hang next to her ear for a moment, its tone ringing in her ear, then put it back down. She sucked in her bottom lip and chewed on it for a moment, tapping her chin as she stared down at the plastic buttons. Cursing, she picked it up again and hit redial.
The phone rang twice as she tapped her nails against the plywood table it rested on. Halfway through the third ring, a very bored sounding woman with a nasal voice picked up the line. “Coral Beach Pen, how may I direct your call?”
“He wouldn’t,” she said aloud, before hanging up the call.
A row of candles flickered and danced in unison, the only source of light in the room as they bathed the walls of the Factory in their ethereal glow. It made the entire place look foreign and somehow eerily romantic, the scent of burning wax and matches filling the air.
Xander gazed into the flames until he thought they were burning his retinas, casting his eyes down toward a photo of Roxanne that had been framed and propped up in the center of the miniature shrine. The picture had been from her graduation and the girl in the picture didn’t look remotely like the Roxanne he had known. They shared the same curly red hair and dark green eyes, but the girl in the photo was bright and smiling and full of existence. While the Roxanne he had come to regard as a friend was still all those things, you had to dig deep to find them. For the most part, she’d been cold and bitter, especially toward males.
He heard someone walk up behind him, along with the steady, wet clack as they chewed on a large wad of gum. He turned just enough to look over his shoulder, his face shadowed in the candlelight.
Joan Delft stepped up beside him, rubbing her hands with a cloth that he thought had started off white but hadn’t been in quite some time. Her hair was grey and her wrinkled face seemed to want to cave in upon itself, with its brow furrowed downward and its chin pointing up. Joan had bought the Factory years ago and turned it into something worthwhile, with Roxanne’s help.
“News traveled fast,” she said. Her voice was calm and desolate, free of the sadness that was weighing her down so much that she slouched. Only someone who knew her well would recognize the slight West-Virginia accent that she only reverted to when she was truly upset as being a giveaway of her true feelings.
“Bad news always does,” Xander nodded. “Guess that says something about our society that we obsess over the bad things like that.”
“Like vultures over the dead,” she spat, her eyes reflecting the candlelight back toward him. After a moment she forced herself to look away from it, turning to Xander. “Foods all free today, ‘un. Should get yourself something.”
Xander waved a hand in dismissal, smiling. The thought of food made his stomach do a back-flip, though he wasn’t exactly sure why.
“Suit yourself,” she shrugged, taking one last look back at Roxanne’s photo before turning away completely. “It’s there if’n you want it.”
Xander sighed as he watched her until she disappeared behind the counter, smutting her face with the rag as she used it to wipe her eyes, before he turned back toward the display. If you’re innocent, you’re hurt, or you’re scared... I’ll be there. What a joke, he snorted, reaching out and laying a finger gently on the top of the picture frame. Starting to think I had the right idea with the gun.
“Don’t ever give up,” his memory screamed at him in her soft, mellow voice. It was so vivid that he could almost hear it.
I’m sorry, Sara. I promised to do good in your name, that I’d never let you down again, but now... it’s starting to look like I do more harm to the world than good. Maybe the best thing
