New Life Read online

  New Life

  by

  Bonnie Dee

  * * * * *

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Bonnie Dee on Smashwords

  New LifeCopyright © 2013

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Smashword Edition License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  * * * * *

  Chapter One

  The first thing you need to know about me is I’m not retarded. Or mentally handicapped I guess is the polite term these days. But whatever you call it, I’m not that. I have a mental disability, but I wasn’t born this way. It took extra stupidity for me to get this way—driving drunk, shooting through the windshield, landing on my noggin, and scrambling my brains permanently. I don’t babble and I don’t drool, except sometimes on my pillow when I’m sleeping, but everybody does that.

  Anyway, that’s not the story I want to tell. Who really needs to hear about comas and thousands of hours of rehab? My story begins the night I was cleaning black shoe marks off the floor, which could be any night since my life became all about industrial cleaners and swabbing toilets. This particular night, I was buffing the corridor floor of the office building where I clean. I remember the Naked Farmers blasting through my headphones, when I saw a woman sitting in the stairwell, head down, shoulders hunched and shaking.

  My first thought was to pass by, concentrate on polishing the floor, and leave her in peace to cry. Everybody deserves privacy. But after I’d polished a few more feet, wall to wall, I turned off the machine.

  I don’t like interrupting my routine. If I stray from my list of tasks, I tend to get confused. Memory lapses and trouble with organization—a couple of party favors I took home from a college kegger one night. But people are supposed to be kind to each another, right? So I paused the Naked Farmers in the middle of the line about “pray to Jesus but keep a shotgun handy when the Four Horsemen come to call” and pulled out my earbuds. I could hear the woman’s sobs echoing in the stairwell.

  When I got close and she lifted her head, I recognized her face. At first I thought it was from a long time ago, like back in high school, or maybe during my time in the hospital. I suck at placing people since my memory’s shaky and time kind of shifts on me sometimes. Then I remembered I’d seen her here in the law offices on the second floor as she was leaving work and I was arriving. She’d passed me in the hall and smiled like people do at janitors, polite but barely making eye contact. I remember thinking she was really pretty. Now tear tracks were blazing mascara trails down her cheeks.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yes, fine. Thank you.” She rubbed her eyes, grabbed the banister, and rose.

  I could almost see her moment of weakness being covered like someone protecting broken windows with plywood. She picked up her purse and briefcase and started to walk past me.

  Fine. I needed to get back to work anyway. But as she passed, her perfume tickled my nose, and I suddenly wanted her to stick around a little longer. Cleaning an empty office building is boring and lonely. Nothing but hours of me, the floor buffer, and the tunes on my MP3 player.

  “Try counting sheep,” I blurted.

  She stopped and turned, blonde-streaked brown hair flipping over one shoulder. “Pardon me?”

  “It helps…when you’re having a hard day.”

  I knew she thought I was simpleminded by the way her eyes went all soft and pitying. “I think that’s for falling asleep.”

  “It works for other things too. It’s a technique. Like a—what do you call it—mantra. Helps you calm down…when you’re anxious and…focuses your thoughts.”

  I could parrot therapist-speak, and I definitely wanted this chick to know I wasn’t dumb.

  Her eyes went wide, and she smiled. “Is that so? Maybe I could use a mantra. Tell me more.”

  I felt suddenly nervous. The way my life was at the time, I could go days hardly talking to anybody, and I’d sort of lost the knack.

  “When people are emotional, their minds are all over the place. Counting something helps slow your heart rate and breathing. It’s like meditation.”

  At least, that’s what I meant to say. The way it came out was less concise, with a lot of pauses while I searched for the right word. She waited patiently for me to finish formulating my thoughts, which was cool. A lot of people want to finish my thoughts for me, and nothing’s more apt to make me clam up.

  “Counting sheep, eh? Well, hell, I can get rid of my Xanax prescription and save a bundle.” She smiled.

  I tried to think of something else to say so she wouldn’t walk away. “Another good technique is to draw the thing that’s upsetting you. Your boss, maybe,” I guessed. “And work through your shit that way.”

  She shifted her purse strap to the other shoulder and set down the briefcase like maybe she was going to stay awhile. “You taking psych classes? It sounds like you’re gearing up for a career as a therapist.”

  “No. I had to drop out of college.” I tapped my head. “Brain injury.”

  She nodded. “I’m Anna, by the way.”

  “Jason.” I wondered if I should offer my hand to shake. But Anna hadn’t held out hers, so I didn’t either.

  “Do you like your job here?”

  I glanced at the abandoned buffer, then back at her. “Cleaning is my life.”

  Her laughter rang down the empty corridor. “Point taken.”

  “I wasn’t being”—I searched my scrambled brain before coming up with the right word—“ironic. Unfortunately.”

  “You’re funny,” she said.

  “Funny looking or funny hah-hah?”

  Anna’s gaze swept over me from head to toe, leaving me heated. “Not at all funny looking.”

  It was a pretty kind compliment. I can see in the mirror every day that the scar on my face is still red. Supposedly it’ll fade over time, but I’ll never be my former handsome self. I could feel Anna wanting to ask about the scar, but she didn’t. People are too polite. Except for little kids, who’ll say anything that crosses their minds. I appreciate that honesty.

  “So, is it your boss who made you cry?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I did it to myself. Thought I was prepared for court, but I wasn’t, and I made a fool of myself.”

  “You a paralegal?” I asked, because she looked too young to do anything else in a law office.

  “I’m a lawyer.” She gave a little snort. “I worked hard to be able to say that, so why do I have the feeling I drove down a road a long way in the wrong direction?”

  “You don’t like it.”

  “I didn’t today. My first day in court and I crashed and burned.”

  “Public speaking is hard for most people.”

  “It’s not just
about today. The longer I’ve been here, the more I wonder why. I never stopped to think about what career I wanted, just kept moving to the next level, because in my family there wasn’t any choice but law school.”

  “You come from liars…lawyers?” I corrected, and it wasn’t an intentional joke. Sometimes the wrong word just comes out.

  “My dad and mom both, plus some other family members. But I chose it. I earned it, and now I’m stuck with it.”

  I clicked my tongue. “When you could be doing really important work like this.” I jerked a thumb at the buffer.

  She smiled again, a dimple flashing in her left cheek. “Smart-ass. I know I’ve got nothing to complain about, but a girl’s got a right to cry when she thinks she’s all alone. Don’t judge.”

  “Not judging, just trying to make you feel better about your job. Do you?”

  Her brown eyes crinkled at the corners, stirring things in me that hadn’t been stirred in quite a while, and I don’t mean my cock, although she was doing a fair job of waking it too.

  “Thanks for listening.” She stooped to pick up her briefcase and purse, and my giddy joy deflated. Our conversation was over. “And thanks for the sheep-counting tip. I’ll try that next time I’m upset.”

  I pressed my palms together, guru-style. “Find your center and remain there.”

  She returned my bow. “Yes, sensai.”

  Man, I liked this woman who got my sense of humor.

  “See you around,” she added before heading down the hall.

  I watched her out of sight, then pictured her leaving the building, going to her car, putting her key in the ignition, starting up, and driving away. I would’ve gone on to imagine her arriving home at some apartment building and going inside but shook myself out of the fantasy. Reviewing the order of things was how I made it through my days. Therapists call it “sequencing,” and it saved me from getting scattered and accomplishing nothing.

  But imagining Anna’s timeline was not going to help me complete my own tasks for the night. Time to return to reality.

  I tucked in the earbuds and turned on the Naked Farmers, then switched on the buffer. One sweep, two, side to side until the corridor was a glossy sheet. Tomorrow, new shoe marks and scuffs would ruin the surface, but for tonight it was flawless. Perfect.

  ****

  When did I first meet Jason? I’m not sure how to answer that. I saw him a few times before the night we met, but our paths rarely crossed. He was the night janitor who usually arrived after I’d left the building, unless I was working very late. He was just some guy who emptied trash and cleaned things. Some people don’t have much of a function in your life, so you don’t see them—until something happens to draw your attention to them in a new way. The night of the Paulik case was the night I actually met Jason.

  I’d stayed late, preparing briefs and reliving my horrible performance in court earlier that day. Although my preparation for the Paulik case had been meticulous, my presentation was disastrous. I ended up losing track of what I was saying and babbling. A recurring nightmare I’d had during my years of law school coming to horrible, vivid life.

  My mentor, Jules Arden, had stopped by my office before he left. “Live to fight another day, Ms. Stevens. You have one night to sulk, then you’ve got to get back on the horse.”

  Usually I appreciated Arden’s support, but that evening his kindness only brought me closer to the edge of breaking down. As soon as I was alone in the office at last, I packed up my briefcase and made it halfway downstairs before I lost it. All the humiliation and the fear that I would always be terrible at my job came to a head. I sat on the stairs and cried like a two-year-old.

  I was hardly aware of the quiet drone of the buffing machine even after the motor cut off. But the sound of approaching footsteps brought my head up with a jerk. Hastily, I wiped my cheeks and steeled myself for unwanted sympathy. I snatched up my things so I could make a quick exit.

  Then Jason took me by surprise.

  Although from the scar on his face he’d obviously suffered some sort of trauma, he wasn’t mentally impaired like I’d first thought. He was unexpectedly clever and funny and made me laugh on a night I really needed to. We talked for only a few minutes, but his words stuck with me all the way home. He offered a cocktail of therapy advice served in such a dry tone it made my mouth pucker. Breathe slowly. Herd my scattered thoughts into a rhythmic line of leaping sheep. Draw a picture of what frightened me and banish it. Psych 101 suggestions, but also good advice. By the time I reached my apartment and several hundred sheep had jumped over my mental fence, I did feel more relaxed.

  “Find your center and remain there,” I said as I watched my frozen dinner spin around in the microwave.

  I thought about Jason for a long time after I lay down in bed that night. He was hot in an unkempt slacker kind of way that I’d always secretly been attracted to but had never dated. Shaggy black hair curled around his ears and fell like a crow’s wing over his forehead. Equally dark eyes had looked into mine as if he really saw me. Intense. Intent. He was anything but slow, despite his halting speech pattern. His sharp features would’ve been almost too conventionally handsome without the jagged scar that ran from temple to jaw on the right side. It gave the impression of trial by fire. This man had been through something heavy duty and emerged on the other side. I’d wanted to know what caused the scars, the fragmented speech, and the stiff gait when he walked, but of course I hadn’t asked. It wasn’t my business. Besides, it wasn’t as if I was going to see him again and become his BFF.

  Still, my mind nibbled away, refusing to drop the subject. Maybe someone at the office would know more about Jason.

  And then, because I was half-asleep, drowsy, and a little aroused, I slipped into a dream about having sex with Jason up against a wall in the empty office building. Clothes ripped off, strong arms lifting me, thrusting, stroking, kissing, panting, bodies twisted together… I groaned and rolled over, my hand finding its way down between my legs to finish off the fantasy of sex with a dark-eyed stranger.

  Chapter Two

  “Jason, Is there anything you’d like to add?” Maxie, our group leader, asked like she always did, even though I never contributed to the conversation.

  “No,” I answered, thinking about meeting Anna the other night and, for some reason, wanting to tell about it. But there wasn’t anything to say. I’d met a pretty woman who was crying. We’d talked a little bit. I made her laugh. End of story.

  “Why do you keep asking him?” Rob, a forty-something insurance salesman with anger issues, glared at me. “It’s bullshit that the rest of us lay our shit out there, and you think you’re too cool to participate. Why do you even keep coming here? ”

  “Rob, this is a safe place. No one has to talk about anything he or she isn’t ready to,” Maxie warned.

  “You must want to lay your shit out or you wouldn’t do it,” I pointed out to Rob. “I guess I’m just not as interesting as the rest of you.”

  Rob muttered something that sounded like “fucker,” but Maxie ignored him.

  I’d been attending the survivors’ group for over a year, a couple of times a month, enough so I could reassure my mom I was still a part of it. She wanted me to go to therapy—not the physical but the “talking about our feelings” kind. But a therapist cost money I couldn’t afford, so I came to this informal meeting. People talked about surviving car accidents, store robberies, plane crashes, or personal assaults. There was even one tornado survivor. Everyone talked about their nightmares or survivor’s guilt if they’d lost a loved one. They usually ended up crying, and Maxie passed out tissues. I’d rarely contributed to the discussion. Rob probably wasn’t the only one who wondered why I bothered coming. Guess I was just too damn happy with my life to complain.

  “Jason,” Maxie said, “you know no one’s pain is too uninteresting to share.”

  I almost laughed out loud at that.

  “Anything you want to say is important,
and everyone”—she looked at Rob—“will respect your bravery in speaking up.”

  I should have stayed silent, but suddenly words came pouring out. “I feel a lot of guilt because it should’ve been me that died that night. I know my parents think so. My brother got in the car with me and I…” I covered my eyes. “It was my fault.”

  “Oh, honey.” Nice old Naomi Johnson, the tornado survivor, reached over to pat my back. “Let it all out.”

  “This is bullshit!” Rob exploded, his slicked-back, 80’s hair nearly escaping its gel as he shook his head in fury. “He’s making it up.”

  “Rob, we’ve heard enough from you today.” Maxie never spoke that sharply. I bit my lower lip to keep from laughing.

  “It’s a lie.” Rob’s voice rose, and I half expected steam to erupt from his ears. “I looked up his accident. He was alone in the car. Nobody else was involved. I’m surprised it even made the news.”

  For a moment, there was complete silence; then Naomi asked, “Is that true?”

  I took my hand away from my eyes and looked around at the group. “Just trying to make the story more interesting.”

  “You’re sick,” a new girl named Serena, who’d survived a convenience store holdup, snapped. “Some of us are really trying to help each other here, and you come in and make up stuff? That’s so wrong.”

  Put like that, I did sound pretty bad.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “But does anybody else think it’s weird that Rob researched my accident?”

  Rob continued ratting me out. “They tested his blood, and the guy was completely wasted. Maybe he didn’t kill anybody, but he easily could have. Drunk-driving asshole.”

  “Rob,” Maxie interrupted.

  I stood and grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair. “I should go.”

  “Good riddance,” Rob said as I walked toward the door.

  “Jason,” Maxie called, “you clearly have some issues about your accident or you wouldn’t feel the need to make up stories. Don’t give up on group.” But she didn’t sound as if she meant it.