Bill Pronzini - Spook

“Well, we’re still sleeping in the same bed for now.”

“For now. What about next month?”

“He’s leaving for Philly on the fourth.”

“Doesn’t answer my question.”

“I can’t answer it. Not yet.”

“... All right. Promise me one thing?”

“What’s that?”

“Good behavior on Christmas Eve. No arguments, no hassles.”

“Me spoil the party? Hey, Pop, don’t worry. I’ll be your sweetness, a perfect little lady. Just like Claudia.”

Monday night.

Claudia said, “Well, what was I supposed to tell Pop? You did move back in with Horace. That’s getting back together in my book.”

“Not mine. Just means we’re fucking again.”

“For God’s sake. I hope you didn’t use that language with Pop.”

“He knows what the word means.”

“Why do you have to be so vulgar?”

“Why do you have to be so tight-assed?”

“You’re twenty-five, an adult — act like it.”

“Yes, Ma. Okay, Ma.”

“Sometimes... I think you actually hate me.”

“Wrong. No hate for anybody in this girl.”

“Resent me, then.”

“That’s what Pop thinks. Told him only when you try to boss my life.”

“I’ve never tried to boss your life.”

“And when you pretend you don’t and never did.”

A Claudia sigh. Little softer, little more drawn out than one of Pop’s. Two of them ought to do a duet, get Horace to play accompaniment on his cello. “Sonata of Sighs in D Flat,” something like that.

“Tammie, you know I care about you—”

“Don’t call me Tammie. I hate that fool name, knamean?”

“Knamean. That’s another thing. Street slang, ebonies... half the time you talk like somebody from the projects.”

“That what you think I am? Ghetto stereotype?”

“I know you’re not. I just wish—”

“What, sistah? That I’d talk white folks’ talk like you?”

“I don’t ‘talk white folks’ talk,’ I speak correct English. There’s a big difference.”

“Is there? Yeah, well, it’s whitey’s world and you just trying to get along.”

“That’s right,” Claudia said, “it is still whitey’s world. But it’s changing, and I’m trying to do what I can to help. By working within the system.”

Lawyer talk now. “And I’m not, that what you’re saying?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I respect you, the way you’ve turned your life around. I just want you to fit in—”

“Turned my life around. Fit in. Whoa, girl. Way over rap. Off da hook!”

Sigh. “Are you going to act like this on Christmas Eve? Spoil the holidays for the rest of us?”

“Just like Pop. Same worry out your mouth.”

“What answer did you give him?”

“Gonna be a perfect little lady, just like you.”

“I hope you mean that. Are you bringing Horace?”

“Are you bringing the oreo?”

“Brian is not an oreo! Stop calling him that. He’s a good man, a brilliant attorney, and you’d better get used to him. You’re going to be seeing the two of us together for a long time.”

“Don’t tell me that silky dude proposed to you?”

“Not yet, but he will. Soon.”

“Thinking on a big wedding, huh? The whole nine yards?”

“I’d like a formal wedding, yes.”

“Whoo. You in a white dress, Brian in a tux — be just like watching a glass of milk and a big old cookie exchanging vows.”

“... God, Tamara, you can be a bitch sometimes!”

“Guess who I learned it from, big sister.”

Monday night.

Horace said, “Why do you act like that with your family?”

“What, you eavesdropping on me now?”

“You were talking loud enough for the neighbors to hear.”

“Don’t you be ragging on me too.”

“I’m not. I’d just like to know why you can’t get along with your family, why every conversation has to turn into a sniping match.”

“Always my bad, right?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Didn’t have to. Better stay on your own side the bed tonight.”

“So now it’s my turn to get chopped.”

“Tomorrow night, too.”

“Dammit, woman. Did you mean what you said to Claudia and your father?”

“Mean what?”

“We’re not really back together, all we’re doing is sharing a bed for the time being.”

“Well, duh. One day at a time, like you said.”

“I know what I said, but I keep hoping...”

“That I’ll change my mind? Marry you, move back east?”

“Marry me at least. Would that be so bad?”

“Wouldn’t be so good.”

“What about the promise you made me?”

“What promise?”

“At Claudia’s. That you won’t give up on us.”

“If I’d given up, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

“But you won’t make any kind of commitment.”

“Like the one you went and made all by yourself?”

“Baby, it wasn’t a choice between you and my music—”

“No? You gonna leave your cello behind when you go?”

“What? Of course not.”

“Same way I feel about my job.”

“It doesn’t have to be us or our careers, one or the other, all or nothing. Why can’t you believe that?”

“ ’Cause I stopped believing in fairy tales when I was six years old.”

Tuesday morning.

Sad and lowdown when she got to the office. Still on edge, too, so it was a good thing the boss man was planning to be out most of the day, business interview and Emily’s school pageant, and Jake Runyon wasn’t back from Mono yet. She might’ve gone off on one of them for no good reason, the way she kept doing lately, make herself feel even worse.

Quiet in there, sitting at her desk. Gave her time to scrape around inside her head, take an objective look at what she found. Didn’t like it much, but there it was and might as well admit it. Person she was really upset with, person who’d needed bitch-slapping all along, was herself.

Pop, Ma, Claudia, Horace, Bill... they all cared about her, wanted good for her. So why did she keep fighting and ragging on them, keep turning into the angry smartmouth like some black-sister Jekyll and Hyde? Oh, they were always so sure they knew what was best, wouldn’t let her be her own woman, live her own life her own way. Only problem was, sometimes she ran a little scared. Felt insecure, vulnerable. Didn’t know what she should do, didn’t feel sure of herself, needed help figuring out what was best for her. Purely hated being dependent on anybody, but those times she just had to reach out. That was why she’d moved in with Claudia when she left Horace, why she’d let him take her to bed last Friday night, why she’d moved back in with him so quick and easy. Why she drove down to Redwood City every few weeks to spend time with the folks. What she partly was, like it or not, was a woman who didn’t want to be alone, needed somebody close to lean on. Only she couldn’t just lean, uh-uh, not her. The more dependent she became, the more she started hating herself, and blaming other people for her insecurity, and before she knew it she’d lapsed right back into her old ’tude.

No big insight here, she thought ruefully. She’d let herself see clearly before, made vows before to own up and change her ways. But just when she’d make a start in the right direction, something would happen and she’d handle it wrong, words coming out her mouth without going through her brain first, closing off and lashing out at the same time. Like the other day when Pop came to the office, Friday night at Claudia’s, the three conversations last night.

Better stop treating everybody like an enemy, girl. Hang on to family, friends, learn self-control, or else you’re really gonna end up independent one of these days — gonna end up all alone.