Lisa Gardner - Touch & Go

There is a breed of men out there, you know, who are attracted to strong women. They just don’t know what to do once they win us over.

So that’s how I view my husband, the strong man, driven to pursue a strong woman, then mostly at a loss forever after. If that’s patronizing, well then, maybe that makes me the chauvinistic one. Because given the family history, I can’t say I was totally surprised that my husband cheated on me. I was mostly ashamed for not figuring it out sooner. And hurt, because I had wanted us to be different. I had imagined myself to be special enough, attractive enough, smart enough, to forever hold Justin’s interest.

Love is risk.

I took it, and I got burned.

But someday, my daughter will take the same risk. And I don’t have the heart to tell her to take the easy road. Because there is a breed of women out there who are attracted to alpha males. We just don’t always know what to do with them once we have them.

JUSTIN WAS CONVINCED he knew how to handle Z. Let him do the talking, and we’d be ransomed out of our prison cell by the end of the day. Which meant the first thing Ashlyn and I had to do was talk him down. We’d tried fighting fire with fire. We’d made a stand, we’d even attempted rebellion. To date, it had gotten us Tased and battered.

If Z and his crew were former military, then warfare was their specialty.

We needed a different approach. One outside the alpha dog’s normal realm of experience. I had a few ideas on the subject, which Ashlyn seconded. Given Justin’s current condition, we slowly but surely wore him down. One of us, he might have dismissed. Two of us, he eventually gave way. My idea, our plan. We would execute as a team, our first family project in six months. And we would win. I was convinced of it. There was finally enough at stake.

The hardest part was waiting.

We sat, Ashlyn on the top bunk, Justin and I below. First rule of psychological warfare: He or she who initiates the discussion has by definition given up ground. We couldn’t afford to give up ground.

So we practiced patience.

My tremors were returning. My headache, the deep, dragging exhaustion, punctuated by moments of excruciatingly painful cramping. The pills, whatever Radar had given me in the middle of the night, seemed to be waning, placing me once more on the withdrawal express.

I could confess to Justin. Tell him once and for all what I’d spent the past few months doing. Just how great a spouse and parent I’d turned out to be.

But again, she who initiates the discussion has by definition given up ground.

So I held my tongue.

We had no sense of time anymore. Daylight outside. Constant fluorescent lighting inside. Morning, mid-morning?

Eventually, we heard footsteps. Steady, not rushing, but I found myself holding my breath, hands already forming into fists. On the top bunk, I saw Ashlyn ease into the farthest corner of the bunk, assuming the crouch position…

The steel door swung open. Z stood there, Radar beside him.

“Breakfast,” Z stated crisply.

And in that one word, I knew we could win.

PER PROTOCOL, JUSTIN LEFT THE CELL FIRST, hands secured at his waist. Z stood with him, while Radar came in to fetch me. Radar kept his back to the door, blocking the window and, I realized, the security camera, as he slid two round white pills into the palm of my hand.

No words were exchanged. I had a brief image of the flat white tablets, numbers stamped in the back, then I dry swallowed both pills without question. A millisecond in time, then he had the restraints secured around my wrists and I joined my husband in the dayroom. Radar followed with Ashlyn and we fell in line, Z leading Justin by the arm, Radar escorting me and Ashlyn half a dozen paces behind.

We offered no resistance, behaving as three dutiful hostages who’d just spent a long night learning their lesson.

Our captors were freshly showered. Their hair still damp, Z in a crisp new outfit of 100 percent commando black, Radar in a fresh pair of baggy jeans and a new dark blue flannel shirt. I tried not to hate them, but given my own rank smell, it was difficult.

In the kitchen, our wrist restraints were removed and we were once more tasked with cooking. I conducted a quick inspection of the pantry and walk-in refrigerator. No additional supplies. Then again, when would they have had the time to restock? The lack of refurbishment reassured me, however, spoke of a set timeline. Z and his crew didn’t plan to spend eternity here, just long enough.

I pulled butter, bacon and eggs from the cavernous refrigerator, then an assortment of dry goods from the walk-in pantry. I’d have to do the recipe off the top of my head, but after all these years, that wasn’t a problem.

I put Justin in charge of crisping bacon and scrambling eggs. Ashlyn already knew her assignment: She was to set a table. Use whatever she could find, but somehow create the impression of a real, honest-to-goodness kitchen table.

While I made homemade cinnamon rolls.

Z disappeared, leaving Radar alone. Our youngest captor took a seat by one of the stainless steel counters, paying more attention to Justin, who stood, with half his face battered and one eye swollen shut, over a sizzling frying pan. I prepared the dough, then sprinkled flour onto the stainless steel prep surface and started rolling out. Once I’d created a large, thin rectangle, I spread butter across the entire surface, followed by liberal handfuls of white sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon. I rolled it up into one long cinnamon-dusted snake, then sliced it into inch-thick sections.

The ends appeared ragged and ugly. Without saying a word, I trimmed off both, handing one doughy piece to Ashlyn, her favorite part of the cinnamon-roll-making process. The second, I handed to Radar.

He didn’t even acknowledge me. But he picked up the bite of dough and popped it in his mouth. Just like that.

Some negotiations are not a matter of heavy battery, but slow advancement. Gains made so subtly, your opponent doesn’t realize you’ve even moved until they’re forced to watch the victory dance.

I made two dozen rolls, given that men of Z and Mick’s size ate at a certain volume, let alone if one homemade cinnamon bun was a treat, then three to four was an act of gluttony destined to be followed by a state of satiated lethargy, if not an outright sugar coma.

This kind of yeastless roll, thin and flaky versus thick and doughy, was Ashlyn’s favorite. I’d evolved the recipe twelve years ago, when my three-year-old hadn’t the patience to wait hours for homemade baked goods. Turned out, basically using pie dough halved the prep time while still yielding plenty of cinnamony delight. Our family recipe, now being shared with our family kidnappers.

While the commercial kitchen filled with the warm scent of baking cinnamon and caramelizing sugar, I inspected Ashlyn’s table. My daughter has always been creative, and her latest efforts didn’t disappoint.

She’d taken over one of the rolling stainless steel prep tables. Given that the overall color scheme in prison had a tendency to be stark white, she’d placed six red cafeteria trays to serve as institutional placemats. Each red tray was topped with a plain white plastic dinner plate. Then, she’d taken smaller salad plates, centered each on a dinner plate and written, in brightly colored condiments, the individual’s name.

Z’s single initial was particularly impressive, standing out in bright red ketchup script. For Radar, she’d used yellow mustard. Mick got green pickle relish, and for a moment, my child and I shared a smile; Ashlyn loathed relish. Always had, always would.

In the middle of the table, Ashlyn had filled a glass bowl with multicolored layers of dried lentils, topped with an artful arrangement of three eggs, a wire whisk and a single piece of cooked bacon, stolen from her father’s pan. Add in the collection of plastic cups, silverware and rolled-up paper napkins, and the overall effect was rustic and charming. A piece of home.