Joni shifted onto her side and faced the wall, as well as another sleepless night. The sound of a door closing in the adjacent hotel room could be heard. Otherwise, the post-midnight hour was dark and quiet. All she heard was Huan’s soft, steady breathing from the bed next to hers and the occasional passing of cars.
She was still too wound up to sleep after her terrifying ordeal at the lounge. She had walked off without thinking after she’d kissed Nadirah, too shaken up to really think straight. But before she had a chance to get very far, Nadirah had run up to her and guided her back to the parking lot. They’d needed to give their statements to the police. Once they were done, Gifford and Joe had taken her back to the hotel.
The madman and the man he’d shot were both expected to live, but for Joni, it was just one more tragedy to have to add to her list of traumatic experiences.
Not surprisingly, her mind found its way back to Nadirah. But not to the Nadirah of today. Instead, she remembered the Nadirah of the past.
After her phone spat with Nadirah, she’d started prank calling the hell out of her. In those days, 3-way calling wasn’t very well known. Joni would call someone, claim to be the operator, ask them to hang on for an important call, and then click over to her other line where she would quickly dial Nadirah before connecting the two lines, “crossing” the call. The first person whom she’d randomly dialed would hear Nadirah’s phone ring and her saying “hello” when she answered. At first, Nadirah was confused and truly believed the lines had been crossed. But Joni wasn’t as smart back then either, and she let her anger carry her away and into a trap set up by the phone company. Ultimately, she was subpoenaed to appear in court. She was in court sometime in late October of 1989. She’d also gotten in trouble for pranks in a neighboring town, and they wanted to nail her more for that than for Nadirah because Nadirah was an individual and not a place of business, as was the other case. She’d ended up receiving a few months of probation for the other case, but Nadirah’s case was dismissed. Before it was, however, she received three prank calls the day before court, and it wasn’t the day the case was dismissed either. The case wasn’t actually dismissed until mid-January of 1990.
“Hello?” said Joni when she picked up the phone the night before court.
“Remember me? You licked my pussy,” said a female voice that sounded identical to the one on Nadirah’s outgoing answering machine.
Her first thought was that it was a friend of Nadirah’s. But Joni wasn’t a hundred percent certain about this. She had considered asking her since fate had reunited them, but she wasn’t sure she’d get a truthful answer. At the time, the thought of her getting away with the very same thing she’d had to go to court for really bothered her. She didn’t mind the pranks themselves. Hey, she had to take what she dished, didn’t she? But the unfairness of it all really irritated her for a while. All these years later, however, it really didn’t matter one way or the other, although she was still curious as to whether or not she was really behind the calls. She had a couple of other theories about who might have been behind them as well. Of all her guesses, she almost wished it were Nadirah, as her other theories were a bit chilling to consider, though consider them she did.
One hour after the explicit question, plus another phone call, someone called and gave her the silent treatment, to which she responded with a mixture of goofy singing and senseless chatter.
The next day, she was arraigned in court. She told her public defender about the calls she’d gotten the night before and that she suspected Nadirah had put someone up to it. “I don’t know this for sure, and I hate to accuse anyone who may be innocent,” Joni had admitted, “but the timing sure seems coincidental, doesn’t it?”
Her lawyer nodded thoughtfully. “It does,” she said. “Perhaps you might consider filing countercharges.”
“Perhaps. I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
And nothing did. Not until December, anyway, at which time she received a prank call from a young guy. This was the most baffling call of all. To be propositioned or talked dirty to was one thing. But to be told she’d been seen at the crisis center was another. Especially since a nervous breakdown had indeed prompted her to go there just the other night. But this information wasn’t provided until the guy had told her just what he’d like to do to her sexually, and in very graphic detail.
“Are you close to North Star?” she called and asked one of the crisis workers after receiving the call. “It’s very important.”
“Yes, I can see the parking lot from the window here,” the woman answered.
“Thank you,” Joni said, hanging up the phone and quickly grabbing her journal, which she had written by hand at the time. She’d been at the crisis center on the night of October tenth, according to an entry she’d made. Had the tenth been a Wednesday, which was gay night at North Star? She flipped through the pages of the brightly colored cloth-bound journal.
Yes, it had indeed been a Wednesday night.
The last call came in late January of 1990, two weeks after the case had been dismissed, and it left her even more confused. It was the same guy who had called her the previous month. That much she was sure of. Only now, she’d had a different phone number, and it was unlisted!
Could a crisis worker or a cop be involved? In the end, she knew she would probably never know just who had been behind the calls or how many people had been involved. Maybe Nadirah had only been behind the first call. Or maybe she’d been behind none of them. She’d never know.
In the months following the incident, Joni became bitter, angry, distrustful, and basically crawled into a protective shell, determined to stay there for a very long time. And it worked for a couple of years.
Some suggested Nadirah had reacted to her message with such emotion because she truly had been interested in her and couldn’t handle feeling rejected. “Why give a girl your number and kiss her on the cheek in a gay bar of all places if you’re not interested?” the person had pointed out.
Oh well, Joni decided in the end as she yawned and drifted off to sleep. They were never meant to be anyway. Attracted to each other or not, they were all wrong for each other.
Weren’t they?
The sound of the laboratory door opening made Nadirah glance up from the microscope she’d been peering through. “Hi, Gifford,” she said. “What’s up?”
Gifford grinned and said, “Well, I’m afraid your worst nightmare has come to life.”
Nadirah turned back to the microscope. “This must have something to do with Joni.”
“That it does, ma’am. That it does.”
“What crap did she pull now?”
“Oh, she just managed to impress a few hotshots around here enough to have her stay extended.”
“Oh,” Nadirah said, trying to play down the excitement that was building within her. In her utmost professional voice, she asked, “And does it get any worse?”
“Sure does,” Gifford said with a smug grin. “You get to have her all to yourself.”
“What?” Nadirah asked, turning back to Gifford.
“Yeah, your own personal little helper.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be your job? And what the hell would I need her help for anyway?”
Laughing, Gifford said, “I guess she’s going to do some data entry for you.”
“I can do my own data entry,” Nadirah insisted. “That’s why we got the new program to begin with, isn’t it? So we can input info in a way that’s faster, easier, and more efficient. I don’t need any disturbed, hyper screw-up in the way to slow me down.”
“But that’s just the thing. We’ve got more cases than we can handle lately. She could really help take some of the workload off our hands. You’re also still too caught up with the Joni of the past. People change, Nadirah, and while I may not know the girl well, she doesn’t seem like any kind of a screw-up to me. Would she be here if she were?” Gifford studied his coworker as she rubbed her forehead in frustration. “It’s something else, isn’t it?”
Nadirah sighed in frustration. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Another moment of thoughtful silence passed, then Gifford said, “Well, there’s not much either of us can do about it. You can take it up with the boss lady, but I doubt you’ll get any sympathy from her. If you don’t want her working with you, then you’re going to have to give her a hell of a good reason why she shouldn’t. Are you really willing to go into the past just to get rid of her so you don’t have to deal with what might have been had things turned out differently, or what they might be today if Joni didn’t live on the other side of the country?”
Nadirah cast a dangerous glare at her partner in forensics. “Look, Giff, Joni may be smart, cute, funny, and even a little bit with it these days, but she’s just a person. There’s nothing special, unique, or different about her in any way as far as I’m concerned. I’m not attracted to her if that’s what you’re hinting at, I don’t like her, and bad history or not, she’s just another spot on the wall. Okay?”
Not buying his coworker’s claims of a lack of feelings when it came to the eccentric girl with the overly long hair, he changed the subject. “What’s with all her headaches anyway? Something wrong with her?”
“Yeah, she’s a nut.”
“I’m serious.”
“How would I know?” Nadirah said with a shrug. “She did appear to be in pain one time when she was alone with me, but for all I know, she could just be a sympathy junkie who thought she could weasel her way into my heart—or at least into my bed for a night or two—if she feigned some pain.”
Again, Gifford laughed. “I don’t think she would do that. Besides, I’ve heard enough other people talking about it. It has something to do with a condition she was born with.”
“Well, she’s going to have to do something to get her ass insured so she can deal with it.”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Gifford, about to head back out of the room. “Just one question, though?”
“Yeah?” Nadirah said.
“How do you even know she would want a date in your bed for a night or two?”
Nadirah rolled her eyes and said, “Goodbye, Giffy. I’ll see you at lunchtime.”
Gifford left the room and a trail of laughter behind him as the door swung shut.
And then he returned a moment later. “Almost forgot.”
“Yeah?”
“Your Cali girl won’t be in until tomorrow, so you get to enjoy one more day of peace and quiet. Secondly, there’s to be an after-work get-together at Barry’s Bar. Your sweetheart plans to be there.”
“Well, I don’t.”
Joni spotted Nadirah in Barry’s Bar heading for the ladies’ room at the same time she was. She beamed a smile her way. “Hiya, boss! Did you hear the good news?”
“Well, I don’t know that it’s good news, but yes, I heard, Joni.”
There were three stalls in the bathroom. The one to the far right was occupied. Joni entered the middle stall while Nadirah entered the one on the left.
“Hi,” the woman next to Joni suddenly said.
Although Joni thought it a bit strange, she said hello back.
“How are things going?”
Still unsure of what to make of the weird and unexpected bathroom conversation, Joni said, “Pretty good.”
“Do you mind? I’m on the phone,” the woman snapped.
Joni covered her mouth to keep from laughing and exited the stall at the same time Nadirah exited hers. The woman spoke some more to whoever was on the phone as Joni began to laugh. Even Nadirah was trying to keep it together, nudging Joni toward the door. Once the two were outside the bathroom, however, they really let go.
Gifford approached them a minute later. “Well, well, well. Isn’t it nice to see you two getting along? Wanna let me in on what’s so funny?”
Nadirah managed to calm down fast enough, but Joni couldn’t control her scattered bits of laughter as she told Gifford about the strange woman on the phone in the bathroom stall next to hers as they headed for a booth where Joe and a few others were sitting, none of whom Joni had met before.
“That’s hilarious!” Gifford said with a laugh.
Joni was about to sit next to Nadirah when Nadirah said, “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not going to sit next to me this time around or follow me around like some pathetic puppy.”
“Nadirah,” Joe said in mock shame. “You’re so mean.”
“That’s okay. I don’t mind,” Nadirah said.
“Bitch,” Joni hissed to people’s surprise.
Nadirah quickly glanced at her angrily while the others snickered. They couldn’t help but admire Joni for having the guts to even think of calling the stern woman a bitch.
Joni sat next to Joe, opposite Nadirah, who seemed determined to remain angry at her all night. Joni sipped her Sprite slowly as the night wore on.
“You okay there, Joni?” Gifford asked after a while. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just can’t help but fear a repeat of what happened in the other club.”
“Oh, don’t worry, hun,” said Joe. “The odds of that are like—are like…”
“Like the odds of me bumping into Nadirah after nearly twenty years?” Joni finished for him.
Laughter exploded around the table, but Nadirah remained silent, eyes cast downward at her drink. Then, for a split second, her gaze flicked toward Joni.
And Joni was even more turned on. Not because she was angry, but because there was something undeniably sexy about the way she glanced at her. The look in those brown eyes did something to her that she just didn’t understand.
Once again, Joni fell silent. It was for the better, she supposed, since she obviously couldn’t say anything right that night. But later, she ended up talking with Nadirah when they were both placing an order of French fries. “I’m sorry,” Joni told her.
Nadirah glanced at her for a second but didn’t say anything.
Hesitantly, Joni continued with, “I’m sorry I called you a bitch. I mean, you are at times, but I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”
“Yeah, you should have. You’re sometimes slow to learn things, Joni. Makes me wonder how you managed to learn so many languages.”
Joni smiled and said, “Where I used to be afraid to really let my feelings show, now I’m brutally honest, and I don’t hold back a bit.”
“That’s what I don’t like about you.”
“Oh, really? You mean you like a woman who keeps things bottled up instead?”
The look Nadirah gave her next assured Joni that she had better go back to being quiet, and so she did.
Until she got to playing pool with a woman named Jezebel. Her poor pool-playing skills managed to generate a fair amount of teasing and laughter.
“I gotta admit it’s a nice change seeing you struggle with something you’re not very good at,” Gifford told her, “after seeing you breeze through other things that are usually a nightmare for the rest of us.”
Joni laughed. “Pool is definitely not my thing.”
“You’re not even holding the damn pool cue right,” Nadirah said.
“Then show me how,” Joni said.
Nadirah looked unsure of herself for a minute. Then, with some reluctance, she pulled herself up and headed toward Joni. “Give it to me.”
Joni handed her the cue.
“Hold it like this,” Nadirah demonstrated. Then she handed the cue back to Joni. Joni did as instructed. A second later, Nadirah reached around her and guided her arms in the proper direction.
Joni liked the contact.
“Hey, why are you helping her?” Joe teased. “I thought you hated her?”
Joni finally pocketed a ball, stood upright, and faced Nadirah. “Guess sometimes you just can’t always be the ice princess you’d like to be, boss, huh? Thanks!” she grinned.
Another round of hearty laughter filled the room as Nadirah sat back down, determined to do a better job of her role as “ice princess.”
She just didn’t expect to be very successful at it for much longer.
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