“Wow, it’s beautiful out here!” Joni exclaimed, her head hanging out the passenger window as they wound through the evergreens toward Nadirah’s house, which would also be her home for the next few months. “So secluded and peaceful.”
“Yes, it is,” Nadirah shouted over the wind. “Why are you hanging your head out the window like a dog?”
Joni ducked back inside the car and shrugged. “I just do that sometimes.”
“You’re definitely one of a kind, Miss Joni Lee Haddad. Now, how many times do I have to remind you not to get too used to things around here? Five months, and you’re out of here.”
“It’s Mrs., and can’t I just enjoy the next five months without you nagging me?” Joni sighed with exasperation.
Nadirah laughed and said, “So you’re not afraid to be all alone in the wilderness?”
“No. I like my privacy.”
“Ah, you’re both brave and a little wuss at the same time, huh?”
Joni glanced at Nadirah, confused. “Who said I was a little wuss?”
“Well, Tamika said you were freaked out over a tiny spider in the break room the other day.”
“I wasn’t freaked out, and it wasn’t tiny either.”
“Oh,” Nadirah said, laughing again.
A few minutes later, they were heading down a gravel drive deep in the woods. Joni marveled at the serenity around them. By the time they were halfway down the drive, the street and any neighboring houses were no longer visible. Nadirah parked off to the front side of a small, cottage-like house. A black cat stood just outside the door.
“Hey, Booty,” Nadirah greeted the cat, which stretched and yawned as she and Joni approached the house. “This here is Troublemaker, and Troublemaker’s going to be our guest for a few months.”
The cat responded with a meow, and Joni bent down to pat him. “Well, hello there.”
“Wow, I’m surprised he didn’t run. He doesn’t usually take to newcomers that well.”
“Maybe that’s because he senses I’m not quite a newcomer and that I’ve been floating around your mind for decades, waiting to come to the surface and…”
“Yeah, yeah. Come on, you eccentric weirdo.”
Now it was Joni’s turn to laugh as Nadirah unlocked the door. She placed her purse and duffle bag on the front walkway by the door and said, “Aren’t you forgetting something, hubby?”
“Don’t call me that,” Nadirah said, turning to face her. “What am I forgetting?”
Joni rolled her eyes and said, “Isn’t the husband supposed to carry the bride over the threshold?”
Now it was Nadirah’s turn to sigh with exasperation. “Forget it, Joni.”
“Yeah, forget it,” Joni muttered. “There’s nothing typical about this marriage anyway. And besides, you could never lift me.”
“Oh, yeah?” Nadirah said, hands on her hips. “You sure about that, little lady?”
Before Joni could respond, Nadirah swept her off her feet almost as easily as if she were made of air. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed in surprise as she was lifted over the threshold and placed on the floor just inside. “You’re a lot stronger than you look!”
“Then don’t underestimate me from now on,” Nadirah said, shutting the door behind them.
The cat, which had slipped indoors with them, scurried into the kitchen.
Joni surveyed the large room, which made up half of the tiny house and ran the length of the left side of it. Just in front of the door on the opposite wall was a double bed. To the right of the bed was a set of windows overlooking the front yard, which was left in its natural state. To the left of the bed were a nightstand and the entryway leading into the kitchen and bathroom. To the left of the entryway was a small round table and two chairs, with another set of windows behind them overlooking the back. Opposite the entryway, and along the same wall as the front door, was a closet and a long dresser where a TV sat.
“How cozy,” Joni said, though most of the furniture was worn and cluttered, and the place, in general, could use a good dusting.
“Not exactly the kind of house one would expect a forensics investigator to live in,” Nadirah said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, just because I make decent money doesn’t mean I feel the need to live more extravagantly.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Joni said. “As long as you’re comfy and happy, that’s all that matters.”
They stepped into the kitchen, which was on the back-right side of the house. It was a fairly good-sized eat-in kitchen, although somewhat lacking in counter space.
Lastly, they stepped into the bathroom. It was small and old.
“What’s over there?” Joni asked, pointing to a space at the front-right corner of the house.
“That’s where the washer, dryer, and hot water tank are,” Nadirah told her, making way for Joni to exit the bathroom so she could inspect it.
What, did she think she was kidding or something? she thought to herself with amusement.
After giving the utility room a once-over, Joni gazed out the window in the back door at the back-right corner of the house. Then she turned to Nadirah, who leaned in the entryway between the two sides of the house, arms folded in front of her.
“Do you want me to be polite or honest?” Joni asked.
“I really don’t care,” Nadirah said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You can say what you want because none of it matters.”
“You’ve got a really cute place here, but you’re going to need a new wife to replace me after I’m gone.”
“And why is that, genius?”
“Because you’re such a slob that it’s going to take more than five months to really get things in order.”
Ignoring her, Nadirah went into the living room/bedroom, picked something up off the table, and handed it to Joni.
“What’s this?”
“I do believe they call it a cellphone, Joni.”
“But why are you giving one to me?”
“So that if you ever need to get a hold of me—though I don’t expect you to very often at all—you’ll have a convenient means of doing so if the landline ever acts up or you’re out somewhere.”
“Oh, okay,” Joni said.
“A word of warning, though.”
“Yes?”
“You make one prank call on that thing, and I swear I’ll beat you over the head with it and then shove it down your throat so hard it’ll come out your ass. Understand?”
“Yes, boss, though I assure you my last prank call was something like nineteen years ago.”
“I mean it, Joni.”
“Me too. I hate phones. Seriously. Ever since I quit smoking, I’ve hated the damn things.”
“Would you like some soda?”
“Yes, please. I felt like such an idiot afterward. Really, I did.”
“What?” Nadirah said, confused by the sudden change of topic as she pulled a can of Sprite and a can of Coke from the refrigerator and handed the Sprite to Joni.
Joni followed Nadirah into the living room, where Nadirah sat in one of the chairs. The cat jumped onto her lap a second later.
“When I left the message on your machine,” Joni elaborated, “I know it came off like a Dear John message of sorts, but I…”
“That’s exactly what it came off as,” Nadirah cut her off.
“I’m sorry. I really, sincerely am very sorry for the poor communication skills I had back then, even though you didn’t exactly handle it very well yourself and were less than kind to me. I was so shocked and hurt by your reaction. Even angry too, and I know this is no excuse, but that’s pretty much why you became a phone target of mine for a while. I didn’t know how to deal with my anger back then, and I totally felt like I’d been dumped by you, even though, as you told the media later on—which also pissed me off for a while—there never was a relationship between us. Either way, I felt just horrible about the whole thing in the end. My mind and my heart were in a battle the night I left that message for you. My head said to tell you I wanted to just be friends and not get into a relationship because I felt the need to protect myself, while deep down in my heart,” Joni said with emotion now evident in her eyes and voice, “I was very attracted to you and was hopeful for a relationship. But in the end, my head won the battle, and I told you I didn’t want a relationship when I really did.”
Nadirah watched with both surprise and confusion as Joni brushed away the tears she was trying to control. Had she made that much of an impression on the girl all those years ago? “Sit down.” She gestured to the chair across the table.
Joni sat in the empty chair opposite Nadirah. “I was really messed up back in those days,” Joni went on, tears now rolling freely down her reddened cheeks. “Due to some past circumstances—not that I’m trying to excuse my shitty choice of words—I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I just didn’t know how to interact well with people in the real world. Whenever a good thing came along, I’d run scared.”
Nadirah continued to watch Joni in stunned amazement. Wow. This was no act. This was raw emotion and honesty at its core. Could it really be that Joni had never gotten over her? But how could that be? They’d barely known each other.
“I know it was never mutual, even though some thought it might be and that that was why you went off on me the way you did. But you were the first.”
“The first what?” Nadirah asked softly.
“I don’t know,” Joni said through teary eyes, “I just don’t know. I know I felt something different when we met. Something I’d never felt before, but I’m not sure just what it was.” She looked straight at Nadirah. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
Nadirah stood up and took a box of tissues from the nightstand, which she handed to Joni. “We all mess up at times, girl.”
“Yeah, I guess we do,” Joni said, taking a tissue and dabbing her eyes.
Nadirah knelt down in front of Joni and said gently but firmly, “Joni, I only told the news people what I honestly believed to be the case at the time.”
“I know you did,” Joni said, gazing into Nadirah’s brown eyes. For the first time ever, that coldness that had always been present in them was gone. But there wasn’t much warmth either.
“I forgive you, Joni. I believe you when you say you’re sorry. And I’m sorry if I was too harsh with you and didn’t give you more of a chance, but you’ve got to keep things in perspective and just keep in mind that we were simply never meant to be.”
“I know we weren’t,” Joni said with a faint smile. “I just had to get this off my chest. I don’t know why, but I guess I just needed to get it out in the open. I wanted you to know how I felt then and now.”
“That’s fine, but you have to remember that you’ll never see me again after a few months.”
“It’s okay,” Joni assured her. “Getting these things out and dealt with will make leaving you a little easier. I know it may sound funny, but sometimes you just gotta go back to the past and finish dealing with things you either didn’t quite deal with or that you didn’t deal with very well in order to move on into the future.”
“Maybe we can keep in touch online after you go back out west,” Nadirah said, sitting back in her chair. “Not like the best of friends do, where we’re constantly emailing each other or anything like that, but if you glance over your shoulder every now and then, you just might find me off in the distance, but still hovering about. Know what I mean?”
Joni nodded as she blew her nose, got up to throw the wadded tissue away, then sat back down and began to finger her wedding band. “It’s beautiful. Really beautiful. What do you want me to do with it when the divorce goes through? Give it back to you?”
“No, it’s yours to keep and to do whatever you want with,” Nadirah said as she felt a tug of emotion within her own heart that almost made her feel bad for Joni. Bad enough to wonder if marrying her had been a mistake. She’d simply had no idea the girl had been feeling what she’d been feeling for nearly twenty years.
“You’ve calmed down,” Joni suddenly said.
“What’s that?”
“You’re a lot calmer than I remember you to be. You used to be kind of hyped up and you’d talk rather fast and seem a bit emotional,” Joni said with a smile.
Nadirah momentarily smiled as well and said, “Yeah, but I can still get going at times, so watch out.”
“Thanks,” Joni said softly, eyeing her ring once again.
“For what?”
“For forgiving me and for giving me the chance to deal with my medical issues. It isn’t every day that one does the kind of favor you’re doing for me, even if I’m doing you a favor in return.”
Nadirah half-smiled again and said, “Yeah, I guess you could say it’s a first for me. I just hope I won’t end up regretting it.”
“So what if you do? We’re getting divorced in less than half a year anyway.”
Nadirah stared into Joni’s eyes. Just what was it she was dealing with here? Obsession? Nah, she didn’t think so. Joni didn’t have the character traits that normally went with obsessive types. “I just didn’t expect such emotion,” she said a moment later. “Kind of caught me off guard, you know?”
“I do get emotional at times. Sometimes I wish I could do what you do and stifle my emotions.”
“Excuse me?”
Joni glanced quickly at Nadirah. “I’m sorry. I’m just a fairly observant person, and sometimes I—I…”
“Have a big mouth?”
“Yeah,” Joni said with a nervous laugh. “You could say that.”
“I’m not stifling anything, Joni. What you see is what you get.”
“I analyze people too much, I know. Again, I’m sorry. A therapist I once had got me hooked on writing down not only my thoughts but people, places, and events with as much detail as possible.”
“Well, I like the fact that you keep last names out of your blog, but I would really appreciate it if you would also be careful of what details you print about me, Joni. I’m a more private person than you.”
“Okay.”
“No reaction to my mentioning that I’ve seen your blog?”
“No. Why should there be? It’s a public blog, isn’t it?” Joni glanced at Nadirah. God, she was hot. The way she sat, the way she talked, the way she looked at her. She was really going to miss this bitch when she was gone. “How much did you read, though? I’m just curious.”
Nadirah simply shrugged in response, then she said, “I’m a forensics cop. I’m out there putting my ass on the line much in the way street cops do. So watch what you say, Joni.”
“Yes, Officer.”
“Now how about dinner and a shower before we relax for the rest of the night and then turn in?”
“I’d like that. Getting married and baring one’s soul all in one day can be a rather draining experience.”
Another quick, half-assed smile from Nadirah. “Go check out what’s in the kitchen and whip us up some dinner, then we’ll go to the store this weekend and get some stuff you like as well.”
“Yes, boss.”
Joni started to head into the kitchen but then returned to the living room a second later. “By the way…”
“Yes?”
“What’s my phone number?”
ns216.73.216.247da2
