Joni eyed Nadirah with intense anger as Nadirah froze in shock at the sight of the gun Joni pointed at her. “Have a seat, bitch,” she told her. “You ain’t going anywhere for a while. And don’t even think of reaching for your own gun.”
Without a word, Nadirah slowly sat down on the stoop by the door.
“Years ago, you said I was calling to break up a relationship that never was. But I said I was saying I wanted to remain just friends when I really wanted more than that deep down. I wasn’t very honest with myself back then.”
“What’s the past got to do with why you’re aiming a gun at me right now, Joni? I thought we agreed the past was the past and that it’s best to move on whether we agree on what happened or not.”
“Oh, I’m moving on, alright. But you see, that’s my point. These days, I’m very honest with myself. You never told me if you really weren’t interested in me or if you were behind any of the prank calls I got after I called you.”
Nadirah looked up at Joni, confused.
“So, in light of that, I suppose my asking if you’d ever have come out and told me you were the one that attacked me had I not remembered on my own would be a waste of time. What do you think, Officer, a waste of time or not?”
Nadirah cleared her throat and said, “I’ve wanted to tell you many times, but I could never bring myself to do it. It’s just not easy telling someone you love that they lost their temper so bad that they…”
“Oh, cut the bull! You don’t love me. How the hell could you have done what you did to me if you loved me?” Joni screamed. She thought it a bit odd that Nadirah appeared as calm as she did and that she was able to keep her voice so steady while a gun was being pointed at her, but that just went to show that Nadirah didn’t exactly scare so easily. “I’ve learned something throughout all this crap and that’s that I’m just about the dumbest person alive.”
“That’s not true, Joni,” Nadirah said, eyes tearing over. “You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever known.”
Joni shook her head and said, “The only things I’m good at are writing, languages, acting, and singing. That’s all I’m good at. Everything else I either suck at or I’m just okay. Where I was really stupid - unbelievably stupid - was with you. If I’d had any real brains, I’d have told you to go to hell that day you told me who you were, walked away and never looked back. God, what a fool I am!”
“Joni, I know nothing I can say or do can ever make up for the hell I’ve inflicted upon you, but killing me is only going to get you jailed. I’m the one who belongs in jail, not you.”
“No,” Joni said, shaking her head. “Jail’s too good for you. Death is what you deserve. And I’m not going to kill you just to end up in jail for it because I will not let myself get caught. I’m outa here as soon as I drop you off at the Pearly Gates.”
“Wouldn’t it just be easier to simply leave? I know I don’t deserve you and…”
“Whoa, I said I was stupid, but not that stupid!” Joni cut her off. “Do you really think I’d want to let you live and risk you tracking me down?”
Nadirah said nothing.
“When I remembered how you tried to kill me, it all made sense. No wonder you were stalling the move and you weren’t exactly eager to get out of here. There never was any madman to run from, you sorry sack of subhuman crap! But the cops are onto you now. That’s why you want out all of a sudden. Well, claiming self-defense is going to be really easy for me, bitch! All I have to do is tell them that you decided to finish what you started, so I couldn’t testify against you when you were eventually caught.”
“I didn’t try to kill you! I swear. You have to believe that!” Nadirah suddenly cried.
“I don’t have to do anything but do the world a favor and rid it of a piece of scum like you!” Joni screamed back.
“But you must hear me out before you do anything! I didn’t…”
“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up! You cracked three of your wife’s ribs, broke her nose and sent her into a coma all for nothing. You wouldn’t let me explain myself to you that night and so you just…”
“I know,” Nadirah said, teary eyes downcast with guilt.
“I said shut up! Irene Ikira is eighty-eight years old, you whacko! When I said I liked older women, did you really think I meant that much older?”
Head still hanging downward, Nadirah shook it miserably.
“Why couldn’t you simply have taken my word for it when I said there was nothing going on between us? Huh?!”
Nadirah looked up at her. “Joni,” she said softly and with pleading eyes. Eyes full of awareness, authority, and intelligence that still had a way of turning Joni on as much as she wished otherwise. “I didn’t try to kill you. I simply lost my temper, as wrong as it was. I swung at you blindly with no specific outcome in mind. I hate to bring up other bad memories for you, but it’s like what you said about when you jumped out the window when you were seventeen. You weren’t trying to achieve anything specific. You simply freaked and did what you did. Yet despite the fact that jumping twenty feet is a risky way to get attention, people still accused you of simply trying to get attention because they didn’t want to deal with the seriousness of the…”
“Yes, I know what happened. Denial… ignorance… they really can be bliss at times, but guess what, asshole? I’m facing the cold, hard truth head-on here. You’ll have to beam back a sign somehow from the other side and let me know if God really hates gays and lesbians and sends them to Hell. I doubt it, though. I’m sure that’s just something the bigots came up with to try to scare us. But don’t you worry. Don’t worry. I’m sure there’s still a seat with your name on it waiting for you in Hell just for being an asshole.”
Nadirah simply gazed at the grassy dirt beneath her feet.
“Strange all we’ve been through, isn’t it? You pissed me off and made me cry years ago. Then you saved my life from that sick twist in the bar. Then, a few months ago, you nearly took my life, intentional or not. The only things you had going for you were that you were smart, you were a hottie, and you were great in bed. But other than putting me in stereo and giving me some damn good orgasms along the way, you ain’t worth it. You just ain’t worth it. Get up, asshole!”
Nadirah’s head snapped up.
“Yeah, your flight to Hell is now boarding.”
The hot, dry winds whipped Joni’s three-foot-long locks around her tanned body as she stood staring off into the horizon. The sunsets were always breathtaking where she was. She gathered her dark blond hair and wrapped it around her forearm to keep it from blowing in her face.
Then she did what she’d been doing regularly enough since she first met Nadirah Haddad nearly thirty years ago.
She thought of her.
And she wondered how the hell she could still love her.
Her mind reeled back to the last time she saw the forensics investigator, her savior turned would-be killer.
“Why do you want me to stand up?” Nadirah had asked, slowly rising to her feet.
“Well, you don’t think I want blood all over the house, do you? Wouldn’t look good to any prospective buyers. Instead, I’m going to make it look like you chased me into the woods and that’s where I had no choice but to shoot you in order to save my ass.”
“Joni,” Nadirah begged.
“Oh, and don’t worry. I’ll be sure to spend the money from the sale of the house very wisely.”
“Uh, Joni,” Nadirah said again.
Ignoring her, Joni raised the pistol upward and aimed right for Nadirah’s head. She tried to still her trembling arms, determined to shoot and kill the woman who had caused her so much grief. But once again, her heart fought with her mind much as it had many years ago.
She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t do it. She knew Nadirah would probably kill her instead, but she just couldn’t bring herself to pull the trigger.
Tears began streaming down her cheeks as she slowly lowered the gun, arms still shaking uncontrollably. “I-I c-can’t do-do it,” she cried.
“I can understand that much,” Nadirah said, reaching into the pocket of her coa,t which she hadn’t had a chance to take off. “See, I was going to clean the gun yesterday while you were in the shower, but then the phone rang and I never finished. I totally forgot to load the bullets back into the thing after placing it back in the drawer.”
Joni’s heart started thumping madly at the sight of the bullets now visible in the palm of Nadirah’s hand. “N-no, no, no!!!” she exhaled breathlessly, looking down at the gun she’d been holding, never knowing just how useless it had been all along.
“Go ahead. Fire it,” Nadirah said.
Joni squeezed the trigger of the gun, which was now aimed at the ground. All she heard was a click. A worthless waste of a click.
Nadirah slowly turned her palm downward and Joni watched, sick with horror as the bullets fell to the ground, one by one and seemingly in slow motion, with a gut-wrenching thump, thump, thump. Joni thought she might faint as her heart hammered mercilessly against her partially healed ribs.
Her eyes locked with Nadirah’s. What was that Joni was seeing in those eyes?
Victory? Amusement? Hatred?
“This one’s loaded,” they suddenly heard from the back corner of the house.
Both heads looked in that direction to find Irene Ikira, gun raised and once again aimed at Nadirah. “Yes, I heard the whole exchange. I came to ask Joni if she would look at a computer program I brought with me, but my goodness, what a surprise I found instead!”
Nadirah slowly advanced towards Irene and said, “Irene, I’m not going to hurt Joni ever again. If I wanted to, I could have…”
“Shut up and don’t move! You move and you’re dead.” Keeping her eyes on Nadirah, Irene said, “Run, Joni! Grab your purse and anything of value you might have. I’ll keep her at bay until you’re ready, then I’ll get you out of here.”
Joni’s feet seemed glued to the ground for a moment or two, but then her body acted on its mental commands and she scrambled indoors to gather her most important possessions. “I’m ready!” she announced a few minutes later, bursting out of the house.
Irene tossed Joni her car keys. “Can you start a car?”
“Yes!”
“Good. Start it and then move over into the passenger seat, leaving the driver’s door open.”
Joni took the keys and ran to Irene’s car.
Irene slowly backed up towards the front of the house where the car was parked, Nadirah slowly following. “Be glad I’m not thirty years younger and lesbian,” Irene said. “I’d be all over your little wife for sure.”
They made their escape a few seconds later. Joni was surprised that Nadirah hadn’t fired at the back of the car as they made their getaway, never thinking to demand that Nadirah toss her gun their way so she wouldn’t have it to consider using.
Irene bought Joni a plane ticket with Joni promising to pay her back as soon as she got on her feet once again. What she didn’t know was that Nadirah had beaten the crap out of Irene not long afterward, before she left New England in search of her, only Irene wasn’t as lucky as she had been and hadn’t survived the attack.
Joni placed a hand over her eyes and slowly scanned the breathtaking panorama around her. She could see for about fifty miles. Her eyes lowered from the sky, which was splattered with pink and purple hues against a darkening blue background. A second later, her worst nightmare rose up over the crest of a nearby sand dune amongst the sage and cacti as if her thoughts had summoned the image to appear.
No! No! It’s just an illusion. Just like those water mirage illusions on the paved roads during the hottest part of the day. Just an illusion.
But it wasn’t really an illusion, and so Joni ran for her archery set, which sat in the back of the house. She loaded an arrow into the bow and faced her enemy head-on.
Nadirah stopped in her tracks about fifteen feet away. “Hi, troublemaker,” she said with a smile.
“How the hell did you find me?”
“Well, it took some time, but I figured you would be more likely to go where people would least expect you to go. I know you always loved the desert but hated Arizona.”
“Still do. Where are you living now?” Joni asked, not understanding why she should give a damn.
“I’m back in North Carolina. The house ended up selling the day after you left. I had some friends down there, so I headed down there and I’m still doing what I was doing in Connecticut. And you, my lovely wife?”
Joni shook her head, still not believing what she was seeing. “What the hell are you doing here, Nadirah?”
“I have a beautiful place in the woods, and I would like my beautiful wife to come and join me there. They’ll eventually recognize our marriage there, too.”
Joni shook her head again. “And I thought I was the dumber half for a while there. You know you’re out of your mind, don’t you?”
Nadirah flashed a bright white smile and said, “Hey, North Carolina really is for lovers. Trust me, it is.”
“It’s too cold there in the winter.”
“It’s too hot here in the summer.” Nadirah’s eyes fell to the bow and arrow Joni held poised and ready to sling her way. “So what’s that for, Joni?”
“This?” Joni said, momentarily glancing at the archery. “Oh, well, this here is something you can really do an awful lot of damage with. Here, let me show you.” She charged forward as she pulled back on the sling and set the arrow flying through the hot, acrid air.
And missed her mark.
A second later, Nadirah pulled a pistol from her ankle holster.
“No!” Joni screamed in terror, dropping the bow.
Nadirah took aim and fired as Joni screamed hysterically. She screamed and screamed and screamed for what seemed like an eternity. Then she suddenly stopped and glanced down at herself.
Why wasn’t she bleeding? Why was there no pain?
Then she looked back up at Nadirah.
Nadirah nodded towards something behind her.
Joni spun around to find the rattlesnake Nadirah had shot, then she began to faint. But Nadirah caught her before she could hit the dusty ground, and together they embraced each other as Joni cried on Nadirah’s shoulder.
“I love you,” Nadirah whispered softly a few minutes later, still holding tight to Joni.
“I love you, too,” Joni whispered back, head still resting on Nadirah’s shoulder.
They continued to hold each other, caught up in the feeling of being back in each other’s arms once again.
More time passed, and then slowly - ever so slowly - one of them reached to pull a knife from the waistband of their jeans hidden beneath their shirt.
And the other one never noticed.
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