“Is this your last delivery?” he asks. “The invitation to the park is still open, now that you’ve divested yourself of your responsibilities.”
“No.” My one word comes out with real regret because I’m staring down lost opportunity. I can’t go to the park. I can’t forget my responsibilities.
I’m her shield.
“I’m not a fan of that word.” He steps toward me, but the owner of the wig shop has broken the spell. And a good thing, too, because I don’t have time for this man who whips up uncommon wants inside me. I know all too well that sick mothers and men don’t go together. All my energy should be focused on my mother and this minor god is too big of a distraction. Still, even knowing all that, I can’t look away from him.
I hold up my hand to stop him. “Don’t.”
Before he can say another word, I get on my bike as fast as I can and pedal away without a backward glance. There’s a sour taste in my mouth because another time, I would have followed him anywhere.
Chapter 3
“SIGN THIS.” MALCOLM SLIDES ME a piece of paper with lots of words on it. It will take me five years to decipher all the words and he knows it—the punk.
“I'm not signing anything. Give me the package, and I'll deliver it.” I grab for the empty, dull yellow envelope that presumably is the container for these papers my stepbrother wants delivered. For the past four weeks, I’ve transported small packages for him all over the city and several boroughs. I don’t know what’s inside these packages and I hope to keep it that way. Plausible deniability and all that. “By the way, the actor guy that took the big package the other morning looked like he was going to shiv me. Maybe you outta tell your customers that you have a new delivery girl.”
He smirks. “Move a little faster. Isn’t that what sets you apart? Your speed? Double rush? Triple Rush? I was watching that show on the Travel Channel. I think your ex started working there.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. We both know Colin is an attention whore.” Everyone has a reality television show these days, including bike couriers. While I wouldn’t be a fan of my life on display and I certainly wouldn’t want to work for the barking, Ritalin-addicted dispatchers that Colin works for, I’d do about anything for money—which is why I haven’t gotten out of my chair and left Malcolm Hedder’s apartment in Queens. “I move fast on the bike, but I’m not so sure how nimble I’ll be against some dude with a knife.”
“Guess you’ll have to learn.” He smirks and taps the pen on the page near a straight line. I suppose that’s where I’m supposed to sign. I can't believe we lived in the same house for four years and didn't kill each other. Back then, we were teenagers trying to cope with the fallout of his father’s infidelity and my mother’s poor choice in partners. Not every blended family turns into the Brady Bunch.
Since Malcolm graduated high school, though, I haven’t seen much of him. Mom kept up with him, and I’d hear about him through her. He tried trade school, auto repair I think, and then left it. About two years ago, he contacted me to ask if I wanted to do some side deliveries for him, but I turned him down because I was rightly suspicious of what kinds of packages I’d be ferrying around the city.
A couple of months ago, he’d contacted me again and said he had a high-paying specialty job, but his vague descriptions didn’t interest me.
And now? Now I’ve been delivering packages for Malcolm for four weeks. And it’s been a shitty four weeks. The last good memory I have is meeting Ian, the Suit, outside the wig shop. Since then it’s been holding my mother’s head as she pukes after an eight-hour chemo session and trying to force feed food down her throat during the intervening days because Dr. Chen chastised us both about her iron levels last week.
It’s been spending every minute of every day worrying about her, and then trying to be cheerful when I’m home because she seems to have lost her smile. She talks about how she’s so done with treatment and being sick. Her eyes are often red and swollen, as if she’s spent the whole day crying.
More red meat. More spinach. More beans. About all she can stand are blended shakes. At least the strawberries do a pretty good job of hiding the spinach taste, but I can’t turn a steak into a drink for her.
The last four weeks have been nothing but pain and stress compounded by my illicit activities for Malcolm. Delivering Malcolm’s packages late at night and sneaking them in throughout the day, my nerves are stretched thinner than a bike spoke, wondering if—no when—I’m going to get caught.
I don’t know what’s in the small manila envelopes and I don’t want to know. Nothing good, that’s for sure because I’m getting paid way too much money delivering these packages. I actually have dummy packages in my pack to make it look like I’m not running around delivering drugs.
What else can be in these parcels? It’s not like my stepbrother is a lawyer and produces a bunch of paperwork every day. This is the first time he’s handed me something even remotely legal-like. I watch the sheaf of papers as if it’s a live snake and will jump up and bite my fingers if I get too close.
“Drug dealers have NDAs now?”
“If I’m a drug dealer, I guess that makes you a drug mule,” he says softly but not so softly that everyone in the living room can’t hear. His friends, two of them totally blazed, giggle like schoolgirls. “We’re going to exchange signatures. Want my help? Sign it, Tiny, or we’re done.”
His voice never wavers, which signals the seriousness of his intent.
When I called him four weeks ago, after Mom collapsed on the stairs, he’d said the special project was filled but that he’d help me out with first and last month’s rent and pay me enough to afford a handicap-accessible building so long as I agreed to deliver for him, no questions asked, for a year. I said yes.
But whoever was slated to fill the special project washed out and he asked me again, telling me that I’d either do the special project or I couldn’t deliver for him at all.
I gnaw on the side of my mouth for two seconds and then give an internal f**k it. There’s no real debate. I need the money, and I’m willing to do anything for it. If Malcolm doesn’t give me first and last month’s rent, there’s no way I can move Mom into the new apartment. The sooner I get her out of the dingy one bedroom with all those stairs, the better it will be. Right now she’s like a prisoner because she can’t leave without me. And she hates that I have to carry her up the stairs after each chemo treatment. I’ve convinced myself that she’ll cheer up and return to her old happy self if only I can get us into a different apartment.