Nancy avoided me for the next week and a half. Charlie tried to keep my mind off of her, but whenever I lost a game to him, he knew that I was thinking about her. I told myself many times not to get too attached, but whenever I was around her I felt like a person. Sometimes I even had the will to live back when I was with her. But that was only when she was sane, of course.
Louie could sense that I was thinking about her too much as well. One day he showed up in my room with a stack of papers in his hand. He motioned for Charlie, who was playing video games with me, to come to him.
“You two baldies look so funny together!” he laughed, “two bald heads sitting together, that’s priceless!” I knew that he thought he made a harmless comment, but I hung my head in shame anyway. The checkered hat I put on afterwards calmed me down enough so that I wouldn’t cry. I was starting to miss my hair and I was being so goddamn sensitive about it.
As I rocked myself back and forth, I strained to hear Louie talk to Charlie. I didn’t really need to listen because I knew what was coming, but I was bored, so I did it anyway.
“This is his assignment,” Louie informed Charlie. “Tell him every word from the file. Remember, timing is CRUTIAL.”
“Yeah, I know. Why are we whispering? He can’t hear us.”
“Don’t be smart with me,” Louie said with a grin on his face. He didn’t say it in a rude tone. A lot of the things he said he didn’t actually mean.
Charlie made his way back to me and Louie exited the room. The first thing he noticed was the hat. He smiled gently and said, “He didn’t mean it you know.”
“I know.” I wrote and smiled at him reassuringly. Nevertheless, I wore the hat for the rest of the day.
“Remember you made Louie a promise? Something about an assignment? Well here it is. I’m supposed to read it to you so that you understand. Is that all right with you?” I nodded my head and he continued. “Well it says here you are to go with an associate to a party on 1345 Brooklyn Avenue. There’ll be a young red-haired woman at that party. She looks like this.” He handed me the picture and my eyes widened. She was beautiful.
“Her name is Anita, but when you meet her, you have to ask for her name. We picked her because she has a weakness for handicaps. Like, well, you.” I scrowled a bit at that comment, but Charlie continued.
“Your job is to get her attention and keep her occupied. When you’re sure you’ve got her attention, wheel yourself to the window and raise your hand. That’ll be our signal.”
“What are you guys gonna do?” I wrote. I was a bit worried about what would happen to Anita, because I would never be able to live it down if I was partly responsible for her death. But they didn’t want to kill her, oh no.
“Never mind that, just do your thing and we’ll do ours. But I can guarantee she won’t be the one getting hurt. Don’t worry, she has a husband in the drug trade or something. He’s the one we have to talk to. The only thing is that Anita hardly ever leaves his side because he’s confined to a wheelchair. When he’s high he tries to jump off of the stairs, drive a car, stuff like that. Anyway, I probably told you too much already. Do you know what to do?”
I nodded my head and with that we got back to the game. Halfway through, Charlie remembered to tell me something and paused the game.
“I almost forgot. Your assignment starts tonight. The escort will arrive here at seven and you’ll call him by the name “Baker Wordock.” Well, you won’t actually have to say the name, but you might need to write it down. He’ll be your escort to the party. Inside the house, he’ll push you close to the window, with your back facing it. We’re trying to make it look like he was irresponsible and he left you behind. Look as sad as possible, then Anita will be drawn to you.” I shook my head slowly and we turned our attention back to the game. It seemed so oddly simple, and there was just something about it that stirred me wrong. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure it out in time.
“Baker” arrived right on time at my doorway. I was too nervous about the assignment to be late so I’d dressed an hour before. The party was formal, but I didn’t have a suit. They gave me loose black pants and a baggy white button up shirt with a long red tie to make up for the suit. It really didn’t look all that bad on me, even though I think the pants were polyester.
Louie brought me another hat that looked like a black fishing hat. He knew that I wouldn’t want anybody at the party to notice right away that I was completely bald. Then I would attract more attention than I needed.
When I was satisfied with my appearance, “Baker” wheeled me outside. I had to sit in the wheelchair for a couple of hours at the party, so Louie told me to go for a walk beforehand so that I wouldn’t get antsie in the chair. Somehow he knew how hyper I got at times.
I didn’t need the wheelchair, it was just part of the act. My hip was healing nicely without it. I spent most of my time in bed fighting fevers and tiredness from the chemotherapy, or relaxing and playing a video game with Charlie. Somewhere in between I lost track of the days. Sometimes I would ask Charlie what day it was, and he would tell me. I didn’t ask often though.
We still went to the park, but now I preferred to walk there. I didn’t go to my favorite spot as often as I used to. It was still my favorite spot, but I was paranoid about it. So Charlie and I would sit together on the park bench. He would read and I would stare.
Oops, I got side tracked again didn’t I? Anyway, “Baker” stuffed me into a fancy-looking vehicle and drove slowly to Brooklyn Avenue. I didn’t see what kind of car it was because I was much too busy concentrating on my mission. It wasn’t that it was a hard assignment, it was that there was something off about it.
We arrived a few minutes later at an exquisite mansion. I could have spent a lot of time just staring at it in awe, but old “Baker” was in such a rush. It could have been part of the act too.
He lifted me up the stairs, wheelchair and all as I scrowled at him for being so hasty. My head bobbed briskly when he slammed the wheelchair down on the ground. I pulled on his clothing so that he would pay attention to me, but he didn’t listen. He just rang the doorbell as I beat at his leg, trying to get his attention.
A stiff-looking butler answered the door. His frown changed into a smile as he gazed upon “Baker.”
“Baker! I haven’t seen you in ages! How have you been buddy?”
“Oh, not too bad. I got a new job last year and the quit the old one.”
“Excellent! Well, come in, come in!” “Baker” grabbed the handle of my wheelchair and pushed me in. I wasn’t sure if the butler was part of the act, but he played along nicely.
“Well, who’s this?” he asked, pointing at me.
“My little brother. His name’s Nick.” Why was I the only one using my real name? “I’m just gonna wheel him over to the window so that we can talk.” This was it for me. Now all I had to do was look depressed, one of my many talents.
“Baker” left me just as he was supposed to. Him and the butler became engrossed in a conversation with a blonde-haired woman. I just sat looking depressed and secretly looking for Anita.
A few moments later I spotted her on the staircase. She was looking towards the opposite side of the room from me. Her appearance was astounding. So much so that the picture Charlie showed me didn’t do her justice.
I gawked a while longer and then she turned around. Her eyes met mine and I turned away in embarrassment. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her make her way towards me. I was crimson with embarrassment – I hate to be caught staring – so I turned halfway around so that I could at least look out of the window.
She was so close now that I could feel her breath on my skin. In an odd way, I was looking forward to keeping her entertained for the rest of the night. Not only was she beautiful, but she was streaming with intelligence.
“Hi,” she said, grabbing a chair from a nearby table and pulling it close to me. Since she pulled a chair, I assumed that we were going to have a long conversation. But since I assumed wrong for the past few days, I decided we’d better really get into the conversation before I gave the signal.
“Hi,” I wrote back in my notebook. Louie gave me a new notebook so that I wouldn’t run out of paper while I was talking to Anita.
“You looked so lonely over here. I just decided I’d come over and talk to you. What’s your name?” She was so incredibly nice. It felt like God had taken all of the features of my perfect woman and rolled them all into one.
“I’m Nick,” I wrote back, “but you really don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to.” I was shaking so badly when I wrote this, that I had to use two pages because I made so many mistakes. The old shy feeling I had around women I liked was coming back to me. It sort of left when I was with Mandy, because I was so worried about pleasing her that I didn’t look at other women. That didn’t stop her from accusing me of doing so though.
“But I want to talk to you. I’m Anita.” She gazed deeply into my eyes for a moment then took my free hand in hers. Both her of her hands caressed mine one own. It felt good to be touched again. I liked to be touched and especially to be hugged. For a second there I almost forgot my assignment. She had the most striking green eyes…
I was enjoying it so much that I didn’t even consider that I was being weird again. Who would want to have a conversation with a fool that crumbled at the slightest touch?
Apparently she didn’t mind, even when I closed my eyes and sighed. It seemed to me like she knew I would act this way towards her. This is what being accepted feels like, I told myself. Before this, I thought that the guys accepted me. By now I was perfectly convinced that I wasn’t.
When I opened my eyes, Anita was staring at me intensely and smiling softly. “How long has it been?”
Her question threw me at bit off guard; I didn’t know what she meant. I wrote that and her smile grew wider.
“How long has it been since you’ve been touched?” I knew she didn’t mean it in a sexual way, so I didn’t feel awkward.
I broke our gaze and wrote, “I don’t remember.”
“Are people afraid to touch you?” I understood what she was trying to get at now. She thought that people didn’t touch me because I was fragile and sick.
“Not really,” I wrote, “but some of them stop and ask why I’m so ugly.” I watched Anita read the note with tears in her eyes. She was resisting the urge to hug me, I could tell.
“Oh my God, how can anyone be so cruel!” She grasped my hand with her right and stroked my cheek with the left. “Don’t ever believe any of it. You are so beautiful and if they can’t see that they should be sent to hell twice over!” I was completely touched by her words. Before she said them, I never thought of myself as remotely good-looking. Even when I had a bunch of screaming girls after me, I never felt that way.
“Thank you,” I wrote. I couldn’t think of anything else to say but that. Her little speech was so touching.
“Could you do me one little favor? Could you please off your hat? I want to see your face.”
Reluctantly I put my hands on its brim and pulled it off. I tried to look over my shoulder to see if anyone was staring, but Anita pulled my face away from the crowd and turned me so that I was facing her. She ran her hands over my scalp and spoke soothing words to me. She explained that I shouldn’t care what other people thought or what they did.
I became so enthralled with the extra attention that I closed my eyes once more. Somewhere between Anita and my head massage, I remembered my assignment and lifted my hand for the signal.
I felt Anita’s hands leave my scalp and I heard the implosion. The glass of the window I was sitting by shattered from the outside, sending the entire pane of glass into my scalp, throat, torso…my entire body. It felt like a million knives stabbing me at once, there’s no better way to describe it. Then everything went black.
Chapter 32
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