Chapter 395: Mimi XLII—Last Kill
The first thing Michele thought when she got home from dropping off the children and finding Patrick gone was that her husband was a shit. Dishes were not done, vacuuming had to be done, she’d asked someone to take out the trash, which hadn’t been done and she had asked him nicely to at least make the bed or pick up the clothes from the floor when he got up. That hadn’t been done either.
What Michele had been planning to do was drop by a day spa for a massage, maybe a facial and a sauna to relax her aggravated body, but now with the cleaning needing to be done it wouldn’t leave her a lot of time to do that before picking up the kids. Of course she could ask Patrick to pick up the children today, because she knew his practice was only a morning one, but more than likely he will want to come home and sleep or go out to eat somewhere. She sighed and started with the kitchen.
Most of the work was done by late morning and she decided she might as well clean a bathroom or two when the phone rang. “Patrick if that’s you, you shit” she snapped. “How could you leave me with every single chore in the house you coward I don’t care…”
“Mimi?”
Michele recognized Hinote’s voice and sighed. Well at least she’d spoken in French. “Oh, Daniel,” she said in her sweetest voice. “What are you up to? Aren’t you at practice, yes?”
“I just got finished,” Danny said glumly. “Not fast enough.”
“Oo tired from last night, you poor thing?” Michele asked.
“Something like that,” Dan said. “And… and well I can’t call Cecile, I mean she being at work and everything and I don’t…”
“Oh so nice to be your second choice,” Michele replied. She yawned and held the phone away from her face as she did so. She could hear Dan protesting loudly that it didn’t mean for it to sound like that, and he didn’t want to bother her, but oh she had to listen to him because no one else around will, cause everyone would just laugh at him and he bet Cecile would too.
“That’s quite a mouthful, yes?” Michele replied, replacing the phone back to her ear and mouth. “What is bothering you that even Cecile would laugh at, you and your melodrama? Are you sure you do not have a tiny bit of French in you?”
“No,” Dan replied. “I don’t, I, aw hell it is stupid actually. It’s embarrassing; I’m just whining I shouldn’t have called you. I mean I’ll be laughing about it with the other guys sooner or later. I guess.”
Michele grinned. “Awww did the men tease you today about Cecile?” She remembered the glee in Joe’s eye as he taunted Danny last night and she knew that Patty had been laughing about it before bed and even sometime during the early morning before she’d gotten up. It would stand to reason that the team would have punished Danny, just a little, for getting outshone by his fiancé. She’d imagine Patty would have gleefully joined in just to make sure no one remembered that eleven goals he allowed.
“Yeah, it’s that obvious huh? I shoulda seen it coming?”
“Oh just a little,” Michele replied. “But you’re already feeling better, yes?”
“Yeah.”
She wondered if he remembered kissing her last night.
“I mean it’s stupid, but I got mad at Cecile more than anything!” Dan exclaimed. “It was like I blamed her for something I mean…”
“Blamed her?” She wanted to yawn again but she stifled it.
“Shit why does she have to show off and be good at everything!” Dan cried. “I know I’m being a baby but she really, I mean, argh dammit it’s not her fault but she goes out and gets a hat trick for crissakes and I couldn’t look anyone in the eye today without getting some sort of joke about me getting dropped and her on the team and everything…”
Michele rolled her eyes. “Yes because we all know that’s a distinct possibility!”
After a long pause she heard Dan sigh, really she wasn’t in the mood to be a shoulder to cry on. “Heh, yeah you’re right.” Dan said quietly.
“As usual,” Michele said airily wondering if he would get to a point. “But Daniel it seems as if you already had this worked out in your head before you called yes? Or else why would you come to the conclusion so fast?”
“Oh Joe was pissed at me too, I kinda…”
“Oo you what?” Ack, she sounded a little to excited to hear that one.
“Well I was within my rights! You saw him all over Cecile last night! You saw them together wouldn’t you get jealous too?” Dan cried. “I mean he totally showed me up and everything, how am I supposed to feel, I mean I’m her fiancé not him!”
“Oh I expect she would feel roughly the same had she gone into the closet to retrieve her own coat last night yes?” Michele said with a lifted eyebrow, enough messing around she wanted to see how hard the boy would bite. Another long silence ensued and she stood up and stretched.
“Oh Christ, Mimi, I shouldn’t have done that, I hoped that you wouldn’t remember that…”
“And I wondered if you were sober enough to remember it,” Michele replied.
“I wasn’t that drunk,” Dan said quietly.
“Neither was I,” Michele replied.
The silence hung heavy now, full of wonder, what would he say now, and he no doubt wondered what she would say now. How exactly did he feel, what did he want to do now, there had to be a time when she didn’t need to make the next move.
“I’m not gonna apologize,” Dan said with a sigh, “You can do with it what you want, I don’t care, I just wanna get home and get back in bed.”
Dan hung up the phone without saying goodbye and Michele felt her stomach turning and boiling over in a million knots and she held the phone tightly in her hand until the dial tone prompted her to hang it up. Her mouth had no spit, and her palms dampened, she looked at her watch. Five hours, the kids would be out of school, Patrick would be God knows where all day. She crossed her arms over her belly and leaned against the wall, and she looked at herself in a mirror in the dim light of the hallway. And then she smiled.
She took a shower, her second one of the morning and changed her clothes; she didn’t look for anything overtly provocative or even that eye catching or dashing. Simple, pale pink, pale gray, a little bit of heel, a small amount of makeup and her hair, forget the hair, she just pinned it loosely. He could figure out what to do with it. On second thought, she put a touch more lipstick on and did her best to forget about that slight line at the corner of her mouth. If she hadn’t noticed it before this moment it wasn’t worth noticing in the next three hours.
She took a small dab of perfume oil, and put it on her wrists, a small dab at her neck and she stretched and yawned again. Her body still ached and she still craved a long bath or a massage or sleep. She felt like an old cat, the thought hit her with some grim annoyance, the pains all over her body made her feel a little slow, and she wondered if this were how an old lioness felt before going out to kill and did she ever wonder if it would be her last one. Yes she promised Patrick that this would be the last one and she resisted the urge to lick her lips.
She closed Gigi in the sports room with food and water and she left the house. Once in the car, she thought about calling up Patrick, just to gloat a little, but she decided she could tell him later when things were completely decided. Only a man would be so bold and idiotic to brag about the kill when it hadn’t happened, she could imagine Patrick bragging to her about Cecile before marching off to be spurned by her yet again. She would wait, she would call him later.
She narrowed her eyes and looked at his building when she parked her car. First she checked to see if she recognized any cars, but she didn’t. How safe was it? He could easily have a visitor, but not likely with him being in such a foul mood over the team. In any case she could think of a million excuses for anything. Still, as she greeted the doorman, her knees trembled a little, and the wait as he called up with her name, almost made her want to pass out with impatience.
“You may go up, Miss,” he replied after he hung up the phone and Michele smiled briefly to him and went quickly to the elevator.
Dan
answered the door in sweatpants and a loosely buttoned shirt that didn’t even match.
The heating was turned up high, and the warm air felt so nice coming out of his
apartment. A middle sized black dog, a
“What do you want?” Dan asked brusquely, almost angrily, and he didn’t back away from the doorway, didn’t even invite her in.
“I want to talk,” Michele replied. And she blushed, and made sure her eyes looked wide and nervous, as if afraid to be caught, as if here against her own will.
“There’s nothing to talk about, I don’t want to start anything…”
She had to crack past the doorway. Michele did it the easiest way, she slapped him, but not too hard, just enough to zing his cheek.
“Ow!” Dan exclaimed and he stepped back into the apartment and Michele glided in and closed the door.
“I want an apology for last night!” she snapped. “You haven’t done that!”
“What?” Dan cried. “Why?”
“Why?” Michele gasped and she brought just a couple tears to her eyes. “Why? And here you are being so polite before and now you think you can do this things without apology? Tear at my heart Daniel, you, you’re worse than a tease yes?!”
“I won’t do it!” Dan yelled and his dog barked and whined. “I can’t! I don’t want to see you anymore or slip up like that anymore, take my absence as an apology okay? The fact that I can’t be near you, okay? I’m sorry! I didn’t want anything to happen last night, and I didn’t want to lead you on, just go, I’m sorry. But I can’t be the one to take care of you.”
Oh so NOW the little shit becomes a man, Michele thought with an inward groan. She let one tear fall but full blown sobs would only incite pity from him and a hot cup of bad coffee. “You confuse me, so much Daniel, and I try to be so polite and understanding about it, but…” she looked at him briefly in the eye before looking down. “But I am not a nun! I have, I… see things too, and I thought you… Oh forgive me how embarrassing I am humiliation!” And she frowned inside, she knew she used a wrong word somewhere in there; these things were so much easier done in French.
“Oh no,” Dan said softly, kindly, in a voice full of remorse, “Mimi no, I never meant to lead you on, I’m such a shit, I didn’t mean to give you any indication that I wanted… Oh hell I really fucked this up, but I’m gonna end it here for both our sakes, I don’t want you to be tortured because of me you have your own problems without having to worry about the signals I’m sending you. Look, Mimi just go home, okay? Go home I never meant for anything to happen last night or right now. Go home.”
His voice sounded as if he were guiding a small scared dog, paternal and pity. Michele wanted to slug him in the nose. Instead she sniffed and looked at him, dropping all fluff and soft pretense, “If you meant for nothing to happen now,” she said in a clear voice. “Then why is your dog fenced off, do you leave him in the kitchen all the time, Daniel?” This was her last sprint after the quarry; she would never have another chance.
And Dan staggered back, his eyes rimmed with tears.
“I see,” Michele replied and she turned away from him to go out the door and she wanted to scream with disappointment at her loss. She couldn’t believe she’d lost him, she could have had him how many times before and she pushed him back waiting for the sweetest moment, the perfect moment and now it had escaped her. So she was old after all, finished, failed, humilia…
Michele cried out when she felt Dan’s hand close on her wrist and he whirled her around and she stumbled against his chest wanting to laugh and cry but doing neither as his mouth closed on hers, and she opened her lips. He tasted her, she felt his tongue, his hands on her cheeks and she touched the side of his soft neck lightly with her fingers and she closed her eyes, reveling in the boy’s warm flavor and the sweetness of her victory.