Page 107 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

MALLORY

I met Bridget on the sidewalk outside of the yoga studio.

A chilly breeze blew down the street and I shivered.

The snow from the storm the week before was gone, but fall had definitely set in.

Her cheeks were all flushed and I wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or if she just came from a different kind of exercise with Mav.

The bitch.

I loved her, but her happiness made me grumpy. She was getting some and I definitely was not.

The scent of garlic and marinara sauce made me hungry enough to skip our friend Aspen’s class and hit up her brother’s pizza shop instead, but I wasn’t telling Bridget that. She didn’t like yoga and I practically forced her to show up. I had news and I wanted to share.

Bridget was in yoga pants, a thick puffy coat and hat. Her worn running shoes were on her feet and she had a disgruntled look on her face. “You know I don’t like yoga. And I ran five miles this morning.”

See?

“Go–sh, how about some cheese with that whine?” I asked, grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the studio’s door. I wasn’t going to tell her I wasn’t as motivated as I let on.

“Mmm, cheese,” she said, practically moaning as she lifted her nose in the air like a bloodhound.

“Yeah, cheese. I love cheese, too.”

“Then let’s get pizza,” she pleaded. “You can tell me whatever it is you’re dying to share over pizza better than from downward dog.”

She did have a good point. And it did smell so dang good.

“Is it Cheryl again?” she asked.

Cheryl was my mother. Bridget had known her forever and a half and knew all the drama.

I called her by first name because while she’d birthed me–we looked too much alike for there to be doubt–I’d pretty much taken care of her instead of the other way around.

To have a drunk and pretty much a deadbeat for a mother, well…

both parents, and growing up happened fast.

Ironic that my brother owned a bar considering what we went through.

“This week?” I clarified, then shook my head. I pushed off the sour feeling whenever Cheryl came up. “No. I covered their rent, so she’s been quiet. As far as I know she’s still cleaning rooms up at the resort so she hasn’t asked me to pay the electric bill. Yet.”

Bridge nodded in commiseration. My mother went through jobs like most people went through groceries.

Getting new ones every week or so and moaning about how she struggled and suffered.

As for my father? He was a oil service technician at a local lube and tire shop.

He gave the bare minimum in effort and got minimum wage for it.

Then again, the owners weren’t expecting much from him so he never made manager even after twenty years.

I had a feeling they kept him employed because they knew he wouldn’t get hired anywhere else and had a soft spot for me and Arlo, even now that we were adults.

Dad was harmless. His goal in life was to sit in his worn recliner watching TV while working his way through a case of beer without falling asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand.

And it also meant he was useless. Pretty crappy of me to say about my own father, but facts were facts.

This meant that I spent tons of time at Bridge’s house growing up and the only people at my high school and college graduations clapping for me were Arlo, Bridge, and Lindy.

The only trips my parents went on–because they had zero money–were guilt trips and took me along for the ride.

That was why I was still living with a roommate instead of my own place.

A chunk of my salary went to my parents which made it really hard to save for a down payment on a place of my own.

I had a steady paycheck with benefits and all that, but a teacher’s income wasn’t huge.

“You need to cut her off,” she advised, just like she had for a long time. “How come she doesn’t pester your brother?”

“Because she always made it clear that he wasn’t hers.” She was his stepmother. “Because of that, she knows he won’t give her any money.” Arlo had cut the cord with them a while ago.

“Then it clearly works.”

I sighed. “I know. I know. I don’t want to talk about her. I went to the doctor today,” I said. I threw it right on out there.

She frowned, then gripped my hand. “Is there something wrong?”

“What? No. I mean, well, I don’t know. It was just an annual exam.”

“You don’t know? Like you need tests done? They found a lump?” Her eyes got bigger at the same time her voice went up a notch.

I scowled, thinking about a lump. “Jeez, Bridge, no.”

“Can you please say Jesus and God and fuck and shit like everyone else? I can’t have you talking about a tumor and saying golly gee.”

I crossed my arms over my coat. “I dropped the f-bomb the other day in class. You know six-year-olds all go home and tell their parents. No one’s come in to complain, thankfully. That happened twice last year as well and–”

“Fine. No swearing. Tell me about the gosh darn tumor.”

I opened the door and stepped into the warm entry, hit immediately by the scent of lavender and soft yoga music. It had lutes or flutes and had rain sounds, which always made me have to pee.

There was space for a bench and cubbies for shoes, then a stairwell to the second floor. The yoga studio was above the pizza place. “There is no tumor. God. Fuck. Dammit, woman, you’re crazy.”

She dropped onto the bench. “Then why don’t you know if something’s wrong?”

I took a deep breath and set my yoga bag–with my rolled-up mat sticking out the top–on the floor. “I didn’t go in because something was wrong. I went in for birth control. And I didn’t get examined because Theo was the doctor, and he doesn’t like my vagina.”

Bridget blinked at me once, then popped to her feet. She snagged my bag with one hand, my wrist with the other and pulled me back out onto the street.

I chased after her—I had no choice really since she had a death grip on me–as she pulled me into the pizza place and to a corner table. She practically pushed me into a chair, then turned. “Otis, two glasses of Chianti. No, make it a bottle.”

Then she dropped into the seat across from me and pushed her glasses up her nose. “Start talking. Theo, as in Theo James, Mav’s brother, right?”

I nodded.

“Theo saw your vagina and told you he doesn’t like it?”

Otis appeared with a bottle and two glasses. Maybe because he had a sister or because he was smart, he eyed us, then backed away carefully. Maybe he heard what Bridge just asked me and I wouldn’t blame him for his cautious retreat. It was a loaded question.

I poured and Bridge shrugged out of her jacket. The place was warm from the huge pizza ovens and so much better than yoga.

“He never saw it,” I explained. “I was in a paper gown, and he came in. That was a shock, I’ll tell you.”

“He arrived last week during the snowstorm and told us he was moving here and taking a job at a family practice.”

I took a sip–no, swig–of the wine, then asked, “You knew since last week? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I know, you keep saying you’re going to marry him.”

I looked down at my glass. “Well, maybe not since he rejected me.”

“He rejected you?” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “What did you do, put your feet in the stirrups and say fuck me?”

My eyes widened at that visual. “Gosh, Bridge, do you think that’s my style?”

I really hoped not. But… it was kinda hot if we were playing sexy games. If we skipped the speculum and all that.

She rolled her eyes. “Spill.”

I pushed her full glass in front of her. “Drink and shut up.”

She frowned but did as I ordered.

“He told me Dr. Robinson retired and he took her place.”

She saw Dr. Robinson growing up too. Half the town probably had.

“We talked some about my medical history and I told him I was in for an annual exam because I wanted birth control.”

“Got all that.”

I reached across the table and pushed the glass closer to her mouth.

“I told him I was going to start having sex and that I wanted to protect myself. Then he referred me to a gynecologist.”

He’d changed his mind about Dr. Jeffries and put in a referral for me instead.

“That’s it?”

I nodded and took another gulp. “He didn’t want to see my vagina.”

She frowned. “This wasn’t a date. He was doing his job, which now is a family doctor. If you’re going on birth control and need an annual exam, then it makes sense for him to refer you. His background is in trauma surgery. I’m sure he’s no expert on inserting IUDs.”

“I have no doubt he’s good at inserting something into a vagina.”

She laughed and gave me an appalled look.

“I’m sure I’m right,” I continued. “Besides, he knew what he was walking into when he took the job because it’s a flipping family practice. If he’s waiting for someone to walk in with a trauma emergency, he’s dumber than I thought.”

“I haven’t been to Dr. Robinson in years,” she commented.

“You went to Boston. It’s kinda hard to see her when you’re in a different time zone.”

“She would have referred you on to an OBGYN, too.”

I knew it, but wow, Theo James.

“So he wasn’t rejecting me.” I was being weird. I knew it. But I was always this way. I didn’t like shame. Not that he’d shamed me, but I felt rejected, just like I said. It was a trigger for me because I was used to it. Cheryl wasn’t a hugger, or even a liker. She was a moocher.

“Not you or your vagina,” she added. “Besides, if you’re so gung-ho about marrying him, why are you going on that date with the history teacher?”

She knew all about the date because she was the one to fix us up in the first place. She’d been working as a long-term sub teaching physics just down the hall from him since August. He was cute, nice and well… fuckable. Except–