Twelve Rooms with a View. Theresa Rebeck

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СКАЧАТЬ what a complete hideous drag.

      “Stop it, Pete. You’re scaring her,” said the other guy.

      “Good. I want to scare her. Breaking and entering is a fucking crime, she should be scared,” said Pete, still coming at me, like he was going to drag me out of that bed.

      “I didn’t break and enter, excuse me, excuse me but do you think I could put my pants on?” I yelled. “Get away from me, JESUS BACK OFF YOU JERK.” I smacked Pete’s hand away before he could touch me, and surprisingly he actually did back off. Feeling suddenly cocky I continued yelling. “Turn around, would you please TURN AROUND?”

      Okay, why this worked I have no idea, but it did; both of these guys did as they were told. I mean I was freaked out because seriously these were two huge guys, both of them maybe six two or six four and I’m a little bit of a peewee so I totally did not expect them to do as I said. But they did so I grabbed my jeans off the floor and slid them on fast. Being half naked was not going to be an advantage in whatever this situation turned out to be, that much was certain.

      “Who the fuck are you guys?” I said, trying to sound angry and sure of myself. I was totally scared out of my mind so I had to keep the upper hand as long as I could.

      “We’re the ones asking questions here,” Pete started. “I hope you’re dressed because that’s as much privacy as you’re going to get.” He turned around just as I finished zipping up my pants, and when I looked up I noticed that he was taking a hit off a beer bottle. No question: they both were tanked. This was a very bad situation. “So what’s your name?” he demanded.

      “I don’t have to tell you my name. You tell me your name,” I said.

      “You’re sleeping in my fucking bed, so yeah, you do have to tell me your name,” Pete countered.

      “Forget it. Let’s just call the police,” said the other guy.

      “I am the police,” Pete told him, annoyed. “You can’t call the police when the police are already here.”

      “Well, who cares who she is?” asked the other guy. “Just get her out of here.” He looked back toward the back of the apartment, like he knew what was back there and it made him sad. Pete looked like he wanted to argue about this, but then all of a sudden he was too tired to do it, so he looked back at me and reached out again, like he was going to grab me. I backed up. He didn’t get mad this time, though, he just moved his hand, like that little gesture that means, Come on, let’s go.

      And that’s what he said. “Come on, let’s go. I don’t know how you got here and I don’t care. Count yourself lucky. Just get lost.” He wasn’t even looking at me by now, he was half following the other guy, who had already headed down the hall. He took a hit off his beer, looking totally wiped and also like all he really cared about was finishing the one beer and finding another. Now that he wasn’t screaming at me I could see that he was not bad looking; he needed a shave, and he was a little paunchy around the middle, but he had great eyes, dark brown, kind of shrewd and sad, which made his whole face look like a worried kid, even while he was being mean. Under the circumstances obviously I wasn’t falling for it, plus, I truly didn’t get what was supposedly going on here. These guys had barged in and woken me up maybe a minute ago. And now what, I was supposed to leave? Who the fuck did they think they were? I mean obviously I was grateful in the moment that they didn’t turn out to be rapists, but after the initial terror some sense of reality was setting in. What the hell?

      “I’m not going anywhere,” I told Pete. “This is my apartment. I live here. And and and I think it’s a good idea to call the cops because you’re the ones who what the fuck are you doing here? Who the fuck are you?”

      “You live here?” he said. “You live here?”

      “Yes,” I said. “This is my apartment. I own it.”

      “You own it?” he replied, taking a step back and calling down the hall. “Hey Doug! Get back here! This chick says she owns this place!” He turned and looked back at me, angry again, but in a calmer, nastier way. He also seemed to find my claim, that I owned the apartment, sort of quietly hilarious. He took a step back into that teeny bedroom. “Maybe you should tell me your name after all, sweetheart.”

      “I don’t, I don’t—you tell me your name,” I insisted. I shoved my hands into the back pockets of my jeans and felt the hard edge of those bills I had stashed there. I was glad I had taken the precaution of pocketing that stuff right when I found it; it was starting to look like I might need it sooner rather than later. “I mean this is like my house and you’re like, you’re like…”

      “Your house?” said Pete, half laughing. “Your house. That would make you—what was your name again?”

      “Tina Finn?” I said. Okay I shouldn’t have caved like that, making my name a question at the last minute, but it just wasn’t so easy, keeping up the act that I was on top of this situation.

      “Tina Finn,” he said, smiling now. “Tina Finn. One of the daughters of Olivia Finn. Would I be too far off the mark, assuming that?”

      “Yeah, actually, she was my mom, and she just died two days ago, and and and—”

      “Yesterday was the funeral.”

      “Yes, yesterday was the funeral.”

      “Yesterday was the funeral, and you still managed to slime your way into our apartment the same night. How very resourceful of you.” This was a creepy guy, smart and wily and drunk and way too fucking good looking. He was the kind of guy who knew he could get away with complete shit, and say and do completely shitty things because he was both great looking and smart. I wanted to get away from this guy as fast as I could, but I couldn’t give any more ground, none at all. If I did, there was no question I was going to be kicked out of there, and where was I supposed to go?

      “Okay, you got my name, how about you give up yours?” I said. “Somebody Drinan, yeah? Pete, that’s your first name? So that makes you Pete Drinan. Bill was your dad?”

      “Give the little lady a prize,” he smirked.

      “Well, listen, Pete Drinan,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere tonight. Now that you know who I am, maybe you should just piss off.”

      “Maybe you should stop thinking you have any rights here.”

      “Maybe you should stop thinking I don’t.”

      “And what gives you rights again? Your mother conned my father into marrying her, which gave her rights for a while, I guess, but you, I’m guessing not so much.”

      “He left her this place. That doesn’t give me no rights,” I said.

      “Really,” he said back, like what I said just meant nothing. He took another hit off that beer.

      “Yeah, really,” I said. “He left it to her, and she left it to us.”

      None of this seemed surprising to old Pete Drinan, but it didn’t seem like he was totally familiar with the story either. He made that little wave with his hand again, like, Let’s go.

      “I’m not leaving,” I said. “I don’t have to leave.”

      “Well, СКАЧАТЬ