Who: Hal and Wren What: Discussing almost dying Where: The park When: Todayish Warnings: None
Hal and a man were talking in a park. Hal sat on the surface of the picnic table, old scuffed boots on the surface of the bench seat, worn jeans thin enough that he could feel the Seattle chill and he was annoyed that he needed to wear long johns on the west coast. He felt safe and anonymous in an orange hunter’s jacket and a feed cap he thought was funny, and he took the man’s manila envelope and handed him something in turn. The man, who looked nervous, wheeled around with his prize and took off across the grass. Hal put his elbows on his knees and turned a cigarette lighter in his palms, staring off toward the tennis courts.
It was late in the afternoon, but Wren had only woken up an hour earlier. It had been a long night, but she’d made enough money for the auction and her part of Quinn’s birthday present, which pleased her. She was back in Hamartia, where the windows had just been replaced earlier that week and her furniture moved back from Aubade. It felt like home, like nothing had ever changed, and that was a bittersweet thing. She’d woken, showered and dressed in red tights and a velvet-white babydoll dress with long sleeves, and she’d set out for the diner Cassidy had taken her to after the Masquerade, wanting good coffee and toast.
She recognized Hal from a distance, even with the silly hat at bright jacket, and she slowed a minute, trying to decide whether to approach him. But then, as she watched, the man approached him, and they traded something, and her decision was made for her. She ran forward, as fast as her shoes could carry her, and she didn’t stop until she was beside him. “You’re taking me to the diner,” she said, catching her breath.
Hal was, admittedly, just a wee bit jumpy after he was up and walking again. He reached behind one hip when he saw someone running for him, but he recognized the silly little girl clothes and his body relaxed. His hand reappeared, and he put his elbows back on his knees. “Bonjour, cher. How you? Besides hungry?” A slow smile spread for her, and he put his hand down on the table next to him and patted the cracked paint.
Wren hadn’t noticed the movement of his hand, but she did notice him patting the picnic table. She tipped her head to the side, and she gave him an open look. “Will you tell me what you were just doing if I sit down?” she asked plainly. “What you were handing off?” She climbed onto the picnic table immediately after, arm and hip pressed to his. “And you can make something up, but I’ll know it isn’t true.”
Hal looked honestly surprised. “Why you interested in my business all a sudden, cher? Dat’s a bit new, ain’t it?” He didn’t move away from the contact, comfortable with her being close, and he’d been stretching to try to get some of his mobility back.
She nodded, looking down at her hands. “Things have happened the past few months that-” She shrugged. “I thought I was going to die. You know what that’s like, don’t you?” she asked, looking back over at him. “Has it changed you?”
“You tell me.” He grinned at her, and he did his best to make it as casual as possible. “Don’t you worry ‘bout de man dat just walked away. He harmless.” Hal gave his best “I’m harmless too” look. It should have come with a brass halo.
It should have come with a tarnished halo. She had never thought Hal was innocent, even when she wasn’t prying into his life. “No he isn’t,” she said, and she held a hand out for the manila envelope, looking up at his face to see if he reacted to her reaching for it.
He let her have it. It had a lot of cash in it. You had to use the cute little silver clasp to keep it shut. “Hope you not t’inkin’ to rob me, cher. Ah might take it just a wee bit personal.” He propped his elbows on his knees again and redirected his eyes to the tennis courts. Two women were batting a green ball at each other on it.
“What did you give him?” she asked, flipping through the bills. She knew he hadn’t been working, not when he still couldn’t get along well. “I volunteered you for the auction,” she added, holding the envelope back out to him without taking anything from it, the little clasp closed once more.
“Oui, je sais.” I know. “Only you would do dat to me, tryin’ to help, get me hooked up with some godawful fille dat be more interested in herself dan anyt’in else. But t’anks fo’ yo’ help,” he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes upward. He took his money back and folded it up to stick it in his preposterous orange jacket.
“I bid, too, trying to win someone I like. It might turn out wonderful, Beau, oui? Someone to care for, wouldn’t that be nice?” she asked him, watching him tuck the money in the jacket and then looking at his face again. “You didn’t say what you gave him in exchange for the money.”
“Nope, I din’t,” Hal said, glowering at the possibility of ‘someone to care for’ all in his business and trying to feed him home-cooked meals.
“I can go ask,” she suggested, leaning forward, but not standing.
“No you ain’t,” Hal said firmly. He wasn’t frightened, and he wasn’t angry, but he was firm. He put an arm around Wren’s waist. He was keeping her there. The man was going down the road.
“Then tell me?” she asked, looking back at his face. “You know I won’t say anything.” She wouldn’t, either. She might worry, but she wouldn’t say anything. She might offer to help, but she wouldn’t say anything.
“It’s just business. Not’ing important, and not’ing dangerous. He just jumpy, and it makes me look bad when I got petite filles runnin’ after nice customers who pay me good, compris?” He looked down into her face and smiled. His familiar brown eyes glinted.
“Why are you lying to me?” she asked, looking up at him, her blue-grey eyes candid and curious.
“Ah’m not lyin’. Not dis time.” He rubbed his nose with his other hand. “Though... when Ah do lie, guess you’re not gonna know den, either.”
“How have you been working, when you can hardly move yet?” she asked, because to her knowledge, Hal had to be able to drive and move things to work. “Are you scared still?” That was a question based on her own fears, but she couldn’t imagine he wasn’t scared. Almost dying, she was pretty sure it always made people scared or angry. He didn’t seem angry.
“Slow,” Hal said, in response to her first question. He loosed his arm from around her waist as the customer vanished around the corner, and went back to turning the plastic lighter in his palms. He bumped her knee with his reassuringly. “Moi? Scared?”
“Oui,” she said, scooting closer when he removed his arm, knowing her chance to follow the man had passed. “Do you dream about it? I do.” She reached over, and she took the lighter from him and held it between her fingers instead,the plastic warm from his hands. “My friends keep getting hurt, too, and I never thought about death so much before, which is silly, but I didn’t.”
“Maybe you should make some new, safe friends.” The problem with asking Hal a whole lot of questions is that he tended to only answer one, and the one he found least invasive. He also tended to take them completely at face value, so talking to him was like having a chat with a stranger about your life. Except for the eyes, the smile, and the accent.
“Do you dream about it?” she asked again, this time in English, taking his hand and tugging on his fingers.
“I dream about a lot of t’ings. Ah mighta died a few times over. Ah got ‘nough t’ings for nightmares.” He wet his lips. “But... yeah. I dream about it.” He said the last clean.
“Moi aussi,” she said, looking down at his fingers twined with hers. “Did it make you think about things?” she asked. “When it happened?”
“Oui. Death always makes you t’ink about life, don’t it?” He didn’t look at her. He watched the women hitting the ball. It would have been easy to think he was just watching the women, but his eyes were unfocused.
She rubbed her fingertips against his fingertips. “I went back last week, to the place they kept us, but I couldn’t stay,” she admitted, and she looked up at his face, catching the unfocused look in his eyes. “What do you regret?”
“People, mostly. Money and cars, not so much dem. Funny.” He wasn’t laughing. “You goin’ back dere is only gonna make dose nightmares worse, cher. You know dat, right?”
“I wanted to see it,” she said. “I met someone at that dance and he wanted to have sex, so I had him take me there.” She shook her head. “I think I was hoping I could go back to how I was before everything that happened in there, before feelings and things that hurt.” She paused. “Who do you regret?”
“Nobody you know. Nobody I know anymore. Pointless going back over dat kinda t’ing.” His jaw worked over this back teeth. “Wren, honey. You gotta stop givin’ dese boys t’ings dey don’t deserve.”
She pulled her hand from his, and she touched his jaw when it tensed. “You’re going to make someone very happy one day,” she told him, her smile fond and soft.
His jaw relaxed. “Ah make people happy every day,” Hal grinned. “Like our friend out dere.” He nodded toward the corner where the customer had disappeared. “He real happy right now.”
“I meant a woman,” Wren clarified. “Maybe children.” She stretched a little, kissed his jaw where her hand had been. “Whatever you regret, it isn’t too late to change things, Hal,” she said. “To do things different.”
“Yes it is. Sometimes death ain’t like it is wit’ us. Sometimes it’s permanent.” He touched her jaw under her ear. It was an affectionate touch, but not a sexual one. “What you want for dinner, cher?”
“Isn’t that just more reason to have something that matters while you’re here?” she asked, and then she smiled, rubbing her jaw against his fingers just a little bit. “Breakfast. I just woke up.”
Hal patted his chest where the envelope was hidden and then smiled happily. “My treat.”