Torture to Her Soul
Page 35

"Yes."
"Here in the city?"
"Yes."
"And you don't see them?"
"No."
"Why not?"
I sigh as I pull up at yet another red light. Traffic is heavy today. It's going to take a while to get back to Brooklyn at this rate. I'm exhausted, and nauseated, and my body is really starting to ache.
I cut my eyes at her, seeing her inquisitive look. "You sure you're not writing a book about my life?"
She rolls her eyes. "I'm just trying to figure out who you are."
"You know who I am."
"No, I don't." Her voice has a hard edge to it, a slight hint of anger that makes my skin prickle. "You're like a caricature to me, Naz… you're an outline of a man, a vague sketch of a person, and I'm just trying to fill in the rest of the picture, add some color between all these black lines, and I don't know how to do that, how to figure out who you really are, without prying it out of you."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything," she says. "I want to know everything about you. And I know you told me the answers might not be pretty, but I don't care. If we're going to have any chance in hell of doing whatever it is we're doing, of actually building something together, I'm going to have to understand what makes the answers so ugly in the first place."
I consider that for a moment, sitting in silence as I stare through the windshield at the bright red light, waiting for it to change. Once it turns green, I make an unexpected turn, cutting in front of other cars, ignoring the blare of their horns, as I hook a left down a nearby street.
It veers us away from Brooklyn when I take yet another left, setting us back in the direction we just came.
"Are you hungry?" I ask, glancing at Karissa.
She stares at me with disbelief. I can see the fury brewing in her eyes, anger at being disregarded, at having her questions ignored. Any walls I busted down are already being reconstructed, her guard going back up, her armor coming on.
I'm grateful for it, for the moment.
She's probably going to need it.
"You haven't eaten yet today," I say when she doesn't answer.
"Yeah, well, you haven't eaten in like a week."
She's exaggerating, but that doesn't matter, considering I have no intention of eating today, either.
"You must be hungry," I say. "Let's get you something."
She merely shakes her head as she looks back away. I don't talk anymore as I drive north through Manhattan. I sneak glances at the other side of the car whenever traffic stops us, seeing her expression hardening, the anger still there, growing along with her confusion.
She wants so badly to ask where we're going, to demand I tell her where I'm taking her right now.
The deli is in a faded brick building in Hell's Kitchen, wedged between a butcher shop and a little corner grocer, tucked in below a bunch of cluttered old apartments. Metal bars needlessly cover most of the tinted glass windows, a green awning running the length of the building above them, Italian Delicatessen written in block letters along the brick. The actual name of the place isn't on it anymore, hasn't been for decades although the spot it used to hang up top, front and center, is still discolored compared to the area around it.
It doesn't matter, though, not really.
Name or no name, the deli's iconic.
People drive in from upstate for one of their sandwiches, for just a taste of their fresh mozzarella, for a pound of their smoked ham. They can move it to a fucking alley and sell it out of the back of a truck and people will still make the trip.
Everyone thinks it's a sign of the owner's modesty, that he never gave a shit about recognition, that he never bothered to have the sign replaced after renovations years ago. The food's what matters, he tells people when they ask. Who cares what you call it as long as you come eat.
But I know it's not humility. It's regret.
He just doesn't care for the name anymore.
I park the car in the closest spot I can find, just down the street, and feed some change into the meter when I get out. Karissa sits in the car while I do it, like she doesn't plan to come with me, but after a moment she gets out, her expression unchanged.
"We don't have to be here if you don't want to be," I say. "I'll take you home right now."
Part of me hopes she'll agree to that.
I've endured enough shit this week to go through this on top of it.
But no such luck.
"No, we're already here," she says, waving all around her. She has no idea where here is. "We might as well stay."
"If you're certain."
"I am."
I wish like hell I was.
Pressing my hand to her back, I lead her down the street, slowing as I approach the familiar deli. My eyes studiously scan the outside, instinctively searching for anything that changed since I was last around, finding it just as I remember. I reach for the door, tugging it open, the obnoxious bell on top of it jingling as I motion for Karissa to go inside.
It grates on my nerves.
The inside is unassuming—checkered floor, a dozen wooden tables, dim lighting and tall, winding counters. Glass cases take up half the front beside the register, filled with meats and cheese, a cluttered handwritten menu board hanging above it all.
A young guy tends to the lone register, helping those waiting in line, while a man steadily cuts meat a few feet to the side, his back to the customers. He's sturdy, six-feet of solid mass covered in leathery skin, his dark chaotic mess of hair flecked with quite a bit gray.