---

---

It's always such a great surprise
To wake up to your disguise
You pretend you're just like us
But you're my peace of mind
You can take the mood I'm in
And turn it into something that's alright
Oh it's alright

---

---

Part Seven – Stay
My apologies for the delay

Previously…

“You’re just saying that…”

After returning from a hasty retreat to the Ladies Room, Jo sat across the table from Alex; nervous and almost ashamed. She looked away; wishing she was anywhere than sitting with a man who wielded a very sharp emotional scalpel.

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intent to make you uncomfortable. But you have to know for your benefit as much as mine how I care. You’ve spent two lifetimes sacrificing your own needs for everyone else. Hell,” he paused. Patting her on the wrist, he continued.

“Darla looks up to you….in this case mistakenly. She’s on the fast track for a lifetime achievement award for self sacrifice because you have almost never said yes to your own needs. Except for one big one that she shares. Thank God for her that you did what you had to do to be yourself. I bet she’d still be over there …Aldo instead of Darla. That’s how much you’ve meant to her.”

“I didn’t…. this is…. Was my choice,’ she gasped, as if she had made the worst mistake on behalf of herself and her sister’s child.

‘No, Ms. Bianchi… you may have chosen the manner of help, but the need to be you was very real. Is real. “ She went to pull away. He gently grabbed her wrist and held fast. She relented and he released her.

“Jo? You can leave… here….me….” He paused again, considering his next word. He sighed.

“Us? Yes… You can leave, but I wish you would stay.” She looked away once again.

“I … this is all so new to me, Alex.”

“I know. I’m not exactly selfish myself, or so my sponsor says. I drink…. Other than your niece, my only real friend since I started wearing any uniform pushed me out of the way and got himself a ticket to heaven via an IED. I have to deal with me still being alive while his two kids grow up without a Daddy. I’m not worth that, Jo. I never was.” Jo began to cry. The waitress had walked up to the table.

“I can come back,” she said nervously.

“Ah…. Two coffees and a piece of cheesecake? Thanks.” He turned and smiled.

“We’re a couple of misfits, Ms. Bianchi. A matching set of broken, caring human beings. Whatyasay we explore where that will take us?” Her eyes widened in surprise even after all he had said, but she wasn’t prepared for what he had to say next.

“I’m pretty sure I’m already in love with you, so let’s get the do you even like me out of the way?”

“I…I already like you, Alex….I…. I just don’t know if I’m ready to have anyone….” She gasped. The waitress came back with the coffee and cheesecake.”

“You like?” He pointed to the plate and she tilted her head a bit as she wiped her face with her sleeve.

“Do you like cheesecake?” She nodded slightly.

“Well, there’s something to start out with. Maybe we can use coffee and cheesecake to justify a long term dating arrangement….” She nodded at his suggestion but wondered where he was going with that.

“Well, at least until you let me love you.” He hadn’t meant to make her cry harder but neither was he surprised when she burst into tears. He patted her on the wrist as the waitress arrived at the table with a sympathetic pout.

“Is ….Is everything….alright?”

“Well, could we have the check please? And yes.” He looked over at Jo. Her hand was covering her face but she had grabbed his wrist in hers; holding fast. He turned back to the waitress. Looking at her name tag he smiled broadly and spoke.

“And yes… Janice? Everything is just fine!"

Things can't get much better
You might have to stay
To make sure I never forget about today
You might have to stay
You might have to stay

The precinct a few days later…

"Farnetti? Petrovic? In my office.” Darla went to wave ‘just a sec’ when the woman repeated,

“in my office….Now!’ Alex was already walking through the doorway when Darla stood up and hurried along as if she might be shut out. She stepped into the office and nearly bumped into a tall man standing next to Captain Sayers.

“Officers Farnetti and Petrovic? Lou Chastain.” He paused as if in thought over what more to say but simply added ‘Washington.”

“This about Mahmood? Alex folded his arms in a ‘go ahead; entertain me’ pose. Darla flinched at the mention of their friend’s name; wondering if his daughter was safe…or even alive.

"Quick version? The man you knew as Mahmood Al-Salaam was not a grocer from Iran.” Alex shook his head and grinned.

“Ya think? We know he was important Mr…. Chastain?”

“He was part of an Iranian research and development team out of one of the several nuke facilities they began in the mid-seventies. When the Shah was kicked out, several of the scientists saw the hand writing on the wall and fled. He was over here at Brookhaven until 2009. The story about the safe house was set up so he’d ‘disappear.’”

“He met his wife here?” Darla asked.

“He…he never married.”

“What?”

“Beseema Abdel-Salaam was his handler. She’s….” Chastain hadn’t given them any real reason to trust him and his expression seemed to indicate that the narrative was taking a detour into the far-fetched. He didn’t disappoint.

“Her name is Farouk. She’s …Mossad….Get this….she’s Palestinian. Her grandmother on her father’s side was Sabra but she’s Muslim, and she was recruited when she was seventeen….really bright and tough as nails.” Darla’s heart sank. The woman had lied. She had been lying all along.

“So…” Alex stretched the word out as long as he could before asking,

“Where the fuck does that leave us?”

“She’s gone missing. We had expected to debrief her after the first attack.” Darla winced. The first attack nearly got her and Alex killed and there should never have been a second.

“Yeah…about that?” Alex interjected.

“The two guys who jumped us were obviously not there to rob the deli…. Why the fuck didn’t you just put them both somewhere safe? And where the fuck was the ….Mossad? This is like a badly written episode of some NCIS knockoff. The girl?”

“Mahmood wasn’t supposed to leave home that day. She had arranged for a safe pickup but nobody showed up that morning. He slipped out while she was on the phone with the local office and it only took him five minutes to walk to the store from their apartment.”

“Holy fuck. Somebody tip them off, Mr. Chastain?”

“Yes; we’re still looking into that.” His expression did little to mask his suspicion.

“You can’t think Beseema had anything to do with that?” Darla practically pled.

“I worked with her….I vouched for her. You’re not saying anything I haven’t thought of myself. She and the good Doctor were like daughter and father for almost seven years, but anything can happen in this business.” Chastain shook his head and turned away.

“What….what happens next?” Darla shook her head in disbelief; too much coming at her too fast to absorb.

“Your captain says she’s called you, Officer Farnetti? All you can do at this point is urge her to come in from the cold so we can sort this out, okay?” Darla nodded slightly, but she didn’t trust the whole story and wondered just how she’d react if Beseema did contact her.

“Just keep us ….informed. Whatever she says or even what you may think she said or means; anything you can glean. The doctor was an asset not easily replaced and we won’t really know what to think until we talk to Agent Farouk, okay?”

It wasn’t okay. And once again Darla lapsed into a helpless funk. She nodded again before she and Alex walked out. A few minutes later they were in the squad car and on the road.

“I don’t know what to think, Al…. this…this is too much.” Three blocks had Darla all cried out. She stared out the car window blankly. Alex reached over and rubbed her shoulder wondering just what made all the women in her family so tenacious.

“We’ll figure this out, kid….”

Louise Farnetti’s apartment that evening…

A knock came at the door; startling Louise enough that she dropped the paperback she was reading into her lap. She rose and walked to the door.

“Just…just a moment… “ she called out before losing her balance enough to lean against the table that graced one side of the narrow foyer. She recovered and opened the door; albeit unsteadily.

“Mom?” Darla stood nervously at the doorway. A look of relief quickly turned to frustrated sadness.

“You haven’t returned my calls.” If not for their near glorious recent reconciliation, she would have lapsed into self-doubt. So she assumed the worst; especially as she gazed into her mother’s eyes; eyes which lacked focus but with a slight gleam that seemed to speak peace to Darla’s heart.

“I… I lost my phone,” her mother said almost in shame. Darla stepped closer and drew her mother into a hug; enthusiastic at first, but with then much more care. Her mother felt so light.

“It’s okay, Mom…it’s okay..” she repeated as she looked behind her down the hall at the short row of apartments.

“You can ask Mrs. Ruiz next time. She said she’s happy to help.”

“I just don’t want to be trouble to anyone.”

At one time that might have been distinct possibility. Years of disappointment led to bitterness, which in turn led to a mean spirit manifested on an almost daily basis. But things had changed dramatically and suddenly in the midst of cancer; the illness destroying her body while repairing her soul. She smiled weakly and pulled away; a sense of unworthiness that inserted itself between her and her child. Darla redoubled her efforts; albeit more gently as she noted the increased translucence in her mother’s countenance.

“Let me make you some tea, okay?”

Louise nodded as Darla guided her back to the couch.

“Move over, Luchiano,” Darla said to the black tomcat who had stretched out across two of the three cushions. The cat purr-mewed and quickly accommodated the request; hopping on the armrest closest to the wall. Darla eased her mother down onto the couch and covered her lap with the ever-present crocheted throw. Darla walked into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with two mugs of Sleepytime.

“I’m going to drop by in the mornings on my off days and every evening from now on.” She smiled at Louise and nodded; expecting a reply.

“Honey….” Louise placed her tea on the side table and touched Darla’s face.

“Not much longer….” She smiled back and nodded while arching her eyebrow ever so slightly. Darla shook her head no.

“It’s okay. I was talking to your sister this morning. It’s time." Darla immediately thought of her older sister Gina, thankful that their recent reconcilliation prompted Gina to plan a trip east to help with Louise's care. But the look of almost whimsey meant something else entirely.

Louise looked past the now sleeping tom to the other side table at a picture. A photo of her from happier times that displayed a much younger Louise Farnetti and three children. The oldest was a pretty girl in her mid-teens.The middle child was a boy of about seven but anyone would be sorely pressed to ‘see’ anyone but a girl even then. The youngest was a girl of about six. The last picture of her before illness took her to a safer if much removed place in time and eternity.

Darla blinked back tears as she remembered just how much she missed her baby sister. Louise noted Darla’s tears and touched her cheek once again.

“Connie is very proud of you.” Darla at one time would have chalked up her mother’s sentimental sigh to the disease, but who could say if Connie wasn’t talking to their mother. She smiled bravely as she processed just what it meant for her late baby sister to be proud. She couldn’t think of a thing.

“You can have my Barbies, Aldo. I promise I won’t tell,” Connie had said only days before her death. Darla breathed in; her nose already beginning to congest in anticipation. Connie was taken instead of her. Amani died half-way around the world while she was left behind. And Beseema was god knows where if she was alive at all. Between the sweet memory of her sister and the guilt she still felt and the first ever “I know” look from Louise, Darla’s defenses began to fail, and she fell into her mother’s arms; weeping.

And Louise echoed what Darla merely saw and spoke softly while stroking her daughter’s hair.

“I know…. I know,” she said and added one more word that shoved the remainder of the girl’s armor aside as she said, ‘Darla.”

Jo’s apartment that same night…

Jo stood in her bathroom, staring at her naked reflection in the mirror over the vanity. Twenty-some-odd years past the last of her surgeries, one might look at her and see a plain if attractive woman. Had she always looked a bit like an older Hilary Swank? She certainly resembled the actress in that she wasn’t much on top, as her best girlfriend Maddy had said about them both.

And while some might have noted on other, more modest occasions , how attractive her countenance was, Jo missed the pretty and went straight to the plain. She grabbed a hairbrush off the vanity and laughed. Slowly pulling hair tufts from the brush, she spoke in an almost sing-song voice.

“He loves me….he loves me not…he loves me….”

She dropped the brush onto the bathroom floor and stepped into the shower. Easing back, she turned the handles until the steam filled up the bathroom. She grabbed the nearly new Dove Beauty Bar from the shelf and began to lather up even as she laughed at the irony. She shook her head and began the mantra once again.

“He loves me….He loves me not….he loves me.”

She closed her eyes and recalled the smile that Alex seemed to wear nearly all the time; replaced for the most part once and awhile by the look of care that made him so handsome. A man who might see himself to be only plain had he cared about such things. A man whose compassion was duplicated In such a wonderful way in Jo, had her disdain for herself not obstructed her view.

“He loves me….he loves me not…. He loves me”

She opened her eyes and cast her vision down at her naked body. The water seemed to almost cascade off her small breasts; unhindered as the stream flowed down her stomach. The sensation was almost teasing since the feelings dulled and then almost ceased as the water fell off her sex. She gasped at one more disappointment and resumed the chant; almost musical tones mixed with soft sobs as she concluded,

“He loves me not….”

With one last gasp she dropped to the floor of the shower and leaned against the wall and sobbed freely, feeling completely unworthy of love and believing quite erroneously that Alex Dmitri Petrovic would never love Josephine Marie Bianchi.

I don't really want to know
How this story will unfolded
I can only hope you'll wait until it's told
I'll go out and find my way
And you can do the same
But I need all, all of you
I can be alone but only when I'm holding you

Things can't get much better
You might have to stay
To make sure I never forget about today
You might have to stay

Next: Turn Around

Stay
Words and music by
Steve Booker
And the performer Sarah Bettens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDCWJV5HdF4