Jeannie was curled up in Jimmy's velvet chair, still crying, when Rebecca rushed to her side. Rebecca had her own set of keys to this place, from the days when she'd moonlighted as a receptionist for the auto body shop. In hindsight, Jeannie realized that whole cat thing had been another one of Rebecca's schemes to try to get her and Jimmy to talk. "Oh honey, what happened?"
Jeannie let her best friend rock her in her arms while she dried her eyes and tried to compose herself. Never in her life had she known such fear before. Nothing had happened, but it was what could have happened, had she been standing only a few inches closer to the edge of that sidewalk. She'd even felt the wind from that speeding car gusting against her calf. If the car had hit her, she wouldn't have even seen it coming. She'd have been gone, just like that. Her life would have been cut off as fast and easy as someone flipping a light switch. That no one standing around there had been hit was a miracle. The kind of miracle that forces someone to put their entire life into focus, if only for an instant.
Rebecca stood, stretched her legs and perched on the armrest. "You miss him, don't you."
"I could have died, earlier. He was all I could think about afterward." It felt like a dream now, where the memory was distant, but the emotions remained sharp and distinct. A terrible dream where time did funny things, stretched and contorted and shrunk again; seconds didn't go by the way they do in normal life. The opposite of how she'd felt when she'd first roused earlier.
"Just breathe," Rebecca said, stroking her back.
She blew out a deep, long breath and held it out, then sucked the cool air deep into her lungs. The temperature must have dropped outside. How long had she been sleeping in here for? "Why do things like this happen? Terrible things, just out of the blue. All I was going to do was go out with Steve somewhere to eat and then maybe show him some sights." Her chest ached and her eyes were stinging again. It felt like she'd been about to betray Jimmy and God himself had put a stop to it and she'd been cast as a sinner, this car, her warning to go on a different path. Her grandma used to watch all them Holy-Rollers on the TV and damn if maybe they weren't onto something.
Rebecca grabbed her shoulders and stared straight into her eyes, as if she knew Jeannie had been planning to hang around with Steve in his hotel room rather than strolling outside. "Sweetie, tell me exactly what happened."
"A car almost hit me––it missed me by inches and I think the driver was killed. And another car drove off right then and–" Nothing could stop her flood of tears and she struggled to breathe like they were drowning her. "It was on purpose, the guy they hit. I know they saw me. And they know that I saw them and–"
"You don't know for sure what they were looking at."
"The man in the front seat was staring straight at me!"
"When did this happen?"
"Earlier this afternoon. Right outside the Golden Dunes. You didn't hear about it?"
"I had the morning shift and was done by noon. Dropped by Emerald's afterward and then went home for some shuteye. What were you doing there, anyway?"
Jeannie told Rebecca the story from start to finish, omitting anything to do with Steve apart from their plan to have lunch together. She felt exhausted afterward.
Rebecca squeezed her tightly and said, "Honey. You should have called me sooner. Frank, Robbie, Eddie, they all still know a lot of people who can protect you. From anyone."
"That's part of why I came here ..." Jeannie sniffled and daubed her eyes with a tissue. Now her brain was starting to rationalize things, come up with some other reason than the real reason why. "Jimmy had told me some about his family. About who his dad was. I know in my heart he'd do anything to help me if I needed him, but I just kept pushing him away. I've been such an idiot. I know he was lying when he said all those things to me, that he didn't mean any of them, not really, but ..." She broke down again. "They were so horrible!"
"Breathe, honey," Rebecca said again and Jeannie sniffled.
She took the air in gulps like she was a fish who'd been thrown out of water. At last, she could inhale normally and she sank against the back of the easy chair. Her energy was drained and she felt strangely calm, almost detached. "He must have had his reasons and I guess I gotta respect them more. Why can't I have normal conversations with men? Why do I have to make everything so hard? Even with my ex-husband. Sure he was a jerk sometimes, but ultimately I was the one who blew it."
"You have to think about what you're really afraid of," Rebecca said, squishing next to her into the chair, her jasmine perfume filling the air. "And be brave enough to face it. Did you really run to here and to Jimmy, or were you running away from Steve?"
Jeannie's mind blanked, like all thoughts and feelings had been wiped clean with the push of a button. She didn't have the faintest idea. To, or from. Damn, that was a good question and hell if she had any clue which it was.