The Bodyguard ("Lunch" story #85)

LUNCH
by Michael Kroetch

The bodyguard’s mother is out to lunch. She’s away with her secret policeman. It’s why, even though her brand of detergent isn’t on sale and she doesn’t really need any more, she’s buying some. Two boxes. And some extra floor wax, too. The thing of it is, she missed the smell of that dreadful cigar. Craved it. Needed it so bad that her teeth hurt. Not that she could admit this to him—or herself. But it’s certainly one huge reason she’s nuzzled in so close as he fumbles with the second detergent box, trying to scan it into his register.

She can see in his eyes that he’s upset. She knows how much he wants them to stay a secret. And, obviously, so does she. But all the same, she couldn’t take not talking to him. Hearing his odd, broken English. Especially not now with the advent of this ring thing and the added fact that less than ten minutes ago she spilled coffee on one of the most superior or her superiors, making the man scream and curse so blue-facedly she thought she’d inflicted such harm that he could never father another child. It wasn’t funny and she didn’t laugh. Yet she wanted to. Which was the worst, because it was so unlike her. It’s as if she’s becoming another person. Someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, and has absolutely no sense of what’s appropriate in a given moment. Besides which, she hates to laugh. Hates it almost as much as she hates being clumsy. She never spills things. She’s precise. She’s measured. She counts her footsteps to the water cooler and knows exactly how many raisins are in the carrot cakes she bakes for the families of all of the law firm’s clients who die. That’s who she is. She’s not the brittle girl standing here sniffling after this slouchy lout for a whiff of his awful stogy.

She’s thinking how absurd this is, how despicable, how it’s the most outlandish thing—when he accidentally brushes her wrist in giving her the receipt. This is when she’d planned to tell him about the three cops in her kitchen last night, and to again remind him that she’s engaged, and how she must get her feet anchored back down on solid ground.

But these words don’t happen.

Something else does. A laugh. High pitched and nervous, it skitters about like a trapped bat with a broken wing, and makes her want to die.