Here - Chapter 13
Monday, 06-Mar-00 03:01:53

165.76.24.215 writes:
Here - Chapter 13

Luke takes the unlit cigar out of his mouth, spins it between two of his fingers, then looks askance at Claude, who is absently dusting the glasses on the shelves as he reads a newspaper. Insanely curious about the man now, Luke squints and sees that the bartender is intently poring over the Wall Street Journal. Luke wonders idly if that has always been Claude's preferred reading matter. He clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth and puts the cigar back between his lips. And I never even noticed...

Luke turns his attention to his niece. It is near closing time and Carly has literally been jumping out of her skin every time the front door to the club swings open. She is wiping down the tables, waiting for the last stragglers to leave. He walks up behind her.

"What's your problem?" Luke snaps.

Carly is startled by his presence and snaps right back, "What's your problem?"

He laughs at the intensity of her response, "Now I know you've got a problem..."

She checks her watch. Five minutes. Five minutes until doomsday. She looks at Luke seriously, bites her lip, then ventures, "Have you ever been called on a bluff?"

He thinks for a moment, as if giving the question tremendous thought. Then he shakes his head, "Nope. Nobody can ever tell when I'm bluffing."

She rolls her eyes and mutters sadly, "Never mind..." then she goes back to cleaning the table.

When he sees how despondent Carly seems, Luke actually begins to feel badly for treating her with such a cavalier attitude. He clears his throat, clenches on the cigar between his teeth, and says gruffly, "All right, Caroline. What's wrong? Who called your bluff?"

She straightens up and turns to look at him, her eyes showing one teaspoon fear, a dash of hope, and a cup of desperation. She opens her mouth, but then the door to Luke's opens behind her. She can tell by the way Luke's face shuts down that the moment of truth has arrived.

Without turning around, she knows that Sonny is here. She can not believe how much she'd been hoping he would stand her up.

Luke speaks to Carly through clenched teeth, his eyes never leaving Sonny, "It's your life, Caroline. But don't be stupid." Then Luke turns and walks back to the bar.

Carly takes a deep breath, steadies herself, then spins around, a forced smile on her lips, and faces a recalcitrant Sonny. He appears about as happy about their looming outing as she is. She looks at her watch again, as if she has no idea what time it is. She says with surprise, "Wow. It's two already?"

Sonny's expression does not change, but his nerves are raw. His eyes follow Luke to the bar, "Yeah. Time flies, right?"

She makes her way to the bar, avoiding Luke's eyes, and tosses her apron and the rag she was using onto the shelf behind the bar. She straightens her back and lifts her chin, then goes back to the waiting Sonny.

"Have fun!" Luke calls cheerfully behind her as she retrieves her jacket and heads for the door, Sonny a step behind her.

She grunts a response and is in the night air. The air is brisk, but not cold. She shrugs into her coat and leaves it unbuttoned. Pulling her loose hair from beneath the collar, she shakes it out with a hand and looks around for the limo. When she does not see it, only a silent, impassive Johnny waiting in the doorway, she turns to Sonny, "What? Are we walking? I do enough of that on my own, man." She tosses her hair over her shoulder nervously, "How long has it been since you've been on a date? And Agent Scott doesn't count," she adds the last with stinging bitterness.

Sonny remains standing at the doorway, elusive and amused at the same time. He says after a prolonged, testy silence, "Our ride is coming."

She folds her arm across her chest and turns to Johnny, "How are you doing?"

He nods, unsure how to respond, "All right." Then he adds quickly, "Thanks for asking."

Sonny rolls his eyes at the exchange.

They wait several minutes in front of Luke's, the air seeming to grow colder with each of Carly's heavy, impatient sighs.

At last, a pair of headlights turns into the parking lot. "Finally," Carly mutters, moving around to keep warm -- and to keep her tension in check.

When the car pulls up next to them, Carly raises her eyebrows and her mouth forms an astonished 'O.' Carly can not believe it. Instead of the shiny, familiar limousine, she is confronted with a slightly beat-up, four-door, black Buick Regal from two decades ago.

Sonny walks quietly to the back door, opens it, and stands aside with his wide, dimpled smile. He gallantly waves Carly toward the car, "Come on. You ready?" Gotcha.

She narrows her eyes at him, evaluating that smile. She puffs out a small, "Ha!", then gamely jumps into the backseat. He follows her in and sits beside her on the plush, torn vinyl bench seating. Johnny climbs into the front passenger seat.

Sonny beats on the back of the driver's seat two times and the driver pulls away from Luke's.

Carly is so angry she can barely sit still. Unable to hold her tongue, she lashes out, "So this is what you think of me, huh? Trashy car for a trashy date?"

He looks at her, completely surprised by her anger. He'd thought it would be funny. He'd believed that Carly would refuse to get in. Turned off by her attitude, he shrugs her off, "You said it, I didn't."

She folds her arms and sinks back into the upholstery, causing an annoying creaking sound.

The ride to Cafe Matisse is quiet and the air is filled with sharp needles of tension. Both Carly and Sonny are afraid to move for fear of getting pricked.

Once Johnny gives the 'okay,' Sonny gets out of his side and walks around to Carly's to open the door. He opens the door and ushers her out of the vehicle with an unenthusiastic wave.

This evening is turning into everything they both knew it would be. They figure that all they have to do is survive it and it will be just another in a long line of bad memories for the both of them.

After removing their coats, they take a seat at one of the small empty tables. Sonny remembers to pull out a chair for her, but he has a strong urge to slip it out from beneath her as she lowers herself to the seat. He resists.

A waitress too cheery for so early in the morning appears with glasses of water and takes their orders for coffee.

The table seems too small for Carly and Sonny. They are too close. Seated directly opposite of each other. Both of their eyes wander around the small cafe, looking at the walls, the windows, the guy behind the counter at the espresso machine. Anywhere and everywhere but at each other.

Carly clears her throat and reaches for her water. She takes a slow sip of water, studying the ceiling. Then she voices the obvious, "This is going well..."

Sonny gives her a half-nod, pursing his lips and tapping his fingers on the table, "Yeah."

She looks down at the table and studies her hands.

He says suddenly, flashing inexplicably to the image of her in the park with her son, "How's Michael?"

She quickly looks up at him, certain that he is trying to be mean. Instead, she sees no guile in his eyes, no twinkle. Just simple, polite curiosity. She sighs, glancing back down at the table, then says sharply, "I don't know. AJ just took off with him to Philadelphia."

Sonny turns his water glass in his hand and watches her. She seems to have literally shrunk into her chair. He sniffs and says, "Sorry."

She shrugs and replies bitterly, "No need for you to be sorry."

He sighs tiredly, then asks, "He can do that? Just take the kid without your permission?"

She meets Sonny's probing brown eyes, "He can do whatever he wants."

Sonny returns her stare suspiciously, "Where'd you get your lawyer, Carly? Off the television?"

She shifts in her chair and avoids him again, "I don't have a lawyer."

He is stunned. "You mean to tell me that you don't have a formal custody agreement with Quartermaine?"

She does not answer, just takes a sip of the coffee that the waitress wordlessly leaves for them. The last thing she needs is for Sonny, of all people, to criticize her. She feels like she gets enough of that from the people who care about her. Like Bobbie. She counts Luke in that classification too, only because they're related by blood and he is supposed to care about her.

He shakes his head in disbelief.

Carly is surprised to find her eyes stinging and she quickly sniffs and blinks to keep the tears at bay. She explains roughly, "Listen. What judge is going to give me custody? I'm a convicted felon. I live in one room. I wait tables for a living."

Sonny leans forward and says earnestly, "But you're Michael's mother. And guess what? There are waitresses in this world who have kids and actually raise them on their own. You don't have to be some rich housewife."

Carly closes her eyes, then opens them slowly again. She responds cynically, "Right. That takes care of the waiting-tables-is-honest-work part of my custody argument. Now, what about the insane-convicted-felon part?"

He shrugs and frowns a bit, "You did your time. You're not crazy anymore. Everybody deserves a second chance, Carly."

She rolls her eyes, still feeling awash in hopelessness, "What about a fiftieth chance?"

"He!!, a hundredth chance if they mean it."

She ignores him and holds out a hand, recounting her past actions, "Let's see...I drugged my son's father, I knowingly lied about my son's paternity for a year." The tears are starting now, unheeded, "I dragged that little boy from your penthouse, to Jason's penthouse, and then to the Quartermaines...And now I'm supposed to move him again??"

"I didn't say anything about moving your kid," Sonny answers quickly.

She shakes her head, her voice cracking, "You don't know how hard it was when we first moved in with AJ...Michael was so attached to Jason. He couldn't sleep. He'd barely eat." She looks at Sonny meaningfully, "He's finally, finally got someplace to call home, Sonny. He's got his father with him." She stutters, "And, and AJ isn't that bad."

Sonny raises his brows and scratches his cheek, studying her skeptically. He is having a hard time believing that these words are coming out of Carly's mouth. He counters, "You just said he took off with your kid to Philadelphia!"

"Well," she admits sheepishly, "he didn't exactly 'take off.' I mean, he told me he was going. He even said I could take Michael for a week if I wanted to."

Sonny stares at her for a second, then breaks into soft laughter, "Okay, Carly. So, you were just, what? Tilting the truth a little bit just then? Like you always do?"

She blinks slowly.

He shakes his head, "Well, no matter how reasonable AJ is right now, you don't know what could happen in the future. You need to get something in writing."

She says quietly, "That's what Bobbie says."

Sonny nods and stretches his neck, "She's right."

Carly takes a deep breath and ponders Sonny's words. Then she asks curiously, "Why do you care?"

He takes another sip of the steaming coffee and narrows his eyes at her. Why do I care??? He knows that one of the reasons he cares is their shared spectre of Jason; because Jason loved that kid as much as any father could love a child. He hears himself voicing the other, truer reason in a soft voice, very unexpectedly revealing himself, "Because if I had a kid, I'd want to be there." He meets her eyes, "Don't you want to be there?"

She furls her brow and says in a clipped tone, "Of course! No matter what you might think, I love my son. I want to be there to kiss him goodnight, to tuck him in. To hold him when he has nightmares..." Her voice trails off, then she says with resigned strength, "But I blew it." She shrugs and says again more quietly, "I blew it, man..."

One of the things that Sonny despises most is when people give up. He could never give up his entire childhood. If he'd given up, he is certain he would have been dead. Either by Deke's hand or his own. And he can't give up now. If he gives up now, he'll be dead within a month. He growls at Carly, "You need a lawyer? I got a good one."

She glares at him, "Oh yeah. That'll be good. A mob lawyer representing the convicted felon."

He tilts his head and sniffs, "It's better than nothing."

"I can't afford your lawyer," she objects weakly.

He frowns then replies with finality, "All right."

She looks at him hard, then asks, "You're not going to offer to pay?"

His face says he thinks she is nuts, "Now why the he!! would I do that?"

At first, she is mortified. Then she laughs out loud. Yeah, Carly, why the he!! would he do that??

"What's so funny?" he looks at her in confusion, though a hint of a smile plays on his lips.

"Nothing," she moves her head from left to right, amazed that her nervousness - and Sonny's apparently - has evaporated while discussing the most emotionally painful thing in her life.

They finish their coffees in a comfortable silence. Then Sonny tosses Carly the soft, loaded question, "Ready to go?"

Her eyes spark, "Yeah. I'm ready."

***** to be continued ******