#jerome joy

Rita Lance delivered a light slap to the back of his head. “It’s a disappointment we have all been through. Move on.”

The contents of the tin were cheap plastic spools wounded full of thread. The colors were mostly dull grays and the threads were knotted, tangled up sloppily on the spools. Jerome rubbed a thread between his finger tips.

“Ah.” he said.

“Yes.” Rita nodded. “Your memories.”

“They don’t seem very cheerful.” Jerome said, laughing because he was otherwise at a loss for how to respond.

Rita put her hand on his shoulder. Her grip was too tight but Jerome felt reassured by a feeling of being held in place in the present, her tall frame looming above him like a sheltering wall. “None of them seem to be of your own making.” Rita let go of his shoulder and gave him a couple heavy pats before going over to sit down in an armchair. “All prefabricated. Obviously not by you. Your work is far more tidy and effective.”

“Thanks.” Jerome sat down in a chair opposite RIta. He could still feel Rita’s hand on his shoulder from the lingering heat of a touch that was always at least a little too hot. She tried, Jerome knew, but she had difficulty remembering what an average human temperature was like if she wasn’t concentrating. “Then all these,” Jerome tugged at another knotted thread, “are like . . . like what happened when . . . when I . . .”

“Stabbed me?” Rita cut in. “Yes, but none of them so near as violent. More of infiltration and information gathering. Seems I was a special case.” she pulled a small plastic bag out of the inner pocket of her suit jacket. In the bag was a nasty mess of black threads that had been singed into pieces. “This one was more sloppy than all the rest, too.”

Jerome winced and looked away. He drummed his fingers on the tin, remembering how Rita’s face looked when the knife . . . Remembering how his hands felt tugged by strings and the painful heat from Rita’s hand when she gripped his to stop him from pulling the knife back out. At the time he had certainly been interested in getting a better look at her face. Just not in the circumstances of trying to assassinate her.

“Lends weight to our theory that the attempt on my life was a crime of opportunity.” Rita rubbed her fingertip back and forth on the arm of her chair. There was a faint smell of burnt fabric and Rita quickly lifted her hand away. She looked at the burn mark. “I’m a little more irritated about that than I previously thought.”

Picking a coin out from the change dish on a small side table Jerome flicked it over to Rita. She caught it without looking up from the burn. She flipped the coin around in her fingers thoughtfully. After a bit the coin began to glow from the heat. “You don’t seem to be someone who usually takes murder personally. And I’m not saying that to make myself feel better.” Jerome said. Not entirely.

“It bothers me.” Rita studied the red hot coin. “Because they used you, Joy.”

“Why? At the time we’d know each other about fifteen minutes.”

“Hm.” Rita tossed the coin in the air, caught it, and then closed her fist around it. She looked up at Jerome with her usual impassive gaze. “Possibly because I like you.”