Sex, Lies and New Orleans: Part One

by Red Monster

She came in looking different, I'll give her that much.

Different enough that I almost didn't recognize her. She'd let her bangs grow out, and she didn't look nearly so smug without that tight little fringe of perfectly evenly trimmed hair over her forehead. She was also dressing very differently from the last time I'd seen her; the cleavage-baring skintight pleather suit and spray-paint-tight belly top* had been replaced by a simple loose t-shirt and some cut-off shorts, finished off by canvas sneakers and white socks. Come to think of it, she was really dressed a lot like me. But most of all, I certainly didn't expect to ever see her with a baby balanced on her hip.

She looked so unlike the Risque I'd previously met, in fact, that when I first saw her standing there, I was almost ready to like her. Then, I remembered the look on Jimmy's face when I said her name in that motel room in Ohio.** That snapped me back.

I'd been on a grocery run with James and Dani when I came in. We and Tabitha and Jesse had gone on a mission in a town nearby New Orleans, and we'd planned to go back to San Francisco the next day, but when Zeke came to pick us up, he told us that something had gone wrong with the helicopter, and it couldn't be trusted to take us back to San Francisco. We called back home to tell the rest of our team what was going on, and Bobby said Zeke would be offended if we took off on a commercial flight, so we thought it best to stay in the city until the copter was repaired. We rented this motel room while Zeke stayed in the town with the copter. It was all fixed up, and we were planning to go back to San Francisco the next day. I was the first one of us back in the room after the grocery run, and there she was.

Standing in front of the motel room's door, looking so wholesome with her modest new look and chubby bright-eyed baby sitting on her hip, that, as I said before, I was almost willing to give her a second chance, was Gloria Muñoz. I might have been able to tolerate her showing up if Tabitha hadn't been so damned friendly to her.

I could understand seeing Jesse standing there playing with the baby's hand, because he didn't know Risque, but Tabitha should've known better. She was standing right there with them, jiggling the baby's other hand, looking like Risque was an old friend.

That set me off. I suppose now that Tabitha just figured Risque had done her dirty job once, and wasn't going to do it again, so now that it was over, she was okay, but I didn't like it one bit. I could still remember what Tabitha had said to me when we found James after Risque made off with him and left him in Detroit, and at the time this was happening, it looked like she was being so nice to Gloria just to spite me.

"What are you doing here?!" I demanded.

"Calm down, Red, I come in peace," said Risque, making the "settle down" gesture with her free hand. Oh, how I hated it when she called me "Red."

"What do you want?" I wanted to know.

"Let me guess," said Jesse. "She and Theresa got off on the wrong foot?"

"They not only got off on the wrong foot," Tabitha confided in him. "But Terry decided to stay there with her!"

Dani came in and threaded her way through all of us, acknowledging Risque with a nod as she carried her bag of groceries to the room's kitchenette. I followed her over, since I was holding a full bag myself, and it was getting heavy.

"She's here looking for Jimmy," said Jesse.

"I'm here because I thought you all would have my son's father with you." Risque indicated the baby she was carrying. "And I'd like to get in touch with him."

She does not expect us to believe, I thought, that James is the father of her child, does she? He's not. Is he? "I don't know why you'd think your boy's father would be with us," I said, daring her to say James's name.

"Well, I saw you passing through town earlier with James," she replied, meeting my challenge. "Where is he now?"

James was the last to come in, carrying a bag under each arm.

He stopped dead in his tracks. He saw Gloria standing there, bonding with our friends, and holding the baby, and I could almost hear the wheels in his head click together. Either he decided what had actually happened, or just what she wanted him to believe. But James was either much less distrustful than I was, or the poor man was just a lot more polite.

"Help him out, you two," I said to Tab and Jesse, who grudgingly let go of the baby's chubby hands to take the grocery bags Jimmy was holding, into the kitchenette. We thus left James standing alone with Gloria, but I kept my eyes and ears on them, mostly on her.

"So," James began.

"Yeah," answered Risque. "His name's Damien. Do you want to hold him?"

"Sure." James held out an arm to accept the baby. "How old is he?"

"Almost nine months."

I kept waiting for James to say something more definite, something more solid than the tentative exchange they'd shared when he first came in. Surely, a life-changing decision like this calls for a more articulate conversation than that, I figured. But to them, the picture apparently spoke for itself, no further explanation was needed. They didn't say anything for a few minutes; Risque stood there smiling up at her son patting Jimmy's face with his little hands, while James held the boy, seeming to search his face for clues.

Finally, she broke the silence, and said what I was afraid she was getting at.

"I want you to be involved in his life, James. It's your choice, of course, but I hope you'll stick around."

"How do we know you're telling the truth?" I challenged her. "Why should we believe that's Jimmy's baby you're holding?"

"Terry..." Tabitha began.

Jimmy didn't seem to notice us arguing, or else it just didn't concern him.

"This is really sudden, Gloria. I would've liked to know about this...about him...sooner."

"I know, and I'm sorry. It's just that...I didn't expect to ever see you again after you left Detroit, but when I saw you all in town, I thought I should tell you."

"Yes, this would be as good a time as any to tell me," James agreed, looking at Damien. "Where do you live?"

"Jimmy, you're not serious!" I said, flopping the navel oranges and Fig Newtons onto the counter to give him my full attention. "Don't you remember what she did to you?"

"It's his business, Irish," Tabitha reminded me. At her words, it was only with a quick clenching of my stomach that I was able to keep the bile from rising in my throat. That was exactly the first part of what she'd said to me when I didn't want to leave James alone with Risque after she led us to him in Detroit. It's his business, Irish. You're a little late to take such an interest in his love life. She was bringing those old accusations up fresh again. I'd been so angry at her for saying that, for implying that what I'd done to James--or what I'd failed to do for him--was worse than what Risque had done. In what way had I done so wrong by him, anyway? They were never really clear on that part. She wasn't the only one, either; they'd all looked at me that way, like I was somehow the guilty one. All except for James; until he got back from fetching the Vanisher for Sledge, he hardly looked at me at all.

"I'll let you guys argue it out amongst yourselves," said Risque, holding out her arms for her son. Once Jimmy had handed him back, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a business card. "My address is written on the back, and I'll be home all day tomorrow," she said, sticking the card into Jimmy's shirt pocket. "It's getting on toward my son's bedtime, so I really should get him out of here." She opened the door, then turned her head back toward Jimmy. "Sleep on it, James, okay?" Then she left.

"Hey. Terry," Tabitha said. "What is your problem? Could you possibly be a little ruder to her? What are you trying to do?"

"I'm trying to tell her that I won't stand for her pulling another stunt on our friend! Why on Earth should I be polite to her?" I demanded. In truth, every word was an effort to say. It was so awkward to be having that argument right in front of James. But I wasn't about to surrender the matter just to spare us both some uncomfortable moments.

"It doesn't sound like she's asking anything so unreasonable," Jesse argued. "I mean, she wants her son to have a father. Is that so wrong?"

"I don't think that's all she wants," I said. "And after what she did to James, why can't she just let him go?"

"So you can stop feeling jealous, you mean?" Tabitha stepped back in. "This is from the girl who suddenly got all worried about Jimmy when he disappeared after she'd spent months treating him like dirt," she continued, but thankfully, James interrupted her.

"Tabitha, lay off of her. All of you, in case you're thinking the same thing about Terry, lay off. She did not 'treat me like dirt.'"

Dani's eyebrows went up. "I never thought she treated you like dirt," she said.

"Thank you, Dani," James continued. "Sure, she could've been a little more," he searched for the right word, "communicative, before I met Gloria, and consistent, too--I'm sorry, Terry, but you really could have," he now took part in his own awkward argument, "but she didn't do anything 'wrong.' Now, Terry, can I speak to you outside?"

"I think that's a very good idea," I said, aggravated, and followed him out of the room.

"Don't talk about us while we're out, you guys," James said while half-out the door.

"Because you all know we can hear you," I finished. Gloria was out of sight by now. Not that she didn't already know what I thought of her, or that I cared, but I knew James wouldn't want us to be talking about her when she could still hear us. :You're not really thinking of going back to her, are you?" I asked him, once the door was closed.

"Actually, I'm planning on going to her place tomorrow morning," he said, looking off to the side.

"But why? You don't owe her anything! What if she's just trying to pull you in for another job for Sledge?"

"I know you don't trust her, and I understand why; in fact I feel the same way. But this isn't about Gloria, this is about Damien."

"What makes you think he's even your child? She could've gotten knocked up by someone else."

"That's...possible," he said distantly. "But then, what if he is my son? I have no other family, Terry."

Even I couldn't argue with that. I knew how quickly James had lost his family, and could imagine how much a child would mean to him. Still, I just couldn't shake that feeling that Risque was hiding something from us, that something wasn't kosher about this. Was it just me being paranoid? Perhaps. But then I'd been paranoid about her before, and she'd proven me right. I couldn't let this go yet. "She says the baby's almost nine months old, and she had another nine months before that to know he was on the way, and yet she didn't tell you about him until now."

"I know that, and I'm just as annoyed with her as you."

"But my point is, if she's gone all this time without telling you there's a baby, I don't think she needs your help in raising him. She seems to be doing all right by herself."

"That's not what I'm worried about, Terry. I want to help raise my kid. Sure, his mother is less than trustworthy, but he's innocent," James explained. There was another name that alarmed me: calling Risque a "mother." Although she apparently was, it just didn't seem right. "I don't trust her either, but I have to check it out," he went on. "Now, you all don't have to wait up for me. If it turns out that she's just using Damien to sell me out again, then I'll make it back to San Francisco. But I can't just ignore Risque where this is concerned." With that, he started towards the door again.

"Let me ask you something," I said. He turned back to look at me. "Could you really have gotten her pregnant while you were with her in Florida?" I asked.

"I'll have to be honest with you, Terry. When Risque and I were together, we fucked each other senseless." He went back inside.

I didn't follow him back in immediately. I needed a few minutes to myself after he said that. Although we'd never come close to making love, and I'd known just from seeing the way she looked at him at Xavier's that they'd done it, I still just couldn't handle the thought of him sleeping with someone else. Hearing him say it so frankly was not easy.

[next part]

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