She reached for the door. He jammed his fingers into
the chain-link near the top and hauled himself, scrambling, over the
fence, landing on all fours in a splintering of tomato plants and
sticks.
He got to his feet and bridged the distance between them.
"I don't believe you, Mimi," he said. "I don't believe you. Come over to
my place and let me get you a cup of coffee and an ice pack and we'll
talk about it, please?"
"Fuck off," she said tugging at the door. He wedged his toe in it, took
her wrist gently.
"Please," she said. "We'll wake him."
"Come over," he said. "We won't wake him."
She cracked her arm like a whip, shaking his hand off her wrist. She
stared at him out of her swollen eye and he felt the jolt again. Some
recognition. Some shock. Some mirror, his face tiny and distorted in her
eye.
She shivered.
"Help me over the fence," she said pulling her skirt between her knees
-- bruise on her thigh -- and tucking it behind her into her
waistband. She jammed her bare toes into the link and he gripped one
hard, straining calf in one hand and put the other on her padded, soft
bottom, helping her up onto a perch atop the fence. He scrambled over
and then took one bare foot, one warm calf, and guided her down.
"Come inside," he said.
She'd never been in his house. Natalie and Link went in and out to use
his bathroom while they were enjoying the sunset on his porch, or to get
a beer.
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