"Yeah, what now?" he said in echo to Mira's question to him but he was watching Angie's small
figure disappear into the dark of Central Park, beyound the flashing lights and crowd gathered.
Angie's parting words were still rebounding in his mind, the taste of her tear stained lips on his own.
He was still in shock from the bullet wound, the fight and then her stoic resolve in sizing up their
relationship on the bumper of the ambulance.
"As far as I'm concerned", she had said after kissing him. He barely had time to fully realize what she
had told him in the diner earlier that day, that it hadn't been rape- until the mask had come off and
suddenly the image of Manny's little tow-headed girl getting into trouble on the set and sticking her
tongue out at him was blown. Angie had sat across from him and he saw the woman she had
become, he became aware of the hollow of her neck, the fullness of her lips and her body, toned
and curved. His eyes traced the outline of her breasts beneath the layer of her blouse and he had felt
ashamed of his sudden scrutiny. He couldn't bare to think of Lubar touching her, making love to her
as him and Angie responding with all of her being, her soul for he knew Angie was doing trusting her
own heart. How long had Lubar laid with her, watching her sleep in his arms? The bastard took
something from Angie that could never be again.
People were around him, talking and finishing up at the crime scene. Mira was walking back and
forth, talking on her cell phone angrily to someone. Rollie just wanted to go home. He stood up, a
bit woozy from the sudden move and dropped the blanket that he had been given to keep him
warm.
"Mira, hey- I'm out of here, going back to the loft," he said, in resignation as she waved at him, still
listening to her caller. She said something about calling him later, but he wasn't really paying
attention. he felt cold and alone. He looked for a cab, thinking Angie had taken the van but was
suprised to see it sitting where he had left it near the Hotel. Without thinking, he got in and just drove
off, his eyes blurring and shoulder burning and throbbing. He had refused to go to the hospital and
now, maybe he should have listened to them.
Screw it, he said to himself, go home and get some sleep. Check out of the world for awhile and
forget all the hurt and pain. He got back to the loft in less than fifteen minutes and opened the door
slowly. No lights were on but Bluey was barking.
"Lights, Bluey," he said in barely more than a whisper and the lights came on, revealing the loft as
they had left it earlier that day. But now, he was alone, in the place where Lubar had robbed Angie
of her love for him. He knew this, he knew what she had done for love...she had loved him without
question.
He knew Mira had cleaned the place up, helped Angie out after Lubar. Mira had told him that much
later after he found out from Angie. But, he couldn't bare to go upstairs and see the bed or lay in it.
He sat on the stool of his workbench and stared at the computer monitor as his F/X screen saver
rolled across over and over. He checked his messages then and was suprised to see one from Angie
so late. She must have sent it when she had gotten home.
He brought it up and there was a momentary lag and then a black screen. Suddenly, a crude but
recognizable image was appearing from video play. Lubar appeared, still alive and sardonic as
usual.
"Ummm, a woman scorned, Rollie..." he began, shaking his head, "but such a poor shot, eh? She
was tasty, you know," he added, licking his lips, "and when she had all she could have of me, she
was calling out your name so wonderfully, so passionately- Rollie...Rollie...so, I obliged her and
gave her my all. Such a sweet little thing and so wonderfully innocent..." he finished with a smile that
Rollie knew all too well.
Rollie was incensed. He stood up, his mind reeling but what Lubar had for him next made him grow
nauseated as he saw the video that Lubar had made of Angie and him making love. He sat back
down, unable to remove his eyes from the screen. His Angie with him- yes it was Lubar but Angie
was making love to Rollie Tyler and even though it wasn't him, he could suddenly see the entire
emotional and physical attraction of her being a woman, not a girl. He felt shy as he watched, almost
guilty. As he saw Angie's arrival in the morning down the flight of stairs and her awkwardness and
sweetness, he smiled but was soon taken back and totally enraged when he saw Lubar as himself
slap her so hard that she fell and then, the look on Angie's face...the incredible hurt and humiliation.
The video fizzled and Lubar's face appeared again. "Liked that? Who knows, there could be
more...I'm still around and guess what, I know where that sweet thing lives...I am so good at playing
you!" The e-mail ended abruptly and Rollie was left with a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach.
This wasn't over yet. He grabbed his keys and raced for the door. All that he could think of was
getting to Angie's...hoping that Lubar wasn't there.
By the time he reached her apartment, he was beyond any rational thoughts. He didn't remember
how he got up the stairs, but he was there at her door and pounding on it so hard that her neighbor
opened his door and stared angrily at him; "Hey, buddy- do you know what friggin' time it is?"
"Angie, please, open the door- it's Rollie!" he called out to her, banging on her door without a
response to the man. God, please- let her be there and alright, he thought desparately.
The door opened a crack, the chain on and Angie's chrystal blue eyes swollen and tearing looked
up at him.
"Rollie? What's wrong?" she was undoing the chain and he half pushed the door open against her in
his effort to get inside. She looked up at him, her eyes widened in fear.
"Angie, God- you're okay?" he asked, as she slammed the door and closed the scene for her
snooping neighbor. Rollie had grabbed her by both shoulders.
"Yeah, I'm okay- but you? You need to be at the hospital, Rollie!" she replied, trying to pull him
over and sit him down.
"Angie, Lubar- he's not dead...he's sent me an e-mail and it was so evil and ..." Rollie was
blubbering like an idiot. He couldn't get his words out in in kind of logical order, "the tape, God- the
tape and you and Angie, God- what he did to you!"
Angie was starring at him, her face turning redder and redder and her jaw tightening. Rollie's hands
were clasping hers and his breathing was labored and tight. She could see his pulse in his neck
racing and she was overwhelmed in both horror, shame and the feel of his empathy.
She stood up and clasped his head against her, wrapping her arms around his head, her fingers in his
curly hair as he held on to her around her hips and he did something that she had never seen him do.
He sobbed into her embrace and she held him for sometime like this, trying to soothe him.
Sometime later, he was sleeping on her couch, exhausted. He had literally just collapsed and she
gently covered him and sat across from him, watching the hours ticked by and the dawn break. It
was another dawn, another morning with Rollie, the real Rollie asleep in her apartment. She
showered and changed her clothes. Life would go on. Rollie would get over it- she had. He just had
to get it out of his system like she had when she had fired into the water at Lubar. So the
son-of-a-bitch was still alive...she was alive and Rollie was alive and there was still hope in the
world for this woman to go on. She brushed her hair and looked at herself in the mirror, noting that
the swelling around her mouth had gone down. Barely noticeable soon, she told herself as she
suddenly saw Rollie's reflection in the mirror behind her. She didn't turn around, she just smiled.
"Hey there Rollie, need a cup of Tea?" she asked, putting her brush down and attempted to put on
her necklace. It was the small cross her mother had given her just before they had left Cuba. She
hadn't had it on in years but she felt like wearing it next to her skin today. She felt Rollie's finger tips
brush hers as he took the clasp from her hands and finished it for her. She looked up at his reflection
again, he was smiling.
"I remember that little girl, with this little cross on hiding behind her father," he began, "she was a
gorgeous little thing. You know me, even as a gawky young Tom, I knew what a great woman she
would become."
"Yeah, well- a woman of the world," Angie replied and turned around to him. "we all have to grow
up and face it."
"I guess I just didn't want to see you as that," Rollie said, his finger stroking her cross as it rested
against the notch at the base of her neck.
"It has been hard, but I always saw you like I see you know, Rollie." Angie said, backing up and
starting to go out of the room.
"And how's that? and don't tell me that 'nothing has changed line, Angela Ramirez, tell me like it is."
Rollie had grabbed her arm forcing her to turn back to him.
"No Rollie, you tell me how it is," she replied, her eyes meeting his and going even further, touching
that part of him that he controlled so well.
"Ange, I have always loved you...I always thought of you like a sister but now, and I guess, even for
some time now- I guess it was something more, I mean you and I are like kindred spirits. I put you
up there, high up there where I didn't even touch you. But I didn't want others to either..." He was
smiling know, a little embarrassed and she smiled back and touched his cheek.
"Well, do me a favor, Rollie. When I kiss you this time, let me know how you feel?" and she
reached up on tiptoe and kissed him, softly, her eyes already shut as she felt his lips respond, ready
and willing this time. He engulfed her then, her mouth covered by his in such a wonderful longing and
passion. This was a kiss that she had never wanted more and never had dreamed it would be like. It
made the Rollie/Lubar lovemaking pale in comparison. Rollie pulled away from her suddenly and her
eyes flew open, seeing him staring at her. She hadn't realized it but he had lifted her up off the
ground and held had been holding her up in his embrace.
"Well, did I answer your question?" he asked, smiling at her with amusement.
Angie was so overwhelmed and filled with such surging emotion that she could only come up with
the healing grace for what had happened to them over the past 48 hours.
