She was working her way down his thick right thigh, and for a while they were quiet, though he was guarding—his muscles tightening in anticipation of her touch—so she knew she was getting to another problem area. Then she worked her way to his knee, which was a knot of ruched scars.
“Before you ask, Little Miss Nosy, I had my knee blown out for me about six years ago. I got a shiny new one.”
“Sorry. I don’t usually pester my clients.” That apology came out smoothly. Usually, she had to practice those.
He chuckled. His voice was deep, and his chuckles sort of rumbled. “S’fine. It’s entertaining. You don’t know when to shut up any more than I do.”
Emboldened by his indulgence, she ran her hand lightly over his scarred knee. “I have other clients who’ve had knee replacement. Their scarring isn’t as bad as this.” She stopped and replayed what she’d just said. “Um, not that this is ugly.”
Again the rumbly laugh. “Yeah, it is. I got no misperceptions on that point. The guy that blew it put my kneecap through the skin.”
“Jesus fuck!”
“No joke.”
“And you still surf and hike and whatever?”
“Sure. The new one took just fine.”
She wanted to ask more—like what the fuck he’d been doing that somebody could tear his kneecap off like that—but they were running low on time, and she still had another leg and a half to do. Plus, she really had been Little Miss Nosy. Which was so fucking weird and, frankly, freaking her out. So she got quiet, and he was quiet, and she finished his massage.
He had good feet.
When it was over, she got him his water, and he handed her a little envelope, and she led him back up front. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t say more to her except to thank her. And then he left.
Manny felt weird. That had been the weirdest session she’d ever had. It had been, like, intimate, or something. Just weird.
oOo
She was exhausted at the end of the day and not in the mood for company, not even Dimi. And certainly not his crew of dorks that, with him, called themselves Fierce Ferret. But it was band practice night, and she needed to at least check in and see how things were going. She’d lined up gigs for the next four weekends—two hole in the wall clubs down the coast, one of which was part of Battle of the Bands, a wedding, and a bar mitzvah. They did different setlists for different kinds of gigs.
Manny always thought it was funny as fuck that parents would book a band called Fierce Ferret, which promoted itself as an old-style punk crew, for their kid’s party and then be all shocked when they got people with piercings, ink, androgynous makeup and ‘edgy’ hair setting up on stage. But they took their original songs off the setlist for the bar/bat mitzvahs and weddings. Mostly, they just played covers for those gigs.
Before she made her way about halfway toward Providence, to the shack the band called home, Manny stopped at her own little apartment. She’d only had it a month or so, but she’d made it into her safe place. She’d done that within two days. It was a mess, the walls covered with all kinds of her special things, the flat surfaces stacked with books and papers and all manner of treasures, because she liked clutter. She needed clutter, really. Not filth, but clutter. It made her feel less isolated when she was surrounded by stuff.
Her life was dictated by her competing needs to be alone and to be connected to other people. When she was a child, she’d had no ability whatsoever to walk the ephemeral line between those incompatible notions. The resulting confusion and crisis had gone badly for her and her family. Sometimes very badly. But they’d stuck it out with her.
It was hard to be a kid who couldn’t distinguish between a loving touch and a hostile touch. It was hard to be the family of that kid, too.
But she had coping strategies now, and she had learned to interpret people and situations in ways more like normal people did. She just had to work at things other people did naturally. When somebody touched her, she had a whole conversation with herself about context clues and what that touch probably meant. A day out in the world therefore exhausted her.
She got home and stripped out of her work clothes, then took a quick shower to rid herself of the smell of the massage oils and aromatherapy bullshit. Most people loved that mingled scent, found it relaxing—which, of course, was the point. But by the end of a day, Manny could barely stand it. So she lathered herself up with pomegranate-scented soap and shampoo, which was sweet and yummy and refreshing without being cloying, and it kicked that whole lavender-sage-whatever crap away.