34: Back in the Swing

Things did seem to be flow­ing eas­ily late­ly, John mused as he nod­ded solemn­ly to the Bai­ley. No words were ex­changed as the pale fig­ure in flut­ter­ing black robes de­posit­ed the day’s new port­fo­lios on the cor­ner of John’s desk and ex­it­ed the of­fice as qui­et­ly as he had en­tered. As he watched the dark fig­ure glide back down the hall, John ac­knowl­edged the tense un­der­ly­ing en­er­gy that seemed to course through the pro­duc­tiv­ity since Brig­it’s re­turn.

He was aware of the source, yet, un­til some­thing hap­pened be­tween them – John could do noth­ing more than keep one eye open to it. He on­ly hoped Sea­mus Flan­nery would even­tu­al­ly come to his sens­es and let it all go. Brig­it had apol­ogized that day in the café, al­though, John was sure she had not meant to be so far reach­ing in the apol­ogy. Sea­mus had been slick in his at­tempt to lure her in­to an ar­gu­ment of some sort. John had caught that much. He had been proud that Brig­it had elud­ed the at­tempt in such a la­dy-​like man­ner. Even so, John knew it would not be the last at­tempt Sea­mus would make in an at­tempt to cast a bad light on Brig­it. He on­ly hoped Brig­it would not fall in­to the trap…

Brig­it had re­sumed her as­sign­ments ea­ger­ly, reap­ing dur­ing the day and re­turn­ing to Mag­gie at night. John had the sense that it might seem un­fair to the oth­er Reapers that she would be al­lowed to have a du­al ex­is­tence with the firm. It was part of their agree­ment, though. So long as Brig­it Mal­one main­tained the ef­fi­cien­cy of her as­sign­ments and the pri­or­ities of the firm, John would con­tin­ue to hon­or their agree­ment as long as Mag­gie De­von still drew mor­tal breath.

John set the new­ly de­liv­ered files at the bot­tom of the stack be­fore him. He was tak­ing his time with them these days. New re­cruits were still his first pri­or­ity and he did not want to miss the op­por­tu­ni­ty to find an­oth­er Be­lin­da Yaris. Brig­it had done well to bring the young wom­an on. He want­ed to make sure the fu­ture mem­bers of the firm were of the same cal­iber.

A qui­et knock at the door broke John from his thoughts. He looked up and found Brig­it stand­ing just in­side it.

“I’m head­ing home,” she an­nounced.

“You’ve dropped your com­plet­ed as­sign­ments?”

“Be­lin­da’s work­ing on them now,” Brig­it con­firmed.

“Very good. Thank you, Brig­it,” he said qui­et­ly.

“For what?”

John looked at his as­sis­tant for a long mo­ment. There were so many things he was grate­ful for in re­gard to Brig­it Mal­one. Fi­nal­ly, he smiled and sim­ply said:

“For get­ting back in­to the swing so eas­ily.”

35: Hearing Matilda Sing

Brig­it picked up the short stack of port­fo­lios John had left on her cor­ner of the desk.

She had paused long enough to wish Be­lin­da a good morn­ing on her way to the head Reaper’s of­fice. As she looked around the younger wom­an’s space, she had no­ticed the ad­di­tion of a black leather so­fa and a vase hold­ing an over­ly large sun­flow­er bloom on the small ta­ble be­side it. The bright yel­low of the flow­er’s soft petals seemed to add all the more light to the oth­er­wise bleak room. Up­on com­ment­ing on the love­li­ness of the sun­flow­er, Brig­it caught the notes of pride as Be­lin­da gushed that it had been a gift from Sea­mus Flan­nery. Ma­ma Dee had been right, af­ter all. Be­lin­da Yaris was in love.

Bit­ing her tongue to keep from is­su­ing a warn­ing against the younger wom­an’s ob­vi­ous in­fat­ua­tion, Brig­it sim­ply smiled and re­it­er­at­ed how love­ly the flow­er was. Some­thing in­side her warned her to main­tain her si­lence in re­gard to Sea­mus Flan­nery, if on­ly for the sake of the peace that seemed to mask the ev­ery day op­er­ations of Reapers, Inc. Even­tu­al­ly, that mask would fade away. Brig­it had no wish to rush that par­tic­ular mo­ment in­to ex­is­tence.

As she walked down the hall to­ward John’s of­fice, Brig­it couldn’t help but re­vis­it the fact that she still didn’t have her own of­fice space with­in the firm. Sea­mus had his quar­ters as­signed to him al­most im­me­di­ate­ly up­on join­ing the com­pa­ny. Brig­it had plant­ed Be­lin­da in the small room she now oc­cu­pied up­on bring­ing her to the main of­fice and even Ma­ma Dee had an of­fice to call her own. Brig­it re­mind­ed her­self to have a dis­cus­sion with John re­gard­ing the sit­ua­tion when she re­turned from her as­sign­ments.

The first port­fo­lio of the day’s as­sign­ments caused Brig­it to smile. Mick­ey Ben­jamin was fi­nal­ly go­ing to have his fi­nal wish ful­filled. Feel­ing light, Brig­it made her way to the main en­trance of the of­fice as she read the ad­dress out loud: 72 St. Marks Place.

He was seat­ed at a small ta­ble in the mid­dle of the room, one arm rest­ing on the ta­ble and his legs crossed at the knee in pa­tient wait­ing.

Through the dim light of the morn­ing sun that forced its way through the dust en­crust­ed panes of glass high up on the walls, Brig­it could see the trails through the dust on the floor where he had dragged the ta­ble from where it had been stored against the wall. How long he had been sit­ting there, she was un­sure. A bot­tle of cham­pagne on the ta­ble be­side him in­di­cat­ed his pre­pared­ness for the cel­ebra­tion he in­tend­ed to have once he heard Matil­da Swen­son fi­nal­ly sing. Al­most a year had passed since the cross­ing of Matthew-​Matil­da Swen­son, though. Brig­it won­dered if a cel­ebra­tion was still in­tend­ed af­ter so much time.

The echo of her boots on the club’s wood­en floor caught his at­ten­tion. Mick­ey Ben­jamin quick­ly turned to face her. Hope filled his eyes as she emerged from the shad­ows.

“You came back!” the young man gushed as he jumped from the chair and rushed to em­brace the fe­male Reaper. “I’ve been wait­ing for so long. I was afraid you had for­got­ten about me.”

“I’m sor­ry it took as long as it did, Mick­ey,” Brig­it apol­ogized. “I’ve been a lit­tle busy.”

“It’s okay, sweet­ie,” Mick­ey said as he fi­nal­ly re­leased her. “You kept your promise. That’s all that counts.”

“I al­ways keep my promis­es one way or an­oth­er,” she replied as she caught the odor that arose from the col­lar of his pur­ple silk shirt. “Have you been drink­ing?” Brig­it asked as she glanced at the cham­pagne bot­tle on the ta­ble. The cork, she no­ticed, was still se­cure­ly at­tached. Yet, a dis­tinct smell of al­co­hol had arisen from the young man when he had stepped back from her. She didn’t re­mem­ber smelling it on him dur­ing her first en­counter with him.

“What? Oh, that,” Mick­ey sud­den­ly looked em­bar­rassed. “No. I don’t drink. The night we,” he fal­tered, look­ing for the right word.

“Passed,” Brig­it of­fered.

“That will work,” Mick­ey agreed. “The night we passed, Matil­da and me, well, I fell down the back steps af­ter I told Mr. Per­sh­ing that Matil­da was dead. I land­ed in a pud­dle of whiskey some­one had spilled at the bot­tom of the stairs. It’s a ter­ri­ble smell, isn’t it?” The young man sniffed at the col­lar of his shirt and wrin­kled his nose in dis­gust.

“Mick­ey Ben­jamin, are you ready to leave this place?” Brig­it asked as she with­drew his port­fo­lio from her coat pock­et. Quick­ly, she read the pages of his life as the door ap­peared to her left. On the last page, she saw the de­tails he had just told her. His pass­ing had been the re­sult of a mis-​step on the stairs lead­ing to the club own­er’s of­fice. It had been an ac­ci­dent.

“Yes, fi­nal­ly, yes,” Mick­ey gushed as he be­gan to run his hands ner­vous­ly through his hair.

“Mick­ey Ben­jamin,” Brig­it reached out and gen­tly pulled open the door that had ap­peared to her left. From the oth­er side, they heard the mu­sic and the singing of Matil­da Swen­son from the oth­er side. Brig­it saw Mick­ey’s face light up with the recog­ni­tion of the voice that reached his ears.

“She’s fan­tas­tic,” he whis­pered in awe.

As she watched him for a sec­ond longer, Brig­it re­al­ized the depth of the young man’s ado­ra­tion for the drag queen she had crossed over al­most a year be­fore. She sud­den­ly re­gret­ted not be­ing able to re­turn for him soon­er. “I’m re­al­ly, fi­nal­ly, go­ing to get to see her sing,” Mick­ey gushed.

“Here, you’ll need this when she’s done,” Brig­it said. She had fetched the cham­pagne from the ta­ble Mick­ey had been sit­ting at and shoved it in­to his hands.

“Thank you, so much. You have no idea what this means to me,” Mick­ey said as he threw his arms around Brig­it’s neck once more. The cham­pagne bot­tle was pressed firm­ly be­tween them as he gave her a good squeeze. Brig­it smiled and pushed the young man off again, mak­ing sure he had a hold of the bot­tle as she did so.

“Get in there al­ready,” she said gen­tly. “Mick­ey Ben­jamin, may you find eter­nal peace.”

Brig­it watched the young man en­ter the por­tal as the sound of a sul­try torch song waft­ed through the air to her ears. Matil­da Swen­son did have a love­ly voice. As Brig­it held the door open for a few sec­onds af­ter Mick­ey Ben­jamin had crossed over, it oc­curred to her that she had man­aged to catch the show at the St. Marks Club af­ter all.