Strawberry Filling
*** TRIGGER WARNING: This fictional story involves some gun violence. ***
Emmy brushed the flour off her hands and sat down on the tall stool at the register, then hopped off it again to adjust a tray of chocolate croissants in the display window beside her station. It was a miracle she wasn’t fat sitting in front of these trays every day, loaded with lemon tarts, strawberry pie and cherry cake.
“Emmy! Ayuda! Help!” Came the cry from the back, and right on cue, the overworked smoke detector beeped lazily. It had sounded angry the first time Emmy had heard it several weeks ago, but now she was unresponsive to its cries. They weren’t what made her hurry through the doorway into the steel-plated kitchen, with a sigh and a smile at the familiar scene, which included the object of her concern and the source of the panicked voice-a short Mexican boy flapping a black-crusted oven mitt over a tray of the smoldering remains of blueberry scones. He smiled up at her sheepishly. Her boyfriend.
Lucas stepped back as she took over, whipping out a knife and quickly slicing off the blackened tops of the scones. After throwing out the unsalvageable bits he hovered at the countertop a few feet away, anticipating her magic. Emmy scooped a dollop of cream cheese frosting onto each scone, rotating the spoon to create the decorative swirl at the top. She’d mixed the frosting herself, for what original purpose he didn’t know, though it was now being used to hide his errors and make order out of chaos.
When she finished, she handed him the bowl, which he hurried to scrub. She didn’t even ask him how it happened, knowing he wouldn’t know, and bent closer to one of the many ovens in the kitchen, studying the gauges.
“How many times have I told you not to mess with my dials?” she asked, as she rotated the knobs of the machine that, in Lucas’ opinion, required an engineering degree, or at least several levels of calculus to operate.
“I’m sorry, mi cielo.” Emmy eyed him skeptically, debating if he’d done it on purpose to bring her back here, closer to him. He liked to let her think that-that he was intentionally sabotaging her art instead of just being clumsy and accident-prone. Emmy moved to check the rest of the dials, just to be safe, but before going back to the front, she came up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Would you please stop trying to get fired?” Emmy looked up at him, pleading with her green eyes. He needed the job.
But instead of looking worried he smiled and pushed her brown curls back behind her ear. “I’d be much less likely to burn the place down if I could sit out front.”
“I told you-pretty girls sell more sweets.” Emmy jumped back as Julio strolled in. He jerked his chin to the door, wordlessly ordering her back to the chair that was too tall for her. Emmy glanced behind her, but Lucas smiled reassuringly, so she left him alone with their boss.
After a few minutes he came out to where she was sitting. “Did you get fired?”
Lucas leaned his elbows on the counter and she shooed him off, rubbing the corner of her apron over the glass. He smiled again. “Not to worry. He likes me.”
“You’re lucky I got you this job.”
“I know. But it’s just temporary. Just till I’m out of nursing school. Then you and me can set up our own shop and I can sit out here all day doing nothing.” Emmy rolled her eyes but when Lucas left, she looked out the window and dreamed of that day.
A few hours later, after the lunch rush for pastries, Emmy pulled her chair a little closer to the window, watching the Chicago streets, bustling with businessmen, shoppers, and teenagers even in the cold of February, the passer-by struggling against the frosted wind that sought to bend them around it. Suddenly, the door opened and the wind rushed inside, pushing a man in a dark puffy jacket, hood up, into the tiny bakery. Emmy straightened and smiled brightly.
“Welcome! how may I…” Emmy felt the smile melt off her face as the man took two steps and collapsed on the polished tile floor. She hurried around the counter and to his side, but gasped and took a step back when she saw the blood dripping into a small puddle.
“Oh-oh, my gosh, I’ll=I’ll call 9-1-1.” She pulled out her phone, but before she could hit the green phone icon, the device was snatched from her hands. She whirled around to see Julio toss her phone onto the counter. He didn’t look at the man on the floor, but immediately went to the door and flipped the sign to closed, calling for Lucas as he did so.
Her boyfriend appeared, took in the man on the floor stoically, vanished, and reappeared with a towel and a small black bag. He sank down beside the man and began pulling off his jacket. The man moaned. Julio’s phone rang and Emmy turned to see his face turn itself to stone.
“I’ve got to take this.” He said, pointing at Lucas. “Fix him.” Then he strode with heavy treads out the door and vanished.
“Emmy!” Lucas’ voice was urgent.
“Hold this towel.” He ordered, blood already seeping through the fabric. Emmy didn’t move.
“Lucas, what are you doing? You’re a first year-you can’t do this-we have to call an ambulance.” She reached for the phone again.
“Don’t you dare dial.” Lucas’ voice was edged in granite but he wasn’t looking at her.
“Lucas-” finally those dark eyes met hers, so serious and the rarity of it scared her more than the blood.
“Emmy! You’ve gotta help me. Stay with me.” He instructed the man as Emmy sank to her knees and placed shaking hands over the bloody towel, pressing down when he instructed, making the wounded man try to turn away.
“It’s gonna be okay.” she whispered shakily, not offended when he groaned again. Her words hadn’t reassured her either. It would have been almost surreal if she couldn’t feel the life pulsing beneath her fingertips. She’d always known things like this happened in Pilsen. But in yuppie Portage Park? With the sun only halfway through the sky? When she looked up, Lucas was pushing her hands away, with a needle between his fingers.
“Lucas, what are you-” the needle bit into the man’s flesh and he cried out. To prevent herself from doing the same, Emmy held her hands over her mouth, forgetting they were stained with the stranger’s blood.
“Lucas.” Julio reappeared. Her boyfriend didn’t look up, concentration etched into faint lines onto his face as he pulled the black thread taught through the slick blood.
“Will he live?” he asked, and the callousness grated on Emmy’s heart.
“If he’s not infected.” The toneless conversation cut into Emmy with startling clarity; this wasn’t the first time.
“Lucas? Do you know what you’re doing?”
“He better-or what have I been paying him for these three years?”
“You hired him three months ago…”
“Because he asked to work with you. Certainly not for his cooking abilities.” Julio barked a laugh.
Emmy stared at Lucas while her blood ran cold and slow like treacle. “You hired Lucas because he’s…”
“One of the best surgeons in the business.” He narrowed his eyes, first at her, then at Lucas.
“You didn’t know?” Emmy’s eyes answered for her, and Julio stepped towards her. The same ancient instinct that told rabbits to run flowed through her and Emmy turned and bolted out into the normalcy of the knife-like wind.
Emmy slammed into the door and pushed outside, the bell tinkling merrily, taunting Lucas as his feet went numb underneath him, because he couldn’t let go of the moaning man and rush after her. He pulled the last two stitches through quickly and tied off the end, the nurse in him prioritizing the patient before he scowled up at his boss.
“I’m done.” He stood up slowly and pushed the things back into the bag he kept for this purpose.
“Good work.”
“It’s my last.” Julio paused and regarded him with calm slate-gray eyes, eyes Lucas had seen swirl with murderous storm many times in the years he’d worked for the drug runner.
“Cause of the girl?” He scoffed. “She left.”
“And she should have! But if I have a chance to get her back…” Julio regarded him evenly, unusually, unnaturally calm, until his wordless interrogation was interrupted by the moaning of the man on the ground.
“Take Pablo home first.” The part of Lucas that wanted to be a nurse, the reason he’d taken the blood money in the first place, couldn’t fight that request. He bent down and helped the foot soldier stand up slowly. Wrapping an arm around his waist, careful to avoid the bullet wound in his side, the two hobbled out to Lucas’ red truck.
Lucas drove through a maze of streets too narrow to be the two-way roads they claimed, Pablo groaning with each pothole. The houses grew gradually shabbier until they reached Pablo’s last known address. Lucas didn’t know who owned it-it wasn’t Pablo and it was possible he didn’t know either, but he helped the foot solider up the chipped cement steps into the house and settled him on the front sofa. Then he went into the bathroom and opened the mirror cabinet, searching for the medicine he’d left here the last time he’d brought him home with stitches, though that had been a knife wound.
“Where’s the meds?” he called as he stared at empty shelves. Pablo muttered something from the other room about giving them to his hermano who’d broken a leg and Lucas sighed and zipped up his coat.
Emmy wandered through the city park under the bare branches, the sun too bright for her current mood. She sat on the steps of the closed park district and watched the world go by: boys on razor scooters shrieking as they drag-raced, girls twirling imaginary pom-poms, mothers with scarves wrapped around their mouths and hands wrapped around cardboard coffee cups, chatting on park benches. She felt like she ought to feel more- betrayal, anger, fear, but she was just numb. She was 20, too young for this. Lucas was too young for this-too young to have been involved in this since he was seventeen. She could understand-it was for the money. She realized dully he must have lied about the scholarship to Roosevelt too. But how could he have let her work there, knowing who Julio was. She shuddered, remembering the dark look in the man’s eyes she hadn’t understood until now.
Julio watched the girl shiver from the cold, not surprising, considering she’d run out of the bakery without a coat. Boys shouted as they raced past him, but he didn’t pay them any attention and they didn’t look at him either, leaning against the tree trunk like he was a fixture of the park as much as it was, rooted there.
His phone buzzed and he took it out of his pocket, swiping right when he saw the name of his runner and held it up to his ear. He didn’t have to say speak and Bruno didn’t give an introduction.
“It’s done, but the wound-it’s not from Martinez. The policia saw him fleeing. They’re tracking him now and-.” Julio ended the call before his informant finished speaking and turned towards the park’s exit, crossing the frozen grass in long strides. He needed to deal with the girl too, but first he had to deal with the fool who’d carried out his order in broad daylight and was dumb enough to get shot by the police. Julio crossed the street and got into his nondescript gray Honda.
Emmy turned suddenly, feeling eyes on her spine but there was no one there. She stood on shaky legs and made her way down the street towards her house. She would put on 80s rock and bake until Lucas showed up with that bright smile on his face and told her it was just a nightmare, that her hands were stained from cherry filling, and not blood.
“I’m going to go around the corner and get some medicine, all right?” Lucas said, hand on the doorknob. Pablo nodded agreement, wincing. Lucas considered telling him not to move, but he didn’t look capable of it anyway. He closed the door behind him and shoved his hands into his pockets, lowering his head into the wind. He didn’t see the small gray Honda creeping up down the block.
It was only 20 minutes later, but the days were so short in the winter that the sun was already setting when he trudged back from the store, oxycodone in hand, courtesy of Julio’s pharmacist. He wasn’t the only poor med-school kid in the employ of Julio’s gang. Cartel, as Emmy would no doubt call it, would probably be the more accurate term. But he hadn’t thought about that, hadn’t been able to see the red flags beyond the stack of cash in his hand the first night after he’d fixed one of Julio’s men. He hadn’t even meant to get involved. But his mom had been a nurse, and so when Lucas saw the boy his own age stumbling down the street one night, he’d taken him home to help. Sewed him up the way he’d watched his mother put his shin back together after he’d dented it with a razor scooter one day in the park.
Then Julio had materialized in his house, looked at his work, put the money on the table and taken the boy without a word. The next day that same boy had shown up, limping, with a job offer. Lucas should have said no. But the lessons he’d learned playing monopoly with his mom after a long shift were getting real-the bank was threatening to take back the house, and the green said pass go. So he did. And after he’d sorted the mortgage, well then there was his dream, to stitch kid’s back together, legally, not in the basement of one of Julio’s storehouses. And then there was Emmy’s dream, her bakery. But Emmy had grown up in a good family. Not rich but put together. She didn’t understand that bricks of cash were like Legos that one used to build dreams. So he’d built it for her, without her knowledge. He’d always intended to tell her, one day. When they were already living in their mansion.
Lucas turned the knob, not realizing until he stepped through the doorway that it gave too easily. The medicine fell to the floor. He didn’t have to put his fingers against Pablo’s neck. No one could survive the two well-aimed bullet holes that while he’d been gone had splattered blood on the pale blue wall behind him. It didn’t look red in the fading light, but black, like rot. He didn’t know what Pablo had done. But it wasn’t the first time his work had been for nothing. Suddenly a thought snapped his head back up to the wall, as though her name were written in the evidence. Emmy.
Emmy sat at the wooden table in the small yellow kitchen, barely enough room for her parents as they pulled on mismatched gloves and checked the video camera for batteries, preparing to go watch her younger brother perform in the school play.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come, mija?” her mother asked as she pulled up her long hair in a way that made her father stop to watch, though they’d been married two decades.
“No.” she said softly.
“Well, I hope you feel better.” She said, kissing her on the forehead. Emmy watched through the window as her father opened the car door for her mother and made her laugh. She smiled weakly.
Julio turned off the lights of his car and watched an older couple get into a minivan and drive away. A light still shone on the upper floor. He got out of the car and, walking as though he lived in this neighborhood, made his way up to the gate. It was unlocked.
Lucas was driving recklessly, pushing his red truck until it rattled in protest, but he ignored the death of his only mode of transportation. He’d only started going to church with Emmy last year, not long enough to make up for his life, not long enough to make God listen, but he prayed anyway.
Julio found the back door locked. He squatted down and pulled a pair of pliers from his pocket. He’d been a breaking and entering expert when he’d been recruited by Los Lobos, probably before this girl was born. The lock yielded and he opened the door softly, closing it behind him. He could afford to be as reckless as Pablo in Pilsen. But he wasn’t a fool. In Portage Park he didn’t want attention.
Emmy pressed the rolling pin into the dough, humming along with the song she’d put on her laptop.
“Everybody’s out on the run tonight”. She spread the strawberry filling over the flat white bread with a knife but had to pause for breath at the way it flowed, like the boy’s blood. She remembered Lucas’ hands pressing into it, could almost hear his voice in the kitchen. “Emmy! You’ve gotta help me. Stay with me.”
Lucas pressed call again and again. “I don’t care if you don’t want to talk to me, just please pick up!” He begged as he sped through a red light, ignoring the honks and the sound of shattering glass and crunching metal behind him.
On the counter in the bakery, an employee’s phone, forgotten in the haste of fleeing, rang for the eighth time.
Julio heard the sounds of Springsteen as he approached the kitchen. Loud enough to hide his quiet steps. He didn’t even need to open the door all the way. The gun fit in his hand like a glove.
A strange sensation came over Emmy and without knowing why she turned around. She saw something dark move in the crack of the door. She didn’t even have time to be afraid.
Lucas slammed into the door and dropped the key. Fumbling on the ground with shaking hands he prayed without words. The lock turned. Up the stairs. The door opened.
He didn’t see her at first-just the dishes in the sink, the flour on the counter. The red of the strawberry filling. And then there was a deeper red. Just a drop, on the floor. But he knew what it was. He couldn’t make himself run, but he also couldn’t stop his feet from rounding the table. When he saw her lying there his heart overrode his brain and threw him down beside her.
Lucas was leaning over her now, shouting, but his voice faded and time elongated to give her the time to remember all the things she didn’t now have the time to do. She never got to argue with Lucas over his involvement with Julio. Never got to bake the cranberry biscuits she had frozen at the bakery. Lucas would probably burn them now. The last thing she remembered was his voice, which sounded so familiar and so far away. “Emmy! You’ve gotta help me! Stay with me. Stay with me.”
Angela Henle is in her second year as a History and Spanish major at the University of Alabama. She is a National Merit Finalist from Chicago, IL, who works in the Archives department of the UA Libraries as well as her school’s Writing Center. She also serves as an editor for the Capstone Journal of Law and Public Policy and volunteers on the Design and Production team for UA’s Red Rook Press. She loves Jane Austen, C.S. Lewis, and reading about World War II.