Enough

by Maureen S. O'Brien

Disclaimer: Early Edition and its characters and situations
don't belong to me.


Marissa sat at her table, stroking the ginger cat with a
deliberately slow hand. The cat abruptly began purring, 
which she took as a good sign.

"So what's happening, cat?" she said quietly, aware that 
the bartender was too far away from her table to hear. 
"I wish I knew the way you do."

The cat merely stretched luxuriously under her hand as 
cats do, as if to say that what she was doing now was all 
she needed to justify her life.

But it wasn't. Not really. Sure, she was helping Gary out 
by managing the bar and freeing him up to work on the paper.
Sure, she liked it well enough. But was that all there was? 

"You've got Marissa and that cat and the paper," she'd 
overheard Gary's mother say. "But is that enough for life?"

A fixture in Gary's life, like the cat and the bar. A 
convenience. She swallowed hard. She'd always tried so 
hard to be her own woman, but somewhere along the line, 
it had all gone wrong. Just like it usually did when she 
tried to help Gary with the paper directly. Her hand froze 
in place. Like the time she'd gone with Spike to rescue Gary, 
and ended up needing to be rescued herself. 

Face it; outside the small world of the bar she was a 
liability. No wonder Mrs. Hobson and Kate O'Rourke had 
left her behind when they went to save Gary. She would 
only have gotten in the way.

The cat meowed at her imperiously.

"I'm sorry," she said with a shaky smile. "Got lost in my 
thoughts. I didn't mean to stop petting you." She resumed 
immediately, but the cat meowed again and got up. Then she 
heard it land quietly on the floor. 

Her heart raced. Gary must be in trouble again. She reached 
for her cane. The cat meowed again and again as it walked 
across to the door. She followed. The cat waited quietly 
at the door until she opened it for him, then began to 
meow its way along again. But only a little way along the 
street, it began to wreathe its way around her feet. She 
stopped dead.

"My bus!" she heard a man moan. "They hijacked my bus!"

She shook her head. She'd been wondering how the 
O'Rourkes had gone after Gary without a car. 

Then she approached the moaning busdriver. "I'm sorry, 
but do you need help? I manage McGinty's, just down the 
street there; you can use our phone if you need."

"Hey, I know you. You're the blind lady." 

What was your first clue? thought Marissa. The white 
cane or my eyes?

"You're Miss Marissa. You ride my route sometimes," the 
busdriver happily identified her. "Boy, after getting 
attacked by those crazy people, am I glad to see you! 
You're like an angel from heaven."

"From McGinty's," she corrected. "Come on." With any luck, 
she thought, those crazy people will come back with your 
bus soon. Otherwise, Gary and I will have to bail out his 
would-be in-laws for grand theft Metro.

She shooed the busdriver inside and directed the bartender 
to keep an eye on the poor man. But she didn't feel like 
staying inside, and neither did the cat. He mewed 
impatiently, and she followed.

Suddenly she heard two sets of running footsteps and a 
distant cry of "Stop, thief!" Sad to say, she'd been 
feeling like doing something destructive all day. So she 
took a positively unholy pleasure in sticking out her cane 
at exactly the right moment to trip up a perfect stranger, 
who might in fact be entirely innocent. She also took 
pleasure in kicking something that she heard the stranger 
drop back behind her into the bar.

"Hey, whaddaya think you're doin', chick?" she heard the 
man say. "I'm gonna make you sorry you got in my way!" 

She prepared to do battle with her cane, but in the end 
she didn't need to. The busdriver emerged from the bar 
behind her, boiling with unused adrenaline. "Hey, you 
can't go hitting a blind lady!" she heard him yell. A 
second later, she heard the thief thump to the pavement.

Another man came running down the sidewalk, then stopped, 
puffing. "My wallet!" she heard him say as he bent down. 
"You stopped him and you got my wallet back!"

"Glad to help," she said. And she was. Most fun she'd 
had in weeks.

Just then, a police siren began wailing its way down the 
street. So the busdriver had called the police and a 
squad car had just happened to be this close. 

"My whole life's in my wallet!" the man continued, dazed.
"ID, credit cards, pictures of my kids...look, I've got to 
give you some kind of reward."

She shook her head. "That's all right."

"No. I insist." A strange hand forced a wad of bills into 
hers.  "Six hundred dollars is cheap compared to what I 
could have lost."

"No, really, I...six hundred dollars?" Her knees felt 
suddenly weak. Somewhere near her feet, the cat began 
purring.

The cop emerged from the car. The man with the wallet and 
the busdriver ran over to tell their stories. The 
O'Rourkes, Quigley, Mrs. Hobson and Gary wandered back 
in a few minutes later. Kieran O'Rourke, prodded by his 
sister, apologized humbly for stealing the bus while 
somehow leaving the impression in the busdriver's mind 
that he was just a poor hick from the Irish sticks who 
couldn't be expected to know better. Marissa listened with 
appreciation from the shadows.

Just to show there were no hard feelings, Frank Flynn 
(the man in the dumpster that Gary had left to save) 
bought a round for the house, including the busdriver. 
He then left with Kate while the getting was good. 

"That Frank Flynn guy's pretty smart," Gary whispered into 
her ear under the drone of uillean pipes and the thump of 
a bodhran. "Maybe we should get the heck out of here, too."

"Rank Hath Its Privileges," she agreed. She picked up her 
cane and got to her feet.

"Hey, Mr. Hobson!" the busdriver said cheerily. "You sure 
are lucky to have Miss Marissa working here!"

"Y-you're right," Gary agreed nervously. "And that's why 
I've got to go back to the office with her, like she tells 
me."

"You know, she stopped a pursesnatcher today with her cane?"

"Yeah, yeah, I...." Gary stopped dead in the middle of 
his escape. "You tangled with a pursesnatcher?"

Marissa sighed. "It was nothing, Gary."

"But, but you could have gotten hurt!" Gary insisted. "He 
could've had a knife or a gun or...or something."

"This from the man who had an entire enraged family out 
for his blood," Marissa pointed out, annoyed.

"And the man who got his wallet back gave her six hundred 
dollars!" the busdriver chimed in.

"Six hundred...six hundred dollars, huh?" Gary sounded 
really annoyed now. "Well, that's really nice of him.
Thanks for telling me about this, sir. But Miss Marissa 
and I have to go to the office now."

"Yes, we do," Marissa said, feeling more than a little 
annoyed herself as Gary practically dragged her across 
the floor. "See you later!"

"Bye, Miss Marissa. See you on the bus sometime."


The door slammed shut.

"Six hundred dollars, huh? And what did you do with it?"

"I paid off Quigley's tab and told the bartender to start 
serving him again."

"You paid off...I don't care if Quigley ever drinks again!
There's no such thing as a curse!"

"There's no such thing as getting tomorrow's newspaper, 
either," she insisted. "Besides, that Quigley is enough 
trouble without a curse. Did you know he's the one who 
called up your mother?"

"Yes, I do. And I don't want him drinking in my bar."
She heard Gary start pacing the floor. "Look, Marissa, 
that's your money. I don't want you spending it on 
Quigley."

"It's the cat's money," she retorted. "He led me out to 
stop that pursesnatcher."

"Coincidence."

"Right. And six hundred dollars is a coincidence, too."

"Hey, it could be," Gary said without conviction.

"But it's not." She put out her hand and touched Gary's 
shoulder.

The sound of the music filtered in from outside, and the 
cat jumped up on the desk. Gary shrugged helplessly. 
"How can I argue with you and the cat?"

Marissa smiled. "Then don't argue." Her smile twisted. 
"It's good training for being married to Bugatti."

"Bugatti and me...well, there isn't a Bugatti and me. 
Not anymore."

"I'm sorry," Marissa said quietly. "Quigley didn't call 
her, too, did he?"

"Nah. Well, yeah, but we'd already broken up and stuff. 
I was gonna tell you, but then all this came up." He 
sighed. "Too bad the paper doesn't give relationship 
advice." His shoulders bent. Marissa suspected Gary was 
giving the cat some kind of nasty expression.

"Don't worry, Gary. You'll find someone," she said lamely.

"Yeah, right. Like anybody's ever gonna stick around 
with me as long as the paper's in control of my life.
I've only been doing the paper for what, four years? And 
I'm gonna have it for, what, another fifteen or sixteen? 
Who's gonna put up with that?"

"Well, I do," Marissa pointed out. "So it's not impossible 
that somebody else would."

"Yeah, but people like you don't grow on trees, Marissa. 
I mean, you're so patient it's supernatural. And you 
always know what to say, even when I don't want to hear it.
And you're always there for me, no matter how crazy it 
gets. And...."

Gary froze under her hand. She could hear the music 
filtering through the walls again. Someone had gotten out 
that pretty wooden flute again, and was playing a slow 
and lovely tune.

"What?" she said irritatedly as the silence stretched out 
further.

"I was just thinking that...that I've been a lot like 
Kate. I've been looking all around for someone and maybe 
not being too smart about it."

Marissa raised an eyebrow. 

"No maybe about it, huh?"

"You've got a kind heart, Gary. If a woman's not smart 
enough to want that, then you should be smart enough not 
to want her."

"So what if I find a woman with a kind heart who...who 
doesn't mind a guy who keeps running around and, you know, 
saving people?"

Marissa's smile twisted again. "Then I'll come and be a 
bridesmaid at your wedding, too." And maybe I can be left 
behind then, too.

"But what if...what if I asked you to be the bride instead?"

Suddenly, Marissa was finding it very hard to breathe. "Gary, 
you don't...." she managed to breathe.

His hand cupped one side of her face in warmth. "I'm tired 
of dating women who don't hold a candle to you. And you're 
gorgeous, too," he commented, almost to himself. "I'm an 
idiot! Why didn't I think of this before?"

"Gary, I...."

"And the night you stayed over at my apartment, when I 
was blind. It was so nice to wake up and have you there, 
like it was a reason to get up in the morning instead of 
just giving up." The words tumbled out of him, and she 
let them roll.  And when my sight came back and I saw you, 
you were the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Prettier 
than sunrise over the Lake or anything." 

"But I know I'm not that great of a catch," he added 
worriedly. "I'm...well, I know I'm not as good a guy as 
you deserve. But take some time and think about it, and...."

She interrupted his descent into self-doubt. "Gary."

"Uh, yeah?"

She reached out and pulled Gary's face back toward hers.
"I'd like to kiss you now."

"Oh." She felt his smile through her fingertips. "Uh, 
yeah. That sounds like a real good...." 

His voice died away as she touched his lips with her own. 
His arms wound around her tightly. They were strong but 
gentle. But her arms were strong, too, and she held onto 
him with the same fierce passion that began to seep into 
her kissing. 

"Wow," Gary said reverently when they broke apart. He 
stroked her hair as he held her against him. She heard 
the music still sweeping along and the cat purring as 
if they were sounds transmitted from another world. She 
felt a lot like purring herself.

She touched Gary's face to get his attention. "Not to say 
anything against Chuck," she said reluctantly, "but I 
think we'd better date a little longer than he and Jade 
did."

"What? All of a month?" They chuckled together. "Any 
other conditions?"

"If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. The 
business doesn't suffer."

"It'll work out." 

Marissa gave Gary a look.

"Okay, the business doesn't suffer. And we stay friends. 
But it's gonna work out."

"And one more thing. You let me help out more on the paper."

She felt Gary open his mouth to say something, but then 
he closed it again. "I just want you to be safe," he 
said finally. "I worry about you."

"Don't you think I worry about you?" she asked. "It's too 
big of a job for just one person. And then the paper -- 
or the cat -- just ends up getting me to help anyway."

"Well, yeah, that's true," he acknowledged. "But you have 
to keep managing the bar, 'cause I'm not real good about 
all that stuff."

"Okay. Any other conditions?"

"I...." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I want to have 
kids, Marissa."

"So do I."

She felt him swallow hard. "Tha-- that's great! Um. That's 
about it."

Her heart hurt a little. And Gary thought he didn't deserve 
her.

"I guess we're officially dating," she said then. 

"Does that mean I can ask you to dance with me out there?"

"I thought you wanted to escape the party."

Gary's voice grew warm. "Yeah, but now I have something 
to celebrate. And somebody to celebrate with."

She extended her arm, and Gary placed it on his own. They 
walked out the door and back into the warmth and noise of 
the bar.