“You're too quiet.” Simone squeezed his thigh. “If you're worried over Kevin, you should call him. You know he did not really quit.”
“I know.” Maybe Simone wasn’t perfect—hell, he knew he didn’t love her and never would—but she accepted him as he was. “Do you need to pick up your things before the flight?”
“Chloe is meeting me, she has my luggage.” She covered his hand with hers. “You should come with me. We could stay after the shoot, have some alone time. It is the finale. I have nothing planned afterward.”
“I have the showing next week in Boston, and have the details for Amazon trip to arrange.” Dread consumed him at the thought of returning to Boston.
“Are you sure nothing happened that I need to know?” Alert eyes scanned his face.
“Nothing happened that you need to know.” He recalled how he'd ripped Jessica's tank top into pieces and fucked her on the floor. He squirmed in his seat.
“Good. I need to go.” Simone kissed him lightly. “You stay. I think you and Carter need to talk.”
Once she was gone, Carter laughed. “One minute she wants to kill us all and the next she is…almost sensitive.”
“Almost.”
“I think you should call her.”
“She just left.” He smiled and looked over his shoulder to where Simone exited through the door. “I don’t miss her yet.”
“I’m talking about Jessica.”
“Why? We aren’t exactly friendly.”
“No? Kevin told me you went to her apartment last night. Today you aren’t wearing your ring.” Carter shrugged. He had been in Italy with them for a short time, had crashed on their sofa and shared stories well into the night.
“She’s an architect, can you believe it?” He looked away from the knowing in his friend’s eyes.
“Oh, my God, not an architect. The whore.” Carter rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “No wonder you hate her.”
“I never said I hated her.”
“No, you never have said that, have you? Interesting. I have no trouble hating the women who dumped me.” He held up his fingers and began counting. “Now that I think about it, that's a lot of women I never want to see again.”
"She claims she went back." He shoved his hand through his hair and closed his eyes. "She must be lying."
"So she didn't dump you, is that what you're trying to say? Is that why she left everything—"
"She vanished." He dropped his fist onto the table, opened his eyes and stared at his friend. "For three weeks I looked for her like a fool, no idea where she had gone or what had happened, only to find out from a detective that she had boarded a plane and left me. What was I supposed to think? She left."
"So this entire break up is the result of a miscommunication?" Carter frowned and shook his head. "I don't understand."
"Neither do I."
"Why didn't you ask her for more details? Oh, let me guess...you were being dramatic again and stormed off without getting the full story."
"Why does everyone say I am dramatic? I am the calmest person I know." Snap, snap went the rubber band. Screw quitting. He needed a cigarette.
"Doesn't the fact that she went back mean something to you?"
"Meaningless." It pissed him off, that's what that piece of information did for him. What had she expected him to do? Wait forever after finding out that she'd flown back to the United States? How could he have known she would return?
Trust, that was the bottom line. Neither had had enough trust to believe in the other. They're relationship had been built on sex and laughter and nothing more.
"You two were good together, Jacques. I liked her a lot." Sadness clouded Carter's eyes when he looked up from his beer. "I think you need to let her explain."
"Forget I said anything. Life is good for us all, yes? It is pointless to look back."
"That must be why she's the starring attraction of both your book and your exhibit...no looking back for you, right?"
“I need to go.” He tossed money onto the table and patted his friend’s back. “I need to walk.”
Thunder echoed through the streets of Tribeca, drowning out all other noise. A gust of wind whipped through the artificial valley. Rain pelted his face.
He never should have given up the ring. It had been a piece of their puzzle, a symbol of what they'd shared, even if the outcome had been less than what he had expected. He had lost it once, had fought to get it back. He shook off the memory of that awful time following Italy. He'd lost more than the ring then...he'd lost a part of his soul he would never get back. What would Jessica think of him if she knew how far he'd fallen after she had gone?
Rain soaked through his shirt to his skin. He blinked through the haze toward his apartment building. It wasn’t much. A stopping place, really. He didn’t need a home. He was a gypsy, a wanderer who felt at home only on the road, in a foreign land, with nothing but his backpack and a friend.
Once inside, he walked the two flights to his apartment. He dropped his head against the door and closed his eyes.
Jessica wasn’t the liar. He was. He missed the apartment in Florence more than he could admit. He missed the way it had smelled, especially after a good rain like this. The air would fill up with aroma, flowers and food. Jessica would leave the windows open, it had always been too hot for her. God, how he missed it.
“Jacques? Are you all right?” Ava, his older sister, stood on the stairs behind him. Dressed all in black with her blonde hair twisted into a loose knot at her neck, she looked the part of up and coming fashion designer. She leaned her shoulder against the wall and squinted at him. "You're soaking wet, couldn't you find a taxi?"
“I walked.” He didn’t want visitors. He needed solitude.
“Without an umbrella, I see.” She nodded at the door. “Let us in, please. I need to talk to you.”
“You couldn’t call?” He unlocked the door and held it open for her.
Without saying another word, he walked to his bedroom and changed clothes. As an afterthought, he rummaged through all of the drawers in his dresser looking for a lost cigarette. There had to be one somewhere. He moved to the kitchen where he dumped out the drawers until, at last, he found what he was looking for.
“I knew you wouldn’t quit,” Ava said without turning to look at him.
“Everyone knows me so well, don’t they?” He collapsed onto the curving leather sofa, the only piece of furniture in the room except for a flat screen television and a stereo, and stretched his legs out. Only after he had lit his cigarette and inhaled the sweetness, did he speak again. “What brings you to my neighborhood? I thought you were working in your studio all weekend.”
“Kevin tells me you saw Jessica yesterday,” she said. “Were you with her last night?”
“Kevin is more of a woman than you are, always gossiping.”
“And?”
“And nothing. She has her life and I have mine.”
“Simple then.” She shrugged and smiled at the ceiling.
“What are you smiling at?”
“Did you tell her that you agreed to show your photographs in Boston for a chance at seeing her again?” She crossed her ankles and looked overly pleased with herself.
“I agreed to the gallery exhibit because it is the natural next step in my career.” He walked to the window overlooking the street. “I'm not going to stay in the States much longer. I’ve been in one place too long.”
“Two months is now too long?” Ava unwound her legs to stand at his side. She studied him with the knowledge of a sibling. “When did you decide this?”
“I never should have come to New York. All I have ever required was an address and I have you for that, right?” He had let Ava twist his arm about coming to the United States. She had set up permanent residence here to start her own clothing line and wanted him close. So here he was. Close. Too close, in his opinion.
“Tell me what happened with Jessica.”
“I accepted an assignment with National Geographic. I'll be going to South America with Carter. We leave at the beginning of next month. Carter and I are doing a documentary together, a first for me. I look forward to it, new challenges and all of that.” He lifted the cigarette to his lips. “The thing in Boston will be finished, I’ll sublet the apartment, and be on my way. It’s a good challenge. Something new.”
“You’re acting careless, like you did after she returned to the States. Unnecessary risks, rash decisions. What happened in Boston yesterday?” Ava grabbed his arm and pinched until he glared at her. “Answer me. Is she married?”
“I’m tired...tired of promoting a book of photographs that will sit on a coffee table in a stranger’s living room...tired of talking to gallery owners who view my work as property, as an asset...tired of keeping a schedule.”
“You’re lying. Is she married?”
“Jessica has changed. She’s…” He thought of her last night at her apartment, splattered in paint, dressed in ratty clothes and…familiar.
“She’s what?”
“Irrelevant, that's what she is.” He shoved away from the window and paced the room. “All that talent and promise hidden away beneath short hair and fancy clothes.”
“Fancy clothes? Short hair? Must be ugly.”
“She straightens her hair, can you believe that? All those curls gone, why does she do that?"
“How awful. Tragic.”
He frowned at her laugh. "The Jessica I knew is dead.”
“So dramatic.” She folded her arms across her chest, her face alive with mischief. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you still love her. But of course, I do know better.”
“I am not in love with Jessica Moriarty.” He winced at the memory of her body against his, the taste of her mouth, the smell of spilled wine, the feel of paint against his skin.
“Of course you’re not. If you were, you would be doing something irrational like giving a damn about what she’s doing with her art, obsessing about her hair, and accepting dangerous assignments to South America of all places.” She wrinkled her nose. "What are you going to do there anyway? Where in South America? You're not having anything to do with the drug cartels, I hope."
“I'm wet and in a bad mood. You should go.” He walked back to the sofa and reached for the remote. “I want to be alone.”
She studied him through eyes the exact replica of his. “I have wondered about her for a long time, too. We were like sisters, she and I. We had a lot of fun in that apartment of yours. God, do you remember when she dared us all to skinny-dip in that fountain in Roma? She was the first in, always so daring. She had spirit. Fire. I loved her.”
He remembered. Off with her clothes, she had danced in the fountain and dared them all to join her. She had been wild then. They had all followed...Carter, Ava, and him. Drunk on cheap wine and laughing because they dared break the law with the audacity of youth, they had splashed and slipped and danced until the police had come around the corner. Screaming and stumbling, they had gathered their clothes and sprinted naked toward an alley.
Daring? Yes, she had been, but he doubted she was now. Who was the real Jessica? The one he'd fallen in love with in Italy or the one who hid her painting behind closed doors in Boston? He hated that she'd invaded his mind.
“Did you invite her to your gallery opening? She would love that, I—”
“Can we change the subject, please?” Frustrated with the remote and with everyone in his life, he switched off the television and turned on the stereo. "She claims she went back, a month later, but I had already left. I don't believe her."
"Of course you don't, that would change everything, wouldn't it?"
"It changes nothing. I'm tired of discussing it."
Ava kicked off her shoes and sat on the sofa next to him. Together they listened to music and watched the rain splatter against the windows. He dropped his head against the cushions and enjoyed the last cigarette he had in the house.
“She would enjoy seeing your work on display, I know she would,” Ava’s voice whispered through the room. “What did she call it? Your someday? I think that is—”
“The woman who lives in Boston does not believe in somedays. Let it be.” He closed his eyes and listened to the pit pattering of rain against glass.
She was silent before he felt her stand from the sofa. Through half-closed eyes, he watched her retrieve her umbrella and stand by the door.
“I think I might go to Boston a few days early, say hello. Sounds like she needs a fashion intervention, with the fancy clothes and short hair crisis.”
Always one to have the last word, Ava left him stewing in the emptiness of his apartment.
* * *
After a long ride on the T for yet another Julie emergency, she stood in front of her mom's house. The neighbor had called at dawn, saying that the police had been outside taking away some strange man. Drunk again, she assumed, as she walked up the stairs and unlocked the door at noon.
She hadn't grown up here, wished she'd had the sort of childhood where she could talk about old friends and pets, the kind of home where she could find marks on the wall that highlighted her growth over the years. In a way, she did have that with the apartment she'd inherited from her grandmother, but it wasn't the same. Not really. That had always been her escape, but had never truly filled the void.
As far as she was concerned, her official history began in college where she'd reinvented herself for the most part. How many times had Julie showed up at campus, though, with one of her new men wanting to show off her daughter? That's what she'd always been...a trophy of sorts for her mother to use as proof that she hadn't sucked as a parent, but only brought out when necessary to impress otherwise forgotten about to collect dust.
Julie stretched along the sofa wearing only a t-shirt, panties and one sock. Empty beer bottles lined the coffee table. Fresh bruises lined her mom's face. According to the neighbor, the police had been here for hours.
"Oh, mom," she whispered before sitting on the chair opposite the sofa.
"I don't want you here," her mother answered without opening her eyes. "I didn't call you."
"Sylvia—"
"—Is a busy body who should mind her own goddamn business." Julie pushed herself to sitting, arranged her shirt to her thighs, and avoided making eye contact. "It's Saturday, shouldn't you be doing something fun?"
"Are you okay? Should you be going to the hospital to get checked out or...who did this to you?" How many times had she asked these same questions?
"Travis. I met him in Atlantic City last week, he's been—"
"You brought him home with you?"
"You do not get to ask me questions." Julie pointed a newly manicured finger at her. "Let's not forget who the mother is, got it? You've always been such a downer. One day you'll see it's not so easy being a parent. I gave up everything for you, don't you see? Now look at me. I'm all alone while you're off in the city leading your fancy life."
Deciding not to argue, she grabbed an armful of bottles and carried them into the kitchen. After seeing that the garbage can was full, she dumped them all onto the counter.
"Travis didn't mean to do this. It was that Sylvia who called the police, had to get involved." Julie leaned against the kitchen table. "Do not come in here and clean my house like you own the place."
She closed her eyes and silently counted to twenty. Why she bothered anymore was anyone's guess. She'd rode on the train for the past hour trying to get to her mom, could have taken her motorcycle, but the sky threatened rain.
"I told Travis you were an architect. He's in construction. I told him you could probably set him up real nice on one of your projects. I gave him your phone—"
"Please say you're lying."
"Don't get all snooty. You've always thought you were better than me, but you're not."
"For God's sake, mom, you're fifty-nine years old and you're sitting here with bruises on your face surrounded by
filth and—"
Her words were silenced with a slap. She took a step back until her hip collided with the counter, her hands automatically covering the sting on her cheek.
"You're not better than me." Julie shook her head and looked away. "Who are you to judge? I deserve a good man."
"A good man doesn't hit you or expect your daughter to get him a job." She walked away from the kitchen and into the living room.
Her entire body quaked with anger and frustration. Nothing felt familiar anymore, not since Jacques had walked down those stairs at the bookstore yesterday. Being here with her mom, having the same conversation she'd had at least one thousand times in her lifetime, and picking up beer bottles felt wrong.
"Where are you going?" Julie followed her onto the porch. "It took you an hour to get here, right?"
"You know what, mom? You don't deserve to get hit and neither do I." She spun on her heel and looked her mother in the face. "Yes, it took me an hour to get here, but so what? Why did I even come? Oh yeah, that's right, I thought you were hurt and needed your one and only daughter so here I am. Look at you—" she motioned to the t-shirt and sock—"didn't you ever want more than this?"
"You know I did—"
"No, I don't. I'm not talking about all the men, I mean you as Julie, as a woman, didn't you want more than this? Is this what you wanted when you were my age? To be an alcoholic—"
She grabbed Julie's arm as it raised for another slap.
"—a woman dependent on a man or her own daughter for money, for consolation?"
"I put you through college. My sacrifices gave you this fancy life of yours."
"No, you didn't. Grandma helped, I worked three jobs, and have loans I'll be paying for the next twenty years. I can't keep doing this."
"Doing what? You're my daughter. You owe me."
Conscious of Sylvia looking out the window, she released her hold on her mother's arm and walked back inside the house. She'd come this far so she may as well clean the house, get it in order, do something productive.
"I'll get dressed," Julie said. "We can go to lunch if you want."
Dancing Barefoot Page 6
