“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I have to spend Christmas with Ian.” She looked mournful at the thought.
“You don’t ‘have’ to.”
“All right, I want to.” Christmas without Ian? No way.
“Even with the window between you?” Jessica nodded. “Why, for God’s sake? As a penance to absolve you of the guilt you’re heaping on your own head? Jessica, don’t be ridiculous. Ian would probably love to know that you’re doing something pleasant, like going down to the ranch.” Jessica didn’t answer, and after a pause, Astrid said what she had really been thinking. “Or would you rather torture him by letting him see how much you can suffer on Christmas?”
Jessica’s eyes flew wide open again on that one.
“Jesus, you make it sound like I’m trying to punch him.”
“Maybe you are. I think you just can’t decide right now who you hate more—him or yourself. And I think you’ve both had enough punishment, Ian at the hands of the State, and you at your own. Can’t you start to be good to yourself now, Jessica? And maybe then you’ll be able to be good to him.” There was more truth in Astrid’s words than Jessie was ready for.
“You can take care of you, Jessie. And Ian will take care of you, even at a distance. Your friends will help. But most of all, you have to see that you’re much more capable than you know.”
“How do you know?”
“I know. You’re scared and you have a right to be. But if you’d just calm down a little, and take stock of yourself, kindly, you’d be a lot less scared. But you’re going to have to stop running to do that.”
“And stop taking pills?”
Astrid nodded, and Jessie remained silent She wasn’t ready to do that yet. She knew it without even trying.
But she did try. Astrid left without giving her any, and Jessica went to the bank with Ian’s manuscript—with trembling hands and trembling knees, but without taking another pill. From there she went to the post office, and from there on to the shop. She lasted at Lady J for less than an hour, and then she came home to pace. She spent the night huddled in a chair in the living room, nauseated, trembling, wide-eyed, and wearing a sweater of Ian’s. It still had the smell of his cologne on it, and she could feel him with her. She could sense him watching her as she sat in front of the fireplace. She kept seeing faces in the fire—Ian’s, her mother’s, Jake’s, her father’s. They came to her late in the night. And then she thought she heard strange sounds in the garage. She wanted to scream but couldn’t. She wanted pills but didn’t have any. She never went to bed that night, and at seven in the morning she called the doctor. He gave her everything she wanted.
Chapter 23
At Christmas, Astrid spent three weeks at the ranch with her mother. Jessica was swamped at the boutique. She was falling into a routine now with her visits to Ian. She drove up two weekday mornings and on Sundays. She was putting four hundred miles a week on his car, and the Volvo wasn’t going to take the wear much longer. She almost wondered if she and the car would die together, simply keel over at the side of the road and die. In the Volvo’s case it would be from old age; in Jessie’s, from strain and exhaustion. That and too many pills. But she functioned well with them now. Most people still couldn’t tell. And Ian hadn’t yet confronted her about them. She assumed that he simply didn’t want to see what was happening. It was fine with her.
She couldn’t send him a Christmas present this year. He was allowed to receive only money, so she sent him a check. And forgot to buy Christmas presents for the two girls in the shop. All she thought about was putting gas in the car, surviving the visits with Ian on the opposite side of the glass window, and getting her prescriptions refilled. Nothing else seemed to matter. And whatever energy she had left she spent figuring out the bills. She was making some headway with them, and she would wake up in the morning figuring out how to cover this, if she borrowed from that, if she didn’t pay that until … she was hoping that Christmas profits would put her back in the black. But Lady J was having its own problems. Something was off, and she couldn’t bring herself to care as much as she’d used to. Lady J was only a vehicle now, not a joy. It was a means of paying bills, and a place to go in the daytime. She could hide in the little office in the back of the shop and juggle those bills. She rarely came out to see customers now. After a few minutes, the now familiar rising wave of panic would seize her throat and she’d have to excuse herself … a yellow pill … a blue one … a quick sip of Scotch … something … anything to kill the panic. It was easier just to sit in the back and let the girls handle the customers. She was too busy anyway. With the bills. And with trying not to think. It took a lot of effort not to think, especially late at night or early in the morning. Suddenly, for the first time in years, she had perfect recall of her mother’s voice, her father’s laughter. She had forgotten them for so long, and now they were back. They said things … about each other … about her … about Ian … and they were right. They wanted her to think. Jake even said something once. But she didn’t want to think. It wasn’t time yet. She didn’t have to … didn’t want to … couldn’t … they couldn’t make her … they …
Christmas did not fall on a visiting day, so she couldn’t spend it with Ian after all. She spent it alone, with three red pills and two yellow ones. She didn’t wake up until four the next afternoon, and then she could go back to the shop. She wanted to mark some things down for a sale. They had lost money at Christmas and she had to make it up. A good fat sale would really do it. She would send out little cards to their best customers. It would bring them in droves—she hoped.
She worked on the books straight through New Year’s, and finally remembered to give Zina and Kat checks instead of the Christmas presents she had overlooked. Jessie had gotten three presents, and a poem from Ian. Astrid had given her a simple and lovely gold bracelet, and Zina and Kat had given her small, thoughtful things. A homemade potpourri in a pretty French jar from Zina, and a small line drawing in a silver frame from Katsuko. And she had read the poem from Ian over and over on Christmas Eve. It was quickly dog-eared as it lay on her nightstand.
She had taken it with her to the office, and now carried it in her bag, to bring out and read during the day. She knew it by heart the day after she’d gotten it.
Katsuko and Zina wondered what she did in her office all the time now. She would emerge for coffee, or to look for something in the stockroom, but she rarely spoke to them, and never joked anymore. Gone were the days of cozy gossip and the easy camaraderie the three had shared. It was as though Jessie had vanished when Ian did. She would appear at the door of her small office at the end of the day, sometimes with a pencil stuck in her hair, a distracted look, a small packet of bills in one hand, and sometimes with eyes that were bloodshot and swollen. She was quicker to snap at people now, quicker to lose patience over trivial matters. And there was always that dead look in her eyes. The look that said she lay awake at night. The look that said she was more frightened than she wanted them to know. And the unmistakable glaze from the pills.
Only the days when she visited Ian were a little different. She was alive then. Something sparkled behind the wall she had built between herself and the rest of the world. Something different would happen in her eyes then, but she would share it with no one. Not even with Astrid, who was spending more and more time at the shop, and getting to know Zina and Katsuko. In a sense, Astrid had replaced Jessie. She had the kind of easy-going ways that Jessie had had before. She enjoyed the shop, the people, the clothes, the girls. She had time to talk and laugh. She had new ideas. She loved the place, and it showed. The girls had grown fond of her. She even came in on the days when Jessie was with Ian.
“You know, sometimes I think I sit here just so I know when she gets back. I worry about her making that drive.”
“So do we.” Katsuko shook her head.
“She told me the other day that she just does it on ‘automatic pilot.’” Zina’s
words weren’t much comfort. “She says that sometimes she doesn’t even remember where she is or what she’s doing until she sees that sign.”
“Terrific.” Astrid took a sip of coffee and shook her head.
“Grim, isn’t it? I wonder how long she’ll hold up. She can’t just keep plodding on like that. She has to go somewhere, see people, smile occasionally, sleep.” And sober up. Katsuko didn’t say it, but they all thought it. “She doesn’t even took like the same woman anymore. I wonder how he’s doing.”
“A little better than she is, actually. But I haven’t seen him for a while. I think he’s less afraid.”
“Is that what it is with her?” Zina looked stunned. “I thought she was just exhausted.”
“That too. But it’s fear.” Astrid sounded hesitant to discuss it.
“And pressure. Lady J has been giving her a rough time lately.”
“Oh? Looks busy enough.”
Katsuko shook her head, reluctant to say more. She had taken calls lately from people Jessie owed money to. For the first time the business was in trouble, and there was no money to fall back on. Jessie had bled every last cent of their spare money for Ian. So now Lady J was paying Ian’s price too.
Jessie walked into the shop then, and the conversation came to a halt. She looked haggard and thin but there was something brighter in her eyes, that indefinable something that Ian poured back into her soul. Life.
“Well, ladies, how has life been treating you all today? Are you spending all your money here again, Astrid?” Jessie sat down and took a sip of someone’s cold coffee. The small yellow pill she slipped into her mouth at the same time was barely noticeable. But Astrid noticed.
“Nope. Not spending a dime today. Just dropped by for some coffee and company. How’s Ian?”
“Fine, I guess. Full of the book. How was business today?” She didn’t seem to want to talk about Ian. She rarely spoke of anything important to her anymore. Even to Astrid.
“It was pretty quiet today.” Katsuko filled her in on business while Zina watched the slight trembling of Jessie’s hand.
“Terrific. A dead business, and a dead car. The Volvo just breathed its last.” She sounded unconcerned, as though it really didn’t matter because she had twelve other cars at home.
“On your way home?”
“Naturally. I hitched a ride with two kids in Berkeley. In a 1952 Studebaker truck. It was pink with green trim and they called it the Watermelon. It drove like one too.” She tried to make light of it while the three women watched her.
“So where’s the car?”
“At a service station in Berkeley. The owner offered me seventy-five bucks for it, and agreed to drop the towing charge.”
“Did you sell it?” Even Katsuko looked stunned.
“Nope. I can’t. It’s Ian’s. But I guess I will. That car has had it.” And so have I. She didn’t say it, but they all heard it in her voice. “Easy come, easy go. I’ll pick up something cheap for my trips up to Ian.” But with what? Where would the money come from for that?
“I’ll drive you.” Astrid’s voice was quiet and strangely calm. Jessica looked up at her and nodded. There was no point in protesting. She needed help and she knew it, and not just with the drive.
Astrid drove Jessica up to see Ian three times a week from then on. It saved Jessie the trouble of waiting to take the two yellow pills when she got there. This way she could take two in the morning, and another two after she saw him. Sometimes she even threw in a green-and-black one. Every little bit helped.
And Astrid could no longer talk to her. There was no use even trying. All she could do was stand by and be there when the roof finally came down. If it did, when it did, wherever and however. Jessica was heading for a stone wall as fast as she could. Nothing less was going to stop her. And Ian couldn’t reach her either. Astrid saw that clearly now. He couldn’t face what was happening to Jessie, because he couldn’t help. If he couldn’t help, he wouldn’t see. And each time Jessie appeared, looking more tortured, more exhausted, more brittle, more rooted in pain and draped in bravado, it would only hurt Ian more. He would feel greater guilt, greater indebtedness, greater pain of his own. Their eyes rarely met now. They simply talked. He about the book, she about the boutique. Never about the past or the future or the realities of the present. They never spoke of feelings, but only threw out “I love you” at regular intervals, like punctuation. It was grisly to watch, and Astrid hated the visits. She wanted to shake them both, to speak out, to stop what she was seeing. Instead they just went on dying quietly on opposite sides of the glass wall, in their own private hells, Ian with his guilt and Jessica with hers, and each of them with their blindness about themselves and about each other. While Astrid watched, mute and horrified.
If only they could have held each other, then they might have been real. But they couldn’t, and they weren’t. Astrid knew that as she watched them. She could see it in Jessie’s eyes now. There was constant pain, but there was also the look of a child who does not understand. Her husband was gone, but what was a husband, and where had he gone? The pills had allowed her to submerge herself in a sea of vagueness, and she rarely came to the surface anymore. She was very close to drowning, and Astrid wasn’t entirely sure if Ian hadn’t already drowned. Astrid could have done without the visits. But they were all locked into their roles now. Husband, wife, and friend.
January bled into February and then limped into March. The boutique had a two-week sale that brought scarcely any business. Everyone was busy or away or feeling poor. The last of their winter line hadn’t done well at all; the economy was weak, and luxuries were going with it. Lady J was not a boutique to supply ordinary needs. It catered to a select clientele of the internationally chic. And her clients’ husbands were telling them to lay off. The market was bad. They were no longer amused by a “little” sweater and a “nothing” skirt that cost them in toto close to two hundred dollars.
“Christ, what are we going to do with all this junk?” Jessie paced the floor, opening a fresh pack of cigarettes. She had seen Ian that morning. Once again through the window. Still through the window. Forever through the window. She had visions of finally getting to touch him again when they were both ninety-seven years old. She didn’t even dream of his coming home anymore. Just of being able to touch him.
“We’re going to have a real problem, Jessie, when the spring line comes in.” Katsuko looked around pensively.
“Yeah, the bastards. It was due in last week and it’s late.” She swept into the stockroom to see what was there. She was annoyed much of the time now. The pain was showing itself differently. It wasn’t enough now to hide: it was taking more to silence her inner voices.
“You know, I’ve been thinking.” Katsuko had followed her into the stockroom and was watching her.
“Was it painful?” Jessie looked up, smiled awkwardly, and then shrugged. “Sorry. What were you thinking, Kat?” That sounded like the old Jessie. But it was rare now.
“About next fall’s line. Are you going to New York one of these days?” On what? A broomstick?
“I don’t know yet.”
“What’ll we do for a fall line if you don’t?” Katsuko was worried. There was almost no money for a new line, and there were still unpaid bills all over Jessie’s desk.
“I don’t know, Kat. I’ll see.”
She walked into her office and slammed the door, her mouth in a small set line. Zina and Kat exchanged a glance. Zina answered the phone when it rang. It was for Jessie. From some record store. She buzzed Jessie’s office and watched her pick up the phone. The light on the phone Zina had answered went out only a few moments later.
And in her office Jessie’s hands were trembling as she toyed with a pencil on her desk. It had been another one of those calls. They were sure it was an oversight, undoubtedly she had forgotten to send them a check for the amount that was due … at least these had been polite. The doctor’s office had called yesterday and he had
threatened to sue. For fifty dollars? A doctor was going to sue her for fifty dollars? … And a dentist for ninety-eight … and there was still a liquor store bill for Ian’s wine for a hundred and forty-five … and she owed the cleaner’s twenty-six and the drugstore thirty-three and the phone bill was forty-one … and I. Magnin … and Ian’s old tennis club … and new plants for the shop and the electricians’ bill when the lights had gotten screwed up over Christmas … and a plumbing bill for the house … and on and on and on it went, and the Volvo was gone, and Lady J was going down the tubes, and Ian was in prison, and everything just kept getting worse instead of better. There was almost a satisfaction in it, like playing a game of “how bad can things get?” And meanwhile Astrid was buying sweaters from her at cost, and “amusing” gold bracelets at Shreve’s, and having her hair done every three days at twenty-five bucks a crack. And now there was the fall line to think about. Three hundred bucks’ worth of plane fare, and a hotel bill, not to mention the cost of what she bought. It would sink her further into debt, but she didn’t have much choice. Without a fall line, she might as well close up Lady J on Labor Day. But it was getting to the point where she was afraid to walk into the bank to cash a check. She was always sure that she’d be stopped on the way out and ushered to the manager. How long would they put up with the overdrafts, the problems, the bullshit? And how long would she?
As she was trying to figure out how expensive the trip to New York would be, the intercom buzzed to let her know she had a call. She picked up the phone absentmindedly, without finding out from Zina who it was.
“Hi, gorgeous, how’s about some tennis?” The voice was jovial and already sounded sweaty.
“Who is this?” She suspected an obscene phone caller and was thinking of hanging up as the man on the other end took a large swallow of something, presumably beer.
“Barry. And how’ve ya been?”
“Barry who?” She recoiled from the phone as though from a snake. This was no one she knew.
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