“Hello.” Not a question.
“Oh my God, he’s alive! Honey, I still have a brother!”
Jarek could hear Katrine, Jonah’s wife, shout back. “Hallelujah!”
He rolled his eyes. “Is it comedy hour already?”
“We’re just getting started, my friend. I’ve got weeks of material stored up.”
Jonah waited for Jarek to speak, but Jarek knew how to wait him out, and that’s what he did. He knew what he was supposed to do here—apologize. He was supposed to say he was sorry for being a lousy brother, for not calling or e-mailing or sending postcards, but that was Jonah’s burden to bear. Jonah was the good son; Jarek was the other one.
“That’s it?” Jonah asked. “You’re not going to say anything?”
Jarek opened a bottle of beer and drank half. “How are the kids?”
“They’re great.” He lowered his voice, and Jarek could picture him ducking into the bedroom and closing the door. “They’re terrible, Jare. They’re monsters.”
He laughed. “They are not.” His four-year-old nieces were twin angels, with Katrine’s red curls and gap-toothed grins. He wasn’t much for kids, but they were hilarious and impetuous, and he appreciated them all the more from across the ocean.
“What are you doing?” Jonah asked. “Drinking a beer? Describe it to me, please. Katrine has us on a diet where I’m not supposed to have wheat for some godforsaken reason.”
“It’s delicious,” Jarek answered truthfully. “I’m sitting around in my underwear, watching porn and drinking amazing beer. Life is great.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Spare me. You love your life. You rub it in all the time.”
“You’re right. I do love my life. And I’d love it even more if my brother called to say he was alive from time to time.”
“I’m building furniture in China, Jonah. There’s nothing to worry about.”
They were fraternal twins with nothing else in common. When Jarek enlisted, Jonah had gone to college and gotten a degree in horticultural science, then started a successful landscaping business. He’d been carefully cultivating new life while Jarek had methodically wrung it out of people. Jonah had married Katrine and started a family; Jarek remained very much a loner. Jonah was a volunteer firefighter; Jarek couldn’t remember the last time he’d helped somebody on purpose.
“Tell me something else then.”
He took another swig of beer. “I lied about the underwear.”
Jonah was silent for so long Jarek thought the connection had cut out. Then his brother spoke. “Tell me about Olivia.”
The bottle slipped through his fingers and bounced on the couch cushion. He snatched it up before it could spill, and gripped the phone tight as he fought to keep his voice level. His brother and his boss were fucking gossips. “What’d Brant tell you?”
“That you’ve been seeing her for a while. That she’s a kindergarten teacher.”
“Sounds like you know everything already.”
“You like her, Jare?”
“She’s fine.” He smirked. Jonah would think he was being stubborn, but Olivia would appreciate the humor.
“Is she there now?”
He studied his feet, crossed at the ankle on the coffee table. “No.”
“Then tell me about her.”
Jarek rarely talked to his brother about women, in large part because he didn’t know enough about the women he slept with to relay the information, and partly because Jonah was a decent guy who loved family life and didn’t really want to live vicariously through his brother. “She’s just a girl. We hang out sometimes. Run together. Get something to eat. She’s got terrible taste in movies.”
“Is she pretty?”
He finished the beer and got another one. “Yeah. She’s pretty.” It was the understatement of the year, but he wasn’t going to gush like some stupid sap.
There was a flurry of high-pitched squealing in the background, muffled when Jonah covered the receiver with his hand. After a second he was back. “The girls say hi and that they miss you.”
“Tell them I say hi.”
“They also want to know if you can send them presents.”
“Sure.”
“And they want to see you on the computer.”
Jarek blew out a breath. “I told you, and I’m sure your gossipy friend Brant told you, the Internet here is spotty. I can’t connect in my apartment.”
“So? Go to the one of those Internet cafés you mentioned.”
“I—”
“If you don’t want to Skype, send an e-mail at least. Send some pictures. Keep in touch.”
“We’re in touch right now, and it’s going really great.”
“Seriously, Jare—”
“Okay, okay. Stop.” There weren’t a lot of things Jarek felt bad about, but Jonah had been his best friend growing up, and was one of the few people who’d never given up on him, no matter how hard he pushed him away. “I’ll send some presents, okay? And a letter or something.” He really didn’t want to go into the Internet café again. Truth be told, the place was grimy, and he just didn’t like it. Plus he couldn’t type, and sending e-mails took forever. Especially when you had nothing to say.
This time Jonah waited him out, knowing he’d gotten the knife in and telepathically twisting it. “How’s the landscaping going?” he asked lamely.
“It’s going all right. Keeping busy.”
“Good.”
“Dad’s been asking about you.”
“Don’t.”
“When the meds are working, that is.”
“I said don’t.”
“He hasn’t got a lot of time left, Jarek. A couple of months, maybe.”
“Good.”
“Shit. Don’t say that.”
“Then don’t bring it up. I’m not coming back. Drop it.”
“What about the funeral? Will you come for that?”
“What do you need, money? I’ll pay for it. Will that shut you up?”
Jonah was quiet for a long time. Jarek felt like a dick, but he wasn’t going back to Virginia to say good-bye to his father. He was as good as dead, as far as Jarek was concerned. He was a shitty father who’d loved the wrong woman, and he’d taken it out on his kids. How the hell Jonah managed to look past that—fuck, move past it—he’d never know. And he didn’t care. Two more months and the man would be out of his life permanently, and they could stop these rote conversations where Jonah reminded him he was a bad son and Jarek reminded him that Aidan McLean was a bad father.
“You want to talk about anything else?” he asked.
“What’s Olivia’s last name?”
He sighed. Jonah was a manipulative bastard when he wanted to be: make him refuse to talk about their father, then give him a chance to redeem himself by discussing Olivia. “What are you doing, Googling her?”
“So what if I am?”
Jarek sat up a little bit straighter. He didn’t appreciate Jonah’s methods—he was supposed to be the one who knew how to get information out of reluctant people, after all, but…He’d told himself he wouldn’t investigate Olivia, even though he desperately wanted to. He’d alternately promised himself that he didn’t care what her little secret was, then switched to reminding himself that he respected her privacy. But if Jonah did it…
He was going to hell. “Her last name is Clarke,” he said, gnawing on a knuckle. “With an e. She’s from Michigan. Candor, Michigan.”
“Candor…Michigan…”
“And she went to John Millford East High—” That’s what was printed on the T-shirt she slept in.
“Yeah, here she is.”
“That quickly?”
Jonah was silent, and Jarek knew something was wrong. “Spit it out, asshole,” he said, more harshly than he’d intended. Or perhaps just as harshly. “What are you looking at?”
“Um…some photos. Newspaper articles.”
“Dude.”
“It
’s nothing…bad. I mean, she didn’t do anything. It just looks like maybe…”
“Jonah!” Jarek had been in a lot of rough situations in his life. There’d been several occasions when he’d been pretty certain he was going to die. And yet somehow, he couldn’t remember a time when his heart had pounded in his chest so hard he thought it might burst out.
“Okay, man, okay. Well, she is pretty.”
“Fuck you.”
“I’m just reading the article, hang on. I’m trying to understand.”
He was the slowest reader in the entire world. Jarek was looking around for his shoes, ready to storm the nearest Internet café to Google Olivia Clarke, Candor, Michigan, himself, when Jonah spoke. “How much do you know?” he asked.
“Nothing. She said she did something that people didn’t like.”
“Yeah. Basically it looks like this town is crazy about baseball. In the past twelve years, eight kids from that high school you named went on to play in the major leagues.”
“Okay…”
“And apparently there was some sort of scandal, where half the team was accused of gang raping a drunk girl on New Year’s.”
His heart stopped. He thought of Olivia, the way he’d fought to make her come the way he thought she should—
“It wasn’t Olivia,” Jonah added.
“Motherfucker!”
“Sorry, sorry. This was a year ago. The girl was in high school. And I guess somebody filmed it with their cell phone and a video got passed around, and somehow Olivia was the one that turned it in to the police.”
Jarek pinched his brow. This was a sad story, but it didn’t explain shit. He waited for Jonah to continue, and in the background he could hear clicking as his brother scrolled through web pages.
“Okay,” he said. “It looks like the video was e-mailed between guys on the team, and the coach was on that e-mail list. And Olivia found it on his computer and that’s how she turned it in. Turned them in. The team.”
He knew the answer, but he asked anyway. “What was the coach’s name?”
“Um…” More clicking. “Chris Masterson.”
Her fiancé. The golden boy. “Was he in the video?”
“No, not according to this. He just knew it existed, but before he could turn it over to the authorities, Olivia did. Nine members of the team were arrested and charged, suspended…Okay, here’s where it gets weird.”
“What?”
“When you read the bigger papers, the national stuff, it’s pretty cut and dry. They raped this girl, got caught, reputations ruined, scholarships lost, blah blah blah. People are saying that’s the least that should have happened to them.”
“Okay. Right.”
“But then when you look at the smaller stuff, just Googling Olivia’s name and the town and stuff, it paints a different picture.”
“Like what?”
“Like, these people fucking hate her, Jare. They think she stuck her nose in, ruined those boys’ lives, took away their futures. She had to close her Facebook account, quit her job…Seven police incidents at her apartment in three months…Hey, did you know she was engaged?”
He ran a hand over his face. “Yeah.”
“Well, that ended. Wow. Shit.”
Jarek groaned. “What?” This was exactly why he wasn’t going to pry. He didn’t want to care, and now that he knew, there was no way he’d be able to keep himself from asking her about it. Plus she could see right through him; she’d know something was up the second she set eyes on him.
“There are some web sites about her. Like, hate sites. It looks like they haven’t been updated in a few months, but it posts her address and phone number, her schedule, pictures of a car with stuff spray painted on it…Vandalism, mostly. Threats.”
For some reason he remembered that first night when he’d asked her if she always ran indoors and she said yes. How there’d been something off about the way she’d answered. And now he knew. She had to run indoors. She’d had to stay inside to avoid everyone. For a full year.
“What about the case?”
“Um…Didn’t go to trial. The girl dropped the charges. But the damage had been done, according to this article. The boys’ reputations had been ruined. And the team had to cancel the season, since they’d lost half their players.”
Jarek finished his second beer and spun the bottle across the coffee table, catching it before it toppled over the edge. “Well.”
“She didn’t tell you any of this?”
“We’re not that close.”
“Must have been pretty bad if she fled the country to escape it.”
“Yeah.” She must be pretty fucking desperate for friends if she was willing to let him into her bed four nights a week. Let him walk out when he was finished, never asking him to stay, never asking him to call her. She’d been so damn lonely when they’d met, she’d been willing to accept anything, just so she wouldn’t be alone. And he’d sensed it and taken advantage.
“Do you—”
“It’s late, Jonah. We’ve got a thirteen-hour time difference, remember?”
“It’s only eleven o’clock your time.”
“I’ve gotta go.” He had nowhere to be, but he couldn’t keep talking about this. He’d spent his life demanding the truth, and now that he had it, he didn’t fucking want it.
Chapter Nine
THE LINE TO GET a cab was about seven miles long, but moved quickly. When Olivia touched down at Pudong airport, she’d been greeted by an American representative for the chain of schools, handed a few pamphlets about China and the company, escorted to the train station, and promptly abandoned. It had been dark and cold, and apart from the bright lights, it had been impossible to get a feel for Shanghai, other than that it was big and very densely populated.
That initial impression had been a massive understatement. Just looking around the swarming throng coming and going from the train station, she was pretty sure she’d seen more people today than she had in her whole life. It was eleven thirty in the morning on a sunny spring day, and the entire vicinity of the train station was one giant, writhing mass of bodies. Marcus gripped her fingers and tugged her along the line of people waiting for taxis so they wouldn’t get separated, and she felt both relief and guilt at the comfort of his firm grip.
She’d run into Marcus—the geologist or geographer, she was incapable of remembering which, it seemed—when she’d headed out to buy her train ticket two nights ago. When he’d heard of her plans he’d invited himself along, and Olivia had accepted.
She’d been disappointed when Jarek turned her down, but some part of her knew it was for the best. She’d grown up in a bubble and when that bubble burst, she’d been smacked in the face with the fact that she didn’t know how to be on her own. She’d lived with her parents, then in dorms at college, and then she’d moved in with Chris. Part of the motivation for coming to China was to escape the never-ending vitriol that awaited her in Candor; the other part had been to learn how to be alone—and survive.
And she’d struggled mightily. It was too different here. It had been too dark and too cold and too lonely. And then she’d met Jarek, and she’d let him make her brave. He led her through the city, explored new streets and strange shops, a shield against anything that made her uncertain. She’d invited him to Shanghai because she liked him, not because she wanted him to guide her, but when he’d declined she admitted there was an upside to the rejection: for once she’d be forced to do something on her own. Except now she wasn’t, and she was really grateful. Coming to Shanghai alone on your first-ever solo excursion was like deciding to learn to swim by jumping out of an airplane into the sea—beyond dumb. She’d brought Marcus along as a parachute or a life vest or whatever would best fit the analogy.
They climbed into a cab and asked to be taken to an area called Shanghai Old Town, according to the web site she’d studied. Marcus had never been to Shanghai, either, and was eager to explore. They’d hit it off at the bar the othe
r night, and had talked non-stop on the two-hour train ride from Lazhou. He was different from Jarek in every way: outgoing, big easy smile, shamelessly flirtatious. He was just an inch or two taller than her, with the broad build of a rugby player, and while it had been jarring to suddenly have someone so open and willing to talk to her, it was nice. Marcus was fun and easy. Jarek was fun in his own way, but nothing about the man was easy.
“Okay,” the driver said, pulling up alongside a bustling sidewalk. Olivia peered around at the long string of old-looking buildings, ornate wooden trim and red lanterns everywhere. It was beautiful and traditional, spliced with very modern neon signs and familiar fast food logos.
They paid and exited the cab as people hurried to clamber in, grinning at one another as they set out to explore. They hit every place on the list, touring the busy marketplace and buying souvenirs, stopping at a famed shop with a cardboard cutout of Bill Clinton, who had eaten there on one of his visits. In the middle of the hectic city they found a classical Chinese garden, a hidden sanctuary with still water and stone bridges, beautiful pagodas and buildings filled with artwork and ancient furniture and pottery.
More than once Marcus touched her back or her hand to get her attention, laughing every time she tried to take a picture and someone strolled in front of the camera, which was every time. She found some familiar Western stores that carried clothing in her size and bought a few new things, then they got on the subway—the first subway she’d ever been on, she admitted, feeling like a rube—and got off near an outdoor market much less refined than the first.
It was jam-packed with vendors selling all manner of things, toys and clothing and, of course, DVDs. There were knock-off watches, purses, and jewelry, some better than others, and Marcus made her laugh when he asked if he should get the Gucki belt or the Wersace.
Olivia spent a lot of time on her feet on a regular basis, but by the time they collapsed in their seats on the train at ten o’clock that night, she was exhausted and her toes hurt. They had bags of souvenirs and tons of photos, but she was a little relieved to be going home. The sheer size and volume of the city was mentally and physically draining. Having grown up in a small town, the brief experience had been awe-inspiring and jaw-dropping, but more than a little overwhelming.
Going the Distance Page 11
