by Reiss, CD
I was on the porch shaking the dust out of the couch throws when the phone blooped. It must be Jonathan saying something that would make me smile. I ran to it.
—are you there?—
—Yes—
—I feel your hands on the phone—
—I miss you already. Can we have a call—
—Can’t. Just checking in. I feel good knowing you’re there, and mine—
The subtext was he felt good knowing I was there and doing what he told me. Which meant, no Jessica. He either thought very little of me believing I was obedient, or a lot believing I’d get the right message from so few words. Or maybe I should just take it at face value.
Bored, I checked my email from the phone. I hadn’t set up digital roaming while out of the country, and then the phone died, and the fact was, email wasn’t my thing. Most of my social interactions were local and done with a phone call or text.
But that couldn’t be said for everyone. I’d given Harry Enrich my information after the B.C. Mod show, and shockingly, he’d used it, sending me a personal note early Friday.
Ms. Faulkner,
It was a pleasure to hear your work tonight. I understand Eddie Milpas has been working to sign you on with us. Why don’t you come by our offices Tuesday to discuss further?
Best,
Harry
PS – Do you have representation?
Eddie had been working to sign me? Sounded like he was trying to put a collar on my neck and shackle me to a display case, but who was I to question?
My phone rang while it was still in my hand. I didn’t usually answer numbers I didn’t recognize, but the green button was a reflex, and I put the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hello.” The voice was female and tight as a drum. Pleasant, but not effusive. Welcoming, but not warm. “This is Jessica Carnes. Am I speaking with Monica?”
“Yes.” I sat on the piano bench, willing myself not to shake. All of Jonathan’s warnings and the events of my two prior meetings with Jessica blew out my nerves. I had to remind myself to channel him, his utter dedication to self-management no matter his feelings.
“How are you?” she asked.
I had no answer prepared. No story to tell to get what I wanted. “I’m fine. You?”
“Very well, thank you,” she said. I didn’t think I had another nicety left in me, and she saved me from having to come up with another. “You left me a message?”
Oh, she was going to make me ask. She wasn’t giving me an inch or admitting she had made first contact at Frontage. She wasn’t going to admit she’d shown up at my job at whatever o’clock in the morning. “I thought I’d take you up on that offer to meet.”
“Things have gotten a little more complicated since we spoke last.”
“Yes...I...I guess you’re right. I thought you came to see me last night. Never mind.”
After saying that, I felt a sense of relief. I was avoiding immediate repercussions from seeing Jessica, and it wasn’t even my fault. Coward. Yes, that was the craven woman. I wasn’t her any more. But I couldn’t push Jessica. If she wanted to wiggle out she would, no matter what.
“If you feel differently at some point, I would like to meet. We can do it under your terms and talk about whatever you like,” I said.
“Why the change of heart?”
“Things got more complicated, like you said. I feel like I can’t see the whole picture.” That was probably too specific and would leave me little room to flip my story around if I needed, but that was it. I said it, and it was very close to the truth.
“Can you get to Venice in the morning?”
“Yes.” A lump rose in my throat. I was doing it. I was going directly against Jonathan’s wishes. I had to remind myself that I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I was trying to help him.
“I’ll text you the address.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I had nothing else to say, so I hung up.
I’d started an evil thing and had to go through with it because I wouldn’t stand by and watch him get run over. Maybe I was going out on a limb, and maybe I’d make it worse, but how could I sit still while someone was trying to hurt him?
“Fuck,” I whispered. My car was at the Stock.
Chapter 17.
MONICA
A black Corvette pulled up in front of the house, taking the downhill nice and slow. Robert cared about his ride the way most people cared about living things. I skipped down the porch and met him at the curb.
“Thanks,” I said, getting in. I was more or less on the way from the valley, but it was still an inconvenience for him.
“Fucking hill, man.” He put the car in gear and inched downward.
“When I was a kid, I rode my bike down it, no hands.”
“Bet you did.” He paused briefly. “So, car’s at work, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“You went home with the guy from Hotel K? Sam and Debbie’s friend?”
“You got a problem with it?”
“Naw, man. Just curious what his deal is.”
I didn’t know what he meant, and I didn’t want to know what he meant, either. I just wanted to get my car. I didn’t want to hear about anything Robert might have seen or heard. Nothing. Not a word.
We sat in silence down Temple, to Hill, around the block a few times or ten until we stopped at a light a block from the hotel. It was the same light Jonathan had stopped at when he met me after work and told me he’d always love his ex-wife.
“What did you think his deal was?” I asked.
Robert snapped out of some sort of reverie. “Huh? Who?”
“Jonathan, the guy from Hotel K?”
“Shit, I don’t know. He was there that time you couldn’t talk, then gone, then....coupla weeks, he was in the corner yacking with Debbie and Sam all the time. But not when you were there. Shows up last night, you’re there. I dunno. Just asking.”
“Asking what?”
“Is it serious or what?”
“Yes. It’s serious,” I said.
“All right. Thanks for letting a guy know.”
The light changed, and I laughed to myself.
“What?” He turned into the lot.
“I thought you were going to tell me that you saw him with other women.”
He looked at me and smiled, turning into the employee level. “Guys don’t rat on other guys.”
“Robert! Don’t even—”
“But there was nothing to rat. Seriously. Stop with the girl style. It don’t suit you.” He pulled in next to my little black Honda.
“Fine. I wouldn’t have believed you anyway.” I blooped my car and got out.
Robert cut the engine and pulled his small black duffel from the back. “You think I’d lie?” He slung the duffel over his muscular shoulder. “I’m not saying I woulda minded getting with you for a night, but I wouldn’t lie to do it.”
“I don’t think you’d lie,” I said, getting in my car. “I think you could misunderstand.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. If I saw him with someone, and it was something, I’d know.”
I looked him up and down. “You know what? I believe you.” I turned the ignition. Nothing happened. Just one click. “Uh oh. Do you have time to give me a jump?”
“Turn it again.”
I did. One click, then nothing.
“It’s your starter.” He walked to the front of the car and knocked on the hood. “Pop it.”
I did. He lifted the hood and chocked it up with the metal brace.
“Should I turn it again?”
“Yeah.”
I did. Same. I got out and stood next to Robert as he shone his phone’s light at the engine, analyzing the mass of wires, compartments, and hoses. I knew what most of it was but not how to fix it.
“All right. If you got a bad starter, I can bang it while you kick it over. Sometimes that kinda gets it going. But you need a new on
e, probably.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, except… It should be right there. Just back of the battery and down, past these wires that serve the electricity. But there’s bolt holes. No starter.”
“What do you mean?”
He looked more closely then got under the car. I leaned down, amazed at how he would just crawl under a chassis out of curiosity.
“Do you want a proper flashlight?” I asked. “I think I have one in the trunk.”
“Nope. I’m telling you. There’s no fucking starter on this car. It got jacked.”
“My starter? Are they expensive?”
“Three hundred. Two? Look, I know it’s weird but...” He shrugged.
“Oh my God,” I said, realizing who would do the surgery required to remove a starter from a twelve-year-old Japanese car. “Fucking Jonathan. Son of a goddamn bitch.”
He’d stranded me. I couldn’t get out to Venice without a car. A cab would cost a fortune, and if a bus that far out of town even existed, it would take hours one way. I couldn’t get the car fixed in time for a meeting in Culver City in the morning. That was why he’d left so easily. He walked away accepting that I had no intention of keeping any promise I made while my legs were spread. I should have known better.
“I gotta get to work,” said Robert. “You wanna call a tow?”
“Nope. I’ll figure it out.”
“How you getting home?”
“I’m not. I’m going to go upstairs and get a whiskey. Then I’m going out. If I can’t drive, I can drink.”
“Debbie’s gonna make you pay for it.”
“Fine. I’m not too broke for a little alcohol.” I took out my phone when we got to the back hall and scrolled to Jessica’s last text. I didn’t want to talk to her. The ice in her voice put me on edge. I had no idea how I would handle our conversation tomorrow.
“You can get some guy at the bar to buy you a few,” Robert said, stopping by the lockers.
“No way.”
—Sorry. Can’t make it out to Venice tomorrow. Maybe somewhere more east?—
“Why not? It’s just a drink.”
“It’s cheating.”
“Girls are crazy. I’m tellin’ you, if I were a girl and I had a nice pair, I’d never pay for a drink.”
—My studio in Culver City, then?—
I loved how she managed to keep it on her turf. If I asked her for an Echo Park location, she’d probably manage to find a place she rented, owned, or regularly patronized.
“If you were a girl with a nice pair,” I said, “you’d be the one all the guys wanted to fuck but hated. You’d have a string of one-night or one-week stands until the guy saw you letting someone else buy you drinks. Then you’d only attract the guys looking to spend a little money and put their dicks somewhere comfortable. You’d wake up one morning at fifty years old with a pair that wasn’t so nice any more, and you’d wish you’d bought your own.”
—Great. Thanks for the change. See you at ten?—
Robert and I walked up together. “You don’t know nothing about men. Sure, we might get a drink for a girl like you to get laid. But being seen with you? That’s what gets other girls. See what I’m sayin’?”
“No. I’m still buying my own drinks.”
“Whatever.”
I sat in the corner in the same spot Jonathan had been known to occupy and tried to arrange a car for the next morning. Darren had work the next day, but once he found out what I was doing, he refused to let me drop him off in the morning and borrow his car, texting me like he was my fucking therapist:
—You have a way of sabotaging your own happiness. I’m opting out—
A guy with glittering dark brown eyes, messy black hair, and a mouth like a movie star leaned on the bar next to me. “What are you drinking?”
“Piss and vinegar.” I was busy answering Darren’s accusation in a flurry.
“That a new thing?” he asked. “What’s in it?”
I pulled my eyes away from my phone for a second. “Piss. Also, vinegar.”
He laughed. Ignoring my bludgeon of a hint, he leaned toward me. “Let me get you your next one. I’ll piss in it myself.”
I slugged the dregs of my whiskey, letting the ice cube linger on my lips. I parted them to touch my tongue to it, reminding me of Jonathan, the master of melting ice. I slid the glass to Mister Eyes and said, “Piss your little heart out.”
He looked at the empty glass then back at me. I turned to my phone. I should have known better than to be a total bitch, because in L.A. you never knew who you were speaking to, but I missed Jonathan. I was angry at him and I was trying to avoid lashing out.
—Nice try with the car. I’m not Kevin. You can’t orchestrate my demise—
—Lil can take you anywhere you want to go—
“Someone break your heart today?” Mister Eyes asked.
“No, but really,” I said, “it’s not personal. I’m sure you’re awesome. But there are a hundred girls in here right now who are available. Okay?”
—Except where I want—
—Please wait until I get back. We can talk—
—I am officially done talking—
I slipped my phone into my pocket. When I looked up, Debbie was watching me. That alone was not abnormal, but I felt as if they were Jonathan’s eyes watching me talk to a handsome man, and I was suddenly uncomfortable.
I texted around and got some responses. A party in Koreatown. A show in Silver Lake. Nothing appealed. Fuck going out. I walked out to catch one of the cabs that usually waited outside the hotel. If I was seeing Jessica, I’d need a good night’s sleep.
Chapter 18.
JONATHAN
The machines beeped and sighed, blinking like the dashboard on a 747. The room smelled of rubbing alcohol and dying flesh, and in the darkness laid a once beautiful, intelligent woman who had been reduced, by me, to a pile of idly reproducing cells. I’d been driving that night. Drunk. Stoned. Stupid. Then I passively let my family cover it up while I sat in a padded room feeling sorry for myself.
Sixteen years, a dark room, and maybe she would finally get what she’d always wanted. She’d wanted to be free of her family, and by the time Jessica and I had found her, they were dead or missing. She’d wanted to be free of hunger and pain, and she’d gotten just that. But I didn’t think this was what she’d had in mind.
I’d gone from her lover to her guardian because no one else cared. She’d been forgotten, and I was the carrier of her memory. The man who broke her became her keeper. When she’d “died”, everyone felt sorry for me. Even though I had no memory of what happened, I knew something was wrong. I knew there was a debt to be paid. When Jessica and I found out she was alive and we’d sent a team of smart men and women to find her, I’d hoped she’d be in some suburban house with two kids and a dog. But the trail had led us to an expensive, secret facility for people who couldn’t move. Fuck, how I’d cried and thanked God and the saints for Jessica’s shoulder.
A million years before, we’d lain on our backs on the grass of Elysian Park, where my family would never find us. Rachel liked to wonder what it was like to be me. She thought I had not a worry in the world. Yes, my father was a fucking sociopath, but he didn’t stick his fingers inside me like hers had, and he didn’t scream and hit me and lock me in the house like her stepfather had. Whatever I endured would end when my trust fund spread its legs at twenty-one. For her, the light at the end of the tunnel had not appeared.
“Do you wish for things you can’t buy?” she’d asked.
I’d looked over at her. Blades of grass sat in the foreground of my vision, slashing her face, which was turned to me. Her eyes were tobacco brown, wide and light with sun inside them. “You’re fascinated with money,” I said.
“I think I am.” She’d smiled. “It’s made you different, you know. You’re fearless. It’s exciting, kind of. Watching you is like watching someone who’s really, truly free.”
I’d
laughed. I never felt free in my life. “What do you wish for? Besides money.”
“You make me sound like a gold digger.”
“You are, but you’re terrible at it. I think a few more years and you’ll be sleeping with the right guy.”
She’d flung herself on top of me and pinched my sides. I laughed and rolled her over until I had her pinned.
“Tell me what you wish for, and if it’s any part of my body, your wish will come true at the Regency Hotel in forty minutes.”
She’d giggled and turned her face to the sunlight. “Free, Jonathan. I wish to be free.”
I’d unpinned one of her shoulders to pluck a seeded dandelion out of the grass. “Blow.” I held the white puffball in front of her.
She’d blown hard, and the seeds went into my face. We laughed, and blew the rest of the seeds off together, wishing her free from the constraints of her family and her scarcity. They floated away on their sinuous parachutes, like little messengers to God, saying take me, take me, take me. Set me free.
Chapter 19.
The bus. West on Sunset. South on La Cienega. Hour and a half. A cab ride from my house to Jessica’s studio was fifty bucks one way. I wished I could have taken the hundred for a round-trip cab out of Jonathan’s ass, but that would have to wait for another day.
I wore three-quarter sleeves and long pants. I wrapped a scarf with a spider web pattern around my neck to cover the bruises. I felt lucky it was getting cold, but I had no idea how I’d hide the roughness of my private life in the summer.
The walk was a quarter mile, but it was cool, and I’d worn comfortable shoes. Jonathan hadn’t texted me back the night before, nor had I received a nine a.m. ding. Was he angry? Was he shutting me out because I hadn’t fallen for the busted starter trick? Or was the emergency that pulled him away so dire he couldn’t answer me? Both concerned me. I had a gnawing anxiety that grew worse with every step toward Jessica’s studio.
