JAKE

by Juliette Jones

  It’s been a long time since I’ve been alone this much. It’s kicking up a few memories of the loneliest time of my life that are definitely best left un-fucking-remembered.

  I need to get out of this apartment for a while.

  I’ve made a decision. Tonight I’ve got plans. Plans that involve a cute little redhead baker who makes warm apple pie and homemade ice cream so good it’ll blow your goddamn head off.

  I’m hungry. No: I’m fucking starving. I’m so voracious I feel like I could go insane with it. On about a million different levels.

  I’ve been fighting against this for almost three weeks but I can’t take it anymore.

  I was hoping she would fade out of my mind. I was hoping I’d just sort of forget about her and get on with my life.

  That hasn’t happened.

  At first I wouldn’t allow myself to think about her. I’d go to the gym and force myself into a state of physical exertion so intense my mind would go blank. After about a week of this, entrancing images of her started to leech in my brain, no matter how hard I tried to hold them back.

  That outrageously sweet body, in her tight little black outfit.

  That seraphic face, like an angel’s.

  Those perfect, parted lips and that sweet-as-honey Southern accent.

  My real name’s Aphrodite. Of course it is.

  That thick hair that would spill down in fiery-gold waves over those lush, naked –

  No.

  I don’t want to do that to her.

  I don’t want to dirty her purity with all my darknesses.

  It’s taken every ounce of willpower I possess to stay away. No doubt about it: I’m a fuck-up. A certified, grade-A piece of damaged goods. I don’t want to inflict myself on all that cute Southern gorgeousness for my own twisted pleasure. I don’t want to bring her down, with all my baggage and my history, like a black cloud storming all over her sunny day.

  I take off my clothes and step into the shower. I let the scalding water run down my body. I just finished yet another ridiculously-intense workout and my muscles are wound tight. The water feels good.

  That body.

  No.

  Those candy-pink lips.

  Jake, leave her alone.

  Those eyes. Watching me, all deep-blue and perceptive. Almost like she was seeing more of me than just my looks and my money.

  It’s been so long.

  I imagine what she would feel like. I imagine the smoothness of that flawless skin. How soft she’d be. How perfect. I imagine what she would taste like. Like sunshine and apple pie. Fuck, the way her tight little outfit hugged all those curves. I’d slowly peel off her clothes, tasting every inch of her skin. I’d make her squirm. I’d tease her. I’d take those full, creamy breasts in my hands. I’d suck on her taut, pink nipples until she moaned and begged me to take her.

  My cock is hard as a fucking rock. Ten inches of hot, agonizing need. Fuck, she’ll be so tight and so sweet.

  I come in flooding, angry bursts. I come so hard I feel dizzy. I place my hand against the Italian tiles and curse myself.

  Jake, you fucking lunatic. Leave her alone.

  But I’m too far gone. I feel like an addict who needs another hit. I just want to see her, I tell myself. I don’t have to do anything more than order a slice of pie. Just to watch her. To be near her for a few minutes and bask in her strawberry-blond glow.

  I might have had the will-power to stay away, to save her from myself, if it weren’t for one detail.

  That faint hint of a bruise around her eye. It didn’t look like the kind of bruise you’d get if you walked into a door, I know that much. I also know what it means when you flinch like that, when someone asks you how it happened. Because I know what it feels like to flinch like that, to deny everything and to hide the truth.

  Someone hurt her. Some fucking asshole damaged the perfect beauty of her.

  Maybe she needs me.

  You can’t save her, Jake. Don’t be delusional. Leave her the fuck alone.

  But I already know that’s one thing I can’t do.

  If there’s the slightest chance that my little angel needs help, then I’m going to fucking help her.

  You’ll only hurt her. You’re the very last thing she needs.

  No. Maybe I’m the very thing she does need. A bodyguard. A watchdog.

  Get over yourself, Jake. You’re no knight in shining armor. You’re a twisted fuck-up without a conscience.

  Wrong.

  This happens to me every now and then. The voices in my head try to talk me into stuff or out of it. This time, I ignore them. My path is glaringly clear. The fire in me is fierce. Crazy-fierce.

  I need to see her again.

  I pull on some jeans, the nicest shirt I own and my leather jacket.

  I take the elevator down, step out onto the night streets. There’s a vendor on the corner selling bunches of pink roses. I’ve never bought flowers before in my life but I do it now. I buy two bunches and the guy wraps them into a huge bouquet. I don’t care that I look ridiculous. That all the women I pass are staring at me.

  Before I can think too much or change my mind, I start walking toward Sugar’s.

  My mother met the love of her life when she was seventeen years old. He was twenty and Irish, travelling the world with nothing but his backpack, his brogue and twinkling blue eyes that could have charmed the pants off a nun, according to her. She should know, too. Her parents sent her to a strict Southern school that also served as a convent. My parents fell madly in love at first sight and married three months later. By the time they took their vows, I was already on the way. My grandfather didn’t approve of the marriage and disowned my mother from his vast fortune, made over several generations before him with his family’s four hundred acres of peach tree orchards. As it turned out, my mother would have lost her inheritance anyway since my grandfather had a gambling problem that no one knew about until it was too late.

  My parents were living in a shack when I was born, blissfully happy with hardly a dime to their names. My father worked as a field hand. My one and only memory of him, when I was four years old, was in the late afternoon summer sun as he walked up the driveway to our tiny house, his hands dirty, his skin tanned, his eyes such a deep blue they looked like jewels, his red hair wild and gleaming, the color of polished copper. When he saw us, sitting on the porch swing waiting for him, his face broke into the happiest smile I’ve ever seen, before or since.

  Two days later he was killed instantly when a truck hit him as he was walking along the side of the road.

  My mother was inconsolable for two weeks. She cried so hard and so much her tears ran dry, she said. Then, stubborn Southern belle that she is, she picked herself up and dusted herself off and went in search of husband number two. Knowing she’d never find true love again, this time she went after a man with money. When that went sour a few years later, she found another. And another. She traveled the world and occasionally I went with her. We went skiing in the Alps and on African safaris and took shopping trips to Paris. All of which clashed with my school schedule, so it was decided I would live with Grandma Mae, my mother’s mother, who had suspected her husband’s gambling habit early and had quietly put away a modest savings for herself. She used this to hire a fancy divorce lawyer from Atlanta who won her the grand old plantation house but zero money to maintain it. We didn’t care. We tended the rose garden and picked the peaches. We baked peach pies, apple pies, blueberry pies, cherry pies. We baked bread and cookies and brownies with homemade ice cream. We cooked French recipes with butter and wine and tomatoes we grew ourselves. You name it, we baked it and cooked it and served it to her four best friends who practically lived with us – which was hardly surprising since we fed them so well.

  Grandma Mae said I had a knack. “You were born for this, darlin’,” she said.

  I knew she was right. The powdery flour on my fingers and the sweet sugar on my tongue made me happy. In the kitchen, I was i
n my element.

  Ten months ago, when my mother married husband number five, who happens to live right off Fifth Avenue in a huge apartment with a doorman and a pool and four bedrooms, she insisted I come live with her again.

  I had always planned on opening my own restaurant. And Grandma Mae and I decided it would be better to open a restaurant in New York City than in our tiny town in Georgia. I could make my own money. Maybe even lots of money. I could pay Grandma Mae back and fix up her house so she wouldn’t have to worry anymore.

  So I packed up my suitcase and hugged Grandma Mae and took a Greyhound bus north.

  At first everything was fabulous. The busy streets, the food, the grand apartment with its views over the treetops of Central Park.

  My mother still suffers from wanderlust. She feels closer to my father when she’s on the road, she once told me, where he’d be. Even now, after all those husbands, there’s only one man she thinks of. I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever find love like that. I hope and pray that I do, but I know how rare that is. And I’m getting a little fed up waiting for it.

  My newest stepfather, whose name is Butch Flint, said he had a work engagement. He couldn’t go to London with her this time.

  And one night when she was away, I got home late. Butch was waiting up for me. He insisted that we share a bottle of wine. “To get to know each other better since we’re family now,” he’d said. As tired as I was, I didn’t want to be impolite. So we drank the bottle of wine while he sat next to me on the couch and asked me lots of questions about myself. But then, when I excused myself to go to bed, he followed me.

  “Goodnight, Butch,” I’d said when we reached my bedroom door. “Thanks for the wine.”

  “Honey, give your step-daddy a kiss.”

  Odd, I thought, but hardly unreasonable. He was making an effort to get to know me. I reached up to kiss his cheek. But he turned his face and kissed me square on the mouth. Hard. Like a real kiss. I was so shocked I slapped his face. I was even more shocked when he slapped me back. So hard I saw stars and woke up the next morning with a bruise around my eye. Butch is a big man, tall and stocky. The first time I ever saw him I thought he was mean-looking, like a gangster.

  “You live in my house you’re going to play by my rules, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m going to forgive you tonight. You go to bed now. But don’t forget you owe me.”

  I locked my bedroom door and I snuck out early in the morning.

  I took most of my stuff and I haven’t been back since. I’ve been living in my tiny office, showering at the gym, and working every minute I’m not sleeping. My staff pretend they don’t notice. It’s not ideal and probably not very professional either, but what choice do I have is what I figure. If I had enough money I’d rent something small, but so far the restaurant takes back everything it earns.

  I can make do. My daddy wouldn’t have worried about sleeping rough and neither will I. It’s not that rough. It’s not like I’m sleeping on the streets or anything.

  My phone rings. Momma.

  “Hey, momma. Are you still in London?”

  “No, darlin’. I’m in Dublin.”

  “Dublin? What are you doing in Ireland?”

  “I need you to get something for me, honey. Are you at home?”

  I haven’t told her I haven’t been ‘home’ for almost three weeks. “No, I’m at work.” I live at work so I’m always at work, I could have said. But didn’t.

  “I miss you, baby.”

  “I miss you, too. What do you need me to get for you?”

  “I need you to look somethin’ up in my address book. It’s in the top drawer of my dresser. On the right side.”

  “I – I’ll be working late tonight.” There’s no way in hell I’m going back to that lunatic’s apartment, I almost say.

  “Can’t you just take a half an hour off and go and get it for me? I really need you to find an address for me.” Then she says, “Butch isn’t home. He’s on a business trip to New Jersey or someplace. He won’t be back until the day after tomorrow. Just use the security code to get in. You remember the security code, don’t you, honey?”

  “I remember it. What’s the address you need?” Of course I’ve already guessed what she’s doing. She’s in Ireland, after all.

  “I need your daddy’s address,” she says. “I’ve never seen his house, can you believe that? In all these years. I’ve never seen the town where he grew up or the places he used to talk about.”

  “Oh, momma.”

  I don’t know if I can bring myself to go to that apartment after what happened. But, for her, I’ll do it. She sounds so damn sad. “All right. I’ll go and get it and I’ll call you back soon.”

  “Thank you, darlin’. You’re the sweetest. Call me back tonight. I’ll be up. I want to go to his house tomorrow. I’m going to stay in his town all week. I’ve booked a little hotel room looking over the water.”

  Maybe I don’t want to find love after all. It’s too painful. It hurts too much. Especially if you end up losing it.

  “I get so angry at him sometimes,” she says. “How could he have left me like that? How could he do that to me? How?” Her words are slurred. I can tell she’s had a lot to drink. She’s emotionally strung out, exhausted and more than a little inebriated. “God, I miss him.”

  “I know.”

  “I wish he could see you now, Sugar. How successful and beautiful you are. He’d be so proud of you.”

  “I hope so.” I like to think he would. “Now, you go get some rest and I’ll call you back as soon as I find the address, okay?”

  “Okay, sweetie.”

  “Bye, momma.”

  I wait until she hangs up.

  My poor momma. All my life I’ve aspired to a love like my parents had. I even saved myself for it, in every possible way, which all of a sudden seems ridiculously pointless. I’m twenty-three years old and I’ve been holding out, waiting for some mythical, perfect man who’s supposed to storm into my life and sweep me off my feet, like my father did to my mother. But then he died and left her broke and broken-hearted.

  God, I’ve been an idiot.

  True love just isn’t going to happen, I realize. And even if it did, what’s the point? I’ll probably end up lonely and sad, just like my mother is.

  I decide not to put my faith in true love anymore. It’s a farce. A painful farce.

  I tell Beatrice I’ll be out for the rest of the night. It’s late anyway. She’s been helping out with every detail of the business since day one, so she can more than handle closing up for the night.

  “Go,” she says, ushering me out the door. “Go out and pick up some hot, eligible bachelor and party the night away. Have fun and don’t come back until tomorrow night. I’ll bake the pies tomorrow morning. In fact don’t come back until Monday. You need a break from this place.” She gives me a hug, then pushes me gently out the door.

  She’s right. I step out into the busy streets. There are snow flurries and the night feels festive. I must make a point of getting out more and enjoying all this fabulous city has to offer. I’m definitely not finding the sweet spot between that work and life balance yet, but I guess that’s to be expected when you’re just starting out.

  I walk down Fifth Avenue and turn the corner. I get to my mother’s apartment and the doorman recognizes me and lets me in. As I take the elevator up, I feel a little nauseous just thinking about that weird, horrible kiss. That bastard. How could he have done that?

  Should I tell my mother what a creep he is? I decide I will.

  She’d be far better off without him. She doesn’t love him. She loves someone who died nineteen years ago. She’d be better off at home with Grandma Mae. And once I get enough money together to fix up the house, we can all live together again.

  I suddenly get a pang of homesickness for the peach orchards and the rose garden. And my grandmother and her laughing friends.

  I can stay strong, for Grandma Mae. If I’m going to pay for
the refurbishments to her house and restore it to its former glory, I have to stay strong. So she can live out her retirement in style, like she deserves.

  I get to the door of Butch’s apartment and key in the code. The door opens.

  Cautiously, I let myself in.

  But my mother was right. The apartment is empty and quiet.

  I stand for a few seconds admiring the view through the floor-to-ceiling windows over the New York City skyline. Don’t get used to this, Sugar, I tell myself.

  I make my way into the master bedroom and open the top right drawer of my mother’s dresser. I find it: a small blue address book, the kind people used to use before phones and computers took over.

  I turn the pages until I reach M.

  Connor Patrick Malone. 92 Derry Lane, Galway, Ireland.

  Written in his handwriting.

  Damn it, Daddy, why did you have to leave us?

  But I scold myself. I know better than to reminisce about what might have been. It only ends up making you sad.

  I call momma and give her the address. “See you in a week, darlin’,” she says.

  “I hope it goes well. I hope you can find a little bit of what you’re looking for.”

  “Goodnight, baby.” She hangs up.

  I put the little address book into a small pocket that’s zippered into my dress. Then I turn off the lights in my mother’s room and close her door. I go into my old room, to check and see if I’ve left anything. I know I’ll never come back here.

  There’s nothing in the bedroom. I check my bathroom, which is dimly lit by a single small spotlight over the sink. Everything’s so luxurious, gleaming with wealth: the big mirror, the polished stone shower. That showerhead was the best thing in the world. Since I stormed out of Butch’s apartment almost a month ago, I’ve been showering at the gym and it’s not exactly deluxe. I think about taking a quick rinse under those high-tech nozzles that are as good as getting a message. No one’s home. Butch won’t be back until the day after tomorrow. No one will ever know.

  So I do it.

  I turn on the water. I don’t bother turning on the lights. I take off my boots. I let my dress fall to the floor and step inside. It’s heaven. It feels so damn good. I shampoo my hair and soap up my body, letting my hands slide across my skin.