Magdalene

by Moriah Jovan

  Mitch couldn’t disagree with that—

  “When’d you figure that out?”

  —but he wasn’t about to admit to the rare occasion he was desperate enough to take care of it the usual way.

  “A while back. Dunno when.”

  Mitch let that hang for a while, reluctant to ask, not really wanting to know. “Trev? You, uh—?” He held up his hand. “Not dad, not bishop. Just men talking.”

  The boy said nothing for a moment, then— “I don’t know how to answer that. If I say no, it’d make me feel pathetic. If I say yes, you’d be disappointed.”

  Mitch remained silent because Trevor had a better handle on it than he’d thought.

  Finally Trevor sighed. “No. I haven’t met a girl I wanted that much. I mean, I think about sex all the time.”

  “Yeah. You’re seventeen.”

  “But I look at what I’ve got to choose from at school and it’s just not... Something’s not clicking for me. I mean, I don’t like dudes, either, so that’s not it. In a way, that’d be easier because at least I’d know why I’m not digging the girls. And at church, well, the girls I like aren’t giving anything up, and the only one who does isn’t interesting enough to make up for all her bullshit.”

  That was the most sensible thing Mitch had ever heard out of a seventeen-year-old boy’s mouth, and he said so.

  “No, it’s not sensible. It’s a fact.”

  Mitch snorted a laugh. After a couple of seconds, he said, “So...if you did meet a girl...?”

  “Yeah. I would.”

  Mitch sighed. “Well, be careful. Watch out for the girls with dollar signs in their eyes. Use condoms. I’m sure Sebastian’s already given you the lecture. And if you do, you better act accordingly at church. No public prayer, no blessing the sacrament, no choir practice, no splits with the missionaries.”

  Trevor nodded and took another swig of his Gatorade. “So speaking of church. You gonna bring this woman?”

  “Nope.”

  “Heh. You can be embarrassed.”

  “Nope. This isn’t a missionary moment, Trevor. She’s a woman who has her own life and I find her interesting, so why would I want to try to change her? If she comes to church with me, fine, but it has to be at her instigation.” He paused. “I know I don’t talk about myself this way much because it makes me uncomfortable, but, Trev, I’m a powerful man and I didn’t get that way without knowing exactly what I want and having a great deal of cunning and patience to get it.”

  “And you want her?”

  “I’m intrigued. But with who she is now, not because I want to change her into something she’s not. I might go ahead and play the game with her, but I’ll win.” He leaned over then and got in Trevor’s face. “Because I always win.”

  * * * * *

  Steel in Vase

  December 27, 2010

  Three weeks.

  Well, that settled that, I supposed, but I didn’t know why it bothered me so much. I should never have told him something so outrageous, full disclosure be damned. I might have been able to keep my prostitution from him for however long our little flirtation would have lasted, but now it wasn’t possible.

  Maybe I should’ve immediately repudiated the little prick who’d intruded upon our evening, instead of falling into my act, conditioned by years of fucking people I wasn’t attracted to—and some I didn’t like.

  Qué será será. I sighed and rubbed away a strange stinging in my nose.

  I swung around in my chair when my assistant knocked on the door and my breath caught in my chest as the biggest bouquet of the most perfect roses I’d ever seen preceded her into my office—in vibrant orange. What the hell, orange? She put the vase on my desk, her face a study in excitement. She bounced on the balls of her feet and said, in a rather conspiratorial whisper, “Three dozen.”

  Three weeks.

  Three dozen.

  I might as well have been told point blank. I reached for the card and opened it. I recognized the handwriting.

  Babbo

  Tonight 7:30

  “Who’s it from?”

  Nobody knew of my evening with Mitch. Never mind Jack would blow his top; I simply wanted to keep it to myself. It was so...different from anything I’d experienced.

  “The man’s a romantic,” I breathed in wonder. I felt something warm and soft blossom in my chest and that strange stinging feeling in my nose started again. Was this what “to woo” meant? “To court”? Was I being courted, wooed?

  I had never been that.

  Gordon Rivington—a teenage crush cum marriage cum property swap.

  Nigel Tracey—my introduction to and instruction in exquisite sex.

  Lovers, miscellaneous—affection, fun, and a few mutually beneficial extras.

  Clients, by referral only—business deals.

  Mitch had come to Manhattan, but whether it was solely to see me or not, I didn’t know. I doubted it highly.

  “I looked it up,” my assistant said, and I started because I’d forgotten she was there. “Orange roses mean desire and passion.”

  Really.

  “But orange means other things, too, so maybe it’s not just that or not that at all.”

  “What other stuff?”

  “Enthusiasm.”

  “That’s fairly generic.”

  “And fascination and um, like, ‘I’m proud of you’ kind of stuff.”

  “I have a hard time believing a man would indulge in rose language.”

  Susan bent to take another whiff, but stopped and said, “Oh? What’s this?”

  From the center of the bouquet she plucked a bright orange iPod Nano, its earbud cord tied in a bow. I stared at it, my mind blank.

  “Cassie?” Susan had been speaking and I’d completely spaced. “I said, it must have something on it. If he just meant to give you the iPod, he would’ve left it in the box. And it’s not like you couldn’t buy your own.”

  Oh.

  I pulled the cord loose, plugged it into the device, put the buds in my ears, then turned it on. In a second or two, the smooth voice of Harry Connick, Jr. flowed into my brain and straight down to the pit of my belly.

  What are you doing New Year’s Eve?

  “Cassie! Sit down before you fall down. What’s wrong?”

  I sat, relaxed back into my chair, and closed my eyes, listening to Harry repeat the question while envisioning Mitch. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew Susan was tiptoeing out of my office, and I even heard the soft swish of the door closing behind her.

  Expensive gifts from clients were de rigueur; it was ritual, simply part of the payment protocol for a mistress. Jewelry. Collectible wines. Art. Favors I could call in, occasionally worth many thousands of dollars, but mostly priceless. Things neither I nor my client would have to account for on a tax return. Occasionally the smaller gifts might arrive in or with flowers, but they meant nothing.

  No, I had never had this.

  A bouquet and a song, to plead for a date on a special night of the year.

  My face heated up and I wondered if I were getting sick, so I felt my forehead, but no. It was nice and cool. I put my hand to my cheek, then had to find a tissue because my skin was all wet.

  * * * * *

  Uptown Girl

  She had worn orange.

  The minute she stepped into the restaurant, she took Mitch’s breath away. He had felt every minute of the last three weeks, debating whether to pursue her, how she would mesh at church, if she would be willing to mesh at church, whether church really mattered in this equation or not, beyond keeping his covenants.

  He couldn’t figure out what it was about her that had him feeling as nervous as a kid asking a girl out for the first time, but he had to see her again.

  Three weeks. It had taken him that long to determine that his fascination with her wasn’t going to go away. He knew what conclusion she would draw from his leaving such a long space of time between then and now, given her bald pronouncement
. It’d been a test—and he’d passed it.

  Because she was here.

  In orange.

  “Cassandra.”

  She started and turned, a sweet smile on her face that he wanted to see more of. Her face, piquant, with those clear brown eyes, was the most beautiful face he had ever seen—

  —and that included the face of his wife, the mother of his children, whom he had loved and married in the temple for eternity, whom he had cared for so many years before she died.

  He didn’t remember this fire in his gut, this need for Mina that he had for Cassandra. Perhaps it was the fact that she was, unlike Mina, vibrant and sensual. Perhaps it was the fact that he wasn’t twenty-one and destitute, stretched to his limit and depending on his fragile eighteen-year-old wife to keep them out of the red every month. He was forty-four, healthy, and had everything to offer a woman, even one who had as much money and power as he did.

  But here Cassandra stood in front of him, beautiful in a way Mina had never been.

  Guilt stabbed him. The guilt of disloyalty. The guilt of an adulterer, the way it had been described to him in countless interviews over the years. He was a widower and he had been faithful to his wife and his covenants, so he didn’t understand why his spirit was vulnerable to guilt when his mind wasn’t.

  “Mitch,” she returned in that husky purr he wasn’t sure was deliberate. He thought he was an expert at spotting women who affected husky purrs, so if she was faking it, she was better than all the women who had tried before.

  She held her hand out for him to shake, but he turned it and brought it to his lips for a light kiss. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly as he held her gaze. He could tell her breath caught and he wondered if she was as smitten as he was. He doubted it.

  Still, she was here and she had worn orange.

  He tucked her hand into the crook of his left arm and nodded at the maître d’ for their table.

  The conversation began easily enough, though Mitch wasn’t paying attention to what she said so much as how she said it. He noticed she did not order wine. That intrigued him, since, in Bethlehem, she had chosen what Sebastian later informed him was what anyone with exquisite taste and money to burn would order. Sebastian wanted to know who had ordered it and why it had piqued Mitch’s curiosity enough to ask. Mitch had declined to explain.

  Now, Mitch simply watched her, listened to her voice. It evened out after a while and he wondered if the purr had been nervousness, but he doubted it. He didn’t make women like her nervous.

  “How was your Christmas?” he asked during a small lull just as they had been served.

  “Decent,” she murmured. “Gordon, my ex-husband, and his husband, Nigel, took the twins to a performance of Wicked. Helene had a double shift at the hospital. Clarissa and I indulged in a chick-flick marathon and binged ourselves sick on Ben & Jerry’s. Yours?”

  “My wife died on Christmas Day last year,” he said, wondering why he’d even brought it up, except, well, it was two days after Christmas. Why wouldn’t one ask? “My son and I went to Vail. My daughter hosted Christmas this year and filled up her house with her in-laws. Fun people. Did a little skiing. So it was good.”

  Relatively speaking.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  “My fault,” he said briskly and sat up a little straighter. “I figured yours had to be better than mine.”

  She chuckled then. “And it wasn’t.”

  “Didn’t sound that way, no.”

  “So what brings you up to Manhattan?” she asked finally. He’d expected it immediately, but perhaps she was hesitant to know.

  “You.”

  She bit her lip and he didn’t know how she’d survived as a call girl without getting completely fleeced. If she was acting, he couldn’t tell and—well, that pretty much meant she wasn’t.

  “As it happens,” she said, suddenly paying a lot more attention to her meal. “I am, uh, free Friday.”

  His heart thumped in his chest.

  What are you doing New Year’s Eve?

  “I find that...odd.”

  She looked up at him, her expression shuttered. “Then why did you ask me out if you thought I had something else to do?” she asked brusquely.

  “I couldn’t not.”

  She swallowed. “Oh.”

  “Cassandra,” he began slowly, not even sure what he wanted to say. “I would like—”

  The phone in his suit coat chirped the ringtone that let him know he had a problem at church. Cassandra stiffened and the moment shattered. “I’m sorry,” he said, immediately frustrated, but hiding it as well as he usually did. “I have to take this call.”

  “Go ahead,” she said flatly with a dismissive wave.

  He arose and stalked through the restaurant and out the front door. “What,” he said tightly, without looking at the caller ID.

  “Uh...” Then Mitch looked. His first counselor. “Did I interrupt something?”

  “As a matter of fact, Steve, yes. What’s wrong?”

  “Sister Bevan is trying to get hold of you.”

  Mitch ground his teeth. “I’m in Manhattan.”

  There was a long pause. “She’s demanding to talk to you, wants your cell number.”

  “What’s the problem this time?”

  “She says Dan hit her.”

  Mitch had every reason to doubt that, but wouldn’t take the chance. “Steve, please do me a favor and take care of it. There’s a list of shelters in my desk drawer—”

  “Been there, done that, Mitch. Louise is over at her house trying to talk her into going to the hospital and filing a police report, which she’s refusing to do.”

  Of course.

  “Where’s Dan?”

  “Gone...who knows where.”

  Probably the library, where he’d always gone when he wanted to escape his life. He’d done it since they were kids, and right then, Mitch wanted to throttle him for it.

  “Have you seen her? Do you know what kind of condition she’s in?”

  “No.”

  Another call was coming in. “Hey, Steve, lemme call you back.” He switched over, already knowing who it was, wanting to strangle whoever gave her his number.

  “Bishop!”

  “Sister Bevan,” he said politely, holding onto his patience with every last ounce of will he possessed. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m done. I cannot take this anymore. Dan’s just...out of control. Help me!”

  “Listen to me and do what I tell you to do, okay? Sister Kelly is with you, right?”

  “Yes, but she isn’t you. She can’t make Dan go away.”

  He ignored that. “Let Louise take care of you, get you to a shelter at least.”

  Sally launched into a list of reasons why he had to be the one to help her and why she couldn’t go to the emergency room or call the police.

  “Sister Bevan, I am going to help you, but you have to let me talk to Sister Kelly, okay?”

  “Yes, Mitch,” she said, then sniffled. “Thank you.”

  “Louise,” he said without preamble when she answered. “Are you free to talk?”

  “No.”

  “All right.” This was an old exercise. Louise’s job as Relief Society president gave her unlimited access to Mitch’s ear, and they’d collaborated on the disposition of too many such situations. “Any bruises or blood?”

  “None.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “No.”

  “Call the police and have her make a report. If she’s not lying, we can get this dealt with properly. If she is, maybe it’ll scare her enough to quit...”

  “Greg’s here.”

  Mitch’s throat clogged. Louise’s terseness told him everything he needed to know about how helpful Greg would be, sweetly feeding Sally’s obsession with Mitch.

  “Can you get him to leave?”

  “No.”

  No one but Mitch and Brother Kelly knew how much she despised Greg Sit
karis. Her hatred had grown slowly over the last five years as she’d gone about tending the women in the ward, seeing the way Greg charmed them. Then, once they were thoroughly captivated by him, he would slowly, subtly chip away at their confidence and self-esteem with backhanded compliments dispensed in tones flavored with disdain—

  —for his own amusement.

  Even Mitch had thought Louise’s descriptions of his behavior unbelievable and she, like Mina, had given up trying to explain it to him.

  But now Mitch understood.

  “All right. Insert yourself between them. Don’t let him talk to her or get close to her.”

  She paused. “Uh...”

  “I get it now.”

  “Finally!” Little whispers of fabric let Mitch know she was moving. “You need to do something,” she hissed.

  Louise certainly wasn’t shy about stating her opinion. He knew exactly what she wanted him to do.

  “I’m...working on that,” he admitted gruffly.

  “Right now?” she asked, shocked.

  “Yes, right now! And I’m having a good time and I want to get back to it.”

  “Oh,” she breathed. “That’s great! Okay, I’ll call my husband and we’ll get it done. Consider your evening free.”

  Mitch had just turned his phone off when a flash of orange at the door of Babbo caught his eye.

  “Cassandra!” he called, panicked, and trotted toward her.

  She stopped. Gave him a cool glance. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry. That was a church call. I had to take it.”

  “Had to?” she asked smoothly.

  Mitch opened his mouth to protest, but no, he hadn’t had to. That was why he had two counselors and a female counterpart with her own counselors, and an entire hierarchy of people who could have dealt with it without involving him. “I’m sorry. It’s...complicated. I’ve— My ward—parish—they’ve gotten used to my availability—” He needed to shut up.

  “You’re a brilliant man, Mr. Hollander,” she murmured. “You know how to make yourself unavailable, and I don’t take second place to anyone. By the way,” she said as she turned and walked away from him, “I am busy Friday.”