Magdalene

by Moriah Jovan

  “And your father put you in that position, even though he knew.”

  “He didn’t know,” I said. “He suspected. Didn’t know what to do because if he were wrong, it would’ve blown back on all of us very badly... I try to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  “I see. You were the one hit with all the aftershocks.”

  I shrugged. “I was a good girl. I did what I was told.”

  “Until you couldn’t anymore,” Mitch muttered, his head bowed and his voice far away. I leaned forward a little to look up into his face.

  “Mitch?”

  He glanced up at me, then chuckled wryly. “You and Mina. Good girls backed into a corner, then came out fighting.”

  “Your wife?” I asked, not in the least bit jealous. I’d be suspicious of any man who didn’t want to talk about the woman he had loved so long, the mother of his children. After years of studying men, fucking a good many of them, and acting as overpaid therapist to more than a few, I had come to the conclusion that ones who’d lost beloved wives after long marriages made excellent relationship material, and I wasn’t threatened by a ghost.

  “She was seventeen when we met,” he said slowly. “Very shy, soft-spoken, eager to please. Physically delicate. She was sick even then, but nobody knew it. She had never rebelled, not even so much as smarting off. I was...without prospects, so her father— He was—is—a CPA with his own successful firm, very upper middle class. He disapproved of me.”

  “Putting it lightly?” I asked, hearing the edge in his voice.

  A corner of his mouth turned up. “I think you read me too well.”

  “I think you let me.”

  He tilted his head in acknowledgment of that.

  “And?”

  “And I...stole her.”

  “Stole her? From whom?”

  “Her father. The man he wanted her to marry. They had it all arranged for her to marry him the week after she graduated from high school.”

  “So you eloped? How’d that work out with her family?”

  “Disowned her. Never spoke to her again. I got into S&T, so after she graduated from high school, we moved to Missouri and stayed there for eight years. It was easier for her that way, anyway. She could use distance to excuse them.”

  Well. Mina Monroe and Cassie St. James, two sides of the same coin.

  “Now?”

  Mitch waved a hand. “Her mother died before she did. Her father never had anything to do with me or the kids.”

  “Still?”

  “Still. My son is having a hard time with it right now, same way my daughters did. Do.”

  I sighed.

  “And...what’s your ex-father-in-law doing these days?”

  That startled a delighted laugh out of me, as he had surely intended. “My ex-father-in-law is working at a convenience store somewhere on the Tex-Mex border.”

  “How much of a hand did you have in that?”

  “Both hands, both feet. And I make sure to keep my stiletto heel in his jugular at all times. Revenge is best served in a Slurpee cup, you see.”

  He and I laughed, and we were still laughing when our car pulled up to Bryant Park. “Mitch,” I drawled, not in the least surprised. “Ice skating? What a chick-flick cliché.”

  “Well,” he said as he got out and pulled me out after him, “it’s free and I didn’t have much money left after that ridiculously expensive basket I sent you.”

  “Don’t tell anybody I’m such a cheap date. Did you make those cookies?”

  “Uh, no. The young ladies in my ward—parish—”

  “I’ve got the lingo now, Mitch. Ward, not parish.”

  He grinned. “—were making them as a service project, so I asked my Relief Society president—my female counterpart in the ward—to swipe a few, write the words, and wrap it up.”

  “Service project?”

  “Yeah. It’s where somebody in the ward is identified as being in need of having something done. Sometimes it’s a job the teenagers can handle with little or no supervision. They get together and work on it, get it done. Project. Service. Service project.”

  “I’m not in your ward-slash-parish.”

  “No, but I am. And I was in great need, let me tell you.”

  We laughed.

  And continued to all evening as we attempted to skate, neither of us very good, leaning against each other, propping each other up, occasionally pulling the other one down. We may have spent more time upright than on our asses, but I wouldn’t have bet on it.

  Breathless, we retired to a bench a couple of hours later to watch others who were far better than we were. Mitch draped his arm around my shoulder and I snuggled in for warmth. He curled his free hand around mine, and I felt his strength even through several layers of wool.

  “Where are you staying?” I asked. “Did you drive?”

  “I drove. Staying at The Mark.”

  I glanced up at him, surprised. “Just around the corner from me!”

  He simply smiled, which carved concentric laugh lines into his cheeks.

  “You’re ornery.”

  “That I am,” he murmured.

  “What would God say about that?”

  “God made mosquitoes.”

  I burst out laughing then. “Point taken. Then I will assume you have something planned?”

  “My only plan was to spend the day with you, if you were free.”

  I was supposed to go shopping with Clarissa, during which she would attempt—and fail—to wheedle a five-thousand-dollar dress out of me. Boy, would she be pissed when I canceled. “I’d like that,” I said, more softly than I’d intended to. “But not in my house?”

  “Not alone, no.”

  I tried to be angry, but I couldn’t. It was simply too funny.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “Ha ha ha.”

  “Oh, don’t be mad. I haven’t laughed this much with a ma—” Well. He didn’t need to know that.

  “I think,” he said slowly, looking off into the distance, “that it’s time for hot chocolate and brownies. Jacques Torres.”

  “What are you talking about? They close at nine on Friday and maybe earlier today.”

  “You sure about that?”

  My breath caught. “You evil man.”

  “The epitome.”

  •

  We had the chocolaterie to ourselves, and we were seated with much ado—New Year’s Eve, almost three hours past their closing time and coming up on midnight. People were knocking on the door to get in, but were ignored.

  Midnight.

  I was getting jittery, wondering how Mitch kissed, unable to wait for the new year when I would feel his mouth on mine.

  Happy birthday to you...

  I gasped and turned in my seat when the singing began.

  A cake.

  With sparkler candles.

  Fuckers wouldn’t go out when I blew at them, either. There were only four, but they kept sparking and sparkling. I kept blowing and blowing.

  “Dammit!” I plucked them out of the cake and dunked them in my water glass.

  Mitch roared with laughter. I tried not to, but failed.

  “That was a nasty little trick,” I grumbled. He opened his mouth, but I held up a hand. “I know, I know. God made mosquitoes.”

  The cake was cut and we each had a piece. There were chocolates and hot chocolate and ice cream and fruit and by the time we left at two, we were buzzed on sugar. We bounced nonsense off each other, in hysterics over things that, in daylight, would be simple stupidity, not even worthy of eyerolling.

  The hour, the laughter, the sugar, the dark, the cold kept at bay in the back of a warm car with a warm and attractive man— It made me say and do things I knew I would find humiliating in the morning because they were so very...fifteen.

  “I didn’t get my midnight kiss,” I whined, but it had taken me almost the entire distance home to cut through our silliness enough to remember it.

  “You were otherwi
se occupied blowing out candles, and now it’s too late.”

  “It’s never too late for a kiss.”

  He cocked one eyebrow at me. “You think?” He shifted and leaned toward me and, with a sigh, I closed my eyes.

  And he kissed me.

  My eyes popped open. “What the hell was that?” I demanded.

  He spread his arms, all wide-eyed innocence, and said, “I kissed you.”

  “On the tip of my nose! I barely felt it!”

  I was squeaking. Oh, God, I was fucking squeaking!

  “You weren’t very specific.”

  I screeched. He laughed. I screeched louder, but it turned into a fit of giggles. I fell over and lay across the car seat with my head in his lap, simply looking up at him. He smiled and smoothed my hair, picked up a strand only to let it slip through his fingers.

  “I’m drunk,” I said.

  “I know. You’re worse than a toddler. Can’t hold your sugar worth a darn.”

  I blinked. “Darn?”

  “That’s right.”

  I sat up. “You don’t swear?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Never.”

  “You better write me a list of things you can’t do.”

  “Tomorrow. It’s a long list.”

  “And then I will attempt to get you to do them.”

  “I would expect nothing less.”

  I sobered a bit. “Mitch, I— I wanted to tell you. Tonight was...” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed my face. Benadryl. I needed Benadryl. “This was the best birthday I’ve had in a long time,” I murmured. “Maybe ever.”

  He looked at me, no longer amused, and said, “I’m sorry.”

  * * * * *

  Long Nights, Impossible Odds

  Mitch unlocked his hotel room door wearily, closed it, and sagged back against it.

  “What am I doing?” he whispered to no one.

  That was a stupid question. He knew exactly what he was doing and he wanted to continue doing it.

  Mitch, you have a taste for bad girls. You always have.

  Now, there was a voice from the past. Inez, his first crush, a sultry Latina five years his senior. She had been in desperate search of a dance partner so she could enter a competition, and had conscripted him. At fourteen, the only things he had to offer her were his size, strength, and malleability.

  He wasn’t going to lie to himself and deny that Cassandra’s history was part of his attraction to her, but there was so much more to her, other things that were just as attractive.

  But...

  Inez again.

  We don’t usually make such good wives, or at least, not the kind of wife the Church expects us to be...

  That had been relevant when, at twenty and fresh home from his aborted mission, he’d attempted to persuade Inez to marry him—two misfits banding together against the world—but it was irrelevant now.

  Look, figuring out how to get what you want is the easy part. Figuring out what you want is the hard part.

  It was one of Sebastian’s first lectures to him as they sat in the cool, dark peace of the Notre Dame cathedral to hide, rest from their labors, and talk about theology and philosophy. Once Mitch and Mina had settled in together, he’d figured out what he wanted easily enough and gotten it. He’d never had a need to revisit the issue until, just before Mina slipped away from him completely, she used the last of her strength to give him a speech that sounded rehearsed.

  Mitch, you rescued me from a fate worse than death, then turned around and gave me everything I ever wanted. You made my dreams come true. Promise me— When I leave here... Find someone. Someone who can match you the way I never could, someone who’ll take care of you the way you deserve.

  Mina...

  No, Mitch. Trevor will be gone soon to make his own life. It’s your time now. Take it. Enjoy it. You haven’t had a minute to yourself in twenty years.

  He turned on his phone and checked for messages: five, all from his counselors and various ward members. He slowly undressed and got in a hot shower, hoping it would help him remember the right question, so he could try to answer it.

  What do you really want?

  Mitch knew that voice, still and small, but deep like his father’s. It seeped through his brain whenever he needed more guidance than his common sense and life experience could supply, asking the question he hadn’t had the courage to ask himself.

  “Cassandra St. James,” he murmured.

  His evening with her had only pulled something within his reach he’d been trying to grasp—and missing—for months.

  “I want a life.”

  A life that wasn’t so filled with everyone else’s problems that he had no room for any of his own.

  Now you can figure out how to get it.

  Mitch hadn’t had so much fun since he’d taught Mina how to drive on their first date, then when they were first married and without children, when he’d taken her on cheap adventures and taught her to be silly with him. Once he’d gotten her away from Shane, given her the freedom of his name and validated her fun-loving soul, he’d watched her blossom about as much as she could.

  But she’d never opened up that far. She hadn’t had the strength to pop open the way he’d hoped she would, especially after Lisette was born. Mina had been happiest spending her energy with the children, nesting in their apartment, pinching pennies until they screamed, keeping hearth and home while Mitch went to school and worked at menial jobs and tended to church callings that had demanded everything he’d had.

  And, well, Mina loved babies, toddlers, children, but she hadn’t been altogether thrilled with how one went about making them. He knew that, although he hadn’t known why until she was pregnant with Trevor. But because he always had other things on his mind, because he was always at work or at church, sex—or lack thereof—had never been an issue.

  Tonight, having stood on Cassandra’s stoop, captivated by her cool, dark beauty, knowing none of her children were home, knowing she wanted him, knowing she had no barriers to keep her from sex whenever, however she wanted it, that she enjoyed it and could teach him anything and everything...

  It had immediately become an issue.

  Don’t lie to me, boy.

  Okay, okay. Not just tonight.

  Eight months ago he’d stepped out of his life for a while and indulged himself on a dance floor, his favorite teenage pastime, long dormant, one Mina was not physically capable of sharing with him, one from which he could walk away when he got too uncomfortable.

  Then last month he’d spent a week at Whittaker House, in the midst of beautiful women, any one of whom would’ve—

  Unable to walk away from the temptation because his presence was needed and he’d needed his family’s help and that was the fastest way to get it.

  He’d spent the last year dealing with this, being single, suddenly without most of the obligations that had taken up his time, able to take a second to look around at what the world had to offer, wanting...something—and not knowing where to start.

  Lisette and Geneviève were married and lived far away in opposite directions.

  Mina was gone.

  Trevor would fly the nest soon.

  The foundry’s profitability had risen markedly once Eilis had taken Fen’s place, settling the last of Mitch’s worries. It had been his own choice not to do business with Fen, but because OKH was the foundry’s biggest customer, the cost had been great. With Eilis at the helm, Mitch had no reason to withhold his products from OKH.

  When Cassandra finished detaching Jep Industries from the Steelworks—critical now that the foundry’s growth had exploded with the new business—the entire operation would be permanently settled. Mitch’s officers could run it should he decide to take a sabbatical or bury himself in his lab with his alloys, or both.

  And surely, surely he’d be released from the bishopric sometime soon...

  Wouldn’t he?

  Right?!

  Soon. Patie
nce. You have a mess to clean up first.

  Two or three, more like.

  No, just one.

  A world of attractive, available women, and—

  Look, if all you want is companionship, you got a church full of single women our age. Half of ’em are virgins and half of those have PhDs.

  Bryce’s advice.

  Look, if all you want is sex, I know a dozen powerful women who’ll blow your mind without blowing your bank account. Break free, Elder. Break free!

  Sebastian’s.

  Mitch had money, power, time, and an almost-empty nest.

  And had spent the last year dazed and confused.

  Until Cassandra St. James had walked into his office, austere, aggressive, accomplished.

  And beautiful. Even—no, especially—in faded, hole-ridden jeans through which he could see thermal underwear, three sweaters (mismatched), and her beautiful black hair, sleek and shiny, swinging freely around her shoulders when she moved. She’d guessed his planned evening activity and layered accordingly.

  He got out of the shower, dried, dressed for bed, crawled in it, checked the clock.

  Three-thirty in the morning.

  “Thank you,” he sighed, his eyelids drifting closed, too tired to pray properly.

  You’re welcome.

  •

  His phone rang.

  He groaned at the ringtone, slapping his hand over his face.

  “Mitch,” said Steve without preamble when he answered, “did you authorize a youth activity today?”

  Mitch smacked his lips together and looked at the clock. Nine. He wasn’t due to pick Cassandra up until twelve-thirty. “No,” he croaked. “On a holiday? I wouldn’t have authorized anything like that.”

  “Greg says you did. Says it was scheduled before you released him”

  And there it was, Greg’s latest divot out of Mitch’s credibility.

  “Oh, I remember now. Yeah, I did and yes, it was. I forgot to mention it in ward council or put it on the calendar, so that’s my fault. Let ’em in.”

  Steve said nothing for a beat or two. He wouldn’t countermand him, and he wouldn’t accuse Mitch of lying, but he knew something was off kilter. “Okay,” he said finally.

  “Steve,” Mitch said, “I haven’t heard anything about Sally all week and I didn’t see her Tuesday. What happened?”