by Lisa Gillis
CHAPTER 3: FIVE MINUTES LATER
310-214-2480
Staying for the show?
9:26 PM
Maybe
sent 9:27 PM
510-210-2480
You better ;)
9:31 PM
Oh really?
Sent 9:33 PM
My retort apparently didn’t grab his attention enough to answer back, or possibly, he was too busy pre-show, and while waiting in vain, I added this number to my contact list under the alias Russ.
CHAPTER 4: FIVE DAYS LATER
RUSS
Hey
2:12 AM
Hey
sent 7:01 AM
CHAPTER 5: FIVE MONTHS LATER
RUSS
Hey
11:35 PM
Hey
sent 11:36 PM
Hesitantly, my fingers brushed at the screen of my phone before typing in a return greeting. After pressing send, I suddenly felt queasy when the smell of melted ice cream assaulted my already hyper senses. Stretching, I pushed at the carton until it was on the other edge of the sofa table. The message had woken me from a dead sleep. I was still wearing my work clothes, on the couch, in front of a flickering television.
RUSS
How ru
11:36 PM
How was I? Not well, but he was the last person who needed to know.
Okay you?
sent 11:37 PM
RUSS
Ok
11:39 PM
RUSS
ru wearing red?
11:45 PM
This flirtation, coming now of all times, was laughable and I glanced down at the wrinkled black blouse, hanging loose to cover the weight I had gained lately. He was speaking of the red lingerie in his memories, and this was also amusing. With the extra pounds, I was now spilling out of my bras. Unfortunately, I was also spilling out of everything. Unable to bear his lines, I joked to throw him off.
Who is this?
sent 11:53 PM
RUSS
Jack
11:53 PM
Jack Who?
sent 11:55 PM
RUSS
riiight
11:56 PM
;)
sent 11:57 PM
RUSS
So what ru wearing?
11:58
Obviously, he was not deterred from his one-track lines, and my mind slipped pleasantly back to how seductive he could be. While I was mulling over this bizarre situation, my phone buzzed and blinked again with the next text.
RUSS
u dont have to be wearing anything ;)
11:59
Lol.
Sent 11:59 AM
RUSS
No loling! pic PLEASE
12:00 AM
RUSS
waiting ;)
12:01 AM
As you will be forever
Sent 12:01 AM
RUSS
come on you got to give me something…
12:02 AM
Jack was no amateur at seductive texting. Pushing to a sitting position, I fished the remote from the cushions to mute the loud infomercial and then pecked at the keys.
I don’t do sexting
Sent 12:05 AM
RUSS
u lie
12:05 AM
He was right. I would for him, if I weren’t currently a cow.
How would you know? Ever sexted or even texted me?
Sent 12:09 AM
Scowling at the display, I easily discounted the couple of past short text sessions he had left hanging, and nervously rested my phone on my pudgy abdomen. I knew my text had been slightly out of line. He didn’t owe me even the tag texts we’d exchanged. I thought of him every day, but he had no way of knowing it. Before I could even turn the tv off, and take myself to bed, my phone came to life again, this time with a ringtone.
Five months ago, after the best sex of my life, I had promptly come home to my tiny apartment, listened to the album he had given me, and eventually chopped a ringtone from one of his songs.
Never had I heard that ringtone until now.
Accepting the call, I spoke nervously into the device, voicing what had become our standard greeting in print. “Hey!”
The voice from so many of my dreams, both day and night ones, returned, “Hey!” Just as I remembered, it was warm, husky, and sweet. “Does calling count?”
Smiling into my phone, I rested my head on the back of the couch. Letting my eyelids fall closed, I brought his face to the forefront of my memory banks. “It does. Equals at least ten texts.”
“Only ten? I was thinking twenty, easy.” The humor in his voice fluttered at my insides.
“Fifteen.” The compromise left my amused lips.
“Okay, fifteen.” He was agreeable from his end. A few seconds of silence ticked by, then his next words were startling. “Come see me.”
My eyes shot open, unseeingly staring at the dust beasties on the blades of the ceiling fan. For a few months, I had been constantly tired and let the cleaning go. “Where are you?”
“LA. The next leg of the tour doesn’t begin for a couple of months.”
The assumption that he was making the invitation because he was on tour nearby was wrong, and I let out a sigh of relief as well as disappointment. “When?”
“Now. Tomorrow, whenever.”
My laugh was nervous, disbelieving, regretful. My heart was full of so many nondescript and indescribable emotions. When I didn’t jump at the offer, he continued, “Come on, I’ll show you the sights.”
The only sight I wanted to see was him, but I was a sight he certainly didn’t want to see; he just didn’t know it yet. “It sounds great, really. But I have work…”
Jack was not easily deterred. “You have sick days right? Vacation?”
“Actually no.” The lie was slight. Regarding vacation, the two precious weeks due would be used in a few months.
“Call in sick anyway. Or tell your boss a dude in LA will throw a tv off a balcony, endangering innocent tourists if he doesn’t see you… Do whatever, just do it!”
The historical image of Zeppelin’s drummer, in a rage, tossing a television from a suite window made me smile and even briefly wonder if Jack was currently lodged at the infamous hotel himself. But reality soon stole any amusement.
“I wouldn’t be paid.” That much was true. My sick days, rarely used in past years, had now been used up in just a few months.
“Let me worry about that.”
“I can’t.” If he was offering to pay for my missed days, as well as the trip, the offer was generous, and I had pride, but the real reason for my decline was rooted deeper. A reason I could not tell him.
The lack of an explanation and hollow excuses created another bout of silence, and then he asked ever so quietly, “Can’t or won’t?”
With all of my heart, I wanted this, but fate had already intervened long before this phone call. The Marissa in his head was not the Marissa he was currently appealing to. “Can’t. You know I want… to.” With a stab at humor, I changed ‘won’t’ to ‘want.’
“Are you married?” The blunt question was his next attempt to see any reason in the situation.
“What? No!”
“Then come. I don’t see the problem. Even if you are going out with someone, you should take a free pass.” He was back to joking, so I was caught off guard when he quietly confessed, “When we kissed… You’re the first person I kissed in a long, long time…”
“That’s hard to believe.” My answer was honest and somehow calm while my heart raced. A guy like him had sex every night. There was no way I believed him if he was trying to tell me different.
“Not really,” he continued and clarified, “I’m not saying I haven’t been with anyone. I’m saying I don’t kiss random women. At least I didn’t, until you. A kiss and sex aren’t the same…”
He was right about that. Kel and I had all but stopped kissing months before our br
eakup. Sex had turned into almost passionless quickies, and it rarely involved kissing…
“I don’t know why I wanted to kiss you so bad. But Mariss, that kiss and everything that happened was… was something I think about a lot.”
It was something I thought about every day and dreamed about all night.
I could not believe the conversation was at this level. Why after so many indifferent months would he tell me such things? Did it change what I was hiding? My eyes dropped to the extra weight I had put on since seeing him. He wouldn’t be accepting. I was sure of it.
“I want to come, I really do. But I…” Trailing off, I tried to sort my feelings into words.
“But?” The prompt came softly after a very long pause. His next words were notably cooler. “Since you can’t or won’t, and won’t tell me what the deal is, have a nice life, Mariss.”
“Wait!” But my appeal was to dead air. And hearing him say his shortened version of my name, a nickname that had come from knowing him for less than two hours, months ago, released a torrent of tears.
CHAPTER 6: FIVE YEARS LATER
Jack? Please call me when you can.
Sent 11:32 AM
Hey, if this number is still Jack, please call, it’s really important. If it’s not, text back. Let me know? Thanks, this is Marissa
Sent 12:21 PM
Ring: Ring: Ring: Ring: Ring
“Heh, voicemail suckers. Try again”…BEEEP
“Hi, Jack, it’s Marissa, can you please call me at your earliest convenience, it’s important.”
Hacking with a spatula at the ground beef browning in a skillet, I intently watched through the window, contemplating my next inevitable move. It had to happen. There was no getting around it. Dread rose like bile in my throat every time I thought about it. The meat cooked, and I drained it before pouring in the spaghetti sauce then strained the noodles from the other pot.
Was the waiting the hardest part?
My focus remained beyond the patio doors on the tiny backyard as I turned the sauce down to low and then snatched my phone from the counter top. With a few clicks, I found the number and pressed send.
“What?”
The realization that a real voice and not a ‘sucker voicemail’ had answered stunned me into initial silence.
“Jack? It’s Mar—”
“Marissa who?”
“We need to talk.” Ignoring his cool detachment, I prodded on and even contemplated a quick swig of the vodka atop the fridge.
“We fucked once. I can’t think of anything we have to talk about.”
Words colder than January gave me pause, and I wondered why I was being treated in such a hateful way, before I dropped my bomb. “Actually, it was twice. And that’s what we need to talk about.”
His end was silent through a few beats of my heart, and then his words seemed wary. “I’m listening.”
“I got pregnant.”
The laugh roaring through the phone, in all of my scenarios, was not a possibility I had imagined. Because he wasn’t speaking, I took it as an opportunity to press on.
“And I need to talk to you about your—”
“Don’t even say my kid. Because, there’s no way.”
“The second time, in the shower, we didn’t use anything.” It felt wrong to bring such sweet memories into a hostile, hateful conversation, and I squeezed my eyes closed for a second, willing the actual image away before it became tainted.
“We didn’t DO anything.”
“We did enough.” I forced the statement through gritted teeth. Was he really going to pretend ignorance and argue the notion that pulling away at the last second was adequate birth control?
“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe this.” The words were still chilly, but the hardness left his tone, and I couldn’t get a grip on the new emotion.
“Believe it, since I’m looking at your child right now.” Continuously, I stared through the glass, drawing strength from the tiny figure playing on the patio.
The seconds ticked by, and only background sounds filtered through: the light pound of music, the whip of wind on the phone mic, the rumble of traffic. I didn’t know whether to imagine him in his car or standing on a porch at his home. Then he spoke, and both images dropped away.
“Not mine, you’re not. You’re not looking at my kid.” The denial was firm, and I wondered if he was willing it to be true, or if he actually believed it so.
Dropping to a chair, I looked outside again, and took in the brown eyes, large and innocent. Thick dark hair waved around his cheeky face, and I twisted a lock of my lighter strands. “You’re wrong.”
“And you’re just now telling me? Three years later? Bullshit!”
“I NEVER wanted to have this conversation.” I didn’t correct him that it was now five, not three, years later. “I never wanted to bother you.” Here I stopped at the very idea of my child, the best thing to ever happen in my life, being a bother. “I’m only calling you now because…”
“Because?” he prompted, not as patient when I was the one letting the clock tick.
“Because of—”
“Money.” His tone was disparaging. “You’re wanting money aren’t you?”
“No!” Even though I had envisioned that deduction from him, it stung. “No. Well, sort of. But it’s—”
“That’s what I thought.” Matter of factual was the retort. That drawl, even from hurtful words, still had the ability to tease my eardrums.
“No it’s NOT what you thought— think. You see, our son—”
“This conversation is over. Continue it with my lawyer if you must.”
“Jack—” But the disconnect tone rang in my ear.
Angry and embarrassed, I dropped the phone on the table and squeezed my eyes closed again, this time against the threat of tears. Once before, I had explained ‘Mommy crying’ to a toddler. That task had been enough to keep the water works at bay through even the most heartbreaking times—and, there had been a lot of those in his young life.
Straightening to my feet, I slid open the door and forced a smile for the tot who was intently humming out car sounds. A massive collection of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars were strewn about the wading pool. Kneeling beside him, I randomly picked one out and rolled it around for a few seconds before fiddling idly with the tires.
“You ready to eat, sweetie?”
When he nodded, I plucked him from the couple of inches of water, draping a towel on him as I settled him in a chair. A brown lab rose from the patio and plodded over to sit down again. The pet was never more than a couple of feet from his young master.
Pulling at the Velcro straps, I slipped tiny braces on each leg before tightening them again.
“Okay.” Helping him from the chair, I passed his crutches over. “Let’s get out of this sun and get into some spaghetti!”
“Momma?” Mere minutes later, he was looking up at me, his face slightly smeared with marinara sauce. “Does surgery hurt?”
“No. You’ll be asleep. Then, you’ll wake up and feel sick for a few days. But that won’t matter because you will know that soon you’ll be able to throw those crutches away.”
“Will Bally sleep with me in the hospital?”
Looking over the laptop and the bills I was paying, I frowned at the dog and hurriedly snatched my son’s utensil from his hand. “Tristan Jack Duplei! Do not feed Bally from your fork!”
Tossing it into the sink and leaning back on my bar stool enough to reach for a clean one, I passed it over. “Bally will stay home, and Aunt Liv will take care of her. Because we will only be away a few days, and a pup wouldn’t be happy without a backyard.”
“Because Bally can’t use the potty.”
“Because Bally can’t use the potty,” I agreed with his logic. Then, with a sweep of my pen, I signed the first hefty check sum– the down payment for medical procedures which would eventually allow my son to literally stand on his own two feet.
CHAPTER
7
Jack
In my gut I’d always known I’d hear her voice again—that I would see her again. But when destiny decided and collided our universes for the second time, I never dreamed it would be under these conditions.
With each unreturned text and that last ignored voicemail I’d told myself I was ignoring her because I wanted to call her on my terms. Not because after five fucking years she decided she wanted some of Jack Storm again and hit me up. But maybe instinctively I’d known the vibe wasn’t right in her recent attempts to contact me. Maybe somehow I’d felt I wouldn’t hear from her lips what I wanted to hear.
“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe this.” Gripping the phone, I strode to the edge of the patio and stopped just short of the glass balcony.
“Believe it since I’m looking at your child right now.”
I closed my eyes against the sun, the sway of the trees, and the cottony clouds. I closed out my pool and the three smokin’ hot babes who drifted on floats—completely nude.
“Not mine, you’re not. You’re not looking at my kid.”
“You’re wrong.”
My eyes flew open. “And you’re just now telling me? Three years later? Bullshit!” I call bullshit Marissa!
“I NEVER wanted to have this conversation. I never wanted to bother you.” She seemed so sincere. So sincere that it scared the shit out of me. Her voice cracked, and something inside me cracked as well. A soft breath bled through the phone before she continued. “I’m only calling you now because…”
“Because?” I shut the world out again, and the lack of visual stimulation eased my overactive senses.
If this is the truth, if she has my baby, why is she just now saying so?
Somewhere in the darkness of my head I searched for enlightenment.
Money.
The truth always came down to the dead presidents. I’d been through it before. And I didn’t want to fuck up the memory of Marissa with the superficial shit that was my life. But she’s to blame. Years later, she has come out of nowhere and screwed up my happy place. The place I retreated to when I was so exhausted I was floating between wake and sleep. A tourbus with her. Was my worst fear her falling off her sexy pedestal and revealing herself as a money hungry bitch? Or was I more afraid of the rest of the truth?
