No Greater Love

by Susan Rodgers

  “What ‘appen to your woman?” Katrine asked him. “I tink I see her leave early? You no pleasure her good, no?” She accented her question with a tap on his lips with her right forefinger and a diabolical glint in her eye.

  “Ahhh,” he said, slipping back on the plush cushion. “I just gave her more than she could handle, that’s all.”

  Soon Jacob joined them, as did Charlene after a bit, and they all ordered the breakfast special along with refillable coffee. They bantered good-naturedly for a while, cementing friendships. Secretly pleased she found like-minded friends, including the quick-witted individualistic Katrine, Jessie fought to dispel images in her mind of similar comfortable repartee with another group of friends an ocean away.

  She felt Jacob take her hand underneath the table and run his fingers over hers as he laughed along with his friends. Glancing up at him, she knew the others, too, were aware that last night the dynamic changed between him and the girl they knew as Annie. Jessie let herself relax. Jacob was indeed a free spirit, a man who loved his women, a musician who spent a lot of time alone lost in his music. She didn’t need to be concerned. She told herself that Josh was still, and always would be, her number one.

  ***

  Chocolate eyes flashing, Josh slapped his brown leather gloves down on the bar at Charlie’s Club. Hands on his hips, he turned and faced the owner. Chagrined, Charlie sat facing the bar with his head down. It was December twenty-seventh, noon, so only the cleaning staff were present although the kitchen and bar staff were expected shortly. The bar wasn’t scheduled to open until two o’clock.

  “Speak,” Josh growled, running frustrated fingers through his tousled hair.

  Charlie shrugged his shoulders and threw up both hands. Leaning an elbow on the bar, he turned to face his former adversary.

  “What do you want me to say, Josh? That I’m sorry? Well fine. I am.”

  Storming around in a circle like an angry dog cornering its prey, Josh fumed. “You’ve had a postcard in your possession since the first of November written by Jessie months before, and you kept it to yourself. You might recall she is no longer yours to hoard and hide like some kind of prized toy! Dee was beside herself, Charlie! You should have seen the look on her face when she realized you knew for two months something the rest of us longed for!”

  “What, the information that she’s alive?” Charlie had to force himself not to raise his voice, but it was difficult. As it was, his words were emotional, abrupt. “What difference does it make? The postcard was written in March, almost nine months before I got my hands on it. And we don’t even know the circumstances, for all we know McCall forced her to write the card.”

  “No,” Josh said firmly. “She shifted money around, Matt said. She took things that mattered to her. She’s not with McCall.”

  “Fucking prove it,” Charlie said, standing and facing Josh, who grabbed his chair when it almost tipped over from the force of Charlie’s movement. Charlie pointed a finger in Josh’s face and almost spit out his words. “This is why I didn’t show you guys the postcard. Because all of you only want to see the good. You want to see a girl that you loved out there travelling the world, working in fucking orphanages, helping people, hiding from the big bad wolf. You don’t want to see the reality of the situation, which is that Jessie left us, all of us, not just you! She abandoned everyone who helped her along the way, including my father, and Charles and Dee, who are crushed. Get it through your skulls, Josh, she’s gone and she isn’t coming back. All that postcard served to do was give people false hope. Jessie’s moved on with her life in whatever way she has chosen, and it doesn’t include us.”

  Grabbing his gloves off the counter, Josh turned and stomped towards the door. From behind him came Charlie’s voice, loud enough this time to startle the newly arrived bartender.

  “What would you do if she did come home anyway, Josh? End this thing with Michelle? What would be the point of that? The whole world still thinks you put Jessie in the hospital!”

  Halfway to the door, Josh froze. He stood with his back to Charlie as the frustration building for so long in Charlie’s heart exploded.

  “She wouldn’t go back to you anyway! She’d still be scared McCall would show up. She’s likely built herself a whole new life somewhere. Somewhere without you, without me, without any of us. Someplace where she is safe from sick predators like McCall, someplace where she doesn’t need protection provided by the likes of us!”

  Josh turned then. He knew where this was going. He stared at Charlie, incredulous.

  Charlie continued his rant. He couldn’t control it, although he would deeply regret it later. All those months - more than a year of worrying, wondering. It all came out at the one person whom he figured could likely take it, if only because Josh was accustomed to being blamed and shit upon. “Cause we did such a fucking good job protecting her the first time around, didn’t we, Josh?” Then he turned and put his head down on the bar, and covered himself with his arms, as if he could hide himself from sight.

  Watching him, Josh felt a deep abiding pity. Charlie had loved Jessie for a very long time, even though in his own playboy ways he had hurt her too. But still, they maintained a special friendship even after their break-up. Jessie was forgiving, understanding. Josh knew why Charlie was losing it today – because a second Christmas was just marked without her, and so it seemed final, her absence.

  He raised an uncertain arm, wondering what to say.

  Then, “Charlie. You have every right to be angry. We’re all angry. At McCall, mostly, but yeah, at Jessie too. Fucking angry. And you can be as mad at me as you want to, because although I knew something was wrong, I couldn’t put my finger on it and I couldn’t get her to talk. And when I see her again – and yes, I plan on seeing her again, even if it’s twenty years from now – I don’t know what I’ll do. Probably curse her up one side and down the other, at the very least. Kick her ass, yes, because I’m not scared of McCall seeing me anywhere near her. But – as far as Michelle and I go, we’ve got a good thing and I don’t plan on fucking that up. Jessie will always be the love of my life, and I’m guessing of yours, too. But she’s a wild card, and right now I’m aiming for some stability. So you go on being pissed off at her, and the rest of us will too, but…at least give us the courtesy of digesting this information that you so selfishly hoarded, at least for a few days.”

  He turned to go, then spoke again. “You’ve had a few months to hope. To us, it’s new. Let us just hope for a while, okay? That’s what that postcard means to Dee. Hope. Don’t take that away from us. Not yet.”

  Charlie didn’t give any sign that he heard.

  But before exiting the club, Josh added, “Jane told us this Arnie guy was the one who set Jess free. She told us what he did, that he picked her up outside Jonathon’s house, that his wife cut her hair. That he got her a fake passport with some name he wouldn’t divulge. Information like that would have helped us, Charlie. It would have given Dee a measure of comfort knowing Jessie left on her own, not at the mercy of Deuce McCall and his insidious dagger. It would have helped her sleep at night. Hope a little longer, Charlie. Don’t give up on our girl yet.”

  The door slammed behind him, jarring Charlie out of his reverie. He knew Josh was right, but Charlie was just so damned tired of hoping…for what? Nothing would ever be the same even if Jessie did come home. Nothing.

  He picked up his phone and texted Jane, the patient girl who was his present, his future.

  Hey beautiful girl. Can I bring you some lunch?

  And then he gathered his things and left the club, averting his eyes from the stage in the corner. As he left the dim room behind and walked out into the sunlight, he forced himself to think of Jane, whose touch calmed him, and not of Jessie, the girl whose remembered touch ripped him apart.

  ***

  Chapter Ten

  Jacob’s poignant lyrics urged Jessie back to the present. She was drinking too much Guinness again, although she
was trying hard to cut down on smoking weed. The beer’s effect was instantaneous, numbing. In tight jeans and a clingy black T-shirt, as well as the ever-present favorite brown boots, she looked hot, and attracted the attention of some random guy in his forties. Dancing with Katrine in front of the boys as they played at the pub, she partnered with this man, who was obviously counting on getting laid tonight. This new slower song made her mindful of his advances – greying at the temples with a growing potbelly and smelling of cigarettes and onions, he wasn’t a man she was in any way attracted to. But she was drunk and growing more and more uneasy about her feelings for Jacob. So she was doing what Jessie Wheeler did best – she was pulling away.

  Expressive blue eyes watched her every move from behind the microphone on stage. Jessie was leading the older guy on, no question. But why? Jacob felt his temper rise. He and Annie had spent every day together since Christmas. They slept together, they made love, they played music. They partied with Katrine, John Paul, Charlene. Things were good. The necklace was a problem, yes – Annie had a history. But so far it wasn’t getting in the way. They were carefree, in each other’s arms the way new lovers celebrated – mornings, evenings, afternoons. Jacob found himself longing to be in her presence; he missed her when Jessie wasn’t with him, when she was out with Charlene and Katrine getting her eyebrows waxed, or picking up salad greens for dinner. Hell, he missed her when she was in another room in his flat. He admitted freely that he adored her; maybe he even loved the mysterious girl with the sad eyes. So why was she practically sexing this old man on the dance floor in front of him?

  Finally, Jacob had enough. He finished his song with a loud discord, much to John Paul’s surprise, and then he stamped off the dance floor and out of the bar. Pacing outside in the cold, he lit a cigarette. Jessie waited a few moments and then drunkenly followed him outside, the older man a few steps behind her.

  “Jacobbb,” she slurred. “I’m tiiired. I’m goin’ home.”

  He forced himself to look at her. The crisp clear night was bitterly cold, and she was already shivering despite the brief few moments outdoors. He could see her breath, feel the panic in her searching, opaque eyes. They had gotten too close, too fast.

  He was leaning against the old stone of the pub, one knee bent, the foot against the rough surface, one hand holding the cigarette and one shoved inside the pocket of his loose jeans. She already recognized it as his Jacob stance.

  “What the fuck, Annie?” he said, although he knew. He was scared too.

  She shrugged and, unbalanced from the drink, stumbled. The older guy grabbed her arm.

  “No worries,” the louse said in a thick Scottish accent. “I’ll see she gets home safely.” He leered at Jessie in a way that made Jacob’s skin crawl.

  As she backed away she said simply, “I’m jus’ goin’ home, Jacob. Thassall. I jus’ had too much to drink. Thassall.”

  But the older guy followed, and although Jacob knew that other than John Paul she hadn’t slept with anyone else since he met her, he still felt uneasy.

  “Wait,” he said urgently. “I’ll take you.”

  But then John Paul was at his side lighting up a smoke. “Like hell you will,” he broke in. “I need the money we’re gonna get tonight, after Christmas and all.” He regarded Jacob decisively as he protected the glowing red end of his smoke from the slight crusty breeze. Yanking the cigarette out of his mouth, he implored his friend, “Jake. Whatever. She’s a big girl, she can take care of herself. There are two or three nice little honeys in there salivating for a chance at you. Let her go.”

  Holding the smoke between his thumb and forefinger, Jacob took a deep pull on it before turning his head the other way.

  John Paul continued. “You’re not the one-woman type anyway, man. Just let her go.”

  So he did, against his better wishes.

  Later, Jacob stopped outside Jessie’s flat. Hers was on the second floor, and he knew she had a big comfy easy chair perched by the large picture window. The place was dark. He leaned against the building across the way and stared up at her space. Everything about this girl was unsettling to him – the familiarity about her, the way she looked at him from the depths of her doe-y eyes, the way she played the fecking guitar in a manner that rocked his soul – everything. The way she walked, the way she talked. Her kindnesses towards others. He finally admitted to himself, standing there on this bitter cold night, that he was in love. Why was it that people tended to admit such things after the object of their desire was gone? What was it about human nature that made people so often take the good things for granted? The thought of Annie inside, in all probability sharing her bed with the loathsome disgusting drunk, really unnerved Jacob. Miserably, he felt his heart sink.

  Upstairs, Jessie was sitting in her big chair by the window when Jacob had straggled by, the picture of doom and gloom. She straightened her shoulders and watched as he settled into his dejected posture against the building across the way. Nervously, Jessie ran a finger over her lips, top and then bottom, before she stood and walked over to the coat rack by her doorway. Grabbing the cheap bomber with its fur-lined hood, she threw it over her shoulders and opened the door. She footed the stairs carefully – she was still feeling the effects of the Guinness.

  Jacob saw the door to her building open and he stiffened, thinking it might be beer-belly man on his way out. He shrank into the brick across the street. He didn’t want an altercation. He just wanted the girl who caressed the cross on his back with the same gentle fingers that urged such beautiful music from her Gibson.

  He was surprised to see that the nebulous figure was Annie, her pink flannel plaid pajama bottoms dragging on the snowy ground over a pair of Bogs flowered boots. He thought she looked adorable, yet he tensed, wondering what she had to say to him. Get lost, maybe?

  “Jacob,” was all she said, unsure.

  He stood then, and stuck out a thumb and forefinger, turning her head so it caught the light from a nearby streetlamp. Wiping the thumb across her lip, he withdrew it to spy a trail of blood.

  “He hit you?” he asked incredulously, feeling his blood pressure immediately rise as he contemplated what else the asshole might have done.

  She shook her head. “It’s nothing. I just…wouldn’t let him come up, that’s all. It’s my fault for leading him on in the first place.”

  “Annie,” Jacob said angrily. “No man should ever hit a woman. Or the other way around, for that matter. There is no excuse.”

  Yeesh, she thought. Remind me never to tell Jacob about Deuce McCall.

  Jessie eyed him, standing in front of her defeated, yet proud, and she swallowed. “Jacob,” she said. “I’m sorry for acting like that. I know that you and I, we…”

  She couldn’t finish.

  He took up the cause.

  “Look, Annie. I don’t know what to say to you right now. I don’t know what to say at the best of times. All I know is what I feel, and what I feel is…”

  Jessie reached out and touched his lips this time. She shook her head no. He deserved her honesty. She needed to tell him what he was getting into - that she loved someone else, and always would.

  “Jacob. I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if it’s fair to you. I don’t know if I want you to have a hold on me.”

  He raised a hand and gently pulled her ring out from underneath the black T-shirt she wore with her pajama bottoms.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Because you are in love with a fecking ghost.” They had all adopted the Scots slang on their favorite North American curse word. She found it endearing, the way the word fecking passed through Jacob’s lips.

  “Two ghosts, actually,” she responded. “Or maybe three if you throw my dad in there.” Tears sprang to her eyes and she had a hard time convincing them to stay inside where she felt they belonged.

  “Who gave you the ring?” He asked the inevitable question in a whisper, as if saying it any louder might make it more real than it already was. I
n his fingers the diamonds felt hard, sharp, bitter.

  She paused before she answered. “Someone I let go who I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to yet.”

  He let go of the ring and it fell against her chest, its diamonds catching the light from the streetlamp, giving Jessie’s face an illuminated glow; to him, it made her suddenly appear larger than life. She was the ghost that night, the way she stood underneath that soft streetlight with the diamonds of her past reflecting her sorrow; he knew it then but didn’t dare admit it to himself. There was something surreal about this woman who understood music the way she did, who had the saddest eyes he had ever seen, who made love to him like it was her only hold on life.

  “Did he die?” Again, barely a whisper, from a boy who rarely spoke. “Charlene thinks he’s dead.”

  He saw her shiver then, and thought her answer would be in the positive, so he was clearly surprised – and definitely dismayed, because it would have been easier to compete with an actual spirit than a real live man – when she shook her head no.

  Jacob grasped the zipper on her coat. He slipped it up its track and then let his hands fall aside as he leaned back against the brick. Jessie closed her eyes, anticipating a warm touch on her skin that never came. Opening them, she pondered him, this boy, in his denim jacket and loose fitting jeans, one leg crooked now against the wall, hands now in his pockets. She saw his breath floating in the cold night air of a Scottish winter, and it hit her then – he was in front of her, alive. Breathing. Josh was dead to her these days. The ghost that haunted her. The ghost of all ghosts.

  Jacob had more to ask. There were things he needed to know. He was like that, a thinker. He lined things up and then made deductions. She often thought his mind worked like Matt’s. Quiet, but smart. She liked that about him. Matt. Another person she missed. Sometimes it was all so overwhelming.