The Essential Jagged Ivory (Jagged Ivory Boxed Set)

by Lashell Collins

“Thank you for saying that,” she smiled. And then she let out a small giggle.

  “What?” he smiled.

  “I was just remembering your arguments,” she smiled. “She really liked you a lot.”

  “She hated me,” he smiled.

  “Only at first,” Janie replied. “Until she discovered how charming you are. You won her over when you raved about her cooking.”

  “I was just being honest,” Buzzy smiled.

  “She loved feeding you!”

  “Well, I love eating, so … it was a match made in heaven,” he said. And he smiled at the sound of Janie's laughter. She was so damn pretty, and he wanted to just reach out and touch her face. But he didn't dare.

  Her laughter suddenly morphed into a tearful smile. “I truly miss her,” she said softly.

  Without thinking, he reached out and touched her hand, holding it tenderly for a moment and feeling the electric tingle run up his arm.

  “I'm sorry, Janie,” he whispered again.

  “You know … she didn't have much life insurance to speak of. Certainly not enough to cover the entire funeral and all of her final expenses. And I had no idea how I was going to take care of it all. But then, the day before the service I had a meeting with the mortician to talk about payments, and he told me that it had been taken care of anonymously.” She paused for a moment as she thought about it, and she shook her head. “No one has ever taken credit for it. But I know that my uncle must have taken up a collection to help out. It meant so much to me … knowing that so many people thought so highly of her and wanted to show their respect somehow.”

  Buzzy nodded as he held her sad gaze with his own. “Like I said … she was a great lady.”

  She smiled at him again as he continued to hold her hand. And he took great joy in the fact that she had made no attempt to discourage the physical contact.

  Out of nowhere, the screen door burst open with a creak and a loud 'whack' as it slammed shut, and a pint-sized human came running out as if shot from a cannon.

  “Bye, mom,” the little boy shouted as he ran past them and jumped from the porch to the yard in one leap.

  “Stop!” Janie's voice was firm and insistent as she pulled her hand from Robby's and looked up sternly. The little fireball stopped immediately. “Get back here,” she said.

  Slowly, he turned around and trudged back up the steps, marching over to stand directly in front of them as he looked at her.

  “Where do you think you're going?” she asked quietly.

  He looked at her with a pout. “I'm riding my bike over to Jordan's so we can play.”

  “Really?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

  He sighed heavily and pouted again. “May I ride my bike over to Jordan's to play?” he asked, looking at her imploringly.

  Janie smiled slightly as she reached out with both hands and took him by the waist, pulling him closer. She could never resist that pout. But she could easily feel the tension building to her right, and she knew that an introduction was in order. This is not the way she envisioned this happening.

  “Yes you may go and play. But first … I want you to say hello to my friend. This is Mr. West,” she said quietly.

  Buz sat wide-eyed and mesmerized, as if frozen in place. From the moment the screen door shot open, he had been winded, like all the air had been forced from his lungs with a sledge hammer. He watched this young boy in fascination, looking over every inch of him as if he were attempting to commit him to his memory. Silky black hair, creamy pale complexion and distinctly Asian features, right down to his almond-shaped eyes. But those eyes were soft blue! He was beautiful.

  “Hello, Mr. West,” he smiled. “I'm Bobby.”

  Buzzy opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. His head was spinning. He frowned at the boy and swallowed hard. Then he opened his mouth to try again.

  “Hello,” he said quietly, holding out his hand. “It's nice to meet you.” He shook the boy's hand and held on to it for a moment longer than necessary as he stared into his most unusual eyes. The boy was a perfect mixture of Asian and Caucasian, and Buzzy's heart and his mind were racing, both hurtling toward their own conclusions. He swallowed once more, licking his lips anxiously. Why was his mouth suddenly so dry? “Um … Bobby? Is that short for Robert?” he asked him.

  “Yep. My name is Robert Andrew Kim,” his new friend announced cheerfully. And Buzzy felt the color slowly drain from his face as he tried to smile.

  “And how old are you, Robert Andrew?” he asked.

  “I'm seven. But I'll be eight in two weeks! How old are you, Mr. West?”

  Buzzy just stared at him for a moment, still in total shock. Then he smiled at him. “I just turned 27 actually.”

  “My mom is 26,” Bobby offered, and Buz's smile grew bigger.

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  “Can I go to Jordan's now?” he said, turning to Janie.

  She nodded at him mutely, and Buzzy could see the apprehension all over her face as Bobby turned to go.

  “It was nice to meet you, Bobby,” Buz said.

  “Bye, Mr. West. Bye, Mom!”

  The kid leapt off the porch once more and ran around the side of the house, disappearing down the gravel drive as Buzzy turned around in his seat, watching. A moment later, the boy came peddling back down the driveway on his bicycle.

  “Be careful,” Janie called out. “And don't leave Jordan's without calling me first!”

  “I won't!”

  Buzzy watched him ride down the street, vanishing around the corner. And when the child was out of sight he suddenly became aware of the pounding of his chest. He could hear the swishing sound of his own heartbeat thumping in his ears. His mouth felt like cotton and he could feel the dampness of his palms, and the beads of sweat breaking out across the back of his neck. And then he felt the surge of emotions as he sat looking down the street in the direction the child had gone.

  With shallow breaths, he slowly turned around to face Janie. She was watching him closely, her pretty brown eyes searching his. And suddenly, all the warring emotions going on inside of him gave way to just one. Rage.

  “Why?” The single word came out in a strangled growl as he glared at her. “Before I completely blow a fucking gasket and explode, I want to know why you never told me that I have a son!”

  Janie heard so many things in his voice with that one question – disbelief, astonishment, anger, disgust. And she hated the look of betrayal that she saw in his eyes. What should she say? How would she make him understand this? She knew that he needed an explanation. But she also knew that she didn't want him to feel obligated to her or to her son in any way. And knowing Robby the way she did, she knew that there was no way to deter him from that either. Unless…

  “Robby, I …”

  “Why would you keep something like this from me, Janie?” he practically yelled.

  She stared at him in scared silence as his eyes bored into her.

  “Say something, damn it!”

  “He's not yours,” she blurted out. And she could see that her words were like a physical blow to Robby's face. His head snapped back in surprise as he stared her down. Then an incredulous glint stole over his eyes.

  “Not mine?” he questioned loudly. “Are you going to sit there and tell me that that boy didn't just look back at me with my eyes! That kid smiled at me with my smile, Janie! He looks like me!”

  “You are not the only man in the world with blue eyes and a movie star smile, Robby West,” she shot back. Why was she doing this? Why couldn't she just tell him the truth?

  He looked at her as if he suddenly didn't know who she was anymore. “Oh, so what you're telling me is that you were sleeping with someone else eight years ago?” he said sarcastically. “That's your story?”

  Janie could feel the tears spill over onto her cheeks. “I never meant to hurt you, Robby. That is the last thing I ever wanted to do.”

  “Are you seriously trying to convince me that there was so
meone else back then?” His eyes searched hers frantically. Why was she doing this? This couldn't be true! Janie had loved him back then. She would never have slept with someone else. Why was she telling him this? “Are you saying you never loved me? That what we had was a joke?”

  “No! That's not what I'm saying,” she sobbed. “I did love you! Of course I loved you!”

  “Then why are you doing this? Why are you telling me that boy's not mine?”

  “Robby … just go! Okay?” she said, standing up and motioning for him to leave. “Just forget that you met him and go. Please,” she insisted through her tears.

  He stared up at her as his own tears became uncontainable. Wiping at his face in complete and utter confusion, he stood up. Without a word he put his sunglasses on and abruptly left the porch. He walked with a determined gait as his mind swirled with so many questions. That boy was his. He had to be. But why would Janie lie to him about something like this? Something so important. Could it be that she wasn't lying? Maybe she honestly had been seeing someone else back then. Maybe she had played him for a fool all along. Maybe what they'd had … what he had been holding on to for so long, had never been real in the first place.

  No! Janie had loved him once; he was sure of it. He felt it. She couldn't have faked that! He knew her. That was real. It had to be.

  He pondered the last ten minutes of their visit, relieving it again and again with every step he took. And as he slowly made his way back over the Lorain-Carnegie/Hope Memorial Bridge, toward downtown, he felt that familiar crushing ache stronger than ever before. Janie had just trampled over whatever had been left of his already broken heart.

  Chapter Five

  Backstage at the arena, the guys sat in the dressing room waiting for the show to begin. The mood was lighthearted and electrically charged, like always. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, laughing and talking and clowning around with each other. But Buzzy sat staring off into space as his mind fixated on his visit with Janie that morning. He hadn't been able to let it go since he'd stepped off of her porch, and his mind was clouded with images of that boy. And Janie's tearful gaze as she insisted the boy wasn't his. He thought about it the whole walk back.

  The trip had taken him about twenty-five minutes on foot. He had made it back to the hotel just in time for the band to load up and get to soundcheck. He had placated Mike by telling him that he had just taken a cab and gone for a drive around his old neighborhood. And he avoided all of Benji's probing questions about how his visit had gone. He just couldn't talk about it yet. He was in a daze. He knew that he had been in a state of shock all afternoon long, and he tried to pay attention to the things the guys were saying and what was going on around him, but he simply could not concentrate. And he wondered like mad if he would ever hear from Janie again. He knew in his gut that she would probably never use that number he had given her the other night. If he was ever going to talk to her again and get to the bottom of this little mystery, he knew that he would have to force the issue. He would have to seek her out if he wanted the answers he needed. The band was due to get on the tour bus and travel to Toledo tomorrow afternoon, but Buzzy knew that he had to talk to Janie again before he left town.

  “You alright, man?” Otis asked, slapping a hand on his shoulder and startling him out of his haze. “You don't look so hot?”

  Buz smiled at him. “Nah, I'm fine, man,” he said quietly, trying to make sure that his game face was firmly in place. He couldn't let this rattle him. He had to push all thoughts of Janie and that little boy out of his mind for the next several hours so that he could concentrate on his job.

  That little boy. That beautiful, bright, precocious little boy with his eyes, who Janie insisted was not his.

  “Buz? Man, are you sure you're okay?” Otis repeated.

  Buzzy blinked and looked up, startled once more. “What?”

  Otis stared at him for a beat. “I was asking if we had any set plans for after the show. Brother, you sure you're okay? You seem out of it.”

  Buz gave him a forced chuckle. “No, I'm fine. I just haven't slept well the last couple of nights, that's all. I'm a little tired. So where's the party later?”

  “I don't know, man. That's what I was asking you,” Otis replied. “Didn't your cousin say something about having us all over to his place after this show?”

  “Oh, yeah! That's right,” Buz nodded. “Well, he'll be backstage later, so we'll see if that's still on or not.”

  He smiled as he listened and Otis kept talking. About what, he wasn't certain because he couldn't concentrate for shit. He simply smiled and nodded in what he hoped were all the right places. And he was more than a little relieved when Noah interrupted them and dragged Otis into another conversation.

  He could not stop thinking about it. About her. About that kid. What the hell was he supposed to think? What was he supposed to do now? Did she really expect him to just walk away and leave this alone? To not ask questions? To just take her assertion that the kid wasn't his at face value? Yeah. Because she had obviously been so honest with him already.

  He rolled his eyes as he thought about that one. Had she lied to him all those years ago when she told him she loved him? Had she really been seeing someone else? Is that why she had pushed him away and broken up with him so suddenly? Because she had gotten pregnant by someone else? Is that what was going on here? Buzzy couldn't wrap his head around it. It just didn't make any sense. They had been so in love. So deeply into each other. How could she have been sleeping with someone else? And Buz knew that he had been her first; Janie was a virgin before they started having sex. There was no way that she could have faked that! And when would she have had the time to see anyone else? They spent nearly every night of the week together. He simply wouldn't believe it. He couldn't. Janie wouldn't do that to him. Janie couldn't do that at all. She wasn't like that. Janie was always so sweet and quiet and shy. His little bookworm. A real wallflower. Slightly awkward in social situations. The Janie Kim that he knew would never have hurt him that way.

  Except that she had. She had hurt him in the worst way possible, whether she had been seeing someone else or not. She had left him. After promising that they would always be together, she had broken up with him. And he had carried that pain around with him every day for the last eight years, only to be kicked in the teeth yet again. He slowly began to wonder if he had ever really known Janie at all.

  *****

  Janie went about the task of making dinner for Bobby. Sloppy Joes and tater tots – his favorite. She moved around her small kitchen as if on autopilot, just going through the motions as her mind wandered. She couldn't let go of the image of Robby sitting on her porch. He looked so stunned when Bobby came running out of the house. And the look on his face as they talked to one another. His eyes were filled with a mixture of wonder and disbelief. He almost looked like he wanted to reach out and wrap Bobby in his arms. Did she imagine that? Was that just her wishful thinking, seeing only what she wanted to see?

  Why had she lied to him? Why hadn't she simply told him the truth? Janie shook her head as her mind replayed the scene for the hundredth time. He looked so hurt as he stood up to leave. He didn't say a word. He just left. And as she thought about it, Janie suddenly couldn't help but wonder if she had just made the biggest mistake of their lives in sending him away. Again. Would he ever come back? Would she ever have another chance to explain herself? Would he ever forgive her? And more importantly … would Bobby ever forgive her? He might need Robby someday. Isn't that what her mother would say? What she had said so many times before…

  ~~~~~

  “Janie. My smart, beautiful, careful daughter,” Sandy Kim had said as she took Janie's chin in her fingers. “You spend so much time trying to do what's right for others. This is an admirable quality for a woman to have. But when are you going to do what's right for you, hmm?”

  “Mama, I don't know what you mean,” Janie had said.

  “Don't you?” Mrs. Kim smi
led. “I understand why you let that boy go, Janie. I do. I know that you believed you were doing the right thing for him. But the circumstances are different now.”

  “No, they're not. If anything, the circumstances have only reinforced my belief that I've done the right thing.”

  “The right thing for who, Janie? For him? He loves you. I don't think he believes this is the right thing,” she said. “And your child is going to need its father someday. So, this certainly isn't right for him or her. And you, my beautiful girl, are miserable. So, it is clearly not the right thing for you either. So what have you done, Janie? Exactly who is this situation 'right' for?”

  ~~~~~

  Janie smiled to herself at the memory as she set two plates on the small kitchen table and called Bobby to dinner. And as they sat eating, and she watched him devour his food, she thought about her mother's words again. Her mother was so wise. She should have taken her advice and tried harder to contact Robby after he had left town. And she wondered again how things might be different now if she had. If she had tracked him down eight years ago and told him the truth.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, sweetheart.”

  “Who was that man?”

  “What man?” Janie asked, already knowing what man Bobby was referring to.

  “The man on the porch? You said he was your friend,” he replied, popping a tater tot into his mouth.

  “Oh. Mr. West,” she mumbled, taking a sip of her juice. “Yes. He's an old friend.”

  “He didn't look old.”

  Janie smiled. “No. He's not old, Bobby. But he's an old friend because we've known each other for a long time.”

  “How long?” Bobby asked as he took a bite of his sandwich. He had always been such a good eater. He had Robby's appetite, Janie mused.

  “A long time,” she answered. “Since before you were born. We went to high school together.”

  “Was he your boyfriend?”

  Janie was quiet for a moment as she thought about his question. “Yes, he was. I guess you could say we were best friends. For a time.”