by Helena Maeve
Jackie took a step forward, blocking Clara’s exit. “That’s your prerogative. But you don’t do it at his expense, understand?”
“Or what? You’ll make me regret it?” For a little slip of a girl, Clara had spunk. There was also something slightly venomous in her gaze that Jackie couldn’t help but feel hinted at a more troubled past than she cared to know about. Clara wasn’t someone she could help with kindness and she had nothing else to offer. What was more, Jackie wasn’t sure she cared to try. Choices had to be made—Tony took priority.
Still, she had to admit it was a valid question. Intimidating a co-worker could get her into trouble. Clara would find a way to cover her bases, she was too clever not to.
“You’re going to regret it a lot more the day he leaves you. I know right now it feels like you’ve won, but Tony isn’t blind. He knows you’re using him and sooner or later, resentment is going to outweigh whatever guilt he feels about leaving you in Minsk.” Jackie smiled. “And believe me, I’ll be texting and emailing and fanning smoke signals until that day comes. Getting him to parrot a few words doesn’t mean we’re through.”
“Are you threatening me?” Clara quipped, thrusting out her chin.
Jackie didn’t look away. “You’re sitting on my desk, little girl.”
* * * *
“That’s what you called her?” Marten asked around a mouthful of toothpaste, poking his head around the bathroom door.
Jackie covered her face with her hands. “I was on a roll!” And she hadn’t been thinking straight. At the time, highlighting their age difference had felt like scoring a point. Now she wondered if she hadn’t simply emphasised Clara’s point about being too old for Tony. Really, that was the least of their problems. “I’m going to get fired, aren’t I?”
“She’ll have a hard time getting it to stick. You’ve been working there how long?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jackie said, because seniority was meaningless if harassment became an issue. There were pretty stringent policies in place to prevent abuses. She wouldn’t put it past Clara to find a way to convince HR that there had been improper conduct.
“At least you can be sure your life isn’t going to get any less exciting,” Marten called from the bathroom, the sounds of water splashing against porcelain providing the background track.
Jackie rolled onto her belly on the bed and reached for the wine glass on the night stand. “You can say that again.” She listened as the tap shut off, as Marten’s footsteps padded into the bedroom. The bathroom door closed with a click.
“Did you mean it?”
“Mean what?” She took one glance at Marten and understood. “Yeah. Well… What else can we do? I’m not going to let her run me out of town.”
“What if we left on our own?” Marten asked, nudging her hip. It took a couple of tries, Jackie being already on her second glass of wine and deliberately slow to shift her weight off the comforter so he could get into bed, but eventually she obeyed, settling against the headboard with the glass balanced on her belly. A sharp, humourless laugh shook the crimson surface of the goblet. “I’m serious,” Marten insisted.
“Where would we go?”
“How about…back to the States?” He cleared his throat. “You could get a job at the regional office in Seattle. We would only be a few hours away from your family…”
“Marten?”
“I was made an offer.” Secrets didn’t last long between them. Marten delivered this one with a wry smile, his shoulders hunching. “It’s not a promotion, really, but it’s still an honour to be asked.”
Jackie found herself incredibly glad for the wine all of a sudden. “When did this happen?”
“Today.”
“Oh.”
Marten huffed out a breath. “Yeah. I didn’t know how to bring it up, so… I guess I made a good impression on the new boss.”
“Well, you are the life of the party,” Jackie murmured, trying to be positive. She squeezed his knee. Much as she didn’t want to be the one to say it, she felt she had to. “What about staying and fighting for Tony?” They had both paid lip service to the idea last night at the restaurant and Jackie had all but made it into a cri de guerre in her conversation with Clara. Now they were talking about reneging on that vow and literally fleeing the country.
Beside her, Marten shrugged, jostling his shoulder against hers. “I really don’t know what to tell you.”
How about that we’re not abandoning him? Jackie wanted to shout. How about that you told me you were in love with him? She let her hand drop from his knee and fall back down to the bed. Marten hadn’t actually said anything about loving Tony or wanting to be with Tony, only pretty phrases about refusing to be told what to do by a perfect stranger. Jackie wondered, suddenly, if that had been just another instance of her boyfriend telling her what she wanted to hear, of placating her so she wouldn’t cause a scene in public. Precedent spoke in favour of Marten taking it upon himself to manage her moods.
“He left her in Minsk,” Jackie heard herself say.
“What?”
“Tony. He left Clara in Minsk. That’s what happened.” She took another sip of wine, barely tasting the sour vintage, then poured what was left straight down her gullet, proper conduct be damned.
“Why would he do that?” Marten prompted gently. If he noticed her staring into empty space, glass perched perilously against her knees, he chose not to say. He knew her too well to imply that she might have had too much to drink.
Jackie shook her head. She didn’t know what had possessed Tony to behave so callously or why she was still defending a man who obviously wanted nothing to do with them. Clara had his phone, but she didn’t have his balls. He could have come to see them in person if he had missed them.
Now Marten was talking about leaving Rotterdam and starting over in Seattle. She was fighting a losing battle. “I’m going to turn in,” Jackie announced.
“Okay.”
She didn’t move. The muscles involved wouldn’t cooperate, and before she could smother it, an inhuman sob burst free of her throat. The glass teetered in her lap. Jackie tried to steady it, but another ragged, wet moan hit, like an earthquake shaking free from deep within. Her body curled upon itself, helpless against the sudden onslaught. Dimly, she could feel Marten’s hands on her shoulders, pulling her into his arms and plucking the wine glass from her trembling fingers. Thank God for Marten. He didn’t baulk at the sight of her snivelling and baying, didn’t try to hush her irrational, staccato attempts at speech. Nothing intelligible came out, only gibberish, but he understood.
He seemed to understand and he rocked her until the worst of it had passed. There was nothing else he could’ve done. A birthday surprise had turned into a half-committed friends-with-benefits sort of thing and now Jackie’s heart felt like it was being shattered in two, with one half bunking with another woman and refusing to give her the time of day and the other considering taking refuge in Seattle. She didn’t know how to deal with that. A couple of months earlier, she had been fantasising about a man she’d only seen in soft-lit porn—now she’d had him, fantasy made flesh, and lost him.
Marten fell asleep with an arm thrown across Jackie’s midriff, his fingers occasionally rubbing the skin there. She knew he was asleep from the soft caress of his breaths against her nape. At least one of them was at peace. Jackie couldn’t follow suit. Her thoughts kept drifting back to Tony in the restaurant. She’d close her eyes and see him sitting there, morose and brooding, like a romantic hero in some historical romance. Only this hero wasn’t exactly pining for the pale, fragile beauty. Insofar as Clara fitted the role, Tony had already won her heart and hand.
They would make a beautiful couple, Jackie thought despite herself. They could have beautiful children together. Their daughter was probably all kinds of adorable.
Who was she to get in the way of their happiness? It was selfish to cling, and Tony had enough of that with Clara in his life.
Ca
reful not to wake Marten, Jackie pulled back the covers and slipped out of bed. She found her phone in her handbag, in the living room, and tapped it to light up the screen. One password-lock later and she had a message draft open and waiting. She stood poised with thumbs hovering over the keys for a long moment before she could decide what to type.
You win. I hope you’ll be happy together. Take care of him.
Goodbye, J & M.
She clicked send before she could think twice about the wisdom of sending Tony a message intended for Clara’s eyes. After this morning’s ‘I’m not giving up on us’, it felt like a betrayal, but what was the use in appearing consistent if she wasn’t wanted? She’d caused enough problems for Tony—first by dragging him into a half-baked attempt at a threesome with and for Marten, then by playing with his heart and implying he was somehow beholden to them just because he had a kinky streak. Best to cut her losses now, before she did them both any more harm.
The city lights blurred before her eyes, but Jackie blinked the tears away before they could spill. There had been enough weeping for one night.
She was about to pad back to bed and give sleep another chance when her phone shrilled on the table, vibrating so hard it made her heart jump into her throat. It didn’t get any easier once she’d checked the caller ID, except now the phone was vibrating in her hand, sending vicious little tremors up her elbow as she stood there, in the dark, at a loss as to what to do.
She picked up, expecting to hear Clara’s voice on the other end. It wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility—the girl had a way of elbowing her way into things that did not concern her. But it wasn’t.
“Can you meet me for a drink?” Tony asked, doing away with ‘hello’ and ‘good evening’ and ‘I’m sorry’ in one fell swoop.
Jackie considered her latest resolution and weighed resolve against the wine roiling in her belly. She felt heavy and sluggish. She knew she didn’t look her best with her eyes so red and puffy. She’d make a bad impression. “Okay,” she said, resigned. “Where?”
Tony named the coffee shop where they’d first met, then recanted. It wouldn’t be open at this hour. He suggested a bar, instead, rather than meeting some other time. He must have known that Jackie’s temporary insanity wasn’t going to last past sunrise. She’d be back to her old self again in the morning and she would stick to a decision made. She wasn’t like Marten to change her mind at the flip of a coin.
“I’ll see you in twenty minutes,” she told him, and hung up. Dressing without waking her boyfriend proved doable only because Jackie hadn’t hung her work clothes in the closet. She could do nothing to tame her hair, or risk turning on the light to blot concealer under her eyes. Tony would have to suffer seeing her looking like death warmed over and that was that.
The streets were empty, as was normal for half past midnight, but Jackie had cab companies on speed dial. She made do.
Tony was waiting outside the bar when she arrived, dragging vigorous puffs of cigarette into his lungs to fortify himself.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Jackie noted, as she drew her trench coat tighter around herself. She suppressed a shiver—it wasn’t the cold so much as exhaustion. If she’d had any sense, she would have stayed in bed, beside Marten, in the life she’d built for herself brick by brick. Instead here she was, glancing around for a mousy-haired wraith that was sure to pop around the corner any second now.
Tony caught her looking. “Clara isn’t coming.”
“She’s not?”
He shook his head. “She doesn’t know I’m seeing you.”
“How brave.” Jackie didn’t mean it to come out so sarcastic, but she couldn’t help the bite of her words. There was a point beyond which she could not muster compassion, a threshold that had been crossed a couple of days back, when Tony had more or less confirmed he was through with them. Seeing him again was a bit like worrying an old wound—it hurt, yes, but it also felt good to scratch open the healing scabs.
“Do you want to go inside?” Tony asked, crushing the cigarette butt under his ratty Converse.
That’s littering, Jackie mused detachedly and nodded. At least it was bound to be warmer inside the bar.
They found a table far enough from the watering hole that the mating calls of single men and women on the prowl didn’t quite carry. Tony ordered a dry Martini. Jackie couldn’t make out if he was trying to impress her, or if this was the real Tony and the man she’d known and slept with, the one obsessed with healthy living, had been just a mask he put on. After seeing Clara go from office gossip-monger to single-minded schemer, anything was possible. She stuck with Coke.
“That’s all?” Tony prompted. “Are you sure you don’t want something more—?”
“I’m sure.”
“But—”
Jackie sighed, curtailing the question. “Why am I here, Tony?”
“Let me get our drinks first.” He was so fidgety it was a miracle he managed to bring back the glasses without spilling anything. Jackie left hers untouched, though Tony didn’t hesitate to dip his lips into the Martini, apparently in search of a little liquid courage. “I got your message,” he blurted out, fiddling with the glass. “I thought… It sounded very final.”
“It was supposed to be,” Jackie acknowledged.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Why not? You have a kid with Clara, you told Marten and I in no uncertain terms that you love her…” She left out the part where he’d obviously been struggling because it was late and kindness was more than Jackie could handle right at that moment. “Because I’m not a home-wrecker in any capacity and I thought you were being honest with us. If I’d known you were involved with someone else…”
“What? You would’ve stopped checking my website?” There was something still raw and hurt in his voice when he brought that up. Jackie swallowed back her guilt.
“I haven’t looked at your website in a while, actually. Since you started sleeping with us, I think. But hey, why am I explaining myself?” she drawled, grinning mirthlessly. “Apparently lying to your sexual partners is all kinds of fashionable these days.”
“I didn’t lie,” Tony protested weakly.
“Really? I must have been drunk during the whole I forgot to say, but oh by the way, I’m dating the mother of my child chat. When did that happen?”
“That’s not…” Tony heaved a breath. He looked like he would have rather been anywhere else, but he had invited Jackie out for this heart to heart. He wasn’t going to get off so easily. “I’m not dating her.”
“That’s not what she says.”
“Yeah? Well, Clara also tells me we have a kid together, but guess what, I’m actually pretty good with numbers. We had been broken up for almost a whole year when she showed up in Rotterdam with a belly the size of the Berliner Dom. What was I supposed to do? Turn her away?” He shrugged, a violent gesture at odds with the hushed, animal-hurt cadence of his voice. “I said okay, she could come live with me. Our parents are pretty old-fashioned. They wouldn’t have taken kindly to Clara coming home with a baby and no husband, especially at that age. Plus, I’d left her in fucking Minsk when we broke up. It was my fault she got in trouble.”
“Go on,” Jackie said as she sipped lazily at her Coke, too tired to be magnanimous.
“The first video we did together, we didn’t know what we were doing. Lighting was bad, focus was off… You could barely see her. Me, though…” Tony swallowed hard. “I was pretty recognisable. I didn’t know she’d sold the tape until I got a call from my then boss. I was bussing tables in an Irish pub, could barely make myself understood—and my boss calls me in to say that he knows a few people if I’d like some serious work. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. He was nice about it, though. Don’t think guys were his thing, but he helped me out anyway. So that’s how it started. Clara got me my first job, I took it from there.” He shuffled a little in his seat, tilting forward with both elbows on the table, as if by
reducing the distance between them he could stand a better chance of persuading Jackie. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me and her. She didn’t hold my feet to the fire.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it?” Tony blinked, confused. “But your texts…”
“Were obviously a mistake. You’re in love with her—”
“I’m not.” His answer was immediate, overloud. It grabbed at parts of Jackie that wanted to believe him so badly. “I’m not—Jesus, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Clara thinks I’m still with her after all this time because I owe her…or because I’m—” He shook his head, hunting for the words, “—infatuated or something. But I’m not. I feel sorry for her. She chose to walk a very hard road and she chose to do it on her own. I’m just…a passenger until she finds someone better.”
It was Jackie’s turn to baulk. “Why would you put up with something like that?”
“Wouldn’t you? For a friend?” Tony searched her eyes, his gaze liquid and intense and so painfully earnest. “I loved her once. We were kids and she broke my heart… That doesn’t mean I’m blind.”
“So what was last night? That whole scene… What was that?” Jackie could hear her voice cracking, a sob tangling in her throat. It was a strange sensation, like floating outside of herself as hysteria mounted. She barely recognised herself, except as some crazy lady with her hair all tangled and her breaths coming short and stilted, her lungs burning. “How could you sit there and let her talk for you?”
“Because I thought she needed it!”
Tony had rounded the table. He dropped to his knees and Jackie wanted to tell him to get up, God only knew what filth was on the floor, but her tongue wouldn’t obey and she couldn’t form the words. Her hands shook when he twined their fingers together.
“I thought she needed to have one person in her life who would always be there for her. I thought she wanted me to make up for the mistakes I’d made. To atone. But she didn’t care. It wasn’t about me. She was just destroying what we had because she could. Because I didn’t realise it sooner—”