by John Marrs
Nicole gave up on rest long before her fellow hostellers awoke, and quietly slipped out of her room to eat breakfast alone in the kitchen and ponder what to do with her new-found wealth. She was as certain as she could be that Tommy would keep her money safe until she made a carefully considered decision, but after barely three days in her possession, all that cash had brought her was misery and bruising. She was beginning to regret having ever met her benefactor.
After rinsing her dishes she went by the hotel reception and noticed Peyk taping posters to the wall. ‘Free beach party, tomorrow night, Santa Monica. 8 p.m. till sunrise.’
‘You got some time later to help me organise food and stuff?’ Peyk asked.
‘Sure,’ replied Nicole, grateful for the opportunity to think about something other than her own troubles. Then, with the sudden urge for some familiar company, she was on her way towards Tommy’s dormitory when the door to another room opened.
Tommy didn’t see Nicole, but she was aware of him slipping out of Jake’s room in just his boxer shorts.
CHAPTER 65
Four French girls Tommy had checked into the hostel days earlier stood in a line, stared at the television in the lounge and waited as a timer counted them down.
As soon as Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy’ began playing, the girls followed the on-screen instructions and copied each of the dance moves they were told to follow by an animated character.
‘Where did that come from?’ Tommy asked Peyk, pointing to a brand new 72-inch television on the wall.
‘Ron bought it earlier and rigged it up.’
‘Nice to know he’s putting my earnings to good use,’ Tommy replied curtly. ‘Meanwhile the water pressure’s still non-existent and there’s next to no Wi-Fi signal.’
‘Yet you’re still smiling. What have you been up to, Tommy-boy?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied, blushing.
Tommy briefly reflected over the last week of his life and realised that if anyone had told him he’d finish the month selling drugs, framing a murderer or spending the night with another guy, he’d not have believed them.
‘Let’s just say I followed your advice,’ Tommy continued. ‘I jumped out of the bowl and I’m swimming in the ocean.’
‘Good man. Just make sure you’re swimming with the current and not against it. Don’t let the wrong people drag you down.’
Tommy rolled his eyes, preparing himself for more vague life lessons. ‘Like who?’
‘He’s not your brother or your father or your friend Sean or whoever else you want him to be. Don’t mistake love for longing.’
‘Peyk, you’re next!’ interrupted Elize in her heavy French accent, grabbing his arm and pushing him towards the game before Tommy could ask him to expand. Clearly drunk, she took Peyk’s place next to Tommy.
‘For an English guy, you’re cute,’ she slurred.
‘What’s wrong with English guys?’
‘They’re too pale and only want to drink beer all the time. If you like, we go to my room and know each other better.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Tommy replied, then gently placed his hands around her cheeks and moved her head backwards when her lips began to approach his.
From across the room, Jake watched, amused, as Tommy awkwardly rebuffed the inebriated girl’s clumsy advances. What had happened on the roof and later in his bedroom had taken Jake by surprise, albeit a wonderfully unexpected surprise. But he worried Tommy’s curiosity wouldn’t extend past an experimental fling.
‘Hi,’ smiled Nicole benignly, distracting Jake from his concerns.
‘Hello,’ Jake replied, and then frowned at the bruising and swelling around her eyes.
‘Didn’t Tommy tell you?’ she asked, pre-empting his question. ‘I thought you two were quite close.’
‘No, he didn’t say anything.’
‘It’s a long story,’ Nicole replied, reluctant to go into any further detail with someone she only vaguely knew.
As Elize continued to paw at Tommy, she noticed his attention was directed towards Jake and Nicole.
‘I think you like that girl in the corner better than me. You look at each other lots. She can come with us if you want.’
‘Nicole’s my friend,’ replied Tommy stiffly.
‘And the boy?’
‘Jake’s my friend too.’
‘You have a lot of friends. Jake is nice. He looks like that singer man. What his name . . . like you, English boy. Killed himself.’
‘Stuart Reynolds?’ replied Tommy slowly, and scowled at Elize.
‘Shave away his beard, cut his brown hair and make it blonde, he could be a brother.’
Tommy took a moment to closely examine Jake, who smiled back at him.
And as Elize continued to talk, all Tommy heard was the sound of his heart racing.
CHAPTER 66
Matty lay on his bed watching Declan tidy their room.
Matty knew he left a lot to be desired when it came to tidiness, and no matter where in the world they travelled, Declan made order from the chaos that surrounded them.
‘Why won’t you talk about it?’ began Matty, breaking a comfortable silence.
‘Talk about what?’ replied Declan, sniffing the inside of a pair of trainers and grimacing at their pungent scent.
‘Me, dying. It’s like having an elephant in the room and you keep ignoring it.’
‘Not now, Matty,’ Declan replied, refusing to make eye contact but feeling Matty’s gaze upon him.
‘Then when?’
‘I dunno, just not now.’
‘It’s going to happen, Dec, and the sooner you face it, the easier it’s going to be.’
‘What’s going to be easy about you not being here, you dope?’ Declan snapped.
‘Look, Dec, we’ve been through everything together. If you could’ve given me your own heart, I know you would’ve. But you need to let go of the hope that all this is going to continue indefinitely. I’m already past my expiry date.’
‘I don’t want to think about you . . . you—’
‘Dying? It’s just a word, you can say it.’
Declan folded a pair of jeans and placed them over the back of a chair.
‘That’s the problem though, isn’t it? It’s not just a word,’ he said quietly but firmly. ‘It’s something so fucking monumental that nothing will ever be the same again and you won’t be here to help shoulder the burden because you will be the burden. It’ll be all your fault and I’ll hate you for it, and I don’t want to do that, so until I’m ready to get my head around it, it’s something I don’t want to discuss.’
‘You have to!’ said Matty, sitting up. ‘Whenever it happens, I want to be ready for it but I can’t unless I know you’re ready too.’
‘How? Tell me, how?’
‘By acknowledging it. The biggest thing you can do for me is that.’
‘I can’t.’
‘I have. I’ve had plenty of moments when I’ve hated God for putting me through this and thought, “Why me?” But why not me? Why does it have to be someone else, why shouldn’t it be me? I’ve stopped being angry at the world, I’ve had the time of my life over the last year and I’ve made my peace with the man upstairs. You have to do the same.’
Matty recognised the look Declan gave him – the last time he’d seen it, they were little boys and Declan’s mother had walked out on her family and wasn’t returning. Back then, Matty had gripped his pal’s hand tightly and promised Declan he’d never leave him. But it was a promise he was reluctantly going to break.
‘I’m sorry,’ mumbled Declan and left the room.
CHAPTER 67
A flustered Tommy took advantage of Jake being engrossed in conversation with Nicole and hurried out of the hostel lounge and towards his dormitory.
He took his iPhone from his locker and cursed at the empty battery symbol, before heading towards an Internet café two blocks way. As he took long strides up the sidewalk, Tommy ke
pt repeating to himself that Jake couldn’t possibly be the same man as Stuart Reynolds. Stuart was dead, as far as the world knew. His belongings had been discovered by an elderly couple walking their dogs at Beachy Head. Tommy had even made a trip there once to see for himself Stuart’s final resting place.
Tommy entered the Internet café, paid the cashier $5 for thirty minutes’ surfing time and plugged his phone into the wall. He began to Google Image pictures of Stuart Reynolds on the computer, blowing them up as large as the screen would allow and closely examining every inch of Stuart’s face, comparing them to photos he’d taken of Jake.
The online pictures were at least three years old, and both men had the same shaped eyes, only Stuart’s were a sparkling blue and Jake’s brown. Stuart’s eyebrows had been shaped while Jake’s were more untamed, and two of Stuart’s front teeth had chips in them whereas Jake’s were nearly too perfectly aligned. The two years Jake had spent travelling gave him faint lines drawn across his forehead, framing the corners of his eyes.
Tommy scrolled through a dozen more pictures, and while there were similarities, it wasn’t even close to being conclusive proof. Tommy played YouTube video clips of Lightning Strikes interviews and tried to compare Jake and Stuart’s voices – their tones were similar but their accents completely different. Stuart’s nose was straight while Jake’s was slightly crooked and their bodies were also differently shaped – shirtless pictures of Stuart showed an athletic build, pale colouring and no body hair; however Jake had a moderately hairy chest that was much broader, his biceps and abs were larger and he was decorated with tattoos across both arms and down his side.
However, both shared the same tattoo, a number 23 between their left thumb and forefinger. When questioned about it, Jake had suggested Tommy Google the significance, so he did just that and found a Wikipedia page dedicated to the “23 enigma.”
“The 23 enigma refers to the belief that most incidents and events are directly connected to the number 23. The number is considered unlucky, sinister, strange or sacred depending on the person drawn to it.” Tommy wondered why Jake would be drawn to a number with such a dark reputation.
He pushed back on his chair and let go of a big breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding. He questioned whether this need to find the bad in a person so good was some delayed, irrational reaction to being intimate with another man, like his subconscious was looking for an excuse to nip things in the bud despite the fun night they’d shared.
He expanded the picture on his phone’s screen to examine the 23 rows of tattoos along Jake’s ribcage again. Then, using the computer keyboard, he typed in two rows of numbers he saw etched on Jake’s body – 34.0219N and 118.4814W.
‘Santa Monica latitude and longitude coordinates’ read the Google search page. The numbers 43.71964561 and 170.09146595 threw up White Horse Hill in New Zealand, where Jake had said he’d worked. Tommy continued, working from bottom to top, tracing every step of Jake’s journey that had taken in India, Thailand, Japan, Italy, Iceland and a dozen other countries.
The last numbers he typed in were 52.2189N and 0.9202W, but before he could learn where Jake’s journey began, a voice suddenly came from behind Tommy’s monitor.
‘You know you’re not supposed to surf porn in public,’ began Jake, and Tommy’s whole body recoiled, much to Jake’s amusement.
‘You aren’t the only person who can creep up on someone,’ he joked.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Tommy briskly.
‘I’m stalking you. Well, I saw you leave and wondered where you were going. Why aren’t you using the Internet at the hostel?’
‘The Wi-Fi is down,’ lied Tommy. ‘I just wanted to see what was going on back home.’
He moved the mouse slowly and clicked Jake’s image off the screen.
‘Come and get a coffee with me,’ continued Jake. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
CHAPTER 68
‘I wouldn’t have had you down as a basketball fan,’ Jane began as she arrived at Venice Beach Recreation Center’s open-air court.
Savannah and Nicole sat on steps close to the bike path and under the shade of a giant palm tree canopy watching a game in progress. Savannah cheered on the team in white vests for no other reason than that they reminded her of colours Michael wore when she’d watched him play for his college team.
‘I’ve seen a few games over the years,’ Savannah smiled, remembering happier times. ‘How’s your day been?’
Jane grinned and said hello to Nicole but didn’t comment on the bruising on her face. She unclasped her handbag and rummaged around inside, finally pulling out a green folder stuffed with papers.
‘I’ve been to four estate agents, or what do you call them over here? Real estate agents, that’s right, and I’ve been to see five houses already. Do you like the look of this one?’ She pulled out a brochure and passed it to Savannah. ‘It’s in West Hollywood, it has three bedrooms with a nice-sized garden in a quiet street.’
Savannah flicked through the pages of photographs of a modest but pleasant home.
‘That looks gorgeous,’ said Nicole.
‘You don’t waste any time, do you?’ added Savannah. ‘Can we afford this?’
‘Don’t worry about that, I’ve wangled a deal for the first six months and we’ll see how we get on from there. That’s only if you like it, of course.’
‘I do, but I have to pay my way, Jane.’
‘And you will, my girl, but not until you’ve had that baby and you’re back on your feet. So what do you think?’
Savannah nodded her head. It might not be as grand as the house she’d grown up in and later escaped from, but it was a million times better than the four walls of the hostel she currently called home.
‘Let’s go for it,’ Savannah agreed, and Jane swept down to give her a tight hug.
‘That’s a relief – I signed the contract an hour ago and we can move in tomorrow! Right, I’m off to call some furniture rental places – you’re not opposed to wicker, are you? I have a thing for wicker.’
‘No, you knock yourself out, girl.’
‘Marvellous, see you later, roomie!’
As Jane walked with purpose out of sight, Nicole leaned over and patted Savannah’s belly. ‘Looks like you and your mummy have got yourselves a new granny and a new home,’ she said, her happiness for Savannah tainted with envy.
‘I’d better go and tell Peyk,’ said Savannah.
‘I didn’t know you were friends?’
‘He’s a good guy, I owe him a lot.’
A sudden noise alerted them to Peyk’s presence behind Nicole, listening to their conversation. He offered a half-hearted smile before walking away.
‘Damn it,’ muttered Savannah, and stood up to follow him. ‘Peyk! Hey, wait up!’
CHAPTER 69
Until he could know for sure whether his eyes and his mind weren’t playing tricks on him, Tommy needed space to think.
And he wasn’t going to find that in Starbucks with Jake sitting opposite him.
‘I think that French girl likes you,’ began Jake, oblivious to Tommy’s inner turmoil.
‘Is that a problem?’
‘No, I was just saying, she was all over you earlier. It was funny. I think Nicole kind of likes you to.’
Tommy sipped his frappé and didn’t reply, leaving an awkward silence between them.
‘Okay, I’m putting my cards on the table here, mate. I did feel a bit . . . you know . . . jealous when I saw you with her. And I know it’s daft because you’re a free agent and we’ve only spent one night together, and I know I’m being irrational but I feel like we have some sort of . . . connection. Do you know what I mean?’
Tommy glanced down towards the table and stirred his drink with a straw, refusing to make eye contact with Jake. He was desperate to leave without Jake being suspicious as to why.
‘Or not,’ Jake continued, a little crestfallen. ‘You’re not making this easy for
me, are you?’
‘When did you say you started travelling?’ blurted out Tommy, throwing Jake with the swift change of conversational direction.
‘What? Um . . . about two years ago or so.’
‘When, exactly?’ Tommy persisted.
‘October or November, I think, I can’t remember. Why?’
‘No reason. Look, I’ve got to go as I have a shift on reception in a few minutes. I’ll catch you later, okay?’
Tommy dropped a $10 bill on the table, forced a smile in Jake’s direction and left, his legs shaking beneath him.
CHAPTER 70
‘I’m really sorry you heard it that way,’ began Savannah, catching up with Peyk further down the boardwalk. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful.’
When Peyk’s eyes made contact with Savannah’s, she knew she had inadvertently hurt him.
‘No, I don’t think that,’ he said quietly, stopping to watch boarders grip the bottom of skateboards, soar off jumps and fly through the air above the concrete bowl of the skate park.
‘What you did for me . . . that night and ever since . . . it was so sweet and helped me get my head together and save money, but this is such a great opportunity for me and the baby.’
Peyk nodded.
‘You know I can’t raise a child at the hostel and Jane, well, she has experience and knows what she’s doing. I’m going to need all the help I can get over the next few months, and don’t you worry, I’ll come back and see you soon. I promise.’
‘I hope so,’ Peyk replied, but quietly knew that moment would be the last they ever shared.
Savannah rubbed Peyk’s arm reassuringly and, as she turned around to head back to the hostel, she felt a slight thump in her stomach. ‘It just kicked! My baby just kicked!’ she giggled and grabbed Peyk’s hand to place on her belly. ‘Did you feel it?’