by Lark, Jane
“You going to get dressed then, and let me help you out? Whether you can fix whatever led you to Manhattan Bridge or not, you need some clothes to do it.”
“And what am I gonna wear to the shops?”
“What you wore last night. I put your stuff in the washer-drier. Did you not think to check?”
“God, you’re so domesticated,” she mocked as she stood.
I held her gaze for a moment, that oddly deceptive green, and then turned to collect her stuff from the machine. “We can walk down to Fulton Street.”
When I turned back, she was behind me.
I held her clothes out.
Her blonde hair hung thin and straight. It was the definition of her cheekbones, her large eyes and broad lips that made her beautiful. Lindy was pretty too, but Rachel Shears’ beauty was haunting. Her image had hung in my head all day, in a way Lindy’s never did.
I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to reach out and grip her nape and bring her mouth to mine. I didn’t. I shouldn’t even be thinking about doing it. Maybe it was a good thing Lindy was coming for Christmas. Maybe I’d just missed her, and things would be okay when she came.
“Go get ready. Borrow a sweater from the shelf in my cupboard, in fact take two, I’d layer. It’s freezing out there still.”
Rachel took her clothes from my hand and her lips twisted sideways in a mocking smile, then she said, “You sound so like a mom,” just before she disappeared.
I could be hurt by her teasing, but I wasn’t. I had thick skin.
My conscience pricking, I crossed the room, pulled my cell phone out of my coat, and then brought up my contacts. Lindy. I pressed my thumb on her number and called. “Hi.”
“You’re calling early.”
“I’m not going to run tonight, but I’m going out, I thought I’d call before I left.”
“Going out where, Jason? You haven’t still got that girl there have you?”
“Yep.”
“Jason! And I suppose you can’t talk ‘cause she’s listening.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t doubt Rachel could hear me in the other room; she’d heard last night.
“Where are you going?”
“Taking her to buy something to wear. She’s only got the clothes I found her in, and––”
“And you’re paying. She’s ripping you off. I told you last night. You’re too gullible. You shouldn’t let people take advantage.”
“I’m just helping her out.”
“Yeah right, like she’d help you back if you needed. She’s a stranger you picked up on the street. You––”
“Look Lindy, you weren’t there last night, and you aren’t here now. You can’t judge. You don’t know her.” But I didn’t know her either.
At that moment Rachel came back into the room, pulling on a sweater. She made a face at me. I made a face back. She actually laughed. That shocked me.
“Is that her? Just watch out, Jason. I wish I was there. If I was, I’d stop her taking you for a ride.”
“That isn’t what’s happening, Lindy.”
“Yeah, right.” Lindy’s voice had turned caustic. She could be catty as hell when she wished. A bitch at times. I’d only recently discovered the truth in that. Now I wasn’t certain if it was me Lindy loved or the life she’d thought I could give her. She’d always had a competitive, aggressive edge, but since I’d told her I was moving to New York, her aggressive edge had turned on me.
She hadn’t liked me leaving Oregon. She didn’t want to live in New York. Yet we were meant to be getting married next year. I think she still hoped I’d grow out of my big city ideas.
Perhaps I would, New York hadn’t been what I’d imagined yet, but the thought of going back home and admitting I’d been wrong, and other people were right, well, that would be tough. I didn’t want to fit in the box everyone had labeled for me.
“I’ll call you again later, when I get back. Okay? Bye.”
“Alright… I love you.” The response was terse.
“And me you.”
We said it every night but I wasn’t sure it was true anymore, for her or me. I was getting the impression that unless I fitted in my box back home, she didn’t want me. And if she didn’t want me for who I was, I didn’t want her.
When she came to visit, in a few weeks, I had a feeling we’d exchange some strong words. They’d either make or break us. But the idea of not having Lindy was a little scary. Lindy was all I’d known.
My gaze caught on Rachel’s again and I realized she’d been busy analyzing my expression.
“Did she accuse me of wanting to jump you again?”
“No, just ripping me off.”
“You don’t have to take me shopping.”
“I do, you’ve got nothing but the clothes you’re standing in, and they don’t even include underwear.”
“You noticed…” She laughed, again, and her voice seemed lighter, and her eyes were definitely more expressive, they seemed bright, burning with as many unasked questions as my mind longed to ask her. She didn’t speak though. And surely her laugh should have sounded awkward and nervous, but it didn’t.
She shut up who she was as tight as tight and yet lacked any inhibition over what she did. She was an odd girl. I didn’t get her, she wasn’t like anyone I knew back home. “You needn’t worry, I’m not asking why.”
“I never thought you would, it would be an ungentlemanly question. And you’re far too much the gentleman for that.”
“Yeah, right. You’re mocking again.”
“Actually, no, I’m counting my blessings. You ready?”
“Yep. You?”
“Yep.”
“Right then.” I reached for my scarf, but instead of wrapping it about my neck, I wrapped it about hers, then grabbed my coat as I offered, “You can have my gloves and hat, too, if you like. I’ll manage without.”
I got them out my coat pocket and held them out to her.
“See, such a gentleman.” She mocked me again as she took them from my hand, flashing me another rare smile. The first smile had seemed merely muscles moving in her face but now there was a glimpse of it in her eyes, showing genuine appreciation. I knew the difference. Lindy had used to smile tons when we were at school, she’d laughed all the time, but in the last year any smile she’d given me was forced.
I cast all the trash in my head aside and lifted a hand. “Come on then Rachel Shears, let’s get you fitted out.”
His fingers touched my shoulder as I went out the door. It made me jump. They fell away. But I hadn’t jumped because I didn’t like it. I just wasn’t used to being touched in anything beyond a sexual way.
He was silent in the elevator, watching the closed doors. I sensed a lot going on in his head. But I felt a lot going on in mine too; my mood was shifting, I could feel it like pressure trapped inside a capped bottle of fizzy drink, waiting for a point to explode.
“What did you do at work today?” I asked him, to secure the other one hundred irrelevant questions my brain was suddenly bursting to ask.
His brown eyes looked at me and into me all at once, asking his own unspoken questions. But he answered, hesitantly. “It was all a little manic.”
“Did the office politics piss you off?”
“The office politics always piss me off, but they weren’t so bad today. People were too busy betting on whether or not the girl I’d found would’ve left with all my stuff when I got home.”
“You told them about me?” I didn’t know what to think. I’d spent over a year with Declan who’d hidden me away most of the time; unless it suited him to play some trick and show me off, for business meetings, or to flaunt before his wife.
I hated admitting it, but what I’d disliked most were the periods he left me alone. I could never take being ignored and here was a stranger telling everyone I existed.
“You don’t mind me talking about you? I just thought if everyone knew. If you needed to call me…”
The elevator d
oors opened.
I glanced at him as we walked out. “I couldn’t have called, you never gave me your number and I don’t have a cell phone.”
“Foolish of me, right? Sorry, I’m just so used to Lindy always calling if she needs anything.”
“But you thought about me when you were at work.” I was touched; his thoughtfulness eased a little of the tension gathering in my head.
“It’s not every day you come across a woman trying to jump off a bridge, Rachel. I’d have been hard pushed not to think about you.”
“Yeah.” Of course. Now I felt a fool.
He opened the door onto the street and the cold hit me. I pulled his woolen hat down over my ears and lifted up the hoods of his two sweat-tops, which I wore. Even so, cold seeped through my clothes as we started walking.
It was dark already and the streetlights glossed his brown hair.
He was really good-looking. I hoped his Lindy knew how lucky she was. But Lindy wasn’t here, and I was, I gripped his arm with the hand he’d bandaged, and walked close to him. He didn’t seem to mind as he looked sideways at me.
Then he said, “Things ’ll be okay, Rachel, you just need to work them out.”
“You might need to work them out. I need to start again. I’m not going back.” Ideas, things I should do, had begun spinning through my head ever since the moment he’d told me to get dressed, like someone had flicked a switch inside me and turned my energy back on.
“Going back where?”
He was quick, I’d give him that. I just made a face. I really wanted to possess this guy. I’d felt like crap without him all day. Jason Macinlay, savior of the world. Well, of my world at least. I was glad he’d come along last night, and taken me home, like a stray. I was a stray.
“There’s that closed lip look again. I get it, you don’t want to say. But you can’t pretend what happened didn’t happen, and talking about stuff is better than holding it in.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to speak. I didn’t want to think about it ever again.
He shrugged.
We walked in silence for a bit. He had his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. Mine kept a hold of his arm. I felt like we were perfectly paired; he was only a little taller than me.
I’d never walked anywhere with Declan, in all the time I’d been with him.
When we reached the mall, Jason Macinlay held doors for me, and then watched quietly as I picked what I liked, encouraging me not to fret over the money. I flashed the skimpy satin underwear I picked at him to wind him up, but he didn’t seem the sort of person who could be wound, he was so easygoing.
I chose the cheap stuff though and only what I needed. A black skirt and white shirt, in the hope I’d get some work somewhere. A pair of black cotton jeans, two long sleeved tops, a white blouse, one jumper, and he insisted I bought a coat, a scarf, hat and gloves. I hadn’t wanted them; I liked wearing his, it made me feel wrapped up in him.
We stopped at a pizza place on the way back, piling my bags into the spare chairs and then shared one large thin-crust Hawaiian. We laughed. He told me more about his home town, and what the magazine he worked for did, how his parents helped him get his apartment here, and what Lindy was like, when I asked.
I had an ulterior motive. I watched the look in his eyes when he spoke about her, trying to spot love. I saw affection, and thought, and a little indecision, but, love, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t doubt he was close to her, or that he cared for her. Caring seemed ingrained in him. I did doubt that she was right for him. I had an itch to meet Lindy.
When we got back to his apartment, he put coffee on and then said he needed to call Lindy, and asked me to forgive him if he went outside.
I did forgive him, I understood––he was nice. He’d been giving me his attention for a couple of hours and now he needed to straighten things out with his girl.
I began pouring the coffee, while he disappeared.
“Hey, Lindy.” I called her on my cell when I got back down to the street, and then walked toward Manhattan Bridge.
“Hi. You just got back?”
“Yeah, she got some clothes and I took her for a pizza.“
“Then you’re a fool––”
“I’m not a fool. She needs someone to help her out.”
“So she’s tagged on to you––the gullible guy from Oregon.”
Rachel had asked me about work, Lindy never asked. “Look Lindy, that’s enough, it’s awkward when you run her down. She bought some clothes so she can look for a job. She’s not taking me for a ride. She’s just hit a tough time. So, shut up, don’t keep condemning her.”
She was silent for a bit, then she said, “You’ve never told me to ‘shut up’ before.”
Maybe I should have done––it worked. “Don’t take it personally. I’ve just got too much stuff going on here. I don’t need you dragging me down.”
“Dragging you down?” She sounded hurt, like she hadn’t known that’s what she did.
“That came out wrong. Just tell me what you’ve been up to today. Did you see anyone at work?” She worked in Dad’s store, the business he had built up for me to take over and run. The place where I was supposed to settle down and work. I’d never been enthused about selling hardware. But the store was like a second home to me. I’d grown up running around it.
“Billy came in.” That sounded like she wanted me to wish I’d been there. “He asked how you were doing.” Billy had been my best friend since school. We’d gone to college together, too, all of us.
“And you said…”
“You were doing okay. He asked me to say, hi, to you. I said I was going to visit you soon. He said maybe he’d come and see you, too, sometime. If that’s okay?”
“It’s okay. Get him to call me.” I could have suggested he travel with her, but I knew she wouldn’t welcome my attention being distracted by Billy when she was here. She’d always wanted all or nothing. No wonder she hated me leaving her behind. But she was the one who’d chosen not to come. She’d said she’d follow, once I was sure about staying in New York. Every day I doubted more and more, she ever would.
“Yeah.” She drifted into silence again.
I climbed the steps which led from the street up to the opening on to the footpath across Manhattan Bridge, and thought of Rachel standing there last night. Where the hell had she come from? Why had she wanted to jump?
“Jason? You’ve changed, you know that.” It was half statement, half accusation. But she was right, I had. Leaving her behind was giving me the chance to find out who I was––not who Lindy and Jason were. Since school I’d done nearly everything because she wished me too. I’d picked my college because it was where she wanted us to go. I bought clothes because she liked them. We ate what she wanted. We did the stuff she wanted. Now I couldn’t even remember what I did or didn’t like.
You pick, Rachel had said in the pizza place, before going off to the restroom. Like it didn’t even matter if I picked what she hated.
“Possibly, it’s different living here.”
“But you don’t have to live there.”
“No, but I want to.” I wasn’t even sure I did want to anymore though.
“And what are you going to do about this girl?”
I sighed. “I’m going to let her get back on her feet and then she’ll find somewhere to live, and I’ll know she won’t be tempted to jump off a bridge again. She was standing out here, in twenty-one degrees Fahrenheit last night, Lind, in a t-shirt, and she didn’t even notice the cold.”
“Just be careful, Jason, I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
Ah, Lindy did still care, then, in some way. “I’ll take care. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Well I do. I worry a lot. I wish you were home.”
I rested my hand on the cold stone and looked along the bridge and then down to the black shifting water. I didn’t know what to say to that, I didn’t wish I was home. But I wasn’t sure what I d
id wish right now. “I love you.” The words slipped from my mouth, out of habit, yet there was no feeling of love in my chest anymore. I wasn’t even sure there ever had been.
“I love you too. I can’t wait to see you.” She could wait. She didn’t even want to come here for Christmas. We’d had a long argument about that too. She’d wanted me to go back there. I’d refused.
“I’ll call you tomorrow evening, alright?”
“Yeah.”
“Say, hi, to Dad in the morning.”
“Yeah.”
“Night.”
“Night.”
~
“Everything fine in paradise?” Rachel mocked when I walked in, her hesitant smiles of earlier now transformed into a wide teasing grin, after a couple of hours shopping. I smiled.
Considering she’d attempted to throw herself off a bridge just over twenty-four hours before, she was fun to be with, I found her easy company. She didn’t seem to think highly of herself. She didn’t seem to care what I thought of her either. She just was. Take her or leave her. I couldn’t imagine anyone disliking her though. Yet why then, would she have ended up alone on Manhattan Bridge?
The microwave pinged, and I realized she’d put my coffee in there to warm it back up.
She handed it to me. “You look like you wanna talk?” I met her green gaze. “She wants you to throw me out, right?”
“No, she doesn’t want me here at all.” I sipped the coffee, then sighed. “You don’t need my burdens.”
Her fingers lay over mine as they gripped the cup. Her good hand, not her bandaged hand. They were cold, and the sensation stirred male instincts I’d always found it relatively easy to keep at bay with anyone else.
It was only because we were alone in my apartment and I’d been away from Lindy for a few weeks.
Her hand fell, as though she’d sensed my discomfort, then she turned away. “Some people say talking about problems makes you feel better.” She started running water to wash up the few odd cups and things on the side.
“Ha, ha, very funny.” She was quoting back what I’d said to her. But if I spoke, it might encourage her to speak too. I leaned my elbows on the counter, and sipped my coffee.