The Jewel Box

by C Michelle McCarty

  “No.” I shrieked, bolting upright in bed. “No, God, no!” I kept screaming. “It can’t be.” I jumped out of bed and knelt on the floor, loudly praying for someone to wake me from this horrible dream. My stomach felt like it was being violently kicked while a female in our bedroom moaned, “Not Sean, not my Sean,” over and over. Then I realized the eerie cry was coming from me. Too weak to stand, I prayed for strength to climb back under my sheets until the nightmare ended.

  Through faint lava lamp lighting, I saw Gabriel laboriously swallow while keeping his eyes firmly focused on the ceiling. “He just ate a telephone pole,” he responded in the same horribly cold timbre.

  “No God, please no!” I yelled at the top of my lungs as my hands flew to my head and yanked my hair in frantic motion. Lies. Lies. Lies. Without realizing where my hands went until they started stinging, I found myself hitting Gabriel. “Say it isn’t true. Say it isn’t true.”

  He continued staring at the ceiling in total silence. I cried hysterically. Shushing me, he reached over to hold me. “Don’t shush me, I have to know what happened to Sean.”

  Gabriel remained silent. Tears cascaded down my face as my sobs grew louder. Minutes ticked by. “God punished me by taking Sean’s life in exchange for the life I aborted,” I screamed.

  Gabriel pulled me closer in a tight grip, never saying a word. I couldn’t stop calling Sean’s name and asking forgiveness. Nikki slept soundly as always in her room, while Gabriel and I stayed wide awake. He internalized, I ululated. His tacit pain juxtaposing my vocal sorrow.

  The next day as Gabriel prepared to leave for Massachusetts, he explained Sean had been at a party and taken a ride home with two friends, one who was stumbling drunk. As his friend raced down the highway Sean pleaded for him to stop and let him drive. According to the boy who survived, Sean’s concern was for his friends to get home safely. Before he could convince the driver to swap places, they crashed into a telephone pole, killing Sean instantly. The driver died hours later.

  Devastated by losing someone I dearly loved, my grief intensified when I realized I would not be attending Sean’s funeral. Nothing was said. I simply understood. How do you bring the dishonorable, other woman to a sacred family event?

  After Gabriel left I kept tears inside and held Nikki against me as I clutched the copy of Rabbit Redux Sean mailed weeks earlier. For Nikki’s sake, I blamed my pain on a tummy ache as I functioned in a lifeless fog waiting for Gabriel to return. When Nikki slept, I reread Updike’s words that meant so much to Sean—and sobbed uncontrollably.

  “I’ll be over after I put away some of Sean’s belongings I brought from Boston.” Gabriel called from his apartment. An hour later he tapped lightly at the door instead of using his key. I felt uneasy. I opened the door slowly and looked at his red rimmed eyes welled with tears. He pulled me to him, hugging me tightly as he kissed my forehead. We stood by the doorway in an embrace, holding each other in total silence. He knew and I knew. Still, I felt faint when I heard the anticipated words. “You know I have to do the right thing and go back home to my wife and children, don’t you?” His voice was so tender and so tinged with sadness, I trembled, choking back tears. I would not break down and seem weak. Gabriel’s guilt over abandoning his young daughters had grown before my eyes, and it was obvious Sean’s death deepened his remorse.

  After slowly gathering his few belongings, Gabriel placed his key on my dining table just as Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday, by Stevie Wonder came on the radio. The floodgates opened. Hitting the radio OFF button as tears trickled down my cheeks, I tried to brush them away, not wanting him to see me this way. Tears rolled down his face, but he just ignored them while trying to hold and comfort me. I had never known a man who would openly cry before, and it made him even more special. I ached for him, but pulled away. “Please leave. I understand why you have to do this—so just go. Right this minute. The longer you stay, the more I’ll hurt.”

  He reached out and took my hand up to his mouth, his blue eyes filled with pain as he allowed his tears to drop onto my skin. “Cherie, I’m so sorry. I’ve hurt enough people already and God knows I don’t want you to hurt.”

  Once again I pulled away. This time he rushed out the door. When I heard his engine start, his horn honk twice to send me his “I love you,” signal, I broke down and sobbed. A gut wrenching, lung-heaving sobbing that left me limp.

  I hated work, but went in knowing Beau would soothe my pain. “Here, baby.” He sent me home one night with McMurtry’s novel Movin On. “You don’t cry at the drop of a pin, but there are similarities between you and restless, sharp tongued Patsy Carpenter.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Her charisma keeps her adrift in affairs of the heart. And she’s gutsy despite frequently bawling over minor issues.”

  “I am adrift.” I reached up and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for everything.”

  I never stopped crying long enough to read the thick book.

  Kent’s calls about taking Nikki for visits never came to fruition, so Ellen insisted she stay with them instead of watching me come unglued. After Nikki left, I felt worse without her to hold. I suppressed my sobbing and phoned Gloria. Incredibly consoling, she seemed to understand my pain. “Not only have you lost Sean, you’ve also lost Gabriel.” Gloria attempted to comfort. “Come to Boston. Bring Nikki if you’d like, just get away.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the best thing for me to do.”

  “Cherie, get on a plane, come and stay with us as long as you’d like. Distance from Gabriel might help.”

  Hearing his name caused my suppressed sobs to surface with a vengeance.

  “Cherie, Sean would want you and me to be together. And being with someone who was so special to him would help me.”

  “Thank you.” Tears garbled my words. “I’ll let you know.”

  Gloria had lost a son, yet showed incredible compassion for my feelings of loss. Hoping distance would help, I decided to visit Massachusetts. Ellen said Jimmy missed his surrogate sister and agreed to keep Nikki. Beau was predictably sympathetic, assuring me the club would get along without me and welcome me back. He insisted on paying my airfare as his way of expressing condolence to the family, but I rejected the four hundred dollars he tried to shove in my fist for spending money.

  Bawling as I boarded the plane, vanity had taken a leave of absence as black clumps of mascara rolled off my cheeks and onto my blouse. I didn’t care what anyone thought. I just hoped being with the mother of my favorite men would make my pain disappear. Looking like I’d been in the back of a turnip truck for three months instead of an airplane for three hours, I arrived in Boston an emotional wreck sporting red, puffy eyes.

  “My darling, Cherie,” Gloria greeted me in the airport. Absolutely stunning, she could have passed for Liz Taylor had her eyes been violet. Gloria’s hair was almost black with a plum cast and her deep olive skin and ebony eyes were a surprising contrast to fair haired Gabriel and Sean. Gabriel swore her affair with their blond postman had produced him and Hope. Gloria hugged me tightly. “Sean said nothing but wonderful things about you.”

  “That’s true,” said Hope who was just as Sean described. At fifteen, she was the epitome of beauty and gentleness with the classic looks of Princess Grace; long flaxen blonde hair, ivory skin, and a delicate smile that revealed perfect teeth.

  Younger son Conner politely shook my hand. “Call me Conn. It sounds more like Sean.” An abbreviated name seemed his only resemblance to siblings. Conn had his mom’s olive skin, dark hair and eyes, but the boy didn’t know how to shut up or sit down. Gloria scolded him several times when he got carried away entertaining me with arm farts on the drive home.

  “Ben’s gone back to the Air Force, so dinner will be quiet,” Gloria said, watching Hope put food on the table. All had impeccable table manners, and the meal ended with Conner clearing the table to help Hope wash dishes. Easy to see where Gabriel picked up his considerate kitchen traits. Lord knows who influe
nced his foul mouth, but hearing “I’d do just about anything for a piece of ass” would have been music to my ears right then. “C’mon,” Gloria insisted. “Let’s sit on the sofa.”

  The four of us talked for hours about Sean’s kindness and loving ways. When Gloria reached over and held me in her arms, saying she loved me because Sean loved me, we both began crying. My waterworks continued long after my head hit the pillow for a few minutes of sleep.

  “Thankfully Hope took on ‘mothering’ duties the minute I started working outside the home,” Gloria said the following morning as Hope fussed over Conn. The two did breakfast dishes while Gloria and I stayed in her bedroom talking about everything—including sex. She was trying her best to cheer me up, but I grieved for Sean and felt heartsick without Gabriel.

  Later in the evening Gabriel called Gloria. She allowed me to overhear her side of the conversation. “I know, son,” she comforted him. “Yes, I’ll take good care of Cherie.” She hung up. “Gabriel is worried sick about you. I’ve never heard him so depressed.” A sympathetic look crossed her face. “He kept telling me how much he loves you, but he’s trying to do right by Lauren and Skylar.”

  Again, I cried myself to sleep.

  Two days later Gabriel called again. Gloria spoke briefly with him. “Here, darling.” She handed me the phone, kissed my trembling cheek, and walked into another room.

  “How are you, Cherie?” Gabriel asked.

  “Fine.” I tried to hold back tears.

  “Well, I haven’t slept or eaten in days. And I might just go mad without you.”

  We both started crying and in a loud, tear filled voice, Gabriel said, “I can’t function without you, Cherie. I’m taking a five o’clock flight to Boston. I’ll see you in a few hours. I love you more than you could possibly know.”

  “I love you too, Gabriel.”

  “Yeaaah,” he whispered. “Now I know how Zhivago felt without his Lara. Promise me you won’t go runnin’ off to Russia before I get there, Blondie.”

  “I promise. Besides I don’t own a fur coat, and the only Russian word I know is ostranenie.”

  “Must mean something naughty, if you memorized it.”

  “It’s an artistic technique of swaying an audience to see common things in an unfamiliar way. You know, like poetry.”

  “Blondie, why the hell does your knowing that not surprise me? Just hang tight till I get there . . . promise?”

  “I’m not good at hanging tight, but Gloria just walked in with some rope and duct tape.”

  “Love you, crazy girl. See ya soon.”

  Gabriel arrived late. “I missed hearing you say pleeease, and watching you walk around on your tiptoes.” He hugged me tightly.

  I couldn’t speak as my tears fell onto his shoulder. We barely touched each other while chatting with his family, but the only thought crossing my mind as words casually flowed from him, was how I wanted to leave lip prints on parts of his body currently covered by clothing. Gloria must have read my mind. She suggested Gabriel and I retire to her bedroom.

  “We gunned the engine and peeled away from Sean’s gravesite,” Gabriel told me as we walked out to his rental car the following morning.

  “Sean would’ve wanted it that way,” Hope agreed before elaborating on Sean’s sense of humor. “He wasn’t just about global harmony and unconditional love,” she said.

  Warm hugs and kisses were exchanged, leaving everyone teary-eyed as we backed down the drive. “Wish we could move to Texas,” Gloria said.

  “That would be wonderful,” I answered.

  Gabriel interrupted by gunning the engine. Conn and Hope waved goodbye.

  “Your family has an odd sense of graveyard humor.” I snuggled against Gabriel.

  “Yeaaah? Now you know my strangeness is genetic and not acquired.”

  “Indeed. But when do I get to see some of their fabulous familial traits surface in you?”

  “You better hope never. When it comes to traits, Gloria is one of the most conniving women you’ll ever meet, so you don’t want her behavior popping up in me.”

  “Conniving. Why would you even joke about something like that?”

  “I’m not joking, Blondie. Unfortunately she had to resort to scheming and lying to handle life with our dad, and regrettably the cunning nature remained.”

  His comment stunned me, but I was too tired to discuss it as we rushed to catch our flight.

  Back in Texas, Astrid reactivated divorce proceedings, I remained in my apartment, and Gabriel pretended to live in his. One Sunday after Gabriel pumped petro at a local gas station, he walked over and leaned inside my window. “Don’t look now, but Astrid’s sitting in the full service lane.” Without moving my head, I cut my eyes to the side and glanced at the woman with primly cut driftwood colored hair, surrounding a pale face that was tilted ever-so-properly upward (as though she’d have to look up the definition of fellatio if someone accidentally uttered the term in her presence).

  “I guess the girls are with a sitter—she looks dressed for an evening on the town,” Gabriel said as he returned to the driver’s seat. “Hey, you okay?”

  “She’s pretty.” I took an acute breath. “And she definitely looks like the silver-finger-bowl-at-every-meal type. Very prim and proper.”

  “That’s dreadfully prim, proper, pompous, and rigid.”

  “Which is what my mother wanted of me.”

  “You’re just prim and proper enough.”

  “Oh, pleeeease. You slay me with your prose.”

  “Well how bout I say, May ninth is just around the corner.”

  What a guy. He remembered our one year anniversary.

  The following week Astrid took the girls to Phoenix for a visit with her parents, and Gabriel took me along while he fetched a few items from the house. The place was like a museum. Beautifully decorated, yet antiseptic and uninviting. Until we reached the cheery playroom he had created for his girls. It was filled with toys and books, but its most noticeable feature was delicate woodwork, painted pastel pink and white in carousel decor. When he told me about reading the newspaper in this playroom so he could be near his girls, I felt sad for them. It was the only room with any warmth and now their daddy was gone. Just as guilt crept in making me uncomfortable, Gabriel led me out.

  Gabriel was a patient, loving, prince of a man, but within months, I was back to changing moods with underwear. Abortion guilt. Blame for Sean’s death. The wicked vixen who split Gabriel and his daughters—whom Astrid was soon moving to Phoenix near her parents.

  And I despised my job. Saying the harrowing lifestyle had taken away a part of her, Kat quit the club only days before Beau became ill and was hospitalized with chest pains. Although I talked with him daily by phone and visited when possible, Beau’s absence and Kat’s departure made me feel even more miserable every time I walked into the place. In addition, Beau’s uptight wife Celeste stopped daily at the Jewel Box to oversee financial aspects, and it was obvious she didn’t appreciate being around any of the girls. Especially me. I’d worn a red sundress to work the first day she showed up “in charge” and wasn’t about to wear lingerie in her presence, much less jump on stage. Thus began my transition of waitressing in street clothes. Beau once mentioned his wife seemed jealous when he told her about taking me under his wing and he got a good laugh out of it. Being almost thirty years my senior, Beau appreciated the compliment. A savvy business woman whose striking beauty was accentuated by designer fashions one might find in a Neiman’s catalogue, Celeste always donned oversized sunglasses when she walked into the club, even on rainy days. She really needed to loosen her sphincter. It was obvious she didn’t want to be seen slinking out of her black Jaguar and slithering into the Jewel Box. Beau said when he first approached the idea of a topless club Celeste balked, but when he explained the potential money involved in said undertaking she gave in with stipulations. It would be a short-time enterprise and first-class. Ha ha. Despite Beau’s integrity and attempts to di
gnify said business, I’ll always consider the term “classy strip joint” the ultimate oxymoron.

  Beau recuperated and returned to the Jewel Box. I followed Kat’s footsteps and quit. But unlike her, I kept my alias. Gabriel knew my given name was Jill, but Cherie was the one he screamed in ecstasy. That pseudonym was here to stay. I began looking for business opportunities to invest my savings, yet loved not working, which gave me more time with Gabriel and Nikki.

  I still relished conversations with Beau and swung by the Jewel Box one afternoon after a job interview. “Keep it quiet, so dancers won’t bail before due time, but the Jewel Box is being demolished soon to make way for the new South Freeway.”

  “Oh, Beau.” I felt a wave of sadness. “What’ll you do?”

  “I’m already building a neighborhood bar on the proper side of the Medical Center.”

  “Don’t go getting too high and mighty on me.”

  Beau laughed like I’d said something really funny.

  It was a couple of months before Nikki and I stopped by to check Beau’s club progress. Some unusual music played on a portable cassette player near the door as we walked inside. Beau, dressed in coveralls, was busily working. Even Sean Connery couldn’t make farmer garb so appealing.

  “You’re a man of many talents, Beau.”

  “Hey, baby.” He turned and met us with a warm smile. “I didn’t hear you two walk in.”

  “My mom can sneak up on a ghost.” Nikki rushed to Beau.