by Lexie Ray
I left without hugging her. By that time, Brenda and Jeff’s words had invaded my mind, making me feel more infected than my actual diagnosis. What if I infected her? I could never live with myself.
I ran as if I could outpace my feelings, my past, and my apparently doomed future just by moving my legs faster. My satchel slapped my back almost painfully, driving me on. I didn’t care that my legs burned, or that my lungs struggled to get air. While my body labored, my mind had to focus entirely on forcing it to perform. I didn’t have a spare second for thinking.
How long had I been running? It seemed like my whole life. My mother and I had run from insurmountable bills. I’d run from Jack and certain death. I’d run from Mama and a life of prostitution. And now I was running from Jeff and Brenda and their certainty about my future-less life.
The road ended in a parking lot, and I realized that I could hear the crashing waves of the ocean. My breath was coming in ragged sobs, my already shaky knees knocking against each other. I remembered coming here with Jeff, Brenda, and the girls. We’d bundled up against the biting wind and walked along the shore, picking up pretty seashells and squirreling them away in our pockets. I still carried one of them in my satchel, one with a delicate curl, speckled on the outside. Those days were over, the days of going anywhere with anyone. I couldn’t do that anymore. I was sick. I was going to die.
Stairs led to the beach below the bluffs from the parking lot, but I walked over to the cliff face instead. A sheer drop-off led straight down to the waves. They crashed and roiled as I stared down at them. The shore was nothing like it had been the day I’d come with the family. The sun had warmed our faces and the sea had been playful and blue.
Now, the water was black, mirroring the hardness of the steel gray sky. There was nothing friendly about the sea today.
Why had I never been in control of my life? Even when I was living on the streets before Mama found me, I’d been living on everyone else’s terms. The only reason I ever darted left was because someone was approaching on my right. I turned into a shadow to make sure no one saw me. How could I take my life back and do things on my own terms? I stared out over the drop off, watching the waves slap against the rock bottom of the cliff.
Brenda had said that HIV was a death sentence and that I shouldn’t try anymore. I didn’t have the strength to try anymore. All I’d been doing was trying to survive—trying to come out alive on the other side of everything that anyone had ever done to me.
But why should I continue existing with a death sentence? Couldn’t I take matters into my own hands? Couldn’t I leave this life on my own terms? I stared down at the black water, kicking a pebble off the edge. It was a long way down.
“You going to jump or what?”
I whipped my head around and squinted. A tree with bare branches shook and shivered in the wind, buffeted in its precarious position at the top of the cliff. At the tree’s base a figure sat, leaning against the trunk.
“Excuse me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes and approaching. As I got closer, I could see the man sitting there, dressed in a puffy jacket and beanie, an open notebook balanced on one knee.
“I asked you if you were going to jump,” he said again, almost cheerfully. His gray eyes mirrored the color of the clouds. “I can’t sit here all day and wait for it, you know, if you’re going to do it.”
I stood and looked down at him in absolute shock, my mouth opening and closing again.
“You know, I don’t think that fall would even kill you,” he continued, putting a pencil in the notebook to mark his place and closing it. “But the bluff on the other side of the beach has all these great boulders at the bottom. That would be a sure shot. Wanna walk over there and check it out?”
Check it out? Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch.
“Son of a bitch!” I shouted. “You clueless asshole! You have no idea what has happened to me!”
And so I told him. Every gory detail. The fact that I was homeless and had never truly understood a concept of home or family where I could belong and be secure. I started with my life of poverty with my mother. That hadn’t been so bad, of course, except for the fact that it had driven us into the arms of a psychopath. Said psychopath had made me flee into the streets, where I’d dodged humanity until I started eating out of dumpsters.
That was where the madam of a glorified brothel had “saved” me and pretended she was family until she started selling my body to the highest bidder. Another monster tortured me and violated me in ways I was only just beginning to comprehend. And then I sought help from two Christians who turned against me because of an illness that was apparently going to kill me.
“And no one ever even called me by my real name this entire time!” I yelled. “I’m Jasmine, not ‘slut’ or ‘Jazz’ or ‘Minnie.’ It’s Jasmine, the sick girl, the one who has HIV.
“That’s right,” I said, building to a furious crescendo, “I have HIV. It’s a death sentence. I don’t have any more reason to be here. I shouldn’t even try to keep going anymore. Because every time I try, something else drags me down. I was going to have a future, in spite of everything. But now I have this disease. It’s robbed me of my future. I’m dead already.”
I had half expected the man to flee during my tirade, but he sat calmly, giving me his undivided attention. When it was apparent that I was finished, he cleared his throat.
“Feel better now, Jasmine?” he asked, smiling.
I sank to the ground, my legs unable to support me any longer. The funny thing was that I really did feel better, but I wasn’t about to admit it.
“You know what else has a death sentence?” he said conversationally. “Life. Everyone’s going to die. That’s a simple fact of existence. Everyone has to die of something.”
He was right, of course, but I shook my head stubbornly.
“I want to die of old age,” I said, “not HIV.”
The man’s laugh infuriated me, but my body was cashed out. I couldn’t get away from him even if I wanted to.
“You don’t know a damn thing about HIV, do you?” he asked.
“I know it’s going to kill me.”
He shook his head. “No one dies of HIV. HIV is only a precursor to AIDS. And nobody really dies of AIDS, either. It only weakens your immune system, so you usually succumb to something else that your body would normally be able to fight off.”
“So that’s all I have to look forward to?” I asked. “My HIV turning into AIDS and something stupid like a cold offing me?”
“I don’t know where you’ve been getting your health information, but you have a lot to learn,” the man said coolly. “Maybe that would’ve been true decades ago, but with advances in medicine, you’ll likely never get AIDS. You’re going to have to be taking pills every day for the rest of your life, but you’ll probably still die of old age if that’s how you want to go.”
“But I don’t want to have HIV for the rest of my life,” I said, my lips trembling from the weather and my emotions. “I just want to be normal.”
The man leaned forward suddenly and covered my hand with his. “I’m sorry, but you don’t get to be normal anymore, Jasmine. Who wants to be normal, anyway?”
I jerked my hand away from his. “I want to be normal,” I said. “My life has never been normal. And don’t touch me. Aren’t you afraid that you’re going to get HIV?”
He laughed like I’d just made a hilarious joke. “Didn’t anyone tell you how this works?” he asked. “Or did they just tell you that you had HIV and turned you out the door?”
My stony silence told him everything he needed to know.
“Well, it shouldn’t have been like that,” he continued, nonplussed. “You can get HIV several different ways, none of which include touching an affected person’s hand. Sharing needles is one way, and you don’t look like an addict to me. Unprotected sex is the most likely culprit—you said yourself that you were basically a prostitute at that nightclub.”
I inhal
ed sharply through my nose. Unprotected sex. Of course. None of the customers at Mama’s nightclub had ever worn condoms during their time with me, no matter how hard I tried to cajole them. Had it been Don Costa—the mob boss who had taken my virginity? Or what about Lamprey—the limp, wealthy noodle who could only get it up while touching something that had once belonged to the Don? Surely it hadn’t been Tracy, the murderous old pervert who’d probably ruined me for life on sex. Or maybe it had been. Maybe it had been all of them, all of the men who’d paid Mama for the pleasure of my company and the use of my body.
“Maybe I’ll just get hit by a car,” I said glumly. “That would be better than having HIV for the rest of my life—thanks to some jerk-off.”
The man wrinkled his nose in mock distaste. “Hit by a car? That’s so … normal.” He said “normal” like it was something distasteful. “Can’t you think of anything more exciting?”
A helpless smile made my lips twitch involuntarily. “Falling out of an airplane.”
“Boring.”
A giggle escaped from my mouth before I could clap a hand over it. “Struck by lightning?”
“Happens more often than you’d think. Next.”
“Eaten by a shark.”
“Now you’re talking,” he said. “What else you got?”
“Victim of an ancient curse,” I said, not believing that I could possibly be laughing over weird ways to die.
“Excellent, excellent,” the man said, flipping his notebook to a clean page and taking up his pencil. “This ancient curse—how do you get it?”
I thought for a moment. “Well, I’m an explorer—”
“Been done before,” he said briskly, jotting something in his notebook. “Something else.”
“Okay. I’m the last of an old family who’ve all been struck down before their time.”
“I’m intrigued,” he said, his pencil scratching away at the page. “Continue.”
“Determined not to end up like my mother and father, who had died in a freak house fire, I go to a family friend for help. He tells me of an ancient curse cast upon an ancestor to wipe out his entire lineage, and I’m the last one in the cursed line. I have to travel across the globe to right the wrong.”
“Perfect,” he muttered, underlining something in the notebook. “And you know what the best part is?”
“What?”
“You don’t die,” he said, looking at me and smiling. “You right the wrong. You remove the curse. You have children. You live to be a ripe old age, and then you die.”
“Boring,” I teased, laughing.
He held out his hand and I took it tentatively, shaking it.
“I’m Nate, by the way,” he said, “Nate King. It’s nice to meet you, Jasmine.”
“Nice to meet you,” I replied, feeling suddenly shy in the face of this man’s kindness. I realized with a sudden rush that I had been prepared to end everything until he talked to me.
“Listen, I remember you saying something about not having a home,” he said almost nonchalantly. “I have one that’s a little too big. How about you come live with me?”
I shook my head incredulously. “Why would you do a favor that big for someone you just met?”
“Believe me, it’d be you doing the favor for me,” Nate said. “I’m a writer.” He gestured at the open notebook like he was gesturing at a cockroach or something equally disgusting. “I can barely take care of myself, let alone my house. If you wanted to help me out around the place, like some light cleaning, occasional cooking if you wouldn’t mind, I’d let you stay, rent free.”
“It sounds too good to be true,” I said, still a little suspicious.
“Oh, it is,” he said. “I’m a slob.”
I laughed, feeling infinitely better than when I first arrived at the shore. How had hope happened along so swiftly after I hit the rock bottom of despair?
Chapter Seven
When Nate steered his car back in the direction of the city, I was surprised but almost relieved. If you lived in the city proper, there was little need for a car. Living in the suburbs with Jeff and Brenda had been what I’d needed to heal, but I missed being in the heart of New York.
Once, when I was at Mama’s, we’d taken a train from the house for the girls to see the gigantic Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. They’d all ice skated, but I’d hung back. No one had ever taken me ice skating before, so I was content to watch from outside the rink. That seemed like just yesterday even though it was already March.
“What part of the city do you live in?” I asked, watching buildings fly by outside.
“East Village,” Nate said casually.
My eyes bugged out of my head. “You’re really serious about this writing thing, aren’t you?” I asked.
Everyone knew the East Village was one of the cultural hearts of the city. You also pretty much had to be loaded to live there.
“Actually, I wasn’t always a writer,” he said. “I used to be in real estate.”
“Aha,” I said. “The truth comes out.” Now it made sense why he had a car. He needed to be all over the city at specific times. That, and he could afford it.
Nate grinned. “Ah yes, now you see me for what I truly am. Preying on the desperate, selling them a box to live in for thousands of dollars a month.”
“Let me out,” I joked, scratching at the door handle. “I can’t be seen with you.”
“I’m not in the business anymore,” he said. “I was good at it and it was good to me. That’s why I’m in the East Village. But it just became time to do something else. I’m taking a little vacation from real estate to do some writing.”
“Have you written anything I would’ve heard about?” I asked.
Nate shook his head. “Been writing plenty, but getting published is another thing.”
I frowned. “I’m sure it’ll happen for you sooner or later.”
“I hope it’s sooner rather than later,” he replied. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll turn out to be my muse. I already have a story in mind that I want to write based on your little ancient curse idea.”
I found myself blushing. “But that was just joking around,” I protested. “You can’t write about that.”
“Can and will,” Nate said, wagging his finger with each word until he was pointing at the ceiling of the car. “It’s called artistic license.”
The honking of taxicabs was like music to my ears as we drove into the city. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it until that very moment.
“Look at you, all starry-eyed for NYC,” Nate observed as we were stopped at a traffic light. He was right. I was practically drooling, watching people in sweaters and jackets walking up and down the sidewalks, tall buildings watching over them like sentinels.
“I do love the city,” I admitted.
“The first thing we’re doing is get you a T-shirt,” Nate said, “one of those cheesy numbers that all the tourists have.”
“But I do heart New York,” I said, batting my eyelashes.
“It’s settled.”
Before I could react, Nate double-parked. The horns were deafening and some of the curses made even me blush. I squawked as Nate threw open the driver’s side door and leapt from the vehicle. He didn’t so much as put his emergency blinkers on before jogging to a sidewalk kiosk. I hid my face from the scowls of passing drivers and cabbies.
A bit out of breath, Nate jumped back into the car and nosed back into traffic. He tossed a plastic shopping bag onto my lap.
“For Jasmine, who hearts New York,” he said.
And right there was the T-shirt, cheesy red heart and all, that publicly declared my love.
“Thank you,” I said, and I meant it.
“Everyone needs something to love, even if it is a big, dirty city,” Nate said, winking at me.
We pulled up to an extremely nice condominium high rise and got out of the car. A valet got behind the wheel and drove the car away to parts unknown.
“Un
derground parking lot for residents,” Nate explained, watching me stare after the car. “He’s not stealing it, I swear.”
“I can’t believe you live here,” I said, staring up at the gleaming glass and steel. “I thought you’d be in one of those grungy studios you always imagine artists living in.”
“You forget I was a real estate agent in my first life,” he said. “I definitely had insider knowledge of this beauty—and the funds to make my living here possible.”
Nate greeted the doorman and we took the elevator to the fourteenth floor. Even the hallways outside the condos were kept nice—nothing like the slums my mother and I would rotate through.
“It’s not a penthouse, but it’s pretty comfortable,” Nate warned as he unlocked his door.
It might as well have been a palace. My jaw dropped open as I stepped into the luxury condo. Every inch of flooring was a golden wood, the grain swirling artfully over each plank. River stones made up the fireplace, continuing up the wall all the way to the incredibly high ceilings. The condo was exceedingly spacious, and the vaulted ceilings added to that perception.
The walls were painted a creamy white, which helped brighten the entire space. Several floor-to-ceiling windows helped with that, too. Nate walked over to the sheer, light curtains and threw them back. I was treated to a magnificent view, loads of people walking down the sidewalks and plenty of cafes and galleries.
“Most of the art I have comes from right here in East Village,” he said, unaware of my utter awe.
I looked around, trying to shut my mouth. One huge canvas seemed to be the centerpiece of his collection. The shape of a nude woman reclining dominated the hanging artwork, but it was done with a quick, almost impressionistic hand. It was abstract, but not so abstract that you didn’t understand what you were looking at. Other framed pieces were smaller but no less vibrant. Nate clearly had good taste in everything from art to decorating.
“I’ve seen a lot of homes during my career,” he said, removing his beanie and rubbing a hand over his buzzed hair. “It’s easy to form your personal tastes when you’ve seen just about everything there is on the market.”