A Lover's Secret

by Bloom, Bethany

  And when it was over, Jess’s voice came out with such boldness and confidence that it surprised her. “I really want to thank you for dinner,” she said. “I have truly enjoyed myself, and I do appreciate the opportunity to speak to a possible future colleague. I’d like to keep in touch if you don’t mind.”

  “I would like that very much, Jessica Madigan.”

  “Why do you keep using my full name?” She laughed. “Most people just call me Jess.”

  “I don’t know Jessica Madigan. You’re just so much woman for a little tiny name.”

  At this, she laughed out loud. The glass or two of wine might have loosened her up a bit, as well. “I’m 5-foot-two on a tall day, and 100 pounds soaking wet. Don’t tell me I’m too much woman for you.”

  He shook his head. “You’re just…You’re just really something. Such a lust for life. A confidence. It’s kind of irresistible.”

  She gulped and imagined, once again, what it would be like to make love to this man. She shook her head.

  Evan kindly offered to drive her home, and when he pulled up in front of her house, Jess was surprised to see that the windows were dark. Had she really stayed so late? She bid Evan goodbye, then, and she tiptoed into the house where Monica had left her cell phone resting on the front hall table.

  No texts from Jake. No calls. No correspondence of any kind.

  She added Evan Everhart’s number to her list of contacts, and then she sighed and she kicked off her shoes, and she wriggled out of her tight and tiny dress and she crawled under her covers, which scratched her skin while she drifted, eventually, into a sad and dreamless sleep.

  Thirteen

  Jake

  Where was Miranda? When were they going to take all this shit off him? If she didn’t come in soon, he was going to rip it off himself. Elizabeth would be arriving in the main house any moment with Jess, and Jess would be expecting to find him there, and if he wasn’t, questions were going to be asked.

  Damn it. Where was Miranda?

  Finally, the door crept open, but it was Elizabeth.

  “What the hell?” Jake roared. “Tell me you didn’t bring Jess in here?” The monitors chirped, then emitted a sustained buzz.

  “Of course I didn’t bring her here, Jake.”

  “Well, what the hell?”

  “She wasn’t on the flight.”

  He took a deep breath. “What do you mean she wasn’t on the flight?”

  “Seriously, Jake this isn’t what you pay me for. To run around and fetch women and do your personal bidding. Wait for your girlfriend on your own time. I’m so sick of standing at baggage claim for people who aren’t there. It’s depressing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure. I hate it.”

  He gave his head a quick shake.”Are you sure that she wasn’t on the flight?”

  “Quite. I’m quite sure.” She tossed her hair to the side. “Jake, maybe you should have sent her another message last night. Or called her.”

  “Oh sure, my big slurry self was going to call her. I couldn’t even feel my tongue last night.”

  “You’re sure you sent her the correct flight information?”

  “Yes. The first time I think I was talking to her sister, and who knows if that message got through, so I sent another one. A little later. At least I think I did. And then you must have dosed me again. I don’t know. I just woke up.”

  Elizabeth shrugged.

  “Why didn’t you call her for me, Elizabeth?”

  “Well, Jake, because that’s not my job. I do a lot of things for you, but straightening out your love life and setting up your booty calls isn’t one of them.”

  “You know she’s more than that.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail and when it swung, so bouncy and pert, it was like a slap in the face. She would go on living. She would sit at the bedsides of countless people just like him, after he was done.

  He squeezed his eyes shut tight. “Alright. Do you know what? I’m sick of all these wires. I’m sick of this medication that makes me feel half dead.”

  “Just settle down, Jake.”

  His gaze was steely. The muscles in his neck grew tight. “Elizabeth, I’m done. Really, I’m done.”

  “You can’t be done, Jake.”

  “Watch me.”

  “Jake, you are really going to need to calm down. Your monitor—“

  “I don’t give a shit anymore. Just go. You’re done here.”

  “Oh, I’m done? Is that right, Jake? Sorry to tell you but I’m part of this project every bit as much as you are. You can’t say that I’m done. You don’t have the authority.”

  A machine in the corner had begun to squawk. Jake breathed deeply, watching his chest rise and fall until the sound stopped.

  “Elizabeth.” His voice was even now, but tight. “I need the keys to my car.”

  “You know you can’t drive, Jake.”

  He sat up then. He tore the electrodes from his arms, from his thighs.

  “Jake! Stop it right now.”

  He ripped the IV from his arm. A dark bead of blood pooled on his skin. In seconds, he was at the closet. He yanked on a pullover; slid on his jeans.

  Elizabeth’s voice shook. “Miranda says if you leave again, she’ll take you off the project. You can’t do this, Jake.”

  “I can do whatever I want.”

  “You’ll have no hope, Jake.” Elizabeth was yelling now. Tears streamed down her face. “You’ll be dead in months. This thing will kill you.”

  He fiddled with the snap on his jeans.

  “Did you hear me, Jake? You’ll be dead in months.”

  Her words sliced the air and hung there, steely and grave. The monitors stood silent now, and Jake could hear Elizabeth’s breathing, choking and raw.

  He raked his hands through his hair, checked his reflection. “I am going to find her.”

  His hands trembled as he dialed her number. No answer, so he sent a text. “Where are you, Jess? Did you miss your flight?”

  He waited and stared at the phone and listened to Elizabeth’s breathing and to her sobs. No response.

  ***

  Jess

  Monica had been right. About everything.

  Jake hadn’t called. He had never called.

  Jess wondered when Monica would arrive this morning. To talk about it. To rub her face in it.

  She closed her eyes, not ready for the day, not ready to wrap her mind around the simple facts: She and Jake weren’t meant to be. She had been Jake’s plaything, and he wasn’t going to call.

  An image flashed through her mind. Jake with Elizabeth. Making love to her. His hands on her breasts. His hands buried in her hair, pulling with those gentle tugs, just the way he’d done to her. Now she would have to sit in this house and let Monica and her parents suck the very life out of her; tell her where to go and what to do next.

  Breath whooshed from her lungs and she laid there, a profound heaviness pressing her against the sheets; against the old, sagging mattress.

  More than anything, she hated feeling like a victim. She hated feeling as though her fate was in someone else’s hands. If nothing else, this past weekend had taught her that she was capable of much more than she’d ever imagined. She was intelligent and courageous, and he couldn’t do this to her.

  She wasn’t going to just sit there, huddled in her bed, hiding from her parents and from their judgment of her life. She was going to go to him. She was going to fly out there and surprise him and see what he didn’t want her to see, and then she would know, and she could get on with her life.

  Adrenaline surged through her. Silently, she called the automated teller at her bank and listened to the bank balance. No change.

  It didn’t matter. She waited another moment, for her parents’ footsteps to march out of the house once again. She waited for Grandma to settle into whatever she was doing that morning: her puzzle, her crochet, maybe her macramé.
Then she tiptoed to her desk, and she slid open the top drawer and she fished out her emergency credit card. Something that had never been used before. In a whispery, breathless voice, she booked her flight and she paid the nine hundred sixty six dollars, because, at this point, what the hell was the difference? And then she called a taxi, and she put on a sexy button-down and a short skirt and a pair of high heels, because they made her feel tall and strong, and she packed a small bag and then she tiptoed up the stairs and out of the house, before it choked her entirely to death.

  ***

  Jake

  And still no return text from Jess. “Elizabeth, just give me my keys.” His face was inches from hers.

  “No. You can’t drive. Absolutely not.”

  Then Jake did something he knew he would regret. He pushed her backward, and he shouted right into her face even as she winced. “Give them to me. They’re mine.”

  “No, Jake. You can’t drive.”

  But he rammed his hand into her pocket and enfolded them tightly in his fist.

  Her steel blue eyes stared.

  Once the keys were in his hand, his voice softened. “I’m sorry Elizabeth. I’m just… I have to go and I have to find her.”

  “She wasn’t on the plane, Jake. How exactly are you going to find her?”

  “I don’t know, Damn it. But I’m going to find her.”

  “You’re just going to drive around L.A., just looking for her? You can’t drive, Jake. You cannot drive.”

  He breathed hot in her face. “I am going to drive. And I am going to find her.”

  ***

  Jess

  Why did she keep looking at her phone? She was forty thousand feet above the earth, and she’d flipped it off at departure. She no longer wanted to sit there staring at the screen. Soon enough, she would be in his city. Then she would call him. She would tell him she was there, and she would demand some answers.

  She tried to imagine what Jake was doing right that moment. He sure slept a lot, so perhaps he and Elizabeth were just waking. Or, by now, they were pouring one another freshly squeezed orange juice from a hand-blown glass pitcher, their satin robes flapping in the ocean breeze as they enjoyed the view.

  But then, there was his book, the hunk of obsidian in her pocket. There was the way he looked at her.

  The Pacific Ocean came into view then, and her breath caught. Boats bobbed along on its surface, trailing white lines in water so brilliantly blue, reflecting the sky. Somewhere below, however miniscule, in a place she couldn’t see, would be the reflection of her plane. And somewhere, just below, in this vast city, was Jake Lassiter. Somewhere, just below, were all the answers to her questions, to Jake’s mysterious ways, to his secrets. She wouldn’t leave before she had them, and then things would be different. She would be different. By then, she would know what to do.

  The water beneath her was so vast. A deep unfathomable blueness. The beach, a strand of taupe, like a narrow ribbon. She imagined the scent of sunscreen. The hope of summer. Salt in the air. Jake’s world, so different from her own. A world of water. A place defined by immersion. And she was back in the water now, the icy water in New Mexico. He had tried to save her, and when she had risen from the depths of that water, she was suffused with a power she had never before known, as though the sheer primal rage of the river, in its swollen banks, with its pulsing life force, had been channeled through her, all at once, and they had made love there by the water, atop the red, red earth.

  The corners of her mouth drifted upward and hope pounded in her chest. What would become of her when she landed in this place?

  ***

  Jake

  Jake’s tires squealed as he took a corner too fast, and he bumped along the curb. A mother and her child stopping, watching, their mouths open. Easy, Jake. The steering wheel gave a quick quake in his hands as he straightened it out on the asphalt once again.

  How he’d missed this car. The feel of the leather against his back, the buttery way it met his skin. Its scent. The vibration as he turned the corner, the throatiness of the engine. He swallowed. The sun beat through the windshield. Where was he even going? The airport? Where could she be? Why wasn’t she answering his calls?

  At certain times, he could actually forget what was about to happen to him: When he was with Jess and when he was behind the wheel of this car. Once again, he was living fast and vibrant and free, the way he was meant to live. But it meant nothing without her. He would sooner die. He would sooner drive his car straight into the ocean than to live in that room, with Elizabeth and Miranda breathing on him, with their soft hands and their tender voices and their pity and their grief and their injections of things meant to help him.

  This was all he could recall of getting to the airport. In his memory, later, it was a blinding flash, screeching tires, the vibration of the engine, permeating him, infusing him with power. With drive and youthfulness and ability. The same way she made him feel. Jess.

  Damn it. Where was she? How would he get to her, without leaving town? Without flying to Denver and sacrificing his treatment, his final hope?

  He was in the airport garage now, and the lights were dim. He squinted to see and pulled in sideways across two parking spaces. He called her again.

  Then her voice.

  “Jake?” She was breathless, and he felt suddenly light. “I just landed,” she said.

  “You’re here?”

  “Yes, in L.A.”

  “Oh, thank God,” he said, and he laughed, and then she was laughing, too.

  “Well, you never called, Jake, so, you know, I came to find you.”

  “I texted you flight information last night. Twice.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Oh.” And then, “I didn’t get it…”

  “Well.” His chest heaved. “You’re here now, and, as luck would have it, I’m at the airport.”

  “You are? Why?” Her laugh was musical. It sounded like water, falling.

  “I guess I was hoping Elizabeth made a mistake when she came to get you this morning. When you weren’t there.”

  “Oh, well I’m here now.” She laughed again.

  “Jess?”

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t wait to see you.”

  “And I can’t wait to see you. Just… stay put,” she said, “Or we’ll never find one another. I’ll come to you.”

  “I’m in the east garage. You can’t miss me. I’ll be the guy bewildered and breathless with desire for you.”

  ***

  Jess

  “Just keep talking to me,” Jess said. “Guide me toward you. This airport is huge.”

  “Jess, I’ve missed you so much. I’ve been through a lot since we last saw each other, and all I could think of was you. All I could think of was how I couldn’t wait to sit next to you again. To breathe your scent. To touch you and to hold you. I want to make love to you. Right here. Come and find me.”

  She felt breathless and her face flushed as she threaded her way through the crowds. He still had this secret. But right at this moment, she didn’t much care what it was. She had to have him, and to know that he desired her; that he had missed her... She ached with yearning. Her heels clicked faster.

  And then there it was. His car. The smooth lines, the reflective cherry red. She left her suitcase on the ground, pulled open the door and slid inside. The car was angled deep, like a nest. She rolled over the console and sat astride him. She pushed her breasts against his chest, and he held her face in his hands. “Oh Jess. I love you so much,” he said. “I can’t live another moment without you. I love you so much.” He kept repeating the words and tears rolled down his cheeks and everything shifted and tilted. Colors took on a new richness, a sheen, a tight edge, and she took control of him. She tore open her blouse and unfastened her bra and her breasts spilled against his chest. She pushed his mouth to her warm tingling flesh, feeling his hardness growing against her, and the windows steamed and her neck and her face became wet with sweat an
d with his tears.

  Her phone jangled then, from where she had dropped it on the console. Vibrating, ringing. Monica. Of course. The saboteur. But Jess was done with that part of her life. This was where she belonged, and she no longer cared about anything else. He was so hard inside her. The way he moved below her brought to mind the ocean she had seen from the plane, they were part of nature, moving in that way, in rhythm with the rotation of the earth and the sun and the tide and the moon and the stars. All part of this brilliant creation. Her throbbing bosom was in his mouth now and he lashed at the pearled tip with his tongue. The ringing stopped, and she had never felt so sure and so right, so complete and so fulfilled.

  Then the ringing again, sharper, but she went on and on, taking Jake deeper and deeper inside. Then a text. Through her tears and her elation, she saw it.

  “Where are you? Grandma fell. Come quick.”

  Fourteen

  Jess

  Jess slid off his lap and over the center console. Her hands were shaking and Jake was watching her, his mouth open. She stared straight ahead, and she punched the word “call” under Monica’s name. She smelled leather and exhaust. She tasted her soapy, bitter lipstick, and she sank into her seat, into the deep, deep den of it, as she spoke with Monica.

  After she ended the call, for a time, her throat remained closed, refusing to allow any words through, and then, at last, she managed, “My grandmother. She fell down the basement stairs this morning after I left.” She gulped. “She broke her neck.”

  The words hung in the car, bloated and distended.

  “Oh. Jess. I’m so sorry.”

  “She died, Jake.” She turned to him, quickly, then snapped her gaze back to straight ahead. “I’ve got to go back. I… I never should have come here. It’s my fault. This is all my fault.”

  “No, Jess. Of course it isn’t. Come on.”