“I’ve been here before,” he pointed to a photograph of a small port that looked to be somewhere European.
“Really? Where is this?” I tilted my head.
“It was a small fisherman town in Rome,” he smiled. “My family went on a vacation there before my brother graduated high school. We ended up getting lost and stopped at a small restaurant to get something to eat and get our bearings. The view we had from there wasn’t much different than this picture, actually.”
“Wow, that sounds amazing,” I smiled. “I’ve actually never left the States. I always wanted to travel, but never got around to it.”
“You still could,” he assured me, smiling.
I frowned, looking down, ignoring the pang of reminder of what I truly was and how wrong Jace was. I was trapped in the world I’d be forced into. Assuming I wasn’t killed beforehand, it would take years to pay off my brother’s debt, and that was assuming that T-Built was actually keeping track of what I earned and had any intention of letting me go.
Seeming to notice that the subject had slipped into a sore one, Jace was quick to offer a distraction. “Hey, I thought we were both starving, right?” Jace placed a hand on my shoulder, guiding me more away from my thoughts than towards a cluster of food vendors. “What would you like?”
I looked up into his eyes, realizing he could somehow understand where my thoughts were headed and I offered a nod, smiling in gratitude at the distraction. We left the booth and, as Jace let me take the lead, I headed straight towards a cotton candy stand.
“So you’re a dessert-before-dinner sort of girl?” he jabbed as he bought each of us a bag of cloudy sweetness.
“When I can be,” I confessed, already starting to go to work on my bag. A part of me was nervous about letting this man see me wolfing down an entire bag of spun sugar, but, upon looking up at him, I saw that he already had a giant fistful of his own crammed halfway into his gaping mouth.
A tuft of the stuff hung from his mouth, dancing slightly in a small breeze and looking like a bright, neon-pink goatee against his chin.
Giggling at the sight, I did the same, hoping to elicit the same result. He laughed at the sight, and I guessed that I’d succeeded in the effort.
“I like a girl with an appetite,” he told me.
“Then you’ll love me,” I boasted, then immediately blushed and paused, considering the implications of my words. Not even through the first date and I’d thrown the “L”-word out there. Curious, I gave him a quick glance, wondering if I’d made things awkward just then.
The smile on his face filled me with only confidence.
Going on, I added, “I’ve always loved food, and I was always active enough to get away with eating what I wanted.” I figured it wasn’t worth pointing out that, lately, I didn’t often get my hands on enough food to even worry about what it might do to my figure.
“I love confidence in a girl, too,” he said, and, though I couldn’t be sure, I thought I heard a bit of an inflection on ‘love.’
Obviously my introduction of the “L”-word wasn’t going to be a deterrent for him.
This, however, only got me thinking.
I was more than just a bit afraid of how strongly I was beginning to feel towards Jace. It was something that, whether we were talking about my old life or my new life, I wasn’t at all used to. Before T-Built and Mack’s debt, none of my dates truly held promise of romance. I certainly liked the boys I went out with then, and I never denied that, maybe someday, something might come from all of our movies or dinners or stolen make-out sessions. But, even then, I’d never caught myself worrying about what they’d think if I did this or what they’d do if I did that; the idea of chasing them off didn’t concern me, because I was confident that, even the very next day, I could find another boy who wanted to date me if I was so inclined. Since then—after T-Built and Mack’s debt—the concept of dating and impressions was nothing if not every bit the distracting fantasy as my vampire books.
Johns didn’t buy you books or cotton candy, they didn’t give a shit what sort of things you liked, and they certainly didn’t escort you through magical adventures on a liberating machine made entirely out of every wonderful feeling in the world. Simply put: I had never—never, ever, never!—felt anything that felt even remotely in the vicinity of “love.” As far as I was concerned, it was a word that was universally amplified by writers, musicians, and marketing teams to sell books, records, and just about everything else under the sun.
And that was okay, right?
If “Love”—the grand, god-like appearance of the thing—was just a construct to make people feel good and keep money exchanging hands, then who was the victim?
Hell, was I any less guilty of selling “Love?”
“Son, someday you’ll find a nice girl who will take you behind a dumpster, tickle your no-no bag, suck on your pee-pee, and when she does that means she’s the one and you’ll buy her diamonds and eighteen-hundred dollar dresses and make two-point-five kids with her and mow the lawn while she watches and sings about somewhere that’s green.”
Nicholas Sparks, Miramax, Hallmark, Mia Chobavich: ingenious perpetuators of that infamous myth called “Love.”
I had gotten, while by no means happy, at least comfortable with this understanding of things. Accepting that romance existed more as a sales pitch made everything easier; it had made my teenage years of indifferent socializing less stressful and it made my time on the streets bearable. But now…
Now I was out on a date—a first date—with a man whose very presence filled me with some bizarre energy. I was thrumming on two simultaneous planes of being, feeling a sense of confidence I didn’t know was possible while also scrutinizing every little breath I took just to be certain I didn’t chase him away. I cared about the outcome now—I wanted the night with him to draw on, and I wanted the next date to be with him. I wouldn’t be satisfied knowing that some other boy would be willing to date me. Every normal night for me was a torturous reminder that what felt like everybody wanted a date with me, provided that date kept me degraded, hungry, and unsatisfied in every sense of the word.
Not that I’m sure he meant it, but even on the first night we’d met Jace had joked that if anybody deserved oral sex for everything that was happening it was me. Three guesses how many Johns had offered to go down on me, and the first two don’t count.
Even then, with no reason to care one way or the other, the concept of my pleasure had existed. Before that, I didn’t think anybody would even accept the notion that I still had nerve endings. Hell, I was starting to believe nobody even saw me as a person.
But Jace did. He always did. Even knowing what I was, he never let it stop him from knowing there was a “who” behind the “what.” Moreover, he didn’t care. He saw past everything that not even society could look past and was showing the person on the other side the night of her life; showing a whore the night of her life!
No…
Jason Presley was showing me—me! Mia Chobavich!—the night of her life.
And…
Damn!
And I was falling for him.
“Love.”
More than just a book; more than just a song; more than just greeting cards, perfumes, and heart-shaped boxes with drippy chocolates.
And, for that, I was terrified.
Not aware of the universal crisis toiling in my mind—So much for being a mind-reader—Jace stepped away to investigate a nearby booth. Glancing at the sign hanging over the table, I saw it was somebody advertising themselves as a “local jewelry artist.” The simplicity of the claim, however, seemed to underwhelm the quality of their work. Following after on shaky legs, I found myself gazing at gorgeous designs in gold and silver and gems that made the sort of stuff I’d seen hanging in chain store windows look plain by comparison. One necklace in particular held my gaze: a silhouetted bird hanging in mid-flight from a thin silver chain. Two blue gems that served as its eyes winked back at me i
n the artificial glow that existed all around us, and I felt my breath catch as I realized that the wings, arched upward to forever catch a current of air, were inlaid with even more glittering beauties. Not even realizing I was doing it, I ran my finger across the necklace, admiring both the work and feeling the piece gave me.
Freedom.
Again, that word seemed to tease me, seeming all at once both too far and already here.
“That’s pretty,” Jace said, and I watched, stunned, as he carefully reached over to pull the necklace from its place on the display stand.
“It is,” I said in a whisper. It was all I could manage. Seeing him handle the necklace, for some strange reason, made me feel like he was handling some priceless and one-of-a-kind artifact that was at risk from my even existing beside it.
Feeling like I was about to hyperventilate, I watched as he passed the necklace to the artist.
Disbelieving, I heard, “I’ll take it.”
The scene played out as if on a movie screen. Money exchanging hands. The still-glimmering necklace beginning to be tucked away inside a blue velvet box. Then Jace politely passing on the box; “I don’t need that,” I think I heard him say. Friendly smiles, nods. A “Have a great night.”
Just like on a movie screen.
I saw it, marveling at the process, without completely connecting what was transpiring with my place in all of it—I was, after all, only a spectator in a theater, right?
Right?
“May I?” I heard him say.
And I nodded, willing the perfect man on the movie screen to continue; wanting to see who the lucky starlet just beyond the camera’s eye would turn out to be.
Smiling, Jace continued—hands reaching towards me, reaching through the sacred divide of the silver screen.
And then the necklace was being clasped around my neck. The fourth wall had been broken, and suddenly a symbol of freedom was suddenly resting at my chest.
“There,” he said, as though it was the smallest, simplest thing for him. “Perfect. It’s definitely where it belongs.”
I felt my fingers dance up my chest as I reached with shaky hands to confirm what the rest of me was telling me was so. The gem-encrusted bird kissed my fingertips.
I think I managed to say “thank you,” but I couldn’t be sure.
With the words “Love” and “freedom” banging around inside my head, all I could be certain of at that moment was the tears that burst forth and the speed with which Jace managed to catch me as I threw myself into him to conceal the full impact of my wracking sobs.
Man, “Love” was a bitch!
****
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“‘Cause… you look like you might start crying again.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You gonna start crying again?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“But you’re okay?”
I didn’t have it in me to “Mm-hmm” this time around, so I only nodded. After my episode—what I decided to call my “Mini-Meltdown on the Canal Day Stretch” in commemoration of the Orient Express novel I’d loved so much as a teen—Jace had hurried me to one of the many benches that littered the sidewalks along the stretch of road. He’d helped me to sit down, settled in beside me, and gone instantly into trying to figure out what was wrong.
What was wrong, however, was that nothing was wrong. And while that seemed reason enough for him to think that nothing was wrong, nothing being wrong felt pretty damn wrong to me. This, despite not making a bit of sense, he was willing to accept and his efforts to figure out what was wrong shifted to ones dedicated to making me feel better.
The irony of this was that it only reinforced the “nothing’s wrong”-issue.
And so I had a good cry, and Jace made a spectacular show of proving over and over again how not wrong anything was. Honestly, I’d have been laughing if I wasn’t too busy crying. Finally, exhausted and out of ideas, he resigned to putting an arm around my shoulder and guiding my cheek to his shoulder so that I could cry it out. At that moment, I stopped crying—catching both of us by surprise—and I hugged him. No, I embraced him—embraced him the way they do in the books and the movies and in all those commercials that, before that night, I would’ve called “stupid.”
And that brings us back to where we started.
“This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” I whispered into his chest, still kissing the bird around my throat with my fingertips.
“I hope you don’t mind it coming from me,” Jace whispered back.
I looked up at him, confused. “Why should I mind that?” I asked.
He shrugged his opposite shoulder, making sure to not disturb my perch. “‘Cause I’m damaged goods. The ‘wrong guy’-sort, you know? The guy that everyone’s friends and parents warn them not to get involved with.”
I frowned, not liking that that was how he saw himself, and said, “If you’re damaged goods then what am I?”
Another shrug. “A working girl,” he said dismissively, then nodded towards a pair of blondes across the street selling giant pretzels. “There’s two more now.”
I bit my lip at that. “So why me? Why aren’t you buying them beautiful jewelry and showing them magical nights?”
“Because girls like that are a dime-a-dozen,” he said.
My lip quivered and looked down. “I doubt that. Meanwhile any guy can have me in the worst kind of ways for a few crumpled tens,” I said in a whimper.
I felt him tense at that and his head shook slightly. “No they can’t,” he scolded. “You provide a service, nothing more. They aren’t getting you. No more than a person gets a masseuse or a physical therapist. I’ve already told you that I’ve been with prostitutes—lots of them, in fact; not proud of it, but I won’t lie about it—and I never believed that I was getting anything more from the transaction than what was being bought.”
I blushed at that, suddenly curious. “Were you rough with them?” I asked.
“Tried not to be,” he said. “I can’t say for certain—those in your profession are better actresses than actual actresses most of the time—so I don’t really know. I certainly never did anything to hurt them or make them uncomfortable intentionally.”
A strange sort of comfort came from that, and I rested a bit more against him. “Did you care about them?”
“What?” Jace sounded startled by the question. “No. Of course not, why?”
“But you care about me?” I asked, ignoring his question.
“Well, yeah! But I don’t—” he paused and then gave a slight chuckle. The hand around my shoulder cupped me there and held firm, solid and reassuring. “Mia, I’m not on a date with a prostitute right now. You need to understand that. I’m on a date with you.” He nodded back to the pretzel-blondes. “If one of them is out on a date, do you think they’re still in a world of salt and dough? Do you think the person they’re with is thinking about getting a snack out of them? Or worrying about who they sold a pretzel to earlier that day?”
“There’s a pretty big difference,” I pointed out.
“Only if you let there be,” Jace pointed back. “I’m not bothered by it either way, and I don’t care that this is what you do to get by. If I mind anything about it, it’s that you’re working for the Carrion Crew, but that’s only because they’re dangerous.”
I considered that for a moment and then looked down.
“And,” he went on, “I understand that it’s not glamorous work. It’s rough on you, I’m sure—probably much, much rougher than it should be—and I’d like to able to provide you with some comfort after all that; I’d like to offer you what you’re missing.”
“What I’m missing?” I repeated back to him.
He nodded and gave me a gentle smile. “Yeah. You know, nice days out. Food. Trips to local events. Maybe even trips to not-so-local events someday. And, you know…” he trailed off, seeming to consider something and then, once mo
re, shrugged his opposite shoulder. Then, nodding back towards the necklace, he said, “And pretty jewelry.”
I blushed at that—at his words and the place I thought his unspoken words went—and once more kissed the bird with my fingertips. “It’s still the nicest thing anybody’s ever done for me.”
He sighed heavily at that and shook his head, taking my arm then. “Come on,” he said.
“Huh?” I gasped, uncertain of what was happening. “What is it? Where are we going?”
“While I appreciate that I could do that for you, it’s a shame that a piece of costume jewelry passes for the ‘nicest’ thing someone’s done for you. Let’s go fix that.”
I stammered for a moment, caught somewhere between the ferocity of his self-assigned mission and the notion that what hung around my neck could be considered “costume jewelry.”
“Fix that? How so?” I finally managed to ask, allowing him to lead me onward.
****
“Fixing,” in Jace’s world, involved him giving me the reigns to the rest of our time at the Canal Days. By his own urging, I stopped at any and every booth that seemed even remotely interesting and, if I looked at anything for longer than a few seconds, I might as well have claimed it as mine, because its next step was across the counter for purchase. The whole thing turned into a sort of game with me making an effort not to look long enough to wind up being the owner of whatever it was that I saw. I lost every time. I’d giggle, pleading with Jace that I was only looking, and he’d chuckle and tell me that I could look at whatever it was even more now that it was mine. Once again I found myself recalling Julia Roberts and her bizarre, fairytale journey through ‘Pretty Woman.’ Jason Presley, I decided with concrete resolve, was way sexier than Richard Gere.
“So, what’s the plan now?” I finally asked, hoping that the question would motivate an end to the game before I wound up exhausting Jace’s seemingly bottomless bank account.
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