“I can’t afford it.”
She smiled slyly.
“For his best customers my boss extends credit.”
“I’m not one of his best customers.”
“Hundred down and a hundred a month until you pay it off.”
He nodded and wrote the check.
“I’m just glad to be able to help out a cool teacher,” she said.
He watched the pretty girl wrap the ring and it felt very right to him; more right than anything had felt in a long time.
Jordan stopped at the house and showed it to Art.
“It’s beautiful, man, nice workmanship. Looks expensive. How much?”
Jordan told him.
“It’s a steal. Bet it was part of an estate sale. Trisha’s gonna be real happy.”
Art nudged him, smiling lasciviously.
“Man, I forgot this,” Art said, and handed Jordan a scrap of paper.
“The lawyer called.”
Jordan’s stomach soured as he glanced at the number. He dialed the lawyer’s office.
“Oakley Hall here. A Mrs. Daniels called. She’s trying to get in touch with you. Her daughter finally made a statement. You’re in the clear. Things are looking good.”
Jordan thanked him and hung up, relieved. He immediately drove to Hope Ranch.
* * *
Jordan rang the bell, then knocked for a solid minute before he saw Daphne’s father coming to answer the door.
“Hello,” he said, and looked at Jordan like he didn’t know him.
“May I speak to Daphne?”
“Oh, let me find Mrs. Daniels,” he said, leaving Jordan at the door.
More movement on the stairs. Daphne! No, Mrs. Daniels.
“Jordan, good to see you. Please come in.”
She led him to the couch in the jungle-theme room and gestured for him to sit down. Then she hurried away and returned with two glasses of wine and handed him one.
“I know how hard this must be for you.”
“It’s been hard.”
“As soon as Daphne was in the clear, we had her draft a statement. After hearing how long you had to spend in that jail cell . . . we can never make it up to you.”
Pained, she reached over and squeezed his hand.
“We truly appreciate how much you done for Daphne. You were wonderful.”
Jordan shrugged awkwardly.
“I really would like to speak to Daphne,” he said, but he could already tell it was impossible.
“She’s not in the country. She’s with her brother in India.”
Another long moment. Mrs. Daniels reached for an envelope on the coffee table and handed it to him. Jordan suppressed the desire to tear the letter open because it was obvious Mrs. Daniels wanted him to wait.
“I believe the letter will explain everything.”
Jordan stood to leave.
“And there’s one other thing,” Mrs. Daniels said, and handed him a second envelope. He opened it and took out a multipage document.
“It’s a deed for Daphne’s apartment on the Riviera.”
“A deed?”
“Yes, Daphne owns it. Her grandfather left her that.”
“Oh,” Jordan said, feeling light-headed.
“She wants you to have it.”
“What, the property?”
“Yes, for what you went through.”
Jordan walked over to the coffee table and retrieved the glass of wine he hadn’t touched. He drank it in a gulp.
“You just need to sign it, and I’ll have my lawyer file it and the property will be yours.”
“What would I do with it?”
“Whatever you like. Sell it, or live there; Daphne loved the place but now she says Frank ruined it for her.”
Jordan shrugged, and ignoring the pen Mrs. Daniels held out in front of him, he reached for the pen in his pocket that turned out to be a pencil. Then he saw the pen that Mrs. Daniels had offered him, and signed his name slowly, like a child would, thinking immediately about how much the small property with a view of both the mountains and the ocean must be worth; at least a couple hundred thousand.
He shook Mrs. Daniels’ hand, thanked her, and rushed outside into the brightness of a Santa Barbara morning. He now had his stake in the city; something he had wanted so badly for so long, but now it felt like some stupid, fucking trick, a dumb-ass consolation prize that left him feeling stupid and used. He sat in the car thinking it over, wanting to rush back and demand that deed, to cross his name out, rip it up. But he didn’t have that in him.
It came clear to him: Daphne knew what she wanted, and she had it; freedom from Frank, and her own future raising a child. She knew what Jordan wanted too, and she gave it to him.
Finally, Jordan drove away, but he took the northbound 101 and exited at Ellwood Beach. There, he parked at the end of the rows of apartments and walked along the path through groves of eucalyptus trees, to the ocean. He sat down on a bit of path that had survived El Nino, jutting precariously above the sea.
He allowed himself to feel it—the bitterness, the hurt, how much he had loved Daphne, and now what that love had resulted in. He reached into his pocket and tore the letter open. The letter was quite short and typed on something like tissue paper.
Jordan,
Sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you. Please do not worry about me. I will write to you as soon as I’m settled in India. Frank is in jail and will be for a long time. I do not plan to return to the States anytime in the foreseeable future. I am due in six months and after that joyous day I will give you further details. Until then, please understand how important it is for me to be on my own and out of contact.
Thank you for giving me the strength to escape my life.
Love,
Daphne
Below the letter she had scrawled in bright green ink:
Please thank Trisha and her family. They were true guardian angels. I hope you find the same joy in my little flat that it gave me.
Jordan laughed as he crumpled the flimsy paper. He tried to sort through the feelings whipping through him, but he couldn’t. Daphne was a calculus that was so beyond him that he didn’t know how to think about it.
* * *
It didn’t take long for Jordan to reach Trisha’s, but he was surprised to see her at the bottom of the driveway.
“Hey, hop in.” he said, flinging the door of the Triumph open.
“I need to bring my father the mail.”
“Later! Come on. I’ve got news.”
“What? Did you hear from Daphne?”
He gestured for her to hurry. She gave in and slipped into the sports car. Jordan sped down the hillside until he reached the 101 North. When they were miles from Santa Barbara, beyond Ellwood Beach and rolling to Santa Ynez, he broke the silence.
“I have a surprise for you and one present.”
Trisha smiled warily.
“What?”
“Here,” he said, and handed the ring box to her. She opened it slowly as though it were a trick.
“Jordan! You can’t afford this. You don’t have a job.”
“That’s the other surprise. I came into some money. My uncle left me something.”
“And, it’s so much you can afford . . .”
“It’s that much. I just have to sell some property.”
“Wow.”
“And the other news I have for you is . . . I want to pay for your first year of law school.”
“You? Pie beat you to it.”
“I suppose we can get into married-student housing. That would save a bundle.”
After a long awkward moment, Trisha finally spoke.
“Are you saying you want to marry me?”
“Yes, I want to marry you, but I know I fucked up here. I could see how you might not want to be with a guy who gets into the kind of stupid trouble I do.”
“Shut up, Jordan. Don’t run yourself down. You didn’t know that she had her own agenda.”
/> Jordan shrugged and slowed the car, turning off onto an exit that led down a steep decline almost to the ocean’s edge. Then he handed Trisha the letter. She read it, shaking her head.
“She’s just trying to make herself feel less guilty. If you keep the property, maybe it’ll work. There’s nothing else to do except to wait and see.”
Jordan shook his head despairingly.
“I guess I really cheered you up. Come on. Let’s walk to the water,” she said.
A few boys played around a beached boat, throwing sand and seaweed at the half-buried hull. Farther up, a sunburned man tossed a Frisbee far out into the surf for his dog to chase.
Jordan’s and Trisha’s late afternoon shadows stretched ten feet ahead of them as they walked.
“Did you try on the ring?” he asked.
“No, I . . .”
Trisha searched for the ring with growing panic, patting herself down and then Jordan.
“We’ll find it,” he said. “I have a flashlight.”
“Just look,” she said, harshly. Trisha found the box wedged into the small space between the Triumph seat and door. Even though the ring was a little tight, she worked it on, smiling happily.
“Never thought I’d see the day,” he said.
“I never had a doubt,” she said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JERVEY TERVALON is the author of understand This, winner of the 1994 New Voices Award from the Quality Paperback Book Club, and the acclaimed Los Angeles Times bestseller Dead Above Ground. In 2001, he received the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles National Literary Award for Excellence in Multicultural Literature. Also an award-winning poet, screenwriter, and dramatist. Tervalon teaches creative writing at California State University at Los Angeles. Born in New Orleans, he lives in California with his wife and child.
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Jervey-Tervalon
Also by Jervey Tervalon
Living for the City
Understand This
Dead Above Ground
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Washington Square Press Publication
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Copyright © 2002 by Jervey Tervalon
Originally published in hardcover in 2002 by Atria Books
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
Cover design by Jeanne M. Lee
Cover photograph by Philip Lee Harvey/Stone
Author photograph by Rick Mendoza
ISBN: 0-7434-2239-2
ISBN: 978-0-7434-5602-9 (eBook)
First Washington Square Press trade paperback printing February 2003
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