I'll Do Anything

by Danielle Bourdon

  “You sure?” Jasper started the engine. The Camaro coughed, then sparked to life.

  I glanced across the car, secretly appreciating the way moonlight slanted in through the window to highlight Jasper's features. It constantly amazed me how oblivious I'd been to his good looks all my life.

  Jerking his chin to move the shank of bangs off his forehead, he arched a brow.

  “What?” Had I missed something?

  Draping an arm across the back of my seat, he leaned closer. “I asked if you were sure you wanted to take the bus. You're distracted.”

  “That's because you smell.” He smelled like leather and an enticing, masculine cologne.

  His teeth glinted behind a sudden smile. “That's not why you didn't answer.”

  “Then why didn't I answer?” I asked, feigning indignation.

  “You're so transparent sometimes, Fins. It's endearing.”

  I scoffed.

  “You're sitting there thinking to yourself how handsome I am, and that you'd like to have a repeat of this morning. And this afternoon.”

  “I've had enough whipped cream for one day.” I knew very well he meant sex.

  Leaning into his seat, Jasper poured on the drama. He laid a hand over his heart and exhaled. “My ego.”

  “Is alive and well. Now drive. Maybe, if you're lucky, I'll give you a goodnight kiss before bed.” Like the blonde had done earlier, I batted my lashes, drawing a guffaw from Jasper.

  “No offense, Fins, but you and lash batting don't go together. It's scary rather than cute.”

  Laughing, I said, “You're ridiculous.”

  “I know.”

  During the twenty minute ride home, I caught myself glancing across the car often. Jasper liked to drape his wrist over the top of the steering wheel when the traffic was light, or the speed limit was slow. He had a habit of peering out the windshield with his head slightly ducked, as if he was too tall to sit straight and the visor blocked his view. Although I'd ridden in cars countless times with him, I'd never really noticed how appealing his body looked slouched into the seat. His legs were so long, they seemed cramped in the space below the dash.

  Once or twice, he caught me looking, and flashed a boyish smile my way.

  He'd done the same thing a thousand times, yet the strange flutter in my stomach was a recent development. How strange to be this affected after all this time.

  After parking in the garage and entering the house through the connecting door, I went straight to the fridge for a cold bottle of water and stopped by the telephone to check messages. Our ad in the local yellow pages directed all calls through the landline, and I was hoping for a call or two to fill up time in the morning. An oil change, a tune-up—anything.

  The first two calls were inquiries for mechanic work, and I made notes on the pad next to the phone. Jasper read over my shoulder, gave me a thumbs up, then disappeared into the bedroom.

  Anticipating another inquiry for the third call, I listened as the message began. A quiet hiss stretched into the silence of the kitchen. The caller hung up and the line reverted to a dial tone.

  “Wrong number or something.” I deleted that one and went to the next. Again, a static hiss. No voices, just dead air. It reminded me suddenly of the call that came earlier in the day, when I knew someone had been on the line, but no one spoke.

  For whatever reason, a chill crept down my spine. There were no more messages after that. Leaving the notepad on the counter, I headed into the bedroom, ready to change into pajamas and fall into bed.

  “We get some business for tomorrow?” Jasper asked, exiting the master bath. He'd peeled out of his shirt and pants and wore only a pair of blue boxers.

  “Maybe. Those two inquiries you saw me write down. I'll call them back in the morning.” I changed into a pair of Jasper's pajama pants and one of his thinner, over-washed tee shirts.

  “What about the other calls? You were still on the phone when I came in here.” Jasper flopped onto the bed and shoved his feet under the covers.

  I came more slowly, pulling the comforter back before sliding under the sheets. “Just wrong numbers or something.”

  “Huh. All right. Hopefully the inquiries will turn into real mechanic work.”

  Like usual, I rolled onto my side and draped a leg over his. I made myself comfortable while I slept, and Jasper never seemed to mind my tendency to use him as an extra pillow. “Hopefully. Happy birthday, Jasper.”

  “Thanks, Fins. Night.” He kissed my forehead.

  “Night.” For whatever reason, I couldn't stop thinking about the phone calls. Sleep did not come easy.

  Chapter Two

  The inquiries did indeed turn into work. Jasper and I fit a tune-up in the following morning, and got halfway into a spark plug change before he had to shower for his shift at the casino. Capable of finishing the spark plug job on my own, I kissed him goodbye and got back to business.

  Growing up, Jasper had taught me all I knew about engines and how to fix them. His father had been a lifelong mechanic, instilling his knowledge to Jasper starting at an early age. Jasper and I had dreams of opening our own shop all these years later; for now, we worked on cars in our second garage, one located at the back of our modest rental property. The separate building didn't have air conditioning but it had electricity, running water and two extra-large stalls. With the weather holding at fifty-four degrees, it was cool enough with the garage doors open. In the middle of summer, when temperatures topped one hundred and five, we would need to install fans to combat the heat.

  Dressed in light gray overalls, grease smears on my knees, elbows and mid-section, I hummed along to music spilling out of a radio perched on a long bench attached to the wall. Tools of the trade were scattered across the top, left there for the job.

  I had just finished putting the last spark plug in when a woman's voice lifted above the music.

  “Excuse me?”

  Ducking out from under the hood, I wiped my hands on a shop towel and carried it with me as I approached the open garage door. A woman stood there, silhouetted by the overcast day, her features somewhat obscured until I got closer.

  “Can I help you?” I asked. She wasn't the owner of the car I was working on, that much I knew. On closer inspection, the woman appeared to be somewhere in her early twenties, with flawless golden skin, dark hair with subtle auburn highlights and a figure that made me think of the showgirls at the casino. The pencil skirt of white accentuated the shapely length of her legs and the short jacket of baby blue with fat buttons up the front did nothing to hide the fullness of her bust.

  Her face was the most striking of all. Symmetrical and beautiful, the woman had high cheek bones, pretty brows and a straight nose above a mouth painted with just a hint of peach gloss. In one hand, she held a manila envelope with a small white purse that dangled off her wrist.

  My first thought was that she was the Anti-Finley. This lady was everything I was not. Statuesque, classy, proper. And there I was in dirty overalls, grease under my boyishly short nails, hair scraped back into a tight ponytail. Not a stitch of make-up in sight. If I hadn't worried she might be there to get her car worked on, I might have laughed at the polar opposite differences between us.

  “I'm looking for Jasper Lowe.” The woman eyed me with a curious expression and some other emotion I couldn't at first figure out.

  “He's not here right now. I can take a message, though.” Maybe she was a co-worker, a woman I hadn't met yet. The casino Jasper and I worked for, Olympus, employed hundreds and hundreds of people. She could be anyone from a desk clerk to a dancer to human resources.

  “But he does live here, correct? Or this is his business?” the woman asked.

  “He does, and yes, this is his—our—business. I'm Finley.” It felt like the rudest thing in the world to offer my grease stained hand out for a shake. But it was rude not to, I thought, so I offered it out anyway.

  To my surprise, the woman clasped my hand and shook with a
firm grip. She didn't appear appalled at the fact I'd probably just transferred a good amount of grease from my palm to her own.

  “Asia. Nice to meet you, Finley.”

  “Asia. That's an unusual name,” I said, reeling my hand in. I didn't immediately recall meeting anyone at Olympus with the name Asia. I was pretty sure I would have remembered. The dancers there didn't like me at all and preferred to snigger and whisper behind their hands when I was anywhere near. Asia wasn't looking down her nose at me, which was a start.

  “Thanks. I think.” Asia smiled a cautious smile, proving her teeth were as pretty as the rest of her. She cleared her throat, glanced at the watch on her wrist, and said, “Anyway, do you know if Jasper will be back soon? I'd prefer to speak to him in person rather than leave a message.”

  Stuffing the shop rag into the pocket of my overalls, I said, “I'm sorry, he won't be available until tomorrow. Did you need to have your car worked on? I've got a little time...” I let the thought trail. I left the choice up to Asia if she wanted to make an appointment to have car work done.

  Asia glanced past me to the car in the garage, then back to my eyes. “Actually, no. That's not why I'm here.” Glancing down at the envelope in her fingers, she laughed a somewhat embarrassed laugh, then met my eyes again. “I'm his wife.”

  *

  In the seconds that followed Asia's revelation, I was sure every ounce of air had suddenly been sucked out of the universe. I couldn't seem to draw breath.

  I'm his wife. Wife. Wife. The word echoed through my head several times. Asia and I stared at each other as the silence stretched into the realm of discomfort and awkwardness. I knew I should say something, but I couldn't figure out what. The idea that Jasper and his buddies might be playing a prank on me occurred somewhere in the middle of it all, but Asia's expression and demeanor were too real to be faked. If she was lying, she deserved an Oscar for best female performance ever.

  How had this happened? Jasper and I didn't hold secrets back from each other. Not until last year, when Jasper had omitted to tell me about some debt he'd gotten himself into that had led to events which nearly ripped us apart.

  But marriage? A wife? He'd never breathed a word. I couldn't figure out when he'd had time to have a wife. We'd lived together for more than a year and this was the first I had ever seen or heard of Asia. Before Vegas, we'd spent every spare second together in our old home town—except for the year Jasper went away to college. With sudden clarity, I figured that was when he'd met and fallen for someone else. For Asia. It was the only event that had separated us for a significant amount of time.

  Finding my voice with effort, I said, “I see. Well, I'm sorry you missed him. If you come back tomorrow morning around ten, he should be here.” I pasted on what I hoped was a convincingly polite smile. What I really wanted to do was either beat things with a tire iron or puke.

  Asia smiled a smaller smile than before and inclined her head. “All right. Tomorrow at ten. Thank you, Finley. It was nice meeting you.”

  “You too.” I couldn't say any more than that. Before Asia had even turned to make her way down the long drive toward the street, I pivoted on a heel and made my way through the garage. There was another door leading into our backyard, and eventually to the house.

  Shocked to the core, I went into the master bath, stripped out of the greasy overalls, and got in the shower. Under the sting of the hot spray, I washed the grime of the morning away. Every attempt to stop the tears that stung the back of my eyes failed. I cried for the fact that Jasper and I had lost something critical and crucial in our relationship: trust. If he hadn't told me about Asia, what else had he kept from me? I had understood why he hadn't told me last summer about the debt he'd gotten into, but this? A wife? Really?

  Trusting Jasper had been the backbone of our friendship. He knew literally everything about me. And, I thought, I'd known everything about him. A heavy sense of betrayal hit just after I dried off and changed into clean jeans and a simple tee shirt of white. While I dried my hair, I aimed the blow dryer at my face to help vanquish the tears that didn't want to stop. The mirror above the bathroom bounced back an image of a woman I hardly recognized. Eyelids rimmed red, tawny hair windblown into a straight line down my back, I studied the angles of my cheeks, the shape of my mouth, and the hazel color of my eyes. They always seemed lighter, paler, when I cried. There was a layer of bitterness underlying my sober expression that changed my entire face. Or so it seemed to me. Maybe it was shock.

  Suddenly, the strange phone calls with hissing static made a lot more sense. I knew it had to be Asia, too afraid to say anything when a woman answered. Maybe she would have lost her nerve every time, no matter who might have picked up.

  Pulling on socks and a pair of tennis shoes, I departed the bedroom. My eyes welled again on the way to the kitchen, where I picked my cell phone up off the counter.

  We'd only been in this new house three days. Three days was all I'd had to enjoy the space, the comfort, the newfound freedom of a decent place to call home.

  Right now, I didn't want to be anywhere near here.

  After closing the garage doors and locking up the house, I left.

  I didn't know where I was going, or what I should do, but I knew one thing: I couldn't face Jasper until I'd gotten my emotions under control.

  *

  Getting my emotions under control proved much harder than I thought. After walking to the nearest bus stop and boarding the next bus that arrived, I sat in the back with my shoulder to the window, watching the busy streets of Las Vegas flash by. I didn't get off at any of the other stops. The monotonous drone of the engine was soothing on a base level, beyond the pain and the angst that sat on the surface. I managed to stem my tears in public, lest I upset strangers who might decide to call authorities in fear I was suicidal or something similar.

  After two hours of touring the same route through the city, I was no closer to answers about Jasper and Asia. I was no closer, either, to deciding what I should do. Switching between anger and bone deep sorrow, I thought about going back to my mother's house, or even pulling my share of the money out of the jar in the kitchen and renting a motel room. Nothing sounded right. Going home to stay with my parents was a choice of last resort. Spending money we'd worked so hard to save seemed like a waste, too, yet I couldn't figure out another alternative.

  Staying with Jasper after this wasn't even an option. Despite my aversion to commitment and long term relationships, it hurt to think that we were well and truly over on top of everything else. What would this do to our friendship? Already I felt lost, unable to call the one person I'd always leaned on in times of crisis.

  I imagined Jasper asking why I was moping around and sulking, had I been like this over any other guy. Sitting up straight, I frowned. What was I doing moping and sulking? It wasn't like me. I was the take charge kind, the type of girl to confront trouble head on.

  Suddenly, I knew what I needed to do.

  Three stops and four blocks later, I let myself back into the house. Ignoring the pangs of hurt and angst rioting around inside, I made myself a tall glass of ice water and paced around the living room. Jasper wouldn't be home for another two hours, at least, but it gave me time to organize my thoughts and prepare myself for the best way to approach him about his wife. I cautioned myself not to shout or get belligerent or to railroad the conversation. Staying calm was the adult thing to do, and I felt the desire to be as mature and reasonable as I could.

  By the time I heard the rumble of the Camaro's engine, darkness had fallen and I'd probably paced a total of ten miles through the house. All the rational caution I'd worked up fled when the key turned in the lock, and Jasper stepped inside.

  Dressed in street clothes—jeans, boots, a plain tee shirt covered by an open bomber jacket—with his hair falling across his brow, Jasper caught my gaze and smiled. The lopsided, endearing smile that pressed a dimple into his cheek. In his fingers, he held a box of Boston Baked Beans, my fa
vorite candy of all time. He shook it; the candy rattled. Then he tossed it through the air in my direction.

  I snatched it out of the air like a professional ball player, then tossed the candy on the coffee table. It landed with a thud that echoed through the house. Even Boston Baked Beans couldn't salvage my mood.

  “Hey Fins,” Jasper said, using the heel of his boot to knock the door shut.

  Clearly, there were enough shadows in the living room to hide my pissed off, annoyed expression that would usually pre-warn Jasper that there was a problem. A flood of words rushed to the end of my tongue, some sharp and scathing, others sorrowful yet still angry. I couldn't make any of them take shape.

  He paused four steps into the living room, chin tucked down. I could see the gleam of the whites of his eyes, but the shadows worked against me, too; I couldn't see enough of his face to discern his expression. I knew by the way his posture stiffened a little and the way his motions slowed down that he was now on alert.

  “Did something happen? Are you all right?” He asked, removing and tossing his jacket over the arm of a chair.

  I reached over to snap on a lamp. Now I could see the confused wariness on his face much better, and he could see the seething hurt in mine.

  “Fin, what happened? Did you get fired?” Jasper frowned and circled the chair, coming my direction.

  I held up a hand, palm out, still struck for words. There was too much I wanted to say. “Don't,” I finally said.

  “Don't what?” He spread his hands, a helpless gesture of bemusement.

  I hated that I wanted to run and hug him, and at the same time, throttle him for putting me in this position. Jasper was the one I needed to get my back, to be there when I was hurting or in trouble. That's what best friends were for.

  Propping my hand on my hip, I exhaled and said, “Asia stopped by. Your wife was here.”

  Chapter Three