But Stephen had been in to see Josh at his home near UBC. His friend was enduring the pain without the benefit of painkillers, which would be hazardous to a recovering drug addict. So Jessie was worried. She couldn’t help herself.
“Do you think he’s okay?” she asked Sue-Lyn.
Sue-Lyn reached over and gave Jessie’s back a little rub. “No,” she replied. “But he will be. We’ll make sure of it.”
And that started Jessie thinking.
***
Things had been tense and messed up on set for so long that Jessie figured it was time to settle the score. Josh showed up at work on Wednesday, agonizingly, embarrassed at the negative attention in the media, and by Friday Jessie worked up the nerve to ask him a question.
She found him on the wooden verandah of the General Store, in costume, staring out at the rest of the set. He took her breath away, but she reminded herself of the crap they’d all endured for the last several weeks, and that he’d been a part of that crap, and so she fought away the temptation to stare at him. But those black pants and tan jacket were adorable. He made a rather divine nineteenth century wrangler, even with a modern cast on one wrist that the jacket attempted to hide.
The black hat and layered hair sent her over the edge.
Breathe, Jessie.
He’d been so subdued since coming back she didn’t know if he would respond to her. But she asked anyway.
“I was wondering what you plan to be up to tomorrow,” she started hesitantly. “I need some help with something.”
He just nodded without looking at her. Jessie took it as an invitation to further her cause.
“Meet me at this address at 9 a.m.”
She reached for his left hand and plunked a small piece of paper in it. He looked down – she was wrapping his fingers around the paper. Using both of her hands. He swallowed. She squeezed. Smiled at him rather doubtfully, as he looked up. Josh couldn’t remember a time when he saw her smile – really smile – without provocation, like when she was acting, or had just finished singing a song on stage. Except maybe when she was with the gregarious Stephen – that boy made everybody laugh. But she certainly was never relaxed in his company. He wondered what she was up to. Then he questioned whether he would go. He had planned to work on his Harley tomorrow, to shine and polish away the havoc of last weekend.
He watched Jessie saunter away and thought she would have made a fairly chill nineteenth century girlfriend in her petticoats and skirts, their bottom hems generously soaked in mud. Her cute bottom swayed gently from side to side as she walked and, once again, he found himself utterly, thoroughly, and painfully, distracted.
***
Josh pulled his truck up to the curb and visually skimmed the area. Jessie was quite the enigma. Wealthy, famous, talented – yet for some reason she asked him to meet her here, in the seediest part of the city. She was nothing, if not full of surprises. For a moment he wondered if he’d gotten the address wrong, so he kept the truck running and his stiff, sore fingers on the wheel, just in case. What was he doing here anyway? He and his co-star had hardly spoken over the last few months. Maybe this was some kind of reprisal for the day he rousted her in front of the cast and crew.
He strained to see farther down the sidewalk – there was a small group of homeless gathered there, chatting, their dirty hoods pulled over their heads, fingers shoved deep into their pockets. A shopping cart overflowing with old blankets and garbage bags stood sentinel nearby. Josh shook his head. Jessie shouldn’t be down here. Hell, she wasn’t safe anywhere on her own, where she could be recognized and mobbed. He hoped she’d thought to bring a bodyguard with her.
Then Josh raised his head, surprised. In the midst of that pack of rascals was a recognizable posture, a face - Jessie. He caught himself grinning for the first time in about a week. Leave it to Jessie Wheeler, he thought, moving his left hand over to the keys to shut off the ignition. The stiff cast wasn’t always co-operative, and the discomfort was still too profuse to force his right hand to turn the way he wanted it to. He yanked out the keys and then got out of the truck, slamming the door shut behind him. At the sound, Jessie looked up and waved and, as they silently erased the distance between them, Josh recalled, somewhere off in the far reaches of his memory, that she’d had some kind of experience with the homeless, although he couldn’t remember exactly what.
“Hey,” she said timidly. She was dressed not unlike that of the little group of disenfranchised, in an old grey hoodie pulled up over her head, slim jeans rolled up once at the cuffs, and the yellow converse sneakers with, he noticed with a closer peek, the inked-on smiley faces. She stood in front of Josh, hands in her pockets, toes turned in towards each other. With a nervous shrug of her shoulders, she gazed up at him.
“I thought you might like to have a diversion for the day.”
Josh stared at her, standing there alone in front of a derelict building. She could have been anybody, and not the celebrity that played for crowds of 20, 000. Yet somehow he sensed she was more comfortable here in this sketchy neighborhood, with its stench of urine and weed and its many graffiti’d walls, than she ever seemed to be on stage.
“C’mon,” she said, turning, and gesturing with a shoulder. She turned back once to see if he was following her. He wasn’t – yet. Josh looked entirely freaked out at his surroundings, but he was doing that cute thing with his head, where he cocked it to one side and looked at her curiously with a hint of humor in his eye, that made her think he was indeed going to follow her. She wheeled around again, and faced him squarely.
“Trust me.”
He examined the graffiti on the brick wall nearest them. It was a rendering of a giant green dragon with flames shooting from its mouth, flying up out of a deep, dark pit. He smiled ever so slightly, took a deep breath, and eyed her again.
“Lead the way.”
He walked the few steps to catch up to her. Silence. Nerves were kicking in big time, for both of them.
“How’s the wrist doing, cowboy?”
Josh blushed and looked away, embarrassed about that whole painful scene. But he answered.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Sore.” He tucked the cast further under the unbuttoned sleeve of his well-worn denim jacket as if, like a cat hiding under the bed with its tail sticking out, he could forget about it if he couldn’t see it.
“You found driving okay?”
“Yeah. Used my left hand a lot.”
“Good thing you’re not driving a stick shift.”
She pantomimed him trying to drive a standard transmission with his cast. Left arm on the stick, then the wheel, back to the stick, arms getting crossed…Josh grinned. He couldn’t help himself.
They turned left down a side street, walked about twenty feet, and then Jessie ran up five or six cement stairs. Josh noted that the steps led to an indiscriminate light yellow clapboard building, three stories, with no obvious identification. It was in good repair – new windows featuring bright, colorful cedar flower boxes beneath them, a roof in excellent condition with shingles recently updated, and a sweetly painted apple-red door with a brass knocker to welcome visitors. Jessie opened the door and went in, then held it for Josh to pass through. A pretty bell tinkled upon their entry.
Inside, the building looked like your standard Victorian home. An overwhelming brightly patterned auburn and teal reproduction William Morris wallpaper greeted them. The dark paint on the central stairway’s newel post was gently worn, and had a patina that seemed to say many people had come that way before them. A nineteenth century secretary desk held court in the hallway, and on it were a number of brochures. Upon closer look Josh could see they were about such topics as unwanted pregnancies, protection against unwanted pregnancies, and drug abuse. He bristled slightly, again unsure of Jessie’s motives in bringing him here.
An older woman with salt and pepper curly hair, a mid-calf length denim skirt, high brown leather boots and a white blouse with lace trim appeared down the
hall, from where the homey scent of sage-spiced chicken soup and freshly oven-baked biscuits wafted.
“Jessie!” she enthused happily, and embraced the younger girl in a big bear hug. Then she looked over at Josh and thrust out her hand.
“Mary Helen,” she said, graciously but firmly.
“Josh,” he responded quietly, figuring she likely already knew his name since he was the rag bag fodder of the week.
He shook her hand, half expecting her to escort him into a back room and start asking questions about his troubled relationship with his father. Instead, Mary Helen turned to Jessie and said, “She’s doing well. You’ll be pleased! And she’ll be thrilled to see you.”
Jessie seemed relieved, then explained to Josh as they followed Mary Helen upstairs, “She’s talking about Terri. She’s fifteen. Like myself, she left home at fourteen. Unlike myself, she got into hard drugs almost right away, thanks to a thirty-eight-year-old boyfriend. Mary Helen and I found her on East Hastings and convinced her to come to the shelter. She’s been here for about six weeks.”
Looking around as they reached the landing Josh realized that he was, indeed, standing in a shelter - a women’s shelter, he presumed as he peeked inside the bathroom and saw faded, lacy bras and various other flimsy underthings flung over the shower rod with a clumsy, careless elegance. He could hear the subdued chatter of girls, peppered with giggles. He realized with a pang that the women here, whom he soon realized were likely all under the age of 25, were likely 40 in terms of what they had seen and experienced in their somewhat short lives. He turned his head and looked at Jessie through a new lens – she left home at fourteen? Somehow, he missed that memo as she came up through the film and singer/songwriter ranks. Suddenly he wanted to know more. Suddenly he understood more.
Mary Helen led them up one more, narrower flight of stairs, the risers painted a robin’s egg blue and the accompanying wallpaper another William Morris design, albeit a smaller pattern than the one below, and in lovely deep shades of green and rose with corresponding blue undertones. Later, Jessie would explain that the wallpaper was chosen because Morris was well known for drawing upon nature for his wallpaper designs. And nature, as everyone knew, was known for its healing properties.
They entered a larger room that Josh quickly deduced was in fact two rooms minus the central wall that once divided them. There was a table at one end covered in art supplies and board games, puzzles on the floor, and a few girls lounging around sewing and knitting – and chatting. They seemed enchanted by the topic of discussion, which was evidently about someone’s boyfriend, but there was no tension. The girls were clearly happy. This was a place of peace and renewal.
Jessie made her way over to a window seat, where a freckle-faced teenager with two stringy braids was smiling shyly at her. The girl had a guitar in her arms and had obviously been picking away at it. All of the residents waved at their arrival, but it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that Jessie was there to see Terri. Jessie gave the awkward girl a big hug while Mary Helen waved and signaled she’d be downstairs if they needed her.
Jessie turned back to Josh.
“This is Terri,” she said, almost shyly, as if she was sharing a deep, hidden part of her soul with him. He tilted his head to one side, adorably. He understood. He could see in Jessie’s eyes what the girl meant to her, although he didn’t completely comprehend why, just yet. He stepped forward and met the younger girl’s soft gaze. Ah. Interesting. She shared the same haunted look Josh sometimes saw in Jessie’s cool blue eyes. His heart leapt just the littlest bit and he swallowed, trying to muster up some fluids in his suddenly dry throat.
“Hello there,” he said. “Nice to meet you, Terri.”
He thrust out a hand to shake, quickly realized it was still in a cast, and put out hand number two. The girl smiled and reached for hand number one, gently. There was an intelligence in her eyes that belied her age. He could almost see complicated layers beneath her skin, and found himself peering a little more closely at her, wondering, thinking. So many people in this world just didn’t get to age twenty untouched, unhurt, unmolested in some way, shape or form. He pondered the hours spent thinking he was alone…even this past week, alienating himself from everyone, feeling sorry for himself. Josh was suddenly ashamed. No man is truly alone, at least in his or her experiences. No man, no woman, and no teenage girls. Maybe some choose to be…but perhaps if they reached out to others they would quickly realize life has the potential to be much more treasured if all of us choose a path of togetherness. No wonder Jessie came here, to this place. She was an introvert, a loner, at least in appearance and by reputation. But she sought out those who were wounded the most, like her. Like Terri. Like him. The garbage bins. The song she wrote that he thought might be about him. The card she sent to him at rehab, anonymous, but with that word, hope. At least, he believed it was Jessie who sent it. Maybe it hadn’t been her, but in his heart – yes. Lost souls attract other lost souls.
His heart ached and Josh was shocked and embarrassed to find that this realization caused tears to form in the corners of his eyes. It was a sort of epiphany to grasp Jessie’s motives in inviting him here today. He felt a steady gratitude, even though he also felt extremely undeserving. Who was he to deserve the kindness and understanding of the girl he’d been treating rather ungraciously since they started working together? The girl he reamed out on set? Who was he but a boy whose own father detested him for some unfathomable reason? He was simply a man aching to make good after his own crisis with The Black Death. Someone who, like all people, simply wanted to be loved and respected by those around him, but who felt he did not deserve that love and respect. Unlovable; that was Josh. Looking around the space, he wondered how many in the room sometimes felt the same way, and thus had self-medicated through the use of drugs. Or – how many in the city, the province, the world?
Josh turned away from the girls, and sat down at the table behind him. He picked up a board game and chuckled – Life. Oh how he once dreamed of putting the little pink marker next to his miniature blue one in the car…and filling the four back seats with pinks and blues. Maybe it wasn’t too late, after all.
A new girl entered the room – Sheila, a tall leggy thing with the most enchanting coffee colored skin and delicate Asian eyes. She plopped down across from him and picked up the dice. Held it up to him, questioningly. He grinned and so there they sat on the third floor of an old Victorian house on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, playing Life.
Jessie sat on the window seat by Terri and watched him, as the skinny fifteen year old leaned a scraggy head on her shoulder. Jessie could almost see Josh’s shoulders relax, and the tension drain from his face. A strand of reddish-brown chestnut hair fell over his cheek, and she ached to be the one sitting across from him building a family and laughing, the one who could live in a normal bungalow in the burbs, maybe off Bluemountain Street in Coquitlam, where people went to work at nine and got home at five and hiked in the mountains on the weekends. She longed to be…the one to brush the hair behind his ear.
He must have sensed her watching him because he looked up then, and paused and reflected on how the light from the window embraced her in its glow, outlining Jessie and her young kindred spirit in the most benevolent warm silver-orange backlight. He thought that even the electrics and grips on Drifters could not duplicate that. No human being could create such a lovely halo around those two wounded, healing souls.
Jessie’s smile faded as she met his gaze. There was something in Josh’s eyes, again. There was an energy in the room, a crackling between them that she told herself she hoped would go away, but which she truly wished would last forever. The sad thing was, though, that it was infinitely painful to be in that upper room with Josh, with his introduction to Terri, and therefore his glimpse into her past. Jessie clasped her hands together and squeezed to still the ache, and then she turned to Terri and grasped the guitar at the same moment that Terri grasped the connection between her
mentor and this good looking quiet man she brought with her that day. Her eyes flitted between the two, a growing understanding in her belly, and she thought it best not to ask about how the wedding plans with Charlie were going.
***
Later, after Josh was soundly trounced in the game of Life by Sheila and then by a few of her friends, and after Jessie taught Terri how to play bar chords, they headed downstairs, waving good-bye and thank-you to Mary Helen. When they stopped for lunch in a nearby café, Jessie told Josh about the shelter.
“Dee gave me the paperwork as a Christmas gift one year. She might appear hard-nosed and crusty at times, but she’s got the biggest heart…”
Josh smiled knowingly as he sipped on his water. Obviously Mrs. Keating had a good heart – she and her husband once took in a homeless waif on nothing more than faith and trust.
Jessie continued, at the same time wondering why her lunch mate was suddenly all smiles. “We set up a foundation to help young girls get off the streets and off the drugs that hold them captive. When the property in the Downtown Eastside came up as a mortgage sale, we grabbed it and hired Mary Helen. There’s another story – MH lost a daughter to drugs, a husband to cancer, and a son to Canada via Afghanistan. She felt like she had nothing left until Dee found her in a Human Resource Canada office database and offered her a full time job. She helped us set up the shelter, and we found ourselves off and running.”
“How’s it doing? In terms of, you know, women getting past their demons and moving on…” Josh’s eyes were less effusive now. The topic of getting past drug addictions was sobering to anyone, but doubly so to him.
A Song For Josh, Drifters Book One Page 15