She swung around on one heel and walked away, hands curled into fists and one ear cocked downwards as straw crunched beneath her boots on the wooden floor. Stifling her sobs, she hoped the harsh sound muffled her anguish.
***
On the embittered drive home, her tires protesting loudly on the frozen water glistening on the pavement beneath her SUV, Jessie held her own. She had, in fact, spoken the truth to Josh and, at the same time, revealed it to herself. There was no logic in their situation. Her initial feelings for Josh were based on raw emotion and on what some might call ‘sparks’. Those feelings, strong as they were, were gleaned from a deep loneliness and a disconnect from Charlie. But, she stubbornly told her inner self, the part hurting so badly, this is the hard part. This is what people mean when they say that relationships take work. I can’t go running to someone else – the way Charlie has been doing – when things get tough. She had another light bulb moment. If Charlie were happy, then he wouldn’t be turning to others as well. She was starting to see Charlie in a new light these days, and perhaps on some level it would bring them closer.
But with every swish of the windshield wiper blade in front of her face, and with every frozen watery crystal trail left in its wake, all she felt was an intense agony marking her every thought of Josh. She hadn’t meant to be so hard on him, to speak so bluntly, but the thoughts were riding at the edge of her consciousness, likely all along. So they just came blurting out, egged on by raw emotion. And he had pushed her – a little. It was right to tell him like it is. It was the easiest way to let him go.
Jessie swerved to avoid a pothole, and her heart leapt into her throat as the SUV fishtailed five times before settling back into its natural rhythm. It took her heart a while longer to resume a normal ticking, and she wished fervently that the mini episode hadn’t frightened her so much, or perhaps that she wasn’t as prone to being scared.
Sometimes she really wished she were numb again.
“Damn these Vancouver winters,” she cursed. “No salt on the roads to keep me from slipping, and crappy tires because nobody bothers to get snow tires out here.”
But soon there was plenty of salt on her cheeks, and Jessie was glad she wasn’t needed on set for the next few days so she could push Josh into some deep, dark corner of her heart and mind, and focus on her songwriting and hectic schedule back in the office on the thirty-first floor, where she could stand above the cold street below and wonder again what it would be like to live a normal life.
***
Deuce McCall reached behind him and depressed the lever to make the toilet flush. This is what I get for going to a brothel last night, he thought. Friggin’ dysentery, like some old Civil War soldier camped out in the swamps. Only I am not fighting a war, and this stuff shouldn’t be happening to a man of my stature and place in the community. It’s not 1863, for God’s sake!
In truth, McCall had contracted food poisoning from tainted cheesecake sitting unrefrigerated in his room for far too long while he screwed a local whore two nights ago. He was a peculiar man with weird ideas, though, and he thought he was above such pains in the ass – literally. He believed he contracted food poisoning because the universe was trying to tell him something – that he was hanging out in the wrong woman’s bedroom. He could not – would not – ever forget that Jessie Wheeler was his real woman. Those greyish, ice-blue eyes haunted him in his sleep, and her quiet demeanor and sultry voice were, with an alarming regularity, on every radio station. Deuce was done in by her a long time ago, and events like this – where he couldn’t get off the toilet long enough to call his restaurant to tell them where he was, just affirmed the notion that he was in the wrong place with the wrong girl, and that it was time to get his shit together and get Jessie back.
Deuce wrapped an arm around his belly and groaned as another vicious cramp gutted him. He waited until the acute pain passed and relief was again briefly his, before he reminded himself yet again that even with a few million dollars in the bank and numerous investments throughout the world, he was not immune to the universe’s lessons.
He had just finished shaving in his hotel room in Austin, Texas, where he met with staff at another of his restaurants, when the first cramp hit. It was just after he saw the new promo for Jessie’s television series, Drifters. Deuce was standing there in the middle of the hotel suite’s living area, showered and dressed in black designer pants and an expensively cut white button down shirt. He was holding the remote control, channel surfing and contemplating his next meeting, when the promo aired. At first he wasn’t sure it was Jessie at all, and he had to switch back to that station after something in his mind shifted to high alert and suggested he go back to HBO. Then, there she was, in nineteenth century glory, with that look in her eye. He remembered it from somewhere, far back in the reaches of his twisted memory. He did not recall seeing it in any of her other work – neither in music videos, nor films. Nor was it evident in published photos with her intended, Charlie Deacon. Yet here she was, in some lame outfit in some lame television show shot in Canada that was trying to shove history down the throats of the common person, and there it was – that look.
Who was she looking at? Some actor whose name escaped him - oh yeah, it was that guy who got cast almost immediately out of rehab, the one in the news recently for fighting publicly with his father – Josh something or other. And Josh was looking at her in the exact same way. So what disturbed Deuce about it? He hadn’t seen a look like that pass between her and anyone else since…Sandy. That was it. Sandy - her boyfriend back in the Charleston days, before she was famous to anyone but those who saw her play at his restaurant, the Renegade.
Deuce had stood there holding the remote long after the promo ended. It left an indelible impact. Something had changed in Jessie’s life – there was a light back in her eyes he had not seen since first meeting the young songstress. And it unnerved him, for reasons he barely understood. But there it was, ticking away in his brain, carving at the edges of his consciousness, mobilizing him to action.
But then the universe attacked him, suddenly and with fury, and Deuce had no choice but to listen. And there, trapped on the toilet cursing up a storm, the first seeds of what he saw as his retrieval were planted.
***
For the most part, things got back to a new normal at the Drifters camp. The early promos for the show were being released to build anticipation and to let the public know something special was brewing for September and, as a result, the press was starting to request interviews. The set was rife with visitors and the cast and crew were asked to be on their best behavior. Jessie’s character had a bit of time off, so Josh and the others continued on as normal as they had before it had become ‘discreet’ on-set knowledge that there had been some kind of romantic liaison between Josh and Jessie. Only to Josh, it wasn’t ‘normal’ at all, and Drifters felt empty and lost at sea without its female lead and the counterpart to what he thought was his best work as an actor.
Despite the cold, he took his down time under the cottonwood tree where he’d brazenly touched Jessie, letting the backs of his fingers trail down her thigh, nudging on their primal responses to each other; and where, for the briefest time, he had basked in the glorious anticipation of being alone with her at the end of each day.
The cottonwood tree, in high season its almost heart-shaped leaves with their jagged edges defining both the good and the bad, had always provided a certain comfort in its canopied sanctuary. It was where they touched, where Jessie shared musical stories with him, and where they planted their friendship, despite how it had - so far - turned out. Even now, its branches bare, naked and exposed, it was a reminder of what they’d begun to share and, as Josh looked closely, he realized new buds were forming on the skeletal frame. It gave him hope, and that was the seed that carried him forth in those days when the world once again seemed foreign to him, devoid of anything of real and true meaning, of everything worth caring about.
Josh didn’t
have many friends, but those he did let into his close circle of late knew he was caring and loyal. And so, it was a Josh thing to do to make it a point to recall Jessie’s words in the card she’d sent him in rehab – there is always hope. Despite his brain crying foul, that she’d fucked him over good and truly, the distant part of his soul still let people in because in its tiniest corners it was listening to his heart; he, like the cottonwood tree under which he often sat, gave in to the possibility of the return of sanctuary, and carried on.
Soon, Jessie was back and, by then, other on-set dramas had replaced the Josh and Jessie fiasco, or what people thought was likely the usual fleeting set romance. Film and television production was always ripe for such liaisons because of its insular nature and long hours. So, with only the odd mention of what may have been, everybody got back to work and forgot about Josh and Jessie, everybody that is except the two main characters themselves and their closest compatriots, the ones witness to a rare deep-seated pain between lovers in an impossible tryst.
Stephen kept a close eye on things, and relaxed a little when Josh didn’t go off the deep end and start disappearing or injecting heroin. Maggie and Sue-Lyn were careful to keep a watchful eye on Jessie, and to invite her to their Friday night post-wrap fish and chips pub grub regular dinners. Everyone was relieved to see that Josh and Jessie themselves seemed capable of putting their own hearts at rest in order to keep the peace on set and at base camp, but occasionally, on days when lighting changes seemed to take forever and everyone was tired, rare glimpses of unrequited feelings were evident. Josh would lean against a wall in a corner and Jessie against a door jamb across the room, while exhausted grips adjusted flags around them to cut stubborn shadows that refused to abdicate, and electrics reacted to the gaffer’s requests to go ‘one stop down’ by placing colored metal scrims over lights. On those days, when they were too bone-weary to put up a show anymore to mask their feelings, Josh and Jessie would hold each other’s gazes, sending silent thoughts filled with forgiveness while extending wispy spider webs of feeling across a room buzzing with activity.
The crew was completely unaware that the real drama they were lighting needed only the glow of a pale moon and the tiniest effervescent twinkle of stars.
One sunny Friday in May, six weeks away from her wedding day, Jessie joined the gang at the regular fish and chips gig. A cheerful buzz permeated the blue-collar restaurant with its blue and white nautical décor and heady, fishy smell as cast and crew recalled the week’s high and low-lights. Jessie found herself seated across from Josh and, surprisingly, both were able to join in the conversation and laugh along with the others. The only low moments were when the overhead sound system played the popular Josh’s Song at the same time perky Sue-Lyn started querying Jessie about wedding details. Stephen kicked her under the table.
“Geez, woman.”
Innocently naïve, Sue-Lyn threw up her hands. “What?”
Carter jumped in and saved the day. He held out a hand. “Sue-Lyn. Make my day. Come dance with me.”
Happily, she obliged. Taking Carter’s hand as he bowed, Sue-Lyn giggled and went off for a spin around the wooden dance floor. Maggie and Steve soon followed; Steve was glad to relieve the slight tension with an escape from the table.
Jessie found herself staring down at her fingers while Josh sat immobile across from her.
They listened to the song as it filled the corners of the restaurant with its tale of hope and wonder, both of them thinking the same thing - that it seemed like a lifetime and a half since the night of their first dance at Dee’s fundraiser.
Josh broke the ice.
“How is Dee with all of this wedding preparation stuff?” He knew the grand dame to be a distinguished lady of Vancouver, albeit a little overbearing at times. And – he wanted to hit the elephant in the room head on.
Jessie shrugged, hesitant to meet his steady gaze. “She’s okay. I’m mostly just sitting back and letting her do her thing. I think she’s finding me a fairly easy partner in this venture.”
Josh caught himself wondering whether Jessie cared enough about the wedding to really put her foot down, or was she just drifting along with her sails full out, being buffeted along with the power of the wind on a beam reach? He brushed the thought aside. “Seems to me Dee would be in her glory.” He appeared comfortable with the chat. Jessie glanced up and met his hush puppy eyes. Ah, well. He could sound one way and look another. There was still ennui there. But she steeled herself and decided to make the best of it, as they had been doing all along.
With barely a wisp of regret, Jessie responded and they chatted a bit about Dee and the wedding plans. Then, Jessie changed tack. “Terri asked about you the other day.”
“Oh? How’s she doing?” He perked up. This was something sacred between the two of them, that day spent with Terri at the shelter.
“Mary Helen expects her to be moving out soon. She’s got a job at Revolver, of all places.” Revolver was a trendy Café – not as good as Rebel on a Mountain, they often joked in the past, but still serving coffee the way only serious Vancouver baristas do. It would be a good job for Terri.
“She says the girls are wondering why you haven’t come by to play Life with them again.” A loaded question.
Josh shifted his gaze so it felt like he was looking right into Jessie’s soul. Wow, she thought. How does he do that? She had no way of knowing she had the same effect on him.
He didn’t answer right away, so Jessie dove in a little deeper. “You can still go there, Josh, if you want to. If you can handle the girls mooning over you. You’d better get used to that, anyway. Once Drifters hits, you can say good-bye to your privacy forever.”
He chuckled, and looked away and then back as the song played on. “My privacy is already toast.” He held up his right arm and a small smile tickled Jessie’s lips – the cast was gone, but the scars remained. It stirred up a memory of the story Charlie had told her about Josh’s dad. She wondered whether the man-ster had hurt Kayla too.
“How’s Kayla these days?” she queried.
“Still looking for work,” he said. “Never giving up on the dream. Seattle didn’t pan out for her.”
“Dancing? That’s what she’s looking for?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmmm.”
“Hmmm what?”
“Well, I’m doing a show in late September. In fact, eight shows. A sort of mini-tour to raise funds and awareness for shelters like Terri’s, and for the network of homes Dee and I are setting up across North America. We’re doing auditions in June because I’m leaving for the summer.”
He was well aware of the fact she hadn’t said ‘on my honeymoon.’
“Kayla should come and audition.”
At Josh’s hesitance and the cute glint she spotted in his eye, Jessie jumped in quickly, covering up for the fact she knew that he knew she hadn’t said honeymoon. “I won’t be choosing the dancers, the choreographer will. But I can get Kayla in the door, at least. The rest is up to her. Is she good?”
“Well, yeah,” he said, grinning. “She’s a Sawyer. Of course she’s good.”
“Obsessed, you mean,” she said, laughing, hitting him gently on the good wrist and then letting her fingers linger there ever so briefly. It was like she drew some kind of energy from his touch. Jessie folded her hand over Josh’s wrist and closed her eyes. Sometimes when they touched it was like gassing up for the next impoverished journey.
Drawing her hand away, swallowing hard with the effort to let go, Jessie allowed her cool blue eyes to drift up to meet his bottomless browns, which glinted with a light that appeared to intensify as the energy between them crackled.
After a moment to collect himself, Josh drew Jessie into a longer chat. Both admitted to themselves that it was nice to have a few minutes alone before the others boisterously arrived back at their table. They ate their beer battered haddock in peace. Despite a lingering ennui, Josh and Jessie felt their relationship was maybe ev
olving to a new level, one of genuine comfort and friendship. They didn’t know it at the time, but soon Jessie would need Josh in the way he was once in need of her, as the universe conspired to throw obstacles in her path in its relentless attempt to break down one of its good people.
***
Chapter Thirteen
Kayla, bubbly and well rehearsed, went to the audition and got herself hired as one of Jessie’s dancers. Charles, pragmatic and disciplined, worked with Jessie to select and fine tune songs they would present in the fall mini-tour, and the charming, confident Deirdre focused on nurturing sponsorships and in building the new network of homes for girls like Terri; like Jessie herself, in another lifetime. Charlie, on good behavior, arrived for a weekend here and there just to keep himself in Jessie’s consciousness, it seemed, and the wedding drew closer. Drifters ramped up its promotional tools and, as the actors and crew wearily dragged themselves to set every day as they neared the end of the season one shoot, the air took on a cast of impending endings. Contracts were being signed for season two based on the orders of the big-wigs at HBO, who had seen a number of completed episodes scheduled for air in September, and who couldn’t wait to give this edgy Canadian-shot western its time in the limelight for at least three seasons.
The cottonwood tree was by now in full bloom, and lovely little balls of white softness often fell in dreamy wisps to the deep green grass and into the trickling creek below, where they floated aimlessly along with the water’s crystal flow. Josh had of late taken to joining Jessie there again, purportedly to go over lines and discuss blockings. Although the co-stars hadn’t a hope of being together in a way for which both wished, they took what they could get. The cottonwood tree represented safe, neutral ground and so, under it they sat as often as they could, sometimes drifting into their own disheartened reveries and tales of hope for lives well lived long into the future, always avoiding the fact that these lives seemed destined to be as separate as the halo of individual jagged heart-shaped leaves encircling them.
A Song For Josh, Drifters Book One Page 22