She went on. “It’s just that…this thing with Terri. It’s brought back some of these…bad memories…things I would rather just forget. But there’s something I need to check out. I need to find out who it was who dropped her off at that house. Just to be sure, you know.”
He didn’t really know. Josh reached down and forced Jessie’s hands apart – she was wringing them. She started twisting a ringlet in her hair.
So there was possibly some connection between whatever tragedy occurred in Charleston, and Terri’s death. And that was enough for Josh to realize that Jessie was trying to tell him something critical.
“Ok,” he said quietly. “I’ll talk to Charles. We’ll figure something out, okay?”
But she wasn’t done. “Josh,” she said, staring him in the eye. “If there’s one thing that losing people I love has taught me, it’s that those of us who are left behind have a choice. When bad things happen to us we can stay in bed and pull the covers over our heads, or just – you know, take breaks from life now and again to recoup – but then, what good does that do in the long run? Then you’re just one more person who’s lost. So the ‘or’ here is that we go on. We figure out how to go on, and then we go on. So for me maybe now it’s finding out who did this to Terri, how did it happen, you know, when she was doing so well, getting better…and then it’s letting that anger go.”
She continued, the ringlet forgotten. “So for you, I hear about this motocross thing, and I sit here watching you with your arm all fixed now, and you’re so strong and kind and I just think, you know Josh, he ought to be doing what he loves. He ought to be getting back out there and living his life, which I think you are now, with Drifters and all, but still…I think you and I, I feel like…well I just feel like we should be putting our pasts behind us and just trying to move forward. And I don’t think that everybody gets that, that second chance, or fourth or fifth chance or whatever chance it is, but I feel like with you here with me that it’s suddenly possible.”
She glanced sideways at him in that way of hers, that impossible way that suggested a lifetime of possibilities and Josh felt himself melt yet again in her presence. For someone so quiet most of the time, Jessie sure had a lot to say when she felt like saying it. And now she seemed to be saying that somehow there was strength in the two of them, in their own quiet knowing.
“A kid got killed,” he admitted. “At my last race. The flag boy. I hit him because I wanted to win the race.”
“From what I heard, he got too close. He was signaling a downed bike, wasn’t he? And he got too close.”
“I got too close,” Josh said quietly. “It was all about winning.”
“That’s it, then,” she said. “That’s when it started for you – the downhill slope.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I hardly remember the next few years.”
“We have to forgive ourselves,” she cut in softly. “Let’s make a pact.”
Josh looked at Jessie, sitting there, her hair a halo backlit by the sunshine, and he thought, what did I do to deserve her believing in me? Yet, he realized she was placing her trust in him as well. He thrust out a pinky finger and she responded. They solemnly shook on a pinky swear, there on those rickety steps.
“Someday,” he said, “when you’re ready, you can tell me about Charleston.”
She nodded, but couldn’t speak – the lump in her throat was suddenly overwhelming.
Reaching in the box, Jessie handed Josh a cracker, then she got up to help him with Mack’s saddle.
When the horses were ready, Jessie and Josh said their good-byes. There would be any of a number of people waiting for them at the Holy Oh below, least of all, Jessie’s fiancé. Josh stood there in the dusty clearing in front of the cabin and waited for Jessie to come to him after her last trip to the dank dark outhouse.
“Did you wash your hands?” he joked, then reached out, grabbed her arm and pulled her close. She was wearing his denim jacket again in the cool of the early morning and he thought it looked adorable on her – just a little big, enough to make her look as small and fragile as she likely felt on this difficult day. He reached down and folded up the cuffs so the jacket would fit more comfortably.
Jessie loved that he instinctively took care of her this way. Who would have thought rolling up one’s sleeves would be such a delicate, intimate affair? She offered him up a little smile and to him it was like stumbling across a perfect sparkling wine in a dark cellar.
“Josh,” she started to say and, because he could tell by the tone of her voice and her downward expression that this was likely going to be something he was not prepared to hear just then, something that would likely bring forth reality and dampen the beautiful spirit of their magical time together, he reached out and tentatively placed a light finger upon her lips. She laid her hands upon his hips and peeked up at him.
“Josh,” she started again, and then stopped when he shook his head no. He reached behind her, placing his left hand in the small of her back, then with his right hand he grasped her hair at the nape of her neck and pulled her ever closer, so close Jessie could smell the earthy scent of outdoors and horses on him, so close she could feel his lips brush her ear, her forehead, her eyes. With one final look, as if to say whatever time would bring, he understood, Josh let her go. He turned and gestured for her to mount Mack, and so she did, then he adjusted Jessie’s stirrups and sent her down the trail ahead of him on the sidestepping, frisky Frisco. She was glad of that because, despite her earlier self-admission that she truly loved this man, Jessie knew Charlie would likely either be waiting at the ranch or at the airplane.
Overall, she was desperately unhappy about Terri and the awkward, terrible chores of the next few days. Plus she was worried instinctively over the presence of the man in the blue coat, chagrined over having left Charles and Dee the way she had, anxious about seeing Charlie, and hopelessly in love with a man whom she felt it was likely impossible to have, given that her wedding to Charlie was pretty much in the bag. So she was okay to take the lead, matching her body’s movements to the rhythm of the swaying horse that carried her safely back down the hill amongst the fawn and fern of the forest. She rode in front, and proudly and agonizingly refused to succumb to the tears that threatened, while behind her, Josh bowed his head and, for a small time, quietly let them come.
They saw the people at the Holy Oh before they were spotted, and so Josh and Jessie stopped alongside one another, under cover still at the edge of the pretty woods, and wondered when they would be together – alone - again. With one last look at Jessie, Josh nudged Frisco on, and the Palomino needed no further urging, for home and feed were in sight. Jessie was slower to follow. She dreaded what lay ahead, and it was everything she had in her not to turn Mack around and head back up the narrow trail. Eventually common sense and duty won out, and she allowed the tired Mack to follow his paddock mate across the clearing back to the cozy barn.
Charles and Dee were indeed waiting, with the indomitable Freddie by their side. There, too, was Charlie, leaning on the split rail fence, unmoving, his eyes alight with fire as he watched Josh and Jessie dismount. Charles grasped Frisco’s bridle and talked quietly to Josh as Freddie took hold of Mack’s reins.
Dee stepped forward to envelop her girl in a big bear hug. “You crazy girl,” she said, over and over. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“I’m sorry Dee, I suck,” whispered Jessie apologetically, fighting back tears for the umpteenth time in a few short days. “It was stupid and thoughtless of me, I’m so, so sorry.”
“Damn right you suck,” agreed Dee, releasing Jessie and holding her at arm’s length, studying her from top to bottom to make sure she was actually okay.
“I just needed some space, it was all just too much, all those people…”
“Those people are your fans, dear girl, they feel like they know you. They were letting you know they care. Hence the flowers and the cards and the photos and the notes…”
�
��I know, I know, I’ll go out when we get back and meet some of them.”
“Damn straight you will.” Dee eyed her carefully. She was not a woman to be messed with, despite her soft spot for this lonely girl. “Have you eaten anything?” She was alarmed at how thin and pale Jessie appeared. She followed Jessie’s eyes over to Josh, who was describing the little cabin to Charles, who appeared genuinely interested in the property and in the purpose of the cabin. Dee looked back at Jessie – she still hadn’t let her go – and she raised her eyebrows.
Jessie could feel Charlie’s eyes on her, but as far as she could tell from her peripheral vision, he hadn’t moved. She could feel the heat from his steady, angry gaze travelling the ten feet that separated them, like an electric current traversing a wire. She gulped at Dee. “Josh had some tidbits with him. Apples.”
“All right then. We’ll get you a meal for the plane. We’d better get going.” She softened. “The wake starts at two.” She gave Jessie another little squeeze, and once again Jessie felt chagrined and angry with herself for hurting this kind woman, for frightening her by some temporary flight from sanity.
“I really am sorry, Dee,” she whispered into the older woman’s ear.
“I know,” Dee murmured back. Then, “Charlie’s pissed.”
“Yeah. I’m kind of getting that vibe.” Gulp.
“Josh is a good man, isn’t he?” Dee asked warily, testing Jessie.
“Yeah, and Dee, nothing happened.” Not this time. Well…at least nothing physical, sexual, that could be construed as actual cheating…another gulp. Jessie’s heart was racing and, worse, she felt like she was being torn in two. She couldn’t stand the thought of climbing into Charlie’s Porsche and facing his inevitable ferocious silence, nor could she stomach the idea of having to be parted from Josh.
She leaned away from Dee and looked sadly into her eyes. Dee could read her soul, just then, and her heart ached.
“Oh, honey,” was all she said, sorrowfully, and suddenly Jessie comprehended that Dee knew how things were between her and Josh, and that once again life had become very complicated. She felt like she was going to collapse, then and there, but then there was Freddie to thank, and to apologize to, and Charles to hug and whisper a series of sorrys to. When she hugged him she finally did let loose a few tears because he was so familiar and his linen shirt so real and he smelled of Charles’ expensive spicy aftershave. It was a comforting place to be, being hugged by her sort of father whom she knew her own father would have liked very much, and with Josh leaving her and Charlie staring demons at her, this was just another safe place where she simply felt she could be.
But then it was time to go, and she turned one last time towards Josh and he, too, knew the exquisite agony of having to let go, she could see it in his eyes, and then she could put it off no more and so she turned and strode towards Charlie, who finally moved and let her into the Porsche.
The ride to the airport took thirty-five minutes – thirty-five bitter, unhappy, angry minutes that Jessie would not be getting back in her lifetime. She felt, at the time, that things had gone too far and that, despite Josh, she would still be marrying Charlie, and so his heated silence pushed her back into herself, and she stared miserably out of the window and counted the farms they passed before they hit the city streets with its airport hotels and gazillion fast food restaurants.
As they approached the airport, she attempted once to clear the air.
“Charlie, I haven’t seen you in four weeks. We’re on our way to the funeral of one of my girls. We’re getting married in less than two…”
“Are we?” he snapped.
“What? Are we what…?”
“Getting married.”
“Why wouldn’t we be?”
“You know damn well why.” He swerved the car angrily into the HOV ‘High Occupancy Vehicle’ lane for cars with more than one passenger. She grabbed the Oh My Jesus handle above the window for support.
“Nothing happened with Josh in the cabin.” Jessie shrunk into her seat and looked wretchedly out of the window again. The black and white picture postcard dairy cows were disappearing fast and furiously as the 911 screeched past.
Quietly steaming, Charlie pulled into the next lane, swerved around a Toyota Sienna ahead of them, then pulled back into the HOV, increasing his speed by at least another ten km an hour.
“Has your dress arrived yet?”
“Yes.”
“Did you and Dee get the cake ordered?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you get the seating arrangements figured out?”
“Mostly, yes Charlie, everything’s being taken care of.”
“What about the flowers, last I heard you were arguing about orchids or roses or lilies or something equally as inane…”
“Charlie, slow down, you’re scaring me!”
“Oh, and what the fuck? I go off to Europe to shoot, to pay for this damn freak show…”
Jessie squeezed her eyes shut. Now her wedding was a freak show.
“…And I come home and what the fuck, Jessie?” She jumped when he slammed his hand down hard on the steering wheel.
But he didn’t get an answer because once again inwards was the safest place to be, and so Jessie went there again, as she often did, and she quietly dreamed of that place in Josh’s arms where she had lain last night and felt so safe. And while Charlie drove like he was on the NASCAR circuit and let out his anguish and apprehension about their wedding, a time when he would finally - officially - get to keep the girl who had always stood so demurely and quietly at his side, a presence that now seemed suddenly threatened, Jessie realized that, for once, Charlie’s rage was justified. She saw through the cracks of anger down to the core of his fear. Suddenly she felt sorry for Charlie, who seemed to have realized, at this very late juncture, that perhaps he shouldn’t have taken his girl for granted after all.
Yet, despite all, she could still see no way out. Charlie’s dad Jack’s faith in her so many years ago flashed though her mind, so too did his wife Lydia’s happiness, and Charles and Dee’s delight at the coupling. Jessie sank deeper into the leather seat and watched the cows fly by, and she would have laughed had Terri not been dead and a man in a blue overcoat did not haunt her and Charlie wasn’t in the next seat exuding sorrowful glacial rays at her.
But alas, that was the reality, and so Jessie hummed a minor, discordant tune deeply to herself and soon enough they screeched to a halt next to the Keating jet. Jessie found herself walking on shaky legs to the gentle, loving arms of Maggie, Sue-Lyn, Carter and Stephen. By the time Josh arrived in his pick-up behind Dee in the Beamer Jessie had borrowed, and then Charles drove in with Matt in the Audi, Jessie was already settled into a seat with a Baileys and milk in her hand, a blanket over her shivering body, and iPod ear buds delivering her away from this catastrophe called life. Charlie was sipping bourbon back with Stephen and Carter, his mood not necessarily improved, especially when Josh arrived, but at least remotely amicable in mixed company. Dee dropped down next to Jessie and took her left hand, while Jessie squeezed the Baileys glass with her right.
Then the jet lit the skies for Oregon, where Jessie had a feeling Baileys and music would become her best, most dependable friends.
***
Chapter Fifteen
The hardest part would be meeting Terri’s mother. Jackie was a diminutive woman, lightly freckled with angel dust, and with her frizzy auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail, she strongly resembled her daughter. Jessie was taken aback as she realized exactly what Terri would have looked like at forty. Even more so, she had a rare, random thought about her own mother, Emily Wheeler, and wondered if the two of them looked anything alike. As a child, Jessie resembled her dad David in eyes and stature. But now – well, there wasn’t much point in dwelling on something she had tried so hard to let go.
It was a hot dusty day in Ashland, Oregon, and Jessie found herself tired and uncomfortable when they arrived at the funeral home
for the wake. Charlie had so little to say to her that even Dee was sorry for his presence there. Jessie was so pale and pinched that Dee was on the verge of pressing Charles to take his imminent son-in-law out for a drink somewhere, even though decorum suggested Charlie remain at his fiancée’s side. Jessie didn’t need Charlie’s cold treatment on top of everything else. Yet she remained upright and present, even though on the alert scale she was feeling rather groggy. The two glasses of Baileys succeeded in relaxing her a little, but in essence overall made her feel even more muddled and sleepy.
The wind was sweltering and stifling in Ashland that day, and so when the gang arrived at the funeral home nobody was in great spirits. But Terri’s mother was prepared for them and, as a mother who had lost her daughter in so many ways a few years before, she seemed to be able to retain some sense of mastery over the formal occasion, instead of collapsing on the floor as Jessie half-expected. Jackie’s presence indeed was a pleasant surprise – she worked at Wal-Mart and had a raspy voice like a two pack a day smoker, yet she was obviously smart and in control of the social graces an awkward occasion like this required. Before the jet from Canada even hit the nearby landing strip, she read the riot act to the family, friends and onlookers gathered at the funeral home. Everyone in the small city of twenty thousand knew of Jackie and her family’s troubles and the association with Jessie so, although the place was buzzing, the city was also well prepared for the arrival of one of the world’s best known and loved singer songwriters and her friends.
Security was placed around the building, but the exhausted Jessie hardly noticed such details anymore. Her whole life felt like some sort of circus, which she generally found strangely bizarre – all she ever felt a need to do, really, was write music and sing. Over the years she met hundreds of musicians who she knew were far more talented than she – yet here she was, subject to the stares of strangers once again, respected and admired and loved by people whom she would never know. It was always humbling.
A Song For Josh, Drifters Book One Page 27