Jessie followed Deirdre to the back of the line at the wake. It extended out the door, and so as little dust balls flirted around her ankles on that hot June day, she had the opportunity to look around at the people who came to pay their respects to Terri and her small family. All Jessie really knew about her young friend’s hometown was that it was famous for some Shakespeare festival and was located in the foothills. There was one high school in town which Terri, an artist and thinker, had found unable to bear, even though it was consistently rated in the top three per cent of high schools in the country. Around Jessie now, wiping sweat off their brows, were the people of Ashland. In all shapes and sizes and manner of dress, for better or for worse, these were the people who knew Terri as a child and then as a lonely, troubled young teen.
As the small group of Canadians (and token American Maggie) inched their way forward, those around them wondered why Charlie was not more reassuring to his pretty bride-to-be. In fact, it was widely reported by those in attendance later that he’d been downright standoffish towards Jessie. He put his arm protectively around her waist as they progressed in the line towards the casket, but he was not seen to speak to her. For all intents and purposes that day, Jessie was alone and unsupported by her man.
Jessie listened to the nonsensical chatter around her as they neared Jackie. Two dapper young sons, Simon and Brian, both wearing miniature black bow ties to complement their dress pants, enveloped Terri’s mom on both sides. There was also a man present – Jessie hadn’t recalled Terri discussing any man as her mother had raised her alone – so this was a new addition to the family. Or perhaps a brother, she thought, or cousin. He seemed attentive – he brought Jackie water, and the boys seemed to like and respect him. Jessie felt sorry Terri hadn’t had the opportunity to meet him. He was tall, had a receding blond hairline, and sported a ready smile. What a shame, Jessie thought. If this is her mother’s new man, he’s arrived too late to make a difference in Terri’s young life.
Then they were at the casket, and Jessie had to focus her attention on her young friend. Unbidden, she recalled that she hadn’t had the opportunity to wake or memorialize her friends Rachel and Sandy in any way. She recalled her father’s wake – her mother collapsing on the floor, alienating her only daughter once and for all that terrible day. People all day coming up to her and saying they were sorry. Barely twelve, Jessie was wise, but not in the ways of the world. She had lived a sheltered life until then. Shortly after, her mother remarried and Jessie’s youth and innocence suddenly departed. Looking at Terri now, lying there on a white silk cushion with a moth eaten teddy bear in her arms, Jessie felt the old pain hit her in the center of her chest like a rogue Prince Edward Island north shore wave, scattering its salty droplets like bubbles around her body as its core pounded the breath out of her. It felt like just yesterday that she lost her father, and then Rachel and Sandy. She was tired of losing people, although she knew it would not end here. She was tired of standing here next to the man she was supposed to marry, feeling numb because she needed him, but lost and alone because he was making the childish choice to not be approachable or accessible. She was tired of aching for Josh, who stood four feet behind her with Stephen.
She could hear voices in the room but they were subdued, quiet, and indistinguishable. Somewhere Terri’s voice whispered to her. Jessie could almost spy the teen’s freckled face as it coalesced with the unkempt sticking-out braids, smiling up at her as, under Jessie’s tutelage, she mastered a bar chord on the guitar. She remembered hope in the young girl’s eyes, now closed in eternal slumber before her.
Jessie couldn’t bring herself to kneel in the oppressive heat of the refined rose-curtained room. She had the unlikely thought that her knees would stick to the padded bench if she tried; either that or she wouldn’t find the strength to get up. So she stood there and said a silent prayer for her lost friend, and then Charlie almost abruptly steered her towards the child’s mother.
Jackie, still seemingly in control despite the overbearing, appalling nature of the day, assessed Jessie wordlessly as Charlie made small talk with the man and boys who surrounded her like opposite parts of a protective clamshell. Then Jackie reached out and grasped Jessie’s hand as, inwardly, Jessie could feel herself starting to shake. She couldn’t speak, and thus just looked at Jackie standing there watching her; then, unbidden and unwanted in her memory, Jessie recalled her own mother once again. What was it about mothers and daughters, that both she and Terri chose unreliable, dangerous lives on the streets instead of the certainty of regular meals at five - school, homework?
Jessie looked down. There was the woman’s hand, wrapped around hers, their sweat mixing and mingling, delicate beads catching the light as if making unspoken promises of hope amidst the despair. She could not bring herself to move forward, to hug or to hold, and although she knew somewhere in her being that everyone in that cursed room was watching her, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the fact that somehow she had failed this mother and her child, and Jessie felt utterly empty, devoid of consciousness, absolutely uncertain of what to do or which way to turn in the next moment or the next. She could feel a cottony bulge starting deep in her throat and she was terrified that, like her own mother, she too would melt into a lump on the floor, aided by a dusky hot breeze and fatigue and hopelessness and two glasses of Baileys.
“Jessie,” Jackie finally spoke, recognizing the girl’s plight and coming to her aid, as everyone who knew her understood that she would, for this was Jackie Cassidy, an independent woman who had lived in the town all her life and who was well known for her strength of character. “Thank you for trying. You tried - I know you did. Terri wrote about you in her emails.”
Josh watched from behind as the line stalled. A ball of anger started to churn inside his stomach, and he squeezed his left hand into a fist as Charlie abandoned Jessie and moved on down the line of cousins without her. Idiot, he thought, eyes darting daggers at Charlie’s back before landing compassionately on Jessie who, it seemed, was struggling to remain composed.
Jessie shook her head in response to Jackie’s comment. The woman was as generous as her daughter had described her. She must know that Jessie had, in fact, failed, especially if the man in the blue coat was who Jessie suspected he might be. If that were indeed the case, then she’d let Terri down big time, because she should have known better than to think Deuce McCall would possibly leave her alone. At any rate, at that point the first meeting between the two women was brief, because Jessie was immobilized in disgrace and fear, and Jackie was kind and cognizant of her pain, so she let go of the singer’s hand after thanking her for coming, and then she turned to Maggie, who was behind Jessie in line.
Stumbling carefully forward, Jessie found her voice but it was awkward. She said, “Thank you,” to everyone in line, she wasn’t sure why, it just came out that way. Maybe she was thinking thanks for sharing Terri, who was someone who had enriched her own lonely life deeply. Josh heaved a sigh of relief as he watched her go slowly forward, and then he turned ahead as he felt Jackie firmly grasp his hand.
“You’re Josh, aren’t you?” she asked, an attempt at a warm smile lighting her delicate features.
Josh responded carefully with the reverence he felt this woman deserved. “Yes, I am. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Cassidy. I’m sorry for your loss – I met Terri. She was a sweet girl.”
The older woman gracefully acknowledged Josh’s sincerity. “She told me. You went with Jessie once, played board games with the girls, if I do recall?” She touched a finger to her lips to ostensibly help her remember what her daughter had said.
Josh was surprised his visit had warranted mention. But he nodded. “Yes, I did.” He hesitated. “I had my own troubles not all that long ago.”
Jackie looked saddened and happy all at once, the emotions playing over her open face like a bow gracing a fiddle. “I’m glad you’re doing well, Josh,” she said simply. It was a line fraught with emotion, ge
nuine, real and raw. Her eyes were red rimmed and Josh could see that this grieving mother was not the rock she appeared to be – how could any mother be, after losing her young daughter twice?
Drawing her diminutive frame up, Jackie countered her inner distraught self for the thousandth time that stifling afternoon.
“Terri spoke very highly of you. I think she harbored a secret hope that you would run away with her some day. Or if not with her, then with Jessie, perhaps.”
A bolt of lightning shot through Josh’s body. Nobody in his circle of family or friends ever even hinted at the possibility that he and Jessie could be together, could belong together, some incredible day.
He straightened, and smiled awkwardly. “It would have been my pleasure, Ms. Cassidy,” he said, as he leaned forward and gave the woman a gentle embrace. “Terri would have made any man proud.”
Jackie smiled and hugged him back. She whispered in his ear. “So would Jessie,” she said.
His face flushed red, and he let her go, but Jackie watched Josh’s soft eyes drop to his boots for a moment, and she spied the little smile hidden under his blush. So it was true. Terri was right.
There was more to life in Camelot than royal weddings.
***
That evening, Jessie excused herself from dinner in the little inn where the Vancouver group was cloistered. Charlie didn’t even blink an eye when she went up to their room while he stayed and enjoyed a juicy sirloin. He found her there, hours later, nestled under the covers, after he’d been to the bar socializing with the Drifters cast, Charles and Dee, and a few curious locals who got past security by virtue of knowing the owners of the inn. Even then, he would have stayed and socialized a mite longer - for Charlie always enjoyed the celebrity aspect of his chosen career - had it not been for the hairy eyeball starting to permeate his skin, sent his way compliments of the glamorous and stern Deirdre Keating.
The conversation had taken a down turn anyway when talk turned to the wedding and he couldn’t answer any of the questions Maggie and Sue-Lyn were casually tossing his way. In the end, it was all he could do to convince them he was even part of the wedding couple. His face burned as he averted his eyes away from Josh, who drank grapefruit juice at the bar and therefore managed to remain cordial despite his reluctance to be in Charlie’s company.
Charlie was feeling his liquor and on some level enjoyed the girls’ teasing.
“Weddings are a woman’s domain, I can’t be expected to know more than Dee over there,” he was saying, moments before making his exit, waving his half empty bourbon glass in the air over the round pine table where he sat with Stephen, Carter and Maggie. Sue-Lyn was at the bar alongside them with Josh, and Charles and Dee had retired to a booth across the room by the windows with Jonathon, who had just arrived on an evening flight after a busy day reorganizing shooting schedules.
“It’s your wedding!” Sue-Lyn exclaimed from her barstool behind Charlie. “Do you even know where the reception is?”
Charlie shook his head and grinned, taking another big swig of the smooth liquor. “I’m telling you, I am happy to let the women do their thing. I’m just going to walk in there and do what I’m told.”
Stephen glanced sideways up at Josh. Although concerned for his friend’s feelings, he was also aware that Josh had a temper when the occasion called for it. And Charlie, usually a gentleman in public, was getting a bit too boisterous, never mind the fact that he’d been cold to Jessie all day, and hadn’t even gone up to the room to check on her that evening. Instead, the girls took turns with Dee, borrowing Charlie’s room card and peeking in to see that Jessie was sleeping okay. They were all worried about her.
Josh was biting his lower lip. Stephen grinned. He had an idea of the response Charlie deserved. But he, too, held his tongue.
“What about the honeymoon?” Maggie was saying as she took a sip of her Pinot Grigio. “Have you figured out where you’re going?”
Charlie frowned and set his glass on the table. He twisted it around slowly. “Not sure,” he pondered. “Maybe the east coast – Prince Edward Island.”
That piqued everyone’s interest.
He leaned forward, watching the lights reflected in the little bit of bourbon left in the glass. “She hasn’t been back since she left at fourteen. I thought maybe it was time she made peace with the place. See her mother, that kind of thing.”
The small group was silent. Everyone at the table was surprised. Charlie had been away filming in Europe almost the entire time they’d been shooting Drifters. On his brief visits home he generally refrained from spending any time with the tight little group, even though their partners often joined them. They all had preconceived notions about him and this seemingly thoughtful initiative didn’t fit the musty mold. Josh could feel his ears start to ring and his belly tighten as he strained to better hear the conversation.
Maggie spoke first. She was sitting across from Charlie so it felt logical for her to break the sudden quiet. “Is this…Jessie’s idea? Or yours?”
Charlie shrugged, although he felt his blood pressure rise just a little. Why shouldn’t it be my idea?
“You guys give me the feeling you think I don’t know my girl at all. Or that it’s all about me. Let me just clarify something. None of you know me, and none of you have a clue what my relationship with Jessie is like.” Suddenly the room temperature took a nosedive as a chill filled the place. But he wasn’t being mean. Charlie was just drunk, and he was grasping the opportunity to make a plea for his somewhat legitimately tarnished reputation.
He gained momentum as the waiter came over and set another bourbon on a coaster in front of him. “The thing is, we’ve been together almost eight years. Yes, she’s been to eastern Canada, but no, she’s never wanted to go home to her puny island. But I happen to think it would be good for her. My girl is filled to the brim with secrets. I want in on some of those.”
“Some secrets are better left unsaid,” Stephen interjected.
Sue-Lyn jumped in. “Why, do you think knowing more about her past is going to undo some of the crap you’ve laid on her over the past few years?”
“You can’t cancel out one with another.” Maggie commented, hitting Sue-Lyn.
“Is it going to be a surprise, or does she know about this?” Carter wondered absently.
“That’s not the kind of surprise I’d want sprung on me on my honeymoon,” said Sue-Lyn, cautiously. “I’d want some time to digest that shit.”
“Josh?” Charlie swung around in his chair. “I’ve heard from everyone else in this morbid peanut gallery. Why don’t you give me your opinion? I get the feeling you and Jessie had a lot of time to talk last night.” The thermometer dipped a little lower. “I’m guessing you likely know more about my girl than I do. Or at least you think you do.” He took a long, exaggerated sip of the new bourbon, his eyes never leaving Josh’s contemplative face.
Even at this late juncture in their lives, on the rare occasions when Josh and Charlie met, they became fourteen-year-old boys again, one running from Josh’s dad’s studio and the other breaking down in tears on satin sheets. Neither was proud of his behavior that fateful night, yet they were not prepared to ever discuss it. But it was always there, the elephant in the room, and never more so than on this night, with the two men across from one another daring each other to cross some invisible line.
From his barstool, Josh wisely didn’t take the bait, choosing his words deliberately and with care. “Jessie’s a big girl. If she wants to go back, she’ll go.”
“Well, ain’t that the coward’s way out. I suppose she’s told you everything, huh? Why she left home in the first place?” Truthfully, Charlie had no idea why Jessie left home. He was baiting Josh. All Jessie ever told him, his dad Jack when they’d first met at the Downtown Eastside Theatre Group, or Charles and Dee, was that after her mother remarried, life became untenable in the household. She had not elaborated further than that.
Josh’s stomach clenched
. He had his suspicions about the quiet girl who buried her pain in her dad’s beat up old Gibson. Unknowingly, he echoed some of Jessie’s thoughts from earlier in the day, at the wake. What would drive a fourteen-year-old girl to leave home alone and make her way to some strange city in another country? And what might have happened to her during that time, a time when Josh’s own sister Kayla was innocently experimenting with make-up and spending hours on the phone with boys?
He stared Charlie down. “No, Charlie, the coward’s way out is sitting here all evening in this bar while your fiancée is alone upstairs, hurting.”
A collective intake of breath accompanied the remark, and Stephen eyed Carter, warning him to get ready, that the comment was lighter fluid, and its reaction, likely a spark.
Charlie’s chair scraped the floor as he downed the last of his bourbon and stood, facing Josh. Across the room, Dee grabbed Charles’ arm, and glared at Charlie. He felt the glare, because he turned and looked for two brief seconds at the Keatings, at people he’d respected his entire life, and that was what kept his blood pressure at bay. He turned back to Josh as he set his glass down hard on the pine table. God, how I despise the country décor and this backside town – the blue plaid curtains, the light wood, the badly carved duck decoys and shoddy antiques lining the upper shelf around the room.
But even more so, Charlie hated that now, all of a sudden, his instincts were screaming in an unavoidable high pitched timbre, crying out to him that Josh was a real threat. His throat was dry. He swallowed. He knew he would have to fight to get Jessie back on his side or, well, to keep her close. He’d never thought she would stray, he’d thought she was weak, putty in his hands, like all the other women who bowed at his feet each and every day. But here it was, in front of him - the broken link, the aberrant gene - and its name was Josh. Charlie had thrown him out of his club, for God’s sake, the guy was a loser from a fucked up family. Hell, he probably still cried when he was having sex, for all Charlie knew.
A Song For Josh, Drifters Book One Page 28