[Marvin's] World of Deadheads

by Paul Atreides

  Mike stood in the door to the hall. “Come on, I think I need a drink. Let’s go over to Clancy’s.”

  “What about finishing what we started here?”

  “Brody, face it, this night’s a bust. We’ll go over to the bar and plan a new strategy.” Mike walked through the front door with Tommy.

  “You guys go on ahead. I’ll meet you there.” Marv could see Jenna’s form through the open doorway and wondered if the whole idea might be one big bust. “I’m really sorry, I can’t help myself, kiddo. I can’t get back and I want us to be together, but that can’t happen unless you’re over here. Maybe it’d be different if you were like David, able to at least sense I’m here with you. But I can’t handle this hanging around watching you move on without me. It makes me crazy and yet I can’t bring myself to leave either. I miss you something awful. When we find something that works, I hope you’ll understand that I’m doing this for both of us. I love you, kiddo.” He shuffled slowly through the door and headed to Clancy’s.

  -40-

  It was a little before seven a.m. when the phone on her desk rang once and Jenna picked it up without thinking. “Jenna.”

  “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! I knew you’d be there. I thought I told you not to go in there today.”

  “Jo, I’m fine.”

  “I don’t care. You shut that computer down, you grab your shit, and you go home!”

  “Jo —”

  “What do I need to do, call someone to babysit you? What the fuck!”

  “Jo, I’m —”

  “I don’t want to hear any of your back talk. I’m telling you to go home. Now! The doctor said you were supposed to take it easy for a few days and that’s exactly — do you hear me? — exactly what you’re going to do. Even if I have to drag you out by the hair.”

  “Good lord! Calm down. Look, I just got this promotion. I can’t screw it up by taking time off.”

  JoAnne lowered her tone, “Oh, well, then, how does this sound?” and built to another crescendo. “I’m on my way now, and you better be gone by the time I get there. I swear to you, if you’re still in that office when I walk in, I will personally go to the associates and have them take back the promotion!”

  “Aw, come on, Jo, that’s not fair!”

  “I know you think I’m being a bitch. You’re right, I am.”

  “I won’t argue with you there.”

  “Good. Now turn the computer off and go home.”

  “All right! Jesus Christ, you win.” Jenna sighed.

  “You’re damn right I win. I always win.”

  Jenna laughed in spite of being ticked off. “What do I tell Larry when he calls me at home to ask about his new case files?”

  “I’ll handle Larry. Don’t you worry about Larry and his case files. He’d have some mighty big balls to expect you to work after what happened. Besides, he’s the one who told me you wouldn’t be in!”

  “Will you call me later and let me know?”

  “Who’s your boss? Besides, have you even heard from that asshole since Saturday?”

  “No.”

  “Then what d’you care about what he says?”

  Jenna didn’t have an answer for that. In fact, she’d been relieved he hadn’t called; it would make it easier to put things back into the professional realm where they probably belonged anyway. She knew for certain, when things began to go south at the golf course, that she wouldn’t be going out with him again. It had been the way he turned things into a big competition. Marvin used to compete too, but in a fun way. Larry became too much like an eight-year-old and it only got worse when the first ball smacked him in the ass. So, no thanks.

  “That’s what I thought,” JoAnne said when her question was met with silence. “I’m almost there, Jenna. Another ten minutes. The light better be off and the door better be closed. Am I making myself clear?”

  “I’m going!” Jenna said, then hollered before the phone hit its cradle, “Call me later!” She’d run out of time to complete her simple will leaving JoAnne her jewelry and splitting what little money there might be with David, who would also inherit the condominium. She jotted a note on her calendar as a reminder to finish it when she returned to work. But based on the weekend events, she printed the Living Will naming JoAnne as the person to make necessary medical decisions, signed it, and dropped it on her desk on the way out of the office. She slapped a sticky-note on top: ‘Pls send with other ofc docs for filing. Thx. J.’

  -41-

  Back home, Jenna didn’t know what to do with herself once Colleen had wandered back to her own place, but the silence and doing nothing began to grate on her. She started a fresh pot of coffee and went out to sit on the balcony for some sun and a cigarette.

  “I have to find something to do or I’ll go stir crazy.”

  Marvin sat on the other chair and looked out over the skyline. “Will you ever learn to just sit and relax?”

  “I hate just sitting around. Shit!” Jenna stubbed the cigarette out in the ash tray. “There’s nobody to talk to; they’re all working. Nobody to visit because they’re all working.”

  “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you go for a little walk? Like, in front of a bus? You could save me and the guys an awful lot of trouble if you’d do us that teensy little favor.”

  Jenna got up from her chair and went back into the kitchen. She poured her coffee and wandered around the house. The headache eased and she found herself standing in front of the closet in the bedroom. “Well, I suppose I could clean some stuff out of the closet. It’s not like he’s coming back and is going to need any of it.”

  “Hey, you could clean it all out. It’s not like you’re going to need anything for much longer.”

  Jenna heaved a sigh and began pulling Marvin’s shirts off hangers. She folded each one neatly and added it to a growing stack on the bed. When most of the shirts had been pulled out, she sat on the bed and looked at the pile. “I better get a garbage bag for all of this.”

  “A garbage bag? Is that what you think of my stuff? It’s garbage?”

  When she rose from the bed, what seemed a huge empty space along the rod drew her attention away from her intended path and she tripped over the shoe boxes she’d pulled off the top shelf. By instinct, Marvin reached out to catch her but his arm cut a swath right through her and Jenna tumbled to the floor.

  “Shit!” Jen put a hand to the side of her head and sat up, “Ow… You clumsy oaf. You better get your head together, girl, or you’ll kill yourself. Ha! And who would even know? You’d lay here dead for days, maybe weeks, before someone called the cops because of the stench.”

  “Hey, it wouldn’t be all bad. I’d know. I’d be here.”

  With effort Jen turned her body around to stand, kicked into a shoe box and the lid slipped off. She peered over to see which pair of Marvin’s shoes it housed, but it appeared empty. “This must be for the ones you were wearing.” She picked up the box and lid and saw a bunch of receipts. “Now, why would you still have the sales slips in here after all this time?”

  Marvin recognized it too late. “Son-of-a-bitch. Hey, you just close that and throw the whole thing out. That stuff doesn’t belong to you.” He tried to grab it away from her, but his hand came back empty. “What the hell?”

  “A dirty napkin? You kept a dirty napkin?” Jenna shook her head. “Marv, you were weird.”

  “I am not. What, you never wanted to keep something to remember an event?”

  She started to ball up the napkin and noticed the blurred writing. “Hey, the handwriting looks… This is my old phone number. Where did you find this?” Jen asked the empty room.

  “Where did I find it? Don’t you remember? You gave it to me.”

  “Oh, wait a minute… This is… Oh, my God! This is the napkin I gave you the night we met in the bar. God only knows why I did that. You were such an asshole that night.” She smiled.

  “An asshole? If I was an asshole, you were an icy bitch.”

&
nbsp; “I didn’t like you at first, did you know that? I thought, who is this arrogant jerk? But you were so… I don’t know… The confident smile on your face. But what really did it, what really got my attention were the eyes.” She laughed. “Your eyes gave you away, Marvin. From that day on, I could always tell what you were really thinking — all I had to do was look into those blue eyes and it was all right there.”

  “Huh. Really? I always thought I had a pretty good poker face.”

  “All the sparring back and forth, the barbs we threw at one another — wow. It’s what made me do it. It’s what made me go out with you when you called. No matter what I said, no matter how cruel or condescending I got, you gave it right back. Your eyes gave away what you felt. I’d never had so much fun with anyone. Ever.”

  Marv laughed. “I should’ve known you were in the law business in some way right then. I loved the quick wit, the way you stood your ground. Every other girl, all the way back to high school, would get pissed or start to cry. I couldn’t believe my luck that night. A woman capable of handling herself and anything that got thrown at her. That’s what did it for me, kiddo. I knew it right then.”

  “Are these tickets from a ball game?” Jenna turned them over in her hand.

  “Of course. I didn’t think you’d go. Even after we dated for months, I figured you for a typical female, but I had to ask. And you went! You were my lucky talisman that night!”

  “Oh, geez… I should give these to David. They should be kept with the baseball you caught that night. God! You were like a little kid, standing at the rail waiting for Griffey’s autograph.” Jenna put the tickets up on the bed for safekeeping and picked up another pair of stubs. “Ballet tickets? Why would you keep ballet tickets? You hated the ballet. You didn’t fall asleep like other guys I took, but I knew you were bored.”

  “Hey, I never said anything.” Marvin shrugged. “I would’ve kept going, but you never asked again. Why didn’t you just ask?”

  She hoisted the stubs into the air as if she’d heard him and knew he sat there in front of her, “Those eyes again.” She dug into the box and found a sheath of papers. “Now what the hell is all of this?”

  “Uh, oh.”

  “Looks like a report. From the county foster care administration? ‘Dear Mr. Broudstein: In the matter of Jenna Wilson, we regret to inform you we have not been able to find…’ Marvin! You tried to find my family? Why would you do that? Did it matter to you who I was or where I came from?”

  “Look Jen, I know you said you didn’t care, but I thought maybe, if they could find someone you’d… you know,” Marv shrugged, “want to maybe meet them. Get to know them. So you could have family at our wedding too.”

  She shook her head and tossed the papers to the floor. “You became all the family I needed, Marv. What else is in here?” Jenna pushed the tissue paper around and uncovered one last item: a photograph. A grinning David stood sandwiched between them, Jenna held up her left hand to show off the engagement ring and Marvin held the prized baseball. “I remember this. David thought we were nuts. He probably thought you’d lost all your marbles — deciding to propose because you caught a baseball.” Then a sour expression crossed her face. “Your mother definitely thought you were insane. She even said so.”

  “Well, sometimes Ma’s a little slow on the uptake.”

  “I think this should go to David with the ticket stubs.” Jenna grabbed the tickets off the bed. She rummaged through a drawer in the kitchen until she found an envelope, slid the game stubs and photo inside and placed it on the table in the front hallway for safekeeping. She retrieved bags for the clothes, grabbed the phone on her way back to the bedroom and pushed the speed dial button for David. “Voice mail, damn! …David, hi. It’s Jenna. I know you’re working but I wanted to call and apologize for missing our brunch. Give me a call later. I’m at home and, well, I ran across a couple things I thought you might like to have. Call me when you can. Bye.”

  The phone rang before she could set it down on the bed. “Hello.”

  “Jenna, it’s David. Sorry, the voice mail kicked in before I could answer.”

  “Hi, David. Mainly, I wanted to apologize for Sunday.”

  Marvin leaned into the phone. “Hey, David!.”

  David stifled his instinct to respond to hearing his brother’s voice again and paused for a second to smile. “Oh, come on, no apology necessary. Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine, really. A little bit of a headache is all. So, look, I started going through Marvin’s things today.”

  “Shouldn’t you be taking it easy? I mean, from what your neighbor told me, that was a pretty nasty knock on the noggin.”

  “Oh, come on, don’t you start in on me, too! I’ve had enough lectures today. I can’t just sit around, David. I’m not the type.”

  “Sorry…”

  “Anyway, I found tickets from the game and I thought you should have them. It might increase the value of the ball.”

  “Which one?”

  Jenna rolled her eyes. How could he and Marvin have come from the same gene pool? “The one that made Marv propose, remember? And there’s a picture of the three of us right after he gave me the ring.”

  “Oh! Right… Marvin holding the ball and you —”

  “Me with my hand out showing off the ring. I thought you might like to have that too.”

  “Are you sure you want me to have the photo?”

  “I’d say this wouldn’t be one of my favorite moments in time, David. Your mother refused to join us and glared at me while your dad took that picture. She was barely civil to me. I’ve never been one to keep photo albums, anyway. All the memories I need of your brother I have right here,” Jenna pointed to her head, “in my brain. I’ll have them forever, they can’t yellow with age or be burned in a fire. Not even knocked out with a golf ball!”

  “Besides, you’ll be with me, what do you need with a picture when you have the real thing?” Marvin glanced down at himself, “Sort of.”

  David knew better than to defend his mother with Jenna and let the matter drop. “Well, okay. Thanks, I’d like to have it then.”

  “Should I mail everything to you?” Jen prompted. “You’d have them sooner.”

  “Um, well, I guess, unless you’d have time to reschedule that brunch.”

  “I’d really like to, but after being out from work… I’m just really going to need to spend some extra time to get caught up.”

  “Understood. I better get back to work myself or Dad’ll be throwing baked goods at me.”

  “Okay, I’ll put them in the mail tomorrow.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you Jen.”

  “Yeah. We’ll talk soon.” She ended the call with a sigh and put the phone on the bed next to her. “Now why do I feel bad for giving him the brush-off?”

  “Maybe because he’s some small connection to me?”

  Jenna grabbed the last bunch of Marvin’s shirts from the closet and a wistful smile spread across her face. An old Tommy Bahama short-sleeved, Hawaiian print shirt in a mad mash-up of color on the front and a woman on the back dressed in a halter-top and grass skirt. The words ‘Surfer Girl Hawaii’ cut across the graphic. “Oh, my God. You stashed this ugly thing in the back of the closet and kept it! I should’ve known.”

  “Hey, just because you didn’t like that shirt… I heard what you told me, I never wore it after you threatened to stop going out with me if you ever laid eyes on it again.”

  Jenna folded the other shirts and placed them into the bag. “I don’t know…” She held up the Tommy Bahama to inspect it. “I think I might have to keep this one, Marv.” She folded it, hugged it to her face and breathed deep through her nose. “Yeah, this needs to stay. God…” she moaned as she surveyed the pile of his clothes and turned her gaze to the ceiling. “Marvin, I’m not sure what I’m doing here, but it’s time. You know? My career is getting back on track and even though it’s not the same anymore, life goes on… I’m sorry, b
ut I have to move on.” Jenna got off the bed and turned to the dresser to toss out the underwear and socks and the collection of ratty old t-shirts he’d worn around the house on weekends.

  Marv smiled at her. “Oh, don’t you worry your beautiful head. With any amount of luck, you’ll be moving on very soon.”

  -42-

  Tommy glanced out over the dining room of the restaurant to check if Tina-I’ll-Be-Your-Server-Today was paying attention to the empty table they occupied. He waited for her to turn her back before he wiped down a booth and slid the coffee cups to Mike and Marvin. “So, how’s our girl doing today, Marvin?”

  “She’s back at work, of course.”

  “Good Lord, Brody. Today is Wednesday; that’s only three days. Doesn’t she know she could be milking this one? I mean a head injury should be worth at least a week.”

  “Shit, she would’ve been there all along if her boss hadn’t sent her home Monday morning.”

  “Are you kidding me? She actually went in on Monday?”

  “Yeah, and early to boot. They threatened to revoke her promotion if she showed up any earlier than today.”

  Mike shook his head. “She’s a tough one, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, she’s tough all right,” Marvin replied. It’s one of the reasons I was so attracted to her. “But, she’s a work-a-holic. She never could sit still. It used to be tough sometimes to get her to just sit on the balcony with a glass of wine for an evening.”

  Tommy injected himself into the conversation again. “Let’s assess the situation here, dudes. We have one tough nut to crack. But there’s bound to be something we can come up with.”

  After a long silence, Mike broke into whatever thoughts Tommy may have been forming and interrupted Marvin’s gaze through the window with a nudge of a foot under the table. “She still takes the bus back and forth to work, right?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “What if we could distract her and get her to do what you did?”