My Dearest Jonah (20 page)

“Don’t have family full stop.”

“None?”

“My mother died when I was younger. Dad’s been on death row for most of his life.”

“I take it the two are related. Sorry to hear that.”

“It happens.”

Harlow took a sip of coffee from his thermos. “I always wanted boys. Seem to know what you’re getting with boys.”

“Ignorance is bliss.”

“Oh now you can’t have been all that bad.”

“Believe me when I say you don’t want to know.”

“Thing is, with girls, and I love them, God I love them, but there’s no in between. Either they move away and come back Christmas and birthdays like strangers, or they stay so close
you wonder why they ever bothered cutting the cord in the first place. Boys, they hang around, in touching distance, maybe stay in town, maybe move to the better side, but they’re there...
just as much as you need them. Boys get it just right.”

“Say,” I said eventually, keen to dispel Harlow’s suddenly sombre tone. “Yesterday wasn’t all bad. Got some news that might cheer you up.”

Harlow nodded as he processed the information. He screwed the lid on his thermos and placed it with a click inside the top section of his lunchbox. “Well,” he said eventually.
“I can’t say I’m sorry. Way I see it nature’s just taking its course. He’s lived his life, and now it’s his time. And whatever it makes me I’m just pleased
he won’t be worrying my girl anymore.” Harlow shook his head and wiped his face of the emotion, which was beginning to spread like damp. “God damn it I know how I sound Jonah. I
know how I sound and I don’t like it. But there’s not one thing I care about more in this world than those girls, and if them being safe means some old man’s got to plan his own
funeral then I won’t be sorry. I won’t ever be sorry for that,” he stared out into the sun and then, as though a switch had been flicked, snapped back into his usual persona.
“Well, that’ll be time by my watch.”

He offered me his hand and I dragged myself up against his steady weight. “I don’t think less of you - ” I eventually managed, “ - for thinking like you do. In fact I
think it’s something special that you love those girls enough to talk that way, to care that much about them. I think had someone thought that way about me my life might not have taken such a
dull course.”

Harlow slowed his pace so that he was side by side with me as I walked. “I appreciate that kiddo, I really do. You know, you can’t choose the hand you’re dealt in life. All you
can do is play it best you can. And I know you got a trick or two up your sleeve. I can’t claim to know you well but I know I’d like nothing more than to see you make something of
yourself. And I know you got the goods to do it.”

Jonah

Dear Jonah,

Eve’s confession was what I believe they call a two-bottle job.

“I’m so sorry V, I should have told you. I could have made our lives better from the word go... ” Was her preferred mantra throughout the lengthy explanation as to how my
bathtub came to be swimming with dollars.

“Just start from the beginning and end with you trying to knock the shit out of me Eve,” I said, taking another swig of wine to steady my nerves. I was listening. It was hard not to,
given Eve’s aptitude for volume. But throughout it all I could feel myself slipping in and out of fantasy. I pictured us bashing champagne glasses down, howling at our good fortune. Then we
were dressed in furs, pirouetting down a freshly swept avenue tossing bounds of notes at salesgirls in exchange for silks and patterns that we’d never wear. We dined on lobster and sent
rounds to the tables of men who caught our eye, all wowed by our beauty and abandon. I buy a one-way ticket, once Eve has absconded with yet another lover, and you and I are together forever...

“V!” Eve mewled. “This is serious. In fact it’s just about the worst thing that I’ve ever done. Quit daydreaming and listen.”

“Sorry. It’s just a lot to take in, is all.”

“You’re telling me. I don’t even know where to start.”

“The beginning usually helps.”

“That’s too far back. God knows what went wrong to make me the way I am. Oh Verity I’m sorry... ”

She began weeping again. The routine was beginning to grate and already our first bottle was nearing empty, so I grabbed her by the arms and sat her bolt upright. “Eve, you just got to
pull yourself together now darling and start talking. You understand?”

She wiped her face and nodded. “Well, I suppose it started when I turned up at a town not too far from here after one or two incidents that I’d sooner forget. I was a rich woman
again after that kind Mr Hounslow left me his estate and then I met... I mean... ” her throat tightened but she forced herself to go on, “... oh it could have happened to anyone,
Verity. I mean of course you share everything once you’re married. What was mine was his. We were going to share the rest of our lives.”

“You got married?”

“No. I thought I did. The priest turned out to be his cousin and four million dollars turned out to be a big fat zero before I’d even had the chance to change my name at city hall.
He didn’t even stay long enough for Bermuda. I’d packed rose petals, handcuffs. We’d been waiting, see, to make it all the more special. And he left me sitting on top of that
suitcase for six hours before I realised something was up.”

“Oh Eve, some cruel man played you?”

“He wasn’t playing Verity. He broke my heart and left me penniless all over again. Only positive I could draw was that I never became Mrs Eve Gooberman nee Lubbock. I mean on paper,
in person I’d been introducing myself that way since the first time I set eyes on those beautiful lips.”

I rubbed her shoulder for support and poured the rest of the bottle of wine down her throat.

“So, anyway I was broke and homeless and cradling my heart like a bird with a broken wing. I didn’t think I was ever getting back to life again. So I skipped town. All I had was
debt, bad memories, and a pair of tits that could get me a ride wherever I wanted to go, so I hitched with this old man in a big red truck. He had a picture of the Virgin Mary in his cabin and a
copy of
Playboy
in his glove compartment. He told me his destiny was to win
Jeopardy
and you know what? I think it’ll come true. He was smart, and kind.”

“Eve,” I said, popping the cork of a second bottle. “You’re straying, sweetheart.”

“Sorry, so anyway I get to this town a broken woman, cold and hungry, and then I met Mr Parker and it hit me all over again.”

“Not another millionaire? Eve, darling no-one’s that lucky.”

“No, he wasn’t a millionaire. Far from it. He lived by his wits though. Minor investments. Worked in delivery and distribution, with a sideline in the hospitality industry. So we
started going together, dates and the like. He was real gentlemanly. Set me up working in one bar of his. I good as lived with him from that very first night. Only it didn’t last so
long.”

“How come?”

“Well, Mr Parker and I, we had our love, and that was that. But food don’t come for free, so after some negotiations I agreed to expand my facilities within the outfit. I became more
active in my role as hostess.”

“He had you turning tricks?”

“I was no whore. I was an escort. Most of the time it was my company they wanted, that’s what Mr Parker said. Of course at first I didn’t know how it’d work, what with us
being so madly in love, but he said that it wasn’t personal, just business. So long as I knew where the line was in my head then there weren’t no issue. We were exclusive in our hearts
V, that’s what you have to understand.”

She spoke with such certainty, as though privy to some higher truth that I wanted to take her in my arms and never let go. Life could never be as sweet a place as Eve’s own mind. It seemed
so tragic that she ever had to step so much as a foot in the real world.

“Only I was under the impression that my... dalliances... were strictly for profit. We were going to buy ourselves a hotel one day. Somewhere real nice, with a pool. That was until I
walked in on Mr Parker riding Cindy like a bronco.”

“Who’s Cindy?”

“She was our treasurer.”

“Then what happened?”

“Not all that much. Cindy spat the billiard ball he’d jammed in her mouth so far it broke the bottle on the bar. Poor thing.”

I lit a cigarette and passed it to Eve in the hope that it might calm her into a more coherent train of thought. “So how did you get to the money?”

“By accident of course. I don’t need money, long as I got a roof over my head and enough for the occasional bottle of wine I’m the happiest girl there ever was. But I stormed
out of that place madder than hell and twice as sad.”

“Then what?”

“I got in his car and left him in the dirt screaming for me to come back. See I’d grown stronger since Mr Gooberman. Learnt the hard way. I was nobody’s fool by then, so I took
his car and went to the house, grabbed a suitcase for my necessities and fled. I sold the car. Kept the bracelet he gave me though, look.” She held out her arm for examination and a gold
chain of charms and talismans that she had, without me realising, been wearing the whole time I knew her, shuffled around her bony wrist.

“It’s pretty.”

“Damn right. Only by the time I got myself sorted and unpacked the suitcase was still heavy. Turns out it was one of his work-cases. He had them made special, you look inside and
it’s like there’s nothing there. But if you really look there’s a whole other world behind that cloth – you just got to know where to pull. And if you find that then all the
secrets fall out like glitter.”

“His money?”

“And the rest.”

“What?”

“Oh Verity let’s not play dumb,” she said, drying her eyes once and for all. “Mr Parker was not what you’d call by the book. I found me a gun for insurance and met
some nice boys who promised to turn my little bundle into cold hard cash, and boy did they make good!”

The next morning we rose slowly and without words. Eventually, having splashed my face and slurped a gallon of water along with a fistful of white pills, which I took to be
medicinal, took hold of Eve like I was readying a Heimlich manoeuvre.

“So, we gonna talk about what we’re going to do about our little dilemma?”

She groaned and turned over to face me. “Yeah, I guess. Just let me sort myself out first,” she stood up unsurely, before gambolling her way to the bathroom.

I sat and smoked three cigarettes to the nauseating sound of her retching. That vomit slapped the bowl like the tide crushing the bow of a ship over and over again. At first it made my own
stomach churn, as well it might. But before long I got used to it. And then she came back, red eyed and revived, like a woman reborn.

She got back into bed and curled next to me. Astringent peppermint blanketed the sour bile of her breath.

“So, what now?”

“Those boys will come after me, and I don’t want to be anywhere near you when they do. You’re the only person I’ve ever known won’t break my heart.”

“It’d break my heart for you to go,” I said, channelling maternal authority as best I could. “Whatever will be will be, that’s my motto. And for a long time it was
yours. I mean you’ve been living with this since the day I met you, seems silly to start getting nervy now.”

“I didn’t know you when I met you. Now I’d die if I knew anything I did were to hurt you in some way.”

“You got nothing to be scared of,” I stood up and pulled her by the arms until she was facing me. “I never had a sister, but I sure would like one. What do you say?”

At this Eve smiled and gripped my hands tighter and tighter.

“So, from now on it’s us, you got that? Wherever you’ve been, I’ve been. Deal?”

Eve nodded furiously, wiping her eyes with the cuff of her gown.

“Now,” I said, edging my way towards the kitchen. “How about you clear up that tub and run me a bath. Nothing like a hot soak to clear a girl’s head.”

“And then what?”

“Then? Well then we start enjoying ourselves.”

So that was us for the foreseeable future. Eve loosened up the moment she realised just how much fun two girls like us could have in a town like this. Of course the couture was
not exactly abundant, so we became more and more elaborate with our spending. That’s the beauty of going from no money to big money in an instant I’ve found; you’d sooner see it
disappear within the day than spend one second worrying about it. We waved goodbye to those dollars like they were the worst houseguests you could ever meet.

First we were cunning, though. Eve was still fussing about those boys coming back to claim what was theirs, so we split the bundles in case of emergency. Handfuls of notes were stuffed into
every hiding place we could think of. Each fissure in the couch was cemented with a tightly wrapped stack of twenties. The oven - used solely for storage anyway - was scattered with discarded
fifties. Into the backs of drawers we pressed hundreds and hundreds of dollars, and slept giddy and restless atop the crunching mattress now engorged with Eve’s nest egg. Of course she was
careful to keep a small amount aside, which she kept in the suitcase.

“That’s the exact amount I found in there. The rest is just profit. If they ever come back they’ll be none the wiser.”

I shrugged and continued jamming notes into the urn that once held my mother; a tragic loss twice over, thanks to one overzealous vacuuming route and a less than stable plinth.

Before long we began to tire of the boutiques and salons. Eve and I were never the pastel types. Didn’t have the figure for one thing. Those two-piece and pearls never
quite sat comfortably on our hourglass bodies, no more than the tastefully neutral make-up the lady at the brightest cosmetic counter hawked. Eve and I were built for vivid hues; a green swathe
here, a touch of blue there, two beautiful scarlet smudges to X-mark our lips. It was as if we weren’t painted every colour of the rainbow we were scared we’d disappear forever.

Our favourite trick was the hotel. We’d march right up there, sometimes still dressed in work’s clothes, (or lack thereof as was more often the case) and book the biggest suite they
had available. We’d always choose pseudonyms. This was Eve’s idea though it thrilled me too. We had no reason to lie. It was all just part of the game. We’d decide as we
approached what roles we were playing that day and behave accordingly. First we were the rock-star spouses seeking refuge from the tour bus. Then we were landscape artists exploring new vistas.
There were the happily married couple on the look out for a surrogate, ruined somewhat by an impromptu demonstration by the bellboy as to his capacity for the job. There were more, of course
– the merry widows, the gay divorcees, the Sapphic supermodel and her controlling partner, the lottery winners, the undercover officers...