Authors: Mae McCall
“Well,” he began, “I picked you up and carried you out of
the water, and gallantly offered my jacket, seeing as how you were naked, and I
took you up to your room, and pushed you onto the bed, and…” he smiled, “tucked
you in like a good little girl, and went to my own room to sleep.”
She was biting her lip so hard, it was a wonder she didn’t
split it in half. “So, you mean…nothing…we, ummm…didn’t…?” she said.
He laughed softly. “You know, it does wonders for a guy’s
ego to kiss a girl the way that I kissed you last night, and have her not
remember it the next day.” Stepping back out of the closet, he continued,
“Which is why I tend to not kiss girls who are drunk.”
“Then why did you do it last night?” she challenged,
following him to the center of the room.
“We’ll call it a momentary lapse in judgment,” he said with
a rueful expression, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand as he
remembered the sleepless night that had followed. Her hand shot out like
lightning, and she slapped him hard across one cheek. “Jesus, Cleo,” he said, taking
a few steps back as he rubbed the red welt on his face. “What the hell was that
for?”
“Call it a momentary lapse in judgment, asshole,” she said,
storming into the bathroom and slamming the door behind her. He heard the lock
click this time, and decided it was time to beat a hasty retreat.
***
She came downstairs an hour later in ice queen mode, not
speaking to anyone. Marco was waiting for her in the office, anxious to get to
those files, but terrified of pissing off Cleo enough to make her change her
mind. Jackson hovered in the background warily while she accessed her email
account and opened the folder titled “Skullduggery,” which had been a
fascinating word to her ten-year-old self. The documents were all there, and
she left Marco and Jackson to look for whatever it was they needed.
Cleo didn’t intend to go back to the pool, but it happened
anyway. She sat on the bench, watching the ripples on the surface and trying to
recapture the missing pieces from the previous night. Slipping out of her
clothes, she went into the water and walked across the stone bottom until tiny
warm waves lapped at her collarbones.
She had been in the pool. Jackson had come. He had teased
her, and then he had taken off his coat and tie and walked into the water,
pushing her farther and farther until she could barely keep her head above the
surface. She remembered the feeling of the tiles at her back, and his buttons
down her front, and then his lips….
Holy shit. Jackson had kissed her. She had been naked, and
he had really kissed her. And it had been good.
And then he had suddenly gone into gentleman mode, gathered
her and her belongings, and sent her off to bed without further interference.
And today, he had called it poor judgment.
This bothered her more than she was comfortable with. It
wasn’t like she had never been kissed before. Technically, it wasn’t even the
first time he had seen her naked. She hadn’t even wanted him to kiss her, until
the moment that he did. And then the nobility, the restraint required to leave
her alone! Or maybe it wasn’t restraint. Maybe he had experimented with the
kiss, and then decided that he wasn’t interested. She should be grateful that
he hadn’t taken advantage. Instead, she was pissed. Naked, willing—why hadn’t
he taken advantage?
She had to acknowledge the fact that she was in a royal snit
when she got dressed. It didn’t help that when she reached the main garden
path, Jackson was looking for her.
“We’re leaving,” he said. “Go get packed.”
“How about you go fuck yourself?” said Cleo as she passed
him on her way to the house.
He turned to follow her. “I don’t know what you’re mad
about, and at this moment, I don’t really care, Cleo. We need to leave today.”
She spun around. “Oh, so big man Jackson calls all the shots
once again, huh? I’m just the poor, lost little girl that needs somebody to
make all her decisions for her.” She started counting on her fingers. “What to
eat, what to wear, where to go…it seems like I even need somebody to tuck me in
at night. Well, fuck you, Jackson. I’m not going anywhere until I’m ready, and
at the moment, I’m not ready.” She turned to finish storming off, but he
interrupted her.
“I need you,” he said. When she slowly turned back to face
him, he cleared his throat. “What I mean is, I need you to go back to Harper
Valley. If you’re interested, that is. We’re going to break Lisa out of
prison.”
Cleo walked toward him slowly. “You trust me to break in to Harper
Valley?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
“You want me involved in your little covert operation?” she
said, cocking her head to one side.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Then why didn’t you say so in the first place?” she
exclaimed, turning to hurry toward the house. “I’ve got to go pack. Oh, and
we’re going to need to go shopping. I need a black catsuit.” She continued to
mutter to herself as she went inside, leaving Jackson on the stone path looking
bemused. He shook his head and went to retrieve his own suitcase.
Marco insisted on having a farewell dinner for the two of
them. Diego poured champagne, and Marco stood with his glass raised. “I propose
a toast to Miss St. James,” he began, nodding at her. She smiled, and he
continued, “A fascinating, original, and one of a kind woman, a work of art
beyond price, who has passed my tests with flying colors, and managed to keep
me on my toes at the same time, which is not easy to do.” Jackson chuckled and
tipped his glass in agreement. “Cleo has proven herself to be intelligent, honest
when necessary, devious without trying, talented, and loyal to the one she
holds in highest regard,” said Marco, glancing at Jackson when he said this. Looking
directly at Cleo, Marco added, “Please understand that
everything
was a
test, although certain ones did not end the way I had planned.” He gingerly
touched the side of his bruised nose and winked at her. Cleo glanced at Jackson, and suddenly the light bulb popped on in her head.
“You didn’t care if I could rob you,” she accused. “You just
wanted to see if I would sleep with a man I barely know to win a bet.” She
looked at Jackson. “Did you put him up to this? Is this some prelude to “let’s
teach Cleo a lesson about sluttiness”?”
Marco answered before Jackson could. “No, Jackson was
unaware of my game. I was merely trying to provide him with information that he
may need in the future.” He tipped his glass toward Jackson and then tossed
back a mouthful of champagne.
“What, you’re going to ask me to seduce somebody, and you
wanted to know if I’d do it for free, or if it would cost you a hundred
thousand dollars? Which you still owe me, by the way,” she added, glancing at
Marco.
Jackson looked Marco, and then down at his plate. “No,” was
all he said. Cleo chugged her champagne and wiped her mouth with her napkin.
“Whatever,” she muttered. “Let’s just go home.”
They said their goodbyes and rode in silence back to the
airfield. Cleo didn’t even ask about the extra boxes that Marco’s men loaded
onto the plane, or the flat squares and rectangles wrapped in brown paper. Once
on the plane, they totally ignored one another for the eight hour flight back
to San Francisco. Jackson dropped Cleo off at her apartment, and then went to
his own house outside the city. Separately, they both fell into bed.
39
There was someone in her apartment, she realized as she
opened one eye and squinted at her dark bedroom. Mysterious clanking sounds
were coming from the direction of the kitchen. She very reluctantly sat up and
wiped the sleep from her eyes before padding to the bathroom to brush her
teeth. The moment she opened her bedroom door, the smell of bacon hit her
nostrils, and her stomach growled mightily with excitement.
Jackson was there, the sleeves of his olive green shirt
rolled up to the elbows. He was furiously whisking something in a bowl, to
which he added a splash of cream and several generous shakes of cinnamon.
Reaching for a long serrated knife, he began slicing a loaf of soft, golden
bread into thick pieces. Cleo silently climbed onto a stool and watched him
drop a chunk of butter into a hot skillet, swirling it as it melted before he
dipped a piece of bread into the bowl at his side. Flipping the bread to soak
the other side, he pulled it out with two fingers and quickly dropped it into
the pan. Soon, there was a platter of golden brown French toast beside the
plate of bacon.
“Breakfast again?” she asked finally.
“I thought you might like American food for a change,” he
said as he flipped a piece of toast with a spatula.
“Ummm…
French
toast?” she asked, causing him to laugh.
“Let me guess, breakfast is all you know how to do?” she said.
With a wicked grin, he glanced at her sideways. “In my
experience, I’ve found it very useful to know a thing or two about breakfast.
After all, it’s the most important meal of the day.” He dropped another piece
of toast into the melted butter and added, “Or, the night,” winking as he
flipped it with his spatula.
Cleo’s cheeks turned pink, but she didn’t say anything. When
the last piece of bread was golden brown, he turned off the stove and reached
for two plates. Cleo looked down at her plate of bacon and French toast as Jackson drizzled syrup over the top. “What, no powdered sugar?” she asked in an effort to
break the silence. Without a word, Jackson reached for a large chrome spice
shaker and dusted the top of her toast.
As they ate, Cleo chatted aimlessly in an effort to avoid
the awkward silence that she knew was lurking around the corner. Jackson’s responses primarily involved monosyllabic answers and changes in facial
expression. Finally, after babbling about the weather, evil hermit crabs, the
comparative softness of cashmere versus angora, and a dozen little-known uses
for lemon juice, she blurted out, “Damn it, Jackson! Why aren’t you saying
anything?”
He shrugged slightly and picked up a piece of bacon,
swirling it in his syrup before taking a bite. “Maybe I just like to listen to
you talk,” he said.
“Why?” she said.
He shrugged again. “I don’t know. It allows me to learn
things about you. Like the fact that you hate hermit crabs. I didn’t know that
ten minutes ago.”
“Well, genius, a conversation with
two
people
actually participating equally might teach them a few things about each other.
For example, we are conversing right now, and I’m learning that you’re a
doofus, and you’re learning that I get really annoyed when you go all silent
and mysterious, and that I hate the fact that I know less about you than you do
about me.” She angrily attacked her French toast.
“You can ask me anything,” he said in surprise. “You might
not get the answer you want, but you can always ask.”
The floodgates opened:
“Do you even own a pair of jeans?” (Yes.)
“When’s your birthday?” (November 3
rd
.)
“What’s your favorite food?” (Eggrolls.)
“Have you ever been to China?” (No.)
“Do you like football?” (No.)
“What’s your favorite color?” (Red.)
“Where do you live?” (Just outside of town.)
“Do you always carry a gun?” (No.)
“Have you iced anybody yet?” (Not personally.)
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No,” he said, standing up to put his plate in the sink.
When she had been silent for several seconds, he spoke over his shoulder.
“What—no more questions?”
“Do you want to kiss me again?” she asked quietly.
He turned on the water to rinse the syrup from his plate
before putting it in the dishwasher. Next came the rest of the breakfast
dishes. He turned on the dishwasher, wet a towel, and wiped down the stove and
countertops, hanging it over the oven handle to dry. The kitchen practically
sparkled.
“Jackson—” she began.
“Yes,” he muttered without looking at her. Then he put on
his suit jacket and left her apartment, the door closing a little too
forcefully behind him.
Cleo was stunned at his sudden exit. Anxiety flooded her
system. She hadn’t meant to make him leave. She hadn’t expected him to walk
out. She wanted to run after him, but she was afraid that he would refuse to
come back.
Trying to put a more positive spin on it, she reflected on
the triumphs of the day: she had gotten an excellent mid-day breakfast, learned
random things about him that she hadn’t known before, and gotten him to admit
that he wanted to kiss her again, which by default meant that he wasn’t
uninterested (which she had worried about for two days). Cleo hopped off of her
stool and walked into the living room area, thinking that a movie would
distract her from the paranoid inner monologue (
He’s never coming back.
).
As she plopped down on the sofa, she noticed a package on the coffee table. The
box was wrapped in red and white peppermint stripes, with a red bow and a
letterpress tag that had candy canes on one side, and
C—Merry Christmas, J.
written in dark ink on the other.
She got down on the floor and narrowed her eyes at the box,
as though X-ray vision would suddenly come to her. She carefully shook it,
hearing a faint rustling sound, but nothing distinct enough to indicate what
was inside. After spending way too much time compiling a mental list of all of
the things that Jackson might possibly give her (that were the appropriate size
for this particular package), she finally decided to open the present.
It wasn’t any of the things on her list. In fact, it was
initially confusing to fold back the layers of red tissue paper and see…a piece
of paper. She shook the tissue layers to see if something else would fall out,
but the only thing that fluttered out was that scrap of paper. It had an
address, and nothing else.
She stared at it, turning the paper over to verify that
there was no name or any other helpful tidbit written on the back. (There
wasn’t.) Cleo took the scrap to her bedroom and turned on her laptop, plugging
the address into an Internet maps website. The little blue balloon hovered over
an area just beyond the southern border of the city, near the Great Highway and the Pacific Ocean.
Just outside of town
, he had said. Huh.
***
Within forty minutes, Cleo was stepping out of a cab in
front of the address on her paper. Instructing the driver to wait exactly ten
minutes, she tossed an extra twenty at him and approached a set of tall wrought
iron gates with stucco pillars on either side. Through the narrow bars, she
could see a portion of a Spanish-style house with a tile roof. The squawk of an
intercom at her left ear made her jump. “Welcome, Miss St. James,” said a very
deep voice. Above the speaker, she could see a surveillance camera with a
blinking red light, pointed directly at her. An awkward four minute silence
followed, during which she was extremely tempted to pick her nose. Finally, she
said, “Well, jackass, are you planning to open the gate?”
A brief burst of static preceded the gravelly voice. “No.”
Her mouth opened and closed a few times before sound made
its way past her vocal cords. “No? What the fuck do you mean,
no
?” she
demanded.
“No is one of those words that is self-defining, don’t you
think?” said the voice.
She put her hands on her hips and stared at the camera.
“What was your name again?” she asked with fake sweetness.
“Attempting to define a stranger by name alone is both
constricting and abstract,” he said.
“Listen here, you fucking son-of-a-donkey-whore retard, you’re
gonna tell Jackson that I’m here, and then he’s going to ram a bowling ball up
your ass and find somebody else to let me in this damn gate,” she yelled.
She wasn’t sure, but the static that followed sounded
suspiciously like there was also laughter riding the sound waves. “Mr. Temple
told us to expect you. He also instructed us not to let you in,” came the deep
baritone through the speaker.
Cleo gritted her teeth. “I think you must be mistaken, you
worthless lump of camel ass,” she said. “If Jackson is expecting me, then he
must also be expecting you to let me in.” She waved her hand toward the gate.
“So, open sesame, Rain Man.”
Now, laughter erupted from the speaker, clean and pure. It
sounded like more than one person. “You have a nice day, Miss St. James,”
squeaked the man, and the laughter assaulted her ears once more. She looked at
the camera and held up both middle fingers before storming back to the taxi,
which was in the process of pulling away from the curb (an unfortunate circumstance
for the driver, for if he had left just thirty seconds sooner, he would have
been spared the profanity-laden diatribe shrieked in his general direction for
the half hour back to her apartment).
Cleo fumed, pacing her apartment and cursing loudly enough
that the downstairs neighbor actually called the cops to report a domestic
dispute. “I was watching a Quentin Tarantino movie,” she said sweetly to the
cherub-faced officer that timidly knocked on her door. Flashing a megawatt
smile, she thanked him for his trouble and closed the door in his face.
Finally, it hit her—why would Jackson give her his address for Christmas?
Because he knew that she would love nothing more than to prowl through his
house. Why would Jackson give her the address and then not let her in? Because
he expected her to let herself in, of course. Probably. Maybe. Whatever, she
was breaking into Jackson’s house.