Now and Forever (11 page)

"You know, you look tired. Do you eat right?"

"I eat splendidly. But my husband is in jail, Mr. York, and I would very much like to get him out. What are the chances of that, in the immediate future?"

"Excellent" He beamed "I talked to the bank and everything's in order. You put up the house and agree to a lien on your earnings at the boutique if he defaults. And we keep the emerald ring and sapphire brooch for you."

"What?" He had made it sound as if he were ordering lunch for her, but he had caught her attention with the mention of her mother's jewelry. "I don't think you understood, Mr. York. The house and the business are all I'm putting up. I told you last night that I was only offering my mother's jewelry if I could get him out then, without your calling the bank and all. Sort of a guarantee."

"Yeah. Well, I'd feel better with that same guarantee now."

"Well, I wouldn't."

"How would your husband feel staying in jail?"

"Mr. York, isn't there a law against bailbondsmen taking too much as collateral?" Martin had told her about it.

"Are you accusing me of being dishonest?" Oh, God, she was going to blow it ... oh no ...

"No. Look, please ..."

"Look, baby, I'm not gonna do business with some broad who calls me dishonest I do you a favor and stick my ass out on a limb for your old man on a fifteen-thousand-dollar bond, and you call me a thief. I mean, look, I don't gotta take that shit from no one."

"I'm sorry." The tears were burning her eyes again. She was beginning to wonder if she'd live through this. And then he looked over at her and shrugged.

"All right. I'll tell you what. We'll just keep the ring. You can take the brooch. Does that sound any better?"

"Fine." It sounded stinking, but she didn't care anymore. It didn't matter. It didn't even matter if Ian ran away and they took the house and the business and the car and the emerald ring. Nothing mattered.

York managed to make the forms take twice as long as necessary, and to slide a hand across her breast as he reached for another pen. She looked up into his face and he smiled and told her she'd be beautiful if she ate right, and how he'd had a tall girlfriend in high school. A girl named Mona. Jessica just nodded and went on signing her name. Finally all the paperwork was done. He bit the end off a long thin cigar and picked up the phone to notify the jail.

"I'll have Bernice take you across the street, Jessica." He had decided to call her by her first name. "And listen, if you ever need any help, just call. FU keep in touch." She prayed that he wouldn't, and shook his hand before leaving his office. She felt as though she would stumble on the way out She had reached her limit. Days ago.

By the time Barry York had delegated the gum-chewing clerk to take Jessie across the street to bail Ian, it was almost noon. To Jessie it felt like the middle of the night She was confused and exhausted and everything was beginning to blur. She was living in an unreal world filled with evil, leering people.

The woman he'd called Bernice took charge of the papers, shuffled them for a moment, and then walked across the street with Jessie and into the Hall of Justice. She slipped the sheaf of papers Jessie and Barry York had signed into a slot in a window on the second floor, and then turned to look at Jessica for a moment.

"You going to stick by your old man?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You going to stay with your husband?"

"Yes ... of course ... why?" She was feeling confused again. And why was this woman asking her that?

"That's a hell of a beef, sister. And what's a good-looking chick like you want with a loser like him? He's going to cost you a bundle on this one." She shook her head and snapped her gum twice.

"He's worth it."

The girl shrugged and waved at the bank of elevators. "You can go up to the jail now. We're all through." No. lady, I'm all through. That's different The clerk departed with a last snap of her gum and headed down a stairway.

Jessica reached the jail a few moments later and had to ring a small buzzer to bring a guard to the door.

"Yeah? It's not visiting time yet."

"I'm here to bail out my husband."

"What's his name?"

"Ian Clarke." You know, the famous rapist "Yorktowne Bonding just called about it."

"I'll check." Check? Check what? With the house, the business, and Mom's emerald ring on the line, you're going to check, mister? Well, screw you. And Yorktowne Bonding ... and Inspector Houghton ... and ... Ian too? She wasn't really sure anymore. She didn't know what she felt. She was angry at him, but not for what he had done, only for not being there when she needed him so badly.

She waited at the door for almost half an hour, stupefied, dazed, leaning against the wall and hardly knowing why. What if she never saw him again? But suddenly the door opened and he stood there facing her. He was unshaven, bedraggled, filthy, and exhausted. But he was free. Everything she owned was riding on him now. And he was free. She sank slowly toward him with an unfamiliar whimpering sound, and he led her gently into the elevator.

"It's all right, baby ... it's all right. Everything's going to be all right, Jess ... sshhhh ..." It was Ian. Actually, really, honestly Ian. And he held her so gently and almost carried her down to the car. She couldn't take any more and he knew it. He didn't know all the details of what had been happening, but when he saw the bail papers and noticed the mention of her mother's emerald ring, he understood much more than she could tell him.

"It's okay, baby ... everything's going to be fine."

She clutched him blindly as they stood beside the car, the tears streaming down her cheeks, her face in a rictus of shock and despair, the same little squeaking noises escaping from her between sobs.

"Jessie ... baby ... I love you." He held her tightly, and then quietly drove her home.

"What are you doing today, darling?"

Jessie poured Ian a second cup of coffee at breakfast and glanced at the clock. It was almost nine and she hadn't been to the boutique for two days. She felt as though she had been gone for a month, existing in a kind of twilight zone all her own. A never-ending nightmare, but it was over now. Ian was home. She had spent most of the day before asleep in his arms. And he looked like Ian again. Clean, shaven, a little more rested. He was wearing gray slacks and a wine-colored turtleneck. Every time she looked at him she wanted to touch him to make sure he was real.

"Are you going to write today?"

"I don't know yet. I think I might just spend the day feeling good." But he didn't ask her to play hookey with him. He knew she had to work. She had done enough for him in the past few days. He couldn't ask for more.

"I wish I could stay home with you." She looked at him wistfully over her coffee and he patted her hand.

"I'll pick you up for lunch."

"I have an idea. Why don't you hang around the boutique today?"

He watched her eyes and knew what she was thinking. She had been like that for months after Jake had died. That terror that if he left her sight, he'd vanish.

"You wouldn't get any work done, my love. But I'll be around. I'll be right here most of the time." But what about the rest of the time? She reached over and held his hand. Nothing was said. There was nothing to say. "I thought maybe I'd talk to a couple of people about work."

"No!" She pulled back her hand and her eyes darted fire. "No, Ian! Please."

"Jessica, be reasonable. Have you thought of what this disaster is costing us? Costing you, to be more exact? And this is as good a time as any to get a job. Nothing exotic, just something to bring a little money in."

"And what happens when you have to start making court appearances? And during the trial? Just how much good do you think you'll be to anyone then?" She held tightly to his hand again and he saw the pain in her eyes. It was going to take months for the desperation to pass.

"Well, what exactly do you expect me to do, Jess?"

"Finish the book."

"And let you pick up the tab for this mess?"

She nodded. "We can straighten it out later, if you want to. But I don't really give a damn, Ian. What does it matter who signs the checks?"

"It matters to me." It always has mattered, always will matter. But he knew, too, that he'd never be able to concentrate on anything while this was hanging over his head. The trial ... the trial ... it was all he could think of. While she had slept all those hours the previous afternoon, it had kept running through his mind ... the trial. He was in no frame of mind to get a job. "We'll see."

"I love you." There were tears in her eyes again, and he tweaked the end of her nose.

"If you get dewy-eyed on me once more, Mrs. Clarke, I'm going to drag you back to bed and really give you something to cry about." She laughed in response and poured some more coffee.

"I just can't believe you're home. It was so incredibly awful while you were gone ... it was ... it was like ..." The words caught in her throat.

"It was probably like peace and quiet for a change, and you were too silly to enjoy it. Hell, you didn't think I'd stay down there forever, did you? I mean, even for a writer that kind of living research gets stale after a while."

"Jerk." But she was smiling now; she had nothing to fear.

"Want me to drive you to work?"

"As a matter of fact. I'd love it." She beamed as she put the cups in the sink and grabbed her orange suede coat off the back of a chair. She was wearing it over well-tailored jeans and a beige cashmere sweater. She looked like Jessie again--everywhere except around the eyes. She slid the dark glasses into place and smiled at him. "I think I'd better hang on to these for a couple of days. I still look like I've been on a two-week drunk."

"You look beautiful and I love you." He pinched her behind as they headed out the front door, and she leaned backward to kiss him haphazardly over one shoulder. "You even smell nice."

"Nothing but the best. Eau de Mille Pieds." She said it with a broad grin and he groaned.

"Oh, for Chrissake." It was one of their oldest jokes. Water of a thousand feet.

She pointed out Astrid's house to him on their way to the boutique, and told him about her visit to the shop.

"She seems like a nice woman. Very quiet and pleasant."

"Hell, I'd be quiet and pleasant too, with that kind of money."

"Ian!" But she grinned at him and ran a hand through his hair. It felt so good to be sitting next to him again, to be looking at his profile as he drove, to feel the skin on his neck with her mouth as she kissed him. She had awakened a dozen times during the night to make sure he was still there.

"I'll come by for you around twelve. Okay?"

She looked at him for a moment before nodding. "You'll be here? For sure?"

"Oh, baby ... I'll be here. Promise." He took her in his arms and she held him so tightly that it hurt. He knew she was thinking of the day he'd been arrested and hadn't shown up for lunch. "Be a big girl." She grinned and hopped out of the car and blew him a last kiss before running up the steps of the shop.

Ian lit a cigarette as he drove away, and glanced over to look at the ships on the bay. It was a beautiful day. Indian summer was passing, and it was not as warm as it had been a few days before, but the sky was a bright blue and there was a gentle breeze. It made him think back to that day five days before. It felt like five years before. He still couldn't understand it.

He paused at a stop sign, and another thought came to mind. The emerald ring Jessie had put up as bail. It still astounded him. He knew how she felt about her mother's things. She wouldn't even wear them. They were sacred, the last relics of a long-demolished shrine. And that ring meant more to her than any of the other pieces. He had watched her slip it on her finger once while her hand trembled out of control. She had put the ring back in the case, and never gone to the vault again. And now she had turned it over to a bailbondsman, for him. It told him something that nothing else ever had. It was crazy, but he felt as though he loved her more than he had before all this had begun, and maybe Jessie had learned something too. Maybe they knew what they had now. Maybe they'd take better care of it. He knew one thing. His days of discreet interludes were over. Forever. All of a sudden he had a wife. More of a wife than he had ever known he had. What more could he want? A child, perhaps, but he had resigned himself to the absence of children. He was happy enough with just Jessie.

"Morning, ladies." Jessie strolled into the store with a quiet smile on her face. And Katsuko looked up from the desk.

"Well, look who's here. And on a Saturday, yet. We were beginning to think you'd found a better job."

"No such luck."

"Is everything okay?"

"Yes. Everything's okay." Jessica nodded slowly and Katsuko knew that it was. Jessie was herself again.

"I'm glad." Katsuko handed her a cup of coffee and Jessie perched on the corner of the chrome-and-glass desk.

"Where's Zina?"

"In the back, checking the stock. Mrs. Bonner came back looking for you yesterday. She bought one of the new wine velvet skirts."

"It must have looked great on her. Did she try it with the cream satin shirt?"

"Yup. Bought them both, and the new green velvet pantsuit. That lady must have money burning holes in her pockets." Yeah. And loneliness burning holes in her heart. Jessie had had a taste of it now. She knew.

"She'll be back," Katsuko added.

"I hope so. Even if she doesn't buy. I like her. Anything taking shape for the fashion show?"

"I had a few ideas yesterday, Jessie. I made some notes and left them on your desk."

"I'll go take a look." She stretched lazily and wandered toward her office, carrying her coffee. It was a slow morning, and she felt as if she had come back after a very long absence, a long illness maybe. She felt slow and careful and frail. And everything looked suddenly different. The shop looked so sweet, the two girls so pretty ... Ian so beautiful ... the sky so blue ... everything seemed better and more.