The closer I got to Jonathan’s family, the more I understood where he came from. His ability to laugh through anger and tears, the happy face he put on over his worries, and the Oscar-worthy show of confidence came from his mother. The deft manipulations of people and situations, the sadism, the raw hunger, and the social charm came from his father. The passion and protectiveness were learned through his sisters.
Margie had handed me five thousand dollars in an envelope and told me if I didn’t take it, she would tell Jonathan. That would upset him enough to give him another heart attack. She was exaggerating, but I got the point. He’d arranged money and refusing it would cause him stress.
“I told you not to tell him,” I’d said, holding on to a shred of pride even as I clutched the envelope.
“I ignored you. Tough.”
“I hate this.”
“Take it up with God.”
“Well, thank you,” I said. “I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate it.”
I needed the money. Badly. After spending a morning on the phone, I found I had long odds of saving the house. I could rescue my mother’s finances by arranging a short sale, but I’d still have to move. One of the banks was adamant about the current resident vacating the premises. I could have waited for an eviction and then fought it, but I had too many balls in the air already. I needed to find a place to live and a place to store my stuff. I needed to rent a truck and pay a security deposit and first month’s rent. Five thousand would just about cut it.
I had other business to attend to, as well. Accepting five grand from my lover’s sister was something I never thought I’d do. The day would be a day of firsts. I dialed Eddie’s cell phone. He picked up. Oh, the privilege of being me. Six months ago, he wouldn’t have returned a voice mail from me, much less taken a call on the second ring.
“What’s happening, princess?” he answered over a wave of ambient noise. I didn’t like the nickname. It was too close in concept to “flake.”
“I can’t do a session,” I said. “Jonathan… He’s...it’s bad. I need to be here.”
“How bad?” The ambient noise disappeared as if he’d closed a window.
“Something went wrong. He’s bleeding. He needs a transplant. Maybe. Probably.”
“What?”
“If you have a heart lying around in the next few days...”
“Days?”
My head was screwed up. I was a monster. I’d thought Eddie would care that I was cancelling my recording session, but Jonathan was his friend. Why the hell would Eddie care about my fucking EP? “You should come and see him.”
“Fuck.”
“Are you all right? I’m sorry. I’ve been dealing with this for days. I should have broken it to you better.”
He didn’t answer right away. I thought I’d lost the connection, and then he spoke up. “When I banged up my dad’s Maz, Jonathan took me all over L.A. to get it fixed. We got it home before my parents got back from Maui by, like, minutes. He drove like such a dick.”
I sniffed. “Don’t eulogize yet, please.” I had the sudden need to see Jonathan, to stop wasting time in a cold stairway when I could be taking up space with him. I pushed through the stair doors into the hall.
“Sorry, I...” Eddie caught himself. “Tell him he’s an asshole for me. All right?”
“Sure thing.” The elevator dinged as I hung up, and I blocked traffic by standing there looking at my phone. I wondered why I didn’t give a shit about the blown opportunity.
“Monica,” came a voice in the crowd.
I turned to the source. “Jessica.”
“I’d like to speak with you.”
“Sure.”
We stepped into a corner by a six-foot tall potted plant that looked too fake to be real, or too real to be fake.
“What?” I said.
She raised her eyebrows. “You’ve got no business being sharp with me.”
“Thanks for letting me know my business.”
“I didn’t come here to fight with you. I came to see him.”
“Why? To upset him? I’m sick of this. I’ve never seen anyone crush a man so hard then try to get him back like it was her job. For Chrissakes, I wish he’d just give you your money so you’d leave him the fuck alone.”
“He will.” Her face darkened like a desert under rare clouds. “This is a long-term hospitalization. The trust will move to irrevocable in a week. He’ll be here.”
It hit me then, her motivation for being there. It was sick. Unbelievably venal. “Unless he’s dead, right? If he dies while the trust is revocable, you lose.” I started to walk away, but she grabbed my elbow. I looked at where her fingers dented the fabric of my shirt then at her.
“You listen to me,” she said through her teeth, “I loved him. Make no mistake. He wasn’t for me, but I loved him. That doesn’t go away.”
“He. Is. Mine.”
“Under the circumstances, he’s everyone’s. He needs all of us. We can have this fight now or after he’s dead. Would that suit you?”
Something seethed in me. Something hot and black and angry, bubbling to the surface and settling in.
Before Los Angeles was a place, it had a tar pit. I’d gone on three field trips to the La Brea tar pits. In prehistory, an animal got stuck in it, and a predator came to eat the animal. The predator, even as he ate, got stuck. Carrion came to feast on the weakened bodies, and all were stuck. The number multiplied as more, driven by instinct and hunger, fell into the trap. Masses of mammals, winged creatures, and crustaceans came to feast. The black goo pulled them down to their deaths in a years-long chain of seething, building, predatory hunger. Ripping throats, blood-covered-fur, a routine orgy of violence and death, multiplied by an order of fear, melted into the tar and added to the organic mass of boiling, black pitch.
On La Brea Avenue, there’s a park. In the park, the tar pits bubble underground, leaving puddles of sticky black goop in the grass. They come up where they want, and everything sinks into them.
When Jessica suggested Jonathan would die, I wanted to claw out her eyes and pull out her hair at the roots like one of those animals. I felt as if I’d put a lawn of sweet words over an aquifer of tar-sticky rage, and her presence had triggered a bubbling geyser of anger. I wasn’t angry at Jessica, and I wasn’t angry that she had the gall to bring death into the conversation like a threat.
I was angry at death. I was angry that it dared to black the light from the window, that it should come between Jonathan and me. We’d overcome so much together. What did it want? What was I supposed to do? And life? How dare life bring him to me just to take him away.
The elevator doors opened with a ding, but Jessica and I stared at each other as if guns were drawn.
“It’s nice you kids are getting along,” Margie’s voice cut in.
Jessica let go of my arm. When she did, I realized something. I didn’t like her. I didn’t trust her. But I couldn’t pretend I was angry at her. As if shunned, Jessica ran into the elevator at the last second.
“Cute, you two,” Margie said. “Almost like you could stand being in the same room together.”
“She’s just going to upset Jonathan.”
“No, she’s not. He refused to see her. She’s a little pissed off.” Margie headed down the hall, her gait quick and sure.
I chased after her. “You look pretty pissed yourself.”
“I got big news from the Department of Bad Shit. They can’t get in to fix the suture. It’s a transplant or nothing.”