Burn (Songs of Submission #5)(4)
Author: C.D. Reiss

“What are you going to do with her?” Debbie asked after I let Monica leave without seeing me again.

“Wait like a good boy.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Why?

“Because you’re here, talking to me about bulk ordering liquor and borrowing staff, when you have a bar manager to liaison with me.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Go run your empire.”

I threw myself into the leather chair. “What if the bar manager at K is a douchebag?”

“You’re saving me from a douchebag? Have we met?”

“In fact—”

“Did I not help you get through that nightmare with your ex-wife?”

“You were a godsend.”

“So stop bullshitting me. You come during her shifts and stay with Sam and me in the back, or you come after her shifts to drink at the bar. How long are you going to wait?”

“You want an exact date?”

“I want an event. Something that has to happen.”

“Fine. When I meet someone as close to perfect as she is.”

“Better start looking, my friend. She’s already moved on.”

“What does that mean?” I leaned forward. I felt myself getting pissed as the bottom dropped out of my chest.

“It means if there’s not someone else already, there will be soon. I can see it when she talks to customers.”

Debbie was always right about people. Usually, that was beneficial. Today, it was a problem. Today, I wanted to hurt someone, starting with myself. I left before Sam even got there. I could drink at home.

My phone rang as I turned onto my street. Margie.

“What?”

“Good evening to you too, little brother.”

“What can I do for you, Margie?”

“You have Will Santon’s team flying to Vancouver to watch Kevin Wainwright?”

Before I left the Stock, I’d called Will to let him know Monica’s travel dates. I had his team following Kevin, to make sure Monica was safe from him, as well as tracking the money behind the cameras in her house. He said he was close to finding out where they came from, as if I didn’t already know.

“Yes?”

“Has it occurred to you I might need to use him?”

“To do what? Have some movie producer followed to his mistress’s house?”

“What’s the difference?”

“The difference is a few million everyone involved can afford, and someone I care about getting hurt. Physically and irrevocably hurt.” I was yelling. That wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

“You know, Jonny, I don’t mind you getting paranoid and crazy, but you’re doing it on my dime.”

“You’re an attorney. You’re protected. If I get caught stalking, I fry. I’ll write you a check if you can’t afford to feed the kids this week.”

“Now you’re getting nasty.”

“Margie, sweetheart, please.”

“I gotta pull him, Jonny. I’m sorry.”

“Fine. Thanks for letting me know.” I hung up.

Things were not going well. My patience with Monica was wearing thin. I hadn’t considered her casting around for a new lover so soon. The thought of it made my fingers go cold. Will’s inability to trace the cameras before he got pulled, a mere week before Monica was going to Vancouver with that sicko, pushed me out of rational thought and into a place of frozen rage. The situation was getting more slippery than I could manage.

Then I saw Jessica’s Mercedes SUV in my driveway, and I thought I might break something. Aling Mira must have let her in before retiring for the night with Danilo.

My ex-wife sat on the back patio sipping coffee from a silver pot that had been on our wedding registry. I hated that thing. I thought about packing up all the shit of ours I hated and giving it to charity.

“Jess,” I said, “how are you?”

She put her hand on my shoulder and kissed my cheek. Just one cheek, not a double air kiss. Somehow, that seemed more intimate.

“I’m fine.” She wore perfectly fitting blue jeans, cowboy boots, a white shirt, and a bandana around her neck. I used to find her country girl airs charming. She was raised deep in Beverly Hills, where tourists got lost looking for Olympic Boulevard. “I came to talk about something. I thought you’d be here this time of night, but well, I guess not. And my appointments keep getting pushed.”

I sat down. “If you came here to fight, Jess, I don’t have the time.”

“No. Of course not. I, uh… There were guys doing renovations to my studio? New plumbing? And I was confused.”

“There’s lead in those pipes—”

“I was just worried you were getting it ready to sell it.”

“I’ll let you make an offer if it comes to that.”

“I can’t, Jon. You know that.”

“You didn’t sell the trees?”

“I did. I got two million each for them, and the documentation was bought by the museum. But they cost a fortune. Keeping a dead thing alive takes a lot of engineering.”

I nodded. Jessica’s problem had always been that the cost and ambition of her work didn’t quite jibe with what she could ask for it. She didn’t have Kevin Wainwright’s way of turning something that didn’t exist into money. Art, for her, wasn’t about money, or professionalism, or business. Art was about art. I used to love the purity of her vision.

“You could make smaller things,” I said. “And more of them. Just an idea.”

She looked away. She didn’t know what I was talking about. She said, “Remember when you first took me in that way? Right there, by the shed. You pulled my hair back and bent me over the wet bar. Then you yanked my pants down and hit me.”

“I slapped your ass. Yes, I remember. I didn’t exactly know what I was doing at that point.”

“I was offended.”

“You were scandalized.” I was surprised to find myself smiling. Only in hindsight did how outraged she’d been seem funny. At the time, I was guilt-ridden and devastated over her reaction. “I believe you called me a pig and moved to a guest room on the other side of the house.”

“And you—”

“I jerked off. Do you have a point here? We’ve covered this.”

Her tone got hard, as if she feared I’d interrupt again. “You persisted, and I never considered your way. I never gave it a chance. Even when I was trying to reconcile, I still wouldn’t try things your way. I don’t think I was fair to you.” She smoothed a nonexistent crease in her jeans. It was the only crack in her poise.