Beg by C. D. Reiss Read Free Book Online

still be who she is,” I said. “She could play the Staples
Center, and she’d be this way.”
    “But she could afford to get care, the right meds, maybe therapy.
Something.” I nodded. He was right. They were stymied by poverty. “And Vinny ? I haven’t heard a damn thing from that guy. I tried
calling him and his mailbox is full.” He was losing his shit, standing there
with a coffee cup in his hand.
    “We have six more months on our contract with him and we’re out,”
I said.
    “She doesn’t have six months, Mon.”
    “Okay, I get it.” I held him by the biceps and looked him in the
face.
    “She’s like she was the last time, when you found her. I don’t
want—“
    “Darren! Stop!”
    But it was too late. The stress of the evening had gotten to him.
He blinked hard and tears dripped down his cheeks. I put my arms around him,
and we held each other in the middle of the kitchen until the coffee maker
beeped. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, still holding the empty cup. “I’m
working the music store this morning. Will you stay with her until rehearsal?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Can I shower here? My water heater’s busted.”
    “Knock yourself out. Just hang the towel.”
    He strode out of the kitchen, and I was left there with our
dripping sink and filthy floor. The roof leaked, and the foundation was cracked
from the last earthquake swarm. It had been nice to sit in that Mercedes and
drive around with someone who never spent a minute agonizing about money. It
had been nice to not worry about anything but physical pleasure and what to do
with it for a couple of hours. Real nice.
    Darren’s laptop was on the kitchen table, set to some Protunes thing he probably hadn’t gotten a chance to touch
in the middle of taking care of Gabby. I fixed my coffee and slid into the
chair, opening the internet browser. We stole bandwidth from the Montessori
school during off hours, so I checked my email. I remembered my conversation
with Jonathan about his ex-wife, so I did a search for her: Jessica Carnes.
    I got a different set of pictures than Darren had shown us the other
day. Jessica was an abstract and conceptual artist. Searching under Google
Images brought back a treasury of pictures of the artist and her art, which
despite Kevin schooling me in the vocabulary of the visual arts, I didn’t get
at all.
    Jessica had long blond hair and an Ivory Girl complexion. She
might have worn a stitch of makeup and maybe used hot rollers. She wore nice
flats, but flats nonetheless. Her skirts were long and her demeanor was modest.
She was my exact opposite. I had long brown hair and black eyes. I wore makeup,
tight jeans, short skirts, and the highest heels I could manage. And black. I
wore a lot of black, a color I hadn’t given a thought to until I saw Jessica in
every cream, ecru, and pastel on the palette.
    On page three, I came across a wedding photo. I clicked through.
    The page had been built by her agent, and it showed a beachside
extravaganza the likes of which I could only aspire to waitress. I scrolled
down, looking for his face. I found him here and there with people I didn’t
know or side-by-side with his bride. A picture at the bottom stopped me. I
sighed as if the air had been forced out of my lungs by an outside force.
Jessica and Jonathan stood together, separated from the crowds. Her back was
three-quarters to the camera, and he faced her. He was speaking, his eyes
joyous, happy, his face an open book about love. He looked like a different man
with his fingertips resting on Jessica’s collarbone. I knew exactly how that
touch felt, and I envied that collarbone enough to snap the laptop closed.

 
 
    CHAPTER 6.
    I tapped my foot. Studio time was bought by the hour and not
cheap, yet Gabby and I were the only ones there. She was at the piano, of
course, running her fingers over the keys with her usual brilliance, but it was
only therapy, not real practice. Darren’s drums took twenty minutes to set