Hard Exit, page 12
“Why haven’t we slept together, Jack?”
I was silent for a while. Too long, apparently, because she said, “I asked you a question, the same one I’ve asked myself for many years, sometimes nightly. Why haven’t you and I slept together, screwed, made the beast with two backs, whatever you want to call it? My therapist thinks it’s a question worth contemplating, and she and I mull it over in most of my sessions. What do you think, Jack? Why haven’t we slept together?”
After about ten seconds, I said, “Because I love you, Jennifer.”
“Oh, great. Right. That makes total sense. I’ve filled far too many hours hoping you’d say those words to me and spent a fortune on therapy because you haven’t. I’ve heard you say them in my dreams for years, yet now when you finally say, ‘I love you, Jennifer,’ you say it as a distancing device, a justification for not having sex with me. Unbelievable!”
“You’ve heard me say that phrase a thousand times because it’s in my every glance at you, in the way I listen to you and dote on you and admire you and respect you. I feel your sadness and want nothing more than for you to be happy. You are indisputably my best friend, and I confide in you as I do no one else.
“We’ve had great rapport from the moment we met. We make each other laugh a lot, and I’ve tossed and turned countless nights trying to understand my feelings for you, trying to figure out how to jettison my past and allow myself to have a future.”
I was tired and stressed, and I’d rehearsed various versions of this monologue many times, but it wasn’t coming out as I’d planned, and I considered stopping there.
“And?”
“When Jami died, I knew there was no chance I’d ever allow myself to love that way again. I couldn’t give myself completely as I had with her because her death triggered thoughts of suicide, and I even made a plan or two. Or three. Then I beat myself up for being too cowardly to follow through. Death couldn’t possibly be filled with as much pain as I felt daily, hourly, and it was the loss of Jami, and my inability to help her, to be by her side when she needed me most, that caused that pain. So, how could I allow myself to love that way again, to love you that way, even if I truly want to, even if I need to, because we could—and probably will—end horribly?”
“Then don’t lose me.”
“How do I ensure that?”
“By loving me.”
She looked into my eyes, maneuvered on the couch, and pulled me down behind her, scooting backward until we spooned. I slipped my left arm under her neck, draped my right arm over her body, and inhaled the heady combination of expensive shampoo and mediocre Cabernet. I reassured myself we’d just had the discussion we’d had. I wasn’t dreaming, and a significant aspect of my life had become unstuck. The words I hadn’t allowed myself for years to say out loud had just been spoken and heard.
“I love you, Jennifer.”
“I love you, too, Jack.”
We fell asleep entwined.
I slept for about three hours but awoke in a cold sweat, gasping for breath.
“What? What is it?” she asked.
“A nightmare. Lie back down.”
Prior to the last couple nights, I hadn’t dreamed of Jami’s bike crash in about two years, the frequency of those nightmares having diminished slowly, then finally ceased. Jami still appeared in my dreams occasionally, but she was usually a secondary player, the woman who stood in the background and found me lacking. But that morning, I dreamed I’d pushed her in front of the van.
“I’ll be okay,” I said.
“Are you sure?” She settled her head on my chest.
“Not even close.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Our pre-nap revelation didn’t result in an awkward post-nap discussion, perhaps because the revelation revealed nothing that both of us hadn’t known for years. Instead, when we awoke, we were as comfortable around each other as we normally were, meaning very. She didn’t ask before using my toothbrush, and I was fine with that.
As she scrambled eggs, she asked what my plans for the day were. I told her I’d go for a run, hoping to find some clarity and, with luck, answers. She asked, “Don’t you want to know what I’m going to do?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. What are your plans?”
She vamped from the kitchen to the couch, as though in a silent movie, bent down to pick up the bottle of wine she’d nearly emptied last night, grabbed her wine glass, traipsed back into the kitchen, and made a show of hoisting the bottle high, tilting it, hesitating, and pouring the remaining wine into the sink.
“I really should break the glass for effect, but you might deem that showy. I’ll perhaps discuss the finer points of how one should dispose of one’s alcoholic implements at my first meeting today.”
“Good for you, Jen, but—”
“Don’t say it. I know. Trust me: I’m doing it for me, not you. I’ve needed to stop for a long time, and I’ve known it but been too afraid or too weak or too stupid—or whatever. But I know there won’t ever be a real us if I continue to drink.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t have sounded pretentious, so I went to her and wrapped myself around her. We embraced for a minute, and I knew I had to pull away before the embrace turned into more than I was ready to handle. But I couldn’t pull away. I wanted to, but when she tilted her head back and stared up at me with her gorgeous brown eyes—eyes that didn’t just invite but beckoned—I did what felt right, and our kiss was the first real one I’d experienced in nine years.
We allowed our pent-up desire for each other to express itself, and I felt a sensation I hadn’t felt in a very long time. It took me a few seconds to recognize what it was, but eventually it became clear: I was in the moment, there with Jennifer, kissing her, embracing her, allowing myself to feel. For an instant, I was not living in the past, burdened by guilt, or worried about the future. But as soon as those thoughts filled my head, I was out of the moment.
“Jen,” I said, disengaging from her. “We should go slowly. I’ve wanted to do this for years, even though I wouldn’t admit it to you, but I think we should hold off. You’re vulnerable, and I may be in the middle of a nervous breakdown.”
“Shut up. Just kiss me.”
“I can’t.”
“Stop thinking so damned much. You’re a man. Let yourself be one.”
“I obviously want you, but this isn’t right, not here and now. Not on the day you declare yourself to be sober—and while you’re still hungover.”
“I sure know how to pick ’em, don’t I? You’re a true romantic, and the wait was well worth it.” But she smiled, and her tone was teasing.
“I promise you—I want this to work, and I think it can if we start from a position of strength, not weakness or desperation.”
“If you say so.”
“Trust me. Amanda hit on me when I was about to disappear, when I wanted not to exist, and I allowed her to be my lifeline. She kept me alive, and I’ve done the same for her, but it’s not enough. From the outside, she and I have everything, but I resent her and hate myself for my inability to leave her or to truly love her.”
“I’m not Amanda, and I’m not Jami. You’re afraid. I am, too. Love is hard, relationships are hard. And the most real of loves ended in a devastating loss for you. I understand. Or I think I do. I’ve never experienced anything like what you and Jami had, so I haven’t felt the depths of despair you have. But I understand trauma and abuse, and they’ve contributed to why I’ve spent all these years alone, without a real connection, without true love. I’ve dated. I’ve thought I’ve been in love, but I’ve always really been alone, even when I was with someone. We both need to change our lives, and we’ve just taken the first step.”
“We have, and I’m happy about it. Kissing you felt far better than I imagined, and I have a great imagination. But our first step should be followed by a second step, not a sprint.”
“Then I take it back. I don’t love you.” She smiled, stepped back into my arms, and kissed me on the neck.
“I definitely don’t love you either.”
“You two gonna get busy, or what?” Game asked from the other side of the kitchen.
Jen and I both stepped back.
“Did you sleep?” I asked him.
“I was taught not to answer a question with a question.”
“I was taught to mind my own business,” I said, then asked, “Who’s up for a run?”
“I’m in,” Game said, but Jen hesitated.
“Not sure my head’s up for it, and I want to find a meeting.”
“We’ll walk briskly if you prefer, and I’ll take you to a meeting when we’re done.”
“Okay. Give me a couple minutes.”
“You want me to let you two go alone?” Game asked.
“No, it’s a beautiful morning. No June gloom today, so let’s all enjoy the sun together.”
The three of us walked briskly down the beach toward Trancas Canyon, with the piecemeal rocky seawall protecting expensive houses on our left from the ocean on our right. I felt far more comfortable than I should have. Nothing about my life at that moment made sense. The movie star I’d lived with for seven years was hiding in a hotel, most likely as a whistle-stop before checking into another high-end rehab. The teenager walking to my right was nursing a shoulder wound sustained during a gang shooting, and he and his gang had sworn vengeance. It was my job to prevent him from exacting revenge and to keep him alive. But the gangs involved had declared a truce. The woman walking on my left had loved me for years, and she’d told me a decade ago that she’d wondered the day we met if the two of us would have been a couple if I hadn’t been married.
But then my wife left this world, and I essentially did, too. I’d breathed and worked and ate and slept and traveled and attended premieres and received gifts, but I hadn’t loved.
About four years ago, when Jen and I were jogging on the beach, I’d admitted to myself that my feelings for her had become more significant than friendship. I’d wondered how the two of us would be as a couple. I didn’t tell her I’d had those thoughts, but not long afterward, she’d seen those thoughts in my eyes and in my actions.
As we walked down the beach, Game expressed his amazement as we passed the mansions.
“You living with a movie star, loving a hotter sista, gotta choose between a Land Rover, a BMW, or a Porsche, got more than one Jacuzzi in your beach mansion, and this your front yard, but you sad and angry.” He sat down on the soft sand, out of reach of the waves that rolled in. We sat next to him.
“Do you want to tell him, or should I?” I asked.
“I will,” Jen said. “Depression can affect anyone, no matter how wealthy, successful, popular, or attractive. From the outside, a depressed person may seem to have everything anyone could want. But a depressed person can’t look at herself or himself from the outside, and the inside is filled mostly with darkness.”
Game asked, “How’d you know what he was asking?”
“We’ve been best friends for years,” Jen said. “It’s accurate to say we’re, what, simpatico?”
“At the least,” I said. “We truly understand each other.”
“Even if one of us doesn’t understand the other’s sudden celibacy,” she said.
Game said, “You more than depressed, you don’t wanna get with Jen.”
“What a wonderful view,” I said. “I can see a change of subject on the horizon.”
“Coward,” Jen said.
“Chicken,” Game said.
We talked about Game’s summer plans (play basketball, hookup with girls) and his career goals (be an NBA point guard or the CEO of a corporation). He asked Jennifer how long she’d lived at the beach.
“About fifteen years. I was extremely fortunate to have had a successful modeling career that enabled me to purchase the house, and I invested well, but modeling rendered my Ph.D. meaningless.
“Because I’m much older now, and the modeling opportunities at my age are few and far between compared to what they were when I was twenty-one, I’m toying with the idea of looking into a professorship. I’d obviously have to refamiliarize myself with all the material, and it would be a longshot to land a job at my age, but—”
“But ‘Life is a gamble, at terrible odds—if it was a bet you wouldn’t take it,’” I said.
“As you know, that’s my favorite play,” Jen said. She looked at Game and said, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard.”
I looked down the beach and saw a group of people, including two EMTs, gathered in front of Big Bill Watson’s house and under his deck. I became nauseated instantly, and I knew the universe had just compensated for the magic of Jen’s kiss. I didn’t want to go closer, even though I knew the three of us would. I stood and steeled myself to the horror that awaited us. Jen and Game looked at me, but before either could say anything, I started to walk toward the group. They stood and followed.
Seven of the people who were gathered—four of whom had their dogs at the end of leashes—were neighbors, and they nodded as we approached. The other five people in the ragged arc around the EMTs were strangers who’d likely strolled along the sand from Zuma Beach. The two EMTs weren’t doing anything but waiting because their job was to tend to the living. Big Bill hung dead at the end of a rope, below the deck and above the sand.
Could Big Bill have stepped off one of the two bourbon barrels that he liked to throw driftwood into, his neck then breaking when the line stopped his fall, with his bare, size-fourteen feet just inches above the sand? Could Sadie’s incremental disappearance as Lewy body dementia ravaged her brain and body have led him to take that fatal step?
Not if I knew anything about human nature. Yes, suicide can happen almost spontaneously. A high percentage of people who fail at their first attempt to kill themselves never make another attempt, meaning they eventually overcome the momentary impulse that led them to their first attempts. Using a gun rarely allows for such a change of heart.
Big Bill could’ve felt overwhelmed by despair, then untied the anchor from one end of the line he used to secure his orange two-man kayak while he fished. He could’ve tied that end to the beam that was farthest from the water and calculated the length of rope he’d need to ensure he would dangle after he’d tied a noose in the other end. He would have had to fashion a noose, overturn one of the bourbon barrels so he could stand on it before he jumped, convince himself he never wanted to see Sadie alive again and was comfortable letting her suffer alone, climb atop the barrel, slip the line over his head, tighten it, make peace with whomever or whatever he needed to make peace with, then jump.
Or someone could’ve wrapped a line around Big Bill’s head while someone else held him at gunpoint and threw the other end over a beam. Then they could’ve pulled hard until Big Bill’s toes lifted off the sand, then knotted the line at that length. His neck wouldn’t likely have broken because he wouldn’t have dropped from a height, but the blood flow in his carotid arteries would’ve been cut off, causing him to black out quickly, followed soon after by death.
Would the murderers have gagged him first so he couldn’t scream? Probably, although the crashing waves and the distance to neighboring houses would likely have greatly diminished the likelihood that neighbors could’ve heard screams, if Big Bill could’ve screamed with a rope crushing his trachea. After removing the gag when he stopped twitching, the killers likely walked through the sand to the public accessway, then disappeared.
I felt confident my supposition was accurate. I stepped between two neighbors to take a closer look. Both bourbon barrels were upright, with the openings at the top. Now I was certain he hadn’t jumped. No one would try to balance on the edge of the barrel in bare feet before placing the noose around his neck, risking a fall that could injure him but not kill him.
Big Bill was seventy-two and weighed at least 260, so the likelihood of him committing suicide in that manner was near zero. Because he was as large as he was, I suspected that three men were probably involved because hoisting him up while he struggled to stay on the ground would’ve been nearly impossible for only two.
Depending on how effectively the bastards who did this managed to surprise him, and depending on whether they used a gun as I suspected they had to subdue him, the medical examiner would likely find defensive wounds on Big Bill. Even at his age, he would’ve put up a serious fight, although a gun pointed at him would’ve limited his options.
I stood there seething, certain these murderers had also killed Chris Cerveris. Two hangings of people I knew in Malibu on the same weekend? Not a coincidence.
High tide had washed away the footsteps under the deck, except for the ones made by the group gathered around Big Bill, so any clues the killers might have left were gone. Except for those upright barrels.
I didn’t look at Big Bill’s face, preferring to remember him as he’d looked while alive. I glanced at Jen, who’d turned away and was wiping a tear from her eye. Game wasn’t next to her. I looked toward the water and saw him leaning over, his hands on his knees as a wave receded. He was breathing heavily, and I suspected he’d thrown up into the preceding wave.
I looked toward the public-access entrance about two hundred yards down the beach and saw two sheriff’s deputies and what appeared to be a member of the coroner’s office stepping around the end of the chain-link fence onto the beach. Part of me wanted to examine the scene more closely before they arrived and forced everyone to step back, but I knew I’d be wasting my time. The ocean had guaranteed that, so I gently took Jen by the elbow, motioned to Game, and started to head to the house. I stopped and said, “Give me a sec.” I jogged about twenty yards toward the three approaching officials assigned to investigate Big Bill’s death.
