Destiny (Waiting for Forever) (29 page)

“Hi,” I replied quietly as I leaned up against the wall next to the pay phone, the sound of his voice making me feel more relaxed than I had in years.

“I can’t believe you called.”

“I don’t have a lot of time. I just… I logged into my e-mail for the first time in a long time, and I saw your e-mails, and I… I wanted to hear your voice,” I admitted. “I only had time to read one, but I’ll read the rest when I come back next Monday.”

“Come back where?” he asked.

“I’m on a pay phone at the library,” I said and heard the voice asking for another quarter, so I dropped one in the slot.

“Which library? Maybe we could get together for lunch?” he asked, and his voice sounded so hopeful I would have given anything to agree. I just couldn’t risk his safety.

“Brian, I can’t. I have to get back. I’m sorry I bothered you,” I told him quickly, and it was true. The excitement in his voice told me I’d gotten his hopes up, even though that’s the last thing I wanted. I’d hurt him again, all for five minutes of my own selfish need to talk to him.

“I’m not. I check my e-mail every day, if you ever want to reply to one of those e-mails.” His voice was calm, and that surprised me. I thought he would have tried to talk me into running or meeting him.

“Bye,” I whispered and hung up the phone without waiting for a response.

“I love you.”

T
HINGS
went quickly at the market. I picked up two thick steaks, two big baking potatoes, sour cream, and a couple of ears of corn. The fifty Steven had left that morning more than took care of the groceries, so I pocketed a ten and left the rest for his change. I figured if I at least left him some change, he wouldn’t scrutinize the amount or start asking for receipts. He managed the money, both my checks and his, and took care of the expenses like cable, electricity, and drugs. Of course, he charged me rent, even though as the chief engineer for the building, he paid none. He robbed me blind, plain and simple, but there wasn’t a thing I could do about it except take money where I could. Take the laundry, for example. Early each month, Steven would take my checks to the bank to deposit them and buy ten rolls of quarters for me to use when I did laundry. It took maybe twenty bucks a month, so I hid the rest. Over the last few months, I’d managed to save a couple hundred. I’d dreamed of using it to try and get back to Alabama, back to Brian. With Brian in San Diego, I had to think of another plan.

I carried the bulging canvas bags of dirty clothes down in the elevator to the basement and tossed them on the long table in the laundry room. Back home, I’d never done laundry. I’d never even seen it done. My mom took care of all that kind of stuff, so there was never any need for me to learn. I’m guessing she might have taught me before I went off to college, or that Brian would have taught me once we were there. He’d done his own ever since I’d known him. Of course, I got one of my worst beatings from Steven after my first disastrous attempt at washing our clothes. When Steven threw a couple of rolls of quarters, soap, and two canvas bags at me and told me to go do laundry, I had a vague idea of what to do, but no idea where to go from there. I had spent the first fifteen minutes reading the back of the bottle of laundry detergent, which was less than helpful. Finally, I had just started sorting the clothes. Work clothes went into one pile, gym clothes went into another pile, and everything else went into a third pile. I had done the work clothes first and that had been the fatal mistake. I should have started with the miscellaneous pile because he might have been less furious if I’d messed up towels instead of his work uniform. He had taken the money for that little fiasco out of my next check to buy two new uniforms.

A few days later, when I could stand up straight again, he had spent an hour teaching me the finer points of laundry. I washed his clothes exactly the way he taught me every time, without exception, and hadn’t had any further problems. I tossed each load into a consecutive washing machine in the row of machines on the back wall of the room and pulled out one of my new library books and started to read. Maybe when I went back to the library next Monday to return it, I’d e-mail Brian to see if he’d read it yet, since he was a fan of John Marshall too. Then I scolded myself for the thought. It was just too easy to fall back on having Brian in my life.

The laundry room in the basement of our apartment building contained a dozen washers along the far wall and about the same number of dryers along the right-hand wall. A long, battered counter ran along the center of the room, and the left wall housed a row of benches and chairs on which to wait. A flat-panel television played some stupid talk show in the background, which I ignored while I read. The book had just started to pick up when the washers shut off. I laid my paperback on the chair and moved everything over to the dryers.

Because there were so many machines and the room was vacant except for me, I got done faster than I had expected. Only about a quarter of the way through my book, I folded and hung the laundry as it came out of the dryers and took everything back upstairs. I still had an hour before Steven would be home, so I prepped the steaks with a little marinade I had in the pantry. After that, I scrubbed the potatoes and wrapped them in foil. Checking the clock, I saw I still had about forty-five minutes, so I put the corn in a big pan of cold water to soak. Steven would be pleased that I’d prepped everything for dinner. After checking all the cabinets, I saw he didn’t have anything like a picnic basket, so I packed an empty grocery bag with plates, utensils, wine glasses, and a bottle of wine and hoped that he wouldn’t be angry at my initiative.

Second-guessing every decision of every day gets to be exhausting after a while.

I lay down on the couch and opened the book to the last page I’d read in the laundry room. My eyelids must have weighed a hundred pounds each because after the first sentence, I just couldn’t keep them from drooping. The booze, the coke, and the lack of sleep from the night before had taken their toll on me. After jerking myself awake for the third time, I finally set the book on my chest and fell asleep.

When I woke again, Steven was shaking me gently.

“Babe, come on; let’s go make dinner,” he said quietly. My eyes jerked open, and I looked around wildly as my book landed on the floor with an almost-silent thump. Steven had changed out of his work uniform and sat on the coffee table across from me in a loose pair of jeans and a plain black T-shirt.

“I got the laundry done and put away, and the food is ready for the grill,” I said quickly. He looked very relaxed, so I relaxed a little too. After stroking my face gently with a finger, he smiled.

“I saw that. Thank you,” he told me and kissed me on the forehead.

“There’s a bag on the table with plates, silverware, and stuff. I put a bottle of red in there, too. I didn’t know if you’d want to eat on the terrace or bring the steaks back here,” I rambled. That happened a lot when I was nervous or caught off guard. I just kept talking and never freaking shut up. Biting my bottom lip between my teeth, I forced myself to stop talking before I said something to piss him off.

“That’s a good idea, babe. Want to head over there?” he asked, and I stood up swiftly, almost tripping over my feet in a rush to get to the kitchen. He chuckled and then followed. I made sure the plastic bag the steaks were sealed in was closed tightly and then put the corn in another plastic bag. I put everything into the bag with the plates. Carefully, I picked the bag up by the bottom, not wanting to make any mistakes. Steven wrapped his arms around my shoulders and kissed the back of my neck. He held the door open for me as I went through, and we headed to the terrace.

The afternoon had turned cool and breezy by the time we walked onto the terrace. There were a few other people lounging around at the grills or walking through the small area of the roof that had been landscaped. Three grills sat deserted on the far side of the space, so we claimed one for our own. Steven turned on the gas and lit the grill while I pulled things out of the bag. We worked in silence, but it didn’t feel particularly uncomfortable. I left the cooking to Steven and opened the wine.

A laugh from my left caught my attention, and I saw a couple sitting at a table nearby. The woman sat in a lounger with her feet in her male companion’s lap. They looked so comfortable together, so in tune with one another that it made me think of Brian and the way things used to be between us. Those last few weeks in the tree house, things were perfect, just like that. We would shut out all the drama and angst of people finding out, or of having to date girls, and just be together for hours. Sometimes we would touch and explore each other, but other times we would simply sit in each other’s arms and read or talk. I missed those times with such a longing that it ached.

“Jamie, could you bring me the steaks, babe?” Steven asked, breaking me out of my dangerous thoughts. The potatoes and corn sat on the grill to one side as they cooked slowly. As I looked at my watch, I was startled to see we’d been up there for almost half an hour. After picking up the steaks and carrying them over to Steven, I poured each of us a glass of wine. Before I’d moved in with Steven, I’d never had alcohol, and just a few months later, I drank daily.

“Sure,” I said and carried his wine glass to him and watched while he dropped the meat on to sear. The wine was sweeter than I liked, but the alcohol took the edge off my nerves and made Steven relax, which helped to control his mood. I never let down my guard, not even when he relaxed, because I’d learned the hard way that anything could set him off, and his rage would center directly on me. After leaving the steaks with Steven, who seemed happy with my selection, I stood by the edge of the terrace and looked out over the city. I’d always imagined San Diego and San Francisco to be friendly, almost happy places when I’d heard their names, growing up. The reality of San Diego shattered that illusion within days of leaving the center on my own. Even though I’d turned eighteen, I had still felt like a terrified child on the streets with no money, no home, and no idea where to go or what to do.

I was sure if I hadn’t met George in those first few days, I would have been dead within a week. George, with his weary brown eyes and jaggedly cut salt-and-pepper hair, scared the hell out of me the first time I saw him. It had been my third night on the street, and I was still too terrified to sleep. I’d spent those first three days just wandering from place to place trying to figure out my next move. Around two in the morning, I wandered down an alley and saw some ratty blankets lying near a dumpster. I assumed they were trash, and with the nights being so cold, my sweatshirt wasn’t cutting it. I bent down to pick them up. Out of nowhere, a man came running at me with an old army jacket flapping around his emaciated frame. He was screaming for me to get out of his house.

M
Y
NERVES
were shot from not sleeping for days, my emotions were all over the board, and my body felt like I’d been beaten. As he got closer, I sank down into a defensive position on the ground and covered my head. It was the last straw, the limit to what I could take. As he stood over me, screaming about what was his, I began to cry. The exhaustion, the sheer impossibility of trying to survive on my own, had caught up with me. I told him that I was sorry, I didn’t know they were his, as I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around myself tightly, trying to protect myself from the nightmare my life had become.

“Calm down, kid. I ain’t gonna hurt’cha,” the guy had said in a slight Southern accent. “You’re a fresh fish; aren’t ya, boy?”

I couldn’t speak, so I just continued to stare at him. He looked rough, like I always imagined a homeless person to look, with cheap work pants and a sweatshirt of an unidentifiable color. The olive-green jacket he wore over the top appeared to be his best-cared-for article of clothing, but it hung off him like an old blanket. Late one night as we sat on a huge vent to stay warm, he told me about coming back from the Gulf War and that no one wanted him anymore. I understood exactly how that felt. After that, I couldn’t say that George took care of me exactly, but he let me follow him around and learn how to survive. It was an unspoken agreement between us, and even though he always called me “kid” instead of Jamie, I think he was glad for the company.

The thing that struck me most about George was the shrewd look in his tired eyes. Everything he did was calculated and carefully thought out. That’s why I never understood why he went after those guys that night. We’d been turned away from a soup kitchen and went around the corner to see if we could get any castoffs from a small deli. It was after midnight, and George said they should have just thrown out the stuff they couldn’t sell. As we cut through the alley behind the deli, George heard the trouble before I did.

“Damn,” he whispered and pushed me back behind a dumpster as he peeked around it. When we were still and hidden behind the dumpster, I heard the sound of men’s voices and a woman crying. George crept out from where we hid and watched for a few seconds. It looked as if he were trying to decide what to do. Then, he put a hand on my shoulder.

“You stay right here and don’t you move. You’ll just get in the way, kid,” he said, and I nodded, more scared than I had been for weeks in George’s company. He took a deep breath and walked out to face whatever was happening. I heard him tell the men in the alley to step away from the woman. I heard the men mocking George, calling him crazy and worthless. I heard them threaten George, who refused to back down and leave the woman to be hurt by them. I heard George being beaten to death as I sat like a coward in the hiding place he’d found for me. When he finally fell, lying on his back in the garbage in that alley, he was right next to the dumpster where I hid. Rather than helping George, I stayed where I was, terrified that they would find me. I watched George as he died, his face covered in blood and dirt, his eyes wide and staring accusingly at me.