Ripped (17 page)

“Don’t worry, Bax, we still have two apartments left to look at. One of them will be great; you’ll see.” Jaz squeezed my hand across the table at the diner, and I nodded and half-smiled.

This seemed to be the charade we had fallen into over the course of the morning. With every dump we had been shown through we had become more and more disheartened, and yet with every listing we crossed out, one of us would rise up and play the cheerleader for the other, lifting spirits and reassuring that the next one was going to be perfect.

“You know the third place we looked at wasn’t that bad,” Jaz said around a mouthful of burger.

I looked at her over the rim of my coffee cup. “Really? Not that bad?”

She shrugged. “Not that bad in comparison to the last two.” She grinned cheekily. “I mean there were no roaches or rats that came out to welcome us. There was an elevator and a security door.”

“A busted security door,” I reminded her.

“Okay so the door was broken … which is probably why the apartment was part of a crime scene.” Her shoulders shook as she sniggered behind her hand.

“Well at least they’d taken down the police tape.”

“And the agent did say they would make sure all the blood was out of the floorboards.”

“And plaster over the bullet holes in the wall.” I ran my hand through my hair as I leaned back into the booth.

Jaz may have had her mouth full of burger again, but her eyes sparkled with laughter.

“Is it just me, or is this one fucked up city?” I asked, shoving a handful of fries into my mouth. “I mean, really, how can they list a place like that and expect any one to want to live there?”

Jaz shrugged again and took another bite of her lunch. Her cheerleading was coming to an end, and I could see her mood slipping. It was my turn to take up the pom-poms. “These last two were the ones I really wanted to look at any way,” I told her. “The next one especially looks great.”

We walked in silence, our feet dragging, our minds lost in our own thoughts. I knew Jaz was disappointed that all eight apartments had ranged from awful to horrendous, and I couldn’t help feeling the weight of blame sit heavily on my shoulders. I needed another job. I had to earn more money. The apartments were all terrible because I couldn’t afford to provide anything better for Jaz.

I squeezed her into my side and she looked up, her vivid green eyes unable to hide her sadness.

“Next week will be better,” she said unconvincingly. “There are new listings all the time. It just wasn’t our week.”

I nodded and tried to take my mind off it by window shopping as we walked the streets of the Village. There were so many bohemian shops; I could see why artists, musicians and dancers would be drawn there. But then it didn’t make sense that some of the lowest-paying professions would be able to live somewhere that we found out of our price range.

“Look at this,” I said to Jaz, stopping in front of Melody Music store. “It looks like a throwback to the 70s.” From the window we could see that the store stocked primarily vinyl records, not CDs or even tapes, but vinyl, like our parents used to listen to.

“Do people still listen to records?”

I shrugged. “Apparently.” I grabbed her hand. “Let’s go in.”

It was like stepping back in time, but for some inexplicable reason I felt drawn to the store and everything it contained.

“Hey guys, how y’all doin’ today? My name’s Carter.” The accent was Southern but the guy looked like he belonged at Woodstock with long hair, a beard, and a rainbow-colored kaftan.

“We’re good,” Jaz said unconvincingly.

Carter smiled. “You sound like you need some music to lift your spirits. What are you in to?”

“Hmm, classical most of the time,” Jaz told him.

His brows rose as he led us toward the back of the store. “I don’t stock a lot of classical, but what I do have is all here.”

“That’s okay,” I told him. “We don’t have anything to play vinyl on; we were just looking around.”

“Pick one, and I’ll put it on for you. Anything to put a smile on that glum face.”

Jaz pulled out
The London Symphony Orchestra Plays Swan Lake
and handed it to him. “This is my favorite ballet.”

He nodded. “You look like a ballerina.”

“We both are,” Jaz said before realizing she’d just called me a ballerina. “I mean, we both dance.”

Music filled the store. There was a slight crackle but the depth of tone was remarkable. We were so used to hearing digitally remastered CDs but somehow the record rotating on the turntable had more soul. Carter had set the needle down on the most famous of pieces in the ballet, Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Little Swans,” and Jaz’s feet subtly moved in time.

“Do you know the dance?” Carter asked as he watched Jaz.

“Yes, she knows it,” I replied. “She’s dreamed of dancing it since she was three years old.”

Carter’s eyes lit up. “Well, I’m not much for ballet, but even I know of the dance with the swans all in a row. Can you show me?”

Jaz looked around the store. There was no one there other than us, so she kicked off her sneakers. The piece was half over but she knew exactly where it was up to and picked up the steps with ease. Starting tentatively, she soon let go of her nerves and finished the piece with gusto.

Carter applauded as she held the final position, and Jaz curtseyed with a huge smile that lit up her heart-shaped face.

“Thank you,” I said quietly to Carter as I shook his hand. “That was just what she needed. We’ve been apartment hunting all day and have come up empty-handed.”

“Any time, my friend, any time.”

We were just turning to leave when a frayed-edged yellow piece of paper pinned to a noticeboard caught my eye. It read ‘position vacant.’ This would have been too good to be true, but the notice looked old; the position was probably long gone.

Carter must have noticed where I was looking. “Yep, I’m still lookin’ for someone to help out around here. Do y’all know anyone?”

A chuckle erupted from my belly. “I sure do. Me.”

It was fate, or pure dumb luck. Either way, there was a job in this little record store that nobody but me seemed interested in.

“Pay’s not much,” Carter warned me as I read the notice for the third time. “But you can stay in the apartment upstairs. It’s been vacant for a while so might as well get some use out of it.”

Jaz scooted over beside me and read the notice. It was only a few days a week and every second weekend during the day, but I would’ve been happy to work for free if it meant we could live upstairs. “Are you sure you want to take on another job, Bax?” she whispered. “With this and the other two jobs you’ll be working nearly every day and most nights, too.”

I nodded. “Let’s take a look upstairs and then decide.”

Jaz’s squeal was the only confirmation I needed. The apartment wasn’t big by any means, and there was nothing more than a mattress and a chair in the entire room, but it was bright and clean, with polished floorboards, an open fireplace, and a recently renovated kitchenette.

“Are we smiling, little lady?” Carter asked from the doorway.

Jaz wasn’t just smiling; her face was nearly split in two as she bounced on the balls of her feet with excitement.

“I love it, but I’m worried about Bax working so many hours.” She looked over at me, her head cocked to the side. “If you want to do it that’s fine, but promise me if it gets too much for you, you’ll let me know.”

“I promise.”

“Well, this was my lucky day,” Carter said, clapping his hands together. “I’ve always been a fan of the arts and not only do I finally have help in the store so I can take a day off, but I have a pretty-as-a-picture, bona fide ballerina living here.” He backed out through the door. “I’ll leave you two to talk and look around some more. I’ve got all the paperwork for you to sign when you come back down, whenever that may be.”

Jaz leapt on my back, her arms chokingly tight. “Oh my God!” she squealed. “We have a home, Bax. We finally have a home.”

I didn’t want to wait another night to start living with Jaz. We had spent eight years apart, six years since she was supposed to move to New York, and one more day was one day too many.

We raced back to the pizzeria to tell Mama and Papa the good news.

“Oh, Mama, don’t cry. We’ll still come eat here all the time.”

“And Bax will still be working here a few nights a week if you want him to,” Jaz added, trying to stem the flow of Mama’s tears.

“I know, I know. You must do what your heart tells you is right.” Mama grabbed both my cheeks so hard I flinched, but I didn’t pull away. “You’ve been like my son, my flesh and a blood for eight years. I’m a gonna miss you, that’s all.”

Papa wasn’t any more composed than Mama. He dabbed at his eyes before pulling me into a bear hug and slapping my back over and over.

“I’m so grateful to both of you for taking me in. You’ve been my family since I moved here, and I can’t thank you enough.” I would miss them being nearby constantly, but Jaz was my everything, and to set up home with her was my dream finally coming true.

“What about Lucia?” Mama wailed. “Oh my goodness, she’s not here to say goodbye.” Mama’s hands flew to her chest. “She will be heartbroken.”

I shuffled my feet uneasily and glanced out the corner of my eye at Jaz, who gave me stink-eye.

“I’m sure I’ll bump into Lucia in the restaurant. She’ll be fine.” But I knew Lucia would be upset. We had never dated or even talked about it, but I knew from the look she would get in her eye or the way she kissed my cheek and held it a fraction longer than Mama and Papa did, that there were feelings there that ran deeper than friendship. I was lucky that those feelings had always remained unspoken and unexplored, because to have to tell her my heart belonged to Jaz, now and forever, would have put a strain on our friendship.

Jaz decided to pack up her things the following day while I was at work, and I think it was because she didn’t want me going to the little house where she was boarding and giving the old codgers a piece of my mind. She had done very well at keeping me from confronting the Baileys about locking her out, and now that we were moving, there would be no reason to ever go there again.

“Can you believe it?” Jaz spun in wide circles with her arms outstretched and her head tilted back. “I love this place. Love, love, love it here.”

We had stopped off on the way home and bought candles and a bottle of red to celebrate. Home—what a wonderful word that was. This was now our home, and just being here made me feel closer to Jaz than I’d ever thought possible. Mama had insisted that we bring pasta and calamari with us for dinner, and luckily there were a few plates and glasses in the kitchenette for us to make use of. As I poured two glasses of the cheap wine, I watched Jaz with glee as she spun on her toes on the beautifully rich polished floor.