Bedtime Eyes

JESSE

“She ain’t pretty. She’s okay, I guess, but she ain’t pretty at all.”

That was Jesse’s first impression of Coco. And to her, he looked like a little fiend. Just eleven years old, but over the coming months he would prove to be the cause of constant grief and pain.

Coco was looking at Jesse’s face as he jabbed repeatedly at his scrambled eggs with a fork, and already there was an uneasy feeling somewhere at the back of her mind.

Rick, on the other hand, was in a good mood. He had been happily swigging gin since early morning. But the very sight of the gin bottle made Coco feel sick after their heavy session the night before, so she was drinking iced water from a large pitcher instead.

“Ah, come on, look at her face. You can’t tell me she ain’t cute. I just can’t stop kissing her. And she’s so damn sexy, I can’t keep my hands off of her,” said Rick to his son, then kissing Coco again.

The smell of the alcohol on his breath made her feel sick and she barely managed to keep herself from retching.

Jesse looked at his father contemptuously and threw his fork down on his plate. He hadn’t touched his vegetables at all. He stood up from the table, and turned to Coco.

“I don’t eat vegetables for breakfast, okay? You got it?”

Coco was too stunned to reply. Jesse picked up his jacket and headed for the door.

“Hey, Dad. Don’t worry about me—I’ll get lunch at Alex’s place okay? You just have fun.”

The door slammed shut behind him, and Coco was left alone with Rick in the kitchen. She was relieved that Jesse had gone. She looked over at Rick, sitting at the table. He suddenly looked down shyly, downed his gin, then stood up and went into the next room. Feeling sexy, Coco went into the bedroom and got undressed, then slipped under the sheets wearing nothing but a tiny pair of panties, and waited for him. She knew that he wouldn’t be far behind, that he would follow her into the bedroom and want to continue where they had left off the night before.

This was the moment Coco enjoyed most after spending the night with a man for the first time: when you sober up the next morning and you’re over the initial excitement. It’s only then that you start weighing up whether you can actually get along with each other or not. And it is only when you are released from the extraordinary power of sexual curiosity that you can begin to properly appreciate each other’s body.

Coco looked herself over in the mirror. She brushed her hair back from her face with satisfaction. Yesterday’s makeup was almost completely gone, but she knew she was at the age when she looked most attractive without it. She buried her face in the pillow, and some of the lipstick smeared on it from the night before came off on her cheek.

She posed herself seductively on the bed and waited for Rick, but Rick didn’t appear, and after a while she started to get a cramp in her leg because of the unnatural position she was in. Eventually she got tired of waiting, and crept out of bed and peered around the door, only to find Rick standing in front of the washing machine, a glass of gin in his hand, watching his clothes spin round and round in the drum.

Coco let her breath out in exasperation. She considered herself to be an expert when it came to men, but there was no chapter in her version of the Sex Bible titled “Guys Who Wash Their Clothes After Sex.” The way it was supposed to be was that the first time she spent the night with a man, they would wake up the next morning, get some breakfast, and then he’d drag her back to bed again, staring deeply into her eyes as they made love, gently whispering his undying devotion and corny phrases about how they were made for each other.

“Is anything wrong?” she asked.

Rick dropped his glass with a startled yelp and turned around to face her.

“Did I surprise you?”

“A little…” he said hesitantly,

“Do you enjoy doing the laundry?” she asked, as she stooped to pick up the pieces of broken glass from the floor.

“Sure, a-a-a little…”

Rick was stuck for words, and for some reason, he reached in the washing machine, pulled out his wet shirts, and started wringing them out by hand.

Maybe he’s embarrassed, she thought to herself. How old had he said he was? With an eleven-year-old kid, he must surely be in his late thirties at least. So what could be wrong with him? It was too late to start being embarrassed after they’d already slept together.

“Come on,” she said, taking his hand and nodding toward the bedroom door. She led him into the bedroom and slipped under the covers.

Rick closed the window blinds and started taking off his clothes.

His hands were cold from the wet shirts, and as he began to caress the back of her neck, she could still smell the soap on them. Rick had been out of bed for a while so his body was colder than hers, but as he began to warm up, he gradually started to conform to her Sex Bible rules.

Rick and Coco had met each other for the first time the night before While their friends had been partying wildly in the club, the two of them had spent most of the evening talking quietly together and ex-changing intense looks.

Rick paid her lots of compliments, but that was nothing new to Coco—she was used to guys coming on to her. W h e n he left her at the bar to go to the toilet, he kept turning back as if worried that someone else might move in on her in his absence, and that was what attracted her to him. When he got back moments later—he had obviously rushed—he looked so pleased to find she was still there waiting for him.

Drinking seemed to ease Rick s nerves. Coco, on the other hand, was quite at home with this kind of situation; it was such a normal part of her everyday life that she even began to let her mind wander a little, wondering what sort of tired line he would come up with to try to get her back to his place when it was time to go home. But it was more out of curiosity than any sense of excitement. She was just taking it easy, savoring the start of yet another new love affair.

Rick drank like it was going out of fashion, and Coco found herself keeping pace with him. She used the opportunity to find out more about him so she could decide whether or not she was going to spend the night with him. While teasing and joking, she skillfully slipped in all sorts of personal questions.

Coco soon discovered that Rick wasn’t married. Well, that was a good thing, because she had no desire to sleep with married men. Not because she didn’t want to be a home wrecker: Coco just wasn’t interested in other women’s castoffs. Married men were so unimaginative in bed. There was no passion. It was always just sex by the numbers. Nothing made her skin crawl like a married man telling her he “couldn’t live without her.”

Rick could tell that Coco liked him and it was obvious that he was thrilled to have such a beautiful woman all to himself. And that made Coco feel good, too.

As they talked, he tickled her now and then, and she squealed excitedly like a little girl.

“If you come back to my place,” he told her, “I’ll tickle you from head to toe—with my tongue.”

That gave her some idea of the kind of lover he might be, and at that point she decided she would probably spend the night with him.

Then, when he tried telling her he was younger than he really was, she could tell it was a lie, and it put her off. It was the sort of thing she would expect from a woman, not a man, so she changed her mind. She didn’t want to waste her time. Experience had taught her that there was no point in starting an affair if it wasn’t going to be good.

Let’s get out of here and go to my place,” he finally said, as if the matter had already been settled.

“Maybe next time,” she replied flatly.

His face fell and he looked down at the floor, dejected. Coco could see that he was crushed, and she felt bad. She tried to console him by telling him that she didn’t sleep with anyone on the first date.

Yeah, right, she thought to herself.

But Rick fell for it.

He seemed to resign himself to the fact that he wouldn’t be taking her home, and dropped the topic of sex and started talking about his son, Jesse, instead.

With his head to one side and an almost embarrassed look on his face, Rick told her how Jesse was the most handsome boy in the world, and that they were more like friends than father and son.

That piqued Coco’s interest. She didn’t know any kids. Her knowledge of men was almost complete, but she knew nothing at all about young boys. She wanted to see Jesse so much that she suddenly decided it would probably be worth sleeping with Rick just to get the chance.

When she stood up, saying, “Okay, let’s go to your place,” Rick couldn’t believe his luck. After a moment of surprised silence, he leapt up out of his seat and hugged her.

“Thank you,” he blurted. He had no idea why she had changed her mind.

As soon as Coco walked through the door of his apartment, she told Rick she would like to meet Jesse. He was delighted. He opened Jesse’s bedroom door noiselessly and beckoned her silently.

“Isn’t he a good-looking boy?”

She didn’t know what to say. He had Asian features, and looked like a monkey to her.

“Yeah, mmm…” she replied, disappointed. She couldn’t tell Rick what she was really thinking, and of course she didn’t mention the part about the monkey.

She could tell that Rick was plastered just by the way he poured her drink. She watched him absently, deeply disappointed with the boy.

Sex with Rick turned out to be anything but disappointing, however, and she soon forgot all about Jesse sleeping in the next room and gave herself to the moment.

Rick spoiled Coco. He treated her like she was a little girl and she loved it. She was tired of the kind of love-hate relationships she’d always had with men when the relationship was equal.

Whenever they went out somewhere, there was never a moment when Rick wasn’t touching some part of her. And when she was falling asleep, he would keep tapping her cheek to keep her awake.

Everything was very simple with Rick—nothing was hidden. There were no sycophantic sweet nothings or psychological games, and Coco found that refreshing. Although she felt awkward at first, she soon found that with Rick there was no point in trying to preserve the love-struck pretense she usually used with other men. It was the first time she had ever felt good enough just to relax and be herself with a man.

After a while, she began to stay with Rick and Jesse on weekends, and it was not long before she came to hate Mondays because it meant she had to go back to her own place. Every Monday morning she would kick off Rick’s tired, worn-out bedcover and scream at the top of her voice, “I hate this bedcover and I hate leaving here.” And Rick would rub her back gently, like he would a little baby, to comfort her. Then she would calm down a little, lie back using his arm as a pillow, and fall asleep with a smile on her face.

Coco’s relationship with Rick was stable and comfortable, but when it came to Jesse there was never any shortage of surprises.

One morning Coco was in the kitchen making breakfast and Jesse told her he wanted raw eggs.

“Raw eggs? What are you, Rocky the boxer or something?”

Without a word, Jesse broke an egg into a bowl, drowned it in soy sauce, then threw rice in on top and started to mix it all together. Coco just stood and stared at the disgusting sight of him guzzling the whole bowlful with a spoon, the sticky mess turning his mouth yellow.

When Rick came in, Coco pointed wordlessly at Jesse.

Rick ignored her, instead turning gleefully to his son.

“Hey! Raw eggs and rice, right? Outstanding! Make some for me, too, will ya?”

Coco gave an involuntary shiver of revulsion as she watched them greedily slurping down their breakfast together.

“Baby, don’t you want some? Aren’t you hungry?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Jesse’s mama used to make this for us all the time. She’s Japanese, too, you know.”

Coco didn’t believe in God, but at that moment she couldn’t help crossing herself and praying for help.

She had already noticed that Jesse usually didn’t bother to use a knife and fork. It seemed that his mother had never really bothered to teach him about things like table manners. So when Coco saw Jesse grab a piece of meat with both hands one day, stuffing it into his mouth like a dog, she immediately ran into the kitchen to find him something to eat with. She searched the cupboards, but all she found was a single clean plate and fork. This house was simply not equipped for normal, everyday life.

Coco had always been taken to the best restaurants and she was used to spending time with well-mannered, sophisticated people. So eating with Jesse was a real headache. She could only hope that she never had to go out to eat with him.

“You’ve got to do something!” she screamed at Rick. “You can’t let him keep eating like that!”

Rick didn’t seem to mind it at all.

“Don’t sweat it, baby,” he said soothingly. “He can learn about things like table manners when he gets himself a woman.”

“Why doesn’t he ever stay with his mother?” she asked.

“He did at first, but after a month he couldn’t take it anymore, so he packed his stuff up, got on his bike, and came to live here. He told me every day was just fighting and arguments and that there was no fun at all. If I learned anything at all from being married, it’s that a bitching, whining woman is the most difficult thing in the world for a guy to deal with. And Jesse’s a guy, too.”

“But his manners are awful!”

“And whenever he wants to see his mama,” Rick continued, “he can go on his own: she lives right near here. But anyway, you don’t have to worry about it. Parents have to raise their kids and teach them manners.

That’s not your responsibility. You’re just here because you’re my girl, right?”

He kissed her in an attempt to bring an end to the conversation, but Coco’s mind was on Jesse and his part in their relationship.

All Coco had ever known was the simplicity of sex between a man and a woman. Nothing else had mattered to her before. But now, for the first time, she began to realize that there might be another type of relationship: far more difficult to understand, infinitely more complicated, and completely unavoidable.

Coco didn’t understand her feelings toward Rick. Looking at it objectively, Rick certainly wasn’t the sort of guy she would normally fall for. He drank so much that she was sure he was well on the way to terminal alcoholism, and would go numb from head to foot. He never seemed to savor the taste; it was more like a race, like he was trying to get drunk as fast as possible. And he made sure he never wasted a drop—he even sucked the whiskey off the ice cubes in the bottom of the glass.

Coco enjoyed drinking, too. But Rick drank so much that it hurt just to watch him. Because he was so used to consuming large amounts of alcohol, it was extremely rare for him actually to get drunk. Coco was sure it would take at least a couple of bottles of Bacardi to do the job.

That was Rick in a nutshell: he was a middle-aged drunk with a kid. And that made it all the more difficult for Coco to understand why she wanted to spend so much time with him and why she would go crazy every Monday morning when it was time for her to leave and go to work.

The sex was great, of course. Rick never failed to satisfy Coco in bed.

But she didn’t think that was the reason she stayed with him. She enjoyed sex, of course, but she could say with absolute certainty that sh had never been a slave to it. To Coco, it was just a pleasure shared between a man and a woman.

Rick could not be described as cool. Nor did he ooze sex appeal.

When they went to bed at night, Rick was always clinging to her, his arms and legs entwined with hers. At first Coco found it claustrophobic and irritating, but after a while she found she couldn’t sleep without it.

He was like a warm blanket covering her when she woke in the morning, and, like a kid with a comfort blanket, she had to have him with her.

One night when they were drinking and talking together in the apartment, Rick told her that his biggest problem had always been women, and that whenever he saw a good-looking girl, he couldn’t help turning around to look at her.

Cute, thought Coco.

Of course, whenever she saw a good-looking guy, Coco would turn to look at him, too. But then she would contrive to bump into him “by accident,” get close to him, and eventually get him into bed. Coco knew there was no way Rick could ever do anything like that. And then the ridiculous image of him watching his laundry in the washing machine floated back into her thoughts and made her smile. Rick made Coco laugh. And even when he had poured so much liquor down his throat that he was completely trashed, all she could do was scowl and then give him a resigned smile, the way a beleaguered but loyal daughter might treat a beloved but underachieving father.

Coco liked to think that she was the only one who could really appreciate Rick’s charm. His scruffy, unshaven face when he woke up in the morning, and his pitiful, sorry expression the day after they’d had an argument. Coco thought she had never seen such a pathetic face in her life. And when she was feeling really down, he never had a clue. He would always come out with some inane remark about the weather or last night’s ball game. These were all things that warmed her heart when she thought of him. And when she realized that Rick—just an ordinary guy whom no one else thought was special in any way—had begun to mean so much to her that she didn’t want to spend another moment without him, she knew that she was beginning to fall in love.

Coco laughed. It was unbelievable that she could be in love with a sloppy drunk! And as she thought about him, that sloppy, drunken face floated into her thoughts and she found herself weeping. She was beginning to see that maybe love wasn’t impulsive, that it wasn’t a pounding heart or some big, momentous event.

Maybe, she thought, it means crying just because he’s not there. She slapped herself on the forehead at how long it had taken her to figure that out. So maybe that’s it. For a moment it seemed mildly irritating, but then a warm glow began to spread over her.

One weekend, when Coco went to visit him, Rick was packing a suitcase.

“Hey, honey. What are you doing?”

Rick explained that his father was dying and that he would be going back to San Francisco for about ten days. He turned his attention back to the suitcase, humming happily to himself as he packed.

“Don’t you think it’s kind of thoughtless to be so cheerful?”

“Huh? You’ve got to be kidding me. This is the guy who walked out on my mother. He just ditched her, and I haven’t seen him since I was a kid. How do you expect me to feel sorry for him? Shit, I don’t even know the guy. All I know about him is that he’s an alcoholic.”

“Sounds a lot like you…”

“Hmm, I guess drinking runs in our family….”

A broad grin spread across Rick’s face.

“Aw, poor old Dad, I’ll raise a glass to him.”

Having given himself the excuse, Rick stopped packing for a moment and poured himself a drink. Jesse was next to him, quietly putting toys into a bag.

“Is he going, too?”

“Yeah, baby, sure he is.”

“What about school?”

“Hey, I know he’s got to go to school, but who’s going to look after him? I told his mama that I had to go away, but she just went nuts on me. Said she wouldn’t look after him unless I gave her two hundred bucks. Shit, it’s not like I can’t afford it—a couple of hundred bucks ain’t nothing—but I’m fucked if I’ll pay the bitch to look after her own kid. I’d rather take him with me and let him miss school for ten days.”

Jesse said nothing. He just listened. Coco wanted to say, Let me take care of him, but she kept her mouth shut. She knew there was no way she could get along with Jesse on her own. He’d surely refuse to rely on her for anything. Coco thought Jesse was like a puppy—she knew he wouldn’t let anyone but Rick get close to him.

But two hundred dollars? That was ridiculous! How could anyone ask for that sort of money just to look after a kid for ten days? Maybe the woman had forgotten that Jesse was her own child? But however you cut it, the fact remained that she was happy to ditch her own son for the want of a lousy couple of hundred dollars. What sort of a woman was she? Who the hell did she think she was?

Coco herself was basically scared of kids. She had no desire to have any of her own, and with a body like hers, with men falling at her feet, she couldn’t imagine giving that all up to be pregnant. But while she had no interest in becoming a mother herself, she couldn’t understand anyone having a child and then abandoning all responsibility toward it.

The more she thought about Jesse’s mother, the angrier she became.

“I’ll look after him,” she blurted out.

There was a brief silence. Speechless, both Rick and Jesse stopped what they were doing to look at her.

“Are you sure?”

Rick looked like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

Jesse stared, too, a hard, piercing stare that made Coco flinch.

“Y-y-yeah, s-sure I’m sure,” she stammered.

Now there was no going back. Before she could regret her offer, Rick had her in his arms.

“Baby, you’re amazing. What would I do without you? Damn, I’ve got good taste in women!”

He was clearly delighted.

“Now, Jesse, you see you behave yourself for Coco, you hear? And if she brings any guys home with her, you just let me know, okay?”

Suddenly Rick’s face changed.

“You know, thinking about my daddy like this, it makes me feel real sad. He was just a drunken bum, but he was a good dad.”

A few moments later, Rick’s sadness had turned to grief and he began to mourn his father, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t dead yet.

Coco expected Jesse to refuse to stay with her.

“So, will you be okay with me staying here?” she asked him.

“Sure,” he replied, “but it ain’t gonna be easy for you.”

It was times like this when Coco found it hard to like Jesse. She loved men—all men—and she thought that maybe someday she might even care about Jesse, too. But sometimes she found it hard to convince herself.

Rick was leaving on a flight to San Francisco the next morning, but instead of finishing his packing, he started drinking. Coco was beginning to feel nervous about being left alone with Jesse, so she started drinking, too. It would be ten days until she saw Rick again, and already she was hurting.

“I wonder if I’ll be able to sleep at night?”

“Once Jesse goes to bed it will be nice and quiet. You’ll be fine.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. What I mean is, will I be able to sleep if you’re not here with me?”

Rick took her in his arms and held her tight.

His face looked suddenly serious, and he asked, “Will everything be okay at work?”

“Sure, that’s no problem. It’s only during the day, anyway.”

She sighed and gave him a weary smile.

“So how did I end up falling in love with a guy like you, huh? I had dozens of guys hanging around me, opening doors and following me around…

“Oh, my poor old daddy!” wailed Rick playfully. She knew he was trying to change the subject.

He held her close again, and Coco winced as she felt the rough stubble on his chin scraping painfully against her cheek.

When a woman falls in love with a man, she mused to herself, she’ll forgive him just about anything.

And so Coco and Jesse were left alone together.

Coco’s friends were all very interested to see what would V happen, and one by one they came to visit her to see how she was coping. Like Coco, they had never had anything to do with kids before, so they called in regularly. It was like taking a trip to the circus.

For his part, Jesse made no attempt to get along with Coco, and apart from when it was absolutely necessary, he hardly spoke to her at all. He sat in a corner of the apartment like a caged animal, listening to his music.

Coco decided that the least she could do was feed him. After her workday was over, she still had to go shopping and then cook when she got home. One day, Coco was expecting her friend Kay to drop by, so she started cooking a roast. As the wonderful smell of the beef roasting in the oven filled the apartment, Coco began to feel blue, sad that Rick wasn’t there to share it with them and sad that the roast would disappear without him ever seeing it.

Coco missed Rick. When people care for each other, she thought, they want to talk to each other about their thoughts and feelings, and about the things that happen to them each day. But when there’s no one there to listen, when you can’t tell them those things, that’s when you start to feel lonely.

Coco had only spent the weekends with Rick, but now weekends were no longer enough. Until now, she had never met a guy she wanted to spend much time with. She had no desire to share activities like brushing teeth, taking an afternoon nap, or shopping for clothes. The guys she went out with always brushed their teeth before their dates with her. And they always picked out their own clothes. Seeing Rick wandering around the apartment with a toothbrush hanging out of the corner of his mouth was an entirely new experience for Coco, and there was no difference for her between his brushing his teeth and their making love—they were both as important. So did this mean that sex and brushing your teeth were more or less the same kind of thing? Coco blushed at the thought. Since Rick had been away, she had nearly made the decision to give up her apartment and move in with him.

“Coco!”

The sound of Jesse’s voice brought her out of her reverie.

“What are you making?”

“Roast beef,” she replied.

“Oh, okay…” he mumbled.

Roast beef was Jesse’s favorite. This was the first time in her life that Coco had ever considered cooking to please someone. She had begun to make something every day that Jesse would like. When Rick was there she didn’t need to make any effort—as far as he was concerned, whatever Coco made was the most delicious meal he had ever eaten. Even if she served up a burned omelet, Rick would wolf it down greedily, as though it were his last meal. As only a father can, he also made sure that Jesse ate it, too. But now Coco didn’t have Rick to depend on.

“I’m going out for a hamburger,” Jesse announced.

She was washing vegetables, and she froze at his words.

“I need some money.”

She felt as though the whole world was turning black before her.

There was a long pause, but she finally managed to find her voice.

“Why?”

“I want a cheeseburger, that’s why.”

Coco tried to control her anger, but she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking as she took a five-dollar bill from her purse.

“My mama’s a great cook,” said Jesse, blowing a bubble with his gum and popping it.

“What sort of thing does she make for you?” asked Coco, her voice shaking, too.

“Raw eggs and rice,” came the reply.

Coco turned back toward Jesse and threw the money at him. Grinning, he bent down, picked it up from the floor, and walked out the door.

Coco opened the oven door, took the meat, and threw it angrily into the garbage can, beef juices splashing all over her and the kitchen. As she wiped her face, she wondered what the hell she had done to deserve Jesse—she couldn’t believe that anyone would want to hurt her so much all of the time.

The doorbell rang. It was Kay.

“Hey, what’s going on? The meat do something bad?”

Coco slumped down into a chair and put her head in her hands. She still had grease all over her fingers, and now there were bits of meat and fat all over her face and in her hair, too.

“What the hell have I done?” she wailed in despair. She suddenly realized that nobody had ever insulted her the way Jesse had, and as the anger welled up inside her, she started to cry.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” asked Kay, rushing over to put her arm around Coco’s shoulders.

Sobbing, Coco told her about the way she was looking after Jesse and trying to cook him something he would like, but how every night he would take great delight in upsetting her, making her feel used, grinding her feelings into the ground.

“He’s a child. What do you expect?” said Kay, wiping the table a paper napkin to mop up some of the gravy.

A child? Fuck! Was that the way children behaved? Is that what they were really like?

Coco felt like she was going to explode. There was nothing special about cooking for someone. People did it every day. But not Coco. It wasn’t in her nature to cook for someone else.

“I don’t want to try to be his mother. He’s Rick’s kid. I’m just trying to feed the little bastard.”

“But that was your choice,” said Kay matter-of-factly.

Coco was dumbstruck. She couldn’t say anything. Kay was right. If she wanted to live with Rick, she had to accept that Jesse was part of the deal.

“Of course, I don’t know much about this shit, but aren’t kids just like that anyway? Don’t they do whatever they want without thinking about it first? And especially a kid like Jesse, who has never had a mother to teach him right from wrong. But you know, everybody’s asking the same question, girl. Why are you sticking with this guy? I mean, he’s got a kid and all. And when did you start being his maid? Come on now, tell me the truth. What are you doing? Is it curiosity? Are you just doing it to be nice or what? Guys like him with a kid in tow—can he really be all that special?”

Coco didn’t know how to put her feelings for Rick into words. She had never been in love like this before and she couldn’t explain it. She was confused. When it was just sex, she found that relationships with men were very easy. But when they started to become a part of everyday life, things were much too difficult. Of course there was sex in everyday life, too; the hard part was learning to deal with the toothbrush side of things.

“You’re just not used to kids. That’s all it is,” said Kay.

She was trying desperately to lift Coco’s spirits. Kay and Coco had been close for many years now, sharing their deepest secrets with each other, and now that they were adults there was little need to talk about the details. Kay just understood. Kay could sense that for whatever reason, Coco was falling deeply in love with Rick. Coco wouldn’t admit it, of course. It was too embarrassing for her.

“I think I’m just feeling uptight,” said Coco. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, I know you’re in love with Rick, okay? But what about the kid? What are you going to do about him? If you don’t think you can put up with him, you shouldn’t let yourself get in too deep.”

“Okay, I admit it—I don’t like Jesse. For one thing, he’s not mine.

His mother is some woman that Rick was in love with before me. Even worse, he’s living proof that Rick screwed her. But Jesse’s mother has dumped him, so if I care for Rick, I’ve got to accept that boy, too. Right now all I want to do is make Rick happy. I love telling him jokes and making him laugh, and I love teaching him stuff he doesn’t know. I love giving him a good time in bed, and, really, looking after Jesse is just another part of that—it’s just something I have to do.”

Kay didn’t believe a word of it. She couldn’t understand how a girl like Coco whose self-centered attitude was one of the things that made her so attractive, could suddenly become so obsessed with making someone else happy. It just wasn’t like her.

“Aren’t you the same girl that used to look down on people who fell in love like this?” asked Kay.

“All right, don’t rub it in.”

“I can’t believe you’d put raising a child and sex on the same level. It can’t be that much fun.”

Coco knew that Kay was right. She felt as though she was making a very big mistake. While Coco was deep in thought, Kay got up to make her a drink, and as she did so, Jesse came home, munching on french fries.

“Hi, Jesse. How ya doin’?” she asked.

“Um, okay.”

“Hey, I got you a present,” she said, handing him a package.

Jesse tore off the wrapping paper and found a toy plane inside.

“I didn’t hear you say thank you, Jesse,” said Coco.

Jesse moved toward Kay to give her a thank-you kiss and suddenly Coco felt a rush of affection for him.

“Thank you…”

Kay’s mouth fell open in disbelief. Coco looked at her, confused.

Kay’s cheek was wet. As he thanked her, Jesse had spit in her face. When she realized what had happened, Coco grabbed hold of him by the collar and tried to slap his face. Although Jesse was smaller than she was, he was a strong boy. She tried to hit him several more times without success, and finally caught him with such a hard slap that it sounded as though the bones in her wrist had broken. Jesse quit struggling. He just glared at her in silence. Blood began to trickle from his nose.

Coco couldn’t quite believe what she had done. She just stood there, rubbing her sore hand ruefully, and tears began to well up in her eyes.

Any regrets she had, however, evaporated when she felt Jesse kick her—hard, in the back.

Coco collapsed on the floor, bent over in agony. She pressed her hand into the small of her back in an attempt to reduce the pain. It hurt so badly that she couldn’t breathe. Jesse was insane. He wasn’t human.

Surely he’d been born by mistake. He was the devil incarnate.

From somewhere in the distance, Coco could hear Kay’s concerned voice calling her name. She looked up and saw Jesse standing over her, the toy airplane still in his hand. His face was expressionless and the blood was no longer just trickling, but pouring down his face, a startling shade of red.

A shiver ran down Coco’s spine.

“What did you do that for?” she demanded hoarsely. “Please, tell me. I don’t understand.”

Without an explanation from Jesse, Coco wondered how she could justify staying there any longer. Surely her love for Rick alone wasn’t a good-enough excuse. Why did she have to put up with all this when all she really wanted was to be with Rick?

“D-un-no.”

“What the hell do you mean, you don’t know? Don’t you know how to thank someone? Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to say thank you?”

“I did say thank you.”

“So why did you spit at her, for Christ’s sake? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know. My mama always used to do that to my dad.”

For a moment there was silence. Then Coco burst into tears.

Jesse went to his room and closed the door behind him, leaving a trail of blood that led from the kitchen to his bedroom door. The conversation was over.

When Coco had slapped him, she was sure her hand hurt more than Jesse’s cheek, but she had hoped it taught him a lesson. Now she realized that all she had done was hurt her hand.

“They must have really hated each other, Rick and his wife,” said Kay, gently rubbing Coco’s back. “How can people say all kids are born out of love?”

Coco shivered. Jesse may have been born out of love, but he had been brought up with hate. And Coco was the one who had to deal with that hatred. She wondered what Jesse was really like underneath it ail. She was frightened that if she peeled off the layers of hatred one by one, like peeling an onion, she would find nothing but hatred all the way down to his bone marrow.

For now Coco was able to avoid facing that fear by crying, but she knew she would not always be able to run away. She was grateful that Kay was there to comfort her, but she knew there would when she would have to face her fear alone, and the thought of it terrified her.

When you are kind to people, you expect kindness in return.

That was the way Coco understood the world. Hugs, kisses, compliments—there is a certain beauty in the idea of giving things away and expecting nothing in return. But at the same time, there is a distinct sadness in giving and not receiving. It was for that reason that Coco could not deal with Jesse. She could not show him love and affection if all she got back from him was hate.

Jesse didn’t spit at people anymore, but he continued to run out for hamburgers, ignoring the fact that Coco was cooking, and he treated her like an intruder. Although, to be fair, he treated all of her friends and all of his own friends in exactly the same way. Jesse treated people like objects.

Jesse’s friends were all adolescents, all on the verge of manhood, and when they were around Coco they had bashful smiles that young men get when they are around women. A couple of the braver ones would wink at or sneak a kiss from her as they came and went. They were at the age when they were naturally curious about the opposite sex, and to Coco’s amusement, they were particularly curious about her.

The boys were all much taller than Coco. They left their sneakers strewn all over the hallway and she noticed how much larger their shoe were than hers. As she tidied up their sneakers she began to think about Jesse and how small he was compared with his friends. He was dwarfed by them. They grew as rapidly as if they were willing themselves to grow. Jesse, on the other hand, had no interest in getting older and seemed almost to be suppressing his growth.

Sometimes the boys would watch videos in Jesse’s room. But when there was a love scene, even though it was nothing hard-core, just a part of the story, Jesse always got irritated, stood up, and walked out of the room, leaving his friends jeering behind him.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you, man? This is the best part,” they would holler, whistling at and cheering the girl on the screen, just as grown men did. Then Jesse would storm back into his room, screaming at them to get out.

At first, of course, they didn’t take any notice of him, but when they realized he was serious, they switched the video off, cursing under their breath as they left. Heading back to the hallway, some of the kids would say they were angry with him and swore they would never hang out with him again.

They were all just ordinary boys, all looking forward to leaving home and getting away from the influence of their parents as quickly as possible. But they weren’t able to do that just yet and they didn’t really know what to do with all their excess energy. In a way, they were still just kids, and when they got back home their mothers would be yelling at them to do their homework. At the same time, they were old enough to have their own social network, but because of the way he treated them, Jesse was on the verge of being shut out of it.

Once, Coco looked into Jesse’s room after the boys had left. He was lying facedown on the bed, thinking. He looked so vulnerable that she suddenly felt a twinge of sadness. But that sadness quickly turned to dismay as she realized it was the same vulnerability she saw in Rick when he was just sitting and smoking. Instinctively, she went in and sat down on the bed at his feet. They were unexpectedly large, and she noticed that there was a hole in one of his socks.

Coco just sat there. She felt as though she couldn’t say anything until Jesse spoke. She couldn’t break the silence. Minutes passed, and the silence became awkward, almost painful. She considered mentioning the hole in his sock, but when she looked up, she saw that his face was wet.

He lay there silently, tears streaming down his cheeks and off the end of his nose. His tearstained face looked just the way Kay’s face had looked when he had spat at her. Now it was as though he were spitting on himself.

Coco pulled off the sock without a word, and Jesse let her. He didn’t move. He didn’t make a sound. It was the first time she had ever touched him, and it pained her just to look at his bare foot. She couldn’t believe it was the same hateful thing that had bruised her back so badly. With the sock gripped tighdy in her hand, she stood up and left the room, closing the door silently behind her.

Coco went to the kitchen and took out the sewing box. She opened the lid and saw that all of the needles had been bent. Jesse. It couldn’t have been anyone else. She sighed. But she couldn’t bring herself to be angry at him for it.

Life’s an odd game. There are certain things that are instinctive to all living creatures—like eating and sleeping, the things you just can’t live without. And in the case of human beings, communication is an integral part of everyday life, too. Words.

As usual, Jesse treated Coco very coldly and that really irritated her.

But try as she might, she could not ignore him. He kept leaving the water running, too. At first she put up with it and said nothing, running to the bathroom or to the kitchen to turn off the tap, but Jesse would just go back and turn it on again. Eventually the very sound of running water began to irritate her, until she reached the point where she thought that she would go mad if it carried on much longer. In the end, Coco was forced to confront him.

“Stop leaving the damn faucets on, okay? When you’re done with the water, just turn it off!”

The tension between Coco and Jesse got worse and worse. She knew that it would be far better if she just sat him down and talked to him before everything broke down completely, and she also began to realize that she needed to employ a different tactic if she was to communicate with him properly. So eventually, out of sheer necessity, Coco started talking to Jesse more often.

“Will you be eating at home tonight, or going out?”

“Do you want a bath tonight, or a shower?”

“How much lunch money do you need?”

“Do you need me to sign the homework you left in your room?”

Even on this basic level, Coco found it incredibly difficult to communicate with Jesse. It was especially hard because she had always found it so easy to talk with anyone. But she knew she had to keep trying.

She continued to ask him questions every day, and although he just ignored her at first, gradually he began to respond.

“I’m having butter-fried fish with broccoli this evening. I suppose you’ll be going to get a hamburger as usual.”

“Nah, I’m staying in tonight. There’s something I want to watch on TV.”

“So you’re eating here tonight?”

“That’s right. Hey, have you seen Eighteen? Mr. T’s in it. It’s great!”

So that night they ended up watching a third-rate drama on TV together. Although she was bored by the show, Coco sat and watched it.

Every couple of minutes Jesse would burst out laughing and look over to see her reaction, the look on his face saying, See, I told you it was great, didn’t I? And Coco had to laugh, too.

There’s a knack to looking after kids, she thought to herself. But that just started her thinking about Rick because he was so easy to deal with.

Rick still wasn’t back. He had already taken quite a bit of time off work to go visit his father, and Coco was certain that his extended stay meant that his father’s condition must be getting worse.

From time to time, left together with Jesse in this strange atmosphere, she began to wonder if Rick had ever existed at all.

As their conversation increased beyond what was absolutely necessary, Jesse’s efforts to rub her the wrong way began to taper off a bit, too.

Which is not to say they stopped altogether. For example, once when she wanted to write a letter, she found that the points of all of her pens had been broken. And another day, when she was in the toilet, Jesse was outside with a screwdriver, trying to break the lock.

By now, Coco had started to see these things more as childish pranks than as acts of malevolence, and she stopped taking them so seriously.

Before she had felt that Jesse was trying to hurt her feelings, but now she comforted herself that he was just trying to irritate her. When she screamed in reaction to one of his tricks, he waited in great anticipation for her to start shouting at him. She no longer let every little jab hurt her; rather than thinking of it as psychological torture, she began to see it as little more than physical inconvenience. When it got to the stage where it was nothing more than a minor irritation, she resigned herself to simply accepting Jesse as he was.

“My mother is beautiful, you know,” he said while watching TV in the living room one evening.

“Really?” Coco said, not raising her eyes from the book she was reading, all the while thinking, Uh-oh, here we go again.

“Yeah, and she keeps her house clean, too,” Jesse continued. “She collects Japanese pottery with pictures on it…”

“You don’t say?” said Coco, feigning disinterest, but thinking bitterly, Sounds like she has no taste.

“Her house never gets messy like this,” continued Jesse.

Well, that’s because she never reads any books. And she’s ten years older than me— so of course we’re going to like different things.

“And she’s a great cook, too. My mama can do anything, she’s the best mother in the world.”

So why does your wonderful mother refuse to take care of you then? thought Coco. And if she’s such a great cook, how come all she can manage to throw together is some god-awful concoction of rice and raw eggs?

“I think my dad should go back to her.”

For the first time in quite a while, Coco lost her temper.

“Just shut up!” she shouted. “If your mother is so great, why don’t you get the hell out and go back to her? I love your dad and I volunteered to look after you out of the goodness of my heart. Not because I care about you, but because I love your dad. Do you even know what it is for a woman to love a man? Shit, you don’t know the first thing about women, so don’t start that with me. If you love your mother so much, what’s keeping you here? You lived with her before, didn’t you?”

Jesse glared at her. And while the echoes of her outburst were still ringing in her ears, Coco realized that he was just an eleven-year-old boy, after all. She immediately regretted everything she had said, and in her head she could hear Rick’s voice telling her how, after he’d split up with his wife, Jesse had lived with his mother and she had agreed to take care of him, but after a month he had packed up all his stuff, tied it to j his bike, and come to Rick’s place. Jesse had told him, “Daddy, I can’t live with her.”

So you might expect him to hate his mother, but Jesse never had a bad word to say about her. By putting Coco down all the time, maybe he was just trying to make himself believe that his mother was better than she really was. Maybe it was just a dream he desperately wanted to see come true.

When she was calm, Coco could sympathize with him no matter how hateful he had been. But she still didn’t think that, just because he was a child, it was okay for him to hurt people. She just didn’t think it was right.

She didn’t think she would ever have a child of her own. In fact, the very idea frightened her. What would happen if she fell in love with a guy, they had a child, and then they started hating each other? The evidence of their love would still remain. The child would be living proof, and the idea of looking back on lost love made her feel sick. There was nothing worse than remembering the feelings you used to have for someone you now hated.

Rick accepted Jesse one hundred percent. And Jesse still loved his mother. Coco wondered why blood ties were so strong, and how it was that sexual bonds between a man and a woman could be so weak by comparison. It seemed to her that blood ties could easily break down walls of hatred, and sometimes that they could almost make time stand still.

She was a little ashamed of herself for having told Jesse he knew nothing about women. Perhaps there was nothing more straightforward than the love between a man and a woman, and if that love was a physical love, a sexual love, two people could forgive each other anything.

For that reason Coco thought that if Jesse were a grown man and she were having a sexual relationship with him, then most of these problems wouldn’t even exist. Right now she needed a man. She needed a man’s body. A man to console her, a man to take her in his arms and comfort her.

“Someone’s at the door!”

The sound of Jesse’s voice brought Coco back down to earth again and she hurried to the door. There was Greg, her old boyfriend, standing on the doorstep looking sheepish.

“How did you find me? How did you know I was here?” she asked.

“Hey,” he shot back. “I’m the one with the questions. I thought we were friends, but I had to hear it from Kay that you had become a mother.”

It was typical of Greg to turn up out of the blue like this when she was feeling so down.

Coco invited him in.

“I hear you’re having a hard time with the kid.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Okay, just leave it to me. I’m a dad myself now.”

“I didn’t know you had a kid!”

“Sure, I even had to marry the mother in the end!”

Greg smiled and gave her a wink. Instantly, Coco began to feel at ease

“Hey, man, how ya doin’?” Greg called out in greeting to Jesse.

Jesse looked apprehensively at Greg’s large, muscular frame. Coco couldn’t help laughing to herself as she went into the kitchen to make them some drinks. Jesse’s usual tough-guy routine had suddenly vanished—he couldn’t get away with it in front of someone like Greg.

Greg’s size belied a relaxed, laid-back manner, and he was one of the few men Coco enjoyed spending time with even after they had split up.

When she came back with the drinks, the two were companionably en-grossed in a TV game. Whenever Jesse swore at him, Greg just roughed up his hair and swore back. It was the first time Coco had seen Jesse this happy, and the first time she had actually seen him behaving like a normal child.

Coco smiled as she watched the two concentrating on their game.

Anybody who saw them might mistake them for a close, happy family, when they really didn’t know each other at all. There were no blood ties between any of them, and the only link between Greg and Coco was their feelings for each other.

Coco felt as though she had been rescued.

“Okay, I think it’s time for all good children to be in bed,” said Greg finally. “How about you go brush your teeth?”

Jesse didn’t look too happy about it, but Greg moved over to the table and sat down with Coco.

“He’s just a normal boy,” he said when Jesse had gone.

“Greg, you’ve just met him for the first time today. That’s why you think he’s normal. But I’m with him every day, and he’s not like this most of the time. I can’t sit and play video games with him all day, can I?”

“Like I said, he’s just a normal boy. He’s just sulking,” said Greg, savoring his glass of Crown Royal. Coco remembered how much he loved that particular whiskey, and how, when they were together, she automatically poured him a glass when he came by to see her.

“I find it really easy to fall in love with guys,” she confessed. “And sex just seems to solve so many problems—after sex, a lot of the crap just disappears.”

“But you don’t need sex in a relationship for it to be good, do you?”

he replied, glancing up at her. “Take us, for example. You still enjoy being with me, don’t you?”

Coco paused for a second, then nodded.

“And since we split up, you and I haven’t made love, but from time to time when I think about you I start smiling and I just can’t stop.”

Coco burst out laughing.

“Greg—you’re still in love with me, aren’t you!”

“Of course I am,” he replied. “Platonic love is such a sad thing.”

The whiskey was making Coco feel warm and relaxed.

She laughed and said, “I love you, too.”

“Thanks,” said Greg. “Hey, why not show the kid a bit of love, too?

Love him like a brother, the same way you love me?”

It was a new way of looking at the situation. Greg had always had the ability both to surprise and delight Coco with his spin on life. It was one of his talents.

By this time she was feeling much better. She knew how lucky she was to have a good friend like Greg so close by.

They laughed and drank together till it was late, talking about their friends and their jobs. To Coco it felt as though it had been a long time since she had been this happy, and she thought how much more fun they might have if they could finish the evening by falling into bed together.

But as soon as the thought entered her head she realized it was wrong, and she crossed her legs tightly, defending herself from her urge to move closer to him.

It was obvious that Greg knew Coco was interested, but he pretended he didn’t notice, so they sat together all evening, just enjoying each other s company until it was time for him to leave.

At the door, as he was about to say good-bye, Greg had the same sheepish look on his face he’d had when he had arrived earlier that evening.

“Even if it has to be platonic love, we’re still allowed to kiss each other, aren’t we?” he suggested with a grin.

Coco realized that he had seen through her attempt to disguise her feelings for him, and she felt her face burning with embarrassment. She tried to think of something to say, but before she could open her mouth she felt Greg’s lips pressed tightly against her own.

They kissed each other passionately, hungrily, and it was several minutes before they managed to pull themselves apart.

“I wonder if this is against the rules?” he asked her, and he chuckled to himself as he turned to leave.

Coco stood at the door and waved good-bye to Greg. She didn’t feel even the slightest bit guilty. The whiskey was still spinning around in her head, making her feel dizzy and a little tired, but it was a nice feeling. She tried to be serious but a dirty smile came over her face, embarrassing her even more, and she found herself chuckling as she closed the door behind her.

Coco screamed. Jesse was standing there pointing a gun at her.

For a moment she was paralyzed with fear and couldn’t say a words but she quickly realized that the pistol was just a toy.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she yelled. “Don’t frighten me like that, do you hear?”

Jesse stood motionless in front of her, his lips taut with rage, and he glared at her through narrow eyes, accentuating his Japanese features.

“Put the damn gun down, will you! I don’t like it.”

“What did you do?” demanded Jesse menacingly.

“What?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, you bitch!”

Jesse’s face was ghosdy white and his hands were shaking. Coco suddenly realized what he was talking about and with a barely stifled laugh she said, “It was just a kiss.”

Jesse pulled the trigger. There was a loud bang and a toy bullet shot out of the barrel of the gun and hit Coco’s hand.

“All right now, that’s enough. That hurt.”

“I’m telling my dad,” he retorted.

Uh-oh, that might be a problem, she thought, rubbing the back of her hand ruefully. Of course, she hadn’t slept with Greg, but she had spent a very enjoyable evening with him. More important, though, she had invited a man into the apartment and he’d stayed late into the night.

If Rick found out, she knew he wouldn’t be happy about it.

“You’re jealous, aren’t you?” said Coco, trying to change the subject.

She waited for Jesse’s reaction. To her surprise, his expression changed from tight-lipped anger to pouting confusion.

“Greg’s just my friend. Surely I don’t need to tell you that friends kiss each other, do I? Like this…”

She leaned forward and kissed him on his cheek.

Jesse just stood there in stunned silence, but as soon as he saw that Coco was smiling, his face went bright red and he ran back to his room.

Coco was surprised at his reaction, but she thought it was sweet and she felt close to him for the first time since they had been living together.

It wasn’t a strong feeling and it was far from love, but she remembered what Greg had told her: “Love him like a brother.”

And that was the moment she decided it was time to bring her stuff over to the house and move in.

In the day Coco moved her stuff into Rick’s house, she got a call from him. She expected him to be devastated over the loss of his father, but he sounded surprisingly cheerful,

“Hey, babe, how you holdin’ up?” she asked, concerned.

“Well, we all thought Dad was breathing his last but somehow he’s made a complete recovery. He’s even started complaining that he wants some booze! So I decided to go back to my mother’s place, and me and my brothers went out to the club where we used to hang out. Then I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to take a holiday, so I decided to stay here for a while. How’s Jesse?”

“He’s fine,” she replied shortly, feeling like a fool for having been so worried about him.

Rick told her he would be back in a few days, and hung up without the hint of an apology.

The hell with him, she thought, and began to unpack.

Coco began to wonder if Rick really loved her. When they first met he had seemed so anxious to make sure she was happy, but there was none of that in his phone call. While she was left at home worrying, he was taking it easy with his family. He was oblivious to what she was going through, and although that was one of the things she loved most about him, she was still taken aback. Anyway, he would be home again in a few days, and then the uncomfortable situation with Jesse would be easier to handle: when Rick came home she could go back to being a baby and he would look after her.

“Your dad will be back in a few days,” she told Jesse.

“Uh-huh,” he replied disinterestedly, opening up one of her boxes.

He was more interested in finding out what she had brought with her than helping her to unpack.

During the past few days, much to her surprise, Jesse had begun opening up to Coco. When she came home after work, he sat slumped in a chair across the room and watched her make dinner. Every now and then something would happen—like one day, the steaks she had been preparing disappeared. She searched frantically but couldn’t find them anywhere. Then, with an impish grin, Jesse motioned for her to follow him to the bathroom. Sure enough, there they were, stuck to the wall like a couple of giant red amoebas. When she turned around to yell at him, Jesse had already run away. As tired as Coco was of his pranks, she found herself gradually getting used to them. He was still rude to her and he still didn’t have any friends, but he finally seemed to be letting his guard down, and his tricks seemed to be aimed more at getting her attention than causing her constant irritation.

One day, Jesse said he wanted to cook dinner. Coco agreed because she knew that if she said no he would probably destroy the kitchen.

While he worked away, she spent almost an hour waiting nervously in the living room. Finally Jesse called out, “It’s ready!”

Coco went into the kitchen.

On the table was a plate. And on the plate there was a single potato.

Big plate, small potato. Sitting across the table from each other, they ate it together. Coco was starving, but because the potato was smothered in sour cream, she found it unusually satisfying, and they ate in silence as though they were savoring a rare gourmet meal.

It was through these experiences that Coco began to discover a little more about Jesse.

Greg was right—he was just a kid, after all. Coco suddenly remembered the time Jesse had kicked her and stood over her glaring with anger, but now it was as though it had never happened.

There was still friction between Jesse and Coco of course, but that was because Jesse didn’t really know how to behave like a child. Sub-consciously, kids play up to adults, and adults are usually happy to go along with it and give them treats like candy, toys, and kisses. But Jesse didn’t know how to show the sweeter side of his nature, so he didn’t reap the same rewards as normal children. In that sense, Coco felt Jesse wasn’t doing his duty as a child. She felt sorry for him because she had been playing the cute card since she was a little girl, and it had never failed to work for her. When Rick came back she planned to use those same tried-and-true techniques to make sure she got her own way again. She just wished that Jesse could pick up on some of her skills and use them himself.

That afternoon/after putting away all her stuff, Jesse and Coco decided to have a snack in front of the TV, so Jesse said he would make popcorn in the frying pan. Coco loved buttered popcorn. Jesse rushed to the kitchen before his favorite program started. Coco was searching through the cupboard for things to make Ovaltine for Jesse and a martini for herself.

The telephone rang. It was Greg. Coco was already in a good mood because she had finished moving in and put all her stuff away, and now she was even happier because Greg had called. So happy, in fact, that she started chatting and completely forgot about making their drinks.

Coco had been wanting to tell Greg that her relationship with Jesse was finally getting a little better. The sound of his voice, deep and smooth like chocolate, made her smile and he told her he was glad she was doing fine. It was always nice to hear Greg’s voice, so she didn’t notice when Jesse asked her how much butter he should put in the pan. A few seconds later she sensed something was wrong and looked up. Jesse was standing in front of her with the hot pan of sizzling butter only inches away. She froze in fear.

Jesse leaned forward and pressed the hot metal into the side of her face.

Coco screamed and dropped the phone, instinctively covering her face with her hands and crouching on the floor. She could hear Greg shouting from the receiver on the floor. Jesse was rooted to the spot with the frying pan in his hand.

After a few painful seconds Coco suddenly came to her senses. In a panic, she lunged forward, pushed Jesse aside, and rushed to the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror.

“Oh my god…” she whispered in disbelief.

An angry red burn stretched across her cheek to her temple. It looked like a piece of cloth that had got caught on a nail and been ripped apart.

“Sorry, Coco…”

Jesse had come in and was standing right behind her. When she heard his voice, she exploded with rage.

“Don’t you come near me!” she hissed. “I hate you! Do you hear me?

I never want to see your face again. You’re a monster and you can go to hell for all I care!”

Swearing and muttering under her breath as though she were possessed, Coco turned the tap on full and splashed cold water on her cheek to ease the pain.

When she finally calmed down, she remembered she had been talking to Greg on the phone. She went to the kitchen with a towel pressed to her face and found the phone hung up. On the table was a basket of untouched popcorn.

Coco wanted to cry. She tried to stifle the emotion but hot, angry tears poured down her cheeks as she took ice out of the freezer. Jesse had disappeared and she didn’t care where he had gone.

She spent the night with ice pressed against the side of her face, crying from the pain. Greg called again because he was worried about her, but she was so angry she could barely put two words together. She could no longer rationalize Jesse’s actions. He had scarred her face. Anywhere but her face! Her head reeled with despair.

The bond she had been working so hard to create between the two of them had snapped, and now Coco felt nothing but hatred for Jesse.

He was too immature to understand the kind of love where a smile could be rewarded with another smile.

Coco loathed Jesse with a passion.

The next morning, Coco was awakened by a large hand gently rocking her shoulder. She was exhausted because she had been crying all night and the ice had melted, leaving a large wet spot on the sheets.

“Hey, baby. How you doing?”

It was Rick. She heard him put his bag under the bed. She had longed for him to come back, but now that he was here, she was too exhausted even to smile.

“Rick…” she said weakly.

Tears began to well up in her eyes again, and as they poured down her face, she almost forgot why she was crying.

Rick thought she was crying because she was so happy to have him back, and taking her chin in his hand, he lifted her face toward his to kiss her.

“Jesus, what happened to you?” he exclaimed. “How’d you get that? Baby, are you okay?”

Somehow Coco managed to tell him what had happened. There was no other way to explain the hideous scar on her face.

If it had been one of my fingers, I could have covered for you, Jesse, she thought.

Rick’s face darkened with rage.

“Jesse!” he boomed.

At first Jesse didn’t respond but after a while, he hesitantly appeared still dressed in his pajamas.

Rick stood glaring down at him. Jesse didn’t look up.

“Why did you do it?”

“Don’t know.”

“It was an accident, wasn’t it? Tell me it was an accident.”

Jesse didn’t reply.

“You didn’t mean it, did you? It was just a mistake, wasn’t it?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Goco could see Rick’s blood boiling over. Unable to speak, he took off his belt, made Jesse lie facedown on the floor, and started beating him. At first Jesse endured the pain in silence, but as the beating continued, he began to cry out, louder with each successive lash. Rick took no notice of his cries and swung the belt harder still.

Coco looked on dispassionately. She felt completely unconnected to what was happening. In fact, as far as she was concerned, the blame lay squarely with Rick and his ex-wife, who had never considered the con-sequences of their actions. She knew it must hurt Rick to beat Jesse, but she felt that his pain was compensation for his mistakes. As he swung the belt, Coco’s eyes were on Rick, not Jesse.

Keeping ice on the burn seemed to be working, and a few days later the scar on Coco’s face was beginning to fade. But each time she touched it, no matter how gently, she felt that deep inside there was a deeper wound that would take much longer to heal. Now that she had time to think about it, she understood that Jesse had been jealous when she was on the phone with Greg. But surely no one had the right to feel jealous about someone he could never have a physical relationship with.

Jesse knew nothing about her. And that made her hate him all the more.

Why couldn’t he have simply tried to get her attention by smiling and saying, Hey! Listen to me, too! He wasn’t a baby anymore; in another four or five years he would start going out with girls. Coco wondered if it was possible for kids who had been brought up by parents who hate each other to grow up normally. Since she had completely given up on Jesse, she just hoped that he would find himself a girlfriend and leave home as soon as possible.

A baby. That’s what she was. She wondered how much difference there was between a real baby and the way she acted when she was with Rick. Jesse hadn’t spoken a word to her since his beating, and that was just fine as far as Coco was concerned. She found that once she had decided to hate Jesse, she couldn’t stop. Everything he did annoyed her.

Even the sound of him locking the bathroom door to take a shower disgusted her. What was he thinking? Was he really stupid enough to believe that anyone in their right mind would want to see him naked? The more she hated Jesse the uglier she herself felt, but there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Rick was completely unaware of the way she felt. Coco and Jesse hadn’t been getting along together when he left for San Francisco, so as far as he knew, nothing had changed. He was oblivious to the fact that they had begun to understand each other a little while he had been away.

Rick had a childlike innocence that Coco found reassuring and comforting, but that same innocence meant he was quite insensitive to the atmosphere of hatred in the apartment. Maybe that was the reason he had been able to put up with living with his ex-wife for over ten years.

Coco couldn’t stand that atmosphere, but she knew it was impossible to get rid of Jesse, so to stop herself from going mad she clung to Rick more than ever. And because she was always hanging on him even when they were with other people, rumors started to spread that Rick had Coco on a leash. She wasn’t particularly happy when she heard what they were saying, but what could she do? Forcing Rick to keep his attention on her was the only way she could deal with her emotions and find any peace of mind.

Rick was more than happy with the situation: he had a beautiful woman fawning over him, much younger than he was, and he wore her like a medal. He seemed just as absorbed in her as she was in him and even his coworkers were jealous. From the outside, Rick and Coco looked like the perfect couple, but in reality her mind was always full of hate. She loved him, of course, but behaving like this had never been her way of loving men.

Jesse changed, too, possibly because of the way Rick and Coco behaved toward each other. He had been very quiet since the day Rick had beaten him, but when Coco was in the kitchen Jesse made an effort to stay close to his father.

One evening, tired of reading, Coco headed to the bedroom only to find Jesse and Rick sleeping in the bed. She felt a hot flash of rage and dropped the book she had been carrying. Rick was fast asleep and didn’t stir, but Jesse woke and watched her through half-open eyes, which she thought made him look sly and calculating.

“Hey, that’s my place!” she hissed.

Jesse got up very slowly and went back to his room without a word.

There was a dip in the mattress where he had been lying. Coco lay awake, trembling with anger and frustration. She didn’t know what Jesse was up to, but the bed was warm where he had been and that irritated her all the more.

Rick woke up to find Coco beside him and pulled her close.

“Jesse was sleeping here, you know,” she told him seriously, as though she were reporting a crime.

“Yeah?” he replied, disinterested.

Thinking about it, she realized it was quite normal for a boy to go to sleep next to his father. But this was Jesse. If it were any other child, maybe it wouldn’t have bothered her. But Jesse was different.

Rick, who had no idea what she was thinking, pulled her closer. She tried to push him away but he was much stronger than she was and seconds later he had taken off her clothes and thrown them out of bed.

Normally Coco felt there was nothing more important than being in bed with Rick and making love, but that night she was distracted and couldn’t concentrate.

The most frustrating thing was that even while they were making love, she couldn’t get Jesse’s face out of her mind.

The way Jesse tried to stick to his father was not normal. When they went out together, Coco wrapped herself around Ricks arm and Jesse always held on to the other side. Coco would glare at him behind Rick’s back, and when Jesse noticed her reaction he would smile triumphantly. However much she thought about it, Jesse was not a little kid anymore, so the way he behaved was just plain weird.

Rick was happy, of course, because they both made such a fuss over him.

One thing was clear, though—Jesse was doing it to annoy Coco.

Jesse was very careful not to leave Coco and his father alone together, and when she caught him sitting on Rick’s lap, her frayed patience finally ran out and she snapped.

“You look like a couple of homos,” she exclaimed.

Rick looked amused.

“Who you callin’a homo?”

Coco pointed accusingly at them.

She was furious, but Rick just dismissed the comment as nonsense.

“Daddy, will you buy me something?” said Jesse, gazing up at Rick with his big, brown eyes. “And can we go somewhere together next week, too? Can we, huh?”

Coco just stood there. There was nothing strange about a kid trying to get his dad to pamper him, but Jesse was flirting with Rick like a woman would. She didn’t know whether to pity or despise him. She felt a cold shiver running down her spine.

Coco bit her lip and left the room in defeat. Was she really jealous of Jesse? There was no doubt that Jesse had been jealous of her when she had been talking to Greg on the phone, and now it seemed that he was having his revenge. Jesse was a little devil, and it no longer mattered to her that he was just an eleven-year-old kid. He had challenged her, and now he was the enemy.

Eventually, Jesse refused to even let go of Rick. He was always touching him somewhere. The only time Coco felt Rick was hers was when she was making love to him. In a way, that gave her a sense of victory because she had a physical relationship with Rick that Jesse could never have, but at the same time she was choked with jealousy because the same blood ran through Rick’s and Jesse’s veins, and that was something she could never have.

Luckily, Jesse’s efforts began to fail sooner than Coco had expected.

He had no real experience of getting close to anyone, so when he tried it just didn’t seem natural. Even Rick began to feel uncomfortable with Jesse hanging all over him all the time: he was too old to sit on his father’s lap and cuddle. When Coco saw Rick push Jesse away as he tried to put his arms around his father’s waist, she was jubilant. But at the same time she hated herself, disgusted by the satisfaction she derived from seeing Jesse hurt.

Jesse didn’t know what to do. He just stood there with his head down. Rick wasn’t even aware of what he had done. He had pushed him away without a second thought, and seeing him standing there, he tousled his hair as if to ask him what his problem was. He was totally unaware of what Jesse was thinking or feeling. Jesse looked relieved for a brief moment and turned to leave, but when he caught Coco looking at him, he turned away from her. He seemed to know that his plan was beginning to fall apart.

Once in a while Coco felt as though the whole situation wasn’t serious at all, that it was actually pretty funny. And looking at Rick, sweet, oblivious Rick, it was impossible to imagine that he had a son and a girlfriend who were constantly hatching vengeful plots or underhand schemes behind his back. When she had that attitude she could finally begin to relax and feel loved again. But, later, when she was doing something like washing up the dishes in the kitchen, she would suddenly think of Jesse and her optimism would fail, crash to the floor and burn.

One day the doorbell rang. Coco opened it and found a woman standing there.

“Hi!” The woman smiled as if she assumed she was expected.

Coco was sure she didn’t recognize her and struggled to find the words to reply. Apart from her friends coming to visit, it was the first time a woman had been to the house since she’d moved in.

“Mama!” cried Jesse.

Coco took another look at the woman’s face. She had thin lips and narrow eyes and she reminded Coco of a drawing of a peasant woman in an old picture book she’d had as a child. She was a little nervous, but as the woman was smiling so amiably, she let her in. To be more accurate, the woman walked right in.

“Oh, my baby!” she gushed, flinging her arms around Jesse.

What can this bitch be thinking? Coco instantly remembered the story about the two hundred dollars—it was this woman’s fault that Coco had been forced to take care of Jesse in the first place.

Even though she had refused to look after him, even for a few days, now his mother was hugging him and telling him how much she had missed him. Coco felt the woman was trying to flaunt her power and impress her.

Jesse looked puzzled, but gingerly put his arms around the woman’s neck. Sure, they were mother and son, but even to Coco there was something not quite right about the picture.

Rick came out to see what was going on, but as soon as he saw the woman, his face lost all expression.

“Hi, Rick! You look great,” she squealed.

Her high-pitched voice seemed to shake him back to life, and he offered her a chair. Then he introduced her to Coco, but his voice wasn’t the same as usual.

Coco smiled weakly and said hello, and the woman flashed a huge smile back at her and hurriedly told her not to worry because she didn’t love Rick any longer and she had only come because she was worried about Jesse.

Coco went to make them some drinks. All she could hear from the kitchen was the woman’s squeaky voice. Rick didn’t say a word.

When Coco returned to the living room with the tray of drinks, Jesse’s report card was on the table and the woman was screeching.

“Why are his grades falling?” she demanded. “Tell me! I can’t believe he’s doing this badly just because I’m not here to look after him.”

Coco felt like telling her that it wasn’t just Jesse’s grades that were the problem, there was a lot more besides, but this woman didn’t seem to know what was going on, and Coco didn’t think she had the right to know.

“You want to know why his grades are getting worse?” said Rick sarcastically. “I’ll tell you why. He doesn’t study, that’s why!”

She glared at Rick accusingly. He refused to meet her gaze but his tight-lipped expression and narrowed eyes betrayed his anger. It was the first time Coco had seen him with such an expression.

“So why aren’t you studying, Jesse?” barked the woman.

Jesse started to whimper. Coco simply could not believe what she was seeing. The little brat was playing up to his mother! Could it get any worse than this? At that moment Coco hated Jesse more than ever—more than she had believed possible. As far as she was concerned it would have been better if he had just come out with one of his usual bold, bare-faced lies: It’s okay, I’ll study hard from now on, Mama!

Rick had a sick, sarcastic smile of exasperation on his lips. Coco was frustrated by his silence, but Rick loved Jesse in his own way and he had already spent over a year looking after him alone.

Jesse continued to cry, but there were no tears in his eyes. It was just another one of his tricks, and that irritated Coco even more. Suddenly the woman turned to Coco as if she had just noticed that she was in the room and started talking to her.

“Please don’t worry about any of this. You see, the problem is I hate Rick. And it annoys the hell out of me when I think that I wasted ten years on him. I know it’s none of my business, but to be honest, I really can’t understand why you’ve moved in with him.”

Coco observed her calmly, taking no notice of the bile she was spouting. Her face actually wasn’t that bad, but the hatred that consumed her made her look twenty years older than Coco. Damn, she was ugly. Coco couldn’t bear to think that it was being with Rick that had, over time, made her so repulsive. She wore loud, unfashionable clothes that didn’t suit her and made her look uglier still. In fact, Coco felt sorry for her.

She was a pathetic human specimen.

Coco was amazed by the incredible effect hatred could have on a person. She shuddered when she realized that she herself was dangerously close to being consumed by the same passion.

“Damn! You’re nothing but a stingy, cheating prick!” spat the woman, as she continued her tirade of Rick s shortcomings.

It took a moment for Coco to process what she had said. She looked over at Rick, shocked, but he smoked his cigarette in silence. The woman continued to rant at him, Hecks of saliva flying out of her mouth. Coco found it hard to believe that a woman could treat a man she had once loved like this.

Finally, Rick spoke.

“You don’t belong here,” he said in a low voice. “Would you kindly leave?”

She had brought it on herself, but the woman turned pale and her lips began to tremble.

“No, I’m not leaving,” she retorted. “Jesse is my son.”

Jesse was looking down at the floor with his hands in his pockets.

Coco was seized with the impulse to rush over and cover his ears.

“Jesse, does she look after you right?” asked the woman accusingly.

Since she was having no effect on Rick, she had now decided to switch the direction of her attack.

“No,” replied Jesse.

Now it was Coco’s turn to hold back her anger.

“And does she cook for you?”

“No.”

“Does she ever wash your clothes?”

“No.”

“Well, how about your room? Does she clean your room?”

“No.”

Coco’s head was reeling as she listened to Jesse trying to get at her through his mother. It seemed that he just couldn’t stop the stream of lies. Coco began to wonder if he had the sign of Satan tattooed on the back of his head under his hair.

“I don’t think this young woman knows how to look after Jesse,”

concluded the woman with an air of authority. “I think I’d better take care of him from now on.”

“Coco has been doing just fine,” said Rick calmly. There was no anger in his voice.

“But you heard what he said. Jesse, you want to come home with me, don’t you?”

There was no reply.

“Honey, I’m living with a great guy now. You’ll like him. He can be your new daddy.”

Jesse remained silent. Rick held his breath, waiting for his son’s reply. The choice was his.

Coco’s heart was in her mouth. If Jesse agreed to leave, she would finally be free of the torturous burden she’d been struggling under for so many months.

The three adults waited anxiously for Jesse to speak. Each second seemed like an hour. Coco half expected him to try to get out of it by starting to cry again, but he finally answered.

“I think I’ll stay here for now.”

The tension in the room suddenly eased. I’ll stay here far now. Even Coco had to admit that it was a stroke of genius. It was enough to please Rick, and yet at the same time it was also enough to pacify his mother.

“Oh, my poor baby. My poor, poor boy!” wailed his mother, pretending to be upset by the whole thing.

Coco looked on in amazement. This stupid bitch really didn’t have a clue. She had no idea how much it upset Jesse to hear her cursing at his father. Giving birth itself wasn’t anything special—the important thing was bringing a kid up and understanding him. She didn’t know anything about Jesse. She didn’t realize how clever or how cunning he was, or what had made him like that. She was completely ignorant. Maybe she could raise a kitten or a puppy, but she didn’t know the first thing about bringing up a child. She could never be a real mother.

Coco didn’t feel anger toward Jesse’s mother anymore. And anyway, she was ugly. Coco didn’t know if it had anything to do with living with Rick or not, but it certainly had nothing to do with her. She could harp all she wanted on what Rick had been like in the past, but Coco wasn’t interested. She didn’t want to hear it. She only cared about the Rick she knew now.

Suddenly, Coco wondered if it had all just been an excuse. The woman had claimed that she had come to see Jesse, but what if she was really still in love with Rick? This would be the only way she could think of to see him again. So that was it! It was all clear to her now.

Rather than hating Rick, his ex actually hated herself because she couldn’t stop loving him. She loved Rick so much that she couldn’t vent all her anger on him. So even after they split up, she was left with a lot of pent-up emotion for which she had no release. What better excuse than Jesse to keep in touch with Rick? Jesse was their child, a constant reminder of their time together, and he served to feed her self-loathing.

As long as she had that, Rick would always remain in her heart. Her heart was nothing more than a diary to record her grudges against Rick.

But she bookmarked the pages with love.

Rick didn’t return her love, so she probably hated Coco, whom he did love. The only way she could get back at Coco for taking her place in Rick’s life was by accusing her of not taking good care of Jesse.

Coco considered Jesse. What on earth was he? He had been tossed back and forth by his parents’ love-hate relationship, and as a result he didn’t even know how to get the attention or the affection he craved. If his mother and father continued to take out their hatred on each other, there was no denying that it would eventually consume him, too.

If things continued like this, Jesse would never be able to love anyone. He seemed to know that he couldn’t be happy with his mother because she was consumed by hatred for his father. But Coco couldn’t believe that he would ever be happy living with her either. Coco didn’t exactly hate Jesse, but she didn’t love him either. Despite her efforts over the last few months, she still couldn’t tolerate him. It was odd that she found it so easy to love Rick, but she couldn’t get close enough to Jesse even to begin to touch his heartstrings. Coco felt that if she got close enough to give a tug on even one of those strings, Jesse’s heart would unravel like a knitted sweater.

Jesse’s mother started getting ready to leave. She looked completely different now from when she had arrived. She picked up her bag and swung it violently across her shoulder. It hadn’t been properly closed, so all of the contents fell out and scattered across the floor. There was a cheap lipstick, a worn-out wallet, and a gaudy handkerchief, none of which matched her heavy makeup or her haughty attitude. She scrambled around on the floor to pick them up, and it reminded Coco of Mil-let’s painting of French peasant women bent double in the fields collecting the broken heads of wheat after the harvest—the scraps. Coco felt sorry for her. Scraps were all she would have from now on, whomever she found to love.

Rick didn’t move. He watched her but said nothing. Jesse, on the other hand, instinctively got down on his hands and knees to help. So he was able to express his love, thought Coco. The question was whether his mother could accept that love. She had refused to look after him unless she was paid for it. Maybe she, like Jesse, could take love but not return it.

“Take care of yourself, Jesse,” she said. “Next time I’ll take you with me.”

Coco showed her to the door.

She said good-bye to Jesse as she left, but she didn’t even go through the motions of thanking Coco or asking her to continue to look after her son for her. She just turned and left with angry eyes and a furrowed brow. That made it all the more clear to Coco that her visit had just been an excuse to see Rick and had nothing to do with Jesse at all.

As she watched her walk away, Coco felt as though all the energy had been drained from her body. She was frightened to go back into the apartment because she knew that the atmosphere of hatred she detested so much would be lingering there. The air would be thick with it, stifling and cloying, and it would be hard to get the stench out of her nostrils.

That night Rick went out. He didn’t tell Coco where he was going and, even after it got late, he did not return. As he had been putting his jacket on, she had wanted to ask him not to go, but she knew that he couldn’t bear the poisonous atmosphere in the apartment and she knew he was the type of man who ran away from situations like this.

One reason she didn’t want him to leave was that she didn’t want to be left on her own with Jesse. She wanted to ask the boy why he had lied about her to his mother, but without Rick she didn’t have the courage to face him.

After his mother left, Jesse had gone to his room and hadn’t come out. Coco sat alone in the living room with a bottle of gin in her hand, feeling very lonely. Why was it that a man and a woman could be so happy together, but when someone else got involved it could all go so horribly wrong? It wasn’t as though she had hated Jesse from the beginning. She had wanted to accept him as a part of Rick’s life.

Coco remembered how hard she had tried to look after Jesse. Before she met him, she had only to smile and she would be rewarded by a thousand compliments from adoring admirers. But she had thrown all that away to work like a slave, and she received nothing in return before, she had been happy because Rick had kept her warm and had made her feel loved; she could just close her eyes and ears and ignore everything else. But things were different now. And Rick’s hugs and kisses didn’t make up for what she was going through. It was a bit like eating a delicious meal in a high-class restaurant—once you had finished what was on the table, there wasn’t any more. And after the initial pleasure of eating had passed, she found it was quickly replaced by much darker thoughts and feelings. Those feelings frightened her because they began to pull together, gradually solidifying and taking shape, slowly turning into Jesse.

Since he was very small, Jesse had been brought up in an atmosphere of pure hatred and he had been powerless to object. That hatred had formed layers around him, enveloping his whole body, but it wasn’t his hatred. It was his parents’ hatred for each other. Coco wondered if she could strip off those layers. Or maybe she could smash them with a single blow, crack them open like the rock-salt shell around salt-baked chicken, and suck the tasty chicken gravy from the broken lumps of salt.

Right now, Coco wanted a man. She knew it wouldn’t solve her problems, but she felt she needed a taste of paradise, however brief. But Rick wasn’t there for her.

The gin hadn’t lit a fire in her heart yet either, and although all the things she wanted to say to Jesse were whirling around in her mind, she still was not able to spit them all out and tell him what she thought.

Coco sat alone in the living room, not knowing what to do with her emotions, when Jesse suddenly came out of his room and sat down on the sofa opposite her as though it were the most natural thing in the world. She was amazed. She didn’t understand how his attitude could change so easily.

He calmly opened a magazine and began to read. Coco was thoroughly confused. The way he was behaving was so seemingly nonchalant that she could no longer understand what his true intentions were.

And though she had so many things she wanted to tell him, she didn’t know where to start.

“Daddy’s late,” said Jesse without looking up from his magazine.

He was right. Coco’s concern immediately shifted to Rick. Where was he?

“If Daddy was with someone else, would you be upset?” he asked.

Someone else? Another woman? Now Coco really began to worry.

“Would you hate him if he was?”

She looked deep into his eyes, but Jesse wasn’t wearing his usual know-it-all expression. He just stared back at her, the look in his eyes imploring her to say she could never hate his father.

“If he was with someone else? I’ve never thought about it,” she replied falteringly, almost in tears.

“Hey, no point worrying about it. He was off with other women all the time when he was with my mama!”

Coco’s heart began to pound. Jesse seemed sure that Rick was with another woman, but she found it difficult to believe that Rick would ever leave her at home and go off with someone else. Especially since he had always shown her so much love and affection and had seemed so sincere.

She tried hard to dismiss the idea, but now that the seed of doubt was in her mind, it began to grow.

What if he really was? What would I do? she wondered.

“Whiskey and women,” said Jesse, imitating Rick, “the best medicine! Ain’t that right?”

Coco’s eyes filled with tears, and one by one they began to fall. She was overwhelmed by all the emotions she had been trying so hard to control, and, unleashed, they took the form of a river of tears* flowing down her cheeks. She felt as though she were deflating, shriveling up inside.

Jesse just stared at her in surprise.

With her head in her hands, Coco’s face was covered, but through th gaps between her fingers she could see Jesse’s feet. He wore dirty basket ball shoes and she noticed for the first time that his feet were bigger than hers now. He shuffled closer and she felt his hand gently patting her trembling back. Then Jesse was sitting next to her, quietly stroking her back as she sobbed.

It felt so good; Coco didn’t want to stop crying. Her feelings of anxiety had already dissipated but in spite of that she continued to cry. It was almost as though it was easier to keep crying than to stop. But it was too sweet a feeling to blame simply on inertia.

Jesse snatched his hand away from her back as he heard the sound of Rick’s key in the lock, sending a sudden, nervous twitch through Coco’s body.

Rick seemed a little surprised to see them together, but he calmly walked into the room and sat down.

“Can you get me some gin, too?” he asked.

He was drunk, but not so drunk that he couldn’t talk. Coco poured him a gin and lime, turning away to hide her tear-streaked face.

Without a word, Jesse got up to go back to his room, but Rick told him to sit down again.

“Do you have something to say for yourself?”

Jesse shrugged his shoulders as if to say he didn’t know what Rick was talking about.

“Don’t you like Coco?” he asked.

There was no reply.

“Answer me!” he demanded.

It was one of the few times Coco had seen Rick command any respect from Jesse, and she waited to see what would happen.

“It’s not that I don’t like her,” said Jesse hesitantly.

“Well, it certainly doesn’t seem like it. Why don’t you try showing it sometime? Listen, I know you love your mama and that you’d like it if we got back together, but you know that ain’t gonna happen. Me and your mama have never been able to get along with each other and we always end up fighting. You know that.”

Jesse nodded.

“Coco loves me,” Rick continued. “And that’s why she’s been trying so hard to look after you, doing all the cooking and cleaning and shit.

She’s doing it for you, not because she enjoys it. When I feel hungry I can go out and get something to eat. And when I don’t have anything to wear, I can go out and buy myself some new clothes. And if this place is dirty, it ain’t gonna kill me. So why do you think she’s doing it? It ain’t no volunteer work. She’s doing it because she loves me. And how do you pay her back? Have you ever thanked her? Even once? I’m telling you straight now, Jesse, looking after you should have been your mama’s job.

But she never made the effort. She never tried. Coco is making the effort, though. She is trying. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Jesse nodded again, but as she listened to what he was saying, Coco couldn’t look Rick in the face. She had told her girlfriends that she considered Jesse a volunteer project; she had even told him that to his face.

“Your problem is that you just don’t like me having a girlfriend. You want me to be with your mother, don’t you? Shit, I understand that. And if this were a normal family, that would be fine. But this ain’t a normal family, is it? Today was a perfect example—me and your mama, we hate each other. Can you imagine how that feels? Well, let me tell you, it’s the worst feeling in the world. I don’t know about you, but I just want to be happy—that’s all. When I married your mama, I was too young to make her happy. And when she was unhappy, that made me unhappy, too. Now all I want is to be happy.”

He took a sip of his gin.

“Just think about it—when I die, you’ll be the one who suffers most. I guess Coco will be sad and cry a little, too, but she’ll have no problem finding someone to take my place when I’m gone. But what can you do? You can’t go out and get yourself a new daddy, can you? You’ve only got one daddy and that’s me. So until you’re big enough to fend for yourself you’re gonna need me. I am your dad. Aren’t I important to you? Don’t you even care if I’m lonely because I don’t have someone to love? Right now I need Coco. And if she leaves because of you, how do you think that’s going to make me feel? Are you gonna tell me you want me to live without a woman? That ain’t fair, Jesse. I’ve got a woman and that woman is Coco. So if you want me to keep on being your dad, you’re going to have to start accepting her. I don’t think you understand how great it feels to be in love. It’s great. There’s nothing better.”

Jesse appeared to be deep in thought. But Coco wasn’t happy just to hear that Rick loved her. She knew that if Jesse decided to bite the bullet and force himself to accept her for Rick’s sake, while they might be able to get along with each other, they would never have more than a superficial relationship. That was all she had wanted in the beginning, of course, but that didn’t seem to be enough anymore, especially since she had met his mother.

“Did you used to love Mama as much as you love Coco now?” asked Jesse finally.

“Yes, I did. But I loved her in a different way. Don’t you think Coco’s a nice girl? You know, being in love is the best, man. Why don’t you try to love her, too?”

Jesse looked down at the floor in silence. The pages of the magazine on his lap had been scrunched up in frustration.

“Don’t you like her?” pressed Rick.

“It ain’t like that….”

“Okay, I’ll tell you what I think. I think you’ve already started liking her. But you see, the thing is, when you like a girl, you’ve gotta tell her.

If you don’t tell her you like her, she’ll run away.”

“I… I… I…” Jesse began to whine. “I hate her!” he shouted, and burst into tears. His sobs sounded like the howls of a little wolf.

“I love my mama,” he sobbed. “I love my mama!”

Coco sighed. It was over. Jesse may have been wrapped in layers of hate, but underneath it all he was full of love—unrequited love for his mother.

Now Coco knew what she had to do: she had to leave. She knew it would take time to get over Rick and that she would be very sad for a while, but as he had explained to Jesse, that pain would disappear. She would just have to get used to the idea of losing him.

There were no tears in her eyes this time. She felt as though all the time she had spent with Jesse had been leading up to this moment.

What had started as a chance meeting had developed into a challenge, and at one point, she thought she was getting close to Jesse. She remembered the time she had thought Jesse was beginning to warm to her a little. Sure, he had given her a hard time, but in a way he couldn’t help it.

He knew what love was, but however much he tried to express his feelings, the thick layer of pain wrapped around his heart would not allow him to show it. Coco could not imagine how much the internal conflict must have hurt him. Rick had told Coco he loved her, but Jesse needed him most.

Jesse cried as if his guts were being wrenched out. Rick had never seen him in such a state before and just looked on in silence. As usual, Rick didn’t understand what was going on. Someday, thought Coco, the fact that they had the same blood running through their veins might help solve their problems and make everything all right again.

Coco had made up her mind.

“Jesse,” she said quietly, “I’ve decided it would be best for me to leave. You listen to what your daddy tells you, okay? And you might not believe me, but just remember that I really tried my best to get along with you.”

The howls had subsided, but Jesse hung his head and continued to cry. Coco felt as miserable as if she had been dumped by a boyfriend.

Usually, whenever she went after a guy, he would fall madly in love with her and everything worked out fine. But this time, things hadn’t gone as she had expected.

“Coco, don’t leave me,” whispered Rick falteringly.

She hesitated. Rick didn’t look exactly lost, but she could hear a note of despair in his voice.

“Jesse, if you don’t say something now, it’s gonna be just the two of us again.”

Coco didn’t expect Jesse to say anything, but even if he did, and even if he tried to stop her from leaving, she knew it wouldn’t be because he wanted her to stay, but because his father had asked him to.

Jesse stood up and opened his mouth as if he was about to speak.

Coco waited to hear what he had to say. She was sure it would be the last time they spoke to each other.

“I… I…” stammered Jesse, then he groaned and lurched forward, violently throwing up his lunch all over the carpet.

Coco stood and watched, not even moving forward to rub his back.

He continued to retch painfully and after a few moments she noticed blood was pouring out of his nose, too. She grabbed a box of tissues from the table and was about to wipe the blood away when the howling started again.

Blood, vomit, and bestial howling. Coco could not believe the scene that had unfolded before her. The whole thing was so upsetting that she didn’t know what to do next. And then Jesse spoke.

“I love Coco,” he spluttered. “If she loves me, I love her, too.”

It was the sound of the rock salt cracking.

Jesse finished throwing up, rinsed his mouth out in the bathroom, and without another word, went up to bed.

Coco was in a daze, but Rick’s voice brought her to her senses. He was smiling. He had just been sitting, watching them the whole time.

“Well,” he said, standing up from the table, “I don’t want to clean that up!”

He motioned toward the stinking mess all over the carpet. Coco knew it would be up to her to take care of it and the idea made her feel sick.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to leave right away, and she felt as though she had somehow been tricked into staying. She decided to take her time clearing up the mess—first she had something she wanted to ask Rick.

“Who were you with tonight?”

Rick burst out laughing.

“I wasn’t with anyone—I was alone,” he replied.

She told him what Jesse had said.

Rick knitted his brow in feigned concentration.

“I am not…” he began.

Coco took a deep breath. She was sure she was going to be angry.

“I’m not that young anymore.”

And with those few words, she knew she’d lost her chance to escape.

“Come to bed when you’re finished,” Rick told her, heading to the bathroom.

While cleaning up the filthy remains of Jesse’s lunch, it seemed to Coco that that was a much better idea than leaving.

The next morning, Coco woke up next to Rick. She looked in Jesse’s room but he had already left the house, and the kitchen table was littered with bits of breakfast cereal.

She remembered making love the night before. Rick had been so gentle with her that it felt as though he was soothing away all the aches and pains she had suffered since she had moved in with him. It wasn’t the same sort of aggressive, passionate sex they’d had together when they first met, but it made Coco feel relaxed, like she had spent her whole life in bed. And it had been quite a while since Coco had been in bed with Rick without being disturbed by the image of Jesse’s face in her mind.

After Rick fell asleep, Coco lit herself a cigarette. It gave her a peaceful feeling to watch him sleeping. And it was that feeling, she told herself, that was the reason she was throwing her former life away for him.

Of all the other men she had been with, who else had been able to make her feel like this? It was like sand in an hourglass. An upside-down hourglass. But you couldn’t tell which way was the right way up anymore. The more you looked at it, the more an upside-down hourglass stopped being upside down, and like the sand, her feelings flowed silently, never ending.

Jesse came back at lunchtime and acted as if nothing had happened the night before. He ate the lunch Coco made for him and thanked her then left again. Coco just watched, refusing to believe he could have forgotten what had happened. She could see that he was making an effort to accept her, but she couldn’t understand what had made him change his mind.

Jesse had said that if Coco loved him, he would love her, too. Very cunning. In the end he’d managed to put the burden on her—she was the one who had to make the first move. It was almost funny. Coco used : to look down on women who had to make an effort to be loved.

Rick was getting ready for work, checking through some papers for the night job he had started recently. He seemed aware that Coco had slept soundly in his arms the night before and acted as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He believed that everything was okay as long as Coco was smiling and Jesse was safe. “Okay” was enough for Rick, and Coco wasn’t irritated by that. In fact, she thought all their problems could be solved if she could only be as easygoing as he was. She was envious of him, and when she looked at him it reminded her of how weak she really was.

After Rick had gone to work, Coco finished eating dinner with Jesse in silence and later settled down to read a book. She avoided talking to Jesse and whenever he caught her eye or tried to say something, she felt awkward and looked away. To her surprise, she felt shy when Jesse looked at her. It was almost like she was a teenager in love again.

After a few days, Jesse started looking at her strangely. Now that he had stopped playing tricks on her and he wasn’t annoying her anymore, she had started to avoid him. Maybe he realized she was staying out of his way, and that was why he stopped waking her in the morning to make his breakfast and started making it himself. From the bedroom, Coco could hear him in the kitchen. She knew what he was doing, but she didn’t bother getting up. It didn’t occur to her to help him. Maybe she was just trying to avoid his eyes. She didn’t know how Jesse saw her anymore. It was only when she heard him get his bag and close the door behind him that she could relax again. With Rick snoring beside her, exhausted from working the night shift, she was able to just go back to sleep.

One night, she woke to the sound of fire engines. It sounded like there was a fire close to their apartment, and she could hear the neighbors getting up to go out and see it. She told herself it wouldn’t be a big fire and nestled back under the comforter, but the buzz of people outside the apartment prevented her from falling back to sleep. She always got scared when Rick wasn’t at home and there was something happening outside. She could hear Steve next door kicking up a fuss, so it wasn’t long before she was wide awake.

As she tossed and turned, there was a knock on the bedroom door.

Without waiting for an answer, Jesse came in. She wondered if he was unable to sleep because he was scared by the fire, but his face was excited and he talked rapidly.

“Hey, Coco, you want to go see the fire? It must be a really big one.”

“I’m not sure It’s cold out there.”

“We could watch it from the balcony.”

Reluctantly, she got out of bed and put her dressing gown on, but she had to admit that she was curious about just how big the fire was.

Walking through the apartment with the lights off, Coco bumped into the table and stumbled over one of the chairs. She cursed under her breath, but Jesse took her by the hand and led her over to the window.

He was so excited about the fire that he didn’t seem to realize he was holding her hand.

Coco realized, of course, but she was too surprised to pull it away.

Jesse’s hand wasn’t small like hers. It wasn’t as soft as hers either. It had the muscles and veins of a man’s hand. Nervous in case he realized her palm was already sweating, she tried to relax as they stepped out onto the balcony together.

The fire seemed farther away than she had expected, but it was a big fire and it was out of control; the sky glowed red above it. Their neighbor Steve was out on the road in front of the apartment, talking loudly about the fire and where it had broken out.

Jesse gazed out over the balcony at the raging downtown fire. Bathed in the incandescent glow, he looked so pure and innocent. Until a moment earlier, he had been holding Coco’s hand, and now it felt as though that hand were the only part of her body that was warm.

There were lots of fire engines, sirens wailing and lights flashing.

Coco felt cold and pulled her dressing gown tightly around her. Jesse was clad in just his pajamas, but he didn’t seem to feel the cold as he stared at the fire. Coco couldn’t find anything to say.

Finally, Jesse spoke.

“Are you scared?” he asked, as if he had just noticed her standing next to him.

“No, just cold,” she replied.

“You can tell me the truth. I know you’re scared really, aren’t you?

Girls are all the same. They get scared over every little thing and then they start crying.”

“No, really, I’m not scared at all. The fire’s way over there and will never reach us here.”

“Okay, you can say what you want. I know you’re really scared. But listen, you don’t need to worry, okay? I’m here with you. Daddy’s not here, but I am.”

Coco was speechless. Jesse had seen straight through her and found her weak spot. She was a grown woman and he was still just a little kid, but their roles had been reversed—in Jesse’s mind. He had decided that, as a woman, Coco was the weak one, whereas he was on the verge of manhood.

He’d realized that Coco was in a difficult position and he knew that she might have to leave the man she loved if he didn’t do something to prevent it. He was beginning to understand his role as a man; that it was part of his job to protect the weak. Maybe he finally understood that when he saw Coco’s reaction when he tried to look at her.

As for Coco, she was able to see that, now that he knew she could never be his mother, Jesse was trying to treat her like a lady—a lady who was living with him and his father. In that instant a great weight lifted from her shoulders, and she was finally able to tell him how she really felt.

“I don’t want to be your mother,” she said.

The tangled thoughts flying around inside her head had formed a single, simple sentence as the words left her mouth.

“I know,” replied Jesse, “I’ve already got a mama. You’re my dad’s girlfriend.”

“And I love your dad.”

“I know that, too, but what I don’t understand is why you like him.

He’s just a damn drunk.”

“Of course you don’t understand. You’re still just a kid. You don’t even have a girlfriend yet.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe that’s because I’m a homo…”

“What?”

“I’m only joking!” he said with a grin. “Oh, shoot, the fire’s gone out already.”

Coco could hardly believe she was finally having a normal conversation with Jesse! She was almost in tears. It was exactly what she had wished for all along. She didn’t want gratitude for her efforts to look after him. And she didn’t want him to love her like his mother. She just wanted him to treat her like a woman.

Coco put her hand on his back as she followed him in from the balcony. He was so skinny that she could feel his ribs and each of the bones in his spine. No love. No layers of hate. Just bones.

Jesse said good night as he went back to his room and closed the door behind him. Then he opened it again and stuck his head out.

“Hey,” he said with a shy grin, “are girls really that great?”

Coco stifled a laugh. He would remember what his dad had told him till he found out the truth for himself.

“You’d better believe it,” she replied with smile. “And men aren’t that bad either.”