Sing

CHAPTER 18.

MONICA

The closer I got to Jonathan’s family, the more I understood where he came from. His ability to laugh through anger and tears, the happy face he put on over his worries, the Oscar-worthy show of confidence, came from his mother. The deft manipulations of people and situations, the sadism, the raw hunger, the social charm, came from his father. The passion and protectiveness were learned through his sisters.

Margie had handed me five thousand dollars in an envelope and told me if I didn’t take it she was going to tell Jonathan and it would upset him enough to give him another heart attack. She was exaggerating and being cartoonish, but I got the point. He’d arranged the money, and refusing it would cause him stress.

“I told you not to tell him,” I’d said, holding on to a shred of pride even as I clutched the envelope.

“I ignored you. Tough.”

“I hate this.”

“Take it up with God.”

“Well, thank you,” I said. “I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate it.”

I needed the money. Badly. After spending a morning on the phone, I found I had long odds of saving the house. I could rescue my mother’s finances by arranging a short sale, but I’d still have to move, and one of the banks was adamant about the current resident vacating the premises. I could have waited for an eviction, and then fought it, but I had too many balls in the air as it was. I needed to find a place to live, a place to store my stuff. I needed to rent a truck, pay a security deposit and first month’s rent. Five thousand would just about cut it.

And now I had other business to attend to. Accepting five grand in cash from my lover’s sister was something I never thought I’d do. Today would be a day of firsts.

I dialed Eddie’s cell phone. He picked up. Oh, the privilege of being me. Six months ago he wouldn’t have returned a voice mail from me, much less taken a call on the second ring.

“What’s happening, Princess?” he answered through a wave of ambient noise. I didn’t like the new nickname. It was too close in concept to “flake.”

“I can’t do a session,” I said. “Jonathan, he’s...it’s bad. I need to be here.”

“How bad?” The ambient noise disappeared as if he’d closed a window.

“Something went wrong. He’s bleeding. He needs a transplant. Maybe. Probably?”

“What?”

“If you have a heart lying around in the next few days...”

“Days?”

My head was screwed up. I was a monster. I’d thought Eddie cared that I was cancelling my recording session, but Jonathan was his friend, and he was dying, why the hell would he care about my fucking EP?

“You should come and see him,” I said.

“Fuck.”

“Are you all right? I’m sorry, I’ve been dealing with this for days. I should have broken it to you better.”

He didn’t answer right away. I thought I’d lost the connection, then he finally spoke up. “When I banged up my dad’s Maz, he took me all over LA to get it fixed. We got it home before my parents got back from Maui. By like, minutes. He drove like such a dick.”

I sniffed, “Don’t eulogize yet, please.”

I had the sudden, physical need to see Jonathan immediately, to stop wasting time in a cold stairway when I could be taking up space with him.

I pushed through the stair doors into the hall.

“Sorry, I...” Eddie caught himself. “Tell him he’s an asshole for me. All right?”

“Sure thing.”

The elevator dinged, and I blocked traffic by standing there, looking at my phone, wondering why I didn’t give a shit about a blown opportunity.

“Monica,” came a voice in the crowd. I turned to the source.

“Jessica.”

“I’d like to speak with you.”

“Sure.”

We stepped away, into a corner by a six foot tall potted plant that looked too fake to be real, or too real to be fake.

“What?” I said.

She raised her eyebrows. “You’ve got no business being sharp with me.”

“Thanks for letting me know my business.”

“I didn’t come here to fight with you. I came to see him.”

“Why? To upset him? I’m sick of this. I’ve never seen anyone crush a man so hard then try to get him back like it was her job. For Chrissakes, I wish he’d just give you your money so you’d leave him the fuck alone.”

“He did,” she said, her face darkening like a desert under rare clouds. “This is a long term hospitalization. The trust will move to irrevocable in a week. He’ll be here.”

It hit me then, her motivation in being there. It was sick. Unbelievably venal.

“Unless he’s dead, right?” I said through my teeth. “If he dies while the trust is revocable, you lose.”

I started to walk away, but she grabbed my elbow hard.

I looked at the place where her fingers dented the fabric of my shirt, then at her.

“You listen to me,” she said through her teeth. “I loved him. Make no mistake. He wasn’t for me, but I loved him. That doesn’t go away.”

“He. Is. Mine.”

“Under the circumstances, he’s everyone’s. He needs all of us. We can have this fight now or after he’s dead. Would that suit you?”

Something seethed in me. Something hot and black and angry.

Before Los Angeles was a place, it had a tar pit. Three times in prehistory, an animal got stuck in it, and a predator came to eat the animal. The predator, even as he ate his prey, got stuck. Carrion came to feast on the weakened bodies, and all were stuck. Multiply, as more, driven by instinct and hunger, fell into the trap. Masses of mammals, winged creatures, crustaceans came to feast as the black goo pulled them down to their death in a years-long chain of seething, building, predatory hunger. Ripping throats, blood-covered-fur, a routine orgy of violence and death, multiplied by an order of fear, melted into the tar, adding to the organic mass of boiling, black pitch.

On LaBrea Ave, there’s a park, and in the park, the tar pits bubble underground, leaving puddles of sticky black goop in the grass. They come up where they want, and everything sinks into them.

So when Jessica suggested Jonathan would die, I wanted to claw her eyes out. Pull her hair at the roots. Like I’d put a lawn of sweet words over an aquifer of tar-sticky rage, and her presence triggered a bubbling geyser of anger. But let’s face it, I wasn’t angry at Jessica, and I wasn’t angry that she had the gall to bring death into the conversation like a threat. I was angry at death itself. Angry that it dared to black the light from the window. That it should come between Jonathan and I, when we’d overcome so much. What did it want? What was I supposed to do? And life? How dare it bring him to me just to take him away.

The elevator doors opened with a ding, but Jessica and I continued to stare at each other as if guns were drawn.

“It’s nice you kids are getting along.” Margie’s voice cut through the stare.

Jessica let go of my arm, and when she did, I realized something.

I didn’t like her. I didn’t trust her. But I couldn’t pretend it was her I was angry at her.

As if shunned, Jessica ran into the elevator at the last second.

“Cute, you two,” Margie said. “Almost like you could stand being in the same room together.”

“She’s just going to upset Jonathan.”

“No she’s not. He refused to see her. She’s a little pissed off.”

Margie headed down the hall, her gait quick and sure.

“You look pretty pissed yourself.” I chased after her.

“I got big news from the Department of Bad Shit. They can’t get in to fix the suture. It’s a transplant or nothing.”