Josie And Jack: A Novel Part 20

"This kind of thing," Never answered, with a nebulous gesture at the party around us. "Fabulous things."

Across the room, Jack was leaning against a wall, and Lily was leaning against Jack. His hands were on her waist. My brother, in the smoky half-light, was beautiful, with eyelashes and cheekbones and all the rest. Lily had those things, too, but I thought there was something sly and shallow in her face that spoiled them. The tarantula hung over their heads like a furry arachnid star-of-Bethlehem.

"Evidently," I heard Never say, "at the moment she's handling fabulous things like your brother."

He was offering me a cigarette. I took it. He said, "What do you do?"

The pretty girl, still watching Jack, said, "Fabulous things, indeed."

"Nothing," I said and smiled at him.

Never prattled on about some art exhibit he'd seen; trying to impress me, I thought. After a while I noticed that Jack and Lily were no longer standing beneath the tarantula. When Never suggested gracelessly that we disappear, too, I let him lead me into a corner, but after a few minutes of his fumbling kisses on my neck I pushed him away and fled back to the crowd. I spent the rest of the night sitting by myself on a low table in the corner. Never stood across the room, glowering. Hours seemed to pa.s.s until, finally, Jack came to me, slightly rumpled, and said that we could go home.

Lily didn't leave the party with us. Outside, the streets were empty, peacefully silent, wet and clean from the rain that afternoon. The air was cool and dewy on my skin, which felt coated in cigarette ash. My ears were ringing and I was having trouble walking. Jack had his arm around me, mostly to hold me up. He was humming something Wagnerian.

My stomach roiled and twisted. "Jack, I feel sick."

He held me over the gutter, supporting me with one arm and holding my hair back with the other while I retched. When I couldn't bring anything else up, he told me to stick my fingers down my throat or I'd be sorry the next day. He was still humming.

My cosmopolitans and my Thai sea ba.s.s lay in a murky pink puddle in the gutter. Jack asked me if I could stand and somehow got me home. Once we were inside the apartment, he undressed me, and then himself, and we lay there in the semidarkness, with the streetlights flooding the room through the window.

As I was sinking into sleep, I wanted to ask him a question, but all I got out was, "Lily?"

"I like her," Jack said.

8.

ALL AT ONCE, Jack had money. I guessed that it came from Lily, just as I guessed that the long red scratches on his shoulders came from Lily. He spent his nights with her and his days sleeping at the apartment. I slept whenever and spent my nights chain-smoking on the fire escape in the smothering heat, watching the street.

During the day, the noise from the street was so loud that being inside the apartment felt like standing on the street corner: delivery trucks with battered m.u.f.flers and shouting drivers who leaned on their horns; dogfights; twice a day, screeching groups of kids on their way to or from the public school at the end of the block; and at least once an hour, the wail and whine of sirens in the distance. Jack wore earplugs to sleep, but he could always sleep anywhere.

At night, though, it was quiet. We were four floors above the street. The people who pa.s.sed beneath me as I sat on the fire escape at three and four in the morning were tired or drunk or crazy. None of them ever looked up.

One night when the air was still and dense with humidity, I let my burning cigarette drop from my fingers and watched it fall in a long slow arc to the street. It almost hit a dark-haired man standing on the front stoop of our building. He was digging in his pocket-for keys, maybe. The b.u.t.t fell inches from his face and hit the concrete step at his feet with a tired burst of orange sparks.

He tilted his head back to look up at me. In the glow of the streetlight, I recognized him. He was the man Jack and I had met in the hallway that first day.

I raised my hand in the darkness, hoping that if he saw it he would take it for an apology.

He raised his hand, too, in an obscene gesture. Then he went inside.

I lit another cigarette.

The next day, while Jack was off somewhere with Lily, I strapped on my sandals to go buy some food, and ran into the man in the hallway. When he saw me, he c.o.c.ked a finger at me and smiled. "Hey, you dropped a cigarette on me last night."

"I know," I said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."

"It's okay. I was a little drunk. You living in Tade's place?" He p.r.o.nounced it "TAH-day." It was the name on the mailbox, the one we never checked.

"Was she the artist?"

He nodded. "If you call what she did art," he said. "Looked to me like she just spilled paint on everything." He put out his hand, and this time it wasn't making an obscene gesture. "I'm Louis."

I shook his hand awkwardly and then remembered and said, "Oh."

He grinned. "Don't believe nothing you heard about me. None of that stuff's true."

It sounded like, "Nunna dat stuff's true." I smiled.

"I take care of this place," he went on. "That's my door you slip the rent under-you need anything, just knock."

"Thanks," I said.

He nodded. "That guy you live with, he your boyfriend?"

"My brother."

"Your brother?" Louis raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, you look alike. I've seen him around." His eyes were careful. "He a nice guy?"

"Of course he is," I said.

He asked me my name and I told him. "You need anything, Josie, you knock," he said again.

A few days later, just before nightfall, the bare light bulb in our kitchen flashed, popped, and went out. Jack wasn't home. After standing and debating for a few minutes, I slipped on my shoes, went downstairs, and knocked on Louis's door. When he opened it, he had a beer in one hand. I could see a little of his apartment over his shoulder; it looked tidy and had clean, white walls.

"Got a ladder?" I said.

There was one in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and it took both of us to lug it up the five flights to our apartment. I held the ladder steady while Louis fiddled with the light fixture.

After a moment, he made a disgusted noise. "Look at this. Wiring's all f.u.c.ked up." Then he looked down at me, grinned, and said, "Oh, sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?"

"Shouldn't talk that way around a lady," he said cheerfully.

"Please."

"You never know. Some people get offended."

"Not me," I said.

He brought a new fixture up from the bas.e.m.e.nt. As he clipped the wires together, I said, "Did Tade get offended?"

Louis laughed. "You didn't know Tade, babe."

Just then the door opened and Jack came in. His eyes were shining and he was carrying a plastic bag full of takeout food. When he saw Louis, his expression went blank. He put the bag on the counter. "What's going on?"

Louis didn't look at Jack. He appeared to be concentrating on the light fixture.

"What's going on?" Jack said again, without taking his eyes off Louis.

"The light went out," I said, and when that didn't seem to be enough, "This is Louis. He's fixing it."

"Is he," Jack said.

Louis stepped down from the ladder. "Not no more. I'm done."

"Want me to help you with the ladder?" I said.

"I can get it." Then, for the first time since Jack came in, Louis looked directly at me. "I'll see you."

"Thanks for fixing the light," I said.

When he was gone, Jack took a beer from the fridge. "Why did you let him in here?"

"Because I wasn't sure you were coming home, and I didn't feel like sitting alone in the dark all night."

Jack's eyes snapped but he didn't raise his voice. "Next time, wait. I'll let you know if I'm not going to be home."

"How?" There was a phone jack in the wall but we'd never done anything about it.

"I'll let you know beforehand."

"You will?" I said, dubious.

"I said I would."

He didn't. I don't think I'd really expected him to.

That Sat.u.r.day Jack asked me if I wanted to come out and have drinks with him and Lily and her friends. I said no. "What the h.e.l.l else do you have to do?" he said, but I wouldn't go. Eventually he left without me.

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door. It was Louis, holding a plate covered in aluminum foil.

"Hey," he said. "I went to my mom's house today. She always makes too much food. You want some?"

"Sure." Whatever was hidden under the foil smelled wonderfully spicy.

"You're too skinny," Louis said. "I told my mom there was this sweet girl who lived in the building who was too d.a.m.n skinny, she said I had to bring you some of her chicken and rice, fatten you up. Hey, where's your brother?"

I shrugged. "With his girlfriend," I said, and we stood there, awkwardly. I knew that I should invite him in, but I wasn't sure I wanted to. Besides, there was nowhere for him to sit.

"Well, then, why don't you come downstairs? Eat with me," he said.

Why didn't I? "I shouldn't. My brother will be home soon. He'll worry if I'm not here."

Louis's dark eyes shone at me. "Leave him a note." But before I could answer, he waved a hand in the air. "Yeah, well, if you change your mind, come on downstairs." He turned to leave and then stopped. "Hey, I got this old mattress down in the bas.e.m.e.nt. I thought maybe you might want it. I don't mean old," he said, quickly. "It was mine. I got a new one, like, a couple months ago. So it's not like it's been down there with rats living in it or anything. You want it?"

"Are you kidding?" I said. "I'd love it."

"Be good to get it out of the bas.e.m.e.nt, anyway," Louis said. "I'll bring it up for you tomorrow."

"That'd be great." I meant it.

He nodded. "You think your brother'll mind?"

"Why should he?"

"He don't seem to like me too much."

I shrugged. "He doesn't like anybody."

Louis shrugged. "Some people are like that. They like to keep things to themselves." He hesitated. "Enjoy the food," he said and left.

I let him go.

The next day, Jack came home with money and we went to the grocery store. On the way downstairs, I stopped at Louis's apartment to return his plate. While I knocked, Jack stood on the other side of the hallway, scowling.

Louis opened the door, his eyes flicking to Jack and then resting on me, calm and friendly. He didn't look in my brother's direction again.

"You like it?" he asked, taking the plate back from me.

"It was great."

"She does good work, my moms," Louis said, just as Jack said, "Josie, let's go," from behind me.

When we were outside, Jack said, "I don't like that guy."

"He's okay."

Jack was walking quickly, looking straight ahead with narrowed eyes. "I mean it, Jo."

"Mean what?"

He stopped short and grabbed my arm. "Stay away from him. Don't go looking for him, don't let him in, don't take his d.a.m.n food."

"Okay," I said and pulled away. "Christ. Okay."

His saying that all but guaranteed that I would spend my nights on the fire escape thinking about going downstairs to visit Louis. Sometimes it seemed idiotic-it wasn't Louis that I was interested in, not really-but other, lonelier times I promised myself I'd do it the next day. Then it was October, and our rent was due, and I couldn't have gone down, even if I'd wanted to. He'd want money, and we had none left to give him.

I reminded Jack about the rent one night before he went out. He nodded and said that he'd take care of it. I spent the day reading a copy of The Red and the Black that I'd bought on the street for a dollar; I was nearing the end of it when I heard the key in the lock. Jack was home.