Some Came Desperate: A Love Saga (14 page)

        “What is what?”

        “You might be here physically, but you checked out long ago.  Now what’s the matter?”

        Jules sighed.  And laid on her back.  “Simone told me today that we’re now allowed to write to Shay.”

        “Who’s Shay?”

        “Very funny, Jeremy.”

        “So what’s the big deal?  Write to her.”

        “And say what?  Sorry I didn’t try like Simone tried to get you back, but hey, I had a life to live?”

        “That’ll work.”

        “No, it won’t work.  She’ll hate me.”

        “And?  It’s her lost.”

        Jules shook her head.  She sometimes wondered if Jeremy had a heart at all. 

        “You plan to have a relationship with this sister once she’s out of state custody?” he asked her.

        “Of course I plan to, Jeremy!  How could you ask that?”

        “I can ask anything I want.  And, come on now, it’s not like it’s obvious.  I mean, it’s not like you ever asked me to get her.”

        Jules looked at Jeremy.  “That’s not true.”

        “It is true!  You never asked me one time to get custody of your sister.  And you know I would have done anything you asked me to do.”

        Jules’ heart dropped.  “How can you say that?” she asked, confused.  “You said you would never get custody of Shay—”

        “I said that to Simone.  And I wasn’t doing it if it meant I would be doing it for Simone.  I can’t stand that heifer!   But for you, hey, all you had to do was ask.”

        Jules looked away from Jeremy.  What was he saying?  She could have gotten Shay out of foster care if she’d only asked?   Her heart began to beat fast.  What had she done?  All these years, what had she done?

        Tears began to form in Jules slanted eyes.  And she turned into Jeremy’s arms.  “She’s going to hate me, Jeremy.  She’s going to hate me.  What am I going to do?”

        Jeremy looked at Jules, at her distress, at the way she clung to him, and his heart rejoiced.  He was beginning to wonder if she was getting a little ahead of herself; if she was listening too much to that nitwit Simone.  But now he knew the truth.  She still needed him like a wino needed wine.  And it would always be that way.  “You say you want her in your life?”

        “Yes.  Of course.  She’s my sister.”

        “Then you’d better get to it.  You’d better beat Simone to the punch.  You know that witch. She’ll probably write to that girl and make it seem like you never wanted her; that you never tried to get her.”

        Jules frowned.  “That’s not exactly untrue, Jeremy.”

        “She’ll despise you if she finds out that it is true.  You’ve got to get on it, J, I’m telling you.  You’ve got to tell that child that Simone was filing all of those petitions because of her guilt, because she was the one who left her behind.  You’ve got to tell her that Simone was the one who made you leave her with those social workers.  You’ve got to remind her that she’s your real sister and Simone is just her half-sister.”

        Jules looked at Jeremy.  “How could you say that?  How could you expect me to say that?”

        “You’ve got to say it, J.  Otherwise, you can forget any meaningful relationship with her.  You can forget it.  You may think the world of Simone, but I know the witch.”

        Jules knew her, too, and she knew that Simone had no choice at the time and was too young to do anything about Shay’s plight.  She also knew that it was love for Shay, not guilt over leaving her, which fueled all of those petitions to the court.  But she also knew that Jeremy was right.  Shay was her sister first, they were the ones with the same mother
and
father, and she’d die if Shay ended up hating her.  That was why she got up, went into her home office, and started writing.  And she wrote and she wrote.

ELEVEN

Simone stepped off of the crowded city bus and made her way through the nighttime crowds that filled her festive neighborhood.  It was nearly ten at night and the activity was deafening, as the parties were getting started from the nearby clubs and spilling out onto the streets.  She smiled as she walked toward her apartment building, remembering Bellini and Gert and how they couldn’t seem to understand why her “boyfriend” allowed her to catch a bus home from work while he drove around town in an Escalade.  If she told them once she’d told them a thousand times that Nick was her friend, not her boyfriend, but no matter what she said they would not believe her.  A man who had it going on like Nick Perry, Gert was quick to point out, “ain’t gonna be wasting his hard earned time on no quote unquote friend.  And he’s white too?  And think he’s entitled to something?  Please.”  So Simone threw her hands in the air, shook her head and let them think whatever they wanted to think.  And she continued to catch her bus.         

        She also continued to make her nightly beeline for the mailbox as soon as she entered her apartment building.  She was praying that Shay would finally respond to at least one of her weekly letters, but, once again, nothing was in the box.  It had been three months since she and Jules were granted permission to write to Shay, and every single week, Simone had done just that.  But she received nothing in return.  Not one letter back from Shay.  At first she wondered if Shay had received any of her letters.  But when Jules told her that Shay had responded to her very first letter, and had responded with a very long, very sweet letter in return, Simone had no choice but to conclude that maybe Shay just wasn’t ready to respond to her.

        She left the mailbox, again disappointed, and headed up the stairs.  Although she shrugged off Shay’s lack of responses as a teenager being a typical teen, inwardly it bothered her.  She had apologized profusely in all of her letters, blaming no-one but herself for all of those years that she failed to get Shay out of that foster care system.  She had hoped that that would be enough.  But apparently it wasn’t, she now believed, or Shay would have responded to at least one of her letters.  Especially since she responded to the very first one Jules had bothered to write.  She almost gave up, figuring now was not the time, but Nick told her to keep writing, anyway; that eventually, prayerfully, Serita just may come around.

        Simone walked onto the second floor, toward her apartment, wondering for the first time if maybe Nick was wrong on this one.  She never before questioned his judgment, she, in fact, relied heavily on it.  But he didn’t know her sister.  Even as a small child Shay was stubborn and hard and the kind of child you had to prove yourself to if you expected any kind of forgiveness from her.  Simone then smiled.  Because Shay was a lot like Simone was as a child.  And that, she suspected, might have been why she had not heard from her.

        She was thinking about this very problem as she headed for her apartment door.  She saw the young man coming toward her but didn’t think much of it.  A young man walking toward her wasn’t anything unusual, especially not on a bustling Friday night.  She only slightly recognized his face - he wasn’t one of the regulars who hung out front, but he had been out there a time or two - and that was why she automatically assumed that he was just leaving somebody’s apartment on that floor.  That assumption was her first mistake. 

        They passed each other without making any eye contact, a common occurrence on Phoenix Avenue.  Not that her neighbors were unfriendly, she’d concluded a long time ago, but it was just that they preferred not to be disturbed with unnecessary hellos or goodbyes that in the larger scheme of their already over-dramatic lives, meant nothing.  Simone therefore stuck to the tradition, pulled out her keys, and moved on to her apartment door, assuming that the young man had continued his progression toward the downstairs landing.  That assumption was her second mistake.

        As soon as she placed the key into the lock that same young man whom she assumed had gone on about his business was ramming his strong body into her small one and forcing her into her apartment.  She felt the ram so completely that it momentarily took her breath away.  She wanted to scream but didn’t get the chance, as his large hand was placed over her mouth and she was forcibly pushed inside.  He tried to slam the door shut with a back-kick but it sprung back open, but he could not react to that.  Simone was too much of a handful.  He therefore tried to wrestle her to the sofa, to muffle her even more, but she would not give in that easily.  She bit his hand as hard as she could, forcing it out of her mouth, and then she screamed such a blood curdling scream that a deaf man on the first floor would have heard it. 

        And then she fought.  With every ounce of strength she had, as she threw everything at him that she could get her hands on: the lamp, the telephone, pillows, the ashtray she kept for Nick’s use.  Anything and everything.  She screamed and ran around that apartment and threw. 

        The intruder, who thought he had a mousy little cat to contend with, only to realize he had a mountain lion on his hands, tried to chase her, ducking and dodging and threatening to kill her if she didn’t shut up.         But she roared like the lion she was determined to be, she ran and threw things and roared.  So much so that the neighbors actually came out of their apartments.  So much so that the young men from downstairs ran up to see what in the world was going on.  Normally people took great care to mind their own business where she lived.  Even she did that.  But this was different.  This sounded different.  And when those young men saw why, when they looked into her open door and saw this very big brother attacking this small sister, they attacked. 

        The intruder was able to fend them off, with the knife Simone didn’t even realize he had had, but when he ran, they ran after him.  This was a blood sport for them.  But as for Simone, who didn’t see this coming, who never heeded Nick’s advice to move out of this war zone, there was no sport in this.

Nick was at his law firm when the call came.  He was in his office with Mark Grier trying to figure out how in the world they were going to get the jury to see what they saw: that the cops had arrested the wrong man.  Closing arguments were tomorrow morning, and it didn’t look good.  They didn’t have any physical evidence, no DNA slam dunks, but the eye witness accounts and circumstantial evidence was piling up. Three women declare that he was the rapist.  He was in the vicinity at the time of the rapes.  He had a record as long and as violent as both his arms, a record that was aired before the jury when he utilized his constitutional right and insisted upon testifying.  It looked bad. 

        Yet Grier wanted Nick to plea-bargain.  To call the prosecution at this late date and throw their client on the mercy of the court.  Nick, however, was convinced of their client’s innocence; that because he may have been guilty of other crimes, didn’t give the state the right to scapegoat him for this crime.  Mark disagreed.  Let them scapegoat away, was his advice, at least he won’t get life without parole.  Nick, however, was the boss and wasn’t prone, anyway, to listen to any advice from Mark.

        That was when the call came.  From his cell phone.  To his surprise it wasn’t Simone or Delia, since they were the only two human beings with the number to that particular cell phone, but a young police officer.  “She told us to call you, sir,” he said as if he was well aware of whom he was calling and felt nervous about it.

        “Who told you to phone me?” Nick asked, unsure if he was referring to Delia or Simone and that they were in such a state that they couldn’t phone him themselves.  To his credit he didn’t want it to be Delia.  But he prayed it wasn’t Simone. 

        “Simone Rivers, sir,” the officer said and Nick’s heart dropped. 

        “Simone?” was all he managed to say, and Mark looked at him.

        “Yes, sir.  She was the victim of an attack tonight—”

        “An attack?” he said anxiously.  “Is she okay?”

        “She’s okay, sir, yes, sir.  She wasn’t badly injured.”

        “Wasn’t
badly
injured?  But she’s injured?  Where is she?  Put her on the phone!”

        The officer cleared his throat.  “Yes, sir,” he said as if he had somehow failed in his duty.  But within seconds Simone was on the line.

        “Simone?”

        “I’m all right, Nick,” she said.  “Just a little shook up.”

        “What happened?”

        “Some dude tried to - I don’t know - rob me—”

        “Rob you?”  He ran his hand through his already messy hair.  He knew how easily tragic that kind of crime could turn.  “Where are you?”

        “I’m here.  Home.”

        “Do you need to go to the hospital?  Is that why the police—”

        “No.  I mean, they suggested it, but I don’t need any doctors or anything like that.”

        “You stay right where you are.  You hear me?  And you tell that officer that I said for him to stay with you until I get there, understood?”

        “Yes.”

        “Now I mean it, Simone.  This is not the time for any of your stubbornness.”

        “I said okay.”

        “Okay,” Nick said and calmed back down.  “I’m on my way, babe,” he then said, feeling awful that something like this had to happen to somebody like Simone, and flipped shut his cell.

        “You’re joking,” Mark said when Nick told him he had to go.  Nick began putting on his suit coat.

        “Do I look like I’m joking?” Nick said.

        “Sir, I don’t mean to be rude, but we’ve got a major problem here.  A man’s freedom is at stake.  You can’t go running off to help that crazy Simone at a time like this.”

        Nick stared at Mark with a look that could shatter glass.  “I will be back as soon as I can get back.  You continue to study every witness statement and specifically search again and again for any inconsistencies, you understand me, Mr. Grier?”

        Mark nodded.  He knew that look and he knew that tone.  “Yes, sir,” he said.

        “And also hear this, Mr. Grier:  if you ever so much as fix your mouth to refer to Simone Rivers in any negative light, I don’t care how justified you feel, you will answer to me.  Understand that too, Mr. Grier?”

        Mark looked at his boss.  Once he pulled his foot out of his mouth, he nodded.  “Yes, sir,” he said.  “I got you.”

        Nick exhaled, knowing he was being unduly harsh with his young assistant, but he didn’t ponder it.  He left.

Simone was upturning the last of the furniture she and her intruder had knocked over in their violent struggle when loud banging was heard on her front door.  At first she jumped, because she was still too antsy, but then she hurried to the door that now had a chair propped up against it.  She looked out of the peephole.  When she saw that it was Nick, her friend, looking as if he had run all the way, a sense of relief swept over her that helped to calm her back down.  But she didn’t delay.  She hurriedly removed the chair and unlocked the door.  And as soon as he stepped across her threshold, as soon as she so much as whiffed his wonderfully clean scent, she fell into his arms and burst into tears.  He pulled her against him and had to move with her deadweight to close the door, and then he lifted her tightly into a huge, bear hug. 

        “Oh, Simone,” he said, into her hair.  “Oh, my sweetheart!”

        He held her tighter, and she cried louder, and neither seemed able to let the other go.  He thought he could handle this.  He thought he’d see that she was all right and remain his regular, cool self.  But he was anything but cool.  Just seeing Simone like this, just seeing the terror still in her pretty green eyes, nearly caused him to break down himself.  He was devastated that something like this could have happened to somebody as sweet, as undeserving of any bad turn, as Simone.

        Simone thought she had it together, too.  She was able to give the cops a complete description of the suspect, to tell them exactly what happened, to act as if she was a sister with some sense.  Now she felt like a blathering idiot, unable to stop crying, unable to repress any feelings whatsoever when Nick showed up.  And he seemed to understand, as she knew he would.  He held her silently, rocking his body from side to side to comfort her.  And then he placed his hand on the back of her head and looked at her.