“It’s a loaner,” I called out.
“If you’re taking it for a spin, I’ll come along.”
“I can’t. I have somewhere to be, then I have to return it.”
He whistled. “Sweet ride. Come over and tell me how you liked it. I might take one for a test drive soon.”
“Will do.”
He waved and went inside.
“Fucking Echo Park,” I grumbled, turning to Darren. “What brings you anyway? New car smell wafting around the corner?”
“My wi fi died, and I didn’t want to have to get a four-dollar coffee to use the signal at Make.”
“All yours.”
“I was going to go through Gabby’s room.” He looked at me as though he expected me to deny him access.
“No problem. And please raid my refrigerator. It’s stuffed.”
Chapter 28.
JONATHAN
“Are you taking Monica to the Collector’s Board thing?” Margie asked outside the conference room. Her office buzzed with activity, but no one approached her when she was about to go into a meeting.
“Not going.”
“Good. I don’t want to get dragged. Dee and Emm are going.” Dee and Emm was code for Dad and Mom. The worst thing wouldn’t have been taking Margie but Monica.
“All the better.” I couldn’t tell her I’d walked off Monica’s porch with no intention of seeing her again. My sister liked her, and I didn’t want to disappoint her or explain my failings.
“You sleep at all?” she asked.
“Same as always,” I lied. I’d slept about three hours less than usual.
“You need to rest before you open your mouth in front of her lawyers. I can’t believe I have to tell you this again.” Her annoyance was a show. We needed to appear to be having an animated discussion when Jessica and her lawyers turned the corner. Margie and I had been in the same room since five in the morning when I drove to her house.
The car had smelled like Monica, and the mirrors were set to accommodate the angle of her beautiful neck. She’d put the seat too far forward and left the wheel turned too far to the left. Still, I wished I could lend her the car another hundred times, just not to see Jessica.
My ex-wife turned the corner, lawyers flanking her. Ryan Myers, who had overseen the divorce, was in his fifties, in a brown suit that matched his fake tan. He’d been ready to tell the neighborhood I beat Jessica for kicks. The other guy was in his thirties and wore a grey pinstripe three-button job with a magenta tie. I didn’t recognize him. Margie filled in the blanks without me needing to ask.
“Bennet Rinaldo. Litigator. Ass pain.”
“Why do they have three people and we have two?”
“Because you’re the aggressor, Jonny. You have to walk in here undermanned or you look like a bully.”
“She asked for it.”
“Say that any louder and you’re on your own.”
Polite smiles were exchanged between the five of us. We were having an informal meeting, yet no handshakes were exchanged. Margie held out her hand to indicate they should go in first.
The conference room had windows on two sides and a large wooden table in the center. Coffee and fruit had been laid out on the sideboard. Jessica found her place between her lawyers, and Margie and I sat opposite them.
Jessica was beautiful, and exactly what I’d needed when I was with her. She was sharp, and cold, and in control. I never thought I’d need anything else from a woman because I hadn’t yet become a man. I’d changed, but she hadn’t. She sat in the clear sunlight, hands folded in front of her. For the first time, she awakened not an ounce of longing, anger, or regret in me. I was glad she was out of my house, out of my bed, out of my daily concern. I wasn’t even pissed at her anymore. I didn’t think she could get me to hit her again because, somewhere in the past weeks, I’d let her go more completely than I’d imagined possible. A relieved smile crawled across my face, and she saw it before I could wipe it away.
“Gentlemen and lady,” Margie said, sitting, “good morning. I understand an order of protection has been filed against my client and is waived temporarily because the plaintiff’s lawyers are present.”
Legal formality and boring. I tried to keep my eyes off my ex-wife, but she looked like a stranger, and that fascinated me. Had I kissed her lips while she slept? Had I stroked her body languidly while the breeze came through our open window? Had I confessed everything to her in a heat of intimacy or brought her to orgasm with loving care and tenderness?
I couldn’t attach any feeling to the events I knew had occurred. I was sure they happened. I’d held her hand when her father died and wiped her tears away with my lips. We’d argued about silly things, like everyone, and we’d argued about serious things. I’d panicked when she told everyone about my kink because I thought I’d lose her. I remembered the fear, and when she told me she was leaving, everything that I was afraid of actually happened. I begged, on my knees, I’d begged her to stay. I remembered all of it as if I watched it on television or read about it in the paper, as if it was someone else’s story.
There was a sharp pain in my calf that felt suspiciously like Margie’s heel.
“Can you answer the question, Mr. Drazen?” said Rinaldo, the litigator, with a shitheel, superior tone that made me want to punch him.
I leaned forward. “You’re going to need to rephrase that.” I had no idea what the question was, and I needed him to repeat it.
“On November the twenty-fourth, what were your intentions when you met your ex-wife, Jessica Carnes, at your house?”
“My intentions? My intention was to go home and get some work done before a dinner meeting. She was already there.”
“You’re stating you did not expect her?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe your frame of mind?”
“No.”
“Mr. Drazen—”
“I have to agree,” Margie said. “You haven’t even filed civil charges, and you want to go into discovery? Or was there something else?”
Myers cut in. “There are circumstances under which we can drop civil actions, which would give the state prosecutor little to go on. We can advocate for thirty-days probation and a standing order of protection.”
“Describe the circumstances,” Margie said.
“All financial channels between Mr. Drazen and Ms. Carnes can be reopened, permanently.”