Authors: Astrid Lee Donovan
CHAPTER THREE
Laura woke up late next morning with the dull tinge of regret gnawing at her damp temples. There was still the sense of uncertainty about Jack trailing in her mind, lazy and hung-over as she was. His unapologetic bluntness made her feel less like a self-assured woman and more like a frightened child, desperately vying for the attention of a distant father. She was reminded of herself as a teenager, and she loathed being put back into the skin of adolescence. Did he mean to be cruel? Did he know what he was doing? Did he even care? She tried to push back the fog of doubt from her mind, and live in the moment (as Jack was so constantly chiding her to do.) After all, everything about the past week seemed so illogical that Jack’s behavior shouldn’t have been so surprising. What did she really even know about this man’s life, anyways? For all purposes, he may as well be a stranger. Don’t take it so hard, she told herself. It’s just a strange little twist in this strange little adventure, after all.
As she rolled out of the bed, she could hear the distinct sounds of chatter and soft laughter coming from the kitchen. A woman’s voice, with a slight French accent, suddenly materialized and the scent of freshly brewed coffee was enough to make her heart race. She quickly threw on a soft sundress and combed her hair back before shuffling out to the kitchen.
Jack was sitting at the table in a conversation with one of the most unusual looking women Laura had ever seen in her life. There was nothing particularly eccentric about her appearance; rather she was intimidatingly striking. A thick mane of lustrous, black hair surrounded the pale, alabaster smoothness of her face. Her poise and mannerisms seemed to be both out of time and alarming. Her face was classical in its beauty, with high cheekbones and thin, arching eyebrows was only marred by a large and unavoidable mole on her left cheek, which only heightened its startling elegance. Her finely shaped mouth curled into a seductive smile as Jack introduced them.
“Laura! Glad to see you’re finally up. Laura, this is Micheline. Micheline, this is Laura.”
“Hi,” said Laura, bewildered by the presence of the strange beauty.
Micheline merely nodded with a warm and welcoming glint in her eyes as Jack continued.
“Micheline’s an old friend of mine—”
“Oh, not that old, mon cheri,” corrected Micheline. “You make me feel self-conscious speaking of me that way,” she laughed. “And you, Laura? You are an ‘old friend’ of Jack’s as well?”
Jack?!? The name seemed like a pointed barb to Laura, although nothing could have been further from the truth. Laura’s brow began to furrow slightly, then she remembered his words back at the hotel: “You can call me ‘Mark’”... So this was how she was going to find a clue into this man’s life? She started to give a stare that could melt ice, but Jack soon intervened with his feckless smile. “Actually, Laura is someone who only recently came into my life…”
“Say no more,” responded Micheline with a knowing glance. A glance so knowing it put Laura at ease.
“I’ve known Micheline for… how many years has it been?”
“Since I was at least 17, I believe. And I’d rather not say how long ago that was, mon cheri…”
All three gave a nervous laugh as Laura fixed herself a cup of coffee. “Are you from around here, Micheline?”
“Originally, Montreal. I met Jack under unusual circumstances, you could say. To make a long story short, he helped me find a place out here in the New York state and I’ve been living here for… well, I don’t want to say how long… but long enough to know it is much healthier than in Canada, yes?”
There was an air of mutual secrecy between Micheline and Jack that hit Laura like a slap in the face. At the same time, the presence of Micheline was undeniably palpable. It was magnetic, drawing Laura in like a lodestone. She knew that whatever secrets she needed to know may be revealed in due time; and if they weren’t, perhaps they weren’t meant to be known.
Laura smiled politely and sipped her coffee. “So, I don’t know much there is to do around here. I’m basically just here for the ride, I guess…”
Both Micheline and Jack burst out laughing, so suddenly that Laura was immediately wary.
“Maybe, I should just take a walk into town?” She continued in a meek, hesitant voice.
“Oh, Laura! You would love it here! Let me show you around,” exclaimed Micheline animatedly. “Jack, please come with us, yes?”
“I’m afraid that as an old sour-pants, I’m going to have to catch up on some business. Please understand if I sit this one out.”
“But, Jack—” protested Micheline.
“You two enjoy yourselves. Please,” he reached into his wallet and handed his Amex to Micheline. “Treat yourselves to an afternoon on me. Meet me back here at 6:30. No later. I promise to whip all three of us up something for dinner.”
“Merci,” responded Micheline, giving Jack a peck on the cheek.
“I’ll just hop in the shower, Micheline. If you don’t mind waiting?”
“Yes, please, take your time… Jack and I still have some catching up to take care of, yes?”
Laura walked away towards the shower pensively, still uncertain what, if anything, she should make of this strange new twist between Jack and Micheline.
It was 3 in the afternoon, and Laura was exhausted. Micheline had dragged her both the requisite two miles from the road where Jack’s house wound off of into the center of town—on foot never the less—and up and down the meandering side streets, and still seemed to have energy to spare. Laura’s carefully selected make-up, chosen less for utility and more to placate her fears about looking slovenly next to Micheline, was all but irrelevant thanks to the inclement weather and the physical exertion. She wondered how she could keep up with the irrepressible Micheline, who was intent on dragging her from storefront to storefront—no matter how tacky or chintzy—with all the enthusiasm of a small child; a fact made even more disconcerting when she proudly announced she was “of three older years” than Laura during the course of their small talk.
The two sat down in a back table of a half-empty bar populated by local old-timers, chattering barflies and the odd post-grad student—all of whose eyes seemed to be glued to the presence of two remarkably attractive women, some with leers of undisguised lust and some with uncontained envy. Laura wanted to keep her wits about her when it came to the likes of Micheline, of whom she still knew virtually nothing about. But when she saw her boldly order, “a double of the gin, could you please make it neat, yes?” she immediately felt at ease. Especially given the wistful smile she seemed to bare at Laura every few minutes.
“Now, Micheline,” she said over her bourbon sour. “I’m going to be honest with you. I assumed Mark, I mean, Jack, was out here with me on a bit of a personal getaway—”
“Oh, he is,” Micheline replied very eagerly. “He’s quite fond of you, you must see. Despite the oddness of our introduction, he was very pleased to introduce you.”
“And, if you’ll forgive me for saying, this is the first time he mentioned you. So, if you don’t mind me asking, how do you know him?”
Micheline burst out with a laugh that seemed to fill the entire room. It startled Laura and more than a few of the other patrons.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put it so bluntly—”
“Oh, no, no, no, Laura…” continued Micheline, draining her glass. “It’s just - you must forgive me. I could ask you of the same thing. Now, Jack said you have not known him long, yes?”
Laura nodded.
“And you called him ‘Mark’ just earlier. Was that a mistake?”
“I’m… well, yes and no. We met only fairly recently.”
“I see! A sudden rush!”
“Yes, I guess you could say that,” Laura said sipping on her drink. “I… it was a fluke, how we met. I didn’t know his name, and he didn’t exactly come right out and say… I was a little drunk when we met, let’s put it that way—”
“You don’t have to tell me how. But the name ‘Mark’... If I may be blunt, was ‘Mark’ a boyfriend of yours? Maybe still is?”
“An old boyfriend.”
“I see. Excuse me,” Micheline beckoned the waiter over. “Two more, yes? Merci.” She turned to Laura with a conspiratorial look on her face, at first pitying, but then compassionate. She took Laura’s wrist in her soft hands. “Laura, let me tell you a story of how I met Jack, and then perhaps you may understand that one simply doesn’t get to know him, not like we may get to know other men…”
“It was many years ago,” said Micheline. “I was a young girl, in Montreal, all of 17 years old. I had run away from home, you see. It was… it was not a pleasant environment. But anyways, I was a model. Very standard model, advertisements that were legitimate and what have you. I was making enough to live on my own, I had my own apartment, and a car and I had a boyfriend. A much older man named Stephen. Older? Well, yes… he was 31. He thought I was in my early twenties… I tell no one at the time of my real age.”
The waiter arrived with their drinks, caught off guard by the twinkling eyes of Micheline. She reached for her glass, and continued holding Laura’s hand. “This Stephen - he was not a good man. He was a heroin dealer, yes? And also a user. I was young, I was naive, I was stupid, I was in love—or rather thought I was in love—and yes, you’re around drugs, you’re young, you’re invincible and yes… you get hooked.
“So Stephen… in order to make more money felt that I should be doing more, earning more money. I had a much better body then, I’m afraid,” she laughed, taking a fresh pull off her drink. “So I began dancing to help us both out, yes? A very common story. And the money - it was never enough, it’s as bad of a drug as any other fucking thing, Laura. So he - no mincing words around - he bullied me, you understand? And I became an escort,” she stopped, noticing a Laura’s face turn ashen. “Please, forgive me if this comes off as personal, but I trust you Laura, yes? You wish to hear the rest or no?”
Laura nodded feebly.
“Very well then. As an escort, I could make up to four, five hundred dollars some nights. And this was… O.K., this was twenty years ago now. But still, it was never enough. As soon as I bring it in, Stephen would spend it. That’s how bad our habits were, Laura. And he was - he was a fucking abusive asshole, there’s no two ways about it. He beat me. Badly. I was always a ‘fucking whore,’ a ‘junkie bitch,’ all this other shit, you see. Because that’s what he made me. He made me feel like scum of the earth because—”
“That’s what he was.” Laura said with a conviction that surprised her. Though she had grown up relatively sheltered in distant suburbs of Philadelphia, she too had lost several friends to the angels of the needle and knew full well what twisted fun-house reflections could be seen in that warped mirror. Laura understood, and reached out her hand to Micheline, who took it with a smile and a faint peck on the back that made Laura’s insides flutter.
“Yes. I knew you would see, so I can tell you this with no shame. So… it is one night, and I had been doing this now for a little over a year. And I get a call to a hotel and, again, to let you know because I sense you can guess, it’s… yes, it’s our Jack.” Micheline waved over the waiter and ordered another round.
Laura felt warm inside; not just from the drinks, but as if the insecurities she had about Jack were being cast aside thanks to Micheline’s revelation. She drank deeply, wanting to know their secrets; knowing full well that she couldn’t penetrate into either of them deeply enough. Both seemed like successive layers of an onion, each with their own strange history, hue and fragrance, and she realized the description fit her perfectly as well. The thought frightened her; what if we get to the core, and find that nothing’s there?
“So it is a very, very nice hotel,” continued Micheline “Which makes me nervous, because men with money, they are not so nice. But Jack, he is of course, a perfect gentleman—”
“Excuse me, how long ago was this?”
“Nineteen, twenty years ago.”
“Jesus, I would have been 14.”
“That’s OK, Laura, I had only just turned 18!” Micheline clinked her glass to Laura’s and they both downed their drinks like sailors. “Let’s not think of what that may entail, no? So yes, Jack is… older, but I had expected that. But he wasn’t that much older. And he was polite, refined. And, you know, as an escort, you talk as much as - you know. So we begin to discuss at first very everyday things. But Jack is -Jack, and he can peer inside of you. You know, he can draw things out. Don’t know how, he just does. So I begin, opening up. And at this time, we haven’t so much as kissed yet. He knows already I’m much younger than I tell him. And, he pulls up my sleeves like this,” Micheline reached over to hoist up Laura’s blouse sleeves. “And he sees my arms, with all these fucking track marks, and he kisses them, yes? And that just blew me away. I start crying, and these tears are very real. He asks me ‘Who did this to you?’ And I can’t tell him. I just can’t. But something tells me he knows. And he says, ‘I don’t need to know his name. I don’t want to know his name. But I can get you out of this. I will pay for your rehab, I will help pay for whatever it takes to get you clean, but you must to prove to me that you are more than just these track marks, that you are more than just this body...’ And I’m very confused, because I don’t know this fucking guy, he’s paying me for sex and now he’s… well, I didn’t know what he was after. But to make a long story short, I decide to spend the night with him. Just stay the night, no sex, no nothing. And Stephen at this time, he’s paging me like crazy, because I have other clients and I just don’t answer. So it’s two in the morning, and Stephen shows up at the hotel, and he’s - he’s going to murder Jack likely, yes? But Jack takes him out to the parking lot, I don’t know what happened, but Jack returns with a very satisfied look on his face. I know from his smile that everything; it’s all taken care of. The next morning, we drive together to the rehab, but right before he drops me off, I tell him how grateful I am, and how I wish to see him again, but I don’t even know his name. And he just looks at me with that look, you know, that Jack look - and he says, ‘You can call me Stephen.’”
Both Laura and Micheline burst out laughing, so hard it seemed the entire room was drowned by the sound of their feisty cackling. The waiter came to make certain everything was alright, but Micheline sent him away to fetch another round.
“As a bit of a post-script, while I was in rehab, there was a girl who came in who used to use with Stephen - well, my ex-boyfriend, Stephen, and I. And she asked me if I had heard about him. Well, it turns out later that morning - and I don’t know if this is a coincidence but - later that morning he was found dead of an overdose.”
Laura’s face turned blank as the waiter arrived with their drinks. But Micheline just continued.
“So, you see, sometimes, you can take appearances as they are, yes? But sometimes, there is something underneath it all that you don’t need to know. Is Jack’s real name even ‘Jack’? I don’t know. What I do know is that sometimes, all it takes is a simple accident to change your life around. There’s a bit of luck even in the worst circumstances sometimes, no?”
Even in an overdose, thought Laura.