Chapter Two

"May I please speak to Simon Tarrow?" Jolene asked the secretary woman. What was her name again? Started with an D...

"One moment. I'll see if he's available," said Danielle, or Doreen.

Simon Tarrow, lawyer and professional Sibling, Jolene thought wryly. Of course he's bloody available, he lives in that office. She was sitting in the bathroom so as not to wake Charlie - Lexi wasn't home yet - and holding their portable phone up to her ear. The chill from the tiles was gradually seeping through her pajamas, and she shifted uncomfortably as she waited for the call to go through.

"Hello, this is Simon Tarrow, of Flanders & Tarrow." She could almost hear her brother's 'and just who is calling me at one in the morning?', even if he was too successful now to say it aloud. Sometimes she felt like her relationship with her brother was a classic 'I knew him when' story, without the cameras.

Jolene grinned when she heard his voice. "You forgot 'can I help you.'"

"Hey there, kiddo! Jeez, it's been months." Jolene could hear him shuffling papers in the background, followed by the whirr of the pencil sharpener. She didn't overlook the 'kiddo.' When had she become a 'kiddo'? It was a dinner-party phrase that one of his associates probably used, and it reminded her unpleasantly of Kid.

"I knew you'd be up. You and all your neurotic, insomniac lawyer friends."

She wondered how you could hear someone smile over the phone. "Can I help you?" he asked, in his best neurotic-insomniac voice.

Jolene wasn't sure why she had called him. It was better than getting into bed next to Charlie, and it was certainly better than falling asleep on the couch in the living room, with one of those useless woolen shawls that Lexi was always knitting pulled over her feet.

"Just bored," she said, which was close enough to the truth.

"Let me guess. Charlie is being his usual, charming self lately, am I right?"

Jolene grimaced. She imagined that Simon had probably taken a Perceptiveness 101 course at Yale.

"I'll bet it served you well," she said eventually, sighing.

"What's that?"

"Interpreting."

Simon laughed. "We lawyers always have to have a good Bullshit-to-English dictionary on hand."

"You were more fun when you were oblivious," Jolene groaned. Once when they were children she had stolen five bucks from her mother's purse, and then convinced both parents that her older brother was responsible. Simon had washed the dishes for a week before Jolene had had an attack of ethics, and confessed.

"Why the hell did you do that?" he had demanded, but Jolene could tell, even then, that Simon had already forgiven her. That was how it had always been between them.

"I'm the same as ever. You're just losing your touch, Jolene."

They stayed on the phone for awhile longer, until Jolene started wondering if she was actually frozen to the bathroom floor. She stared at her feet as she talked, and half-listened for Charlie.

As they were saying goodbye, Simon said, "Oh, hey, I'm going to be spending a day near you for a conference, flying in tomorrow. You going to be around."

"Sure. You can walk me to my audition."

"Oh? And just what are you auditioning for?" He sounded skeptical, but Jolene couldn't blame him for that. She hadn't acted since high-school, and moreover, she wasn't at all sure where her last remark had come from. She backpedaled half-heartedly.

"Well, I'm probably not going to. It was just an idea. Anyway, they don't start until eight."

Simon laughed, but dropped it. They made plans to meet up the following day, and then Jolene hung up the phone and set it down. She was having trouble breathing because of the position she had slouched into while talking, but she still didn't move for a few minutes. When she eventually got up and walked into the bedroom, Charlie was sprawled across the bed, breathing softly. He always spread when he slept, and, looking down at him, Jolene could remember all the nights she had come home and found him like this. Before they started fighting, well before Lexi moved in, back when they still saved up things to tell each other.

She would lift one of his arms - that almost never woke him - then slip underneath and let it fall, heavy and seatbelt safe, across her back. One time she had accidentally woken him up, and he had leaned over and kissed her forehead in that sleepy, instinctive way that she could almost remember.

"Where were you?" he had asked.

"At work." The same words, even.

"Mmm. I knew it. You're cheating on me," he had said, a chuckle bubbling up through the words.

Jolene hadn't answered, just laid her head on his back and felt him breathing.

Charlie had roused himself then, lifted up on his elbows and grinned at her. "Could he beat me up?"

"Hell, Charlie, I can beat you up."

Now Jolene stood at the foot of the bed, and watched him sleeping. She felt a sudden urge to just let the reenactment play out, see how far they could get before one of them started looking around for the audience. Happiness, Act I, scene i.

"Out late again, I see," Charlie said into the darkness, and Jolene jumped. For a minute she was startled by how well his words matched her thoughts, but then she recognized the bitterness, wanna fight?, in his voice.

In a fit of whimsy, she responded anyway. "I can still beat you up, Charlie." He didn't answer, but this time silence was more one of confusion than of anger. Jolene stared into the dark bedroom for another minute, then walked out into the living room and lay down on the couch. She pulled one of Lexi's woolen shawls, more holes than wool, up over her shoulders, and glared uselessly at a fairly innocent patch of wall until she fell asleep.

The next morning, when Jolene opened her eyes, Lexi was sitting at the other end of the couch and staring at her. She was wearing a long t-shirt, probably stolen from one of her boyfriends, and a pair of boxers. Single digit degrees outside, and she's wearing boxers! Jolene was again reminded of the girl in the polka-dot summer dress. She hadn't said anything yet, so Jolene groaned softly and rolled over, keeping her eyes closed.

Lexi didn't buy it. "Look, I know you're awake," she said in the peeved voice of someone who doesn't have time for all this foolishness. "I have a class in half an hour, but I was hoping we could talk before that."

It works for possums, Jolene thought, not moving. It worked in Jurassic Park. Lexi was sitting on the blanket, which made a mad dash for the bathroom door impossible. Besides, it was cold out there.

"I've just talked to Charlie. He wants to know why you didn't come to bed last night."

I'm going to give you three guesses. Jolene snored pointedly, trying to sink further into the couch. And she was thinking, wolves sometimes gnaw their own paws off to escape from a trap.

"I just wish you'd stop closing yourself off. But I really do have to get to class now. I really like you, Jolene, and Charlie and I both miss you."

Exhausting.

"Well, maybe we can talk more tonight. Professor told us last week that sometimes depression is easiest to overlook in friends and family..."

But I'm neither, Jolene wanted to point out.

"...in friends and family, because we see them on a daily basis. Have a good day at work."

How does she keep a straight face? Jolene marveled as she listened to Lexi stomp off. She waited until the bathroom door had slammed, and only then did she slowly ease herself into a sitting position.

Jolene's bathrobe was blue, with a rather faded rubber duck pattern, and it was currently crumpled on the floor outside the bedroom. As soon as she caught sight of it, Jolene slipped it on gratefully. She poured herself a cup of coffee, and crept back under the flimsy shawl on the couch. A slow, cool disinterest was seeping into her bloodstream, prompting her to call out through the bathroom door to Lexi.

"Actually, I think I'm suffering from an acute case of ennui."

Lexi poked her head around the corner, watching Jolene warily. "Case of what?"

"Ennui. With undiagnosed symptoms of what is believed to be terminal cynicism."

Concluding that no breakthrough was taking place, Lexi had angrily returned to brushing her teeth. Jolene heard the hiss of the sink, and then Lexi walked back into the living room.

"You know, sometimes I think you enjoy fighting with me and Charlie!"

Ah, so it's 'me and Charlie' now, is it.

When there was no answer, Lexi came to stand beside the couch, where Jolene was sitting cross-legged in her bathrobe. "What is it? Why have you been this way lately? Honestly. I'd really like to know. And you never tell anyone anything."

What the hell, she thought, remembering Charlie's voice in the darkness the night before. Jolene smiled at the girl. "Well, part of the problem is that you want to sleep with my boyfriend," she said levelly.

She took a small sip of coffee, the slurping sound audibly in the silence of the little room.

Lexi managed the obligatory, "I most certainly do not!" When Jolene started sipping her coffee, she turned and fumed out of the apartment. After she had left, exposing as little skin as possible to the cool morning air, Jolene pulled the Mister L's napkin out of her pocket and looked at it.

"The chocolate explosion Nestle promise, guaranteed, or your money back. And when they grabbed the little violin girl - she needs a new string, screaming a perfect F sharp - she melted in their hands. She left breathing black stains that spread and gnawed at the military death wish of the boys with the manufactured cast-off faces. They all became supermodels, with face-lifts and honey glaze and little green teeth that they hid behind money and smiles. A land of promise, of promises, said the little violin girl with the new violin string, as the bow shivered its way across the back of her neck."

Jolene frowned, tapping the pencil against her cheek as she stared at the scrawls. "Well-phrased bullshit," she murmured softly. After doing her best to fix a few lines in the middle, she rewrote it on a full piece of paper and folded it in her pocket beside the poster. Then she took a shower, so she could leave before Charlie left the bedroom.

Harold Rainey brightened when Jolene edged into his office. It had gotten, if anything, even more cramped since she had last been there. He was writing on two pieces of paper at once, but paused to hold a finger to his lips and gesture to the telephone on the table in front of him when she walked in. An old-money voice was grinding out on speakerphone, and Harold threw in an occasional conciliatory 'mm.'

"...really wasn't appropriate, I can hardly believe I saw it in your paper..."

"Mmm."

"It made me question whether or not I should renew my subscription, I can tell you that!"

"Mm?" Harold grinned at Jolene, scrawling 'five minutes' on a spare piece of paper and handing it to her. She shrugged, and settled into one of the chairs in front of his desk. When whoever it was hung up, Harold rocked back in his chair and stretched both arms above his head.

"Alright, finally... How are you, Ms. Tarrow?" He always called her that, to prove that he still remembered it. Jolene grinned.

"Still around. I've got another one for you."

"Excellent. We need something to go on page three. Is it any good?"

"Not... really."

"Even better!"

She handed him the piece of paper, and picked up the paycheck he pushed towards her. He scanned the new piece quickly, then shook his head.

"I don't know where you come up with this crap."

Jolene grinned crookedly. "My muses are the miserable and intoxicated. I'll see you around, Harold."

Simon's meeting was just getting out, so Jolene had to run to meet him. When she caught sight of him, he was just stepping outside and squinting the way people do when they stumble out of the comfortable world of climate control. Jolene didn't move, just stood watching him until he caught sight of her. He jogged across the street, breathing into his hands.

"Hey, kiddo, thanks for waiting."

There's that kiddo again. Jolene suppressed a frown. But then he hugged her, and she reflected that brotherly hugs could be pretty nice. There was something indolent about spending time with siblings, a no-matter-what clause to the relationship that was almost tangible.

With Simon, she always found herself talking too much. He just asked questions, then leaned back in that inoffensive, faintly inquisitive way of his, and she found herself trying to draw him in. That little tiny gleam of interest, the faint spark that somehow, if she just talked enough, she could breathe into a flame. And so as they walked, Jolene did most of the talking.

"See, you need to keep the irony content of your house above a certain level. Otherwise, you start taking yourself too seriously."

Simon smiled. Jolene kept talking. "Really, a lot of people's unhappiness stems from that. Proven fact. Say you live in a gorgeous house. Striped couches, or whatever." She was gesturing with her hands as they walked, occasionally reaching up to brush a strand of dark hair out of her eyes.

"Striped couches, huh?" Simon had a habit of repeating part of her sentences, as if he were acknowledging a joke she had unintentionally told, and didn't get. It was probably a lawyer trick.

Jolene shrugged, and kept talking. "So, you think that your life really matters, capital emm, and then the things in your life begin to matter too. You start worrying about your kid spilling something on the striped couches, or about your rich wife leaving you and taking your dark oak coffee table with her - though, of course, the coffee table is nearly extinct now."

"Its habitat disappeared," Simon said, and they both grinned.

"Well, anyway, then you're divorced, broke, and convicted of child abuse because of the slap you gave little Suzy over those damn couches."

"But if you don't care about things, you won't have any."

"And why is that bad?" She was grinning at him now, and he looked somewhat cross. Simon had a rampant materialistic streak that Jolene had long-since stopped trying to rid him of. But she still liked goading him about it.

"Well, I suppose you don't actually need striped couches-"

"-Or a Game Boy," she interrupted, in a remember that, then? tone of voice.

Simon grimaced. "Or a Game Boy," he agreed. "But you do need food."

"Exactly. And that is why food is actually important, and not a symptom of irony deficit disorder."

Over lunch, they talked about Charlie. And when Simon finally went back to the hotel to pack for his flight, Jolene cashed her check and headed to Mister L's for the short shift, got off at eight. She passed Magnolia Street on her way back to the apartment.

"I don't think I'm going to try out for that play thing," she had told Simon earlier that day. "I don't really have the time, and, anyway, they probably don't accept walk-in auditions." He hadn't said anything.

Jolene and Charlie always fought in the living room-kitchen; the apartment was small enough that they were basically the same space. By the time they got to the bedroom, they had either made up or had stopped talking entirely. Not that they ever really needed to start - everything had already been said, so many times over, that it had become a script, starring her, Charlie, and Lexi. And all three of them knew their lines cold.

"Where have you been?" Charlie asked quietly when she came in that evening. It was only eight thirty, but he and Lexi were already in their places, and the curtain had gone up.

Jolene got out a cutting board and half of a cantaloupe from the fridge, and started slicing off cold half-moon pieces. "I was at work."

Here it comes, Jolene thought wearily. It was just like every night, Charlie screaming at her for drinking the last beer, for that no-good that grabbed her at Mister L's - and just what no-good is he talking about? - and her screaming at Charlie for being unreasonable, for losing another job, for whatever. But it was looming there, smelling soft and rotten like cancer, and they had been reaching that point more and more lately. But she kept responding, kept saying her lines and waiting.

"Fuck you!" Charlie screamed. Jolene noticed dispassionately that his face was just a shade or two off the half-torn red label on the beer bottle he still clung to. Her own face was probably just as red, glowing like stubborn old coals, crisping her skin from within. It took a few days to heal, to soothe the bubbling inside flesh so that they could just start again. But each time the fire was duller, further away. Jolene could sense Lexi, sitting nervously on the couch behind them.

Fuck you, shouted every night, and meanwhile Lexi sat there with big bright eyes and that smile that pretended not to be a smile, saying no, no Charlie, fuck me. Jesus Christ. Not that he had any place in Jolene's person universe, but still.

The scene was so familiar that Jolene felt like she could fall asleep, and maybe even go on reciting her lines. She put her hands in her pockets and felt the folded poster. She pressed her palm against the smooth crease. The glossy paper was new and still had that itchy chalkboard feeling that seeped into her skin and tingled up to squeeze the back of her neck.

Charlie had let it out, and that was her cue, but Jolene couldn't make herself react. She felt Lexi place a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, and could imagine the 'patience, boy,' look that Charlie was getting. She just didn't have the energy for another round. Instead she picked up her coat, grabbed a piece of melon off the cutting board, and walked out of the apartment.

Five minutes later she turned onto Magnolia Street, half-jogging towards Nomadic Theaters with one hand closed around the stiff, folded piece of glossy poster paper in her jacket pocket.

>> Thanks for reading! Tell me if you think I should continue this.