Love and falsehood

Chapter Two

It was snowing when the phone rang the first time, and Dante was at the corner store buying groceries for the night.

They had come early this year, the snowflakes, suddenly filling the sky and blocking out the sun, thin tufts of white drifting downwards like brown leaves from trees in autumn, like locks from God's scalp. Only this morning, children played at the basketball court, scuffing knees and bruising elbows, jumping several feet in the air to dunk worn-out basketballs in the even more worn net. It was still warm outside. Not enough to warrant sun-dresses and bare thighs, but not frigid enough to make people encase themselves in coats or carry parasols with them, hurrying as they went, looking like burritos. The cold had crept up on them, on the entire New York, out of nowhere.

At the store, Dante's fingers were freezing. He had forgotten his mittens at home. He pulled the coat tight around his shoulders and shoved his hands into his pockets for warmth.

'Merry Christmas, Danny.' The storekeeper, Gary, said, glancing sideways at him as he scanned the things Dante had brought to the front desk.

'It is not anywhere close to Christmas, Gary.' Said Dante glumly. Few people had a liking for winter, and Dante was not one of them.

'Once it starts snowing, it is to me.' Gary replied. Dante could not help but chuckle. His phone began to vibrate in his coat pocket then, ringing silently. It was probably Kath, his girlfriend; he paid it no mind.

'Christmas does come early for you then.' He said to the man.

'It sure does.' Gary answered with a smile. The storekeeper was nearly seven foot of muscle, and he carried his weight heavily, like an bouncer. But for all his bulk, he was seven feet of optimisim too.

'Gary, if I could bottle your optimism and sell it, I would be the richest man in the entire New York. Maybe even the world.' Dante said.

Gary laughed. 'But you can't, yes? So I am stuck here, selling spray paint and razors, while you are over there dreaming. We make a fine pair, Danny. Do we not? A cynic and a visionary.'

He had finished bagging Dante's purchases and he handed them over to him.

'You are far from a cynic, Gary.' Dante yelled over his shoulder on his way out. 'And merry Christmas to you too.'

He did not need to look to know Gary was smiling when he left the store.

Outside, he hurried back towards the house, ungloved fingers stuffed in his coat pocket, the other hand gripping the paper bag tight. He had left his car at home, hoping that he could make a quick dash for the store across the street. He could have asked one of his father's men, but he was all too accustomed to taking care of himself by himself. He grabbed his coats and boots and went out. The store had not been open, but instead of returning for the Impala, Dante opted to walk the distance to the other store at the far end of the neighborhood. He was halfway there when he realized he had not taken his mittens.

Now as the phone rang the second time, Dante took it from his pocket and glanced at the caller ID. His fingers were already going numb at the tips. It was Andre calling. Dante picked the call and immediately regretted it. Andre's voice was grave. It was the same voice the cops used the night they knocked on the front door to say that his mother's car slammed into another and flipped off the road. A voice gravelly and solemn, suitable for announcing tragedy.

'It is your father, Danny.' Andre said. 'He's been shot.'

A chill far colder than any snow, any hailstorm, ran up Dante's spine.

—

Big Jack did not make it to yet another graduation.

The fact that she had expected his absence did not make it hurt any less, and the fact that his absence could still hurt her made Jackie realize she had not changed. She was the same after all. She was still the same girl she was when she was ten years old, wearing braces, waiting for her father to make it home in time for Christmas.

Jackie sat on one of the seats at the convocation auditorium long after everyone else had left, savouring the quietness. The note of finality it had. She was still swaddled in her graduation gown, wide like a caftan, the tassel of her hat hung before her, swishing in the evening wind. The air in San Diego was like the air inside a kitchen: crisp and warm, still tepid in the middle of December.

The snow always came late in San Diego. Always. But unlike Big Jack, at least it came.

When it began to get darker, the sky obfuscating from pink to a deep violet, Jack retired to her dorm room which she shared with her room mate. Not surprisingly, Cindy was not in and so the strum of guitars and the cacophony of her heavy metal music was absent too. Jackie stripped off her outfit and got into night clothes without any underwear on underneath. She liked to sleep without clothes on, and not wearing underwear was the closest she would get to being in the nude in her dorm-room even if it was the last week of her stay there.

Jackie curled up in her narrow dorm bed with a book and began to read. She was not yet a page in when she heard him coming.

'Only Jacqueline Maeto would spend graduation night in bed, reading a book.' Joaquin said as he barged into the room.

She looked up at her best friend. 'Dude,' she said. 'You really, really need to learn how to announce yourself civilly.'

'That's what I always do.'

She tilted her head at him and he raised both hands in surrender. 'Okay, okay. Fine. Whatever. I'll knock next time.'

It was a promise he had made fifty times over, if not more. Once, he walked in on Cindy with a boy doing what she called ‘boning’. He said that what he witnessed was in fact more of licking than it was boning. For a time, he learned the art of knocking. Just as quickly, he unlearned it. Though Joaquin still claimed he saw Cindy as she was that evening in his nightmares: sprawled on the bed, a boy between her legs, her red painted fingernails in his hair, ruffling gold tassels.

'So do you have any pla—' Joaquin started saying, but stopped mid sentence. He sniffed at the air and glanced around the room.

'Why do it smell like ass in here?'

'Language, JQ.' She admonished him.

'Sorry, hindquarters.' He said, placating her momentarily.

Jackie pointed to the heap of dirty laundry piled on the floor next to Cindy's wardrobe, probably thrown askew when she was searching for what to wear.

'There is your mystery, Sherlock Holmes.' She said. He made disgusted face in response.

'Well, at least you get to get away from all of that after today.' Joaquin said hopefully. 'I do wonder how you survived at all sometimes.'

'I wonder sometimes too,' she said, grinning at him. She raised the bottle of wine she had poached from Cindy's supposed secret stash. 'There are perks to everything unfortunate, you know. That is what makes this world tolerable.'

Joaquin snatched the book out of her0 hands. 'This is not the time for a lecture, Virginia Wolff. You are coming to grad party with me.'

She noticed what he was wearing for the first time. Black silken shirt, buttons undone all the way down to reveal his sculpted chest. Below he wore grey black glossy pants that caught the light. Black clothes were what my best friend wore to what he called party nights. Black, because black never showed stains. Whether it was beer stains or lipstick—it was usually one of both with him—black it was for JQ.

She eyed him. 'If you drag me the whole way, then yes, I will.'

He smirked, then glanced at the book in his hands for the first time. 'A hundred years of solitude? Dude, for real?'

'What?' She asked defensively.

'Talk about depressing.' He muttered, then dragged her by my arm.

'Hey!' She said.

He was already yanking her up. He shoved her towards her wardrobe. 'Find something to wear. Black, preferably. You are coming with me, whether you like it or not.'

'I don't need black,' she retorted. I was not going to be chugging beer straight from drums this night or any other night.

Yet, later, much later, when the call came from home and the phone rang, Jackie was upside down, hose in her mouth, chugging beer while the watching crowd cheered its approval.

She did not hear the first call. Or the second. It would be the next day she would see it. She would stare, then run to the toilet where she would heave out her insides.