Mary Jane by Jessica Blau (debian ebook reader TXT) 📗

Cone is going to leave Dr. Cone?” I took the box from Jimmy and poured out more Zonkers into Sheba’s pile.

“Who knows, man?” Jimmy reached across the table and pulled the box closer to him. “But even if they don’t break up, he’sgonna be hurtin’ over that little one-act show.”

“Can’t un-ring that bell.” Sheba picked up a nutty chunk from the pile and popped it in her mouth.

“Can’t put that toothpaste back in the tube.” Jimmy shook the box, letting the last crumbled bits gather in the corner sohe could pull them all out in one handful.

“Where do you want to go to college?” Sheba asked me, as if we’d been talking about school and not the Cones’ imploding marriage.

“I’ve been trying to get my parents to take me to New York City, but they don’t like New York. So I kinda thought the onlyway I’d ever see it was if I went to college there.”

“I didn’t even finish high school,” Jimmy said. “I’m not made for school.”

“You’re still the smartest man I know,” Sheba said. She looked at me. “He reads constantly, if you haven’t noticed. History,biographies, fiction.”

I had noticed. “Did you go to college?”

“I went to UCLA—I had to stay in Los Angeles because we were shooting the show there. But I didn’t have a normal college experience. People stared at me and followed me around campus. And I didn’t trust that anyone really wanted to be my friend. Even the professors wrote notes like Let’s meet in my office and discuss this. I always thought that most people just wanted to spend time with the famous girl.”

“Kinda like Bonnie,” Jimmy said. Sheba and I both looked at him.

“It seems like Mrs. Cone really does like you, though,” I said.

“No, I’m sure she likes me. And I like her, too. But it’s hard to have a balanced friendship when one person wants everythingthe other person has.” Sheba poked her nail through the pile of Zonkers, searching for the best bits, I guessed.

Jimmy got up, kissed Sheba on the lips, and then kissed the top of my head. He left the room and came back a few seconds laterwith his guitar.

“How about this?” Jimmy started plucking a song I didn’t know. I knew all his songs by then, so it must have been from someoneelse’s album. Sheba sang along, and by the time they started through it a second time, I knew the words and was harmonizing:“And I’m wasted and I can’t find my way home.”

“I like that song,” I said when we finished. “Did you write it?”

“Hell no,” Jimmy said. “Stevie Winwood wrote it.”

“We gotta take you record shopping,” Sheba said. She got up, went to the cupboard, and pulled out a new box of Zonkers.

Jimmy started a new song. Before each line, he said the words aloud so I would know what to sing. Sheba stayed on melody andJimmy took the harmony with me. I could feel our voices vibrating in the air, perfectly balanced like a mathematical equation.

Dr. and Mrs. Cone didn’t come in through the beach door, but I did hear the front door open and close. This was late, afterthe second box of Zonkers was gone. Sheba and Jimmy and I sang through the night—sometimes the same song three or four timesjust so I could learn it right. Around four in the morning, Jimmy put the guitar down and we went to bed.

 

Izzy woke up before seven, as usual. “Birds in a nest?” she asked.

“Just come snuggle with me for a minute.” My eyes felt like they’d been cemented closed.

She crawled into my bed and I wrapped my body around hers like we were side-stacked seashells.

“Can we read a book?”

“You look at a book and I’ll sleep for twenty more minutes. And then we’ll get up and I’ll make you birds in a nest.”

“Okay.” Izzy didn’t move to get a book. She just lay there, as still and warm as a curled-up kitten. I thought of Dr. andMrs. Cone with pangs of guilt for not having worried more about them last night. I wanted all to be right and safe in theirmarriage so that Izzy could grow up in that wonderful house with both of her parents coming in and out. I vowed to do thebest job I could taking care of Izzy, to make sure she always felt loved and safe and secure.

“Is twenty minutes up?”

“No. Two minutes are up.”

“How long is twenty minutes?”

“Twelve hundred seconds. Count to twelve hundred. Minus the hundred and twenty seconds that already passed.” I knew I could fall back asleep if I had only a moment of silence.

“What’s twelve hundred seconds minus a hundred and twenty seconds?”

“Um . . . one thousand . . . um . . . one thousand eighty seconds. Count to one thousand and eighty.”

“OK. One. Two. Three . . .”

Izzy made it to eighty-five and then rotated in my arms so we were face-to-face. I could feel her warm breath on my nose.I could feel her eyes bearing down on me. She was being so good—saying nothing, barely moving, breathing deeply and quietly.I opened my eyes and stared right back at her. We looked at each other for the longest time, neither of us speaking.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll get up now.”

Izzy leaned in and kissed my nose. And then she tumbled out of bed, half falling, half cartwheeling, pulling off her nightgownand talking all at once.

 

It was a long, lazy day. Dr. and Mrs. Cone stayed tucked away in their room. Izzy didn’t seem to notice their absence andSheba and Jimmy didn’t seem to mind. By early afternoon, Jimmy put down his book and napped in a chair on the beach. Shebalay on her back, put on her oversize sunglasses, and sunbathed. Maybe she was sleeping too. I couldn’t see her eyes.

Izzy and I worked on sculpting a giant sunbathing couple out of the sand. Izzy heaped mounds of sand for the woman’s breasts.I thought about making a penis for the man, then decided to make a Ken-doll lump instead. After last night, I