Afterward they went out together into the night to walk along the riverbank, side by side. At length they paused and stood at the railing along the cliff edge, gazing down at the water, watching the star light sparkling on the ripples and listening to the water murmuring over rocks and branches.
“Jake, if you think you should move on, you’re free to do so. You should, for your sake,” she said turning to look at him.
He turned his face to her. “What if I don’t want to, what then?” he asked.
“You have to make that decision. You’re welcome to stay with me if that’s right with you.”
“That’s just it: selfish fool that I am, I just want to stay in this place, beside you. I saw the same pain in you that I feel crushing my own being. I thought—I hoped, really, that since we both bear the same burden we could help carry each other’s cross. Together. But if we did, you might find yourself paying a price.”
“What do you mean?”
He stared down at the water for a long time. He wiped one leather-gloved hand over his face and leaned his chin into his palm, his elbow resting on the top rail.
“I never told you how Charly developed cancer.” He paused again and breathed out, his breath forming white tendrils around his dark face. “I told you I worked as ‘shall-we-call-it’ an escort when I was a young man. I don’t know what that means here in Portland, but in Manhattan it means sexual servicing.”
“Let’s say some things don’t change from one coast to the other.”
“Uh oh,” he groaned and laughed. Sobering once again he continued. “She caught a virus from me, not one of the typical venereal diseases, but one that hasn’t shown up except in young men of the oldest profession. They don’t get ill from it, but their wives or…female domestic partners can. A doctor over in Germany isolated it; seems that it attacks only cells with two X chromosomes, meaning only women. I’ve undergone count ‘m two total blood transfusions to try cleansing my system. I passed the last test to determine if I’m still a carrier, but who’s to know if one microbe isn’t lying dormant somewhere in my body.” He sighed deeply and looked straight at her. “If I knew for sure I’m clean, I wouldn’t hesitate to ask you to marry me.”
“I’m glad you were so honest with me and that you shared this me.”
“Why, so breaking up with me will be easier?” he asked in a harsh voice she hadn’t heard him use before.
“No, because if you really love someone, you can look them in the eye and let yourself be completely truthful with them.”
He turned to face her. “In that case…I love you.”
“I love you.”
Jake looked up at her. He leaned on hand on the rail, stretched himself up and putting his free hand on the back of her head, tilted her face down to his. For a moment, she felt his warm breath caress her face, smelling faintly of wine. She breathed in the heady, animal aroma of him. She parted her lips slightly as he laid his mouth over hers.
He lingered a moment, then broke away. He released her.
“Shall I escort you to your car, Dr. Fowler?” he asked.
“Yes…thanks.”
Declan watched from the lot up above. Seeing that skinny runt, that well-dressed chimpanzee kissing Peggy made his blood boil. But he saw them separate. He noticed the significant distance between Jake and Peggy as they walked up the slope, back to the lot. At the nose of her car, they stopped and exchanged goodbyes. Jake shook her hand, but nothing more. After she had unlocked her car and climbed in, he stepped back and tipped his hat to her. As she started the car and pulled away, he walked away and vanished into the shadows.
Somebody cracked a cigarette lighter nearby. Declan looked around.
About ten feet away, Jake stood, lighting a cigarette; the flame from the light illumined his thin face for a moment before it went out. The tip of his cigarette glowed like a dusky gold pearl for a second.
“Professor Dunn, I presume?” Jake said, sauntering out of the shadows up to the side of Declan’s truck.
“Yeah, I caught up with you.”
Jake held out the pack of cigarettes and the lighter. “I mean it only as a peace offering.”
“No, thanks.”
Jake turned his face away in deference, his eye on Declan and blew out a plume of smoke. He turned back. “She’s all yours, my friend. Go to her. Be good to her. She’s too good for an old gigolo like me.”
With that, he stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, tilted his fedora rakishly askew with one hand and stepped back into the shadows again.
Miranda left the Jacobis’ house about the same time. Lewin walked her down to the driveway where her motorcycle stood.
“We might continue the party tomorrow night, unless you’re already engaged,” he said.
“Oh, no, I’d love to come again.”
“Are you sure? I overheard Trinny telling Mono she was going to rent The Cutting Edge.”
“Maybe she’s getting back at you for renting a hacker flick.”
“Yes, and turn the tables so that the male skater is the one saying ‘Yeah, right’ every five minutes.”
“Maybe I’ll come just for the fun of her tormenting you. Or maybe I could bring over The Sixth Sense.”
“’I see dead people!’” Lewin wailed, failing to impersonate Haley-Joel Osmant. “Sure. I have never seen that one.”
“You’d still be saying ‘Yeah, right’ every five minutes.”
He took her wrists in both hands and caressed them with his thumbs. “I will enjoy it.” He let her go and stepped back as she climbed onto her bike and kick-started it. He walked back to the porch as she switched the headlight on. He turned back to her, the light catching on his lean figure. He lifted his hand and waved it to her, high over his head, as she pulled away.
The following morning, when she came into her office, Peggy checked her voice mail the way she did every morning.
“This is Trinity Jacobi; I’m calling for my father, Jake, to cancel his appointment next Tuesday. Thank you.”
She glanced at the vase on her desk. The water still stood, but the rose had vanished.
Later that afternoon, Declan came by her office, looking a little forlorn.
“Peg, I’d, uh, like to apologize,” he said, hands in pockets. “I, uh, spied on you and Jake last night.”
“Declan, that’s okay: you were jealous, and I don’t blame you for feeling that way.”
He looked up. “Did you love him?”
“Yes. But we both agreed it wasn’t meant to be.”
“I was wonderin’…you busy tonight?”
She started to say no, but the phone rang. She picked it up.
“Peggy? This is Miranda, They’ve disappeared.”
“Who have?”
“The Jacobis. I went up to bring Lewin…some of the printouts, and they’re not there.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What’s up?” Declan asked.
Peggy covered the mouthpiece. “The Jacobis have disappeared.”
“Wait a minute…”
Miranda’s voice cut in. “You don’t believe me? Come up to their house and see.”
A few minutes later, Declan pulled his truck into the drive of the old Victorian on Cloisson Drive, above the Hollow. Almost before he parked, Peggy threw open the passenger door and jumped out. She ran up the steps to the porch, which showed no signs of repair. Miranda stood on the threshold of the front doorway; no door hung from the rusted hinges. Declan caught up with them.
“It’s like they never existed,” Miranda said. She reached into her coat and pulled out two folded sheets of paper, which she handed to them. “But this might explain it.”
Declan took the papers and unfolded them.
“I went online and hunted up any news items I could on Jake Jacobi, but these were all I could come up with.”
The first was an article from the New York Times, January 1, 2000: MILLENIUM BABY BORN TO TECH BILLIONAIRE KIMBALL JACOBI. Below it appeared a photo of a newborn child with a face that looked very like Jake’s. And the second, more recent, from the Albany Herald-Tribune: September 12, 2001: CLOSE CALL FOR LOCAL BILLIONAIRE: JACOBI HAS NEAR MISS IN WTC TRAGEDY. Below that ran several inches of type and a photo of a well-dressed dark gentleman in his late fifties, in tears, holding his twenty-month old son Josef.
The wind rose suddenly and howled through the empty house. Something flew out from the dusty foyer and rolled down the steps. Declan tried to grab it, but Mole, peering out of the truck bed, pricked up his ears and jumped out after it. The mutt chased the dark object and grabbed it. Declan ran after him and cornered him, he wrestled from Mole’s jaws…
Jake’s leather fedora.
10 November 2058
Josef “Jake” Jacobi awoke from the soundest sleep he had known since Charly’s death. The alarm clock chattered gleefully. He swatted it into silence and got up.
When he came down for breakfast, he could hardly believe only one night had passed. Over their meal, he told Lewin and Trinny about the dream he’d had.
Lewin looked at his father. “You’d better swallow that last mouthful, Vati [“Dad”].”
Jake obliged. “Why?”
“I had the same dream.”
Trinny, who stood leaning against the wall drinking her coffee, said with a cryptic smile, “That’s not unusual in close-knit families.”
“Why did you have the same dream, too?” Jake asked, looking up at his daughter. She replied only with that smile.
But later, as he headed out for a meeting with his agent, Jake couldn’t find his leather fedora…
Afterword:
I know, I know, why would Peggy even get interested in a male slut like Jake. We all do crazy things when we’re love-starved, even strong people like Peggy. I should know; I’m right there myself.
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