Gold Hill (19 page)

“
Twelve bodies later!”
Seth said. “And what about Yvonne? Or her daughter?”

Aaron Alvin looked away for
the first time.

“
I know you still see
Yvonne,” Seth’s voice held the full implication of his words.
“Every Saturday, eight in the morning, for two hours.”

“
You have my offer,” the
Attorney General stood from his seat.

“
Mitch gave you my answer
over twenty years ago when you railroaded a good man to gain access
to his gorgeous wife,” Seth said. “You remember what Mitch
said?”

“
I’ll wait for your
answer,” the Attorney General walked toward the door.

“
You have it,” Seth
said.

The Attorney General
continued walking. When he reached the door, he turned to look at
Seth.

“
Does my daughter
know?”

“
I won’t keep your
secrets.”

“
And Rodney
Smith?”

“
He doesn’t want to know,”
Seth said. “He’s one of the most incredible men I’ve ever met. I’d
say person, but Yvonne’s daughter, Tanesha, is just that much
better a human being than he is.”

“
And?”

“
He doesn’t care about
your excuses, your reasons, or the past. He’s not going to waste
his life on anger or revenge,” Seth said. “He’s busy changing lives
in the present.”

Aaron Alvin raised his
eyebrows and gave a slight nod.

“
There is one thing you
could do . . . for him, for yourself.”

“
What’s that?” the
Attorney General asked.

“
Release
Yvonne.”

The Attorney General
flinched and opened his mouth as if to say something. No words came
out.

“
Let her come home,” Seth
said. “It’s been over twenty years. She’s still a beautiful woman.
She has a family who will look after her, a family who love her, no
matter what condition she’s in, or what she’s done. You don’t need
her in your stable.”

Without saying a word, the
Attorney General walked out of the house.

“
That’s
him?” Maresol’s voice was low and
conspiratorial.

Seth gave her a quick
nod.

“
You were nice not to
throw him out,” Maresol said.

“
I’m going to marry his
daughter,” Seth smiled. “Can’t be too mean to the
father-in-law.”

Shaking her head at him,
Maresol went back into the kitchen.

~~~~~~~~

Friday afternoon — 2:11
p.m.

“
Oh yes!” Charlie yelled.
“Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Charlie jumped up from his
seat and danced. He wiggled his rear and shook his arms in the air.
He was in the middle of hopping on one foot when Delphie peeked in
on him. He jerked to standing straight up.

“
Everything all right,
Charlie?” Delphie asked.

“
Um.” Charlie pointed to
his computer screen.

“
What is it?” Delphie
beamed at him. Even though she knew his answer, she wanted to hear
him say it.

“
I GOT AN A!”

Charlie grabbed Delphie’s
hands and began jumping up and down. He picked her up and twirled
her around. Mike looked in the door.

“
Hey! Put her down,” Mike
said.

Charlie set Delphie
down.

“
What is all this fuss
about?” Mike’s voice came out in fatherly tones. “You’ll wake the
baby.”

Delphie and Charlie pointed
toward the computer.

“
YOU GOT AN A!” Mike began
hopping up and down in imitation of Charlie.

Charlie and Delphie jumped
up and down with him until they were laughing and jumping at the
same time.

“
Congratulations, man,”
Mike shook Charlie’s hand. “Call Mom. She’ll want to
know.”

“
Good idea,” Delphie said.
“Call Anjelika.”

Unable to keep from
smiling, Charlie nodded.

“
What should I make to
celebrate?” Delphie asked. “We had brownies last night.”

“
I’ll eat anything,”
Charlie said.

“
I’ll make a cheesecake,”
Delphie said as she walked out of the room. “Maybe two so Valerie
can have her own.”

“
Good
thinking.”

Charlie raised a hand to
wave good-bye. Sitting back down at his computer, he sat for a
moment and stared at his grade. It was the first time in his life
that he’d done well at anything so square. He felt the flush of
wanting to get high. Uncomfortable, he hopped to his feet and
paced. He was about to leave the room when his cell phone
rang.

“
Go,” Charlie said in his
coolest voice.

“
Why hello Charlie,” Sandy
said. “How are you doing?”

Charlie chuckled at her
mocking of his cool cell phone answering technique.

“
Sorry,” Charlie said.
“Old habit.”

Sandy laughed.

“
Did you get your test
back?” Sandy asked.

“
What test? I don’t know
anything about a test.”

“
English grammar,” Sandy
said. “Weren’t you going to hear this afternoon?”

“
I GOT AN A!” Charlie
yelled into the phone.

Laughing, Sandy
cheered.

“
Listen, I know you want
to use,” Sandy said. “But you’ve come this far, if you
use . . . ”

“
I’ll go backwards, not
forward,” Charlie said. “I just thought of that. Thanks
Sandy.”

“
I have a couple more
clients,” Sandy said. “But I’ll call Aden. We’ll celebrate
tonight.”

“
Ok,” Charlie
smiled.

“
See you tonight. Love you
Charlie.”

Charlie hung up the phone.
Sandy dialed him right back.

“
I love you too Sandy,”
Sandy said imitating his voice.

“
I love you too,” Charlie
said.

“
Call Anjelika,” Sandy
said. “She’ll be so excited.”

“
I will,” Charlie said.
“Thanks!”

“
Why don’t you invite them
to dinner? I think her husband is home,” Sandy said. “They’re fun
to have around.”

“
Okay,” Charlie
said.

“
See you later,” Sandy
said.

“
Bye,” Charlie hung up the
phone. He stood for a moment tapping his phone against his chin. He
could call a guy he knew and get
some . . . 

Smiling to himself, he
called Anjelika.

~~~~~~~~

Friday evening — 6:11
p.m.

Jeraine stopped his brand
new, not-yet-available-to-the-public, black Dodge Dart in front of
their new home.

“
Are we going to see
Gran?” Tanesha asked. “I thought she had dinner plans.”

“
I thought maybe we could
go on a date,” Jeraine nodded his head to their little house with
the paint scraped off it.

“
In your new car?” Tanesha
smiled.

“
I can’t help it if they
gave me this car,” Jeraine smiled.

“
Schmidty’s a good agent,”
Tanesha said.

“
Got rid of my pimp
mobile.”

Tanesha smiled.

“
Come on.”

Jeraine hopped out and came
around the car. She let him open her door and help her out of the
car. He went around to the trunk and took a wicker basket out of
the back.

“
Come on,” he repeated. “I
have it all set up.”

He seemed so excited, so
happy, she couldn’t help but smile. He put his arm around her,
opened the broken picket gate, and led her down their front path.
At the door, he stopped. Setting the basket down, he opened the
door and picked Tanesha up. She squealed with laughter and he
carried her over the threshold. He set her down, picked up the
basket, and locked the door.

Tanesha took in the
progress. There was a path of paper down the middle of the shining
hardwood floors. Drop cloths lay near the repaired walls as if the
painters had just stepped away. The missing heat registers exposed
new heating ducts. New pipes were stubbed up in the bare kitchen.
The doors were missing from their hinges. The security door to the
garden was locked but the inside door was off being refinished with
the rest.

“
You have to take off your
shoes,” Jeraine said. “Jake said they would paper the whole house
on Monday, but he wanted to give the finish few days to dry. We can
walk on it though.”

“
What did you work out
about financing?” Tanesha gave voice to the question she’d been too
afraid to ask before.

“
He said he got a
construction loan on the property,” Jeraine said. “I guess you
don’t have to make payments for a year. He gave me one of those
weird smiles and said he’d see where we were in a year.”

“
So it’s still
ours?”

“
Yeah,” Jeraine gave her a
toothy grin. “Schmidty got some company to sponsor most of the
studio for a logo mention in the credits. The studio is supposed to
go in as soon as the electrical is done, which Jake said should
happen by the end of the month. That was one major expense we don’t
have to cover. And . . . ”

“
And?”

“
If I work this weekend
and next week, I should make enough money to pay off everything we
owe Jake and make a tiny dent in my debt,” Jeraine said. “Hopefully
I can do it.”

“
Why
hopefully?”

“
Movie people,” Jeraine
shrugged. “They’ve got the hottest women and the best drugs. It
follows them around wherever they go.”

“
You’ve done this work
before?”

“
Some,” Jeraine said.
“They’re not all like that, but this group? It’s going to be hard
to stay focused.”

“
How does Seth manage it?”
Tanesha asked.

“
That’s good thinking,”
Jeraine said. “He controls his environment. But he’s The Seth and
I’m . . . ”

Jeraine drifted off in
thought.

“
You know what? I’ll ask
him. He’s been sober a long time. I bet he knows just what to do.”
Jeraine smiled. “Come on. Let me show you around.”

Jeraine led her through the
house. He pointed out the color swatches taped to the walls and the
furniture descriptions set in various places on the floor. In the
living room, he patted the air as if it were the back of a
chair.

“
I’ll sit right here,” He
dropped down into a kind of squat. “Drink my non-alcoholic beer and
watch my non-winning Broncos on my big flat screen TV.”

“
Where am I?” Tanesha
chuckled.

“
You’ll be off hanging out
with all those hot med students,” Jeraine made an exaggerated
sniff. “Leaving me to take care of business.”

Tanesha laughed. Jeraine
jumped up and pulled her into the bare kitchen.

“
I’m going to make fancy
dinners for my exhausted wife,” Jeraine said. “We’ll have pots of
tea ready for long study nights
and . . . ”

She kissed the back of his
neck.

“
What about your therapy
and stuff?” Tanesha asked. “You’ll be hanging out with all those
hot nurses. Oh Mr. Wilson, you’re so smart
and . . . ”

He spun in place and kissed
her. She laughed. He took her hand and led her up the newly
finished oak stairs to their attic bedroom. The shining floors
spanned the entire space. Jill had placed their claw foot bathtub
in the soon-to-be-master bathroom. Plastic sheets covered most of
the floor of the bathroom. A cozy mattress covered with pillows and
comforters sat in the middle of the room. Pillar candles rested on
newspaper around the room and a portable turntable sat on a
ledge.

“
Look up,” he
said.

Tanesha looked up to see
that they had set the skylights in the roof.

“
It’s not done or
insulated so it’s a little cold,” he said. “But the plumber hooked
up the tub and the water’s hot.”

“
I thought the solar
wasn’t going in until the roof was completed.

“
Right,” Jeraine said. “We
have a gas tank. The solar guy said we’d always have a back up so
it’s new and big and hooked up. You want to take a
bath?”

“
This is really perfect,”
she smiled at him.

“
I know!” he hugged her.
“Oh wait.”

He ran over to the
turntable and gently set the needle down on a jazz
record.

“
Old school romantic
music,” he said. “Would you like to dance?”

“
Why . . .
I mean what . . . is all of this?” Tanesha shook her
head as if she was confused.

“
I want you to know that I
love you,” Jeraine shrugged.

“
But . . . ”

“
No, I mean really know
that I love you,” he said. “That’s what this is. I got your
favorite comfort food from CoraFaye’s.”

“
Chicken and chocolate
cake?” Tanesha asked.