His Pawn (The Manhattan Tales Book 1) (2 page)

Travis was quiet and I realized I shouldn’t have asked that question.  “He… died last Spring.  He was an officer with the NYPD.  He was shot during a drug raid.  It was in the papers…”  his voice trailed off.  He obviously didn’t want to talk about that.

I remembered how I stopped to stare at him for a moment.
  Shit.  This kid just lost his dad and he had to deal with this hell at school.
  I wondered how the kid of a deceased police officer was able to afford the cost of this school, but I wasn’t going to ask.  We rounded the corner together as I helped him carry his guitar towards the street.  There were a few parked town cars, limos, and Bentleys with their drivers waiting.

“Are any of these for you?”  I asked, as I spotted my father’s Bentley waiting for me some yards away.

“No, I take the subway,” Travis answered as he took the guitar case from me with his free hand.

I blanched, and then realized how worn his loafers were.  His denim jacket was probably something he got on sale at some thrift store. 
Right.

“I’m from Brooklyn.  I’m on scholarship with a 4.0.  My dad wanted me to go here… I hate this place but it’s better than public school, or so I’m told.”  He rolled his eyes.

“Well let me give you a lift,” I offered.  I gestured toward the waiting Bentley.

Travis shook his head.  “It’s cool, man.  I work a few blocks over at Strings N’ Things.”

“At what?”  I asked.

“Strings N’ Things, it’s a music shop.  They sell old vinyl records, classic guitars.  It’s pretty cool.”  Travis grinned.

“Right.  Let me give you a lift then.  If it’s only a few blocks, it’s not a problem.”

Travis politely refused, but eventually relented.  Only one person has ever been able to tell me
no
, and it’s my own father.  We rode over to the music shop and talked about our favorite bands and discovered that our taste in music was a common ground.

“Do you play anything?”  Travis asked as we were stopped at a very long red light.

“No.  My father would kill me.  I’ve been bred for one thing and one thing only.” I answered bitterly.

“That sucks, man.”

“Yeah.  I did try to learn the guitar once but my father found out and smashed it to bits.  I just live vicariously through the bands I like.”  I tried to make the statement sound casual, but nobody ever understood how badly that memory affected me.

“Shit, man.  I’m sorry.”

  “What about you?  How’d you learn?”  I wanted to turn the conversation away from me.  I hated pity and sympathy.

“My dad taught me.  He used to play in a band before he became a cop, when I was really little.  But every weekend that he wasn’t on duty, he’d take me upstate to my Uncle’s shed and we’d play all the good hits:  Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin, you name it, we played it.”  Travis grinned, reminiscing.  “I wanted to start a band, but, now I have my mom and little sister to take care of…”

I listened as Travis talked about his music and his family.  His mom was a school teacher and sister was ten years younger and I could tell he felt a very strong sense of brotherly duty toward her, especially now that their dad was gone.

As long as the conversation didn’t turn on me, I was willing to listen.  I suggested we check out a few concerts that would be playing in the immediate area, but Travis shook his head, claiming they were too expensive.  I’d never been friends with someone who couldn’t afford to do what they wanted to do, but instead, Travis invited me to check out some up and coming local bands who played at a few small clubs.

“They only charge five or ten dollars at the door on most nights, if you don’t drink.”

I didn’t know what to think of that.
Bad music and no booze?
It sounded like a piss-poor time, but I figured,
why the hell not
?            

“Sounds like fun,” I grinned.  As it turns out, it
was
a lot of fun.  That was the beginning of a long-lasting friendship with Travis Pryor. 

I wouldn’t meet his mother or sister for another eight years.  I believe Travis was embarrassed by his mother’s current state of clinical depression and their lack of wealth.  Our usual spots consisted of my apartment, the clubs, and bars but those were the best years of my life. 

When I did meet Mrs. Pryor and Jilly Bean, they took me in like one of their own.  I was in awe how close knit they were.  I had assumed family shit like that only existed in movies and books.

  I had no idea that after many years of friendship, Travis would ultimately stab me in the back by sleeping with my girlfriend…

*****

As I reminisced about the memories, which caused anger to simmer within me, I suddenly felt the gentle vibe of my mobile in my pocket.  Quickly, I glanced at the gadget under the table to sneak a look at the incoming caller.  A local number lights up the screen and I grip the mobile so hard, I nearly crack it.  A name does not pop up, but even after all these years, I recognize that number.
Travis Pryor.  Why the fuck is he ringing me?

My teeth clench as I let the call go to voicemail.  My knuckles tighten when I hear the single vibration indicating that I have a waiting voice message. 
Fuck him.
  I assume he is drunk dialing as he did several times, attempting to apologize when we first fell out of being friends.

Perhaps it was the champagne on an empty stomach, but the waiting voice message was eating at me.  I considered deleting the message without listening to it. After thirty minutes, I felt my self-control wane.

“Shitsurei shimasu,” I excused myself from the table to listen to the message.  I was curious what rubbish he’d have for me this time.  I stepped outside into the cold night air and held the phone up to my ear as I listened for the assumably drunken slurs that would assault my ear.  Why I decided to torture myself with this bullshit, I do not know, but I am glad I did not delete the message.  Because what I heard next was not what I expected.

  “Hi… um, Mason- It’s Jillian, Jillian Pryor.  I know you don’t want to see me or my brother, but… I don’t know who else to call.  I don’t have anywhere to go…” Her voice on the message was shaky.  She was most likely crying or she was cold.  It was in fact snowing lightly at the moment.

“Please, please call me back.  This is my number now.  Travis gave me his old phone.  I hope you’re ok… ok, bye.”

Then the message ended.  I replayed it again to ensure that I was hearing correctly.  Yes, I remembered Travis’s little sister.  How could I not?  She was a bouncy yet shy, sweet thing and a bit nerdy and awkward in appearance, but I recall that he was insanely protective of her.

I stared at my mobile as I felt a grin form on my face.  A plan was hatching at that very moment.  This was too good to be true; The way this could work out seemed too easy. I had a way with women, and it would take nothing for an uncomfortable, socially awkward little thing like Jillian Pryor to melt around me.

If Travis could take the love of my life from me, then I could take his little sister.  An eye for an eye.
I felt the smirk on my face darken as I dialed the number and held the phone to my ear.

2.   Jilly Bean

I sighed and pursed my lips as I sat in the quiet Starbucks.  There were still a few people in the shop, ordering coffee or tea, lounging as they enjoyed the free wifi and listening to the music.  It was going on nine p.m., and the store would be closing in an hour.  I cringed, feeling another lump form in my throat.  I was literally homeless for the first time in my life, and I was scared.

Blindly, I scrolled through the contacts in my phone as my thoughts tried to sort out the whirlwind that had happened just four hours earlier.  For the last nine months, I worked as a full-time nanny for a family in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. 

At the time, it seemed like I’d won the lottery as far as jobs for undergraduate college students were concerned.  They’d give me a decent paycheck every two weeks, and also provide me with room and board. It seemed perfect because my mom and brother could no longer afford to live in New York and my brother received a business opportunity from my Uncle who lives in Ohio.  I wasn’t ready to leave New York.  Brooklyn has been my home my entire life and I was neck deep in my college career at NYU. 

Transferring to another school would basically mean I’d have to start my junior year all over again.  Financial aid helped to cover the cost of my tuition by the skin of my teeth.  I was able to get on a payment plan to cover the differences and this job paid for that.  At least, it did until the little girl I was responsible for had found my purple vibrator in the top drawer of my desk and ran around her mother’s soiree with it. 

The shock and gasps that erupted from the small gathering of elitist women will forever haunt my mind.  The look on her mother’s face as she realized what her four-year-old daughter was waving around will always plague me.  I’ll never be able to use them as a reference, that’s for sure.

It’s not that I couldn’t control the little train wreck, but she was not an easy child to manage.  She was the sweetest, most adorable child when her parents were not home, which was 98% of the time.  When they were home, she turned into a terror, desperate for their attention in any way.  Of course her mother blamed this behavior on me, and my “lack of control.”

She fired me instantly, but had the decency to tell me that I had two days to find other living arrangements.  I’d never felt my heart thrum in  my chest the way it did while she watched me collect what few possessions I had.  I couldn’t stay in that place another minute, considering the circumstances.  Could you imagine how awkward that would have been? 

I’d forgotten that my brother was on business in San Francisco and would not be able to help me.  I attempted to hug the little girl goodbye as she profusely apologized for “being bad” and my heart broke.  Her mother yanked her away from my attempted embrace, as though I were some criminal, and that was the worst.  It had been an all-around shitty night.  Silently, I cursed my best friend for talking me into getting that damn vibrator.  It was nothing but trouble and I barely used it anyway.

The Sloanes were a very demanding family, and very difficult to please.  Aside from my duties attending to their daughter, I also had to pick up dry cleaning, babysit at events, host birthday parties, cook, clean and the list goes on. I barely had time to finish my assignments and their demands have even cut into my attendance in class more than once.  Needless to say, my grades and GPA were disappointing.  I already knew that the financial aid office was going to strip me of my funds because my GPA had dropped below their requirement.  I still needed to complete one more internship and I had one semester of classes left before I could graduate, but I knew I was going to have to repeat statistics. 

I just didn’t have enough time or energy to study this last semester.  Grumble. Grumble.  There was no time for a worthless sex toy.  For now, I needed to think about a roof over my head.  It was snowing outside, and the shelters were already filled.  I’d checked.

I sucked on my lower lip in thought as I scrolled through my contacts list again.  This time I paid better attention.  I didn’t really have any friends that I could call since most of them had left town for winter break including my best friend, Elyse.  The phone scrolled down to
his
name and my heart fluttered rampantly. 

  Mason Woodward had been my brother’s closest friend for years.  He had been like family to us and he was always at our apartment during my adolescent years.  I’m not one-hundred percent sure, but I’m almost positive he even spotted our rent more than once when times got rough.  He bought me Chanel frames for my seventeenth birthday when he learned that the girls at my high school were bullying me over my cheap, chunky black frames.  He was such a nice guy, so kind and had a killer smile.  My finger hovered over the send button of my phone as I debated whether I should bother him.  Maybe he wasn’t even in town. 

  It had been five years.  Five whole years since I’d seen him. Back then, I was such a geek.  I was part of the science club, the 4-H club, and the drama club.  To match my awesome nerdiness, I also sported the quintessential geek look.

My hair was a wild mop of dark auburn waves, I was a little overweight and I wore those thick black frames… which I eventually taped together because one of the girls at school broke them in half. They weren’t the same after being broken in half, and being so shy, I didn’t have the guts to report her to the principal.  I walked around blind, bumping into things until Mason bought me the new frames and called it a very early birthday gift.

Just before I graduated high school, something happened between Travis and Mason.  I came home one night after volunteering at the animal shelter, and found them fighting.  Mason stormed out of the apartment, and stopped for a brief second when he saw me in the hallway.  I stared at him wide-eyed as I caught him shouting profanity while he slammed the door.  I’d only ever heard him talk like that once, when he’d lost his temper with a college guy who tried to take advantage of me a few months earlier.

“Mason?”  It was all I could squeak.  The man looked positively scary with a wild look in his eyes.

He looked down at me for a moment, and I could see his hands twitch as his knuckles clenched.  “Get into the apartment, Jill.”  He growled and moved past me in the hall. 

I wanted to ask him if he was okay but that would have been a stupid question.  He was obviously not okay.  So I shouted something else just as foolish.

“Are you coming to my graduation?” I asked after him.

He paused on the top step, but did not turn to look at me.  He didn’t respond, and stormed down the steps.  I’d never felt so helpless.  I didn’t know what to do.  I turned and entered the apartment to find my brother covering his nose with paper towels.  They were soaked in blood and his right eye was already swollen shut.  I was pretty sure my brother’s nose was broken.

“What happened?”  It was more of a demand than a question.

“Just mind your own fucking business, Jill,” my brother’s roar was muffled through the paper towels, but still, he’d never spoken to me like that, either.  In fact, he’d always been protective of me- too overprotective, actually... 

****

“Hi,” The barista who had been eying me for the past few hours behind the counter finally approached me.  It was enough to knock me out out of my reverie.

“Hi,” I replied with shyness in my voice.  I already knew what she was going to tell me.

“I noticed you’ve been sitting here for a few hours.”  She glanced down at my bright pink duffel bag.  “Do you want a scone or a sandwich?  We have a few left.  Nobody will eat them at this hour.”

“Sure, thanks,” I answered immediately.  I hadn’t eaten since this morning and I realized I felt sick with hunger.

Knowing that the coffee shop would close soon, and I’d be forced to sleep on a park bench in the snow, I dialed Mason’s number before I could think about it again.  It rang a few times before going to voicemail.

I knew he didn’t want to see me, or speak to me, but I still left him the most uncomfortable voice message ever.  I set my phone down as my mind wandered again to the last time I’d seen him and how he’d ignored me when I asked if he would attend my graduation.  I wanted him to attend as much as I wanted my mom and my brother to be there.  Even after the fight he’d had with my brother, I still sent him an invitation to the commencement. 

I waited to hear his rsvp and even after I did not hear from him, I watched the crowd of families and loved ones on commencement day hoping that I’d still see him in that empty chair.  Yes, I’d reserved a seat for him even though I hadn’t heard his rsvp.  It hurt when he never showed up.  Being a silly eighteen year old at the time, I sent him a few Facebook messages telling him that we missed him and asking if he was okay.  He never responded, just as he wouldn’t respond to my awkward and random voicemail message.

“Here you go,” the freckled barista handed me a chicken salad sandwich              . 

“Thank you,” I answered with a slight smile, and I wasted no time eating it.  I’d never tasted anything so delicious, and I think it’s because I hadn’t eaten in over twelve hours.

After that, I rested my head in my arms and I must have dozed off for a little while, because the next thing I knew, my phone was vibrating on the wooden table.  I reached for it, thinking it was my brother or my mom… maybe even my best friend, Elyse.

Mason
.  His name lit up the screen as my phone vibed in my hand, and my heart did a double leap.  Quickly, I answered the call.

“Hello?”  I said shakily.  I shouldn’t sound so nervous, but I was.  He actually called me back, but what would he say?

“Jillian,” Mason’s voice answered on the other end.  His tone was clipped, and he sounded just as he did the very last time I’d seen him, just before he’d walked out of our lives.

“Mason,” I breathed softly. My heart did a double leap in my throat.

I could almost feel the impatience dripping from his end of the phone and it was intimidating.

“I’m so sorry to bother you. I know that you want nothing to do with me, but I-”

“Where is your mother and brother?”  He asked, not letting me finish my explanation.

“They moved to Ohio.  I am
still
trying to finish school at NYU,” I answered.

His commanding tone made me feel even more uncomfortable, and that was just over the phone. 

“Actually my brother is in San Francisco for business-”

“You have no other friends who can help you?”

Well, damn…

“Nobody is around during winter break,” I answered.

There was a pause of silence.  He was obviously thinking about this.

“You need me to set you up with a place to stay.” He finally spoke.  “For how long?”

“Yes, um... I don’t know how long.  I’m going to get a job and get my own place immediately.  I promise I won’t be in the way.  You won’t even know I’m there.” 

Now I was just rambling like an idiot.  Truthfully, to get a job full time in order to afford my own place would mean I’d have to quit school because I could not afford rent, utilities and tuition at the same time.  I might as well move to Ohio…

Mason only chuckled, and it was condescending in sound.  This was definitely not the same guy I’d remembered and I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend even one night under his roof. 

“Where are you now?”  He asked.

“The starbucks at 1st and 75th?”  I answered. 
Why did I pose that as a question rather than a statement?

“My driver will be there in ten minutes,” Mason answered.

“Thank y-”  I started, before I realized he’d ended the call.

I simply stared at my phone, wondering what just happened.  He was as cold as ice.

My eyes were burning so while I waited, I went into the bathroom and took out my contacts and replaced them with my glasses.  I still wore the same Chanel frames he bought me.

Feeling relieved, I blinked my brown eyes several times and then pulled my hair into a ponytail.  I stared at my plain self in the mirror and shrugged.  I wasn’t aiming to seduce him.  He’d seen me at my worst before.  I was no longer chubby like I used to be, but I was no stunning beauty.  I came to accept that about myself.