Jake's 8 (13 page)

It was Monday, which meant Japp’s was dark so I zigged around the corner where Twelfth Street zags off of Main to Neon’s. It was a warm spring evening, so I bypassed the long, dark bar inside and I walked under the Kenton County Infirmary pediment into the courtyard. My preferred mixologist looked to be giving lessons behind the bar to a couple of rookie ‘tenders who I hadn’t seen before.

I caught her eye.

“Two Pimm’s Cups, please.”

“Two? I only see one of you,” Molly Wellmann said.

“One for me and one for my lady friend. She’s on her way.”

“Is that the same lady friend?”

I nodded.

“You’ve been seeing a lot of that girl.”

“I’ve seen all of that girl,” I said.

“Don’t be that way with me, tough guy. You got the look of a man in L—O—V—E, LOVE!”

“My Pimm’s Cups,” I nudged with a blush.

She poured a jigger of Jimmy Pimm’s Formula No. 1 into two Collins glasses, she topped the fruit and spice infused gin with a healthy dose of her homemade ginger ale, then slid in a slice of green apple and spear of cucumber. In went the stirrer straw; out it came to her lips. She tasted. With a nod of approval, she lifted the glasses to my side of the bar.

“Here you go lover-boy.”

I picked up my glasses with a deeper blush and took a seat in the courtyard. I was feeling pretty good. It was a nice night, my best girl was meeting me for some quality cocktails in a quality establishment and I was wearing a new slate grey suit I’d picked up from my tailor just last night.

It was a healthy crowd at Neon’s, but nothing oppressive. I watched five office girls play the giant Jenga game. Even though it was early, three of them—who looked to be in their late twenties—were already lit up. Another late twenty office ingénue with a face full of worry and apprehension sipped a diet coke and tried to look like she was having fun. She wasn’t. An early forties hottie was nursing a two dollar Hudy and playing mother hen, slowing the drinks down and mapping out in her mind the route she’d take when it was time to drive their drunk asses home.

The ice in the spare Pimm’s shifted and I gave some thought to drinking it myself when Kendra walked up behind me and ran her hand across my shoulders. We were going on three months together. That’s not a record for me, but I could see where this thing with Kendra could go the distance. Maybe all the way down the aisle. I’d never had thoughts like that before, but I’d never been thirty-four before. Maybe it was time.

Kendra was twenty-nine, the daughter of a postman who became a lawyer through scholarships, dad working second jobs and her working odd jobs. She told me she’s had three lovers—two serious long-term relationships and one shamed-filled hook up. I figured that meant she’d had six lovers and was kind enough to crank down the number by half. Whether three or six or somewhere in between, she’d opened up her heart and bed enough to have loved and lost and gained a bit of wisdom, but not so often that she’d hardened her heart to true love when a quality guy came along and offered it.

Here’s to me being a quality guy.

I stood and gave her a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze of the hand then we both sat together. She took a long, slow draw through the red and white striped straw, released, swallowed and smiled. I’d introduced her to the cocktail and it was still a fresh pleasure to her. I liked her for that also. I enjoyed her enjoyment.

We exchanged our how-was-your-days and had moved on to the usual lovey-dovey gazing into each other’s eyes to the exclusion of the entire world, when a short, peevish man noisily dragged one of the unoccupied chairs from under our table and threw himself down into it.

He tossed his head into his hands and said, “Jake, you gotta help me.”

“Who
are
you?” I blurted out.

He took his hands away from his face and gave me a hurt, hangdog expression.

“Who am I? I’m one of your best friends.”

I looked deep into the man’s face. In my mind, I turned the clock back thirteen years. I erased some of the bloat in his face, I mind-botoxed his starter crow’s feet, I planted some hair on top of his bald bean and sprouted some on his forehead.

“Billy?” I asked.

“Who else?”

“I’ve not seen you in thirteen years.”

“So. We’re still friends aren’t we?”

“I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I guess.”

“Oh, if I don’t have you as a friend who have it got?”

I gave a look to Kendra. She gave a look to me. I could almost see the thought cross her mind, ‘Oh, someone to fill me in on the early years of my new beau Jake Gibb.’

We then gave a look to Billy.

“Of course you have Jake as a friend,” Kendra said giving me the verbal nudge.

He looked up to her like a rescuer.

“How’d you find me here?” I asked.

“That’s not important,” Kendra said.

“I think it’s important.”

“It isn’t.”

“How did you find me here?” I asked Billy.

“Tell us what’s wrong,” she countered. “Do you need a drink?”

He nodded.

“Jake, get him a drink.”

I assessed the situation: I looked at the once-forgotten friend Billy slouched quivering in his chair then to my hazel-eyed love, Kendra. I swallowed my frustration and I got him his drink.

I came back with a Pimm’s Cup, set it in front of him, snatched a glance down Kendra’s blouse just to tweak my libido and took a seat.

“Billy has a problem,” Kendra said.

“That’s obvious.”

She answered me with an eye roll.

“Tell Jake what’s the matter,” Billy.

Billy took a long, serious draw of the Pimm’s through his own red and white striped straw, smacked his lips a few times then sat back in the metal wire chair.

“Jake may not know this because back in college I put on a good front, but I’m nervous around people… especially women. Women that I like.”

“I may not know that?” I asked.

“Right? I put up a good front… with the guys that is.”

“No. You didn’t put up a good front. With the guys or anyone else. You were a disaster with women. You were a category five hurricane aimed right at New Orleans level disaster.”

“Jake!” Kendra scolded.

“I thought I hid it well.”

“You didn’t.”

“Jake!”

“He didn’t.”

“You’ve made your opinion clear.”

“It’s not my opinion. It’s a historical fact. I’m sure it’s written in a book somewhere. With women, Billy was a cluster...”

“Jake!”

I looked back to Billy. “Make with the problem,” I said.

“Jake!”

“You remember Patty Dunkirk?”

“I remember Abbie Dunkirk.”

“No, Patty Dunkirk. Abbie is Patty’s older sister. You dated Abbie, not Patty. Abbie was the girl you dated all through junior year. I remember you dumped her over voicemail.”

I felt Kendra’s judgment boring into me.

“I remember who Abbie Dunkirk was,” I said.

“Is,” said Billy.

“What?”

“Is.”

“Is?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean ‘is’?”

“You said, I remember who Abbie Dunkirk was. Past tense. She’s still alive and she’s still Abbie Dunkirk. So you remember who Abbie Dunkirk ‘is’ not ‘was.’”

“There’s a seat at the bar where you can finish your drink,” I told him.

“Jake!”

Kendra moved her chair by Billy’s and started in on calming him down. My thoughts drifted to Abbie Dunkirk.

I was serious about Abbie. Not Kendra-level serious but for me, at that time and at that age, serious. Abbie was a cute girl. Her being cute was why I busted up with her. You see, she was cute but not beautiful. That fact gnawed on her psyche. She was cute in that all her parts were pretty enough. She had a nice mouth, plump lips, straight, elegant nose, clear skin, high cheekbones, and a broad forehead. Each element was near perfect by modern standards of beauty. They just didn’t fit together that well. Her face had a perfect Palladian symmetry, but it was as if a design student working on a freshman year project took the best of various architectural schools—Ionic columns, Islamic minarets, a Renaissance dome, a Wright low slung roof line and finally some fantastic Frank Gehry gobblety-gook—and meshed them into a single structure thinking it would somehow work.

Abbie would look at all these individual elements assembled in the mirror and think ‘beautiful,’ but the world only gave her ‘cute.’ Being only cute put a chip on her shoulder. Beauty was worshipful. Cute was approachable. Beautiful put you on a pedestal to be venerated. Cute got you free drinks from middling-males. Abbie longed to be on a pedestal. Worst of all, she realized cute had a shelf life. After thirty, cute turned to… what? Unique? Interesting? Beauty was timeless. Beauty was Liz Taylor or Grace Kelly. Cute post-thirty was mid-nineties indie flick ‘interesting’ face. Parker Posey?

I didn’t mind cute. I liked cute. At that time, I wasn’t thinking past thirty. But that chip on Abbie’s shoulder cast a shadow over her cute face and our romance. After a year I decided it was time to move on and got out. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it over voicemail.

Kendra’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

I heard her say, “While Jake memory-fucks this Abbie girl, tell us about Patty.”

“It’s really not about Patty,” he said.

“Then who?”

“It’s about my phone. I lost it.”

“You lost your phone,” I said.

“Yeah, a really nice one. A smartphone.”

“You track me down—you still haven’t told me how—after thirteen years to tell me you need help because you lost your phone?”

“Jake!”

I ignored Kendra.

“Yes. I thought you could help me find it.”

“Your family owns half of Central Ohio,” I said. “Buy yourself a new phone.”

“I need to find it.”

“Find it yourself,” I said.

Kendra put her hands between us.

“Boys. Stop. Billy, why is finding this phone, this particular phone, so important?”

“Because, well. It’s important.”

“We need to know why, Billy. It will help us help you find it.”

“Well, there are pictures on the phone. Pictures of Patty.”

I thought back to Patty. She was in high school when I dated her sister, making her about four years younger than Abbie or around thirty now. I remember I met her a few times. Maybe at Thanksgiving. Maybe it was Easter. I remember helping carve a big ham. I remember the big ham more than the little sister. It was a good ham.

“So your game has improved a bit,” I said. “You got Patty to strip and pose for you? Good going.”

“Jake!”

I ignored that one too.

“We’re engaged, Jake.”

“So who cares. If you find the phone save the pics. You’ll want the memory in her old age. Things are bound to go south someday.”

“Jake!”

“But I lost the phone at her parent’s house. What if Mr. or Mrs. Dunkirk find it? What if they see the pics?”

“It won’t be pleasant,” Kendra said. “But you’re marrying their daughter. Plus how hard can it be to find? Poke around the cushions of their living room couch. Poke around the house.”

Billy gave Kendra an incredulous look.

A few things about the Dunkirks: They aren’t Cincinnati old money, but they are Cincinnati big money. Abbie and Patty’s great-grandfather made a big splash in machine tools back in the twenties or thirties. World War II turned that splash into a tidal wave of cash that washed over them and won’t recede for several generations. Their grandfather sold the business to General Motors and then funneled the proceeds into a good chunk of American wealth. Their father’s one and only job in life was to manage that wealth.

Their house would easily serve a spoiled Benelux prince without embarrassment. That ham I helped carve was cooked by their live-in chef. Yep, these were folks who had live-in staff and used ‘summer’ as a verb. Poking around the house, as Kendra suggested, would require laying in provisions for a long stay.

Hearing all that you might be tempted to ask: was I an idiot for bailing on Abbie and whatever dowry I’d score all those years ago? Sure. But at the time I thought myself fairly well set. This was months before my father’s business was revealed to be a house of cards blown into insolvency by a mild recession. It was before I had to scrape around for money to feed myself. It was before hunger would have trumped horny.

“When’s the last time you remember having it?” Kendra asked. She slipped into the mom role a bit too easily. Nurturing, helpful.

“I was sitting with Abbie and Patty at their house.”

“They live together?” I asked.