Mercifully, the waitress appears, giving us an out for this uncomfortable conversation.
The thing is, only two people in my life know the truth about what Jonah and I do together. One is my therapist, Doreen, who is trained to handle this kind of thing. The other is my Scottish ex-boyfriend, who is definitely not trained for it. Normally an ex would be the last person I'd confide in about my current relationship. But Geordie knew about my kink already, and during a weak moment while Jonah and I were broken up, I wound up spilling out the entire story.
No doubt Geordie profoundly wishes he didn't know. Sometimes I wish that too. Today, however, I'm glad there's one person in my life I can talk to about this, even obliquely. We were always more friends than lovers, which is one reason we can discuss the situation. And Geordie is definitely the only one who understands how deep my trust in Jonah goes.
When the waitress leaves, I do Geordie a favor and change the subject. "I asked Arturo and Shay along, but they couldn't make it. Has Nicolas been sick or something?"
"What? No. He's healthy as can be." Geordie smiles fondly. He's wound up becoming a surrogate uncle to little Nicolas Gillespie-Ortiz. "Just two nights ago, the little guy was crawling like anything. Well, not real crawling, sort of scooting around on his stomach, but he's picking up speed--"
"Wait. Two nights ago?"
Geordie gives me an odd look. "Yeah. I brought some Chinese takeout over. We watched Spaceballs, which doesn't hold up as well as you'd think. Young Frankenstein, on the other hand . . . Hold on. What's wrong?"
"I'd asked them if they wanted to do dinner that night, but they begged off."
Geordie's face takes on the pained horror shared by anyone who inadvertently reveals someone else's social snubbing. "Oh, you know, it was really last minute. Totally casual. I practically descended on them with General Tso's chicken in hand."
I nod like I'm buying it and quickly change the topic to how hot it might be in Belize. But inside, I keep turning over this new, hard fact in my mind: Two of my best friends in the world have shut me out. Deliberately. And I have no idea why.
***
"I'm sure it's nothing," Jonah says as our plane begins its descent into Belize City that evening. Although he remains silent about his own feelings, I finally got him to talk about mine. "Geordie's probably right. You have to make it easy for new parents. At least, that's what Rosalind says."
Rosalind's an obstetrician, the one who delivered Nicolas. I assume she knows what she's talking about in this area. But I'm too close to Arturo and Shay to accept that as an excuse. "I do make it easy for them. Hanging out at the townhouse, even just running errands together . . . we've always found the time."
"Do they have any reason to be angry with you?" Jonah asks bluntly.
I've been scouring my mind for any possible sour moment or accidentally unkind remark, for hours, without success. "Not that I can remember."
"Then they're not angry," he says, like it really is that simple. "Maybe they need time to themselves for a while."
"But what if--"
"Vivienne." Jonah's hand closes over mine. "Whatever it is, it's not about you."
If only I could believe him. But then my ears start to tighten, and I have to concentrate on more prosaic concerns, i.e., stuffing a couple sticks of spearmint gum in my mouth.
The Belize City airport is neither as nice as the average American airport nor as broken down as it would be in some crappy movie. Basically, it looks like something built in a smaller city around 1975--efficient and clean, just old-fashioned. Jonah and I walk into the tropical night hand in hand to find the driver Jonah hired waiting for us in a small white car parked beneath a broad palm tree. The warmth and humidity in the air reminds me of July in New Orleans: sultry in the darkness, but no doubt oppressive during the day. With Jonah in his linen shirt and cargo pants, and me in a denim shirtdress and straw hat, I feel as though we're beginning some exotic adventure.
Then we get in the car to hear the radio playing "Uptown Funk." I sigh. Some things really are the same the whole world over.
Rebecca's home down here is in Belize City itself, which surprised me when Jonah first told me. I had imagined that a botanist doing research would be living out in the jungle in some kind of picturesque hut. But Belize City turns out to be fairly small for a national capital, with only about seventy thousand people; the outskirts of town are as close to the wild as anyone needs to be.
"If you won't be comfortable at Rebecca's, you and I can always get a hotel," Jonah promises. "Even tonight, whatever hour--"
"Jonah. It's okay. We're here for Rebecca. The rest is irrelevant."
He puts his arm around me in wordless thanks. But there's still something overly gentle, almost tentative, about the way he touches me.
Even in the dark, he can see the stain of my black eye.
Traffic in Belize City is its own kind of nightmare. In Central America, apparently, traffic lanes and signals are less "rules," more "suggestions." We make it to Rebecca's within a half hour anyway. The driver pulls up in front of a white stucco house with turquoise shutters and door so vibrant that the color remains clear in the nighttime. Clay-red tiles cover the roof, and while the house isn't on stilts, it's raised off the ground by a tall slab of concrete beneath. A broad porch circles the entire house, and one shadow looks as though it might be a hammock dangling from two of the struts. The road became gravel about a mile back, and we are far from Belize City's lights. This is the very edge of town. Beyond this lie palms and other trees, stretching into what seems like infinity. A little thrill runs through me, just from the experience of being someplace so new.
I think maybe I need to travel more.
As we walk toward the stairs that lead up to the door, it opens. The sliver of light widens to paint a thin female silhouette. Jonah quickens his steps, and I let him go ahead. This should be between him and his sister.
"Rebecca." He hugs her with a sigh of relief. "Thank God you're okay."
"I'm fine," she murmurs, in the soft voice I remember from our one meeting via Skype. Her pale slim arms wrap around him, revealing some of her cuts and bruises. For a moment she seems almost wraithlike in her fragility.
But then she extricates herself from Jonah's embrace and comes down the steps to greet me. Rebecca's sleeveless T-shirt and shorts reveal both her wounds and the wiry muscles beneath the skin. Her pale, gray-blue eyes, so like Jonah's, lock with mine--a level of directness some people might find disconcerting. But I recognize Jonah in that, too.
She's somehow both ethereal and grounded. Unremarkable and compelling. You might walk right past her on the street, but from the moment you first really look at her, it's hard to look away.
Rebecca Marks is going to be an interesting puzzle to figure out.
"Hi." I offer her my hand instead of a hug. Instinctively I sense she needs that space, that time to consider a new person in her life. "It's good to meet you in person."
"You too, Vivienne." Rebecca's voice is soft. "You didn't have to come."
From some people, that would sound like a passive-aggressive brush-off. However, Rebecca says it with sincerity, even surprise, like she's touched I would even consider helping out.
Jonah, Rebecca and their step-siblings Maddox and Elise--they all learned early not to rely on anyone but each other. Carter Hale taught them that in the cruelest possible ways. Maddox seems to have ignored that lesson, but Jonah and Elise have only now begun to allow other people into their lives. Where does Rebecca stand?
"C'mon, you guys. Let's get inside before mosquitos eat us alive." Rebecca sighs. "I don't have much left, but I do have cold beer."
Rebecca's surroundings are bare, in a way that feels stark and yet aesthetically pleasing: stone-tiled floors, a ceiling fan that looks like it might be from the 1940s, a simple metal table and chairs by the small kitchen area, a desk against the far wall beneath dozens of pinned images of leaves and flowers--mostly orchids. One gorgeous bloom with s
un-gold petals looks familiar, and I realize I've seen a version of that photo before. But then it was almost as large as an entire wall, the centerpiece of the hottest nightclub in Chicago.
"Maddox's club is the Orchid," I say. "Did he let you name it?"
"No." Rebecca ducks her head, as if shy. "But he says my pictures inspired him."
Now that we're in the lamplight, the extent of her injuries becomes clear. Red, ragged scrapes all along her knees and left calf make my skin prickle in sympathetic pain. Dark bruises shadow her shoulder, and a tan-colored Ace bandage wraps her left wrist. One of her thin lips remains swollen and red; a darker line reveals where it was split open yesterday.
Jonah must have spent this entire day burning with the need to do something for his younger sister, because he immediately goes into solution mode. "Okay. You need new identification, so I brought a copy of your birth certificate. I can take you to the US Embassy tomorrow to start the whole process of getting a new passport, temporary driver's license, all of that. We'll need to get your locks changed. I got an emergency debit card for my own account, so you can use that until we get your own." He pulls it from his wallet and sets it on the table. "Plus I brought plenty of cash--American dollars, but you said everyone here accepts that--"
"They do," Rebecca interjects. "But I'm all right, Jonah. The locks have been changed already. All I needed from you was the birth certificate."
Jonah gives her a look. "When I said I was coming down, you said you wanted me to."
"Not to fix things." She smiles crookedly. "Just to be here. You know?"
I nod, because I know exactly how Rebecca's feeling. After being assaulted so cruelly by someone, you feel . . . degraded. Like you were no more to them than a thing to abuse. Only being around people who loved me and looked out for me soothed that pain. "Okay," I say. "A couple days of distraction and TLC, then. Does that sound about right?"
Rebecca's smile widens. "Sounds perfect."
Jonah clearly wants to do something more concrete to help her. He so badly wants solutions to every problem, when some of them can't be fixed. Only outlasted. But he's empathetic enough to follow his sister's lead. He nods once in surrender.
We busy ourselves settling in. Looks like Jonah and I will be sharing an air mattress, which might be the most comfortable option in this muggy heat. Rebecca brings us bottles of beer, the brown glass frosty-cold against our palms. The one true luxury she owns is a speaker dock for her phone, which she sets to play some R&B beneath our conversation.
"So," she says as she sits down with us, "how was the trip?"
Jonah has an almost incredulous look on his face. He came all the way to Central America to save the day, and instead he has almost nothing to do. I can tell he's about to say something to this effect, so I lay one hand on his arm, a silent warning. Although Jonah may not understand what it is Rebecca needs right now, I do.
She wants to move on. She wants something else to think about. Above all, she wants to be with people who care about her. The mugger told her she was nothing; we're here to tell her differently. We do that just by being here, and following her lead.
"The flight was great." I smile over at Jonah. "I'm still getting used to the perks of dating the son of a guy who founded an airline."
Rebecca sighs melodramatically. "I never know whether a man loves me for myself or for the SkyLounge access."
Jonah finally realizes what's needed here and says, "If he ever flies coach just to see you, you'll know it's love." Rebecca laughs, probably for the first time since the mugging. My heart melts a little when I see the relief in Jonah's eyes. He wants so badly to help.
So we chat about safe, silly things: our plans for the summer, fun things to do in Austin, Rebecca's plans to apply for a fellowship that would keep her in Belize for another couple of years after her current funding runs out at the end of the year. She perks up the most when Jonah mentions my art, which means I wind up explaining the fairly complicated process of creating an etching. This gives me plenty of time to study her.
Rebecca wears no makeup, and her brown hair is pulled back into a messy, indifferent ponytail. Her face is longer than Jonah's, a pale oval with freckles dusted across her cheeks and nose. When I first saw her via a computer screen, I thought she looked raw-boned, even plain. That illusion vanished once I finally saw her smile. When she talks, laughs, or listens attentively, the light in her eyes illuminates her features. There's a classic quality to her, understated but lovely all the same.
My mother's voice, never fully banished from my head, whispers, She'd be so pretty if she'd just make an effort.
But while I'm damned to know what Mom's opinion would be about everything, I don't have to share it. I like Rebecca better for not "making an effort." She dares the world to take her exactly as she is.
I also watch how Rebecca and Jonah treat each other. His sister Elise's bad relationship has muddied how he interacts with her; Elise remains defensive and he remains disapproving. Their love shines through regardless, but they leave a lot unsaid. With Maddox, Jonah was more at ease than I've ever seen him with anyone else. Some of that is just Maddox, one of the warmest people I've ever met; by the time I'd known him a few hours, I felt as if we'd been friends for ages. No wonder Jonah confides in Maddox in a way I don't think he approaches with anyone else but me.
Rebecca seems to stand between those two extremes. She doesn't open up the way Maddox does, but she obviously delights in being with Jonah again. Mostly she shines with little-sister adoration--the way I used to look at Chloe, once, when I was a kid and didn't know any better. At other moments, though, when Jonah isn't looking directly, her smile falters. She adores her brother, and yet she's always holding something back.
"Did you have any time to enjoy Japan at all?" Rebecca asks as we each drink our second beer of the night.
Jonah shrugs. "Spent most of my time there doing exactly what I do at home, which is studying seismographic readings."
Rebecca cocks her head, almost pitying. "You didn't do anything new?"
"I missed Vivienne," he says, surprising me. I knew he missed me--but I wouldn't have expected him to say so. He's more open with Rebecca than she is with him. Her devotion seems to be a key that unlocks the softer words he sometimes leaves unspoken. "That, I wasn't used to. Nor do I plan to get used to it."
His broad hand covers mine, and I squeeze it. "He invited me along, you know," I say to Rebecca. "I couldn't go this time."
"Is there going to be a next time?" She looks between the two of us.
"I could probably set up a research semester in Kyoto if I wanted." This is the first time Jonah's mentioned it. When I look up at him, he's smiling down at me. "But I won't do it until Vivienne is free to come along."
Five or six months in Japan? I don't have any idea how I'd support myself through that. Maybe Jonah's tacitly offering to be the breadwinner during what would be the first time we lived together. (Having a drawer at Jonah's place doesn't count.) I'm not sure how I feel about that yet.
What I am sure of is that Jonah's talking about our future, and that makes me as happy as I've been in a long time.
Jonah is the first to crash. His sleepless hours from the last couple of nights demand their due, and soon we're making up the air mattress in the center of this large, bare room. But I'm not wound down from the flight yet, and I want to let Jonah fall deeply asleep before I start jostling him. So I say, "I'm going to hang out on the porch for a while. De-stress."
"Sounds good," Rebecca says. "I'll join you."
The average guy, well aware he was about to be discussed at length, would've either run interference or joked about it. Jonah's more secure than that, and more tired too. "You guys have fun," he says as he sinks down onto the air mattress. He's already almost asleep.
Together Rebecca and I tiptoe out onto the porch, half-empty beer bottles in hand. She leads me around the corner, to the far side of the house, where the sound of our voices won't disturb Jonah
's sleep. No hammock waits here, so we both sit down on the battered old wood of the porch. Moonlight shines on numerous flowerpots lining the porch railing, each filled with a vibrantly flowering plant. "So," I say, "when you get done taking care of plants for work, you come home and take care of plants for fun."
I'm teasing her, and expect her to respond with a joke herself. Instead Rebecca leans close. "Listen," she says. "I love Jonah. He means the world to me, and I want him to be happy. It's obvious you make him happy."
Is this the don't-hurt-my-brother-or-I'll-hurt you speech? Rebecca Marks doesn't seem like the type.
That's not where she's going with this. She fixes me in her fierce, unblinking gaze. "But if Jonah did that to you, you have to leave. Protect yourself."
"What--the black eye?" It's stopped hurting by now; I'd almost forgotten about it. "No! Jonah would never, ever, in a thousand years hit me." Well, not outside of a very particular context where he has my full consent, but that's all in the realm of Stuff the Baby Sister Doesn't Need to Know. I'm torn between feeling angry on Jonah's behalf, and hurt for him. "You're his sister. You should know better."
My reaction doesn't faze Rebecca for an instant. "I'm his sister," she agrees, her voice still low and even. "I know where we came from. We all survived Redgrave House, but not one of us got out unscathed. Not even Maddox."
"Jonah's told me," I say quietly.
"If any one of us had been raised in that house alone, I don't know what we would've become. We overcame that together, with each other, for each other. But it doesn't go away."
This part I know is true from my own experience. Maybe Rebecca senses that shared knowledge between us, because she gives me a small smile, and when she speaks again, her voice has gentled.
"Everything we went through during our childhood--it's like a minefield we have to work our way through, every single day. And you want to believe they've all been defused, that it's safe now, and you can move on. But you always know, always, that something could go wrong. The wire could get tripped. And that mine will explode."
What strikes me most is that Rebecca isn't trying to warn me about Jonah as much as she's trying to explain herself. As hard as it is to imagine this quiet, soft-spoken woman turning to violence, she believes that she could.