A Better Goodbye Read online

  Have it your way, babe, Nick thought as he watched her guide Mark into the master bedroom, his eighth visit in the few weeks she’d worked there. Or was it the tenth? Whatever the number, it fed a feeling that Nick couldn’t deny. He was jealous. A little bit anyway. It was probably why he had such an easy time remembering Mark’s name. Mark was the competition, even if Nick was the only one who knew it.

  He wanted Coco for his own, the way he had her in his imagination. At first he wrote it off to physical attraction: the shimmering black hair that hung down her back, the chimes that rang in her laughter, the eyes that made him think of teardrops. But Sierra was probably prettier than Coco, and Kianna definitely had been. They were the kind of women he’d met in bars when he was young and on the prowl. He’d had his pick of them when it looked like he had a future. Now that he didn’t, he realized what they lacked and what Coco had. She was funny enough to make him laugh and smart enough to make him wish he’d stayed in school. Maybe best of all, she wasn’t mean in the small-minded, scorn-your-sister way that made so many massage girls act like they had venom in their lipstick. At this stage of his life, a little kindness went a long way with him.

  He hadn’t been with a woman in more than a year, so long ago he could scarcely remember. The last one had lived upstairs. She’d come home from her job at Nordstrom, he’d come home from throwing bags at LAX, and they’d make the walls shake. It was never about dinner or a movie, just sex. And then she split for Portland to live with her sister and seek a man less haunted than Nick, a man she wouldn’t find staring into the distance when she woke in the middle of the night. “I can’t touch you in the place that needs touching most of all,” she told him. “I can’t touch your heart.”

  Her words echoed those of the women who had shared Nick’s bed before her. Good women mostly, but none equipped to get him out from under the shadow that robbed him of whatever sunshine found its way into his life, not just once or twice but every time he tried to let it in. No wonder he had all but given up on the idea that he could find a way for the past to coexist with the present.

  The present was where Coco entered the equation, not that she’d ever know it or even think about it. Christ, she looked young, while Nick couldn’t get past the age in his eyes and the scars surrounding them. He wondered if the scars scared her, though she never gave that impression. She seemed to trust him from the day they bonded over their mutual need for cleanliness. She might even like him, but only the way she liked a neighbor who always said good morning or someone who cut her hair the way she wanted it. Yeah, that was it, Nick told himself. She had to like him—he was the guy who would save her if things got scary.

  He found himself feeling mellow whenever she was on his mind. She took the rough edges off his thoughts and freed his imagination to go places it hadn’t been since his career, his life, everything went off the tracks in Oakland. One oddly quiet night in his apartment, his thoughts of Coco were easing him toward reverie again when the phone rang.

  “Hey, buddy, you up?” It was Coyle. “I figured if I didn’t talk to you now, I’d never get any sleep.”

  Nick knew instantly that Coyle was calling to tell him there would be no job driving a truck. He knew why Coyle was calling, too. Coyle was afraid Nick would kick the shit out of him. Nick had no such intention, but there was a measure of payback in hearing Coyle chatter nervously, sounding like he’d needed a few drinks to get his courage up, but probably just playing for sympathy when he said his own job was in danger. Something about new management, Coyle’s brother-in-law out on the street, everything upside down. By the time Coyle finished, Nick hated more than ever the desperation that had made him listen to the son of a bitch in the first place.

  “Tell me one thing,” Nick said. “Was there ever really a job?”

  “Jesus Christ, how can you ask me something like that?” Coyle said. “Of course there was a job. Shit, my brother-in-law was telling me just yesterday it looked like May first for you for sure.”

  Nick knew the truth then. It had all been bullshit. Maybe Coyle had hoped it would somehow come true, but it hadn’t, so the hell with him. It wasn’t as though Nick had been looking for anything after that beef in the parking lot. He didn’t want to be called a hero, didn’t want empty promises, just wanted to make enough to pay his rent. But when he tried to ask why Coyle couldn’t have let it go at that, the words wouldn’t come.

  “Hey, look, I gotta get some sleep,” he said. “Work in the morning.”

  “Then you got something,” Coyle said.

  “Same as before.”

  “Maintenance, right? You’ll probably be happier doing that than driving a truck anyway.”

  Nick didn’t say goodbye before he hung up and Coyle didn’t call back saying they’d been cut off. He’d been found out and he knew it, but if that should have pleased Nick in some way, it didn’t. His escape route had been closed. When he stared off into the distance in the hours after hearing the news, his vision of Coco was gone. All he could see was more dirty towels and sloppy women.

  Jenny put on her makeup and a fishnet dress as soon as she got to work, and when she walked out of the bathroom, there was Nick holding a vase with a dozen red roses in it. Beautiful, picture-book roses, in the hands of a guy who looked like he would have been more comfortable holding a spare tire.

  “For me?” Jenny said. “Nick, that’s so sweet of you.”

  She was trying to get a blush out of him, but all he did was wince.

  “You got the wrong guy,” he said. “They were out in the hall when I opened the door.”

  Jenny knew instantly they were from Mark.

  “Okay if I put them on the coffee table?” Nick asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” Jenny said.

  She could picture how Mark had gotten the roses up here, standing by the front door to the building, wearing a suit and tie and looking like he was waiting for a tenant to buzz him in, then darting inside as soon as someone stepped out and left him an opening. It was something other clients had done at other places, most of them content to leave their tokens of affection, a few ringing the bell or pounding on the door and claiming they had appointments. Those scenes at the door were never pleasant, spooking clients who were already inside, sometimes rousing the neighbors’ suspicions. Mark was capable of the same thing, Jenny was sure of it.

  “I’ll tell him he can’t do that again,” she said.

  “Good idea,” Nick said. He produced a small white envelope from his shirt pocket and held it out to her. “Here, this was with them.”

  “If you’d thrown it away, you could have told me the roses were from you,” Jenny said.

  “Next time.”

  “Guys always say that.”

  She looked at the envelope and saw how carefully Mark had written “Coco” on the front of it, as if to signal his good intentions. She supposed she could have predicted what would be written on the card inside, the confession that in the short time he had known her, Mark had come to love her like no other woman in his life. But you don’t know me, Jenny thought. You don’t even know my real name.

  And yet she felt herself blush the way she hadn’t been able to get Nick to. Nick didn’t notice because he was reading the sports page the way he always did, but Brianna did when she came back from showing a client to the door.

  “Cool roses,” she said. “I bet Nick gave them to you, didn’t he?” She flashed a wicked smile in his direction. “Is that what you did, Nick? Gave them to your number one?”

  “No,” he said. “It was—”

  “I think he’s embarrassed. Wouldn’t you say so, Coco?”

  “A guy left them for her,” Nick said.

  But Jenny ignored him and told Brianna, “I’ve always heard it’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch out for.”

  “Nick’s got a girlfriend,” Brianna said.

  “Come on, would you?” Nick said.

  He was smiling, though, and Jenny couldn’t help thinking he was
enjoying the teasing. Then the phone rang and Brianna picked up and everything went back to normal. Nick headed for the kitchen to get a drink of water while Jenny resumed thinking about the dilemma called Mark.

  He had brought her chocolates the second time he saw her, the fancy kind, from a place in Beverly Hills—Krohns, Kroners, something like that. And she’d gotten a black lace teddy from him just a couple days ago, not a cheap one either; it was straight from La Perla. But Mark had delivered those gifts in person, handing them to her like a high-school senior bringing his prom date a corsage. Now he was sneaking around, making himself a presence in her life even when he wasn’t there in person.

  He probably thought he was being romantic by dropping off the roses before he went to a meeting in Orange County, but Jenny knew he would be back soon enough, and the thought of it—the threat of it—stayed with her through two appointments, both with guys she had never seen before and likely never would again. Each of them asked for full service, but they were pretty nice about it when Jenny said no. No tips but no trouble—it was a fair exchange. Just pump and go, like a gas station.

  Everything changed when Scott came by with DuPree not long after Jenny had shown her second appointment to the door. It was her first look at DuPree, but she’d heard about how he’d tried to pick a fight with Nick. Sierra said Nick had been totally cool about it, funny in a quiet way but not the least bit afraid, and Sierra hardly ever said anything nice about anyone. Jenny wished Sierra were with her now. Instead it was Brianna, who would be no help at all if things went sideways. That was hardly a reassuring thought as Jenny checked out DuPree standing there silently, looking very gangster as he stared at Nick through his sunglasses.

  Nick didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy listening to Scott give him a hard time about a girl named Heather. “You positive that cunt turned over every penny she was supposed to?” Scott asked.

  Cunt was Jenny’s least favorite word, at least when it was being used as an assault weapon. It struck her as hostile and angry, the polar opposite of pussy. Pussy sounded friendly. Lovers could always talk about her pussy. Since she’d been doing massage, she didn’t mind if strangers did too. The nice ones, anyway.

  “Yeah, I got it written down right here,” Nick said, reaching for the notepad where he kept track of the girls’ appointments.

  “I find out different, I’m taking it out of your fucking pay,” Scott said.

  “You won’t.”

  “Won’t what?”

  Scott bristled, and when he did, Jenny saw DuPree instinctively clench his fists, the muscles in his forearms bulging. Nick saw it too, just a flick of his eyes, and then he was back meeting Scott’s angry stare.

  “Won’t find out different,” Nick said. “Everything’s written down the way you wanted—date, time, how long the session lasted, plus the money you got coming.”

  “Aw, fuck it,” Scott said. “I believe you.” He rolled his shoulders and made a face that got worse when he tried to loosen his neck. “Jesus fucking Christ, I’m all knotted up. Too much tension.”

  Jenny shot a glance at Brianna. They all knew what was next.

  “Brianna, you got time for me, darlin’?”

  “Sure, Scott.” What else could she say?

  He was following her into the master bedroom when he looked at DuPree. “Hey, don’t just stand there,” he said. “Coco’s all yours.”

  Jenny saw a frown form on Nick’s face and something different going on in his eyes. She’d never seen it before, but she imagined it was how he looked before a fight. When he glanced at her as if he was seeking her approval to go after DuPree, she shook her head discreetly. It was the closest she could come to telling him it would be cool, that she could handle everything. Of course it would have helped if she believed it herself.

  DuPree hadn’t had any Oriental pussy since that dancer from Star Strip, over on La Cienega. Turned out to be a freak, and those big titties of hers were real. He hadn’t known you could get more than a mouthful out of Japan or China, wherever the fuck she came from. But right away he could see there wouldn’t be any of that with this girl Coco, in her little black dress, looking all cute and shit, just not loaded in the tit department. She might be a freak, though. There was always that.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” she said. “I need to get a new bottle of lotion.” But as she started to leave, DuPree said, “Don’t go rushing off,” and he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to him. Not too hard or anything—didn’t want to bruise the girl—just letting her know she was with a man, making it clear this was his party.

  He didn’t say anything as he slowly turned her around and pressed himself against her ass, making sure she felt his stiff cock, then slowly grinding it against her. Not the crack of her ass, where he would have liked it—even heels weren’t going to get her up that high—but somewhere close as long as he bent his knees. Now he wanted to hear something from her, a murmur or maybe a few words about how she couldn’t wait—the only time that Oriental freak had stopped jibber-jabbering was when she was sucking his dick. But this one stayed quiet. He couldn’t even hear her breathing get heavy.

  He kept his grind going and leaned close. Damn, the girl smelled good. His mind was right as he eased down the top of her dress so her right tittie was bare and he could play with the nipple, teasing it with his forefinger and smiling when it stood up proud. Then he pushed the hair away from her ear and whispered, “You gonna give it up nice for me?”

  She said something back, but he couldn’t hear it. Or maybe he didn’t believe it.

  “What’s that you sayin’?” he asked.

  “I said no,” she said.

  DuPree turned her around to face him, not caring that he was rough about it, still enjoying the sight of her bare tittie.

  “Not like you got a choice,” he said.

  “You didn’t have one either, did you?” she said. “I mean, coming in here just because Scott told you to. That’s not very flattering to me, you know.”

  She pulled the top of her dress back up without taking her eyes off him, and she smiled while she was doing it. Not snotty either. Making it friendly, like he’d stumbled upon her when she forgot to lower the shade.

  But fuck friendly when the subject was pussy. “Scott got nothing to do with this,” DuPree said. “I make my own damn decisions.”

  “Then that’s something else we have in common,” she said, still smiling. “We think for ourselves. So as far as, like, me giving it up, I don’t think so.”

  “Got an attitude against black men, that it?”

  “Black men are fine.”

  “Uh-huh,” DuPree said. “Black men are fine, you just ain’t giving it up for this one.”

  “Or anybody else.”

  “Black, you mean?”

  “Black, white, whatever. I don’t do that.”

  “Shit,” he said. “What about those other bitches?”

  “You’ll have to ask them.”

  “I have. Answer’s always yes.”

  He smiled back at her, cool, like they were in a bar, maybe along the water in Santa Monica, tall drinks in front of them, Alicia Keys on the sound system. No way this Coco girl could get around what he’d just put down.

  “Maybe you should wait until Brianna’s finished with Scott,” she said.

  And stick his business where that motherfucker just stuck his? Even with a rubber, DuPree wasn’t about sharing pussy.

  “Maybe I’ll just bend you over and fuck you,” he said. “What you gonna do about that, huh?”

  She thought about it for a moment, her smile never changing, making him wonder if she was going to scream for the security guard. DuPree wouldn’t have minded a bit, kick the man’s ass and celebrate by getting his nut. Might even be better that way.

  But she didn’t scream. She just said, “You better make yourself comfortable so I can give you a massage. If we talk much longer, you won’t have time for your happy ending.”

  Nick c
ouldn’t stop himself from staring when she came out of the room. Didn’t even try. Any sign of damage and he was ready to go in there and hold that asshole’s head in the toilet until water came out of his ears. But there wasn’t a hair on her head out of place. No tears in her eyes, no sign anywhere that she’d been roughed up. And then he saw her smiling at him.

  Nick didn’t smile back, not right away. He gave Coco a look that asked the question that was on his mind. She replied by heaving an exaggerated sigh of relief. That was when he smiled.

  He did it again when DuPree emerged, looking like a guy who’d just had his pocket picked. DuPree glanced at the closed master bedroom door as if tempted to barge in and complain to Scott about what Coco hadn’t done for him. Then he said, “Fuck it,” and left without looking at either Coco, who was wrapped up listening to messages, or Nick, whose smile probably would have stirred up some drama.

  At first Nick thought the thing with the messages was just an act, but no, Coco really was giving them her full attention. There was one in particular that she replayed three or four times.

  He wondered what that was all about, but before he could ask her, Scott and Brianna were back in the living room and Scott wanted to know where DuPree had gone off to. “What the fuck?” Scott said to Coco. “You didn’t do anything to piss him off, did you?” And Coco, smiling sweetly, said, “No way. It’s like Tom Cruise says in that old movie. You know, the one where he’s in high school and there’s all these hookers and—”

  “Risky Business,” Scott said.

  “Right, right,” Coco said. “And Tom Cruise at the end says he deals in human fulfillment. Well, me too.”

  The amazing thing was she got away with it. Scott still wasn’t happy, especially after he called DuPree on his cell and couldn’t get him to pick up. But Coco had thrown him a bone straight out of Hollywood, and Scott was at least pacified. And then he was gone, off to wherever he went when he wasn’t sleazing around the apartment. Brianna left fifteen minutes after that.