But this time, Jimmy is snoring loudly on the sagging couch in the living room. I take the moment to put the plastic bag on the counter and put some of the food away before slipping on a pair of rubber gloves and cleaning his apartment the best I can.
I do this about once every two weeks, more if I can get away from work. I know it sounds strange but there are times when I look up to Jimmy as if he’s my father. My actual father left when I was two years old, which then turned my mom onto drugs, but growing up Jimmy was really the only face that was always around. Sometimes it feels like he’s my only real friend. That’s not to say Will isn’t. But even though Will knows bits and pieces of my childhood, he doesn’t really understand. How could he? How could anyone know what it’s like to grow up in a true house of horrors, surrounded by the stench of death and depravity at every turn.
But Jimmy knows. He understands. And he doesn’t judge. With him, I can just be me. I can let it all out, all the hurt and the fear and the anger that still lingers in me. The kind of stuff that even my therapist couldn’t coax out.
“Hey, Tetty,” Jimmy says, stirring from the couch. “What time is it, Tetty?”
Tetty has always been my nickname. He wouldn’t call me Em because he says it sounded too much like my mother’s name (Emily), so Tetty it was.
“It’s late,” I tell him. “You can go back to sleep, I’m almost done.”
“You love me and leave me, don’t you boy?” he says and after a feeble attempt to get off the couch, he lies back down again. “You didn’t happen to bring me anything to drink, did ya?”
From the way he’s slurring his words, I can tell he’s been on another bender. He normally isn’t so bold as to ask me, either. I’m not an enabler.
“Just fruit juice,” I tell him. “And food. Please tell me that you’re still keeping your job.” I know he doesn’t actually need the job to survive. The government only gives him a couple of hundred a month for welfare but I’ve secretly been paying his rent here for the last fifteen years. If it weren’t for me, he would have been homeless a long time ago.
And yet, that’s the extent of what I can do for him. I can bring him food, give him shelter, but I can’t get him to stop drinking. I can’t make him go to work. I can’t make sure he’s brushing his teeth and eating right and taking care of himself. Which makes me both direly needed and absolutely useless.
“Fruit juice?” he says, grumbling. “Ah hell, I guess it will mix well.”
I close my eyes and lean against the counter, taking in a deep breath that smells mercifully like the bleach I just used to clean his place. “Jimmy, promise me that you’re going to pick yourself back up tomorrow and go to work. They need you there.”
“Bah,” he says, turning over on the couch so his face is in the cushions. “No one needs me and I don’t need them. I don’t need you either, Tetty, so get your fancy suit out of here and leave.”
I glance down at my dirty jeans and t-shirt and Timberland boots and nod. When he gets abrasive like this, there’s no reasoning with him. “I’ll come back soon,” I tell him. “Might even pop in at your work and see you there.”
He mumbles something in response and as I turn toward the door, he starts snoring.
I leave his place feeling dirtier than when I came in, with the same damn thoughts as ever bouncing around in my head.
I tried.
But it’s never enough.
* * *
It’s Saturday morning, bright and early, when I swing by Alyssa’s to pick her up. I saw her briefly on Thursday night when I took her for a quick dinner at Gotham steakhouse, but today we have the whole day together and Autumn said that some fun outdoor date would really help my image. I guess too many nights spent at the bar paint a different picture.
When Alyssa emerges from her apartment I can’t help but smile.
Fucking hell. In the week that I’ve known Alyssa, I’ve seen the overly-done bridesmaids version, the hungover in her pajamas version, the dressy summer version, the date night version, but I think my favorite version of her is this one: working out Alyssa.
She’s dressed in purple running tights, bright pink running shoes, and a tight yellow top that puts her breasts front and center. I guess to the average person, her outfit might totally clash but I love the colors on her. They’re a perfect representation of who she is, bold, fun and sexy as hell.
She slides in the passenger seat and glances at me over her shades.
“You know, I didn’t think we were actually going for a run,” she says slowly. She eyes me up and down, her nose crinkling in disdain. I’m in a wife-beater, mid-thigh running shorts, sneakers, set up for a run just as she is.
“I’m actually more of a trail runner,” I admit. “Have you done that before?”
She laughs. “Trail running? My god. I walk on trails, Emmett. I don’t run on them. I don’t even run on pavement. Or treadmills. I only run to the bar when they’re giving last call.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you but we’re going to be going around Stanley Park today.” I wait until she’s buckled in before I drive off.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, that’s like…ten kilometers.”
“We can walk most of it.”
“It’s still ten K! I don’t know what kind of girls you’re used to dating but I do not go on jogging dates and I certainly don’t spend hours walking. In a circle, mind you.”
“And yet here you are, dressed like you do it all the time.” While we pause at a light, I lean in closer to inspect her clothing. They do look brand new. “In fact, I have a feeling you just bought all this just to impress me.”
“Phhfff,” she says, waving me away. “You think everything revolves around you. I’m trying to impress the damn paparazzi.”
“By wearing the most-mismatched outfit in the city?”
She shrugs. “Why not? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Might as well go all out.” Her eyes trail over my arms and chest. “Besides, you’re doing the same. Yeah right you would normally go running in that.”
“This old thing?” I ask, pulling at the wife-beater.
“Yeah. Also brand new. You’re just trying to show off your muscles.”
She’s got me on that one. “Hey, I have a lady here I’m trying hard to impress. Problem is, even if she was impressed, she’d never tell me.”
“She sounds prickly. You better tread carefully with her.”
“The only time I can get any sort of reaction out of her is when I’m kissing her. Then it’s like she forgets how to breathe, she can only moan my name in response.”
That gets her attention. Even though I can’t see her eyes beneath her glasses, I can feel them burn. “Maybe she’s as good of an actor as you are.”
In this instance, I hope that’s not true.
Still, I flash her a smile. “Maybe.”
It takes a long time to find a free parking spot in downtown’s West End, closest to the park, and by the time we get out and are ready to go, Alyssa is already complaining about shin splints.
“But we’ve been jogging for one minute,” I tell her as we negotiate the crowded path along the seawall.
“For the last time,” she says with a scowl, her blonde ponytail swinging in her face in time with her steps, “I don’t run. I don’t jog. And if this keeps up, I’m going to have a coronary.” She puts her hand at her heart for added effect.
I bite back a laugh. “Fine. Let’s just go around Lost Lagoon then and come back.”
Lost Lagoon is a small lake situated just outside of downtown and one of the more popular places to take a stroll. With a fountain in the middle, weeping willows that hang over the water with swans that glide to and fro and the glass high-rises of the city rising into the sky behind it all, it’s an urban oasis.
It’s also the perfect place to be seen if that’s what you’re looking for, the path filled with tourists and locals alike. Every now and then as we jog past, Alyssa huffing and puffing beside me, someone takes our picture or records us.