Indigo [Try Pink Act Two]
Indigo
Max Ellendale
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Indigo
Copyright © 2016 Max Ellendale
Cover Artist: Victoria Miller
Editor: Deadra Krieger
Editor: R.M. Bruce
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
Max Ellendale
www.maxellendale.com
Table of Contents
Note
Sick
Red
Missing
Paint
Embers
Target
Graydon
Indigo
Note
A bang sounded and my eyes shot open. "Jilly?" I called out, sitting up from the sofa where I passed out. I glanced over the back of the couch expecting to see her unpacking groceries. "What'd you decide for din—?"
Nothing.
The dark apartment told me I'd slept for longer than I expected. I rolled to my feet and shook off the chill that shuddered up my spine. Grocery shopping didn't usually take this long. I flicked on the kitchen light and yawned. No coffee meant no Jillian.
I checked the bedroom and found the bed still made. Then the guest room. The clock radio beside the bed blared an ugly green 9:00 PM at me. Six hours.
"Jilly?" I asked the nothing and my heart set to pounding. The only other place I thought to look was in the studio. I bolted up the steps, flung open the door, and found more nothing. I dropped down on the stool beside the easel and just as the thought of a cell phone crossed my mind, I noticed a folded piece of drawing paper pinched between two paint brushes in the cup. I snatched it out and opened it.
I'm sorry. I love you. I'm sorry.
I died in that moment.
Sick
For weeks, I didn't know what I'm sorry meant. I thought it meant "see you later" or "I'm sorry that I wasn't there when you woke up." Eventually, when she didn't come home, I learned that "I'm sorry" meant that I'd done something terrible to push her away. So terrible that I didn't deserve to get out of bed, not because I didn't want to, because I couldn't.
Everything she'd done to the condo—decorated walls, colorful curtains, soft linens—transformed into objects of sheer torture. The worst, the absolute worst, was Graydon's portrait in the living room, and hers upstairs.
By the time my mother showed up six weeks later, the condo was in ruins. Both from my tantrum and from neglect.
"Jeslyn, open the door," she called out from the landing.
"Go away, Mom," I muttered with my lips against the cold wood of the door.
"Jeslyn, if you don't open this door I'll—"
"What? Call my father?"
"Yes, precisely. Or worse, Declan."
"Mom, please go away."
"No!" The door banged against my cheek.
It went on for half an hour but the threat to call the police finally did it. I couldn't risk an old colleague showing up here. So, I let her in.
"What… have you done?" she asked as she stared open-mouthed at the rubble of my living room.
"Nothing."
"Jess…"
"I'm fine, Mom. Just leave."
"Where's Jillian?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I don't know! Can you just leave?" I shouted and raged in the same way I used to. "Just leave. Get out of here just like everyone else does. Just like Graydon and Jillian and everyone in between. Just go!"
"Jessie, come on now." Her words, soft and motherly, did nothing to soothe me. When she stepped closer, arms outstretched, I shoved her away. "Jess."
"Stop saying my name and go," was the last thing I said to her before slamming my bedroom door.
And just like that, everything was back to how it was after Graydon. I was alone in a silent house, except now I had no desire to paint. Rhoda called my phone half a dozen times a day. Every painting sold off the internet site. I had no desire to replenish any of it.
The thing about Rhoda, I forgot that she had a key. It took her two months to use it but eventually she did.
"Oh my God," I heard her voice say from somewhere outside my bedroom door. "Maybe we should call the cops."
"Is that blood?"
"I think it's paint."
"We need to get out of here and call the sheriff."
"No," I croaked, cringing at the sound of my own voice. I cleared my throat and said it louder the second time.
"Wait here." Rhoda's voice dropped to a whisper and the bedroom door creaked open. Dressed in her fanciest purple suit with matching heels, she stepped over a pile of clothes and paused beside me. I stared at her knees until she crouched down to look at me. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine."
"You're sick."
"I'm fine."
"I'm calling an ambulance."
"Don't."
She stood up, her hand on my head, and I heard her say something but couldn't comprehend what it was.
By the time I could understand words again, bright white lights blinded me when I opened my eyes and I pulled the scratchy blanket over my head. My mother sat at my bedside while a monitor beeped beside it. My stomach ached, my head throbbed, and the IV in my hand pinched. A nurse told me I was dehydrated and malnourished from whatever norovirus I contracted. What was a norovirus anyway?
I forced the doctors to make my mother leave and refused to see anyone else who visited. It took them half a week to make me feel any better. I let Rhoda bring me clothes but I refused to see her, too. It was her fault I was here to begin with. When they released me, I didn't tell anyone and walked out the front door.
Maine is cold in March. It's cold in April, too. Valentine's Day wasn't cold. It was the warmest day I could remember, and we had a blizzard. We had two Valentine's Days together. Jillian made everything warm.
Rhoda should've let me croak.
Maybe I could walk to visit Graydon. Except they buried him in Arlington. He belonged there, they said. Where war heroes go. Where men and women who sacrifice themselves for freedom and their brothers rest their heads for eternity.
Maine is not Virginia. It didn't seem that far.
How I ended up in a hospital in Portland was beyond me. Two hours from Eddington. Walking home didn't seem impossible. Virginia seemed closer.
I walked the central part of Portland forever, or at least until it got dark. Under the glare of bouncing headlights, people walked past me in groups. Laughter and the smell of alcohol wafted from some. Cigarette smoke from others. It must've been midnight by the time I made it downtown. Women, and some men dressed as women, tucked themselves into corners, pocketing off from the tourists and bar hoppers. Cars drove up and left, one after the other, in almost a rhythm. I stopped to watch for a while, counting the time in between.
Ten years ago, I would've nabbed that john, charged him with soliciting a prostitute. Charged that girl for prostitution then give her the number to a rehab where she could get herself together. Tonight I just watched.
"Excuse me," said a small voice beside me. I started when someone touched my shoulder.
"What?"
"Have you seen this girl?" The kid, barely fifteen, showed me a picture of a blonde woman. She smiled while she hugged him, her lips pressed to his cheek.
"I haven't. Is that your mom?"
"My sister."
"Maybe. She's on drugs. I want to help her."
"It's not the safest place for you either out here, you know," I said.
"What about you?" he said
"I'll manage."
"I'll manage, too."
"How long has she been missing?" I asked.
"A month about. You?" He tucked the photo in the pocket of his hoodie and gazed down the street.
"I'm not missing."
"But you're looking for someone, too, right?" He glanced at me.
"What makes you say that?"
"People like you and me, we only come here when we're looking for one of two things," he said.
"What's that?"
"Missing people or drugs. You don't want drugs."
"How old are you, kid?"
"I'll be sixteen next month."
"You know too much. Go home."
"I gotta look some more. If you see her, tell her to call Leroy."
"Is that your name?" I cocked a brow at him.
"No but she'll know what I mean." He smirked and shrugged as we broke apart. "Peace."
I wasn't really looking for her here. I wasn't really looking for anything. Leroy had me wondering why I hadn't looked for her. Did it even matter? She made the choice to leave. No matter how much sorry, no matter how much I love you, she still left.
Like Graydon.
Except the choice to leave the earth wasn't his. Images of our last goodbye flooded me. At the airport, right here in Portland. Dozens of uniformed army members boarding their flights, weaving in and out of civilians…
"I'm sorry, babe," he said. "I love you. This one's only six months and I'll be back. My contract is up in February and I'm done."
"I love you, too. Come back to me," I said while stroking his stubbly chin.
"I will," he promised.
He always promised.
The street ended and a bar appeared in front of me. Magical, it seemed, or I hadn't been paying attention while walking. Sometimes I believed in magic. The blacked out windows, thumping music, and burly man at the door told me it wasn't just a regular bar but one especially for shady characters.
Tonight I felt a little shady.
I also didn't have anywhere else to go and didn't have a phone.
The bouncer waved me in, despite my water-logged rat appearance, and I watched over my shoulder as he did the same for most of the women, but only some of the men. Darkness bled from the entrance, shadowing the room and the faces in it. In the center, a silver pole on a circular platform drew my focus forward. No one was on the stage, but I figured out what kind of place I'd walked into. I parked myself at the bar in the back of the room, beside two thick guys while a woman stood between them, her elbows on their shoulders. They laughed about something but I didn't care. I knocked on the counter and the bartender nodded at me on his way over.
"What can I get ya?"
"Whiskey sour," I said, fishing a bill from my pocket and tossing it at him when he returned. Hopefully it was more than a dollar. He didn't complain though.
While I nursed the drink for ages it seemed, people poured into the place behind me. Eventually, every table filled up and the lighting shifted from cerulean to a more ambient white. The music kicked up and I noticed the wait staff suddenly became all women dressed in skimpy black getups. None of the male servers lingered about.
An overhead voice announced a few random names of performers and I knew I'd have to make my way out before things got too personal. One after the other, nearly-naked women, with fancy hair and done-up make-up pranced on to the stage. Perfect figures, feathery boas, and cheeky accessories belonged to all of them. The first girl, an ebony-skinned beauty, put on some sort of kinky magic show. The second set followed with a burlesque style routine that wasn't all that bad and pretty tasteful. Or maybe the second drink made me think so.
"All right, ladies and gentlemen, our fan favorite is next. Give it up for The Ginger Man," some deep-voiced announcer said. All I could picture was a giant dancing Christmas cookie or a cross-dressed hooker falling out of a car. The audience erupted in applause as the performer appeared center stage with a stage light circling only her. Or him. Or whatever.
Black trousers, high heels, a white blouse, suspenders, and a bowler hat sent images of an 80s Michael Jackson video. Maybe this dance was a Smooth Criminal, too. The heels weren't an easy giveaway. The clothes hung just right to cover any overt feminine features and her hair could've been tucked up in the hat. When the music started and she walked down the runway, I quickly learned, from her walk and demeanor, that she was indeed, a woman.
It wasn't a strip show, none of them had been so far, but when she grabbed that pole and swung herself around, I couldn't help watching. On a spiral swing, her unbuttoned shirt revealed perky, but not large, breasts, and when one of the suspenders slipped from her shoulder, a few men hooted. She smiled, though I couldn't see her eyes or where she looked from this far away. The way she held onto that pole and finally, bending herself backward so far that her hat tumbled into the lap of a man below, had me mesmerized to say the least. Claps and laughter filled the room again as I watched a thick mane of red tumble toward the stage. I shot up from my seat and the whiskey glass crashed to my feet.
My heart thundered as I watched her dismount and finish her routine. Pale skin and flaming red hair. I bolted through the crowd and by the time I made it halfway through, hands grabbed at me. A bouncer rushed the stage and tugged Jillian away from me as I leapt onto it just as he ushered her behind the curtain. I shouted for her, maybe screamed out my rage.
I tore it open, dodging the grabs and commotion around me until I found myself face to face with a woman holding a red wig. Her cheeks, pale even with the makeup, had no tell-tale freckles and the blonde hair told the rest of the story.
"S-sorry," I stuttered but had no time for anything else while the big guy from the front carried me out the door. He dropped me down on the pavement, lecturing me about something I could barely understand. "I'm not drunk," I spat back at him.
"Well, you're acting it. Get lost," he said, nodding toward the sidewalk.
I listened to him at least.
Red
The truth of it was, that woman, the ginger hair, I wanted it to be Jillian. She didn't look like her at all but it was what I wanted. I wanted it more than anything. To see her again, maybe without her seeing me. To rage inside as I watched her walk or eat or laugh or something. Whose lap had she landed in now? Did anyone else stab her and leave her for dead? Did she disappear back to New York or to Texas or wherever her parents were? Without me as a burden, she'd have plenty of places to disappear to.
But that's how I ended up in Portland. A lot. And every time, I found a club like the first one and waited to see a redhead to envision my rage. There wasn't many and, eventually, I stopped seeing them all together, and began watching the women dance. Distracted from everything else, far away from family or Rhoda, far away from my destroyed condo or pitiful paintings.
Pathetic.
In a few weeks, I maxed out on my strip clubs and titty bars in Portland. Eventually, I began repeating some, but my mission quickly lost its flavor. I sat in the back, as I usually did, and watched, a little boredly, a dancer named Diamond, or Cindy, or something, dance the same dance she danced last week and the week before that, until a shadow approached me, sliding a napkin on to the table.
"You always come here alone," she said.
When I looked up at her, tall, slender, with black hair and pearly teeth that brightened her smirk, I forgot about the stage. "What?"
"I said you always come here alone."
"Is that unusual?"
"No." She glanced over her shoulder, sending her hair tumbling forward a bit. My eyes wandered over her, curvy hips, larger than average breasts. "You busy tonight, Whisky Sour?"
"Not really."
"Want to be?"
&nbs
p; "Maybe."
"You ever gonna order something other than one whisky sour?"
"Probably not."
"C'mon," she said, nodding toward the bar area. I dug my hand into my pocket and tossed some money on the table. I wondered what Jillian would think if she knew how I'd been spending our money. Our money in our bank account that she hadn't touched.
The woman led me around the side of the bar where she took off her apron, leaving her in a tight pair of black shorts and a tank top. She gestured toward a black velvet curtain and I followed her through it. The carpeted hall wasn't anything fancy, resembling the hallway of an apartment building, which opened into an area with three doors. We entered the only door on the right and she closed it behind her. Part of me expected something trashy but it turned out to be somewhat of a living quarters, resembling a dorm room.
"Do you live here?"
"Some of us rent rooms from time to time." That was all she said before she swung herself in front of me, backing me up against the wall. Her mouth was on mine before I even saw the color of her eyes. My body resisted at first. Her foreign taste, flowery perfume, dark hair, and tattooed wrists didn't have the softness that I was used to. Her body wasn't firm and toned, but curvy and warm in places I didn't expect. She forced my hands onto her breasts and I squeezed out of sheer habit while memories assaulted me. The anger only kept me in the kiss longer.
The button of my jeans released and she shoved her hand down the front of them, cupping me almost violently without bothering to ask. I let her because I didn't care. Because I didn't care at all. Again, she grabbed my arm, pushing my hand down her body. I mimicked her movement, reaching behind her shorts, but the minute her dampness met my fingers, I ended the kiss.
"What?" she said, her brown eyes hazy with lust.
"I can't."
"Oh for fuck's sake. You're not straight are you?"
"No."
"Good." She jerked me backward, slamming my shoulders into the wall at the same time that she entered me, her mouth and tongue attacking my shoulder. I cried out, torn between want and hate.