Jonah Read online

  Coral was witness! Sure, he's going to call Coral to the witness stand, testify that Daddy was into Zion the second night she was home.

  Jonah's soreness wears off a little (except on his arm where he nearly scrubbed off his flesh, trying to excise that tattoo) when Avery finally leaves, flashing a big smile, promising Zion he will return promptly at four tomorrow to drive her to Warner's Auto, where he towed the car.

  “I can do that,” Jonah yells out the door, but Avery is insistent, and Zion does nothing to dissuade Mr. Samaritan.

  Jonah feels as useless as a boat oar stuck in a sand dune, while the two women put away the groceries and Aunt Triss whips up tuna sandwiches, Coral setting a bowl of potato chips on the kitchen table, Zion starting a fresh pot of coffee—maybe taking pity on him, but he doubts it. A silent observer in the corner would be hard-pressed to guess that Jonah is suffering from any overt feelings of displacement, based on his nods and smiles, as he inserts his two bits when the conversation calls for a comment from the man of the house, seated at the table.

  Blueberries. Aunt Triss heard on Good Morning, America that blueberries were discovered to contain natural antitoxins good for staving off cancer.

  “You almost hate to hear something like that on TV,” she says, putting lettuce on the sandwich bread. “Next thing you know, blueberries will be on the endangered list, people selling them black market for exorbitant prices only the rich can afford.”

  “Good thing you bought four packages today,” Jonah says, noticing in his peripheral vision, Zion stepping out of the room.

  “I'm not worried about cancer. I just happen to like blueberries, and plenty of room in your freezer. Two packages of hot dogs and something in tinfoil so hard, we would need an ax to crack it apart, see what it is. Hope you don't mind, I threw it out, whatever it was.”

  “Make yourself at home, Aunt Triss.”

  “I eat an almond every day.”

  “Come again?”

  “Almonds. Edgar Cayce said years ago, before all these alternative medicine geeks got so smart, if you eat an almond a day, you won't get cancer.”

  “Don't tell Diane Sawyer,” Jonah says. “Or there go all the almonds.”

  “Don't worry!”

  Jonah heaves an inner sigh when Zion comes back into the kitchen. So this is love. A sharp knife poised over your heart, nicking you every time she leaves your sight.

  Everybody sits down and before the food is consumed, the man of the house is enlightened. During the morning hours while he was zonked, the women went on without him, putting a capital D on Destiny. Aunt Triss is going to live in the cottage, and the women are going to invest in installation of mobile home hookups on the property to rent spaces for added income.

  “I'll pay rent, too,” Jonah says, “and the rents will be income to support the writing of your books.”

  “If I write…” Zion says.

  Jonah frowns. “'Course you're going to write.”

  The two women exchange a look that telegraphs secret information coded in a missile in a silo in the fields of his ignorance. Mess with the controls, he's liable to set off an explosion of tears, he is reading in the dark blue waters of his beloved's eyes. What happened?

  Coral says, “Aunt Triss is going to give me my first violin lesson this afternoon after our naps.”

  Jonah leans over, kisses her cheek. “That's fantastic, Darlin'. You'll be a virtuoso like your Aunt Triss by Christmas.”

  Triss waves her hand at the compliment. “'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' by Christmas, if she practices every day.”

  “I will!”

  Lunch is over, Aunt Triss has gone downstairs to watch the news on the latest scandal, and Coral Kay is in her room, taking a nap.

  At last, Jonah and Zion are alone. He warms his hands on his mug and watches for the slightest sign she remembers they were intimate last night. Her hair is swept up with two silver barrettes; she's wearing jeans, a black sweatshirt with a gold sunburst logo on the front, and a blank look. She takes a sip of coffee and smiles at him. A friendly smile, that's all.

  “Sorry I wasn't up to help you unload the trailer. For some reason I was dead to the world.” He winks at her. “Getting old, I guess. Didn't hear a thing.”

  “We tried not to wake you.”

  “Let me take you down to Warner's tomorrow, Zion. No sense in Avery coming all the way out here again.”

  “He knows the owner.”

  “So do I.”

  “He was nice. I don't want to seem ungrateful.”

  “Yeah, Avery is real nice.”

  She looks amused. Sips her coffee. “Very polite. He offered to photograph me for a sum of money that made Triss gasp.”

  Jonah swallows over the snarl in his throat. “How much?”

  “I don't remember. Five hundred?”

  “Zion, he's known for selling photos to the Internet of women in suggestive poses, if you get my drift.”

  “Pornography?”

  “Just this side of the law. He's an artist, don't you know.”

  She gulps down a smile with another sip of coffee. “He does seem to picture himself as a ladies' man.”

  Jonah is relieved she's on to Bogart. If she had acted even a little impressed with him, that would have finished him off. “About last night…” he begins his probe. “No more nightmares after I left?”

  “What?”

  She looks truly puzzled.

  “You showed me some symbols you recorded.”

  “Symbols?” She blinks.

  “Go get your notebook. The yellow one.”

  Her look of disbelief is so convincing, sends a shiver down his spine.

  “I used to sleepwalk when I was a kid,” he lies, “and when I was told about it the next day, I couldn't believe it happened. Just go get your notebook. I'll prove it.”

  Leaving the room, she shoots him a haughty look over her shoulder. She's back in seconds, lays the book on the table, sits down again.

  He opens to a blank page. Flips through the book. Then he sees. “Look—” he points out the ragged edges inside the wire spiral. “You tore the page out.”

  “Yes. I wrote something in there last week and tore it out.”

  “It happened,” he says more sternly than he intended. “You screamed, I came in, you were recording symbols in a yellow spiral notebook.” He pounds his finger on it. “You said you saw a green light.”

  Then we made love!

  “I don't know what to say….”

  He feels a sharp pain in his chest. She's not going to change her story. She said she wouldn't remember, but that was before they made love. How could she forget something so awesome? It can only mean…what the hell does it mean? Even if she was telling the truth about being in some kind of state that would fade by morning, completely erasing her memory, that's just not healthy! Isn't that schizoid? Maybe she wants to carry on a clandestine affair, never admitting it in daylight. She's ashamed of him? Was it a one-night shot? What if she was trying him out, and he didn't pass muster? She cooks up the amnesia story, in case he's a dud. No way. Unless she is an actress of a quality too scary to contemplate.

  “Zion, I was in your room for about three hours last night. You said you traveled to a vortex in Uruguay, met your father. You were, like, prophesying, talking about how human beings were going to travel to other worlds. You said a lot of things that blew my mind. You had some symbols you recorded. You showed me. I saw them. But you said you couldn't translate them accurately yet, because you don't have your indigo veil.”

  Her hand comes up to her mouth. She looks scared.

  He reaches over, covers her hand, waits for her to say something.

  She shakes her head and laughs the way people do when they can't believe their ears. “I've studied so much history and mythology…can't place the indigo veil symbol…maybe the Bodhisattvas, or Bedouin?…”

  He takes back his hand, stares into his mug, as if seeing his doom in the dark, oily liquid. I
f they hadn't made love, maybe he could accept it better. He has to wait for her to travel to Uruguay again before he can love her? He can't even ask when that might happen, her denial is so deep. Maybe she's a lot more traumatized by her sudden divorce than she cares to admit. And him so hot to trot he couldn't wait, had to take her in her vulnerable state of mind. Or she wanted him so much, she cooked up this whole New Age charade, because how could she leave her husband on Friday and jump in bed with practically a stranger on Sunday, even if he is irresistibly attractive?

  But never mind his ego, what's up with her ambivalence about writing today? Jonah feels almost as threatened by that as he does her forgetting they made love.

  “Well, at least we're getting you moved in so you can get on with your writing. And I think your idea about renting out a couple of spaces is smart. I can handle getting approval for the hookups. I'm friends with Nick Ivers, a councilman. I'll do all of the heavy work, set in the hookups myself, cut our costs. I shut down the Talk in the winter anyway.”

  Her slender fingers are resting on her temple, as if to ward off tears. “I'm not sure I can write. I'm just thinking about survival now.”

  Oh, God…did she sleep with him, thinking she had to, in order to survive?

  His reaction is swift and strong. “You're going to write, Zion. Jo did more than set me up as manager of the property.” He taps his chest. “I'm part of your endowment. She knew you had some kind of mission, and she went to great lengths to make sure you had not only a home, but someone who would be here for you. She was a kind of guardian angel for you, and it's my job to fill those shoes now.”

  “Maybe you both overestimated me. Mission is a pretty strong word.”

  “Out there—” Jonah gestures at the backyard, “you said you felt called to write something. It would come to you after you were settled.” And she told him last night she wasn't a warrior, she was a scribe, but no use reminding her.

  “Did you let Aunt Triss's fascination with the cottage influence your decision? I'm sure if she knew about your calling, she would insist on some other arrangement.”

  “It makes sense for her to live out there. She can play her violin and watch her television without disturbing anyone. I'm concerned about that, too. I'm thinking about moving down to the basement.”

  “NO.” The word sizzles in the air. “There's a spare room down the hall you can use to write in, hook up your computer, whatever. The basement is dark and damp and cold. I only let Triss go down there because I thought she'd be more comfortable in the house with us than in a motel room. You're not going to molder in any basements.”

  “I wasn't planning on moldering anywhere.”

  She's right to get indignant. He's coming on like a husband married to her for twenty years. Big Daddy ordering her around, and she doesn't even remember….

  “I'm sorry. Didn't mean to come on so strong. But you sounded so clear yesterday.”

  “Everything seems pointless today. I spend five years telling myself I'm a writer, but what I wrote wasn't worth the paper it was written on. Maybe I will try again later, but now I have to face reality. Three thousand dollars won't last a year; probably not six months.”

  “Aunt Triss helped you see the light.”

  “She's an artist, so don't think she doesn't respect my need to…beat this thing. But she's very down to Earth.”

  “Zion, I pictured we could make it on my income. I'm not rich, but all your basic needs would be covered. I thought of that three thousand as pocket money.”

  “You're very generous. Thank you. But if I were depending on you, I would feel pressured to produce something. And I just don't know….”

  He's going to risk it; he's got to. He can't stand seeing her so hopeless. He takes both of her hands, as he did yesterday. Today she pulls a little and her eyes warn that twice is pushing his luck. But dammit, they bonded last night! He looks deep into her eyes, hoping her soul will recognize him.

  “Zion, your plight is everyone's plight. Everyone has to struggle to add one good thing to life. You have one good thing you can do, and you turn your back on it, you take the path of least resistance, who are you? The ring appears once in a blue moon; you have to be ready to grab it. The past few years for me have been like one long vacation. I was growing flabby in body and mind, and my soul was snoozing. So now there's some commotion, but what's life without a little inconvenience and struggle? How else do we find out what we value? In three days, you have given me so much to think about, I'm not even the same man I was last Thursday. You talked about bonding. Can we bond in a mutual purpose? Nothing would please me more than to actively support you in fulfilling your call. That gives me a purpose beyond raising Coral. I love her with all my heart, but I'm not such a great parent. I was moldering. I guess I'm one of those people who needs to share in a purpose with others.”

  Her eyes are moist. He's not sure she's even looking at him. She retrieves her hands, brushes nonexistent crumbs off the front of her sweatshirt. When she looks at him again, her eyes are arctic pools, cold and distant, beyond the reach of ordinary men.

  “Maybe you will be the one to write a book. On this planet, women seem to give birth to ideas and men give them names, put clothes on them, and define their roles. Maybe all I will do is make symbols. When I do, I will show them to you, and maybe you can make sense of them.” She brushes back a lock of hair and stares out the window.

  He's lost her. Never had her. She was a song he sang last night, as fleeting as a summer breeze, cooled his heat of passion. The sun beats down rays of reality, sharp as swords of fire. By night he dreams, by day he walks the desert, sweating under a yoke of meaningless chores. She's a well; he's a bucket without ropes. He throws himself down to bob on the surface of her waters, herald of the power of gravity. Nothing they shared last night will ever see the light of day.

  “I've been under a lot of pressure lately.” She hugs herself.

  The woman who loved him completely last night is tired. Will he excuse her?

  Will he?

  Chapter P (16)

  Doubtful I am a blood relative of the Jonah the mythical whale had for dinner, but the similarities make me nervous. Maybe our names, or parts thereof, signify codes in the DNA that designate the role the bearer of the name is destined to play in a given incarnation.

  One day God orders Old Jonah to hike over to Assyria and warn the king he'd better straighten up his act or Nineveh is going up in smoke. If God is so all-powerful, Old Jonah must have thought, why doesn't he deliver the message His Own Divine Self? Maybe because the Ninevites were a bunch of sleepwalkers who had tuned out the Big Guy, so an ordinary man had to be used to get the message across.

  But why would a Smart God pick an ordinary man who had no such inclination? Thousands would consider it a feather in the cap to play messenger for the Divine, and this rebel is chosen?

  Old God thumbed through his Book of Prototypes, stopped at the JO section, closed his eyes, stabbed a finger—Ah, that nice Hebrew lad, Jonah, son of Amittai, he'll do. He will do. Never mind what this particular JO man had in mind for his life—he will do.

  Why did Old Jonah think he could escape by hopping a ship? Because he believed he had a choice. After he politely declined the call, he hopped a ship to Tarshish. But clever God sent a storm. The ship heaved and rolled, the sailors were freaking out, praying to their own gods for rescue, and where was Jonah? Down below, grabbing a snooze. My man, Jonah, saying the hell with delivering a message to a bunch of dead brains.

  Curious thing, will. Bet when Old Jonah saw that whale's mouth open wide, he stamped his foot and shouted, “Get thee away from me! Shoo thee! I choose not to traverse thy innards!”

  Yo. A reasonable man thinks twice before refusing twice to do his soul's bidding.

  J.Q. Mahoney

  Jonah is sitting at the kitchen table, finishing off the last of the coffee when Coral gets up from her nap, cranky. She wants cookies, a gold doll buggy, six new Barbies, a miniature
car she can drive to the park, high heels with diamonds on the soles, a yacht, her own condo, all of which he promises her.

  “When you're thirty, Sweetheart. By then you'll be strong enough to push me around in my wheelchair, and hold my crutches, too.” He hugs her, nuzzles her hair.

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Daddy's going to take a little drive while you practice violin with Aunt Triss.”

  “That's not a secret.”

  “Where I'm going is.”

  “Where?”

  “Star Rock. Shhh…” He taps his lips, whispers, “Not supposed to ever say it out loud to a woman, but I know I can trust you to keep the secret.”

  “Where is Star Rock?”

  “Down the Valley. Don't have a map—there is no map. It's too secret.”

  “Women might find it?”

  “Yeah…and then where can we men go to sort out our thoughts?”

  “Mr. McNalley goes to Las Vegas.”

  “Too noisy. I need a quiet place.”

  “I can keep a secret, Daddy.”

  “I know you can. You just tell Zion and Aunt Triss I took a drive. Don't wait dinner for me. I might not be back until after dark.”

  There is a feline creature on the hood of Jonah's silver chariot, a show of malicious intent to prevent movement of the vehicle.

  “Thunderpaws, mauler of birds and motorized rams!” Jonah exclaims.

  The cat dives for the pavement. Yowls at Jonah.

  “Thunder wants to go with you,” Coral Kay interprets.

  “Balderdash. He hates riding in the truck, remember?”

  Thunder is practically wiping off his coat in a frenetic figure-eight dance around Jonah's legs. He swoops the cat up in his arms. He is purring madly, yellow dagger-eyes accusing Jonah of great but unspecified sins, for which there is no forgiveness. He sets the cat on the ground and Thunderpaws resumes the figure-eight dance. Jonah manages to shuffle over to the Ram. He opens the door and throws his parka and Thermos on the seat.